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Politics of Estonia
Politics in Estonia takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Estonia is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in the Estonian parliament. Executive power is exercised by the government, which is led by the prime minister. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Estonia is a member of United Nations, the European Union, and NATO.
The Estonian Declaration of Independence was issued on 21 February 1918. A parliamentary republic was formed by the Estonian Constituent Assembly and the first Constitution of Estonia was adopted on June 15, 1920. The Parliament of Estonia (State Assembly) elected a Riigivanem who acted both as Head of Government and Head of State. During the Era of Silence, political parties were banned and the parliament was not in session between 1934 and 1938 because the country was ruled by decree of Konstantin Päts, who was elected as the first President of Estonia in 1938. In 1938 a new constitution was passed and the Parliament of Estonia was convened once again, this time bicamerally, consisting of Riigivolikogu (lower house) and Riiginõukogu (upper house), both meaning State Council in direct translation. In 1940, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union. It was soon followed by the German occupation of 1941-1944. During the course of the two occupations, legal institutions, elected according to the Estonian constitution, were removed from power. In September 1944, after German forces left, legal power was briefly restored, as Otto Tief formed a new government in accordance with the 1938 constitution. The Tief government lasted for only 5 days, as Estonia was again occupied by the Soviet Union. In 1991 the Republic of Estonia was restored on the basis of continuity of the constitution prior to 1938, with the public approving a new constitution in 1992. Estonia declared independence in 1991 causing the transition from a state socialist economy to the capitalist market economy. On 1 May 2004, Estonia was accepted into the European Union.
The framework for the political institutions of Estonia is provided by the Constitution of Estonia (). The constitution follows the principle of separation of powers. Legislative power is wielded by the Parliament, executive power by the Government and judicial power by the courts. Each institution is further defined by their respective legislative acts.
The Parliament () is the representative legislative authority of the Republic of Estonia. It comprises 101 members who are elected at free elections for a four-year term according to the principle of proportional representation. The work of the Parliament is coordinated by the Board of the "Riigikogu", which is led by the President of the "Riigikogu" and is elected for a term of one year. There are also factions within the Parliament, which carry out the programmes of their respective political parties. The work of the Parliament is supported by various committees, which are staffed by members of the factions. They prepare draft legislation and exercise parliamentary control over their fields of activity. The Chancellery of the "Riigikogu" is tasked with servicing the Parliament. It is headed by the Secretary General of the "Riigikogu", who is appointed by the Board of the "Riigikogu". Legislation is passed by an open majority vote. The quorum for the Parliament is provided in the "Riigikogu" Rules of Procedure and Internal Rules Act.
Citizens of Estonia who are at least 21 years of age and are eligible to vote may stand to be elected to the Parliament of Estonia. Citizens who are at least 18 years of age and are not convicted of a criminal offence have the right to participate in the voting for the Parliament of Estonia. Elections are called by the President of the Republic. After the election of the Parliament, the first sitting is convened by the President of the Republic, where the members of the Parliament will take an oath of office and then elect the President and Vice Presidents of the Parliament. After the election of the President and Vice Presidents, who are nominated by members of the Parliament, the Prime Minister announces the resignation of the Government so a new one could take its place. The procedure of elections is defined in the "Riigikogu" Election Act.
The President is the head of state of the Republic of Estonia and serves as the highest representative of the state. Furthermore, the President can have limited participation in legislation by issuing decrees, resolutions and directives. Presidential legislation is administered by the Government of the Republic. In addition, the President can refuse to proclaim a law and return it to the Parliament for review. The President is assisted by the Office of the President, which is managed by the Head of the Office of the President. There are also several institutions under the jurisdiction of the President. These include: President's Academic Advisory Board, Roundtable on Regional Development, Estonian Memory Institute, Cultural Foundation of the President, Estonian Cooperation Assembly and National Defence Council. The mandate of the President is determined by the President of the Republic Work Procedure Act.
The President is elected by the Parliament of Estonia for a five-year term, but no more than two terms. If the Parliament does not secure at least two-thirds of the votes after three rounds of balloting, then an Electoral College (made up of the Parliament and representatives of local authority councils) elects the president, choosing between the two candidates with the largest percentage of votes. The President candidate is nominated with at least one-fifth support by members of the Parliament. Candidates have to be citizens of Estonia by birth and at least 40 years of age. The procedure for election of the President is provided in the President of the Republic Election Act. The President of the "Riigikogu" can also perform the duties of the President of the Republic in cases outlined in the constitution.
The Government of the Republic () is the executive authority of the Republic of Estonia. Its main task is governing the state and implementing policies. It comprises the Prime Minister of Estonia and ministers, who also serve as representatives in the Council of the European Union. The Prime Minister is the head of Government who represents the institution and directs its activities. Different areas of government are managed by various ministries, each of which is headed by a minister. Ministries are further divided into departments, divisions and bureaus. The work of the ministry is managed by a secretary general, who is recommended by the minister and appointed by the Government. Executive power is also exercised by executive agencies and inspectorates under the authority of a ministry. The Government of the Republic is assisted by the Government Office, which is led by the State Secretary. The State Secretary is appointed by the Prime Minister. The activities and organisation of the Government is regulated in the Government of the Republic Act.
After the appointment of the Parliament, the Prime Minister candidate is nominated by the President. The Parliament then decides whether to authorise the candidate to form the Government. If approved, the candidate presents a list of members of the Government to the President, who appoints the Government within three days. The Government of the Republic assumes office by taking an oath before the Parliament.
The Bank of Estonia () is the central bank of the Republic of Estonia. Its mission is to maintain the stability of the Estonian financial system. It administers the circulation of currency, implements monetary policy, advises the Government and reports to the Parliament. However, it operates independently of other national government agencies. It is a member of the European System of Central Banks and may receive instructions from the European Central Bank. It is overseen by the Supervisory Board, which includes a Chairman together with seven members. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board is recommended by the President and appointed by the Parliament for a term of five years. The Bank of Estonia is headed by the Governor of the Bank of Estonia, who is recommended by the Supervisory Board and appointed by the President for a term of five years, but no more than one consecutive term. The Governor is also the Chairman of the Executive Board, which is responsible for planning and organising the work of the institution. Furthermore, the Governor represents the Republic of Estonia in the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund. The Bank of Estonia is governed by strict confidentiality rules regarding banking secrets. The organisation and activities of the Bank of Estonia is regulated by the Bank of Estonia Act.
The National Audit Office () is an independent public body that carries out audits concerning public spending and assets, including the use of European Union funds. It mainly reports to the Parliament, but can and does share information with the Government and the public. It is headed by the Auditor General, who is recommended by the President and appointed by the Parliament for a term of five years. Every year the Auditor General presents reports about public assets to the Parliament, which are also made public. The National Audit Office has two main departments, the Audit Department and Development and Administrative Service. The Audit Department carries out various audits and the Development and Administrative Service supports its function. The National Audit Office also cooperates with the European Court of Auditors. The organisation and activities of the National Audit Office is regulated by the National Audit Office Act.
The Chancellor of Justice () is a public official who is tasked with supervising the conformity of legislation with the Constitution of Estonia and laws, protecting fundamental rights, performing the functions of the Obudsman for Children and solving discrimination disputes. Anybody can turn to the Chancellor of Justice with issues of fundamental rights and freedoms or conformance of an act or legislation with the constitution or law. Every year a report is presented to the Parliament about the activities of the Chancellor of Justice. If the Chancellor of Justice finds that some legislation is not in conformance with the constitution or law, then it can be sent back to the body that passed it to be brought into conformity. If the legislation is not brought in conformity within 20 days, then the Chancellor of Justice can make a proposal to the Supreme Court to repeal it. The Chancellor of Justice also regularly inspects places of detention to prevent and protect detainees of ill-treatment. The working body of the Chancellor of Justice is the Office of Chancellor of Justice. The Chancellor of Justice is recommended by the President and appointed to office by the Parliament for a term of seven years. The status and the organisation of the office of the Chancellor of Justice is determined by the Chancellor of Justice Act.
Courts form the judiciary of the Republic of Estonia, which consists of three instances. The first instance courts include county and city courts and administrative courts. Circuit courts are the second instance and review the rulings of the courts of first instance on appeal. The Supreme Court () is the highest court instance and reviews rulings of other courts upon request for a motion to quash, but also acts as a constitutional court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is recommended by the President and appointed by the Parliament. Justices of the Supreme Court are recommended by the Chief Justice and appointed by the Parliament. Other judges are recommended by the Supreme Court and appointed to office for life by the President. First and second instance courts are administered by the Ministry of Justice with the support of Council for Administration of Courts. The Supreme Court administers itself with the aid of self-government bodies. These include: Court "en banc", Council for Administration of Courts, Disciplinary Chamber, Judge's examination committee and Judicial Training Council. First and second order courts are headed by Chairmen, who are elected from among judges for a term of seven years. The organisation of the courts and their rules of procedure are established in the Courts Act.
The local self-government () is the authority responsible for all local matters. They are based on rural municipalities and cities. The local authority is represented by its council, which is elected for a term of four years on free local elections, in conformance with the Municipal Council Election Act. The council can have no less than seven members. The work of the council is managed by the chairman, who is elected from among the members of the council. The executive body of the local authority is the municipal administration (government). The municipal administration is formed and managed by the mayor, who is appointed by the council. The mayor is also tasked with representing the local authority. The council has the right to impose taxes, duties and regulations according to law. These are only valid within the administrative territory of the local government. The council may also decide to form committees, law enforcement units and other administrative agencies. Residents of the municipality have the right to initiate passage, amendment or repeal of legislation of the local authority. Issues in the domain of the council are decided by an open vote. The functions, responsibility and organisation of local governments is determined by the Local Government Organisation Act.
Estonia has a multi-party system in which parties usually need to form coalition governments. However, some local self-governments have been formed by a single party. Parties gain authority for implementing their policies by participating in local self-government council, state parliament and/or European Parliament elections. The political landscape is relatively stable, though fractured, and polarization on the left-right scale tends to be fairly weak. Most of the polarization is centered on ethnicity, which is infused with conflict over Estonia's history and identity inherited from the Soviet Union.
A party is founded by a memorandum of association as a non-profit association. It needs to have at least 1000 members and a platform approved by the leadership to be registered. Parties receive funding through donations and from state budget if they are either represented in the state parliament or managed to receive at least one percent of the votes in the elections of the parliament. Funding is reviewed by the political party funding supervision committee, which consists of members appointed for a term of five years by the Chancellor of Justice, Auditor General, National Electoral Committee and political parties represented in the parliament. Any Estonian citizen or a citizen of European Union with permanent residence in Estonia who is at least 18 years old can become a member of a political party. The organisation and activities of political parties is regulated by the Political Parties Act and Non-profit Associations Act.
Mandate to implement policies is attained through elections. Political parties determine their program based on their platform and the input of members. Parties that get elected to a position of authority then have a chance to deliberate with other elected parties to decide which policies to implement and how.
There are four types of public elections in Estonia: local government council elections, state parliament elections, European Parliament elections and referendums. Referendums can be initiated by the Parliament. The rules of procedure for elections are established in the Municipal Council Election Act, "Riigikogu" Election Act, European Parliament Election Act and Referendum Act. Elections are overseen by the National Electoral Committee and managed by the State Electoral Office, county heads of elections and voting district committees. Members of the National Electoral Committee, which is established for a term of four years, are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Chancellor of Justice, Auditor General, Chief Public Prosecutor, State Secretary and Board of Auditors. The State Electoral Office is part of the Chancellery of the "Riigikogu" and its members are appointed by the Secretary General of the Parliament. It organises electronic voting and supervises the election managers. County heads of elections manage elections in the county by instructing and supervising voting district committees. They are either the county secretary or someone recommended by the country secretary and appointed by the Head of the State Electoral Office. A voting district committee is formed by the municipal council and comprises at least five members, with half of the members being presented by the municipal secretary and half by participating political parties. The activities of the National Electoral Committee and election managers can be observed by everyone.
Electronic voting was first used in Estonia during the municipal council elections of 2005. Since then the share of people voting electronically has continuously risen. Electronic voting is managed by the State Electoral Office, which establishes the technical requirements and organisation of electronic voting. Voting is based on the Estonian ID card. Every voter has the right to verify and change their vote electronically. If the voter has also voted with a ballot paper, then only the ballot paper will be taken into account.
Estonia operates an advanced free-market economy, which is integrated into the wider European economy by being part of the European Union and the Eurozone. The Estonian monetary system is managed by the Estonian Central Bank, the national budget is drafted by the Government of the Republic and approved by the Parliament. The draft must be presented to the Parliament at least three months before the beginning of the budget year. The rules for drafting and passage of the state budget is described in the State Budget Act. Financial supervision is provided by the Financial Supervision Authority. It supervises securities market, banks, insurance providers, insurance mediators, investment associations and management companies.
Drafting of the national budget is annually co-ordinated by the Ministry of Finance and supported by other ministries. The ministries prepare plans for at least the next three years and then negotiate the draft budget with the Ministry of Finance, while the Government of the Republic acts as a mediator. After the draft has been finalized by the Government of the Republic, it is then presented to the Parliament for approval. The implementation of the budget is then organized by the Ministry of Finance. Rearrangement of the budget, so that the total revenues and expenses don't change, is passed as amendments, but changes to the total revenues and expenses have to be made through an additional budget. Revenues and expenses are accounted by the State Treasury.
Estonia has one of the lowest national debts in Europe. Part of the reason is because the State Budget Act requires the structural budget position to be in balance. There has also traditionally been a general political consensus over keeping the budget in balance and holding a decent reserve. Estonian economy is frequently rated as one of the freest in the world and maintains a stable international credit rating. High efficiency is provided through an advanced internet banking system and e-governance.
Foreign relations are managed mainly by the Parliament, the Government of the Republic (including various ministries) and the President of the Republic, who mostly serves a representative role. The government can enter into international agreements and present them to the parliament for ratification. Agreements that are in conflict with the Constitution can not be ratified. One notable example of such a case was when Estonia decided to join the European Union, which required the amendment of the Constitution in order to ratify the Accession Treaty. The mandate for the amendment of the Constitution was gained through a public referendum.
Estonia's main foreign policy goals are to maintain national security and stability of international relations, ensuring the functioning of Estonian economy, protecting citizens abroad, maintaining good influence and reputation, and promoting democracy, human rights, rule of law and economic freedom. To achieve these goals, Estonia has set its priorities on involvement and integration into the European Union and NATO, and forming strong relations with countries that share its values, especially its close Baltic and Nordic neighbours. Baltic and Nordic cooperation is coordinated through such formats as: Baltic Council of Ministers, Baltic Assembly, Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8), Council of the Baltic Sea States and Nordic Council of Ministers. Estonia is also a member of the UN, OECD, OSCE and WTO, among others.
Treaties can be initiated or concluded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other ministries and the State Chancellery can make proposals on treaties to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which then reviews the proposals. If the submission meets requirements, the ministry can then send it to the Government of the Republic for approval. Ratification of treaties is performed by the parliament. The performance of treaties is guaranteed by the Government of the Republic. The procedures pertaining to foreign relations are described in the Foreign Relations Act.
After decades of Soviet occupation, Estonia decided to re-establish its independence in 1991. Because the annexation of Estonia was never recognized, and on the basis of the historical continuity of statehood, the state inherited the full responsibility for the rights and obligations of the Republic of Estonia that existed before the occupation. This means, that multilateral treaties, which were approved before the occupation, were considered to be still in effect. Thus, Estonia has re-assumed its international obligations through the restoration of old treaties.
Estonias national defence is based on initial self-defence capability and membership in NATO. Estonia's security policy utilizes a broad concept of security, similar to the concept of total defence in several Nordic countries, in which all sectors of society are involved. According to the constitution, all citizens of Estonia have a duty to participate in national defence. Male citizens between the ages of 17-27 must partake in 8-12 month military service, though female citizens are also free to serve. Peace-time and war-time organisation of national defence is determined by the National Defence Act.
The supreme commander of national defence is the President of the Republic. The president is advised by the National Defence Council, which consists of the President of the Parliament, Chairman of the National Defence Committee, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Prime Minister with other ministers and the Commander of the Defence Forces. Planning, development and organisation of national defence is coordinated by the Security Committee of the Government of the Republic. Management of defence readiness, state of emergency and state of war are directed by the Prime Minister. Increase of defence readiness needs to be approved by the parliament. Beginning and end of state of war and mobilisation is proposed by the president and declared by the parliament. In case of aggression against the Republic of Estonia, state of war can be declared by the president without a corresponding resolution from the parliament. Use of the Defence forces in international cooperation is decided by the parliament. The activities of the Defence Forces are directed and organised by the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9390 |
Economy of Estonia
The economy of Estonia is an advanced economy and the country is a member of the European Union and of the eurozone. Estonia's economy is heavily influenced by developments in the Finnish and Swedish economies.
Before the Second World War, Estonia's economy was based on agriculture, but there was a significant knowledge sector, with the university city of Tartu known for scientific contributions, and a growing industrial sector, similar to that of neighbouring Finland. Products, such as butter, milk, and cheese were widely known in the west European markets. The main markets were Germany and the United Kingdom, and only 3% of all commerce was with the neighbouring USSR. Estonia and Finland had a relatively similar standard of living.
The USSR's annexation of Estonia in 1940 and the ensuing Nazi and Soviet destruction during World War II crippled the Estonian economy. The subsequent Soviet occupation and post-war Sovietization of life continued with the integration of Estonia's economy and industry into the USSR's centrally planned structure. Estonia's GDP per capita was just $100 in 1991.
After Estonia moved away from communism in the late 1980s, restored its independence in 1991 and became a market economy, it emerged as a pioneer in the global economy. In 1992, the country adopted the Estonian kroon as its own currency, and this greatly stabilised the economy. In 1994, it became one of the first countries in the world to adopt a flat tax, with a uniform rate of 26% regardless of personal income. Estonia received more foreign investment per capita in the second half of the 1990s than any other country in Central and Eastern Europe. Between 2005 and 2008, the personal income tax rate was reduced from 26% to 21% in several steps.
The country has been quickly catching up with the EU-15; its GDP per capita having grown from 34.8% of the EU-15 average in 1996 to 65% in 2007, similar to that of Central European countries. It is already rated a high-income country by the World Bank. The GDP (PPP) per capita of the country, a good indicator of wealth, was $35,974 in 2018 according to the World Bank, between that of Lithuania and Cyprus, but below that of most long-time EU members such as Spain or Italy. Because of its economic performance after the Soviet breakup, Estonia has been termed one of the Baltic Tigers.
In 2008, Estonia was ranked 12th of 162 countries in the Index of Economic Freedom 2008, the best of any former Soviet republic. The same year, the country was at the bottom of the list of European states by labour market freedom, but the government is drafting improvements.
For Estonia, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 was comparatively easier to weather, because Estonia's budget has consistently been kept balanced, and this meant that Estonia's public debt relative to the country's GDP has remained the lowest in Europe. The economy recovered in 2010.
On 1 January 2011, Estonia joined the euro, and became the first ex-Soviet republic to join the eurozone.
In 2013, the World Bank Group rated Estonia as 21st on the Ease of Doing Business Index.
Until the early 13th century, the territory that is now known as Estonia was independent. The economy was largely an agricultural one, but Estonia being a country with a long coastline, there were also many maritime activities. Autonomous development was brought to an end by the Northern Crusades undertaken by the King of Denmark, the German Livonian and the Teutonic military orders. The Estonian world was transformed by military conquest. The war against the invaders lasted from 1208–1227. The last Estonian county to fall was the island of Saaremaa in 1261.
Thereafter, through many centuries until WWI, Estonian agriculture consisted of native peasants working large feudal-type estates held by ethnic German landlords. In the decades prior to independence, centralised Czarist rule had created a rather large industrial sector dominated by the Kreenholm Manufacturing Company, then the world's largest cotton mill.
After declaring independence in 1918, the Estonian War of Independence and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, the new Estonian state inherited a ruined post-war economy and an inflated ruble currency. Despite considerable hardship, dislocation, and unemployment, Estonia spent the first decade of independence entirely transforming its economy. In 1918, The Czarist ruble was replaced by the Estonian mark, which was in circulation until 1927. By 1929, a stable currency, the kroon, had been established. It was issued by the Bank of Estonia, the country's central bank. Compensating the German landowners for their holdings, the government confiscated the estates and divided them into small farms, which subsequently formed the basis of Estonian prosperity. Trade focused on the local market and the West, particularly Germany and the United Kingdom. Only 3% of all commerce was with the USSR.
The USSR's forcible annexation of Estonia in 1940 and the ensuing Nazi and Soviet destruction during World War II crippled the Estonian economy. Post-war Soviet occupation and Sovietisation of life continued with the integration of Estonia's economy and industry into the USSR's centrally planned structure. More than 56% of Estonian farms were collectivised in the month of April 1949 alone after mass deportations to Siberia the previous month. Moscow expanded on those Estonian industries which had locally available raw materials, such as oil shale mining and phosphorites.
Since reestablishing independence, Estonia has styled itself as the gateway between East and West and pursued economic reform and integration with the West. Estonia's market reforms put it among the economic leaders in the former COMECON area. A balanced budget, almost non-existent public debt, flat-rate income tax, free trade regime, fully convertible currency backed by currency board and a strong peg to the euro, competitive commercial banking sector, hospitable environment for foreign investment, innovative e-Services and mobile-based services are all hallmarks of Estonia's free-market-based economy.
In June 1992, Estonia replaced the ruble with its own freely convertible currency, the kroon (EEK). A currency board was created and the new currency was pegged to the German Mark at the rate of 8 Estonian kroons for 1 Deutsche Mark. When Germany introduced the euro the peg was changed to 15.6466 kroons for 1 euro.
Estonia was set to adopt the euro in 2008, but due to the inflation rate being above the required 3%, the adoption date was delayed to 2011. On 1 January 2011, Estonia adopted the euro and became the 17th eurozone member state.
The privatisation of state-owned firms is virtually complete, with only the port and the main power plants remaining in government hands.
The constitution requires a balanced budget, and the protection afforded by Estonia's intellectual property laws is on a par of that of Europe's.
In early 1992, both liquidity problems and structural weakness stemming from the communist era precipitated a banking crisis. As a result, effective bankruptcy legislation was enacted and privately owned; well-managed banks emerged as market leaders. Today, near-ideal conditions for the banking sector exist. Foreigners are not restricted from buying bank shares or acquiring majority holdings.
The fully electronic Tallinn Stock Exchange opened in early 1996, and was purchased by Finland's Helsinki Stock Exchange in 2001.
Estonia joined the World Trade Organization in 1999.
From the early 2000s to the latter part of that decade, the Estonian economy experienced considerable growth. In the year 2000, Estonian GDP grew by 6.4%.
Upon accession to the European Union in 2004, double-digit growth was soon after observed.
GDP grew by 7.9% in 2007 alone. Increases in labor costs, the imposition of tax on tobacco, alcohol, electricity, fuel, gas, and other external pressures (growing prices of oil and food on the global market) were expected to inflate price levels by 10% in the first months of 2009.
The financial crisis of 2007–2008 has had a deep effect on the Estonian economy, primarily as a result of an investment and consumption slump that followed the burst of the real estate market bubble that had been building up during the preceding years.
After a long period of very high growth of GDP, the GDP of Estonia decreased. In the first quarter 2008, GDP grew only 0.1%, and then decreased: negative growth was −1.4% in the 2nd quarter, a little over −3% (on a year-to-year basis) in the 3rd quarter, and −9.4% in the 4th quarter of that year.
The government made a supplementary negative budget, which was passed by the Riigikogu. The revenue of the budget was decreased for 2008 by EEK 6.1 billion and the expenditure by EEK 3.2 billion. A current account-deficit was extant, but began to shrink in the last months of 2008, and had been expected to continue to do so in the near future.
In 2009, the Estonian economy further contracted by 15.1% in the first quarter. Low domestic and foreign demand had depressed the economy's overall output. The Estonian economy's 33.7% industrial production drop was the sharpest decrease in industrial production in the entire European Union. That year, Estonia was one of the five worst-performing economies in the world in terms of annual GDP growth rate, and had one of the greatest rates of unemployment in the EU, which rose from 3.9% in May 2008 to 15.6% in May 2009.
Some international experts and journalists, who like to view the three Baltic states as a single economic identity, had failed to notice that Estonia has constantly performed better than Latvia and Lithuania on many fundamental indicators. The current-account deficit and inflation was lower than in Latvia; GDP per capita was higher than in Latvia and Lithuania; Estonia's public debt was a low 3.8% of GDP, and government reserves were close to 10% of GDP. The difference is exemplified by the fact, that in December 2008, Estonia became one of the donor countries to the IMF lead rescue package for Latvia.
In response to the crisis, the Ansip government opted for fiscal consolidation and retrenchment by maintaining fiscal discipline and a balanced budget in combination with austerity packages: The government increased taxes, and reduced public spending by slashing expenditures and public salaries across the board.
In July 2009, the value-added tax was increased from 18% to 20%. The recorded budget deficit for 2009 was just 1.7% of GDP.
The result was, that Estonia was one of only five EU countries in 2009 that had met the Maastricht criteria for debt and deficit, and had the third-lowest deficit after Luxembourg and Sweden. Neither did Estonia need to ask help from the IMF. Despite the third-largest drop in GDP, the country had the lowest budget deficit and the lowest public debt among Central and Eastern European countries.
In 2009, the Estonian economy began to rebound, and economic growth resumed in the second half of 2010. The country's unemployment rate has since dropped significantly to pre-recession levels. To top it off, Estonia was granted permission in 2010 to join the eurozone in 2011.
Before joining the eurozone, the Estonian kroon had been pegged to the euro at a rate of 15.64664 EEK to one euro; before then, the kroon was pegged to the German mark at approximately 8 EEK to 1 DEM.
Plans to join the euro were in place well before 2011. The design of Estonian euro coins was finalized in late 2004.
Estonia's journey towards the euro took longer than originally projected, owing to the inflation rate continually being above the required 3% before 2010, which prevented the country from fulfilling the entry criteria. The country originally planned to adopt the euro on 1 January 2007; however, it did not formally apply that year, and officially changed its target date twice: first to 1 January 2008, and later to 1 January 2011.
On 12 May 2010, the European Commission announced that Estonia had met all criteria to join the eurozone. On 8 June 2010, EU finance ministers agreed that Estonia would be able to join the euro on 1 January 2011. On 13 July 2010, Estonia received the final approval from ECOFIN to adopt the euro onwards from 1 January 2011.
The switchover to the euro took place on 1 January 2011.
With that, Estonia became the first ex-Soviet republic to join the eurozone.
On 9 August 2011, just days after Standard & Poor's raised Estonia's credit rating from A to AA-. Among the factors, S&P cited as contributing to its decision was confidence in Estonia's ability to "sustain strong economic growth." Estonia's GDP growth rate in 2011 was above 8%, despite having negative population growth.
In the second quarter of 2013, the average monthly gross wage in Estonia was €976 (15,271 kroons, US$1,328). This figure has grown consistently to €1310 (20,497 kroons, US$1473) as of 2018.
Estonia is nearly energy-independent, supplying over 90% of its electricity needs with locally mined oil shale. Alternative energy sources such as wood, peat, and biomass make up approximately 9% of primary energy production. Estonia imports needed petroleum products from western Europe and Russia. Oil shale energy, telecommunications, textiles, chemical products, banking, services, food and fishing, timber, shipbuilding, electronics, and transportation are key sectors of the economy. The ice-free port of Muuga, near Tallinn, is a modern facility featuring good transshipment capability, a high-capacity grain elevator, chill/frozen storage, and brand-new oil tanker off-loading capabilities. The railroad serves as a conduit between the West, Russia, and other points to the East.
Estonia today is mainly influenced by developments in Finland, Russia, Sweden and Germany – the four main trade partners. The government has significantly increased its spending on innovation since 2016, with €304 million aimed to stimulate research and development in 2017.
Long-term prospects for the Estonian economy remain among the most promising in Europe. In 2011, the real GDP growth in Estonia was 8.0%, and according to projections made by CEPII, the GDP per capita could rise by 2025 to the level of Nordic economies of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. According to the same projections, by 2050, Estonia could become the most productive country in the EU, after Luxembourg, and thus join the top five most productive nations in the world.
Estonia has around 600,000 employees, yet the country has a shortage of skilled labor, and since skill shortages are experienced everywhere in Europe, the government has increased working visa quota for non-EEA citizens, although it has nevertheless been criticized for being inadequate for addressing the shortages.
The late-2000s recession in the world, the near-concurrent local property bust with changes in Estonian legislation to increase labour market flexibility (making it easier for companies to lay off workers) saw Estonia's unemployment rate shoot up to 18.8% throughout the duration of the crisis, then stabilise to 13.8% by summer 2011, as the economy recovered on the basis of strong exports. Internal consumption, and therefore imports, plummeted; and cuts were made in public finances. Some of the reduction in unemployment has been attributed to some Estonians' emigrating for employment to Finland, the UK, Australia, and elsewhere.
After the recession, the unemployment rate went lower, and throughout 2015 and 2016, the rate stayed near the levels that preceded the economic downturn, staying at just above 6%.
Tallinn has emerged as the country's financial center. According to Invest in Estonia, advantages of Estonian financial sector are unbureaucratic cooperation between companies and authorities, and relative abundance of educated people although young educated Estonians tend to emigrate to western Europe for greater income. The largest banks are Swedbank, SEB Pank, and Nordea. Several IPOs have been made recently on the Tallinn Stock Exchange, a member OMX system.
The Estonian service sector employs over 60% of workforce. Estonia has a strong information technology (IT) sector, partly due to the Tiigrihüpe project undertaken in mid-1990s, and has been mentioned as the most "wired" and advanced country in Europe in the terms of e-government.
Farming, which had been forcibly collectivized for decades until the transition era of 1990–1992, has become privatized and more efficient, and the total farming area has increased in the period following Estonia's restoration of independence. The share of agriculture in the gross domestic product decreased from 15% to 3.3% during 1991–2000, while employment in agriculture decreased from 15% to 5.2%.
The mining industry makes up 1% of the GDP. Mined commodities include oil shale, peat, and industrial minerals, such as clays, limestone, sand and gravel. Soviets created badly polluting industry in the early 1950s, concentrated in the north-east of the country. Socialist economy and military areas left the country highly polluted, and mainly because of oil shale industry in Ida-Virumaa, sulfur dioxide emissions per person are almost as high as in the Czech Republic. The coastal seawater is polluted in certain locations, mainly the east. The government is looking for ways to reduce pollution further. In 2000, the emissions were 80% smaller than in 1980, and the amount of unpurified wastewater discharged to water bodies was 95% smaller than in 1980.
Estonian productivity is experiencing rapid growth, and consequently wages are also rising quickly, with a rise in private consumption of about 8% in 2005. According to Estonian Institute of Economic Research, the largest contributors to GDP growth in 2005 were processing industry, financial intermediation, retailing and wholesale trade, transport and communications.
Railway transport dominates the cargo sector, comprising 70% of all carried goods, domestic and international. Road transport is the one that prevails in the passenger sector, accounting for over 90% of all transported passengers. 5 major cargo ports offer easy navigational access, deep waters, and good ice conditions. There are 12 airports and 1 heliport in Estonia. Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport is the largest airport in Estonia, with 1,73 million passengers and 22,764 tons of cargo (annual cargo growth 119.7%) in 2007. International flight companies such as SAS, Finnair, Lufthansa, EasyJet, and Nordic Aviation Group provide direct flights to 27 destinations.
Approximately 7.5% of the country's workforce is employed in transportation and the sector contributes over 10% of GDP. Estonia is getting much business from traffic between European Union and Russia, especially oil cargo through Estonian ports. Transit trade's share of GDP is disputed, but many agree that Russia's increased hostility is decreasing the share.
Instead of coal, electricity is generated by burning oil shale, with largest stations in Narva. Oil shale supplies around 70% of the country's primary energy. Other energy sources are natural gas imported from Russia, wood, motor fuels, and fuel oils.
Wind power in Estonia amounts to 58.1 megawatts, whilst roughly 399 megawatts worth of projects are currently being developed. Estonian energy liberalization is lagging far behind the Nordic energy market. During the accession negotiations with the EU, Estonia agreed that at least 35% of the market are opened before 2009 and all of non-household market, which totals around 77% of consumption, before 2013. Estonia is concerned that Russia could use energy markets to bully it. In 2009, the government considered granting permits to nuclear power companies, and there were plans for a shared nuclear facility with Latvia and Lithuania. Those plans were shelved after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.
Estonia has high Internet penetration, and connections are available throughout most of the country.
Estonia exports machinery and equipment (33% of all exports annually), wood and paper (15% of all exports annually), textiles (14% of all exports annually), food products (8% of all exports annually), furniture (7% of all exports annually), and metals and chemical products. Estonia also exports 1.562 million megawatt hours of electricity annually. Estonia imports machinery and equipment (33.5% of all imports annually), chemical products (11.6% of all imports annually), textiles (10.3'% of all imports annually), food products (9.4% of all imports annually), and transportation equipment (8.9% of all imports annually). Estonia imports 200 thousand megawatt hours of electricity annually.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1993–2018. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9391 |
Telecommunications in Estonia
The National Telecommunications act in the second period of Estonian independence granted a monopoly on international and local fixed line telephony to Estonian Telecom (Eesti Telecom). In the process of privatization, a concession was granted to liberalize mobile, CATV and packet-switched telecommunications. This concession was critical for developing a competitive market. Three licensed mobile operators encouraged one of the highest rates of mobile telephony penetration in the world. CATV licenses were granted at a local level, and while it was a more natural monopoly, pirate operators proliferated within populous cities in the 1990s.
Internet penetration blossomed. Beginning with a satellite link and widespread undersea leased line connectivity, Estonia connected with the rest of the world. The concession for packet communications, perhaps against the constraint of limited international telephony competition (with the global exceptions of callback, transit and re-file arbitrage) -- created conditions in which Skype was natively created.
With a population of about 1.3 million, Estonia had in 2012 about 2.07 million cellular telephones and 0.45 million fixed phones. In 2009 it had about 0.97 million internet users. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9392 |
Transport in Estonia
Transport in Estonia relies mainly on road and rail networks.
National roads form the core of Estonian road network. Their total length is 16,489 km (or 28% of all roads), 67% of them are paved. They are divided into 4 classes according to importance:
Estonia is the first country in the EU and in the world to introduce a nationwide, publicly serviced charging system for charging the batteries of electric vehicles. The 165 fast charging stations are equipped with connectors of the CHAdeMO standard. They are located throughout the entire country, including the islands, and have a maximum distance of 40–60 km in between. The charging stations can also be navigated via a smartphone app (currently only for Android). The relatively dense network and 30 minute quick charges are built to enable a country-wide electric vehicle network. The system offers a unitary booking service and several different tariffs, some of which appear attractively low priced. The charging station network puts Estonia at the forefront in Europe even though Norway actually has a higher penetration of electric vehicles. Estonia has a rate of 1 electric vehicle per 1000 capita, whereas Norway has 4 EVs per 1000 capita.
There has been a growing tram network in Tallinn, Estonia since 1888, when traffic was started by horse-powered trams. The first line was electrified on October 28, 1925. The first electric trams were built by Dvigatel, Ltd., in Tallinn before World War II and for some years after that, the last one in 1954. In the 1920s and 1930s gas-powered trams were also used. Since 1955 to 1988 German-built trams were used. In total, there were 20 LOWA T54-B54 trams (in use from February 1955 to March 1977), 11 Gotha T57-B57 (in use from January 1958 to June 1978), 5 Gotha T59E-B59E (in use from June 1960 to February 1980), 14 Gotha T2-62 and B2-62 (in use from 1962 to 1981) and 50 Gotha G4 trams (in use from January 1965 to October 1988) trams. The first Czechoslovakian-built ČKD Tatra T4SU arrived in 1973. The T4SU trams were in use from May 1973 to September 2005 and there were 60 of them. The first KT4SU arrived in Tallinn in 1981 and was first in use on March 10, 1981. In 2007, there are 56 KT4SU, 12 KTNF6 (rebuilt KT4SUs, 10 local, one from Gera and one from Erfurt) and 23 KT4D (12 from Gera, 6 from Cottbus, 1 from Frankfurt (Oder) and 5 from Erfurt) in use. As of 2018, there are four lines: 1 (Kopli-Kadriorg), 2 (Kopli-Ülemiste), 3 (Tondi-Kadriorg) and 4 (Tondi- Lennujaam (Airport)). There have also been lines 5 (Kopli-Vana-Lõuna, shut down in 2004 because of small usage) and 6 (Kopli-Tondi, temporarily used in time of repairs).
Estonia has 45 ports in the State Port Register. With a few exceptions, all of them are on the Baltic Sea.
Largest ports are Muuga (near Tallinn), Tallinn (comprises several ports), Paldiski, Kunda, Pärnu and Sillamäe.
Since 2014, there have been no vessels over 500gt on the Estonian register. About 60 merchant vessels are beneficially owned in Estonia, with most of them registered in Malta. The government has started a drive to bring more of these vessels back into the Estonian register.
Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport is the largest airport in Estonia.
Currently operating water transport routes: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9393 |
Demographics of Ethiopia
The demographics of Ethiopia encompass the demographic features of Ethiopia's inhabitants, including ethnicity, languages, population density, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The country's population is highly diverse, comprising over 80 different ethnic groups. Most people in Ethiopia speak Afroasiatic languages, mainly of the Semitic or Cushitic branches. Among these are the Oromo, Amhara, Somali and Tigrayans, who together constitute around three-quarters of the population.
Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nilotic ethnic minorities also inhabit the southern regions of the country, particularly in areas bordering South Sudan. Among these are the Mursi and Anuak.
White people are born of Italian, Greek, Swedish, and Armenian descent.
Ethiopia, like most countries in Africa, is a multi-ethnic state. Although the original physical differences between the major ethnic groups have been blurred by centuries, if not millennia, of intermarriage, there remain many who are distinct and unique.
Ethnic differences may also be observed from the great variety of languages spoken in the country, of which there are an astonishing eighty-three, with 200 dialects. These can be broken into four main groups: Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Nilo-Saharan.
The Semitic languages of Ethiopia are related to both Hebrew and Arabic. The Ethiopian languages of this family are derived from Ge'ez, the language of the ancient Axumite kingdom, which was also the language of the country's literature prior to the mid-nineteenth century, as well as parts of most present-day church services.
Ethiopia's Semitic languages are today spoken mainly in the north and centre of the country. The most important of them in the north is Tigrinya, which is used throughout Tigray.
The principal Semitic language of the north-western and centre of the country is Amharic, which is the language of Gondar and Gojjam, as well as much of Wollo and Shewa. Moreover, Amharic is also the official language of administration, and the language of much modern Ethiopian literature.
Two other Semitic languages are spoken to the south and east of Addis Ababa: Guraginya, used by the Gurage in a cluster of areas to the south of the capital, and Adarinya, a tongue current only within the old walled city of Harar and used by the Adare, also known as Harrari, people.
The Cushitic languages, which are less closely related than the Semitic, are found mainly in the south of the country. The most important tongue in this group is Afan Oromo. It is used in a wide stretch of country, including Welega and parts of Ilubabor in the west, Wollo in the north, Shewa and Arsi in the centre, Bale and Sidamo in the south, and Harerge in the east.
Other Cushitic language in the area comprise Somalinya, which is spoken by the Somali in the Ogaden to the east, as well as in the neighboring Somali Republic and part of Djibouti, and the Sidaminya language, used in part of the Sidama region. Cushitic languages, however, are also used in the north of the country, namely Afarinya, spoken by the Afar of eastern Wollo and the northern half of the Djibouti Republic; Saho, in parts of Tigray; and Agawinya, in small pockets in different parts of western Ethiopia.
The Omotic group of languages, which comprise considerably fewer speakers than either the Semitic or the Cushitic, are spoken the south-west of the country, mainly in Gamo Gofa. They have been given the name in recent years because they are spoken in the general area of the Omo River.
The Nilo-Saharan languages, largely peripheral to Ethiopian civilization, are spoken in a wide arc of the country towards the Sudan frontier. They include, from north to south, Gumuz in Gondar and Gojjam, Berta in Welega, and Anuak in Ilubabor
Various religions are adhered to in Ethiopia. Most Christians live in the highlands, whereas Muslims mainly inhabit the lowlands. Adherents of traditional faiths are primarily concentrated in the southern regions.
According to the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (2007 census), the national religious composition is Ethiopian Orthodox 43.5%, Protestantism 18.6%, Roman Catholicism 0.7%, Islam 33.9%, traditional 2.6%, and others 0.6%.
Source: Central Statistical Agency (CSA)
According to , the total population was in , compared to 18,434,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 41.5%, 55.8% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 3.3% was 65 years or older. The average age was 25.1.
Below are the UN's medium variant projections; numbers are in thousands:
Registration of vital events in Ethiopia is incomplete. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates:
CBR = crude birth rate (per 1,000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1,000); NC = natural change (per 1,000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1,000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman)
Births and deaths
Source: "UN World Population Prospects"
As per 2007 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR):
Fertility data as of 2011 (DHS Program):
Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2019.
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9400 |
Politics of Ethiopia
The politics of Ethiopia are the activities associated with the governance of Ethiopia. The government is structured as a federal parliamentary republic with both a President and Prime Minister.
The government of Ethiopia is structured in the form of a federal parliamentary republic, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government while legislative power is vested in the Parliament. The Judiciary is more or less independent of the executive and the legislature. There are 9 ethnically based administrative regions and two self-governing administrations; the capital city Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa.
The president of Ethiopia is elected by the House of Peoples' Representatives for a six-year term. The prime minister is chosen by the parliament. The prime minister is designated by the party in power following legislative elections. The Council of Ministers, according to the 1995 constitution, is comprised by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Ministers, various Ministers and other members as determined and approved by the House of Peoples' Representatives. At the current time, this includes the 20 members of Council of Ministers.
The Federal Parliamentary Assembly has two chambers: the Council of People's Representatives ("Yehizbtewekayoch Mekir Bet") with 547 members, elected for five-year terms in single-seat constituencies; and the Council of the Federation ("Yefedereshn Mekir Bet") with 110 members, one for each nationality, and one additional representative for each one million of its population, designated by the regional councils, which may elect them themselves or through popular elections.
The president and vice president of the Federal Supreme Court are recommended by the prime minister and appointed by the House of People's Representatives; for other federal judges, the prime minister submits candidates selected by the Federal Judicial Administrative Council to the People's Representatives for appointment.
In May 1991, a coalition of rebel forces under the name Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) overthrew the dictatorship of President Mengistu Haile Mariam. In July 1991, the TPLF, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF),the ogaden national liberation front/ Western Somali liberation Front}, Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO), Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) and others established the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE), which consisted of an 87-member Council of Representatives guided by a national charter that functioned as a transitional constitution. Since 1991, Ethiopia has established warm relations with the United States and western Europe and has sought substantial economic aid from Western countries and the World Bank.
In June 1992 the OLF withdrew from the government; in March 1993, members of the Southern Ethiopia Peoples' Democratic Coalition left the government. The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), an ally in the fight against the Mengistu regime, assumed control of Eritrea and established a provisional government. Eritrea achieved full independence on May 24, 1993.
President Meles Zenawi and members of the TGE pledged to oversee the formation of a multi-party democracy. The first election for Ethiopia's 547-member constituent assembly was held in June 1994. This assembly adopted the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in December 1994. The elections for Ethiopia's first popularly chosen national parliament and regional legislatures were held in May and June 1995. Most opposition parties chose to boycott these elections. There was a landslide victory for the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). International and non-governmental observers concluded that opposition parties would have been able to participate had they chosen to do so.
The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was installed in August 1995. The first President was Negasso Gidada. The EPRDF-led government of Prime Minister Meles has promoted a policy of ethnic federalism, seemingly devolving significant powers to regional, ethnically based authorities. Ethiopia today has nine semi-autonomous Regions of Ethiopia that have the power to raise and spend their own revenues.
In 2004, the government began a resettlement initiative to move more than two million people away from the arid highlands of the east, proposing that these resettlements would reduce food shortages.
The incumbent president is Mulatu Teshome and has been at that position since October 2013. The ruling party, EPRDF was declared a winner by the election board in 2000, and then again in 2005 amidst protests and riots that led to the death of many Ethiopians. Hundreds of political leaders–some of whom were elected to parliamentary positions– were arrested in connection with these protests.
As of February 2006, hundreds of politicians remained in custody, facing trial in March. About 119 people are currently facing trial, including journalists for defamation and opposition party leaders for treason. Human rights organisations have raised concerns over the well-being of some of these prisoners. However 8,000 prisoners have already been freed. Concerns about the implications of these trials for the freedom of the press have also been raised. According to the US Department of State 2009 human rights report, there are hundreds of political prisoners in Ethiopia. Among them is Birtukan Midekssa, the leader of Unity for Democracy and Justice, the largest opposition party. Fundamental freedoms, including freedom of the press, are, in practice, circumscribed.
On 5 August 2016 protests broke out across the country and dozens of protesters were shot and killed by police over the following days. The protesters demanded an end to human rights abuses, the act of land grabbing by the ruling party members and relatives of the higher officials, the master plan intended to expand Addis Ababa onto surrounding zones of the Oromia region including the farm land of oromo people (special zones of oromia around Addis Ababa), the release of political prisoners, a fairer redistribution of the wealth generated by over a decade of economic growth, and a return of Wolqayt District to the Amhara Region. The events were the most violent crackdown against protesters in Sub-Saharan Africa since the Ethiopian regime killed at least 75 people during protests in the Oromia Region in November and December 2015.
In the 2015 general election, Opposition parties lost the only seat which they still held in the House of Peoples' Representatives. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and its allies won all 547 seats.
Political pressure groups include the Council of Alternative Forces for Peace and Democracy in Ethiopia (CAFPDE) Beyene Petros and the Southern Ethiopia People's Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) [Beyene Petros].
The coalition of opposition parties and some individuals that was established in 2009 to oust at the general election in 2010 the regime of the TPLF, Meles Zenawi’s party that has been in power since 1991, published a 65-page manifesto in Addis Ababa on October 10, 2009.
Some of the eight-member parties of this Ethiopian Forum for Democratic Dialogue (FDD or Medrek in Amharic) include the Oromo Federalist Congress (organized by the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement and the Oromo People’s Congress), the Arena Tigray (organized by former members of the ruling party TPLF), the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ, whose leader was imprisoned), and the Coalition of Somali Democratic Forces.
Ethiopia held its third general election in May 2005, which drew a record number of voters, with 90% of the electorate turning out to cast their vote. While the election was deemed by the European Union election observer team to fall short of international standards for fair and free elections, other teams drew different conclusions. The African Union report on September 14 commended "the Ethiopian people's display of genuine commitment to democratic ideals and on September 15 the US Carter Center concluded that "the majority of the constituency results based on the May 15 polling and tabulation are credible and reflect competitive conditions". The US Department of State said on September 16, "these elections stand out as a milestone in creating a new, more competitive multi-party political system in one of Africa's largest and most important countries." Even the EU preliminary statement of 2005 also said "...the polling processes were generally positive. The overall assessment of the process has been rated as good in 64% of the cases, and very good in 24%".
The opposition complained that the ruling EPRDF engaged in widespread vote rigging and intimidation, alleging fraud in 299 constituencies. The ruling party complained that the main opposition party CUD's AEUP sub party had engaged in intimidation. All allegations were investigated by the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia in cooperation with election monitors, a process which delayed the release of the final results. In June 2005, with the results of the election still unclear, a group of university students protested these alleged discrepancies, encouraged by supporters of the Coalition for Unity opposition party, despite a ban on protests imposed by the government. On June 8, 26 people were killed in Addis Ababa as a result of rioting, which led to the arrest of hundreds of protesters. On September 5, 2005, the National Elections Board of Ethiopia released the final election results, which confirmed that the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front retained its control of the government, but showed that opposition parties had increased their share of parliamentary seats, from 12 to 176. The Coalition for Unity and Democracy won all the seats in Addis Ababa, both for the Parliament and the City Council.
Street protests broke out again when the opposition called for a general strike and boycotted the new Parliament, refusing to accept the results of the election. The police forces once again attempted to contain the protests, and this time, 42 people were killed in Addis Ababa, including seven policemen, and another of whom later died because of fatal injuries caused by a hand grenade detonation. Thousands were arrested, and were taken to various detention centers across the country. As of February 2006, six hundred remained in custody, facing trial in March.
On 14 November, the Ethiopian Parliament passed a resolution to establish a neutral commission to investigate the incidents of June 8 and November 1 and 2. In February 2006, UK Prime Minister Blair, acknowledging that the EPRDF has won the election, said he wanted to see Ethiopia resolve its internal problems and continue on a democratic path.
With Ethiopia’s national election in May 2010 approaching, some opposition groups begun to hint a boycott, accusing the government of stepping up harassment against them. Despite growing claims of "harassment" and "undemocratic actions" perpetrated by the ruling party, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue (FDD), Ethiopia’s biggest alliance of opposition political parties declared in October 2009 that it will contest in the scheduled election.
Gebru Asrat, a former ally of PM Meles Zenawi, said that his party’s primary efforts were ""to engage in negotiation with the government on key election issues"" ahead of the election, but he added that the government was reluctant.
FDD insists to engage in a pre-election negotiation on 10 key subjects, among which the issues of access to the media for campaigning, the supremacy of law, the free access of international observers, the establishment of an independent electoral board and a stop to harassment and pressure on opposition members.
The EPRDF won the 2010 elections by a landslide, taking 499 seats, while allied parties took a further 35. Oppositions parties took just 2. Both opposition groups say their observers were blocked from entering polling stations during the election on Sunday, May 23, and in some cases the individuals were beaten. The United States and the European Union have both criticized the election as falling short of international standards. Additionally, the EPRDF won all but one of 1,904 council seats in regional elections.
ACP, AfDB, ECA, FAO, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IGAD, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), ISO, ITU, NAM, OAU, OPCW, United Nations, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNU, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO
Scheye wrote in 2010 that significant donor resources are being invested in security sector reform in Ethiopia because of donor national interest, even though the country's ruling group is ideologically opposed to the core principles of SSR, and showed, at that time, little interest in justice and security sector development.
"The Guardian" wrote just before the 2015 elections that "..the EPRDF's relations with donors are a crucial factor in maintaining its position. Ethiopia remains structurally dependent on aid, with the country receiving more than $3 billion a year from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. However, all indications are that external support will remain strong, regardless of electoral openness. Ethiopia is a key partner for countries concerned about security in the region, especially the US, UK and the European Union."
A group of Ethiopian royalists continue to operate The Crown Council of Ethiopia as a government in exile. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9401 |
Economy of Ethiopia
The economy of Ethiopia is a mixed and transition economy with a large public sector. The government of Ethiopia is in the process of privatizing many of the state-owned businesses and moving toward a market economy. However, the banking, telecommunication and transportation sectors of the economy are dominated by government-owned companies.
Ethiopia has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and is Africa's second most populous country. Many properties owned by the government during the previous regime have now been privatized and are in the process of privatization. However, certain sectors such as telecommunications, financial and insurance services, air and land transportation services, and retail, are considered as strategic sectors and are expected to remain under state control for the foreseeable future. Almost 50% of Ethiopia's population is under the age of 18, and even though education enrollment at primary and tertiary level has increased significantly, job creation has not caught up with the increased output from educational institutes. The country must create hundreds of thousands of jobs every year just to keep up with population growth.
Though the issuing of minted coins didn't begin until around 270, metal coins may have been used in Aksum centuries prior to centralized minting. The "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" mentions that Aksum imported brass "which they use[d] for ornaments and for cutting as money", and that they imported "a little money ("denarion") for [use with] foreigners who live there." Some outside influences encouraging the use of coins is undeniable. Roman, Himyarite, and Kushana coins have all been found in major Aksumite cities. The minting of coins began around 270 CE, beginning with the reign of Endubis.
Around the 5th–8th century, the coffee plant was introduced into the Arab world from Ethiopia. "Coffea arabica", the most highly regarded species, is native to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia. Long before the cultivation of coffee, however, other food crops like finger millet, teff, sorghum, lablab bean and castor bean were domesticated and cultivated in Ethiopia.
Following the overthrow of the Ethiopian monarchy a marxist military government nationalized all companies and land, expelled foreign investors, and pursued an extensive military expenditure. The Ethiopian economy significantly deteriorated due to the civil war and famines of the 1970s and 1980s. Since 1991, the Ethiopian government has embarked on a program of economic reform, including privatization of state enterprises and rationalization of government regulation. While the process is still ongoing, the reforms have attracted much-needed foreign direct investment.
In 2015, Ethiopia has 2,700 millionaires, a number that has more than doubled since 2007. Their fortunes are mainly built in niches of economic rents (banks, mines, etc.) without investing in structural and strategic sectors (industrial production, infrastructure, etc.) and should in no way promote economic development or represent a source of competition for Western multinationals.
The Ethiopian government is stepping up its efforts to attract foreign investors, particularly in the textile sector. They can now import their machines without customs duties, benefit from a tax exemption for ten years, rents much lower than market prices and almost free water and electricity. Major brands have established themselves in the country, such as Decathlon, H&M and Huajian. These companies also benefit from a cheap labour force, with a monthly salary of around 35 euros. Finally, trade agreements between Ethiopia and the European Union allow them to export duty-free.
, agriculture accounts for almost 40.5% of GDP, 81 percent of exports, and 85 percent of the labour force. Many other economic activities depend on agriculture, including marketing, processing, and export of agricultural products. Production is overwhelmingly of a subsistence nature, and a large part of commodity exports are provided by the small agricultural cash-crop sector. Principal crops include coffee, pulses (e.g., beans), oilseeds, cereals, potatoes, sugarcane, and vegetables. Exports are almost entirely agricultural commodities, with coffee as the largest foreign exchange earner, and its flower industry becoming a new source of revenue: for 2005/2006 (the latest year available) Ethiopia's coffee exports represented 0.9% of the world exports, and oilseeds and flowers each representing 0.5%. Ethiopia is Africa's second biggest maize producer. In 2000, Ethiopia's livestock contributed to 19% of total GDP.
, some countries that import most of their food, such as Saudi Arabia, have begun planning the purchase and development of large tracts of arable land in developing countries such as Ethiopia. This land grabbing has raised fears of food being exported to more prosperous countries while the local population faces its own shortage.
Forest products are mainly logs used in construction. The silvicutural properties are used in construction and manufacturing, and as energy sources.
Ethiopia's fisheries are entirely fresh water, as it has no marine coastline. Although total production has been continuously increasing since 2007, the fishing industry is a very small part of the economy. Fishing is predominantly artisanal. In 2014, nearly 45,000 fishermen were employed in the sector with only 30% of them employed full-time.
Employees of Ethiopian garment factories, who work for brands such as Guess, H&M or Calvin Klein, receive a monthly salary of 26 dollars per month. These very low wages have led to low productivity, frequent strikes and high turnover. Some factories have replaced all their employees on average every 12 months, according to the 2019 report of the Stern Centre for Business and Human Rights at New York University
The report states:" Rather than the docile and cheap labour force promoted in Ethiopia, foreign-based suppliers have met employees who are unhappy with their pay and living conditions and who want to protest more and more by stopping work or even quitting. In their eagerness to create a "made in Ethiopia" brand, the government, global brands and foreign manufacturers did not anticipate that the base salary was simply too low for workers to make a living from. »
The mining sector is small in Ethiopia. The country has deposits of coal, opal, gemstones, kaolin, iron ore, soda ash, and tantalum, but only gold is mined in significant quantities. In 2001 gold production amounted to some 3.4 tons. Salt extraction from salt beds in the Afar Depression, as well as from salt springs in Dire and Afder districts in the south, is only of internal importance and only a negligible amount is exported.
On 30 August 2012 it was announced that British firm Nyota Minerals was about to become the first foreign company to receive a mining licence to extract gold from an estimated resource of 52 tonnes in western Ethiopia.
Waterpower and forests are Ethiopia's main energy sources. The country derives about 90 percent of its electricity needs from hydropower, which means that electricity generation, as with agriculture, is dependent on abundant rainfall. Present installed capacity is rated at about 2000 megawatts, with planned expansion to 10,000 megawatts. In general, Ethiopians rely on forests for nearly all of their energy and construction needs; the result has been deforestation of much of the highlands during the last three decades.
Less than one-half of Ethiopia's towns and cities are connected to the national grid. Petroleum requirements are met via imports of refined products, although some oil is being hauled overland from Sudan. Oil exploration in Ethiopia has been underway for decades, ever since Emperor Haile Selassie granted a 50-year concession to SOCONY-Vacuum in September 1945.
Recent oil and gas discoveries across East Africa have seen the region emerge as a new player in the global oil and gas industry. As exciting as the huge gas fields of East Africa are, however, the strong decline in oil prices and expectations for an L-shaped recovery with low prices over the coming years are increasingly challenging the economic viability of the industry in this region. The reserves are estimated at , while exploration for gas and oil is underway in the Gambela Region bordering Sudan.
The discoveries were expected to drive billions of dollars in annual investment to the region over the next decade. According to BMI estimates, the findings in the last few years are more than that of any other region in the world, and the discoveries are expected to continue for the next few years. However, falling global oil prices are threatening the commercial viability of many of these gas prospects.
A program to privatize state-owned enterprises has been underway since the late 1990s. There has been a large growth of manufacturing in Ethiopia. Several industrial parks have been built with a focus on textiles.
Prior to the outbreak of the 1998–2000 Eritrean–Ethiopian War, landlocked Ethiopia mainly relied on the seaports of Asseb and Massawa in Eritrea for international trade. , Ethiopia uses the ports of Djibouti, connected to Addis Ababa by the Addis Ababa – Djibouti Railway, and to a lesser extent Port Sudan in Sudan. In May 2005, the Ethiopian government began negotiations to use the port of Berbera in Somaliland.
As of 2016, there are all-weather roads.
Ethiopian Airlines, is Africa's largest and most profitable airline. It serves 123 destinations and has a fleet size of over 100 aircraft.
The Ethiopian railway network has been rapidly expanding. In 2015, the first light rail in Africa was opening in Addis Ababa. In 2017, the electric Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway began operations. Presently, two other electric railways are under construction: Awash-Woldiya and Woldiya-Mekelle.
Telecommunications are provided by a state-owned monopoly, Ethio Telecom, formerly the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation.
Aside from wholesale and retail trade, transportation, and communications, the services sector consists almost entirely of tourism. Developed in the 1960s, tourism declined greatly during the later 1970s and the 1980s under the military government. Recovery began in the 1990s, but growth has been constrained by the lack of suitable hotels and other infrastructure, despite a boom in construction of small and medium-sized hotels and restaurants, and by the impact of drought, the 1998–2000 war with Eritrea, and the specter of terrorism. In 2002 more than 156,000 tourists entered the country, many of them Ethiopians visiting from abroad, spending more than US$77 million. In 2008, the number of tourists entering the country had increased to 330,000.
The following table displays the trend of Ethiopia's gross domestic product at market prices, according to estimates by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of Ethiopian Birr.
The current GDP (USD) per capita of Ethiopia shrank by 43% in the 1990s. The economy saw continuous real GDP growth of at least 5% since 2004.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017. Inflation below 5% is in green.
Until 2013, the major agricultural export crop was coffee, providing about 26.4% of Ethiopia's foreign exchange earnings. In the beginning of 2014, oilseeds exports have been more important. Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy. More than 15 million people (25% of the population) derive their livelihood from the coffee sector.
Other exports include live animals, leather and leather products, chemicals, gold, pulses, oilseeds, flowers, fruits and vegetables and khat (or "qat"), a leafy shrub which has psychotropic qualities when chewed. Cross-border trade by pastoralists is often informal and beyond state control and regulation. In East Africa, over 95% of cross-border trade is through unofficial channels and the unofficial trade of live cattle, camels, sheep and goats from Ethiopia sold to Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti generates an estimated total value of between US$250 and US$300 million annually (100 times more than the official figure). This trade helps lower food prices, increase food security, relieve border tensions and promote regional integration. However, there are also risks as the unregulated and undocumented nature of this trade runs risks, such as allowing disease to spread more easily across national borders. Furthermore, the government of Ethiopia is purportedly unhappy with lost tax revenue and foreign exchange revenues. Recent initiatives have sought to document and regulate this trade.
Dependent on a few vulnerable crops for its foreign exchange earnings and reliant on imported oil, Ethiopia lacks sufficient foreign exchange. The financially conservative government has taken measures to solve this problem, including stringent import controls and sharply reduced subsidies on retail gasoline prices. Nevertheless, the largely subsistence economy is incapable of supporting high military expenditures, drought relief, an ambitious development plan, and indispensable imports such as oil; it therefore depends on foreign assistance.
In December 1999, Ethiopia signed a $1.4 billion joint venture deal with the Malaysian oil company, Petronas, to develop a huge natural gas field in the Somali Region. By the year 2010, however, implementation failed to progress and Petronas sold its share to another oil company. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9402 |
Telecommunications in Ethiopia
Telecommunications in Ethiopia is a monopoly in the control of Ethio telecom, formerly the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC). As of 2012, 20.524 million cellular phones and 797,500 main line phones were in use.
The telephone system in Ethiopia consists of open wire and microwave radio relay systems adequate for government use. Domestic systems are open wire; microwave radio relay; radio communication in the high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra high frequency; two domestic satellites provide the national trunk service. International systems are open wire to Djibouti and Sudan; microwave radio relay to Djibouti and Kenya; and satellite earth stations are 3 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean and 2 Pacific Ocean).
The Ethiopian dial plan changed on 17 September 2005. City codes ("i.e.", internal prefixes) changed from two digits to three (or, from outside Ethiopia, one digit to two). Phone numbers changed from six digits to seven.
In 2007, there were 89 internet hosts. There were 447,300 internet users in 2009. In 2010, just 0.75 percent of the population were using the Internet, one of the lowest rates in the world.The internet domain in Ethiopia is .et.
The first telegraph line in Ethiopia was constructed in the years 1897–1899 between the cities of Harar and the capital Addis Ababa. This was extended in 1904 by a line that ran from Addis Ababa through Tigray into Eritrea and to Massawa; and the next year by a line again from Addis Ababa to Gore in the province of Illubabor and Jimma in Kaffa.
The first telephones were brought by Ras Makonnen from Italy in 1890, and connected between the Palace and the Imperial treasury; the sound of disembodied voices frightened the local priests, who thought it was the work of demons. The Emperor Menelik II responded to their protests with disdain, and later used the telephone to give orders to his provincial governors. Emperor Haile Selassie had begun the process of introducing radio transmitters to the country for civilian and military use in the years before the Italian invasion.
According to the ETC, the average rural inhabitant of Ethiopia has to walk 30 kilometers to the nearest phone. The ETC announced 7 September 2006 a program to improve national coverage, and reduce the average distance to 5 kilometers.
Since 2008 CDMA2000 and WCDMA is available in certain areas.
Since 26 September 2017, it is not possible to buy and use Ethio telecom SIM cards in mobile devices that haven’t been purchased in Ethiopia or registered with the authorities. Local advice suggests travellers should register their phone in the customs arrival hall at Bole Airport on arrival if they intend to use a local SIM card. For travellers, local prepaid SIMs are available at small shops, Ethio telecom kiosks and hotels. Satellite phones may require letter of permission from the ETC prior to bringing such phones through customs.
Use of voice over IP services such as Skype and Google Talk was prohibited by telecommunications legislation in 2002. Personal use of these services was legalised by the Proclamation on Telecom Fraud Offences of 2012.
Since the changes and upgrade of equipment in the mid-2000 the telecommunication network is frequently out of work or overloaded, callers using both the landlines and mobile network are unable to connect, the situation is made worse by inclement weather. The ETC has not addressed this issue publicly nor admitted that the coverage and service is below par.
Ethio telecom has launched the Fourth Generation (4G) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) service on March 21, 2015 in line with the help of the Chinese company HUAWEI.
Ethio telecom Corporate Compunction Officer, Abdurahim Mohammed, stated that the rural telecom access within 5 km radius service has currently reached 96 per cent. As part of the efforts to expand its service and improve network quality, Ethio telecom had built 725 stations in Addis Ababa alone during the past 20 years. Damages on fiber optic cables and power interruptions are among the challenges the service provider faced in its expansion and network quality improvement efforts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9403 |
Transport in Ethiopia
Transport in Ethiopia is overseen by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Over the last years, the Ethiopian federal authorities have significantly increased funding for rail and road construction to build an infrastructure, that allows better economic development.
Ethiopia is building a standard gauge railway network, the National Railway Network of Ethiopia, planned to consist of up to 5,000 km of railways in a number of years. The railway network serves a strategic goal to allow Ethiopia a sustainable and stable economic development. The railway network's primary purpose is then both to connect landlocked Ethiopia to the world market by ensuring a seamless access to one or several sea ports for trade and for transporting most imports and exports. The rail transport of goods appears favorable – if compared to road transport – in terms of volume, costs, safety and speed of transportation for both imports and exports. The primary port for Ethiopia is the Port of Djibouti in Djibouti. More than 95% of Ethiopia's trade passes through Djibouti.
The port of Djibouti is served by one international railway, the electrified standard gauge 756 km long Addis Ababa – Djibouti Railway (of which 656 km run in Ethiopia). This railway has officially been opened in October 2016 but it is in trial service with no regular traffic in 2017. Once operational by the end of 2017 or in 2018, it will allow passenger transport and a travel time from Addis Ababa to Djibouti City in less than twelve hours with a designated speed of 120 km/hour.
Another railway, the Awash – Hara Gebeya Railway will go into trial service over its first 270 km in 2018. This second railway links Addis Ababa and the Addis Ababa – Djibouti Railway with the north of Ethiopia. Once operational over its first 270 km, possibly 2018 or 2019, it will allow both freight and passenger transport. A train ride from Addis Ababa to the twin cities of Kombolcha and Dessie will be possible in around six hours with a designated speed of 120 km/hour.
Road projects now represent around a quarter of the annual infrastructure budget of the Ethiopian federal government. Additionally, through the Road Sector Development Program (RSDP), the government has earmarked $4 billion to construct, repair and upgrade roads over the next decade.
As the first part of a 10-year Road Sector Development Program, between 1997 and 2002 the Ethiopian government began a sustained effort to improve its infrastructure of roads. As a result, as of 2002 Ethiopia has a total (federal and regional) 33,297 km of roads, both paved and gravel. The share of federally managed roads in good quality improved from 14% in 1995 to 31% in 2002 as a result of this program, and to 89% in 2009 the road density increased from 21 km per 1000 km2 (in 1995) to 889 km; per 1000 km2 (in 2009) however, this is much greater than the average of 50 km per 1000 km2 for Africa.
The Ethiopian government had begun the second part of the Road Sector Development Program, which was completed in 2007. This had involved the upgrading or construction of over 7,500 km of roads, with the goal of improving the average road density for Ethiopia to 35 km per 1000 km2, and reduce the proportion of the country area that is more than 5 km from an all-weather road from 75% to 70%.
According to the Government of Ethiopia, it has spent over 600 billion birr (USD $50 billion, €30 billion) on infrastructure since 1990.
Major roads include:
No 1: north east from Addis Ababa 853 km via Adama and Awash to Bure on Eritrean border
No 2: north from Addis Ababa 1071 km via Dessie, Mek'ele and Adigrat to Axum
No 3: north west from Addis Ababa across the Blue Nile at Dejen and again at Bahir Dar east around Lake Tana 737 km to Gondar. Designated part of the Cairo-Cape Town Trans-African Highway 4 (TAH 4)
No 4: west from Addis Ababa 445 km via Nekemte to Gimbi
No 5: west from Addis Ababa 510 km via Jimma to Metu
No 6: south west from Jimma 216 km to Mizan Teferi
No 7: south from Mojo 432 km via Shashamane and Sodo to Arba Minch. Part of road between Mojo and Shashamane is designated part of the Cairo-Cape Town Trans-African Highway 4 (TAH 4)
No 8: south from Shashamane 214 km via Awasa to Hagere Mariam. Designated part of the Cairo-Cape Town Trans-African Highway 4 (TAH 4)
No 9: south from Adama 77 km to Asella
No 10: east from Awash 572 km via Harar and Jijiga to Degehabur
The Addis Ababa–Adama Expressway was completed in 2014 as the first expressway in Ethiopia. In December 2015, construction began on a second expressway between Awasa and Mojo, where it will connect to the existing expressway.
In addition, the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) has undertaken a three year project to upgrade over 370 km of roads in the country. Contracts have been signed with the Ethiopian Defense Construction, China Railway Engineering, Eney Construction, China Wuyi, Yotek Construction and FAL General Contractor.
It is said that Ethiopia has the highest rates of traffic fatalities per vehicle in the world. This is due to many factors. For example, the roads are poorly maintained, lightened and marked; which are major factors in road accidents. Another major factor is the people themselves, who ignore the rules of the road. Their disregard of road safety puts every other driver at risk. Due to this, foreigners are advised to keep a safe distance from the car in front of them because the driving is unpredictable; anything can happen in the blink of an eye. Even the surroundings involving transport can be incredibly dangerous. For example, there are instances when carjackings and robberies occur on highways or streets that are away from the public eye. Due to this, people are forced to be highly alert of their surroundings, such as checking to make sure no one is lurking around their vehicle before entering and avoiding nighttime travel.
Ethiopia is landlocked and was by agreement with Eritrea using the ports of Asseb and Massawa until 1997; since the Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Ethiopia has used the port of Djibouti for nearly all of its imports. Ethiopia increasingly relies on inland dry ports for distributing cargo, after cargo arrived from Djibouti. The main Ethiopian dry port is Modjo dry port.
Only one river, the Baro is used for transport.
"Total:"
9 ships (with a volume of or over) / (2003 est.)
"ships by type:"
cargo ship 7; container ship 1; petroleum tanker 1; roll-on/roll-off ship 3 (1999 est.), 1 (2003 est.)
There were an estimated 84 airports in 2005, only 14 of which had paved runways as of 2005. The Addis Ababa Airport handles international jet transportation. It is the main hub of Ethiopian Airlines, the national airline that serves destinations in Ethiopia and throughout the African continent, as well as nonstop service to Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The airport is also the base of the Ethiopian Aviation Academy. As of June 2018, nearly 450 flights per day were departing from and arriving at the airport. In 2018, about 12 million passengers were carried on domestic and international flights.
"total:"
14
"over 3,047 m:"
3
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
5
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
5
"914 to 1,523 m:"
1 (2003 est.)
"total:"
68
"over 3,047 m:"
3
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
2
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
13
"914 to 1,523 m:"
27
"under 914 m:"
23 (2003 est.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9404 |
Ethiopian National Defense Force
The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) is the military of Ethiopia. Civil direction of the military is carried out through the Ministry of Defense, which oversees the ground forces, air force, as well as the Defense Industry Sector. The current minister of defense is Lemma Megersa.
The size of the ENDF has fluctuated significantly since the end of the Ethiopia-Eritrea war in 2000. In 2002 the Ethiopian Defense Forces had a strength of approximately 400,000 troops. This was roughly the same number maintained during the Derg regime that fell to the rebel forces in 1991. However, that number was later reduced, and in January 2007, during the War in Somalia, Ethiopian forces were said to comprise about 300,000 troops. In 2012, the IISS estimated that the ground forces had 135,000 personnel and the air force 3,000.
As of 2012, the ENDF consists of two separate branches: the Ground Forces and the Ethiopian Air Force. Ethiopia has several defense industrial organisations that produce and overhaul different weapons systems. Most of these were built under the Derg regime which planned a large military industrial complex. The ENDF relies on voluntary military service of people above 18 years of age. Although there is no compulsory military service, armed forces may conduct call-ups when necessary and compliance is compulsory.
Being a landlocked country, Ethiopia today has no navy. Ethiopia reacquired a coastline on the Red Sea in 1950 and created the Ethiopian Navy in 1955. Eritrea's independence in 1991 left Ethiopia landlocked again, but the Ethiopian Navy continued to operate from foreign ports until it finally was disbanded in 1996.
The Ethiopian army's origins and military traditions date back to the earliest history of Ethiopia. Due to Ethiopia's location between the Middle East and Africa, it has long been in the middle of Eastern and Western politics, and has been subject to foreign invasion and aggression. In 1579, the Ottoman Empire's attempt to expand from a coastal base at Massawa was defeated. The Army of the Ethiopian Empire was also able to defeat the Egyptians in 1876 at Gura, led by Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV. Clapham wrote in the 1980s that the "Abyssinians [had suffered] from a 'superiority complex' which may be traced to Gundet, Gura and Adwa".
In accordance with the order of the emperor of Ethiopia, Directly Nikolay Leontiev organized the first battalion of the regular Ethiopian army in February 1899. Leontiev formed the first regular battalion, the kernel of which became the company of volunteers from the former Senegal shooters, which he chose and invited from Western Africa, with training of the Russian and French officers. The first Ethiopian military orchestra was organized at the same time.
The Battle of Adowa is the best known victory of Ethiopian forces over invaders. It maintained Ethiopia's existence as an independent state. Fought on 1 March 1896 against the Kingdom of Italy near the town of Adwa, it was the decisive battle of the First Italo–Ethiopian War. Assisted by all of the major nobles of Ethiopia including, Alula Abanega, Negus, Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, Sebhat Aregawi, Ras Makonnen, Ras Mengesha Yohannes, and Ras Mikael of Wollo, Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia struck a powerful blow against the Italians.
The Ethiopian army had been able to execute the strategic plan of Menelik's headquarters, despite a feudal system of organization and adverse circumstances. A special role was played by the Russian military advisers and the volunteers of Leontiev's mission.
The first problem was the quality of its arms, as the Italian and British colonial authorities were able to sabotage the transportation of 60,000 to 100,000 modern Berdan rifles from Russia into landlocked Ethiopia.
Secondly, the Ethiopian army was based on a feudal system of organization, and as a result, nearly the entire army was a peasant militia. Russian military experts advising Menelik II suggested trying to achieve full battle collision with Italians, to neutralize the superior firepower of their opponent and potentially nullify their problems with arms, training, and organization, rather than engaging in a campaign of harassment. In the battle that ensued wave upon wave of Menelik's warriors successfully attacked the Italians.
After the successful colonial capture of the Sudan, Kenya and Uganda, the British expansion against Ethiopia became a real danger, which diminished only after the start of the Second Boer War in 1899. The Ethiopian army became more effective against British colonial forces. The numerous expeditions of Ethiopian forces stopped colonial expansion. As the Russian Alexander Bulatovich, one of the Russian military advisers and a participant in the expedition of the legendary army of Ras Wolde Giyorgis, wrote:
"Many consider the Abyssinian army to be undisciplined. They think that it is not in any condition to withstand a serious fight with a well-organized European army, claiming that the recent war with Italy doesn't prove anything. I will not begin to guess the future, and will say only this. Over the course of four months, I watched this army closely. It is unique in the world. And I can bear witness to the fact that it is not quite so chaotic as it seems at first glance, and that on the contrary, it is profoundly disciplined, though in its own unique way. For every Abyssinian, war is normal business, and military skills and rules of army life in the field enter in the flesh and blood of each of them, just as do the main principles of tactics. On the march, each soldier knows how to arrange necessary comforts for himself and to conserve his strength; but on the other hand, when necessary, he shows such endurance and is capable of action in conditions which are difficult even to imagine.
You see remarkable expediency in all the actions and skills of this army; and each soldier has an amazingly intelligent attitude toward managing the mission of the battle.
Despite such qualities, because of its impetuousness, it is much more difficult to control this army than a well-drilled European army, and I can only marvel at and admire the skill of its leaders and chiefs, of which there is no shortage."
In obedience to the agreement with Russia and the order of Menelik II, First Ethiopian officers began to be trained at the First Russian cadet school in 1901. 30 to 40 Ethiopian officers were trained in Russia from 1901 until 1913.
Modernization of the army took place under the regency of Tafari Mekonnen, who later reigned as Emperor Haile Selassie I. He created an Imperial Bodyguard, the "Kebur Zabagna", in 1917 from the earlier "Mahal Safari" who had traditionally attended the Ethiopian Emperor. Its elite were trained at the French military academy at Saint-Cyr or by Belgian military advisers. He also created his own military school at Holeta in January 1935.
Ethiopian military aviation efforts were initiated in 1929, when Tafari Mekonnen hired two French pilots and purchased four French biplanes. By the time of the Italian invasion of 1935, the air force had four pilots and thirteen aircraft.
However, these efforts were not sufficient nor instituted in enough time to stop the rising tide of Italian fascism. Ethiopia lost its independence in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia of 1935-36, marked for the first time Ethiopia was colonized by a foreign power. The country regained its independence after the 1941 East African Campaign of World War II with the intervention of British and British imperial forces. After the Italians had been driven from the country, a British Military Mission to Ethiopia (BMME), under Major General Stephen Butler, was established to reorganise the Ethiopian Army. The Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1944 removed the BMME from the jurisdiction of East Africa Command at Nairobi and made it responsible to the Ethiopian Minister of War.
Ethiopia bought twenty AH-IV tankettes from Sweden in the late 1940s. They arrived in Djibouti on 9 May 1950 after which they were carried by rail to Addis Ababa. They were used until the 1980s when they participated in the fighting against Somalia.
In keeping with the principle of collective security, for which Haile Selassie was an outspoken proponent, Ethiopia sent a contingent under General Mulugeta Buli, known as the Kagnew Battalion, to take part in the Korean War. It was attached to the American 7th Infantry Division, and fought in a number of engagements including the Battle of Pork Chop Hill. 3,518 Ethiopian troops served in the war, of which 121 were killed and 536 wounded.
On May 22, 1953, a U.S.-Ethiopian Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement was signed. A U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group was dispatched to Ethiopia, and began its work by reorganising the army into three divisions. On 25 September 1953, Selassie created the Imperial Ministry of National Defense that unified the Army, Air Force, and Navy. By 1956, the First Division had its headquarters at Addis Ababa (First, Second, Third Brigades, 5,300 strong); the Second Division was headquartered at Asmara, with the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Twelfth Brigades (4,500 strong); and Third Division Harar (with the Fourth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Brigades, 6,890 strong) respectively. The three divisions had a total of 16,832 troops. In May 1959, the Emperor established the Imperial Territorial Army as a reserve force that provided military training to civil servants.
In 1960 the U.S. Army Area Handbook for Ethiopia described the very personalised command arrangements then used by the Emperor:
The Emperor is by constitutional provision Commander-in-Chief, and to him are reserved all rights respecting the size of the forces and their organisation and command, together with the power to appoint, promote, transfer and dismiss military officers. He seeks the advice and consent of Parliament in declaring war. Traditionally, he assumes personal command of the forces in time of war.'
The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Ethiopian Armed Forces directed the Commanders of the Army, Air Force, and Navy, and the three army divisions were directly responsible to the Commander of the Army. The three divisions seemingly included the Third Division in the Ogaden, seen as a hardship post. While technically the Imperial Bodyguard (Kebur Zabagna) was responsible to the Army Commander, in reality its commander received his orders directly from the Emperor.
"Balambaras" Abebe Aregai was one of the noted patriotic resistance leaders of Shoa (central Ethiopia) that rose to preeminence in the post-liberation period. He became "Ras," a general and minister of defense of the Imperial Ethiopian Armed Forces until his death in the 1960 Ethiopian coup attempt.
Ethiopia contributed troops for the United Nations operation in the Congo – the United Nations Operation in the Congo - from July 1960. By 20 July 1960, 3,500 troops for ONUC had arrived in the Congo. The 3,500 consisted of 460 troops from Ethiopia (later to grow into the Tekil Brigade) as well as troops from Ghana, Morocco and Tunisia. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie raised some 3,000 Imperial Bodyguard personnel- about 10 percent of the Ethiopian army’s entire strength at that time-and made it part of the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo, along with an air force squadron. This volunteer battalion from the Imperial Bodyguard were authorized by the Emperor. The Tekil (or “Tekel”) Brigade was stationed in Stanleyville.
Aman Mikael Andom commanded the Third Division during the Ogaden War of 1964. He later became chief of staff of the Armed Forces in July 1974, and then Minister of Defense. He then became chairman of the Derg from September to December 1974.
Emperor Haile Selassie divided the Ethiopian military into separate commands. The US Army Handbook for Ethiopia notes that each service was provided with training and equipped from different foreign countries "to assure reliability and retention of power." The military consisted of the following: Imperial Bodyguard (also known as the "First Division", 8,000 men); three army divisions; services which included the Airborne, Engineers, and Signal Corps; the Territorial Army (5,000 men); and the police (28,000 men).
Among reported U.S. equipment deliveries to Ethiopia were 120 M59 and 39 M75 armoured personnel carriers.
The Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, or the Derg (Amharic "Committee"), was officially announced 28 June 1974 by a group of military officers to maintain law and order due to the powerlessness of the civilian government following widespread mutiny in the armed forces of Ethiopia earlier that year. Its members were not directly involved in those mutinies, nor was this the first military committee organized to support the administration of Prime Minister Endelkachew Makonnen: Alem Zewde Tessema had established the Armed Forces Coordinated Committee on 23 March. However, over the following months radicals in the Ethiopian military came to believe he was acting on behalf of the hated aristocracy, and when a group of notables petitioned for the release of a number of government ministers and officials who were under arrest for corruption and other crimes, three days later the Derg was announced.
The Derg, which originally consisted of soldiers at the capital, broadened its membership by including representatives from the 40 units of the Ethiopian Army, Air Force, Navy, Kebur Zabagna (Imperial Guard), Territorial Army and Police: each unit was expected to send three representatives, who were supposed to be privates, NCOs and junior officers up to the rank of major. According to Bahru Zewde, "senior officers were deemed too compromised by close association to the regime."
The committee elected Major Mengistu Haile Mariam as its chairman and Major Atnafu Abate as its vice-chairman. The Derg was initially supposed to study the grievances of various military units, and investigate abuses by senior officers and staff, and to root out corruption in the military. In the months following its founding, the power of the Derg steadily increased. In July 1974 the Derg obtained key concessions from the Emperor, Haile Selassie, which included the power to arrest not only military officers, but government officials at every level. Soon both former Prime Ministers Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold, and Endelkachew Makonnen, along with most of their cabinets, most regional governors, many senior military officers and officials of the Imperial court found themselves imprisoned.
When the Derg gained control of Ethiopia, they lessened their reliance on the West. Instead they began to draw their equipment and their sources for organisational and training methods from the Soviet Union and other Comecon countries, especially Cuba. During this period, Ethiopian forces were often locked in counter-insurgency campaigns against various guerrilla groups. They honed both conventional and guerrilla tactics during campaigns in Eritrea, and by repelling an invasion launched by Somalia in the 1977–1978 Ogaden War.
The Ethiopian army grew considerably under the Derg (1974–1987), and the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia under Mengistu (1987–1991), especially during the latter regime. The Library of Congress estimated forces under arms in 1974 at 41,000. By July 1975 the International Institute for Strategic Studies was listing a mechanised division in addition to three infantry divisions. Ayele writes that in November 1975, the "Nabalbal" ("Flame") force was created, subdivided into battalion-sized units of 400. Each battalion-sized unit was known as a "hayl" (force), and 20 were created within sixteen months. The "Nabalbal" units entered combat in 1977. When Ethiopian intelligence sources discovered Somali planning to seize the Ogaden, militia brigades were also created; first 30, then a total of 61 brigades totalling 143,350 by 1977-78. It appears that there were five regular line divisions active by the time of the 1977 Ogaden War, and the Library of Congress estimated the force size at the time as 53,500. With significant Soviet assistance, after that point the army's size grew rapidly; in 1979 it was estimated at 65,000. The 18th and 19th Mountain Infantry Divisions were then established in 1979-80 originally to seize Nakfa, in the Sahel Mountains, one of the remaining strongholds of the Eritrean insurgents. By the beginning of 1981 recruitment for the 21st and 22nd Mountain Infantry Divisions was underway; soon afterwards, preparations for the large Operation Red Star were stepping up.
In April 1988 the Derg reorganised the army. The restoration of relations with Somalia meant that forces could be transferred from the First Revolutionary Army in the Ogaden, to the Second and Third Revolutionary Armies, the Third (TRA) being responsible for the provinces of Assab, Tigray, Wello, Gondar, and Gojjam. The very small Fourth Revolutionary Army became responsible not only for protecting the border with Kenya, but also those with Somalia and Sudan. In the place of the previous commands, thirteen corps were established instead, distributed amongst the army headquarters. Intensive efforts were made to enlist additional personnel. Total manpower after the reorganisation reached a reported 388,000.
In May 1988 the Derg decided that before it could concentrate on destroying the EPLF, it would have to first eliminate the TPLF. Thus Operation Adwa was devised to seize the main TPLF base at Adi Ramets in Gondar Province. The Third Revolutionary Army's 603rd and 604th Corps were to play the main role, while the 605th Corps secured the rear, in Wello. The TRA's command structure was disrupted when Major General Mulatu Negash, the army commander, was supplanted by the arrival of Mengistu's favorite, Captain Lagesse Asfaw.
Cuba provided a significant influx of military advisors and troops over this period, with the largest escalation during the Ogaden War with Somalia, supported by a Soviet airlift:
Gebru Tareke listed Ethiopian ground forces in 1990 as comprising four revolutionary armies organized as task forces, eleven corps, twenty-four infantry divisions, and four mountain divisions, reinforced by five mechanised divisions, two airborne divisions, and ninety-five brigades, including four mechanised brigades, three artillery brigades, four tank brigades, twelve special commando and paracommando brigades – including the Spartakiad, which became operational in 1987 under the preparation and guidance of North Koreans – seven BM-rocket battalions, and ten brigades of paramilitary forces.
Forces under arms were estimated at 230,000 in early 1991. Mengistu's People's Militia had also grown to about 200,000 members. The mechanized forces of the army comprised 1,200 T-54/55, 100 T-62 tanks, and 1,100 armored personnel carriers (APCs), but readiness was estimated to be only about 30 percent operational, because of the withdrawal of financial support, lack of maintenance expertise and parts from the Soviet Union, Cuba and other nations.
The army commands consisted of the:
To these armies were assigned the operational forces of the army, comprising:
In 1991 Mengistu's government was overcome by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ, former EPLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and other opposition factions. After the defeat of the military government, the provisional government disbanded the former national army and relied on its own guerrilla fighters. In 1993, however, the Tigrayan-led government announced plans to create a multi-ethnic defense force. This process entailed the creation of a new professional army and officer class and the demobilization of many of the irregulars who had fought against the military government. With the collapse of the Soviet Union Ethiopia again turned to the Western powers for alliance and assistance. However, many Tigrayan officers remained in command positions. This transformation was still underway when war with Eritrea broke out in 1998, a development that saw the ranks of the armed forces swell along with defense expenditures.
Although the armed forces have significant battlefield experience, their militia orientation has complicated the transition to a structured, integrated military. Ranks and conventional units were only adopted in 1996. A United States-assisted effort to restructure the armed forces was interrupted by mobilisation for the war with Eritrea.
The former allies EPRDF and PFDJ (former EPLF) led their countries Ethiopia and Eritrea, respectively, into the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 1998. The war was fought over the disputed region of Badme. During the course of the war, some commanders and pilots from the former army and air force were recalled to duty. These officers helped turn the tide decisively against Eritrea in 2000. Following the war's end, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, a body founded by the UN, established that the Badme region had in fact belonged to Eritrea. Although the two countries are now at peace, Ethiopia rejected the results of the international court's decision, and continued to occupy Badme. Most observers agree that Ethiopia's rejection of international law, coupled with the high numbers of soldiers maintained on the border by each side – a debilitatingly high number, particularly for the Eritrean side – means that the two countries are effectively still in conflict.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Ethiopian army began to train with the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) established in Djibouti. Ethiopia allowed the US to station military advisors at Camp Hurso. Part of the training at Camp Hurso has included U.S. Army elements, including 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, training the 12th, 13th and 14th Division Reconnaissance Companies, which from July 2003 were being formed into a new Ethiopian anti-terrorism battalion.
Ethiopian troops helped drive the Islamic Courts Union out of Mogadishu in Somalia. In December 2006, the ENDF entered Somalia to confront the Islamic Courts Union, initially winning the Battle of Baidoa. This led to the seizure of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops and TFG militias, and subsequent heavy fighting there. After the Islamists split into two groups, moderate Islamists led by Sheikh Ahmed signed a UN backed peace deal with the TFG and established a larger government in Mogadishu. Ethiopian troops withdrew as part of the terms of the peace deal. Government forces have been engaged in battle against Ogaden insurgents led by the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
Gabre Heard commanded the forces in Somalia. As of 2014, the Ethiopian troops in Somalia are being integrated into the AMISOM peacekeeping force. According to Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ambassador Dina Mufti, the Ethiopian military's decision to join AMISOM is intended to render the peacekeeping operation more secure. Analysts also suggested that the move was primarily motivated by financial considerations, with the Ethiopian forces' operational costs now slated to be under AMISOM's allowance budget. It is believed that the Ethiopian military's long experience in Somali territory, its equipment such as helicopters, and the potential for closer coordination will help the allied forces advance their territorial gains.
Ethiopia has served in various United Nations and African Union peacekeeping missions. These have included Ivory Coast, on the Burundi border, and in Rwanda.
Two major Ethiopian missions are in Liberia and Darfur. The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1509, of 19 September 2003, to support the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and the peace process, protect United Nations staff, facilities and civilians, support humanitarian and human rights activities; as well as assist in national security reform, including national police training and formation of a new, restructured military. In November 2007, nearly 1,800 Ethiopian troops serving with the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) were presented with UN Peacekeeping medals for their "invaluable contribution to the peace process."
Up to three Ethiopian battalions used to constitute Sector 4 of the UN Mission, covering the southern part of the country.
Many thousands of Ethiopian peacekeepers are involved in the joint African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur, western Sudan. The Security Council authorized a UNAMID force of about 26,000 uniformed personnel.
Ethiopia also provides the entire force for the UN's Abyei mission, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei. An Ethiopian officer commands the force.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated in the Military Balance 2009 that the army comprised 4 Military Regional Commands; (Northern (HQ Mekele.), Western, Central, and Eastern) each acting as corps HQ, there also being a Support Command and a strategic reserve of four divisions and six specialist brigades centred on Addis Ababa.
Each of the four corps comprises a headquarters, an estimated one mechanised division and between 4-6 infantry divisions.
In 2014 the regional commanders were listed by dissident sources as:
The modern ENDF has a wide mix of equipment. Many of its major weapons systems stem from the Communist era and are of Soviet and Eastern bloc design. The United States was Ethiopia's major arms supplier from the end of the Second World War until 1977, when Ethiopia began receiving massive arms shipments from the Soviet Union. These shipments, including armored patrol boats, transport and jet fighter aircraft, helicopters, tanks, trucks, missiles, artillery, and small arms have incurred an unserviced Ethiopian debt to the former Soviet Union estimated at more than $3.5 billion.
Ethiopia made significant purchases of arms from Russia in late 1999 and early 2000 before the May 2000 United Nations arms embargo went into effect. It is likely that much of that equipment suffered battle damage in the war with Eritrea. Thus, raw numbers alone will probably overstate the capacity of the ENDF.
The Military Balance 2012 estimated that about 450 BRDM, BMP, BTR-60, BTR-152, and Type 89 armoured fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers were in service.
A total of 1,270 T-55 - 900 from , +40 from Belarus, +190 from Bulgaria, +50 from , +90 from , and 260 T-54 (200 from the USSR and 60 from East Germany) may have been in service over the years. Up to 150 M113 armoured personnel carriers may have been delivered from the United States.
16 M55 Quad quadruple anti-aircraft machine guns may have been in service from the US. M163 Vulcan self-propelled anti-aircraft guns may have been ordered but never delivered.
Further sources on defense in Ethiopia include "SSR in Ethiopia, A Prerequisite for Democracy". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9405 |
Foreign relations of Ethiopia
Many historians trace modern Ethiopia's foreign policy to the reign of Emperor Tewodros II, whose primary concerns were the security of Ethiopia's traditional borders, obtaining technology from Europe (or modernization), and to a lesser degree Ethiopian rights to the monastery of Dar-es-Sultan in the city of Jerusalem. Tewodros' diplomatic efforts, however, ended disastrously with the British expedition of 1868 which concluded with his death. Despite the efforts of his successor Emperor Yohannes IV to establish a relationship with the United Kingdom, Ethiopia was ignored by the world powers until the opening of the Suez Canal, and more important, the Mahdist War, drew outside attention to her once more.
The same major interests that Tewodros had—the security of Ethiopia's traditional borders and modernization—were once again foremost, as demonstrated by the outcome of the First Italo–Ethiopian War, Ethiopia's admission to the League of Nations (28 September 1923), and the 1935 Second Italo-Abyssinian War. Following the decisive Ethiopian victory at Adwa, Menelik II rapidly negotiated a series of treaties fixing Ethiopia's boundaries—with French Somaliland in March 1897, British Somaliland a few months later in June 1897, with Italian Eritrea in 1900, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1902, British East Africa in 1907, and Italian Somaliland in 1908—which simplified this problem on one level. Although Emperor Haile Selassie agreed to an agreement with the British government to help him restore order to Ethiopia, which benefited him in crushing the Woyane Rebellion, he worked to its eventual termination.
Following World War II, Ethiopia played an active role in regional and global politics. Ethiopia was a charter member of the United Nations and took part in UN operations in Korea in 1951 and the Congo in 1960. Former Emperor Haile Selassie I was also among the founders of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and served as one of a series of rotating OAU chairmen. Although nominally a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, after the 1974 revolution, Ethiopia also moved into a close relationship with the Soviet Union and its allies and supported their international policies and positions until a change of government in 1991.
Today, Ethiopia is a major economic partner of Djibouti and Sudan, although border demarcation negotiations are still ongoing with the Omar Al-Bashir administration. Relations with Somalia have also gradually improved, particularly since the establishment of a new government in Mogadishu. Ethiopia's dealings with Eritrea are extremely tense due to an ongoing border dispute between the two countries.
The Ethiopian government's relations with the U.S. and the West in general have been centered on military and economic cooperation. In addition, Ethiopia maintains diplomatic links with China, Israel, Mexico and India, among other countries. Addis Ababa also serves as the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the African Union, as well as numerous other continental and international organizations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9406 |
Alpha compositing
In computer graphics, alpha compositing is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate passes or layers and then combine the resulting 2D images into a single, final image called the composite. Compositing is used extensively in film when combining computer-rendered image elements with live footage. Alpha blending is also used in 2D computer graphics to put rasterized foreground elements over a background.
In order to combine the picture elements of the images correctly, it is necessary to keep an associated "matte" for each element in addition to its color. This matte layer contains the coverage information—the shape of the geometry being drawn—making it possible to distinguish between parts of the image where something was drawn and parts that are empty.
Although the most basic operation of combining two images is to put one over the other, there are many operations, or blend modes, that are used.
To store matte information, the concept of an alpha channel was introduced by Alvy Ray Smith in the late 1970s and fully developed in a 1984 paper by Thomas Porter and Tom Duff. In a 2D picture element (pixel), which stores a color for each pixel, additional data is stored in the alpha channel with a value ranging from 0 to 1. A value of 0 means that the pixel is transparent and does not provide any coverage information; i.e. there is no occlusion at the image pixel window because the geometry did not overlap this pixel. A value of 1 means that the pixel is fully occluding because the geometry completely overlaps the pixel window.
If an alpha channel is used in an image, there are two common representations that are available: straight (unassociated) alpha, and premultiplied (associated) alpha.
With straight alpha, the RGB components represent the color of the object or pixel, disregarding its opacity.
With premultiplied alpha, the RGB components represent the emission of the object or pixel, and the alpha represents the occlusion. A more obvious advantage of this is that, in certain situations, it can save a subsequent multiplication (e.g. if the image is used many times during later compositing). However, the most significant advantages of using premultiplied alpha are for correctness and simplicity rather than performance: premultiplied alpha allows correct filtering and blending. In addition, premultiplied alpha allows regions of regular alpha blending and regions with additive blending mode to be encoded within the same image, because channel values are usually stored in a fixed-point format which bounds the values to be between 0 and 1.
Assuming that the pixel color is expressed using "straight" (non-premultiplied) RGBA tuples, a pixel value of (0, 0.7, 0, 0.5) implies a pixel that has 70% of the maximum green intensity and 50% opacity. If the color were fully green, its RGBA would be (0, 1, 0, 0.5).
However, if this pixel uses premultiplied alpha, all of the RGB values (0, 0.7, 0) are multiplied, or scaled for occlusion, by the alpha value 0.5, which is appended to yield (0, 0.35, 0, 0.5). In this case, the 0.35 value for the G channel actually indicates 70% green emission intensity (with 50% occlusion). A pure green emission would be encoded as (0, 0.5, 0, 0.5). Knowing whether a file uses straight or premultiplied alpha is essential to correctly process or composite it, as a different calculation is required. It is also entirely acceptable to have an RGBA triplet express emission with no occlusion, such as (0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.0). Fires and flames, glows, flares, and other such phenomena can only be represented using associated / premultiplied alpha.
The only important difference is in the dynamic range of the colour representation in finite precision numerical calculations (which is in all applications): premultiplied alpha has a unique representation for transparent pixels, avoiding the need to choose a "clear color" or resultant artifacts such as edge fringes (see the next paragraphs). In an associated / premultiplied alpha image, the RGB represents the emission amount, while the alpha is occlusion. Premultiplied alpha has some practical advantages over normal alpha blending because interpolation and filtering give correct results.
Ordinary interpolation without premultiplied alpha leads to RGB information leaking out of fully transparent (A=0) regions, even though this RGB information is ideally invisible. When interpolating or filtering images with abrupt borders between transparent and opaque regions, this can result in borders of colors that were not visible in the original image. Errors also occur in areas of semitransparency because the RGB components are not correctly weighted, giving incorrectly high weighting to the color of the more transparent (lower alpha) pixels.
Premultiplication can reduce the available relative precision in the RGB values when using integer or fixed-point representation for the color components, which may cause a noticeable loss of quality if the color information is later brightened or if the alpha channel is removed. In practice, this is not usually noticeable because during typical composition operations, such as OVER, the influence of the low-precision colour information in low-alpha areas on the final output image (after composition) is correspondingly reduced. This loss of precision also makes premultiplied images easier to compress using certain compression schemes, as they do not record the color variations hidden inside transparent regions, and can allocate fewer bits to encode low-alpha areas. The same “limitations” of lower quantisation bit depths such as 8 bit per channel are also present in imagery without alpha, and this argument is problematic as a result.
With the existence of an alpha channel, it is possible to express compositing image operations using a "compositing algebra". For example, given two image elements A and B, the most common compositing operation is to combine the images such that A appears in the foreground and B appears in the background. This can be expressed as A over B. In addition to over, Porter and Duff defined the compositing operators in, held out by (usually abbreviated out), atop, and xor (and the reverse operators rover, rin, rout, and ratop) from a consideration of choices in blending the colors of two pixels when their coverage is, conceptually, overlaid orthogonally:
The over operator is, in effect, the normal painting operation (see Painter's algorithm). The in operator is the alpha compositing equivalent of clipping.
As an example, the over operator can be accomplished by applying the following formula to each pixel value:
where formula_2 is the result of the operation, formula_3 is the color of the pixel in element A, formula_4 is the color of the pixel in element B, and formula_5 and formula_6 are the alpha of the pixels in elements A and B respectively. If it is assumed that all color values are premultiplied by their alpha values (formula_7), we can rewrite the equation for output color as:
and resulting alpha channel value is
Examples of red overlaid with green, with both colours fully opaque:
Porter and Duff gave a geometric interpretation of the alpha compositing formula by studying orthogonal coverages. Another derivation of the formula, based on a physical reflectance/transmittance model, can be found in a 1981 paper by Bruce A. Wallace.
A third approach is found by starting out with two very simple assumptions. For simplicity, we shall here use the shorthand notation formula_10 for representing the over operator.
The first assumption is that in the case where the background is opaque (i.e. formula_11), the over operator represents the convex combination of formula_12 and formula_13:
The second assumption is that the operator must respect the associative rule:
Now, let us assume that formula_12 and formula_13 have variable transparencies, whereas formula_18 is opaque. We're interested in finding
We know from the associative rule that the following must be true:
We know that formula_18 is opaque and thus follows that formula_22 is opaque, so in the above equation, each formula_23 operator can be written as a convex combination:
Hence we see that this represents an equation of the form formula_25. By setting formula_26 and formula_27 we get
which means that we have analytically derived a formula for the output alpha and the output color of formula_10.
An even more compact representation is given by noticing that formula_30:
The formula_23 operator fulfills all the requirements of a non-commutative monoid, where the identity element formula_33 is chosen such that formula_34 (i.e. the identity element can be any tuple formula_35 with formula_36).
Alpha blending is the process of combining a translucent foreground color with a background color, thereby producing a new color blended between the two. The degree of the foreground color's translucency may range from completely transparent to completely opaque. If the foreground color is completely transparent, the blended color will be the background color. Conversely, if it is completely opaque, the blended color will be the foreground color. The translucency can range between these extremes, in which case the blended color is computed as a weighted average of the foreground and background colors.
Alpha blending is a convex combination of two colors allowing for transparency effects in computer graphics. The value of codice_1 in the color code ranges from 0.0 to 1.0, where 0.0 represents a fully transparent color, and 1.0 represents a fully opaque color. This alpha value also corresponds to the ratio of "SRC over DST" in Porter and Duff equations.
The value of the resulting color is given by:
If the destination background is opaque, then formula_38, and if you enter it to the upper equation:
The alpha component may be used to blend to red, green and blue components equally, as in 32-bit RGBA, or, alternatively, there may be three alpha values specified corresponding to each of the primary colors for spectral color filtering.
If premultiplied alpha is used, the above equations are simplified to:
Although used for similar purposes, transparent colors and image masks do not permit the smooth blending of the superimposed image pixels with those of the background (only whole image pixels or whole background pixels allowed).
A similar effect can be achieved with a 1-bit alpha channel, as found in the 16-bit RGBA Highcolor mode of the Truevision TGA image file format and related TARGA and AT-Vista/NU-Vista display adapters' Highcolor graphic mode. This mode devotes 5 bits for every primary RGB color (15-bit RGB) plus a remaining bit as the "alpha channel".
The RGB values stored in computer images are actually not the real light intensities, but they have been transformed by a gamma correction, in order to optimize the usage of bits when encoding an image.
The gamma correction can be roughly summarised as below:
Then we have the following relation:
Thus, when dealing with computer stored RGB values, alpha blending will look much better (and be more "correct", in a physical sense of additive light) if the gamma correction is unapplied before averaging the images and re-applied afterwards. It is also possible to perform this technique with premultiplied pixels; OpenGL has extensions meant for this operation.
For example, if one wants to superimpose an image named formula_47 with an alpha channel formula_48 onto a background image formula_49, then the resulting image formula_50 can be calculated like this:
Note: formula_52 is the image as it will be stored in the computer memory; and it will be displayed as formula_53 on the computer display. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2049 |
Array data structure
In computer science, an array data structure, or simply an array, is a data structure consisting of a collection of "elements" (values or variables), each identified by at least one "array index" or "key". An array is stored such that the position of each element can be computed from its index tuple by a mathematical formula. The simplest type of data structure is a linear array, also called one-dimensional array.
For example, an array of 10 32-bit (4-byte) integer variables, with indices 0 through 9, may be stored as 10 words at memory addresses 2000, 2004, 2008, ..., 2036, so that the element with index "i" has the address 2000 + ("i" × 4).
The memory address of the first element of an array is called first address, foundation address, or base address.
Because the mathematical concept of a matrix can be represented as a two-dimensional grid, two-dimensional arrays are also sometimes called matrices. In some cases the term "vector" is used in computing to refer to an array, although tuples rather than vectors are the more mathematically correct equivalent. Tables are often implemented in the form of arrays, especially lookup tables; the word "table" is sometimes used as a synonym of "array".
Arrays are among the oldest and most important data structures, and are used by almost every program. They are also used to implement many other data structures, such as lists and strings. They effectively exploit the addressing logic of computers. In most modern computers and many external storage devices, the memory is a one-dimensional array of words, whose indices are their addresses. Processors, especially vector processors, are often optimized for array operations.
Arrays are useful mostly because the element indices can be computed at run time. Among other things, this feature allows a single iterative statement to process arbitrarily many elements of an array. For that reason, the elements of an array data structure are required to have the same size and should use the same data representation. The set of valid index tuples and the addresses of the elements (and hence the element addressing formula) are usually, but not always, fixed while the array is in use.
The term "array" is often used to mean array data type, a kind of data type provided by most high-level programming languages that consists of a collection of values or variables that can be selected by one or more indices computed at run-time. Array types are often implemented by array structures; however, in some languages they may be implemented by hash tables, linked lists, search trees, or other data structures.
The term is also used, especially in the description of algorithms, to mean associative array or "abstract array", a theoretical computer science model (an abstract data type or ADT) intended to capture the essential properties of arrays.
The first digital computers used machine-language programming to set up and access array structures for data tables, vector and matrix computations, and for many other purposes. John von Neumann wrote the first array-sorting program (merge sort) in 1945, during the building of the first stored-program computer.p. 159 Array indexing was originally done by self-modifying code, and later using index registers and indirect addressing. Some mainframes designed in the 1960s, such as the Burroughs B5000 and its successors, used memory segmentation to perform index-bounds checking in hardware.
Assembly languages generally have no special support for arrays, other than what the machine itself provides. The earliest high-level programming languages, including FORTRAN (1957), Lisp (1958), COBOL (1960), and ALGOL 60 (1960), had support for multi-dimensional arrays, and so has C (1972). In C++ (1983), class templates exist for multi-dimensional arrays whose dimension is fixed at runtime as well as for runtime-flexible arrays.
Arrays are used to implement mathematical vectors and matrices, as well as other kinds of rectangular tables. Many databases, small and large, consist of (or include) one-dimensional arrays whose elements are records.
Arrays are used to implement other data structures, such as lists, heaps, hash tables, deques, queues, stacks, strings, and VLists. Array-based implementations of other data structures are frequently simple and space-efficient (implicit data structures), requiring little space overhead, but may have poor space complexity, particularly when modified, compared to tree-based data structures (compare a sorted array to a search tree).
One or more large arrays are sometimes used to emulate in-program dynamic memory allocation, particularly memory pool allocation. Historically, this has sometimes been the only way to allocate "dynamic memory" portably.
Arrays can be used to determine partial or complete control flow in programs, as a compact alternative to (otherwise repetitive) multiple codice_1 statements. They are known in this context as control tables and are used in conjunction with a purpose built interpreter whose control flow is altered according to values contained in the array. The array may contain subroutine pointers (or relative subroutine numbers that can be acted upon by SWITCH statements) that direct the path of the execution.
When data objects are stored in an array, individual objects are selected by an index that is usually a non-negative scalar integer. Indexes are also called subscripts. An index "maps" the array value to a stored object.
There are three ways in which the elements of an array can be indexed:
Using zero based indexing is the design choice of many influential programming languages, including C, Java and Lisp. This leads to simpler implementation where the subscript refers to an offset from the starting position of an array, so the first element has an offset of zero.
Arrays can have multiple dimensions, thus it is not uncommon to access an array using multiple indices. For example, a two-dimensional array codice_2 with three rows and four columns might provide access to the element at the 2nd row and 4th column by the expression codice_3 in the case of a zero-based indexing system. Thus two indices are used for a two-dimensional array, three for a three-dimensional array, and "n" for an "n"-dimensional array.
The number of indices needed to specify an element is called the dimension, dimensionality, or rank of the array.
In standard arrays, each index is restricted to a certain range of consecutive integers (or consecutive values of some enumerated type), and the address of an element is computed by a "linear" formula on the indices.
A one-dimensional array (or single dimension array) is a type of linear array. Accessing its elements involves a single subscript which can either represent a row or column index.
As an example consider the C declaration codice_4 which declares a one-dimensional array of ten integers. Here, the array can store ten elements of type codice_5 . This array has indices starting from zero through nine. For example, the expressions codice_6 and codice_7 are the first and last elements respectively.
For a vector with linear addressing, the element with index "i" is located at the address , where "B" is a fixed "base address" and "c" a fixed constant, sometimes called the "address increment" or "stride".
If the valid element indices begin at 0, the constant "B" is simply the address of the first element of the array. For this reason, the C programming language specifies that array indices always begin at 0; and many programmers will call that element "zeroth" rather than "first".
However, one can choose the index of the first element by an appropriate choice of the base address "B". For example, if the array has five elements, indexed 1 through 5, and the base address "B" is replaced by , then the indices of those same elements will be 31 to 35. If the numbering does not start at 0, the constant "B" may not be the address of any element.
For a multidimensional array, the element with indices "i","j" would have address "B" + "c" · "i" + "d" · "j", where the coefficients "c" and "d" are the "row" and "column address increments", respectively.
More generally, in a "k"-dimensional array, the address of an element with indices "i"1, "i"2, ..., "i""k" is
For example: int a[2][3];
This means that array a has 2 rows and 3 columns, and the array is of integer type. Here we can store 6 elements they will be stored linearly but starting from first row linear then continuing with second row. The above array will be stored as a11, a12, a13, a21, a22, a23.
This formula requires only "k" multiplications and "k" additions, for any array that can fit in memory. Moreover, if any coefficient is a fixed power of 2, the multiplication can be replaced by bit shifting.
The coefficients "c""k" must be chosen so that every valid index tuple maps to the address of a distinct element.
If the minimum legal value for every index is 0, then "B" is the address of the element whose indices are all zero. As in the one-dimensional case, the element indices may be changed by changing the base address "B". Thus, if a two-dimensional array has rows and columns indexed from 1 to 10 and 1 to 20, respectively, then replacing "B" by will cause them to be renumbered from 0 through 9 and 4 through 23, respectively. Taking advantage of this feature, some languages (like FORTRAN 77) specify that array indices begin at 1, as in mathematical tradition while other languages (like Fortran 90, Pascal and Algol) let the user choose the minimum value for each index.
The addressing formula is completely defined by the dimension "d", the base address "B", and the increments "c"1, "c"2, ..., "c""k". It is often useful to pack these parameters into a record called the array's "descriptor" or "stride vector" or "dope vector". The size of each element, and the minimum and maximum values allowed for each index may also be included in the dope vector. The dope vector is a complete handle for the array, and is a convenient way to pass arrays as arguments to procedures. Many useful array slicing operations (such as selecting a sub-array, swapping indices, or reversing the direction of the indices) can be performed very efficiently by manipulating the dope vector.
Often the coefficients are chosen so that the elements occupy a contiguous area of memory. However, that is not necessary. Even if arrays are always created with contiguous elements, some array slicing operations may create non-contiguous sub-arrays from them.
There are two systematic compact layouts for a two-dimensional array. For example, consider the matrix
In the row-major order layout (adopted by C for statically declared arrays), the elements in each row are stored in consecutive positions and all of the elements of a row have a lower address than any of the elements of a consecutive row:
In column-major order (traditionally used by Fortran), the elements in each column are consecutive in memory and all of the elements of a column have a lower address than any of the elements of a consecutive column:
For arrays with three or more indices, "row major order" puts in consecutive positions any two elements whose index tuples differ only by one in the "last" index. "Column major order" is analogous with respect to the "first" index.
In systems which use processor cache or virtual memory, scanning an array is much faster if successive elements are stored in consecutive positions in memory, rather than sparsely scattered. Many algorithms that use multidimensional arrays will scan them in a predictable order. A programmer (or a sophisticated compiler) may use this information to choose between row- or column-major layout for each array. For example, when computing the product "A"·"B" of two matrices, it would be best to have "A" stored in row-major order, and "B" in column-major order.
Static arrays have a size that is fixed when they are created and consequently do not allow elements to be inserted or removed. However, by allocating a new array and copying the contents of the old array to it, it is possible to effectively implement a "dynamic" version of an array; see dynamic array. If this operation is done infrequently, insertions at the end of the array require only amortized constant time.
Some array data structures do not reallocate storage, but do store a count of the number of elements of the array in use, called the count or size. This effectively makes the array a dynamic array with a fixed maximum size or capacity; Pascal strings are examples of this.
More complicated (non-linear) formulas are occasionally used. For a compact two-dimensional triangular array, for instance, the addressing formula is a polynomial of degree 2.
Both "store" and "select" take (deterministic worst case) constant time. Arrays take linear (O("n")) space in the number of elements "n" that they hold.
In an array with element size "k" and on a machine with a cache line size of B bytes, iterating through an array of "n" elements requires the minimum of ceiling("nk"/B) cache misses, because its elements occupy contiguous memory locations. This is roughly a factor of B/"k" better than the number of cache misses needed to access "n" elements at random memory locations. As a consequence, sequential iteration over an array is noticeably faster in practice than iteration over many other data structures, a property called locality of reference (this does "not" mean however, that using a perfect hash or trivial hash within the same (local) array, will not be even faster - and achievable in constant time). Libraries provide low-level optimized facilities for copying ranges of memory (such as memcpy) which can be used to move contiguous blocks of array elements significantly faster than can be achieved through individual element access. The speedup of such optimized routines varies by array element size, architecture, and implementation.
Memory-wise, arrays are compact data structures with no per-element overhead. There may be a per-array overhead (e.g., to store index bounds) but this is language-dependent. It can also happen that elements stored in an array require "less" memory than the same elements stored in individual variables, because several array elements can be stored in a single word; such arrays are often called "packed" arrays. An extreme (but commonly used) case is the bit array, where every bit represents a single element. A single octet can thus hold up to 256 different combinations of up to 8 different conditions, in the most compact form.
Array accesses with statically predictable access patterns are a major source of data parallelism.
Dynamic arrays or growable arrays are similar to arrays but add the ability to insert and delete elements; adding and deleting at the end is particularly efficient. However, they reserve linear (Θ("n")) additional storage, whereas arrays do not reserve additional storage.
Associative arrays provide a mechanism for array-like functionality without huge storage overheads when the index values are sparse. For example, an array that contains values only at indexes 1 and 2 billion may benefit from using such a structure. Specialized associative arrays with integer keys include Patricia tries, Judy arrays, and van Emde Boas trees.
Balanced trees require O(log "n") time for indexed access, but also permit inserting or deleting elements in O(log "n") time, whereas growable arrays require linear (Θ("n")) time to insert or delete elements at an arbitrary position.
Linked lists allow constant time removal and insertion in the middle but take linear time for indexed access. Their memory use is typically worse than arrays, but is still linear.
An Iliffe vector is an alternative to a multidimensional array structure. It uses a one-dimensional array of references to arrays of one dimension less. For two dimensions, in particular, this alternative structure would be a vector of pointers to vectors, one for each row(pointer on c or c++). Thus an element in row "i" and column "j" of an array "A" would be accessed by double indexing ("A"["i"]["j"] in typical notation). This alternative structure allows jagged arrays, where each row may have a different size—or, in general, where the valid range of each index depends on the values of all preceding indices. It also saves one multiplication (by the column address increment) replacing it by a bit shift (to index the vector of row pointers) and one extra memory access (fetching the row address), which may be worthwhile in some architectures.
The dimension of an array is the number of indices needed to select an element. Thus, if the array is seen as a function on a set of possible index combinations, it is the dimension of the space of which its domain is a discrete subset. Thus a one-dimensional array is a list of data, a two-dimensional array a rectangle of data , a three-dimensional array a block of data, etc.
This should not be confused with the dimension of the set of all matrices with a given domain, that is, the number of elements in the array. For example, an array with 5 rows and 4 columns is two-dimensional, but such matrices form a 20-dimensional space. Similarly, a three-dimensional vector can be represented by a one-dimensional array of size three. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2052 |
Advance Australia Fair
"Advance Australia Fair" is the national anthem of Australia. Created by the Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick, the song was first performed in 1878 and sung in Australia as a patriotic song. It replaced "God Save the Queen" as the official national anthem in 1984, following a plebiscite to choose the national song in 1977. Other songs and marches have been influenced by "Advance Australia Fair", such as the Australian vice-regal salute.
"Advance Australia Fair" was published in early December 1878 by Peter Dodds McCormick under the pen-name "Amicus" (which means "friend" in Latin). It was first sung by Andrew Fairfax, accompanied by a concert band conducted by McCormick, at a function of the Highland Society of New South Wales in Sydney on 30 November 1878. The song gained popularity and an amended version was sung by a choir of around 10,000 at the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. In 1907 the Australian Government awarded McCormick £100 for his composition.
In a letter to R.B. Fuller dated 1 August 1913, McCormick described the circumstances that inspired him to write "Advance Australia Fair":
The earliest known sound recording of "Advance Australia Fair" appears in "The Landing of the Australian Troops in Egypt" (circa 1916), a short commercial recording dramatising the arrival of Australian troops in Egypt "en route" to Gallipoli.
Before its adoption as Australia's national anthem, "Advance Australia Fair" had considerable use elsewhere. For example, Australia's national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, used it to announce its news bulletins until 1952. It was also frequently played at the start or end of official functions. Towards the end of World War II it was one of three songs played in certain picture theatres, along with "God Save the King" and the US national anthem.
In 1973 the Whitlam government decided that the country needed an anthem that could represent Australia with "distinction" and started a competition to find one that could replace "God Save the Queen". This decision by Whitlam was driven by the desire to forge a new nationalism separate from the United Kingdom. In January of that year, Gough Whitlam dedicated an entire Australia Day speech to the search for a new anthem, referring to it as a "symbolic expression of our national pride and dignity". The Australia Council for the Arts organised the contest, which was dubbed the "Australian National Anthem Quest". The contest was held in two stages, the first seeking lyrics and the second music, each having an A$5,000 prize for the winning entry. On the recommendation of the Council for the Arts, none of the new entries was felt worthy enough, so the contest ended with suggestions for "Advance Australia Fair", "Waltzing Matilda" and "The Song of Australia".
In 1974 the Whitlam government then performed a nationwide opinion survey to determine the song to be sung on occasions of national significance. Conducted through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it polled 60,000 people nationally. "Advance Australia Fair" was chosen and became enshrined as the national song, to be used on all occasions excepting those of a specifically regal nature. A spokesman for Whitlam stated that the Government regarded the tune primarily as the national anthem. During the 1975 election campaign following the dismissal of Whitlam by Sir John Kerr, David Combe proposed that the song be played at the start of the Labor Party's official campaign launch on 24 November 1975 at Festival Hall, Melbourne. Whitlam's speechwriter Graham Freudenberg rejected this idea because, among other reasons, the status of the anthem at that point was still tentative.
In January 1976 the Fraser government reinstated "God Save the Queen" for royal, vice-regal, defence and loyal toast occasions, and also made plans to conduct a national poll to find a song for use on ceremonial occasions when it was desired to mark a separate Australian identity. This was conducted as a plebiscite to choose the National Song, held as an optional additional question in the 1977 referendum on various issues. "Advance Australia Fair" received 43.29% of the vote, defeating the three alternatives, "Waltzing Matilda" (28.28%), "Song of Australia" (9.65%) and the existing national anthem, "God Save the Queen" (18.78%).
"Advance Australia Fair", with modified lyrics from the original (see development of lyrics), was adopted as the Australian national anthem on 19 April 1984 by a proclamation by the Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen, on a recommendation by the Labor government of Bob Hawke. "God Save the Queen", now known as the royal anthem, continues to be played alongside the Australian national anthem at public engagements in Australia that are attended by the Queen or members of the Royal Family. Even though any copyright of Peter Dodds McCormick's original lyrics has expired, as he died in 1916, the Commonwealth of Australia claims copyright on the official lyrics and particular arrangements of music. Non-commercial use of the anthem is permitted without case-by-case permission, but the Commonwealth government requires permission for commercial use.
The orchestral arrangement of "Advance Australia Fair" that is now regularly played for Australian victories at international sporting medal ceremonies, and at the openings of major domestic sporting, cultural and community events, is by Tommy Tycho, an immigrant from Hungary. It was commissioned by ABC Records in 1984 and then televised by Channel 10 in 1986 in their Australia Day broadcast, featuring Julie Anthony as the soloist.
The lyrics of "Advance Australia Fair" were officially adopted in 1984 as follows:
Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We've golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.
Since the original lyrics were written in 1879, there have been several changes, in some cases with the intent of increasing the anthem's inclusiveness and gender neutrality. Some of these were minor while others have significantly changed the song. The original song was four verses long. For its adoption as the national anthem, the song was cut from four verses to two. The first verse was kept largely as the 1879 original, except for the change in the first line from " let us rejoice" to " let us rejoice". The second, third and fourth verses of the original were dropped, in favour of a modified version of the new third verse which was sung at Federation in 1901.
The original lyrics published in 1879 were as follows:
Australia's sons let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in Nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In hist'ry's page, let ev'ry stage
Advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.
When gallant Cook from Albion sailed,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Til he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
"With all her faults we love her still"
"Britannia rules the wave."
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
While other nations of the globe
Behold us from afar,
We'll rise to high renown and shine
Like our glorious southern star;
From England soil and Fatherland,
Scotia and Erin fair,
Let all combine with heart and hand
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
Should foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore,
To guard our native strand;
Britannia then shall surely know,
Though oceans roll between,
Her sons in fair Australia's land
Still keep their courage green.
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
The 1901 Federation version of the third verse was originally sung as:
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make our youthful Commonwealth,
Renowned of all the lands;
For loyal sons beyond the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair!
The song has been criticised for failing to represent or acknowledge Australia's Indigenous peoples and the country's colonial history. The lyrics have been accused of celebrating British colonisation and perpetuating the concept of terra nullius, with the second line of the anthem ("for we are young and free") criticised in particular for ignoring the long history of Indigenous Australians, who have inhabited Australia for at least 60,000 years.
Australian author and academic Christopher Kelen has argued that the repetition of "fair" in the chorus celebrates the "civilising" mission of European colonists, in the tradition of the "white man's burden" described by Rudyard Kipling. Kelen suggests that the word "fair" – which he takes to mean "beautiful', "just" or "white" – reinforces terra nullius, and that the anthem fails to acknowledge a time before European colonisation and the genocide of much of the Indigenous population.
In recent years, public debate about the anthem has increased. In 2015, Aboriginal Australian soprano Deborah Cheetham declined an invitation to sing the anthem at the 2015 AFL grand final after the AFL turned down her request to replace the words "for we are young and free" with "in peace and harmony". She has advocated for the lyrics be rewritten and endorsed Judith Durham and Kutcha Edwards' alternative version. Boxer Anthony Mundine stated in 2013, 2017 and 2018 that he would not stand for the anthem, prompting organisers not to play it before his fights. In September 2018 a 9-year-old Brisbane girl was disciplined by her school after refusing to stand for the national anthem. Her actions were applauded by some public commentators (e.g. Indigenous elder Sam Watson and musician Shane Howard of Goanna) and criticised by others (e.g. politicians Tony Abbott and Pauline Hanson). In 2019, several National Rugby League football players decided not to sing the anthem before the first match of the State of Origin series and before the Indigenous All-Stars series with New Zealand. In February 2019, NRL coach and celebrated former player Mal Meninga supported the protesting players and called for a referendum on the subject.
Political sentiment is divided. Craig Emerson of the Australian Labor Party has critiqued the anthem, former MP Peter Slipper has said that Australia should consider another anthem, in 2011 former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett suggested "I Am Australian", while former Australian Labor Party leader Kim Beazley defended it. In 2017, the federal government under then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull granted permission for Vickery's lyrics to be sung at certain occasions as a "patriotic song", but said that before making any official change to the anthem, "The Government would need to be convinced of a sufficient groundswell of support in the wider community".
The fourth line of the anthem, "our home is girt by sea", has been criticised for using the so-called archaic word "girt". Additionally, the lyrics and melody of the Australian national anthem have been criticised in some quarters as being dull and unendearing to the Australian people. National Party senator Sandy Macdonald said in 2001 that "Advance Australia Fair" is so boring that the nation risks singing itself to sleep, with boring music and words impossible to understand.
Several alternative versions of "Advance Australia Fair" have been proposed to address the exclusion of Indigenous Australians. Judith Durham of The Seekers and Mutti Mutti musician Kutcha Edwards released their alternative lyrics in 2009, replacing "for we are young and free" with the opening lines "Australians let us stand as one, upon this sacred land".
In 2017 the Recognition in Anthem Project was established and began work on a new version, with lyrics written by poet and former Victorian Supreme Court judge Peter Vickery following consultation with Indigenous communities and others. Vickery's proposed lyrics replaced "we are young and free" with "we are one and free" in the first verse and added two new verses, with the second verse acknowledging Indigenous history, immigration and calls for unity and respect and the third verse adapting lines from the official second verse. It was debuted at the Desert Song Festival in Alice Springs by an Aboriginal choice. Former prime minister Bob Hawke endorsed Peter Vickery's alternative lyrics in 2018.
In 2011, about fifty different Christian schools from different denominations came under criticism for singing a version of the song written by Sri Lankan immigrant Ruth Ponniah in 1988. The song replaced the second verse with lyrics that were explicitly Christian in nature, with the opening lines: "With Christ our head and cornerstone, we'll build our nation's might". Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth Peter Garrett and chief executive of the National Australia Day Council Warren Pearson admonished the schools for modifying the lyrics of the anthem, and the Australian Parents Council and the Federation of Parents and Citizens' Association of NSW called for a ban on the modified song. Stephen O'Doherty, chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, defended the use of the lyrics in response. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2053 |
Automatic number announcement circuit
An automatic number announcement circuit (ANAC) is a component of a central office of a telephone company that provides a service to installation and service technicians to determine the telephone number of a line. The facility has a telephone number that may be called to listen to an automatic announcement that includes the caller's telephone number.
The ANAC number is useful primarily during the installation of landline telephones to quickly identify one of multiple lines.
A technician calls the local telephone number of the automatic number announcement service. This call is connected to equipment at a local central office that uses a voice synthesizer or digital samples to announce the telephone number of the line calling in. The main purpose of this system is to allow telephone company technicians to identify the telephone line they are connected to.
Automatic number announcement systems are based on automatic number identification, and meant for phone company technicians, the ANAC system works with unlisted numbers, numbers with caller ID blocking, and numbers with no outgoing calls allowed. Installers of multi-line business services where outgoing calls from all lines display the company's main number on call display can use ANAC to identify a specific line in the system, even if CID displays every line as "line one".
Some ANACs are very regional or local in scope, while others are state-/province- or area-code-wide: there appears to be no consistent national system for them. Most are provider-specific. Every telephone company, whether large or small, determines its own ANAC for each individual central office, which tends to perpetuate the current situation of a mess of overlapping and/or spotty areas of coverage. No official lists of ANAC numbers are published as telephone companies believe overuse of these numbers could make them more likely to be busy when needed by installers.
Under the North American Numbering Plan, almost all North American area codes reserve telephone numbers beginning with "958" and "959" for internal local and long-distance testing (respectively), sometimes called plant testing. (One exception is Winnipeg, which reserves "959" only). Numbers within this block are used for various test utilities such as a ringback number (to test the ringer when installing telephone sets), milliwatt tone (a number simply answers with a continuous test tone) and a loop around (which connects a call to another inbound call to the same or another test number). ANAC numbers can also appear in the "958" range, but there is no requirement that they reside there.
In some area codes, multiple additional prefixes had been reserved for test purposes, in addition to the standard 958 and 959. Many area codes reserved 999; 320 was also formerly reserved in Bell Canada territory. As widespread inefficiencies in numbering (such as the assignment of entire blocks of 10000 numbers to every competing carrier in every small village to support local number portability schemes) have created shortages of available numbers, these prefixes are often "reclaimed" and issued as standard exchanges, moving the handful of numbers in them to one standard test exchange (usually 958).
Some carriers have been known to disable payphone calls to 958 or 959 test lines, such as Bell Canada's system-wide ANAC line at (area code) 958-2580. Conversely, a standard line on which voice service has been unsubscribed (such as an ADSL dry loop) may still accept calls to the 958 test exchange but not allow calls to standard numbers. This "soft disconnect" condition is intended to allow calls to 9-1-1 emergency services and to the telco business office to order telephone service, but to no other numbers.
Some large telephone companies have toll-free numbers set up. In most cases, these numbers remain undisclosed to prevent abuse, but MCI maintains this widely published, toll-free ANAC: 1-800-437-7950. This is distinct from technical support and other lines which use ANI so that a computer can automatically display the customer's account on a "screen pop" for the next available customer service representative: the MCI number is intended specifically for ANAC use.
Formerly, some companies changed their ANAC number every month for secrecy; this is still the case with a few numbers. In one example of this concern, most payphones in the United States are assigned a telephone number and can ring if the number is called. The phone can then be used to make and receive calls by anyone, making it a potential tool in anonymous criminal activity such as narcotics trafficking. Where a payphone does not have any number listed on the unit, the number can be discovered by calling an ANAC service.
Late in the 20th century, after caller ID and pre-paid cell phone service became commonplace and with these services being more easily exploited for criminal purposes, especially in the case of burner phones, this type of abuse of payphones faded from concern. In Canada, this behaviour has always been more difficult. As a matter of course, incoming calls to payphones are disabled; furthermore, the Bell ANAC number is also disabled (although the telephone number is marked on the payphone itself as it is needed to report a non-working coin phone to 6-1-1 repair service).
There are some private national toll-free numbers that use ANI and then have a computer read back the number that is calling, but these are not intended for use in identifying the customer's own phone number. They are used in order for the agent in the call center to confirm the phone the customer is calling from, so that a computer can automatically display the customer's account on a "screen pop" for the next available customer service representative; they are distinct from purpose-made toll-free ANAC numbers. Regardless, if one were to call one of these numbers, listen for the number confirmation and hang up, they would in effect be using this system as if it were an ANAC.
One such toll-free service is one owned by MCI - 1-800-444-4444. This number (US only) is easy to remember and, when called, will read back the number after a very short message. A suspended (out of service) line or an incoming only line would not be able to reach any toll-free numbers.
These numbers appear on various lists circulated on-line, many from the 1980s and 1990s. Most were published years ago by Phrack, , the alt.2600 Usenet newsgroup (as part of the FAQ) or phone phreaks and are now hopelessly outdated. The information is not reliable, as numbers change often. Many of the listed numbers no longer work.
The list is presented by area code, number and location. In some regions, there are several numbers, depending on the telephone company or the area code of the caller, as there can be several central offices serving some areas.
The North American Numbering Plan reserves 958-XXXX and 1-NPA-959-XXXX for local and long-distance test numbers in almost all USA and Canadian area codes.
Frequently, a prefix outside the 958 or 959 range (such as 200, 997, 998, 999) was also listed as a test exchange, only to be reclaimed and issued as a block of standard numbers at a later date. NANPA's utilised codes report will indicate 'UA' (unassignable) for valid test prefixes; if a formerly 'UA' code newly appears on the available list or becomes an active exchange, any former test numbers from its time as a reserved prefix are presumed invalid and deprecated. N11 prefixes such as 211, 311 and 511 are also disappearing as test numbers as these codes are reassigned to local services such as city, community or highway information.
A few commonly-used 958 or 959 numbers for major incumbent landline carriers:
Numbers otherwise vary arbitrarily by locality:
"Please note that it is always preferable to call the local ANAC; only if the local ANAC number can not be called is it advisable to call a toll-free ANAC number. It is also preferable to call an open ANAC rather than the password-protected one given below."
"The below numbers are not true ANAC numbers; however, they do read back one's phone number. These numbers provide valuable services to the customers they serve; it is, therefore, inadvisable to misuse them."
The current use of exchange prefixes for each area code is listed by CNAC; if an exchange changes from "plant test" to reclaimed or active, any former test numbers with the associated prefix are invalidated. Commonly-used test numbers for major carriers include:
Additional plant test codes may be in use locally in some areas:
Occasionally, a number in an existing, standard local exchange in the area is used. These will incur a toll (and might not work) outside their home area. Some may be announcing caller ID, which is not the same as ANI. As standard local calls, they are not accessible from ADSL "dry loop", inbound-only or unsubscribed lines:
In Bell Canada territory, +1-areacode-320 was formerly reserved for 320-xxxx test numbers; these were moved to the 958-xxxx range and 320-xxxx reclaimed for use as a standard exchange. The use of N11 prefixes (such as 3-1-1) for test numbers is also deprecated as 3-1-1 now often reaches city hall or municipal services while 2-1-1 is local community information.
Some lists erroneously mention 1-555-1313 as ANAC (506 New Brunswick). The purpose of +1-areacode-555-1313, a pay-per-use "name that number" reverse lookup information service introduced in the mid-1990s, differs from ANAC. ANAC announces the caller's own number; the reverse lookup gives the directory name for a listed telephone number input by the user. 555-1313 is one of the rare uses of the 555 exchange for other than the standard 555-1212 directory information line.
This service announces the line number on all Eir lines, including lines where calls are carried by another provider using carrier preselect.
The same number also works for Smart Telecom lines provided by local-loop unbundling.
The number is called out without the leading 0. For example, 021 XXX XXXX is read back as "21 XXX XXXX".
There is also an extended ANAC service for identifying which carrier handles calls. Dialling these numbers will cause the local switch to announce which carrier the calls are being routed through for a specific category of calls.
Subscribers may also dial +64 (8) 320-1231 from overseas to test if the (CPN) Caller ID number is being passed on to New Zealand; this should announce the area code and local number as it appears on call display. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2061 |
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci (, ; 9 March 1454 – 22 February 1512) was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the terms America and Americas are derived.
Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain (14991500) and then for Portugal (15011502). In 1503 and 1505, two booklets were published under his name, containing colourful descriptions of these explorations and other alleged voyages. Both publications were extremely popular and widely read across much of Europe. Although historians still dispute the authorship and veracity of these accounts, at the time they were instrumental in raising awareness of the new discoveries and enhancing the reputation of Vespucci as an explorer and navigator.
Vespucci claimed to have understood, back in 1501 during his Portuguese expedition, that Brazil was part of a different continent, which he called the "New World". The claim inspired cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to recognize Vespucci's accomplishments in 1507 by applying the name America for the first time to his map showing the New World. Other cartographers followed suit and by 1532 the name America was permanently affixed to the newly discovered continents.
It is unknown whether Vespucci was ever aware of these honours. In 1505, he was made a citizen of Castile by royal decree and in 1508, he was appointed to the newly-created position of chief navigator for Spain's "Casa de Contratación" (House of Trade) in Seville, a post he held until his death in 1512.
Vespucci was born on 9 March 1454, in Florence, a medieval and early-modern state centred in Tuscany. It was considered the epitome of a Renaissance city.
He was the third son of Nastagio Vespucci, a Florentine notary for the Money-Changers Guild, and Lisa di Giovanni Mini. The family resided in the District of Santa Lucia d'Ognissanti along with other families of the Vespucci clan. Earlier generations of Vespucci had funded a family chapel in the Ognissanti church, and the nearby Hospital of San Giovanni di Dio was founded by Simone di Piero Vespucci in 1380. Amerigo's immediate family was not especially prosperous but they were politically well-connected. Amerigo's grandfather, also named Amerigo Vespucci, served a total of 36 years as the chancellor of the Florentine government, known as the "Signoria"; and Nastagio also served in the "Signoria" and in other guild offices. More importantly, the Vespuccis had good relations with Lorenzo de' Medici, the powerful de-facto ruler of Florence.
Amerigo's two older brothers, Antonio and Girolamo, were sent to the University of Pisa for their education; Antonio followed his father to become a notary, while Girolamo entered the Church and joined the Knights Templar in Rhodes. Amerigo's career path seemed less certain; instead of following his brothers to the university, he remained in Florence and was tutored by his uncle, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar in the monastery of San Marco. Fortunately for Amerigo, his uncle was one of the most celebrated humanist scholars in Florence at the time and provided him with a broad education in literature, philosophy, rhetoric, and Latin. He was also introduced to geography and astronomy, subjects that played an essential part in his career. Amerigo's later writings demonstrated a familiarity with the work of the classic Greek cosmographers, Ptolemy and Strabo, and the more recent work of Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli.
In 1478, Guido Antonio Vespucci led a Florentine diplomatic mission to Paris and invited his younger cousin, Amerigo Vespucci, to join him. Amerigo's role is not clear, but it was likely as an attache or private secretary. Along the way they had business in Bologna, Milan, and Lyon. Their objective in Paris was to obtain French support for Florence's war with Naples. Louis XI was noncommittal and the diplomatic mission returned to Florence in 1481 with little to show for their efforts.
After his return from Paris, Amerigo worked for a time with his father and continued his studies in science. In 1482, when his father died, Amerigo went to work for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, head of a junior branch of the Medici family. Although Amerigo was ten years older, they had been schoolmates under the tutelage of Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Amerigo served first as a household manager and then gradually took on increasing responsibilities, handling various business dealings for the family both at home and abroad. Meanwhile he continued to show an interest in geography, at one point buying an expensive map made by the master cartographer Gabriel de Vallseca.
In 1488, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco became dissatisfied with his Seville business agent, Tomasso Capponi. He dispatched Vespucci to investigate the situation and provide an assessment of a suggested replacement, Florentine merchant Gianotto Berardi. Vespucci's findings have been lost but Capponi returned to Florence around this time and Berardi took over the Medici business in Seville. In addition to managing Medici's trade in Seville, Berardi had his own business in African slavery and ship chandlery.
By 1492 Vespucci had settled permanently in Seville. His motivations for leaving Florence are unclear; he continued to transact some business on behalf of his Medici patrons but more and more he became involved with Berardi's other activities, most notably providing investment and support for Christopher Columbus and his voyages of discovery. Barardi invested half a million "maravedis" in Columbus's first voyage, and he won a potentially lucrative contract to provision Columbus's large second fleet. However, profits proved to be elusive. In 1495, Berardi signed a contract with the crown to send 12 resupply ships to Hispaniola but then died unexpectedly in December without completing the terms of the contract.
Vespucci was the executor of Berardi's will, collecting debts and paying outstanding obligations for the firm. Afterwards he was left owing 140,000 "maravedis". He continued to provision ships bound for the West Indies, but his opportunities were diminishing; Columbus's expeditions were not providing the hoped-for profits, and his patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici, was using other Florentine agents for his business in Seville.
Sometime after he settled in Seville, Vespucci married a Spanish woman, Maria Cerezo. Very little is known about her; Vespucci's will refers to her as the daughter of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. Historian Fernández-Armesto speculates that she may have been the illegitimate offspring of celebrated military leader, the "Grand Captain", a connection that would have been very useful to Vespucci. She was an active participant in his business and held power of attorney for Vespucci when he was away.
The evidence for Vespucci's voyages of exploration consists almost entirely of a handful of letters written by him or attributed to him. Historians have differed sharply on the authorship, the accuracy and veracity of these documents. Consequently, opinions also vary widely regarding the number of voyages undertaken, their routes, and Vespucci's roles and accomplishments. Starting in the late 1490s Vespucci participated in two voyages to the New World that are relatively well-documented in the historical record. Two others have been alleged but the evidence is more problematical. Traditionally, Vespucci's voyages are referred to as the "first" through "fourth", even by historians who refute one or more of the trips.
A letter, written to Piero Soderini and published in 1504, purports to be an account by Vespucci of a voyage to the New World, leaving Spain on 10 May 1497 and returning in October 1498. This is perhaps the most controversial of Vespucci's voyages and many historians doubt that it took place as described. Some writers question the authorship and accuracy of the letter and consider it to be a forgery. Others point to the inconsistencies in the narrative of the voyage, particularly the alleged course, starting near Honduras and proceeding northwest for 870 leagues (about )–a course that would have taken them across Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Feelings also ran high among earlier historians who felt that Vespucci lied about this voyage to gain primacy over Columbus as the first explorer to encounter the mainland.
In 1499, Vespucci joined an expedition licensed by Spain and led by Alonso de Ojeda as fleet commander and Juan de la Cosa as chief navigator. Their intention was to explore the coast of a new landmass found by Columbus on his third voyage and in particular investigate a rich source of pearls that Columbus had reported. Vespucci and his backers financed two of the four ships in the small fleet. His role on the voyage is not clear. Writing later about his experience, Vespucci gave the impression that he had a leadership role but that is unlikely because of his inexperience. Instead, he may have served as a commercial representative on behalf of the fleet's investors. Years later, Ojeda recalled that "Morigo Vespuche" was one of his pilots on the expedition.
The armada left Spain on 18 May 1499 and stopped first in the Canary Islands before reaching the mainland somewhere near present-day Surinam or French Guiana. From there the fleet split up: Ojeda proceeded northwest toward Venezuela while two ships headed south with Vespucci aboard. The only record of the southbound journey comes from Vespucci. He assumed they were on the coast of Asia and hoped by heading south they would round the Cape of Cattigara and, according to Ptolemy, reach the Indian Ocean. They passed two huge rivers (the Amazon and the Para) which poured freshwater out to sea. They continued south for another 40 leagues (about ) before encountering a very strong adverse current which they could not overcome. Forced to turn around, the ships headed north retracing their course to the original landfall. From there Vespucci continued up the South American coast to the Gulf of Paria and along the shore of what is now Venezuela. At some point they may have rejoined Ojeda but the evidence is unclear. In the late summer, they decided to head north for the Spanish colony at Hispaniola to resupply and repair their ships before heading home. After Hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the Bahamas, capturing 232 natives and then returned to Spain.
In 1501, Manuel I of Portugal commissioned an expedition to investigate a landmass encountered unexpectedly by Pedro Álvares Cabral on his voyage to India. That land would eventually become present-day Brazil. The king wanted to know the extent of this new discovery and determine where it lay in relation to the line established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Any land the lay to the east of the line could be claimed by Portugal. Vespucci's reputation as an explorer and presumed navigator had already reached Portugal, and he was hired by the king to serve as pilot under the command of Gonçalo Coelho.
Coelho's armada of three ships left Lisbon in May 1501. Before crossing the Atlantic they resupplied at Cape Verde where they encountered Cabral on his way home from his voyage to India. This was the same expedition that had found Brazil on their outward-bound journey the previous year. Coelho left Cape Verde in June and from this point, Vespucci's account is the only surviving record of their explorations. On 17 August 1501 they reached Brazil at a latitude of about 6° south. Upon landing they encountered a hostile band of natives who killed and ate one of the crewmen. Sailing south along the coast they found friendlier natives and were able to engage in some minor trading. At 23° S they found a bay which they named Rio de Janeiro because it was 1 January 1502. On 13 February 1502, they left the coast to return home. Vespucci estimated their latitude at 32° S but experts now estimate they were closer to 25° S. Their homeward journey is unclear since Vespucci left a confusing record of astronomical observations and distances travelled.
In 1503, Vespucci may have participated in a second expedition for the Portuguese crown, again exploring the east coast of Brazil. There is evidence that a voyage was led by Coelho at about this time but no independent confirmation that Vespucci took part. The only source for this last voyage is the Soderini Letter; but several modern scholars dispute Vespucci's authorship of that letter and it is uncertain whether Vespucci undertook this trip. There are also difficulties with the reported dates and details in the account of this voyage.
By early 1505, Vespucci was back in Seville. His reputation as an explorer and navigator continued to grow and his recent service in Portugal did not seem to damage his standing with King Ferdinand. On the contrary, the king was likely interested in learning about the possibility of a western passage to India. In February, he was summoned by the king to consult on matters of navigation. During the next few months he received payments from the crown for his services and in April he was declared by royal proclamation a citizen of Castile and Leon.
From 1505 until his death in 1512, Vespucci remained in service to the Spanish crown. He continued his work as a chandler, supplying ships bound for the Indies. He was also hired to captain a ship as part of a fleet bound for the "spice islands" but the planned voyage never took place. In March 1508, he was named chief pilot for the "Casa de Contratación" or House of Commerce which served as a central trading house for Spain's overseas possessions. He was paid an annual salary of 50,000 "maravedis" with an extra 25,000 for expenses. In his new role, Vespucci was responsible for ensuring that ships' pilots were adequately trained and licensed before sailing to the New World. He was also charged with compiling a "model map" based on input from pilots who were obligated to share what they learned after each voyage.
Vespucci wrote his will in April 1511. He left most of his modest estate, including five household slaves, to his wife. His clothes, books, and navigational equipment were left to his nephew Giovanni Vespucci. He requested to be buried in a Franciscan habit in his wife's family tomb. Vespucci died on 22 February 1512.
Upon his death, Vespucci's wife was awarded an annual pension of 10,000 "maravedis" to be deducted from the salary of the successor chief pilot. His nephew Giovanni was hired into the "Casa de Contratación" where he spent his subsequent years spying on behalf of the Florentine state.
Vespucci's voyages became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to him were published between 1503 and 1505. The "Soderini Letter" (1505) came to the attention of a group of humanist scholars studying geography in Saint-Dié, a small French town in the Duchy of Lorraine. Led by Walter Lud, the academy included Matthias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemüller. In 1506, they obtained a French translation of the "Soderini Letter" as well as a Portuguese maritime map that detailed the coast of lands recently discovered in the western Atlantic. They surmised that this was the "new world" or the "antipodes" hypothesized by classical writers. The "Soderini Letter" gave Vespucci credit for discovery of this new continent and implied that the Portuguese map was based on his explorations.
In April 1507, Ringmann and Waldseemüller published their "Introduction to Cosmography" with an accompanying world map. The "Introduction" was written in Latin and included a Latin translation of the "Soderini Letter". In a preface to the "Letter", Ringmann wrote
A thousand copies of the world map were printed with the title "Universal Geography According to the Tradition of Ptolemy and the Contributions of Amerigo Vespucci and Others". It was decorated with prominent portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci and, for the first time, the name America was applied to a map of the New World.
The "Introduction" and map were a great success and four editions were printed in the first year alone. The map was widely used in universities and was influential among cartographers who admired the craftsmanship that went into its creation. In the following years, other maps were printed that often incorporated the name America. In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both the North and South continents on his influential map. By this point the name had been securely fixed on the New World.
Many supporters of Columbus felt that Vespucci had stolen an honour that rightfully belonged to Columbus. However most historians now believe that he was unaware of Waldseemüller's map before his death in 1512 and many assert that he was not even the author of the Soderini Letter.
Knowledge of Vespucci's voyages relies almost entirely on a handful of letters written by him or attributed to him. Two of these letters were published during his lifetime and received widespread attention throughout Europe. Several scholars now believe that Vespucci did not write the two published letters in the form in which they circulated during his lifetime. They suggest that they were fabrications based in part on genuine Vespucci letters.
The remaining documents were unpublished manuscripts; handwritten letters uncovered by researchers more than 250 years after Vespucci's death. After years of controversy, the authenticity of the three complete letters was convincingly demonstrated by Alberto Magnaghi in 1924. Most historians now accept them as the work of Vespucci but aspects of the accounts are still disputed.
Vespucci has been called "the most enigmatic and controversial figure in early American history." The debate has become known among historians as the "Vespucci question." How many voyages did he make? What was his role on the voyages and what did he learn? The evidence relies almost entirely on a handful of letters attributed to him. Many historians have analysed these documents and have arrived at contradictory conclusions.
In 1515, Sebastian Cabot became one of the first to question Vespucci's accomplishments and express doubts about his 1497 voyage. Later, Bartolomé de las Casas argued that Vespucci was a liar and stole the credit that was due Columbus. By 1600 most regarded Vespucci as an impostor and not worthy of his honours and fame. In 1839, Alexander von Humboldt after careful consideration asserted the 1497 voyage was impossible but accepted the two Portuguese-sponsored voyages. Humboldt also called into question the assertion that Vespucci recognized that he had encountered a new continent. According to Humboldt, Vespucci (and Columbus) died in the belief that they had reached the eastern edge of Asia. Vespucci's reputation was perhaps at its lowest in 1856 when Ralph Waldo Emerson called Vespucci a "thief" and "pickle dealer" from Seville who managed to get "half the world baptized with his dishonest name."
Opinions began to shift somewhat after 1857 when Brazilian historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen wrote that everything in the "Soderini Letter" was true. Other historians followed in support of Vespucci including John Fiske and Henry Harrisse.
In 1924, Alberto Magnaghi published the results of his exhaustive review of Vespucci's writings and relevant cartography. He denied Vespucci's authorship of the 1503 "Mundus Novus" and the 1505 "Soderini Letter", the only two texts published during his lifetime. He suggested that the Soderini letter was not written by Vespucci, but was cobbled together by unscrupulous Florentine publishers who combined several accounts – some from Vespucci, others from elsewhere. Magnaghi determined that the manuscript letters were authentic and based on them he was the first to propose that only the second and third voyages were true, and the first and fourth voyages (only found in the Soderini letter) were fabrications. While Magnaghi has been one of the chief proponents of a two-voyage narrative, Roberto Levellier was an influential Argentinian historian who endorsed the authenticity of all Vespucci's letters and proposed the most extensive itinerary for his four voyages.
Other modern historians and popular writers have taken varying positions on Vespucci's letters and voyages, espousing two, three, or four voyages and supporting or denying the authenticity of his two printed letters. Most authors believe that the three manuscript letters are authentic while the first voyage as described in the Soderini letter draws the most criticism and disbelief.
A two-voyage thesis was accepted and popularized by Frederick Pohl (1944), and rejected by Germán Arciniegas (1955), who posited that all four voyages were truthful. Luciano Formisiano (1992) also rejects the Magnaghi thesis (acknowledging that publishers probably tampered with Vespucci's writings) and declares all four voyages genuine, but differs from Arciniegas in details (particularly the first voyage). Samuel Morison (1974) flatly rejected the first voyage but was noncommittal about the two published letters. Felipe Fernández-Armesto (2007) calls the authenticity question "inconclusive", and hypothesizes that the first voyage was probably another version of the second; the third is unassailable, and the fourth is probably true.
Vespucci's historical importance may rest more with his letters (whether or not he wrote them all) than his discoveries. Within a few years of the publication of his two letters, the European public became aware of the newly discovered continents of the Americas. According to Vespucci:
Concerning my return from those new regions which we found and explored...we may rightly call a new world. Because our ancestors had no knowledge of them, and it will be a matter wholly new to all those who hear about them, for this transcends the view held by our ancients, inasmuch as most of them hold that there is no continent to the south beyond the equator, but only the sea which they named the Atlantic and if some of them did aver that a continent there was, they denied with abundant argument that it was a habitable land. But that this their opinion is false and utterly opposed to the truth...my last voyage has made manifest; for in those southern parts I have found a continent more densely peopled and abounding in animals than our Europe Asia or Africa, and, in addition, a climate milder and more delightful than in any other region known to us, as you shall learn in the following account. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2062 |
Aristide Maillol
Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker.
Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon. He decided at an early age to become a painter, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study art. After several applications and several years of living in poverty, his enrollment in the École des Beaux-Arts was accepted in 1885, and he studied there under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel. His early paintings show the influence of his contemporaries Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Gauguin.
Gauguin encouraged his growing interest in decorative art, an interest that led Maillol to take up tapestry design. In 1893 Maillol opened a tapestry workshop in Banyuls, producing works whose high technical and aesthetic quality gained him recognition for renewing this art form in France. He began making small terracotta sculptures in 1895, and within a few years his concentration on sculpture led to the abandonment of his work in tapestry.
In July 1896, Maillol married Clotilde Narcis, one of his employees at his tapestry workshop. Their only son, Lucian, was born that October.
Maillol's first major sculpture, "A Seated Woman", was modeled after his wife. The first version (in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was completed in 1902, and renamed "La Méditerranée". Maillol, believing that "art does not lie in the copying of nature", produced a second, less naturalistic version in 1905. In 1902, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard provided Maillol with his first exhibition.
The subject of nearly all of Maillol's mature work is the female body, treated with a classical emphasis on stable forms. The figurative style of his large bronzes is perceived as an important precursor to the greater simplifications of Henry Moore, and his serene classicism set a standard for European (and American) figure sculpture until the end of World War II.
Josep Pla said of Maillol, "These archaic ideas, Greek, were the great novelty Maillol brought into the tendency of modern sculpture. What you need to love from the ancients is not the antiquity, it is the sense of permanent, renewed novelty, that is due to the nature and reason."
His important public commissions include a 1912 commission for a monument to Cézanne, as well as numerous war memorials commissioned after World War I.
Maillol served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal (1919–1954) a grant awarded to painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.
He made a series of woodcut illustrations for an edition of Vergil's "Eclogues" published by Harry Graf Kessler in 1926–27. He also illustrated "Daphnis and Chloe" by Longus (1937) and "Chansons pour elle" by Paul Verlaine (1939).
He died in Banyuls at the age of eighty-three, in an automobile accident. While driving home during a thunderstorm, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and rolled over. A large collection of Maillol's work is maintained at the Musée Maillol in Paris, which was established by Dina Vierny, Maillol's model and platonic companion during the last 10 years of his life. His home a few kilometers outside Banyuls, also the site of his final resting place, has been turned into a museum, the Musée Maillol Banyuls-sur-Mer, where a number of his works and sketches are displayed.
Three of his bronzes grace the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City: "Summer" (1910–11), "Venus Without Arms" (1920), and" Kneeling Woman: Monument to Debussy" (1950–55). The third is the artist's only reference to music, created for a monument at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy's birthplace. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2063 |
Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova (; 1 November 1757 – 13 October 1822) was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists, his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, and has been characterised as having avoided the melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter.
In 1757, Antonio Canova was born in the Venetian Republic city of Possagno to Pietro Canova, a stonecutter, and Maria Angela Zardo Fantolini. In 1761, his father died. A year later, his mother remarried. As such, in 1762, he was put into the care of his paternal grandfather Pasino Canova, who was a stonemason, owner of a quarry, and was a "sculptor who specialized in altars with statues and low reliefs in late Baroque style". He led Antonio into the art of sculpting.
Before the age of ten, Canova began making models in clay, and carving marble. Indeed, at the age of nine, he executed two small shrines of Carrara marble, which are still extant. After these works, he appears to have been constantly employed under his grandfather.
In 1770, he was an apprentice for two years to Giuseppe Bernardi, who was also known as 'Torretto'. Afterwards, he was under the tutelage of Giovanni Ferrari until he began his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. At the Academy, he won several prizes. During this time, he was given his first workshop within a monastery by some local monks.
The Senator Giovanni Falier commissioned Canova to produce statues of Orpheus and Eurydice for his garden – the Villa Falier at Asolo. The statues were begun in 1775, and both were completed by 1777. The pieces exemplify the late Rococo style. On the year of its completion, both works were exhibited for the Feast of the Ascension in Piazza S. Marco. Widely praised, the works won Canova his first renown among the Venetian elite. Another Venetian who is said to have commissioned early works from Canova was the abate Filippo Farsetti, whose collection at Ca' Farsetti on the Grand Canal he frequented.
In 1779, Canova opened his own studio at Calle Del Traghetto at S. Maurizio. At this time, Procurator Pietro Vettor Pisani commissioned Canova's first marble statue: a depiction of Daedalus and Icarus. The statue inspired great admiration for his work at the annual art fair; Canova was paid for 100 gold zecchini for the completed work. At the base of the statue, Daedalus' tools are scattered about; these tools are also an allusion to Sculpture, of which the statue is a personification. With such an intention, there is suggestion that Daedalus is a portrait of Canova's grandfather Pasino.
Canova arrived in Rome, on 28 December 1780. Prior to his departure, his friends had applied to the Venetian senate for a pension. Successful in the application, the stipend allotted amounted to three hundred ducats, limited to three years.
While in Rome, Canova spent time studying and sketching the works of Michelangelo.
In 1781, Girolamo Zulian – the Venetian ambassador to Rome – hired Canova to sculpt "Theseus and the Minotaur". The statue depicts the victorious Theseus seated on the lifeless body of a Minotaur. The initial spectators were certain that the work was a copy of a Greek original, and were shocked to learn it was a contemporary work. The highly regarded work is now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London.
Between 1783–1785, Canova arranged, composed, and designed a funerary monument dedicated to Clement XIV for the Church of Santi Apostoli. After another two years, the work met completion in 1787. The monument secured Canova's reputation as the pre-eminent living artist.
Canova's earliest significant breakthrough was his self-portrait sculpture, finished in 1790.
In 1792, he completed another cenotaph, this time commemorating Clement XIII for St. Peter's Basilica. Canova harmonized its design with the older Baroque funerary monuments in the basilica.
In 1790, he began to work on a funerary monument for Titian, which was eventually abandoned by 1795. During the same year, he increased his activity as a painter.
The following decade was extremely productive, beginning works such as "Hercules and Lichas", "Cupid and Psyche", "Hebe", "Tomb of Duchess Maria Christina of Saxony-Teschen", and "The Penitent Magdalene".
In 1797, he went to Vienna, but only a year later, in 1798, he returned to Possagno for a year.
By 1800, Canova was the most celebrated artist in Europe. He systematically promoted his reputation by publishing engravings of his works and having marble versions of plaster casts made in his workshop. He became so successful that he had acquired patrons from across Europe including France, England, Russia, Poland, Austria and Holland, as well as several members from different royal lineages, and prominent individuals. Among his patrons were Napoleon and his family, for whom Canova produced much work, including several depictions between 1803 and 1809. The most notable representations were that of "Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker", and "Venus Victrix" which was portrayal of Pauline Bonaparte.
"Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker" had its inception after Canova was hired to make a bust of Napoleon in 1802. The statue was begun in 1803, with Napoleon requesting to be shown in a French General's uniform, Canova rejected this, insisting on an allusion to Mars, the Roman god of War. It was completed in 1806. In 1811, the statue arrived in Paris, but not installed; neither was its bronze copy in the Foro Napoleonico in Milan. In 1815, the original went to the Duke of Wellington, after his victory at Waterloo against Napoleon.
"Venus Victrix" was originally conceived as a robed and recumbent sculpture of Pauline Borghese in the guise of Diana. Instead, Pauline ordered Canova to make the statue a nude Venus. The work was not intended for public viewing.
Other works for the Napoleon family include, a bust of Napoleon, a statue of Napoleon's mother, and Marie Louise as Concordia.
In 1802, Canova was assigned the post of 'Inspector-General of Antiquities and Fine Art of the Papal State', a position formerly held by Raphael. One of his activities in this capacity was to pioneer the restoration of the Appian Way by restoring the tomb of Servilius Quartus. In 1808 Canova became an associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands.
In 1814, he began his "The Three Graces".
In 1815, he was named 'Minister Plenipotentiary of the Pope,' and was tasked with recovering various works of art that were taken to Paris by Napoleon.
Also in 1815, he visited London, and met with Benjamin Haydon. It was after the advice of Canova that the Elgin marbles were acquired by the British Museum, with plaster copies sent to Florence, according to Canova's request.
In 1816, Canova returned to Rome with some of the art Napoleon had taken. He was rewarded with several marks of distinction: he was appointed President of the Accademia di San Luca, inscribed into the "Golden Book of Roman Nobles" by the Pope's own hands, and given the title of Marquis of Ischia, alongside an annual pension of 3000 crowns.
In 1819, he commenced and completed his commissioned work "Venus Italica" as a replacement for the Venus de' Medici.
After his 1814 proposal to build a personified statue of Religion for St. Peter's Basilica was rejected, Canova sought to build his own temple to house it. This project came to be the Tempio Canoviano. Canova designed, financed, and partly built the structure himself. The structure was to be a testament to Canova's piety. The building's design was inspired by combining the Parthenon and the Pantheon together. On 11 July 1819, Canova laid the foundation stone dressed in red Papal uniform and decorated with all his medals. It first opened in 1830, and was finally completed in 1836. After the foundation-stone of this edifice had been laid, Canova returned to Rome; but every succeeding autumn he continued to visit Possagno to direct the workmen and encourage them with rewards.
During the period that intervened between commencing operations at Possagno and his death, he executed or finished some of his most striking works. Among these were the group "Mars and Venus", the colossal figure of Pius VI, the Pietà, the "St John", and a colossal bust of his friend, the Count Cicognara.
In 1820, he made a statue of George Washington for the state of North Carolina. As recommended by Thomas Jefferson, the sculptor used the marble bust of Washington by Giuseppe Ceracchi as a model. It was delivered on 24 December 1821. The statue and the North Carolina State House where it was displayed were later destroyed by fire in 1831. A plaster replica was sent by the king of Italy in 1910, now on view at the North Carolina Museum of History. A marble copy was sculpted by Romano Vio in 1970, now on view in the rotunda of the capitol building.
In 1822, he journeyed to Naples, to superintend the construction of wax moulds for an equestrian statue of Ferdinand VII. The adventure was disastrous to his health, but soon became healthy enough to return to Rome. From there, he voyaged to Venice; however, on 13 October 1822, he died there at the age of 64. As he never married, the name became extinct, except through his stepbrothers' lineage of Satori-Canova.
On 12 October 1822, Canova instructed his brother to use his entire estate to complete the Tempio in Possagno.
On 25 October 1822, his body was placed in the Tempio Canoviano. His heart was interred at the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, and his right hand preserved in a vase at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia.
His memorial service was so grand that it rivaled the ceremony that the city of Florence held for Michelangelo in 1564.
In 1826, Giovanni Battista Sartori sold Canova's Roman studio and took every plaster model and sculpture to Possagno, where they were installed in the Tempio Canoviano.
Among Canova's most notable works are:
"Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss" was commissioned in 1787 by Colonel John Campbell. It is regarded as a masterpiece of Neoclassical sculpture, but shows the mythological lovers at a moment of great emotion, characteristic of the emerging movement of Romanticism. It represents the god Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche with a kiss.
"Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker" had its inception after Canova was hired to make a bust of Napoleon in 1802. The statue was begun in 1802, with Napoleon requesting to be shown in a French General's uniform, Canova rejected this, insisting on an allusion to Mars, the Roman god of War. It was completed in 1806. In 1811, the statue arrived in Paris, but not installed; neither was its bronze copy in the Foro Napoleonico in Milan. In 1815, the original went to the Duke of Wellington, after his victory at Waterloo against Napoleon.
"Perseus Triumphant", sometimes called "Perseus with the Head of Medusa", was a statue commissioned by tribune Onorato Duveyriez. It depicts the Greek hero Perseus after his victory over the Gorgon Medusa.
The statue was based freely to the Apollo Belvedere and the Medusa Rondanini.
Napoleon, after his 1796 Italian Campaign, took the Apollo Belvedere to Paris. In the statue's absence, Pope Pius VII acquired Canova's "Perseus Triumphant" and placed the work upon the "Apollo"'s pedestal. The statue was so successful that when the "Apollo" was returned, "Perseus" remained as a companion piece.
One replica of the statue was commissioned from Canova by the Polish countess Waleria Tarnowska; it's now displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Karl Ludwig Fernow said of the statue that "every eye must rest with pleasure on the beautiful surface, even when the mind finds its hopes of high and pure enjoyment disappointed."
"Venus Victrix" ranks among the most famous of Canova's works. Originally, Canova wished the depictation to be of a robed Diana, but Pauline Borghese insisted to appear as a nude Venus. The work was not intended for public viewing.
John Russell, the 6th Duke of Bedford, commissioned a version of the now famous work. He had previously visited Canova in his studio in Rome in 1814 and had been immensely impressed by a carving of the Graces the sculptor had made for the Empress Josephine. When the Empress died in May of the same year he immediately offered to purchase the completed piece, but was unsuccessful as Josephine's son Eugène claimed it (his son Maximilian brought it to St. Petersburg, where it can now be found in the Hermitage Museum). Undeterred, the Duke commissioned another version for himself.
The sculpting process began in 1814 and was completed in 1817. Finally in 1819 it was installed at the Duke's residence in Woburn Abbey. Canova even made the trip over to England to supervise its installation, choosing for it to be displayed on a pedestal adapted from a marble plinth with a rotating top. This version is now owned jointly by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland, and is alternately displayed at each.
Canova's sculptures fall into three categories: Heroic compositions, compositions of grace, and sepulchral monuments. In each of these, Canova's underlying artistic motivations were to challenge, if not compete, with classical statues.
Canova refused to take in pupils and students, but would hire workers to carve the initial figure from the marble. He had an elaborate system of comparative pointing so that the workers were able to reproduce the plaster form in the selected block of marble. These workers would leave a thin veil over the entire statue so Canova's could focus on the surface of the statue.
While he worked, he had people read to him select literary and historical texts.
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, it became fashionable to view art galleries at night by torchlight. Canova was an artist that leapt on the fad and displayed his works of art in his studio by candlelight. As such, Canova would begin to finalize the statue with special tools by candlelight, to soften the transitions between the various parts of the nude. After a little recarving, he began to rub the statue down with pumice stone, sometimes for periods longer than weeks or months. If that was not enough, he would use tripoli (rottenstone) and lead.
He then applied a now unknown chemical-composition of patina onto the flesh of the figure to lighten the skin tone. Importantly, his friends also denied any usage of acids in his process.
Conversations revolving around the justification of art as superfluous usually invoked the name of Canova.
Karl Ludwig Fernow believed that Canova was not Kantian enough in his aesthetic, because emphasis seemed to have been placed on agreeableness rather than Beauty.
Canova was also faulted for creating works that were artificial in complexity.
Canova spent large parts of his fortune helping young students and sending patrons to struggling sculptors, including Sir Richard Westmacott and John Gibson.
He was introduced into various orders of chivalry.
The Romantic period artists buried Canova's name soon after he died, but he is slowly being rediscovered.
A number of his works, sketches, and writings are collected in the "Sala Canoviana" of the Museo Civico of Bassano del Grappa. Other works, including plaster casts are the Museo Canoviano in Asolo.
Two of Canova's works appear as engravings in "Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book", 1834, with poetical illustrations by Letitia Elizabeth Landon. These are of "The Dancing Girl" and "Hebe". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2064 |
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, and deeply pocketed surface in clay. He is known for such sculptures as "The Thinker", "The Kiss", "The Burghers of Calais", and "The Gates of Hell".
Many of Rodin's most notable sculptures were criticized as they clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory. He modeled the human body with naturalism, and his sculptures celebrate individual character and physicality. Although Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, he refused to change his style, and his continued output brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community.
From the unexpected naturalism of Rodin's first major figure – inspired by his 1875 trip to Italy – to the unconventional memorials whose commissions he later sought, his reputation grew, and Rodin became the preeminent French sculptor of his time. By 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodin's work after his World's Fair exhibit, and he kept company with a variety of high-profile intellectuals and artists. His student, Camille Claudel, became his associate, lover, and creative rival. Rodin's other students included Antoine Bourdelle, Constantin Brâncuși, and Charles Despiau. He married his lifelong companion, Rose Beuret, in the last year of both their lives. His sculptures suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, but within a few decades his legacy solidified. Rodin remains one of the few sculptors widely known outside the visual arts community.
Rodin was born in 1840 into a working-class family in Paris, the second child of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin, who was a police department clerk. He was largely self-educated, and began to draw at age 10. Between ages 14 and 17, he attended the "Petite École", a school specializing in art and mathematics where he studied drawing and painting. His drawing teacher Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran believed in first developing the personality of his students so that they observed with their own eyes and drew from their recollections, and Rodin expressed appreciation for his teacher much later in life. It was at Petite École that he met Jules Dalou and Alphonse Legros.
In 1857, Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the École des Beaux-Arts in an attempt to win entrance; he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied. Entrance requirements were not particularly high at the "Grande École", so the rejections were considerable setbacks. Rodin's inability to gain entrance may have been due to the judges' Neoclassical tastes, while Rodin had been schooled in light, 18th-century sculpture. He left the "Petite École" in 1857 and earned a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments.
Rodin's sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862, and Rodin was anguished with guilt because he had introduced her to an unfaithful suitor. He turned away from art and joined the Catholic order of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Peter Julian Eymard, founder and head of the congregation, recognized Rodin's talent and sensed his lack of suitability for the order, so he encouraged Rodin to continue with his sculpture. Rodin returned to work as a decorator while taking classes with animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. The teacher's attention to detail and his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion significantly influenced Rodin.
In 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret (born in June 1844), with whom he stayed for the rest of his life, with varying commitment. The couple had a son named Auguste-Eugène Beuret (1866–1934). That year, Rodin offered his first sculpture for exhibition and entered the studio of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, a successful mass producer of "objets d'art". Rodin worked as Carrier-Belleuse' chief assistant until 1870, designing roof decorations and staircase and doorway embellishments. With the arrival of the Franco-Prussian War, Rodin was called to serve in the French National Guard, but his service was brief due to his near-sightedness. Decorators' work had dwindled because of the war, yet Rodin needed to support his family, as poverty was a continual difficulty for him until about the age of 30. Carrier-Belleuse soon asked him to join him in Belgium, where they worked on ornamentation for the Brussels Stock Exchange.
Rodin planned to stay in Belgium a few months, but he spent the next six years outside of France. It was a pivotal time in his life. He had acquired skill and experience as a craftsman, but no one had yet seen his art, which sat in his workshop since he could not afford castings. His relationship with Carrier-Belleuse had deteriorated, but he found other employment in Brussels, displaying some works at salons, and his companion Rose soon joined him there. Having saved enough money to travel, Rodin visited Italy for two months in 1875, where he was drawn to the work of Donatello and Michelangelo. Their work had a profound effect on his artistic direction. Rodin said, "It is Michelangelo who has freed me from academic sculpture." Returning to Belgium, he began work on "The Age of Bronze", a life-size male figure whose naturalism brought Rodin attention but led to accusations of sculptural cheatingits naturalism and scale was such that critics alleged he had cast the work from a living model. Much of Rodin's later work was explicitly larger or smaller than life, in part to demonstrate the folly of such accusations.
Rose Beuret and Rodin returned to Paris in 1877, moving into a small flat on the Left Bank. Misfortune surrounded Rodin: his mother, who had wanted to see her son marry, was dead, and his father was blind and senile, cared for by Rodin's sister-in-law, Aunt Thérèse. Rodin's eleven-year-old son Auguste, possibly developmentally delayed, was also in the ever-helpful Thérèse's care. Rodin had essentially abandoned his son for six years, and would have a very limited relationship with him throughout his life. Father and son joined the couple in their flat, with Rose as caretaker. Charges of fakery surrounding "The Age of Bronze" continued. Rodin increasingly sought soothing female companionship in Paris, and Rose stayed in the background.
Rodin earned his living collaborating with more established sculptors on public commissions, primarily memorials and neo-baroque architectural pieces in the style of Carpeaux. In competitions for commissions he submitted models of Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Lazare Carnot, all to no avail. On his own time, he worked on studies leading to the creation of his next important work, "St. John the Baptist Preaching".
In 1880, Carrier-Belleuse – then art director of the Sèvres national porcelain factory – offered Rodin a part-time position as a designer. The offer was in part a gesture of reconciliation, and Rodin accepted. That part of Rodin which appreciated 18th-century tastes was aroused, and he immersed himself in designs for vases and table ornaments that brought the factory renown across Europe.
The artistic community appreciated his work in this vein, and Rodin was invited to Paris Salons by such friends as writer Léon Cladel. During his early appearances at these social events, Rodin seemed shy; in his later years, as his fame grew, he displayed the loquaciousness and temperament for which he is better known. French statesman Leon Gambetta expressed a desire to meet Rodin, and the sculptor impressed him when they met at a salon. Gambetta spoke of Rodin in turn to several government ministers, likely including , the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Fine Arts, whom Rodin eventually met.
Rodin's relationship with Turquet was rewarding: through him, he won the 1880 commission to create a portal for a planned museum of decorative arts. Rodin dedicated much of the next four decades to his elaborate "Gates of Hell", an unfinished portal for a museum that was never built. Many of the portal's figures became sculptures in themselves, including Rodin's most famous, "The Thinker" and "The Kiss". With the museum commission came a free studio, granting Rodin a new level of artistic freedom. Soon, he stopped working at the porcelain factory; his income came from private commissions.
In 1883, Rodin agreed to supervise a course for sculptor Alfred Boucher in his absence, where he met the 18-year-old Camille Claudel. The two formed a passionate but stormy relationship and influenced each other artistically. Claudel inspired Rodin as a model for many of his figures, and she was a talented sculptor, assisting him on commissions as well as creating her own works. Her "Bust of Rodin" was displayed to critical acclaim at the 1892 Salon.
Although busy with "The Gates of Hell", Rodin won other commissions. He pursued an opportunity to create a historical monument for the town of Calais. For a monument to French author Honoré de Balzac, Rodin was chosen in 1891. His execution of both sculptures clashed with traditional tastes, and met with varying degrees of disapproval from the organizations that sponsored the commissions. Still, Rodin was gaining support from diverse sources that propelled him toward fame.
In 1889, the Paris Salon invited Rodin to be a judge on its artistic jury. Though Rodin's career was on the rise, Claudel and Beuret were becoming increasingly impatient with Rodin's "double life". Claudel and Rodin shared an atelier at a small old castle (the Château de l'Islette in the Loire), but Rodin refused to relinquish his ties to Beuret, his loyal companion during the lean years, and mother of his son. During one absence, Rodin wrote to Beuret, "I think of how much you must have loved me to put up with my caprices...I remain, in all tenderness, your Rodin."
Claudel and Rodin parted in 1898. Claudel suffered an alleged nervous breakdown several years later and was confined to an institution for 30 years by her family, until her death in 1943, despite numerous attempts by doctors to explain to her mother and brother that she was sane.
In 1864, Rodin submitted his first sculpture for exhibition, "The Man with the Broken Nose", to the Paris Salon. The subject was an elderly neighborhood street porter. The unconventional bronze piece was not a traditional bust, but instead the head was "broken off" at the neck, the nose was flattened and crooked, and the back of the head was absent, having fallen off the clay model in an accident. The work emphasized texture and the emotional state of the subject; it illustrated the "unfinishedness" that would characterize many of Rodin's later sculptures. The Salon rejected the piece.
In Brussels, Rodin created his first full-scale work, "The Age of Bronze", having returned from Italy. Modeled after a Belgian soldier, the figure drew inspiration from Michelangelo's "Dying Slave", which Rodin had observed at the Louvre. Attempting to combine Michelangelo's mastery of the human form with his own sense of human nature, Rodin studied his model from all angles, at rest and in motion; he mounted a ladder for additional perspective, and made clay models, which he studied by candlelight. The result was a life-size, well-proportioned nude figure, posed unconventionally with his right hand atop his head, and his left arm held out at his side, forearm parallel to the body.
In 1877, the work debuted in Brussels and then was shown at the Paris Salon. The statue's apparent lack of a theme was troubling to critics – commemorating neither mythology nor a noble historical event – and it is not clear whether Rodin intended a theme. He first titled the work "The Vanquished", in which form the left hand held a spear, but he removed the spear because it obstructed the torso from certain angles. After two more intermediary titles, Rodin settled on "The Age of Bronze", suggesting the Bronze Age, and in Rodin's words, "man arising from nature". Later, however, Rodin said that he had had in mind "just a simple piece of sculpture without reference to subject".
Its mastery of form, light, and shadow made the work look so naturalistic that Rodin was accused of "surmoulage" – having taken a cast from a living model. Rodin vigorously denied the charges, writing to newspapers and having photographs taken of the model to prove how the sculpture differed. He demanded an inquiry and was eventually exonerated by a committee of sculptors. Leaving aside the false charges, the piece polarized critics. It had barely won acceptance for display at the Paris Salon, and criticism likened it to "a statue of a sleepwalker" and called it "an astonishingly accurate copy of a low type". Others rallied to defend the piece and Rodin's integrity. The government minister Turquet admired the piece, and "The Age of Bronze" was purchased by the state for 2,200 francs – what it had cost Rodin to have it cast in bronze.
A second male nude, "St. John the Baptist Preaching", was completed in 1878. Rodin sought to avoid another charge of "surmoulage" by making the statue larger than life: "St. John" stands almost 6 feet 7 inches (2 m). While "The Age of Bronze" is statically posed, "St. John" gestures and seems to move toward the viewer. The effect of walking is achieved despite the figure having both feet firmly on the ground – a technical achievement that was lost on most contemporary critics. Rodin chose this contradictory position to, in his words, "display simultaneously...views of an object which in fact can be seen only successively".
Despite the title, "St. John the Baptist Preaching" did not have an obviously religious theme. The model, an Italian peasant who presented himself at Rodin's studio, possessed an idiosyncratic sense of movement that Rodin felt compelled to capture. Rodin thought of John the Baptist, and carried that association into the title of the work. In 1880, Rodin submitted the sculpture to the Paris Salon. Critics were still mostly dismissive of his work, but the piece finished third in the Salon's sculpture category.
Regardless of the immediate receptions of "St. John" and "The Age of Bronze", Rodin had achieved a new degree of fame. Students sought him at his studio, praising his work and scorning the charges of "surmoulage". The artistic community knew his name.
A commission to create a portal for Paris' planned Museum of Decorative Arts was awarded to Rodin in 1880. Although the museum was never built, Rodin worked throughout his life on "The Gates of Hell", a monumental sculptural group depicting scenes from Dante's "Inferno" in high relief. Often lacking a clear conception of his major works, Rodin compensated with hard work and a striving for perfection.
He conceived "The Gates" with the "surmoulage" controversy still in mind: "...I had made the "St. John" to refute [the charges of casting from a model], but it only partially succeeded. To prove completely that I could model from life as well as other sculptors, I determined...to make the sculpture on the door of figures smaller than life." Laws of composition gave way to the "Gates"' disordered and untamed depiction of Hell. The figures and groups in this, Rodin's meditation on the condition of man, are physically and morally isolated in their torment.
"The Gates of Hell" comprised 186 figures in its final form. Many of Rodin's best-known sculptures started as designs of figures for this composition, such as "The Thinker", "The Three Shades", and "The Kiss", and were only later presented as separate and independent works. Other well-known works derived from "The Gates" are "Ugolino", "Fallen Caryatid Carrying her Stone", "Fugit Amor", "She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker's Beautiful Wife", "The Falling Man", and "The Prodigal Son".
"The Thinker" (originally titled "The Poet", after Dante) was to become one of the most well-known sculptures in the world. The original was a high bronze piece created between 1879 and 1889, designed for the "Gates"' lintel, from which the figure would gaze down upon Hell. While "The Thinker" most obviously characterizes Dante, aspects of the Biblical Adam, the mythological Prometheus, and Rodin himself have been ascribed to him. Other observers de-emphasize the apparent intellectual theme of "The Thinker", stressing the figure's rough physicality and the emotional tension emanating from it.
The town of Calais had contemplated a historical monument for decades when Rodin learned of the project. He pursued the commission, interested in the medieval motif and patriotic theme. The mayor of Calais was tempted to hire Rodin on the spot upon visiting his studio, and soon the memorial was approved, with Rodin as its architect. It would commemorate the six townspeople of Calais who offered their lives to save their fellow citizens.
During the Hundred Years' War, the army of King Edward III besieged Calais, and Edward ordered that the town's population be killed "en masse". He agreed to spare them if six of the principal citizens would come to him prepared to die, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks. When they came, he ordered that they be executed, but pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault, begged him to spare their lives. "The Burghers of Calais" depicts the men as they are leaving for the king's camp, carrying keys to the town's gates and citadel.
Rodin began the project in 1884, inspired by the chronicles of the siege by Jean Froissart. Though the town envisioned an allegorical, heroic piece centered on Eustache de Saint-Pierre, the eldest of the six men, Rodin conceived the sculpture as a study in the varied and complex emotions under which all six men were laboring. One year into the commission, the Calais committee was not impressed with Rodin's progress. Rodin indicated his willingness to end the project rather than change his design to meet the committee's conservative expectations, but Calais said to continue.
In 1889, "The Burghers of Calais" was first displayed to general acclaim. It is a bronze sculpture weighing two tons (1,814 kg), and its figures are 6.6 ft (2 m) tall. The six men portrayed do not display a united, heroic front; rather, each is isolated from his brothers, individually deliberating and struggling with his expected fate. Rodin soon proposed that the monument's high pedestal be eliminated, wanting to move the sculpture to ground level so that viewers could "penetrate to the heart of the subject". At ground level, the figures' positions lead the viewer around the work, and subtly suggest their common movement forward.
The committee was incensed by the untraditional proposal, but Rodin would not yield. In 1895, Calais succeeded in having "Burghers" displayed in their preferred form: the work was placed in front of a public garden on a high platform, surrounded by a cast-iron railing. Rodin had wanted it located near the town hall, where it would engage the public. Only after damage during the First World War, subsequent storage, and Rodin's death was the sculpture displayed as he had intended. It is one of Rodin's best-known and most acclaimed works.
Commissioned to create a monument to French writer Victor Hugo in 1889, Rodin dealt extensively with the subject of "artist and muse". Like many of Rodin's public commissions, "Monument to Victor Hugo" was met with resistance because it did not fit conventional expectations. Commenting on Rodin's monument to Victor Hugo, "The Times" in 1909 expressed that "there is some show of reason in the complaint that [Rodin's] conceptions are sometimes unsuited to his medium, and that in such cases they overstrain his vast technical powers". The 1897 plaster model was not cast in bronze until 1964.
The "Société des Gens des Lettres", a Parisian organization of writers, planned a monument to French novelist Honoré de Balzac immediately after his death in 1850. The society commissioned Rodin to create the memorial in 1891, and Rodin spent years developing the concept for his sculpture. Challenged in finding an appropriate representation of Balzac given the author's rotund physique, Rodin produced many studies: portraits, full-length figures in the nude, wearing a frock coat, or in a robe – a replica of which Rodin had requested. The realized sculpture displays Balzac cloaked in the drapery, looking forcefully into the distance with deeply gouged features. Rodin's intent had been to show Balzac at the moment of conceiving a work – to express courage, labor, and struggle.
When "Balzac" was exhibited in 1898, the negative reaction was not surprising. The "Société" rejected the work, and the press ran parodies. Criticizing the work, Morey (1918) reflected, "there may come a time, and doubtless will come a time, when it will not seem "outre" to represent a great novelist as a huge comic mask crowning a bathrobe, but even at the present day this statue impresses one as slang." A modern critic, indeed, indicates that "Balzac" is one of Rodin's masterpieces.
The monument had its supporters in Rodin's day; a manifesto defending him was signed by Monet, Debussy, and future Premier Georges Clemenceau, among many others. In the BBC series Civilisation, art historian Kenneth Clark praised the monument as "the greatest piece of sculpture of the 19th Century, perhaps, indeed, the greatest since Michelangelo." Rather than try to convince skeptics of the merit of the monument, Rodin repaid the "Société" his commission and moved the figure to his garden. After this experience, Rodin did not complete another public commission. Only in 1939 was "Monument to Balzac" cast in bronze and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail.
The popularity of Rodin's most famous sculptures tends to obscure his total creative output. A prolific artist, he created thousands of busts, figures, and sculptural fragments over more than five decades. He painted in oils (especially in his thirties) and in watercolors. The Musée Rodin holds 7,000 of his drawings and prints, in chalk and charcoal, and thirteen vigorous drypoints. He also produced a single lithograph.
Portraiture was an important component of Rodin's oeuvre, helping him to win acceptance and financial independence. His first sculpture was a bust of his father in 1860, and he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917. Early subjects included fellow sculptor Jules Dalou (1883) and companion Camille Claudel (1884).
Later, with his reputation established, Rodin made busts of prominent contemporaries such as English politician George Wyndham (1905), Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1906), socialist (and former mistress of the Prince of Wales who became King Edward VII) Countess of Warwick (1908), Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1909), former Argentine president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and French statesman Georges Clemenceau (1911).
His undated drawing "Study of a Woman Nude, Standing, Arms Raised, Hands Crossed Above Head" is one of the works seized in 2012 from the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt.
Rodin was a naturalist, less concerned with monumental expression than with character and emotion. Departing with centuries of tradition, he turned away from the idealism of the Greeks, and the decorative beauty of the Baroque and neo-Baroque movements. His sculpture emphasized the individual and the concreteness of flesh, and suggested emotion through detailed, textured surfaces, and the interplay of light and shadow. To a greater degree than his contemporaries, Rodin believed that an individual's character was revealed by his physical features.
Rodin's talent for surface modeling allowed him to let every part of the body speak for the whole. The male's passion in "The Thinker" is suggested by the grip of his toes on the rock, the rigidness of his back, and the differentiation of his hands. Speaking of "The Thinker", Rodin illuminated his aesthetic: "What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes."
Sculptural fragments to Rodin were autonomous works, and he considered them the essence of his artistic statement. His fragments – perhaps lacking arms, legs, or a head – took sculpture further from its traditional role of portraying likenesses, and into a realm where forms existed for their own sake. Notable examples are "The Walking Man", "Meditation without Arms", and "Iris, Messenger of the Gods".
Rodin saw suffering and conflict as hallmarks of modern art. "Nothing, really, is more moving than the maddened beast, dying from unfulfilled desire and asking in vain for grace to quell its passion." Charles Baudelaire echoed those themes, and was among Rodin's favorite poets. Rodin enjoyed music, especially the opera composer Gluck, and wrote a book about French cathedrals. He owned a work by the as-yet-unrecognized Van Gogh, and admired the forgotten El Greco.
Instead of copying traditional academic postures, Rodin preferred his models to move naturally around his studio (despite their nakedness). The sculptor often made quick sketches in clay that were later fine-tuned, cast in plaster, and cast in bronze or carved from marble. Rodin's focus was on the handling of clay.
George Bernard Shaw sat for a portrait and gave an idea of Rodin's technique: "While he worked, he achieved a number of miracles. At the end of the first fifteen minutes, after having given a simple idea of the human form to the block of clay, he produced by the action of his thumb a bust so living that I would have taken it away with me to relieve the sculptor of any further work."
He described the evolution of his bust over a month, passing through "all the stages of art's evolution": first, a "Byzantine masterpiece", then "Bernini intermingled", then an elegant Houdon. "The hand of Rodin worked not as the hand of a sculptor works, but as the work of "Elan Vital". The "Hand of God" is his own hand."
After he completed his work in clay, he employed highly skilled assistants to re-sculpt his compositions at larger sizes (including any of his large-scale monuments such as "The Thinker"), to cast the clay compositions into plaster or bronze, and to carve his marbles. Rodin's major innovation was to capitalize on such multi-staged processes of 19th century sculpture and their reliance on plaster casting.
Since clay deteriorates rapidly if not kept wet or fired into a terra-cotta, sculptors used plaster casts as a means of securing the composition they would make from the fugitive material that is clay. This was common practice amongst Rodin's contemporaries, and sculptors would exhibit plaster casts with the hopes that they would be commissioned to have the works made in a more permanent material. Rodin, however, would have multiple plasters made and treat them as the raw material of sculpture, recombining their parts and figures into new compositions, and new names.
As Rodin's practice developed into the 1890s, he became more and more radical in his pursuit of fragmentation, the combination of figures at different scales, and the making of new compositions from his earlier work. A prime example of this is the bold "The Walking Man" (1899–1900), which was exhibited as his major one-person show in 1900. This is composed of two sculptures from the 1870s that Rodin found in his studio – a broken and damaged torso that had fallen into neglect and the lower extremities of a statuette version of his 1878 "St. John the Baptist Preaching" he was having re-sculpted at a reduced scale.
Without finessing the join between upper and lower, between torso and legs, Rodin created a work that many sculptors at the time and subsequently have seen as one of his strongest and most singular works. This is despite the fact that the object conveys two different styles, exhibits two different attitudes toward finish, and lacks any attempt to hide the arbitrary fusion of these two components. It was the freedom and creativity with which Rodin used these practices – along with his activation surfaces of sculptures through traces of his own touch and with his more open attitude toward bodily pose, sensual subject matter, and non-naturalistic surface – that marked Rodin's re-making of traditional 19th century sculptural techniques into the prototype for modern sculpture.
By 1900, Rodin's artistic reputation was entrenched. Gaining exposure from a pavilion of his artwork set up near the 1900 World's Fair ("Exposition Universelle") in Paris, he received requests to make busts of prominent people internationally, while his assistants at the atelier produced duplicates of his works. His income from portrait commissions alone totaled probably 200,000 francs a year. As Rodin's fame grew, he attracted many followers, including the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and authors Octave Mirbeau, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Oscar Wilde.
Rilke stayed with Rodin in 1905 and 1906, and did administrative work for him; he would later write a laudatory monograph on the sculptor. Rodin and Beuret's modest country estate in Meudon, purchased in 1897, was a host to such visitors as King Edward, dancer Isadora Duncan, and harpsichordist Wanda Landowska. Rodin moved to the city in 1908, renting the main floor of the Hôtel Biron, an 18th-century townhouse. He left Beuret in Meudon, and began an affair with the American-born Duchesse de Choiseul. From 1910, he mentored the Russian sculptor, Moissey Kogan.
While Rodin was beginning to be accepted in France by the time of "The Burghers of Calais", he had not yet conquered the American market. Because of his technique and the frankness of some of his work, he did not have an easy time selling his work to American industrialists. However, he came to know Sarah Tyson Hallowell (1846–1924), a curator from Chicago who visited Paris to arrange exhibitions at the large Interstate Expositions of the 1870s and 1880s. Hallowell was not only a curator but an adviser and a facilitator who was trusted by a number of prominent American collectors to suggest works for their collections, the most prominent of these being the Chicago hotelier Potter Palmer and his wife, Bertha Palmer (1849–1918).
The next opportunity for Rodin in America was the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Hallowell wanted to help promote Rodin's work and he suggested a solo exhibition, which she wrote him was "beaucoup moins beau que l'original" but impossible, outside the rules. Instead, she suggested he send a number of works for her loan exhibition of French art from American collections and she told him she would list them as being part of an American collection. Rodin sent Hallowell three works, "Cupid and Psyche", "Sphinx" and "Andromeda". All nudes, these works provoked great controversy and were ultimately hidden behind a drape with special permission given for viewers to see them.
"Bust of Dalou" and "Burgher of Calais" were on display in the official French pavilion at the fair and so between the works that were on display and those that were not, he was noticed. However, the works he gave Hallowell to sell found no takers, but she soon brought the controversial Quaker-born financier Charles Yerkes (1837–1905) into the fold and he purchased two large marbles for his Chicago manse; Yerkes was likely the first American to own a Rodin sculpture.
Other collectors soon followed including the tastemaking Potter Palmers of Chicago and Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) of Boston, all arranged by Sarah Hallowell. In appreciation for her efforts at unlocking the American market, Rodin eventually presented Hallowell with a bronze, a marble and a terra cotta. When Hallowell moved to Paris in 1893, she and Rodin continued their warm friendship and correspondence, which lasted to the end of the sculptor's life. After Hallowell's death, her niece, the painter Harriet Hallowell, inherited the Rodins and after her death, the American heirs could not manage to match their value in order to export them, so they became the property of the French state.
After the start of the 20th century, Rodin was a regular visitor to Great Britain, where he developed a loyal following by the beginning of the First World War. He first visited England in 1881, where his friend, the artist Alphonse Legros, had introduced him to the poet William Ernest Henley. With his personal connections and enthusiasm for Rodin's art, Henley was most responsible for Rodin's reception in Britain. (Rodin later returned the favor by sculpting a that was used as the frontispiece to Henley's collected works and, after his death, on his monument in London.)
Through Henley, Rodin met Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Browning, in whom he found further support. Encouraged by the enthusiasm of British artists, students, and high society for his art, Rodin donated a significant selection of his works to the nation in 1914.
After the revitalization of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890, Rodin served as the body's vice-president. In 1903, Rodin was elected president of the International Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers. He replaced its former president, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, upon Whistler's death. His election to the prestigious position was largely due to the efforts of Albert Ludovici, father of English philosopher Anthony Ludovici, who was private secretary to Rodin for several months in 1906, but the two men parted company after Christmas, "to their mutual relief."
During his later creative years, Rodin's work turned increasingly toward the female form, and themes of more overt masculinity and femininity. He concentrated on small dance studies, and produced numerous erotic drawings, sketched in a loose way, without taking his pencil from the paper or his eyes from the model. Rodin met American dancer Isadora Duncan in 1900, attempted to seduce her, and the next year sketched studies of her and her students. In July 1906, Rodin was also enchanted by dancers from the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, and produced some of his most famous drawings from the experience.
Fifty-three years into their relationship, Rodin married Rose Beuret. They married on 29 January 1917, and Beuret died two weeks later, on 16 February. Rodin was ill that year; in January, he suffered weakness from influenza, and on 16 November his physician announced that "congestion of the lungs has caused great weakness. The patient's condition is grave." Rodin died the next day, age 77, at his villa in Meudon, Île-de-France, on the outskirts of Paris.
A cast of "The Thinker" was placed next to his tomb in Meudon; it was Rodin's wish that the figure served as his headstone and epitaph. In 1923, Marcell Tirel, Rodin's secretary, published a book alleging that Rodin's death was largely due to cold, and the fact that he had no heat at Meudon. Rodin requested permission to stay in the Hotel Biron, a museum of his works, but the director of the museum refused to let him stay there.
Rodin willed to the French state his studio and the right to make casts from his plasters. Because he encouraged the edition of his sculpted work, Rodin's sculptures are represented in many public and private collections. The Musée Rodin was founded in 1916 and opened in 1919 at the Hôtel Biron, where Rodin had lived, and it holds the largest Rodin collection, with more than 6,000 sculptures and 7,000 works on paper. The French order "Légion d'honneur" made him a Commander, and he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.
During his lifetime, Rodin was compared to Michelangelo, and was widely recognized as the greatest artist of the era. In the three decades following his death, his popularity waned with changing aesthetic values. Since the 1950s, Rodin's reputation has re-ascended; he is recognized as the most important sculptor of the modern era, and has been the subject of much scholarly work. The sense of incompletion offered by some of his sculpture, such as "The Walking Man", influenced the increasingly abstract sculptural forms of the 20th century.
Rodin restored an ancient role of sculpture – to capture the physical and intellectual force of the human subject – and he freed sculpture from the repetition of traditional patterns, providing the foundation for greater experimentation in the 20th century. His popularity is ascribed to his emotion-laden representations of ordinary men and women – to his ability to find the beauty and pathos in the human animal. His most popular works, such as "The Kiss" and "The Thinker", are widely used outside the fine arts as symbols of human emotion and character. To honor Rodin's artistic legacy, the Google search engine homepage displayed a Google Doodle featuring "The Thinker" to celebrate his 172nd birthday on 12 November 2012.
Rodin had enormous artistic influence. A whole generation of sculptors studied in his workshop. These include Gutzon Borglum, Antoine Bourdelle, Constantin Brancusi, Camille Claudel, Charles Despiau, Malvina Hoffman, Carl Milles, François Pompon, Rodo, Gustav Vigeland, Clara Westhoff and Margaret Winser, even though Brancusi later rejected his legacy. Rodin also promoted the work of other sculptors, including Aristide Maillol and Ivan Meštrović whom Rodin once called "the greatest phenomenon amongst sculptors." Other sculptors whose work has been described as owing to Rodin include Joseph Csaky, Alexander Archipenko, Joseph Bernard, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Georg Kolbe, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Jacques Lipchitz, Pablo Picasso, Adolfo Wildt, and Ossip Zadkine. Henry Moore acknowledged Rodin's seminal influence on his work.
Several films have been made featuring Rodin as a prominent character or presence. These include "Camille Claudel", a 1988 film in which Gérard Depardieu portrays Rodin, "Camille Claudel 1915" from 2013, and "Rodin", a 2017 film starring Vincent Lindon as Rodin.
The relative ease of making reproductions has also encouraged many forgeries: a survey of expert opinion placed Rodin in the top ten most-faked artists. Rodin fought against forgeries of his works as early as 1901, and since his death, many cases of organized, large-scale forgeries have been revealed. A massive forgery was discovered by French authorities in the early 1990s and led to the conviction of art dealer Guy Hain.
To deal with the complexity of bronze reproduction, France has promulgated several laws since 1956 which limit reproduction to twelve casts – the maximum number that can be made from an artist's plasters and still be considered his work. As a result of this limit, "The Burghers of Calais", for example, is found in fourteen cities.
In the market for sculpture, plagued by fakes, the value of a piece increases significantly when its provenance can be established. A Rodin work with a verified history sold for US$4.8 million in 1999, and Rodin's bronze "Eve, grand modele – version sans rocher" sold for $18.9 million at a 2008 Christie's auction in New York. Art critics concerned about authenticity have argued that taking a cast does not equal reproducing a Rodin sculpture – especially given the importance of surface treatment in Rodin's work.
A number of drawings previously attributed to Rodin, are now known to have been forged by Ernest Durig. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2065 |
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census recorded its population to be 113,934. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Washtenaw County. Ann Arbor is also included in the larger Greater Detroit Combined Statistical Area.
Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan. The university significantly shapes Ann Arbor's economy as it employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in the medical center. The city's economy is also centered on high technology, with several companies drawn to the area by the university's research and development infrastructure.
Ann Arbor was founded in 1824, named for wives of the village's founders, both named Ann, and the stands of bur oak trees. The University of Michigan moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor in 1837, and the city grew at a rapid rate in the early to mid-20th century. During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as a center for left-wing politics. Ann Arbor became a focal point for political activism, such as opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the legalization of cannabis.
In about 1774, the Potawatomi founded two villages in the area of what is now Ann Arbor.
Ann Arbor was founded in 1824 by land speculators John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey. On May 25, 1824, the town plat was registered with Wayne County as "Annarbour", the earliest known use of the town's name. Allen and Rumsey decided to name it for their wives, both named Ann, and for the stands of bur oak in the of land they purchased for $800 from the federal government at $1.25 per acre. The local Ojibwa named the settlement "kaw-goosh-kaw-nick", after the sound of Allen's sawmill.
Ann Arbor became the seat of Washtenaw County in 1827, and was incorporated as a village in 1833. The Ann Arbor Land Company, a group of speculators, set aside of undeveloped land and offered it to the state of Michigan as the site of the state capitol, but lost the bid to Lansing. In 1837, the property was accepted instead as the site of the University of Michigan, which moved from Detroit.
Since the university's establishment in the city in 1837, the histories of the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor have been closely linked. The town became a regional transportation hub in 1839 with the arrival of the Michigan Central Railroad, and a north–south railway connecting Ann Arbor to Toledo and other markets to the south was established in 1878. Throughout the 1840s and the 1850s settlers continued to come to Ann Arbor. While the earlier settlers were primarily of British ancestry, the newer settlers also consisted of Germans, Irish, and African-Americans. In 1851, Ann Arbor was chartered as a city, though the city showed a drop in population during the Depression of 1873. It was not until the early 1880s that Ann Arbor again saw robust growth, with new emigrants from Greece, Italy, Russia, and Poland. Ann Arbor saw increased growth in manufacturing, particularly in milling. Ann Arbor's Jewish community also grew after the turn of the 20th century, and its first and oldest synagogue, Beth Israel Congregation, was established in 1916.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as an important center for liberal politics. Ann Arbor also became a locus for left-wing activism and anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as the student movement. The first major meetings of the national left-wing campus group Students for a Democratic Society took place in Ann Arbor in 1960; in 1965, the city was home to the first U.S. teach-in against the Vietnam War. During the ensuing 15 years, many countercultural and New Left enterprises sprang up and developed large constituencies within the city. These influences washed into municipal politics during the early and mid-1970s when three members of the Human Rights Party (HRP) won city council seats on the strength of the student vote. During their time on the council, HRP representatives fought for measures including pioneering antidiscrimination ordinances, measures decriminalizing marijuana possession, and a rent-control ordinance; many of these progressive organizations remain in effect today in modified form.
Two religious-conservative institutions were created in Ann Arbor; the Word of God (established in 1967), a charismatic inter-denominational movement; and the Thomas More Law Center (established in 1999).
Following a 1956 vote, the city of East Ann Arbor merged with Ann Arbor to encompass the eastern sections of the city.
In the past several decades, Ann Arbor has grappled with the effects of sharply rising land values, gentrification, and urban sprawl stretching into outlying countryside. On November 4, 2003, voters approved a greenbelt plan under which the city government bought development rights on agricultural parcels of land adjacent to Ann Arbor to preserve them from sprawling development. Since then, a vociferous local debate has hinged on how and whether to accommodate and guide development within city limits. Ann Arbor consistently ranks in the "top places to live" lists published by various mainstream media outlets every year. In 2008, it was ranked by CNNMoney.com 27th out of 100 "America's best small cities". And in 2010, "Forbes" listed Ann Arbor as one of the most liveable cities in the United States.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and is water, much of which is part of the Huron River. Ann Arbor is road miles west of Ypsilanti. Ann Arbor is also road miles west of Detroit. Ann Arbor Charter Township adjoins the city's north and east sides. Ann Arbor is situated on the Huron River in a productive agricultural and fruit-growing region. The landscape of Ann Arbor consists of hills and valleys, with the terrain becoming steeper near the Huron River. The elevation ranges from about along the Huron River to on the city's west side, near the intersection of Maple Road and Pauline Blvd. Generally, the west-central and northwestern parts of the city and U-M's North Campus are the highest parts of the city; the lowest parts are along the Huron River and in the southeast. Ann Arbor Municipal Airport, which is south of the city at , has an elevation of .
Ann Arbor's "Tree Town" nickname stems from the dense forestation of its parks and residential areas. The city contains more than 50,000 trees along its streets and an equal number in parks. In recent years, the emerald ash borer has destroyed many of the city's approximately 10,500 ash trees. The city contains 157 municipal parks ranging from small neighborhood green spots to large recreation areas. Several large city parks and a university park border sections of the Huron River. Fuller Recreation Area, near the University Hospital complex, contains sports fields, pedestrian and bike paths, and swimming pools. The Nichols Arboretum, owned by the University of Michigan, is a arboretum that contains hundreds of plant and tree species. It is on the city's east side, near the university's Central Campus. Located across the Huron River just beyond the university's North Campus is the university's Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which contains 300 acres of gardens and a large tropical conservatory as well as a wildflower garden specializing in the vegetation of the southern Great Lakes Region..
The Kerrytown Shops, Main Street Business District, the State Street Business District, and the South University Business District are commercial areas in downtown Ann Arbor. Three commercial areas south of downtown include the areas near I-94 and Ann Arbor-Saline Road, Briarwood Mall, and the South Industrial area. Other commercial areas include the Arborland/Washtenaw Avenue and Packard Road merchants on the east side, the Plymouth Road area in the northeast, and the Westgate/West Stadium areas on the west side. Downtown contains a mix of 19th- and early-20th-century structures and modern-style buildings, as well as a farmers' market in the Kerrytown district. The city's commercial districts are composed mostly of two- to four-story structures, although downtown and the area near Briarwood Mall contain a small number of high-rise buildings.
Ann Arbor's residential neighborhoods contain architectural styles ranging from classic 19th- and early 20th-century designs to ranch-style houses. Among these homes are a number of kit houses built in the early 20th century. Contemporary-style houses are farther from the downtown district. Surrounding the University of Michigan campus are houses and apartment complexes occupied primarily by student renters. Tower Plaza, a 26-story condominium building located between the University of Michigan campus and downtown, is the tallest building in Ann Arbor. The 19th-century buildings and streetscape of the Old West Side neighborhood have been preserved virtually intact; in 1972, the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is further protected by city ordinances and a nonprofit preservation group.
Ann Arbor has a typically Midwestern humid continental climate (Köppen "Dfa"), which is influenced by the Great Lakes. There are four distinct seasons: winters are cold and snowy, with average highs around . Summers are warm to hot and humid, with average highs around and with slightly more precipitation. Spring and autumn are transitional between the two. The area experiences lake effect weather, primarily in the form of increased cloudiness during late fall and early winter. The monthly daily average temperature in July is , while the same figure for January is . Temperatures reach or exceed on 10 days, and drop to or below on 4.6 nights. Precipitation tends to be the heaviest during the summer months, but most frequent during winter. Snowfall, which normally occurs from November to April but occasionally starts in October, averages per season. The lowest recorded temperature was on February 11, 1885 and the highest recorded temperature was on July 24, 1934.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 113,934 people, 20,502 families, and 47,060 households residing in the city. The population density was 4,093.9 people per square mile (1,580.7/km²), making it less densely populated than Detroit proper and its inner-ring suburbs like Oak Park and Ferndale, but more densely populated than outer-ring suburbs like Livonia and Troy. The racial makeup of the city was 73.0% White (70.4% non-Hispanic White), 7.7% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 14.4% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 1.0% from other races, and 3.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race made up 4.1% of the population. Ann Arbor has a small population of Arab Americans, including students as well as local Lebanese and Palestinians.
In 2013, Ann Arbor had the second-largest community of Japanese citizens in the state of Michigan, at 1,541; this figure trailed only that of Novi, which had 2,666 Japanese nationals.
In 2010, out of 47,060 households, 43.6% were family households, 20.1% had individuals under the age of 18 living in them, and 17.0% had individuals over age 65 living in them. Of the 20,502 family households, 19.2% included children under age 18, 34.2% were husband-wife families (estimates did not include same-sex married couples), and 7.1% had a female householder with no husband present. The average household size was 2.17 people, and the average family size was 2.85 people. The median age was 27.8; 14.4% of the population was under age 18, and 9.3% was age 65 or older.
According to the 2012–2016 American Community Survey estimates, the median household income was $57,697, and the median family income was $95,528. Males over age 25 and with earnings had a median income of $51,682, versus $39,203 for females. The per capita income for the city was $37,158. Nearly a quarter (23.4%) of people and 6.7% of families had incomes below the poverty level.
The University of Michigan shapes Ann Arbor's economy significantly. It employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in the medical center. Other employers are drawn to the area by the university's research and development money, and by its graduates. High tech, health services and biotechnology are other major components of the city's economy; numerous medical offices, laboratories, and associated companies are located in the city. Automobile manufacturers, such as General Motors and Visteon, also employ residents.
High tech companies have located in the area since the 1930s, when International Radio Corporation introduced the first mass-produced AC/DC radio (the Kadette, in 1931) as well as the first pocket radio (the Kadette Jr., in 1933). The Argus camera company, originally a subsidiary of International Radio, manufactured cameras in Ann Arbor from 1936 to the 1960s. Current firms include Arbor Networks (provider of Internet traffic engineering and security systems), Arbortext (provider of XML-based publishing software), JSTOR (the digital scholarly journal archive), MediaSpan (provider of software and online services for the media industries), Truven Health Analytics, and ProQuest, which includes UMI. Ann Arbor Terminals manufactured a video-display terminal called the Ann Arbor Ambassador during the 1980s. Barracuda Networks, which provides networking, security, and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services, opened an engineering office in Ann Arbor in 2008 on Depot St. and currently occupies the building previously used as the Borders headquarters on Maynard Street. Duo Security, a cloud-based access security provider protecting thousands of organizations worldwide through two-factor authentication, is headquartered in Ann Arbor. It was formally a unicorn and continues to be headquarter in Ann Arbor after its acquisition by Cisco Systems.
Websites and online media companies in or near the city include All Media Guide, the Weather Underground, and Zattoo. Ann Arbor is the home to Internet2 and the Merit Network, a not-for-profit research and education computer network. Both are located in the South State Commons 2 building on South State Street, which once housed the Michigan Information Technology Center Foundation. The city is also home to the headquarters of Google's AdWords program—the company's primary revenue stream. The recent surge in companies operating in Ann Arbor has led to a decrease in its office and flex space vacancy rates. As of December 31, 2012, the total market vacancy rate for office and flex space is 11.80%, a 1.40% decrease in vacancy from one year previous, and the lowest overall vacancy level since 2003. The office vacancy rate decreased to 10.65% in 2012 from 12.08% in 2011, while the flex vacancy rate decreased slightly more, with a drop from 16.50% to 15.02%.
Pfizer, once the city's second largest employer, operated a large pharmaceutical research facility on the northeast side of Ann Arbor. On January 22, 2007, Pfizer announced it would close operations in Ann Arbor by the end of 2008. The facility was previously operated by Warner-Lambert and, before that, Parke-Davis. In December 2008, the University of Michigan Board of Regents approved the purchase of the facilities, and the university anticipates hiring 2,000 researchers and staff during the next 10 years. It is now known as North Campus Research Complex. The city is the home of other research and engineering centers, including those of Lotus Engineering, General Dynamics and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other research centers sited in the city are the United States Environmental Protection Agency's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory and the Toyota Technical Center. The city is also home to National Sanitation Foundation International (NSF International), the nonprofit non-governmental organization that develops generally accepted standards for a variety of public health related industries and subject areas.
Borders Books, started in Ann Arbor, was opened by brothers Tom and Louis Borders in 1971 with a stock of used books. The Borders chain was based in the city, as was its flagship store until it closed in September 2011. Domino's Pizza's headquarters is near Ann Arbor on Domino's Farms, a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired complex just northeast of the city. Another Ann Arbor-based company is Zingerman's Delicatessen, which serves sandwiches and has developed businesses under a variety of brand names. Zingerman's has grown into a family of companies which offers a variety of products (bake shop, mail order, creamery, coffee) and services (business education). Flint Ink Corp., another Ann Arbor-based company, was the world's largest privately held ink manufacturer until it was acquired by Stuttgart-based XSYS Print Solutions in October 2005. Avfuel, a global supplier of aviation fuels and services, is also headquartered in Ann Arbor. Aastrom Biosciences, a publicly traded company that develops stem cell treatments for cardiovascular diseases, is also headquartered in Ann Arbor.
Many cooperative enterprises were founded in the city; among those that remain are the People's Food Co-op and the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan, a student housing cooperative founded in 1937. There are also three cohousing communities—Sunward, Great Oak, and Touchstone—located immediately to the west of the city limits.
Several performing arts groups and facilities are on the University of Michigan's campus, as are museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and natural history and sciences. Founded in 1879, the University Musical Society is an independent performing arts organization that presents over 60 events each year, bringing international artists in music, dance, and theater. Since 2001 Shakespeare in the Arb has presented one play by Shakespeare each June, in a large park near downtown. Regional and local performing arts groups not associated with the university include the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, the Arbor Opera Theater, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, the Ann Arbor Ballet Theater, the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established in 1954 as Michigan's first chartered ballet company), The Ark, and Performance Network Theatre. Another unique piece of artistic expression in Ann Arbor is the fairy doors. These small portals are examples of installation art and can be found throughout the downtown area.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is located in a renovated and expanded historic downtown fire station. Multiple art galleries exist in the city, notably in the downtown area and around the University of Michigan campus. Aside from a large restaurant scene in the Main Street, South State Street, and South University Avenue areas, Ann Arbor ranks first among U.S. cities in the number of booksellers and books sold per capita. The Ann Arbor District Library maintains four branch outlets in addition to its main downtown building. The city is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Several annual events—many of them centered on performing and visual arts—draw visitors to Ann Arbor. One such event is the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, a set of four concurrent juried fairs held on downtown streets. Scheduled on Thursday through Sunday of the third week of July, the fairs draw upward of half a million visitors. Another is the Ann Arbor Film Festival, held during the third week of March, which receives more than 2,500 submissions annually from more than 40 countries and serves as one of a handful of Academy Award–qualifying festivals in the United States.
Ann Arbor has a long history of openness to marijuana, given Ann Arbor's decriminalization of cannabis, the large number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city (one dispensary, called People's Co-op, was directly across the street from Michigan Stadium until zoning forced it to move one mile to the west), the large number of pro-marijuana residents, and the annual Hash Bash: an event that is held on the first Saturday of April. Until (at least) the successful passage of Michigan's medical marijuana law, the event had arguably strayed from its initial intent, although for years, a number of attendees have received serious legal responses due to marijuana use on University of Michigan property, which does not fall under the city's progressive and compassionate ticketing program.
Ann Arbor is a major center for college sports, most notably at the University of Michigan, a member of the Big Ten Conference. Several well-known college sports facilities exist in the city, including Michigan Stadium, the largest American football stadium in the world and the third-largest stadium of any kind in the world. Michigan Stadium has a capacity of 107,601, with the final "extra" seat said to be reserved for and in honor of former athletic director and Hall of Fame football coach Fitz Crisler. The stadium was completed in 1927 and cost more than $950,000 to build. The stadium is colloquially known as "The Big House" due to its status as the largest American football stadium. Crisler Center and Yost Ice Arena play host to the school's basketball (both men's and women's) and ice hockey teams, respectively. Concordia University, a member of the NAIA, also fields sports teams.
Ann Arbor is represented in the NPSL by semi-pro soccer team AFC Ann Arbor, a club founded in 2014 who call themselves The Mighty Oak.
A person from Ann Arbor is called an "Ann Arborite", and many long-time residents call themselves "townies". The city itself is often called "A²" ("A-squared") or "A2" ("A two") or "AA", "The Deuce" (mainly by Chicagoans), and "Tree Town". With tongue-in-cheek reference to the city's liberal political leanings, some occasionally refer to Ann Arbor as "The People's Republic of Ann Arbor" or "25 square miles surrounded by reality", the latter phrase being adapted from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus's description of Madison, Wisconsin. In "A Prairie Home Companion" broadcast from Ann Arbor, Garrison Keillor described Ann Arbor as "a city where people discuss socialism, but only in the fanciest restaurants." Ann Arbor sometimes appears on citation indexes as an author, instead of a location, often with the academic degree "MI", a misunderstanding of the abbreviation for Michigan.
Ann Arbor has a council-manager form of government. The City Council has 11 voting members: the mayor and 10 city council members. Two city council members are elected from each of the city's five wards. The mayor and council serve four-year terms. The mayor and one council member from each ward are elected in Presidential election years, and the other five council members are elected in the alternate even-numbered years. The mayor is elected citywide. The mayor is the presiding officer of the City Council and has the power to appoint all Council committee members as well as board and commission members, with the approval of the City Council. The current mayor of Ann Arbor is Christopher Taylor, a Democrat who was elected as mayor in 2014. Day-to-day city operations are managed by a city administrator chosen by the city council.
Ann Arbor holds mayoral elections to 2-year terms in even years.
Until 2017, City Council held annual elections in which half of the seats (one from each ward) were elected to 2-year terms. These elections were staggered, with each ward having one of their seats up for election in odd years and their other seat up for election in even years. Beginning in 2018 the City Council has had staggered elections to 4-year terms in even years. This means that half of the members (one from each ward) are elected in presidential election years, while the other half are elected in mid-term election years. To facilitate this change in scheduling, the 2017 election elected members to terms that lasted 3-years.
In 1960, Ann Arbor voters approved a $2.3 million bond issue to build the current city hall, which was designed by architect Alden B. Dow. The City Hall opened in 1963. In 1995, the building was renamed the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building in honor of the longtime city administrator who championed the building's construction.
Ann Arbor is part of Michigan's 12th congressional district, represented in Congress by Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat. On the state level, the city is part of the 18th district in the Michigan Senate, represented by Democrat Rebekah Warren. In the Michigan House of Representatives, representation is split between the 55th district (northern Ann Arbor, part of Ann Arbor Township, and other surrounding areas, represented by Democrat Adam Zemke), the 53rd district (most of downtown and the southern half of the city, represented by Democrat Yousef Rabhi) and the 52nd district (southwestern areas outside Ann Arbor proper and western Washtenaw County, represented by Democrat Donna Lasinski).
As the county seat of Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw County Trial Court (22nd Circuit Court) is located in Ann Arbor at the Washtenaw County Courthouse on Main Street. This court has countywide general jurisdiction and has two divisions: the Civil/Criminal (criminal and civil matters) and the Family Division (which includes Juvenile Court, Friend of the Court, and Probate Court sections). Seven judges serve on the court.
Ann Arbor also has a local state district court (15th District Court), which serves only the City of Ann Arbor. In Michigan, the state district courts are limited jurisdiction courts which handle traffic violations, civil cases with claims under $25,000, landlord-tenant matters, and misdemeanor crimes.
The Ann Arbor Federal Building (attached to a post office) on Liberty Street serves as one of the courthouses for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Progressive politics have been particularly strong in municipal government since the 1960s. Voters approved charter amendments that have lessened the penalties for possession of marijuana (1974), and that aim to protect access to abortion in the city should it ever become illegal in the State of Michigan (1990). In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko's victory in an Ann Arbor city-council race made her the country's first openly homosexual candidate to win public office. In 1975, Ann Arbor became the first U.S. city to use instant-runoff voting for a mayoral race. Adopted through a ballot initiative sponsored by the local Human Rights Party, which feared a splintering of the liberal vote, the process was repealed in 1976 after use in only one election. As of May 2016, Democrats hold the mayorship and nine out of the ten council seats. Nationally, Ann Arbor is located in Michigan's 12th congressional district, represented by Democrat Debbie Dingell.
In 2015, Ann Arbor was ranked 11th safest among cities in Michigan with a population of over 50,000. It ranked safer than cities such as Royal Oak, Livonia, Canton and Clinton Township. The level of most crimes in Ann Arbor has fallen significantly in the past 20 years. In 1995 there were 294 aggravated assaults, 132 robberies and 43 rapes while in 2015 there were 128 aggravated assaults, 42 robberies and 58 rapes (under the revised definition).
Ann Arbor's crime rate was below the national average in 2000. The violent crime rate was further below the national average than the property crime rate; the two rates were 48% and 11% lower than the U.S. average, respectively.
Public schools are part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) district. AAPS has one of the country's leading music programs. In September 2008, 16,539 students had been enrolled in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Notable schools include Pioneer, Huron, Skyline, and Community high schools, and Ann Arbor Open School. The district has a preschool center with both free and tuition-based programs for preschoolers in the district.
Ann Arbor is home to several private schools, including the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, Clonlara School, Michigan Islamic Academy, and Greenhills School, a prep school. The city is also home to several charter schools such as Central Academy (PreK-12) of the Global Educational Excellence (GEE) charter school company, and Honey Creek Community School.
The University of Michigan dominates the city of Ann Arbor, providing the city with its distinctive college-town character. University buildings are located in the center of the city and the campus is directly adjacent to the State Street and South University downtown areas.
Other local colleges and universities include Concordia University Ann Arbor, a Lutheran liberal-arts institution; a campus of the University of Phoenix; and Cleary University, a private business school. Washtenaw Community College is located in neighboring Ann Arbor Township. In 2000, the Ave Maria School of Law, a Roman Catholic law school established by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, opened in northeastern Ann Arbor, but the school moved to Ave Maria, Florida in 2009, and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School acquired the former Ave Maria buildings for use as a branch campus.
"The Ann Arbor News", owned by the Michigan-based Booth Newspapers chain, was the major newspaper serving Ann Arbor and the rest of Washtenaw County. The newspaper ended its 174-year daily print run in 2009, due to economic difficulties and began producing two printed editions a week under the name AnnArbor.com, It resumed using its former name in 2013. It also produces a daily digital edition named Mlive.com. Another Ann Arbor-based publication that has ceased production was the "Ann Arbor Paper", a free monthly. Ann Arbor has been said to be the first significant city to lose its only daily paper. The "Ann Arbor Chronicle", an online newspaper, covered local news, including meetings of the library board, county commission, and DDA until September 3, 2014.
Current publications in the city include the "Ann Arbor Journal" ("A2 Journal"), a weekly community newspaper; the "Ann Arbor Observer", a free monthly local magazine; and "Current", a free entertainment-focused alt-weekly. The "Ann Arbor Business Review" covers local business in the area. "Car and Driver" magazine and "Automobile Magazine" are also based in Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan is served by many student publications, including the independent "Michigan Daily" student newspaper, which reports on local, state, and regional issues in addition to campus news.
Four major AM radio stations based in or near Ann Arbor are WAAM 1600, a conservative news and talk station; WLBY 1290, a business news and talk station; WDEO 990, Catholic radio; and WTKA 1050, which is primarily a sports station. The city's FM stations include NPR affiliate WUOM 91.7; country station WWWW 102.9; and adult-alternative station WQKL 107.1. Freeform station WCBN-FM 88.3 is a local community radio/college radio station operated by the students of the University of Michigan featuring noncommercial, eclectic music and public-affairs programming. The city is also served by public and commercial radio broadcasters in Ypsilanti, the Lansing/Jackson area, Detroit, Windsor, and Toledo.
Ann Arbor is part of the Detroit television market. WPXD channel 31, the owned-and-operated Detroit outlet of the ION Television network, is licensed to the city. Until its sign-off on August 31, 2017, WHTV channel 18, a MyNetworkTV-affiliated station for the Lansing market, was broadcast from a transmitter in Lyndon Township, west of Ann Arbor. Community Television Network (CTN) is a city-provided cable television channel with production facilities open to city residents and nonprofit organizations. Detroit and Toledo-area radio and television stations also serve Ann Arbor, and stations from Lansing and Windsor, Ontario, can be seen in parts of the area.
The University of Michigan Medical Center, the only teaching hospital in the city, took the number 1 slot in "U.S. News & World Report" for best hospital in the state of Michigan, as of 2015. The University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) includes University Hospital, C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Women's Hospital in its core complex. UMHS also operates out-patient clinics and facilities throughout the city. The area's other major medical centers include a large facility operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor, and Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in nearby Superior Township.
The city provides sewage disposal and water supply services, with water coming from the Huron River and groundwater sources. There are two water-treatment plants, one main and three outlying reservoirs, four pump stations, and two water towers. These facilities serve the city, which is divided into five water districts. The city's water department also operates four dams along the Huron River—Argo, Barton, Geddes, and Superior—of which Barton and Superior provide hydroelectric power. The city also offers waste management services, with Recycle Ann Arbor handling recycling service. Other utilities are provided by private entities. Electrical power and gas are provided by DTE Energy. AT&T Inc. is the primary wired telephone service provider for the area. Cable TV service is primarily provided by Comcast.
The streets in downtown Ann Arbor conform to a grid pattern, though this pattern is less common in the surrounding areas. Major roads branch out from the downtown district like spokes on a wheel to the highways surrounding the city. The city is belted by three freeways: I-94, which runs along the southern and western portion of the city; U.S. Highway 23 (US 23), which primarily runs along the eastern edge of Ann Arbor; and M-14, which runs along the northern edge of the city. Other nearby highways include US 12 (Michigan Ave.), M-17 (Washtenaw Ave.), and M-153 (Ford Rd.). Several of the major surface arteries lead to the I-94/M-14 interchange in the west, US 23 in the east, and the city's southern areas. The city also has a system of bike routes and paths and includes the nearly complete Washtenaw County Border-to-Border Trail.
The Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (AAATA), which brands itself as "TheRide", operates public bus services throughout the city and nearby Ypsilanti. The AATA operates Blake Transit Center on Fourth Ave. in downtown Ann Arbor, and the Ypsilanti Transit Center. A separate zero-fare bus service operates within and between the University of Michigan campuses. Since April 2012, route 98 (the "AirRide") connects to Detroit Metro Airport a dozen times a day. There are also limited-stop bus services between Ann Arbor and Chelsea as well as Canton. These two routes, 91 and 92 respectively, are known as the "ExpressRide".
Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service. The Michigan Flyer, a service operated by Indian Trails, cooperates with AAATA for their AirRide and additionally offers bus service to East Lansing. Megabus has direct service to Chicago, Illinois, while a bus service is provided by Amtrak for rail passengers making connections to services in East Lansing and Toledo, Ohio.
Ann Arbor Municipal Airport is a small, city-run general aviation airport located south of I-94. Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the area's large international airport, is about east of the city, in Romulus. Willow Run Airport east of the city near Ypsilanti serves freight, corporate, and general aviation clients.
The city was a major rail hub, notably for freight traffic between Toledo and ports north of Chicago, Illinois, from 1878 to 1982; however, the Ann Arbor Railroad also provided passenger service from 1878 to 1950. The city was served by the Michigan Central Railroad starting in 1837. The Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Street Railway, Michigan's first interurban, served the city from 1891 to 1929.
Amtrak, which provides service to the city at the Ann Arbor Train Station, operates the "Wolverine" train between Chicago and Pontiac, via Detroit. The present-day train station neighbors the city's old Michigan Central Depot, which was renovated as a restaurant in 1970.
Ann Arbor has seven sister cities: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2067 |
Act of Settlement 1701
The Act of Settlement is an Act of the Parliament of England that was passed in 1701 to settle the succession to the English and Irish crowns on Protestants only. The next Protestant in line to the throne was the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a granddaughter of James VI of Scotland, I of England and Ireland. After her, the crowns would descend only to her non-Roman Catholic heirs.
The act was prompted by the failure of King William III & II and Queen Mary II, as well as of Mary's sister Queen Anne, to produce any surviving children, and the Roman Catholic religion of all other members of the House of Stuart. The line of Sophia of Hanover was the most junior among the Stuarts, but consisted of convinced Protestants. Sophia died on 8 June 1714, before the death of Queen Anne on 1 August 1714. On Queen Anne's death, Sophia's son duly became King George I and started the Hanoverian dynasty in Britain.
The act played a key role in the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain. England and Scotland had shared a monarch since 1603, but had remained separately governed countries. The Scottish parliament was more reluctant than the English to abandon the House of Stuart, members of which had been Scottish monarchs long before they became English ones. English pressure on Scotland to accept the Act of Settlement was one factor leading to the parliamentary union of the two countries in 1707.
Under the Act of Settlement anyone who became a Roman Catholic, or who married one, became disqualified to inherit the throne. The act also placed limits on both the role of foreigners in the British government and the power of the monarch with respect to the Parliament of England. Some of those provisions have been altered by subsequent legislation.
Along with the Bill of Rights 1689, the Act of Settlement remains today one of the main constitutional laws governing the succession not only to the throne of the United Kingdom, but to those of the other Commonwealth realms, whether by assumption or by patriation. The Act of Settlement cannot be altered in any realm except by that realm's own parliament and, by convention, only with the consent of all the other realms, as it touches on the succession to the shared crown.
Following the Perth Agreement in 2011, legislation amending the act came into effect across the Commonwealth realms on 26 March 2015, and removed the disqualification arising from marriage to a Roman Catholic.
Following the Glorious Revolution, the line of succession to the English throne was governed by the Bill of Rights 1689, which declared that the flight of James II from England to France during the revolution amounted to an abdication of the throne and that James' daughter Mary II and her husband, William III (who was also James' nephew), were James' successors. The Bill of Rights also provided that the line of succession would go through their descendants, then through Mary's sister Anne and her descendants, and then to the issue of William III by a possible later marriage. During the debate, the House of Lords had attempted to append Sophia and her descendants to the line of succession, but the amendment failed in the Commons.
Mary II died childless in 1694, after which William III did not remarry. In 1700, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who was Anne's only child to survive infancy, died of smallpox at the age of 11. Thus, Anne was left as the only person in line to the throne. The Bill of Rights excluded Catholics from the throne, which ruled out James II and his descendants. However, it did not provide for the further succession after Anne. Parliament thus saw the need to settle the succession on Sophia and her descendants, and thereby guarantee the continuity of the Crown in the Protestant line.
With religion and lineage initially decided, the ascendancy of William of Orange in 1689 would also bring his partiality to his foreign favourites that followed. By 1701 English jealousy of foreigners was rampant, and action was considered necessary for correction.
The Act of Settlement provided that the throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover – a granddaughter of James VI and I and a niece of King Charles I – and her descendants, but it excluded "for ever" "all and every Person and Persons who ... is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall profess the Popish Religion or shall marry a Papist". Thus, those who were Roman Catholics, and those who married Roman Catholics, were barred from ascending the throne. Notably, the Act did not even mention the concept of marriages involving heirs to the throne and members of non-Christian faiths because that would have been unthinkable in eighteenth century Great Britain.
The Act contained eight additional provisions that were to only come into effect upon the death of both William and Anne:
The Tory administration that replaced the Whig Junto in 1699 took responsibility for steering the Act through Parliament. As a result, it passed with little opposition, although five peers voted against it in the House of Lords, including the Earl of Huntingdon, his brother-in-law the Earl of Scarsdale and three others. While many shared their opposition to a 'foreign' king, the general feeling was summed up as 'better a German prince than a French one.'
For different reasons, various constitutionalists have praised the Act of Settlement: Henry Hallam called the Act "the seal of our constitutional laws" and David Lindsay Keir placed its importance above the Bill of Rights of 1689. Naamani Tarkow has written: "If one is to make sweeping statements, one may say that, save Magna Carta (more truly, its implications), the Act of Settlement is probably the most significant statute in English history".
The Act of Settlement was, in many ways, the major cause of the union of Scotland with England and Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Parliament of Scotland was not happy with the Act of Settlement and, in response, passed the Act of Security in 1704, through which Scotland reserved the right to choose its own successor to Queen Anne. Stemming from this, the Parliament of England decided that, to ensure the stability and future prosperity of Great Britain, full union of the two parliaments and nations was essential before Anne's death.
It used a combination of exclusionary legislation (the Alien Act 1705), politics, and bribery to achieve this within three years under the Act of Union 1707. This success was in marked contrast to the four attempts at political union between 1606 and 1689, which all failed owing to a lack of political will in both kingdoms. By virtue of Article II of the Treaty of Union, which defined the succession to the throne of Great Britain, the Act of Settlement became part of Scots Law as well.
In addition to James II (who died a few months after the act received royal assent) and his Roman Catholic children, Prince James and the Princess Royal, the act also excluded the descendants of King James's sister, Henrietta, the youngest daughter of Charles I. Henrietta's daughter, Anne, was then the Queen of Sardinia and a Roman Catholic; Jacobite pretenders after 1807 are descended from her.
With the legitimate descendants of Charles I either childless (in the case of William III and Anne) or Roman Catholic, Parliament's choice was limited to the Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover, the daughter of the late Elizabeth of Bohemia. Elizabeth was the only other child of King James I not to have died in childhood. Elizabeth had borne nine children who reached adulthood, of whom Sophia was the youngest daughter. However, in 1701, Sophia was the senior Protestant with a legitimate claim to the English throne; Parliament passed over senior living representatives of lines which included Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans; Louis Otto, Prince of Salm, and his sisters; Anne Henriette, Princess of Condé; Benedicta Henrietta, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg; and Sophia's sister, Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate because they were all Roman Catholic.
Since the Act's passing the most senior living member of the royal family to have married a Roman Catholic, and thereby to have been removed from the line of succession, is Prince Michael of Kent, who married Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in 1978; he was fifteenth in the line of succession at the time. He was restored to the line of succession in 2015 when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 came into force, and became 34th in line.
The next most senior living descendant of the Electress Sophia who had been ineligible to succeed on this ground is George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews, the elder son of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who married the Roman Catholic Sylvana Palma Tomaselli in 1988. His son, Lord Downpatrick, converted to Roman Catholicism in 2003 and is the most senior descendant of Sophia to be barred as a result of his religion. In 2008 his daughter, Lady Marina Windsor, also converted to Catholicism and was removed from the line of succession. More recently, Peter Phillips, the son of Anne, Princess Royal, and eleventh in line to the throne, married Autumn Kelly; Kelly had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, but she converted to Anglicanism prior to the wedding. Had she not done so, Phillips would have forfeited his place in the succession upon their marriage, only to have it restored in 2015.
Excluding those princesses who have married into Roman Catholic royal families, such as Marie of Edinburgh, Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh, one member of the Royal Family (that is, with the style of "Royal Highness") has converted to Roman Catholicism since the passage of the Act: the Duchess of Kent, wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who converted on 14 January 1994, but her husband did not lose his place in the succession because she was an Anglican at the time of their marriage.
As well as being part of the law of the United Kingdom, the Act of Settlement was received into the laws of all the countries and territories over which the British monarch reigned. It remains part of the laws of the 16 Commonwealth realms and the relevant jurisdictions within those realms. In accordance with established convention, the Statute of Westminster 1931 and later laws, the Act of Settlement (along with the other laws governing the succession of the Commonwealth realms) may only be changed with the agreement of all the realms (and, in some federal realms, the constituent members of those federations).
Challenges have been made against the Act of Settlement, especially its provisions regarding Roman Catholics and preference for males. However, changing the Act is a complex process, since the Act governs the shared succession of all the Commonwealth realms. The Statute of Westminster 1931 acknowledges by established convention that any changes to the rules of succession may be made only with the agreement of all of the states involved, with concurrent amendments to be made by each state's parliament or parliaments. Further, as the current monarch's eldest child and, in turn, his eldest child, are Anglican males, any change to the succession laws would have no immediate implications. Consequently, there was little public concern with the issues and debate had been confined largely to academic circles until the November 2010 announcement that Prince William was to marry. This raised the question of what would happen if he were to produce first a daughter and then a son.
"The Times" reported on 6 November 1995 that Prince Charles had said on that day to Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown that "Catholics should be able to ascend to the British throne". Ashdown claimed the Prince said: "I really can't think why we can't have Catholics on the throne". In 1998, during debate on a Succession to the Crown Bill, Junior Home Office Minister Lord Williams of Mostyn informed the House of Lords that the Queen had "no objection to the Government's view that in determining the line of succession to the throne, daughters and sons should be treated in the same way."
In October 2011 the Australian federal government was reported to have reached an agreement with all of the states on potential changes to their laws in the wake of amendments to the Act of Settlement. The practice of the Australian states—for example, New South Wales and Victoria—has been, when legislating to repeal some imperial statutes so far as they still applied in Australia, to provide that imperial statutes concerning the royal succession remain in force.
The legal process required at the federal level remains, theoretically, unclear. The Australian constitution, as was noted during the crisis of 1936, contains no power for the federal parliament to legislate with respect to the monarchy. Everything thus turns upon the status and meaning of clause 2 in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, which provides: "The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom."
Anne Twomey reviews three possible interpretations of the clause.
However, Twomey expresses confidence that, if the High Court of Australia were to be faced with the problems of covering clause 2, it would find some way to conclude that, with regard to Australia, the clause is subject solely to Australian law. Canadian scholar Richard Toporoski theorised in 1998 that "if, let us say, an alteration were to be made in the United Kingdom to the Act of Settlement 1701, providing for the succession of the Crown... [i]t is my opinion that the domestic constitutional law of Australia or Papua New Guinea, for example, would provide for the succession in those countries of the same person who became Sovereign of the United Kingdom."
In practice, when legislating for the Perth Agreement (see below), the Australian governments took the approach of the states requesting, and referring power to, the federal government to enact the legislation on behalf of the states (under paragraph 51(xxxviii) of the Australian Constitution) and the Commonwealth of Australia.
In Canada, where the Act of Settlement () is now a part of Canadian constitutional law, Tony O'Donohue, a Canadian civic politician, took issue with the provisions that exclude Roman Catholics from the throne, and which make the monarch of Canada the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, requiring him or her to be an Anglican. This, he claimed, discriminated against non-Anglicans, including Catholics, who are the largest faith group in Canada. In 2002, O'Donohue launched a court action that argued the Act of Settlement violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but, the case was dismissed by the court. It found that, as the Act of Settlement is part of the Canadian constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as another part of the same constitution, does not have supremacy over it. Also, the court noted that, while Canada has the power to amend the line of succession to the Canadian throne, the Statute of Westminster stipulates that the agreement of the governments of the fifteen other Commonwealth realms that share the Crown would first have to be sought if Canada wished to continue its relationship with these countries. An appeal of the decision was dismissed on 16 March 2005. Some commentators state that, as a result of this, any single provincial legislature could hinder any attempts to change this Act, and by extension, to the line of succession for the shared crown of all 16 Commonwealth realms. Others contend that that is not the case, and changes to the succession instituted by an Act of the Parliament of Canada "[in accord] with the convention of symmetry that preserves the personal unity of the British and Dominion Crowns".
With the announcement in 2007 of the engagement of Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly, a Roman Catholic and a Canadian, discussion about the Act of Settlement was revived. Norman Spector called in "The Globe and Mail" for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to address the issue of the act's bar on Catholics, saying Phillips' marriage to Kelly would be the first time the provisions of the act would bear directly on Canada—Phillips would be barred from acceding to the Canadian throne because he married a Roman Catholic Canadian. (In fact, the Earl of St Andrews had already lost his place in the line of succession when he married the Roman Catholic Canadian Sylvana Palma Tomaselli in 1988. But St Andrews' place in the line of succession was significantly lower than Phillips'.) Criticism of the Act of Settlement due to the Phillips–Kelly marriage was muted when Autumn Kelly converted to Anglicanism shortly before her marriage, thus preserving her husband's place in the line of succession.
From time to time there has been debate over repealing the clause that prevents Roman Catholics, or those who marry one, from ascending to the British throne. Proponents of repeal argue that the clause is a bigoted anachronism; Cardinal Winning, who was leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, called the act an "insult" to Catholics. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England, pointed out that Prince William (later the Duke of Cambridge) "can marry by law a Hindu, a Buddhist, anyone, but not a Roman Catholic." Opponents of repeal, such as Enoch Powell and Adrian Hilton, believe that it would lead to the disestablishment of the Church of England as the state religion if a Roman Catholic were to come to the throne. They also note that the monarch must swear to defend the faith and be a member of the Anglican Communion, but that a Roman Catholic monarch would, like all Roman Catholics, owe allegiance to the Pope. This would, according to opponents of repeal, amount to a loss of sovereignty for the Anglican Church.
When in December 1978 there was media speculation that Prince Charles might marry a Roman Catholic, Powell defended the provision that excludes Roman Catholics from ascending the throne, claiming his objection was not rooted in religious bigotry but in political considerations. He stated a Roman Catholic monarch would mean the acceptance of a source of authority external to the realm and "in the literal sense, foreign to the Crown-in-Parliament ... Between Roman Catholicism and royal supremacy there is, as Saint Thomas More concluded, no reconciliation." Powell concluded that a Roman Catholic crown would be the destruction of the Church of England because "it would contradict the essential character of that church."
He continued:
When Thomas Hobbes wrote that "the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof", he was promulgating an enormously important truth. Authority in the Roman Church is the exertion of that "imperium" from which England in the 16th century finally and decisively declared its national independence as the "alter imperium", the "other empire", of which Henry VIII declared "This realm of England is an empire" ... It would signal the beginning of the end of the British monarchy. It would portend the eventual surrender of everything that has made us, and keeps us still, a nation.
The Scottish Parliament unanimously passed a motion in 1999 calling for the complete removal of any discrimination linked to the monarchy and the repeal of the Act of Settlement. The following year, "The Guardian" challenged the succession law in court, claiming that it violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides,
The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, or other status.
As the Convention nowhere lists the right to succeed to the Crown as a human right, the challenge was rejected.
Adrian Hilton, writing in "The Spectator" in 2003, defended the Act of Settlement as not "irrational prejudice or blind bigotry", but claimed that it was passed because "the nation had learnt that when a Roman Catholic monarch is upon the throne, religious and civil liberty is lost." He points to the Pope's claiming universal jurisdiction, and Hilton argues that "it would be intolerable to have, as the sovereign of a Protestant and free country, one who owes any allegiance to the head of any other state" and contends that, if such situation came about, "we will have undone centuries of common law." He said that because the Roman Catholic Church does not recognise the Church of England as an apostolic church, a Roman Catholic monarch who abided by their faith's doctrine would be obliged to view Anglican and Church of Scotland archbishops, bishops, and clergy as part of the laity and therefore "lacking the ordained authority to preach and celebrate the sacraments." (Hilton noted that the Church of Scotland's Presbyterian polity does not include bishops or archbishops.) Hilton said a Roman Catholic monarch would be unable to be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and notes that other European states have similar religious provisions for their monarchs: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, whose constitutions compel their monarchs to be Lutherans; the Netherlands, which has a constitution requiring its monarchs be members of the Protestant House of Orange; and Belgium, which has a constitution that provides for the succession to be through Roman Catholic houses.
In December 2004, a private member's bill—the Succession to the Crown Bill—was introduced in the House of Lords. The government, headed by Tony Blair, blocked all attempts to revise the succession laws, claiming it would raise too many constitutional issues and it was unnecessary at the time. In the British general election the following year, Michael Howard promised to work towards having the prohibition removed if the Conservative Party gained a majority of seats in the House of Commons, but the election was won by Blair's Labour Party. Four years later, plans drawn up by Chris Bryant were revealed that would end the exclusion of Catholics from the throne and end the doctrine of agnatic (male-preference) primogeniture in favour of absolute primogeniture, which governs succession solely on birth order and not on sex. The issue was raised again in January 2009, when a private member's bill to amend the Act of Succession was introduced in parliament.
In early 2011 Keith Vaz, a Labour Member of Parliament, introduced to the House of Commons at Westminster a private member's bill which proposed that the Act of Settlement be amended to remove the provisions relating to Roman Catholicism and change the primogeniture governing the line of succession to the British throne from agnatic to absolute cognatic. Vaz sought support for his project from the Canadian Cabinet and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada responded that the issue was "not a priority for the government or for Canadians without further elaboration on the merits or drawbacks of the proposed reforms". Stephenson King, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, said he supported the idea and it was reported that the government of New Zealand did, as well. The Monarchist League of Canada said at the time to the media that it "supports amending the Act of Settlement in order to modernize the succession rules."
Later the same year, the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg, announced that the government was considering a change in the law. At approximately the same time, it was reported that British Prime Minister David Cameron had written to each of the prime ministers of the other fifteen Commonwealth realms, asking for their support in changing the succession to absolute primogeniture and notifying them he would raise his proposals at that year's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth, Australia. Cameron reportedly also proposed removing the restriction on successors being or marrying Roman Catholics; however, potential Roman Catholic successors would be required to convert to Anglicanism prior to acceding to the throne. In reaction to the letter and media coverage, Harper stated that, this time, he was "supportive" of what he saw as "reasonable modernizations".
At CHOGM on 28 October 2011, the prime ministers of the other Commonwealth realms agreed to support Cameron's proposed changes to the Act. The bill put before the Parliament of the United Kingdom would act as a model for the legislation required to be passed in at least some of the other realms, and any changes would only first take effect if the Duke of Cambridge were to have a daughter before a son.
The British group Republic asserted that succession reform would not make the monarchy any less discriminatory. As it welcomed the gender equality reforms, the British newspaper "The Guardian" criticized the lack of a proposal to remove the ban on Catholics sitting on the throne, as did Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, who pointed out that "It is deeply disappointing that the reform [of the Act of Settlement of 1701] has stopped short of removing the unjustifiable barrier on a Catholic becoming monarch." On the subject, Cameron asserted: "Let me be clear, the monarch must be in communion with the Church of England because he or she is the head of that Church."
The disqualification arising from marriage to a Roman Catholic was removed by the Succession to the Crown Act 2013. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2070 |
Aircraft hijacking
Aircraft hijacking (also known as airplane hijacking, skyjacking, plane hijacking, plane jacking, air robbery, air piracy, or aircraft piracy, with the latter term being used within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States), or simply hijacking, is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. Dating from the earliest of hijackings, most cases involve the pilot being forced to fly according to the hijacker's demands. However, in rare cases, the hijackers have flown the aircraft themselves and used them in suicide attacks; most notably in the September 11 attacks, and in several cases, planes have been hijacked by the official pilot or co-pilot.
Unlike carjacking or sea piracy, an aircraft hijacking is not usually committed for robbery or theft. Individuals driven by personal gain often divert planes to destinations where they are not planned to go. Some hijacking situations intend to use passengers or crew as hostages, either for monetary ransom or for some political or administrative concession by authorities. Various motives have driven such occurrences, such as demanding the release of certain high-profile individuals or for the right of political asylum (notably Flight ET 961). Hijackings involving hostages have produced violent confrontations between hijackers and the authorities, during negotiation and settlement. In the case of Lufthansa Flight 181 and Air France Flight 139, the hijackers were not satisfied and showed no inclination to surrender, resulting in attempts by special forces to rescue passengers.
In most jurisdictions of the world, aircraft hijacking is punishable by life imprisonment or a long prison sentence. In most jurisdictions where the death penalty is a legal punishment, aircraft hijacking is a capital crime, including in China, India, and the U.S. states of Georgia and Mississippi.
Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. These can be classified in the following eras: 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000 and 2001–present. Early incidents involved light planes but this later involved passenger aircraft as commercial aviation became widespread.
Between 1929 and 1957, there were fewer than 20 incidents of reported hijackings worldwide and several occurred in Eastern Europe. One of the first unconfirmed hijackings occurred in December 1929. J. Howard "Doc" DeCelles was flying a postal route for a Mexican firm, Transportes Aeras Transcontinentales, ferrying mail from San Luis Potosí to Torreon and then on to Guadalajara. A lieutenant named Saturnino Cedillo, the governor of the state of San Luis Potosí, ordered him to divert. Several other men were also involved, and through an interpreter, DeCelles had no choice but to comply. He was allegedly held captive for several hours under armed guard before being released.
The first recorded aircraft hijack took place on February 21, 1931, in Arequipa, Peru. Byron Richards, flying a Ford Tri-Motor, was approached on the ground by armed revolutionaries. He refused to fly them anywhere during a 10-day standoff. Richards was informed that the revolution was successful and he could be freed in return for flying one of the men to Lima. The following year, in September 1932, a Sikorsky S-38 with registration P-BDAD, still bearing the titles of Nyrba do Brasil was seized in the company's hangar by three men, who took a fourth as a hostage. Despite having no flying experience, they managed to take-off. However, the aircraft crashed in São João de Meriti, killing the four men. Apparently, the hijack was related to the events of the Constitutionalist Revolution in São Paulo and it is considered to be the first hijack that took place in Brazil.
On October 28, 1939, the first murder on a plane took place in Brookfield, Missouri, US. The victim was Carl Bivens, a flight instructor, who was teaching a man named Earnest P. "Larry" Pletch. While airborne in a Taylor Club monoplane, Pletch shot Bivens twice in the back of the head. Pletch later told prosecutors, "Carl was telling me I had a natural ability and I should follow that line", adding, "I had a revolver in my pocket and without saying a word to him, I took it out of my overalls and I fired a bullet into the back of his head. He never knew what struck him." The "Chicago Daily Tribune" stated it was one of the most spectacular crimes of the 20th century. Pletch pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. However, he was released on March 1, 1957 after serving 17 years, and lived until June 2001.
In 1942, two New Zealanders, a South African and an Englishman achieved the first confirmed in-air hijack when they violently captured an Italian seaplane that was flying them to a prison camp. As they approached an Allied base, they were strafed by Spitfires and forced to land on the water. However, all on board survived to be picked up by a British boat.
In the years following World War II, Philip Baum, an aviation security expert suggests that the development of a rebellious youth "piggybacking on to any cause which challenged the status quo or acted in support of those deemed oppressed", may have been a contributor to attacks against the aviation industry. The first hijacking of a commercial flight occurred on the Cathay Pacific "Miss Macao" on July 16, 1948. After this incident and others in the 1950s, airlines recommended that flight crews comply with the hijackers demands rather than risk a violent confrontation. There were also various hijacking incidents and assaults on planes in China and the Middle East.
The first hijacking of a flight for political reasons happened in Bolivia, affecting the airline Lloyd Aereo Boliviano on September 26, 1956. The DC-4 was carrying 47 prisoners who were being transported from Santa Cruz, Bolivia to El Alto, in La Paz. A political group was waiting to take them to a concentration camp located in Carahuara de Carangas, Oruro. The 47 prisoners overpowered the crew and gained control of the aircraft while airborne and diverted the plane to Tartagal, Argentina. Prisoners took control of the aircraft and received instructions to again fly to Salta, Argentina as the airfield in Tartagal was not big enough. Upon landing, they told the government of the injustice they were subjected to, and received political asylum.
Between 1958 and 1967, there were approximately 40 hijackings worldwide. Beginning 1958, hijackings "from" Cuba to other destinations started to occur, and then in 1961, hijackings "to" Cuba became prevalent. The first happened on May 1, 1961, on a flight from Miami to Key West. The perpetrator, armed with a knife and gun, forced the captain to land in Cuba.
Australia was relatively untouched by the threat of hijackings until July 19, 1960. On that evening, a 22-year-old Russian man attempted to divert Trans Australia Airlines Flight 408 to Darwin or Singapore. The crew were able to subdue the man after a brief struggle.
According to the FAA, in the 1960s, there were 100 attempts of hijackings involving U.S aircraft: 77 successful and 23 unsuccessful. Recognizing the danger early, the FAA issued a directive on July 28, 1961, which prohibits unauthorized persons from carrying concealed firearms and interfering with crew member duties. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 was amended to impose severe penalties for those seizing control of a commercial aircraft. Airlines could also refuse to transport passengers who were likely to cause danger. That same year, the FAA and Department of Justice created the Peace Officers Program which put trained marshals on flights. A few years later, on May 7, 1964, the FAA adopted a rule requiring that cockpit doors on commercial aircraft be kept locked at all times.
In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days. The incidents were frequent and often just an inconvenience, which resulted in television shows creating parodies. "Time" magazine even ran a lighthearted comedy piece called "What to Do When the Hijacker Comes". Most incidents occurred in the United States: there were two distinct types: hijackings for transportation elsewhere and hijackings for extortion with the threat of harm. Between 1968 and 1972, there were 90 recorded transport attempts to Cuba. In contrast, there were 26 extortion attempts (see table on the right). The longest and first transcontinental (Los Angeles, Denver, New York, Bangor, Shannon and Rome) from the US started on the 31 October 1969. The Eastern Airlines Shuttle flight 1320 on May 17, 1970 witnessed the first fatality in the course of a U.S. highjacking. Incidents also became problematic outside of the U.S. For instance, in 1968, El Al Flight 426 was seized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militants on 23 July, an incident which lasted 40 days, making it one of the longest. This record was later beaten in 1999. As a result of the evolving threat, President Nixon issued a directive in 1970 to promote security at airports, electronic surveillance and multilateral agreements for tackling the problem.
Furthermore, a report by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in July 1970 revealed the need for action. Beginning of 1969 until the end of June 1970, there were 118 incidents of unlawful seizure of aircraft and 14 incidents of sabotage and armed attacks against civil aviation. This involved airlines of 47 countries and more than 7,000 passengers. In this period, 96 people were killed and 57 were injured as a result of hijacking, sabotage and armed attacks. The ICAO stated that this is not isolated to one nation or one region, but a worldwide issue to the safe growth of international civil aviation. Incidents also became notorious—in 1971, a man known as D. B. Cooper hijacked a plane and extorted US$200,000 in ransom before parachuting over Oregon. He was never identified. On August 20, 1971, a Pakistan Air Force T-33 military plane was hijacked prior the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 in Karachi. Lieutenant Matiur Rahman attacked Officer Rashid Minhas and attempted to land in India. Minhas deliberately crashed the plane into the ground near Thatta to prevent the diversion.
Countries around the world continued their efforts to tackle crimes committed on-board planes. The Tokyo Convention, drafted in 1958, established an agreement between signatories that the "state in which the aircraft is registered is competent to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on board that aircraft while it is in flight". While the Convention does not make hijacking an international crime, it does contain provisions which obligate the country in which a hijacked aircraft lands to restore the aircraft to its responsible owner, and allow the passengers and crew to continue their journey. The Convention came into force in December 1969. A year later, in December 1970, the Hague Convention was drafted which punishes hijackers, enabling each state to prosecute a hijacker if that state does not extradite them, and to deprive them from asylum from prosecution.
On December 5, 1972, the FAA issued emergency rules requiring all passengers and their carry-on baggage to be screened. Airports slowly implemented walk-through metal detectors, hand-searches and x-ray machines, to prohibit weapons and explosive devices. These rules came into effect on January 5, 1973 and were welcomed by most of the public. Between 1968 and 1977, there were approximately 41 hijackings per year.
By 1980, airport screening and greater cooperation from the international community led to fewer successful hijackings; the number of events had significantly dropped below the 1968 level. Between 1978 and 1988, there were roughly 26 incidents of hijackings a year. A new threat emerged in the 1980s and this was from organised terrorists destroying aircraft to draw attention. For instance, terrorist groups were responsible for the bombing of Air India Flight 182 over the Irish coast. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed flying over Scotland. Terrorist activity which included hijack attempts in the Middle East were also a cause of concern.
During the 1990s, there was relative peace in the United States airspace as the threat of domestic hijacking was seen as a distant memory. Globally, however, hijackings still persisted. Between 1993 and 2003, the highest number of hijackings occurred in 1993 (see table below). This number can be attributed to events in China where hijackers were trying to gain political asylum in Taiwan. Europe and the rest of East Asia were not immune either. On December 26, 1994, Air France Flight 8969 with 172 passengers and crew was hijacked after leaving Algiers. Authorities believed that the goal was to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower. On June 21, 1995, All Nippon Airways Flight 857 was hijacked by a man claiming to be a member of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult, demanding the release of its imprisoned leader Shoko Asahara. The incident was resolved when the police stormed the plane.
On October 17, 1996, the first hijacking that was brought to an end while airborne was carried out by four operatives of the Austrian special law enforcement unit Cobra on a Russian Aeroflot flight from Malta to Lagos, Nigeria, aboard a Tupolev Tu-154. The operatives escorted inmates detained for deportation to their homelands and were equipped with weapons and gloves. On 12 April 1999, six ELN members hijacked a Fokker 50 of Avianca Colombian Airlines Flight 9463, flying from Bogotá to Bucaramanga. Many hostages were held for more than a year, and the last hostage was finally freed 19 months after the hijacking.
On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked by 19 Al-Qaeda Islamic extremists: American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93. The first two planes were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the third was crashed into The Pentagon building. The fourth crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after crew and passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers. Authorities believe that the intended target was the U.S. Capitol. In total, 2,996 people perished and more than 6,000 were injured in the attacks, making the hijackings the most deadly in modern history.
Following the attacks, the U.S formed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to handle airport screening at U.S airports. Government agencies around the world tightened their airport security, procedures and intelligence gathering. Until the September 11 attacks, there had never been an incident whereby an aircraft was used as a weapon of mass destruction. The 9/11 Commission report stated that it was always assumed that a "hijacking would take the traditional form", therefore, airline crews never had a contingency plan for a suicide-hijacking. As Patrick Smith, an airline pilot, summarizes:
One of the big ironies here is the success of the 2001 attacks had nothing to do with airport security in the first place. It was a failure of national security. What the men actually exploited was a weakness in our mind-set – a set of presumptions based on decades-long track record of hijackings. In years past, a hijacking meant a diversion, with hostage negotiations and standoffs. The only weapon that mattered was the intangible one: the element of surprise.
Throughout the mid-2000s, hijackings still occurred but there were much fewer incidents and casualties. The number of incidents had been declining, even before the September 11 attacks. One notable incident in 2006 was the hijacking of Turkish Airlines Flight 1476, flying from Tirana to Istanbul, which was seized by a man named Hakan Ekinci. The aircraft, with 107 passengers and 6 crew, made distress calls to air traffic control and the plane was escorted by military aircraft before landing safely at Brindisi, Italy. In 2007, several incidents occurred in the Middle East and Northern Africa, one of which men claimed to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Towards the end of the decade, AeroMexico experienced its first terror incident when Flight 576 was hijacked by a man demanding to speak with President Calderón.
Since 2010, the Aviation Safety Network estimates there have been 15 hijackings worldwide with three fatalities. This is a considerable lower figure than in previous decades which can be attributed to greater security enhancements and awareness of September 11–style attacks. On June 29, 2012, an attempt was made to hijack Tianjin Airlines Flight GS7554 from Hotan to Ürümqi in China. More recently was the 2016 hijacking of EgyptAir Flight MS181, involving an Egyptian man who claimed to have a bomb and ordered the plane to land in Cyprus. He surrendered several hours later, after freeing the passengers and crew.
As a result of the U.S–Cuba hijacking epidemic of the late 1960s to early 1970s, international airports introduced screening technology such as metal detectors, x-ray machines and explosive detection tools. In the U.S, these rules were enforced starting from January 1973 and were eventually copied around the world. These security measures did make hijacking a "higher-risk proposition" and deter criminals in later decades. Until September 2001, the FAA set and enforced a "layered" system of defense: hijacking intelligence, passenger pre-screening, checkpoint screening and on-board security. The idea was that if one layer were later to fail, another would be able stop a hijacker from boarding a plane. However, the 9/11 Commission found that this layered approach was flawed and unsuitable to prevent the September 11 attacks. The U.S Transportation Security Administration has since strengthened this approach, with a greater emphasis on intelligence sharing.
In the history of hijackings, most incidents involved planes being forced to land at a certain destination with demands. As a result, commercial airliners adopted a "total compliance" rule which taught pilots and cabin crew to comply with the hijackers demands. Crews advise passengers to sit quietly to increase their chances of survival. The ultimate goal is to land the plane safely and let the security forces handle the situation. The FAA suggested that the longer a hijacking persisted, the more likely it would end peacefully with the hijackers reaching their goal. Although total compliance is still relevant, the events of September 11 changed this paradigm as this technique cannot prevent a suicide hijacking.
It is now evident that each hijacking situation needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Cabin crew, now aware of the severe consequences, have a greater responsibility for maintaining control of their aircraft. Most airlines also give crew members training in self-defense tactics. Ever since the 1970s, crew are taught to be vigilant for suspicious behaviour. For example, passengers who have no carry-on luggage, or are standing next to the cockpit door with fidgety movements. There have been various incidents when crew and passengers intervened to prevent attacks: on December 22, 2001, Richard Reid attempted to ignite explosives on American Airlines Flight 63. In 2009, on Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear. In 2012, the attempted hijacking of Tianjin Airlines Flight 7554 was stopped when cabin crew placed a trolley in-front of the cockpit door and asked passengers for help.
In the September 11 attacks, crew on one of the hijacked planes went beyond their scope of training by informing the airline ground crew about the events on board. In separate phone calls, Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong provided information on seat numbers of the attackers and passenger injuries. This helped authorities identify them.
As early as 1964, the FAA required cockpit doors on commercial aircraft be kept locked during flight. In 2002, U.S Congress passed the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act, allowing pilots at U.S airlines to carry guns in the cockpit. Since 2003, these pilots are known as Federal Flight Deck Officers. It is estimated that one in 10 of the 125,000 commercial pilots are trained and armed. Also in 2002, aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus introduced a reinforced cockpit door which is resistant to gunfire and forced entry. Shortly afterwards, the FAA required operators of more than 6,000 aircraft to install tougher cockpit doors by 9 April 2003. Rules were also tightened to restrict cockpit access and make it easier for pilots to lock the doors. In 2015, a Germanwings plane was seized by the co-pilot and deliberately crashed, while the captain was out. The captain was unable to re-enter the cockpit, because the airline had already reinforced the cockpit door. The European Aviation Safety Agency issued a recommendation for airlines to ensure that at least two people, one pilot and a member of cabin crew, occupy the cockpit during flight. The FAA in the United States enforce a similar rule.
Some countries operate a marshal service, which puts members of law enforcement on high-risk flights based on intelligence. Their role is to keep passengers safe, by preventing hijackings and other criminal acts committed on a plane. Federal marshals in the U.S are required to identify themselves before boarding a plane, however, marshals of other countries often are not. According to the Congressional Research Service, the budget for the U.S Federal Air Marshal Service was US$719 million in 2007. Marshals often sit as regular passengers, at the front of the plane to allow observation of the cockpit. Despite the expansion of the marshal service, they cannot be on every plane, and they rarely face a real threat on a flight. Critics have questioned the need for them.
There is no generic or set of rules for handling a hijacking situation. Air traffic controllers are expected to exercise their best judgement and expertise when dealing with the apparent consequences of an unlawful interference/hijack. Depending on the jurisdiction, the controller will inform the authorities such as the military who will escort the hijacked plane. Controllers are expected to keep communications to a minimum and clear the runway for a possible landing.
In January 2005, a federal law came into force in Germany, called the Luftsicherheitsgesetz, which allows "direct action by armed force" against a hijacked aircraft to prevent a September 11–style attack. However, in February 2006 the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany struck down these provisions of the law, stating such preventive measures were unconstitutional and would essentially be state-sponsored murder, even if such an act would save many more lives on the ground. The main reason behind this decision was that the state would effectively be taking the lives of innocent hostages in order to avoid a terrorist attack. The Court also ruled that the Minister of Defense is constitutionally not entitled to act in terrorism matters, as this is the duty of the state and federal police forces. President of Germany, Horst Köhler, urged judicial review of the constitutionality of the Luftsicherheitsgesetz after he signed it into law in 2005.
India published its new anti-hijacking policy in August 2005. The policy came into force after approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). The main points of the policy are:
U.S. fighter pilots have been trained to shoot down hijacked commercial airliners if necessary. This was also attempted in 2001, just after the September 11 attacks. In 2003, the military stated that they exercise this several times a week.
Poland and Russia are among other countries that have had laws or decrees for shooting down hijacked planes. However, in September 2008 the Polish Constitutional Court ruled that the Polish rules were unconstitutional, and voided them.
The Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, known as the Tokyo Convention, is an international treaty which entered force on December 4, 1969. As of 2015, it has been ratified by 186 parties. Article 11 of the Tokyo Convention states the following:1. When a person on board has unlawfully committed by force or threat thereof an act of interference, seizure, or other wrongful exercise of control of an aircraft in flight or when such an act is about to be committed, Contracting States shall take all appropriate measures to restore control of the aircraft to its lawful commander or to preserve his control of the aircraft.
2. In the cases contemplated in the preceding paragraph, the Contracting State in which the aircraft lands shall permit its passengers and crew to continue their journey as soon as practicable, and shall return the aircraft and its cargo to the persons lawfully entitled to possession.The signatories agree that if there is unlawful takeover of an aircraft, or a threat of it on their territory, then they will take all necessary measures to regain or keep control over an aircraft. The captain can also disembark a suspected person on the territory of any country, where the aircraft lands, and that country must agree to it, as stated in Articles 8 and 12 of the Convention.
The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft (known as the Hague Convention) went into effect on October 14, 1971. As of 2013, the Convention has 185 signatories.
The Montreal Convention is a multilateral treaty adopted by a diplomatic meeting of ICAO member states in 1999. It amended important provisions of the Warsaw Convention's regime concerning compensation for the victims of air disasters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2075 |
Acropolis of Athens
The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word "acropolis" is from the Greek words ("akron", "highest point, extremity") and ("polis", "city"). Although the term acropolis is generic and there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as "The Acropolis" without qualification. During ancient times it was known also more properly as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the supposed first Athenian king.
While there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as far back as the fourth millennium BC, it was Pericles (c. 495–429 BC) in the fifth century BC who coordinated the construction of the site's most important present remains including the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. The Parthenon and the other buildings were seriously damaged during the 1687 siege by the Venetians during the Morean War when gunpowder being stored in the Parthenon was hit by a cannonball and exploded.
The Acropolis is located on a flattish-topped rock that rises above sea level in the city of Athens, with a surface area of about . While the earliest artifacts date to the Middle Neolithic era, there have been documented habitations in Attica from the Early Neolithic period (6th millennium BC).
There is little doubt that a Mycenaean megaron palace stood upon the hill during the late Bronze Age. Nothing of this megaron survives except, probably, a single limestone column-base and pieces of several sandstone steps. Soon after the palace was constructed, a Cyclopean massive circuit wall was built, 760 meters long, up to 10 meters high, and ranging from 3.5 to 6 meters thick. This wall would serve as the main defense for the acropolis until the 5th century. The wall consisted of two parapets built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called "emplekton" (Greek: ἔμπλεκτον). The wall uses typical Mycenaean conventions in that it followed the natural contour of the terrain and its gate, which was towards the south, was arranged obliquely, with a parapet and tower overhanging the incomers' right-hand side, thus facilitating defense. There were two lesser approaches up the hill on its north side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he mentions the "strong-built House of Erechtheus" ("Odyssey" 7.81). At some time before the 13th century BC, an earthquake caused a fissure near the northeastern edge of the Acropolis. This fissure extended some 35 meters to a bed of soft marl in which a well was dug. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the well served as an invaluable, protected source of drinking water during times of siege for some portion of the Mycenaean period.
Not much is known about the architectural appearance of the Acropolis until the Archaic era. During the 7th and the 6th centuries BC, the site was controlled by Kylon during the failed Kylonian revolt, and twice by Peisistratos; each of these were attempts directed at seizing political power by "coups d'état". Apart from the "Hekatompedon" mentioned later, Peisistratos also built an entry gate or propylaea. Nevertheless, it seems that a nine-gate wall, the "Enneapylon", had been built around the acropolis hill and incorporating the biggest water spring, the "Clepsydra", at the northwestern foot.
A temple to "Athena Polias", the tutelary deity of the city, was erected between 570–550 BC. This Doric limestone building, from which many relics survive, is referred to as the "Hekatompedon" (Greek for "hundred–footed"), "Ur-Parthenon" (German for "original Parthenon" or "primitive Parthenon"), "H–Architecture" or "Bluebeard" temple, after the pedimental three-bodied man-serpent sculpture, whose beards were painted dark blue. Whether this temple replaced an older one, or just a sacred precinct or altar, is not known. Probably, the "Hekatompedon" was built where the Parthenon now stands.
Between 529–520 BC yet another temple was built by the Peisistratids, the Old Temple of Athena, usually referred to as the "Arkhaios Neōs" (ἀρχαῖος νεώς, "ancient temple"). This temple of Athena Polias was built upon the "Dörpfeld foundations", between the Erechtheion and the still-standing Parthenon. "Arkhaios Neōs" was destroyed as part of the Achaemenid destruction of Athens during the Second Persian invasion of Greece during 480–479 BC; however, the temple was probably reconstructed during 454 BC, since the treasury of the Delian League was transferred in its opisthodomos. The temple may have been burnt down during 406/405 BC as Xenophon mentions that the old temple of Athena was set afire. Pausanias does not mention it in his 2nd century AD "Description of Greece".
Around 500 BC the "Hekatompedon" was dismantled to make place for a new grander building, the "Older Parthenon" (often referred to as the "Pre-Parthenon", "early Parthenon"). For this reason, Athenians decided to stop the construction of the Olympieion temple which was connoted with the tyrant Peisistratos and his sons and, instead, used the Piraeus limestone destined for the Olympieion to build the Older Parthenon. In order to accommodate the new temple, the south part of the summit was cleared, made level by adding some 8,000 two-ton blocks of limestone, a foundation deep at some points, and the rest was filled with soil kept in place by the retaining wall. However, after the victorious Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the plan was revised and marble was used instead. The limestone phase of the building is referred to as "Pre-Parthenon I" and the marble phase as "Pre-Parthenon II". In 485 BC, construction stalled to save resources as Xerxes became king of Persia and war seemed imminent.
The Older Parthenon was still under construction when the Persians invaded and sacked the city in 480 BC. The building was burned and looted, along with the "Ancient Temple" and practically everything else on the rock. After the Persian crisis had subsided, the Athenians incorporated many architectural parts of the unfinished temple (unfluted column drums, triglyphs, metopes, etc.) into the newly built northern curtain wall of the Acropolis, where they served as a prominent "war memorial" and can still be seen today. The devastated site was cleared of debris. Statuary, cult objects, religious offerings and unsalvageable architectural members were buried ceremoniously in several deeply dug pits on the hill, serving conveniently as a fill for the artificial plateau created around the classic Parthenon. This "Persian debris" was the richest archaeological deposit excavated on the Acropolis by 1890.
After winning at Eurymedon during 468 BC, Cimon and Themistocles ordered the reconstruction of the southern and northern walls of the Acropolis. Most of the major temples, including the Parthenon, were rebuilt by order of Pericles during the so-called Golden Age of Athens (460–430 BC). Phidias, an Athenian sculptor, and Ictinus and Callicrates, two famous architects, were responsible for the reconstruction.
During 437 BC, Mnesicles started building the Propylaea, a monumental gate at the western end of the Acropolis with Doric columns of Pentelic marble, built partly upon the old propylaea of Peisistratos. These colonnades were almost finished during 432 BC and had two wings, the northern one decorated with paintings by Polygnotus. About the same time, south of the Propylaea, building started on the small Ionic Temple of Athena Nike in Pentelic marble with tetrastyle porches, preserving the essentials of Greek temple design. After an interruption caused by the Peloponnesian War, the temple was finished during the time of Nicias' peace, between 421 BC and 409 BC.
Construction of the elegant temple of Erechtheion in Pentelic marble (421–406 BC) was in accordance with a complex plan which took account of the extremely uneven ground and the need to circumvent several shrines in the area. The entrance, facing east, is lined with six Ionic columns. Unusually, the temple has two porches, one on the northwest corner borne by Ionic columns, the other, to the southwest, supported by huge female figures or Caryatids. The eastern part of the temple was dedicated to Athena Polias, while the western part, serving the cult of the archaic king Poseidon-Erechtheus, housed the altars of Hephaestus and Voutos, brother of Erechtheus. Little is known about the original plan of the interior which was destroyed by fire during the first century BC and has been rebuilt several times.
During the same period, a combination of sacred precincts including the temples of "Athena Polias", Poseidon, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Herse, Pandrosos and Aglauros, with its "Kore Porch" (Porch of the Maidens) or "Caryatids' balcony" was begun. Between the temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon, there was the Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia (or the Brauroneion), the goddess represented as a bear and worshipped in the deme of Brauron. According to Pausanias, a wooden statue or "xoanon" of the goddess and a statue of Artemis made by Praxiteles during the 4th century BC were both in the sanctuary.
Behind the Propylaea, Phidias' gigantic bronze statue of Athena Promachos ("Athena who fights in the front line"), built between 450 BC and 448 BC, dominated. The base was high, while the total height of the statue was . The goddess held a lance, the gilt tip of which could be seen as a reflection by crews on ships rounding Cape Sounion, and a giant shield on the left side, decorated by Mys with images of the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. Other monuments that have left almost nothing visible to the present day are the Chalkotheke, the Pandroseion, Pandion's sanctuary, Athena's altar, Zeus Polieus's sanctuary and, from Roman times, the circular temple of Augustus and Rome.
During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many of the existing buildings in the area of the Acropolis were repaired, due to damage from age, and occasionally, war. Monuments to foreign kings were erected, notably those of the Attalid kings of Pergamon Attalos II (in front of the NW corner of the Parthenon), and Eumenes II, in front of the Propylaia. These were rededicated during the early Roman Empire to Augustus or Claudius (uncertain), and Agrippa, respectively. Eumenes was also responsible for constructing a stoa on the South slope, not unlike that of Attalos in the Agora below.
During the Julio-Claudian period, the Temple of Rome and Augustus, a small, round edifice, about 23 meters from the Parthenon, was to be the last significant ancient construction on the summit of the rock. Around the same time, on the North slope, in a cave next to the one dedicated to Pan since the classical period, a sanctuary was founded where the archons dedicated to Apollo on assuming office. During 161 AD, on the South slope, the Roman Herodes Atticus built his grand amphitheatre or Odeon. It was destroyed by the invading Herulians a century later but was reconstructed during the 1950s.
During the 3rd century, under threat from a Herulian invasion, repairs were made to the Acropolis walls, and the "Beulé Gate" was constructed to restrict entrance in front of the Propylaia, thus returning the Acropolis to use as a fortress.
During the Byzantine period, the Parthenon was used as a church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the Latin Duchy of Athens, the Acropolis functioned as the city's administrative center, with the Parthenon as its cathedral, and the Propylaea as part of the Ducal Palace. A large tower was added, the "Frankopyrgos", demolished during the 19th century.
After the Ottoman conquest of Greece, the Parthenon was used as the garrison headquarters of the Turkish army, and the Erechtheum was turned into the governor's private harem. The buildings of the Acropolis suffered significant damage during the 1687 siege by the Venetians in the Morean War. The Parthenon, which was being used as a gunpowder magazine, was hit by artillery shot and damaged severely.
During subsequent years, the Acropolis was a site of bustling human activity with many Byzantine, Frankish, and Ottoman structures. The dominant feature during the Ottoman period was a mosque inside the Parthenon, complete with a minaret.
The Acropolis was besieged thrice during the Greek War of Independence (two sieges from the Greeks in 1821–1822 and one from the Ottomans in 1826–1827. A new bulwark named after Odysseas Androutsos was built by the Greeks between 1822 and 1825 to protect the recently rediscovered Klepsydra spring which became the sole fresh water supply of the fortress.
After independence, most features that dated from the Byzantine, Frankish and Ottoman periods were cleared from the site in an attempt to restore the monument to its original form, "cleansed" of all later additions.
The entrance to the Acropolis was a monumental gateway termed the Propylaea. To the south of the entrance is the tiny Temple of Athena Nike. At the centre of the Acropolis is the Parthenon or Temple of Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin). East of the entrance and north of the Parthenon is the temple known as the Erechtheum. South of the platform that forms the top of the Acropolis there are also the remains of the ancient, though often remodelled, Theatre of Dionysus. A few hundred metres away, there is the now partially reconstructed Odeon of Herodes Atticus.
All the valuable ancient artifacts are situated in the Acropolis Museum, which resides on the southern slope of the same rock, 280 metres from the Parthenon.
Site plan of the Acropolis at Athens showing the major archaeological remains
File:AcropolisatathensSitePlan.png|right|600px|alt=Site plan of the Acropolis at Athens
poly 332 198 447 158 468 217 352 254 Parthenon
poly 305 130 374 115 385 146 314 167 Old Temple of Athena
poly 346 116 389 108 375 71 334 82 Erechtheum
poly 248 137 266 160 252 168 243 151 Statue of Athena Promachos
poly 104 164 193 115 225 200 158 224 Propylaea (Acropolis of Athens)
poly 132 223 152 226 150 257 136 255 Temple of Athena Nike
poly 168 256 193 261 188 278 166 277 Eleusinion
poly 191 213 258 199 245 259 185 246 Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion
poly 248 260 315 276 321 245 255 231 Chalkotheke
poly 322 78 337 97 343 111 310 122 304 108 Pandroseion
poly 258 81 281 73 288 96 266 102 Arrephorion
poly 402 102 428 100 435 120 408 127 Altar of Athena Polias
poly 462 120 500 96 540 96 533 136 506 146 464 149 Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus
poly 574 155 641 184 628 212 564 183 Sanctuary of Pandion
poly 26 384 56 336 88 314 129 313 160 337 174 370 175 399 139 416 72 417 25 402 Odeon of Herodes Atticus
poly 182 381 462 384 460 419 179 415 Stoa of Eumenes
poly 395 325 469 309 478 356 406 372 Sanctuary of Asclepius or Asclepieion
poly 484 397 492 356 516 323 555 297 596 293 642 300 670 311 650 345 683 389 540 457 Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus
poly 655 343 738 276 807 356 722 425 Odeon of Pericles
poly 564 460 678 414 684 442 627 505 586 515 Temenos of Dionysus Eleuthereus
poly 300 32 332 42 323 67 296 64 Aglaureion
The Project began during 1975 but as of 2017 it has almost ground to a halt. The goal of the restoration was to reverse the decay of centuries of attrition, pollution, destruction stemming from military use, and misguided past restorations. The project included collection and identification of all stone fragments, even small ones, from the Acropolis and its slopes and the attempt was made to restore as much as possible using reassembled original material (anastylosis), with new marble from Mount Pentelicus used sparingly. All restoration was made using titanium dowels and is designed to be completely reversible, in case future experts decide to change things. A combination of cutting-edge modern technology and extensive research and reinvention of ancient techniques were used.
The Parthenon colonnades, largely destroyed by Venetian bombardment during the 17th century, were restored, with many wrongly assembled columns now properly placed. The roof and floor of the Propylaea were partly restored, with sections of the roof made of new marble and decorated with blue and gold inserts, as in the original. Restoration of the Temple of Athena Nike was completed in 2010.
A total of 2,675 tons of architectural members were restored, with 686 stones reassembled from fragments of the originals, 905 patched with new marble, and 186 parts made entirely of new marble. A total of 530 cubic meters of new Pentelic marble were used.
Every four years, the Athenians had a festival called the Great Panathenaea that rivaled the Olympic Games in popularity. During the festival, a procession (believed to be depicted on the Parthenon frieze) traveled through the city via the Panathenaic Way and culminated on the Acropolis. There, a new robe of woven wool ("peplos") was placed on either the statue of Athena Polias in the Erechtheum (during the annual Lesser Panathenaea) or on the statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon (during the Great Panathenaea, held every four years).
Within the later tradition of Western Civilization and classical revival, the Acropolis, from at least the mid-18th century on, has often been invoked as a key symbol of the Greek legacy and of the glories of Classical Greece.
The Acropolis is a klippe consisting of two lithostratigraphic units, the Athens schist and the overlying Acropolis limestone. The Athens schist is a soft reddish rock dating from the upper Cretaceous. The original sediments were deposited in a river delta approximately 70 million years ago. The Acropolis limestone dates from the upper Jurassic period, predating the underlying Athens schist by 30 million years. The Acropolis limestone was thrust over the Athens schist by compressional tectonic forces, forming a nappe or overthrust sheet. Erosion of the limestone nappe led to the eventual detachment of the Acropolis, forming the present day feature. Many of the hills in the Athens region were formed by the erosion of the same nappe as the Acropolis. These include the hills of Lykabettos, Areopagus, and Mouseion. The marble utilized to construct the buildings of the Acropolis was sourced from the quarries of Mount Pentelicus, a mountain to the northeast of the city. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2076 |
Adam Weishaupt
Johann Adam Weishaupt (, 6 February 1748 – 18 November 1830) was a German philosopher, professor of civil law and later canon law, and founder of the Order of the Illuminati, a secret society.
Adam Weishaupt was born on 6 February 1748 in Ingolstadt in the Electorate of Bavaria. Weishaupt's father Johann Georg Weishaupt (1717–1753) died when Adam was five years old. After his father's death he came under the tutelage of his godfather Johann Adam Freiherr von Ickstatt who, like his father, was a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt. Ickstatt was a proponent of the philosophy of Christian Wolff and of the Enlightenment, and he influenced the young Weishaupt with his rationalism. Weishaupt began his formal education at age seven at a Jesuit school. He later enrolled at the University of Ingolstadt and graduated in 1768 at age 20 with a doctorate of law. In 1772 he became a professor of law. The following year he married Afra Sausenhofer of Eichstätt.
After Pope Clement XIV’s suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Weishaupt became a professor of canon law, a position that was held exclusively by the Jesuits until that time. In 1775 Weishaupt was introduced to the empirical philosophy of Johann Georg Heinrich Feder of the University of Göttingen. Both Feder and Weishaupt would later become opponents of Kantian idealism.
On 1 May 1776 Johann Adam Weishaupt founded the "Illuminati" in the Electorate of Bavaria. He adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus" within the order. Even encyclopedia references vary on the goal of the order, such as "New Advent" saying the Order was not egalitarian or democratic internally, but sought to promote the doctrines of equality and freedom throughout society; while others such as "Collier's" have said the aim was to combat religion and foster rationalism in its place.
The actual character of the society was an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know: a party structure that was effectively adopted by some later groups.
Weishaupt was initiated into the Masonic lodge "Theodor zum guten Rath", at Munich in 1777. His project of "illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice" was an unwelcome reform. He used Freemasonry to recruit for his own quasi-masonic society, with the goal of "perfecting human nature" through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government and organized religion. Presenting their own system as pure masonry, Weishaupt and Adolph Freiherr Knigge, who organised his ritual structure, greatly expanded the secret organisation.
Contrary to Immanuel Kant's that Enlightenment (and Weishaupt's Order was in some respects an expression of the Enlightenment Movement) was the passage by man out of his 'self-imposed immaturity' through daring to 'make use of his own reason, without the guidance of another,' Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati prescribed in great detail everything which the members had obediently to read and think, so that Dr. Wolfgang Riedel has commented that this approach to illumination or enlightenment constituted a degradation and twisting of the Kantian principle of Enlightenment. Riedel writes:
'The independence of thought and judgement required by Kant ... was specifically prevented by the Order of the Illuminati's rules and regulations. Enlightenment takes place here, if it takes place at all, precisely "under" the direction of another, namely under that of the "Superiors" [of the Order].
Weishaupt's radical rationalism and vocabulary were not likely to succeed. Writings that were intercepted in 1784 were interpreted as seditious, and the Society was banned by the government of Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, in 1784. Weishaupt lost his position at the University of Ingolstadt and fled Bavaria.
He received the assistance of Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1745–1804), and lived in Gotha writing a series of works on illuminism, including "A Complete History of the Persecutions of the Illuminati in Bavaria" (1785), "A Picture of Illuminism" (1786), "An Apology for the Illuminati" (1786), and "An Improved System of Illuminism" (1787). Adam Weishaupt died in Gotha on 18 November 1830. He was survived by his second wife, Anna Maria (née Sausenhofer), and his children Nanette, Charlotte, Ernst, Karl, Eduard, and Alfred. Weishaupt was buried next to his son Wilhelm who preceded him in death in 1802.
After Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati was banned and its members dispersed, it left behind no enduring traces of an influence, not even on its own erstwhile members, who went on in the future to develop in quite different directions.
Weishaupt's character and intentions have been variously assessed. Some took a negative view, such as Augustin Barruel, who despite writing that Weishaupt's goals were that "Equality and Liberty, together with the most absolute independence, are to be the substitutes for all rights and all property" saw this as more dangerous than beneficial, and John Robison who regarded him as a 'human devil' and saw his mission as one of malevolent destructiveness. Others took a more positive view, including Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a letter to James Madison that "Barruel’s own parts of the book are perfectly the ravings of a Bedlamite" and considered Weishaupt as an "enthusiastic Philanthropist" who believed in the indefinite perfectibility of man and his intention was simply to "reinstate natural religion, and by diffusing the light of his morality, to teach us to govern ourselves".
In his defense, Weishaupt wrote a "Kurze Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten" in 1787 (A Brief Justification of my Intentions). A translation was done by Dr. Tony Page in which he wrote:
"Weishaupt’s plan was to educate Illuminati followers in the highest levels of humanity and morality (basing his teachings on the supremacy of Reason, allied with the spirit of the Golden Rule of not doing to others what one would not wish done to oneself), so that if Illuminati alumni subsequently attained positions of significance and power (such as in the fields of education and politics), they could exert a benevolent and uplifting influence upon society at large. His project was utopian and naively optimistic, and he himself was certainly not without flaws of character – but neither he nor his plan was evil or violent in and of themselves. It is one of the deplorable and tragic ironies of history that a man who tried to inculcate virtue, philanthropy, social justice and morality has become one of the great hate-figures of 21st-century ‘conspiracy’ thinking." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2077 |
Acorn Electron
The Acorn Electron was a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC v2 along with its operating system.
The Electron was able to save and load programs onto audio cassette via a supplied converter cable that connected it to any standard tape recorder that had the correct sockets. It was capable of basic graphics, and could display onto either a television set, a colour (RGB) monitor or a "green screen" monitor.
For a short period, the Electron was reportedly the best selling micro in the United Kingdom.
After Acorn Computer released the BBC Micro, executives believed that the company needed a less-expensive computer for the mass market. In June 1982, cofounder Hermann Hauser was asked about the recently announced £175 Sinclair ZX Spectrum's potential to hurt sales of the BBC Micro. Hauser responded that in the third quarter of that year Acorn would release a new £120-150 computer which "will probably be called the Electron", with graphics superior to the Spectrum's and compatibility with BBC Micro software. Acorn's Chris Curry stated that "the Electron is designed to compete with the Spectrum. The idea is to get the starting price very low, but not preclude expansion in the long term." The company reduced the number of chips in the Electron by 90% from the BBC Micro's about 100, with most functionality on a single Uncommitted Logic Array (ULA). Problems with the ULA delayed the Electron, however, and Acorn repeatedly missed deadlines to ship the computer.
Acorn formally announced the Electron at the "Acorn User" Exhibition in August 1983, one year after Hauser mentioned the computer, by which time its price had risen to £175 while the Spectrum cost £130. The company expected to ship the Electron before Christmas, and sell 100,000 by February 1984. Reviews were generally favorable, noting its excellent graphics compared to the Commodore 64. While its speed was acceptable compared to the Commodore and competing computers the Electron was, however, much slower than the BBC Micro; "Popular Computing Weekly" reported, for example, that BBC Micro games ran "at less than half the speed, with very significant effects on their appeal".
The reduced processor speed was attributable to the use of a 4 bit wide memory system instead of the 8 bit wide memory system of the BBC Micro to reduce cost. The Electron used just 4 64kbit RAM devices instead of the 16 16kbit RAM devices deployed on the BBC Model B. In the BBC Micro, the RAM ran at twice the speed (4 MHz) of the CPU (2 MHz) allowing the video (screen refresh) and CPU memory access to be interleaved with each accessor running at 2 MHz. On the Electron two accesses have to be made to get an 8 bit word (albeit with a single RAS), delivering an effective RAM access frequency of 2 MHz. In display modes employing the most screen memory, the CPU is unable to access its RAM while screen refresh accesses are happening, and in other modes the CPU and video accesses are interleaved with each accessor running at 1 MHz. Outside the screen refresh periods, the CPU is only able to access RAM at 1 MHz. This reduces the effective CPU speed by as much as a factor of four in the more demanding display modes, and as much as a factor of two otherwise.
The ULA continued to cause problems, delaying large-scale manufacturing. By October 1983 Acorn had received orders for more than 150,000 units, and expected to produce 25,000 a month before Christmas; the existing backlog would take more than six months to fulfil. Demand for the Electron was high but only two of WH Smith's London branches had inventory. As the company increased production during 1984, however, the British home-computer market greatly weakened; one Acorn executive later said, "after Christmas [1983] they were just delivering and the company ended up with £43 million of unsaleable stock". Acorn's Christmas 1984 sales were greatly below expectations and in January 1985 the company reduced the Electron's price to £129. In conjunction with an unsuccessful expansion into the United States, by February Acorn's market capitalization declined 85% from the previous year. Olivetti acquired the company later that year and Dixons Retail acquired the remaining Electron inventory for less than manufacturing cost, ending Acorn's home-computer business.
With hindsight, the large screen memory required too much processing power to manipulate and left too little space available to programs for the machine to take on the prevailing Spectrum (with less than 7K of screen memory) and Commodore 64 (with hardware sprites) in gaming. Despite this, several features that would later be associated with BBC Master and Archimedes were first features of Electron expansion units, including ROM cartridge slots and the Advanced Disc Filing System, a hierarchical improvement to the BBC's original Disc Filing System.
While it may not have been as popular as the Spectrum, Commodore 64 or Amstrad CPC, it did sell in sufficient numbers to ensure that new software was being produced right up until the early 1990s. This meant the Electron had a lifespan not much shorter than those more popular micros and much longer than competitors such as the Oric-1 and Dragon 32.
The Acorn Plus 1 added two ROM cartridge slots, an analogue interface (supporting four channels) and a Centronics parallel port. The analogue interface was normally used for joysticks, the parallel for a printer. Game ROM cartridges would boot automatically. Languages in paged ROM cartridges would take precedence over BASIC. (The slot at the front of the interface took priority if both were populated).
Access to ROM memory occurred at 2 MHz until RAM access was required, so theoretically programs released on ROM could run up to twice as fast as those released on tape or disc. Despite this all of the games released on ROM were packaged as ROM file cartridges, from which the micro would load programs into main memory in exactly the same way as if it were loading from tape. This meant that programs did not need to be modified for their new memory location and could be written in BASIC but gave no execution speed benefits.
The Cartridge slots provided additional control lines (compared to the lines available via the Edge-connector on the rear of the Electron) to ease implementation of ROM cartridges.
Additional peripheral cartridge-holders by companies such as P.R.E.S. (via their ARA/ARA2/ASR products) allowed 'Sideways ROM' capability, that allowed the standard Acorn ROM space to be programmatically mapped out for alternative EPROMs, either physically via ZIF Sockets, or 'virtually' via ROM-images loaded into (battery-backed) RAM in the same ROM memory space. This enabled the Electron to achieve the same functionality as that provided by the Expansion-ROM slots under the keyboard and on the bottom-left of the BBC Micro B keyboard.
The addition of the Plus 1 added a number of new *FX or OSBYTE calls that allowed the OS to read values from the analogue interface and write to the parallel interface.
The Plus 1 needed memory page &D for its workspace, and some games used this space. To disable the Plus 1, after pressing BREAK, the following commands could be issued:
Per a News article on Page #9 of the October 1984 issue of Acorn User, the Acorn 'Plus 2' interface was due to provide Econet capability. This interface did not make it to market.
The Acorn Plus 3 was a hardware module that connected independently of the Plus 1 and provided a double-density 3½" disc drive connected through a WD1770 drive controller and an ADFS ROM. There were two versions of the Plus 3 produced: A Single-sided and a Double-sided drive version. Because the WD1770 is capable of single density mode and uses the same IBM360 derived floppy disc format as the Intel 8271 found in the BBC Micro, it was also possible to run a DFS filing system with an alternate ROM, such as the P.R.E.S AP4 interface.
The Plus 3 reset PAGE to &1D00, reducing the amount of free RAM available to user. The ADFS system could be temporarily disabled (and PAGE reset to &E00) via the *NOADFS command. Alternative WD1770-based DFS and ADFS interfaces such as the P.R.E.S AP4 and 'ADFS E00' products left PAGE at &E00, and did not require the presence of the ZYSYSHELP file (see below)
Disks had to be manually mounted and dismounted using the *MOUNT / *DISMOUNT commands, or using the CTRL-A+BREAK key combination. Disks could also be booted from via the standard "Shift+BREAK" key-combination, if the !BOOT file was present on the disk. This behaviour was the same as on the BBC Micro.
The Plus 3 included an uprated square black power supply unit with mains cord, manufactured by STC, designed and manufactured in England to BS 415 and BS 5850, that was designed to power the Plus 3, in addition to the Electron and the Plus 1 interface as well. This replaced the original cream-coloured "wall wart" style power supply, designed to BS 415 and manufactured in Hong Kong.
The original Electron Edge-connector was repeated on the back of the Plus3, in addition to a secondary smaller edge-connector, that enabled additional drives to be connected (Shugart-compatible connection). These required their own power-supply. The secondary edge-connector could not power external drives.
Repair note: If the internal power-supply connector, used to power the existing internal 3.5" drive is damaged, and requires replacement, then the original AMP 800-930 4-pin connector, which was already in short supply during the original production run, may be replaced with a Molex 5264 50-37-5043 "Mini-SPOX" connector as an alternative.
If using the Plus3 in screen modes 0–3, the pseudo-variable TIME would be thrown off, as the interrupts were disabled during disk access in these modes.
Per a News article on page 9 of the October 1984 issue of Acorn User, the Plus 3 was originally designed to have used the Intel 8272 disk controller, (and not 8271, which were in short supply at the time).
The ADFS file format used the bytes Hugo to delimit the directory names on the disc, named after ADFS author Hugo Tyson. Another quirk was the presence of the file ZYSYSHELP which was required by the system, and created during formatting. This was a kludge. Acorn's v1.0 ADFS implementation on the Electron was unreliable when writing to the first few tracks of a floppy disc, so this was a "fix" and simply involved writing a file full of garbage to the suspect part. The ADFS would then skip it. Disc corruption could also occur if attempting to use the *COMPACT command without disabling the blinking cursor with the following command:
VDU23,1,0;0;0;0; This was due to the fact that the *COMPACT command used screen memory (by default) as working space during the operation, and the software-implemented blinking cursor corrupted that memory space. An alternative would be to give arguments to make it use non-screen memory for workspace, for example *COMPACT 40 20 in MODE 6. Tyson recalls that this bug was found during late testing but not fixed in the initial ROM release in order to avoid late changes, as workarounds exist.
Disc formatting was done via the *EFORM command, vs the more familiar *FORM40/*FORM80 DFS commands. Note additionally that the *EFORM command differs from the equivalent *AFORM command for the 1770 ADFS on the BBC Microcomputer. This is possibly as a result of needing to create the ZYSYSHELP file on the Electron. The *EFORM command was only supplied on the Welcome disc that was shipped with the Plus3, and was not included in the ROM.
As a games machine the Electron shared the same failing as the Sinclair Spectrum in not having a joystick port. This was quickly remedied by First Byte Computers who developed an interface and software which allowed a "switched" joystick to be used with the majority of software titles. This interface became very popular and was sold by W.H. Smiths, Boots, Comet and hundreds of independent computer dealers.
The Advanced Plus 3 was very similar to the Acorn Plus 3 but packaged as an ADFS ROM cartridge for the Plus 1 with a disc drive connector at the head. This made it possible to connect a 5¼" floppy disc drive as used by BBC Micro owners or a more common 3½" drive.
AP5 Provided User Port (all lines), 1 MHz bus and 'Tube' bus capability, enabling second processor usage.
For the PRES5, and other similar interfaces, the User Port is usually implemented via a 6522 VIA chip.
The Slogger and Elektuur Turbo Boards were born out of a hack initially devised at Acorn. By shadowing the lowest 8 kB of RAM with a static RAM chip outside of reach of the ULA, the CPU could always access it at 2 MHz. The tradeoff was that the screen could not be located in that 8 kB. In practice the operating system ROMs always put the screen into the top 20 kB and as a result this probably only broke compatibility with around 2% of software.
The Slogger Turbo Board was a professionally fitted upgrade whereas the Elektuur modification was described in an article in Dutch Electronics magazine Elektuur and intended for users to perform at home.
Speeding up the low portion of memory is particularly useful on 6502 derived machines because that processor has a faster addressing mode for the first 256 bytes and so it is common for software to put any variables involved in time critical sections of program into that region.
The cost of the 64 Kbit SRAM chip would have been more than that of doubling the four 64 KBit DRAM chips to give 8-bit RAM access, fixing both the modest memory and poor performance issues of the Electron.
A development of the Turbo Board, the Master RAM Board duplicated the Turbo Board functionality and added a further option of running the micro with 32 kB of static shadow RAM in addition to the ordinary 32 kB — giving 64 kB total. Some clever program counter catches meant that the ordinary system ROMs and any software using the OS calls could function without significant modification, making substantially more memory available for BASIC, View, Viewsheet and almost every other business application. By providing extra storage this modification also allowed some games and applications intended for the BBC Micro to function on the Electron despite the lack of a native Mode 7.
Applications could not directly address video memory in shadow mode without modification, so it was incompatible with most games, although there is no inherent reason why a game could not be written to function in shadow mode. A switch mounted through the case switched between normal, turbo and shadow modes.
During its decline, Turbo Boards and Master RAM Boards were offered already fitted to new Electrons in an attempt to increase sales.
Of the capabilities present in the BBC Micro but absent from the Electron, the teletext-style "mode 7" was particularly conspicuous because of the very low memory usage in that mode (just less than 1 kB) and the high number of BBC programs that used it. Jafa Systems provided a number of solutions to redress this deficiency. (Note - the Jafa interface did not provide Teletext interface itself, but it did work in conjunction with specific CEEFAX/Teletext/Prestel adaptors from other manufacturers such as Morley)
The most basic solution was a pure software system supplied on a ROM cartridge that drew a low resolution approximation of the mode 7 display in a graphics mode. Although cheap and effective in enabling use of some software that only used official ROM entry points for text output, this solution proved very slow because the Electron had to be placed into an 80-byte-pitch display to be able to get anywhere near to reproducing mode 7 and the CPU spent a lot of time drawing approximations of mode 7 characters and graphics that in a hardware solution would be achieved without any CPU processing. It also used up 20 kB of RAM for the graphics display rather than the 1 kB of a hardware mode 7.
Two solutions with additional hardware were provided. The first used the same graphics processor as the BBC Micro in mode 7 — the SAA5050 — but used software to ensure that it was fed with the correct graphics data. A software ROM would put the machine into an ordinary 40-byte-pitch display. While the ULA would read the display from memory in the usual fashion, the SAA5050 would listen to the data it was reading and produce a mode 7 interpretation of the same information. When necessary the hardware would switch between the graphics output being produced by the micro and that being produced by the add-on.
The disadvantage to this system is that while the SAA5050 would expect to be repeatedly fed the same 40 bytes of data for every display scanline of each character row, the ULA would read a different set of 40 bytes for every display scanline in order to produce a full graphics display. A software ROM worked around this by duplicating the data intended for a mode 7 display in memory. Although this produced a mode 7 that barely impacted upon CPU performance and gave the same visual quality as the BBC Micro, it remained compatible only with software that used the ROM routines for outputting text and graphics and still used 10 kB of memory for the display.
A second version of the hardware add-on corrected these problems. By adding a CRTC6845 to the package, a full hardware solution was created that did not reduce CPU performance and only used 1 kB of memory for the display. A software ROM was still supplied, but this did no more than expand the hardware ROM so that it knew mode 7 now existed and was able to switch into it.
During the latter years, PMS produced a 2nd Processor specifically for the Electron. This provided an alternative to buying the combination of the P.R.E.S. Advanced Plus 5 and Acorn 6502 2nd Processor.
An unusual variant of the Electron was sold by British Telecom Business Systems as the BT Merlin M2105 Communications Terminal. This consisted of a de-badged Electron plus a large expansion unit containing 32 kB of RAM, 48 kB of ROM, a Centronics printer port and a modem. The ROM firmware provided dial-up communications facilities. These were used by the Interflora florists network in the UK for over a decade.
The hardware of the BBC Micro was emulated by a single customized ULA chip designed by Acorn in conjunction with Ferranti. It had feature limitations such as the inability to output more than one channel of sound or provide teletext mode. By contrast, the BBC Micro was capable of three-way polyphony (plus one noise channel).
The edge-connector on the rear of the Electron exposed almost all the Bus lines, but not all. (The BBC Micro, courtesy of all its ports, exposed all lines.)
For Issue 1-4 motherboards, the ULA had an issue similar to those experienced by other socketed CPU's. Over time, the thermal heating and cooling could cause the ULA to rise slightly out of its socket just enough to cause the machine to start exhibiting 'hanging' or other startup-failure issues, such as a continuous 'startup beep'. This was despite a metal cover, and locking-bar mechanism designed to prevent this from occurring. Pushing down on the metal cover to reseat the ULA was normally sufficient to rectify these issues. Issue 5 and 6 boards utilized a different epoxy resin covering directly over the ULA, which resolved this issue.
The keyboard included a form of single-key keyword input, similar to that used on the Sinclair Spectrum, via the 'func' key. However, unlike the Spectrum, the single-keypress keyword-entry was optional, and keywords could be entered manually if preferred.
The ULA controlled memory access and was able to provide 32K × 8 bits of addressable RAM using 4 × 64K × 1-bit RAM chips (4164). Due to needing two accesses to each chip instead of one, and the complications of the video hardware also needing access, reading or writing RAM was much slower than on the BBC Micro. This meant that although ROM applications ran at similar speeds, there was a substantial speed decrease on applications running from RAM. The Electron used the Synertek variant of the 6502 processor as that allowed the clock to be stopped for the entire 40 microseconds the ULA required exclusive DRAM access per raster line.
Like the BBC Micro, the Electron was constrained by limited memory resources. Of the 32 kB RAM, 3½ kB was allocated to the OS at startup and at least 10 kB was taken up by the display buffer in contiguous display modes.
Due to the timing of interrupts it was possible to disable either the top 100 or bottom 156 lines of the display with palette changes. Many games took advantage of this, gaining storage by leaving non-graphical data in the disabled area.
Other games would load non-graphical data into the display, leaving it visible as regions of apparently randomly coloured pixels.
Although page flipping was a hardware possibility, the limited memory forced most applications to do all their drawing directly to the visible screen, often resulting in graphical flicker or visible redraw. A notable exception is Players' "Joe Blade" series.
Although programs can alter the position of the screen in memory, the non-linear format of the display means that vertical scrolling can only be done in blocks of 8 pixels without further work.
"FireTrack" exploits a division in the way the Electron handles its display — of the seven available graphics modes, two are configured so that the final two of every ten scanlines are blank and are not based on the contents of RAM. If 16 scanlines of continuous graphical data are written to a character-block-aligned portion of the screen then they will appear as a continuous block in most modes but in the two non-continuous modes they will be displayed as two blocks of eight scanlines, separated in the middle by two blank scanlines.
In order to keep track of its position within the display, the Electron maintains an internal display address counter. The same counter is used in both the continuous and non-continuous graphics modes and switching modes mid-frame does not cause any adjustment to the counter.
"FireTrack" switches from a non-continuous to a continuous graphics mode part way down the display. By using the palette to mask the top area of the display and taking care about when it changes mode it can shift the continuous graphics at the bottom of the display down in two pixel increments because the internal display counter is not incremented on blank scanlines during non-continuous graphics modes.
"Exile" turns the Electron's one channel output into a digital speaker for PCM output.
The speaker can be programmatically switched on or off at any time but is permanently attached to a hardware counter so is normally only able to output a square wave. But if set to a frequency outside the human audible range then the ear can't perceive the square wave, only the difference between the speaker being switched on and off. This gives the effect of a simple toggle speaker similar to that seen in the 48 kB Sinclair ZX Spectrum. "Exile" uses this to output 1-bit audio samples.
Aardvark Software's "Frak!" and "Zalaga" As part of the copy protection, illegal copies of the games would cause a pseudo-polyphonic rendition of Trumpet Hornpipe, the Captain Pugwash theme tune, to play endlessly rather than loading the game properly (Pugwash being a pirate). On the Electron version of Frak!, the tune was the main theme from "Benny Hill" (Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax"). The polyphony was achieved via fast note-switching to achieve the necessary chords.
Although not as well supported by the biggest software publishers as rivals like the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a good range of games were available for the Electron. The traditional BBC Micro publishers such as Acornsoft, Superior Software and Micro Power offered the widest support. Notable popular games particularly associated with the Electron include:
There were also many popular games officially converted to the Electron from arcade machines (including "Crystal Castles", "Tempest", "Commando", "Paperboy" and "Yie Ar Kung-Fu") or other home computer systems (including "Impossible Mission", "Jet Set Willy", "The Way of the Exploding Fist", "Tetris", "The Last Ninja", "Barbarian" and "SimCity").
Despite Acorn themselves effectively shelving the Electron in 1985, games continued to be developed and released by professional software houses until 1991. There were around 1,400 games released for the Acorn Electron, several thousand extra public domain titles were released on disc through Public Domain libraries. Notable enterprises which produced discs of such software are BBC PD, Electron User Group and HeadFirst PD.
Several emulators of the machine exist: ElectrEm for Windows/Linux/macOS, Elkulator for Windows/Linux/DOS, ElkJS is a browser-based (JavaScript/HTML5) emulator, and the multi-system emulators MESS and Clock Signal feature support for the Electron. Electron software is predominantly archived in the UEF file format.
There are also two known FPGA based recreations of the Acorn Electron hardware. ElectronFPGA for the Papilio Duo hardware and the Acorn-Electron core for the FPGA Arcade "Replay" board.
The operating system ROM locations 0xFC00-0xFDFF contain the following text, which is different from the 'thanks' list in the original BBC Model B:
Additionally, the last bytes of both the BASIC ROM and 'Plus 3 Interface' ADFS v1.0 ROM include the word "Roger", thought to be a reference to Roger Wilson.
The case was designed by industrial designer Allen Boothroyd of Cambridge Product Design Ltd.
Acorn Electron History at 30 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2078 |
A Fire Upon the Deep
A Fire Upon the Deep is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. It is a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a communication medium resembling Usenet. "A Fire Upon the Deep" won the Hugo Award in 1993, sharing it with "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis.
Besides the normal print book editions, the novel was also included on a CD-ROM sold by ClariNet Communications along with the other nominees for the 1993 Hugo awards. The CD-ROM edition included numerous annotations by Vinge on his thoughts and intentions about different parts of the book, and was later released as a standalone e-book (no longer available).
The novel is set in various locations in the Milky Way. The galaxy is divided into four concentric volumes called the "Zones of Thought"; it is not clear to the novel's characters whether this is a natural phenomenon or an artificially-produced one, but it seems to roughly correspond with galactic-scale stellar density and a Beyond region is mentioned in the Sculptor Galaxy as well. The Zones reflect fundamental differences in basic physical laws, and one of the main consequences is their effect on intelligence, both biological and artificial. Artificial intelligence and automation is most directly affected, in that advanced hardware and software from the Beyond or the Transcend will work less and less well as a ship "descends" towards the Unthinking Depths. But even biological intelligence is affected to a lesser degree. The four zones are spoken of in terms of "low" to "high" as follows:
The Qeng Ho and other spacers in this series use kiloseconds, megaseconds, and gigaseconds as a unit of time. A kilosecond roughly equals 17 minutes. Megaseconds are close to 277.76 hours or 11.57 days. A Gigasecond is 31.69 years.
An expedition from Straumli Realm, an ambitious young human civilization in the high Beyond, investigates a five-billion-year-old data archive in the low Transcend that offers the possibility of unimaginable riches. The expedition's facility, High Lab, is gradually compromised by a dormant superintelligence within the archive later known as the Blight. However, shortly before the Blight's final "flowering", two self-aware entities created similarly to the Blight plot to aid the humans before the Blight can escape.
Recognizing the danger of what they have awakened, the researchers at High Lab attempt to flee in two ships, one carrying all the adults and the second carrying all the children in "coldsleep boxes". Suspicious, the Blight discovers that the first ship contains a data storage device in its cargo manifest; assuming it contains information that could harm it, the Blight destroys the ship. The second ship escapes. The Blight assumes that it is no threat, but later realizes that it is actually carrying away a "countermeasure" against it.
The ship lands on a distant planet with a medieval-level civilization of dog-like creatures, dubbed "Tines", who live in packs as group minds. Upon landing, however, the two surviving adults are ambushed and killed by Tine fanatics known as Flenserists, in whose realm they have landed. The Flenserists capture a young boy named Jefri Olsndot and his wounded sister, Johanna. While Jefri is taken deeper into Flenserist territory, Johanna is rescued by a Tine pilgrim who witnessed the ambush and deliver her to a neighboring kingdom ruled by a Tine named Woodcarver. The Flenserists tell Jefri that Johanna had been killed by Woodcarver and exploit him in order to develop advanced technology (such as cannon and radio communication), while Johanna and the knowledge stored in her "dataset" device help Woodcarver rapidly develop in turn.
A distress signal from the sleeper ship eventually reaches "Relay", a major node in the galactic communications network. A benign transcendent entity named "Old One" contacts Relay, seeking information about the Blight and the humans who released it, and reconstitutes a human man named Pham Nuwen from an old wreck to act as its agent, using his doubt of his own memory's veracity to bend him to the Old One's will. Ravna Bergsndot, the only human Relay employee, traces the sleeper ship's signal to the Tines world and persuades her employer to investigate what the human ship took from High Lab, contracting the merchant vessel "Out of Band II", owned by two sentient plant Skroderiders, Blueshell and Greenstalk, to transport them.
Before the mission is launched, the Blight attacks Relay and concurrently kills Old One. As Old One dies, it downloads what information it can into Pham to defeat the Blight, and Pham, Ravna and the Skroderiders barely escape Relay's destruction in the "Out of Band II".
The Blight expands, taking over races and "rewriting" their people to become its agents, murdering several other Powers, and seizing other archives in the Beyond, looking for what was taken. It finally realizes where the danger truly lies and sends a hastily assembled fleet in pursuit of the "Out of Band II".
The humans arrive at the Tines homeworld and ally with Woodcarver to defeat the Flenserists. Pham initiates Countermeasure, which extends the Slow Zone by thousands of light years, enveloping the Blight at the cost of wrecking thousands of uninvolved civilizations and causing trillions of deaths. The humans are stranded on the Tines world, now in the depths of the "Slow Zone". Activating the countermeasure costs Pham his life, but just before Pham dies, he realizes that, although his body is a reconstruction, his memories are real. Vinge expands on Pham's backstory in "A Deepness in the Sky".
A race of humanoids with colorful butterfly-like wings who attempt to use the chaos wrought by the Blight to reestablish their waning hegemony. Despite their attractive, delicate appearance, the Aprahanti are an extremely fearsome and vicious species.
An ancient, malevolent super-intelligent entity which strives to constantly expand and can easily manipulate electronics and even organic beings.
An older race which originally inhabited Sjandra Kei before the arrival of humanity.
All humans in the novel (except Pham) are descended from Nyjoran stock. Their ancestors were "Tuvo-Norsk" asteroid miners from Old Earth's solar system, which is noted as being on the other side of the galaxy in the Slow Zone. ("Nyjora" sounds similar to New Norwegian "New Earth".) One of the major human habitations is Sjandra Kei, three systems comprising roughly 28 billion individuals. Their main language is Samnorsk, the Norwegian term for a hypothetical unification of the Bokmål and Nynorsk forms of the language. (Vinge indicates in the book's dedication that several key ideas in it came to him while at a conference in Tromsø, Norway.)
A race of plantlike beings with fronds that are used for expression. The riders have no native capacity for short-term memory. Five billion years ago, someone gave the species wheeled mechanical constructs ("skrodes") to move around and to provide short-term memory. It is later revealed that their "benefactor" was the Blight, and it is able to corrupt and remotely operate the Riders via their skrodes.
A canid race, each "person" comprising a group mind of 4–8 members, which communicate by emitting ultrasonic waves from drumlike organs called "tympana". Each "soul" can survive and evolve by adding members to replace those who die, potentially for hundreds of years, as Woodcarver does.
A race of insectoid humanoids which constitutes one of the "majority races" of the Vrinimi organization.
Vinge first used the concepts of "Zones of Thought" in a 1988 novella "The Blabber", which occurs after "Fire". Vinge's novel "A Deepness in the Sky" (1999) is a prequel to "A Fire Upon the Deep" set 20,000 years earlier and featuring Pham Nuwen. Vinge's "The Children of the Sky", "a near-term sequel to "A Fire Upon the Deep", set ten years later, was released in October 2011.
Vinge's former wife, Joan D. Vinge, has also written stories in the Zones of Thought universe, based on his notes. These include "The Outcasts of Heaven Belt", "Legacy", and (as of 2008) a planned novel featuring Pham Nuwen.
Vinge's original title for the novel was "Among the Tines"; its final title was suggested by his editors.
"A Fire Upon the Deep" shared the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel with "Doomsday Book". The book was nominated for the 1992 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 1993 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the 1993 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
Jo Walton wrote: "Any one of the ideas in "A Fire Upon the Deep" would have kept an ordinary writer going for years. For me it's the book that does everything right, the example of what science fiction does when it works. ... "A Fire Upon the Deep" remains a favourite and a delight to re-read, absorbing even when I know exactly what’s coming." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2080 |
Aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies the aspects of "aeronautical Art, Science and Engineering" and "the profession of Aeronautics (which expression includes Astronautics)."
While the term originally referred solely to "operating" the aircraft, it has since been expanded to include technology, business, and other aspects related to aircraft.
The term "aviation" is sometimes used interchangeably with aeronautics, although "aeronautics" includes lighter-than-air craft such as airships, and includes ballistic vehicles while "aviation" technically does not.
A significant part of aeronautical science is a branch of dynamics called aerodynamics, which deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion, such as an aircraft.
Attempts to fly without any real aeronautical understanding have been made from the earliest times, typically by constructing wings and jumping from a tower with crippling or lethal results.
Wiser investigators sought to gain some rational understanding through the study of bird flight. An early example appears in ancient Egyptian texts. Later medieval Islamic Golden Age scientists such as Abbas ibn Firnas also made such studies. The founders of modern aeronautics, Leonardo da Vinci in the Renaissance and Cayley in 1799, both began their investigations with studies of bird flight.
Man-carrying kites are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China. In 1282 the Italian explorer Marco Polo described the Chinese techniques then current. The Chinese also constructed small hot air balloons, or lanterns, and rotary-wing toys.
An early European to provide any scientific discussion of flight was Roger Bacon, who described principles of operation for the lighter-than-air balloon and the flapping-wing ornithopter, which he envisaged would be constructed in the future. The lifting medium for his balloon would be an "aether" whose composition he did not know.
In the late fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci followed up his study of birds with designs for some of the earliest flying machines, including the flapping-wing ornithopter and the rotating-wing helicopter. Although his designs were rational, they were not based on particularly good science. Many of his designs, such as a four-person screw-type helicopter, have severe flaws. He did at least understand that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object." (Newton would not publish the Third law of motion until 1687.) His analysis led to the realisation that manpower alone was not sufficient for sustained flight, and his later designs included a mechanical power source such as a spring. Da Vinci's work was lost after his death and did not reappear until it had been overtaken by the work of George Cayley.
The modern era of lighter-than-air flight began early in the 17th century with Galileo's experiments in which he showed that air has weight. Around 1650 Cyrano de Bergerac wrote some fantasy novels in which he described the principle of ascent using a substance (dew) he supposed to be lighter than air, and descending by releasing a controlled amount of the substance. Francesco Lana de Terzi measured the pressure of air at sea level and in 1670 proposed the first scientifically credible lifting medium in the form of hollow metal spheres from which all the air had been pumped out. These would be lighter than the displaced air and able to lift an airship. His proposed methods of controlling height are still in use today; by carrying ballast which may be dropped overboard to gain height, and by venting the lifting containers to lose height. In practice de Terzi's spheres would have collapsed under air pressure, and further developments had to wait for more practicable lifting gases.
From the mid-18th century the Montgolfier brothers in France began experimenting with balloons. Their balloons were made of paper, and early experiments using steam as the lifting gas were short-lived due to its effect on the paper as it condensed. Mistaking smoke for a kind of steam, they began filling their balloons with hot smoky air which they called "electric smoke" and, despite not fully understanding the principles at work, made some successful launches and in 1783 were invited to give a demonstration to the French "Académie des Sciences".
Meanwhile, the discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black in c. 1780 to propose its use as a lifting gas, though practical demonstration awaited a gas tight balloon material. On hearing of the Montgolfier Brothers' invitation, the French Academy member Jacques Charles offered a similar demonstration of a hydrogen balloon. Charles and two craftsmen, the Robert brothers, developed a gas tight material of rubberised silk for the envelope. The hydrogen gas was to be generated by chemical reaction during the filling process.
The Montgolfier designs had several shortcomings, not least the need for dry weather and a tendency for sparks from the fire to set light to the paper balloon. The manned design had a gallery around the base of the balloon rather than the hanging basket of the first, unmanned design, which brought the paper closer to the fire. On their free flight, De Rozier and d'Arlandes took buckets of water and sponges to douse these fires as they arose. On the other hand, the manned design of Charles was essentially modern. As a result of these exploits, the hot-air balloon became known as the "Montgolfière" type and the hydrogen balloon the "Charlière".
Charles and the Robert brothers' next balloon, "La Caroline", was a Charlière that followed Jean Baptiste Meusnier's proposals for an elongated dirigible balloon, and was notable for having an outer envelope with the gas contained in a second, inner ballonet. On 19 September 1784, it completed the first flight of over 100 km, between Paris and Beuvry, despite the man-powered propulsive devices proving useless.
In an attempt the next year to provide both endurance and controllability, de Rozier developed a balloon having both hot air and hydrogen gas bags, a design which was soon named after him as the "Rozière." The principle was to use the hydrogen section for constant lift and to navigate vertically by heating and allowing to cool the hot air section, in order to catch the most favourable wind at whatever altitude it was blowing. The balloon envelope was made of goldbeater's skin. The first flight ended in disaster and the approach has seldom been used since.
Sir George Cayley (1773–1857) is widely acknowledged as the founder of modern aeronautics. He was first called the "father of the aeroplane" in 1846 and Henson called him the "father of aerial navigation." He was the first true scientific aerial investigator to publish his work, which included for the first time the underlying principles and forces of flight.
In 1809 he began the publication of a landmark three-part treatise titled "On Aerial Navigation" (1809–1810). In it he wrote the first scientific statement of the problem, "The whole problem is confined within these limits, viz. to make a surface support a given weight by the application of power to the resistance of air." He identified the four vector forces that influence an aircraft: "thrust", "lift", "drag" and "weight" and distinguished stability and control in his designs.
He developed the modern conventional form of the fixed-wing aeroplane having a stabilising tail with both horizontal and vertical surfaces, flying gliders both unmanned and manned.
He introduced the use of the whirling arm test rig to investigate the aerodynamics of flight, using it to discover the benefits of the curved or cambered aerofoil over the flat wing he had used for his first glider. He also identified and described the importance of dihedral, diagonal bracing and drag reduction, and contributed to the understanding and design of ornithopters and parachutes.
Another significant invention was the tension-spoked wheel, which he devised in order to create a light, strong wheel for aircraft undercarriage.
During the 19th century Cayley's ideas were refined, proved and expanded on. Important investigators included Otto Lilienthal and Horatio Phillips.
Pedro Paulet, scientist born in the city of Arequipa, Peru in the year of 1874, was one of the first to experiment with propulsion rockets being considered the «Father of Modern Rocket» and by others as the «Father of Aeronautics Modern ». He developed plans for a "torpedo plane", which is why he is considered ahead of his time. When the internal explosion engines were invented, small enough to be able to propel a flying device with them, a race started between two flight possibilities: the lighter than the air (dirigibles) and the heavier than the air (aeroplanes) .
Aeronautics may be divided into three main branches comprising Aviation, Aeronautical science and Aeronautical engineering.
Aviation is the art or practice of aeronautics. Historically aviation meant only heavier-than-air flight, but nowadays it includes flying in balloons and airships.
Aeronautical engineering covers the design and construction of aircraft, including how they are powered, how they are used and how they are controlled for safe operation.
A major part of aeronautical engineering is aerodynamics, the science of passing through the air.
With the increasing activity in space flight, nowadays aeronautics and astronautics are often combined as aerospace engineering.
The science of aerodynamics deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion, such as an aircraft.
The study of aerodynamics falls broadly into three areas:
"Incompressible flow" occurs where the air simply moves to avoid objects, typically at subsonic speeds below that of sound (Mach 1).
"Compressible flow" occurs where shock waves appear at points where the air becomes compressed, typically at speeds above Mach 1.
"Transonic flow" occurs in the intermediate speed range around Mach 1, where the airflow over an object may be locally subsonic at one point and locally supersonic at another.
A rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction. Rocket engines push rockets forwards simply by throwing their exhaust backwards extremely fast.
Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China. Significant scientific, interplanetary and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry was the enabling technology of the Space Age, including setting foot on the moon.
Rockets are used for fireworks, weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for artificial satellites, human spaceflight and exploration of other planets. While comparatively inefficient for low speed use, they are very lightweight and powerful, capable of generating large accelerations and of attaining extremely high speeds with reasonable efficiency.
Chemical rockets are the most common type of rocket and they typically create their exhaust by the combustion of rocket propellant. Chemical rockets store a large amount of energy in an easily released form, and can be very dangerous. However, careful design, testing, construction and use minimizes risks. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2082 |
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas (; 19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean (; 5 October 1864 – 7 June 1948), were manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their Cinématographe motion picture system and the short films they produced between 1895 and 1905. Their screening on 22 March 1895 for circa 200 members of the "Society for the Development of the National Industry" in Paris was probably the first presentation of films on a screen for a large audience. Their first commercial public screening on 28 December 1895 for circa 40 paying visitors and invited relations has traditionally been regarded as the birth of cinema. Either the techniques or the business models of earlier filmmakers proved to be less viable than the breakthrough presentations of the Lumières.
The Lumière brothers were born in Besançon, France, to Charles-Antoine Lumière (1840–1911) and Jeanne Joséphine Costille Lumière, who were married in 1861 and moved to Besançon, setting up a small photographic portrait studio where Auguste and Louis were born. They moved to Lyon in 1870, where son Edouard and three daughters were born. Auguste and Louis both attended La Martiniere, the largest technical school in Lyon. Their father Charles-Antoine set up a small factory producing photographic plates, but even with Louis and a young sister working from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. it teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, and by 1882 it looked as if they would fail, but when Auguste returned from military service the boys designed the machines necessary to automate their father's plate production and devised a very successful new photo plate, 'etiquettes bleue', and by 1884 the factory employed a dozen workers.
They patented several significant processes leading up to their film camera, most notably film perforations (originally implemented by Emile Reynaud) as a means of advancing the film through the camera and projector. The original cinématographe had been patented by Léon Guillaume Bouly on 12 February 1892. The cinématographe — a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures — was further developed by the Lumières. The brothers patented their own version on 13 February 1895.
The date of the recording of their first film is in dispute. In an interview with Georges Sadoul given in 1948, Louis Lumière tells that he shot the film in August 1894. This is questioned by historians (Sadoul, Pinel, Chardère) who consider that a functional Lumière camera didn't exist before the end of 1894, and that their first film La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon was recorded on 19 March 1895, and then publicly projected 22 March 1895 at the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in Paris.
The Lumière brothers saw film as a novelty and had withdrawn from the film business by 1905. They went on to develop the first practical photographic colour process, the Lumière Autochrome.
Louis died on 6 June 1948 and Auguste on 10 April 1954. They are buried in a family tomb in the New Guillotière Cemetery in Lyon.
The Lumières presented their invention with a screening on 22 March 1895 in Paris, at the "Society for the Development of the National Industry", in front of an audience of 200 people, one of whom was Léon Gaumont, then director of the company the Comptoir géneral de la photographie. The main focus of the conference by Louis Lumière concerned the recent developments in the photograph industry, mainly the research on polychromy (colour photography). It was much to Lumière's surprise that the moving black-and-white images retained more attention than the coloured stills. The American Woodville Latham screened works of film 2 months later on 20 May 1895. The first public screening of films at which admission was charged was a program by the Skladanowsky brothers that was held on 1 November 1895 in Berlin.
The Lumières gave their first paid public screening on 28 December 1895, at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. This history-making presentation consisted of the following 10 short films (in order of presentation):
Each film is 17 meters long, which, when hand cranked through a projector, runs approximately 50 seconds.
The Lumières went on tour with the cinématographe in 1896, visiting Brussels (the first place a film was played outside Paris on the Galleries Saint-Hubert on 1 March 1896), Bombay, London, Montreal, New York City, Palestine, and Buenos Aires.
In 1896, only a few months after the initial screenings in Europe, films by the Lumiere Brothers were shown in Egypt, first in the Tousson stock exchange in Alexandria on 5 November 1896 and then in the Hamam Schneider (Schneider Bath) in Cairo.
The moving images had an immediate and significant influence on popular culture with "L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat" (literally, "the arrival of a train at La Ciotat", but more commonly known as "Arrival of a Train at a Station") and "Carmaux, défournage du coke" (Drawing out the coke). Their actuality films, or "actualités", are often cited as the first, primitive documentaries. They also made the first steps towards comedy film with the slapstick of "L'Arroseur Arrosé".
The brothers stated that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers such as Georges Méliès. This made many film makers upset. Consequently, their role in the history of film was exceedingly brief. In parallel with their cinema work they experimented with colour photography. They worked on a number of colour photographic processes in the 1890s including the Lippmann process (interference heliochromy) and their own 'bichromated glue' process, a subtractive colour process, examples of which were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. This last process was commercialised by the Lumieres but commercial success had to wait for their next colour process. In 1903 they patented a colour photographic process, the "Autochrome Lumière", which was launched on the market in 1907. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Lumière company was a major producer of photographic products in Europe, but the brand name, Lumière, disappeared from the marketplace following merger with Ilford.
Earlier moving images in for instance phantasmagoria shows, the phénakisticope, the zoetrope and Émile Reynaud's Théâtre Optique consisted of hand-drawn images. Despite many obvious similarities, animation is usually regarded as a very different medium than cinematography. A system that could record reality in motion, in a fashion much like it is seen by the eyes, had a greater impact on people.
Eadweard Muybridge's Zoopraxiscope lectures showed painted contours based on his chronophotography recordings. The only Zoopraxoscope disc with actual photographs was made with an early form of stop motion. Lesser known predecessors, such as Jules Duboscq's Bioscope were not projected.
Louis Le Prince's "Roundhay Garden Scene" (1888) and other films are now widely regarded as the first examples of proper cinematography, but Le Prince disappeared without a trace before he managed to present his work or publish about it.
Ottomar Anschütz's Electrotachyscope projected very short loops. The films of the Lumières initially lasted circa 50 seconds each.
Thomas Edison believed projection of films wasn't as viable a business model as offering the films in the "peepshow" kinetoscope device. Watching the images on the screen turned out to be much preferred by audiences.
William Friese-Greene's "machine camera", patented in 1889, Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope (developed by William Kennedy Dickson), premiered publicly in 1894. did not impress audiences.
Kazimierz Prószyński had built his camera and projecting device, called Pleograph, in 1894. (no details known)
Lauste and Latham's Eidoloscope was demonstrated for members of the press on April 21, 1895, and opened to the paying public on Broadway on May 20. The Eidoloscope Company was dissolved in 1896 after copyright disputes.
Max and Emil Skladanowsky, inventors of the Bioscop, had offered projected moving images to a paying public in Berlin from 1 November 1895 until the end of the month. Their machinery was relatively cumbersome and their films much shorter. Their planned screening in Paris were cancelled after they had watched the 26 December 1895 Lumière screening and competition seemed futile. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2083 |
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles (, "Práxeis Apostólōn"; ), often referred to simply as Acts, or formally the Book of Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian church and the spread of its message to the Roman Empire.
Acts and the Gospel of Luke make up a two-part work, Luke–Acts, by the same anonymous author, usually dated to around 80–90 AD. The first part, the Gospel of Luke, tells how God fulfilled his plan for the world's salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Messiah. Acts continues the story of Christianity in the 1st century, beginning with Jesus's ascension to Heaven. The early chapters, set in Jerusalem, describe the Day of Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) and the growth of the church in Jerusalem. Initially, the Jews are receptive to the Christian message, but later they turn against the followers of Jesus. Rejected by the Jews, the message is taken to the Gentiles under the guidance of the Apostle Peter. The later chapters tell of Paul's conversion, his mission in Asia Minor and the Aegean, and finally his imprisonment in Rome, where, as the book ends, he awaits trial.
Luke–Acts is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah of the Jews came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it. Luke–Acts can also be seen as a defense of (or "apology" for) the Jesus movement addressed to the Jews: the bulk of the speeches and sermons in Acts are addressed to Jewish audiences, with the Romans serving as external arbiters on disputes concerning Jewish customs and law. On the one hand, Luke portrays the followers of Jesus as a sect of the Jews, and therefore entitled to legal protection as a recognised religion; on the other, Luke seems unclear as to the future God intends for Jews and Christians, celebrating the Jewishness of Jesus and his immediate followers while also stressing how the Jews had rejected God's promised Messiah.
The title "Acts of the Apostles" was first used by Irenaeus in the late 2nd century. It is not known whether this was an existing title or one invented by Irenaeus; it does seem clear that it was not given by the author, as the word "práxeis" (deeds, acts) only appears once in the text (Acts 19:18) and there it does not refer to the apostles but refers to deeds confessed by followers to the apostles.
The Gospel of Luke and Acts make up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts. Together they account for 27.5% of the New Testament, the largest contribution attributed to a single author, providing the framework for both the Church's liturgical calendar and the historical outline into which later generations have fitted their idea of the story of Jesus and the early church. The author is not named in either volume. According to Church tradition dating from the 2nd century, the author was the "Luke" named as a companion of the apostle Paul in three of the letters attributed to Paul himself; this view is still sometimes advanced, but "a critical consensus emphasizes the countless contradictions between the account in Acts and the authentic Pauline letters." (An example can be seen by comparing Acts's accounts of Paul's conversion (Acts 9:1–31, 22:6–21, and 26:9–23) with Paul's own statement that he remained unknown to Christians in Judea after that event (Galatians 1:17–24).) The author "is an admirer of Paul, but does not share Paul's own view of himself as an apostle; his own theology is considerably different from Paul's on key points and does not represent Paul's own views accurately." He was educated, a man of means, probably urban, and someone who respected manual work, although not a worker himself; this is significant, because more high-brow writers of the time looked down on the artisans and small business people who made up the early church of Paul and were presumably Luke's audience.
While no proposed date for the composition of Acts is universally accepted, the most common scholarly position is to date Luke–Acts to 80–90 AD, on the grounds that it uses Mark as a source, looks back on the destruction of Jerusalem, and does not show any awareness of the letters of Paul (which began circulating late in the first century). The earliest possible date for the composition of Acts is set by the events with which it ends, Paul's imprisonment in Rome c. 63 AD, but such an early dating is a minority position. The last possible date would be set by its first definite citation by another author, but there is no unanimity on this; some scholars find echoes of Acts in a work from c. 95 AD called I Clement, while others see no indisputable citation until the middle of the 2nd century. A minority of scholars, necessarily in the latter camp, conclude that Acts dates to the 2nd century, believing that it shows awareness of the letters of Paul, the works of Josephus, or the writings of Marcion.
There are two major textual variants of Acts, the Western text-type and the Alexandrian. The oldest complete Alexandrian manuscripts date from the 4th century and the oldest Western ones from the 6th, with fragments and citations going back to the 3rd. Western texts of Acts are 6.2–8.4% longer than Alexandrian texts, the additions tending to enhance the Jewish rejection of the Messiah and the role of the Holy Spirit, in ways that are stylistically different from the rest of Acts. The majority of scholars prefer the Alexandrian (shorter) text-type over the Western as the more authentic, but this same argument would favour the Western over the Alexandrian for the Gospel of Luke, as in that case the Western version is the shorter; the debate therefore continues.
The title "Acts of the Apostles" ("Praxeis Apostolon") would seem to identify it with the genre telling of the deeds and achievements of great men ("praxeis"), but it was not the title given by the author. The anonymous author aligned Luke–Acts to the "narratives" (διήγησις, "diēgēsis") which many others had written, and described his own work as an "orderly account" (ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς). It lacks exact analogies in Hellenistic or Jewish literature.
The author may have taken as his model the works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who wrote a well-known history of Rome, or the Jewish historian Josephus, author of a history of the Jews. Like them, he anchors his history by dating the birth of the founder (Romulus for Dionysius, Moses for Josephus, Jesus for Luke) and like them he tells how the founder is born from God, taught authoritatively, and appeared to witnesses after death before ascending to heaven. By and large the sources for Acts can only be guessed at, but the author would have had access to the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures), the Gospel of Mark, and either the hypothetical collection of "sayings of Jesus" called the Q source or the Gospel of Matthew. He transposed a few incidents from Mark's gospel to the time of the Apostles—for example, the material about "clean" and "unclean" foods in Mark 7 is used in Acts 10, and Mark's account of the accusation that Jesus has attacked the Temple (Mark 14:58) is used in a story about Stephen (Acts 6:14). There are also points of contacts (meaning suggestive parallels but something less than clear evidence) with 1 Peter, the Letter to the Hebrews, and 1 Clement. Other sources can only be inferred from internal evidence—the traditional explanation of the three "we" passages, for example, is that they represent eyewitness accounts. The search for such inferred sources was popular in the 19th century, but by the mid-20th it had largely been abandoned.
Acts was read as a reliable history of the early church well into the post-Reformation era, but by the 17th century biblical scholars began to notice that it was incomplete and tendentious—its picture of a harmonious church is quite at odds with that given by Paul's letters, and it omits important events such as the deaths of both Peter and Paul. The mid-19th-century scholar Ferdinand Baur suggested that the author had re-written history to present a united Peter and Paul and advance a single orthodoxy against the Marcionites (Marcion was a 2nd-century heretic who wished to cut Christianity off entirely from the Jews); Baur continues to have enormous influence, but today there is less interest in determining the historical accuracy of Acts (although this has never died out) than in understanding the author's theological program.
Luke was written to be read aloud to a group of Jesus-followers gathered in a house to share the Lord's supper. The author assumes an educated Greek-speaking audience, but directs his attention to specifically Christian concerns rather than to the Greco-Roman world at large. He begins his gospel with a preface addressed to Theophilus (; "cf." ), informing him of his intention to provide an "ordered account" of events which will lead his reader to "certainty". He did not write in order to provide Theophilus with historical justification—"did it happen?"—but to encourage faith—"what happened, and what does it all mean?"
Acts (or Luke–Acts) is intended as a work of "edification," meaning "the empirical demonstration that virtue is superior to vice." The work also engages with the question of a Christian's proper relationship with the Roman Empire, the civil power of the day: could a Christian obey God and also Caesar? The answer is ambiguous. The Romans never move against Jesus or his followers unless provoked by the Jews, in the trial scenes the Christian missionaries are always cleared of charges of violating Roman laws, and Acts ends with Paul in Rome proclaiming the Christian message under Roman protection; at the same time, Luke makes clear that the Romans, like all earthly rulers, receive their authority from Satan, while Christ is ruler of the kingdom of God.
Acts has two key structural principles. The first is the geographic movement from Jerusalem, centre of God's Covenantal people, the Jews, to Rome, centre of the Gentile world. This structure reaches back to the author's preceding work, the Gospel of Luke, and is signaled by parallel scenes such as Paul's utterance in Acts 19:21, which echoes Jesus's words in Luke 9:51: Paul has Rome as his destination, as Jesus had Jerusalem. The second key element is the roles of Peter and Paul, the first representing the Jewish Christian church, the second the mission to the Gentiles.
The Gospel of Luke began with a prologue addressed to Theophilus; Acts likewise opens with an address to Theophilus and refers to "my earlier book", almost certainly the gospel.
The apostles and other followers of Jesus meet and elect Matthias to replace Judas as a member of The Twelve. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends and confers God's power on them, and Peter and John preach to many in Jerusalem and perform healings, casting out of evil spirits, and raising of the dead. The first believers share all property in common, eat in each other's homes, and worship together. At first many Jews follow Christ and are baptized, but the followers of Jesus begin to be increasingly persecuted by other Jews. Stephen is accused of blasphemy and stoned. Stephen's death marks a major turning point: the Jews have rejected the message, and henceforth it will be taken to the Gentiles.
The death of Stephen initiates persecution, and many followers of Jesus leave Jerusalem. The message is taken to the Samaritans, a people rejected by Jews, and to the Gentiles. Saul of Tarsus, one of the Jews who persecuted the followers of Jesus, is converted by a vision to become a follower of Christ (an event which Luke regards as so important that he relates it three times). Peter, directed by a series of visions, preaches to Cornelius the Centurion, a Gentile God-fearer, who becomes a follower of Christ. The Holy Spirit descends on Cornelius and his guests, thus confirming that the message of eternal life in Christ is for all mankind. The Gentile church is established in Antioch (north-western Syria, the third-largest city of the empire), and here Christ's followers are first called Christians.
The mission to the Gentiles is promoted from Antioch and confirmed at a meeting in Jerusalem between Paul and the leadership of the Jerusalem church. Paul spends the next few years traveling through western Asia Minor and the Aegean, preaching, converting, and founding new churches. On a visit to Jerusalem he is set on by a Jewish mob. Saved by the Roman commander, he is accused by the Jews of being a revolutionary, the "ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes", and imprisoned. Later, Paul asserts his right as a Roman citizen, to be tried in Rome and is sent by sea to Rome, where he spends another two years under house arrest, proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching freely about "the Lord Jesus Christ". Acts ends abruptly without recording the outcome of Paul's legal troubles.
Prior to the 1950s, Luke–Acts was seen as a historical work, written to defend Christianity before the Romans or Paul against his detractors; since then the tendency has been to see the work as primarily theological. Luke's theology is expressed primarily through his overarching plot, the way scenes, themes and characters combine to construct his specific worldview. His "salvation history" stretches from the Creation to the present time of his readers, in three ages: first, the time of "the Law and the Prophets" (Luke 16:16), the period beginning with Genesis and ending with the appearance of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5–3:1); second, the epoch of Jesus, in which the Kingdom of God was preached (Luke 3:2–24:51); and finally the period of the Church, which began when the risen Christ was taken into Heaven, and would end with his second coming.
Luke–Acts is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how the Messiah, promised to the Jews, came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it. This theme is introduced in Chapter 4 of the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus, rejected in Nazareth, recalls that the prophets were rejected by Israel and accepted by Gentiles; at the end of the gospel he commands his disciples to preach his message to all nations, "beginning from Jerusalem." He repeats the command in Acts, telling them to preach "in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the Earth." They then proceed to do so, in the order outlined: first Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, then the entire (Roman) world.
For Luke, the Holy Spirit is the driving force behind the spread of the Christian message, and he places more emphasis on it than do any of the other evangelists. The Spirit is "poured out" at Pentecost on the first Samaritan and Gentile believers and on disciples who had been baptised only by John the Baptist, each time as a sign of God's approval. The Holy Spirit represents God's power (At his ascension, Jesus tells his followers, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you"): through it the disciples are given speech to convert thousands in Jerusalem, forming the first church (the term is used for the first time in Acts 5).
One issue debated by scholars is Luke's political vision regarding the relationship between the early church and the Roman Empire. On the one hand, Luke generally does not portray this interaction as one of direct conflict. Rather, there are ways in which each may have considered having a relationship with the other rather advantageous to its own cause. For example, early Christians may have appreciated hearing about the protection Paul received from Roman officials against Gentile rioters in Philippi (Acts 16:16–40) and Ephesus (Acts 19:23–41), and against Jewish rioters on two occasions (Acts 17:1–17; Acts 18:12–17). Meanwhile, Roman readers may have approved of Paul's censure of the illegal practice of magic (Acts 19:17–19) as well as the amicability of his rapport with Roman officials such as Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:6–12) and Festus (Acts 26:30–32). Furthermore, Acts does not include any account of a struggle between Christians and the Roman government as a result of the latter's imperial cult. Thus Paul is depicted as a moderating presence between the church and the Roman Empire.
On the other hand, events such as the imprisonment of Paul at the hands of the empire (Acts 22–28) as well as several encounters that reflect negatively on Roman officials (for instance, Felix's desire for a bribe from Paul in Acts 24:26) function as concrete points of conflict between Rome and the early church. Perhaps the most significant point of tension between Roman imperial ideology and Luke's political vision is reflected in Peter's speech to the Roman centurion, Cornelius (Acts 10:36). Peter states that "this one" [οὗτος], i.e. Jesus, "is lord [κύριος] of all." The title, κύριος, was often ascribed to the Roman emperor in antiquity, rendering its use by Luke as an appellation for Jesus an unsubtle challenge to the emperor's authority.
As the second part of the two-part work Luke–Acts, Acts has significant links to the Gospel of Luke. Major turning points in the structure of Acts, for example, find parallels in Luke: the presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple parallels the opening of Acts in the Temple, Jesus's forty days of testing in the wilderness prior to his mission parallel the forty days prior to his Ascension in Acts, the mission of Jesus in Samaria and the Decapolis (the lands of the Samaritans and Gentiles) parallels the missions of the Apostles in Samaria and the Gentile lands, and so on (see Gospel of Luke). These parallels continue through both books. There are also differences between Luke and Acts, amounting at times to outright contradiction. For example, the gospel seems to place the Ascension on Easter Sunday, immediately after the Resurrection, while Acts 1 puts it forty days later. There are similar conflicts over the theology, and while not seriously questioning the single authorship of Luke–Acts, these differences do suggest the need for caution in seeking too much consistency in books written in essence as popular literature.
Acts agrees with Paul's letters on the major outline of Paul's career: he is converted and becomes a Christian missionary and apostle, establishing new churches in Asia Minor and the Aegean and struggling to free Gentile Christians from the Jewish Law. There are also agreements on many incidents, such as Paul's escape from Damascus, where he is lowered down the walls in a basket. But details of these same incidents are frequently contradictory: for example, according to Paul it was a pagan king who was trying to arrest him in Damascus, but according to Luke it was the Jews (2 Corinthians 11:33 and Acts 9:24). Acts speaks of "Christians" and "disciples", but Paul never uses either term, and it is striking that Acts never brings Paul into conflict with the Jerusalem church and places Paul under the authority of the Jerusalem church and its leaders, especially James and Peter (Acts 15 vs. Galatians 2). Acts omits much from the letters, notably Paul's problems with his congregations (internal difficulties are said to be the fault of the Jews instead), and his apparent final rejection by the church leaders in Jerusalem (Acts has Paul and Barnabas deliver an offering that is accepted, a trip that has no mention in the letters). There are also major differences between Acts and Paul on Christology (the understanding of Christ's nature), eschatology (understanding of the "last things"), and apostleship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2084 |
Assyria
Assyria (), also called the Assyrian Empire, was a Mesopotamian kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant that existed as a state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC (in the form of the Assur city-state) until its collapse between 612 BC and 609 BC – spanning the periods of the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age. This vast span of time is divided into the Early Period (2500 BC-2025 BC), Old Assyrian Empire (2025 BC - 1378 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1392 BC - 934 BC) and Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC - 609 BC).
From the end of the seventh century BC (when the Neo-Assyrian state fell) to the mid-seventh century AD, it survived as a geopolitical entity, for the most part ruled by foreign powers such as the Parthian and early Sasanian Empires between the mid-second century BC and late third century AD, the final part of which period saw Mesopotamia become a major centre of Syriac Christianity and the birthplace of the Church of the East. Greeks, Romans, and subsequently Arabs and Ottomans also took over control of the Assyrian lands.
A largely Semitic-speaking realm, Assyria was centred on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia. The Assyrians came to rule powerful empires in several periods. Making up a substantial part of the greater Mesopotamian "cradle of civilization", which included Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, and Babylonia, Assyria reached the height of technological, scientific and cultural achievements for its time. At its peak, the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 609 BC stretched from eastern Libya and Cyprus in the East Mediterranean to Iran, and from present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Transcaucasia to the Arabian Peninsula.
The name "Assyria" originates with the Assyrian state's original capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC – originally one of a number of Akkadian-speaking city-states in Mesopotamia. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders. From the late 24th century BC, the Assyrians became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all the Akkadian- and Sumerian-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from 2334 BC to 2154 BC. After the Assyrian Empire fell, the greater remaining part of Assyria formed a geopolitical region and province of other empires, although between the mid-2nd century BC and late 3rd century AD a patchwork of small independent Assyrian kingdoms arose, including Assur, Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai, and Hatra.
The region of Assyria fell under the successive control of the Median Empire of 678 to 549 BC, the Achaemenid Empire of 550 to 330 BC, the Macedonian Empire (late 4th century BC), the Seleucid Empire of 312 to 63 BC, the Parthian Empire of 247 BC to 224 AD, the Roman Empire (from 116 to 118 AD) and the Sasanian Empire of 224 to 651 AD. The Arab Islamic conquest of the area in the mid-seventh century finally dissolved Assyria (Assuristan) as a single entity, after which the remnants of the Assyrian people (by now Christians) gradually became an ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious minority in the Assyrian homeland, surviving there to this day as an indigenous people of the region.
Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu and "Azuhinum" prior to the rise of the city-state of Ashur, after which it was Aššūrāyu, and after its fall, from 605 BC through to the late seventh century AD variously as Achaemenid Assyria, and also referenced as Atouria, Ator, Athor, and sometimes as "Syria" which etymologically derives from Assyria according to Strabo, "Syria" (Greek), "Assyria" (Latin) and Asōristān (Middle Persian). "Assyria" can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were (and still are) centered.
The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians (see Assyrian continuity). As Babylonia is called after the city of Babylon, Assyria means "land of Asshur".
Etymologically, "Assyria" is connected to the name of "Syria", with both being ultimately derived from the Akkadian . Theodor Nöldeke in 1881 was the first to give philological support to the assumption that "Syria" and "Assyria" have the same etymology, a suggestion going back to John Selden (1617). A 21st-century discovery of the Çineköy inscription also confirmed that Syria, being a Greek corruption of the name Assyria, is ultimately derived from the Assyrian term "Aššūrāyu".
In prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria (and Subartu) was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in what will be Assyria were the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC, the Halaf culture c. 6100 BC, and the Hassuna culture c. 6000 BC.
The Akkadian-speaking people (the earliest historically-attested Semitic-speaking people) who would eventually found Assyria appear to have entered Mesopotamia at some point during the latter 4th millennium BC (c. 3500–3000 BC), eventually intermingling with the earlier Sumerian-speaking population, who came from northern Mesopotamia, with Akkadian names appearing in written record from as early as the 29th century BC.
During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian (a language isolate) on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a "sprachbund". Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere after the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate), although Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD, as did use of the Akkadian cuneiform.
The cities of Assur, Nineveh, Gasur and Arbela together with a number of other towns and cities, existed since at least before the middle of the 3rd millennium BC (c. 2600 BC), although they appear to have been Sumerian-ruled administrative centres at this time, rather than independent states.
Greco-Roman classical writers such as Julius Africanus, Marcus Velleius Paterculus and Diodorus Siculus dated the founding of Assyria to various dates between 2284 BC and 2057 BC, listing the earliest king as Belus or Ninus.
According to the Biblical generations of Noah, which appears to have been largely compiled between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, the city of Aššur was allegedly founded by a biblical Ashur the son of Shem, who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god. However, the much older attested Assyrian tradition itself lists the first king of Assyria as the 25th century BC Tudiya, and an early urbanised Assyrian king named Ushpia (c. 2050 BC) as having dedicated the first temple to the god Ashur in the city in the mid-21st century BC. It is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name.
The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, seem to have been established by 2600 BC. However it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, mentions "smiting Subartu" (Subartu being the Sumerian name for Assyria). Similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him.
Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known. In the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, i.e. . In archaeological reports from Ebla, it appeared that Tudiya's activities were confirmed with the discovery of a tablet where he concluded a treaty for the operation of a "karum" (trading colony) in Eblaite territory, with "king" Ibrium of Ebla (who is now known to have been the vizier of Ebla for king Ishar-Damu).
Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name "Adam" and then a further thirteen rulers (Yangi, Suhlamu, Harharu, Mandaru, Imsu, Harsu, Didanu, Hanu, Zuabu, Nuabu, Abazu, Belus and Azarah). Nothing concrete is yet known about these names, although it has been noted that a much later Babylonian tablet listing the ancestral lineage of Hammurabi, the Amorite king of Babylon, seems to have copied the same names from Tudiya through Nuabu, though in a heavily corrupted form.
The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as "kings who lived in tents", were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers. These kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the "city state" of Aššur in the mid 21st-century BC.
During the Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC), the Assyrians, like all the Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamians (and also the Sumerians), became subject to the dynasty of the city-state of Akkad, centered in central Mesopotamia. The Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding "four-quarters". The region of Assyria, north of the seat of the empire in central Mesopotamia, had also been known as Subartu by the Sumerians, and the name Azuhinum in Akkadian records also seems to refer to Assyria proper. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) population.
Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became a regional administrative center of the Empire, implicated by the Nuzi tablets. During this period, the Akkadian-speaking Semites of Mesopotamia came to rule an empire encompassing not only Mesopotamia itself but large swathes of Asia Minor, ancient Iran, Elam, the Arabian Peninsula, Canaan and Syria.
Assyria seems to have already been firmly involved in trade in Asia Minor by this time; the earliest known reference to Anatolian "karu" in Hatti was found on later cuneiform tablets describing the early period of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2350 BC). On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, and this appellation continued to exist throughout the Assyrian Empire for about 1,700 years. The name "Hatti" itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia.
Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor and the Levant (modern Syria and Lebanon). However, towards the end of the reign of Sargon the Great, the Assyrian faction rebelled against him; "the tribes of Assyria of the upper country—in their turn attacked, but they submitted to his arms, and Sargon settled their habitations, and he smote them grievously".
The Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c. 2154 BC and 2112 BC once again became fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia. However, the king list is the only information from Assyria for this period.
Most of Assyria briefly became part of the Neo-Sumerian Empire (or 3rd dynasty of Ur) founded in c. 2112 BC. Sumerian domination extended as far as the city of Ashur but appears not to have reached Nineveh and the far north of Assyria. One local ruler ("shakkanakku") named Zāriqum (who does not appear on any Assyrian king list) is listed as paying tribute to Amar-Sin of Ur. Ashur's rulers appear to have remained largely under Sumerian domination until the mid-21st century BC (c. 2050 BC); the king list names Assyrian rulers for this period and several are known from other references to have also borne the title of "shakkanakka" or vassal governors for the neo-Sumerians.
The Old Assyrian Empire is one of four periods into which the history of Assyria is divided, the other three being: the Early Assyrian Period, the Middle Assyrian Period and the New Assyrian Period.
Ushpia (2080 BC) appears to have been the first fully urbanised independent king of Assyria, and is traditionally held to have dedicated temples to the god Ashur in the city of the same name. He was followed by Sulili, Kikkiya and Akiya, of whom little is known aside from Kikkiya conducting various building works in Assur. A number of scholars also place Zariqum, a contemporary of Amar-Sin (2046–2038 BC) of Ur as an Assyrian ruler, though he does not appear on the Assyrian king list, but is claimed by Amar-Sin to be the 'governor' of Assur.
In approximately 2025 BC, a king named Puzur-Ashur I came to the throne of Assyria, and there is some debate among scholars as to whether he was the founder of a new dynasty or a descendant of Ushpia. He is mentioned as having conducted building projects in Assur, and he and his successors took the title "Išši’ak Aššur" (meaning viceroy of Ashur). From this time Assyria began to expand trading colonies called Karum into Hurrian and Hattian lands in Anatolia. He was succeeded by Shalim-ahum (c. 2000 BC), a king who is attested in a contemporary record of the time, leaving inscriptions in an archaic form of Akkadian. In addition to the expansions into Anatolia Ilu-shuma (C. 1995–1974 BC) (Middle chronology) appears to have conducted military campaigns in southern Mesopotamia, either in conquest of the city-states of the south, or in order to protect his fellow Akkadian-speakers from incursions by Elamites from the east and/or Amorites from the west – He is known to have built the old temple of Ishtar in Assur. He was succeeded by another powerful king, the long reigning Erishum I (1973–1934 BC) who is notable for one of the earliest examples of written legal codes and introducing the limmu (eponym) lists that were to continue throughout Assyrian history. He is known to have greatly expanded Assyrian trading colonies in Anatolia, with twenty one being listed during his reign. These Karum traded in: tin, textiles, lapis lazuli, iron, antimony, copper, bronze, wool, and grain, in exchange for gold and silver. Erishum also kept numerous written records, and conducted major building works in Assyria, including the building of temples to Ashur, Ishtar and Adad.
These policies were continued by Ikunum (1933–1921), Sargon I (1920–1881 BC), likely named after his predecessor Sargon of Akkad, (during Sargon I's later reign Babylon was founded as a small city-state), and Puzur-Ashur II (1880–1873 BC). Naram-Sin (1872–1828 BC) repelled an attempted usurpation of his throne by the future king Shamshi-Adad I late in his reign, however his successor Erishum II was deposed by Shamshi-Adad I in 1809 BC, bringing an end to the dynasty founded either by Ushpia or Puzur-Ashur I.
Shamshi-Adad I (1808–1776 BC) was already the ruler of Terqa, and although he claimed Assyrian ancestry as a descendant of Ushpia, he is regarded as a foreign Amorite usurper by later Assyrian tradition. However, he greatly expanded the Old Assyrian Empire, incorporating the northern half of Mesopotamia, swathes of eastern and southern Anatolia and much of the Levant into his large empire, and campaigned as far west as the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. His son and successor Ishme-Dagan I (1775–1764 BC) gradually lost territory in southern Mesopotamia and the Levant to the state of Mari and Eshnunna respectively, and had mixed relations with Hammurabi, the king who had turned the hitherto young and insignificant city-state of Babylon into a major power and empire.
After Shamsi-Adad I's death Assyria was reduced to vassalage by Hammurabi; Mut-Ashkur (1763–1753 BC), Rimush and Asinum were subservient to Hammurabi, who also took ownership of Assyrian trading colonies, thus bringing an end to the Old Assyrian Empire.
However, the Babylonian empire proved to be short lived, rapidly collapsing after the death of Hammurabi c. 1750 BC. An Assyrian governor named Puzur-Sin deposed Asinum who was regarded as a foreign Amorite and a puppet of the new and ineffectual Babylonian king Sumuabum, and the Babylonian and Amorite presence was expunged from Assyria by Puzur-Sin and his successor Ashur-dugul, who reigned for six years. A king called Adasi (1720–1701 BC) finally restored strength and stability to Assyria, ending the civil unrest that had followed the ejection of the Babylonians and Amorites, founding the new "Adaside Dynasty". Bel-bani (1700–1691 BC) succeeded Adasi and further strengthened Assyria against potential threats, and remained a revered figure even in the time of Ashurbanipal over a thousand years later.
There followed a long, prosperous and peaceful period in Assyrian history, rulers such as Libaya (1691–1674 BC), Sharma-Adad I, Iptar-Sin, Bazaya, Lullaya, Shu-Ninua and Sharma-Adad II appear to have had peaceful and largely uneventful reigns
Assyria remained strong and secure; when Babylon was sacked and its Amorite rulers deposed by the Hittite Empire and subsequently fell to the Kassites in 1595 BC, both powers were unable to make any inroads into Assyria, and there seems to have been no trouble between the first Kassite ruler of Babylon, Agum II, and Erishum III (1598–1586 BC) of Assyria, and a mutually beneficial treaty was signed between the two rulers. Shamshi-Adad II (1585–1580 BC), Ishme-Dagan II (1579–1562 BC) and Shamshi-Adad III (1562–1548 BC) seem also to have had peaceful tenures, although few records have thus far been discovered about their reigns. Similarly, Ashur-nirari I (1547–1522 BC) seems not to have been troubled by the newly founded Mitanni Empire in Asia Minor, the Hittite empire, or Babylon during his 25-year reign. He and his successor Puzur-Ashur III (1521–1497 BC) are known to have been active kings, improving the infrastructure, dedicating temples and conducting various building projects throughout the kingdom. Enlil-nasir I, Nur-ili, Ashur-shaduni and Ashur-rabi I (who deposed his predecessor) followed.
The emergence of the Hurri-Mitanni Empire and allied Hittite empire in the 16th century BC did eventually lead to a short period of sporadic Mitannian-Hurrian domination in the latter half of the 15th century. The Mitannians (an Indo-Aryan speaking people) are thought to have entered Anatolia from the north, conquered and formed the ruling class over the indigenous Hurrians of eastern Anatolia. The indigenous Hurrians spoke the Hurrian language, a language in the now wholly extinct Hurro-Urartian language family.
Ashur-nadin-ahhe I (1450–1431 BC) was courted by the Egyptians, who were rivals of Mitanni, and attempting to gain a foothold in the Near East. Amenhotep II sent the Assyrian king a tribute of gold to seal an alliance against the Hurri-Mitannian empire. It is likely that this alliance prompted Saushtatar, the emperor of Mitanni, to invade Assyria, and sack the city of Ashur, after which Assyria became a sometime vassal state. Ashur-nadin-ahhe I was deposed, either by Shaustatar or by his own brother Enlil-nasir II (1430–1425 BC) in 1430 BC, who then paid tribute to the Mitanni. Ashur-nirari II (1424–1418 BC) had an uneventful reign and appears to have also paid tribute to the Mitanni Empire.
The Assyrian monarchy survived, and the Mitannian influence appears to have been short-lived.
They appear not to have been always willing or indeed able to interfere in Assyrian internal and international affairs.
Ashur-bel-nisheshu (1417–1409 BC) seems to have been independent of Mitannian influence, as evidenced by his signing a mutually beneficial treaty with Karaindash, the Kassite king of Babylonia in the late 15th century. He also undertook extensive rebuilding work in Ashur itself, and Assyria appears to have redeveloped its former highly sophisticated financial and economic systems during his reign. Ashur-rim-nisheshu (1408–1401 BC) also undertook building work, strengthening the city walls of the capital. Ashur-nadin-ahhe II (1400–1393 BC) also received a tribute of gold and diplomatic overtures from Egypt, probably in an attempt to gain Assyrian military support against Egypt's Mitannian and Hittite rivals in the region. However, the Assyrian king appears not to have been in a strong enough position to challenge Mitanni or the Hittites.
Eriba-Adad I (1392–1366 BC), a son of Ashur-bel-nisheshu, ascended the throne in 1392 BC and finally broke the ties to the Mitanni Empire, and instead turned the tables, and began to exert Assyrian influence on the Mitanni.
The Middle period (1365 BC–1056 BC) saw reigns of great kings, such as Ashur-uballit I, Arik-den-ili, Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I. During this period, Assyria overthrew the empire of the Hurri-Mitanni and eclipsed the Hittite Empire, Egyptian Empire, Babylonia, Elam, Canaan and Phrygia in the Near East.
By the reign of Eriba-Adad I (1392–1366 BC) Mitanni influence over Assyria was on the wane. Eriba-Adad I became involved in a dynastic battle between Tushratta and his brother Artatama II and after this his son Shuttarna III, who called himself king of the Hurri while seeking support from the Assyrians.
Ashur-uballit I (1365–1330 BC) went further, defeating Shuttarna III and bringing an end to the Mitanni empire, the Assyrian king then annexing its territories in Anatolia and the Levant, turning Assyria once more into a major empire. The ambitious Assyrian king went further still, attacking and conquering Babylonia, and imposing a puppet ruler loyal to himself upon its throne. Assyria then annexed hitherto Babylonian territory in central Mesopotamia. Enlil-nirari (1330–1319 BC) also defeated Babylonia's Kassite kings.
The Hittites, having failed to save Mitanni, allied with Babylon in an unsuccessful economic war against Assyria for many years. Assyria was now a large and powerful empire, and a major threat to Egyptian and Hittite interests in the region, and was perhaps the reason that these two powers, fearful of Assyrian might, made peace with one another.
Arik-den-ili (1318–1307 BC) campaigned further still, entering northern Ancient Iran and subjugating the 'pre-Iranic' Gutians, Turukku and Nigimhi, before campaigning deeper into the Levant, subjugating the Suteans, Ahlamu and Yauru. His successor Adad-nirari I (1307–1275 BC) was another highly successful military leader, he defeated and conquered the Hurro-Mitanni kingdom of Hanigalbat and the rest of the independent Hurro-Mitanni kingdoms of Anatolia, despite the Hittites attempting to support their allies, and inflicted a series of crushing defeats on Babylonia, annexing large swathes of Babylonian territory. Hittite kings during his reign assumed a placatory attitude towards the Assyrian king.
Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) conquered eight kingdoms in central Anatolia in his first year, and in the next he defeated a coalition of Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni and Ahlamu, annexing yet more territory in Anatolia and the Levant, and retaining Assyrian dominion over Babylonia and the northwest of ancient Iran. Shalmaneser also conducted extensive building work in Assur, Nineveh and Arbela, and founded the city of Kalhu (the Biblical Calah/Nimrud).
Shalmaneser's son and successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1207 BC), won a major victory against the Hittites and their king Tudhaliya IV at the Battle of Nihriya and took thousands of prisoners. Rather than being content to simply subjugate Babylonian kings as his predecessors had, he conquered Babylonia directly, taking Kashtiliash IV as a captive and ruled there himself as king for seven years, taking on the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad" first used by Sargon of Akkad. Tukulti-Ninurta I thus became the first Akkadian speaking native Mesopotamian to rule the state of Babylonia, its founders having been foreign Amorites, succeeded by equally foreign Kassites. Tukulti-Ninurta petitioned the god Shamash before beginning his counter offensive. Kashtiliash IV was captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to "his" account, who "trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though it were a footstool" and deported him ignominiously in chains to Assyria. The victorious Assyrians demolished the walls of Babylon, massacred many of the inhabitants, pillaged and plundered his way across the city to the Esagila temple, where he made off with the statue of Marduk.
Middle Assyrian texts recovered at ancient Dūr-Katlimmu, include a letter from Tukulti-Ninurta to his "sukkal rabi'u", or grand vizier, Ashur-iddin advising him of the approach of his general Shulman-mushabshu escorting the captive Kashtiliash, his wife, and his retinue which incorporated a large number of women, on his way to exile after his defeat. In the process he defeated the Elamites, who had themselves coveted Babylon. He also wrote an epic poem documenting his victorious wars against Babylon and Elam. He progressed further south into what is today Arabia, conquering the "pre-Arab" South Semitic kingdoms of Dilmun and Meluhha. After a Babylonian revolt, he raided and plundered the temples in Babylon, regarded as an act of sacrilege. As relations with the priesthood in Ashur began deteriorating, Tukulti-Ninurta built a new capital city; Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta.
A series of short reigning kings followed, these being Ashur-nadin-apli (1207–1204 BC), Ashur-nirari III (1203–1198 BC), Enlil-kudurri-usur (1197–1193 BC) and Ninurta-apal-Ekur (1192–1190 BC), and there were no significant expansions of the empire during their short tenures, and Babylonia seems to have freed itself from the Assyrian yoke for a time.
Ashur-dan I (1190–1144 BC) conquered huge swathes of Babylonia, subjugating its king, and taking much booty home to Assyria. However, this led to conflict with the powerful Elamites of the southwest of ancient Iran, who were themselves preying upon Babylonia. The Elamites managed to actually take the Assyrian city of Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), before being finally defeated and driven from the Assyrian empire. Civil unrest ensued in Assyria after Ashur-Dan I's death, and Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku followed in quick succession during 1133 BC.
Ashur-resh-ishi I (1133–1116 BC) restored the tradition of powerful conquering kings. He campaigned to the east, taking the Zagros region of ancient Iran, and subjugated the Amorites, Ahlamu and the newly appeared Arameans in the Levant. He also defeated the ambitious Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylonia, annexing Babylonian territory in the process.
Tiglath-pileser I (1115–1074 BC) proved to be a long reigning and all conquering ruler, who firmly underlined Assyria's position as the world's leading military power.
His first campaign was against the Phrygians and Kaskians in 1112 BC, who had attempted to occupy certain Assyrian ruled Hittite districts in the Upper Euphrates; then he overran Commagene and eastern Cappadocia, and drove the Hittites from the Assyrian province of Subartu, northeast of Malatia.
In a subsequent campaign, the Assyrian forces penetrated into the mountains south of Lake Van and then turned westward to receive the submission of Malatia and Urartu. In his fifth year, Tiglath-Pileser attacked Cilicia and Comana in Cappadocia, and placed a record of his victories engraved on copper plates in a fortress he built to secure his Cilician conquests.
The Aramaeans of northern and central Syria were the next targets of the Assyrian king, who made his way as far as the sources of the Tigris. The control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of Pitru at the junction between the Euphrates and Sajur; thence he proceeded to conquer the Canaanite/Phoenician city-states of Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Berytus (Beirut), Aradus and finally Arvad where he embarked onto a ship to sail the Mediterranean, on which he killed a "nahiru" or "sea-horse" (which A. Leo Oppenheim translates as a narwhal) in the sea. He was passionately fond of hunting and was also a great builder. The general view is that the restoration of the temple of the gods Ashur and Hadad at the Assyrian capital of Assur (Ashur) was one of his initiatives. He was succeeded by Asharid-apal-Ekur who reigned for only a short time.
Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC) kept the vast empire together, campaigning successfully against Urartu and Phrygia to the north and the Arameans to the west. He maintained friendly relations with Marduk-shapik-zeri of Babylon, however upon the death of that king, he invaded Babylonia and deposed the new ruler Kadašman-Buriaš, appointing Adad-apla-iddina as his vassal in Babylon. He built some of the earliest examples of both Zoological Gardens and Botanical Gardens in Ashur, collecting all manner of animals and plants from his empire, and receiving a collection of exotic animals as tributes from Egypt.
Late in his reign, the Middle Assyrian Empire erupted into civil war, when a rebellion was orchestrated by Tukulti-Mer, a pretender to the throne of Assyria. Ashur-bel-kala eventually crushed Tukulti-Mer and his allies, however the civil war in Assyria had allowed hordes of Arameans to take advantage of the situation, and press in on Assyrian controlled territory from the west. Ashur-bel-kala counterattacked them, and conquered as far as Carchemish and the source of the Khabur river, but by the end of his reign many of the areas of Syria and Phoenicia-Canaan to the west of these regions as far as the Mediterranean, previously under firm Assyrian control, were eventually lost to the Middle Assyrian Empire.
The Middle Assyrian kingdom was well organized, and in the firm control of the king, who also functioned as the High Priest of Ashur, the state god. He had certain obligations to fulfill in the cult, and had to provide resources for the temples. The priesthood became a major power in Assyrian society. Conflicts with the priesthood are thought to have been behind the murder of king Tukulti-Ninurta I.
The Middle Assyrian Period was marked by the long wars fought that helped build Assyria into a warrior society. The king depended on both the citizen class and priests in his capital, and the landed nobility who supplied the horses needed by Assyria's military. Documents and letters illustrate the importance of the latter to Assyrian society. Assyria needed less artificial irrigation than Babylonia, and horse-breeding was extensive. Portions of elaborate texts about the care and training of them have been found. Trade was carried out in all directions. The mountain country to the north and west of Assyria was a major source of metal ore, as well as lumber. Economic factors were a common "casus belli".
All free male citizens were obliged to serve in the army for a time, a system which was called the "ilku"-service. A legal code was produced during the 14th and 13th centuries which, among other things, clearly shows that the social position of women in Assyria was lower than that of neighbouring societies. Men were permitted to divorce their wives with no compensation paid to the latter. If a woman committed adultery, she could be beaten or put to death. It's not certain if these laws were seriously enforced, but they appear to be a backlash against some older documents that granted things like equal compensation to both partners in divorce.
The women of the king's harem and their servants were also subject to harsh punishments, such as beatings, mutilation, and death. Assyria, in general, had much harsher laws than most of the region. Executions were not uncommon, nor were whippings followed by forced labour. Some offenses allowed the accused a trial under torture or duress. One tablet that covers property rights has brutal penalties for violators. A creditor could force debtors to work for him, but not sell them.
In the Middle Assyrian Laws, sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. An individual faced no punishment for penetrating a cult prostitute, someone of an equal or lower social class, such as slaves, or someone whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine. Such sexual relations were even seen as good fortune. However, homosexual relationships with royal attendants, between soldiers, or with those where a social better was submissive or penetrated were either treated as rape or seen as bad omens, and punishments applied.
Furthermore, the article 'Homosexualität' in "Reallexicon der Assyriologie" states, "Homosexuality in itself is thus nowhere condemned as licentiousness, as immorality, as social disorder, or as transgressing any human or divine law. Anyone could practice it freely, just as anyone could visit a prostitute, provided it was done without violence and without compulsion, and preferably as far as taking the passive role was concerned, with specialists. That there was nothing religiously amiss with homosexual love between men is seen by the fact that they prayed for divine blessing on it. It seems clear that the Mesopotamians saw nothing wrong in homosexual acts between consenting adults".
The Bronze Age Collapse from 1200 BC to 900 BC was a Dark Age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Asia Minor, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people.
Assyria and its empire were not unduly affected by these tumultuous events for some 150 years, perhaps the only ancient power that was not, and in fact thrived for most of the period. However, upon the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria went into a "comparative" decline for the next 100 or so years. The empire shrank significantly, and by 1020 BC Assyria appears to have controlled only areas close to Assyria itself, essential to keeping trade routes open in eastern Aramea, South Eastern Asia Minor, central Mesopotamia and north western Iran.
New West Semitic-speaking peoples such as the Arameans and Suteans moved into areas to the west and south of Assyria, including overrunning much of Babylonia to the south, Indo-European speaking Iranic peoples such as the Medes, Persians, Sarmatians and Parthians moved into the lands to the east of Assyria, displacing the native Kassites and Gutians and pressuring Elam and Mannea (all of which ancient non-Indo-European civilisations of Ancient Iran), and to the north in Asia Minor the Phrygians overran that part of the Hittites not already destroyed by Assyria, and Lydia emerged, a new Hurrian state named Urartu arose in the Caucasus, and Cimmerians, Colchians (Georgians) and Scythians around the Black Sea and Caucasus. Egypt was divided and in disarray, and Israelites were battling with other West Asian peoples such as the Amalekites, Moabites, Edomites and Ammonites and the non-Semitic-speaking Peleset/Philistines (who have been conjectured to be one of the so-called Sea Peoples) for the control of southern Canaan. Dorian Greeks usurped the earlier Mycenaean Greeks in western Asia Minor, and the Sea Peoples ravaged the Eastern Mediterranean.
Other new peoples, such as the Chaldeans, Sarmatians, Arabs, Nubians and Kushites were to emerge later, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC).
Despite the apparent weakness of Assyria in comparison to its former might, at heart it in fact remained a solid, well defended nation whose warriors were the best in the world. Assyria, with its stable monarchy, powerful army and secure borders was in a stronger position during this time than potential rivals such as Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Phrygia, Urartu, Persia, Lydia and Media. Kings such as Eriba-Adad II, Ashur-rabi II, Ashurnasirpal I, Tiglath-Pileser II and Ashur-Dan II successfully defended Assyria's borders and upheld stability during this tumultuous time.
Assyrian kings during this period appear to have adopted a policy of maintaining and defending a compact, secure nation and satellite colonies immediately surrounding it, and interspersed this with sporadic punitive raids and invasions of neighbouring territories when the need arose, including campaigning as far as the Mediterranean and sacking Babylonia.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire is usually considered to have begun with the ascension of Adad-nirari II, in 911 BC, lasting until the fall of Nineveh at the hands of the Medes/Persians and Babylonians, Chaldeans in 609 BC.
Assyria maintained a large and thriving rural population, combined with a number of well fortified cities, Major Assyrian cities during this period included; Nineveh, Assur, Kalhu (Calah, Nimrud), Arbela (Erbil), Arrapha (Karka, Kirkuk), Dur-Sharrukin, Imgur-Enlil, Carchemish, Harran, Tushhan, Til-Barsip, Ekallatum, Kanesh, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, Urhai (Edessa), Guzana, Kahat, Amid (Diyarbakir), Mérida (Mardin, Tabitu, Nuhadra (Dohuk), Ivah, Sepharvaim, Rachae, Purushanda, Sabata, Birtha (Tikrit), Tell Shemshara, Dur-Katlimmu and Shekhna.
Assyria is often noted for its brutality and cruelty during this period, although Assyrian harshness was reserved solely for those who took up arms against the Assyrian king, and none of the Assyrian kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire or preceding Middle Assyrian Empire conducted genocides, massacres or ethnic cleansings against civilian populations, non-combatant men, or women and children.
Assyria once more began to expand with the rise of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC. He cleared Aramean and other tribal peoples from Assyria's borders and began to expand in all directions into Anatolia, Ancient Iran, Levant and Babylonia.
Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) continued this expansion apace, subjugating much of the Levant to the west, the newly arrived Persians and Medes to the east, annexed central Mesopotamia from Babylon to the south, and expanded deep into Asia Minor to the north. He moved the capital from Ashur to Kalhu (Calah/Nimrud) and undertook impressive building works throughout Assyria. Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC) projected Assyrian power even further, conquering to the foothills of the Caucasus, Israel and Aram-Damascus, and subjugating Persia and the Arabs who dwelt to the south of Mesopotamia, as well as driving the Egyptians from Canaan. It was during the reign of Shalmaneser III that the Arabs and Chaldeans first enter the pages of recorded history.
Little further expansion took place under Shamshi-Adad V and his successor, the regent queen Semiramis, however when Adad-nirari III (811–783 BC) came of age, he took the reins of power from mother and set about a relentless campaign of conquest; subjugated the Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites and Edomites, Persians, Medes and Manneans, penetrating as far as the Caspian Sea. He invaded and subjugated Babylonia, and then the migrant Chaldean and Sutean tribes settled in south eastern Mesopotamia whom he conquered and reduced to vassalage.
After the reign of Adad-nirari III, Assyria entered a period of instability and decline, losing its hold over most of its vassal and tributary territories by the middle of the 8th century BC, until the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC). He created the world's first professional army, introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of Assyria and its vast empire, and reorganised the empire drastically. Tiglath-Pileser III conquered as far as the East Mediterranean, bringing the Greeks of Cyprus, Phoenicia, Judah, Philistia, Samaria and the whole of Aramea under Assyrian control. Not satisfied with merely holding Babylonia in vassalage, Tiglath-Pileser deposed its king and had himself crowned king of Babylon. The imperial, economic, political, military and administrative reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III were to prove a blueprint for future empires, such as those of the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantines, Arabs and Turks.
Shalmaneser V reigned only briefly, but once more drove the Egyptians from southern Canaan, where they were fomenting revolt against Assyria. Sargon II quickly took Samaria, effectively ending the northern Kingdom of Israel and carrying 27,000 people away into captivity into the Israelite diaspora. He was forced to fight a war to drive out the Scythians and Cimmerians who had attempted to invade Assyria's vassal states of Persia and Media. The Neo-Hittite states of northern Syria were conquered, as well as Cilicia. Lydia and Commagene. King Midas of Phrygia, fearful of Assyrian power, offered his hand in friendship. Elam was defeated and Babylonia and Chaldea reconquered. He made a new capital city named Dur Sharrukin. He was succeeded by his son Sennacherib who moved the capital to Nineveh and made the deported peoples work on improving Nineveh's system of irrigation canals. Nineveh was transformed into the largest city in the world at the time.
Esarhaddon had Babylon rebuilt, he imposed a "vassal treaty" upon his Persian, Median and Parthian subjects, and he once more defeated the Scythes and Cimmerians. Tiring of Egyptian interference in the Assyrian Empire, Esarhaddon decided to conquer Egypt. In 671 BC he crossed the Sinai Desert, invaded and took Egypt with surprising ease and speed. He drove its foreign Nubian/Kushite and Ethiopian rulers out, destroying the Kushite Empire in the process. Esarhaddon declared himself "king of Egypt, Libya, and Kush". Esarhaddon stationed a small army in northern Egypt and describes how; "All Ethiopians (read Nubians/Kushites) I deported from Egypt, leaving not one left to do homage to me". He installed native Egyptian princes throughout the land to rule on his behalf.
Under Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC), an unusually well educated king for his time who could speak, read and write in Sumerian, Akkadian and Aramaic, Assyrian domination spanned from the Caucasus Mountains (modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) in the north to Nubia, Egypt, Libya and Arabia in the south, and from the East Mediterranean, Cyprus and Antioch in the west to Persia, Cissia and the Caspian Sea in the east.
Ultimately, Assyria conquered Babylonia, Chaldea, Elam, Media, Persia, Urartu (Armenia), Phoenicia, Aramea/Syria, Phrygia, the Neo-Hittite States, the Hurrian lands, Arabia, Gutium, Israel, Judah, Samarra, Moab, Edom, Corduene, Cilicia, Mannea, and Cyprus, and defeated and/or exacted tribute from Scythia, Cimmeria, Lydia, Nubia, Ethiopia and others. At its height, the Empire encompassed the whole of the modern nations of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Cyprus, together with large swathes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sudan, Libya, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The Assyrian Empire was severely crippled following the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the nation and its empire descending into a prolonged and brutal series of civil wars involving three rival kings, Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and Sin-shar-ishkun. Egypt's 26th Dynasty, which had been installed by the Assyrians as vassals, quietly detached itself from Assyria, although it was careful to retain friendly relations.
The Scythians and Cimmerians took advantage of the bitter fighting among the Assyrians to raid Assyrian colonies, with hordes of horse-borne marauders ravaging parts of Asia Minor and the Caucasus, where the vassal kings of Urartu and Lydia begged their Assyrian overlord for help in vain. They also raided the Levant, Israel and Judah (where Ashkelon was sacked by the Scythians) and all the way into Egypt whose coasts were ravaged and looted with impunity.
The Iranic peoples under the Medes, aided by the previous Assyrian destruction of the hitherto dominant Elamites of Ancient Iran, also took advantage of the upheavals in Assyria to coalesce into a powerful Median-dominated force which destroyed the "pre-Iranic" kingdom of Mannea and absorbed the remnants of the pre-Iranic Elamites of southern[Iran, and the equally pre-Iranic Gutians, Manneans and Kassites of the Zagros Mountains and the Caspian Sea.
Cyaxares (technically a vassal of Assyria), in an alliance with the Scythians and Cimmerians, launched a surprise attack on a civil war beleaguered Assyria in 615 BC, sacking Kalhu (the Biblical Calah/Nimrud) and taking Arrapha (modern Kirkuk) and Gasur. Nabopolassar, still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia by Assyrian forces, was completely uninvolved in this major breakthrough against Assyria.
Despite the sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued; throughout 614 BC the Medes continued to gradually make hard fought inroads into Assyria itself, scoring a decisive and devastating victory over the Assyrian forces at the battle of Assur. In 613 BC, however, the Assyrians scored a number of counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians. This led to the unification of the forces ranged against Assyria who launched a massive combined attack, finally besieging and entering Nineveh in late 612 BC, with Sin-shar-ishkun being slain in the bitter street by street fighting. Despite the loss of almost all of its major cities, and in the face of overwhelming odds, Assyrian resistance continued under Ashur-uballit II (612–609 BC), who fought his way out of Nineveh and coalesced Assyrian forces around Harran which finally fell in 609 BC. The same year, Ashur-uballit II besieged Harran with the help of the Egyptian army, but this failed too, and this last defeat ended the Assyrian Empire. During the aftermath, Egypt, along with remnants of the Assyrian army, suffered a defeat at the battle of Carchemish, in 605 BC, but the Assyrian troops did not participate to this battle as the army of the Assyrian state because certainly by 609 BC at the very latest, Assyria had been destroyed as an independent political entity, although it was to launch major rebellions against the Achaemenid Empire in 546 BC and 520 BC, and remained a geo-political region, ethnic entity and colonised province.
Assyria was initially ruled by the short-lived Median Empire (609–549 BC) after its fall. In a twist of fate, Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (together with his son and co-regent Belshazzar), was himself an Assyrian from Harran. He had overthrown the short-lived Chaldean dynasty in Babylonia, after which the Chaldeans disappeared from history, being fully absorbed into the native population of Babylonia. However, apart from plans to dedicate religious temples in the city of Harran, Nabonidus showed little interest in rebuilding Assyria. Nineveh and Kalhu remained in ruins with only small numbers of Assyrians living within them; conversely, a number of towns and cities, such as Arrapkha, Guzana, Nohadra and Harran, remained intact, and Assur and Arbela (Irbil) were not completely destroyed, as is attested by their later revival. However, Assyria spent much of this short period in a degree of devastation, following its fall.
After the Medes were overthrown by the Persians as the dominant force in Ancient Iran, Assyria was ruled by the Persian Achaemenid Empire (as Athura) from 549 BC to 330 BC (see Achaemenid Assyria). Between 546 and 545 BC, Assyria rebelled against the new Persian Dynasty, which had usurped the previous Median dynasty. The rebellion centered around Tyareh was eventually quashed by Cyrus the Great.
Assyria seems to have recovered dramatically, and flourished during this period. It became a major agricultural and administrative centre of the Achaemenid Empire, and its soldiers were a mainstay of the Persian Army. In fact, Assyria even became powerful enough to raise another full-scale revolt against the Persian empire in 520–519 BC.
The Persians had spent centuries under Assyrian domination (their first ruler Achaemenes and his successors, having been vassals of Assyria), and Assyrian influence can be seen in Achaemenid art, infrastructure and administration. Early Persian rulers saw themselves as successors to Ashurbanipal, and Mesopotamian Aramaic was retained as the "lingua franca" of the empire for over two hundred years, and Greek writers such as Thucydides still referred to it as "the Assyrian language". Nineveh was never rebuilt however, and 200 years after it was sacked Xenophon reported only small numbers of Assyrians living amongst its ruins. Conversely the ancient city of Assur once more became a rich and prosperous entity.
It was in 5th century BC Assyria that the Syriac language and Syriac script evolved. Five centuries later these were later to have a global influence as the liturgical language and written script for Syriac Christianity and its accompanying Syriac literature which also emerged in Assyria before spreading throughout the Near East, Asia Minor, The Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and China.
In 332 BC, Assyria fell to Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Emperor, who called the inhabitants "Assyrioi". The Macedonian Empire (332–312) was partitioned in 312 BC. It thereafter became part of the Seleucid Empire (312 BC). It is from this period that the later "Syria" vs "Assyria" naming controversy arises, the Seleucids applied the name 'Syria' which is a 9th-century BC Indo-Anatolian derivation of 'Assyria' (see Etymology of Syria) not only to Assyria itself, but also to the Levantine lands to the west (historically known as Aram and Eber Nari), which had been part of the Assyrian empire but, the north east corner aside, never a part of Assyria proper.
When the Seleucids lost control of Assyria proper, the name "Syria" survived but was erroneously applied not only to the land of Assyria itself, but also now to Aramea (also known as Eber Nari) to the west that had once been part of the Assyrian empire, but apart from the north eastern corner, had never been a part of Assyria itself, nor inhabited by Assyrians. This was to lead to both the Assyrians from Northern Mesopotamia and the Arameans and Phoenicians from the Levant being collectively dubbed "Syrians" (and later also "Syriacs") in Greco-Roman and later European culture, regardless of ethnicity, history or geography.
During Seleucid rule, Assyrians ceased to hold the senior military, economic and civil positions they had enjoyed under the Achaemenids, being largely replaced by Greeks. The Greek language also replaced Mesopotamian East Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire, although this did not affect the Assyrian population themselves, who were not Hellenised during the Seleucid era.
During the Seleucid period in southern Mesopotamia, Babylon was gradually abandoned in favour of a new city named Seleucia on the Tigris, effectively bringing an end to "Babylonia" as a geo-political entity.
By 150 BC, Assyria was largely under the control of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians seem to have exercised only loose control over Assyria, and between the mid 2nd century BC and 4th century AD a number of Neo-Assyrian states arose; these included the ancient capital of Assur itself, Adiabene with its capital of Arbela (modern Irbil), Beth Nuhadra with its capital of Nohadra (modern Dohuk), Osroene, with its capitals of Edessa and Amid (modern Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir), Hatra, and "ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ" (Beth Garmai) with its capital at Arrapha (modern Kirkuk). Adiabenian rulers converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century. After 115 AD, there are no historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene.
These freedoms were accompanied by a major Assyrian cultural revival, and temples to the Assyrian national gods Ashur, Sin, Hadad, Ishtar, Ninurta, Tammuz and Shamash were once more dedicated throughout Assyria and Upper Mesopotamia during this period.
In addition, Christianity arrived in Assyria soon after the death of Christ and the Assyrians began to gradually convert to Christianity from the ancient Mesopotamian religion during the period between the early first and third centuries. Assyria became an important centre of Syriac Christianity and Syriac Literature, with the Church of the East evolving in Assyria, and the Syriac Orthodox Church partly also, with Osroene becoming the first independent Christian state in history.
However, in 116, under Trajan, Assyria and its independent states were briefly taken over by Rome as the province of Assyria. The Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene was destroyed as an independent state during this period. Roman rule lasted only a few years, and the Parthians once more regained control with the help of the Assyrians, who were incited to overthrow the Roman garrisons by the Parthian king. However, a number of Assyrians were conscripted into the Roman Army, with many serving in the region of Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain, and inscriptions in Aramaic made by soldiers have been discovered in Northern England dating from the second century.
With loose Parthian rule restored, Assyria and its patchwork of states continued much as they had before the Roman interregnum, although Assyria and Mesopotamia as a whole became a front line between the Roman and Parthian empires. Other new religious movements also emerged in the form of gnostic sects such as Mandeanism, as well as the now extinct Manichean religion.
In 226, Assyria was largely taken over by the Sasanian Empire. After driving out the Romans and Parthians, the Sassanid rulers set about annexing the independent states within Assyria during the mid- to late 3rd century, the last being Assur itself in the late 250s to early 260s. Christianity continued to spread, and many of the ethnically Assyrian churches that exist today are among the oldest in the world. For example, the Syriac Orthodox Church is purported to have been founded by St Peter himself in 67 AD.
Nevertheless, although predominantly Christian, a minority of Assyrians still held onto their ancient Mesopotamian religion until as late as the 10th or 11th century AD. The Assyrians lived in a province known as Asuristan, and the region was on the frontier of the Byzantine and Sassanian empires.
The land was known as Asōristān (the Sassanid Persian name meaning "Land of the Assyrians") during this period, and became the birthplace of the distinct Church of the East (now split into the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church) and a centre of the Syriac Orthodox Church, with a flourishing Syriac (Assyrian) Christian culture which exists there to this day. Temples were still being dedicated to the national god Ashur (as well as other Mesopotamian gods) in his home city, in Harran and elsewhere during the 4th and 5th centuries AD, indicating the ancient pre-Christian Assyrian identity was still extant to some degree.
During the Sasanian period, much of what had once been Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia was incorporated into Assyria, and in effect the whole of Mesopotamia came to be known as Asōristān. Parts of Assyria appear to have been semi independent as late as the latter part of the 4th century AD, with a king named Sennacherib II reputedly ruling the northern reaches in 370s AD.
Centuries of constant warfare between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire left both empires exhausted, which made both of them open to loss in a war against the Muslim Arab army, under the newfound Rashidun Caliphate. After the early Islamic conquests, Assyria was dissolved as an official administrative entity by an empire. Under Arab rule, Mesopotamia as a whole underwent a gradual process of further Arabisation and the beginning of Islamification, and the region saw a large influx of "non-indigenous" Arabs, Kurds, Iranian, and Turkic peoples.
However, the indigenous Assyrian population of northern Mesopotamia retained their language, religion, culture and identity.
Under the Arab Islamic empires, the Christian Assyrians were classed as "dhimmis", who had certain restrictions imposed upon them. Assyrians were thus excluded from specific duties and occupations reserved for Muslims, they did not enjoy the same political rights as Muslims, their word was not equal to that of a Muslim in legal and civil matters without a Muslim witness, they were subject to payment of a special tax (jizyah) and they were banned from spreading their religion further in Muslim-ruled lands. However, personal matters such as marriage and divorce were governed by the cultural laws of the Assyrians.
For those reasons, and even during the Sassanian period before Islamic rule, The Assyrian Church of the East formed a church structure that spread Nestorian Christianity to as far away as China, in order to proselytize away from Muslim-ruled regions in Iran and their homeland in Mesopotamia, with evidence of their massive church structure being the Nestorian Stele, an artifact found in China which documented over 100 years of Christian history in China from 600 to 781 AD. Assyrian Christians maintained relations with fellow Christians in Armenia and Georgia throughout the Middle Ages. In the 12th century AD, Assyrian priests interceded on behalf of persecuted Arab Muslims in Georgia.
The first signs of trouble for the Assyrians started in the 13th century, when the Mongols first invaded the Near East after the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to Hulagu Khan. Assyrians at first did very well under Mongol rule, as the Shamanist Mongols were sympathetic to them, with Assyrian priests having traveled to Mongolia centuries before. The Mongols in fact spent most of their time oppressing Muslims and Jews, outlawing the practice of circumcision and , as they found them repulsive and violent. Therefore, as one of the only groups in the region looked at in a good light, Assyrians were given special privileges and powers, with Hülegü even appointing an Assyrian Christian governor to Erbil (Arbela), and allowing the Syriac Orthodox Church to build a church there.
However, the Mongol rulers in the Near East eventually converted to Islam. Sustained persecutions of Christians throughout the entirety of the Ilkhanate began in earnest in 1295 under the rule of Oïrat amir Nauruz, which affected the indigenous Christians greatly. During the reign of the Ilkhan Öljeitü, the inhabitants of Erbil seized control of the citadel and much of the city in rebellion against the Muslims. In spring 1310, the Mongol Malik (governor) of the region attempted to seize it from them with the help of the Kurds and Arabs, but was defeated. After his defeat he decided to siege the city. The Assyrians held out for three months, but the citadel was at last taken by Ilkhanate troops and Arab, Turkic and Kurdish tribesmen on 1 July 1310. The defenders of the citadel fought to the last man, and many of the inhabitants of the lower town were subsequently massacred.
Regardless of these hardships, the Assyrian people remained numerically dominant in the north of Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century AD, and the city of Assur functioned as their religious and cultural capital. The seat of the Catholicos of the Church of the East was Seleucia-Ctesiphon, not Assur. In the mid-14th century the Muslim Turkish ruler Tamurlane conducted a religiously motivated massacre of the indigenous Christians, and entirely destroyed the vast Church of the East structure established throughout the Far East outside what had been the Sasanid Empire, with the exception of the St Thomas Christians of the Malabar Coast in India, who numbered 4.2 million in the 2011 census of Kerala. After Timur's campaign, ancient Assyria's cultural and religious capital of Assur fell entirely into ruins and part of it was used as a graveyard until the 1970s.
Around 100 years after the massacres by Timur, a religious schism known as the Schism of 1552 occurred among the Christians of northern Mesopotamia. A large number of followers of the Church of the East were dissatisfied with the leadership of the Church, at this point based in the Rabban Hormizd Monastery near Alqosh, and in particular with the system of hereditary succession of the patriarch. Three bishops elected the abbot of the monastery, Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa, as a rival patriarch. These did not have the rank of metropolitan bishop, which was required for appointing a patriarch and which was granted only to members of the patriarch's family. Sulaqa therefore went to Rome to be made a patriarch, entered into communion with the Catholic Church and was appointed "Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria" or "Patriarch of the Chaldean church of Mosul" by Pope Julius III in 1553. He won support only in Diyarbakır (known also as Amid), where he set up his residence, and in Mardin. In 1555, he was killed by the Turkish authorities after being denounced by the traditionalist patriarch, but the metropolitans he had ordained elected a successor for him, initiating the Shimun line of patriarchs, all of whom took the name Shimun (Simon). The patriarchs of this line requested and obtained confirmation from Rome only until 1583. In 1672 they clearly broke off communion with Rome, but continued as a line of patriarchs independent from that at Alqosh, with their seat, from then on, at Qodchanis in the Hakkari mountains. In a letter of 29 June 1653, 19 years before the Shimun line broke off relations with Rome, Shimun XI Eshuyow (1638–1656) called himself Patriarch of the Chaldeans. There is no record of a response from Rome confirming him as Catholic patriarch.
Biblical Aramaic was until recently called Chaldaic or Chaldee, and East Syrian Christians, whose liturgical language was and is a form of Aramaic, were called Chaldeans, as an ethnic, not a religious term. Hormuzd Rassam (1826–1910) still applied the term "Chaldeans" no less to those not in communion with Rome than to the Catholic Chaldeans and stated that "the present Chaldeans, with a few exceptions, speak the same dialect used in the Targum, and in some parts of Ezra and Daniel, which are called 'Chaldee'."
Long before 1672, the Shimun line, as it "gradually returned to the traditional worship of the Church of the East, thereby losing the allegiance of the western regions", moved from Turkish-controlled Diyarbakır to Urmia in Persia. The bishopric of Diyarbakır became subject to the Alqosh patriarch. Bishop Joseph of Diyarbakır converted to the Catholic faith in 1667 or 1668. In 1677, he obtained recognition from the Turkish authorities as invested with independent power in Diyarbakır and Mardin, and in 1681 he was recognized by Rome as "patriarch of the Chaldean nation deprived of its patriarch". Thus was instituted the Josephite line, a third line of patriarchs.
In the Alqosh line, Eliya VII (1591–1617), Eliya VIII (1617–1660) and Eliya IX (1660–1700) contacted Rome at various times but without establishing union. Union was achieved in 1771 under Eliya XI, who died in 1778. His successor Eliya XII, after sending his profession of faith to Rome and receiving confirmation as Catholic patriarch, adopted a traditionalist position in 1779. His opponents elected Yohannan Hormizd, a young nephew of Eliya XI, whom Eliya XI had intended to be his successor. Although Yohannan Hormizd won the support of most of the followers of the Alqosh patriarchate, Rome considered his election to be irregular and, instead of accepting him as patriarch, merely confirmed him as metropolitan of Mosul and patriarchal administrator. He was thus granted the powers and the insignia of a patriarch, but not the title. It made the same arrangement in Diyarbakır, appointing as patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi, a nephew of Joseph IV, whom his uncle wished to be his successor as patriarch. There were thus two traditionalist patriarchates (the Eliya line and the Shimun) and, under administrators, two Catholic patriarchates (Diyarbakır and Alqosh/Mosul).
In 1804, Eliya XI died and had no traditionalist successor. Augustine Hindi died in 1827 and, in 1830, Rome appointed Yohannan Hormizd as patriarch of all the Catholics. The Shimun line, which had been the first to enter union with Rome, remained at the head of the traditionalist church that in 1976 adopted the name Assyrian Church of the East, and that continued to be in the hands of the same family until the death in 1975 of Shimun XXI Eshai. At the same time, the originally traditionalist Alqosh line continues, without hereditary succession, at the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
After these splits, the Assyrians suffered a number of religiously and ethnically motivated massacres throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, such as the Massacres of Badr Khan which resulted in the massacre of over 10,000 Assyrians in the 1840s, culminating in the large scale Hamidian massacres of unarmed men, women and children by Turks and Kurds in the 1890s at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and its associated (largely Kurdish and Arab) militias, which greatly reduced their numbers, particularly in southeastern Turkey where over 25,000 Assyrians were murdered. The Adana massacre of 1909 largely aimed at Armenian Christians also accounted for the murder of some 1,500 Assyrians.
The Assyrians suffered a further catastrophic series of events during World War I in the form of the religiously and ethnically motivated Assyrian Genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and their Kurdish and Arab allies from 1915 to 1918. Some sources claim that the highest number of Assyrians killed during the period was 750,000, while a 1922 Assyrian assessment set it at 275,000. The Assyrian Genocide ran largely in conjunction with the similarly ethno-religiously motivated Armenian Genocide, Greek Genocide and Great Famine of Mount Lebanon.
In reaction against Ottoman cruelty, the Assyrians took up arms, and an Assyrian independence movement began during the turbulent events of World War I. For a time, the Assyrians fought successfully against overwhelming numbers, scoring a number of victories against the Ottomans and Kurds, and also hostile Arab and Iranian groups. However, due to the collapse of the Russian Empire—due to the Russian Revolution—and the similar collapse of the Armenian Defense, the Assyrians were left without allies. As a result, the Assyrians were vastly outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, cut off, and without supplies. The only option they had was to flee the region into northwest Iran and fight their way, with around 50,000 civilians in tow, to British train lines going to Mandatory Iraq. The sizable Assyrian presence in south eastern Anatolia which had endured for over four millennia was thus reduced to no more than 15,000 by the end of World War I, and by 1924 many of those who remained were forcibly expelled in a display of ethnic cleansing by the Turkish government, with many leaving and later founding villages in the Sapna and Nahla valleys in the Dohuk Governorate of Iraq.
In 1920 the Assyrian settlements in Mindan and Baquba were attacked by Iraqi Arabs, but the Assyrian tribesmen displayed their military prowess by successfully defeating and driving off the Arab forces. The Assyrians also sided with the British during the Iraqi revolt against the British.
The Assyrian Levies were founded by the British in 1922, with ancient Assyrian military rankings, such as Rab-shakeh, Rab-talia and Turtanu, being revived for the first time in millennia for this force. The Assyrians were prized by the British rulers for their fighting qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline, and were used to help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs, Kurds and Turcoman, guard the borders with Iran and Turkey, and protect British military installations. During the 1920s Assyrian levies saw action in effectively defeating Arab and Kurdish forces during anti-British rebellions in Iraq.
After Iraq was granted independence by the British in 1933, the Assyrians suffered the Simele Massacre, where thousands of unarmed villagers (men, women and children) were slaughtered by joint Arab-Kurdish forces of the Iraqi Army. The massacres of civilians followed a clash between armed Assyrian tribesmen and the Iraqi army, where the Iraqi forces suffered a defeat after trying to disarm the Assyrians, whom they feared would attempt to secede from Iraq. Armed Assyrian Levies were prevented by the British from going to the aid of these civilians, and the British government then whitewashed the massacres at the League of Nations.
Despite these betrayals, the Assyrians were allied with the British during World War II, with eleven Assyrian companies seeing action in Palestine/Israel and another four serving in Greece, Cyprus and Albania. Assyrians played a major role in the victory over Arab-Iraqi forces at the Battle of Habbaniya and elsewhere in 1941, when the Iraqi government decided to join World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. The British presence in Iraq lasted until 1955, and Assyrian Levies remained attached to British forces until this time, after which they were disarmed and disbanded.
A further persecution of Assyrians took place in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s when thousands of Assyrians settled in Georgia, Armenia and southern Russia were forcibly deported from their homes in the dead of night by Stalin without warning or reason to Central Asia, with most being relocated to Kazakhstan, where a small minority still remain.
The period from the 1940s through to 1963 was a period of respite for the Assyrians in northern Iraq and north east Syria. The regime of Iraqi President Kassim in particular saw the Assyrians accepted into mainstream society. Many urban Assyrians became successful businessmen, a number of Assyrians moved south to cities such as Baghdad, Basra and Nasiriyah to enhance their economic prospects, others were well represented in politics, the military, the arts and entertainment, Assyrian towns, villages, farmsteads and Assyrian quarters in major cities flourished undisturbed, and Assyrians came to excel and be over-represented in sports such as boxing, football, athletics, wrestling and swimming.
However, in 1963, the Ba'ath Party took power by force in Iraq, and came to power in Syria the same year. The Baathists, though secular, were Arab nationalists, and set about attempting to Arabize the many non-Arab peoples of Iraq and Syria, including the Assyrians. This policy included refusing to acknowledge the Assyrians as an ethnic group, banning the publication of written material in Eastern Aramaic, and banning its teaching in schools, together with an attempt to "Arabize" the ancient pre-Arab heritage of Mesopotamian civilisation.
The policies of the Baathists have also long been mirrored in Turkey, whose nationalist governments have refused to acknowledge the Assyrians as an ethnic group since the 1920s, and have attempted to Turkify the Assyrians by calling them "Semitic Turks" and forcing them to adopt Turkish names and language. In Iran, Assyrians continued to enjoy cultural, religious and ethnic rights, but due to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 their community has been diminished.
In the aftermath of the Iraq War of 2003, Assyrians became the targets of Islamist terrorist attacks and intimidation from both Sunni and Shia groups, as well as criminal kidnapping organisations; forcing many in southern and central Iraq to relocate to safer Assyrian regions in the north of the country or north east Syria.
In 2017, the KRG replaced the Alqosh mayor, Faiz Abed Jahwareh with a KDP member, Lara Zara, and Assyrian protested in response. The Iraqi Government ordered Lara Zara to vacate her post, and return the title of Mayor to Jahwareh.
In recent years, Assyrians in northern Iraq and northeast Syria have become the target of attacks amounting to genocide by Islamist militants like ISIL and Nusra Front. In 2014, ISIL attacked Assyrian towns and villages in the Assyrian homelands of northern Iraq and north east Syria, and Assyrians forced from their homes in cities such as Mosul had their houses and possessions stolen, both by ISIL and also by their own former Arab Muslim neighbours.
Assyrian Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments and archaeological sites, as well as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries, have been systematically vandalised and destroyed by ISIL. These include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Hatra). ISIL destroyed a 3,000-year-old Ziggurat. ISIL destroyed Virgin Mary Church, in 2015 St. Markourkas Church was destroyed and the cemetery was bulldozed.
Assyrians in both Iraq and Syria have responded by forming armed Assyrian militias to defend their territories, and despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned have had success in driving ISIL from Assyrian towns and villages, and defending others from attack. Armed Assyrian militias have also fought ISIL alongside armed groups of Kurds, Turcoman, Yezidis, Shabaks, Armenian Christians, Kawilya, Mandeans, Circassians and Shia Muslim Arabs and Iranians. "Dewkh Nawsha", which translates to "those who sacrifice", is a militia that was formed days after ISIL took over Mosul in 2014. The military force is made up of volunteers, who come from all over the Nineveh Plains. Dewkh Nawsha is supported by Assyrian Patriotic Party and are led by Wilson Khammu.
It is estimated that nearly 60 percent of Iraqi Assyrians have fled. Assyrians who have fled have ended up all over the world. 2009 U.S Census Bureau survey, reported that roughly 100,000 have relocated to the United States.
Assyria continued to exist as a geopolitical entity until the Arab-Islamic conquest in the mid-7th century. Assyrian identity; personal, family and tribal names; and both the spoken and written evolution of Mesopotamian Aramaic (which still contains many Akkadian loan words and an Akkadian grammatical structure) have survived among the Assyrian people from ancient times to this day. An Assyrian calendar has been revived.
Emerging in Sumer c. 3500 BC, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms. Around 3000 BC, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller. The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Hittite languages. The Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, had Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any language of the Indo-European language family. Most of the archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use of both cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. From 1700 BC and onward, the Sumerian language was preserved by the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians only as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes.
Assyrian was a dialect of Akkadian, a member of the eastern branch of the Semitic family and the oldest historically attested of the Semitic languages, which began to appear in written form in the 29th century BC. The first inscriptions in Assyria proper, called Old Assyrian (OA), were made in the Old Assyrian period. The ancient Assyrians also used Sumerian in their literature and liturgy, although to a more limited extent in the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian periods, when Akkadian became the main literary language.
During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a "Sprachbund". Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.
In the Neo-Assyrian period, the Aramaic language became increasingly common, more so than Akkadian—this was thought to be largely due to the mass deportations undertaken by Assyrian kings, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2085 |
Aphasia
Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are a cerebral vascular accident (stroke), or head trauma, but aphasia can also be the result of brain tumors, brain infections, or neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia. However, the latter are far less common and so not as often mentioned when discussing aphasia. To be diagnosed with aphasia, a person's speech or language must be significantly impaired in one (or more) of the four aspects of communication following acquired brain injury, or have significant decline over a short time period (progressive aphasia). The four aspects of communication are auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading and writing, and functional communication.
The difficulties of people with aphasia can range from occasional trouble finding words, to losing the ability to speak, read, or write; intelligence, however, is unaffected. Expressive language and receptive language can both be affected as well. Aphasia also affects visual language such as sign language. In contrast, the use of formulaic expressions in everyday communication is often preserved. For example, while a person with aphasia, particularly Broca's aphasia, may not be able to ask a loved one when their birthday is, they may still be able to sing "Happy Birthday". One prevalent deficit in the aphasias is anomia, which is a difficulty in finding the correct word.
With aphasia, one or more modes of communication in the brain have been damaged and are therefore functioning incorrectly. Aphasia is not caused by damage to the brain that results in motor or sensory deficits, which produces abnormal speech; that is, aphasia is not related to the mechanics of speech but rather the individual's language cognition (although a person can have both problems, particularly if they suffered a hemorrhage that damaged a large area of the brain). An individual's "language" is the socially shared set of rules, as well as the thought processes that go behind verbalized speech. It is not a result of a more peripheral motor or sensory difficulty, such as paralysis affecting the speech muscles or a general hearing impairment.
Aphasia affects about 2 million people in the US and 250,000 people in Great Britain. Nearly 180,000 people acquire the disorder every year in the US alone. Any person of any age can develop aphasia, given that it is often caused by a traumatic injury. However, people who are middle aged and older are the most likely to experience the problem. Older individuals have the highest risk of developing aphasia because the danger of stroke increases with age: approximately 75% of all strokes occur in individuals over the age of 65. Strokes account for most documented cases of aphasia: 25% - 40% of people who survive a stroke develop aphasia as a result of damage to the language-processing regions of the brain.
Some authorities regard dysphasia as a more moderate form of aphasia, but with similar causes. Others use the two terms interchangeably. It would appear that the term "aphasia" is more commonly encountered in North America, while "dysphasia" is more frequently found in British literature.
People with aphasia may experience any of the following behaviors due to an acquired brain injury, although some of these symptoms may be due to related or concomitant problems, such as dysarthria or apraxia, and not primarily due to aphasia. Aphasia symptoms can vary based on the location of damage in the brain. Signs and symptoms may or may not be present in individuals with aphasia and may vary in severity and level of disruption to communication. Often those with aphasia will try to hide their inability to name objects by using words like "thing". So when asked to name a pencil they may say it is a thing used to write.
Given the previously stated signs and symptoms the following behaviors are often seen in people with aphasia as a result of attempted compensation for incurred speech and language deficits:
Aphasia is most often caused by stroke, but any disease or damage to the parts of the brain that control language can cause aphasia. Some of these can include brain tumors, traumatic brain injury, and progressive neurological disorders. In rare cases, aphasia may also result from herpesviral encephalitis. The herpes simplex virus affects the frontal and temporal lobes, subcortical structures, and the hippocampal tissue, which can trigger aphasia.
In acute disorders, such as head injury or stroke, aphasia usually develops quickly. When caused by brain tumor, infection, or dementia, it develops more slowly.
Substantial damage to tissue anywhere within the region shown in blue on the figure which is shown at the right can potentially result in aphasia. Aphasia can also sometimes be caused by damage to subcortical structures deep within the left hemisphere, including the thalamus, the internal and external capsules, and the caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia. The area and extent of brain damage or atrophy will determine the type of aphasia and its symptoms. A very small number of people can experience aphasia after damage to the right hemisphere only. It has been suggested that these individuals may have had an unusual brain organization prior to their illness or injury, with perhaps greater overall reliance on the right hemisphere for language skills than in the general population.
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA), while its name can be misleading, is actually a form of dementia that has some symptoms closely related to several forms of aphasia. It is characterized by a gradual loss in language functioning while other cognitive domains are mostly preserved, such as memory and personality. PPA usually initiates with sudden word-finding difficulties in an individual and progresses to a reduced ability to formulate grammatically correct sentences (syntax) and impaired comprehension. The etiology of PPA is not due to a stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), or infectious disease; it is still uncertain what initiates the onset of PPA in those affected by it.
Epilepsy can also include transient aphasia as a prodromal or episodic symptom. Aphasia is also listed as a rare side-effect of the fentanyl patch, an opioid used to control chronic pain.
Aphasia is best thought of as a collection of different disorders, rather than a single problem. Each individual with aphasia will present with their own particular combination of language strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, it is a major challenge just to document the various difficulties that can occur in different people, let alone decide how they might best be treated. Most classifications of the aphasias tend to divide the various symptoms into broad classes. A common approach is to distinguish between the fluent aphasias (where speech remains fluent, but content may be lacking, and the person may have difficulties understanding others), and the nonfluent aphasias (where speech is very halting and effortful, and may consist of just one or two words at a time).
However, no such broad-based grouping has proven fully adequate. There is wide variation among people even within the same broad grouping, and aphasias can be highly selective. For instance, people with naming deficits (anomic aphasia) might show an inability only for naming buildings, or people, or colors.
It is important to note that there are typical difficulties with speech and language that come with normal aging as well. As we age language can become more difficult to process resulting in a slowing of verbal comprehension, reading abilities and more likely word finding difficulties. With each of these though, unlike some aphasias, functionality within daily life remains intact.
Localizationist approaches aim to classify the aphasias according to their major presenting characteristics and the regions of the brain that most probably gave rise to them. Inspired by the early work of nineteenth-century neurologists Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke, these approaches identify two major subtypes of aphasia and several more minor subtypes:
Recent classification schemes adopting this approach, such as the "Boston-Neoclassical Model", also group these classical aphasia subtypes into two larger classes: the nonfluent aphasias (which encompasses Broca's aphasia and transcortical motor aphasia) and the fluent aphasias (which encompasses Wernicke's aphasia, conduction aphasia and transcortical sensory aphasia). These schemes also identify several further aphasia subtypes, including: anomic aphasia, which is characterized by a selective difficulty finding the names for things; and global aphasia, where both expression and comprehension of speech are severely compromised.
Many localizationist approaches also recognize the existence of additional, more "pure" forms of language disorder that may affect only a single language skill. For example, in pure alexia, a person may be able to write but not read, and in pure word deafness, they may be able to produce speech and to read, but not understand speech when it is spoken to them.
Although localizationist approaches provide a useful way of classifying the different patterns of language difficulty into broad groups, one problem is that a sizeable number of individuals do not fit neatly into one category or another. Another problem is that the categories, particularly the major ones such as Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia, still remain quite broad. Consequently, even amongst individuals who meet the criteria for classification into a subtype, there can be enormous variability in the types of difficulties they experience.
Instead of categorizing every individual into a specific subtype, cognitive neuropsychological approaches aim to identify the key language skills or "modules" that are not functioning properly in each individual. A person could potentially have difficulty with just one module, or with a number of modules. This type of approach requires a framework or theory as to what skills/modules are needed to perform different kinds of language tasks. For example, the model of Max Coltheart identifies a module that recognizes phonemes as they are spoken, which is essential for any task involving recognition of words. Similarly, there is a module that stores phonemes that the person is planning to produce in speech, and this module is critical for any task involving the production of long words or long strings of speech. Once a theoretical framework has been established, the functioning of each module can then be assessed using a specific test or set of tests. In the clinical setting, use of this model usually involves conducting a battery of assessments, each of which tests one or a number of these modules. Once a diagnosis is reached as to the skills/modules where the most significant impairment lies, therapy can proceed to treat these skills.
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative focal dementia that can be associated with progressive illnesses or dementia, such as
frontotemporal dementia / Pick Complex Motor neuron disease, Progressive supranuclear palsy, and Alzheimer's disease, which is the gradual process of progressively losing the ability to think. Gradual loss of language function occurs in the context of relatively well-preserved memory, visual processing, and personality until the advanced stages. Symptoms usually begin with word-finding problems (naming) and progress to impaired grammar (syntax) and comprehension (sentence processing and semantics). The loss of language before the loss of memory differentiates PPA from typical dementias. People suffering from PPA may have difficulties comprehending what others are saying. They can also have difficulty trying to find the right words to make a sentence. There are three classifications of Primary Progressive Aphasia : Progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), Semantic Dementia (SD), and Logopenic progressive aphasia (LPA)
Progressive Jargon Aphasia is a fluent or receptive aphasia in which the person's speech is incomprehensible, but appears to make sense to them. Speech is fluent and effortless with intact syntax and grammar, but the person has problems with the selection of nouns. Either they will replace the desired word with another that sounds or looks like the original one or has some other connection or they will replace it with sounds. As such, people with jargon aphasia often use neologisms, and may perseverate if they try to replace the words they cannot find with sounds. Substitutions commonly involve picking another (actual) word starting with the same sound (e.g., clocktower - colander), picking another semantically related to the first (e.g., letter - scroll), or picking one phonetically similar to the intended one (e.g., lane - late).
There have been many instances showing that there is a form of aphasia among deaf individuals. Sign languages are, after all, forms of language that have been shown to use the same areas of the brain as verbal forms of language. Mirror neurons become activated when an animal is acting in a particular way or watching another individual act in the same manner. These mirror neurons are important in giving an individual the ability to mimic movements of hands. Broca's area of speech production has been shown to contain several of these mirror neurons resulting in significant similarities of brain activity between sign language and vocal speech communication. Facial communication is a significant portion of how animals interact with each other. Humans use facial movements to create, what other humans perceive, to be faces of emotions. While combining these facial movements with speech, a more full form of language is created which enables the species to interact with a much more complex and detailed form of communication. Sign language also uses these facial movements and emotions along with the primary hand movement way of communicating. These facial movement forms of communication come from the same areas of the brain. When dealing with damages to certain areas of the brain, vocal forms of communication are in jeopardy of severe forms of aphasia. Since these same areas of the brain are being used for sign language, these same, at least very similar, forms of aphasia can show in the Deaf community. Individuals can show a form of Wernicke's aphasia with sign language and they show deficits in their abilities in being able to produce any form of expressions. Broca's aphasia shows up in some people, as well. These individuals find tremendous difficulty in being able to actually sign the linguistic concepts they are trying to express.
The severity of the type of aphasia varies depending on the size of the stroke. However, there is much variance between how often one type of severity occurs in certain types of aphasia. For instance, any type of aphasia can range from mild to profound. Regardless of the severity of aphasia, people can make improvements due to spontaneous recovery and treatment in the acute stages of recovery. Additionally, while most studies propose that the greatest outcomes occur in people with severe aphasia when treatment is provided in the acute stages of recovery, Robey (1998) also found that those with severe aphasia are capable of making strong language gains in the chronic stage of recovery as well. This finding implies that persons with aphasia have the potential to have functional outcomes regardless of how severe their aphasia may be. While there is no distinct pattern of the outcomes of aphasia based on severity alone, global aphasia typically makes functional language gains, but may be gradual since global aphasia affects many language areas.
While aphasia has traditionally been described in terms of language deficits, there is increasing evidence that many people with aphasia commonly experience co-occurring non-linguistic cognitive deficits. By some accounts, cognitive deficits, such as attention and working memory constitute the underlying cause of language impairment in people with aphasia. Others suggest that cognitive deficits often co-occur but are comparable to cognitive deficits in stroke patients without aphasia and reflect general brain dysfunction following injury. The degree to which deficits in attention and other cognitive domains underlie language deficits in aphasia is still unclear.
In particular, people with aphasia often demonstrate short-term and working memory deficits. These deficits can occur in both the verbal domain as well as the visuospatial domain. Furthermore, these deficits are often associated with performance on language specific tasks such as naming, lexical processing, and sentence comprehension, and discourse production. Other studies have found that most, but not all people with aphasia demonstrate performance deficits on tasks of attention, and their performance on these tasks correlate with language performance and cognitive ability in other domains. Even patients with mild aphasia, who score near the ceiling on tests of language often demonstrate slower response times and interference effects in non-verbal attention abilities.
In addition to deficits in short-term memory, working memory, and attention, people with aphasia can also demonstrate deficits in executive function. For instance, people with aphasia may demonstrate deficits in initiation, planning, self-monitoring, and cognitive flexibility. Other studies have found that people with aphasia demonstrate reduced speed and efficiency during completion executive function assessments.
Regardless of their role in the underlying nature of aphasia, cognitive deficits have a clear role in the study and rehabilitation of aphasia. For instance, the severity of cognitive deficits in people with aphasia has been associated with lower quality of life, even more so than the severity of language deficits. Furthermore, cognitive deficits may influence language treatment outcomes in aphasia. Non-linguistic cognitive deficits have also been the target of interventions directed at improving language ability, though outcomes are not definitive. While some studies have demonstrated language improvement secondary to cognitively-focused treatment, others have found little evidence that the treatment of cognitive deficits in people with aphasia has an influence on language outcomes.
One important caveat in the measurement and treatment of cognitive deficits in people with aphasia is the degree to which assessments of cognition rely on language abilities for successful performance. Most studies have attempted to circumvent this challenge by utilizing non-verbal cognitive assessments to evaluate cognitive ability in people with aphasia. However, the degree to which these tasks are truly ‘non-verbal’ and not mediated by language in unclear. For instance, Wall et al. found that language and non-linguistic performance was related, except when non-linguistic performance was measured by ‘real life’ cognitive tasks.
Aphasia is largely caused by unavoidable instances. However, some precautions can be taken to decrease risk for experiencing one of the two major causes of aphasia: stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). To decrease the probability of having an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, one should take the following precautions:
To prevent aphasia due to traumatic injury, one sure take precautionary measures when engaging in dangerous activities such as:
Additionally, one should always seek medical attention after sustaining head trauma due to a fall or accident. The sooner that one receives medical attention for a traumatic brain injury, the less likely one is to experience long-term or severe effects.
When addressing Wernicke's aphasia, according to Bakheit et al. (2007), the lack of awareness of the language impairments, a common characteristic of Wernicke's aphasia, may affect the rate and extent of therapy outcomes. Robey (1998) determined that at least 2 hours of treatment per week is recommended for making significant language gains. Spontaneous recovery may cause some language gains, but without speech-language therapy, the outcomes can be half as strong as those with therapy.
When addressing Broca's aphasia, better outcomes occur when the person participates in therapy, and treatment is more effective than no treatment for people in the acute period. Two or more hours of therapy per week in acute and post-acute stages produced the greatest results. High-intensity therapy was most effective, and low-intensity therapy was almost equivalent to no therapy.
People with global aphasia are sometimes referred to as having irreversible aphasic syndrome, often making limited gains in auditory comprehension, and recovering no functional language modality with therapy. With this said, people with global aphasia may retain gestural communication skills that may enable success when communicating with conversational partners within familiar conditions. Process-oriented treatment options are limited, and people may not become competent language users as readers, listeners, writers, or speakers no matter how extensive therapy is. However, people's daily routines and quality of life can be enhanced with reasonable and modest goals. After the first month, there is limited to no healing to language abilities of most people. There is a grim prognosis leaving 83% who were globally aphasic after the first month they will remain globally aphasic at the first year. Some people are so severely impaired that their existing process-oriented treatment approaches offer signs of progress, and therefore cannot justify the cost of therapy.
Perhaps due to the relative rareness of conduction aphasia, few studies have specifically studied the effectiveness of therapy for people with this type of aphasia. From the studies performed, results showed that therapy can help to improve specific language outcomes. One intervention that has had positive results is auditory repetition training. Kohn et al. (1990) reported that drilled auditory repetition training related to improvements in spontaneous speech, Francis et al. (2003) reported improvements in sentence comprehension, and Kalinyak-Fliszar et al. (2011) reported improvements in auditory-visual short-term memory.
Most acute cases of aphasia recover some or most skills by working with a speech-language pathologist. Recovery and improvement can continue for years after the stroke. After the onset of Aphasia, there is approximately a six-month period of spontaneous recovery; during this time, the brain is attempting to recover and repair the damaged neurons. Improvement varies widely, depending on the aphasia's cause, type, and severity. Recovery also depends on the person's age, health, motivation, handedness, and educational level.
There is no one treatment proven to be effective for all types of aphasias. The reason that there is no universal treatment for aphasia is because of the nature of the disorder and the various ways it is presented, as explained in the above sections. Aphasia is rarely exhibited identically, implying that treatment needs to be catered specifically to the individual. Studies have shown that, although there is no consistency on treatment methodology in literature, there is a strong indication that treatment, in general, has positive outcomes. Therapy for aphasia ranges from increasing functional communication to improving speech accuracy, depending on the person's severity, needs and support of family and friends. Group therapy allows individuals to work on their pragmatic and communication skills with other individuals with aphasia, which are skills that may not often be addressed in individual one-on-one therapy sessions. It can also help increase confidence and social skills in a comfortable setting.
Evidence does not support the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for improving aphasia after stroke. Moderate quality evidence does indicate naming performance improvements for nouns but not verbs using tDCS
Specific treatment techniques include the following:
Semantic feature analysis (SFA) -a type of aphasia treatment that targets word-finding deficits. It is based on the theory that neural connections can be strengthened by using related words and phrases that are similar to the target word, to eventually activate the target word in the brain. SFA can be implemented in multiple forms such as verbally, written, using picture cards, etc. The SLP provides prompting questions to the individual with aphasia in order for the person to name the picture provided. Studies show that SFA is an effective intervention for improving confrontational naming.
Melodic intonation therapy is used to treat non-fluent aphasia and has proved to be effective in some cases. However, there is still no evidence from randomized controlled trials confirming the efficacy of MIT in chronic aphasia. MIT is used to help people with aphasia vocalize themselves through speech song, which is then transferred as a spoken word. Good candidates for this therapy include people who have had left hemisphere strokes, non-fluent aphasias such as Broca's, good auditory comprehension, poor repetition and articulation, and good emotional stability and memory. An alternative explanation is that the efficacy of MIT depends on neural circuits involved in the processing of rhythmicity and formulaic expressions (examples taken from the MIT manual: “I am fine,” “how are you?” or “thank you”); while rhythmic features associated with melodic intonation may engage primarily left-hemisphere subcortical areas of the brain, the use of formulaic expressions is known to be supported by right-hemisphere cortical and bilateral subcortical neural networks.
Systematic reviews support the effectiveness and importance of partner training. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), involving family with the treatment of an aphasic loved one is ideal for all involved, because while it will no doubt assist in their recovery, it will also make it easier for members of the family to learn how best to communicate with them.
When a person's speech is insufficient, different kinds of augmentative and alternative communication could be considered such as alphabet boards, pictorial communication books, specialized software for computers or apps for tablets or smartphones.
The intensity of aphasia therapy is determined by the length of each session, total hours of therapy per week, and total weeks of therapy provided. There is no consensus about what "intense" aphasia therapy entails, or how intense therapy should be to yield the best outcomes. A 2016 Cochrane review of speech and language therapy for people with aphasia found that treatments that are higher intensity, higher dose or over a long duration of time led to significantly better functional communication but people were more likely to drop out of high intensity treatment (up to 15 hours per week).
Intensity of therapy is also dependent on the recency of stroke. People with aphasia react differently to intense treatment in the acute phase (0–3 months post stroke), sub-acute phase (3–6 months post stroke), or chronic phase (6+ months post stroke). Intensive therapy has been found to be effective for people with nonfluent and fluent chronic aphasia, but less effective for people with acute aphasia.> People with sub-acute aphasia also respond well to intensive therapy of 100 hours over 62 weeks. This suggests people in the sub-acute phase can improve greatly in language and functional communication measures with intensive therapy compared to regular therapy.
Intensity of treatment should be individualized based on the recency of stroke, therapy goals, and other specific characteristics such as age, size of lesion, overall health status, and motivation. Each individual reacts differently to treatment intensity and is able to tolerate treatment at different times post-stroke. Intensity of treatment after a stroke should be dependent on the person's motivation, stamina, and tolerance for therapy.
If the symptoms of aphasia last longer than two or three months after a stroke, a complete recovery is unlikely. However, it is important to note that some people continue to improve over a period of years and even decades. Improvement is a slow process that usually involves both helping the individual and family understand the nature of aphasia and learning compensatory strategies for communicating.
After a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), the brain undergoes several healing and re-organization processes, which may result in improved language function. This is referred to as spontaneous recovery. Spontaneous recovery is the natural recovery the brain makes without treatment, and the brain begins to reorganize and change in order to recover. There are several factors that contribute to a person's chance of recovery caused by stroke, including stroke size and location. Age, sex, and education have not been found to be very predictive.
Specific to aphasia, spontaneous recovery varies among affected people and may not look the same in everyone, making it difficult to predict recovery.
Though some cases of Wernicke's aphasia have shown greater improvements than more mild forms of aphasia, people with Wernicke's aphasia may not reach as high a level of speech abilities as those with mild forms of aphasia.
The first recorded case of aphasia is from an Egyptian papyrus, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, which details speech problems in a person with a traumatic brain injury to the temporal lobe.
During the second half of the 19th century, aphasia was a major focus for scientists and philosophers who were working in the beginning stages of the field of psychology.
In medical research, speechlessness was described as an incorrect prognosis, and there was no assumption that underlying language complications existed. Broca and his colleagues were some of the first to write about aphasia, but Wernicke was the first credited to have written extensively about aphasia being a disorder that contained comprehension difficulties. Despite claims of who reported on aphasia first, it was F.J. Gall that gave the first full description of aphasia after studying wounds to the brain, as well as his observation of speech difficulties resulting from vascular lesions. A recent book on the entire history of aphasia is available (Reference: Tesak, J. & Code, C. (2008) Milestones in the History of Aphasia: Theories and Protagonists. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.)
"Aphasia" is from Greek "a-" ("without") + "phásis" ("φάσις", "speech").
The word "aphasia" comes from the word ἀφασία "aphasia", in Ancient Greek, which means "speechlessness", derived from ἄφατος "aphatos", "speechless" from ἀ- "a-", "not, un" and φημί "phemi", "I speak".
Research is currently being done using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to witness the difference in how language is processed in normal brains vs aphasic brains. This will help researchers to understand exactly what the brain must go through in order to recover from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and how different areas of the brain respond after such an injury.
Another intriguing approach being tested is that of drug therapy. Research is in progress that will hopefully uncover whether or not certain drugs might be used in addition to speech-language therapy in order to facilitate recovery of proper language function. It's possible that the best treatment for Aphasia might involve combining drug treatment with therapy, instead of relying on one over the other.
One other method being researched as a potential therapeutic combination with speech-language therapy is brain stimulation. One particular method, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), alters brain activity in whatever area it happens to stimulate, which has recently led scientists to wonder if this shift in brain function caused by TMS might help people re-learn languages.
The research being put into Aphasia has only just begun. Researchers appear to have multiple ideas on how Aphasia could be more effectively treated in the future. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2088 |
Aorta
The aorta ( ) is the main and largest artery in the human body, originating from the left ventricle of the heart and extending down to the abdomen, where it splits into two smaller arteries (the common iliac arteries). The aorta distributes oxygenated blood to all parts of the body through the systemic circulation.
In anatomical sources, the aorta is usually divided into sections.
One way of classifying a part of the aorta is by anatomical compartment, where the thoracic aorta (or thoracic portion of the aorta) runs from the heart to the diaphragm. The aorta then continues downward as the abdominal aorta (or abdominal portion of the aorta) from the diaphragm to the aortic bifurcation.
Another system divides the aorta with respect to its course and the direction of blood flow. In this system, the aorta starts as the ascending aorta, travels superiorly from the heart, and then makes a hairpin turn known as the aortic arch. Following the aortic arch, the aorta then travels inferiorly as the descending aorta. The descending aorta has two parts. The aorta begins to descend in the thoracic cavity and is consequently known as the thoracic aorta. After the aorta passes through the diaphragm, it is known as the abdominal aorta. The aorta ends by dividing into two major blood vessels, the common iliac arteries and a smaller midline vessel, the median sacral artery.
The ascending aorta begins at the opening of the aortic valve in the left ventricle of the heart. It runs through a common pericardial sheath with the pulmonary trunk. These two blood vessels twist around each other, causing the aorta to start out posterior to the pulmonary trunk, but end by twisting to its right and anterior side.
The transition from ascending aorta to aortic arch is at the pericardial reflection on the aorta.
At the root of the ascending aorta, the lumen has three small pockets between the cusps of the aortic valve and the wall of the aorta, which are called the aortic sinuses or the sinuses of Valsalva. The left aortic sinus contains the origin of the left coronary artery and the right aortic sinus likewise gives rise to the right coronary artery. Together, these two arteries supply the heart. The posterior aortic sinus does not give rise to a coronary artery. For this reason the left, right and posterior aortic sinuses are also called left-coronary, right-coronary and non-coronary sinuses.
The aortic arch loops over the left pulmonary artery and the bifurcation of the pulmonary trunk, to which it remains connected by the ligamentum arteriosum, a remnant of the fetal circulation that is obliterated a few days after birth. In addition to these blood vessels, the aortic arch crosses the left main bronchus. Between the aortic arch and the pulmonary trunk is a network of autonomic nerve fibers, the cardiac plexus or "aortic plexus". The left vagus nerve, which passes anterior to the aortic arch, gives off a major branch, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which loops under the aortic arch just lateral to the ligamentum arteriosum. It then runs back to the neck.
The aortic arch has three major branches: from proximal to distal, they are the brachiocephalic trunk, the left common carotid artery, and the left subclavian artery. The brachiocephalic trunk supplies the right side of the head and neck as well as the right arm and chest wall, while the latter two together supply the left side of the same regions.
The aortic arch ends, and the descending aorta begins at the level of the intervertebral disc between the fourth and fifth thoracic vertebrae.
The thoracic descending aorta gives rise to the intercostal and subcostal arteries, as well as to the superior and inferior left bronchial arteries and variable branches to the esophagus, mediastinum, and pericardium. Its lowest pair of branches are the superior phrenic arteries, which supply the diaphragm, and the subcostal arteries for the twelfth rib.
The abdominal aorta begins at the aortic hiatus of the diaphragm at the level of the twelfth thoracic vertebra. It gives rise to lumbar and musculophrenic arteries, renal and middle suprarenal arteries, and visceral arteries (the celiac trunk, the superior mesenteric artery and the inferior mesenteric artery). It ends in a bifurcation into the left and right common iliac arteries. At the point of the bifurcation, there also springs a smaller branch, the median sacral artery.
The ascending aorta develops from the outflow tract, which initially starts as a single tube connecting the heart with the aortic arches (which will form the great arteries) in early development but is then separated into the aorta and the pulmonary trunk.
The aortic arches start as five pairs of symmetrical arteries connecting the heart with the dorsal aorta, and then undergo a significant remodelling to form the final asymmetrical structure of the great arteries, with the 3rd pair of arteries contributing to the common carotids, the right 4th forming the base and middle part of the right subclavian artery and the left 4th being the central part of the aortic arch. The smooth muscle of the great arteries and the population of cells that form the aorticopulmonary septum that separates the aorta and pulmonary artery is derived from cardiac neural crest. This contribution of the neural crest to the great artery smooth muscle is unusual as most smooth muscle is derived from mesoderm. In fact the smooth muscle within the abdominal aorta is derived from mesoderm, and the coronary arteries, which arise just above the semilunar valves, possess smooth muscle of mesodermal origin. A failure of the aorticopulmonary septum to divide the great vessels results in persistent truncus arteriosus.
The aorta is an elastic artery, and as such is quite distensible. The aorta consists of a heterogeneous mixture of smooth muscle, nerves, intimal cells, endothelial cells, fibroblast-like cells, and a complex extracellular matrix. The vascular wall consists of several layers known as the tunica externa, tunica media, and tunica intima. The thickness of the aorta requires an extensive network of tiny blood vessels called vasa vasorum, which feed the tunica externa and tunica media outer layers of the aorta. The aortic arch contains baroreceptors and chemoreceptors that relay information concerning blood pressure and blood pH and carbon dioxide levels to the medulla oblongata of the brain. This information is processed by the brain and the autonomic nervous system mediates the homeostatic responses.
Within the tunica media, smooth muscle and the extracellular matrix are quantitatively the largest components of the aortic vascular wall. The fundamental unit of the aorta is the elastic lamella, which consists of smooth muscle and elastic matrix. The medial layer of the aorta consist of concentric musculoelastic layers (the elastic lamella) in mammals. The smooth muscle component does not dramatically alter the diameter of the aorta but rather serves to increase the stiffness and viscoelasticity of the aortic wall when activated. The elastic matrix dominates the biomechanical properties of the aorta. The elastic matrix forms lamellae, consisting of elastic fibers, collagens (predominately type III), proteoglycans, and glycoaminoglycans.
Variations may occur in the location of the aorta, and the way in which arteries branch off the aorta. The aorta, normally on the left side of the body, may be found on the right in dextrocardia, in which the heart is found on the right, or situs inversus, in which the location of all organs are flipped.
Variations in the branching of individual arteries may also occur. For example, the left vertebral artery may arise from the aorta, instead of the left common carotid artery.
In patent ductus arteriosus, a congenital disorder, the fetal ductus arteriosis fails to close, leaving an open vessel connecting the pulmonary artery to the proximal descending aorta.
The aorta supplies all of the systemic circulation, which means that the entire body, except for the respiratory zone of the lung, receives its blood from the aorta. Broadly speaking, branches from the ascending aorta supply the heart; branches from the aortic arch supply the head, neck, and arms; branches from the thoracic descending aorta supply the chest (excluding the heart and the respiratory zone of the lung); and branches from the abdominal aorta supply the abdomen. The pelvis and legs get their blood from the common iliac arteries.
The pulsatile nature of blood flow creates a pulse wave that is propagated down the arterial tree, and at bifurcations reflected waves rebound to return to semilunar valves and the origin of the aorta. These return waves create the dicrotic notch displayed in the aortic pressure curve during the cardiac cycle as these reflected waves push on the aortic semilunar valve. With age, the aorta stiffens such that the pulse wave is propagated faster and reflected waves return to the heart faster before the semilunar valve closes, which raises the blood pressure. The stiffness of the aorta is associated with a number of diseases and pathologies, and noninvasive measures of the pulse wave velocity are an independent indicator of hypertension. Measuring the pulse wave velocity (invasively and non-invasively) is a means of determining arterial stiffness. Maximum aortic velocity may be noted as Vmax or less commonly as AoVmax.
Mean arterial pressure (MAP) is highest in the aorta, and the MAP decreases across the circulation from aorta to arteries to arterioles to capillaries to veins back to atrium. The difference between aortic and right atrial pressure accounts for blood flow in the circulation. When the left ventricle contracts to force blood into the aorta, the aorta expands. This stretching gives the potential energy that will help maintain blood pressure during diastole, as during this time the aorta contracts passively. This Windkessel effect of the great elastic arteries has important biomechanical implications. The elastic recoil helps conserve the energy from the pumping heart and smooth out the pulsatile nature created by the heart. Aortic pressure is highest at the aorta and becomes less pulsatile and lower pressure as blood vessels divide into arteries, arterioles, and capillaries such that flow is slow and smooth for gases and nutrient exchange.
http://www.emedicine.com/radio/topic44.htm Aorta, Trauma. eMedicine.com. Accessed on: April 24, 2007. and often quickly fatal
All amniotes have a broadly similar arrangement to that of humans, albeit with a number of individual variations. In fish, however, there are two separate vessels referred to as aortas. The ventral aorta carries de-oxygenated blood from the heart to the gills; part of this vessel forms the ascending aorta in tetrapods (the remainder forms the pulmonary artery). A second, dorsal aorta carries oxygenated blood from the gills to the rest of the body and is homologous with the descending aorta of tetrapods. The two aortas are connected by a number of vessels, one passing through each of the gills.
Amphibians also retain the fifth connecting vessel, so that the aorta has two parallel arches.
The word 'Aorta' stems from the Late Latin "" from Classical Greek "aortē" (), from "aeirō", "I lift, raise" () This term was first applied by Aristotle when describing the aorta and describes accurately how it seems to be 'suspended' above the heart.
The function of the aorta has been documented in the Talmud, where it is noted as one of three major vessels entering or leaving the heart, and where perforation is linked to death. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2089 |
Andrew Tridgell
Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell (born 28 February 1967) is an Australian computer programmer. He is the author of and a contributor to the Samba file server, and co-inventor of the rsync algorithm.
He has analysed complex proprietary protocols and algorithms, to allow compatible free and open source software implementations.
Tridgell was a major developer of the Samba software, analyzing the Server Message Block protocol used for workgroup and network file sharing by Microsoft Windows products. He developed the hierarchical memory allocator, originally as part of Samba.
For his PhD dissertation, he co-developed rsync, including the rsync algorithm, a highly efficient file transfer and synchronisation tool. He also was the original author of rzip, which uses a similar algorithm to rsync. He developed spamsum, based on locality-sensitive hashing algorithms.
He is the author of KnightCap, a reinforcement-learning based chess engine.
Tridgell was also a leader in hacking the TiVo to make it work in Australia, which uses the PAL video format.
In April 2005, Tridgell tried to produce free software (now known as SourcePuller) that interoperated with the BitKeeper source code repository. This was cited as the reason that BitMover revoked a license allowing Linux developers free use of their BitKeeper product. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, and Tridgell were thus involved in a public debate about the events, in which Tridgell stated that, not having bought or owned BitKeeper – and thus having never agreed to its license – he could not violate it, and was analyzing the protocol ethically, as he had done with Samba. Tridgell's involvement in the project resulted in Torvalds accusing him of playing dirty tricks with BitKeeper. Tridgell claimed his analysis started with simply telneting to a BitKeeper server and typing codice_1.
In 2011 Tridgell got involved with the software development of ArduPilot Mega, an open source Arduino-based UAV controller board, working on an entry for the UAV Challenge Outback Rescue.
Tridgell completed a PhD at the Computer Sciences Laboratory of the Australian National University. His original doctorate work was in the area of speech recognition but was never completed. His submitted dissertation 'Efficient Algorithms for Sorting and Synchronization' was based on his work on the rsync algorithm. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2099 |
Applesoft BASIC
Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the original Apple II model. It is also referred to as FP BASIC (from "floating point") because of the Apple DOS command used to invoke it, instead of codice_1 for Integer BASIC.
Applesoft BASIC was supplied by Microsoft and its name is derived from the names of both Apple and Microsoft. Apple employees, including Randy Wigginton, adapted Microsoft's interpreter for the Apple II and added several features. The first version of Applesoft was released in 1977 on cassette tape and lacked proper support for high-resolution graphics. Applesoft II, which was made available on cassette and disk and in the ROM of the Apple II Plus and subsequent models, was released in 1978. It is this latter version, which has some syntax differences and support for the Apple II high-resolution graphics modes, that is usually synonymous with the term "Applesoft."
An Applesoft compiler, "TASC (The AppleSoft Compiler)", was produced by Microsoft in 1981.
When Steve Wozniak wrote Integer BASIC for the Apple II, he did not implement support for floating point math because he was primarily interested in writing games, a task for which integers alone were sufficient. In 1976, Microsoft had developed Microsoft BASIC, a BASIC interpreter for the MOS Technology 6502, but at the time there was no production computer that used it. Upon learning that Apple had a 6502 machine, Microsoft asked if the company were interested in licensing BASIC, but Steve Jobs replied that Apple already had one.
The Apple II was unveiled to the public at the West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977 and became available for sale in June. One of the most common customer complaints about the computer was BASIC's lack of floating-point capability. Integer BASIC is limited to whole numbers between −32768 and 32767 and caused problems for users attempting to write business applications with it. Steve Wozniak had never added floating point capabilities to Integer BASIC as he did not consider them necessary for gaming and educational software, the two primary tasks he envisioned for the Apple II. As Wozniak—the only person who understood Integer BASIC well enough to add floating point features—was busy with the Disk II drive and controller and with Apple DOS, Apple turned to Microsoft. Making things more problematic was that the rival Commodore PET personal computer had a floating point-capable BASIC interpreter from the beginning. The Applesoft license also saved Microsoft from near-bankruptcy when they licensed BASIC to Commodore for the PET in an agreement that proved unexpectedly costly for them.
Apple reportedly obtained an eight-year license for Applesoft BASIC from Microsoft for a flat fee of $31,000, renewing it in 1985 through an arrangement that gave Microsoft the rights and source code for Apple's Macintosh version of BASIC. Applesoft was designed to be backwards-compatible with Integer BASIC and uses the core of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC implementation, which includes using the GET command for detecting key presses and not requiring any spaces on program lines. While Applesoft BASIC is slower than Integer BASIC, it has many features that the older BASIC lacks:
Conversely, Applesoft lacks the codice_9 (remainder) operator that had been present in Integer BASIC.
Adapting BASIC for the Apple II was a tedious job as Apple received a source listing for Microsoft 6502 BASIC which proved to be buggy and also required the addition of Integer BASIC commands. Since Apple had no 6502 assembler on hand, the development team was forced to send the source code over the phone lines to Call Computer, an outfit that offered compiler services. This was an extremely tedious, slow process and after Call Computer lost the source code due to an equipment malfunction, one of the programmers, Cliff Huston, used his own IMSAI 8080 computer to cross assemble the BASIC source.
Applesoft is similar to Commodore's BASIC 2.0 aside from features inherited from Integer BASIC. There are a few minor differences such as Applesoft's lack of bitwise operators; otherwise most BASIC programs that do not utilize hardware-dependent features will run on both BASICs.
The PR# statement is used to redirect output to an expansion card, and IN# is used to redirect input from an expansion card. The slot number of the card is specified after the PR# or IN# within the statement. The computer will lock up if there is no card present in the slot and require a reboot. PR#0 will restore output to the 40 column screen and IN#0 to the keyboard.
The PR# statement can be used to redirect output to the printer (e.g. ) where x is the slot number containing the printer port card. To send a BASIC program listing to the printer, the user would type . After outputting to the printer, it is necessary to execute a PR#0 statement to reset output to the screen.
PR#6 will cause Applesoft to boot the disk drives (although the Disk II controller can be in any slot, it is usually in slot 6). PR#3 will switch to 80 column text mode if an 80 column card is present. 80 column cards also add 12 new control codes that can be generated with the CHR$ function. Enhanced Apple IIe and IIc models with the MouseText character set include another two control codes to enable and disable the feature.
As with Commodore BASIC, numeric variables are stored as 40-bit floating point; each variable requires five bytes of memory. The programmer may designate variables as integer by following them with a percent sign, in which case they use two bytes and are limited to a range of -32768 to 32767; however BASIC internally converts them back to floating point, while each percent sign also takes an additional byte of program code, so in practice this feature is only useful for reducing the memory usage of large array variables.
The RND function generates a pseudorandom fractional number between 0 and 1. returns the most recently generated random number. RND with a negative number will jump to a point in the sequence determined by the particular negative number used. RND with any positive value will generate a new random number from the sequence, not dependent on the actual value given. Random numbers are generated via a formula based on the previously generated value, and thus are not truly random. Locations $4E and $4F, which the system cycles the values of continuously while waiting for user keystrokes, can be PEEKed to provide truly random values to use as a seed (when negated) for RND.
Like other implementations of Microsoft BASIC, Applesoft discards spaces (outside of strings and comments) on program lines. codice_10 adds spaces when displaying code for the sake of readability. Since the LIST code will add a space before AND after every tokenized keyword, it often produces two spaces in a row where one would suffice for readability.
The default prompt for codice_11 is a question mark. codice_12 does not add a leading space in front of numbers.
Coleco claimed that its Adam home computer's SmartBASIC was source-code compatible with Applesoft. Microsoft licensed a BASIC compatible with Applesoft to VTech for its Laser 128 clone.
Through several early models of the Apple II, Applesoft BASIC did not support the use of lowercase letters in programs, except in strings. codice_12 is a valid command but codice_14 and codice_15 result in a syntax error.
Applesoft lacks several commands and functions common to most of the non-6502 Microsoft BASIC interpreters, such as:
Applesoft does not come with any built-in commands for file or disk handling, other than a way to save programs to, and load programs from, cassette tape. The Apple II disk operating system, known simply as DOS, augments the language to provide such abilities.
Applesoft BASIC variable names are significant only to two letters. They can be made longer, but only the first two letters are used. For instance, "LOW" and "LOSS" are treated as the same variable, and attempting to assign a value to "LOSS" overwrites any value assigned to "LOW". Because the language uses tokenization, a programmer has to avoid consecutive letters that are also Applesoft commands or operations. The name "SCORE" for a variable is interpreted as containing the codice_20 Boolean operator, rendered as codice_21. "BACKGROUND" contains codice_22, the command to invoke the low-resolution graphics mode, and results in a syntax error.
The only sound support is the option to codice_12 an ASCII bell character to sound the system alert beep, and a codice_24 command to click the speaker. The language is not fast enough to produce more than a baritone buzz from repeated clicks. Programs can, however, store a machine-language routine to be called to generate electronic musical tones spanning several octaves.
Applesoft supports the Apple II lores graphics display, where 40 color "blocks" horizontally, and up to 48 blocks vertically, can be displayed in 16 colors, with commands to plot individual blocks and horizontal or vertical lines; as well as the hires mode, where six colors (a fixed subset of the lores palette of 16 colors) can be displayed in a resolution of 280 horizontally by 192 vertically (with some limitations on horizontal placement), with a command to draw points or any diagonal lines onscreen. Beginning with the Apple IIe, a new "double-high resolution" mode, based on a mode introduced on the Apple III computer, became available on machines with 128k of memory. This mode essentially duplicates the resolution of the original hires mode, but including all 16 colors of the lores palette. Applesoft, however, does not provide support for this mode, and must rely on supplemental machine-language routines in order to utilize it. Additional new graphics modes on the Apple IIgs are likewise not supported.
No provision exists for mixing text and graphics, except for the limited "hardware split screen" of the Apple II (four lines of text at the bottom of the screen).
Vector-based shape tables can be used to draw objects in hires graphics, but are slow in comparison to routines that draw bitmaps directly. They also only support the defining of horizontal and vertical lines. Diagonals and curves are not supported, although shapes can be drawn rotated to various angles, so that lines ostensibly defined as horizontal or vertical will appear diagonal. In addition, shapes can be drawn scaled up to larger sizes.
Applesoft BASIC can be extended by two means: the ampersand (&) command and the USR() function. These are two features that call low-level machine-language routines stored in memory, which is useful for routines that need to be fast or require direct access to arbitrary functions or data in memory. The USR() function takes one numerical argument, and can be programmed to derive and return a calculated function value, to be used in a numerical expression. "&" is effectively a shorthand for CALL, with an address that is predefined.
A deficiency in Applesoft's error-trapping with ONERR means that the system stack would not be reset if an error-handling routine did not invoke RESUME, potentially leading to a crash. Error-handling that does not employ RESUME can avoid the problem with a CALL -3288 or (equivalent) 62248 before exiting the routine.
Wozniak originally referred to his Integer BASIC as "Game BASIC" (having written it so he could implement a "Breakout" clone for his new computer). Few action games were written in Applesoft BASIC, in large part because the use of floating-point numbers for all math operations degrades performance.
Applesoft BASIC programs are stored as a linked list of lines; a codice_25 or codice_26 takes linear time. Some programs had the subroutines at the top to reduce the time for calling them.
Unlike what Integer BASIC does, Applesoft BASIC does not convert literal numbers in the source code into the internal binary format at the time the source line is entered; rather, the string of digits is stored as entered and the relatively slow conversion happens at runtime whenever the line is executed. Since variable lookup is often faster than this conversion, it is generally faster to store numeric constants that are used inside loops in variables, before the loop is entered.
Hello World in Applesoft BASIC can be entered as the following:
Multiple commands can be included on the same line of code if separated by a colon (codice_27). The codice_28 can be used in Applesoft BASIC (and almost all versions of Microsoft BASIC) as a shortcut for "PRINT", though spelling out the word is not only acceptable but canonical—Applesoft converted "?" in entered programs to the same token as "PRINT" (thus no memory is actually saved by using "?"), thus either appears as "PRINT" when a program is listed. The program above appears in a codice_10 command as:
When Applesoft II BASIC was initially released in mid-1978, it came on cassette tape and could be loaded into memory via the Apple II's machine language monitor. When the enhanced Apple II+ replaced the original II in 1979, Applesoft was now included in ROM and automatically started on power-up if no bootable floppy disk was present. Conversely, Integer BASIC was now removed from ROM and turned into an executable file on the DOS 3.3 disk.
The original Applesoft, stored in RAM as documented in its Reference Manual of November 1977, has smaller interpreter code than the later Applesoft II, occupying 8½ kb of memory, instead of the 10 kb used by the later Applesoft II. Consequently, it lacks a number of command features developed for the later, mainstream version:
as well as several the later version would have, that had already been present in Apple's Integer BASIC:
In addition, its low-resolution graphics commands have different names from their Integer BASIC/Applesoft II counterparts. All command names are of the form PLTx such that GR, COLOR=, PLOT, HLIN and VLIN are called PLTG, PLTC, PLTP, PLTH, and PLTV, respectively. The command for returning to text mode, known as TEXT in other versions, is simply TEX, and carries the proviso that it has to be the last statement in a program line.
Applesoft BASIC 1.x was closer to Microsoft's original 6502 BASIC code than the later Applesoft II; it retained the Memory Size? prompt and displayed a Microsoft copyright notice. To maintain consistency with Integer BASIC, the "Ok" prompt from Microsoft's code was replaced by a ] character. Applesoft 1.x also prompted the user upon loading if he wished to disable the REM statement and the LET keyword in assignment statements in exchange for lores graphics commands.
The USR() function is also defined differently, serving as a stand-in for the absent CALL command. Its argument is not for passing a numerical value to the machine-language routine, but is instead the call-address of the routine itself; there is no "hook" to pre-define the address. All of several examples in the manual use the function only to access "system monitor ROM" routines, or short user-routines to manipulate the ROM routines. No mention is made of any code to calculate the value returned by the function itself; the function is always shown being assigned to "dummy" variables, which, without action to set a value by user-code, just receive a meaningless value handed back to them. Even accessed ROM routines that return values (in examples, those that provide the service of PDL() and SCRN() functions) merely have their values stored, by user-routines, in locations that are separately PEEKed in a subsequent statement.
Unlike in Integer BASIC and Applesoft II, the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT perform bitwise operations on 16-bit integer values. If they are given values outside that range, an error results.
The terms OUT and PLT (and the aforementioned IN) appear in the list of reserved words, but are not explained anywhere in the manual. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2100 |
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix ( or "Astérix le Gaulois" ; lit. "Asterix the Gaul") is a French bande dessinée series about Gaulish warriors, who have adventures and fight the Roman Empire during the era of Julius Caesar. The series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine "Pilote" on 29 October 1959. It was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo until the death of Goscinny in 1977. Uderzo then took over the writing until 2009, when he sold the rights to publishing company Hachette. In 2013, a new team consisting of Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (artwork) took over. , 38 volumes have been released, with the most recent released in October 2019.
Each Asterix comic starts with the following introduction: "The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium..." The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BCE. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid Getafix (Panoramix in the French version), which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures. The "-ix" ending of both names (as well as all the other pseudo-Gaulish "-ix" names in the series) alludes to the "-rix" suffix (meaning "king") present in the names of many real Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix, Orgetorix, and Dumnorix.
In many of the stories, they travel to foreign countries, though other tales are set in and around their village. For much of the history of the series (Volumes 4 through 29), settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul, mostly in the village.
The "Asterix" series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into 111 languages and dialects .
The success of the series has led to the adaptation of its books into 13 films: nine animated, and four live action (one of which, "", was a major box office success in France). There have also been a number of games based on the characters, and a theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix. The very first French satellite, Astérix, launched in 1965, was also named after the comics character. As of 2017, 370million copies of "Asterix" books have been sold worldwide, with co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo being France's best-selling authors abroad.
Prior to creating the "Asterix" series, Goscinny and Uderzo had previously had success with their series "Oumpah-pah", which was published in "Tintin" magazine.
"Astérix" was originally serialised in "Pilote" magazine, debuting in the first issue on 29 October 1959. In 1961 the first book was put together, titled "Asterix the Gaul". From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis. Their success was exponential; the first book sold 6,000 copies in its year of publication; a year later, the second sold 20,000. In 1963, the third sold 40,000; the fourth, released in 1964, sold 150,000. A year later, the fifth sold 300,000; 1966's "Asterix and the Big Fight" sold 400,000 upon initial publication. The ninth "Asterix" volume, when first released in 1967, sold 1.2 million copies in two days.
Uderzo's first preliminary sketches portrayed Asterix as a huge and strong traditional Gaulish warrior. But Goscinny had a different picture in his mind, visualizing Asterix as a shrewd, compact warrior who would possess intelligence and wit more than raw strength. However, Uderzo felt that the downsized hero needed a strong but dim companion, to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born. Despite the growing popularity of "Asterix" with the readers, the financial backing for the publication "Pilote" ceased. "Pilote" was taken over by Georges Dargaud.
When Goscinny died in 1977, Uderzo continued the series by popular demand of the readers, who implored him to continue. He continued to issue new volumes of the series, but on a less-frequent basis. Many critics and fans of the series prefer the earlier collaborations with Goscinny. Uderzo created his own publishing company, Les Editions Albert-René, which published every album drawn and written by Uderzo alone since then. However, Dargaud, the initial publisher of the series, kept the publishing rights on the 24 first albums made by both Uderzo and Goscinny. In 1990, the Uderzo and Goscinny families decided to sue Dargaud to take over the rights. In 1998, after a long trial, Dargaud lost the rights to publish and sell the albums. Uderzo decided to sell these rights to Hachette instead of Albert-René, but the publishing rights on new albums were still owned by Albert Uderzo (40%), Sylvie Uderzo (20%) and Anne Goscinny (40%).
In December 2008, Uderzo sold his stake to Hachette, which took over the company. In a letter published in the French newspaper "Le Monde" in 2009, Uderzo's daughter, Sylvie, attacked her father's decision to sell the family publishing firm and the rights to produce new "Astérix" adventures after his death. She said:
... the co-creator of "Astérix", France's comic strip hero, has betrayed the Gaulish warrior to the modern-day Romans – the men of industry and finance.
However, René Goscinny's daughter, Anne, also gave her agreement to the continuation of the series and sold her rights at the same time. She is reported to have said that ""Asterix" has already had two lives: one during my father's lifetime and one after it. Why not a third?". A few months later, Uderzo appointed three illustrators, who had been his assistants for many years, to continue the series. In 2011, Uderzo announced that a new "Asterix" album was due out in 2013, with Jean-Yves Ferri writing the story and Frédéric Mébarki drawing it. A year later, in 2012, the publisher Albert-René announced that Frédéric Mébarki had withdrawn from drawing the new album, due to the pressure he felt in following in the steps of Uderzo. Comic artist Didier Conrad was officially announced to take over drawing duties from Mébarki, with the due date of the new album in 2013 unchanged.
In January 2015, after the murders of seven cartoonists at the satirical Paris weekly "Charlie Hebdo", "Astérix" creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement to draw two "Astérix" pictures honouring the memories of the victims.
Numbers 1–24, 32 and 34 are by Goscinny and Uderzo. Numbers 25–31 and 33 are by Uderzo alone. Numbers 35–38 are by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad. Years stated are for their initial album release.
"Asterix Conquers Rome" is a comics adaptation of the animated film "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix". It was released in 1976, and was the 23rd volume to be published, but it has been rarely reprinted and is not considered to be canonical to the series. The only English translations ever to be published were in the "Asterix Annual 1980" and never an English standalone volume. A picture-book version of the same story was published in English translation as "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" by Hodder & Stoughton in 1978.
In 1996, a tribute album in honour of Albert Uderzo was released titled "Uderzo Croqué par ses Amis", a volume containing 21 short stories with Uderzo in Ancient Gaul. This volume was published by Soleil Productions and has not been translated into English
In 2007, Les Editions Albert René released a tribute volume titled "Astérix et ses Amis", a 60-page volume of one-to-four-page short stories. It was a tribute to Albert Uderzo on his 80th birthday by 34 European cartoonists. The volume was translated into nine languages. , it has not been translated into English.
In 2016, the French publisher Hachette, along with Anne Goscinny and Albert Uderzo decided to make the special issue album "The XII Tasks of Asterix" for the 40th anniversary of the film "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix". There was no English edition.
The main setting for the series is an unnamed coastal village (rumoured to be inspired by Erquy) in Armorica (present-day Brittany), a province of Gaul (modern France), in the year 50 BC. Julius Caesar has conquered nearly all of Gaul for the Roman Empire. The little Armorican village, however, has held out because the villagers can gain temporary superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion brewed by the local village druid, Getafix. His chief is Vitalstatistix.
The main protagonist and hero of the village is Asterix, who, because of his shrewdness, is usually entrusted with the most important affairs of the village. He is aided in his adventures by his rather corpulent and slower thinking friend, Obelix, who, because he fell into the druid's cauldron of the potion as a baby, has permanent superhuman strength (because of this, Getafix steadily refuses to allow Obelix to drink the potion, as doing so would have a dangerous and unpredictable result). Obelix is usually accompanied by Dogmatix, his little dog. (Except for Asterix and Obelix, the names of the characters change with the language. For example, Obelix's dog's name is "Dogmatix" in English, but "Idéfix" in the original French edition.)
Asterix and Obelix (and sometimes other members of the village) go on various adventures both within the village and in far away lands. Places visited in the series include parts of Gaul (Lutetia, Corsica etc.), neighbouring nations (Belgium, Spain, Britain, Germany etc.), and far away lands (North America, Middle East, India etc.).
The series employs science-fiction and fantasy elements in the more recent books; for instance, the use of extraterrestrials in "Asterix and the Falling Sky" and the city of Atlantis in "Asterix and Obelix All at Sea".
The humour encountered in the "Asterix" comics often centers around puns, caricatures, and tongue-in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour: In the Italian translation, the Roman legionaries are made to speak in 20th-century Roman dialect, and Obelix's famous "Ils sont fous ces romains" ("These Romans are crazy") is translated properly as "Sono pazzi questi romani", humorously alluding to the Roman abbreviation "SPQR". In another example: Hiccups are written onomatopoeically in French as "hips", but in English as "hic", allowing Roman legionaries in more than one of the English translations to decline their hiccups absurdly in Latin ("hic, haec, hoc"). The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual.
All the fictional characters in "Asterix" have names which are puns on their roles or personalities, and which follow certain patterns specific to nationality. Certain rules are followed (most of the time) such as Gauls (and their neighbours) having an "-ix" suffix for the men and ending in "-a" for the women; for example, Chief Vitalstatistix (so called due to his portly stature) and his wife Impedimenta (often at odds with the chief). The male Roman names end in "-us", echoing Latin nominative male singular form, as in Gluteus Maximus, a muscle-bound athlete whose name is literally the butt of the joke. Gothic names (present-day Germany) end in "-ic", after Gothic chiefs such as Alaric and Theoderic; for example Rhetoric the interpreter. Greek names end in "-os" or "-es"; for example, Thermos the restaurateur. British names end in "-ax" and are often puns on the taxation associated with the later United Kingdom; examples include Valuaddedtax the druid, and Selectivemploymentax the mercenary. Other nationalities are treated to pidgin translations from their language, like Huevos y Bacon, a Spanish chieftain (whose name, meaning eggs and bacon, is often guidebook Spanish for tourists), or literary and other popular media references, like Dubbelosix (a sly reference to James Bond's codename "007").
Most of these jokes, and hence the names of the characters, are specific to the translation; for example, the druid named Getafix in English translation - "get a fix", referring to the character's role in dispensing the magic potion - is "Panoramix" in the original French and "Miraculix" in German. Even so, occasionally the wordplay has been preserved: Obelix's dog, known in the original French as "Idéfix" (from "idée fixe", a "fixed idea" or obsession), is called "Dogmatix" in English, which not only renders the original meaning strikingly closely ("dogmatic") but in fact adds another layer of wordplay with the syllable "Dog-" at the beginning of the name.
The name "Asterix", French "Astérix", comes from ', meaning "asterisk", which is the typographical symbol *"' indicating a footnote, from the Greek word αστήρ ("aster"), meaning a "star". His name is usually left unchanged in translations, aside from accents and the use of local alphabets. For example, in Esperanto, Polish, Slovene, Latvian, and Turkish it is "Asteriks" (in Turkish he was first named "Bücür" meaning "shorty", but the name was then standardised). Two exceptions include Icelandic, in which he is known as "Ástríkur" ("Rich of love"), and Sinhala, where he is known as ("Soora Pappa"), which can be interpreted as "Hero".
For explanations of some of the other names, see List of "Asterix" characters.
Many of the "Asterix" adventures take place in other countries away from their homeland in Gaul. In every album that takes place abroad, the characters meet (usually modern-day) stereotypes for each country, as seen by the French.
When the Gauls see foreigners speaking their foreign languages, these have different representation in the cartoon speech bubbles:
The various volumes have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects. Besides the original French language, most albums are available in Estonian, English, Czech, Dutch, German, Galician, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Slovene, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Latvian, Welsh, as well as Latin.
Selected albums have also been translated into languages such as Esperanto, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Indonesian, Persian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Bengali, Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Frisian, Romansch, Vietnamese, Sinhala, Ancient Greek, and Luxembourgish.
In Europe, several volumes were translated into a variety of regional languages and dialects, such as Alsatian, Breton, Chtimi (Picard), and Corsican in France; Bavarian, Swabian, and Low German in Germany; and Savo, Karelia, Rauma, and Helsinki slang dialects in Finland. Also, in Portugal, a special edition of the first volume, Asterix the Gaul, was translated into local language Mirandese. In Greece, a number of volumes have appeared in the Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, and Pontic Greek dialects. In the Italian version, while the Gauls speak standard Italian, the legionaries speak in the Romanesque dialect. In the former Yugoslavia, the "Forum" publishing house translated Corsican text in "Asterix in Corsica" into the Montenegrin dialect of Serbo-Croatian (today called Montenegrin).
In the Netherlands, several volumes were translated into West Frisian, a Germanic language spoken in the province of Friesland; into Limburgish, a regional language spoken not only in Dutch Limburg but also in Belgian Limburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; and into Tweants, a dialect in the region of Twente in the eastern province of Overijssel. Hungarian-language books have been published in Yugoslavia for the Hungarian minority living in Serbia. Although not translated into a fully autonomous dialect, the books differ slightly from the language of the books issued in Hungary. In Sri Lanka, the cartoon series was adapted into Sinhala as "Sura Pappa".
Most volumes have been translated into Latin and Ancient Greek, with accompanying teachers' guides, as a way of teaching these ancient languages.
Before Asterix became famous, translations of some strips were published in British comics including "Valiant", "Ranger", and "Look & Learn", under names "Little Fred and Big Ed" and "Beric the Bold", set in Roman-occupied Britain. These were included in an exhibition on Goscinny's life and career, and Asterix, in London's Jewish Museum in 2018.
The first 33 Asterix books were translated into English by Derek Hockridge and Anthea Bell, who were widely praised for maintaining the spirit and humour of the original French versions. Derek Hockridge died in 2013, so Anthea Bell translated books 34 to 36 by herself, before retiring in 2016 for health reasons. She died in 2018. Adriana Hunter is the present translator.
US publisher Papercutz in December 2019 announced it would begin publishing "all-new more American translations" of the Asterix books, starting on 19 May 2020. The launch was postponed to 15 July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The series has been adapted into various media. There are 14 films, 15 board games, 40 video games, and 1 theme park.
Many gamebooks, board games and video games are based upon the "Asterix" series. In particular, many video games were released by various computer game publishers.
Parc Astérix, a theme park 22 miles north of Paris, based upon the series, was opened in 1989. It is one of the most visited sites in France, with around 1.6 million visitors per year. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2101 |
Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team was founded as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898, and is the oldest continuously run professional football team in the United States. The Cardinals play their home games at State Farm Stadium, which opened in 2006 and is located in the northwestern suburb of Glendale.
The team was established in Chicago in 1898 as an amateur football team and joined the NFL as a charter member on September 17, 1920. Along with the Chicago Bears, the club is one of two NFL charter member franchises still in operation since the league's founding (the Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL a year after its creation in 1921). The club then moved to St. Louis in and played in that city through (sometimes referred to locally in St. Louis as the "Football Cardinals", the "Gridbirds" or the "Big Red" to avoid confusion with the Major League Baseball team of the same name). Before the season, the team moved west to Tempe, Arizona, a college suburb east of Phoenix, and played their home games for the next 18 seasons at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University. In , the club moved to their current home field in Glendale, although the team's executive offices and training facility remain in Tempe.
The franchise has won two NFL championships, both while it was based in Chicago. The first occurred in , but is the subject of controversy, with supporters of the Pottsville Maroons believing that Pottsville should have won the title. Their second title, and the first to be won in a championship game, came in , nearly two decades before the first Super Bowl. They returned to the title game to defend in 1948, but lost the rematch 7–0 in a snowstorm in Philadelphia.
Since winning the championship in 1947, the team suffered many losing seasons, and currently holds the longest active championship drought of North American sports at 72 consecutive seasons. In 2012 the Cardinals became the first NFL franchise to lose 700 games since its inception. The franchise's all-time win-loss record (including regular season and playoff games) at the conclusion of the 2019 season is ( in the regular season, in the playoffs). They have been to the playoffs ten times and have won seven playoff games, three of which were victories during their run in the 2008–09 NFL playoffs. During that season, they won their only NFC Championship Game since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, and reached Super Bowl XLIII (losing 27–23 to the Pittsburgh Steelers). The team has also won five division titles (, , , and ) since their 1947–48 NFL championship game appearances. The Cardinals are the only NFL team who have never lost a playoff game at home, with a 5–0 record: the 1947 NFL Championship Game, two postseason victories during the aforementioned 2008–09 NFL playoffs, one during the 2009–10 playoffs, and one during the 2015–16 playoffs.
From 1988 to 2012 (except 2005, when they trained in Prescott), the Cardinals conducted their annual summer training camp at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. The Cardinals moved their training camp to State Farm Stadium (then known as University of Phoenix Stadium) in 2013. The stadium was the site of the 2015 Pro Bowl, unlike in past years, where it was held at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. The stadium also played host to Super Bowls XLII and XLIX, and will host Super Bowl LVII in 2023.
The franchise's inception dates back to 1898, when a neighborhood group gathered to play in the Chicago South Side, calling themselves Morgan Athletic Club. Chicago painting and building contractor Chris O'Brien acquired the team, which he relocated to Normal Field on Racine Avenue. The team was known as Racine Normals until 1901, when O'Brien bought used jerseys from the University of Chicago. He described the faded maroon clothing as "Cardinal red" and the team became the Racine Street Cardinals. The team eventually became in 1920 a charter member of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which two years later was rechristened to National Football League (NFL). The team entered the league as the Racine Cardinals, however the name was changed in 1922 to Chicago Cardinals to avoid confusion with the Horlick-Racine Legion, who entered the league the same year. Except for 1925, when they were awarded the championship after the Pottsville Maroons were suspended, the Cardinals experienced only minimal success on the playing field during their first 26 seasons in the league. During the post-World War II years, the team reached two straight NFL finals against the Philadelphia Eagles, winning in 1947 – eight months after Charles Bidwill's death – and losing the following year. After years of bad seasons and losing fans to the cross-town rivals Chicago Bears, by the late 1950s the Cardinals were almost bankrupt, and owner Violet Bidwill Wolfner became interested in a relocation.
Due to the formation of the rival American Football League, the NFL allowed Bidwill to relocate the team to St. Louis, Missouri, where they became the St. Louis Cardinals (locally, they were called the "Big Red", the "Gridbirds" or the "Football Cardinals" in order to avoid confusion with the baseball team of the same name). During the Cardinals' 28-year stay in St. Louis, they advanced to the playoffs just three times (1974, 1975 & 1982), never hosting or winning in any appearance. The overall mediocrity of the Cardinals, combined with a then-21-year-old stadium, caused game attendance to dwindle, and owner Bill Bidwill decided to move the team to Arizona.
Not long after the 1987 NFL season, Bidwill agreed to move to Phoenix on a handshake deal with state and local officials, and the team became the Phoenix Cardinals. The franchise changed its geographic name from Phoenix to Arizona on March 17, 1994. (The franchise has never played in the city of Phoenix proper, however there are several NFL teams which do not play in their market's central cities.) The 1998 NFL season saw the Cardinals break two long droughts, qualifying for the playoffs for the first time in 16 years. The team got their first postseason win since 1947 by defeating the Dallas Cowboys 20–7 in the Wild Card Playoffs. In 2008, the Cardinals, led by quarterback Kurt Warner, won the NFC Championship Game to advance to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. They lost Super Bowl XLIII 27–23 to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the final seconds.
After their historic 2008 season, the Cardinals posted a 10–6 record in 2009, their first season with 10 wins in Arizona. The Cardinals clinched their second consecutive NFC West title, and were defeated by eventual Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints 45–14 in the divisional playoffs. The next time they would make the playoffs would be in 2014, when they ended up as a wild card. They set the best regular-season record in the team's history in Arizona at 11–5, but were defeated by the 7–8–1 NFC South champions Carolina Panthers.
The next year, the Cardinals set a franchise-best 13–3 record, and clinched their first-ever first-round playoff bye as the NFC's second seed. They defeated the Green Bay Packers 26–20 in overtime, giving quarterback Carson Palmer his first playoff victory. The Cardinals then advanced to their second NFC Championship Game in their history, but were blown out by the top-seeded 15–1 Panthers 49–15, committing seven turnovers.
Starting in , the team had a logo of a cardinal bird perched on the laces of a football.
The Cardinals moved to Arizona in , and the flag of Arizona was added to the sleeves the following year. In , the team began wearing red pants with their white jerseys, as new coach Joe Bugel wanted to emulate his former employer, the Washington Redskins, who at the time wore burgundy pants with their white jerseys (the Redskins later returned to their 1970s gold pants with all their jerseys).
In , the Cardinals participated in the NFL's 75th anniversary throwback uniform program. The jerseys were similar to those of the 1920s Chicago Cardinals, with an interlocking "CC" logo and three stripes on each sleeve. The uniform numbers were relocated to the right chest. The pants were khaki to simulate the color and material used in that era. The Cardinals also stripped the logos from their helmets for two games: at Cleveland and home vs. Pittsburgh.
The Cardinal head on the helmet also appeared on the sleeve of the white jersey from 1982 to 1995. In 1996, the state flag of Arizona was moved higher on the sleeve after the Cardinal head was eliminated as sleeves on football jerseys became shorter, and black was removed as an accent color, instead replaced with a blue to match the predominant color of the state flag. In 2002, the Cardinals began to wear all-red and all-white combinations, and continued to do so through 2004, prior to the team's makeover.
In , the team unveiled its first major changes in a century. The cardinal-head logo was updated to look sleeker and meaner than its predecessor. Numerous fans had derisively called the previous version a "parakeet". Black again became an accent color after an eight-year absence, while trim lines were added to the outside shoulders, sleeves, and sides of the jerseys and pants. Both the red and white jerseys have the option of red or white pants.
Hoping to break a six-game losing streak, the Cardinals wore the red pants for the first time on October 29, 2006, in a game at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers. The Packers won 31–14, and the Cards headed into their bye week with a 1–7 mark. Following the bye week, the Cardinals came out in an all-red combination at home against the Dallas Cowboys and lost, 27–10. Arizona did not wear the red pants for the remainder of the season and won four of their last seven games. However, the following season, in , the Cardinals again wore their red pants for their final 3 home games. They wore red pants with white jerseys in games on the road at the Cincinnati Bengals and Seattle Seahawks. They paired red pants with red jerseys, the all-red combination, for home games against the Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns, and St. Louis Rams. The red pants were not worn at all in , but they were used in home games vs. Seattle, Minnesota, and St. Louis in . The red pants were paired with the white road jersey for the first time in three years during a 2010 game at Carolina, but the white jersey/red pants combination were not used again until 2018, when they broke out the combination against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Cardinals' first home game in Arizona, in 1988, saw them play in red jerseys. Thereafter, for the next 18 years in Arizona, the Cardinals, like a few other NFL teams in warm climates, wore their white jerseys at home during the first half of the season—forcing opponents to suffer in their darker jerseys during Arizona autumns that frequently see temperatures over 100 °F (38 °C). However, this tradition did not continue when the Cardinals moved from Sun Devil Stadium to State Farm Stadium in 2006, as early-season games (and some home games late in the season) were played with the roof closed. With the temperature inside at a comfortable 70 °F (21 °C), the team opted to wear red jerseys at home full-time. The Cardinals wore white jerseys at home for the first time at State Farm Stadium on August 29, 2008, in a preseason game against the Denver Broncos.
The Cardinals wore white at home for the first time in a regular season game at State Farm Stadium against the Houston Texans on October 11, . In October 2009, the NFL recognized Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and players wore pink-accented items, including gloves, wristbands, and shoes. The team thought the pink accents looked better with white uniforms than with red.
From 1970 through 1983, and again in many seasons between 1989 and 2002, the Cardinals would wear white when hosting the Dallas Cowboys in order to force the Cowboys to don their "jinxed" blue jerseys. They have not done this since moving into State Farm Stadium, however.
The season saw the Cardinals debut a new, alternate black jersey. In , the Cardinals debuted an all-black set for the NFL Color Rush program. While the regular black alternates featured white lettering and are paired with white pants, the Cardinals' Color Rush alternates used red lettering and black pants for the occasion.
Points Scored: 489 ()
Passing
Rushing
Receiving
Returns
Kicking
Notes:
"italics" = played a portion of career with the Cardinals and enshrined representing another team
Dierdorf, Smith, Wehrli and Wilson were members of the St. Louis Football Ring of Fame in The Dome at America's Center when the Rams played there from 1995 to 2015.
The Cardinals' Ring of Honor was started in to mark the opening of State Farm Stadium. It honors former Cardinal greats from all eras of the franchise's history. Following is a list of inductees and the dates that they were inducted.
The Cardinals' flagship radio station is KMVP-FM; Dave Pasch, Ron Wolfley, and Paul Calvisi handle the radio broadcast. Spanish-language radio broadcasts are heard on the combo of KQMR/KHOV-FM "Latino Mix" under a contract with Univisión, signed in 2015. Prior to 2015, they were heard on KDVA/KVVA-FM "José FM", as well as co-owned KBMB AM 710. The Cardinals were the first NFL team to offer all 20 preseason and regular season games on Spanish-language radio, doing so in 2000. Gabriel Trujillo and Rolando Cantú are the Spanish broadcast team. The Cardinals have the most extensive Mexican affiliate network in the NFL, with contracts with Grupo Larsa (in the state of Sonora) and Grupo Radiorama (outside Sonora) and stations in 20 cities, including Hermosillo, Guadalajara and Mexico City.
As of the 2017 season, NBC affiliate KPNX broadcasts the team's preseason games on television (which, that year, included the Hall of Fame Game broadcast by NBC), called by Pasch and Wolfley, with station anchor Paul Gerke as sideline reporter. The broadcasts are syndicated regionally to KTTU and KMSB-TV in Tucson, and KVVU-TV in Las Vegas. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2102 |
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined the NFL in 1965 as an expansion team, after the NFL offered then-owner Rankin Smith a franchise to keep him from joining the rival American Football League (AFL).
In their 54 years of existence, the Falcons have compiled a record of 375–475–6 ( in the regular season and in the playoffs), winning division championships in 1980, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2012, and 2016. The Falcons have appeared in two Super Bowls, the first during the 1998 season in Super Bowl XXXIII, where they lost to the Denver Broncos and the second was 18 years later, a overtime loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.
The Falcons' current home field is Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened for the 2017 season; the team's headquarters and practice facilities are located at a site in Flowery Branch, northeast of Atlanta in Hall County.
Professional football first came to Atlanta in 1962, when the American Football League (AFL) staged two preseason contests, with one featuring the Denver Broncos vs. the Houston Oilers and the second pitting the Dallas Texans against the Oakland Raiders. Two years later, the AFL held another exhibition, this time with the New York Jets taking on the San Diego Chargers.
In 1965, after the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium (then known simply as Atlanta Stadium) was built, the city of Atlanta felt the time was right to start pursuing professional football. One independent group which had been active in NFL exhibition promotions in Atlanta applied for franchises in both the AFL and NFL, acting entirely on its own with no guarantee of stadium rights. Another group reported it had deposited earnest money for a team in the AFL.
With everyone running in different directions, some local businessmen (Cox Broadcasting) worked out a deal and were awarded an AFL franchise on contingent upon acquiring exclusive stadium rights from city NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who had been moving slowly in Atlanta matters, was spurred by the AFL interest and headed on the next plane down to Atlanta to block the rival league's claim on the city He forced the city to make a choice between the two leagues; by June 30, the city picked Rankin Smith and the NFL.
The AFL's original expansion plans in June 1965 were for two new teams in Atlanta and It later evolved into the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968. The NFL had planned to add two teams in ; the competition with the AFL for Atlanta forced the first to be added a year early in . The odd number of teams (15) resulted in one idle team (bye) each week, with each team playing 14 games over 15 weeks (similar to : 12 games over 13 weeks). The second expansion team, the New Orleans Saints, joined the NFL as planned in 1967 as its 16th franchise.
The Atlanta Falcons franchise began on June 30, 1965, when Rozelle granted ownership to 40-year-old Rankin Smith Sr., an Executive Vice President of Life Insurance Company of Georgia. He paid $8.5 million, the highest price in NFL history at the time for a franchise. Rozelle and Smith made the deal in about five minutes and the Atlanta Falcons brought the largest and most popular sport to the city of Atlanta. The Atlanta expansion team became the 15th NFL franchise, and they were awarded the first overall pick in the 1966 NFL Draft as well as the final pick in each of the first five rounds. They selected consensus All-American linebacker Tommy Nobis from the University of Texas, making him the first-ever Falcon. The league also held the expansion draft six weeks later in which Atlanta selected unprotected players from the 14 existing franchises. Although the Falcons selected many good players in those drafts, they still were not able to win right away.
The Atlanta team received its nickname on August 29, 1965. Miss Julia Elliott, a school teacher from Griffin, was singled out from many people who suggested "Falcons" as the nickname for the new franchise. She wrote: "the Falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight. It never drops its prey. It is deadly and has a great sporting tradition."
The Falcons' inaugural season was in 1966, and their first preseason game was on August 1, a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Under head coach Norb Hecker, Atlanta lost their first nine regular season games in 1966; their first victory came on the road against the struggling New York Giants on November 20 in Yankee Stadium. Two weeks later, Atlanta won at Minnesota, and beat St. Louis in Atlanta the next week for their first home win. The team finished the 1960s with 12 wins in four seasons.
The Falcons had their first Monday Night Football game in Atlanta during the 1970 season, a 20–7 loss to the Miami Dolphins. The only two winning seasons in their first 12 years were and
In the 1978 season, the Falcons qualified for the playoffs for the first time and won the Wild Card game against the Eagles 14–13. The following week, they lost to the Dallas Cowboys 27–20 in the Divisional Playoffs.
In the 1980 season, after a nine-game winning streak, the Falcons posted a franchise then-best record of 12–4 and captured their first NFC West division title. The next week, their dream season ended at home with a loss to the Cowboys 30–27 in the divisional playoffs. In the strike-shortened 1982 season, the Falcons made the playoffs but lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 30–24. Falcons coach Leeman Bennett was fired after the loss. The team then had losing seasons for the next eight years.
In the 1989 NFL Draft, the Falcons selected cornerback Deion Sanders in the first round, who helped them for the next four years, setting many records for the franchise. "Neon Deion" (a.k.a. "Prime Time") had a flashy appeal and helped bring media attention to one of the league's most anonymous franchises. Sanders was also famous for playing on major league baseball teams (New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves) while simultaneously playing in the NFL.
After defeating the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Wild Card game, the Falcons' 1991 season ended in a divisional playoff loss to the Washington Redskins. In the 1991 NFL Draft, the Falcons selected quarterback Brett Favre as the 33rd overall pick. During his rookie season, he played in two games where he amassed a record of four passing attempts with no receptions and two interceptions. The following February, Favre was traded to the Green Bay Packers.
In 1992, the Atlanta Falcons opened a new chapter in their history moving into the newly constructed Georgia Dome, where the team has defeated all 31 other NFL teams at least once during its time there.
In 1998, under recently acquired head coach Dan Reeves, quarterback Chris Chandler and running back Jamal Anderson the "Dirty Bird" Falcons had their greatest season to date. On November 8, they beat the New England Patriots 41–10, ending a streak of 22 losses at cold-weather sites. The team finished with a franchise-best 14–2 regular season record and the NFC West division championship. On January 17, 1999, the Falcons upset the top-seeded Vikings at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in the NFC Championship Game 30–27, in an exciting overtime victory. However, in their first-ever Super Bowl appearance, they lost 34–19 to the defending champion Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII.
In the second game of the Falcons 1999 season, running back Jamal Anderson, who had been a key player in the Falcons' 1998 success, suffered a season-ending knee injury. The Falcons finished the season with a very disappointing 5–11 regular season record. In 2000, the Falcons suffered through another horrendous season finishing 4–12 and once again missing the playoffs.
In the 2001 NFL draft, the Falcons orchestrated a trade with the San Diego Chargers, acquiring the first overall pick (which was used on quarterback Michael Vick) in exchange for wide receiver-return specialist Tim Dwight and the fifth overall pick (used on running back LaDainian Tomlinson).
The Falcons finished the 2001 season with a record of 7–9 and missed the playoffs. Jessie Tuggle retired following 14 seasons in Atlanta. On December 6, 2001, Arthur M. Blank reached a preliminary agreement with the Falcons' Taylor Smith to purchase the team. In a special meeting prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans on February 2, 2002, NFL owners voted unanimously to approve the purchase.
The 2002 season saw the Falcons return to the playoffs with a regular season record of 9–6–1, tying the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was Vick's first year as the starter, and the team, with newly acquired running back Warrick Dunn, delivered the Green Bay Packers their first home playoff loss ever. A 20–6 loss to the Donovan McNabb-led Philadelphia Eagles the following week, however, ended the Falcons' season.
On March 19, 2003, the Falcons presented their new logo. During the 2003 preseason Vick broke his leg and missed the first 12 games of the season. After losing 7 straight games, the decision was made to release head coach Dan Reeves. Wade Phillips acted as interim coach for the final 3 games. Although the Falcons won 3 of their last 4 games after the return of Vick, they ended up with a 5–11 record that year. In 2004, a new head coach, Jim L. Mora, was hired and Vick returned for the full season. The Falcons went 11–5, winning their third division title and earning a first-round bye into the playoffs. In the divisional playoffs, the Falcons defeated the St. Louis Rams, 47–17, in the Georgia Dome, advancing to the NFC Championship Game, which they lost to the Eagles, 27–10.
The Falcons again fell short of achieving back-to-back winning seasons in , going 8–8. In , Michael Vick became the first quarterback in league history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season, with 1,039. After finishing the season 7–9, however, coach Jim Mora was dismissed and Bobby Petrino, the University of Louisville's football coach, replaced him. Before the 2007 season began, Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL after pleading guilty to charges involving dog fighting in the state of Virginia. On December 10, 2007, Vick received a 23-month prison sentence and was officially cut from the Atlanta roster.
For the 2007 season, the Falcons were forced to start Joey Harrington at quarterback. On December 11, 13 games into his first NFL season as head coach, Bobby Petrino resigned without notice to coach at the University of Arkansas, leaving the beleaguered players only a note in the locker room. Secondary Coach Emmitt Thomas was named interim coach for the final three games of the season on December 12. The Falcons ended the year with a dismal 4–12 record.
After the tumultuous and disappointing 2007 season, the Falcons made a number of moves, hiring a new General Manager and head coach, drafting a new starting quarterback, and signing a starting running back.
On January 13, 2008, the Falcons named former Patriots director of college football scouting Thomas Dimitroff General Manager. On January 23, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coach and former linebackers coach for the 2000 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens Mike Smith was named the Falcons' new head coach. Chargers back-up RB Michael Turner agreed to a 6-year deal, $30 million deal on March 2. On April 26, Matt Ryan (quarterback from Boston College) was drafted third overall in the 2008 NFL draft by the Falcons.
The Falcons finished the 2008 regular season with a record of 11–5, and the #5 seed in the playoffs. On December 21, 2008, Atlanta beat the Minnesota Vikings 24–17 to clinch a wild card spot, earning a trip to the playoffs for the first time since 2004. The Falcons would go on to lose in the wild-card round of the 2008 NFL playoffs to the eventual NFC champion Arizona Cardinals, 30–24.
Matt Ryan started all 16 games in his rookie season and was named the Associated Press Offensive Rookie of the Year. First-year head coach Mike Smith was named 2008 NFL Coach of the Year.
Although they failed to make the playoffs in 2009 the team rallied to win their final three regular season games to record back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in franchise history. The Falcons defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20–10 in the final game of the season to improve their record to 9–7.
In 2010, with a regular season record of 13–3, the Falcons secured a third straight winning season, their fourth overall divisional title, and the top overall seed in the NFC playoffs; however, the Falcons were overpowered by the eventual Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional Playoffs 48–21. The Falcons scored 414 points – the fifth-most in franchise history. The team sent an NFL-high and franchise-best nine players to the 2011 Pro Bowl.
The Falcons made a surprise trade up with the Cleveland Browns in the 2011 NFL draft to select Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones sixth overall. In exchange, the Falcons gave up their first-, second- and fourth-round draft picks in 2011, and their first and fourth draft picks in 2012. Jones, along with teammates Tony Gonzalez and Roddy White, have since been dubbed Atlanta's "Big Three" (based on their total number of reception yards). On August 30, 2011, Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King, who correctly predicted the 2011 Super Bowl, made his predictions for the 2011 season and picked the Falcons to defeat the San Diego Chargers in the 2012 Super Bowl. The Falcons finished the season at 10–6, securing the fifth seed after a Week 17 beatdown of Tampa Bay in which the Falcons pulled their starters after leading 42–0 just 23 minutes into the game.
The Falcons then went on to play the New York Giants in a 2011 NFC Wild Card Game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The first half was a defensive struggle, with the first points coming off of a safety by the Falcons, giving Atlanta a 2–0 lead. In the 2nd quarter, though, Eli Manning connected with Hakeem Nicks for a short touchdown pass to make it 7–2 Giants heading into the 2nd half. Then the Giants took control, as Manning threw for two more TD passes to Mario Manningham and Nicks and the defense completed its shutout of the Falcons to give the New York Giants the win, 24–2, and the Falcons their third straight playoff loss with Matt Ryan and Mike Smith. After the season Defense Coordinator Brian VanGorder accepted a coaching job at Auburn University, and the offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey took the head coaching job in Jacksonville.
Atlanta exploded out of the gate, going a franchise best 8–0 and remaining the last unbeaten team in the NFL that year. Their hopes to get an undefeated season came to an end with a 27–31 loss to the division rival Saints. Julio Jones had a remarkable second year, grabbing 10 touchdowns and 1,198 yards. The Falcons finished the season 13–3, and clinched the number one seed in the NFC playoffs.
The Falcons played the Seattle Seahawks in their first playoff game. Although they went down 28–27 with only 31 seconds left on the clock, Matt Ryan led the team to their first playoff victory, 30–28. It was the only playoff victory in the Mike Smith era.
The Atlanta Falcons then advanced to face the San Francisco 49ers. The Falcons seized control of the game early with a Matt Bryant field goal, a trio of Matt Ryan touchdown passes caught by Julio Jones and Tony Gonzalez coupled with outstanding defensive play. By the end of the half, the score was 24–14. The tides of the game began to shift in the second half as the 49ers rallied back with a pair of Frank Gore touchdown runs. Atlanta's offense attempted to reply but were ultimately shut down by the 49er defense. A few series later, late in the 4th quarter with little time remaining, Atlanta found themselves in a 4th and 4 situation at the 10-yard line. The Falcons needed just 10 more yards to secure victory and advance to their first Super Bowl berth in 14 years. Matt Ryan fired a pass to Roddy White which was ultimately broken up by inside linebacker NaVorro Bowman, resulting in a 28–24 defeat.
Following the success of the previous season, the Falcons were an expected Super Bowl contender. However, injuries hampered the team's performance and the team finished the season 4–12. With that, the streak of consecutive winning seasons came to an end and Mike Smith had his first losing season as a head coach. Tony Gonzalez, in his final season in the NFL, was selected to the 2014 Pro Bowl as a starter representing Team Rice. Following the conclusion of the 2012 season, director of player personnel Les Snead departed the team to join the St. Louis Rams and Dave Caldwell, assistant to general manager Thomas Dimitroff, left the team to join the Jacksonville Jaguars. Scott Pioli, former GM of the New England Patriots, was announced as the Falcons' new assistant GM. Mike Smith was given a one-year extension on his contract as head coach. The Falcons had the 6th overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft with which they selected Jake Matthews, who played as offensive tackle for Texas A&M.
Despite having another rough season, the Falcons still had an opportunity to qualify for the playoffs at the end of the regular season. The Falcons hosted the Carolina Panthers in their regular season finale, with the winners clinching the NFC South division. Unfortunately, the Falcons lost in a 34–3 blowout as Matt Ryan threw two interceptions that were returned for touchdowns and got sacked six times. The Falcons finished the season 6–10, marking the second consecutive losing season for the team. The following day, Mike Smith was fired after seven seasons as head coach. The Falcons would soon hire Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as the team's 16th head coach. The Falcons had the 8th overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft with which they selected Vic Beasley, a defensive end from Clemson University.
In February 2015, the team was investigated by the NFL for alleged use of artificial crowd noise in the Georgia Dome. The Falcons lost a 2016 NFL Draft selection as a result of the league's investigation.
Dan Quinn's first season saw a 5–0 start, the team's best start in four years. They would then struggle throughout the rest of the season by losing 8 of their last 11 games, resulting in an 8–8 record. They did, however, give the Panthers their only regular season loss. The Falcons used their first-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft on safety Keanu Neal from the University of Florida.
In the Falcons' 25th and final season in the Georgia Dome, Atlanta lost their Week 1 game to the Buccaneers 24–31. The Falcons would then win their next four including one over the Panthers, when the franchise set new records. Matt Ryan threw for 503 yards, and Julio Jones caught 12 passes for 300 yards. With a 41–13 thrashing of the San Francisco 49ers in Week 15, the Falcons improved to 9–5 and secured their first winning season since 2012. One week later, the Falcons defeated the Panthers in Charlotte, North Carolina and clinched their first NFC South division title since 2012. In their last regular season game at the Georgia Dome, the Falcons defeated the New Orleans Saints, and secured an 11–5 record and a first round bye.
In the divisional round of the playoffs, Atlanta defeated the Seahawks 36–20 in the Georgia Dome, and hosted their last game at the Dome against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game on January 22, 2017. The Falcons defeated the Packers 44–21 to advance to Super Bowl LI as the NFC champions. Atlanta was up 28–3 late in the third quarter, and the New England Patriots scored 31 unanswered points, with the last 6 in the first-ever overtime in the Super Bowl. The Patriots' 25-point comeback was the largest in Super Bowl history.
In 2016, the Falcons scored 540 points in the regular season, the seventh-most in NFL history, tied with the Greatest Show on Turf (the 2000 St. Louis Rams). However, the Falcons defense gave up 406 points, 27th in the league.
The Falcons moved into their new home, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, this season. Their first game ever played at the new stadium was a preseason loss to the Arizona Cardinals. The first regular season game at the new stadium was a rematch of the 2016–17 NFC Championship, with Atlanta defeating Green Bay 34–23. Their first loss of the season was a 23–17 home defeat to the Buffalo Bills in week 4. The team returned to the playoffs with a 10–6 record (albeit with a third-place finish in the NFC South). The Falcons defeated the Los Angeles Rams 26–13 in the Wild Card round, but their 2017 season came to an end a week later in the Divisional Playoff round at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles 15–10.
The Falcons have called three stadiums home in their 51 years of existence, and its third home in their history opened in the late summer of 2017. The first was the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, sharing with the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team until 1991. In 1992, the Georgia Dome was built, and the Falcons played there from its opening to the 2016 season. The Dome has been frequently used for college football, including Georgia State football and college bowl games such as the Peach Bowl.
In an effort to replace the aging Georgia Dome and potentially host a future Super Bowl, team owner Arthur Blank proposed a deal with the city of Atlanta to build a new state-of-the-art stadium not far from where the Georgia Dome is located. Blank will contribute $800 million and the city of Atlanta will contribute an additional $200 million via bonds backed by the city's hotel/motel tax towards the construction of a retractable roof stadium. Blank will contribute additional money for cost overruns if it is needed. The team will provide up to $50 million towards infrastructure costs that weren't included in the construction budget and to retire the remaining debt on the Georgia Dome. In addition, Blank's foundation and the city will each provide $15 million for development in surrounding neighborhoods. Though the total cost of the stadium was initially estimated to be around $1 billion, the total cost was revised to $1.5 billion according to Blank. In March 2013, the Atlanta City Council voted 11–4 in favor of building the stadium. The retractable roof Mercedes-Benz Stadium broke ground in May 2014, and became the third home stadium for the Falcons and the first for the new Atlanta United FC Major League Soccer club upon opening in 2017.
The Atlanta Falcons' colors are red, black, silver and white. When the team began play in 1966, the Falcons wore red helmets with a black falcon crest logo. In the center of the helmet was a center black stripe surrounded by two gold stripes and two white stripes. These colors represented the two college rival schools in the state of Georgia; rival schools Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (white and gold) and the Georgia Bulldogs (red and black). Although the gold was removed after several seasons, the white remains to this day. They wore white pants and either black or white jerseys. At first, the falcon crest logo was also put on the jersey sleeves, but it was replaced by a red and white stripe pattern four years later. They switched from black to red jerseys in 1971, and the club began to wear silver pants in 1978. The facemasks on the helmets were initially gray, becoming white in 1978, and then black in 1984; the team has worn black facemasks since then.
A prototype white helmet was developed for the team prior to the 1974 season, but was never worn.
In 1990, the uniform design changed to black helmets, silver pants, and either black or white jerseys. The numbers on the white jerseys were black, but were changed to red in 1997. (The red numerals could be seen on the away jerseys briefly in 1990.)
Both the logo and uniforms changed in 2003. The logo was redesigned with red and silver accents to depict a more powerful, aggressive falcon, which now more closely resembles the capital letter "F".
Although the Falcons still wore black helmets, the new uniforms featured jerseys and pants with red trim down the sides. The uniform design consisted of either black or white jerseys, and either black or white pants. During that same year, a red alternate jersey with black trim was also introduced. The Falcons also started wearing black cleats with these uniforms.
In 2004, the red jerseys became the primary jerseys, and the black ones became the alternate, both worn with white pants. In select road games, the Falcons wear black pants with white jerseys. The Falcons wore an all-black combination for home games against their archrivals, the New Orleans Saints, winning the first two contests (24–21 in and 36–17 in ), but losing 31–13 in . The Falcons wore the all black combination against the New Orleans Saints for four straight seasons starting in 2004, With the last time being in 2007, losing 34–14. They wore the combination again in 2006, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2. The Falcons won that game, 14–3. The Falcons also wore their all-black uniform in 2007 against the New York Giants, and in 2008 against the Carolina Panthers and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (for the second time). After that, the black pants and uniforms were retired and the white pants were now used full-time with the regular uniforms.
In the 1980s, the Falcons wore their white uniforms at home most of the time because of the heat. When the Falcons started playing in a dome, the team switched to their dark uniforms for home games but have worn their white uniforms at home a few times since switching to the dome. It was announced at the 2009 state of the franchise meeting that the Falcons would wear 1966 throwback uniforms for a couple games during the 2009 season. The Atlanta Falcons wore 1966 throwback jerseys for two home games in 2009 – against the Carolina Panthers on September 20 and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 29. The Falcons won both of those games. They donned the throwbacks again for 2 games in 2010, against Baltimore and San Francisco, winning both of those games as well. The throwbacks were used twice in 2011 and 2012; both times were against the Panthers and Saints. However, the throwbacks were retired following a 2013 NFL rule requiring only one helmet shell per team.
The Falcons unveiled an all-red Color Rush uniform on September 13, 2016; however, due to the fact that the Falcons and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had similar all-red Color Rush uniforms, the Falcons were unable to wear their Color Rush uniform until the 2017 season.
Also in 2016, the Falcons unveiled a mixed throwback uniform set. The uniform tops, pants and socks closely resembled their 1960s kits. But due to the NFL's one-shell rule that prevented them from resurrecting the red helmets, the Falcons instead wore the black helmets with the original logo decal similar to the design they wore in the 1990s.
It was revealed in January 2020 that the Falcons will change uniforms for the 2020 NFL season.
In every season except for their debut season, the Falcons have shared a division with the New Orleans Saints (first the NFC West, and now the NFC South). Over this time, a heated rivalry has developed between the two cities' franchises, as they were the only two NFL teams in the Deep South for quite some time. The series is the oldest and most iconic rivalry in the NFC South. Atlanta leads the series 52–48.
In addition, the Falcons share a similar, yet smaller, rivalry with the Carolina Panthers, with both teams having been in the NFC West from the Panthers' founding in 1995 to the NFL realignment in 2002, where they have been in the NFC South since then. The Falcons lead the series 27–17.
Finally, the Falcons share a rivalry with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers since the NFL realignment in 2002. Before that, Tampa Bay was in the AFC West. After, they were in the NFC Central before the realignment.
Includes postseason records
Source:
! Total || 365 || 452 || 6 || || || || || 10–14 ()
Sanders, Humphrey, Andersen, and Gonzalez are the only players in the Hall of Fame that have been inducted based substantially on their service with the Falcons. Andersen spent eight of his 25 NFL seasons with the Falcons, previously being the team's all-time scoring leader, but he also played his first 13 NFL seasons with the New Orleans Saints, leading that team's career scoring list.
The Atlanta Falcons organization does not officially retire jersey numbers, but considers certain players' jerseys worthy of being honored. The Falcons Ring of Honor, which is featured in the rafters of the Georgia Dome, honors individual players.
In their history, the Atlanta Falcons have had 15 head coaches.
Falcons' flagship radio station is WZGC 92.9 The Game. Wes Durham, son of longtime North Carolina Tar Heels voice Woody Durham, is the Falcons' play-by-play announcer, with former Atlanta Falcons QB and pro football veteran, Dave Archer serving as color commentator.
In 2014, The CW owned-and-operated station WUPA became the official television station of the Falcons, gaining rights to its preseason games, which are produced by CBS Sports.
In the regular season, the team's games are seen on Fox's O&O affiliate WAGA. When the Falcons challenge an AFC team, CBS affiliate WGCL will air those games while Sunday night games are televised on WXIA, the local NBC affiliate.
Source: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2103 |
Heathenry in the United States
Heathenry is a modern Pagan new religious movement that has been active in the United States since at least the early 1970s. Although the term "Heathenry" is often employed to cover the entire religious movement, different Heathen groups within the United States often prefer the term "Ásatrú" or "Odinism" as self-designations.
Heathenry appeared in the United States during the 1960s, at the same time as the wider emergence of modern Paganism in the United States. Among the earliest American group was the Odinist Fellowship, founded by Danish migrant Else Christensen in 1969.
Ásatrú grew steadily in the United States during the 1960s. In 1969, the Danish Odinist Else Christensen established the Odinist Fellowship from her home in Florida, U.S.A. Heavily influenced by Alexander Rud Mills' writings, she began publication of a magazine, "The Odinist", although this focused to a greater extent on right-wing and racialist ideas than theological ones. Stephen McNallen first founded the Viking Brotherhood in the early 1970s, before creating the Ásatrú Free Assembly (AFA) in 1976, which broke up in 1986 amid widespread political disagreements after McNallen's repudiation of neo-Nazis within the group. In the 1990s, McNallen founded the Ásatrú Folk Assembly (AFA), an ethnically oriented Heathen group headquartered in California.
Meanwhile, Valgard Murray and his kindred in Arizona founded the Ásatrú Alliance (AA) in the late 1980s, which shared the AFA's perspectives on race and which published the "Vor Tru" newsletter. In 1987, Edred Thorsson and James Chisholm founded The Troth, which was incorporated in Texas. Taking an inclusive, non-racialist view, it soon grew into an international organisation.
In English usage, the genitive "" "of Æsir faith" is often used on its own to denote adherents (both singular and plural). This term is favored by practitioners who focus on the deities of Scandinavia, although it is problematic as many Asatruar worship deities and entities other than the Æsir, such as the Vanir, Valkyries, Elves, and Dwarves. Other practitioners term their religion "Vanatrú", meaning "those who honour the Vanir" or "Dísitrú", meaning "those who honour the Goddesses", depending on their particular theological emphasis.
Within the community it is sometimes stated that the term "Ásatrú" pertains to groups which are not racially focused, while "Odinism" is the term preferred by racially oriented groups. However, in practice, there is no such neat division in terminology.
There are notable differences of emphasis between "Ásatrú" as practiced in the US and in Scandinavia. According to Strmiska and Sigurvinsson (2005), American Asatruar tend to prefer a more devotional form of worship and a more emotional conception of the Nordic gods than Scandinavian practitioners, reflecting the parallel tendency of highly emotional forms of Christianity prevalent in the United States.
Although deeming it impossible to calculate the exact size of the Heathen community in the US, sociologist Jeffrey Kaplan estimated that, in the mid-1990s, there were around 500 active practitioners in the country, with a further thousand individuals on the periphery of the movement. He noted that the overwhelming majority of individuals in the movement were white, male, and young. Most had at least an undergraduate degree, and worked in a mix of white collar and blue collar jobs. From her experience within the community, Snook concurred that the majority of American Heathens were male, adding also that most were also white and middle-aged, but believed that there had been a growth in the proportion of Heathen women in the US since the mid-1990s.
The Pagan Census project led by Helen A. Berger, Evan A. Leach, and Leigh S. Shaffer gained 60 responses from Heathens in the US, noting that 65% were male and 35% female, which they saw as the "opposite" of the rest of the country's Pagan community. The majority had a college education, but were generally less well educated than the wider Pagan community, with a lower median income than the wider Pagan community too.
Subsequent assessments have suggested a larger support base; 10,000 to 20,000 according to McNallen, and 7,878 according to the 2014 census.
Ásatrú organizations have memberships which span the entire political and spiritual spectrum. There is a history of political controversy within organized US Ásatrú, mostly surrounding the question of how to deal with such adherents as place themselves in a context of the far right and white supremacy, notably resulting in the fragmentation of the "Asatru Free Assembly" in 1986.
Externally, political activity on the part of Ásatrú organizations has surrounded campaigns against alleged religious discrimination, such as the call for the introduction of an Ásatrú "emblem of belief" by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs to parallel the Wiccan pentacle granted to the widow of Patrick Stewart in 2006. In May 2013, the "Hammer of Thor" was added to the list of United States Department of Veterans Affairs emblems for headstones and markers. It was reported in early 2019 that a Heathenry service was held on the U.S. Navy's USS John C. Stennis
Historically, the main dispute between the national organizations has generally centered on the interpretation of "Nordic heritage" as either something cultural, or as something genetic or racial. In the internal discourse within American Ásatrú, this cultural/racial divide has long been known as "universalist" vs. "folkish" Ásatrú.
The Troth takes the "universalist" position, claiming "Ásatrú" as a synonym for "Northern European Heathenry" taken to comprise "many variations, names, and practices, including Theodism, Irminism, Odinism, and Anglo-Saxon Heathenry". The Asatru Folk Assembly takes the folkish position, claiming that Ásatrú and the Germanic beliefs are ancestral in nature, and as an indigenous religion of the European Folk should only be accessed by the descendants of Europe. In the UK, Germanic Neopaganism is more commonly known as Odinism or as "Heathenry". This is mostly a matter of terminology, and US Ásatrú may be equated with UK Odinism for practical purposes, as is evident in the short-lived International Asatru-Odinic Alliance of folkish Ásatrú/Odinist groups.
Some groups identifying as Ásatrú have been associated with national socialist and white nationalist movements. Wotansvolk for example is an explicitly racial form.
More recently, however, many Ásatrú groups have been taking a harder stance against these elements of their community. Declaration 127, so named for the corresponding stanza of the Hávamál: "When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frið” is a collective statement denouncing and testifying disassociation with the Asatru Folk Assembly for alleged racial and sexually-discriminatory practices and beliefs signed by over 150 Ásatrú religious organizations from over 15 different nations mainly represented on Facebook.
Inmates of the "Intensive Management Unit" at Washington State Penitentiary who are adherents of Ásatrú in 2001 were deprived of their Thor's Hammer medallions.
In 2007, a federal judge confirmed that Ásatrú adherents in US prisons have the right to possess a Thor's Hammer pendant. An inmate sued the Virginia Department of Corrections after he was denied it while members of other religions were allowed their medallions.
In the Georgacarakos v. Watts case Peter N. Georgacarakos filed a pro se civil-rights complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado against 19 prison officials for "interference with the free exercise of his Ásatrú religion" and "discrimination on the basis of his being Ásatrú". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2104 |
Ansible
An ansible is a category of fictional device or technology capable of near-instantaneous or superluminal communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no delay, even between star systems. As a name for such a device, the word "ansible" first appeared in a 1966 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Since that time, the term has been broadly used in the works of numerous science fiction authors, across a variety of settings and continuities.
Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word "ansible" in her 1966 novel "Rocannon's World". The word was a contraction of "answerable", as the device would allow its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances.
Although Le Guin invented the name "ansible" for this type of device, fleshed out with specific details in her fictional works, the broader concept of instantaneous or faster-than-light communication had previously existed in science fiction. For example, similar communication functions were included in a device called an interocitor in the 1952 novel "This Island Earth" by Raymond F. Jones, and the 1955 film based on that novel, and in the "Dirac Communicator", which first appeared in James Blish's short story "Beep" (1954), which was later expanded into the novel "The Quincunx of Time" (1973).
In her subsequent works, Le Guin continued to develop the concept of the ansible:
Any ansible may be used to communicate through any other, by setting its coordinates to those of the receiving ansible. They have a limited bandwidth which only allows for at most a few hundred characters of text to be communicated in any transaction of a dialog session, and are attached to a keyboard and small display to perform text messaging.
Since Le Guin's conception of the ansible, the name of the device has been borrowed by numerous authors. While Le Guin's ansible was said to communicate "instantaneously", the name has also been adopted for devices capable of communication at finite speeds that are faster than light.
Orson Scott Card, in his 1977 novelette and 1985 novel "Ender's Game" and its sequels, used the term "ansible" as an unofficial name for the philotic parallax instantaneous communicator, a machine capable of communicating across infinite distances with no time delay. In "Ender's Game", a character states that "somebody dredged the name "ansible" out of an old book somewhere."
In the universe of the "Ender's Game" series, the ansible's functions involved a fictional subatomic particle, the philote. The two quarks inside a pi meson can be separated by an arbitrary distance, while remaining connected by "philotic rays". This concept is similar to quantum teleportation due to entanglement; however, in reality, quark confinement prevents quarks from being separated by any observable distance.
Card's version of the ansible was also featured in the video game "Advent Rising", for which Card helped write the story, and in the movie "Ender's Game", which was based on the book.
Numerous other writers have included faster-than-light communication devices in their fictional works. Notable examples include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2106 |
Adalbert of Prague
Adalbert of Prague (, , , , ; 95623 April 997), known in Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia by his birth name Vojtěch (), was a Bohemian missionary and Christian saint. He was the Bishop of Prague and a missionary to the Hungarians, Poles, and Prussians, who was martyred in his efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians to Christianity. He is said to be the composer of the oldest Czech hymn "Hospodine, pomiluj ny" and "Bogurodzica", the oldest known Polish hymn, but his authorship of it has not been confirmed.
St. Adalbert was later declared the patron saint of the Czech Republic, Poland and the Duchy of Prussia. He is also the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Esztergom in Hungary.
Born as "Vojtěch" in 952 or ca. 956 in gord Libice, he belonged to the Slavnik clan, one of the two most powerful families in Bohemia. Events from his life were later recorded by a Bohemian priest Cosmas of Prague (1045–1125). Vojtěch's father was Slavník (d. 978–981), a duke ruling a province centred at Libice. His mother was Střezislava (d. 985–987), and according to David Kalhous belonged to the Přemyslid dynasty. He had five brothers: Soběslav, Spytimír, Dobroslav, Pořej, and Čáslav. Cosmas also refers to Radim (later Gaudentius) as a brother; who is believed to have been a half-brother by his father's liaison with another woman. After he survived a grave illness in childhood, his parents decided to dedicate him to the service of God. Adalbert was well educated, having studied for approximately ten years (970-80) in Magdeburg under the tutelage of St. Adalbert of Magdeburg. The young Vojtěch took his tutor's name "Adalbert" at his Confirmation.
In 981 St. Adalbert of Magdeburg died, and his young protege Adalbert returned to Bohemia. Later Bishop Dietmar of Prague ordained him a Catholic priest. In 982, Bishop Dietmar died, and Adalbert, despite being under canonical age, was chosen to succeed him as Bishop of Prague. Amiable and somewhat worldly, he was not expected to trouble the secular powers by making excessive claims for the Church. Although Adalbert was from a wealthy family, he avoided comfort and luxury, and was noted for his charity and austerity. After six years of preaching and prayer, he had made little headway in evangelizing the Bohemians, who maintained deeply embedded pagan beliefs.
Adalbert opposed the participation of Christians in the slave trade and complained of polygamy and idolatry, which were common among the people. Once he started to propose reforms he was met with opposition from both the secular powers and the clergy. His family refused to support Duke Boleslaus in an unsuccessful war against Poland. Adalbert was no longer welcome and eventually forced into exile. In 988 he went to Rome. He lived as a hermit at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Alexis. Five years later, Boleslaus requested that the Pope send Adalbert back to Prague, in hopes of securing his family's support. Pope John XV agreed, with the understanding that Adalbert was free to leave Prague if he continued to encounter entrenched resistance. Adalbert returned as bishop of Prague, where he was initially received with demonstrations of apparent joy. Together with a group of Italian Benedictine monks which brought with him, he founded in 14 January 993 a monastery in Břevnov (then situated westward from Prague, now part of the city), the second oldest monastery on Czech territory.
In 995, the Slavniks' former rivalry with the Přemyslids, who were allied with the powerful Bohemian clan of the Vršovcis, resulted in the storming of the Slavnik town of Libice nad Cidlinou, which was led by the Přemyslid Boleslaus II the Pious. During the struggle four or five of Adalbert's brothers were killed. The Zlič Principality became part of the Přemyslids' estate. Adalbert unsuccessfully attempted to protect a noblewoman caught in adultery. She had fled to a convent, where she was killed. In upholding the right of sanctuary, Bishop Adalbert responded by excommunicating the murderers. Butler suggests that the incident was orchestrated by enemies of his family.
After this, Adalbert could not safely stay in Bohemia and escaped from Prague. Strachkvas was eventually appointed to be his successor. However, Strachkvas suddenly died during the liturgy at which he was to accede to his episcopal office in Prague. The cause of his death is still ambiguous. The Pope directed Adalbert to resume his see, but believing that he would not be allowed back, Adalbert requested a brief as an itinerant missionary.
Adalbert then traveled to Hungary and probably baptized Géza of Hungary and his son Stephen in Esztergom. Then he went to Poland where he was cordially welcomed by then-Duke Boleslaus I and installed as Bishop of Gniezno.
Adalbert again relinquished his diocese, namely that of Gniezno, and set out as a missionary to preach to the inhabitants near Prussia. Bolesław I, Duke (and, later, King) of Poland, sent soldiers with Adalbert on his mission to the Prussians. The Bishop and his companions, including his half-brother Radim (Gaudentius), entered Prussian territory and traveled along the coast of the Baltic Sea to Gdańsk.
Success attended his efforts at first, but his imperious manner in commanding the people to abandon paganism irritated them, and at the instigation of one of the pagan priests he was murdered on 23 April 997 on the Baltic Sea coast east of Truso (currently the city of Elbląg) or near Tenkitten and Fischhausen (now Primorsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia). It is recorded that his body was bought back for its weight in gold by King Boleslaus I of Poland.
A few years after his martyrdom, Adalbert was canonized as St. Adalbert of Prague. His life was written in "Vita Sancti Adalberti Pragensis" by various authors, the earliest being traced to imperial Aachen and the Bishop of Liège, Notger von Lüttich, although it was previously assumed that the Roman monk John Canaparius wrote the first "Vita" in 999. Another famous biographer of St. Adalbert was St. Bruno of Querfurt who wrote a hagiography of him in 1001–4.
Notably, the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia initially refused to ransom St. Adalbert's body from the Prussians who murdered him, and therefore it was purchased by Poles. This fact may be explained by the Saint belonging to the Slavniks family which was rival to the Přemyslids. Thus St. Adalbert's bones were preserved in Gniezno, which assisted Boleslaus I of Poland in increasing Polish political and diplomatic power in Europe.
According to Bohemian accounts, in 1039 the Bohemian Duke Břetislav I looted the bones of St. Adalbert from Gniezno in a raid and translated them to Prague. According to Polish accounts, however, he stole the wrong relics, namely those of St. Gaudentius, while the Poles concealed St. Adalbert's relics which remain in Gniezno. In 1127 his severed head, which was not in the original purchase according to "Roczniki Polskie", was discovered and translated to Gniezno. In 1928, one of the arms of St. Adalbert, which Bolesław I had given to Holy Roman Emperor Otto III in 1000, was added to the bones preserved in Gniezno. Therefore, today St. Adalbert has two elaborate shrines in the Prague Cathedral and Royal Cathedral of Gniezno, each of which claims to possess his relics, but which of these bones are his authentic relics is unknown. For example, pursuant to both claims the Saint has two skulls. The one in Gniezno was stolen in 1923.
The massive bronze doors of Gniezno Cathedral, dating from around 1175, are decorated with eighteen reliefs of scenes from the Saint's life. They are the only Romanesque ecclesiastical doors in Europe depicting a cycle illustrating the life of a saint, and therefore are a precious relic documenting Adalbert's martyrdom. We can read that door literally and theologically.
The one thousandth anniversary of St. Adalbert's martyrdom was on 23 April 1997. It was commemorated in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, and other nations. Representatives of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Evangelical churches traveled on a pilgrimage to the Saint's tomb located in Gniezno. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral and celebrated a liturgy there in which heads of seven European nations and approximately one million faithful participated.
A ten-meter cross was erected near the village of Beregovoe (formerly Tenkitten), Kaliningrad Oblast, where St. Adalbert is thought to have been martyred by the Prussians.
The Dagmar and Václav Havel VIZE 97 Foundation Prize, given annually to a distinguished thinker "whose work exceeds the traditional framework of scientific knowledge, contributes to the understanding of science as an integral part of general culture and is concerned with unconventional ways of asking fundamental questions about cognition, being and human existence"
includes a massive replica of St. Adalbert's crozier by Czech artist Jiří Plieštík.
St. Vojtech Fellowship was established in 1870 by Slovak Catholic priest Andrej Radlinský. It had facilitated Slovak Catholic thinkers and authors, continuing to publish religious original works and translations to this day. It is the official publishing body of Episcopal Conference of Slovakia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2108 |
Ælfheah of Canterbury
Ælfheah (c. 953 – 19 April 1012), more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His reputation for piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate and, eventually, to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 during the Siege of Canterbury and killed by them the following year after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonised as a saint in 1078. Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to him just before his own murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
Ælfheah was born around 953, supposedly in Weston on the outskirts of Bath, and became a monk early in life. He first entered the monastery of Deerhurst, but then moved to Bath, where he became an anchorite. He was noted for his piety and austerity and rose to become abbot of Bath Abbey. The 12th century chronicler William of Malmesbury recorded that Ælfheah was a monk and prior at Glastonbury Abbey, but this is not accepted by all historians. Indications are that Ælfheah became abbot at Bath by 982, perhaps as early as around 977. He perhaps shared authority with his predecessor Æscwig after 968.
Probably due to the influence of Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury (959–988), Ælfheah was elected Bishop of Winchester in 984, and was consecrated on 19 October that year. While bishop he was largely responsible for the construction of a large organ in the cathedral, audible from over a mile (1600 m) away and said to require more than 24 men to operate. He also built and enlarged the city's churches, and promoted the cult of Swithun and his own predecessor, Æthelwold of Winchester. One act promoting Æthelwold's cult was the translation of Æthelwold's body to a new tomb in the cathedral at Winchester, which Ælfheah presided over on 10 September 996.
Following a Viking raid in 994, a peace treaty was agreed with one of the raiders, Olaf Tryggvason. Besides receiving danegeld, Olaf converted to Christianity and undertook never to raid or fight the English again. Ælfheah may have played a part in the treaty negotiations, and it is certain that he confirmed Olaf in his new faith.
In 1006 Ælfheah succeeded Ælfric as Archbishop of Canterbury, taking Swithun's head with him as a relic for the new location. He went to Rome in 1007 to receive his pallium—symbol of his status as an archbishop—from Pope John XVIII, but was robbed during his journey. While at Canterbury he promoted the cult of Dunstan, ordering the writing of the second "Life of Dunstan", which Adelard of Ghent composed between 1006 and 1011. He also introduced new practices into the liturgy, and was instrumental in the Witenagemot's recognition of Wulfsige of Sherborne as a saint in about 1012.
Ælfheah sent Ælfric of Eynsham to Cerne Abbey to take charge of its monastic school. He was present at the council of May 1008 at which Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, preached his "Sermo Lupi ad Anglos" ("The Sermon of the Wolf to the English"), castigating the English for their moral failings and blaming the latter for the tribulations afflicting the country.
In 1011 the Danes again raided England, and from 8–29 September they laid siege to Canterbury. Aided by the treachery of Ælfmaer, whose life Ælfheah had once saved, the raiders succeeded in sacking the city. Ælfheah was taken prisoner and held captive for seven months. Godwine (Bishop of Rochester), Leofrun (abbess of St Mildrith's), and the king's reeve, Ælfweard were captured also, but the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Ælfmær, managed to escape. Canterbury Cathedral was plundered and burned by the Danes following Ælfheah's capture.
Ælfheah refused to allow a ransom to be paid for his freedom, and as a result was killed on 19 April 1012 at Greenwich (then in Kent, now part of London), reputedly on the site of St Alfege's Church. The account of Ælfheah's death appears in the E version of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle":
Ælfheah was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to die a violent death. A contemporary report tells that Thorkell the Tall attempted to save Ælfheah from the mob about to kill him by offering everything he owned except for his ship, in exchange for Ælfheah's life; Thorkell's presence is not mentioned in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", however. Some sources record that the final blow, with the back of an axe, was delivered as an act of kindness by a Christian convert known as "Thrum." Ælfheah was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. In 1023 his body was moved by King Cnut to Canterbury, with great ceremony. Thorkell the Tall was appalled at the brutality of his fellow raiders, and switched sides to the English king Æthelred the Unready following Ælfheah's death.
Pope Gregory VII canonised Ælfheah in 1078, with a feast day of 19 April. Lanfranc, the first post-Conquest archbishop, was dubious about some of the saints venerated at Canterbury. He was persuaded of Ælfheah's sanctity, but Ælfheah and Augustine of Canterbury were the only pre-conquest Anglo-Saxon archbishops kept on Canterbury's calendar of saints. Ælfheah's shrine, which had become neglected, was rebuilt and expanded in the early 12th century under Anselm of Canterbury, who was instrumental in retaining Ælfheah's name in the church calendar. After the 1174 fire in Canterbury Cathedral, Ælfheah's remains together with those of Dunstan were placed around the high altar, at which Thomas Becket is said to have commended his life into Ælfheah's care shortly before his martyrdom during the Becket controversy. The new shrine was sealed in lead, and was north of the high altar, sharing the honour with Dunstan's shrine, which was located south of the high altar. A "Life of Saint Ælfheah" in prose and verse was written by a Canterbury monk named Osbern, at Lanfranc's request. The prose version has survived, but the "Life" is very much a hagiography: many of the stories it contains have obvious Biblical parallels, making them suspect as a historical record.
In the late medieval period, Ælfheah's feast day was celebrated in Scandinavia, perhaps because of the saint's connection with Cnut. Few church dedications to him are known, with most of them occurring in Kent and one each in London and Winchester; as well as St Alfege's Church in Greenwich, a nearby hospital (1931–1968) was named after him. In Kent there are two 12th century parish churches dedicated to St Alphege at Seasalter and Canterbury. Reputedly his body lay in these churches overnight on his way back to Canterbury Cathedral for burial. In the town of Solihull in the West Midlands St Alphege Church is dedicated to Ælfheah dating back to approximately 1277. In 1929 a new church in Bath was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in homage to the ancient Roman church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and dedicated to Ælfheah under the name of Alphege. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2110 |
Associative algebra
In mathematics, an associative algebra is an algebraic structure with compatible operations of addition, multiplication (assumed to be associative), and a scalar multiplication by elements in some field. The addition and multiplication operations together give "A" the structure of a ring; the addition and scalar multiplication operations together give "A" the structure of a vector space over "K". In this article we will also use the term "K"-algebra"' to mean an associative algebra over the field "K". A standard first example of a "K"-algebra is a ring of square matrices over a field "K", with the usual matrix multiplication.
A commutative algebra is an associative algebra that has a commutative multiplication, or, equivalently, an associative algebra that is also a commutative ring.
In this article associative algebras are assumed to have a multiplicative identity, denoted 1; they are sometimes called unital associative algebras for clarification. In some areas of mathematics this assumption is not made, and we will call such structures non-unital associative algebras. We will also assume that all rings are unital, and all ring homomorphisms are unital.
Many authors consider the more general concept of an associative algebra over a commutative ring "R", instead of a field: An "R"-algebra is an "R"-module with an associative "R"-bilinear binary operation, which also contains a multiplicative identity. For examples of this concept, if "S" is any ring with center "C", then "S" is an associative "C"-algebra.
Let "R" be a fixed commutative ring (so "R" could be a field). An associative "R"-algebra (or more simply, an "R"-algebra) is an additive abelian group "A" which has the structure of both a ring and an "R"-module in such a way that the scalar multiplication satisfies
for all "r" ∈ "R" and "x", "y" ∈ "A". Furthermore, "A" is assumed to be unital, which is to say it contains an element 1 such that
for all "x" ∈ "A". Note that such an element 1 must be unique.
In other words, "A" is an "R"-module together with (1) an "R"-bilinear map "A" × "A" → "A", called the multiplication, and (2) the multiplicative identity, such that the multiplication is associative:
for all "x", "y", and "z" in "A". (Technical note: the multiplicative identity is a datum, while associativity is a property. By the uniqueness of the multiplicative identity, "unitarity" is often treated like a property.) If one drops the requirement for the associativity, then one obtains a non-associative algebra.
If "A" itself is commutative (as a ring) then it is called a "commutative "R"-algebra".
The definition is equivalent to saying that a unital associative "R"-algebra is a monoid object in "R"-Mod (the monoidal category of "R"-modules). By definition, a ring is a monoid object in the category of abelian groups; thus, the notion of an associative algebra is obtained by replacing the category of abelian groups with the category of modules.
Pushing this idea further, some authors have introduced a "generalized ring" as a monoid object in some other category that behaves like the category of modules. Indeed, this reinterpretation allows one to avoid making an explicit reference to elements of an algebra "A". For example, the associativity can be expressed as follows. By the universal property of a tensor product of modules, the multiplication (the "R"-bilinear map) corresponds to a unique "R"-linear map
The associativity then refers to the identity:
An associative algebra amounts to a ring homomorphism whose image lies in the center. Indeed, starting with a ring "A" and a ring homomorphism formula_6 whose image lies in the center of "A", we can make "A" an "R"-algebra by defining
for all "r" ∈ "R" and "x" ∈ "A". If "A" is an "R"-algebra, taking "x" = 1, the same formula in turn defines a ring homomorphism formula_6 whose image lies in the center.
If a ring is commutative then it equals its center, so that a commutative "R"-algebra can be defined simply as a commutative ring "A" together with a commutative ring homomorphism formula_6.
The ring homomorphism "η" appearing in the above is often called a structure map. In the commutative case, one can consider the category whose objects are ring homomorphisms "R" → "A"; i.e., commutative "R"-algebras and whose morphisms are ring homomorphisms "A" → "A" that are under "R"; i.e., "R" → "A" → "A" is "R" → "A" (i.e., the coslice category of the category of commutative rings under "R".) The prime spectrum functor Spec then determines an anti-equivalence of this category to the category of affine schemes over Spec "R".
How to weaken the commutativity assumption is a subject matter of noncommutative algebraic geometry and, more recently, of derived algebraic geometry. See also: generic matrix ring.
A homomorphism between two "R"-algebras is an "R"-linear ring homomorphism. Explicitly, formula_10 is an associative algebra homomorphism if
The class of all "R"-algebras together with algebra homomorphisms between them form a category, sometimes denoted "R"-Alg.
The subcategory of commutative "R"-algebras can be characterized as the coslice category "R"/CRing where CRing is the category of commutative rings.
The most basic example is a ring itself; it is an algebra over its center or any subring lying in the center. In particular, any commutative ring is an algebra over any of its subrings. Other examples abound both from algebra and other fields of mathematics.
Let "A" be an algebra over a commutative ring "R". Then the algebra "A" is a right module over formula_22 with the action formula_23. Then, by definition, "A" is said to separable if the multiplication map formula_24 splits as an formula_21-linear map, where formula_26 is an formula_21-module by formula_28. Equivalently,
formula_16 is separable if it is a projective module over formula_21; thus, the formula_21-projective dimension of "A", sometimes called the bidimension of "A", measures the failure of separability.
An associative algebra over "K" is given by a "K"-vector space "A" endowed with a bilinear map "A" × "A" → "A" having two inputs (multiplicator and multiplicand) and one output (product), as well as a morphism "K" → "A" identifying the scalar multiples of the multiplicative identity. If the bilinear map "A" × "A" → "A" is reinterpreted as a linear map (i. e., morphism in the category of "K"-vector spaces) "A" ⊗ "A" → "A" (by the universal property of the tensor product), then we can view an associative algebra over "K" as a "K"-vector space "A" endowed with two morphisms (one of the form "A" ⊗ "A" → "A" and one of the form "K" → "A") satisfying certain conditions that boil down to the algebra axioms. These two morphisms can be dualized using categorial duality by reversing all arrows in the commutative diagrams that describe the algebra axioms; this defines the structure of a coalgebra.
There is also an abstract notion of "F"-coalgebra, where "F" is a functor. This is vaguely related to the notion of coalgebra discussed above.
A representation of an algebra "A" is an algebra homomorphism "ρ" : "A" → End("V") from "A" to the endomorphism algebra of some vector space (or module) "V". The property of "ρ" being an algebra homomorphism means that "ρ" preserves the multiplicative operation (that is, "ρ"("xy") = "ρ"("x")"ρ"("y") for all "x" and "y" in "A"), and that "ρ" sends the unit of "A" to the unit of End("V") (that is, to the identity endomorphism of "V").
If "A" and "B" are two algebras, and "ρ" : "A" → End("V") and "τ" : "B" → End("W") are two representations, then there is a (canonical) representation "A" formula_33 "B" → End("V" formula_33 "W") of the tensor product algebra "A formula_33 B" on the vector space "V formula_33 W". However, there is no natural way of defining a tensor product of two representations of a single associative algebra in such a way that the result is still a representation of that same algebra (not of its tensor product with itself), without somehow imposing additional conditions. Here, by "tensor product of representations", the usual meaning is intended: the result should be a linear representation of the same algebra on the product vector space. Imposing such additional structure typically leads to the idea of a Hopf algebra or a Lie algebra, as demonstrated below.
Consider, for example, two representations formula_37 and formula_38. One might try to form a tensor product representation formula_39 according to how it acts on the product vector space, so that
However, such a map would not be linear, since one would have
for "k" ∈ "K". One can rescue this attempt and restore linearity by imposing additional structure, by defining an algebra homomorphism Δ: "A" → "A" ⊗ "A", and defining the tensor product representation as
Such a homomorphism Δ is called a comultiplication if it satisfies certain axioms. The resulting structure is called a bialgebra. To be consistent with the definitions of the associative algebra, the coalgebra must be co-associative, and, if the algebra is unital, then the co-algebra must be co-unital as well. A Hopf algebra is a bialgebra with an additional piece of structure (the so-called antipode), which allows not only to define the tensor product of two representations, but also the Hom module of two representations (again, similarly to how it is done in the representation theory of groups).
One can try to be more clever in defining a tensor product. Consider, for example,
so that the action on the tensor product space is given by
This map is clearly linear in "x", and so it does not have the problem of the earlier definition. However, it fails to preserve multiplication:
But, in general, this does not equal
This shows that this definition of a tensor product is too naive; the obvious fix is to define it such that it is antisymmetric, so that the middle two terms cancel. This leads to the concept of a Lie algebra.
Some authors use the term "associative algebra" to refer to structures which do not necessarily have a multiplicative identity, and hence consider homomorphisms which are not necessarily unital.
One example of a non-unital associative algebra is given by the set of all functions "f": R → R whose limit as "x" nears infinity is zero.
Another example is the vector space of continuous periodic functions, together with the convolution product. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2112 |
Axiom of regularity
In mathematics, the axiom of regularity (also known as the axiom of foundation) is an axiom of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory that states that every non-empty set "A" contains an element that is disjoint from "A". In first-order logic, the axiom reads:
The axiom of regularity together with the axiom of pairing implies that no set is an element of itself, and that there is no infinite sequence ("an") such that "ai+1" is an element of "ai" for all "i". With the axiom of dependent choice (which is a weakened form of the axiom of choice), this result can be reversed: if there are no such infinite sequences, then the axiom of regularity is true. Hence, in this context the axiom of regularity is equivalent to the sentence that there are no downward infinite membership chains.
The axiom was introduced by ; it was adopted in a formulation closer to the one found in contemporary textbooks by . Virtually all results in the branches of mathematics based on set theory hold even in the absence of regularity; see chapter 3 of . However, regularity makes some properties of ordinals easier to prove; and it not only allows induction to be done on well-ordered sets but also on proper classes that are well-founded relational structures such as the lexicographical ordering on formula_2
Given the other axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, the axiom of regularity is equivalent to the axiom of induction. The axiom of induction tends to be used in place of the axiom of regularity in intuitionistic theories (ones that do not accept the law of the excluded middle), where the two axioms are not equivalent.
In addition to omitting the axiom of regularity, non-standard set theories have indeed postulated the existence of sets that are elements of themselves.
Let "A" be a set, and apply the axiom of regularity to {"A"}, which is a set by the axiom of pairing. We see that there must be an element of {"A"} which is disjoint from {"A"}. Since the only element of {"A"} is "A", it must be that "A" is disjoint from {"A"}. So, since formula_3, we cannot have "A" ∈ "A" (by the definition of disjoint).
Suppose, to the contrary, that there is a function, "f", on the natural numbers with "f"("n"+1) an element of "f"("n") for each "n". Define "S" = {"f"("n"): "n" a natural number}, the range of "f", which can be seen to be a set from the axiom schema of replacement. Applying the axiom of regularity to "S", let "B" be an element of "S" which is disjoint from "S". By the definition of "S", "B" must be "f"("k") for some natural number "k". However, we are given that "f"("k") contains "f"("k"+1) which is also an element of "S". So "f"("k"+1) is in the intersection of "f"("k") and "S". This contradicts the fact that they are disjoint sets. Since our supposition led to a contradiction, there must not be any such function, "f".
The nonexistence of a set containing itself can be seen as a special case where the sequence is infinite and constant.
Notice that this argument only applies to functions "f" that can be represented as sets as opposed to undefinable classes. The hereditarily finite sets, Vω, satisfy the axiom of regularity (and all other axioms of ZFC except the axiom of infinity). So if one forms a non-trivial ultrapower of Vω, then it will also satisfy the axiom of regularity. The resulting model will contain elements, called non-standard natural numbers, that satisfy the definition of natural numbers in that model but are not really natural numbers. They are fake natural numbers which are "larger" than any actual natural number. This model will contain infinite descending sequences of elements. For example, suppose "n" is a non-standard natural number, then formula_4 and formula_5, and so on. For any actual natural number "k", formula_6. This is an unending descending sequence of elements. But this sequence is not definable in the model and thus not a set. So no contradiction to regularity can be proved.
The axiom of regularity enables defining the ordered pair ("a","b") as {"a",{"a","b"}}; see ordered pair for specifics. This definition eliminates one pair of braces from the canonical Kuratowski definition ("a","b") = .
This was actually the original form of the axiom in von Neumann's axiomatization.
Suppose "x" is any set. Let "t" be the transitive closure of {"x"}. Let "u" be the subset of "t" consisting of unranked sets. If "u" is empty, then "x" is ranked and we are done. Otherwise, apply the axiom of regularity to "u" to get an element "w" of "u" which is disjoint from "u". Since "w" is in "u", "w" is unranked. "w" is a subset of "t" by the definition of transitive closure. Since "w" is disjoint from "u", every element of "w" is ranked. Applying the axioms of replacement and union to combine the ranks of the elements of "w", we get an ordinal rank for "w", to wit formula_7. This contradicts the conclusion that "w" is unranked. So the assumption that "u" was non-empty must be false and "x" must have rank.
Let "X" and "Y" be sets. Then apply the axiom of regularity to the set {"X","Y"} (which exists by the axiom of pairing). We see there must be an element of {"X","Y"} which is also disjoint from it. It must be either "X" or "Y". By the definition of disjoint then, we must have either "Y" is not an element of "X" or vice versa.
Let the non-empty set "S" be a counter-example to the axiom of regularity; that is, every element of "S" has a non-empty intersection with "S". We define a binary relation "R" on "S" by formula_8, which is entire by assumption. Thus, by the axiom of dependent choice, there is some sequence ("an") in "S" satisfying "anRan+1" for all "n" in N. As this is an infinite descending chain, we arrive at a contradiction and so, no such "S" exists.
Regularity was shown to be relatively consistent with the rest of ZF by and , meaning that if ZF without regularity is consistent, then ZF (with regularity) is also consistent. For his proof in modern notation see for instance.
The axiom of regularity was also shown to be independent from the other axioms of ZF(C), assuming they are consistent. The result was announced by Paul Bernays in 1941, although he did not publish a proof until 1954. The proof involves (and led to the study of) Rieger-Bernays permutation models (or method), which were used for other proofs of independence for non-well-founded systems ( and ).
Naive set theory (the axiom schema of unrestricted comprehension and the axiom of extensionality) is inconsistent due to Russell's paradox. In early formalizations of sets, mathematicians and logicians have avoided that contradiction by replacing the axiom schema of comprehension with the much weaker axiom schema of separation. However, this step alone takes one to theories of sets which are considered too weak. So some of the power of comprehension was added back via the other existence axioms of ZF set theory (pairing, union, powerset, replacement, and infinity) which may be regarded as special cases of comprehension. So far, these axioms do not seem to lead to any contradiction. Subsequently, the axiom of choice and the axiom of regularity were added to exclude models with some undesirable properties. These two axioms are known to be relatively consistent.
In the presence of the axiom schema of separation, Russell's paradox becomes a proof that there is no set of all sets. The axiom of regularity together with the axiom of pairing also prohibit such a universal set. However, Russell's paradox yields a proof that there is no "set of all sets" using the axiom schema of separation alone, without any additional axioms. In particular, ZF without the axiom of regularity already prohibits such a universal set.
If a theory is extended by adding an axiom or axioms, then any (possibly undesirable) consequences of the original theory remain consequences of the extended theory. In particular, if ZF without regularity is extended by adding regularity to get ZF, then any contradiction (such as Russell's paradox) which followed from the original theory would still follow in the extended theory.
The existence of Quine atoms (sets that satisfy the formula equation "x" = {"x"}, i.e. have themselves as their only elements) is consistent with the theory obtained by removing the axiom of regularity from ZFC. Various non-wellfounded set theories allow "safe" circular sets, such as Quine atoms, without becoming inconsistent by means of Russell's paradox.
In ZF it can be proven that the class formula_9, called the von Neumann universe, is equal to the class of all sets. This statement is even equivalent to the axiom of regularity (if we work in ZF with this axiom omitted). From any model which does not satisfy axiom of regularity, a model which satisfies it can be constructed by taking only sets in formula_9.
In the same paper, Scott shows that an axiomatic system based on the inherent properties of the cumulative hierarchy turns out to be equivalent to ZF, including regularity.
The concept of well-foundedness and rank of a set were both introduced by Dmitry Mirimanoff (1917) cf. and . Mirimanoff called a set "x" "regular" (French: "ordinaire") if every descending chain "x" ∋ "x1" ∋ "x2" ∋ ... is finite. Mirimanoff however did not consider his notion of regularity (and well-foundedness) as an axiom to be observed by all sets ; in later papers Mirimanoff also explored what are now called non-well-founded sets ("extraordinaire" in Mirimanoff's terminology) .
Urelements are objects that are not sets, but which can be elements of sets. In ZF set theory, there are no urelements, but in some other set theories such as ZFA, there are. In these theories, the axiom of regularity must be modified. The statement "formula_12" needs to be replaced with a statement that formula_13 is not empty and is not an urelement. One suitable replacement is formula_14, which states that "x" is inhabited. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2113 |
IBM AIX
AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive, pronounced ) is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms. Originally released for the IBM RT PC RISC workstation, AIX now supports or has supported a wide variety of hardware platforms, including the IBM RS/6000 series and later POWER and PowerPC-based systems, IBM System i, System/370 mainframes, PS/2 personal computers, and the Apple Network Server.
AIX is based on UNIX System V with 4.3BSD-compatible extensions. It is one of five commercial operating systems that have versions certified to The Open Group's UNIX 03 standard (the others being macOS, Solaris, HP-UX, and eulerOS).
The AIX family of operating systems debuted in 1986, became the standard operating system for the RS/6000 series on its launch in 1990, and is still actively developed by IBM. It is currently supported on IBM Power Systems alongside IBM i and Linux.
AIX was the first operating system to have a journaling file system, and IBM has continuously enhanced the software with features such as processor, disk and network virtualization, dynamic hardware resource allocation (including fractional processor units), and reliability engineering ported from its mainframe designs.
Unix started life at AT&T's Bell Labs research center in the early 1970s, running on DEC minicomputers. By 1976, the operating system was in use at various academic institutions, including Princeton, where Tom Lyon and others ported it to the S/370, to run as a guest OS under VM/370. This port would later grow out to become UTS, a mainframe Unix offering by IBM's competitor Amdahl Corporation.
IBM's own involvement in Unix can be dated to 1979, when it assisted Bell Labs in doing its own Unix port to the 370 (to be used as a build host for the 5ESS switch's software). In the process, IBM made modifications to the TSS/370 hypervisor to better support Unix.
It took until 1985 for IBM to offer its own Unix on the S/370 platform, IX/370, which was developed by Interactive Systems Corporation and intended by IBM to compete with Amdahl UTS. The operating system offered special facilities for interoperating with PC/IX, Interactive/IBM's version of Unix for IBM PC compatible hardware, and was licensed at $10,000 per sixteen concurrent users.
AIX Version 1, introduced in 1986 for the IBM RT PC workstation, was based on UNIX System V Releases 1 and 2. In developing AIX, IBM and Interactive Systems Corporation (whom IBM contracted) also incorporated source code from 4.2 and 4.3 BSD UNIX.
Among other variants, IBM later produced AIX Version 3 (also known as AIX/6000), based on System V Release 3, for their POWER-based RS/6000 platform. Since 1990, AIX has served as the primary operating system for the RS/6000 series (later renamed "IBM eServer pSeries", then "IBM System p", and now "IBM Power Systems"). AIX Version 4, introduced in 1994, added symmetric multiprocessing with the introduction of the first RS/6000 SMP servers and continued to evolve through the 1990s, culminating with AIX 4.3.3 in 1999. Version 4.1, in a slightly modified form, was also the standard operating system for the Apple Network Server systems sold by Apple Computer to complement the Macintosh line.
In the late 1990s, under Project Monterey, IBM and the Santa Cruz Operation planned to integrate AIX and UnixWare into a single 32-bit/64-bit multiplatform UNIX with particular emphasis on running on Intel IA-64 (Itanium) architecture CPUs. A beta test version of AIX 5L for IA-64 systems was released, but according to documents released in the "SCO v. IBM" lawsuit, less than forty licenses for the finished Monterey Unix were ever sold before the project was terminated in 2002. In 2003, the SCO Group alleged that (among other infractions) IBM had misappropriated licensed source code from UNIX System V Release 4 for incorporation into AIX; SCO subsequently withdrew IBM's license to develop and distribute AIX. IBM maintains that their license was irrevocable, and continued to sell and support the product until the litigation was adjudicated.
AIX was a component of the 2003 "SCO v. IBM" lawsuit, in which the SCO Group filed a lawsuit against IBM, alleging IBM contributed SCO's intellectual property to the Linux codebase. The SCO Group, who argued they were the rightful owners of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system, attempted to revoke IBM's license to sell or distribute the AIX operating system. In March 2010, a jury returned a verdict finding that Novell, not the SCO Group, owns the rights to Unix.
AIX 6 was announced in May 2007, and it ran as an open beta from June 2007 until the general availability (GA) of AIX 6.1 on November 9, 2007. Major new features in AIX 6.1 included full role-based access control, workload partitions (which enable application mobility), enhanced security (Addition of AES encryption type for NFS v3 and v4), and Live Partition Mobility on the POWER6 hardware.
AIX 7.1 was announced in April 2010, and an open beta ran until general availability of AIX 7.1 in September 2010. Several new features, including better scalability, enhanced clustering and management capabilities were added. AIX 7.1 includes a new built-in clustering capability called Cluster Aware AIX. AIX is able to organize multiple LPARs through the multipath communications channel to neighboring CPUs, enabling very high-speed communication between processors. This enables multi-terabyte memory address range and page table access to support global petabyte shared memory space for AIX POWER7 clusters so that software developers can program a cluster as if it were a single system, without using message passing (i.e. semaphore-controlled Inter-process Communication). AIX administrators can use this new capability to cluster a pool of AIX nodes. By default, AIX V7.1 pins kernel memory and includes support to allow applications to pin their kernel stack. Pinning kernel memory and the kernel stack for applications with real-time requirements can provide performance improvements by ensuring that the kernel memory and kernel stack for an application is not paged out.
AIX 7.2 was announced in October 2015, and released in December 2015. AIX 7.2 principal feature is the Live Kernel Update capability which allows OS fixes to replace the entire AIX kernel with no impact to applications, by live migrating workloads to a temporary surrogate AIX OS partition while the original OS partition is patched. AIX 7.2 was also restructured to remove obsolete components. The networking component, bos.net.tcp.client was repackaged to allow additional installation flexibility. Unlike AIX 7.1, AIX 7.2 is only supported on systems based on POWER7 or later processors.
The original AIX (sometimes called AIX/RT) was developed for the IBM RT PC workstation by IBM in conjunction with Interactive Systems Corporation, who had previously ported UNIX System III to the IBM PC for IBM as PC/IX. According to its developers, the AIX source (for this initial version) consisted of one million lines of code. Installation media consisted of eight 1.2M floppy disks. The RT was based on the IBM ROMP microprocessor, the first commercial RISC chip. This was based on a design pioneered at IBM Research (the IBM 801) .
One of the novel aspects of the RT design was the use of a microkernel, called Virtual Resource Manager (VRM). The keyboard, mouse, display, disk drives and network were all controlled by a microkernel. One could "hotkey" from one operating system to the next using the Alt-Tab key combination. Each OS in turn would get possession of the keyboard, mouse and display. Besides AIX v2, the PICK OS also included this microkernel.
Much of the AIX v2 kernel was written in the PL/8 programming language, which proved troublesome during the migration to AIX v3. AIX v2 included full TCP/IP networking, as well as SNA and two networking file systems: NFS, licensed from Sun Microsystems, and Distributed Services (DS). DS had the distinction of being built on top of SNA, and thereby being fully compatible with DS on the IBM midrange AS/400 and mainframe systems. For the graphical user interfaces, AIX v2 came with the X10R3 and later the X10R4 and X11 versions of the X Window System from MIT, together with the Athena widget set. Compilers for Fortran and C were available.
AIX PS/2 (also known as AIX/386) was developed by Locus Computing Corporation under contract to IBM. AIX PS/2, first released in October 1988, ran on IBM PS/2 personal computers with Intel 386 and compatible processors.
The product was announced in September 1988 with a baseline tag price of $595, although some utilities like uucp were included in a separate Extension package priced at $250. nroff and troff for AIX were also sold separately in a Text Formatting System package priced at $200. The TCP/IP stack for AIX PS/2 retailed for another $300. The X Window package was priced at $195, while the C and FORTRAN compilers each had a price tag of $275. Locus also made available their DOS Merge virtual machine environment for AIX, which could run MS DOS 3.3 applications inside AIX; DOS Merge was sold separately for another $250. IBM also offered a $150 AIX PS/2 DOS Server Program, which provided file server and print server services for client computers running PC DOS 3.3.
The last version of PS/2 AIX is 1.3. It was released in 1992 and announced to add support for non-IBM (non-microchannel) computers as well. Support for PS/2 AIX ended in March 1995.
In 1988, IBM announced AIX/370, also developed by Locus Computing. AIX/370 was IBM's fourth attempt to offer Unix-like functionality for their mainframe line, specifically the System/370 (the prior versions were a TSS/370-based Unix system developed jointly with AT&T c.1980, a VM/370-based system named VM/IX developed jointly with Interactive Systems Corporation c.1984, and a VM/370-based version of TSS/370 named IX/370 which was upgraded to be compatible with Unix System V). AIX/370 was released in 1990 with functional equivalence to System V Release 2 and 4.3BSD as well as IBM enhancements. With the introduction of the ESA/390 architecture, AIX/370 was replaced by AIX/ESA in 1991, which was based on OSF/1, and also ran on the System/390 platform. This development effort was made partly to allow IBM to compete with Amdahl UTS. Unlike AIX/370, AIX/ESA ran both natively as the host operating system, and as a guest under VM. AIX/ESA, while technically advanced, had little commercial success, partially because UNIX functionality was added as an option to the existing mainframe operating system, MVS, which became MVS/ESA OpenEdition in 1999.
As part of Project Monterey, IBM released a beta test version of AIX 5L for the IA-64 (Itanium) architecture in 2001, but this never became an official product due to lack of interest.
The Apple Network Server (ANS) systems were PowerPC-based systems designed by Apple Computer to have numerous high-end features that standard Apple hardware did not have, including swappable hard drives, redundant power supplies, and external monitoring capability. These systems were more or less based on the Power Macintosh hardware available at the time but were designed to use AIX (versions 4.1.4 or 4.1.5) as their native operating system in a specialized version specific to the ANS called AIX for Apple Network Servers.
AIX was only compatible with the Network Servers and was not ported to standard Power Macintosh hardware. It should not be confused with A/UX, Apple's earlier version of Unix for 68k-based Macintoshes.
The release of AIX version 3 (sometimes called AIX/6000) coincided with the announcement of the first POWER1-based IBM RS/6000 models in 1990.
AIX v3 innovated in several ways on the software side. It was the first operating system to introduce the idea of a journaling file system, JFS, which allowed for fast boot times by avoiding the need to ensure the consistency of the file systems on disks (see fsck) on every reboot. Another innovation was shared libraries which avoid the need for static linking from an application to the libraries it used. The resulting smaller binaries used less of the hardware RAM to run, and used less disk space to install. Besides improving performance, it was a boon to developers: executable binaries could be in the tens of kilobytes instead of a megabyte for an executable statically linked to the C library. AIX v3 also scrapped the microkernel of AIX v2, a contentious move that resulted in v3 containing no PL/I code and being somewhat more "pure" than v2.
Other notable subsystems included:
, AIX runs on IBM Power, System p, System i, System p5, System i5, eServer p5, eServer pSeries and eServer i5 server product lines, as well as IBM BladeCenter blades and IBM PureFlex compute nodes.
AIX 7.1 fully exploits systems based on POWER7 processors include the Active Memory Expansion (AME) feature, which increases system flexibility where system administrators can configure logical partitions (LPARs) to use less physical memory. For example, an LPAR running AIX appears to the OS applications to be configured with 80 GB of physical memory but the hardware actually only consumes 60 GB of physical memory. Active Memory Expansion is a virtual memory compression system which employs memory compression technology to transparently compress in-memory data, allowing more data to be placed into memory and thus expanding the memory capacity of POWER7 systems. Using Active Memory Expansion can improve system use and increase a system's throughput. AIX 7 automatically manages the size of memory pages used to automatically use 4 KB, 64 KB or a combination of those page sizes. This self-tuning feature results in optimized performance without administrative effort.
AIX 7.2 exploits POWER8 hardware features including accelerators and eight-way hardware multithreading.
AIX 7.2 exploits POWER9 secure boot technology.
AIX PS/2 (1–16 User Option) $795
AIX PS/2 (1–2 User Option) 595
The default shell was Bourne shell up to AIX version 3, but was changed to KornShell (ksh88) in version 4 in view of XPG4 and POSIX compliance.
The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is AIX's default graphical user interface. As part of Linux Affinity and the free AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications (ATLA), open-source KDE Plasma Workspaces and GNOME desktop are also available.
SMIT is the System Management Interface Tool for AIX. It allows a user to navigate a menu hierarchy of commands, rather than using the command line. Invocation is typically achieved with the command codice_1. Experienced system administrators make use of the codice_2 function key which generates the command line that SMIT will invoke to complete it.
SMIT also generates a log of commands that are performed in the codice_3 file. The codice_3 file automatically records the commands with the command flags and parameters used. The codice_3 file can be used as an executable shell script to rerun system configuration tasks. SMIT also creates the codice_6 file, which contains additional detailed information that can be used by programmers in extending the SMIT system.
codice_1 and codice_8 refer to the same program, though codice_8 invokes the text-based version, while codice_1 will invoke an X Window System based interface if possible; however, if codice_1 determines that X Window System capabilities are not present, it will present the text-based version instead of failing. Determination of X Window System capabilities is typically performed by checking for the existence of the codice_12 variable.
Object Data Manager (ODM) is a database of system information integrated into AIX, analogous to the registry in Microsoft Windows. A good understanding of the ODM is essential for managing AIX systems.
Data managed in ODM is stored and maintained as objects with associated attributes. Interaction with ODM is possible via application programming interface (API) library for programs, and command-line utilities such us "odmshow", "odmget", "odmadd", "odmchange" and "odmdelete" for shell scripts and users. SMIT and its associated AIX commands can also be used to query and modify information in the ODM.
Example of information stored in the ODM database are: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2114 |
AppleTalk
AppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the need for a centralized router or server of any sort. Connected AppleTalk-equipped systems automatically assign addresses, update the distributed namespace, and configure any required inter-networking routing.
AppleTalk was released in 1985, and was the primary protocol used by Apple devices through the 1980s and 1990s. Versions were also released for the IBM PC and compatibles and the Apple IIGS. AppleTalk support was also available in most networked printers (especially laser printers), some file servers, and a number of routers.
The rise of TCP/IP during the 1990s led to a reimplementation of most of these types of support on that protocol, and AppleTalk became unsupported as of the release of Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009. Many of AppleTalk's more advanced autoconfiguration features have since been introduced in Bonjour, while Universal Plug and Play serves similar needs.
After the release of the Apple Lisa computer in January 1983, Apple invested considerable effort in the development of a local area networking (LAN) system for the machines. Known as AppleNet, it was based on the seminal Xerox XNS protocol stack but running on a custom 1 Mbit/s coaxial cable system rather than Xerox's 2.94 Mbit/s Ethernet. AppleNet was announced early in 1983 with a full introduction at the target price of $500 for plug-in AppleNet cards for the Lisa and the Apple II.
At that time, early LAN systems were just coming to market, including Ethernet, Token Ring and ARCNET. This was a topic of major commercial effort at the time, dominating shows like the National Computer Conference (NCC) in Anaheim in May 1983. All of the systems were jockeying for position in the market, but even at this time Ethernet's widespread acceptance suggested it was to become a "de facto" standard. It was at this show that Steve Jobs asked Gursharan Sidhu a seemingly innocuous question, "Why has networking not caught on?"
Four months later, in October, AppleNet was cancelled. At the time, they announced that "Apple realized that it's not in the business to create a networking system. We built and used AppleNet in-house, but we realized that if we had shipped it, we would have seen new standards coming up." In January, Jobs announced that they would instead be supporting IBM's Token Ring, which he expected to come out in a "few months".
Through this period, Apple was deep in development of the Macintosh computer. During development, engineers had made the decision to use the Zilog 8530 serial controller chip (SCC) instead of the lower-cost and more common UART to provide serial port connections. The SCC cost about $5 more than a UART, but offered much higher speeds of up to 250 kilobits per second (or higher with additional hardware) and internally supported a number of basic networking-like protocols like IBM's Bisync.
The SCC was chosen because it would allow multiple devices to be attached to the port. Peripherals equipped with similar SCCs could communicate using the built-in protocols, interleaving their data with other peripherals on the same bus. This would eliminate the need for more ports on the back of the machine, and allowed for the elimination of expansion slots for supporting more complex devices. The initial concept was known as AppleBus, envisioning a system controlled by the host Macintosh polling "dumb" devices in a fashion similar to the modern Universal Serial Bus.
The Macintosh team had already begun work on what would become the LaserWriter, and had considered a number of other options to answer the question of how to share these expensive machines and other resources. A series of memos from Bob Belleville clarified these concepts, outlining the Mac, LaserWriter and a file server system which would become the Macintosh Office. By late 1983 it was clear that IBM's Token Ring would not be ready in time for the launch of the Mac, and might miss the launch of these other products as well. In the end, Token Ring would not ship until October 1985.
Jobs' earlier question to Sidhu had already sparked a number of ideas. When AppleNet was cancelled in October, Sidhu led an effort to develop a new networking system based on the AppleBus hardware. This new system would not have to conform to any existing preconceptions, and was designed to be worthy of the Mac – a system that was user-installable, had zero-configuration, and no fixed network addresses – in short, a true plug-and-play network. Considerable effort was needed, but by the time the Mac was released, the basic concepts had been outlined, and some of the low-level protocols were on their way to completion. Sidhu mentioned the work to Belleville only two hours after the Mac was announced.
The "new" AppleBus was announced in early 1984, allowing direct connection from the Mac or Lisa through a small box that plugged into the serial port and connected via cables to the next computer upstream and downstream. Adaptors for Apple II and Apple III were also announced. Apple also announced that AppleBus networks could be attached to, and would appear to be a single node within, a Token Ring system. Details of how this would work were sketchy.
Just prior to its release in early 1985, AppleBus was renamed AppleTalk. The system had a number of limitations, including a speed of only 230.4 kbit/s, a maximum distance of 1000 feet from end to end, and only 32 nodes per LAN. But as the basic hardware was built into the Mac, adding nodes only cost about $50 for the adaptor box. In comparison, Ethernet or Token Ring cards cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Additionally, the entire networking stack required only about 6 kB of RAM, allowing it to run on any Mac.
The relatively slow speed of AppleTalk allowed further reductions in cost. Instead of using RS-422's balanced transmit and receive circuits, the AppleTalk Personal Network cabling used a single common electrical ground, which limited speeds to about 500 kbit/s, but allowed one conductor to be removed. This meant that common three-conductor cables could be used for wiring. Additionally, the adaptors were designed to be "self-terminating", meaning that nodes at the end of the network could simply leave their last connector unconnected. There was no need for the wires to be connected back together into a loop, nor the need for hubs or other devices.
The system was designed for future expansion; the addressing system allowed for expansion to 255 nodes in a LAN (although only 32 could be used at that time), and by using "bridges" (which came to be known as "routers", although technically not the same) one could interconnect LANs into larger collections. "Zones" allowed devices to be addressed within a bridge-connected internet. Additionally, AppleTalk was designed from the start to allow use with any potential underlying physical link.
The main advantage of AppleTalk was that it was completely maintenance-free. To join a device to a network, you simply plugged the adaptor into the machine, then connected a cable from it to any free port on any other adaptor. AppleTalk's internal protocols negotiated a working network address number, automatically gave the computer a human-readable name, and collected up a list of the names and types of other machines on the network so the user could browse the devices through the GUI-based Chooser. AppleTalk was so easy to use that ad-hoc networks tended to appear whenever multiple Macs were in the same room. Apple would later use this in an advertisement showing a network being created between two seats in an airplane.
A thriving 3rd party market for AppleTalk devices developed over the next few years. One particularly notable example was an alternate adaptor designed by BMUG and commercialized by Farallon as PhoneNet in 1987. This was essentially a replacement for Apple's connector that had conventional phone jacks instead of Apple's round connectors. PhoneNet allowed AppleTalk networks to be connected together using normal telephone wires, and with very little extra work, could run analog phones and AppleTalk on a single four-conductor phone cable.
Other companies took advantage of the SCC's ability to read external clocks in order to support higher transmission speeds, up to 1 Mbit/s. In these systems the external adaptor also included its own clock, and used that to signal the SCC's clock input pins. The best known such system was Centram's FlashTalk, which ran at 768 kbit/s, and was intended to be used with their TOPS networking system. A similar solution was the 850 kbit/s DaynaTalk, which used a separate box that plugged in between the computer and a normal LocalTalk/PhoneNet box. Dayna also offered a PC expansion card that ran up to 1.7 Mbit/s when talking to other Dayna PC cards. Several other systems also existed with even higher performance, but these often required special cabling that was incompatible with LocalTalk/PhoneNet, and also required patches to the networking stack that often caused problems.
As Apple expanded into more commercial and education markets, they needed to integrate AppleTalk into existing network installations. Many of these organizations had already invested in a very expensive Ethernet infrastructure and there was no direct way to connect a Macintosh to Ethernet. AppleTalk included a protocol structure for inter-connecting AppleTalk subnets and so as a solution, EtherTalk was initially created to use the Ethernet as a backbone between AppleTalk (at that time, LocalTalk) subnets. To accomplish this, organizations would need to purchase a LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge and Apple left it to third parties to produce these products. A number of companies responded, including Hayes and a few newly formed companies like Kinetics.
By 1987, Ethernet was clearly winning the standards battle over Token Ring, and in the middle of that year Apple introduced EtherTalk 1.0 for the newly released Macintosh II computer, Apple's first Macintosh with bus slots that allowed compatible cards from non-Apple 3rd party vendors. The operating system included a new Network control panel that allowed the user to select which physical connection to use for networking (from "Built-in" or "EtherTalk"). At introduction, Ethernet interface cards were available from 3Com and Kinetics that plugged into a Nubus slot in the machine. The release's new networking stack also expanded the system to allow a full 255 nodes per LAN. With its release, AppleTalk Personal Network was renamed LocalTalk. Token Ring would eventually be supported with the similar TokenTalk product, which used the same Network control panel and underlying software. Eventually, many third party companies would introduce compatible Ethernet and Token Ring cards that used these same drivers.
The appearance of a Macintosh with a direct Ethernet connection also magnified the Ethernet and LocalTalk compatibility problem: Networks with new and old Macs needed some way to communicate with each other. This could be as simple as a network of Ethernet Mac IIs trying to talk to a LaserWriter that only connected to LocalTalk. Apple initially relied on the aforementioned LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge products, but contrary to Apple's belief these would be low-volume products, by the end of 1987, 130,000 such networks were in use. AppleTalk was at that time the most used networking system in the world, with over three times the installations of any other vendor.
1987 also marked the introduction of the AppleShare product, a dedicated file server that ran on any Mac with 512 kB of RAM or more. A common AppleShare machine was the Mac Plus with an external SCSI hard drive. AppleShare was the #3 network operating system in the late 1980s, behind Novell NetWare and Microsoft's MS-Net. AppleShare was effectively the replacement for the failed Macintosh Office efforts, which had been based on a dedicated file server device.
A significant re-design was released in 1989 as AppleTalk Phase II. In many ways, Phase II can be considered an effort to make the earlier version (never called Phase I) more generic. LANs could now support more than 255 nodes, and zones were no longer associated with physical networks, but were entirely virtual constructs used simply to organize nodes. For instance, one could now make a "Printers" zone that would list all the printers in an organization, or one might want to place that same device in the "2nd Floor" zone to indicate its physical location. Phase II also included changes to the underlying inter-networking protocols to make them less "chatty", which had previously been a serious problem on networks that bridged over wide-area networks.
By this point Apple had a wide variety of communications products under development, and many of these were announced along with AppleTalk Phase II. These included updates to EtherTalk and TokenTalk, AppleTalk software and LocalTalk hardware for the IBM PC, EtherTalk for Apple's A/UX operating system allowing it to use LaserPrinters and other network resources, and the Mac X.25 and MacX products.
Ethernet had become almost universal by 1990, and it was time to build Ethernet into Macs direct from the factory. However, the physical wiring used by these networks was not yet completely standardized. Apple solved this problem using a single port on the back of the computer into which the user could plug an adaptor for any given cabling system. This FriendlyNet system was based on the industry-standard Attachment Unit Interface or AUI, but deliberately chose a non-standard connector that was smaller and easier to use, which they called "Apple AUI", or AAUI. FriendlyNet was first introduced on the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900 computers, and used across much of the Mac line for some time. As with LocalTalk, a number of 3rd party FriendlyNet adaptors quickly appeared.
As 10BASE-T became the de facto cabling system for Ethernet, second-generation Power Macintosh machines added a 10BASE-T port in addition to AAUI. The PowerBook 3400c and lower-end Power Macs also added 10BASE-T. The Power Macintosh 7300/8600/9600 were the final Macs to include AAUI, and 10BASE-T became universal starting with the Power Macintosh G3 and PowerBook G3.
From the beginning of AppleTalk, users wanted to connect the Macintosh to the TCP/IP network environments. In 1984, Bill Croft at Stanford University pioneered the development of IP packets encapsulated in DDP as part of the SEAGATE (Stanford Ethernet - AppleTalk Gateway) project. SEAGATE was commercialized by Kinetics in their LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge]as an additional routing option. A few years later, MacIP, was separated from the SEAGATE code and became the de facto method for IP packets to be routed over LocalTalk networks. By 1986, Columbia University released the first version of the Columbia AppleTalk Package (CAP) that allowed higher integration of Unix, TCP/IP and AppleTalk environments. In 1988, Apple released MacTCP, a system that allowed the Mac to support TCP/IP on machines with suitable Ethernet hardware. However, this left many universities with the problem of supporting IP on their many LocalTalk-equipped Macs. It was soon common to include MacIP support in \LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridges. MacTCP would not become a standard part of the Classic Mac OS until 1994, by which time it also supported SNMP and PPP.
For some time in the early 1990s, the Mac was a primary client on the rapidly expanding Internet. Among the better known programs in wide use were Fetch, Eudora, eXodus, NewsWatcher and the NCSA packages, especially NCSA Mosaic and its offspring, Netscape Navigator. Additionally, a number of server products appeared that allowed the Mac to host Internet content. Through this period, Macs had about 2 to 3 times as many clients connected to the Internet as any other platform, despite the relatively small overall microcomputer market share.
As the world quickly moved to IP for both LAN and WAN uses, Apple was faced with maintaining two increasingly outdated code bases on an ever-wider group of machines as well as the introduction of the PowerPC based machines. This led to the Open Transport efforts, which re-implemented both MacTCP and AppleTalk on an entirely new code base adapted from the Unix standard STREAMS. Early versions had problems and did not become stable for some time. By that point, Apple was deep in their ultimately doomed Copland efforts.
With the purchase of NeXT and subsequent development of Mac OS X, AppleTalk was strictly a legacy system. Support was added to OS X in order to provide support for the large number of existing AppleTalk devices, notably laser printers and file shares, but alternate connection solutions common in this era, notably USB for printers, limited their demand. As Apple abandoned many of these product categories, and all new systems were based on IP, AppleTalk became less and less common. AppleTalk support was finally removed from the MacOS in Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009.
However, the loss of AppleTalk did not reduce the desire for networking solutions that combined its ease-of-use with IP routing. Apple has led development of many such efforts, from the introduction of the AirPort router to the development of the Zero configuration networking system and their implementation of it, Bonjour.
The AppleTalk design rigorously followed the OSI model of protocol layering. Unlike most of the early LAN systems, AppleTalk was not built using the archetypal Xerox XNS system. The intended target was not Ethernet, and it did not have 48-bit addresses to route. Nevertheless, many portions of the AppleTalk system have direct analogs in XNS.
One key differentiation for AppleTalk was it contained two protocols aimed at making the system completely self-configuring. The "AppleTalk address resolution protocol" ("AARP") allowed AppleTalk hosts to automatically generate their own network addresses, and the "Name Binding Protocol" ("NBP") was a dynamic system for mapping network addresses to user-readable names. Although systems similar to AARP existed in other systems, Banyan VINES for instance, nothing like NBP has existed until recently.
Both AARP and NBP had defined ways to allow "controller" devices to override the default mechanisms. The concept was to allow routers to provide the information or "hardwire" the system to known addresses and names. On larger networks where AARP could cause problems as new nodes searched for free addresses, the addition of a router could reduce "chattiness." Together AARP and NBP made AppleTalk an easy-to-use networking system. New machines were added to the network by plugging them and optionally giving them a name. The NBP lists were examined and displayed by a program known as the "Chooser" which would display a list of machines on the local network, divided into classes such as file-servers and printers.
An AppleTalk address was a four-byte quantity. This consisted of a two-byte network number, a one-byte node number, and a one-byte socket number. Of these, only the network number required any configuration, being obtained from a router. Each node dynamically chose its own node number, according to a protocol (originally the LocalTalk Link Access Protocol LLAP and later, for Ethernet/EtherTalk, the AppleTalk Address Resolution Protocol, AARP) which handled contention between different nodes accidentally choosing the same number. For socket numbers, a few well-known numbers were reserved for special purposes specific to the AppleTalk protocol itself. Apart from these, all application-level protocols were expected to use dynamically-assigned socket numbers at both the client and server end.
Because of this dynamism, users could not be expected to access services by specifying their address. Instead, all services had "names" which, being chosen by humans, could be expected to be meaningful to users, and also could be sufficiently long to minimize the chance of conflicts.
As NBP names translated to an address, which included a socket number as well as a node number, a name in AppleTalk mapped directly to a "service" being provided by a machine, which was entirely separate from the name of the machine itself. Thus, services could be moved to a different machine and, so long as they kept the same service name, there was no need for users to do anything different in order to continue accessing the service. And the same machine could host any number of instances of services of the same type, without any network connection conflicts.
Contrast this with "A records" in the DNS, in which a name translates to a machine's address, not including the port number that might be providing a service. Thus, if people are accustomed to using a particular machine name to access a particular service, their access will break when the service is moved to a different machine. This can be mitigated somewhat by insistence on using "CNAME records" indicating service rather than actual machine names to refer to the service, but there is no way of guaranteeing that users will follow such a convention. Some newer protocols, such as Kerberos and Active Directory use DNS SRV records to identify services by name, which is much closer to the AppleTalk model.
AARP resolves AppleTalk addresses to link layer, usually MAC, addresses. It is functionally equivalent to ARP and obtains address resolution by a method very similar to ARP.
AARP is a fairly simple system. When powered on, an AppleTalk machine broadcasts an "AARP probe packet" asking for a network address, intending to hear back from controllers such as routers. If no address is provided, one is picked at random from the "base subnet", 0. It then broadcasts another packet saying "I am selecting this address", and then waits to see if anyone else on the network complains. If another machine has that address, it will pick another address, and keep trying until it finds a free one. On a network with many machines it may take several tries before a free address is found, so for performance purposes the successful address is "written down" in NVRAM and used as the default address in the future. This means that in most real-world setups where machines are added a few at a time, only one or two tries are needed before the address effectively become constant.
This was a comparatively late addition to the AppleTalk protocol suite, done when it became clear that a TCP-style reliable connection-oriented transport was needed. Significant differences from TCP were that:
The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), formerly AppleTalk Filing Protocol, is the protocol for communicating with AppleShare file servers. Built on top of AppleTalk Session Protocol (for legacy AFP over DDP) or the Data Stream Interface (for AFP over TCP), it provides services for authenticating users (extensible to different authentication methods including two-way random-number exchange) and for performing operations specific to the Macintosh HFS filesystem. AFP is still in use in macOS, even though most other AppleTalk protocols have been deprecated.
ASP was an intermediate protocol, built on top of ATP, which in turn was the foundation of AFP. It provided basic services for requesting responses to arbitrary "commands" d performing out-of-band status queries. It also allowed the server to send asynchronous "attention" messages to the client.
DDP was the lowest-level data-link-independent transport protocol. It provided a datagram service with no guarantees of delivery. All application-level protocols, including the infrastructure protocols NBP, RTMP and ZIP, were built on top of DDP. AppleTalk's DDP corresponds closely to the Network layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) communication model.
Name Binding Protocol was a dynamic, distributed system for managing AppleTalk names. When a service started up on a machine, it registered a name for itself as chosen by a human administrator. At this point, NBP provided a system for checking that no other machine had already registered the same name. Later, when a client wanted to access that service, it used NBP to query machines to find that service. NBP provided browseability ("what are the names of all the services available?") as well as the ability to find a service with a particular name. Names were human readable, containing spaces, upper and lower case letters, and including support for searching.
AEP (AppleTalk Echo Protocol) is a transport layer protocol designed to test the reachability of network nodes. AEP generates packets to be sent to the network node and is identified in the Type field of a packet as an AEP packet. The packet is first passed to the source DDP. After it is identified as an AEP packet, it is forwarded to the node where the packet is examined by the DDP at the destination. After the packet is identified as an AEP packet, the packet is then copied and a field in the packet is altered to create an AEP reply packet, and is then returned to the source node.
PAP was the standard way of communicating with PostScript printers. It was built on top of ATP. When a PAP connection was opened, each end sent the other an ATP request which basically meant "send me more data". The client's response to the server was to send a block of PostScript code, while the server could respond with any diagnostic messages that might be generated as a result, after which another "send-more-data" request was sent. This use of ATP provided automatic flow control; each end could only send data to the other end if there was an outstanding ATP request to respond to.
PAP also provided for out-of-band status queries, handled by separate ATP transactions. Even while it was busy servicing a print job from one client, a PAP server could continue to respond to status requests from any number of other clients. This allowed other Macintoshes on the LAN that were waiting to print to display status messages indicating that the printer was busy, and what the job was that it was busy with.
RTMP was the protocol by which routers kept each other informed about the topology of the network. This was the only part of AppleTalk that required periodic unsolicited broadcasts: every 10 seconds, each router had to send out a list of all the network numbers it knew about and how far away it thought they were.
ZIP was the protocol by which AppleTalk network numbers were associated with zone names. A "zone" was a subdivision of the network that made sense to humans (for example, "Accounting Department"); but while a network number had to be assigned to a topologically-contiguous section of the network, a zone could include several different discontiguous portions of the network.
The initial default hardware implementation for AppleTalk was a high-speed serial protocol known as "LocalTalk" that used the Macintosh's built-in RS-422 ports at 230.4 kbit/s. LocalTalk used a splitter box in the RS-422 port to provide an upstream and downstream cable from a single port. The topology was a bus: cables were daisy-chained from each connected machine to the next, up to the maximum of 32 permitted on any LocalTalk segment. The system was slow by today's standards, but at the time the additional cost and complexity of networking on PC machines was such that it was common that Macs were the only networked personal computers in an office. Other larger computers, such as UNIX or VAX workstations, would commonly be networked via Ethernet.
Other physical implementations were also available. A very popular replacement for LocalTalk was "PhoneNet", a 3rd party solution from Farallon Computing, Inc. (renamed Netopia, acquired by Motorola in 2007) that also used the RS-422 port and was indistinguishable from LocalTalk as far as Apple's LocalTalk port drivers were concerned, but ran over the two unused wires in standard four-wire phone cabling. Foreshadowing today's network hubs and switches, Farallon provided solutions for PhoneNet to be used in "star" as well as bus configurations, with both "passive" star connections (with the phone wires simply bridged to each other at a central point), and "active" star with "PhoneNet Star Controller" hub hardware. Apple's LocalTalk connectors didn't have a locking feature, so connectors could easily come loose, and the bus configuration resulted in any loose connector bringing down the whole network, and being hard to track down. PhoneNet RJ-11 connectors, on the other hand, snapped into place, and in a star configuration any wiring issue only affected one device, and problems were easy to pinpoint. PhoneNet's low cost, flexibility, and easy troubleshooting resulted in it being the dominant choice for Mac networks into the early 1990s.
AppleTalk protocols also came to run over Ethernet (first coaxial and then twisted pair) and Token Ring physical layers, labeled by Apple as "EtherTalk" and "TokenTalk", respectively. EtherTalk gradually became the dominant implementation method for AppleTalk as Ethernet became generally popular in the PC industry throughout the 1990s. Besides AppleTalk and TCP/IP, any Ethernet network could also simultaneously carry other protocols such as DECnet and IPX.
When AppleTalk was first introduced, the dominant office computing platform was the PC compatible running MS-DOS. Apple introduced the AppleTalk PC Card in early 1987, allowing PCs to join AppleTalk networks and print to LaserWriter printers. A year later AppleShare PC was released, allowing PCs to access AppleShare file servers.
The "TOPS Teleconnector" MS-DOS networking system over AppleTalk system enabled MS-DOS PCs to communicate over AppleTalk network hardware; it comprised an AppleTalk interface card for the PC and a suite of networking software allowing such functions as file, drive and printer sharing. As well as allowing the construction of a PC-only AppleTalk network, it allowed communication between PCs and Macs with TOPS software installed. (Macs without TOPS installed could use the same network but only to communicate with other Apple machines.) The Mac TOPS software did not match the quality of Apple's own either in ease of use or in robustness and freedom from crashes, but the DOS software was relatively simple to use in DOS terms, and was robust.
The BSD and Linux operating systems support AppleTalk through an open source project called Netatalk, which implements the complete protocol suite and allows them to both act as native file or print servers for Macintosh computers, and print to LocalTalk printers over the network.
The Windows Server operating systems supported AppleTalk starting with Windows NT and ending after Windows Server 2003. Miramar included AppleTalk in its PC MacLAN product which was discontinued by CA in 2007. GroupLogic continues to bundle its AppleTalk protocol with its ExtremeZ-IP server software for Macintosh-Windows integration which supports Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista as well prior versions. HELIOS Software GmbH offers a proprietary implementation of the AppleTalk protocol stack, as part of their HELIOS UB2 server. This is essentially a File and Print Server suite that runs on a whole range of different platforms.
In addition, Columbia University released the Columbia AppleTalk Package (CAP) which implemented the protocol suite for various Unix flavors including Ultrix, SunOS, *BSD and IRIX. This package is no longer actively maintained. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2115 |
Apple II series
The Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ][" and rendered on later models as "Apple //") is a family of home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.), and launched in 1977 with the original Apple II. In terms of ease of use, features, and expandability, the Apple II was a major advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I, a limited-production bare circuit board computer for electronics hobbyists. Through 1988, a number of models were introduced, with the most popular, the Apple IIe, remaining changed relatively little into the 1990s. A 16-bit model with much more advanced graphics and sound, the Apple IIGS, was added in 1986. While compatible with earlier Apple II systems, the IIGS was in closer competition with the Atari ST and Amiga.
The Apple II was first sold on June 10, 1977. By the end of production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II series computers (including about 1.25 million Apple IIGS models) had been produced. The Apple II was one of the longest running mass-produced home computer series, with models in production for just under 17 years.
The Apple II became one of several recognizable and successful computers during the 1980s and early 1990s, although this was mainly limited to the USA. It was aggressively marketed through volume discounts and manufacturing arrangements to educational institutions, which made it the first computer in widespread use in American secondary schools, displacing the early leader Commodore PET. The effort to develop educational and business software for the Apple II, including the 1979 release of the popular VisiCalc spreadsheet, made the computer especially popular with business users and families.
The original Apple II operating system was in ROM along with Integer BASIC. Programs were entered, then saved and loaded on cassette tape. When the Disk II was implemented in 1978 by Steve Wozniak, a Disk Operating System or DOS was commissioned from the company Shepardson Microsystems where its development was done by Paul Laughton. The final and most popular version of this software was Apple DOS 3.3. Some commercial Apple II software booted directly and did not use standard DOS formats. This discouraged the copying or modifying of the software on the disks and improved loading speed. Apple DOS was superseded by ProDOS, which supported a hierarchical filesystem and larger storage devices. With an optional third-party Z80-based expansion card, the Apple II could boot into the CP/M operating system and run WordStar, dBase II, and other CP/M software. With the release of MousePaint in 1984 and the Apple IIGS in 1986, the platform took on the look of the Macintosh user interface, including a mouse.
Despite the introduction of the Motorola 68000-based Macintosh in 1984, the Apple II series still reportedly accounted for 85% of the company's hardware sales in the first quarter of fiscal 1985. Apple continued to sell Apple II systems alongside the Macintosh until terminating the IIGS in December 1992 and the IIe in November 1993. The last II-series Apple in production, the IIe card for Macintoshes, was discontinued on October 15, 1993. The total Apple II sales of all of its models during its 16-year production run were about 6 million units, with the peak occurring in 1983 when 1 million were sold.
The Apple II was designed to look more like a home appliance than a piece of electronic equipment. The lid popped off the beige plastic case without the use of tools, allowing access to the computer's internals, including the motherboard with eight expansion slots, and an array of random access memory (RAM) sockets that could hold up to 48 kilobytes worth of memory chips.
The Apple II had color and high-resolution graphics modes, sound capabilities and one of two built-in BASIC programming languages (initially Integer BASIC, later Applesoft BASIC). The Apple II was targeted for the masses rather than just hobbyists and engineers; it also influenced most of the microcomputers that followed it. Unlike preceding home microcomputers, it was sold as a finished consumer appliance rather than as a kit (unassembled or preassembled). "VanLOVEs Apple Handbook" and "The Apple Educators Guide" by Gerald VanDiver and Rolland Love reviewed more than 1,500 software programs that the Apple II series could use. The Apple dealer network used this book to emphasize the growing software developer base in education and personal use.
The Apple II series had a keyboard built into the motherboard shell, with the exception of the Apple IIGS which featured an external keyboard. The Apple II case was durable enough, according to a 1981 Apple ad, to protect an Apple II from a fire started when a cat belonging to one early user knocked over a lamp.
Early II-series models were usually designated "Apple ]["; later models "Apple //", plus a letter suffix.
The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 10, 1977 with a MOS Technology 6502 (later Synertek) microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz, 4 KB of RAM, an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language built into the ROMs. The video controller displayed 40 columns by 24 lines of monochrome, upper-case-only (the original character set matches ASCII characters 0x20 to 0x5F) text on the screen, with NTSC composite video output suitable for display on a TV monitor, or on a regular TV set by way of a separate RF modulator. The original retail price of the computer was US$1298(with 4 kB of RAM) and US$2638 (with the maximum 48 kB of RAM). To reflect the computer's color graphics capability, the Apple logo on the casing was represented using rainbow stripes, which remained a part of Apple's corporate logo until early 1998. The earliest Apple IIs were assembled in Silicon Valley, and later in Texas; printed circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland and Singapore.
An external 5-inch floppy disk drive, the Disk II, attached via a controller card that plugged into one of the computer's expansion slots (usually slot 6), was used for data storage and retrieval to replace cassettes. The Disk II interface, created by Steve Wozniak, was regarded as an engineering masterpiece for its economy of electronic components.
Rather than having a dedicated sound-synthesis chip, the Apple II had a toggle circuit that could only emit a click through a built-in speaker or a line out jack; all other sounds (including two, three and, eventually, four-voice music and playback of audio samples and speech synthesis) were generated entirely by software that clicked the speaker at just the right times.
The Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of third-party devices, including Apple II peripheral cards such as serial controllers, display controllers, memory boards, hard disks, networking components, and realtime clocks. There were plug-in expansion cards – such as the Z-80 SoftCard – that permitted the Apple to use the Z80 processor and run a multitude of programs developed under the CP/M operating system, including the dBase II database and the WordStar word processor. There was also a third-party 6809 card that would allow OS-9 Level One to be run. Third-party sound cards greatly improved audio capabilities, allowing simple music synthesis and text-to-speech functions. Eventually, Apple II accelerator cards were created to double or quadruple the computer's speed.
Rod Holt designed the Apple II's power supply. He employed a switched-mode power supply design, which was far smaller and generated less unwanted heat than the linear power supply some other home computers used.
The original Apple II was discontinued at the start of 1981, having been superseded by the Apple II+. By 1984, over six million machines had been sold.
The Apple II Plus, introduced in June 1979, included the Applesoft BASIC programming language in ROM. This Microsoft-authored dialect of BASIC, which was previously available as an upgrade, supported floating-point arithmetic, and became the standard BASIC dialect on the Apple II series (though it ran at a noticeably slower speed than Steve Wozniak's Integer BASIC).
Except for improved graphics and disk-booting support in the ROM, and the removal of the 2k 6502 assembler/disassembler to make room for the floating point BASIC, the II+ was otherwise identical to the original II. RAM prices fell during 1980–81 and all II+ machines came from the factory with a full 48k of memory already installed. The language card in Slot 0 added another 16k, but it had to be bank switched since the remaining CPU address space was occupied by the ROMs and I/O area. For this reason, the extra RAM in the language card was bank-switched over the machine's built-in ROM, allowing code loaded into the additional memory to be used as if it actually were ROM. Users could thus load Integer BASIC into the language card from disk and switch between the Integer and Applesoft dialects of BASIC with DOS 3.3's INT and FP commands just as if they had the BASIC ROM expansion card. The language card was also required to use the UCSD Pascal and FORTRAN 77 compilers, which were released by Apple at about the same time. These ran under the UCSD p-System operating system, which had its own disk format and emitted code for a "virtual machine" rather than the actual 6502 processor.
A TEMPEST-approved version of the Apple II Plus was created in 1980 by the Georgia Tech Research Institute for U.S. Army FORSCOM, and used as a component in the earliest versions of the Microfix system. Fielded in 1982, the Microfix system was the first tactical system using video disk (Laserdisc) map technology providing zoom and scroll over map imagery coupled with a point database of intelligence data such as order of battle, airfields, roadways, and bridges.
After the success of the first Apple II in the United States, Apple expanded its market to include Europe, Australia and the Far East in 1979, with the Apple II Europlus (Europe, Australia) and the Apple II J-Plus (Japan). In these models, Apple made the necessary hardware, software and firmware changes in order to comply to standards outside of the U.S. The power supply was modified to accept the local voltage, and in the European and Australian model the video output signal was changed from color NTSC to monochrome PAL – an extra video card was needed for color PAL graphics, since the simple tricks Wozniak had used to generate a pseudo-NTSC signal with minimal hardware did not carry over to the more complex PAL system. In France the standard video card for PAL output was the "Le Chat Mauve" card which allowed an RGB connection through a SCART connector which could be found as an input on most color monitors and TVs. This display, allowing up to 16 colors, was of a far better quality and sharpness than any composite video output. In the Japanese version of the international Apple, the keyboard layout was changed to allow for Katakana writing (full Kanji support was clearly beyond the capabilities of the machine), but in most other countries the international Apple was sold with an unmodified American keyboard; thus the German model still lacked the umlauts, for example. For the most part, the Apple II Europlus and J-Plus were identical to the Apple II Plus. Production of the Europlus ended in 1983.
The Apple II Plus was followed in 1983 by the Apple IIe, a cost-reduced yet more powerful machine that used newer chips to reduce the component count and add new features, such as the display of upper and lowercase letters and a standard 64 kB of RAM.
The IIe RAM was configured as if it were a 48 kB Apple II Plus with a language card. The machine had no slot 0, but instead had an auxiliary slot that could accept a 1 kB memory card to enable the 80-column display. This card contained only RAM; the hardware and firmware for the 80-column display was built into the Apple IIe. An "extended 80-column card" with more memory increased the machine's RAM to 128 kB.
As with the language card, the memory in the 80-column card was bank-switched over the machine's main RAM; this made the memory better suited to data storage than to running software, and in fact the ProDOS operating system, which was introduced with the Apple IIe, would automatically configure this memory as a RAM disk upon booting.
The 80-column card also enabled one new graphics mode, Double Lo-Res (80×48 pixels). The extended 80-column card enabled two, Double Lo-Res and Double Hi-Res (560×192 pixels). Both modes doubled the horizontal resolution in comparison to the standard Lo-Res (40×48) and Hi-Res (280×192) Modes; in the case of Double Hi-Res, the number of available colors was increased as well, from 6 to 15. Apple IIes from the very first production run could not use Double Hi-Res. Neither of these modes was directly supported by the built-in BASIC.
Introduced with the IIe was the DuoDisk, two 5.25-inch drives in a single enclosure designed to stack between the computer and the monitor. The DuoDisk was plagued by reliability problems, however, and did not catch on as well as the Apple IIe itself.
The Apple IIe was the most popular machine in the Apple II series. It has the distinction of being the longest-lived Apple computer of all time—it was manufactured and sold with only minor changes for nearly 11 years. In that time, two variations were introduced: the Apple IIe Enhanced (four replacement chips to give it some of the features of the later model Apple IIc) and the Apple IIe Platinum (a modernized case color to match other Apple products of the era, along with the addition of a numeric keypad). An Enhanced IIe with 128 kB of RAM can be considered the minimum requirement for running most Apple II software released after about 1988. Enhanced models were distinguished from the standard IIe by having 128k of memory, double hi-resolution graphics, and a 65C02 CPU.
Two and a half years before the Apple IIe, Apple produced and unsuccessfully marketed a computer called the "Apple III" for business users. Some of its features were carried over in the design of the Apple IIe. Among them was the ProDOS operating system, which was based on Apple III's Sophisticated Operating System (SOS). The Apple IIe is the longest-produced computer in the Apple II line, and by Apple overall; it was the last surviving Apple II model upon its discontinuation in November 1993.
Apple released the Apple IIc in April 1984, billing it as a portable Apple II, because it could be easily carried, though unlike modern portables it lacked a built-in display and battery. The IIc even sported a carrying handle that folded down to prop the machine up into a typing position. It was the first of three Apple II models to be made in the Snow White design language, and the only one that used its unique creamy off-white color. (The other Snow White computers from the Apple II series, the IIGS and the IIc Plus, were light gray, called "Platinum" by Apple.) The obsolete cassette port was omitted from the IIc.
The Apple IIc was the first Apple II to use the 65C02 low-power variant of the 6502 processor, and featured a built-in 5.25-inch floppy drive and 128 kB RAM, with a built-in disk controller that could control external drives, composite video (NTSC or PAL), serial interfaces for modem and printer, and a port usable by either a joystick or mouse. Unlike previous Apple II models, the IIc had no internal expansion slots at all, this being the means by which its compact size was attained. Third parties did eventually figure out how to wedge up to 1 MB of additional memory and a real-time clock into the machine, and a later revision of the motherboard provided an expansion slot that could accept an Apple memory card bearing up to 1 MB of RAM. The disk port, originally intended for a second 5.25-inch floppy drive, eventually was able to interface to 3-inch disk drives and (via third parties) even hard disks.
IIc machines supported the 16-color double hi-resolution graphics mode and from a software standpoint were identical to the IIe.
Two different monochrome LCD displays were sold for use with the IIc's video expansion port, although both were short-lived due to high cost and poor legibility. The IIc had an external power supply that converted AC power to 12 V DC, allowing third parties to offer battery packs and automobile power adapters that connected in place of the supplied AC adapter.
The Apple IIc (in its American version) was the first microcomputer to include support for the Dvorak keyboard layout, which was activated using a switch above the keyboard. This feature was also later found in late-model American Apple IIe computers (though the switch was inside the computer) and in the Apple IIGS (accessible via the built-in control panel). The international models used the same mechanism to switch between the localized and the American keyboard layouts, but did not offer Dvorak.
The Apple IIGS, released on September 15, 1986, was the last model in the Apple II line, and radical departure from the prior computers in the line. It featured a true 16-bit microprocessor, the 65C816 operating at with 24-bit addressing, allowing expansion up to 8 MB of RAM. It introduced a palette of 4096 colors and new graphics modes with resolutions of 320×200 and 640×400.
The Apple IIGS evolved and advanced the platform while still maintaining near-complete backward compatibility. The Apple IIGS's Mega II chip contained the functional equivalent of an entire Apple IIe computer (sans processor). This, combined with the 65816's ability to execute 65C02 code directly, provided full support for legacy software, while also supporting 16-bit software running under a new OS. The new OS eventually included a Macintosh-like Finder for managing disks and files and opening documents and applications, along with desk accessories. Eventually, the IIGS gained the ability to read and write Macintosh disks and, through third-party software, even multitasking (in the form of a Unix-type shell) and TrueType font support.
The GS includes a 32-voice Ensoniq 5503 DOC sample-based sound synthesizer chip with 64 kB dedicated RAM, 256 kB (or later 1.125 MB) of standard RAM, built-in peripheral ports (switchable between IIe-style card slots and IIc-style onboard controllers for disk drives, mouse, RGB video, and serial devices) and, built-in AppleTalk networking.
The first 50,000 Apple IIGS computers came with Steve Wozniak's ""Woz"" signature silkscreened on the front and were referred to as the ""Woz Limited Edition"."
The final Apple II model was the Apple IIc Plus introduced in 1988. It was the same size and shape as the IIc that came before it, but the 5.25-inch floppy drive had been replaced with a 3-inch drive, the power supply was moved inside the case, and the processor was a fast 65C02 processor that actually ran 8-bit Apple II software faster than the IIGS. Like later models of the original Apple IIc, the IIc Plus included a memory expansion slot that would accept a daughter-card carrying up to a megabyte of RAM. The IIc Plus also featured a new keyboard layout that matched the Platinum IIe and IIGS. Unlike the IIe IIc and IIGS, the IIc Plus came only in one version (American) and was not officially sold anywhere outside the USA. The Apple IIc Plus ceased production in 1990, with its two-year production run being the shortest of all the Apple II computers.
Although not an extension of the Apple II line, in 1990 the Apple IIe Card, an expansion card for the LC line of Macintosh computers, was released. Essentially a miniaturized Apple IIe computer on a card (using the Mega II chip from the Apple IIGS), it allowed the Macintosh to run 8-bit Apple IIe software through hardware emulation (although video was emulated in software and was slower at times than a IIe). Many of the LC's built-in Macintosh peripherals could be "borrowed" by the card when in Apple II mode (i.e. extra RAM, 3.5-inch floppy, AppleTalk networking, hard disk). The IIe card could not, however, run software intended for the 16-bit Apple IIGS. The Macintosh LC with IIe Card was intended to replace the Apple IIGS in schools and homes and was presumably the reason a new model Apple IIGS that was confirmed by insiders to be in development at one point was cancelled and never released.
Mike Markkula, a retired Intel marketing manager, provided the early critical funding for Apple Computer. From 1977 to 1981, Apple used the Regis McKenna agency for its advertisements and marketing. In 1981, Chiat-Day acquired Regis McKenna's advertising operations and Apple used Chiat-Day. At Regis McKenna Advertising, the team assigned to launch the Apple II consisted of Rob Janoff, art director, Chip Schafer, copywriter and Bill Kelley, account executive. Janoff came up with the Apple logo with a bite out of it. The design was originally an olive green with matching company logotype all in lower case. Steve Jobs insisted on promoting the color capability of the Apple II by putting rainbow stripes on the Apple logo. In its letterhead and business card implementation, the rounded "a" of the logotype echoed the "bite" in the logo. This logo was developed simultaneously with an advertisement and a brochure; the latter being produced for distribution initially at the first West Coast Computer Faire.
Since the original Apple II, Apple has paid high attention to its quality of packaging, partly because of Steve Jobs' personal preferences and opinions on packaging and final product appearance. All of Apple's packaging for the Apple II series looked similar, featuring lots of clean white space and showing the Apple rainbow logo prominently. For several years up until the late 1980s, Apple used the Motter Tektura font for packaging, until changing to the Apple Garamond font.
Apple ran the first advertisement for the Apple II, a two-page spread ad titled "Introducing Apple II", in "BYTE" in July 1977. The first brochure, was entitled "Simplicity" and the copy in both the ad and brochure pioneered "demystifying" language intended to make the new idea of a home computer more "personal." The Apple II introduction ad was later run in the September 1977 issue of "Scientific American".
Apple later aired eight television commercials for the Apple IIGS, emphasizing its benefits to education and students, along with some print ads.
The Apple II was frequently cloned, both in the United States and abroad and similar cloning of the IBM PC later occurred. According to some sources (see below), more than 190 different models of Apple II clones were manufactured. Most could not be legally imported into the United States; United States Customs might confiscate even a clone purchased in Asia and brought into the country as luggage. Apple sued and sought criminal charges against clone makers in more than a dozen countries, and cooperated with the agency in investigations. For example, in December 1983 raids on three separate importers, customs confiscated about 400 clones of the discontinued Apple II that investigators purchased for $375–500.
Without explicitly stating that they were Apple II clones, many had fruit-related names. Examples were the Pineapple and Apricot. A review of the ACT Apricot explained that it was not "yet another 'fruity' Apple rip-off". Apple successfully forced the "Pineapple" to change its name to "Pinecom".
Agat was a series of Apple II compatible computers produced in the Soviet Union between 1984 and 1993. They were widely used in schools in the 80's. The first mass-produced models Agat 4 and Agat 7 had different memory layouts and video modes to Apple II, which made the first Agats only partially compatible. Agats were not direct clones of Apple II, but rather uniquely designed computers based on 6502 CPU and emulated Apple II architecture. That helped developers to port Apple II software titles to Agat. Later model Agat 9 had Apple II compatibility mode out of the box. Soviet engineers and enthusiasts developed thousands of software titles for Agat, including system software, business applications and rich frameworks for education.
Bulgarian Pravetz Series 8 was an Apple II clone with Cyrillic support.
Basis, a German company, created the Basis 108, a clone for the Apple II that included both a 6502 processor and the Zilog Z80, allowing it to run the CP/M operating system as well as most Apple II software. This machine was unusual in that it was housed in a heavy cast aluminum chassis. The Basis 108 was equipped with built-in Centronics (parallel) and RS232c (serial) ports, as well as the standard six Apple II compatible slots. Unlike the Apple II it came with a detached full-stroke keyboard (AZERTY/QWERTY) of 100 keys plus 15 functions keys and separate numeric and editing keypads.
Another European Apple II clone was the Pearcom Pear II, which was larger as the original as it sported not eight but fourteen expansion slots. It also had a numerical keypad. Pearcom initially used a pear shaped rainbow logo, but stopped after Apple threatened to take legal action.
A Bosnian company named IRIS Computers (subsidiary of an electric company in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia ENERGOINVEST) produced Apple II clones starting in the early 1980s. Their official brand name was IRIS 8. They were very expensive and hard to obtain and were produced primarily for use in early computerized digital telephone systems and for education. Their use in offices of state companies, R&D labs and in the Yugoslav army was also reported. IRIS 8 machines looked like early IBM PCs, with a separate central unit accompanied by a cooling system and two 5.25-inch disks, monitor, and keyboard. Compatibility with the original Apple II was complete. Elite high schools in Yugoslavia and especially Bosnia and Herzegovina were equipped with clusters of 8, 16, or 32 IRIS 8 computers connected in a local network administrated by an IRIS 16 PC clone. The number of IRIS 8s produced is believed to be on the order of 10 or 20 thousand.
An Australian-produced clone of the Apple II was the Medfly, named after the Mediterranean fruit fly that attacks apples. The Medfly computer featured a faster processor, more memory, detached keyboard, lower and upper case characters, and a built-in disk controller.
Until 1992 in Brazil, it was illegal to import microcomputers. Because of that, the illegal cloning industry of Apple II-based computers was strong there. In the early 1980s, there were around 20 different clones of Apple II Plus computers in that country, all of them using illegally copied software and hardware (since the Apple II and II Plus used commonly available TTL integrated circuits). Some of the names include Elppa ("Apple" spelled backwards), Maxtro, Exato MC4000 (by CCE), AP II (by Unitron), and even an "Apple II Plus" (manufactured by a company called Milmar, which was using the name illegally). There were only two clones of the Apple IIe, since it used custom IC chips that could not be copied, and therefore had to be reversed-engineered and developed in the country. These clones were the TK3000 IIe by Microdigital and Exato IIe by CCE. In addition, the Laser IIc was manufactured by Milmar and, despite the name, was a clone of the Apple II Plus, not of the Apple IIc, although it had a design similar to that of the Apple IIc, with an integrated floppy controller and 80-column card, but without an integrated floppy disk drive.
The Ace clones from Franklin Computer Corporation were the best known Apple II clones and had the most lasting impact, as Franklin copied Apple's ROMs and software and freely admitted to doing so. Franklin's response was that a computer's ROM was simply a pattern of switches locked into a fixed position, and one cannot copyright a pattern of switches. Apple fought Franklin in court for about five years to get its clones off the market, and was ultimately successful when a court ruled that software stored in ROM was in fact copyrightable in the U.S. (See Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp.) Franklin later released non-infringing but less-compatible clones; these could run ProDOS and AppleWorks and had an Applesoft-like BASIC, but compatibility with other software was hit-or-miss.
Apple also challenged VTech's Laser 128, an enhanced clone of the Apple IIc first released in 1984, in court. This suit proved less fruitful for Apple, because VTech had reverse-engineered the Monitor ROM rather than copying it and had licensed Applesoft BASIC from its creator, Microsoft. Apple had neglected to obtain exclusive rights to the Applesoft dialect of BASIC from Microsoft; VTech was the first cloner to license it. The Laser 128 proved popular and remained on the market for many years, both in its original form and in accelerated versions that ran faster than . Although it was not fully compatible with the Apple II, it was close, and its popularity ensured that most major developers tested their software on a Laser as well as on genuine Apple machines. Because it was frequently sold via mail order and mass-market retailers such as Sears, the Laser 128 cut into the sales of low-cost competitors such as Commodore Business Machines as much as it did Apple's.
While the first Apple II clones were generally exact copies of their Apple counterparts that competed mainly on price, many clones had extra capabilities too. A Franklin model, the Ace 1000, sported a numeric keypad and lower-case long before these features were added to the Apple II line. The Laser 128 series is sometimes credited with spurring Apple to release the Apple IIc Plus; the built-in 3-inch drive and accelerated processor were features Laser had pioneered. The Laser 128 also had a IIe-style expansion slot on the side that could be used to add peripheral cards.
Bell & Howell, an audiovisual equipment manufacturer whose products (particularly film projectors) were ubiquitous in American schools, offered what appeared at first glance to be an Apple II Plus clone in a distinctive black plastic case. However, these were in fact real Apple II Plus units manufactured by Apple for B&H for a brief period of time. Many schools had a few of these Black Apples in their labs.
ITT made the ITT 2020, a licensed Apple II Plus clone, in the UK. It has the same shape as the Apple II but was matte silver (it was sometimes known as the "silver Apple") and was not an exact copy functionally. The ITT2020 produced a PAL video signal for the European market, where the domestic US market used NTSC. Software using the BIOS worked correctly on both the Apple and ITT, but software written to access the Apple's display hardware directly, bypassing the BIOS, displayed with vertical stripes on the ITT 2020. The Apple II itself was later introduced in the UK, and both the Apple II and ITT 2020 were sold for a time, the ITT at a lower price.
Syscom 2 Inc (from Carson City, NV) created the Syscom 2 Apple II+ clone. The case looked nearly identical. It had 48kb of RAM and the normal expansion capabilities. These clones also supported lower case characters, toggled with a ^O keystroke.
An unknown company produced a clone called the RX-8800. One new feature it had was a numeric keypad.
The SEKON, made in Taiwan, had the same color plastic case as an Apple ][, sported 48kb of RAM standard, and a lower-uppercase switch, located where the power light indicator was typically situated on Apple II's. Additionally, it featured a 5-amp power supply which supplied ample power for add-on cards. SEKON avoided shipments being confiscated by U.S. Customs, by shipping their computers without ROMS, leaving it to the dealers to populate the boards upon arrival to their private stores. Often these machines would boot up with a familiar logo of the Apple II after the dealers removed E-proms of original Apple ROMS and added them in. The reason for such activity was so that users could obtain a fully Apple-compatible clone for usually around US$600, as opposed to US$2500 from Apple.
Norwegian company West Computer AS introduced an Apple II clone West PC-800 in 1984. The computer was designed as an alarm center allowing use of several CPUs (6502, Z80, 8086, 68000) and operating systems.
Although not technically a clone, Quadram produced an add-in ISA card, called the Quadlink, that provided hardware emulation of an Apple II+ for the IBM PC. The card had its own 6502 CPU and dedicated 80 K RAM (64 K for applications, plus 16 K to hold a reverse-engineered Apple ROM image, loaded at boot-time), and installed "between" the PC and its floppy drive(s), color display, and speaker, in a pass-through configuration. This allowed the PC to operate in a dual-boot fashion: when booted through the Quadlink, the PC could run the majority of Apple II software, and read and write Apple-formatted floppies through the standard PC floppy drive. Because it had a dedicated processor, rather than any form of software emulation, this system ran at nearly the same speed as an equivalent Apple machine. Another company, Diamond Computer Systems, produced a similar card called the Trackstar, that had a dual pair of 6502 CPUs, and ran Apple II software using an Apple licensed ROM. The original Trackstar (and "128" and "Plus" model) was Apple II Plus compatible, while the "Trackstar E", Apple IIe compatible. The original offered 64K of usable Apple II RAM, while the other models 128K RAM (192K is on board, with the additional memory reserved for the Trackstar itself). The original Trackstar also contained a Z80 CPU, allowing it to run both Apple DOS and Apple CP/M software, however the newer Trackstar models did not, and thus dropped CP/M compatibility. The Trackstar also had a connector allowing use of an actual Apple floppy drive, which enhanced its compatibility with software that took advantage of Apple hardware for copy-protection.
Originally the Apple II used Compact Cassette tapes for program and data storage. A dedicated tape recorder along the lines of the Commodore Datasette was never produced; Apple recommended using the Panasonic RQ309 in some of its early printed documentation. The uses of common consumer cassette recorders and a standard video monitor or television set (with a third party R-F modulator) made the total cost of owning an Apple II less expensive and helped contribute to the Apple II's success.
Cassette storage may have been inexpensive, but it was also slow and unreliable. The Apple II's lack of a disk drive was "a glaring weakness" in what was otherwise intended to be a polished, professional product. Recognizing that the II needed a disk drive to be taken seriously, Apple set out to develop a disk drive and a DOS to run it. Wozniak spent the 1977 Christmas holidays designing a disk controller that reduced the number of chips used by a factor of 10 compared to existing controllers. Still lacking a DOS, and with Wozniak inexperienced in operating system design, Jobs approached Shepardson Microsystems with the project. On April 10, 1978 Apple signed a contract for $13,000 with Sheperdson to develop the DOS.
Even after disk drives made the cassette tape interfaces obsolete they were still used by enthusiasts as simple one-bit audio input-output ports. Ham radio operators used the cassette input to receive slow scan TV (single frame images). A commercial speech recognition Blackjack program was available, after some user-specific voice training it would recognize simple commands (Hit, stand). Bob Bishop's "Music Kaleidoscope" was a simple program that monitored the cassette input port and based on zero-crossings created color patterns on the screen, a predecessor to current audio visualization plug-ins for media players. Music Kaleidoscope was especially popular on projection TV sets in dance halls.
Apple and many third-party developers made software available on tape at first, but after the Disk II became available in 1978, tape-based Apple II software essentially disappeared from the market. The initial price of the Disk II drive and controller was US$595, although a $100 off coupon was available through the Apple newsletter "Contact". The controller could handle two drives and a second drive (without controller) retailed for $495.
The Disk II single-sided floppy drive used 5.25-inch floppy disks; double-sided disks could be used, one side at a time, by turning them over and notching a hole for the write protect sensor. The first disk operating systems for the Apple II were DOS 3.1 and DOS 3.2, which stored 113.75 kB on each disk, organized into 35 tracks of 13 256-byte sectors each. After about two years, DOS 3.3 was introduced, storing 140 kB thanks to a minor firmware change on the disk controller that allowed it to store 16 sectors per track. (This upgrade was user-installable as two PROMs on older controllers.) After the release of DOS 3.3, the user community discontinued use of DOS 3.2 except for running legacy software. Programs that required DOS 3.2 were fairly rare; however, as DOS 3.3 was not a major architectural change aside from the number of sectors per track, a program called MUFFIN was provided with DOS 3.3 to allow users to copy files from DOS 3.2 disks to DOS 3.3 disks. It was possible for software developers to create a DOS 3.2 disk which would also boot on a system with DOS 3.3 firmware.
Later, double-sided drives, with heads to read both sides of the disk, became available from third-party companies. (Apple only produced double-sided 5.25" disks for the Lisa 1 computer).
On a DOS 3.x disk, tracks 0, 1, and most of track 2 were reserved to store the operating system. (It was possible, with a special utility, to reclaim most of this space for data if a disk did not need to be bootable.) A short ROM program on the disk controller had the ability to seek to track zero – which it did without regard for the read/write head's current position, resulting in the characteristic "chattering" sound of a Disk II boot, which was the read/write head hitting the rubber stop block at the end of the rail – and read and execute code from sector 0. The code contained in there would then pull in the rest of the operating system. DOS stored the disk's directory on track 17, smack in the middle of the 35-track disks, in order to reduce the average seek time to the frequently used directory track. The directory was fixed in size and could hold a maximum of 105 files. Subdirectories were not supported.
Most game publishers did not include DOS on their floppy disks, since they needed the memory it occupied more than its capabilities; instead, they often wrote their own boot loaders and read-only file systems. This also served to discourage "crackers" from snooping around in the game's copy-protection code, since the data on the disk was not in files that could be accessed easily.
Some third-party manufacturers produced floppy drives that could write 40 tracks to most 5.25-inch disks, yielding 160 kB of storage per disk, but the format did not catch on widely, and no known commercial software was published on 40-track media. Most drives, even Disk IIs, could write 36 tracks; a two byte modification to DOS to format the extra track was common.
The Apple Disk II stored 140 kB on single-sided, "single-density" floppy disks, but it was very common for Apple II users to extend the capacity of a single-sided floppy disk to 280 kB by cutting out a second write-protect notch on the side of the disk using a "disk notcher" or hole puncher and inserting the disk flipped over. Double-sided disks, with notches on both sides, were available at a higher price, but in practice the magnetic coating on the reverse of nominally single-sided disks was usually of good enough quality to be used (both sides were coated in the same way to prevent warping, although only one side was certified for use). Early on, diskette manufacturers routinely warned that this technique would damage the read/write head of the drives or wear out the disk faster, and these warnings were frequently repeated in magazines of the day. In practice, however, this method was an inexpensive way to store twice as much data for no extra cost, and was widely used for commercially released floppies as well.
Later, Apple IIs were able to use 3.5-inch disks with a total capacity of 800 kB and hard disks. DOS 3.3 did not support these drives natively; third-party software was required, and disks larger than about 400 kB had to be split up into multiple "virtual disk volumes."
DOS 3.3 was succeeded by ProDOS, a 1983 descendant of the Apple ///'s SOS. It added support for subdirectories and volumes up to 32 MB in size. ProDOS became the Apple II DOS of choice; AppleWorks and other newer programs required it.
The Apple II series of computers had an enormous impact on the technology industry and on everyday life. The Apple II was the first personal computer many people ever saw. Its price was within the reach of many middle-class families, and a partnership with MECC helped make the Apple II popular in schools. By the end of 1980 Apple had already sold over 100,000 Apple IIs. Its popularity bootstrapped the computer game and educational software markets and began the boom in the word processor and computer printer markets. The first microcomputer program for business was VisiCalc, the earliest spreadsheet, and it ran first on the Apple II. Many businesses bought Apple IIs just to run VisiCalc. Its success caused IBM to create the IBM PC, which many businesses purchased to run spreadsheet and word processing software, at first ported from Apple II versions.
The Apple II's slots, allowing any peripheral card to take control of the bus and directly access memory, enabled an independent industry of card manufacturers who together created a flood of hardware products that let users build systems that were far more powerful and useful (at a lower cost) than any competing system, most of which were not nearly as expandable and were universally proprietary. The first peripheral card was a blank prototyping card intended for electronics enthusiasts who wanted to design their own peripherals for the Apple II.
Specialty peripherals kept the Apple II in use in industry and education environments for many years after Apple Computer stopped supporting the Apple II. Well into the 1990s every clean-room (the super-clean facility where spacecraft are prepared for flight) at the Kennedy Space Center used an Apple II to monitor the environment and air quality. Most planetariums used Apple IIs to control their projectors and other equipment.
Even the game port was unusually powerful and could be used for digital and analog input and output. The early manuals included instructions for how to build a circuit with only four commonly available components (one transistor and three resistors) and a software routine to drive a common Teletype Model 33 machine. Don Lancaster used the game I/O to drive a LaserWriter printer.
Today, emulators for various Apple II models are available to run Apple II software on macOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, homebrew enabled Nintendo DS and other operating systems. Numerous disk images of Apple II software are available free over the Internet for use with these emulators. AppleWin and MESS are among the best emulators compatible with most Apple II images. The MESS emulator supports recording and playing back of Apple II emulation sessions, as does Home Action Replay Page (a.k.a. HARP).
In addition, an active retrocomputing community of vintage Apple II collectors and users, continue to restore, maintain and develop hardware and software for daily use of these original computers. There is still a small annual convention, KansasFest, dedicated to the platform.
In 2017 the band 8 Bit Weapon released the world's first 100% Apple II based music album entitled, "Class Apples." The album featured dance-oriented cover versions of classical music by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart recorded directly off the Apple II motherboard. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2116 |
Apple III
The Apple III (styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced by Apple Computer and released in 1980. Running the Apple SOS operating system, it was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but was largely considered a failure in the market. It was designed to provide key features business users wanted in a personal computer: a true typewriter-style upper/lowercase keyboard (the Apple II only supported uppercase) and an 80-column display.
Work on the Apple III started in late 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Wendell Sander. It had the internal code name of "Sara", named after Sander's daughter. The system was announced on May 19, 1980 and released in late November that year. Serious stability issues required a design overhaul and a recall of the first 14,000 machines produced. The Apple III was formally reintroduced on November 9, 1981.
Damage to the computer's reputation had already been done and it failed to do well commercially. Development stopped and the Apple III was discontinued on April 24, 1984, and its last successor, the III Plus, was dropped from the Apple product line in September 1985.
An estimated 65,000–75,000 Apple III computers were sold. The Apple III Plus brought this up to approximately 120,000. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak stated that the primary reason for the Apple III's failure was that the system was designed by Apple's marketing department, unlike Apple's previous engineering-driven projects. The Apple III's failure led Apple to reevaluate its plan to phase out the Apple II, prompting the eventual continuation of development of the older machine. As a result, later Apple II models incorporated some hardware and software technologies of the Apple III, such as the thermal Apple Scribe printer.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs expected hobbyists to purchase the Apple II, but because of VisiCalc and Disk II, small businesses purchased 90% of the computers. The Apple III was designed to be a business computer and successor. Though the Apple II contributed to the inspirations of several important business products, such as VisiCalc, Multiplan, and Apple Writer, the computer's hardware architecture, operating system, and developer environment are limited. Apple management intended to clearly establish market segmentation by designing the Apple III to appeal to the 90% business market, leaving the Apple II to home and education users. Management believed that "once the Apple III was out, the Apple II would stop selling in six months", Wozniak said.
The Apple III is powered by a 1.8-megahertz Synertek 6502A or B 8-bit CPU and, like some of the later machines in the Apple II family, uses bank switching techniques to address memory beyond the 6502's traditional 64 kB limit, up to 256 kB in the III's case. Third-party vendors produced memory upgrade kits that allow the Apple III to reach up to 512 kB of random-access memory (RAM). Other Apple III built-in features include an 80-column, 24-line display with upper and lowercase characters, a numeric keypad, dual-speed (pressure-sensitive) cursor control keys, 6-bit (DAC) audio, and a built-in 140-kilobyte 5.25-inch floppy disk drive. Graphics modes include 560x192 in black and white, and 280x192 with 16 colors or shades of gray. Unlike the Apple II, the Disk III controller is part of the logic board.
The Apple III is the first Apple product to allow the user to choose both a screen font and a keyboard layout: either QWERTY or Dvorak. These choices cannot be changed while programs were running, unlike the Apple IIc, which has a keyboard switch directly above the keyboard, allowing the user to switch on the fly.
The Apple III introduced an advanced operating system called Apple SOS, pronounced "apple sauce". Its ability to address resources by name allows the Apple III to be more scalable than the Apple II's addressing by physical location such as codice_1. Apple SOS allows the full capacity of a storage device to be used as a single volume, such as the Apple ProFile hard disk drive, and it supports a hierarchical file system. Some of the features and code base of Apple SOS were later adopted into the Apple II's ProDOS and GS/OS operating systems, as well as Lisa 7/7 and Macintosh system software.
With a starting price between $4,340 to $7,800, the Apple III was more expensive than many of the CP/M-based business computers that were available at the time. Few software applications other than VisiCalc are available for the computer; according to a presentation at KansasFest 2012, fewer than 50 Apple III-specific software packages were ever published, most shipping when the III Plus was released. Because Apple did not view the Apple III as suitable for hobbyists, it did not provide much of the technical software information that accompanies the Apple II. Originally intended as a direct replacement to the Apple II series, it was designed to be backward compatible with Apple II software. However, since Apple did not want to encourage continued development of the II platform, Apple II compatibility exists only in a special Apple II Mode which is limited in its capabilities to the emulation of a basic Apple II Plus configuration with 48 kB of RAM. Special chips were intentionally added to prevent access from Apple II Mode to the III's advanced features such as its larger amount of memory.
The Apple III has four expansion slots, a number that "inCider" in 1986 called "miserly". Apple II cards are compatible but risk violating government RFI regulations, and require Apple III-specific device drivers; "BYTE" stated that "Apple provides virtually no information on how to write them". As with software, Apple provided little hardware technical information with the computer but Apple III-specific products became available, such as one that made the computer compatible with the Apple IIe. Several new Apple-produced peripherals were developed for the Apple III. The original Apple III has a built-in real-time clock, which is recognized by Apple SOS. The clock was later removed from the "revised" model, and was instead made available as an add-on.
Along with the built-in floppy drive, the Apple III can also handle up to three additional external Disk III floppy disk drives. The Disk III is only officially compatible with the Apple III. The Apple III Plus requires an adaptor from Apple to use the Disk III with its DB-25 disk port.
With the introduction of the revised Apple III a year after launch, Apple began offering the ProFile external hard disk system. Priced at $3,499 for 5 MB of storage, it also required a peripheral slot for its controller card.
The Apple III has the built-in hardware capability to run Apple II software. In order to do so, an emulation boot disk is required that functionally turns the machine into a standard 48-kilobyte Apple II Plus, until it is powered off. The keyboard, internal floppy drive (and one external Disk III), display (color is provided through the 'B/W video' port) and speaker all act as Apple II peripherals. The paddle and serial ports can also function in Apple II mode, however with some limitations and compatibility issues.
Apple engineers added specialized circuity with the sole purpose of blocking access to its advanced features when running in Apple II emulation mode. This was done primarily to discourage further development and interest in the Apple II line, and to push the Apple III as its successor. For example, no more than of RAM can be accessed, even if the machine has of RAM or higher present. Many Apple II programs require a minimum of of RAM, making them impossible to run on the Apple III. Similarly, access to lowercase support, 80 columns text, or its more advanced graphics and sound are blocked by this hardware circuitry, making it impossible for even skilled software programmers to bypass Apple's lockout. A third party company, Titan Technologies, sold an expansion board called the III Plus II that allows Apple II mode to access more memory, a standard game port, and with a later released companion card, even emulate the Apple IIe.
Certain Apple II slot cards can be installed in the Apple III and used in native III-mode with custom written SOS device drivers, including Grappler Plus and Liron 3.5 Controller.
Once the logic board design flaws were discovered, a newer logic board design was produced – which includes a lower power requirement, wider traces, and better-designed chip sockets. The $3,495 revised model also includes 256 kB of RAM as the standard configuration. The 14,000 units of the original Apple III sold were returned and replaced with the entirely new revised model.
Apple discontinued the III in October 1983 because it violated FCC regulations, and the FCC required the company to change the redesigned computer's name. It introduced the Apple III Plus in December 1983 at a price of US$2,995. This newer version includes a built-in clock, video interlacing, standardized rear port connectors, 55-watt power supply, 256 kB of RAM as standard, and a redesigned, Apple IIe-like keyboard.
Owners of the Apple III could purchase individual III Plus upgrades, like the clock and interlacing feature, and obtain the newer logic board as a service replacement. A keyboard upgrade kit, dubbed "Apple III Plus upgrade kit" was also made available – which included the keyboard, cover, keyboard encoder ROM, and logo replacements. This upgrade had to be installed by an authorized service technician.
According to Wozniak, the Apple III "had 100 percent hardware failures". Former Apple executive Taylor Pohlman stated that:
Steve Jobs insisted on the idea of having no fan or air vents, in order to make the computer run quietly. Jobs would later push this same ideology onto almost all Apple models he had control of, from the Apple Lisa and Macintosh 128K to the iMac. To allow the computer to dissipate heat, the base of the Apple III was made of heavy cast aluminum, which supposedly acts as a heat sink. One advantage to the aluminum case was a reduction in RFI (Radio Frequency Interference), a problem which had plagued the Apple II series throughout its history. Unlike the Apple II series, the power supply was mounted – without its own shell – in a compartment separate from the logic board. The decision to use an aluminum shell ultimately led to engineering issues which resulted in the Apple III's reliability problems. The lead time for manufacturing the shells was high, and this had to be done before the motherboard was finalized. Later, it was realized that there was not enough room on the motherboard for all of the components unless narrow traces were used.
Many Apple IIIs were thought to have failed due to their inability to properly dissipate heat. "inCider" stated in 1986 that "Heat has always been a formidable enemy of the Apple ///", and some users reported that their Apple IIIs became so hot that the chips started dislodging from the board, causing the screen to display garbled data or their disk to come out of the slot "melted". "BYTE" wrote, "the integrated circuits tended to wander out of their sockets". Apple advised customers to tilt the front of the Apple III six inches above the desk and then drop it to reseat the chips. Other analyses blame a faulty automatic chip insertion process, not heat.
Case designer Jerry Manock denied the design flaw charges, insisting that tests proved that the unit adequately dissipated the internal heat. The primary cause, he claimed, was a major logic board design problem. The logic board used "fineline" technology that was not fully mature at the time, with narrow, closely spaced traces. When chips were "stuffed" into the board and wave-soldered, solder bridges would form between traces that were not supposed to be connected. This caused numerous short circuits, which required hours of costly diagnosis and hand rework to fix. Apple designed a new circuit board with more layers and normal-width traces. The new logic board was laid out by one designer on a huge drafting board, rather than using the costly CAD-CAM system used for the previous board, and the new design worked.
Earlier Apple III units came with a built-in real time clock. The hardware, however, would fail after prolonged use. Assuming that National Semiconductor would test all parts before shipping them, Apple did not perform this level of testing. Apple was soldering chips directly to boards and could not easily replace a bad chip if one was found. Eventually, Apple solved this problem by removing the real-time clock from the Apple III's specification rather than shipping the Apple III with the clock pre-installed, and then sold the peripheral as a level 1 technician add-on.
Microsoft and Apple each developed their own versions of BASIC for the Apple III. Apple III Microsoft BASIC was designed to run on the CP/M platform available for the Apple III. Apple Business BASIC shipped with the Apple III. Donn Denman ported Applesoft BASIC to SOS and reworked it to take advantage of the extended memory of the Apple III.
Both languages introduced a number of new or improved features over Applesoft BASIC. Both languages replaced Applesoft's single-precision floating-point variables using 5-byte storage with the somewhat-reduced-precision 4-byte variables, while also adding a larger numerical format. Apple III Microsoft BASIC provides double-precision floating-point variables, taking 8 bytes of storage, while Apple Business BASIC offers an extra-long integer type, also taking 8 bytes for storage. Both languages also retain 2-byte integers, and maximum 255-character strings.
Other new features common to both languages include:
Some features work differently in each language:
There is no support for graphics provided within the language, nor for reading analog controls or buttons; nor is there a means of defining the active window of the text screen.
Apple Business BASIC eliminates all references to absolute memory addresses. Thus, the POKE command and PEEK() function were not included in the language, and new features replaced the CALL statement and USR() function. Functionality of certain features in Applesoft that had been achieved with various PEEK and POKE locations is now provided by:
External binary subroutines and functions are loaded into memory by a single INVOKE disk-command that loads separately-assembled code modules. A PERFORM statement is then used to call an INVOKEd procedure by name, with an argument-list. INVOKEd functions would be referenced in expressions by EXFN. (floating-point) or EXFN%. (integer), with the function name appended, plus the argument-list for the function.
Graphics are supported with an INVOKEd module, with features including displaying text within graphics in various fonts, within four different graphics modes available on the Apple III.
Despite devoting the majority of its R&D to the Apple III and so ignoring the II that for a while dealers had difficulty in obtaining the latter, the III's technical problems made marketing the computer difficult. Ed Smith, who after the APF Imagination Machine became a distributor's representative, described the computer as "a complete disaster". He recalled that he "was responsible for going to every dealership, setting up the Apple III in their showroom, and then explaining to them the functions of the Apple III, which in many cases didn’t really work". Pohlman said that Apple was only selling 500 units a month by late 1981, mostly as replacements. The company was able to raise monthly sales to 5,000, but the IBM PC's successful launch encouraged software companies to develop for it instead, causing Apple to shift focus to the Lisa and Macintosh. The PC almost ended sales of the III, the most comparable Apple computer; by early 1984, sales were only to existing III owners, Apple itself—its 4500 employees had about 3000-4500 units—and some small businesses. Apple discontinued the Apple III series on April 24, 1984, four months after introducing the III Plus, after selling 65,000-75,000 computers and replacing 14,000 defective units.
Jobs said that the company lost "infinite, incalculable amounts" of money on the Apple III. Wozniak estimated that Apple had spent $100 million on the III, instead of improving the II and better competing against IBM. Pohlman claimed that there was a "stigma" at Apple associated with having contributed to the computer. Most employees who worked on the III reportedly left Apple.
The file system and some design ideas from Apple SOS, the Apple III's operating system, were part of Apple ProDOS and Apple GS/OS, the major operating systems for the Apple II series following the demise of the Apple III, as well as the Apple Lisa, which was the de facto business-oriented successor to the Apple III. The hierarchical file system influenced the evolution of the Macintosh: while the original Macintosh File System (MFS) was a flat file system designed for a floppy disk without subdirectories, subsequent file systems were hierarchical. By comparison, the IBM PC's first file system (again designed for floppy disks) was also flat and later versions (designed for hard disks) were hierarchical.
At the start of the Walt Disney Pictures film "TRON", lead character Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) is seen hacking into the ENCOM mainframe using an Apple III.
In an episode of Narcos: Mexico, the Apple III was mentioned during the scene involving the 1988 elections. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2117 |
AVL tree
In computer science, an AVL tree (named after inventors Adelson-Velsky and Landis) is a self-balancing binary search tree. It was the first such data structure to be invented. In an AVL tree, the heights of the two child subtrees of any node differ by at most one; if at any time they differ by more than one, rebalancing is done to restore this property. Lookup, insertion, and deletion all take time in both the average and worst cases, where formula_1 is the number of nodes in the tree prior to the operation. Insertions and deletions may require the tree to be rebalanced by one or more tree rotations.
The AVL tree is named after its two Soviet inventors, Georgy Adelson-Velsky and Evgenii Landis, who published it in their 1962 paper "An algorithm for the organization of information".
AVL trees are often compared with red–black trees because both support the same set of operations and take formula_2 time for the basic operations. For lookup-intensive applications, AVL trees are faster than red–black trees because they are more strictly balanced. Similar to red–black trees, AVL trees are height-balanced. Both are, in general, neither weight-balanced nor formula_3-balanced for any formula_4; | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2118 |
Aliphatic compound
In organic chemistry, hydrocarbons (compounds composed solely of carbon and hydrogen) are divided into two classes: aromatic compounds and aliphatic compounds (; G. "aleiphar", fat, oil), also known as non-aromatic hydrocarbons. Aliphatics can be cyclic; however, hydrocarbons with conjugated pi-systems that obey Hückel's rule are instead considered to be aromatic. Aliphatic compounds can be saturated, like hexane, or unsaturated, like hexene and hexyne. Open-chain compounds (whether straight or branched) contain no rings of any type, and are thus aliphatic.
Aliphatic compounds can be saturated, joined by single bond
(alkanes), or unsaturated, with double bond (alkenes) or triple bond (alkynes). Besides hydrogen, other elements can be bonded to the carbon chain, the most common elements are oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and chlorine.
The least complex aliphatic compound is methane (CH4).
Most aliphatic compounds are flammable, allowing the use of hydrocarbons as fuel, such as methane in Bunsen burners and as liquefied natural gas (LNG), and ethyne (acetylene) in welding.
The most important aliphatic compounds are:
Important examples of low-molecular aliphatic compounds can be found in the list below (sorted by the number of carbon-atoms): | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2120 |
Astrology
Astrology is a pseudoscience that claims to divine information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects. Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, and has its roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Arab world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person's personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.
Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. It was present in political circles and is mentioned in various works of literature, from Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Calderón de la Barca.
Following the end of the 19th century and the wide-scale adoption of the scientific method, researchers have successfully challenged astrology on both theoretical and experimental grounds, and have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in it has largely declined. While polls have demonstrated that approximately one quarter of American, British, and Canadian people say they continue to believe that star- and planet-positions affect their lives, astrology is now recognized as a pseudoscience
The word "astrology" comes from the early Latin word "astrologia", which derives from the Greek —from ἄστρον "astron" ("star") and -λογία "-logia", ("study of"—"account of the stars"). "Astrologia" later passed into meaning 'star-divination' with "astronomia" used for the scientific term.
Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, and Maya developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. In the West, astrology most often consists of a system of horoscopes purporting to explain aspects of a person's personality and predict future events in their life based on the positions of the sun, moon, and other celestial objects at the time of their birth. The majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.
Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, with roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BCE). "Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa" is one of earliest known Hindu texts on astronomy and astrology ("Jyotisha"). The text is dated between 1400 BCE to final centuries BCE by various scholars according to astronomical and linguistic evidences. Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE). Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, creating horoscopic astrology. Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with 'Chaldean wisdom'. After the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe and translated into Latin. Major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of poets such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer, and of playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.
Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition. It was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. At the end of the 17th century, new scientific concepts in astronomy and physics (such as heliocentrism and Newtonian mechanics) called astrology into question. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined.
Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. Early evidence for humans making conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles, appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that lunar cycles were being noted as early as 25,000 years ago. This was a first step towards recording the Moon's influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organising a communal calendar. Farmers addressed agricultural needs with increasing knowledge of the constellations that appear in the different seasons—and used the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities. By the 3rd millennium BCE, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars.
Scattered evidence suggests that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa is thought to be compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE. A scroll documenting an early use of electional astrology is doubtfully ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash (c. 2144 – 2124 BCE). This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favourable for the planned construction of a temple. However, there is controversy about whether these were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is therefore attributed to the records of the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BCE). This astrology had some parallels with Hellenistic Greek (western) astrology, including the zodiac, a norming point near 9 degrees in Aries, the trine aspect, planetary exaltations, and the dodekatemoria (the twelve divisions of 30 degrees each). The Babylonians viewed celestial events as possible signs rather than as causes of physical events.
The system of Chinese astrology was elaborated during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) and flourished during the Han Dynasty (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE), during which all the familiar elements of traditional Chinese culture – the Yin-Yang philosophy, theory of the five elements, Heaven and Earth, Confucian morality – were brought together to formalise the philosophical principles of Chinese medicine and divination, astrology and alchemy.
The Hellenistic schools of philosophical skepticism criticized the rationality of astrology. Criticisms of astrology by Academic Skeptics such as Cicero, Carneades, and Favorinus; and Pyrrhonists such as Sextus Empiricus have been preserved.
Carneades argued that belief in fate denies free will and morality; that people born at different times can all die in the same accident or battle; and that contrary to uniform influences from the stars, tribes and cultures are all different.
Cicero stated the twins objection (that with close birth times, personal outcomes can be very different), later developed by Saint Augustine. He argued that since the other planets are much more distant from the earth than the moon, they could have only very tiny influence compared to the moon's. He also argued that if astrology explains everything about a person's fate, then it wrongly ignores the visible effect of inherited ability and parenting, changes in health worked by medicine, or the effects of the weather on people.
Favorinus argued that it was absurd to imagine that stars and planets would affect human bodies in the same way as they affect the tides, and equally absurd that small motions in the heavens cause large changes in people's fates.
Sextus Empiricus argued that it was absurd to link human attributes with myths about the signs of the zodiac.
The Neoplatonist Plotinus argued that since the fixed stars are much more distant than the planets, it is laughable to imagine the planets' effect on human affairs should depend on their position with respect to the zodiac. He also argues that the interpretation of the moon's conjunction with a planet as good when the moon is full, but bad when the moon is waning, is clearly wrong, as from the moon's point of view, half of its surface is always in sunlight; and from the planet's point of view, waning should be better, as then the planet sees some light from the moon, but when the moon is full to us, it is dark, and therefore bad, on the side facing the planet in question.
In 525 BCE, Egypt was conquered by the Persians. The 1st century BCE Egyptian Dendera Zodiac shares two signs – the Balance and the Scorpion – with Mesopotamian astrology.
With the occupation by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, Egypt became Hellenistic. The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander after the conquest, becoming the place where Babylonian astrology was mixed with Egyptian Decanic astrology to create Horoscopic astrology. This contained the Babylonian zodiac with its system of planetary exaltations, the triplicities of the signs and the importance of eclipses. It used the Egyptian concept of dividing the zodiac into thirty-six decans of ten degrees each, with an emphasis on the rising decan, and the Greek system of planetary Gods, sign rulership and four elements. 2nd century BCE texts predict positions of planets in zodiac signs at the time of the rising of certain decans, particularly Sothis. The astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy lived in Alexandria. Ptolemy's work the "Tetrabiblos" formed the basis of Western astrology, and, "...enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among the astrological writers of a thousand years or more."
The conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great exposed the Greeks to ideas from Syria, Babylon, Persia and central Asia. Around 280 BCE, Berossus, a priest of Bel from Babylon, moved to the Greek island of Kos, teaching astrology and Babylonian culture. By the 1st century BCE, there were two varieties of astrology, one using horoscopes to describe the past, present and future; the other, theurgic, emphasising the soul's ascent to the stars. Greek influence played a crucial role in the transmission of astrological theory to Rome.
The first definite reference to astrology in Rome comes from the orator Cato, who in 160 BCE warned farm overseers against consulting with Chaldeans, who were described as Babylonian 'star-gazers'. Among both Greeks and Romans, Babylonia (also known as Chaldea) became so identified with astrology that 'Chaldean wisdom' became synonymous with divination using planets and stars. The 2nd-century Roman poet and satirist Juvenal complains about the pervasive influence of Chaldeans, saying, "Still more trusted are the Chaldaeans; every word uttered by the astrologer they will believe has come from Hammon's fountain."
One of the first astrologers to bring Hermetic astrology to Rome was Thrasyllus, astrologer to the emperor Tiberius, the first emperor to have had a court astrologer, though his predecessor Augustus had used astrology to help legitimise his Imperial rights.
The main texts upon which classical Indian astrology is based are early medieval compilations, notably the "", and "Sārāvalī" by .
The "Horāshastra" is a composite work of 71 chapters, of which the first part (chapters 1–51) dates to the 7th to early 8th centuries and the second part (chapters 52–71) to the later 8th century. The "Sārāvalī" likewise dates to around 800 CE. English translations of these texts were published by N.N. Krishna Rau and V.B. Choudhari in 1963 and 1961, respectively.
Astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars following the collapse of Alexandria to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th. The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754–775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as "Bayt al-Hikma" 'House of Wisdom', which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad, and Sahl ibn Bishr, ("a.k.a." "Zael"), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century.
The first astrological book published in Europe was the "Liber Planetis et Mundi Climatibus" ("Book of the Planets and Regions of the World"), which appeared between 1010 and 1027 AD, and may have been authored by Gerbert of Aurillac. Ptolemy's second century AD "Tetrabiblos" was translated into Latin by Plato of Tivoli in 1138. The Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in proposing that the stars ruled the imperfect 'sublunary' body, while attempting to reconcile astrology with Christianity by stating that God ruled the soul. The thirteenth century mathematician Campanus of Novara is said to have devised a system of astrological houses that divides the prime vertical into 'houses' of equal 30° arcs, though the system was used earlier in the East. The thirteenth century astronomer Guido Bonatti wrote a textbook, the "Liber Astronomicus", a copy of which King Henry VII of England owned at the end of the fifteenth century.
In "Paradiso", the final part of the "Divine Comedy", the Italian poet Dante Alighieri referred "in countless details" to the astrological planets, though he adapted traditional astrology to suit his Christian viewpoint, for example using astrological thinking in his prophecies of the reform of Christendom.
In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville argued in his "Etymologiae" that astronomy described the movements of the heavens, while astrology had two parts: one was scientific, describing the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars, while the other, making predictions, was theologically erroneous. In contrast, John Gower in the fourteenth century defined astrology as essentially limited to the making of predictions. The influence of the stars was in turn divided into natural astrology, with for example effects on tides and the growth of plants, and judicial astrology, with supposedly predictable effects on people. The fourteenth century sceptic Nicole Oresme however included astronomy as a part of astrology in his "Livre de divinacions". Oresme argued that current approaches to prediction of events such as plagues, wars, and weather were inappropriate, but that such prediction was a valid field of inquiry. However, he attacked the use of astrology to choose the timing of actions (so-called interrogation and election) as wholly false, and rejected the determination of human action by the stars on grounds of free will. The friar Laurens Pignon (c. 1368–1449) similarly rejected all forms of divination and determinism, including by the stars, in his 1411 "Contre les Devineurs". This was in opposition to the tradition carried by the Arab astronomer Albumasar (787-886) whose "Introductorium in Astronomiam" and "De Magnis Coniunctionibus" argued the view that both individual actions and larger scale history are determined by the stars.
In the late 1400s, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola forcefully attacked astrology in "Disputationes contra Astrologos", arguing that the heavens neither caused, nor heralded earthly events. His contemporary, Pietro Pomponazzi, a "rationalistic and critical thinker" was much more sanguine about astrology and critical of Pico's attack.
Renaissance scholars commonly practised astrology. Gerolamo Cardano cast the horoscope of king Edward VI of England, while John Dee was the personal astrologer to queen Elizabeth I of England. Catherine de Medici paid Michael Nostradamus in 1566 to verify the prediction of the death of her husband, king Henry II of France made by her astrologer Lucus Gauricus. Major astronomers who practised as court astrologers included Tycho Brahe in the royal court of Denmark, Johannes Kepler to the Habsburgs, Galileo Galilei to the Medici, and Giordano Bruno who was burnt at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600. The distinction between astrology and astronomy was not entirely clear. Advances in astronomy were often motivated by the desire to improve the accuracy of astrology.
Ephemerides with complex astrological calculations, and almanacs interpreting celestial events for use in medicine and for choosing times to plant crops, were popular in Elizabethan England. In 1597, the English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood made a set of paper instruments that used revolving overlays to help students work out relationships between fixed stars or constellations, the midheaven, and the twelve astrological houses. Hood's instruments also illustrated, for pedagogical purposes, the supposed relationships between the signs of the zodiac, the planets, and the parts of the human body adherents believed were governed by the planets and signs. While Hood's presentation was innovative, his astrological information was largely standard and was taken from Gerard Mercator's astrological disc made in 1551, or a source used by Mercator.
English astrology had reached its zenith by the 17th century. Astrologers were theorists, researchers, and social engineers, as well as providing individual advice to everyone from monarchs downwards. Among other things, astrologers claimed to be able to advise on the best time to take a journey or harvest a crop, diagnose and prescribe for physical or mental illnesses, and predict natural disasters. This underpinned a system in which everything – people, the world, the universe – was understood to be interconnected, and astrology co-existed happily with religion, magic and science.
During the Enlightenment, intellectual sympathy for astrology fell away, leaving only a popular following supported by cheap almanacs. One English almanac compiler, Richard Saunders, followed the spirit of the age by printing a derisive "Discourse on the Invalidity of Astrology", while in France Pierre Bayle's "Dictionnaire" of 1697 stated that the subject was puerile. The Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift ridiculed the Whig political astrologer John Partridge.
Astrology saw a popular revival starting in the 19th century, as part of a general revival of spiritualism and—later, New Age philosophy, and through the influence of mass media such as newspaper horoscopes. Early in the 20th century the psychiatrist Carl Jung developed some concepts concerning astrology, which led to the development of psychological astrology.
Advocates have defined astrology as a symbolic language, an art form, a science, and a method of divination. Though most cultural astrology systems share common roots in ancient philosophies that influenced each other, many use methods that differ from those in the West. These include Hindu astrology (also known as "Indian astrology" and in modern times referred to as "Vedic astrology") and Chinese astrology, both of which have influenced the world's cultural history.
Western astrology is a form of divination based on the construction of a horoscope for an exact moment, such as a person's birth. It uses the tropical zodiac, which is aligned to the equinoctial points.
Western astrology is founded on the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies such as the Sun, Moon and planets, which are analysed by their movement through signs of the zodiac (twelve spatial divisions of the ecliptic) and by their aspects (based on geometric angles) relative to one another. They are also considered by their placement in houses (twelve spatial divisions of the sky). Astrology's modern representation in western popular media is usually reduced to sun sign astrology, which considers only the zodiac sign of the Sun at an individual's date of birth, and represents only 1/12 of the total chart.
The horoscope visually expresses the set of relationships for the time and place of the chosen event. These relationships are between the seven 'planets', signifying tendencies such as war and love; the twelve signs of the zodiac; and the twelve houses. Each planet is in a particular sign and a particular house at the chosen time, when observed from the chosen place, creating two kinds of relationship. A third kind is the aspect of each planet to every other planet, where for example two planets 120° apart (in 'trine') are in a harmonious relationship, but two planets 90° apart ('square') are in a conflicted relationship. Together these relationships and their interpretations supposedly form "...the language of the heavens speaking to learned men."
Along with tarot divination, astrology is one of the core studies of Western esotericism, and as such has influenced systems of magical belief not only among Western esotericists and Hermeticists, but also belief systems such as Wicca that have borrowed from or been influenced by the Western esoteric tradition. Tanya Luhrmann has said that "all magicians know something about astrology," and refers to a table of correspondences in Starhawk's "The Spiral Dance", organised by planet, as an example of the astrological lore studied by magicians.
The earliest Vedic text on astronomy is the "Vedanga Jyotisha"; Vedic thought later came to include astrology as well.
Hindu natal astrology originated with Hellenistic astrology by the 3rd century BCE, though incorporating the Hindu lunar mansions. The names of the signs (e.g. Greek 'Krios' for Aries, Hindi 'Kriya'), the planets (e.g. Greek 'Helios' for Sun, astrological Hindi 'Heli'), and astrological terms (e.g. Greek 'apoklima' and 'sunaphe' for declination and planetary conjunction, Hindi 'apoklima' and 'sunapha' respectively) in Varaha Mihira's texts are considered conclusive evidence of a Greek origin for Hindu astrology. The Indian techniques may also have been augmented with some of the Babylonian techniques.
Chinese astrology has a close relation with Chinese philosophy (theory of the three harmonies: heaven, earth and man) and uses concepts such as yin and yang, the Five phases, the 10 Celestial stems, the 12 Earthly Branches, and shichen (時辰 a form of timekeeping used for religious purposes). The early use of Chinese astrology was mainly confined to political astrology, the observation of unusual phenomena, identification of portents and the selection of auspicious days for events and decisions.
The constellations of the Zodiac of western Asia and Europe were not used; instead the sky is divided into Three Enclosures (三垣 sān yuán), and Twenty-Eight Mansions (二十八宿 èrshíbā xiù) in twelve Ci (). The Chinese zodiac of twelve animal signs is said to represent twelve different types of personality. It is based on cycles of years, lunar months, and two-hour periods of the day (the shichen). The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and the cycle proceeds through 11 other animals signs: the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. Complex systems of predicting fate and destiny based on one's birthday, birth season, and birth hours, such as "ziping" and Zi Wei Dou Shu () are still used regularly in modern-day Chinese astrology. They do not rely on direct observations of the stars.
The Korean zodiac is identical to the Chinese one. The Vietnamese zodiac is almost identical to Chinese zodiac except the second animal is the "Water Buffalo" instead of the "Ox", and the fourth animal is the "Cat" instead of the "Rabbit". The Japanese have since 1873 celebrated the beginning of the new year on 1 January as per the Gregorian calendar. The Thai zodiac begins, not at Chinese New Year, but either on the first day of fifth month in the Thai lunar calendar, or during the Songkran festival (now celebrated every 13–15 April), depending on the purpose of the use.
St. Augustine (354430) believed that the determinism of astrology conflicted with the Christian doctrines of man's free will and responsibility, and God not being the cause of evil, but he also grounded his opposition philosophically, citing the failure of astrology to explain twins who behave differently although conceived at the same moment and born at approximately the same time.
Some of the practices of astrology were contested on theological grounds by medieval Muslim astronomers such as Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) and Avicenna. They said that the methods of astrologers conflicted with orthodox religious views of Islamic scholars, by suggesting that the Will of God can be known and predicted in advance. For example, Avicenna's 'Refutation against astrology', "Risāla fī ibṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm", argues against the practice of astrology while supporting the principle that planets may act as agents of divine causation. Avicenna considered that the movement of the planets influenced life on earth in a deterministic way, but argued against the possibility of determining the exact influence of the stars. Essentially, Avicenna did not deny the core dogma of astrology, but denied our ability to understand it to the extent that precise and fatalistic predictions could be made from it. Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350), in his "Miftah Dar al-SaCadah", also used physical arguments in astronomy to question the practice of judicial astrology. He recognised that the stars are much larger than the planets, and argued: And if you astrologers answer that it is precisely because of this distance and smallness that their influences are negligible, then why is it that you claim a great influence for the smallest heavenly body, Mercury? Why is it that you have given an influence to al-Ra's and al-Dhanab, which are two imaginary points [ascending and descending nodes]?
Maimonides, the preeminent Jewish philosopher, astronomer, and legal codifier, wrote that astrology is forbidden by Jewish law.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church maintains that divination, including predictive astrology, is incompatible with modern Catholic beliefs such as free will:
The scientific community rejects astrology as having no explanatory power for describing the universe, and considers it a pseudoscience. Scientific testing of astrology has been conducted, and no evidence has been found to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions. There is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth that does not contradict well understood, basic aspects of biology and physics. Those who continue to have faith in astrology have been characterised as doing so "...in spite of the fact that there is no verified scientific basis for their beliefs, and indeed that there is strong evidence to the contrary."
Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias, a psychological factor that contributes to belief in astrology. Astrology believers tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true, and do not remember those that turn out false. Another, separate, form of confirmation bias also plays a role, where believers often fail to distinguish between messages that demonstrate special ability and those that do not. Thus there are two distinct forms of confirmation bias that are under study with respect to astrological belief.
Under the criterion of falsifiability, first proposed by the philosopher of science Karl Popper, astrology is a pseudoscience. Popper regarded astrology as "pseudo-empirical" in that "it appeals to observation and experiment," but "nevertheless does not come up to scientific standards." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2122 |
Algebraic extension
In abstract algebra, a field extension "L"/"K" is called algebraic if every element of "L" is algebraic over "K", i.e. if every element of "L" is a root of some non-zero polynomial with coefficients in "K". Field extensions that are not algebraic, i.e. which contain transcendental elements, are called transcendental.
For example, the field extension R/Q, that is the field of real numbers as an extension of the field of rational numbers, is transcendental, while the field extensions C/R and Q()/Q are algebraic, where C is the field of complex numbers.
All transcendental extensions are of infinite degree. This in turn implies that all finite extensions are algebraic. The converse is not true however: there are infinite extensions which are algebraic. For instance, the field of all algebraic numbers is an infinite algebraic extension of the rational numbers.
If "a" is algebraic over "K", then "K"["a"], the set of all polynomials in "a" with coefficients in "K", is not only a ring but a field: an algebraic extension of "K" which has finite degree over "K". The converse is true as well, if "K"["a"] is a field, then "a" is algebraic over "K". In the special case where "K" = Q is the field of rational numbers, Q["a"] is an example of an algebraic number field.
A field with no proper algebraic extensions is called algebraically closed. An example is the field of complex numbers. Every field has an algebraic extension which is algebraically closed (called its algebraic closure), but proving this in general requires some form of the axiom of choice.
An extension "L"/"K" is algebraic if and only if every sub "K"-algebra of "L" is a field.
The class of algebraic extensions forms a distinguished class of field extensions, that is, the following three properties hold:
These finitary results can be generalized using transfinite induction:
This fact, together with Zorn's lemma (applied to an appropriately chosen poset), establishes the existence of algebraic closures.
Model theory generalizes the notion of algebraic extension to arbitrary theories: an embedding of "M" into "N" is called an algebraic extension if for every "x" in "N" there is a formula "p" with parameters in "M", such that "p"("x") is true and the set
is finite. It turns out that applying this definition to the theory of fields gives the usual definition of algebraic extension. The Galois group of "N" over "M" can again be defined as the group of automorphisms, and it turns out that most of the theory of Galois groups can be developed for the general case. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2125 |
Ani DiFranco
Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco (; born 1970) is an American singer/songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz. She has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe, giving her significant creative freedom.
DiFranco supports many social and political movements by performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums and speaking at rallies. Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed grassroots cultural and political organizations supporting causes including abortion rights and LGBT visibility. She counts American folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger among her mentors.
DiFranco released a memoir, "No Walls and the Recurring Dream", on May 7, 2019, via Viking Books.
DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 23, 1970, the daughter of Elizabeth (Ross) and Dante Americo DiFranco (died 2004), who had met while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her father was of Italian descent, and her mother was from Montreal. DiFranco started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum, at the age of nine. By 14 she was writing her own songs. She played them at bars and coffee houses throughout her teens. DiFranco graduated from the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts high school at 16 and began attending classes at Buffalo State College. She was living by herself, having moved out of her mother's apartment after she became an emancipated minor when she was 15.
DiFranco started her own record company, Righteous Babe Records, in 1989 at age 19. She released her self-titled debut album in the winter of 1990, shortly after relocating to New York City. There, she took poetry classes at The New School, where she met poet Sekou Sundiata, who was to become a friend and mentor. She toured steadily for the next 15 years, pausing only to record albums. Appearances at Canadian folk festivals and increasingly larger venues in the U.S. reflected her increasing popularity on the North American folk and roots scene. Throughout the early and mid-1990s DiFranco toured solo and also as a duo with Canadian drummer Andy Stochansky.
In September 1995, DiFranco participated in a concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio, inaugurating the opening of the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. She later released a CD on Righteous Babe of the concert "Til We Outnumber Em" featuring artists such as DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Indigo Girls, Dave Pirner, Tim Robbins, and Bruce Springsteen with 100 percent of proceeds going to the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum educational department.
In 1996, bassist Sara Lee joined the touring group, whose live rapport is showcased on the 1997 album "Living in Clip". DiFranco would later release Lee's solo album "Make It Beautiful" on Righteous Babe. In 1998, Stochansky left to pursue a solo career as a singer-songwriter. A new touring ensemble consisting of Jason Mercer on bass, Julie Wolf on keyboards, and Daren Hahn on drums, augmented at times by a horn section, accompanied DiFranco on tour between 1998 and 2002.
The 1990s were a period of heightened exposure for DiFranco, as she continued playing ever larger venues around the world and attracted international attention of the press, including cover stories in "Spin", "Ms.", and "Magnet", among others, as well as appearances on MTV and VH1. Her playfully ironic cover of the Bacharach/David song "Wishin' and Hopin appeared under the opening titles of the film "My Best Friend's Wedding".
She guest starred on a 1998 episode of the Fox sitcom "King of the Hill", as the voice of Peggy's feminist guitar teacher, Emily.
Beginning in 1999, Righteous Babe Records began releasing albums by other artists including Sara Lee, Sekou Sundiata, Michael Meldrum, Arto Lindsay, Bitch and Animal, That One Guy, Utah Phillips, Hamell on Trial, Andrew Bird, Kurt Swinghammer, Buddy Wakefield, Anaïs Mitchell and Nona Hendryx.
On September 11, 2001, DiFranco was in Manhattan and later penned the poem "Self Evident" about the experience. The poem was featured in the book "It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America After September 11". The poem's title also became the name of DiFranco's first book of poetry released exclusively in Italy by Minimum Fax. It was later also featured in "Verses", a book of her poetry published in the U.S. by Seven Stories press. DiFranco has written and performed many spoken-word pieces throughout her career and was showcased as a poet on the HBO series "Def Poetry" in 2005.
Since her 2005 release "Knuckle Down" (co-produced by Joe Henry) DiFranco's touring band and recordings have featured bass player Todd Sickafoose and in turns other musicians such as Allison Miller, Andy Borger, Herlin Riley, and Terence Higgins on drums and Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes.
On September 11, 2007, she released the first retrospective of her career, a two disc compilation entitled "Canon" and simultaneously a retrospective collection of poetry book "Verses". On September 30, 2008, she released "Red Letter Year".
In 2009 DiFranco appeared at Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden, debuting her revamped version of the 1930s labor anthem "Which Side Are You On?" in a duet with Bruce Cockburn and also duetting with Kris Kristofferson on the folk classic "There's a Hole in the Bucket".
DiFranco released an album on January 17, 2012, "¿Which Side Are You On?". It includes collaborations with Pete Seeger, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, Skerik, Adam Levy, Righteous Babe recording artist Anaïs Mitchell, CC Adcock, and a host of New Orleans-based horn players known for their work in such outfits as Galactic, Bonerama, and Rebirth Brass Band.
In 2014, she released her eighteenth album, "Allergic to Water". In 2017, she released her nineteenth, "Binary".
On May 7, 2019, DiFranco released a memoir, "No Walls and the Recurring Dream", via Viking Books. It is described as a "coming-of-age story."
DiFranco came out as bisexual in her twenties, and has written songs about love and sex with women and men. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality in the song "In or Out" on the album "Imperfectly" (1992). In 1998, she married her sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada. DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced in 2003.
In 1990, she wrote "Lost Woman Song", which was inspired by her abortions at ages eighteen and twenty.
DiFranco's father died in the summer of 2004. In July 2005, DiFranco developed tendinitis and took a nine-month hiatus from touring. In January 2007 DiFranco gave birth to her first child, a daughter, at her Buffalo home. She married the child's father, Mike Napolitano, also her regular producer, in 2009. In an interview on September 13, 2012, DiFranco mentioned that she was pregnant with her second child. In April 2013, she gave birth to her second child, a son.
DiFranco has resided in the Bywater, New Orleans, neighborhood since 2008.
DiFranco has described herself as an atheist. On the subject of religion, DiFranco has stated:
DiFranco has been a critical success for much of her career, with a career album average of 72 on Metacritic. "Living in Clip", DiFranco's 1998 double live album, is the only one to achieve gold record status to date. DiFranco was praised by "The Buffalo News" in 2006 as "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music".
Starting in 2003, DiFranco was nominated four consecutive times for Best Recording Package at the Grammy Awards, winning in 2004 for "Evolve".
On July 21, 2006, DiFranco received the Woman of Courage Award at the National Organization for Women (NOW) Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York. DiFranco was one of the first musicians to receive the award, given each year to a woman who has set herself apart by her contributions to the feminist movement.
In 2009, DiFranco received the Woody Guthrie Award for being a voice of positive social change.
DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.
Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums incorporating first punk, then funk, hiphop, and jazz influences.
While primarily an acoustic guitarist she has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's "Little Plastic Castle"; a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Wishin' and Hopin' "; strings on the 1997 live album "Living in Clip" and 2004's "Knuckle Down"; and electronics and synthesizers in 1999's "To the Teeth" and 2006's "Reprieve".
DiFranco has stated that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar – that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."
DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists. In 1997 she appeared on Canadian songwriter Bruce Cockburn's "Charity of Night" album. In 1998 she produced fellow folksinger Dan Bern's album "Fifty Eggs".
She developed a deep association with folksinger and social activist Utah Phillips throughout the mid-1990s, sharing her stage and her audience with the older musician until his death in 2008 and resulting in two collaborative albums: "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" (1996) and "Fellow Workers" (1999, with liner notes by Howard Zinn). "The Past" is built around Phillips's storytelling, an important part of his art that had not previously been documented on recordings; on the album, DiFranco provides musical settings for his speaking voice. The followup, "Fellow Workers", was recorded live in Daniel Lanois's Kingsway Studio in New Orleans and features Phillips fronting DiFranco's touring band for a collection of songs and stories.
Prince recorded two songs with DiFranco in 1999, "Providence" on her "To the Teeth" album, and "Eye Love U, But Eye Don't Trust U Anymore" on Prince's "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" album. Funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker and rapper Corey Parker have both appeared on DiFranco's albums and featured appearances by her on theirs. Parker and Di Franco toured together in 1999.
She has appeared on several compilations of the songs of Pete Seeger and frequented his Hudson Clearwater Revival Festival. In 2001 she appeared on Brazilian artist Lenine's album "Falange Canibal". In 2002 her rendition of Greg Brown's "The Poet Game" appeared on "Going Driftless: An Artist's Tribute to Greg Brown". Also in 2002 she recorded a duet with Jackie Chan of the Irving Gordon song "Unforgettable" for a record of unlikely collaborations, "When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear".
In 2005 she appeared on Dar Williams' record "My Better Self", dueting on William's cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". She performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon" a track from Lauper's 2005 "The Body Acoustic" album. In 2006 she produced Hamell on Trial's album "Songs for Parents Who Enjoy Drugs". In 2008 she appeared on Todd Sickafoose's album "Tiny Resisters". In 2010 she co-produced a track with Margaret Cho called "Captain Cameltoe" for the comedian's "Cho Dependant" album. In 2011 she appeared on Rob Wasserman's album "Note of Hope", an exploration of the writings of Woody Guthrie with musical accompaniment, though the track in which she appeared, "Voice", was actually recorded 13 years earlier. Also in 2011 she duetted with Greg Dulli on the Twilight Singers record "Dynamite Steps".
Other artists have covered and sampled DiFranco's work throughout the years. Her spoken word poem "Self Evident" was covered by Public Enemy founder Chuck D's group called Impossebulls. Alana Davis had some commercial success with DiFranco's song "32 Flavors".
Samples from the track "Coming Up" were used by DJ Spooky in his album "Live Without Dead Time", produced for AdBusters Magazine in 2003.
In 2010, DiFranco played Persephone on Anaïs Mitchell's album Hadestown.
Although much of DiFranco's material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights, poverty, and war. In 2008, she donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 tsunami.
The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco's career as early as 1994. DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.
Ani cites her anti-corporate ethos for the main reason she decided to start her own label. This has allowed her a considerable degree of creative freedom over the years, including, for example, providing all instrumentals and vocals and recording the album herself at her home on an analog 8-track reel to reel, and handling much of the artwork and packaging design for her 2004 album "Educated Guess". She has referenced this independence from major labels in song more than once, including "The Million You Never Made" ("Not a Pretty Girl"), which discusses the act of turning down a lucrative contract, "The Next Big Thing" ("Not So Soft"), which describes an imagined meeting with a label head-hunter who evaluates the singer based on her looks, and "Napoleon" ("Dilate"), which sympathizes sarcastically with an unnamed friend who did sign with a label.
The business grew organically starting in 1990 with the first cassette tape. Connections were made when women in colleges started duplicating and sharing tapes. Offers to play at colleges started coming in and her popularity grew largely by word of mouth and through women's groups or organizations. Zango and Goldenrod, two music distributors specializing in women's music, started carrying DiFranco's music. In general they sold music to independent music stores and women's book stores. In 1995 Righteous Babe Records signed with Koch International for DiFranco's release of "Not a Pretty Girl". Her records could then be found in large and small record stores alike.
DiFranco has occasionally joined with Prince in discussing publicly the problems associated with major record companies. Righteous Babe Records employs a number of people in her hometown of Buffalo. In a 1997 open letter to "Ms." magazine she expressed displeasure that what she considers a way to ensure her own artistic freedom was seen by others solely in terms of its financial success.
From the earliest days of her career, Ani DiFranco has lent her voice and her name to a broad range of social movements, performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums, speaking at rallies, and offering info table space to organizations at her concerts and the virtual equivalent on her website, among other methods and actions. In 1999 she created her own not-for-profit organization; as the Buffalo News has reported, "Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility."
During the first Gulf War, DiFranco participated in the anti-war movement. In early 1993 she played Pete Seeger's Clearwater Folk Festival for the first time. In 1998 she was a featured performer in the Dead Man Walking benefit concert series raising money for Sister Helen Prejean's "Not in Our Name" anti-death penalty organization. DiFranco's commitment to opposing the death penalty is longstanding; she has also been a long time supporter of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she actively supported and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, though in an open letter she made clear that if she lived in a swing state, she would vote for Al Gore to prevent George W. Bush from being elected.
In 2004 DiFranco visited Burma in order to learn about the Burmese resistance movement and the country's fight for democracy. During her travels she met with then-detained resistance leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Her song "In The Way" was later featured on "For the Lady", a benefit CD that donated all proceeds to the United States Campaign for Burma.
During the 2004 presidential primaries, she supported liberal, anti-war Democrat Dennis Kucinich. Congressman Kucinich appeared on stage with her at several concerts and she spoke positively about him from the stage at many more of her concerts. After the primary season ended, and John Kerry was the clear Democratic candidate, DiFranco launched a "Vote Dammit!" tour of swing states encouraging audience members to vote. In 2005 she lobbied Congress against the proliferation of nuclear power in general and the placement of nuclear waste dumps on Indian land in particular. In 2008 she again backed Kucinich in his bid for the presidency.
In 2002 Righteous Babe Records established the "Aiding Buffalo's Children" program in conjunction with members of the local community to raise funds for Buffalo's public school system. To kick off the program, DiFranco donated "a day's pay"—the performance fee from her concert that year at Shea's Performing Arts Center— to ABC and challenged her fans to do the same. Aiding Buffalo's Children has since been folded into the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo, contributing to a variety of charitable funds.
In 2005 when Hurricane Katrina devastated DiFranco's newly adopted home town of New Orleans she collected donations from fans around the world through The Righteous Babe Store website for the Katrina Piano Fund, helping musicians replace instruments lost in the hurricane, raising over $47,500 for the cause.
In 2010, after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, she performed at the "For Our Coast" benefit concert joining Marianne Faithfull, C. C. Adcock and others at the Acadiana Center for the Arts Theater in Lafayette, raising money for Gulf Aid Acadiana, and the Gulf Aid show with Lenny Kravitz, Mos Def, and others at Mardi Gras World River City in New Orleans, both shows raising money to help protect the wetlands, clean up the coast and to assist the fishermen and their families affected by the spill.
DiFranco also sits on the board for The Roots of Music, founded by Rebirth Brass Band drummer Derrick Tabb. The organization provides free marching band instruction to children in the New Orleans area in addition to academic tutoring and mentoring.
DiFranco joined about 500,000 people at the March for Women's Lives in DC in April 2004. As an honored guest she marched in the front row for the three-mile route, along with Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, Gloria Steinem and others. Later in the day, Ani played a few songs on the main stage in front of the Capitol, including "Your Next Bold Move".
Scot Fisher, Righteous Babe label president and DiFranco's longtime manager, has been a longtime advocate of the preservation movement in Buffalo. In 1999 he and DiFranco purchased a decaying church on the verge of demolition in downtown Buffalo and began the lengthy process of restoring it. In 2006 the building opened its doors again, first briefly as "The Church" and then as "Babeville," housing two concert venues, the record label's business office, and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.
DiFranco is also a member of the Toronto-based charity Artists Against Racism for which she participated in a radio PSA.
In 2013 DiFranco was criticized on social media and faced "a great deal of outcry" after the announcement that she was hosting a three-day artists' workshop billed as the "Righteous Retreat" at Iberville Parish's Nottoway Plantation in White Castle, Louisiana. Nottoway was one of the largest plantations in the South, and features the largest antebellum mansion. Its operator and founder John Randolph owned over 155 slaves in the year 1860. The grounds are now operated as a luxury resort. Critics charged that the resort's promotional material attempts to portray the plantation owner in a positive light, to downplay the suffering of the slaves, and to "sanitize" and "romanticize" the history of slavery for commercial gain. DiFranco's choice of venue for the retreat was called "a very blatant display of racism" on a petition at Change.org that collected more than 2,600 signatures.
On December 29, 2013, DiFranco issued an apology, announcing that she was cancelling the retreat, stating that:
The singer's statements were called "remarkably unapologetic" on "Jezebel", and "a variety of excuses and justifications" by "Ebony". Additionally, a piece at "The Guardian" said the announcement made "much of the idea that this was all a mistake, with no indication of remorse."
DiFranco issued a second statement and apology on January 2, 2014, following continued criticism. In it, she wrote ""... would like to say am sincerely sorry. is obvious to me now that you were right – all those who said we can't in good conscience go to that place and support it or look past for one moment what it deeply represents. needed a wake up call and you gave it to me.""
In 2019 DiFranco reflected on the experience with the cancelled retreat as devastating: ""“It put a level of fear into me that I had never felt. I could stand up to anybody, until it was my own tribe. I would not be taken down by anybody. But when it became my own tribe, I experienced a crisis … I just think Goddess help all the young artists and writers who are trying to be intrepid and insist on being human and being able to make mistakes, because that’s part of evolution.”" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2126 |
Arizona Diamondbacks
The Arizona Diamondbacks, often shortened as the D-backs, are an American professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home games at Chase Field, formerly known as "Bank One Ballpark". The Diamondbacks have won one World Series championship (defeating the New York Yankees in 2001) – becoming the fastest expansion team in Major League history to win a championship, which it did in only the fourth season since the franchise's inception. From 1998 to 2019, the Diamondbacks have an overall record of 1,763-1,801 (a winning percentage').
On March 9, 1995, Phoenix was awarded an expansion franchise to begin play for the season. A $130 million franchise fee was paid to Major League Baseball and on January 16, 1997, the Diamondbacks were officially voted into the National League. The Diamondbacks' first major league game was played against the Colorado Rockies on March 31, 1998, at Bank One Ballpark. The ballpark was renamed Chase Field in 2005, as a result of Bank One Corporation's merger with JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Since their debut, the Diamondbacks have won five NL West division titles, one NL pennant, one Wild Card game, and the 2001 World Series.
The Diamondbacks' original colors were purple, black, teal and copper. Their first logo was an italicized block letter "A" with a diamond pattern, and the crossbar represented by a snake's tongue. Prior to their inaugural season, they released their baseball caps. The home cap had a cream color crown with a purple visor and button. The road cap was black and had a turquoise visor and button. Their alternate cap had a turquoise crown with a purple visor and button. Depending on the cap, the "A" logo on the front of the cap had different color variations.
In the Diamondbacks' second season, they introduced a new logo which was a copper color snake in the shape of a letter "D". It was used on a solid black cap, which in the beginning, was worn as a road cap.
The franchise unveiled new uniforms and colors of Sedona red, Sonoran sand and black on November 8, 2006. The red shade is named for the sandstone canyon at Red Rock State Park near Sedona, while the beige (sand) shade is named for the Sonoran Desert. A sleeve patch was added featuring a lowercase "d" and "b" configured to look like a snake's head. The team also kept the "D" logo, but was slightly altered and put on an all red cap to be used as their game cap. They also kept the "A" logo with the new colors applied to it, with a solid black cap used as the alternate cap. A similar color scheme is currently used by the Arizona Coyotes of the National Hockey League.
Prior to the 2016 season, the Diamondbacks reincorporated teal into its color scheme while keeping Sedona Red, Sonoran Sand and black. They also unveiled eight different uniform combinations, including two separate home white and away grey uniforms. One major difference between the two sets is that the non-teal uniforms feature a snakeskin pattern on the shoulders, while the teal-trimmed uniforms include a charcoal/grey snakeskin pattern on the back. Arizona also kept the throwback pinstriped sleeveless uniforms from their 2001 championship season for use during Thursday home games.
Starting with the 2020 season, the Diamondbacks made slight redesigns to their current uniforms. The snakeskin patterns were removed while the teal-trimmed grey uniforms were retired. The team also reverted to a standard grey uniform after wearing a darker shade on the previous set. Two home white uniforms remain in use: the primary Sedona Red and the alternate teal. They would also wear two black uniforms: one with the primary "A" logo on the left chest and the other with "Los D-Backs" trimmed in teal. Three cap designs were also unveiled: the primary "A" cap, the teal-trimmed "snake" cap (paired exclusively on the teal alternates), and the sand-trimmed "snake" cap (paired exclusively on the Sedona Red alternates). The Nike swoosh logo is also placed on the right chest near the shoulder.
The primary television play-by-play voice for the team's first nine seasons of play was Thom Brennaman, who also broadcasts baseball and college football games nationally for Fox Television. Brennaman was the TV announcer for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds (along with his father Marty Brennaman) before being hired by Diamondbacks founder Jerry Colangelo in 1996, two years before the team would begin play.
In October 2006, Brennaman left the Diamondbacks to call games with his father for the Reds beginning in 2007, signing a four-year deal (his FOX duties remained unchanged).
The English language flagship radio station is KTAR. Greg Schulte is the regular radio play-by-play voice, a 25-year veteran of sports radio in the Phoenix market, also well known for his previous work on Phoenix Suns, Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University (ASU) broadcasts.
Jeff Munn is a backup radio play-by-play announcer; he served as the regular public address announcer at Chase Field in the early days of the franchise. He is well known to many Phoenix area sports fans, having also served as the public address announcer for the Suns at America West Arena (now Talking Stick Resort Arena) in the 1990s. He is also the play-by-play radio voice for ASU women's basketball.
On November 1, 2006, the team announced that the TV voice of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2002, Daron Sutton, would be hired as the Diamondbacks primary TV play-by-play voice. Sutton was signed to a five-year contract with a team option for three more years. Sutton is considered one of the best of the younger generation of baseball broadcasters. His signature chants include "let's get some runs" when the D-backs trail in late innings. Sutton's father is Hall of Fame pitcher and current Atlanta Braves broadcaster Don Sutton.
Former Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs first baseman Mark Grace and former Major League knuckleball pitcher Tom Candiotti were the Diamondbacks primary color analysts for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Former Diamondbacks third baseman Matt Williams also did color commentary on occasion, as did former Cardinals and NBC broadcast legend Joe Garagiola, Sr., a longtime Phoenix-area resident and father of Joe Garagiola, Jr., the first GM of the Diamondbacks (as head of the Maricopa County Sports Authority in the early 1990s, Garagiola, Jr. was one of the primary people involved in Phoenix obtaining a Major League Baseball franchise).
The Diamondbacks announced in July 2007 that for the 2008 season, all regionally broadcast Diamondbacks TV games will be shown exclusively on Fox Sports Arizona, and a few could possibly be shown on the national Fox MLB telecasts. Fox Sports Arizona (or FS Arizona) is currently seen in 2.8 million households in Arizona and New Mexico. The previous flagship station, since the inaugural 1998 season, was KTVK, a popular over-the-air independent station (and former longtime ABC affiliate) in Phoenix.
From 2009 to 2012, Mark Grace and Daron Sutton were tagged as the main broadcasters of the Diamondbacks with pre-game and postgame shows on Fox Sports Arizona, being hosted by former big-league closer Joe Borowski.
On June 21, 2012, Daron Sutton was suspended indefinitely, amid rumors of insubordination. Then on August 24, the team announced that Mark Grace had requested an indefinite leave of absence after being arrested for his second DUI in less than two years (Grace was later indicted on four DUI counts). For the remainder of the 2012 season, Sutton was replaced by Greg Schulte (Jeff Munn replaced Schulte on the radio broadcast) and Grace was replaced by Luis Gonzalez. At the end of the 2012 season, the team announced that neither Sutton nor Grace would be returning for the 2013 season.
On October 18, 2012, the team announced that Bob Brenly would be returning as a broadcaster to replace Grace, and that he would be joined by then-ESPN personality Steve Berthiaume.
The flagship Spanish language radio station is KHOV-FM 105.1 with Oscar Soria, Rodrigo Lopez, and Richard Saenz.
Games were televised in Spanish on KPHE-LP—with Oscar Soria and Jerry Romo as the announcers—but this arrangement ended prior to the 2009 season due to the team switching fully to Fox Sports Arizona and the lack of carriage of KHPE-LP on the Cox cable system.
* signifies current Major League player
The Arizona Diamondbacks farm system consists of nine minor league affiliates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2129 |
Aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics (), is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines subjective and sensori-emotional values, or sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste.
Aesthetics covers both natural and artificial sources of aesthetic experience and judgment. It considers what happens in our minds when we engage with aesthetic objects or environments such as in viewing visual art, listening to music, reading poetry, experiencing a play, exploring nature, and so on. The philosophy of art specifically studies how artists imagine, create, and perform works of art, as well as how people use, enjoy, and criticize their art. It deals with how one feels about art in general, why they like some works of art and not others, and how art can affect our moods or even our beliefs. Both aesthetics generally and philosophy of art especially ask questions like "what is "art"?", "what is a "work" of art?", and "what makes "good" art?".
Scholars in the field have defined aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature". In modern English, the term "aesthetic" can also refer to a set of principles underlying the works of a particular art movement or theory (one speaks, for example, of a Renaissance aesthetic).
The word "aesthetic" is derived from the Greek ("aisthetikos", meaning "esthetic, sensitive, sentient, pertaining to sense perception"), which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι ("aisthanomai", meaning "I perceive, feel, sense" and related to ("aisthēsis", "sensation"). Aesthetics in this central sense has been said to start with the series of articles on “The Pleasures of the Imagination” which the journalist Joseph Addison wrote in the early issues of the magazine "The Spectator" in 1712. The term "aesthetics" was appropriated and coined with new meaning by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in his dissertation "Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus" ("Philosophical considerations of some matters pertaining the poem") in 1735; Baumgarten chose "aesthetics" because he wished to emphasize the experience of art as a means of knowing. Aesthetics, a not very tidy intellectual discipline, is a heterogeneous collection of problems that concern the arts primarily but also relate to nature. even though his later definition in the fragment "Aesthetica" (1750) is more often referred to as the first definition of modern aesthetics.
Some separate aesthetics and philosophy of art, claiming that the former is the study of beauty and taste while the latter is the study of art proper, in the form of materialized works of artists. However, most commonly Aesthetics encompasses both questions around beauty as well as questions about art. It examines topics such as aesthetic objects, aesthetic experience, and aesthetic judgments. For some, aesthetics is considered a synonym for the philosophy of art since Hegel, while others insist that there is a significant distinction between these closely related fields. In practice, aesthetic judgement refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object (not necessarily an art object), while artistic judgement refers to the recognition, appreciation or criticism of art or an art work.
Philosophical aesthetics not only has to speak about art and to produce judgments about art works, but also has to give a definition of what art is. Art is an autonomous entity for philosophy, because art deals with the senses (i.e. the etymology of aesthetics) and art is as such free of any moral or political purpose. Hence, there are two different conceptions of art in aesthetics: art as knowledge or art as action, but aesthetics is neither epistemology nor ethics.
Aestheticians compare historical developments with theoretical approaches to the arts of many periods. They study the varieties of art in relation to their physical, social, and culture environments. Aestheticians also use psychology to understand how people see, hear, imagine, think, learn, and act in relation to the materials and problems of art. Aesthetic psychology studies the creative process and the aesthetic experience.
Aesthetics examines our affective domain response to an object or phenomenon. Judgments of aesthetic value rely on our ability to discriminate at a sensory level. However, aesthetic judgments usually go beyond sensory discrimination.
For David Hume, delicacy of taste is not merely "the ability to detect all the ingredients in a composition", but also our sensitivity "to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind." Thus, the sensory discrimination is linked to capacity for pleasure.
For Immanuel Kant ("Critique of Judgment", 1790), "enjoyment" is the result when pleasure arises from sensation, but judging something to be "beautiful" has a third requirement: sensation must give rise to pleasure by engaging our capacities of reflective contemplation. Judgments of beauty are sensory, emotional and intellectual all at once. Kant (1790) observed of a man "If he says that canary wine is agreeable he is quite content if someone else corrects his terms and reminds him to say instead: It is agreeable to "me"," because "Everyone has his own (sense of) taste". The case of "beauty" is different from mere "agreeableness" because, "If he proclaims something to be beautiful, then he requires the same liking from others; he then judges not just for himself but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."
Viewer interpretations of beauty may on occasion be observed to possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of an education process and awareness of elite cultural values learned through exposure to mass culture. Bourdieu examined how the elite in society define the aesthetic values like taste and how varying levels of exposure to these values can result in variations by class, cultural background, and education. According to Kant, beauty is subjective and universal; thus certain things are beautiful to everyone. In the opinion of Władysław Tatarkiewicz, there are six conditions for the presentation of art: beauty, form, representation, reproduction of reality, artistic expression and innovation. However, one may not be able to pin down these qualities in a work of art.
The question whether there are facts about aesthetic judgments belongs to the branch of metaphilosophy known as meta-aesthetics.
Judgments of aesthetical values seem often to involve many other kinds of issues as well. Responses such as disgust show that sensory detection is linked in instinctual ways to facial expressions, and even behaviours like the gag reflex. Yet disgust can often be a learned or cultural issue too; as Darwin pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's beard is disgusting even though neither soup nor beards are themselves disgusting. Aesthetic judgments may be linked to emotions or, like emotions, partially embodied in our physical reactions. For example, the awe inspired by a sublime landscape might physically manifest with an increased heart-rate or pupil dilation; physiological reaction may express or even cause the initial awe.
As seen, emotions are conformed to 'cultural' reactions, therefore aesthetics is always characterized by 'regional responses', as Francis Grose was the first to affirm in his ‘Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: With an Essay on Comic Painting’ (1788), published in W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, Bagster, London s.d. (1791? [1753]), pp. 1–24. Francis Grose can therefore be claimed to be the first critical 'aesthetic regionalist' in proclaiming the anti-universality of aesthetics in contrast to the perilous and always resurgent dictatorship of beauty. 'Aesthetic Regionalism' can thus be seen as a political statement and stance which vies against any universal notion of beauty to safeguard the counter-tradition of aesthetics related to what has been considered and dubbed un-beautiful just because one's culture does not contemplate it, e.g. E. Burke's sublime, what is usually defined as 'primitive' art, or un-harmonious, non-cathartic art, camp art, which 'beauty' posits and creates, dichotomously, as its opposite, without even the need of formal statements, but which will be 'perceived' as ugly.
Likewise, aesthetic judgments may be culturally conditioned to some extent. Victorians in Britain often saw African sculpture as ugly, but just a few decades later, Edwardian audiences saw the same sculptures as being beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to sexual desirability. Thus, judgments of aesthetic value can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or moral value. In a current context, one might judge a Lamborghini to be beautiful partly because it is desirable as a status symbol, or we might judge it to be repulsive partly because it signifies for us over-consumption and offends our political or moral values.
The Context of its presentation also affects the perception of artwork; artworks presented in a classical museum context are liked more and rated more interesting than when presented in a sterile laboratory context. While specific results depend heavily on the style of the presented artwork, overall, the effect of context proved to be more important for the perception of artwork then the effect of genuineness (whether the artwork was being presented as original or as a facsimile/copy).
Aesthetic judgments can often be very fine-grained and internally contradictory. Likewise aesthetic judgments seem often to be at least partly intellectual and interpretative. It is what a thing means or symbolizes for us that is often what we are judging. Modern aestheticians have asserted that will and desire were almost dormant in aesthetic experience, yet preference and choice have seemed important aesthetics to some 20th-century thinkers. The point is already made by Hume, but see Mary Mothersill, "Beauty and the Critic's Judgment", in "The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics", 2004. Thus aesthetic judgments might be seen to be based on the senses, emotions, intellectual opinions, will, desires, culture, preferences, values, subconscious behaviour, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological institutions, or some complex combination of these, depending on exactly which theory one employs.
A third major topic in the study of aesthetic judgments is how they are unified across art forms. For instance, the source of a painting's beauty has a different character to that of beautiful music, suggesting their aesthetics differ in kind. The distinct inability of language to express aesthetic judgment and the role of Social construction further cloud this issue.
The philosopher Denis Dutton identified six universal signatures in human aesthetics:
Artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn have indicated that there are too many exceptions to Dutton's categories. For example, Hirschhorn's installations deliberately eschew technical virtuosity. People can appreciate a Renaissance Madonna for aesthetic reasons, but such objects often had (and sometimes still have) specific devotional functions. "Rules of composition" that might be read into Duchamp's "Fountain" or John Cage's "4′33″" do not locate the works in a recognizable style (or certainly not a style recognizable at the time of the works' realization). Moreover, some of Dutton's categories seem too broad: a physicist might entertain hypothetical worlds in his/her imagination in the course of formulating a theory. Another problem is that Dutton's categories seek to universalize traditional European notions of aesthetics and art forgetting that, as André Malraux and others have pointed out, there have been large numbers of cultures in which such ideas (including the idea "art" itself) were non-existent.
Aesthetic ethics refers to the idea that human conduct and behaviour ought to be governed by that which is beautiful and attractive. John Dewey has pointed out that the unity of aesthetics and ethics is in fact reflected in our understanding of behaviour being "fair"—the word having a double meaning of attractive and morally acceptable. More recently, James Page has suggested that aesthetic ethics might be taken to form a philosophical rationale for peace education.
During the first half of the twentieth century, a significant shift to general aesthetic theory took place which attempted to apply aesthetic theory between various forms of art, including the literary arts and the visual arts, to each other. This resulted in the rise of the New Criticism school and debate concerning "the intentional fallacy". At issue was the question of whether the aesthetic intentions of the artist in creating the work of art, whatever its specific form, should be associated with the criticism and evaluation of the final product of the work of art, or, if the work of art should be evaluated on its own merits independent of the intentions of the artist.
In 1946, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled "The Intentional Fallacy", in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an author's intention, or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was considered irrelevant, and potentially distracting.
In another essay, "The Affective Fallacy," which served as a kind of sister essay to "The Intentional Fallacy" Wimsatt and Beardsley also discounted the reader's personal/emotional reaction to a literary work as a valid means of analyzing a text. This fallacy would later be repudiated by theorists from the reader-response school of literary theory. One of the leading theorists from this school, Stanley Fish, was himself trained by New Critics. Fish criticizes Wimsatt and Beardsley in his essay "Literature in the Reader" (1970).
As summarized by Berys Gaut and Livingston in their essay "The Creation of Art": "Structuralist and post-structuralists theorists and critics were sharply critical of many aspects of New Criticism, beginning with the emphasis on aesthetic appreciation and the so-called autonomy of art, but they reiterated the attack on biographical criticisms' assumption that the artist's activities and experience were a privileged critical topic." These authors contend that: "Anti-intentionalists, such as formalists, hold that the intentions involved in the making of art are irrelevant or peripheral to correctly interpreting art. So details of the act of creating a work, though possibly of interest in themselves, have no bearing on the correct interpretation of the work."
Gaut and Livingston define the intentionalists as distinct from formalists stating that: "Intentionalists, unlike formalists, hold that reference to intentions is essential in fixing the correct interpretation of works." They quote Richard Wollheim as stating that, "The task of criticism is the reconstruction of the creative process, where the creative process must in turn be thought of as something not stopping short of, but terminating on, the work of art itself."
A large number of derivative forms of aesthetics have developed as contemporary and transitory forms of inquiry associated with the field of aesthetics which include the post-modern, psychoanalytic, scientific, and mathematical among others.
Early-twentieth-century artists, poets and composers challenged existing notions of beauty, broadening the scope of art and aesthetics. In 1941, Eli Siegel, American philosopher and poet, founded Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy that reality itself is aesthetic, and that "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."
Various attempts have been made to define Post-Modern Aesthetics. The challenge to the assumption that beauty was central to art and aesthetics, thought to be original, is actually continuous with older aesthetic theory; Aristotle was the first in the Western tradition to classify "beauty" into types as in his theory of drama, and Kant made a distinction between beauty and the sublime. What was new was a refusal to credit the higher status of certain types, where the taxonomy implied a preference for tragedy and the sublime to comedy and the Rococo.
Croce suggested that "expression" is central in the way that beauty was once thought to be central. George Dickie suggested that the sociological institutions of the art world were the glue binding art and sensibility into unities. Marshall McLuhan suggested that art always functions as a "counter-environment" designed to make visible what is usually invisible about a society. Theodor Adorno felt that aesthetics could not proceed without confronting the role of the culture industry in the commodification of art and aesthetic experience. Hal Foster attempted to portray the reaction against beauty and Modernist art in "The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture". Arthur Danto has described this reaction as "kalliphobia" (after the Greek word for beauty, κάλλος "kallos"). André Malraux explains that the notion of beauty was connected to a particular conception of art that arose with the Renaissance and was still dominant in the eighteenth century (but was supplanted later). The discipline of aesthetics, which originated in the eighteenth century, mistook this transient state of affairs for a revelation of the permanent nature of art. Brian Massumi suggests to reconsider beauty following the aesthetical thought in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Walter Benjamin echoed Malraux in believing aesthetics was a comparatively recent invention, a view proven wrong in the late 1970s, when Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake analyzed links between beauty, information processing, and information theory. Denis Dutton in "The Art Instinct" also proposed that an aesthetic sense was a vital evolutionary factor.
Jean-François Lyotard re-invokes the Kantian distinction between taste and the sublime. Sublime painting, unlike kitsch realism, "... will enable us to see only by making it impossible to see; it will please only by causing pain."
Sigmund Freud inaugurated aesthetical thinking in Psychoanalysis mainly via the "Uncanny" as aesthetical affect. Following Freud and Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan theorized aesthetics in terms of sublimation and the Thing.
The relation of Marxist aesthetics to post-modern aesthetics is still a contentious area of debate.
Guy Sircello has pioneered efforts in analytic philosophy to develop a rigorous theory of aesthetics, focusing on the concepts of beauty, love and sublimity. In contrast to romantic theorists, Sircello argued for the objectivity of beauty and formulated a theory of love on that basis.
British philosopher and theorist of conceptual art aesthetics, Peter Osborne, makes the point that "'post-conceptual art' aesthetic does not concern a particular type of contemporary art so much as the historical-ontological condition for the production of contemporary art in general ...". Osborne noted that contemporary art is 'post-conceptual' in a public lecture delivered in 2010.
Gary Tedman has put forward a theory of a subjectless aesthetics derived from Karl Marx's concept of alienation, and Louis Althusser's antihumanism, using elements of Freud's group psychology, defining a concept of the 'aesthetic level of practice'.
Gregory Loewen has suggested that the subject is key in the interaction with the aesthetic object. The work of art serves as a vehicle for the projection of the individual's identity into the world of objects, as well as being the irruptive source of much of what is uncanny in modern life. As well, art is used to memorialize individuated biographies in a manner that allows persons to imagine that they are part of something greater than themselves.
The field of experimental aesthetics was founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner in the 19th century. Experimental aesthetics in these times had been characterized by a subject-based, inductive approach. The analysis of individual experience and behaviour based on experimental methods is a central part of experimental aesthetics. In particular, the perception of works of art, music, or modern items such as websites or other IT products is studied. Experimental aesthetics is strongly oriented towards the natural sciences. Modern approaches mostly come from the fields of cognitive psychology or neuroscience (neuroaesthetics).
In the 1970s, Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake were among the first to analyze links between aesthetics, information processing, and information theory.
In the 1990s, Jürgen Schmidhuber described an algorithmic theory of beauty which takes the subjectivity of the observer into account and postulates: among several observations classified as comparable by a given subjective observer, the aesthetically most pleasing one is the one with the shortest description, given the observer's previous knowledge and his particular method for encoding the data. This is closely related to the principles of algorithmic information theory and minimum description length. One of his examples: mathematicians enjoy simple proofs with a short description in their formal language. Another very concrete example describes an aesthetically pleasing human face whose proportions can be described by very few bits of information, drawing inspiration from less detailed 15th century proportion studies by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. Schmidhuber's theory explicitly distinguishes between what's beautiful and what's interesting, stating that interestingness corresponds to the first derivative of subjectively perceived beauty. Here the premise is that any observer continually tries to improve the predictability and compressibility of the observations by discovering regularities such as repetitions and symmetries and fractal self-similarity. Whenever the observer's learning process (which may be a predictive artificial neural network; see also Neuroesthetics) leads to improved data compression such that the observation sequence can be described by fewer bits than before, the temporary interestingness of the data corresponds to the number of saved bits. This compression progress is proportional to the observer's internal reward, also called curiosity reward. A reinforcement learning algorithm is used to maximize future expected reward by learning to execute action sequences that cause additional interesting input data with yet unknown but learnable predictability or regularity. The principles can be implemented on artificial agents which then exhibit a form of artificial curiosity.
Mathematical considerations, such as symmetry and complexity, are used for analysis in theoretical aesthetics. This is different from the aesthetic considerations of applied aesthetics used in the study of mathematical beauty. Aesthetic considerations such as symmetry and simplicity are used in areas of philosophy, such as ethics and theoretical physics and cosmology to define truth, outside of empirical considerations. Beauty and Truth have been argued to be nearly synonymous, as reflected in the statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" in the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats, or by the Hindu motto "Satyam Shivam Sundaram" (Satya (Truth) is Shiva (God), and Shiva is Sundaram (Beautiful)). The fact that judgments of beauty and judgments of truth both are influenced by processing fluency, which is the ease with which information can be processed, has been presented as an explanation for why beauty is sometimes equated with truth. Indeed, recent research found that people use beauty as an indication for truth in mathematical pattern tasks. However, scientists including the mathematician David Orrell and physicist Marcelo Gleiser have argued that the emphasis on aesthetic criteria such as symmetry is equally capable of leading scientists astray.
Computational approaches to aesthetics emerged amid efforts to use computer science methods "to predict, convey, and evoke emotional response to a piece of art. It this field, aesthetics is not considered to be dependent on taste but is a matter of cognition, and, consequently, learning. In 1928, the mathematician George David Birkhoff created an aesthetic measure "M = O/C" as the ratio of order to complexity.
Since about 2005, computer scientists have attempted to develop automated methods to infer aesthetic quality of images. Typically, these approaches follow a machine learning approach, where large numbers of manually rated photographs are used to "teach" a computer about what visual properties are of relevance to aesthetic quality. A study by Y. Li and C.J. Hu employed Birkhoff's measurement in their statistical learning approach where order and complexity of an image determined aesthetic value. The image complexity was computed using information theory while the order was determined using fractal compression. There is also the case of the Acquine engine, developed at Penn State University, that rates natural photographs uploaded by users.
There have also been relatively successful attempts with regard to chess and music. Computational approaches have also been attempted in film making as demonstrated by a software model developed by Chitra Dorai and a group of researchers at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. The tool predicted aesthetics based on the values of narrative elements. A relation between Max Bense's mathematical formulation of aesthetics in terms of "redundancy" and "complexity" and theories of musical anticipation was offered using the notion of Information Rate.
Evolutionary aesthetics refers to evolutionary psychology theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of "Homo sapiens" are argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success. One example being that humans are argued to find beautiful and prefer landscapes which were good habitats in the ancestral environment. Another example is that body symmetry and proportion are important aspects of physical attractiveness which may be due to this indicating good health during body growth. Evolutionary explanations for aesthetical preferences are important parts of evolutionary musicology, Darwinian literary studies, and the study of the evolution of emotion.
As well as being applied to art, aesthetics can also be applied to cultural objects, such as crosses or tools. For example, aesthetic coupling between art-objects and medical topics was made by speakers working for the US Information Agency Art slides were linked to slides of pharmacological data, which improved attention and retention by simultaneous activation of intuitive right brain with rational left. It can also be used in topics as diverse as cartography, mathematics, gastronomy, fashion and website design.
The philosophy of aesthetics as a practice has been criticized by some sociologists and writers of art and society. Raymond Williams, for example, argues that there is no unique and or individual aesthetic object which can be extrapolated from the art world, but rather that there is a continuum of cultural forms and experience of which ordinary speech and experiences may signal as art. By "art" we may frame several artistic "works" or "creations" as so though this reference remains within the institution or special event which creates it and this leaves some works or other possible "art" outside of the frame work, or other interpretations such as other phenomenon which may not be considered as "art".
Pierre Bourdieu disagrees with Kant's idea of the "aesthetic". He argues that Kant's "aesthetic" merely represents an experience that is the product of an elevated class habitus and scholarly leisure as opposed to other possible and equally valid "aesthetic" experiences which lay outside Kant's narrow definition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2130 |
Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant (; ), also known as the Ark of the Testimony, and in a few verses across various translations as the Ark of God, is a gold-covered wooden chest with lid cover described in the Book of Exodus as containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. According to various texts within the Hebrew Bible, it also contained Aaron's rod and a pot of manna.
The biblical account relates that, approximately one year after the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was created according to the pattern given to Moses by God when the Israelites were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Thereafter, the gold-plated acacia chest was carried by its staves while en route by the Levites approximately 2,000 cubits (approximately ) in advance of the people when on the march or before the Israelite army, the host of fighting men. When carried, the Ark was always hidden under a large veil made of skins and blue cloth, always carefully concealed, even from the eyes of the priests and the Levites who carried it. God was said to have spoken with Moses "from between the two cherubim" on the Ark's cover. When at rest the tabernacle was set up and the holy Ark was placed in it under the veil of the covering, the staves of it crossing the middle side bars to hold it up off the ground.
According to the Book of Exodus, God instructed Moses on Mount Sinai during his 40-day stay upon the mountain where God was and he was shown the pattern for the tabernacle and furnishings of the Ark to be made of shittim wood to house the Tablets of Stone. Moses instructed Bezalel and Oholiab to construct the Ark. In Deuteronomy the Ark is said to have been built specifically by Moses himself without reference of Bezalel or Oholiab.
The Book of Exodus gives detailed instructions on how the Ark is to be constructed. It is to be 2 cubits in length, 1 in breadth, and 1 in height (approximately ). Then it is to be gilded entirely with gold, and a crown or molding of gold is to be put around it. Four rings of gold are to be attached to its four corners, two on each side—and through these rings staves of shittim-wood overlaid with gold for carrying the Ark are to be inserted; and these are not to be removed. A golden lid, the "kapporet" (translated as "mercy seat" or "cover") which is covered with 2 golden cherubim, is to be placed above the Ark. Missing from the account are instructions concerning the thickness of the mercy seat and details about the cherubim other than that the cover be beaten out the ends of the Ark and that they form the space where God will appear. The Ark is finally to be placed under the veil of the covering.
The biblical account continues that, after its creation by Moses, the Ark was carried by the Israelites during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. Whenever the Israelites camped, the Ark was placed in a separate room in a sacred tent, called the Tabernacle.
When the Israelites, led by Joshua toward the Promised Land, arrived at the banks of the Jordan river, the Ark was carried in the lead preceding the people and was the signal for their advance. During the crossing, the river grew dry as soon as the feet of the priests carrying the Ark touched its waters, and remained so until the priests—with the Ark—left the river after the people had passed over. As memorials, twelve stones were taken from the Jordan at the place where the priests had stood.
In the Battle of Jericho, the Ark was carried round the city once a day for six days, preceded by the armed men and seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns. On the seventh day, the seven priests sounding the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the Ark compassed the city seven times and, with a great shout, Jericho's wall fell down flat and the people took the city. After the defeat at Ai, Joshua lamented before the Ark. When Joshua read the Law to the people between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, they stood on each side of the Ark. We next hear of the Ark in Bethel where it was being cared for by the priest Phineas the grandson of Aaron (where 'Bethel' is translated 'the House of God' in the King James Version). According to this verse it was consulted by the people of Israel when they were planning to attack the Benjaminites at the battle of Gibeah. Later the Ark was kept at Shiloh, another religious centre some north of Bethel, at the time of the prophet Samuel's apprenticeship, where it was cared for by Hophni and Phinehas, two sons of Eli.
According to the Biblical narrative, a few years later the elders of Israel decided to take the Ark out onto the battlefield to assist them against the Philistines, after being defeated at the battle of Eben-Ezer. They were heavily defeated with the loss of 30,000 men. The Ark was captured by the Philistines and Hophni and Phinehas were killed. The news of its capture was at once taken to Shiloh by a messenger "with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head." The old priest, Eli, fell dead when he heard it; and his daughter-in-law, bearing a son at the time the news of the capture of the Ark was received, named him Ichabod—explained as "The glory has departed Israel" in reference to the loss of the Ark. The mother of the child Ichabod died at his birth.
The Philistines took the Ark to several places in their country, and at each place misfortune befell them. At Ashdod it was placed in the temple of Dagon. The next morning Dagon was found prostrate, bowed down, before it; and on being restored to his place, he was on the following morning again found prostrate and broken. The people of Ashdod were smitten with tumors; a plague of mice was sent over the land. The affliction of boils was also visited upon the people of Gath and of Ekron, whither the Ark was successively removed.
After the Ark had been among them for seven months, the Philistines, on the advice of their diviners, returned it to the Israelites, accompanying its return with an offering consisting of golden images of the tumors and mice wherewith they had been afflicted. The Ark was set up in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and the Beth-shemites offered sacrifices and burnt offerings. Out of curiosity the men of Beth-shemesh gazed at the Ark; and as a punishment, seventy of them (fifty thousand and seventy in some translations) were smitten by the Lord. The Bethshemites sent to Kirjath-jearim, or Baal-Judah, to have the Ark removed; and it was taken to the house of Abinadab, whose son Eleazar was sanctified to keep it. Kirjath-jearim remained the abode of the Ark for twenty years. Under Saul, the Ark was with the army before he first met the Philistines, but the king was too impatient to consult it before engaging in battle. In 1 Chronicles 13:3 it is stated that the people were not accustomed to consulting the Ark in the days of Saul.
In the Biblical narrative, at the beginning of his reign over the United Monarchy, King David removed the Ark from Kirjath-jearim amid great rejoicing. On the way to Zion, Uzzah, one of the drivers of the cart that carried the Ark, put out his hand to steady the Ark, and was struck dead by God for touching it. The place was subsequently named "Perez-Uzzah", literally "Outburst Against Uzzah", as a result. David, in fear, carried the Ark aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite, instead of carrying it on to Zion, and it stayed there for three months.
On hearing that God had blessed Obed-edom because of the presence of the Ark in his house, David had the Ark brought to Zion by the Levites, while he himself, "girded with a linen ephod ... danced before the Lord with all his might" and in the sight of all the public gathered in Jerusalem, a performance which caused him to be scornfully rebuked by his first wife, Saul's daughter Michal. In Zion, David put the Ark in the tent he had prepared for it, offered sacrifices, distributed food, and blessed the people and his own household. David used the tent as a personal place of prayer.
The Levites were appointed to minister before the Ark. David's plan of building a temple for the Ark was stopped on the advice of the prophet Nathan. The Ark was with the army during the siege of Rabbah; and when David fled from Jerusalem at the time of Absalom's conspiracy, the Ark was carried along with him until he ordered Zadok the priest to return it to Jerusalem.
According to the Biblical narrative, when Abiathar was dismissed from the priesthood by King Solomon for having taken part in Adonijah's conspiracy against David, his life was spared because he had formerly borne the Ark. Solomon worshipped before the Ark after his dream in which God promised him wisdom.
During the construction of Solomon's Temple, a special inner room, named "Kodesh Hakodashim" (Eng. Holy of Holies), was prepared to receive and house the Ark; and when the Temple was dedicated, the Ark—containing the original tablets of the Ten Commandments—was placed therein. When the priests emerged from the holy place after placing the Ark there, the Temple was filled with a cloud, "for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord".
When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, he caused her to dwell in a house outside Zion, as Zion was consecrated because it contained the Ark. King Josiah also had the Ark returned to the Temple, from which it appears to have been removed by one of his predecessors (cf. 2 Chron. 33-34 and 2 Kings 21-23).
In 587 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple. There is no record of what became of the Ark in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. An ancient Greek version of the biblical third Book of Ezra, 1 Esdras, suggests that Babylonians took away the vessels of the ark of God, but does not mention taking away the Ark:
In Rabbinic literature, the final disposition of the Ark is disputed. Some rabbis hold that it must have been carried off to Babylon, while others hold that it must have been hidden lest it be carried off into Babylon and never brought back. A late 2nd-century rabbinic work known as the "Tosefta" states the opinions of these rabbis that Josiah, the king of Judah, stored away the Ark, along with the jar of manna, and a jar containing the holy anointing oil, the rod of Aaron which budded and a chest given to Israel by the Philistines. This was said to have been done in order to prevent their being carried off into Babylon as had already happened to the other vessels. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon, in the same rabbinic work, state that the Ark was, in fact, taken into Babylon. Rabbi Yehudah, dissenting, says that the Ark was stored away in its own place, meaning, somewhere on the Temple Mount.
Archaeological evidence shows strong cultic activity at Kiriath-Jearim in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, well after the ark was supposedly removed from there to Jerusalem. In particular, archaeologists found a large elevated podium, associated with the Northern Kingdom and not the Southern Kingdom, which may have been a shrine. Thomas Römer suggests that this may indicate that the ark was not moved to Jerusalem until much later, possibly during the reign of King Josiah. He notes that this might explain why the ark featured prominently in the history before Solomon, but not after. Additionally, 2 Chronicles 35:3 indicates that it was moved during King Josiah's reign. Some scholars believe the story of the Ark was written independently around the 8th century in a text referred to as the "Ark Narrative" and then incorporated into the main biblical narrative just before the exile into Babylon.
Thomas Römer also suggests that the ark may have originally carried sacred stones "of the kind found in the chests of pre-Islamic Bedouins", and speculates that these may have been either a statue of Yahweh or a pair of statues depicting both Yahweh and his companion goddess Asherah. In contrast, Scott Noegel has argued that the parallels between the ark and these practices "remain unconvincing" in part because the Bedouin objects lack the ark's distinctive structure, function, and mode of transportation. Specifically, unlike the ark, the Bedouin chests "contained no box, no lid, and no poles," they did not serve as the throne or footstool of a god, they were not overlaid with gold, did not have kerubim figures upon them, there were no restrictions on who could touch them, and they were transported on horses or camels. Noegel suggests that the ancient Egyptian bark is a more plausible model for the Israelite ark, since Egyptian barks had all the features just mentioned. Noegel adds that the Egyptians also were known to place written covenants beneath the feet of statues, proving a further parallel to the placement of the covenental tablets inside the ark.
The Ark is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, and then numerous times in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Psalms and Jeremiah.
In the Book of Jeremiah, it is referenced by Jeremiah, who, speaking in the days of Josiah, prophesied a future time, possibly the end of days, when the Ark will no longer be talked about or be made again:
Rashi comments on this verse that "The entire people will be so imbued with the spirit of sanctity that God's Presence will rest upon them collectively, as if the congregation itself was the Ark of the Covenant."
According to Second Maccabees, at the beginning of chapter 2:
The "mountain from the top of which Moses saw God's promised land" would be Mount Nebo, located in what is now Jordan.
In the New Testament, the Ark is mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation to St. John. states that the Ark contained "the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant." says the prophet saw God's temple in heaven opened, "and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple."
The contents of the ark are seen by theologians such as the Church Fathers and Thomas Aquinas as personified by Jesus Christ: the manna as the Holy Eucharist; Aaron's rod as Jesus' eternal priestly authority; and the tablets of the Law, as the Lawgiver himself.
Catholic scholars connect this verse with the Woman of the Apocalypse in , which immediately follows, and say that the Blessed Virgin Mary is identified as the "Ark of the New Covenant." Carrying the saviour of mankind within her, she herself became the Holy of Holies. This is the interpretation given in the third century by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in the fourth century by Saint Ambrose, Saint Ephraem of Syria and Saint Augustine. The Catholic Church teaches this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is 'the dwelling of God . . . with men"
In the Gospel of Luke, the author's accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation are constructed using eight points of literary parallelism to compare Mary to the Ark.
Saint Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, is credited with writing about the connections between the Ark and the Virgin Mary: "O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O (Ark of the) Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which Divinity resides" ("Homily of the Papyrus of Turin").
Chapter 2 ("Sura" 2) of the Quran (Verse 248), is believed to refer to the Ark:
The Arabic word "sakīna" (variously translated "peace of reassurance" or "spirit of tranquility") is related to the post-Biblical Hebrew shekhinah, meaning "dwelling or presence of God".
The Islamic scholar Al Baidawi mentioned that the "sakina" could be Tawrat, the Books of Moses. According to Al-Jalalan, the relics in the Ark were the fragments of the two tablets, rods, robes, shoes, mitre of Moses and the vase of manna. Al-Tha'alibi, in "Qisas Al-Anbiya" (The Stories of the Prophets), has given an earlier and later history of the Ark.
According to Uri Rubin the Ark of the Covenant has a religious basis in Islam, and Islam gives it special significance.
Since its disappearance from the Biblical narrative, there have been a number of claims of having discovered or of having possession of the Ark, and several possible places have been suggested for its location.
2 Maccabees 2:4-10, written around 100 BC, says that the prophet Jeremiah, "being warned by God" before the Babylonian invasion, took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and buried them in a cave on Mount Nebo, informing those of his followers who wished to find the place that it should remain unknown "until the time that God should gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy."
Mount Nebo is also described in the Bible (Deuteronomy 34) as the site from which Moses views the Promised Land, and apparently also is his final burial place. Mount Nebo is approximately 47 km (29 miles) slightly south of due east from Jerusalem, near the east bank of the Jordan River.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant, or "Tabot", in Axum. The object is currently kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Replicas of the Axum "tabot" are kept in every Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church, each with its own dedication to a particular saint; the most popular of these include Mary, George and Michael.
The "Kebra Nagast" is often said to have been composed to legitimise the Solomonic dynasty, which ruled the Ethiopian Empire following its establishment in 1270, but this is not the case. It was originally composed in some other language (Coptic or Greek), then translated into Arabic, and translated into Ge`ez in 1321. It narrates how the real Ark of the Covenant was brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I with divine assistance, while a forgery was left in the Temple in Jerusalem. Although the "Kebra Nagast" is the best-known account of this belief, it predates the document. Abu al-Makarim, writing in the last quarter of the twelfth century, makes one early reference to this belief that they possessed the Ark. "The Abyssinians possess also the Ark of the Covenant", he wrote, and, after a description of the object, describes how the liturgy is celebrated upon the Ark four times a year, "on the feast of the great nativity, on the feast of the glorious Baptism, on the feast of the holy Resurrection, and on the feast of the illuminating Cross."
In his controversial and much attacked 1992 book "The Sign and the Seal", British writer Graham Hancock reports on the Ethiopian belief that the ark spent several years in Egypt before it came to Ethiopia via the Nile River, where it was kept in the islands of Lake Tana for about four hundred years and finally taken to Axum. (Archaeologist John Holladay of the University of Toronto called Hancock's theory "garbage and hogwash"; Edward Ullendorff, a former Professor of Ethiopian Studies at the University of London, said he "wasted a lot of time reading it.") In a 1992 interview, Ullendorff says that he personally examined the ark held within the church in Axum in 1941 while a British army officer. Describing the ark there, he says, "They have a wooden box, but it's empty. Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc."
On 25 June 2009, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, Abune Paulos, said he would announce to the world the next day the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, which he said had been kept safe and secure in a church in Axum, Ethiopia. The following day, on 26 June 2009, the patriarch announced that he would not unveil the Ark after all, but that instead he could attest to its current status.
The Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe have claimed that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the "ngoma lungundu" or "voice of God", eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains, their spiritual home.
On 14 April 2008, in a UK Channel 4 documentary, Tudor Parfitt, taking a literalist approach to the Biblical story, described his research into this claim. He says that the object described by the Lemba has attributes similar to the Ark. It was of similar size, was carried on poles by priests, was not allowed to touch the ground, was revered as a voice of their God, and was used as a weapon of great power, sweeping enemies aside.
In his book "The Lost Ark of the Covenant" (2008), Parfitt also suggests that the Ark was taken to Arabia following the events depicted in the Second Book of Maccabees, and cites Arabic sources which maintain it was brought in distant times to Yemen. One Lemba clan, the Buba, which was supposed to have brought the Ark to Africa, have a genetic signature called the Cohen Modal Haplotype. This suggests a male Semitic link to the Levant. Lemba tradition maintains that the Ark spent some time in Sena in Yemen. Later, it was taken across the sea to East Africa and may have been taken inland at the time of the Great Zimbabwe civilization. According to their oral traditions, some time after the arrival of the Lemba with the Ark, it self-destructed. Using a core from the original, the Lemba priests constructed a new one. This replica was discovered in a cave by a Swedish German missionary named Harald von Sicard in the 1940s and eventually found its way to the Museum of Human Science in Harare. Parfitt had this artifact radio-carbon dated to about 1350, which coincided with the sudden end of the Great Zimbabwe civilization.
French author Louis Charpentier claimed that the Ark was taken to the Chartres Cathedral by the Knights Templar.
One author has theorised that the Ark was taken from Jerusalem to the village of Rennes-le-Château in Southern France. Karen Ralls has cited Freemason Patrick Byrne, who believes the Ark was moved from Rennes-le-Château at the outbreak of World War I to the United States.
The Ark of the Covenant was said to have been kept in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by Alaric I and Gaiseric but lost when the basilica burned.
"Rabbi Eliezer ben José stated that he saw in Rome the mercy-seat of the temple. There was a bloodstain on it. On inquiry he was told that it was a stain from the blood which the high priest sprinkled thereon on the Day of Atonement."
In 2003, author Graham Phillips hypothetically concluded that the Ark was taken to Mount Sinai in the Valley of Edom by the Maccabees. Phillips claims it remained there until the 1180s, when Ralph de Sudeley, the leader of the Templars, found the Maccabean treasure at Jebel al-Madhbah, and returned home to his estate at Herdewyke in Warwickshire, England taking the treasure with him.
At the turn of the 20th century British Israelites carried out some excavations of the Hill of Tara in Ireland looking for the Ark of the Covenant—the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland campaigned successfully to have them stopped before they destroyed the hill.
In 1922 in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, the royal tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun (KV62) was opened by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. Among the artifacts was a processional ark, listed as Shrine 261, the Anubis Shrine. Almost immediately after publication of the photographs of this sensational archaeological find, some claimed that the Anubis Shrine could be the Ark of the Covenant. John M. Lundquist, author of "The Temple of Jerusalem: Past, Present, and Future" (2008), discounts this idea. The Anubis Shrine measures long, wide, and high in the shape of a pylon. The Biblical Ark of the Covenant is approximately long, wide, and high in the shape of a rectangular chest.
Lundquist observes that the Anubis Shrine is not strictly analogous to the Ark of the Covenant; it can only be said that it is "ark-like", constructed of wood, gessoed and gilded, stored within a sacred tomb, "guarding" the treasury of the tomb (and not the primary focus of that environment), that it contains compartments within it that store and hold sacred objects, that it has a figure of Anubis on its lid, and that it was carried by two staves permanently inserted into rings at its base and borne by eight priests in the funerary procession to Tutankhamun's tomb. Its value is the insight it provides to the ancient culture of Egypt.
Philip Kaufman conceived of the Ark of the Covenant as the main plot device of Steven Spielberg's 1981 adventure film "Raiders of the Lost Ark", which depicts it as being located by Indiana Jones in the Egyptian city of Tanis in 1936. In early 2020, a prop version made for the film (which does not actually appear onscreen) was featured on "Antiques Roadshow".
In the Danish family film "The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar" from 2006, the main part of the treasure found in the end is the Ark of the Covenant. The power of the Ark comes from static electricity stored in separated metal plates like a giant Leyden jar.
Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) () is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the Land of Israel while carrying the Ark of the Covenant.
Footnotes
Citations | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2134 |
Aster CT-80
The Aster CT-80, an early (1982) home/personal computer developed by the small Dutch company MCP (later renamed to Aster Computers), was sold in its first incarnation as a kit for hobbyists. Later it was sold ready to use. It consisted of several Eurocard PCB's with DIN 41612 connectors, and a backplane all based on a 19-inch rack configuration. It was the first commercially available Dutch personal/home computer. The Aster computer could use the software written for the popular Tandy TRS-80 computer while fixing many of the problems of that computer, but it could also run CP/M software, with a big amount of free memory Transient Program Area, (TPA) and a full 80×25 display, and it could be used as a Videotext terminal. Although the Aster was a clone of the TRS-80 Model I it was in fact more compatible with the TRS-80 Model III, and ran all the software of these systems including games. It also had a built in speaker which was compatible with such games software.
Three models were sold. The first model (launched June 1982) looked like the later IBM PC (which came on the market years later), a rectangular base unit with two floppy drives on the front, and a monitor on top with a separate detachable keyboard. The second incarnation was a much smaller unit the width of two 5" floppy drives stacked on top of each other, and the third incarnation looked like a flattened Apple with a built-in keyboard.
All units ran much faster than the original TRS-80, at 4 MHz, (with a software selectable throttle to the original speed for compatibility purposes) and the display supported upper and lower case, hardware snow suppression (video ram bus arbitration logic), and an improved character font set. The floppy disk interface supported dual density, and disk capacities up to 800 KB, more than four times the capacity of the original TRS-80. A special version of NewDos/80, (an improved TRS-DOS compatible Disk operating system) was used to support these disk capacities when using the TRS-80 compatibility mode.
For the educational market a version of the first model was produced with a new plastic enclosure (the First Asters had an all-metal enclosure) that also had an opening on the top in which a cassette recorder could be placed. This model was used in a cluster with one Aster (with disk drives) for the teacher, and eight disk less versions for the pupils. The pupils could download software from the teachers computer through a network based on a fast serial connection, as well as sending back their work to the teachers computer. There was also hardware in place through which the teacher could see the display of each pupils screen on his own monitor.
The Aster used 64KB of RAM memory and had the unique feature of supporting two fundamentally different internal architectures: when turned on without a boot floppy or with a TRS-DOS floppy, the Aster would be fully TRS-80 compatible, with 48KB or RAM. When the boot loader detected a CP/M floppy, the Aster would reconfigure its internal memory architecture on the fly to optimally support CP/M with 60 KB free RAM for programs (TPA) and an 80 x 25 display. This dual-architecture capability only existed on one other TRS-80 clone, the LOBO Max-80.
With a special configuration tool, the CT-80 could reconfigure its floppy drivers to read and write the floppies of about 80 other CP/M systems.
A third mode was entered with a special boot floppy which turned the Aster into a Videotex terminal with a 40x25 display and a Videotex character set, The software used the built in RS232 interface of the Aster to control a modem through which it could contact a Prestel service provider.
Most Aster CT-80's (about 10 thousand of them) were sold to schools for computer education, in a project first known as the "honderd scholen project" (one hundred schools project), but which later involved many more than just one hundred schools. MCP received this order from the Dutch government because their computer met all the technical and other demands, including the demand that the computers should be of Dutch origin and should be built in the Netherlands. Another important demand was that the computers could be used in a network (Aster developed special software and hardware for that). Later however the Government turned around and gave 50% of the order to Philips and their P2000 homecomputer even though the P2000 did not meet all the technical demands, was made in Austria and did not have network hardware nor software.
Aster computers was based in the small town of Arkel near the town of Gorinchem.
Initially Aster computer b.v. was called MCP (Music print Computer Product), because it was specialized in producing computer assisted printing of sheet music. The director of the company was interested in Microprocessor technology and noticed there was a market for selling kits to computer building amateurs, so they started selling electronic kits to hobbyists, and employed four persons at that time . They also assembled kits for people without soldering skills, especially the "junior Computer" from Elektor (a copy of the KIM-1), and the ZX80 from Sinclair. Among the kits sold there were also alternative floppy disk drives for TRS-80 computers. But these needed the infamous TRS-80 expansion interface, which was very expensive, and had a very unreliable floppy disk controller because it used the WD1771 floppy disc controller chip without an external "data separator". To fix this problem MCP developed a small plugin board which could be plugged into the socket for the WD1771, and which contained a data separator, and a socket for the WD1791 to support dual-density operation. Still, the expansion interface was expensive and due to its design it was also unreliable. So they decided to also develop their own alternative in the form of an improved floppy disk controller and printer interface that could be built right into a floppy disk enclosure. The lack of RAM expansion offered by this solution was solved by a service in which the 16 KB RAM chips inside the base unit would be replaced by 64 KB RAM chips.
While this went on MCP renamed itself to "MCP CHIP" but ran into problems with the German computer magazine "CHIP", and had to return to its former name. At that time MCP did also sell imported home computers like the TRS-80, the Video Genie, (another TRS-80 clone), the Luxor ABC 80 and the Apple II.
They also sold the exotic Olivetti M20, a very early 16-bit personal computer that was one of the very few systems to use a Z8000 CPU.
After designing their own fully functional replacement for the TRS-80 expansion interface (which was never commercialized) the company realized that they could do better than just re-designing the expansion interface. They observed that the TRS-80 was a great computer but it lacked in several areas. The display logic and resulting display 'snow' was irritating, as was the missing lower case support, the CPU speed could be improved, the quality and layout of the keyboard was bothersome, and the floppy disk capacity and reliability was low. Also the more interesting software offered for CP/M systems could not run well on a TRS-80. So they decided to design a TRS-80 and CP/M software-compatible computer system, which (following the lead of Apple Computer) they decided to name after a "typical Dutch flower". So they called it the Aster CT-80 (CP/M/Tandy-1980). Why they went with Aster, and not the more well known Tulip is unknown, perhaps they thought it would be to presumptuous, or perhaps the fact that "Aster" is also a Dutch girls' name has something to do with it. Remarkably "Aster" was also the name given to a Dutch Supercomputer much later, in 2002.
The first version of the Aster consisted of four "Eurocard's", one Z80 CPU card with 64 KB memory, one Motorola MC6845-based video card, one double density floppy disk controller card and one "keyboard/RS232/cassette interface" card. Plus a "backplane card", (which connected all the other cards) and a keyboard. And was intended for hobbyists, to be sold as a kit consisting of the parts and the PCB's for the computer and attached keyboard. After selling a few kits, MCP became convinced there was a much bigger market for an improved model sold as a completed working system. However the original kit version lacked many features that prevented its use as a serious computer system. Because the original designer had left the company another employee completely redesigned most of the system, (adding a display snow remover circuit, true 80/64 column text mode support, (with different size letters for TRS-80 and CP/M mode, so that in TRS-80 mode the full screen was also used, not just a 64×16 portion of the 80×25 screen) with an improved font set (adding "gray scale" version of the TRS-80 mozaik graphics and many special PETSCII like characters), and a more flexible and reliable floppy disk controller and keyboard interface plus many other small improvements), also an enclosure was developed for the main computer system, (in the form of a 19-inch rack for the Eurocards) and for two floppy disk drives and the power supply. A software engineer was hired to write the special "dual boot mode" BIOS and the special CP/M BIOS. The "dual boot mode" BIOS actually discovered whether a TRS-DOS, or Aster CP/M disk was placed in the drive, and would, depending on the type of disk, reorganise the internal memory architecture of the system, to either be 100% TRS-80 compatible or optimally support CP/M, with as much "workspace" as possible, and the 80×25 video mode. It also was responsible for switching to ROM BASIC when the system was turned on with the break key pressed, and later supported a primitive LAN system, using the RS232 port with modified cabling. The very first of the ready made computers were sold with the "kit" versions of the euro cards, the version with redesigned cards came a month or so later.
Soon the little shop became much too small and they moved to a much larger factory building nearby (formerly a window glass factory), and started mass-producing the Aster for a period of a few years, in which time its staff grew twentyfold.
After the Aster having been a few years on the Market Tandy released its own improved model, the TRS-80 Model III computer which solved many of the same problems that the Aster also had solved, but the model 3 still did not fully support CP/M as the Aster did. In the meantime IBM had released its original IBM PC, which incidentally looked remarkably like the Asters base with floppy drives + separate keyboard set-up.
The Aster was chosen for Dutch schools by the Dutch ministry of education, in a set-up with eight disk-less Asters, and one Aster with high-capacity floppy drives all connected by a LAN based on the Aster's high-speed serial port hardware, and special cables that permitted that any single computer on the LAN could broadcast to all other computers. The floppy based system was operated by the teacher who could send programs from his floppy disk, and data, to the student's disk-less systems thanks to the special BIOS in those systems. The students could send programs and data back to the teacher through the same LAN, or could save to a cassette recorder built into the disk-less units. Through a special "video-switch" the teacher was also able to see a copy of each student's display on his own screen. About a thousand of such systems were sold for many hundreds of Dutch schools.
Because of cash flow problems (resulting from growing too fast, insufficient financial backing, technical problems, and a sudden problem with Z80 processor deliveries) the company suddenly folded even before it came to full fruition.
Perhaps the Aster computer inspired another Dutch computer firm to name their computer after another typical Dutch flower—the Tulip's Tulip System-1 which appeared about the same time Aster folded.
Most of the engineers who designed the hardware and software of the Aster went on to design hardware and software for the (then new) MSX system for a company called "Micro Technology b.v.".
To enhance and modernize the Aster CT-80 the company also designed three alternative video display adapters to supplement or replace the TRS-80 compatible video card, (due to the modular nature of the Aster it was simply a matter of changing the video card, and/or CPU card to upgrade the system).
A hard disk interface was also in the works, which would, add a SCSI interface, and the necessary software. A working prototype was developed that added a 40MB hard disk.
On the software front, work was being done to implement the replacement for the aging "user interface" of CP/M, (the Command Console Processor CCP) with the more modern ZCPR.
Finally a replacement for the aging Z80 processor was being developed in the form of an Intel 8086 board, and additional 512K 16 bit memory boards. Such replacements of CPU and memory system components were possible because the Aster CT-80 was designed to use a backplane that was designed to support both 8 and 16 bit processors, and used a modular Eurocard based design with slots to spare for expansion. In theory the system could support the Z80 and the 8086 simultaneously. Plans were formulated to support CP/M-86 and even MS-DOS.
Unfortunately none of these extensions to the system became available because the company folded before any of them could be released. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2137 |
Lists of animated television series
These are lists of animated television series. Animated television series are television programs produced by means of animation. Animated series produced for theaters are not included in this lists; for those, see List of animated short series. These lists include compilation series of theatrical shorts such as "The Bugs Bunny Show" since they often feature some new wrap-around animation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2139 |
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The team played its home games at Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium from 1966 to 1996, and at Turner Field from 1997 to 2016. Since 2017, their home stadium has been Truist Park (formerly SunTrust Park), located 10 miles (16 km) northwest of downtown Atlanta in Cobb County, Georgia. The Braves play spring training games at CoolToday Park in North Port, Florida.
The name "Braves", which was first used in 1912, originates from a term for a Native American warrior. They are nicknamed "the Bravos", and often referred to as "America's Team" in reference to the team's games being broadcast on the nationally available TBS from the 1970s until 2007, giving the team a nationwide fan base.
From 1991 to 2005, the Braves were one of the most successful teams in baseball, winning division titles an unprecedented 14 consecutive times (omitting the strike-shortened 1994 season in which there were no official division champions), and producing one of the greatest pitching rotations in the history of baseball. Most notably, this rotation consisted of pitchers Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine. Pitcher Steve Avery also was a significant contributor to the rotation during the period of 1991–1993. The Braves won the National League West division from 1991 to 1993, and after divisional realignment, the National League East division from 1995 to 2005. They returned to the playoffs as the National League Wild Card in 2010. The Braves advanced to the World Series five times in the 1990s (1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, and 1999), winning the title in 1995 against the Cleveland Indians. Since their debut in the National League in 1876, the franchise has won 18 divisional titles, 17 National League pennants, and three World Series championships — in 1914 as the Boston Braves, in 1957 as the Milwaukee Braves, and in 1995 as the Atlanta Braves. The Braves are the only Major League Baseball franchise to have won the World Series in three different home cities.
The Braves and the Chicago Cubs are the National League's two remaining charter franchises. The Braves were founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1871, as the Boston Red Stockings (not to be confused with the American League's Boston Red Sox). The team states it is "the oldest continuously operating professional sports franchise in America."
After various name changes, the team eventually began operating as the Boston Braves, which lasted for most of the first half of the 20th century. Then, in 1953, the team moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and became the Milwaukee Braves, followed by the final move to Atlanta in 1966.
The Cincinnati Red Stockings, established in 1869 as the first openly all-professional baseball team, voted to dissolve after the 1870 season. Player-manager Harry Wright, with brother George and two other Cincinnati players, then went to Boston, Massachusetts at the invitation of Boston Red Stockings founder Ivers Whitney Adams to form the nucleus of the "Boston Red Stockings", a charter member of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP). The original Boston Red Stockings team and its successors can lay claim to being the oldest continuously playing team in American professional sports. (The only other team that has been organized as long, the Chicago Cubs, did not play for the two years following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.) Two young players hired away from the Forest City club of Rockford, Illinois, turned out to be the biggest stars during the NAPBBP years: pitcher Al Spalding (founder of Spalding sporting goods) and second baseman Ross Barnes.
Led by the Wright brothers, Barnes, and Spalding, the Red Stockings dominated the National Association, winning four of that league's five championships. The team became one of the National League's charter franchises in 1876, sometimes called the ""Red Caps"" (as a new Cincinnati Red Stockings club was another charter member).
The Boston Red Caps played in the first game in the history of the National League, on Saturday, April 22, 1876, defeating the Philadelphia Athletics, 6–5.
Although somewhat stripped of talent in the National League's inaugural year, Boston bounced back to win the 1877 and 1878 pennants. The Red Caps/Beaneaters were one of the league's dominant teams during the 19th century, winning a total of eight pennants. For most of that time, their manager was Frank Selee. Boston came to be called the "Beaneaters" in 1883, while retaining red as the team color. The 1898 team finished 102–47, a club record for wins that would stand for almost a century. Stars of those 1890s Beaneater teams included the "Heavenly Twins", Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy, as well as "Slidin'" Billy Hamilton.
The team was decimated when the American League's new Boston entry set up shop in 1901. Many of the Beaneaters' stars jumped to the new team, which offered contracts that the Beaneaters' owners did not even bother to match. They only managed one winning season from 1900 to 1913, and lost 100 games five times. In 1907, the Beaneaters (temporarily) eliminated the last bit of red from their stockings because their manager thought the red dye could cause wounds to become infected (as noted in "The Sporting News Baseball Guide" during the 1940s when each team's entry had a history of its nickname(s). The American League club's owner, Charles Taylor, wasted little time in adopting Red Sox as his team's first official nickname (up to that point they had been called by the generic "Americans"). Media-driven nickname changes to the "Doves" in 1907 and the "Rustlers" in 1911 did nothing to change the National League club's luck. The team became the "Braves" for the first time before the 1912 season. The president of the club, John M. Ward named the club after the owner, James Gaffney. Gaffney was called one of the "braves" of New York City's political machine, Tammany Hall, which used an Indian chief as their symbol.
Two years later, the Braves put together one of the most memorable seasons in baseball history. After a dismal 4–18 start, the Braves seemed to be on pace for a last place finish. On July 4, 1914, the Braves lost both games of a doubleheader to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The consecutive losses put their record at 26–40 and the Braves were in last place, "15 games" behind the league-leading New York Giants, who had won the previous three league pennants. After a day off, the Braves started to put together a hot streak, and from July 6 through September 5, the Braves went 41–12. On September 7 and 8, the Braves took two of three games from the New York Giants and moved into first place. The Braves tore through September and early October, closing with 25 wins against six losses, while the Giants went 16–16. They were the only team, under the old eight-team league format, to win a pennant after being in last place on the Fourth of July. They were in last place as late as July 18, but were close to the pack, moving into fourth on July 21 and second place on August 12.
Despite their amazing comeback, the Braves entered the World Series as a heavy underdog to Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's. Nevertheless, the Braves swept the Athletics—the first unqualified sweep in the young history of the modern World Series (the 1907 Series had one tied game) to win the world championship. Meanwhile, Johnny Evers won the Chalmers Award.
The Braves played the World Series (as well as the last few games of the 1914 season) at Fenway Park, since their normal home, the South End Grounds, was too small. However, the Braves' success inspired owner Gaffney to build a modern park, Braves Field, which opened in August 1915. It was the largest park in the majors at the time, with 40,000 seats and a very spacious outfield. The park was novel for its time; public transportation brought fans right to the park.
After contending for most of 1915 and 1916, the Braves only twice posted winning records from 1917 to 1932. The lone highlight of those years came when Judge Emil Fuchs bought the team in 1923 to bring his longtime friend, pitching great Christy Mathewson, back into the game. However, Mathewson died in 1925, leaving Fuchs in control of the team.
Fuchs was committed to building a winner, but the damage from the years prior to his arrival took some time to overcome. The Braves finally managed to be competitive in 1933 and 1934 under manager Bill McKechnie, but Fuchs' revenue was severely depleted due to the Great Depression.
Looking for a way to get more fans and more money, Fuchs worked out a deal with the New York Yankees to acquire Babe Ruth, who had started his career with the Red Sox. Fuchs made Ruth team vice president, and promised him a share of the profits. He was also granted the title of assistant manager, and was to be consulted on all of the Braves' deals. Fuchs even suggested that Ruth, who had long had his heart set on managing, could take over as manager once McKechnie stepped down—perhaps as early as 1936.
At first, it appeared that Ruth was the final piece the team needed in 1935. On opening day, he had a hand in all of the Braves' runs in a 4–2 win over the Giants. However, that proved to be the only time the Braves were over .500 all year. Events went downhill quickly. While Ruth could still hit, he could do little else. He could not run, and his fielding was so terrible that three of the Braves' pitchers threatened to go on strike if Ruth were in the lineup. It soon became obvious that he was vice president and assistant manager in name only and Fuchs' promise of a share of team profits was hot air. In fact, Ruth discovered that Fuchs expected him to invest some of "his" money in the team.
Seeing a franchise in complete disarray, Ruth retired on June 1—only six days after he clouted what turned out to be the last three home runs of his career. He had wanted to quit as early as May 12, but Fuchs wanted him to hang on so he could play in every National League park. The Braves finished 38–115, the worst season in franchise history. Their .248 winning percentage is the second worst in the modern era and the second-worst in National League history (behind only the 1899 Cleveland Spiders).
Fuchs lost control of the team in August 1935, and the new owners tried to change the team's image by renaming it the "Boston Bees". This did little to change the team's fortunes. After five uneven years, a new owner, construction magnate Lou Perini, changed the nickname back to the Braves. He immediately set about rebuilding the team. World War II slowed things down a little, but the team rode the pitching of Warren Spahn to impressive seasons in 1946 and 1947.
In 1948, the team won the pennant, behind the pitching of Spahn and Johnny Sain, who won 39 games between them. The remainder of the rotation was so thin that in September, "Boston Post" writer Gerald Hern wrote this poem about the pair:
The poem received such a wide audience that the sentiment, usually now paraphrased as ""Spahn and Sain and pray for rain"", entered the baseball vocabulary. However, in the 1948 season, the Braves had the same overall winning percentage as in games that Spahn and Sain started.
The 1948 World Series, which the Braves lost in six games to the Indians, turned out to be the Braves' last hurrah in Boston. In 1950, Sam Jethroe became the team's first African American player, making his major league debut on April 18. Amid four mediocre seasons, attendance steadily dwindled until, on March 13, 1953, Perini, who had recently bought out his original partners, announced he was moving the team to Milwaukee, where the Braves had their top farm club, the Brewers. Milwaukee had long been a possible target for relocation. Bill Veeck had tried to return his St. Louis Browns there earlier the same year (Milwaukee was the original home of that franchise), but his proposal had been voted down by the other American League owners.
Milwaukee went wild over the Braves, drawing a then-NL record 1.8 million fans. The Braves finished 92–62 in their first season in Milwaukee. The success of the relocated team showed that baseball could succeed in new markets, and the Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants left their hometowns within the next five years.
As the 1950s progressed, the reinvigorated Braves became increasingly competitive. Sluggers Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron drove the offense (they hit a combined 1,226 home runs as Braves, with 850 of those coming while the franchise was in Milwaukee and 863 coming while they were teammates), often aided by another power hitter, Joe Adcock, while Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, and Bob Buhl anchored the rotation. The 1956 Braves finished second, only one game behind the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In 1957, the Braves celebrated their first pennant in nine years spearheaded by Aaron's MVP season, as he led the National League in home runs and RBI. Perhaps the most memorable of his 44 round-trippers that season came on September 23, a two-run walk-off home run that gave the Braves a 4–2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals and clinched the League championship. The team then went on to its first World Series win in over 40 years, defeating the powerful New York Yankees of Berra, Mantle, and Ford in seven games. One-time Yankee Burdette, the Series MVP, threw three complete game victories against his former team, giving up only two earned runs.
In 1958, the Braves again won the National League pennant and jumped out to a three games to one lead in the World Series against the New York Yankees once more, thanks in part to the strength of Spahn's and Burdette's pitching. But the Yankees stormed back to take the last three games, in large part to World Series MVP Bob Turley's pitching.
The 1959 season saw the Braves finish the season in a tie with the Los Angeles Dodgers, both with 86–68 records. Many residents of Chicago and Milwaukee were hoping for a Sox-Braves Series, as the cities are only about apart, but it was not to be because Milwaukee fell in a best-of-3 playoff with two straight losses to the Dodgers. The Dodgers would go on to defeat the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.
The next six years were up-and-down for the Braves. The 1960 season featured two no-hitters by Burdette and Spahn, and Milwaukee finished seven games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates, who went on to win the World Series that year, in second place, one year after the Braves were on the winning end of the 13-inning near-perfect game of Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix. The 1961 season saw a drop in the standings for the Braves down to fourth, despite Spahn recording his 300th victory and pitching another no-hitter that year.
Aaron hit 45 home runs in 1962, a Milwaukee career high for him, but this did not translate into wins for the Braves, as they finished fifth. The next season, Aaron again hit 44 home runs and notched 130 RBI, and Spahn was once again the ace of the staff, going 23–7. However, none of the other Braves produced at that level, and the team finished in the "second division", for the first time in its short history in Milwaukee.
The Braves were mediocre as the 1960s began, with an inflated win total fed by the expansion New York Mets and Houston Colt .45s. To this day, the Milwaukee Braves are the only major league team who played more than one season and never had a losing record.
Perini sold the Braves to a Chicago-based group led by William Bartholomay in 1962. Almost immediately Bartholomay started shopping the Braves to a larger television market. Keen to attract them, the fast-growing city of Atlanta, led by Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. constructed a new $18 million, 52,000-seat ballpark in less than one year, Atlanta Stadium, which was officially opened in 1965 in hopes of luring an existing major league baseball and/or NFL/AFL team. After the city failed to lure the Kansas City A's to Atlanta (the A's ultimately moved to Oakland in 1968), the Braves announced their intention to move to Atlanta for the 1965 season. However, an injunction filed in Wisconsin kept the Braves in Milwaukee for one final year. In 1966, the Braves completed the move to Atlanta.
Eddie Mathews is the only Braves player to have played for the organization in all three cities that they have been based in. Mathews played with the Braves for their last season in Boston, the team's entire tenure in Milwaukee, and their first season in Atlanta.
The Braves were a .500 team in their first few years in Atlanta; 85–77 in 1966, 77–85 in 1967, and 81–81 in 1968. The 1967 season was the Braves' first losing season since 1952, their last year in Boston. In 1969, with the onset of divisional play, the Braves won the first-ever National League West Division title, before being swept by the "Miracle Mets" in the National League Championship Series. They would not be a factor during the next decade, posting only two winning seasons between 1970 and 1981 – in some cases, fielding teams as bad as the worst Boston teams.
In the meantime, fans had to be satisfied with the achievements of Hank Aaron. In the relatively hitter-friendly confines and higher-than-average altitude of Atlanta Stadium ("The Launching Pad"), he actually increased his offensive production. Atlanta also produced batting champions in Rico Carty (in 1970) and Ralph Garr (in 1974). In the shadow of Aaron's historical home run pursuit, was the fact that three Atlanta sluggers hit 40 or more home runs in 1973 – Darrell Evans and Davey Johnson along with Aaron.
By the end of the 1973 season, Aaron had hit 713 home runs, one short of Ruth's record. Throughout the winter he received racially motivated death threats, but stood up well under the pressure. The next season, it was only a matter of time before he set a new record. On April 4, opening day, he hit No.714 in Cincinnati, and on April 8, in front of his home fans and a national television audience he finally beat Ruth's mark with a home run to left-center field off left-hander Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Aaron spent most of his career as a Milwaukee and Atlanta Brave before asking to be traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, while Ruth finished his career as a Boston Brave. In fact, until Barry Bonds eclipsed the 714 home runs hit by Babe Ruth in 2006, the top two home run hitters in Major League history had at one time been Braves.
In 1976, the team was purchased by media magnate Ted Turner, owner of superstation WTBS, as a means to keep the team (and one of his main programming staples) in Atlanta. The financially strapped Turner used money already paid to the team for their broadcast rights as a down-payment. It was then that Atlanta Stadium was renamed Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium. Turner quickly gained a reputation as a quirky, hands-on baseball owner. On May 11, 1977, Turner appointed himself manager, but because MLB passed a rule in the 1950s barring managers from holding a financial stake in their teams, Turner was ordered to relinquish that position after one game (the Braves lost 2–1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates to bring their losing streak to 17 games).
Turner used the Braves as a major programming draw for his fledgling cable network, making the Braves the first franchise to have a nationwide audience and fan base. WTBS marketed the team as "The Atlanta Braves: America's Team", a nickname that still sticks in some areas of the country, especially the South. Among other things, in 1976 Turner suggested the nickname "Channel" for pitcher Andy Messersmith and jersey number 17, in order to promote the television station that aired Braves games. Major League Baseball quickly nixed the idea.
After three straight losing seasons, Bobby Cox was hired for his first stint as manager for the 1978 season. He promoted 22-year-old slugger Dale Murphy into the starting lineup. Murphy hit 77 home runs over the next three seasons, but he struggled on defense, unable to adeptly play either catcher or first base. In 1980, Murphy was moved to center field and demonstrated excellent range and throwing ability, while the Braves earned their first winning season since 1974. Cox was fired after the 1981 season and replaced with Joe Torre, under whose leadership the Braves attained their first divisional title since 1969. Strong performances from Bob Horner, Chris Chambliss, pitcher Phil Niekro, and short relief pitcher Gene Garber helped the Braves, but no Brave was more acclaimed than Murphy, who won both a Most Valuable Player and a Gold Glove award. Murphy also won an MVP award the following season, but the Braves began a period of decline that defined the team throughout the 1980s. Murphy, excelling in defense, hitting, and running, was consistently recognized as one of the league's best players, but the Braves averaged only 65 wins per season between 1985 and 1990. Their lowest point came in 1988, when they lost 106 games. The 1986 season saw the return of Bobby Cox as general manager. Also in 1986, the team stopped using their Indian-themed mascot, Chief Noc-A-Homa.
Cox returned to the dugout as manager in the middle of the 1990 season, replacing Russ Nixon. The Braves finished the year with the worst record in baseball, at 65–97. They traded Dale Murphy to the Philadelphia Phillies after it was clear he was becoming a less dominant player. Pitching coach Leo Mazzone began developing young pitchers Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, and John Smoltz into future stars. That same year, the Braves used the number one overall pick in the 1990 MLB draft to select Chipper Jones, who became one of the best hitters in team history. Perhaps the Braves' most important move was not on the field, but in the front office. Immediately after the season, John Schuerholz was hired away from the Kansas City Royals as general manager.
The following season, Glavine, Avery, and Smoltz would be recognized as the best young pitchers in the league, winning 52 games among them. Meanwhile, behind position players David Justice, Ron Gant and unexpected league Most Valuable Player and batting champion Terry Pendleton, the Braves overcame a 39–40 start, winning 55 of their final 83 games over the last three months of the season and edging the Los Angeles Dodgers by one game in one of baseball's more memorable playoff races. The "Worst to First" Braves, who had not won a divisional title since 1982, captivated the city of Atlanta (and the entire southeast) during their improbable run to the flag. They defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in a very tightly contested seven-game NLCS only to lose the World Series, also in seven games, to the Minnesota Twins. The series, considered by many to be one of the greatest ever, was the first time a team that had finished last in its division one year went to the World Series the next; both the Twins and Braves accomplished the feat.
Despite the 1991 World Series loss, the Braves' success would continue. In 1992, the Braves returned to the NLCS and once again defeated the Pirates in seven games, culminating in a dramatic game seven win. Francisco Cabrera's two-out single that scored David Justice and Sid Bream capped a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Braves a 3–2 victory. It was the first time in post season history that the tying and winning runs had scored on a single play in the ninth inning. The Braves lost the World Series to the Toronto Blue Jays, however. In 1993, the Braves signed Cy Young Award winning pitcher Greg Maddux from the Chicago Cubs, leading many baseball insiders to declare the team's pitching staff the best in baseball. The 1993 team posted a franchise-best 104 wins after a dramatic pennant race with the San Francisco Giants, who won 103 games. The Braves needed a stunning 55–19 finish to edge out the Giants, who led the Braves by nine games in the standings as late as August 11. However, the Braves fell in the NLCS to the Philadelphia Phillies in six games.
In 1994, in a realignment of the National League's divisions following the 1993 expansion, the Braves moved to the Eastern Division. This realignment was the main cause of the team's heated rivalry with the New York Mets during the mid-to-late 1990s.
The player's strike cut short the 1994 season, prior to the division championships, with the Braves six games behind the Montreal Expos with 48 games left to play.
The Braves returned strong the following strike-shortened (144 games instead of the customary 162) year and beat the Cleveland Indians in the 1995 World Series. This squelched claims by many Braves critics that they were the "Buffalo Bills of Baseball" (January 1996 issue of "Beckett Baseball Card Monthly"). With this World Series victory, the Braves became the first team in Major League Baseball to win world championships in three different cities. With their strong pitching as a constant, the Braves appeared in the and 1999 World Series (losing both to the New York Yankees, managed by Joe Torre, a former Braves manager), and had a streak of division titles from 1991 to 2005 (three in the Western Division and eleven in the Eastern) interrupted only in 1994 when the strike ended the season early. Pitching was not the only constant in the Braves organization —Cox was the Braves' manager, while Schuerholz remained the team's GM until after the 2007 season when he was promoted to team president. Terry Pendleton finished his playing career elsewhere, but returned to the Braves system as the hitting coach.
In October 1996, Time Warner acquired Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System and all of its assets, including its cable channels and the Atlanta Braves. Over the next few years, Ted Turner's presence as owner of the team would diminish.
A 95–67 record in produced a ninth consecutive division title. However, a sweep by the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Division Series prevented the Braves from reaching the NL Championship Series.
In 2001, Atlanta won the National League East division yet again, swept the Houston Astros in the NLDS, then lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Championship Series four games to one. One memorable game the Braves played that year came on September 21, when they played rival New York Mets in the first major professional sporting event held in New York City since 9/11.
In 2002, 2003 and 2004, the Braves won the Eastern division again, but lost in the NLDS in all three years in the same fashion: 3 games to 2 to the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, and Houston Astros.
Six National League Cy Young Awards in the 1990s were awarded to three Braves pitchers:
In 2005, the Braves won the Division championship for the 14th consecutive time from 1991 to 2005. 14 consecutive division titles stands as the record for all major league baseball. The 2005 title marked the first time any MLB team made the postseason with more than 4 rookies who each had more than 100 ABs (Wilson Betemit, Brian McCann, Pete Orr, Ryan Langerhans, Jeff Francoeur). Catcher Brian McCann, right fielder Jeff Francoeur, and pitcher Kyle Davies all grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta. The large number of rookies to debut in 2005 were nicknamed the "Baby Braves" by fans and became an Atlanta-area sensation, helping to lead the club to a record of 90–72.
However, the season would end on a sour note as the Braves lost the National League Division Series to the Astros in four games. In Game 4, with the Braves leading by 5 in the eighth inning, the Astros battled back with a Lance Berkman grand slam and a two-out, ninth inning Brad Ausmus home run off of Braves closer Kyle Farnsworth. The game did not end until the 18th inning, becoming the longest game in playoff history at 5 hours 50 minutes. Chris Burke ended the marathon with a home run off of Joey Devine.
After the 2005 season, the Braves lost their long-time pitching coach Leo Mazzone, who left to go to the Baltimore Orioles. Roger McDowell took his place in the Atlanta dugout. Unable to re-sign shortstop Rafael Furcal, the Braves acquired shortstop Édgar Rentería from the Boston Red Sox.
In 2006, the Braves did not perform at the level they had grown accustomed to. Due to an offensive slump, injuries to their starting rotation, and subpar bullpen performances, the Braves compiled a 6–21 record during June, the worst month ever in Atlanta with a winning percentage of .222; this was only better than the woeful Boston Braves in May 1935 (4–20) with a .166 winning percentage.
After the break, the Braves came out with their bats swinging, setting many franchise records. They won five straight, sweeping the Padres and taking two from the Cardinals, tallying a total of 65 runs in that span. The 65 runs in five games is the best by the franchise since 1897, when the Boston Beaneaters totaled 78, including 25 in one game and 21 in another, from May 31 – June 3; the 2006 Braves also became the first team since the 1930 New York Yankees to score ten runs or more in five straight games. The Braves had a total of 81 hits during their five-game run and 98 hits in their last six games, going back to an 8–3 victory over Cincinnati on July 9, the last game before the All-Star break. Additionally, Chipper Jones was able to maintain a 20-game hitting streak and tie Paul Waner's 69-year-old Major League record with a 14-game extra-base hit streak.
However, on September 18, the New York Mets' win over the Florida Marlins mathematically eliminated the Braves from winning the NL East, ending the Atlanta Braves' 11-year reign over the NL East. On September 24, the Braves' loss to the Colorado Rockies mathematically eliminated the Braves from winning the NL Wild Card, making 2006 the first year that the Braves would not compete in the postseason since 1990, not counting the strike-shortened 1994 season. Also, a loss to the Mets on September 28 guaranteed the Braves their first losing season since 1990. Although the Braves won two of their last three games against the Astros, including rookie Chuck James besting Roger Clemens, Atlanta finished the season in third place, one game ahead of the Marlins, at 79–83.
In December 2005, team owner Time Warner, which inherited the Braves after purchasing Turner Broadcasting System in 1996, announced it was placing the team for sale. Liberty Media began negotiations to purchase the team.
In February 2007, after more than a year of negotiations, Time Warner agreed to a deal to sell the Braves to Liberty Media, which owned a large amount of stock in Time Warner, pending approval by 75 percent of MLB owners and the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig. The deal included the exchange of the Braves, valued in the deal at $450 million, a hobbyist magazine publishing company, and $980 million cash, for 68.5 million shares of Time Warner stock held by Liberty, worth approximately $1.48 billion. Team President Terry McGuirk anticipated no change in the front office structure, personnel, or day-to-day operations of the Braves, and Liberty did not participate in day-to-day operations. On May 16, 2007, Major League Baseball's owners approved the sale. The Braves are one of only two Major League Baseball teams under majority corporate ownership (and the only NL team with this distinction); the other team is the Toronto Blue Jays (owned by Canadian media conglomerate Rogers Communications).
On July 5, Chipper Jones surpassed Dale Murphy for the Atlanta club record of 372 home runs by belting two against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
After struggling during the second half of the 2007 season, Atlanta finished over .500 and missed the post-season again. On October 12, 2007, John Schuerholz stepped down as general manager to take over as team president. Assistant GM Frank Wren took over as General Manager.
On December 4, 2008, the Braves received Javier Vázquez and Boone Logan, while the Chicago White Sox received prospects catcher Tyler Flowers, shortstop Brent Lillibridge, third baseman Jon Gilmore and pitcher Santos Rodriguez. On January 13, 2009, the Braves signed Japanese pitcher Kenshin Kawakami to a three-year deal, and two days later signed free agent pitcher Derek Lowe to a four-year contract. During the course of the offseason, the Braves signed veteran pitcher and former Brave Tom Glavine, while losing long-time Brave John Smoltz to the Boston Red Sox.
On February 25, 2009, just before the start of spring training, Atlanta agreed to terms on a one-year contract with free-agent outfielder Garret Anderson. The additional outfield depth allowed the Braves to trade Josh Anderson to the Detroit Tigers for minor league pitcher Rudy Darrow on March 30, 2009.
On June 3, 2009, the Braves acquired Nate McLouth from the Pittsburgh Pirates for prospects Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton and Gorkys Hernández. They also released veteran pitcher Tom Glavine. On July 10, 2009, the Braves traded outfielder Jeff Francoeur to the New York Mets for outfielder Ryan Church. On July 31, 2009, hours before the trade deadline, the Braves and Boston Red Sox swapped 1st basemen: Atlanta dealt Casey Kotchman to Boston and reacquired Adam LaRoche, whom the Braves had traded away during the 2006–07 off-season to Pittsburgh.
The Braves made a late-season surge, coming within 2 games of the wild card leading Colorado Rockies in late September. On October 1, 2009 with the Braves four games back, Colorado beat the Milwaukee Brewers 9–2 to clinch the wild card spot and end the Braves' 2009 postseason hopes.
The 2010 Braves' season featured an attempt to reclaim a postseason berth for the first time since 2005. The Braves were once again skippered by Bobby Cox, in his 25th and final season managing the team. The Braves started the 2010 season slowly and had a nine-game losing streak in April. Then they had a nine-game winning streak from May 26 through June 3, the Braves longest since 2000 when they won 16 in a row. On May 31, the Atlanta Braves defeated the then-first place Philadelphia Phillies at Turner Field to take sole possession of first place in the National League East standings, a position they had maintained through the middle of August. The last time the Atlanta Braves led the NL East on August 1 was in 2005. On July 13, 2010 at the 2010 MLB All-Star Game in Anaheim, Braves catcher Brian McCann was awarded the All-Star Game MVP Award for his clutch two-out, three-run double in the seventh inning to give the National League its first win in the All-Star Game since 1996. He became the first Brave to win the All-Star Game MVP Award since Fred McGriff did so in 1994. The Braves made two deals before the trade deadline to acquire Álex González, Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth from the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals, giving up shortstop Yunel Escobar, pitchers Jo-Jo Reyes and Jesse Chavez, outfielder Gregor Blanco and three minor leaguers. On August 18, 2010 they traded three pitching prospects for first baseman Derrek Lee from the Chicago Cubs. On August 22, 2010 against the Chicago Cubs, Mike Minor struck out 12 batters across 6 innings; an Atlanta Braves single game rookie strikeout record. The Braves dropped to second in the NL East in early September, but won the NL Wild Card. They lost to the San Francisco Giants in the National League Division Series in four games. Every game of the series was determined by one run. After the series-clinching victory for the Giants in Game 4, Bobby Cox was given a standing ovation by the fans, also by players and coaches of both the Braves and Giants.
On October 13, 2010, the Braves announced that Fredi González would replace long-time Braves manager Bobby Cox as manager of the team in 2011. The announcement came just two days after the 2010 Braves were eliminated from the postseason. It was also announced that pitching coach Roger McDowell, third-base coach Brian Snitker, and bullpen coach Eddie Pérez would retain their current positions, while former hitting coach Terry Pendleton would replace Glenn Hubbard as the first-base coach and newcomer Carlos Tosca would become the new bench coach. Hubbard and former bench coach Chino Cadahia were not offered positions on the new coaching staff. Larry Parrish was hired as hitting coach on October 29, 2010.
On November 16, 2010 in an offseason trade, the Braves acquired Dan Uggla from the Florida Marlins in exchange for left-handed reliever Mike Dunn and infielder Omar Infante. According to Elias Sports Bureau, the Braves had an all-time franchise win-loss record over .500 for the first time since 1923 after their win over the Houston Astros on June 11, 2011. The Braves franchise became the third franchise in MLB history to reach 10,000 wins with their win over the Washington Nationals on July 15, 2011. On July 31, 2011, just sixteen days after registering their 10,000th win, the Florida Marlins defeated the Braves by a score of 3–1, handing the team the 10,000th loss in franchise history. The Braves become only the second team in big league history with 10,000 losses after the Philadelphia Phillies reached the plateau in 2007.
Players from the Braves' farm system, such as Freddie Freeman and Brandon Beachy, played regularly with the big league club, while Julio Teherán, Randall Delgado, and Mike Minor were called up for spot starts. With late season injuries to starters Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson, these three young pitchers made their way into the starting rotation in their absence. Eight players made their major league debuts for the team in 2011.
The Braves led the National League Wild Card standings for much of the 2011 season, with the division-rival Philadelphia Phillies firmly in control of first place in the National League East. The Braves entered the final month of the regular season 25 games above .500 with a record of 80–55 and an -game lead in the Wild Card standings. The nearest team trailing them, the St. Louis Cardinals, who also trailed the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers by games at the time, were considered a long-shot to gain a spot in the postseason. Just days prior on August 26, the Cardinals found themselves games behind and in third place.
With 27 games to play, the Braves went 9–18 in September to finish the season with a record of 89–73. The Cardinals, meanwhile, went 18–8 to finish at 90–72. Braves closer Craig Kimbrel, who had not surrendered a single earned run in July or August, carried a 4.76 ERA in September with three blown saves. After being dominant in his role for much of the season, Braves setup man Jonny Venters posted a 5.11 September ERA. These sharp declines in both relievers led many critics to question the handling of the bullpen by Braves manager Fredi González. Veteran starter Derek Lowe posted a win-loss record of 0–5 in September with an ERA of 8.75. Shortly into the offseason, Lowe would be traded to the Cleveland Indians. The Braves starters lasted six or more innings only three times over the last 23 games. Over the last five games, all of which were losses for the Braves, the team managed to score only seven runs. Braves catcher Brian McCann, often regarded as the best offensive catcher in the Majors, hit only .183 with two home runs in September. The offense as a whole hit for only a .235 batting average and a .300 on-base percentage in September, both second-worst in the National League. The .195 RISP average by Braves hitters was second worst in the Majors. Hitting coach Larry Parrish was fired two days following the last game of the season.
In 2012, the Braves began their 138th season after an upsetting end to the 2011 season. On March 22, the Braves announced that third baseman Chipper Jones would retire following the 2012 season after 19 Major League seasons with the team. The Braves also lost many key players through trades or free agency, including pitcher Derek Lowe, shortstop Alex González, and outfielder Nate McLouth. To compensate for this, the team went on to receive many key players such as outfielder Michael Bourn, along with shortstops Tyler Pastornicky and Andrelton Simmons. To fill the void of a quality starting pitcher left by Lowe (as well as a mid-season injury to Brandon Beachy), manager Fredi González elected relief pitcher Kris Medlen to the starting pitching rotation. The Braves went on to win every game Medlen started, setting the MLB record for most consecutive wins when a single pitcher starts (total of 23). Atlanta stayed close to the Washington Nationals in the race to win the National League East title. They also stayed on top of the National League Wild Card race. Washington ended up winning their first division title in franchise history, but the Braves remained in first place of the NL wild card race. Keeping with a new MLB rule for the 2012 season, the top two wild card teams in each league must play each other in a playoff game before entering into the Division Series.
The Braves played the St. Louis Cardinals in the first ever Wild Card Game. The Braves were behind 6–3 in the bottom of the eighth inning when Andrelton Simmons hit a fly ball to left field that dropped in between the Cardinals shortstop and left fielder. Umpire Sam Holbrook called Simmons out, citing the infield fly rule. Had an infield fly not been called, Simmons would have been credited with a single and Atlanta would have had the bases loaded with one out. Fans at Turner Field began to litter the field with debris, prompting the game to be delayed for 19 minutes. The Braves lost the game 6–3, ending their season.
Following a gut wrenching exit against the St. Louis Cardinals in the Wild Card Game, the Braves spent the 2012–2013 offseason revamping and retooling their offense. The Braves turned heads across baseball by acquiring B.J. Upton from the Tampa Bay Rays, signing him to a 5-year $75.25 million contract and making him their starting center fielder, and uniting him with his younger brother Justin Upton from the Arizona Diamondbacks in a seven player trade that sent fan favorite utility man Martín Prado to the Diamondbacks, they also filled a need for a new Third Baseman in Chris Johnson after the retirement of Chipper Jones the previous year. The Braves began the 2013 season with a hot start in April by going 17–9 for the month, which saw the emergence of rookie sensation Evan Gattis, while taking hold of first place in the National League East division, a lead they would never relinquish for the rest of the season. The Braves suffered many injuries to key players throughout the season, including injuries to Jason Heyward, Brian McCann, Freddie Freeman, Eric O'Flaherty, Jonny Venters, Ramiro Pena and others, but found a way to win despite these blows to the team. Leading up to the All Star break, First Baseman Freddie Freeman was voted in to play for the 2013 National League All-Star Team, in the 2013 All Star Game, which he did not play. The Braves also witnessed the emergence of rookie pitcher Julio Teherán after much hype during Spring training. From July 26 to August 10, the Braves won 14 games in a row. The winning streak was the longest of its kind since April–May 2000.
On June 28, 2013 the Atlanta Braves retired former third baseman Chipper Jones' jersey, number 10, before the game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was honored before 51,300 fans at Turner Field in Atlanta. He served as a staple of the Braves franchise for 19 years before announcing his retirement at the beginning of the 2012 season. Chipper Jones played his last regular season game for the Braves on September 30, 2012.
The Braves opened up a 15-game lead on the Washington Nationals in the National League East on September 3, 2013, riding that lead en route to its first division title since 2005, the last of 14 straight division titles. This was also Braves manager Fredi González's first division title since beginning his managerial career in 1990; including his first since becoming the manager of the Braves after the 2010 season. The Braves clinched the 18th division title in team history on September 22, 2013 after a Nationals loss to the Marlins in the first game of a double header; the Braves also won their game that day, beating the Chicago Cubs 5–2 at Wrigley Field.
After clinching the division title, they lost to the Dodgers 3–1 in the Division Series.
On November 11, 2013, the Braves announced that they would vacate Turner Field for a new stadium in Cobb County, in the northwest suburbs outside of Atlanta in 2017. The move is to follow the expiration of the Braves' 20-year lease on Turner Field in 2016. The new stadium is to be constructed in a public/private partnership. During the offseason the Braves signed few of their young talents to multi year contracts; Craig Kimbrel (4 years/$42 million), Freddie Freeman (8 years/$135M), Kris Medlen (1 year/$5.8M), Jason Heyward (2 years/$13.3M), Julio Teherán (6 years/$32.4M) and Andrelton Simmons (7 years/$58M).
The Braves finished the season in a distant second place with a 79–83 record, which was their first losing season since 2008 and only their third since 1990.
Prior to the 2015 season, the Braves fired general manager Frank Wren, and John Hart replaced him as interim general manager, choosing to only take the title of President of Baseball Operations. The Braves promptly traded Gold Glove Award winner Jason Heyward to the St. Louis Cardinals along with pitcher Jordan Walden for pitchers Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins. Hart traded All-Star left fielder Justin Upton to the San Diego Padres for Max Fried, Jace Peterson, Dustin Peterson, and Mallex Smith. Catcher Evan Gattis and minor league prospect James Hoyt were traded to the Houston Astros for minor leaguers Mike Foltynewicz, Rio Ruiz, and Andrew Thurman. A day before the season began, the Braves made a final trade involving former All-Star Craig Kimbrel and outfielder Melvin Upton Jr.. They were traded to the San Diego Padres for outfielders Cameron Maybin and Carlos Quentin along with two minor league players. By the beginning of the season, the Braves did 11 trades in all.
Prior to the start of the 2016 regular season, the Braves continued their offseason rebuilding by trading Andrelton Simmons to the Los Angeles Angels for Erick Aybar and pitching prospects Sean Newcomb and Chris Ellis and $2.5 million. They agreed to one-year contracts with Kelly Johnson, Chris Withrow, and Arodys Vizcaino, and agreed to terms on a minor league contract for Carlos Torres and Jeff Francoeur. The Braves purchased the major league contract of Francoeur.
On April 13, 2016, Hector Olivera was arrested and charged with the assault of a woman at the team hotel when the Braves were in Washington D.C. facing the Nationals. He was placed on administrative leave by MLB and was placed on the Braves restricted list.
The Braves began the season on a nine-game losing streak, which is the worst opening by the franchise since 1988, when they dropped the first 10 games of that season.
After a 9–28 start in 2016, Fredi González was fired on May 17 and replaced by third base coach Brian Snitker as interim general manager. Snitker replaced González once before in the 2006–07 offseason as the Braves third base coach when González left the Braves to manage the Marlins. The Braves finished the season 68–93 and in last place in NL East.
During the 2016 offseason, the Braves signed pitchers R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colón and promoted interim manager Brian Snitker to full-time manager.
The Braves opened their new stadium, SunTrust Park (now Truist Park), on April 14, 2017, with a four-game sweep of the San Diego Padres. The park received positive reviews. Woody Studenmund of the Hardball Times called the park a "gem" and he was impressed with "the compact beauty of the stadium and its exciting approach to combining baseball, business and social activities." J.J. Cooper of Baseball America praised the "excellent sight lines for pretty much every seat." Cooper also noted that "the Wi-Fi works and it's very fast, even with a park full of smartphone users." The Braves also introduced "The Freeze" as between-innings entertainment—a former college sprinter, dressed in aqua spandex, has a footrace with a fan; The Freeze wins the majority of the races, despite the fan being given a significant head start.
On October 2, 2017, John Coppolella resigned as general manager of the Braves amid a Major League Baseball investigation into Atlanta's international signings, having committed what the Braves termed "a breach of MLB rules regarding the international player market". On November 13, 2017, the Braves announced Alex Anthopoulos as the new general manager and executive vice president. John Hart was removed as team president and assumed a senior adviser role with the organization. Braves chairman Terry McGuirk apologized to fans "on behalf of the entire Braves family" for the scandal. McGuirk described Anthopoulos as "a man of integrity" and that "he will operate in a way that will make all of our Braves fans proud." On November 17, 2017, the Braves announced that John Hart had stepped down as senior advisor for the organization. Hart said in a statement that "with the hiring of Alex Anthopoulos as general manager, this organization is in great hands."
On November 21, 2017, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the findings of the MLB investigation into Atlanta's international signings. Manfred ruled that the Braves must forfeit 13 international prospects, including highly touted Kevin Maitan, an infielder from Venezuela who signed for $4.25 million in 2016. The team also forfeited a third-round draft pick in the 2018 draft. Former Braves general manager John Coppolella was placed on baseball's permanently ineligible list.
Additionally, the Braves shall be prohibited from signing any international player for more than $10,000 during the 2019–20 signing period and their international signing bonus pool for the 2020–21 signing period will be reduced by 50%.
Over its 138 seasons, the Braves franchise has won a total of three World Series Championships, one in each of the three cities they have played in.
The Braves–Mets rivalry is a rivalry between the two teams, featuring the Braves and the New York Mets as they both play in the National League East.
Although their first major confrontation occurred when the Mets swept the Braves in the 1969 NLCS, en route to their first World Series championship, the first playoff series won by an expansion team (also the first playoff appearance by an expansion team), the rivalry did not become especially heated until the 1994 season when division realignment put both the Mets and the Braves in the NL East division. During this time the Braves became one of the most dominant teams in professional baseball, earning 14 straight division titles through 2005, including five world series berths, and one world series championship during the 1995 season. The rivalry remained heated through the early 2000s.
While their rivalry with the Philadelphia Phillies lacks the history and hatred of the Mets, it has been the more important one in the last decade. Between 1993 and 2013, the two teams reigned almost exclusively as NL East champions, the exceptions being in 2006, when the Mets won their first division title since 1988 (no division titles were awarded in 1994 due to the player's strike), and in 2012, when the Washington Nationals claimed their first division title since 1981 when playing as the Montreal Expos. The Phillies 1993 championship was also part of a four-year reign of exclusive division championships by the Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates, their in-state rivals. While rivalries are generally characterized by mutual hatred, the Braves and Phillies deeply respect each other. Each game played (18 games in 2011) is vastly important between these two NL East giants, but at the end of the day, they are very similar organizations. Overall, the Braves have three more National League East division title than the Phillies, having won 12 times each since 1969, with the Braves holding it for 11 consecutive years from 1995 through 2005.
The Braves currently have five different game baseball uniform combinations.
The white home uniform, introduced in 1987, is the primary home uniform. Paired with the home navy "A" cap with red brim, this uniform features red and navy piping, the "Braves" script and tomahawk in front, and radially arched (vertically arched until 2005; sewn into a nameplate until 2012) navy letters and red numbers with navy trim at the back.
The gray road uniforms are the primary road uniform. Paired with the all-navy "A" cap (previously the navy and red "A" cap until 2008), the uniforms are identical to the white home uniforms save for the "Atlanta" script in front. The primary uniforms are very similar to the uniforms that the Braves wore from 1946 to 1965—during their latter years in Boston and throughout their tenure in Milwaukee.
The Braves have had three different versions of their Friday red alternate home uniform. The first uniform, worn from 2005 to 2013, featured navy and white piping, navy "Braves" script and tomahawk in front, and white letters and navy numbers with white trim at the back. It was paired with a navy cap with red brim featuring the alternate "tomahawk A" logo. From 2014 to 2018, the Braves tweaked the uniform; the "Braves" script was now adorned with stars while the tomahawk was removed. The "tomahawk A" cap was also retired. In 2019, the Braves reverted to a variation of the original red alternate uniform minus the white piping.
The cream alternate uniforms were introduced in February 2012 as a tribute to the Braves' first season in Atlanta in 1966. The jersey includes the "Braves" script across the breastplate, but the player number replaces the tomahawk underneath the "Braves" script on the left placket. Player numbers and the "Braves" script are in red with a navy blue border. The player names consist of navy blue lettering sewn to a cream nameplate. The jersey has a thin, navy piping about the collar and down the front of the jersey. There is no piping around the sleeves. The cream pants include piping identical to the jersey down the outside seam. The left sleeve of the jersey has a "crossed tomahawk" logo that replaces the "screaming Indian" logo that appeared on the 1966 jerseys. The new logo has two, primarily red, crossed tomahawks. Underneath the tomahawks is a blue circle outlined in red, with "1876" in red above (commemorating the year the franchise was founded), and "Atlanta Braves" in white below. The cream uniforms are paired with the standard home cap and are worn for Saturday and Sunday home games.
The Braves have worn two versions of their alternate navy blue road jerseys. The first iteration was introduced on opening night of the 2008 season against the Washington Nationals, and featured navy lettering. The only red elements on the uniform can be seen on the tomahawk. For 2019, the Braves drastically changed the uniform to feature red lettering, a red tomahawk and silver piping.
Unlike the home uniforms, which are worn based on a schedule, the road uniforms are chosen on game day by the starting pitcher. However, they are also subject to Major League Baseball rules requiring the road team to wear uniforms that contrast with the uniforms worn by the home team. Due to this rule, the gray uniforms are worn when the home team chooses to wear navy blue, and sometimes when the home team chooses to wear black.
From 1945 to 1955 the Braves primary logo consisted of the head of an Indian warrior. From 1956 to 1965 it was a laughing Indian with a mohawk and one feather in his hair. When the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, the "Braves" script was added underneath the laughing Indian. In 1985, the Braves made a small script change to the logo. The Braves modern logo debuted in 1987. The modern logo is the word "Braves" in cursive with a tomahawk below it. In 2018, the Braves made a subtle color change to the primary logo.
The Braves have retired eleven numbers in the history of the franchise, including most recently Chipper Jones' number 10 in 2013, John Smoltz's number 29 in 2012, Bobby Cox's number 6 in 2011, Tom Glavine's number 47 in 2010, and Greg Maddux's number 31 in 2009. Additionally, Hank Aaron's 44, Dale Murphy's 3, Phil Niekro's 35, Eddie Mathews' 41, Warren Spahn's 21 and Jackie Robinson's 42, which is retired for all of baseball with the exception of Jackie Robinson Day, have also been retired. The color and design of the retired numbers reflect the uniform design at the time the person was on the team, excluding Robinson.
Of the ten Braves whose numbers have been retired, all who are eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame have been elected with the exception of Murphy, whose eligibility has expired.
The Atlanta Braves farm system consists of seven minor league affiliates.
After years of stability, the Braves have faced a period of transition in their radio and television coverage.
The 2007 season was the last for Braves baseball on the TBS Superstation. TBS showed 70 games throughout the country, then cleared the decks to make way for a new national broadcast package that began in earnest with the 2007 postseason, and expanded to Sunday afternoon games in 2008. Until his dismissal in 2009, Chip Caray, one of the Braves' current broadcasters, called play-by-play for the national package, which includes the Division Series every season and alternating coverage of the ALCS and NLCS. Caray is joined by Joe Simpson, who has provided color commentary for the Braves since 1992.
Braves baseball had been on TBS since it was WTCG in 1972 and had been a cornerstone of the national superstation since it began in 1976. WPCH-TV/Peachtree TV, formerly WTBS Atlanta, still carried Braves games after 2007, but only in parts of the Southern United States. After the transfer of the channel's operations from Time Warner to Meredith Corporation, all Peachtree TV games were simulcast on Fox Sports South outside of the Peachtree TV coverage area in 2011 and 2012. On February 27, 2013, it was announced that Fox Sports South and SportSouth (now called Fox Sports Southeast) would carry every regionally televised Braves game exclusively, ending the team's partnership with WPCH-TV after 40 years.
After the 2004 season, longtime radio flagship station 750 WSB was replaced by WGST 640AM. Due to WGST's weak signal at night, which fails to cover the entire Atlanta metropolitan area, all games began to be simulcast on FM radio when the rights were transferred. The games first appeared on 96.1 WKLS (formerly "96 Rock") in 2005, but moved to country music station 94.9 WUBL ("94.9 The Bull") in 2007 after WKLS underwent a change in format from classic rock to active rock and became Project 9–6–1. As of the 2009 season, the Braves returned to WKLS on the FM frequency but remained on WGST on AM. It was announced that for the 2010 season, the Braves will be flagshipped on WCNN 680 The Fan and in Atlanta on the AM dial and WNNX 100.5 FM.
The Atlanta Braves radio network currently serves 134 radio stations across the Southern United States, including 20 in Alabama, 4 in Florida, 68 in Georgia, 1 in Mississippi, 13 in North Carolina, 14 in South Carolina, and 14 in Tennessee.
Since 2009, the radio announcers have been former Brewers announcer Jim Powell and Don Sutton. Sutton was released after the 2006 season and called Washington Nationals games on television from 2007 to 2008, but he has since returned for the 2009 season. Longtime Braves voices Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren were the primary play-by-play voices of Braves baseball until Skip's sudden death on August 3, 2008, and Van Wieren's retirement after the 2008 season.
The tomahawk chop was adopted by fans of the Atlanta Braves in 1991. Carolyn King, the Braves organist, had played the "tomahawk song" during most at bats for a few seasons, but it finally caught on with Braves fans when the team started winning. The usage of foam tomahawks led to criticism from Native American groups that it was "demeaning" to them and called for them to be banned. In response, the Braves' public relations director said that it was "a proud expression of unification and family". King who did not understand the political ramifications, approached one of the Native American chiefs who were protesting. The chief told her that leaving her job as an organist would not change anything and that if she left "they'll find someone else to play."
The controversy has persisted since and became national news again during the 2019 National League Division Series. During the series, St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher and Cherokee Nation member, Ryan Helsley was asked about the chop and chant. Helsley said he found the fans' chanting and arm-motions insulting and that the chop depicts natives "in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren't intellectual." The relief pitcher's comments prompted the Braves to stop handing out foam tomahawks, playing the chop music or showing the chop graphic when the series returned to Atlanta for Game 5. The Braves released a statement saying they would "continue to evaluate how we activate elements of our brand, as well as the overall in-game experience" and that they would continue a "dialogue with those in the Native American community after the postseason concludes." The heads of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and Cherokee Nation both condemned the chop and chant. The Atlanta Braves' front office says it will hold talks with Native Americans during the off season in deciding whether to keep or end the tradition.
Despite assurance from the Atlanta Braves, the team failed to reach out to local Native Americans groups before the start of spring training. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2140 |
Desi Arnaz
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986), better known as Desi Arnaz, was a Cuban-American actor, musician, bandleader, comedian and film and television producer. He is best known for his role as the witty Ricky Ricardo on the American television series sitcom "I Love Lucy", where he co-starred with his then wife Lucille Ball. Arnaz and Ball are generally credited as the innovators of the syndicated rerun, which they pioneered with the "I Love Lucy" series.
Arnaz and Lucille Ball co-founded and ran the television production company called Desilu Productions, originally to market "I Love Lucy" to television networks. After "I Love Lucy" ended, Arnaz went on to produce several other television series, at first with Desilu Productions, and later independently, including "The Ann Sothern Show" and "The Untouchables". He was also renowned for leading his Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra.
Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha, III, in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, to Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Alberni II (March 8, 1894 – May 31, 1973) and his wife Dolores de Acha (April 2, 1896 – October 24, 1988). His father was Santiago's youngest mayor and also served in the Cuban House of Representatives. His maternal grandfather was Alberto de Acha, an executive at rum producer Bacardi & Co.
Arnaz describes the opulent family life of his early youth in his autobiography, "A Book" (1976)—the family owned three ranches, a palatial home, and a vacation mansion on a private island in Santiago Bay, Cuba. Following the Cuban Revolution of 1933, led by Fulgencio Batista, which overthrew President Gerardo Machado, Alberto Arnaz was jailed and all of his property was confiscated. He was released after six months when his brother-in-law Alberto de Acha intervened on his behalf. The family then fled to Miami, where Desi attended St. Patrick Catholic High School. In the summer of 1934, he attended Saint Leo Prep (near Tampa) to help improve his English.
When he moved to the United States, Desi Arnaz turned to show business to support himself. In 1939, he starred on Broadway in the musical "Too Many Girls". He went to Hollywood the next year to appear in the show's movie version at RKO, which starred Lucille Ball. Arnaz and Ball eloped on November 30, 1940. Arnaz also played guitar for Xavier Cugat.
Arnaz appeared in several movies in the 1940s such as "Bataan", starring Robert Taylor (1943). Many consider his portrayal of the jive-loving California National Guardsman Felix Ramirez to be his best early role. He received his draft notice, but before reporting, he injured his knee. He completed his recruit training, but was classified for limited service in the United States Army during World War II. He was assigned to direct United Service Organization (USO) programs at the Birmingham General Army Hospital in the San Fernando Valley. Discovering the first thing the wounded soldiers requested was a glass of cold milk, he arranged for movie starlets to meet them and pour the milk for them. Following his discharge from the Army on November 16, 1945, he formed another orchestra, which was successful in live appearances and recordings. He sang for troops in Birmingham Hospital with John Macchia and hired his childhood friend Marco Rizo to play piano and arrange for the orchestra. When he became successful in television, he kept the orchestra on his payroll, and Rizo arranged and orchestrated the music for "I Love Lucy".
On October 15, 1951, Arnaz co-starred in the premiere of "I Love Lucy", in which he played a fictionalized version of himself, Cuban orchestra leader Enrique "Ricky" Ricardo. His co-star was his real-life wife, Lucille Ball, who played Ricky's wife, Lucy. Television executives had been pursuing Ball to adapt her very popular radio series "My Favorite Husband" for television. Ball insisted on Arnaz playing her on-air spouse so the two would be able to spend more time together. CBS wanted Ball's "Husband" co-star Richard Denning.
The original premise was for the couple to portray Lucy and Larry Lopez, a successful show business couple whose glamorous careers interfered with their efforts to maintain a normal marriage. Market research indicated, however, that this scenario would not be popular, so Jess Oppenheimer changed it to make Ricky Ricardo a struggling young orchestra leader and Lucy an ordinary housewife who had show business fantasies but no talent. The character name "Larry Lopez" was dropped because of a real-life bandleader named Vincent Lopez, and was replaced with "Ricky Ricardo". The name was inspired by Henry Richard, a family friend and the brother of P.C. Richard of P.C. Richard & Son. This name translates to Enrique Ricardo. Ricky often appeared at, and later owned, the Tropicana Club, which under his ownership he renamed Club Babalu.
Initially, the idea of having Ball and the distinctly Latin American Arnaz portray a married couple encountered resistance as they were told that Desi's Cuban accent and Latin style would not be agreeable to American viewers. The couple overcame these objections, however, by touring together, during the summer of 1950, in a live vaudeville act they developed with the help of Spanish clown Pepito Pérez, together with Ball's radio show writers. Much of the material from their vaudeville act, including Lucy's memorable seal routine, was used in the pilot episode of "I Love Lucy". Segments of the pilot were recreated in the sixth episode of the show's first season. During his time on the show, Arnaz and Ball became TV's most successful entrepreneurs.
With Ball, Arnaz founded Desilu Productions. At that time, most television programs were broadcast live, and as the largest markets were in New York, the rest of the country received only kinescope images. Karl Freund, Arnaz's cameraman, and even Arnaz himself have been credited with the development of the multiple-camera setup production style using adjacent sets in front of a live audience that became the standard for subsequent situation comedies. The use of film enabled every station around the country to broadcast high-quality images of the show. Arnaz was told that it would be impossible to allow an audience onto a sound stage, but he worked with Freund to design a set that would accommodate an audience, allow filming, and adhere to fire and safety codes.. Due to the expense of 35mm film, Arnaz and Ball agreed to salary cuts. In return they retained the rights to the films. This was the basis for their invention of re-runs and syndicating TV shows (a huge source of new revenue).
In addition to "I Love Lucy", he executive produced "The Ann Sothern Show" and "Those Whiting Girls" (starring Margaret Whiting and Barbara Whiting Smith), and was involved in several other series such as "The Untouchables", "Whirlybirds", and "Sheriff of Cochise" / "United States Marshal". He also produced the feature film "Forever, Darling" (1956), in which he and Ball starred. In the late 1950s, Arnaz proposed a Western television series to his then neighbor, Victor Orsatti, who formed a production company, Ror-Vic, in partnership with actor Rory Calhoun. Ror-Vic produced "The Texan", which aired on Monday evenings on CBS from 1958 to 1960. Episodes were budgeted at $40,000 each, with two black-and-white segments filmed weekly through Desilu Studios. Despite the name, the series was filmed mostly in Pearl Flats in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. The program could have been renewed for a third season had Calhoun not desired to return to films.
The original Desilu company continued long after Arnaz's divorce from Ball and her subsequent marriage to Gary Morton. Desilu produced its own programs and provided facilities to other producers. Desilu produced "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Lucy Show", "", and "". When Ball sold her share of Desilu to what became Paramount Television, Arnaz went on to form his own production company from his share of Desilu. With the newly formed Desi Arnaz Productions, he made "The Mothers-In-Law" (at Desilu) for United Artists Television and NBC. This sitcom ran for two seasons from 1967 to 1969. Arnaz's company was succeeded-in-interest by the company now known as Desilu, Too. Desilu, Too and Lucille Ball Productions work hand-in-hand with MPI Home Video in the home video reissues of the Ball/Arnaz material not currently owned by CBS (successor-in-interest to Paramount Television, which in turn succeeded the original Desilu company). This material includes "Here's Lucy" and "The Mothers-In-Law", as well as many programs and specials Ball and Arnaz made independently of each other.
Arnaz and Ball decided that the show would maintain what Arnaz termed "basic good taste" and were therefore determined to avoid ethnic jokes, as well as humor based on physical handicaps or mental disabilities. Arnaz recalled that the only exception consisted of making fun of Ricky Ricardo's accent; even these jokes worked only when Lucy, as his wife, did the mimicking.
Arnaz was deeply patriotic about the United States. In his memoirs, he wrote that he knew of no other country in the world where "a sixteen-year-old kid, broke and unable to speak the language" could achieve the successes that he had.
Arnaz and Lucille Ball were married on November 30, 1940. Their marriage was turbulent. Convinced that Arnaz was being unfaithful to her and also because he came home drunk several times, Ball filed for divorce in September 1944, but returned to him before the interlocutory decree became final. Arnaz and Ball subsequently had two children, actors Lucie Arnaz (born 1951) and Desi Arnaz Jr. (born 1953).
Arnaz's marriage with Ball began to collapse under the strain of his growing problems with alcohol and sexual promiscuity/cheating. According to his memoir, the combined pressures of managing the production company, as well as supervising its day-to-day operations, had greatly worsened as it grew much larger, and he felt compelled to seek outlets to alleviate the stress. Arnaz was also suffering from diverticulitis. Ball divorced him in 1960. When Ball returned to weekly television, she and Arnaz worked out an agreement regarding Desilu, wherein she bought him out.
Arnaz married his second wife, Edith Eyre Hirsch (née McSkimming), on March 2, 1963, and greatly reduced his show business activities. He served as executive producer of "The Mothers-in-Law", and during its two-year run, made four guest appearances as a Spanish matador, Señor Delgado. Edith died in 1985, aged 67, from cancer.
Although Arnaz and Ball both married other spouses after their divorce in 1960, they remained friends and grew closer in his final decade. ""I Love Lucy" was never just a title", wrote Arnaz in the last years of his life. Family home video later aired on television showed Ball and Arnaz playing together with their grandson Simon shortly before Arnaz's death.
In the 1970s, Arnaz co-hosted a week of shows with daytime host and producer Mike Douglas. Vivian Vance appeared as a guest. Arnaz also headlined a "Kraft Music Hall" special on NBC that featured his two children, with a brief appearance by Vance. To promote his autobiography, "A Book", on February 21, 1976, Arnaz served as a guest host on "Saturday Night Live", with his son, Desi, Jr., also appearing. The program contained spoofs of "I Love Lucy" and "The Untouchables". The spoofs of "I Love Lucy" were supposed to be earlier concepts of the show that never made it on the air, such as "I Love Louie", where Desi lived with Louis Armstrong. He read Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" in a heavy Cuban accent (he pronounced it "Habberwocky"). Desi Jr., played the drums and, supported by the "SNL" band, Desi sang both "Babalú" and another favorite from his dance band days, "Cuban Pete"; the arrangements were similar to the ones used on "I Love Lucy". He ended the broadcast by leading the entire cast in a raucous conga line through the "SNL" studio.
Arnaz and his wife eventually moved to Del Mar, California, where he lived the rest of his life in semi-retirement. He owned a horse-breeding farm in Corona, California, and raced thoroughbreds. He contributed to charitable and nonprofit organizations, including San Diego State University. He also taught classes at San Diego State in studio production and acting for television. Arnaz made a guest appearance on the TV series "Alice", starring Linda Lavin and produced by "I Love Lucy" co-creators Madelyn Pugh (Madelyn Davis) and Bob Carroll, Jr.
Arnaz was a regular smoker for much of his life and often smoked cigarettes on the set of "I Love Lucy". He smoked Cuban cigars until he was in his sixties. Arnaz was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1986, and died several months later on December 2, 1986, at the age of 69. Arnaz was cremated and his ashes scattered. His death came just five days before Lucille Ball received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was predeceased by his second wife, Edith, who died a year earlier on March 23, 1985. His mother outlived him by almost two years.
Desi Arnaz has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one at 6301 Hollywood Boulevard for contributions to motion pictures and one at 6250 Hollywood Boulevard for television. Unlike his co-stars, Arnaz was never nominated for an Emmy for his performance in "I Love Lucy". In 1956, he won a Golden Globe for Best Television Achievement for helping to shape the American Comedy through his contributions in front of and behind the camera of "I Love Lucy". He was inducted into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame.
The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center museum is in Jamestown, New York, and the Desi Arnaz Bandshell in the Lucille Ball Memorial Park is in Celoron, New York.
Desi Arnaz appears as a character in Oscar Hijuelos' 1989 novel "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" and is portrayed by his son, Desi Arnaz, Jr. in the 1992 film adaptation, "The Mambo Kings".
Arnaz was portrayed by Oscar Nuñez in "I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom", a comedy about how Arnaz and Ball battled to get their sitcom on the air. It had its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018, co-starring Sarah Drew as Lucille Ball and Seamus Dever as "I Love Lucy" creator-producer-head writer Jess Oppenheimer. The play, written by Jess Oppenheimer's son, Gregg Oppenheimer, was recorded in front of a live audience for nationwide public radio broadcast and online distribution.
On 2 March 2019, Google celebrated what would have been Arnaz's 102nd birthday with a Google doodle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8774 |
DNA virus
A DNA virus is a virus that has DNA as its genetic material and replicates using a DNA-dependent DNA polymerase. The nucleic acid is usually double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) but may also be single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). DNA viruses belong to either "Group I" or "Group II" of the Baltimore classification system for viruses. Single-stranded DNA is usually expanded to double-stranded in infected cells. Although "Group VII" viruses such as hepatitis B contain a DNA genome, they are not considered DNA viruses according to the Baltimore classification, but rather reverse transcribing viruses because they replicate through an RNA intermediate. Notable diseases like smallpox, herpes, and the chickenpox are caused by such DNA viruses.
Genome organization within this group varies considerably. Some have circular genomes ("Baculoviridae", "Papovaviridae" and "Polydnaviridae") while others have linear genomes ("Adenoviridae", "Herpesviridae" and some phages). Some families have circularly permuted linear genomes (phage T4 and some "Iridoviridae"). Others have linear genomes with covalently closed ends ("Poxviridae" and "Phycodnaviridae").
A virus infecting archaea was first described in 1974. Several others have been described since: most have head-tail morphologies and linear double-stranded DNA genomes. Other morphologies have also been described: spindle shaped, rod shaped, filamentous, icosahedral and spherical. Additional morphological types may exist.
Orders within this group are defined on the basis of morphology rather than DNA sequence similarity. It is thought that morphology is more conserved in this group than sequence similarity or gene order which is extremely variable. Three orders and 31 families are currently recognised. A fourth order—Megavirales—for the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses has been proposed. This proposal has yet to be ratified by the ICTV. Four genera are recognised that have not yet been assigned a family.
Fifteen families are enveloped. These include all three families in the order "Herpesvirales" and the following families: "Ascoviridae", "Ampullaviridae", "Asfarviridae", "Baculoviridae", "Fuselloviridae", "Globuloviridae", "Guttaviridae", "Hytrosaviridae", "Iridoviridae", "Lipothrixviridae", "Nimaviridae" and "Poxviridae".
Bacteriophages (viruses infecting bacteria) belonging to the families "Tectiviridae" and "Corticoviridae" have a lipid bilayer membrane inside the icosahedral protein capsid and the membrane surrounds the genome. The crenarchaeal virus "Sulfolobus turreted icosahedral virus" has a similar structure.
The genomes in this group vary considerably from ~10 kilobases to over 2.5 megabases in length. The largest bacteriophage known is Klebsiella Phage vB_KleM-RaK2 which has a genome of 346 kilobases.
The virophages are a group of viruses that infect other viruses.
A virus with a novel method of genome packing infecting species of the genus "Sulfolobus" has been described. As this virus does not resemble any known virus it has been classified into a new family, the "Portogloboviridae".
Another "Sulfolobus" infecting virus—Sulfolobus ellipsoid virus 1—has been described. This enveloped virus has a unique capsid and may be classified into a new taxon.
Species of the order "Caudovirales" and of the families "Corticoviridae" and "Tectiviridae" infect bacteria.
Species of the order "Ligamenvirales" and the families "Ampullaviridae", "Bicaudaviridae", "Clavaviridae", "Fuselloviridae", "Globuloviridae", "Guttaviridae" , "Tristromaviridae" and "Turriviridae" infect hyperthermophilic archaea species of the "Crenarchaeota".
Species of the order "Herpesvirales" and of the families "Adenoviridae", "Asfarviridae", "Iridoviridae", "Papillomaviridae", "Polyomaviridae" and "Poxviridae" infect vertebrates.
Species of the families "Ascovirus", "Baculovirus", "Hytrosaviridae", "Iridoviridae" and "Polydnaviruses" and of the genus "Nudivirus" infect insects.
Species of the family "Mimiviridae" and the species "Marseillevirus", "Megavirus", "Mavirus virophage" and "Sputnik virophage" infect protozoa.
Species of the family "Nimaviridae" infect crustaceans.
Species of the family "Phycodnaviridae" and the species "Organic Lake virophage" infect algae. These are the only known dsDNA viruses that infect plants.
Species of the family "Plasmaviridae" infect species of the class "Mollicutes".
Species of the family "Pandoraviridae" infect amoebae.
Species of the genus "Dinodnavirus" infect dinoflagellates. These are the only known viruses that infect dinoflagellates.
Species of the genus "Rhizidiovirus" infect stramenopiles. These are the only known dsDNA viruses that infect stramenopiles.
Species of the genus "Salterprovirus" and "Sphaerolipoviridae" infect species of the "Euryarchaeota".
The classification of DNA viruses has undergone a revision by the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses in 2020.
Three realms are recognised: Duplodnaviria, Monodnaviria and Varidnaviria. The Duplodnaviria contain several types of double stranded DNA viruses. The Monodnaviria all the single stranded viruses. The Varidnaviria are a taxon of viruses united by the presence of use of vertically-folded jelly roll capsid.
Within the Duplodnaviria one kingdom (Heunggongvirae) and two phlya (Peploviricota, Uroviricota) are recognised. The phylum Peploviricota has one order - "Herpesvirales". The phylum Uroviricota has one order - "Caudovirales".
Within the Monodnaviria four kingdoms (Loebvirae, Sangervirae, Shotokuvirae and Trapavirae) are recognised.
Within the Varidnaviria two kingdoms (Bamfordvirae, Helvetiavirae) are recognised.
A group of double stranded DNA viruses have been found in fish that appear to be related to the herpesviruses.
Another group of viruses that infect fish has been described.
The asfarviruses, iridoviruses, mimiviruses, phycodnaviruses and poxviruses have been shown to belong to a single group,—the large nuclear and cytoplasmic DNA viruses. These are also abbreviated "NCLDV". This clade can be divided into two groups:
It is probable that these viruses evolved before the separation of eukaryoyes into the extant crown groups. The ancestral genome was complex with at least 41 genes including (1) the replication machinery (2) up to four RNA polymerase subunits (3) at least three transcription factors (4) capping and polyadenylation enzymes (5) the DNA packaging apparatus (6) and structural components of an icosahedral capsid and the viral membrane.
The evolution of this group of viruses appears to be complex with genes having been gained from multiple sources. It has been proposed that the ancestor of NCLDVs has evolved from large, virus-like DNA transposons of the Polinton/Maverick family. From Polinton/Maverick transposons NCLDVs might have inherited the key components required for virion morphogenesis, including the major and minor capsid proteins, maturation protease and genome packaging ATPase.
Another group of large viruses—the Pandoraviridae—has been described. Two species—Pandoravirus salinus and Pandoravirus dulcis—have been recognized. These were isolated from Chile and Australia respectively. These viruses are about one micrometer in diameter making them one of the largest viruses discovered so far. Their gene complement is larger than any other known virus to date. At present they appear to be unrelated to any other species of virus.
An even larger genus, Pithovirus, has since been discovered, measuring about 1.5 µm in length. Another virus—Cedratvirus—may be related this group.
A group known as the pleolipoviruses, although having a similar genome organisation, differ in having either single or double stranded DNA genomes. Within the double stranded forms have runs of single stranded DNA. These viruses have been placed in the family "Pleolipoviridae". This family has been divided in three genera: Alphapleolipovirus, Betapleolipovirus and Gammapleolipovirus.
These viruses are nonlytic and form virions characterized by a lipid vesicle enclosing the genome. They do not have nucleoproteins. The lipids in the viral membrane are unselectively acquired from host cell membranes. The virions contain two to three major structural proteins, which either are embedded in the membrane or form spikes distributed randomly on the external membrane surface.
This group includes the following viruses:
Although bacteriophages were first described in 1927, it was only in 1959 that Sinshemer working with phage Phi X 174 showed that they could possess single-stranded DNA genomes. Despite this discovery, until relatively recently it was believed that most DNA viruses contained double-stranded DNA. Recent work, however, has shown that single-stranded DNA viruses can be highly abundant in seawater, freshwater, sediments, terrestrial and extreme environments, as well as metazoan-associated and marine microbial mats. Many of these "environmental" viruses belong to the family "Microviridae". However, the vast majority has yet to be classified and assigned to genera and higher taxa. Because most of these viruses do not appear to be related, or are only distantly related to known viruses, additional taxa will have to be created to accommodate them.
Although ~50 archaeal viruses are known, all but two have double stranded genomes. These two viruses have been placed in the families "Pleolipoviridae" and "Spiraviridae"
The taxonomy of DNA viruses was significantly revised in 2020. All the single stranded DNA viruses have been placed in a single realm - Monodnaviria. Within this realm four kingdoms (Loebvirae, Sangervirae, Shotokuvirae and Trapavirae) are recognised.
A division of the circular single stranded viruses into four types has been proposed. This division seems likely to reflect their phylogenetic relationships.
Type I genomes are characterized by a small circular DNA genome (approximately 2-kb), with the Rep protein and the major open reading frame (ORF) in opposite orientations. This type is characteristic of the circoviruses, geminiviruses and nanoviruses.
Type II genomes have the unique feature of two separate Rep ORFs.
Type III genomes contain two major ORFs in the same orientation. This arrangement is typical of the anelloviruses.
Type IV genomes have the largest genomes of nearly 4-kb, with up to eight ORFs. This type of genome is found in the Inoviridae and the Microviridae.
Given the variety of single stranded viruses that have been described this scheme—if it is accepted by the ICTV—will need to be extended.
All known eukaryotic ssDNA viruses have icosahedral capsids. With the exception of the family "Bidnaviridae" and "Anelloviridae", all eukaryotic ssDNA viruses encode homologous rolling-circle replication initiation proteins with characteristic N-terminal endonuclease domains and C-terminal superfamily three helicase domains. A name for this group of viruses has been proposed—circular Rep-encoding single-strand (CRESS) DNA viruses. It has been proposed that CRESS-DNA viruses have evolved from bacterial plasmids, from which they inherited the Rep genes.
A group of ssDNA viruses whose Rep proteins show homology to ssDNA viruses from the families Geminiviridae, Circoviridae, and Nanoviridae, while their coat protein is related to those of ssRNA viruses from the family Tombusviridae and unclassified oomycete-infecting viruses. The name Cruciviridae has been proposed for this group.
The families "Bidnaviridae" and "Parvoviridae" have linear genomes while the other families have circular genomes. The "Bidnaviridae" have a two part genome and infect invertebrates. The "Inoviridae" and "Microviridae" infect bacteria; the "Anelloviridae" and "Circoviridae" infect animals (mammals and birds respectively); and the "Geminiviridae" and "Nanoviridae" infect plants. In both the "Geminiviridae" and "Nanoviridae" the genome is composed of more than a single chromosome. The "Bacillariodnaviridae" infect diatoms and have a unique genome: the major chromosome is circular (~6 kilobases in length): the minor chromosome is linear (~1 kilobase in length) and complementary to part of the major chromosome. Members of the "Spiraviridae" infect archaea. Members of the "Genomoviridae" infect fungi.
All viruses in this group require formation of a replicative form—a double stranded DNA intermediate—for genome replication. This is normally created from the viral DNA with the assistance of the host's own DNA polymerase.
In the 9th edition of the viral taxonomy of the ICTV (published 2011) the Bombyx mori densovirus type 2 was placed in a new family—the "Bidnaviridae" on the basis of its genome structure and replication mechanism. This is currently the only member of this family but it seems likely that other species will be allocated to this family in the near future.
A new genus—Bufavirus—was proposed on the basis of the isolation of two new viruses from human stool. Another member of this genus—megabat bufavius 1—has been reported from bats. The human viruses have since been renamed Primate protoparvovirus and been placed in the genus Protoparvovirus.
Another proposed genus is Pecovirus. These are similar in organisation to the Smacovirus but share little sequence similarity.
The most recently introduced family of ssDNA viruses is the "Genomoviridae" (the family name is an acronym derived from "ge"minivirus-like, "no mo"vement protein).
The family includes 9 genera, namely "Gemycircularvirus", "Gemyduguivirus", "Gemygorvirus", "Gemykibivirus", "Gemykolovirus", "Gemykrogvirus", "Gemykroznavirus", "Gemytondvirus" and "Gemyvongvirus".
The genus name "Gemycircularvirus" stands for Gemini-like myco-infecting circular virus. the type species of the genus "Gemycircularvirus"—Sclerotinia sclerotiorum hypovirulence associated DNA virus 1—is currently the only cultivated member of the family. The rest of genomoviruses are uncultivated and have been discovered using metagenomics techniques.
Another genus has been proposed—"Gemybolavirus".
Isolates from this group have also been isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid and brains of patients with multiple sclerosis.
An isolate from this group has also been identified in a child with encephalitis.
Viruses from this group have also been isolated from the blood of HIV+ve patients.
Ostrich faecal associated ssDNA virus has been placed in the genus Gemytondvirus. Rabbit faecal associated ssDNA virus has been placed in the genus Gemykroznavirus.
Another virus from this group has been isolated from mosquitoes.
Ten new circular viruses have been isolated from dragonfly larvae. The genomes range from 1628 to 2668 nucleotides in length. These dragonfly viruses have since been placed in the Gemycircularviridae.
Additional viruses from this group have been reported from dragonflies and damselflies.
Three viruses in this group have been isolated from plants.
A virus—Cassava associated circular DNA virus—that has some similarity to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum hypovirulence associated DNA virus 1 has been isolated. This virus has been placed in the Gemycircularviridae.
Some of this group of viruses may infect fungi.
A new family, the "Smacoviridae", has been created for a number of single-stranded DNA viruses isolated from the faeces of various mammals. Smacoviruses have circular genomes of ~2.5 kilobases and have a Rep protein and capsid protein encoded in opposite orientations. 43 species have been included in this family which includes six genera—"Bovismacovirus", "Cosmacovirus", "Dragsmacovirus", "Drosmacovirus", "Huchismacovirus" and "Porprismacovirus".
A number of additional single stranded DNA viruses have been described but are as yet unclassified.
Viruses in this group have been isolated from other cases of encephalitis, diarrhoea and sewage.
Two viruses have been isolated from human faeces—circo-like virus Brazil hs1 and hs2—with genome lengths of 2526 and 2533 nucleotides respectively. These viruses have four open reading frames. These viruses appear to be related to three viruses previously isolated from waste water, a bat and from a rodent.
This appears to belong to a novel group.
A novel species of virus—human respiratory-associated PSCV-5-like virus—has been isolated from the respiratory tract. The virus is approximately 3 kilobases in length and has two open reading frames—one encoding the coat protein and the other the DNA replicase. The significance—if any—of this virus for human disease is unknown presently.
An unrelated group of ssDNA viruses, also discovered using viral metagenomics, includes the species bovine stool associated circular virus and chimpanzee stool associated circular virus. The closest relations to this genus appear to be the "Nanoviridae" but further work will be needed to confirm this. Another isolate that appears to be related to these viruses has been isolated from pig faeces in New Zealand. This isolate also appears to be related to the pig stool-associated single-stranded DNA virus. This virus has two large open reading frames one encoding the capsid gene and the other the Rep gene. These are bidirectionally transcribed and separated by intergenic regions. Another virus of this group has been reported again from pigs. A virus from this group has been isolated from turkey faeces. Another ten viruses from this group have been isolated from pig faeces. Viruses that appear to belong to this group have been isolated from other mammals including cows, rodents, bats, badgers and foxes.
Another virus in this group has been isolated from birds.
Fur seal feces-associated circular DNA virus was isolated from the faeces of a fur seal ("Arctocephalus forsteri") in New Zealand. The genome has 2 main open reading frames and is 2925 nucleotides in length. Another virus—porcine stool associated virus 4—has been isolated. It appears to be related to the fur seal virus.
Two viruses have been described from the nesting material yellow crowned parakeet ("Cyanoramphus auriceps")—Cyanoramphus nest-associated circular X virus (2308 nt) and Cyanoramphus nest-associated circular K virus (2087 nt) Both viruses have two bidirectional open reading frames. Within these are the rolling-circle replication motifs I, II, III and the helicase motifs Walker A and Walker B. There is also a conserved nonanucleotide motif required for rolling-circle replication. CynNCKV has some similarity to the picobiliphyte nano-like virus (Picobiliphyte M5584-5) and CynNCXV has some similarity to the rodent stool associated virus (RodSCV M-45).
A virus with a circular genome—sea turtle tornovirus 1—has been isolated from a sea turtle with fibropapillomatosis. It is sufficiently unrelated to any other known virus that it may belong to a new family. The closest relations seem to be the "Gyrovirinae". The proposed genus name for this virus is Tornovirus.
Another faecal virus—feline stool-associated circular DNA virus—has been described.
Among these are the parvovirus-like viruses. These have linear single-stranded DNA genomes but unlike the parvoviruses the genome is bipartate. This group includes Hepatopancreatic parvo-like virus and Lymphoidal parvo-like virus. A new family Bidensoviridae has been proposed for this group but this proposal has not been ratified by the ICTV to date. Their closest relations appear to be the "Brevidensoviruses" (family Parvoviridae).
A virus—Acheta domesticus volvovirus—has been isolated from the house cricket ("Acheta domesticus"). The genome is circular, has four open reading frames and is 2,517 nucleotides in length. It appears to be unrelated to previously described species. The genus name Volvovirus has been proposed for these species. The genomes in this genus are ~2.5 nucleotides in length and encode 4 open reading frames.
Two new viruses have been isolated from the copepods "Acartia tonsa" and "Labidocera aestiva"—Acartia tonsa copepod circo-like virus and Labidocera aestiva copepod circo-like virus respectively.
A virus has been isolated from the mud flat snail ("Amphibola crenata"). This virus has a single stranded circular genome of 2351 nucleotides that encodes 2 open reading frames that are oriented in opposite directions. The smaller open reading frame (874 nucleotides) encodes a protein with similarities to the "Rep" (replication) proteins of circoviruses and plasmids. The larger open reading frame (955 nucleotides) has no homology to any currently known protein.
An unusual—and as yet unnamed—virus has been isolated from the flatworm "Girardia tigrina". Because of its genome organization, this virus appears to belong to an entirely new family. It is the first virus to be isolated from a flatworm.
From the hepatopancreas of the shrimp ("Farfantepenaeus duorarum") a circular single stranded DNA virus has been isolated. This virus does not appear to cause disease in the shrimp.
A circo-like virus has been isolated from the shrimp ("Penaeus monodon"). The 1,777-nucleotide genome is circular and single stranded. It has some similarity to the circoviruses and cycloviruses.
Ten viruses have been isolated from echinoderms. All appear to belong to as yet undescribed genera.
A filamentous virus—Apis mellifera filamentous virus—has been described. It appears to be unrelated to other DNA viruses.
A circular single stranded DNA virus has been isolated from a grapevine. This species may be related to the family Geminiviridae but differs from this family in a number of important respects including genome size.
Several viruses—baminivirus, nepavirus and niminivirus—related to geminvirus have also been reported.
A virus—Ancient caribou feces associated virus—has been cloned from 700-y-old caribou faeces.
A new virus with a three part single stranded genome has been reported. This seems likely to be a member of a new family of viruses.
More than 600 single-stranded DNA viral genomes were identified in ssDNA purified from seawater. These fell into 129 genetically distinct groups that had no recognizable similarity to each other or to other virus sequences, and thus many likely represent new families of viruses. Of the 129 groups, eleven were much more abundant than the others, and although their hosts have yet to be identified, they are likely to be eukaryotic phytoplankton, zooplankton and bacteria.
A virus—Boiling Springs Lake virus—appears to have evolved by a recombination event between a DNA virus (circovirus) and an RNA virus (tombusvirus). The genome is circular and encodes two proteins—a Rep protein and a capsid protein.
Further reports of viruses that appear to have evolved from recombination events between ssRNA and ssDNA viruses have been made.
A new virus has been isolated from the diatom "Chaetoceros setoensis". It has a single stranded DNA genome and does not appear to be a member of any previously described group.
A virus—FLIP (Flavobacterium-infecting, lipid-containing phage)—has been isolated from a lake. This virus has a circular ssDNA genome (9,174 nucleotides) and an internal lipid membrane enclosed in an icosahedral capsid. The capsid organisation is he capsid organization pseudo T = 21 "dextro". The major capsid protein has two β-barrels. The capsid organisation is similar to bacteriophage PM2—a double stranded bacterial virus.
Satellite viruses are small viruses with either RNA or DNA as their genomic material that require another virus to replicate. There are two types of DNA satellite viruses—the alphasatellites and the betasatellites—both of which are dependent on begomoviruses. At present satellite viruses are not classified into genera or higher taxa.
Alphasatellites are small circular single strand DNA viruses that require a begomovirus for transmission. Betasatellites are small linear single stranded DNA viruses that require a begomovirus to replicate.
Phylogenetic relationships between these families are difficult to determine. The genomes differ significantly in size and organisation. Most studies that have attempted to determine these relationships are based either on some of the more conserved proteins—DNA polymerase and others—or on common structural features. In general most of the proposed relationships are tentative and have not yet been used by the ICTV in their classification.
While determining the phylogenetic relations between the various known clades of viruses is difficult, on a number of grounds the herpesviruses and caudoviruses appear to be related.
While the three families in the order Herpesvirales are clearly related on morphological grounds, it has proven difficult to determine the dates of divergence between them because of the lack of gene conservation. On morphological grounds they appear to be related to the bacteriophages—specifically the Caudoviruses.
The branching order among the herpesviruses suggests that "Alloherpesviridae" is the basal clade and that "Herpesviridae" and "Malacoherpesviridae" are sister clades. Given the phylogenetic distances between vertebrates and molluscs this suggests that herpesviruses were initially fish viruses and that they have evolved with their hosts to infect other vertebrates.
The vertebrate herpesviruses initially evolved ~ and underwent subsequent evolution on the supercontinent Pangaea. The alphaherpesvirinae separated from the branch leading to the betaherpesvirinae and gammaherpesvirinae about to . The avian herpes viruses diverged from the branch leading to the mammalian species. The mammalian species divided into two branches—the Simplexvirus and Varicellovirus genera. This latter divergence appears to have occurred around the time of the mammalian radiation.
Several dsDNA bacteriophages and the herpesviruses encode a powerful ATP driven DNA translocating machine that encapsidates a viral genome into a preformed capsid shell or prohead. The critical components of the packaging machine are the packaging enzyme (terminase) which acts as the motor and the portal protein that forms the unique DNA entrance vertex of prohead. The terminase complex consists of a recognition subunit (small terminase) and an endonuclease/translocase subunit (large terminase) and cuts viral genome concatemers. It forms a motor complex containing five large terminase subunits. The terminase-viral DNA complex docks on the portal vertex. The pentameric motor processively translocates DNA until the head shell is full with one viral genome. The motor cuts the DNA again and dissociates from the full head, allowing head-finishing proteins to assemble on the portal, sealing the portal, and constructing a platform for tail attachment. Only a single gene encoding the putative ATPase subunit of the terminase ("UL15") is conserved among all herpesviruses. To a lesser extent this gene is also found in T4-like bacteriophages suggesting a common ancestor for these two groups of viruses. Another paper has also suggested that herpesviruses originated among the bacteriophages.
A common origin for the herpesviruses and the caudoviruses has been suggested on the basis of parallels in their capsid assembly pathways and similarities between their portal complexes, through which DNA enters the capsid. These two groups of viruses share a distinctive 12-fold arrangement of subunits in the portal complex. A second paper has suggested an evolutionary relationship between these two groups of viruses.
It seems likely that the tailed viruses infecting the archaea are also related to the tailed viruses infecting bacteria.
A study involving 600 herpes genomes and 2000 caudoviral genomes suggested that an evolutionary relationship exists between these order.
The NCLDV group ("Asfarviridae", "Iridoviridae", "Marseilleviridae", "Mimiviridae", "Phycodnaviridae" and "Poxviridae") along with three other families ("Adenoviridae", "Cortiviridae" and "Tectiviridae") and the phage Sulfolobus turreted icosahedral virus and the satellite virus Sputnik all possess double β-barrel major capsid proteins suggesting a common origin.
Several studies have suggested that the family "Ascoviridae" evolved from the "Iridoviridae". A study of the Iridoviruses suggests that the Iridoviridae, Ascoviridae and Marseilleviridae are related with Ascoviruses most closely related to Iridoviruses.
The family "Polydnaviridae" may have evolved from the "Ascoviridae". Molecular evidence suggests that the "Phycodnaviridae" may have evolved from the family "Iridoviridae". These four families ("Ascoviridae", "Iridoviridae", "Phycodnaviridae" and "Polydnaviridae") may form a clade but more work is needed to confirm this.
Some of the relations among the large viruses have been established. Mimiviruses are distantly related to Phycodnaviridae. Pandoraviruses share a common ancestor with Coccolithoviruses within the family Phycodnaviridae. Pithoviruses are related to Iridoviridae and Marseilleviridae.
Based on the genome organisation and DNA replication mechanism it seems that phylogenetic relationships may exist between the rudiviruses ("Rudiviridae") and the large eukaryal DNA viruses: the African swine fever virus ("Asfarviridae"), Chlorella viruses ("Phycodnaviridae") and poxviruses ("Poxviridae").
Based on the analysis of the DNA polymerase the genus "Dinodnavirus" may be a member of the family "Asfarviridae". Further work on this virus will required before a final assignment can be made.
It has been suggested that at least some of the giant viruses may originate from mitochondria.
Based on the analysis of the coat protein, "Sulfolobus turreted icosahedral virus" may share a common ancestry with the "Tectiviridae".
The families "Adenoviridae" and "Tectiviridae" appear to be related structurally.
Baculoviruses evolved from the nudiviruses .
The "Hytrosaviridae" are related to the baculoviruses and to a lesser extent the nudiviruses suggesting they may have evolved from the baculoviruses.
The "Nimaviridae" may be related to nudiviruses and baculoviruses.
The Nudiviruses seem to be related to the polydnaviruses.
A protein common to the families "Bicaudaviridae", "Lipotrixviridae" and "Rudiviridae" and the unclassified virus Sulfolobus turreted icosahedral virus is known suggesting a common origin.
Examination of the "pol" genes that encode the DNA dependent DNA polymerase in various groups of viruses suggests a number of possible evolutionary relationships. All know viral DNA polymerases belong to the DNA "pol" families A and B. All possess a 3'–5'-exonuclease domain with three sequence motifs Exo I, Exo II and Exo III. The families A and B are distinguishable with family A Pol sharing 9 distinct consensus sequences and only two of them are convincingly homologous to sequence motif B of family B. The putative sequence motifs A, B, and C of the polymerase domain are located near the C-terminus in family A Pol and more central in family B Pol.
Phylogenetic analysis of these genes places the adenoviruses ("Adenoviridae"), bacteriophages ("Caudovirales") and the plant and fungal linear plasmids into a single clade. A second clade includes the alpha- and delta-like viral Pol from insect ascovirus ("Ascoviridae"), mammalian herpesviruses ("Herpesviridae"), fish lymphocystis disease virus ("Iridoviridae") and chlorella virus ("Phycoviridae"). The "pol" genes of the African swine fever virus ("Asfarviridae"), baculoviruses ("Baculoviridae"), fish herpesvirus ("Herpesviridae"), T-even bacteriophages ("Myoviridae") and poxviruses ("Poxviridae") were not clearly resolved. A second study showed that poxvirus, baculovirus and the animal herpesviruses form separate and distinct clades. Their relationship to the "Asfarviridae" and the "Myoviridae" was not examined and remains unclear.
The polymerases from the archaea are similar to family B DNA Pols. The T4-like viruses infect both bacteria and archaea and their "pol" gene resembles that of eukaryotes. The DNA polymerase of mitochondria resembles that of the T odd phages ("Myoviridae").
The virophage—Mavirus—may have evolved from a recombination between a transposon of the Polinton (Maverick) family and an unknown virus.
The polyoma and papillomaviruses appear to have evolved from single-stranded DNA viruses and ultimately from plasmids.
The evolutionary history of this group is currently poorly understood. An ancient origin for the single stranded circular DNA viruses has been proposed.
Capsid proteins of most icosahedral ssRNA and ssDNA viruses display the same structural fold, the eight-stranded beta-barrel, also known as the jelly-roll fold. On the other hand, the replication proteins of icosahedral ssDNA viruses belong to the superfamily of rolling-circle replication initiation proteins that are commonly found in prokaryotic plasmids. Based on these observations, it has been proposed that small DNA viruses have originated via recombination between RNA viruses and plasmids.
Circoviruses may have evolved from a nanovirus.
Given the similarities between the "rep" proteins of the alphasatellites and the nanoviruses, it is likely that the alphasatellites evolved from the nanoviruses. Further work in this area is needed to clarify this.
The geminiviruses may have evolved from phytoplasmal plasmids. The Genomoviridae and the Geminividiae appear to be related.
Based on the three-dimensional structure of the Rep proteins the geminiviruses and parvoviruses may be related.
The ancestor of the geminiviruses probably infected dicots.
The parvoviruses have frequently invaded the germ lines of diverse animal species including mammals, fishes, birds, tunicates, arthropods and flatworms. In particular they have been associated with the human genome for ~98 million years.
Members of the family Bidnaviridae have evolved from insect parvoviruses by replacing the typical replication-initiation endonuclease with a protein-primed family B DNA polymerase acquired from large DNA transposons of the Polinton/Maverick family. Some bidnavirus genes were also horizontally acquired from reoviruses (dsRNA genomes) and baculoviruses (dsDNA genomes).
Polyomaviruses, papillomaviruses and parvoviruses may have descended from unrelated circular Rep-encoding single-stranded DNA viral ancestors.
Since 1959 ~6300 prokaryote viruses have been described morphologically, including ~6200 bacterial and ~100 archaeal viruses. Archaeal viruses belong to 15 families and infect members of 16 archaeal genera. These are nearly exclusively hyperthermophiles or extreme halophiles. Tailed archaeal viruses are found only in the Euryarchaeota, whereas most filamentous and pleomorphic archaeal viruses occur in the Crenarchaeota. Bacterial viruses belong to 10 families and infect members of 179 bacterial genera: most of these are members of the Firmicutes and γ-proteobacteria.
The vast majority (96.3%) are tailed with and only 230 (3.7%) are polyhedral, filamentous or pleomorphic. The family Siphoviridae is the largest family (>3600 descriptions: 57.3%). The tailed phages appear to be monophyletic and are the oldest known virus group. They arose repeatedly in different hosts and there are at least 11 separate lines of descent.
All of the known temperate phages employ one of only three different systems for their lysogenic cycle: lambda-like integration/excision, Mu-like transposition or the plasmid-like partitioning of phage N15.
A putative course of evolution of these phages has been proposed by Ackermann.
Tailed phages originated in the early Precambrian, long before eukaryotes and their viruses. The ancestral tailed phage had an icosahedral head of about 60 nanometers in diameter and a long non contractile tail with sixfold symmetry. The capsid contained a single molecule of double stranded DNA of about 50 kilobases. The tail was probably provided with a fixation apparatus. The head and tail were held together by a connector. The viral particle contained no lipids, was heavier than its descendant viruses and had a high DNA content proportional to its capsid size (~50%). Most of the genome coded for structural proteins. Morphopoietic genes clustered at one end of the genome, with head genes preceding tail genes. Lytic enzymes were probably coded for. Part of the phage genome was nonessential and possibly bacterial.
The virus infected its host from the outside and injected its DNA. Replication involved transcription in several waves and formation of DNA concatemers.
New phages were released by burst of the infected cell after lysis of host membranes by a peptidoglycan hydrolase. Capsids were assembled from a starting point, the connector and around a scaffold. They underwent an elaborate maturation process involving protein cleavage and capsid expansion. Heads and tails were assembled separately and joined later. The DNA was cut to size and entered preformed capsids by a headful mechanism.
Subsequently, the phages evolved contractile or short tails and elongated heads. Some viruses become temperate by acquiring an integrase–excisionase complex, plasmid parts or transposons.
A possible evolutionary pathway using vesicles rather than a protein coat has been described in the archaeal plasmid pR1SE. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8777 |
Daniel Ortega
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (; born November 11, 1945) is a Nicaraguan politician serving as President of Nicaragua since 2007; previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as Coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction (1979–1985) and then as President (1985–1990). A leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (; FSLN), he has implemented policies to achieve leftist reforms across Nicaragua.
Born into a working-class family, from an early age Ortega opposed ruling President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, widely recognized as a dictator, and became involved in the underground movement against his government. Joining the Sandinistas as a student in 1963, Ortega became involved with urban resistance activities and was arrested in 1967. After his release in 1974, he travelled to Cuba to receive training in guerrilla warfare from Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government. He played a crucial role in forming the Insurrectionist faction, which united the FSLN and sparked the mass uprisings of 1978–1979. After the Nicaraguan Revolution resulted in the overthrow and exile of Somoza's government, Ortega became leader of the ruling multi-partisan Junta of National Reconstruction. In 1984, Ortega, the FSLN candidate, won Nicaragua's free presidential election with over 60 percent of the vote. A Marxist–Leninist, Ortega pursued a controversial program of nationalization, land reform, wealth redistribution and literacy programs during his first period in office.
Ortega's relationship with the United States was never very cordial, as the U.S. had supported Somoza prior to the revolution. Although the U.S. supplied post-revolution Nicaragua with tens of millions of dollars in economic aid, relations broke down when the Sandinistas supplied weapons to leftist Salvadoran rebels. (Ortega later acknowledged this had taken place.) His government was opposed by the Contras in a civil war; the Contras were funded by the Reagan administration of the United States. A joint peace proposal by the Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and President Ronald Reagan helped facilitate a peace agreement at a meeting of five Central American chiefs of state in July 1987. For this Costa Rican President Óscar Arias was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This resulted in free elections in Nicaragua in 1990, in which Ortega was defeated by Violeta Chamorro. He continued to be an important figure in Nicaraguan opposition politics, and gradually moderated his political position to democratic socialism. He also restored relations with the Catholic Church, with the adoption of anti-abortion policies by his government.
Ortega was an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1996 and 2001, but he won the 2006 presidential election. In office, he made alliances with fellow Latin American socialists, such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Under Ortega's leadership, Nicaragua joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.
In June 2018, Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States reported that Ortega had engaged in a violent oppression campaign against protesters in response to anti-Ortega protests since April 2018. Government officials and government-owned media denied responsibility for such actions.
Ortega was born in La Libertad, department of Chontales, Nicaragua. His parents, Daniel Ortega Cerda and Lidia Saavedra, were opposed to the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. His mother was imprisoned by Somoza's National Guard for being in possession of "love letters," which the police said were coded political missives. Ortega and his two brothers, grew up to become revolutionaries. His brother Humberto Ortega is a former general, military leader, and published writer, and Camilo Ortega has also been politically active. They had a sister, Germania, who died.
Seeking stable employment, the family migrated from La Libertad to the provincial capital of Juigalpa, and then to a working-class neighborhood in Managua. Their father Daniel Ortega Cedra detested U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua and Washington's support for the Somoza dictatorship. Hi imparted this anti-American sentiment to his sons.
Ortega was first arrested for political activities at the age of 15, and quickly joined the then-underground Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In 1964, Ortega travelled to Guatemala, where the police arrested him and turned him over to the Nicaraguan National Guard. After his release from detainment, Ortega arranged the assassination of his torturer, Guardsman Gonzalo Lacayo, in August 1967.
He was imprisoned in 1967 for taking part in armed robbery of a branch of the Bank of America. He told collaborators that they should be killed if they did not take part in the robbery. Ortega was released in late 1974, along with other Sandinista prisoners, in exchange for Somocista hostages. While imprisoned at the El Modelo jail, just outside Managua, Ortega wrote poems, one of which he titled "I Never Saw Managua When Miniskirts Were in Fashion". During his imprisonment, Ortega was severely tortured. While he was incarcerated at El Modelo, his mother helped stage protests and hunger strikes for political prisoners; this resulted in improving the treatment of incarcerated Sandinistas.
After being released, Ortega was exiled to Cuba. There he received several months of guerrilla training. He later returned secretly to Nicaragua.
In the late 1970s, divisions over the FSLN's campaign against Somoza led Ortega and his brother Humberto to form the Insurrectionist, or Tercerista (Third Way) faction. The Terceristas sought to combine the distinct guerrilla war strategies of the two other factions, Tomas Borge's Guerra Prolongada Popular (GPP, or Prolonged People's War), and Jaime Wheelock's Proletarians. The Ortega brothers forged alliances with a wide array of anti-Somoza forces, including Catholic and Protestant activists, and other non-Marxist civil society groups. The Terceristas became the most effective faction in wielding political and military strength, and their push for FSLN solidarity received the support of revolutionary leaders such as Fidel Castro.
Ortega married Rosario Murillo in 1979 in a secret ceremony. They moved to Costa Rica with her three children from a previous marriage. Ortega remarried Murillo in 2005 in order to have the marriage recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, as part of his effort to reconcile with the church. The couple has eight children, three of them together. Murillo serves as the Ortega government's spokeswoman and a government minister, among other positions. Ortega adopted stepdaughter Zoilamérica Narváez in 1986, through a court case.
When Somoza was overthrown by the FSLN in July 1979, Ortega became a member of the five-person Junta of National Reconstruction, which included Sandinista militant Moisés Hassan, novelist Sergio Ramírez, businessman Alfonso Robelo, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the widow of a murdered journalist. In September 1979, United States President Carter hosted Ortega at the White House, and warned him against arming other Central American leftist guerrilla movements. At the time, Ortega spoke truthfully when he denied Sandinista involvement in neighboring countries. When Ortega questioned the Americans about CIA support for anti-Sandinista groups, Carter and Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the reports were false. After the meeting, Carter asked Congress for $75 million in aid to Nicaragua, contingent on the Sandinista government's promise not to aid other guerrillas.
The FSLN came to dominate the junta, Robelo and Chamorro resigned, and in 1981 Ortega became the coordinator of the Junta. As the only member of the FSLN National Directorate in the Junta, he was the effective leader of the country. After attaining power, the FSLN embarked upon an ambitious programme of social reform. They arranged to redistribute of land to about 100,000 families; launched a literacy drive, and made health care improvements that ended polio through mass vaccinations, and reduced th frequency of other treatable diseases. The Sandinista nationalization efforts affected mostly banks and industries owned by the extended Somoza family. More than half of all farms, businesses, and industries remained in private hands. The revolutionary government wanted to preserve a mixed economy and support private sector investment. The Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) opposed the Sandinistas’ economic reform. The main organization of Nicaraguan big business was composed of prosperous families from the Pacific coast cities, who dominated commerce and banking. Ortega took a very hard line against opposition to his policies: On February 21, 1981, the Sandinista army killed 7 Miskito Indians and wounded 17.
Ortega's administration forced displacement of many of the indigenous population: 10,000 individuals had been moved by 1982. Thousands of Indians fled to take refuge across the border in Honduras, and Ortega's government imprisoned 14,000 in Nicaragua. Anthropologist Gilles Bataillon termed this "politics of ethnocide" in Nicaragua. The Indians formed two rebel groups – the Misura and Misurasata. They were joined in the north by Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) and in the south by former Sandinistas and peasantry who, under the leadership of Edén Pastora, were resisting forced collectivization.
In 1980 the Sandinista government launched the massive Nicaraguan Literacy Campaign, and claimed the illiteracy rate fell from 50% to 13% in the span of five months. These figures are disputed, as many "unteachable" illiterates were omitted from the statistics, and many people declared literate were found to be unable to read or write a simple sentence. The UNESCO awarded Nicaragua the Nadezhda K. Krupskaya prize in recognition of its efforts. The FSLN also focused on improving the Nicaraguan health system, particularly through vaccination campaigns and the construction of public hospitals. These actions reduced child mortality by half, to 40 deaths per thousand. By 1982, the World Health Organization deemed Nicaragua a model for primary health care.
In 1981, United States President Ronald Reagan accused the FSLN of joining with Soviet-backed Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries, such as El Salvador. People within the Reagan administration authorized the CIA to begin financing, arming and training rebels as anti-Sandinista guerrillas, some of whom were former officers from Somoza's National Guard. These were known collectively as the Contras. This resulted in one of the largest political scandals in US history, (the Iran–Contra affair). Oliver North and several members of the Reagan administration defied the Boland Amendment, selling arms to Iran and using the proceeds in order to secretly fund the Contras.
The Contra war claimed 30,000 lives in Nicaragua. The tactics used by the Sandinista government to fight the Contras have been widely condemned for their suppression of civil rights. On March 15, 1982, the Junta declared a state of siege, which allowed it to close independent radio stations, suspend the right of association, and limit the freedom of trade unions. Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights condemned Sandinista human rights violations, accusing them of killing and forcibly disappearing thousands of persons in the first few years of the war.
At the 1984 general election Ortega won the presidency with 67% of the vote and took office on January 10, 1985. In the early phases of the campaign, Ortega enjoyed many institutional advantages, and used the full power of the press, police, and Supreme Electoral Council against the fractured opposition. In the weeks before the November election, Ortega gave a U.N. speech denouncing talks held in Rio de Janeiro on electoral reform. But by October 22, the Sandinistas signed an accord with opposition parties to reform electoral and campaign laws, making the process more fair and transparent. While campaigning, Ortega promoted the Sandinistas’ achievements, and at a rally claimed that “Democracy is literacy, democracy is land reform, democracy is education and public health.” International observers judged the election to be the first free election held in the country in more than half a century. A report by an Irish governmentary delegation stated: "The electoral process was carried out with total integrity. The seven parties participating in the elections represented a broad spectrum of political ideologies." The general counsel of New York's Human Rights Commission described the election as "free, fair and hotly contested." A study by the US Latin American Studies Association (LASA) concluded that the FSLN (Sandinista Front) "did little more to take advantage of its incumbency than incumbent parties everywhere (including the U.S.) routinely do." However some people described the election as "rigged". According to a detailed study, since the 1984 election was for posts subordinate to the Sandinista Directorate, the elections were no more subject to approval by vote than the Central Committee of the Communist Party is in countries of the East Bloc.
Thirty-three percent of the Nicaraguan voters cast ballots for one of six opposition parties—three to the right of the Sandinistas, three to the left—which had campaigned with the aid of government funds and free TV and radio time. Two conservative parties captured a combined 23 percent of the vote. They held rallies across the country (a few of which were disrupted by FSLN supporters) and blasted the Sandinistas in harsh terms. Most foreign and independent observers noted this pluralism in debunking the Reagan administration charge—ubiquitous in the US media—that it was a "Soviet-style sham" election. Some opposition parties boycotted the election, allegedly under pressure from US embassy officials, and so it was denounced as being unfair by the Reagan administration. Reagan thus maintained that he was justified to continue supporting what he referred to as the Contras' "democratic resistance".
In the 1990 presidential election, Ortega lost his reelection bid to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, his former colleague in the junta. Chamorro was supported by the US and a 14-party anti-Sandinista alliance known as the National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Oppositora, UNO), an alliance that ranged from conservatives and liberals to communists. She ran an effective campaign, presenting herself as the peace candidate and promising to end the US-funded Contra War if she won. Ortega campaigned on the slogan, "Everything Will Be Better," and promised that, with the Contra war over, he could focus on the nation's recovery. Contrary to what most observers expected, Chamorro shocked Ortega and won the election. Chamorro's UNO coalition garnered 54 percent of the vote, and won 51 of the 92 seats in the National Assembly. Immediately after the loss, the Sandinistas tried to maintain unity around their revolutionary posture. In Ortega's concession speech the following day he vowed to keep "ruling from below" a reference to the power that the FSLN still wielded in various sectors. He also stressed his belief that the Sandinistas had the goal of bringing "dignity" to Latin America, and not necessarily to hold on to government posts. In 1991, Ortega claimed elections were “an instrument to reaffirm” the FSLN's “political and ideological positions,” and also “confront capitalism.” However, the electoral loss led to pronounced divisions in the FSLN. Some members adopted more pragmatic positions, and sought to transform the FSLN into a modern social democratic party engaged in national reconciliation and class cooperation. Ortega and other party insiders found common ground with the radicals, who still promoted anti-imperialism and class conflict to achieve social change.
Possible explanations for his loss include that the Nicaraguan people were disenchanted with the Ortega government as well as the fact that already in November 1989, the White House had announced that the economic embargo against Nicaragua would continue unless Violeta Chamorro won. Also, there had been reports of intimidation from the side of the contras, with a Canadian observer mission claiming that 42 people were killed by the contras in "election violence" in October 1989. This led many commentators to assume that Nicaraguans voted against the Sandinistas out of fear of a continuation of the contra war and economic deprivation.
From July 19–21, 1991, the FSLN held a National Congress to mend the rifts between members and form a new overarching political program. The effort failed to unite the party, and intense debates over the internal governance of the FSLN continued. The pragmatists, led by the former vice president Sergio Ramirez, formed the basis of a "renovating" faction, and supported collaboration with other political forces to preserve the rule of law in Nicaragua. Under the leadership of Ortega and Tomas Borge, the radicals regrouped into the "principled" faction, and branded themselves the Izquierda Democratica (ID), or Democratic Left (DL). The DL fought the Chamorro government with disruptive labor strikes and demonstrations, and renewed calls for the revolutionary reconstruction of Nicaraguan society. During the May 20–23, 1994, extraordinary congress, Ortega ran against a fellow National Directorate member, Henry Ruiz, for the position of party secretary-general. Ortega was elected with 287 to Ruiz's 147 votes, and the DL secured the most dominant role in the FSLN.
On September 9, 1994, Ortega gained more power after taking over Sergio Ramirez's seat in the Asamblea Sandinista (Sandinista Assembly). Ramirez had served as chief of the FSLN's parliamentary caucus since 1990, but Ortega came to oppose his actions in the National Assembly, setting the stage for Ramirez's removal. Historic leaders, such as Ernesto Cardenal, a former minister of culture in the Sandinista government, rejected Ortega's consolidation of power: “My resignation from the FSLN has been caused by the kidnapping of the party carried out by Daniel Ortega and the group he heads.” The party formally split on January 8, 1995, when Ramirez and a number of prominent Sandinista officials quit.
Ortega ran for election again, in October 1996 and November 2001, but lost on both occasions to Arnoldo Alemán and Enrique Bolaños, respectively. In these elections, a key issue was the allegation of corruption. In Ortega's last days as president, through a series of legislative acts known as "The Piñata", estates that had been seized by the Sandinista government (some valued at millions and even billions of US dollars) became the private property of various FSLN officials, including Ortega himself.
In the 1996 campaign, Ortega faced the Liberal Alliance (Alianza Liberal), headed by Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo, a former mayor of Managua. The Sandinistas softened their anti-imperialist rhetoric, with Ortega calling the U.S. “our great neighbor,” and vowing to cooperate “within a framework of respect, equality, and justice.” The image change failed, as Aleman's Liberal Alliance came first with 51.03 percent of the vote, while Ortega's FSLN secured 37.75 percent.
Ortega's policies became more moderate during his time in opposition, and he gradually changed much of his former Marxist stance in favor of an agenda of democratic socialism. His Roman Catholic faith has become more public in recent years as well, leading Ortega to embrace a variety of socially conservative policies; in 2006 the FSLN endorsed a strict law banning all abortions in Nicaragua. In the run-up to the 2006 elections, Ortega displayed his ties to the Catholic Church by renewing his marriage vows before Cardinal Miguel Obanda y Bravo.
Ortega was instrumental in creating the controversial strategic pact between the FSLN and the Constitutional Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, PLC). The controversial alliance of Nicaragua's two major parties is aimed at distributing power between the PLC and FSLN, and preventing other parties from rising. After sealing the agreement in January 2000, the two parties controlled the three key institutions of the state: the Comptroller General of the Republic, the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Electoral Council. ""El Pacto,"" as it is known in Nicaragua, is said to have personally benefited former presidents Ortega and Alemán greatly, while constraining then-president Bolaños. One of the key accords of the pact was to lower the percentage necessary to win a presidential election in the first round from 45% to 35%, a change in electoral law that would become decisive in Ortega's favor in the 2006 elections.
At the Fourth Ordinary Congress of the FSLN, held March 17–18, 2002, Ortega eliminated the National Directorate (DN). Once the main collective leadership body of the party, with nine members, the DN no longer met routinely, and only three historic members remained. Instead, the body just supported decisions already made by the secretary-general. Ortega sidelined party officials and other members while empowering his own informal circle, known as the ring of iron.
Under Ortega's direction, the FSLN formed the broad National Convergence (Convergencia Nacional) coalition to defeat the PLC in the 2001 elections. Ortega abandoned the revolutionary tone of the past, and infused his campaign with religious imagery. In speeches, he gave thanks to “God and the Revolution” for the post-1990 democracy, and claimed a Sandinista victory would enable the Nicaraguan people to “pass through the sea and reach the Promised Land.” The U.S. opposed Ortega's candidacy from the beginning. The U.S. ambassador even made an appearance with the PLC's Enrique Bolanos while distributing food aid. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks doomed Ortega's chances, as the threat of a U.S. invasion became an issue. Bolanos convinced many Nicaraguans that the renewed U.S. hostility towards terrorism would endanger their country if the openly anti-U.S. Ortega prevailed. Bolanos ended up with 56.3 percent of the vote, and Ortega won 42.3 percent.
In 2006, Daniel Ortega was elected president with 38% of the vote. This occurred despite the fact that the breakaway Sandinista Renovation Movement continued to oppose the FSLN, running former Mayor of Managua Herty Lewites as its candidate for president. Ortega personally attacked Lewites’ Jewish background, compared him to Judas, and warned he “could end up hanged.” However, Lewites died several months before the elections.
Ortega emphasized peace and reconciliation in his campaign, and selected a former Contra leader, Jaime Morales Corazo, as his running mate. The FSLN also won 38 seats in the congressional elections, becoming the party with the largest representation in parliament. The split in the Constitutionalist Liberal Party helped allow the FSLN to become the largest party in Congress; however, the Sandinista vote had a minuscule split between the FSLN and MRS, and that the liberal party combined is larger than the Frente Faction. In 2010, several liberal congressmen raised accusations about the FSLN presumably attempting to buy votes to pass constitutional reforms that would allow Ortega to run for office for the 6th time since 1984.
Soon after his inauguration, Ortega paid an official visit to Iran and met Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ortega told the press that the "revolutions of Iran and Nicaragua are almost twin revolutions...since both revolutions are about justice, liberty, self-determination, and the struggle against imperialism." Since the start of his second presidency, various measures have been introduced to combat hunger and to improve access to healthcare, education, credit, and social security. In addition, other reforms have been carried out, including an enhancement of labour rights, the introduction of low-interest loans and training for female micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas, and the distribution of transport subsidies, scholarships, medicine, land titles, and housing materials throughout the population. Altogether, these policies have helped to reduce high levels of poverty and inequality in Nicaragua. Ortega placed the first lady, Rosario Murillo, in charge of the Citizens’ Power Councils (CPCs), designed to implement his anti-poverty social policies. The CPCs also undermined municipal autonomy, as they effectively functioned as local governments by determining the distribution of public goods and services.
In June 2008 the Nicaraguan Supreme Court disqualified the MRS and the Conservative Party from participation in municipal elections. In November 2008, the Supreme Electoral Council received national and international criticism following irregularities in municipal elections, but agreed to review results for Managua only, while the opposition demanded a nationwide review. For the first time since 1990, the Council decided not to allow national or international observers to witness the election. Instances of intimidation, violence, and harassment of opposition political party members and NGO representatives have been recorded. Official results show Sandinista candidates winning 94 of the 146 municipal mayoralties, compared to 46 for the main opposition Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC). The opposition claimed that marked ballots were dumped and destroyed, that party members were refused access to some of the vote counts and that tallies from many polling places were altered. As a result of the fraud allegations, the European Union suspended $70m of aid, and the US $64m.
With the late-2000s recession, Ortega in 2011 characterised capitalism as in its "death throes" and portrayed the Bolivarian Alternative for the People of Our America (ALBA) is the most advanced, most Christian and fairest project. He also said God was punishing the United States with the financial crisis for trying to impose its economic principles on poor countries. "It's incredible that in the most powerful country in the world, which spends billions of dollars on brutal wars ... people do not have enough money to stay in their homes."
Before the National Sandinista Council held in September 2009, Lenin Cerna, the secretary of the party organization, called for diversifying its political strategies. He declared the FSLN's future depended on implementing new plans, “so that the party can advance via new routes and in new ways, always under Ortega’s leadership.” Ortega gained power over the selection of candidates, allowing him to personally choose all candidates for public office.
During an interview with David Frost for the Al Jazeera English programme "Frost Over The World" in March 2009, Ortega suggested that he would like to change the constitution to allow him to run again for president. In Judicial Decision 504, issued on October 19, 2009, the Supreme Court of Justice of Nicaragua declared portions of Articles 147 and 178 of the Constitution of Nicaragua inapplicable; these provisions concerned the eligibility of candidates for president, vice-president, mayor, and vice-mayor—a decision that had the effect of allowing Ortega to run for reelection in 2011.
For this decision, the Sandinista magistrates formed the required quorum by excluding the opposition magistrates and replacing them with Sandinista substitutes, violating the Nicaraguan constitution. Opposing parties, the church and human rights groups in Nicaragua denounced the decision. Throughout 2010, court rulings gave Ortega greater power over judicial and civil service appointments.
While supporting abortion rights during his presidency during the 1980s, Ortega has since embraced the Catholic Church's position of strong opposition. While non-emergency abortions have long been illegal in Nicaragua, recently even abortions "in the case where the pregnancy endangers the mother's life", otherwise known as therapeutic abortions have been made illegal in the days before the 2006 election, with a six-year prison term in such cases, too—a move supported by Ortega.
Ortega was re-elected president with a vote on November 6 and confirmation on November 16, 2011. During the election, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) blocked both domestic and international poll observers from multiple polling stations. According to the Supreme Electoral Council, Ortega defeated Fabio Gadea, with 63 percent of the vote.
In January 2014 the National Assembly, dominated by the FSLN, approved constitutional amendments that abolished term limits for the presidency and allowed a president to run for an unlimited number of five-year terms. Although billed as a measure to ensure stability, critics charged that the amendments threatened Nicaraguan democracy. The constitutional reforms also gave Ortega the sole power to appoint military and police commanders.
As of 2016, Ortega's family owns three of the nine free-to-air television channels in Nicaragua, and controls a fourth (the public Channel 6). Four of the remaining five are controlled by Mexican mogul Ángel González, and are generally considered to be aligned with Ortega's ruling FSLN party. There are no government restrictions on Internet use; the Ortega administration attempted to gain complete control over online media in 2015, but failed due to opposition from civil society, political parties, and private organizations.
In June 2016, the Nicaraguan supreme court ruled to oust Eduardo Montealegre, the leader of the main opposition party, leaving the main opposition coalition with no means of contesting the November 2016 national elections. In August 2016, Ortega chose his wife, Rosario Murillo, as his vice-presidential running-mate for re-election.
According to the "Washington Post", figures announced on November 7, 2016 put Daniel Ortega in line for his third consecutive term as President, also being his fourth term overall. The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) reported Ortega and Murillo won 72.4 percent of the vote, with 68 percent turnout. The opposition coalition had called the election a "farce" and had called for the boycott of the election. International observers were not allowed to observe the vote. Nevertheless, according to the BBC, Ortega was the most popular candidate by far, possibly due to Nicaragua's stable economic growth and lack of violence compared to its neighbours El Salvador and Honduras in recent years.
In April 2018, student protests over a nature reserve fire expanded to cover an unpopular social security decree. The protesters were violently set upon by the state sponsored Sandinista Youth. Despite attempts by Ortega's government to hide the incident through censorship of all private-owned news outlets, photos and videos of the violence made their way to social media where they sparked outrage and urged more Nicaraguans to join in on the protests. Tensions escalated quickly, as police began using tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, and eventually live ammunition on unarmed protesters. Authorities were also seen arming Sandinista Youth members with weapons to serve as paramilitary forces. Dozens of student protesters were subsequently killed. Despite the withdrawal of the unpopular decree, the protests continue, with most protesters demanding Ortega's and his cabinet's resignations. As the protests continue, support for the Ortega-Murillo regime dwindles.
On May 30, Nicaragua's Mother's Day, a march attended by over 300,000 people took place. It was held to honor the mothers of students killed in the recent protests. The demonstration was peaceful, attended by children, mothers and retirees. Yet Ortega's regime ordered sharpshooters, perched at the National Stadium to shoot indiscriminately at the marchers, resulting in the deaths of 15 civilians, one of them in the hands of his own mother. This event has been dubbed by Nicaraguans as the "Mother's Day Massacre".
CNN Reported on April 13, 2020 that President Ortega had not been seen in public (in person or virtually) since March 12, 2020 when he participated in a video conference with Central America's System of Integration (SICA) to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile his government has been the target of criticism for its lack of a response to the pandemic.
On March 6, 2008, following the 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis, Ortega announced that Nicaragua was breaking diplomatic ties with Colombia "in solidarity with the Ecuadorian people". Ortega also stated, "We are not breaking relations with the Colombian people. We are breaking relations with the terrorist policy practiced by Álvaro Uribe's government". The relations were restored with the resolution at a Rio Group summit held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on March 7, 2008. At the summit Colombia's Álvaro Uribe, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Ortega publicly shook hands in a show of good-will. The handshakes, broadcast live throughout Latin America, appeared to signal that a week of military buildups and diplomatic repercussions was over. After the handshakes, Ortega said he would re-establish diplomatic ties with Colombia. Uribe then quipped that he would send him the bill for his ambassador's plane fare.
On May 25, 2008, Ortega, upon learning of the death of FARC guerrilla leader Manuel Marulanda in Colombia, expressed condolences to the family of Marulanda and solidarity with the FARC and called Marulanda an extraordinary fighter who battled against profound inequalities in Colombia. The declarations were protested by the Colombian government and criticized in the major Colombian media outlets.
On September 2, 2008, during ceremonies for the 29th anniversary of the founding of the Nicaraguan army, Ortega announced that "Nicaragua recognizes the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and fully supports the Russian government's position". Ortega's decision made Nicaragua the second country (after Russia) to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. A day after Venezuela recognised the two Republics, Nicaragua established diplomatic relations with Abkhazia, and followed this by establishing diplomatic links with South Ossetia. Embassies have been mooted, but as of 2013 these had not opened.
When seeking office, Ortega threatened to cut ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) in order to restore relations with the People's Republic of China (as in the period from 1985 to 1990). But he did not do so. In 2007 Ortega stated that Nicaragua did not accept the One China Policy of the PRC government and that Nicaragua reserved the right to maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. He reassured President Chen Shui Bian in 2007 that Nicaragua would not break diplomatic relations with Taiwan. He explained that during the Reagan administration the United States imposed sanctions on Nicaragua. But cutting ties with Taiwan was a sad and painful decision because of the friendship between Nicaragua and Taiwan's people and government. Ortega met with Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou in 2009 and both agreed to improve the diplomatic ties between both countries. However, with a trade show from China in Managua in 2010, he is attempting a two-track policy to get benefits from both sides. In 2016 Nicaragua and Taiwan signed an air services agreement and Ortega stated that Nicaragua's free trade deal with Taiwan had benefited both nations. Taiwan increased its investment in Nicaragua. In 2017 Ortega reaffirmed Nicaragua's diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
In September 2010, after a US report listed Nicaragua as a "major" drug-trafficking centre, with Costa Rica and Honduras, Ortega urged the US Congress and Obama administration to allocate more resources to assist the fight against drug trafficking.
During the Libyan Civil War, Ortega was among the very few leaders who spoke out in clear defense of the embattled Muammar Gaddafi. During a telephone conversation between the two, Ortega told Gaddafi that he was "waging a great battle to defend his nation" and stated that "it's at difficult times that loyalty and resolve are put to the test."
Ortega has said that Assad's victory in the 2014 election is an important step to "attain peace in Syria and a clear cut evidence that the Syrian people trust their president as a national leader and support his policies which aim at maintaining Syria's sovereignty and unity".
Ortega attended the swearing-in ceremony of Nicolás Maduro for his second term on January 10, 2019.
In an interview with Max Blumenthal in August 2019, Ortega stated that he was open to the idea of Bernie Sanders (who had visited him in 1985) winning the U.S. Presidency in 2020 and that Bernie's message "goes in the right direction for the U.S. to become a pole of peace, development, and cooperation."
In 2016, Daniel Ortega did not sign the Paris Agreement because he felt the deal did not do enough to protect the climate, although he later changed his mind. Moreover, Nicaragua rejected projects of mining of the Canadian group B2 Gold which could represent a threat to the environment. According to government estimates, Nicaragua has passed from 25 percent renewable electricity to 52 percent between 2007 and 2016.
In Nicaragua, reviews of Ortega's presidency have not always been glowing, with many considering him a dictator. Many Nicaraguans, including prominent former Sandinista leaders, such as Daniel Ortega's own brother Humberto Ortega, have accused him of forgetting where he came from and catering to his own capitalist interests, calling his government monopolistic and authoritarian and denouncing him as a "Bloody Dictator". The 2018 protests are symbolic of these tensions.
In 1998, Daniel Ortega's adopted stepdaughter Zoilamérica Narváez released a 48-page report describing how, she alleged, Ortega had systematically sexually abused her from 1979, when she was 12, until 1990. Ortega, his wife Murillo and their other children denied the allegations, as did many Sandinistas who believe it is politically motivated. The case could not proceed in Nicaraguan courts, which have been consistently allied with Ortega, because Ortega had immunity from prosecution as a member of parliament, and the five-year statute of limitations for sexual abuse and rape charges was judged to have been exceeded. Narváez took a complaint to the Inter American Human Rights Commission, which was ruled admissible on October 15, 2001. On March 4, 2002 the Nicaraguan government accepted the Commission's recommendation of a friendly settlement.
Ortega continued to deny the allegations and Narváez withdrew the accusations in 2008, though she later renewed her complaints shortly after. Following the 2016 election, Narváez continued to make the accusations saying that she had become an outcast of her family. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8778 |
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in the late 19th century by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.
Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations; typically a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, the advent of the guided missile allowed destroyers to take on the surface combatant roles previously filled by battleships and cruisers. This resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation.
At the start of the 21st century, destroyers are the global standard for surface combatant ships, with only two nations (United States and Russia) operating the heavier class cruisers, with no battleships or true battlecruisers remaining. Modern guided missile destroyers are equivalent in tonnage but vastly superior in firepower to cruisers of the World War II era, and are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. At long, a displacement of 9,200 tons, and with armament of more than 90 missiles, guided missile destroyers such as the are actually larger and more heavily armed than most previous ships classified as guided missile cruisers.
Some NATO navies, such as the Canadian, French, Spanish, Dutch and German, use the term "frigate" for their destroyers, which leads to some confusion.
After the Second World War, destroyers grew in size. The Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer had a displacement of 2200 tons, while the Arleigh Burke class has a displacement of up to 9600 tons, thus growing in size almost 340%.
The emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy a superior enemy battle fleet using steam launches to fire torpedoes. Cheap, fast boats armed with torpedoes called torpedo boats were built and became a threat to large capital ships near enemy coasts. The first seagoing vessel designed to launch the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons, these were replaced in 1879 by a single torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, fast enough to evade enemy picket boats.
At first, the threat of a torpedo boat attack to a battle fleet was considered to exist only when at anchor; but as faster and longer-range torpedoes were developed, the threat extended to cruising at sea. In response to this new threat, more heavily gunned picket boats called "catchers" were built which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea. They needed significant seaworthiness and endurance to operate with the battle fleet, and as they necessarily became larger, they became officially designated "torpedo boat destroyers", and by the First World War were largely known as "destroyers" in English. The anti-torpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French ("contre-torpilleur"), Italian ("cacciatorpediniere"), Portuguese ("contratorpedeiro"), Czech ("torpédoborec"), Greek ("antitorpiliko","αντιτορπιλικό"), Dutch ("torpedobootjager") and, up until the Second World War, Polish ("kontrtorpedowiec", now obsolete).
Once destroyers became more than just catchers guarding an anchorage, it was realized that they were also ideal to take over the role of torpedo boats themselves, so they were fitted with torpedo tubes as well as guns. At that time, and even into World War I, the only function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks and to make such attacks on the battleships of the enemy. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future.
An important development came with the construction of HMS "Swift" in 1884, later redesignated TB 81. This was a large (137 ton) torpedo boat with four 47 mm quick-firing guns and three torpedo tubes. At , while still not fast enough to engage enemy torpedo boats reliably, the ship at least had the armament to deal with them.
Another forerunner of the torpedo boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat ("Falcon"), built in 1885. Designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the Isle of Dogs, London Yarrow shipyard in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder (37 mm) quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached , and at 203 tons, was the largest torpedo boat built to date. In her trials in 1889, "Kotaka" demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, and was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas. The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for "Kotaka", "considered Japan to have effectively invented the destroyer".
The German aviso , launched in 1886, was designed as a ""torpedojäger"" (torpedo hunter), intended to screen the fleet against attacks by torpedo boats. The ship was significantly larger than torpedo boats of the period, displacing some , with an armament of guns and Hotchkiss revolver cannon.
The first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat. Essentially very small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes and an adequate gun armament, intended for hunting down smaller enemy boats. By the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers, which were much faster.
The first example of this was , designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, and commissioned in response to the Russian War scare. The gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. Exactly long and in beam, she displaced 550 tons. Built of steel, "Rattlesnake" was un-armoured with the exception of a -inch protective deck. She was armed with a single 4-inch/25-pounder breech-loading gun, six 3-pounder QF guns and four torpedo tubes, arranged with two fixed tubes at the bow and a set of torpedo dropping carriages on either side. Four torpedo reloads were carried.
A number of torpedo gunboat classes followed, including the "Grasshopper" class, the , the and the – all built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s and the 1890s.
Fernando Villaamil, second officer of the Ministry of the Navy of Spain, designed his own torpedo gunboat to combat the threat from the torpedo boat. He asked several British shipyards to submit proposals capable of fulfilling these specifications. In 1885 the Spanish Navy chose the design submitted by the shipyard of James and George Thomson of Clydebank. ("Destroyer" in Spanish) was laid down at the end of the year, launched in 1886, and commissioned in 1887.
She displaced 348 tons, and was the first warship equipped with twin triple-expansion engines generating , for a maximum speed of , which made her one of the faster ships in the world in 1888. She was armed with one Spanish-designed Hontoria breech-loading gun, four (6-pounder) Nordenfelt guns, two (3-pdr) Hotchkiss cannons and two Schwartzkopff torpedo tubes. The ship carried three torpedoes per tube. She was manned by a crew of 60.
In terms of gunnery, speed and dimensions, the specialised design to chase torpedo boats and her high seas capabilities, "Destructor" was an important precursor to the torpedo boat destroyer.
The first classes of ships to bear the formal designation "torpedo boat destroyer" (TBD) were the of two ships and of two ships of the Royal Navy.
Early torpedo gunboat designs lacked the range and speed to keep up with the fleet they were supposed to protect. In 1892, the Third Sea Lord, Rear Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher ordered the development of a new type of ships equipped with the then novel water-tube boilers and quick-firing small calibre guns. Six ships to the specifications circulated by the Admiralty were ordered initially, comprising three different designs each produced by a different shipbuilder: and from John I. Thornycroft & Company, and from Yarrows, and and from Laird, Son & Company.
These torpedo boat destroyers all featured a turtleback (i.e. rounded) forecastle that was characteristic of early British TBDs. and were both built by Thornycroft, displaced 260 tons (287.8 tons full load) and were 185 feet in length. They were armed with one 12-pounder gun and three 6-pounder guns, with one fixed 18-in torpedo tube in the bow plus two more torpedo tubes on a revolving mount abaft the two funnels. Later the bow torpedo tube was removed and two more 6-pounder guns added instead. They produced 4,200 hp from a pair of Thornycroft water-tube boilers, giving them a top speed of 27 knots, giving the range and speed to travel effectively with a battle fleet. In common with subsequent early Thornycroft boats, they had sloping sterns and double rudders.
The French navy, an extensive user of torpedo boats, built its first torpedo boat destroyer in 1899, with the 'torpilleur d'escadre'. The United States commissioned its first torpedo boat destroyer, , Destroyer No. 1, in 1902 and by 1906 there were 16 destroyers in service with the US Navy.
Torpedo boat destroyer designs continued to evolve around the turn of the 20th century in several key ways. The first was the introduction of the steam turbine. The spectacular unauthorized demonstration of the turbine powered "Turbinia" at the 1897 Spithead Navy Review, which, significantly, was of torpedo boat size, prompted the Royal Navy to order a prototype turbine powered destroyer, of 1899. This was the first turbine warship of any kind and achieved a remarkable on sea trials. By 1910 the turbine had been widely adopted by all navies for their faster ships.
The second development was the replacement of the torpedo-boat-style turtleback foredeck by a raised forecastle for the new s built in 1903, which provided better sea-keeping as well as more space below deck.
The first warship to use only fuel oil propulsion was the Royal Navy's torpedo boat destroyer , after experiments in 1904, although the obsolescence of coal as a fuel in British warships was delayed by its availability. Other navies also adopted oil, for instance the USN with the of 1909.
In spite of all this variety, destroyers adopted a largely similar pattern. The hull was long and narrow, with a relatively shallow draft. The bow was either raised in a forecastle or covered under a turtleback; underneath this were the crew spaces, extending to the way along the hull. Aft of the crew spaces was as much engine space as the technology of the time would allow: several boilers and engines or turbines. Above deck, one or more quick-firing guns were mounted in the bows, in front of the bridge; several more were mounted amidships and astern. Two tube mountings (later on, multiple mountings) were generally found amidships.
Between 1892 and 1914 destroyers became markedly larger: initially 275 tons with a length of for the Royal Navy's first of torpedo boat destroyers, up to the First World War with long destroyers displacing 1000 tons was not unusual. However, construction remained focused on putting the biggest possible engines into a small hull, resulting in a somewhat flimsy construction. Often hulls were built of high-tensile steel only 1/8 in thick.
By 1910 the steam-driven displacement (that is, not hydroplaning) torpedo boat had become redundant as a separate type. Germany nevertheless continued to build such boats until the end of World War I, although these were effectively small coastal destroyers. In fact Germany never distinguished between the two types, giving them pennant numbers in the same series and never giving names to destroyers. Ultimately the term "torpedo boat" came to be attached to a quite different vessel – the very fast hydroplaning motor driven MTB.
Navies originally built torpedo boat destroyers to protect against torpedo boats, but admirals soon appreciated the flexibility of the fast, multi-purpose vessels that resulted. Vice-Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker laid down destroyer duties for the Royal Navy:
Early destroyers were extremely cramped places to live, being "without a doubt magnificent fighting vessels... but unable to stand bad weather". During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, the commander of the torpedo boat destroyer IJN "Akatsuki" described "being in command of a destroyer for a long period, especially in wartime... is not very good for the health". Stating that he had originally been strong and healthy, he continued, "life on a destroyer in winter, with bad food, no comforts, would sap the powers of the strongest men in the long run. A "destroyer" is always more uncomfortable than the others, and rain, snow, and "sea-water" combine to make them damp; in fact, in bad weather there is not a dry spot where one can rest for a moment."
The Japanese destroyer-commander finished with, "Yesterday I looked at myself in a mirror for a long time; I was disagreeably surprised to see my face thin, full of wrinkles, and as old as though I were fifty. My clothes (uniform) cover nothing but a skeleton, and my bones are full of rheumatism."
In 1898, the US Navy officially classified , a long all steel vessel displacing 165 tons, as a "torpedo boat." However, her commander, LT. John C. Fremont, described her as "...a compact mass of machinery not meant to keep the sea nor to live in... as five sevenths of the ship are taken up by machinery and fuel, whilst the remaining two sevenths, fore and aft, are the crew's quarters; officers forward and the men placed aft. And even in those spaces are placed anchor engines, steering engines, steam pipes, etc. rendering them unbearably hot in tropical regions."
The torpedo boat destroyer's first major use in combat came during the Japanese surprise attack on the Russian fleet anchored in Port Arthur at the opening of the Russo-Japanese War on 8 February 1904.
Three destroyer divisions attacked the Russian fleet in port, firing a total of 18 torpedoes. However, only two Russian battleships, and , as well as the protected cruiser , were seriously damaged due to the proper deployment of torpedo nets. "Tsesarevich", the Russian flagship, had her nets deployed, with at least four enemy torpedoes "hung up" in them, and other warships were similarly saved from further damage by their nets.
While capital ship engagements were scarce in World War I, destroyer units engaged almost continually in raiding and patrol actions. The first shot of the war at sea was fired on 5 August 1914 by a destroyer of the 2nd Flotilla, , in an engagement with the German auxiliary minelayer .
Destroyers were involved in the skirmishes that prompted the Battle of Heligoland Bight, and filled a range of roles in the Battle of Gallipoli, acting as troop transports and as fire-support vessels, as well as their fleet-screening role. Over 80 British destroyers and 60 German torpedo-boats took part in the Battle of Jutland, which involved pitched small-boat actions between the main fleets, and several foolhardy attacks by unsupported destroyers on capital ships. Jutland also concluded with a messy night action between the German High Seas Fleet and part of the British destroyer screen.
The threat evolved by World War I with the development of the submarine, or U-boat. The submarine had the potential to hide from gunfire and close underwater to fire torpedoes. Early-war destroyers had the speed and armament to intercept submarines before they submerged, either by gunfire or by ramming. Destroyers also had a shallow enough draft that torpedoes would find it difficult to hit them.
The desire to attack submarines underwater led to rapid destroyer evolution during the war. They were quickly equipped with strengthened bows for ramming, and depth charges and hydrophones for identifying submarine targets. The first submarine casualty to a destroyer was the German , rammed by on 29 October 1914. While "U-19" was only damaged, the next month successfully sank . The first depth-charge sinking was on 4 December 1916, when was sunk by HMS "Llewellyn".
The submarine threat meant that many destroyers spent their time on anti-submarine patrol. Once Germany adopted unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, destroyers were called on to escort merchant convoys. US Navy destroyers were among the first American units to be dispatched upon the American entry to the war, and a squadron of Japanese destroyers even joined Allied patrols in the Mediterranean. Patrol duty was far from safe; of the 67 British destroyers lost in the war, collisions accounted for 18, while 12 were wrecked.
At the end of the war, the state-of-the-art was represented by the British W class.
The trend during World War I had been towards larger destroyers with heavier armaments. A number of opportunities to fire at capital ships had been missed during the War, because destroyers had expended all their torpedoes in an initial salvo. The British V and W classes of the late war had sought to address this by mounting six torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, instead of the four or two on earlier models. The 'V' and 'W's set the standard of destroyer building well into the 1920s.
The two Romanian destroyers and , on the other hand, had the greatest firepower of all destroyers in the world throughout the first half of the 1920s. This was largely due to the fact that, between their commissioning in 1920 and 1926, they retained the armament that they had while serving in the Italian Navy as scout cruisers ("esploratori"). When initially ordered by Romania in 1913, the Romanian specifications envisioned three 120 mm guns, a caliber which would eventually be adopted as the standard for future Italian destroyers. Armed with three 152 mm and four 76 mm guns after being completed as scout cruisers, the two warships were officially re-rated as destroyers by the Romanian Navy. The two Romanian warships were thus the destroyers with the greatest firepower in the world throughout much of the interwar period. As of 1939, when the Second World War started, their artillery, although changed, was still close to cruiser standards, amounting to nine heavy naval guns (five of 120 mm and four of 76 mm). In addition, they retained their two twin 457 mm torpedo tubes as well as two machine guns, plus the capacity to carry up to 50 mines.
The next major innovation came with the Japanese or 'special type', designed in 1923 and delivered in 1928. The design was initially noted for its powerful armament of six five-inch (127 mm) guns and three triple torpedo mounts. The second batch of the class gave the guns high-angle turrets for anti-aircraft warfare, and the oxygen-fueled 'Long Lance' Type 93 torpedo. The later of 1931 further improved the torpedo armament by storing its reload torpedoes close at hand in the superstructure, allowing reloading within 15 minutes.
Most other nations replied with similar larger ships. The US adopted twin five-inch (127 mm) guns, and the subsequent and es (the latter of 1934) increased the number of torpedo tubes to 12 and 16 respectively.
In the Mediterranean, the Italian Navy's building of very fast light cruisers of the prompted the French to produce exceptional destroyer designs. The French had long been keen on large destroyers, with their of 1922 displacing over 2,000 tons and carrying 130 mm guns; a further three similar classes were produced around 1930. The of 1935 carried five guns and nine torpedo tubes, but could achieve speeds of , which remains the record speed for a steamship and for any destroyer. The Italians' own destroyers were almost as swift, most Italian designs of the 1930s being rated at over , while carrying torpedoes and either four or six 120 mm guns.
Germany started to build destroyers again during the 1930s as part of Hitler's rearmament program. The Germans were also fond of large destroyers, but while the initial Type 1934 displaced over 3,000 tons, their armament was equal to smaller vessels. This changed from the Type 1936 onwards, which mounted heavy guns. German destroyers also used innovative high-pressure steam machinery: while this should have helped their efficiency, it more often resulted in mechanical problems.
Once German and Japanese rearmament became clear, the British and American navies consciously focused on building destroyers that were smaller but more numerous than those used by other nations. The British built a series of destroyers (the to ) which were about 1,400 tons standard displacement, had four guns and eight torpedo tubes; the American of 1938 similar in size, but carried five guns and ten torpedo tubes. Realizing the need for heavier gun armament, the British built the of 1936 (sometimes called "Afridi" after one of two lead ships). These ships displaced 1,850 tons and were armed with eight guns in four twin turrets and four torpedo tubes. These were followed by the J-class and L-class destroyers, with six guns in twin turrets and eight torpedo tubes.
Anti-submarine sensors included sonar (or ASDIC), although training in their use was indifferent. Anti-submarine weapons changed little, and ahead-throwing weapons, a need recognized in World War I, had made no progress.
During the 1920s and 1930s, destroyers were often deployed to areas of diplomatic tension or humanitarian disaster. British and American destroyers were common on the Chinese coast and rivers, even supplying landing parties to protect colonial interests.
By World War II the threat had evolved once again. Submarines were more effective, and aircraft had become important weapons of naval warfare; once again the early-war fleet destroyers were ill-equipped for combating these new targets. They were fitted with new light anti-aircraft guns, radar, and forward-launched ASW weapons, in addition to their existing dual-purpose guns, depth charges, and torpedoes. Increasing size allowed improved internal arrangement of propulsion machinery with compartmentation so ships were less likely to be sunk by a single hit. In most cases torpedo and/or dual-purpose gun armament was reduced to accommodate new anti-air and anti-submarine weapons. By this time the destroyers had become large, multi-purpose vessels, expensive targets in their own right. As a result, casualties on destroyers were among the highest.
The need for large numbers of anti-submarine ships led to the introduction of smaller and cheaper specialized anti-submarine warships called corvettes and frigates by the Royal Navy and destroyer escorts by the USN. A similar programme was belatedly started by the Japanese (see ). These ships had the size and displacement of the original torpedo boat destroyers that the contemporary destroyer had evolved from.
Some conventional destroyers were completed in the late 1940s and 1950s which built on wartime experience. These vessels were significantly larger than wartime ships and had fully automatic main guns, unit machinery, radar, sonar, and antisubmarine weapons such as the Squid mortar. Examples include the British , US , and the Soviet s.
Some World War II–vintage ships were modernized for anti-submarine warfare, and to extend their service lives, to avoid having to build (expensive) brand-new ships. Examples include the US FRAM I programme and the British Type 15 frigates converted from fleet destroyers.
The advent of surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-surface missiles, such as the Exocet, in the early 1960s changed naval warfare. Guided missile destroyers (DDG in the US Navy) were developed to carry these weapons and protect the fleet from air, submarine and surface threats. Examples include the Soviet , the British , and the US .
21st century destroyers tend to display features such as large, slab sides without complicated corners and crevices to keep the radar cross-section small, vertical launch systems to carry a large number of missiles at high readiness to fire and helicopter flight decks and hangars.
is currently in the process of adding up to 18 ships of the Type 052D destroyer class. Serial construction is underway for at-least 6 of the larger and more powerful Type 055 destroyer, which at the current rate of production, should be complete by late 2019 or early 2020.
In addition, six multi-mission surface combat ships are planned under the name 'Mehrzweckkampfschiff 180' (MKS 180), which will have destroyer-size and corresponding capabilities (length: 163m, displacement: 10,400 tons)
, as of 2018, has 67 active "Arleigh Burke" destroyers and 15 planned or under construction. The new ships will be the upgraded "flight III" version. Each "Arleigh Burke" will remain in commission for at least 45 years, with the oldest operating until after 2035 and the newest operating until after 2080. There are no plans for any additional destroyers beyond the third.
A number of countries have destroyers preserved as museum ships. These include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8779 |
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles.
From a conflicted and unhappy childhood, Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary works published in such magazines as "The New Yorker" and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Following the breakup of the circle, Parker traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her successes there, including two Academy Award nominations, were curtailed when her involvement in left-wing politics resulted in her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist.
Dismissive of her own talents, she deplored her reputation as a "wisecracker". Nevertheless, both her literary output and reputation for sharp wit have endured. Some of her works have been set to music; adaptations notably include the operatic song cycle "Hate Songs" by composer Marcus Paus.
Also known as Dot or Dottie, Parker was born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893 to Jacob Henry Rothschild and his wife Eliza Annie (née Marston) (1851–1913) at 732 Ocean Avenue in Long Branch, New Jersey. Her parents had a summer beach cottage there. Parker's mother was of Scottish descent, and her father was of German Jewish descent, son of Sampson Jacob Rothschild (1818–1899), a merchant who immigrated to the USA around 1846 settling in Monroe, AL, and Mary Greissman (b. 1824), both Prussian-born Jewish immigrants. Her father was one of five known siblings: Simon (1854–1908), Samuel (b. 1857), Hannah (1860–1911, later Mrs William Henry Theobald), and the youngest, Martin Rothschild, born in Manhattan, New York on December 12, 1865, who perished in the sinking of the Titanic. Parker wrote in her essay "My Hometown" that her parents returned to their Manhattan apartment shortly after Labor Day so that she could be called a true New Yorker. Her mother died in West End in July 1898, a month before Parker's fifth birthday.
Her father remarried in 1900 to Eleanor Frances Lewis (1851–1903). Parker hated her father, whom she accused of physical abuse; and despised her stepmother, whom she refused to call "mother," "stepmother," or "Eleanor," instead referring to her as "the housekeeper" – though her biographer Marion Meade refers to this account as "largely false," stating that the atmosphere in which Parker was growing up was indulgent, affectionate, supportive and generous. Parker grew up on the Upper West Side and attended a Roman Catholic elementary school at the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament on West 79th Street with her sister, Helen, although their father was Jewish and her stepmother was Protestant. (Mercedes de Acosta was a classmate.) Parker once joked that she was asked to leave following her characterization of the Immaculate Conception as "spontaneous combustion." Her stepmother died in 1903, when Parker was nine. Parker later attended Miss Dana's School, a finishing school in Morristown, New Jersey. She graduated from Miss Dana's School in 1911, at the age of 18, according to Authur, though other authors (e.g. Rhonda Pettit, Marion Meade) state she never graduated from either school. Following her father's death in 1913, she played piano at a dancing school to earn a living while she worked on her poetry.
She sold her first poem to "Vanity Fair" magazine in 1914 and some months later was hired as an editorial assistant for "Vogue", another Condé Nast magazine. She moved to "Vanity Fair" as a staff writer after two years at "Vogue."
In 1917, she met a Wall Street stockbroker, Edwin Pond Parker II
(1893–1933) and they married before he left to serve in World War I with the U.S. Army 4th Division. Dorothy Parker filed for divorce in 1928. He later remarried, to Anne E. O’Brien, formerly probation officer of the Juvenile Court and died at 39, from an overdose of a sleeping powder for pain following a dental procedure. Dorothy Parker retained her married name, though she remarried the screenwriter and former actor Alan Campbell, and moved to Hollywood.
Parker's career took off in 1918 while she was writing theater criticism for "Vanity Fair," filling in for the vacationing P. G. Wodehouse. At the magazine, she met Robert Benchley, who became a close friend, and Robert E. Sherwood. The trio began lunching at the Algonquin Hotel on a near-daily basis and became founding members of what became known as the Algonquin Round Table. The Round Table numbered among its members the newspaper columnists Franklin Pierce Adams and Alexander Woollcott. Through their publication of Parker's lunchtime remarks and short verses, particularly in Adams' column "The Conning Tower", Dorothy began developing a national reputation as a wit. When the group was informed that famously taciturn former president Calvin Coolidge had died, Parker remarked, "How could they tell?"
Parker's caustic wit as a critic initially proved popular, but she was eventually dismissed by "Vanity Fair" in 1920 after her criticisms too often offended powerful producers. In solidarity, Benchley resigned in protest. (Sherwood is sometimes reported to have done so as well, but in actuality he had been fired in December 1919. She soon started working for "Ainslee's Magazine", which had a higher circulation. She also published pieces in "Vanity Fair," which was happier to publish her than employ her, "The Smart Set", and "The American Mercury", but also in the popular "Ladies’ Home Journal", "Saturday Evening Post," and "Life".
When Harold Ross founded "The New Yorker" in 1925, Parker and Benchley were part of a board of editors established by Ross to allay concerns of his investors. Parker's first piece for the magazine was published in its second issue. Parker became famous for her short, viciously humorous poems, many highlighting ludicrous aspects of her many (largely unsuccessful) romantic affairs and others wistfully considering the appeal of suicide.
The next 15 years were Parker's greatest period of productivity and success. In the 1920s alone she published some 300 poems and free verses in "Vanity Fair," "Vogue," "The Conning Tower" and "The New Yorker" as well as "Life", "McCall's" and "The New Republic." Her poem, "Song in a Minor Key" was published during a candid interview with New York N.E.A. writer, Josephine Van de Grift.
Parker published her first volume of poetry, "Enough Rope," in 1926. The collection sold 47,000 copies and garnered impressive reviews. "The Nation" described her verse as "caked with a salty humor, rough with splinters of disillusion, and tarred with a bright black authenticity." Although some critics, notably "The New York Times" reviewer, dismissed her work as "flapper verse," the volume helped affirm Parker's reputation for sparkling wit. Parker released two more volumes of verse, "Sunset Gun" (1928) and "Death and Taxes" (1931), along with the short story collections "Laments for the Living" (1930) and "After Such Pleasures" (1933). "Not So Deep as a Well" (1936) collected much of the material previously published in "Rope," "Gun," and "Death" and she re-released her fiction with a few new pieces in 1939 under the title "Here Lies."
She collaborated with playwright Elmer Rice to create "Close Harmony," which ran on Broadway in December 1924. The play was well received in out-of-town previews and was favorably reviewed in New York but it closed after a run of just 24 performances. It did become a successful touring production under the title "The Lady Next Door,"
Some of Parker's most popular work was published in "The New Yorker" in the form of acerbic book reviews under the byline "Constant Reader," Her response to the whimsy of A. A. Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner" was "Tonstant Weader fwowed up". Her reviews appeared semi-regularly from 1927 to 1933, were widely read, and were later published in a collection under the name "Constant Reader" in 1970.
Her best-known short story, "Big Blonde," published in "The Bookman" magazine, was awarded the O. Henry Award as the best short story of 1929. Her short stories, though often witty, were also spare and incisive, and more bittersweet than comic; her style is often described as sardonic.
Parker eventually separated from her husband, divorcing in 1928. She had a number of affairs, her lovers including reporter-turned-playwright Charles MacArthur and the publisher Seward Collins. Her relationship with MacArthur resulted in a pregnancy. Parker is alleged to have said, "how like me, to put all my eggs into one bastard," She had an abortion, and fell into a depression that culminated in her first attempt at suicide.
Toward the end of this period, Parker began to become more politically aware and active. What would become a lifelong commitment to activism began in 1927 when she became concerned about the pending executions of Sacco and Vanzetti. Parker traveled to Boston to protest the proceedings. She and fellow Round Tabler Ruth Hale were arrested, and Parker eventually pleaded guilty to a charge of "loitering and sauntering," paying a $5 fine.
In 1932, Parker met Alan Campbell, an actor with aspirations to become a screenwriter. They married two years later in Raton, New Mexico. Campbell's mixed parentage was the reverse of Parker's: he had a German-Jewish mother and a Scottish father. She learned that he was bisexual and later proclaimed in public that he was "queer as a billy goat". The pair moved to Hollywood and signed ten-week contracts with Paramount Pictures, with Campbell (who was also expected to act) earning $250 per week and Parker earning $1,000 per week. They would eventually earn $2,000 and in some instances upwards of $5,000 per week as freelancers for various studios. She and Campbell worked on more than 15 films.
In 1936, Parker contributed lyrics for the song "I Wished on the Moon," with music by Ralph Rainger. The song was introduced in "The Big Broadcast of 1936" by Bing Crosby.
With Campbell and Robert Carson, she wrote the script for the 1937 film "A Star Is Born," for which they were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing—Screenplay. She wrote additional dialogue for "The Little Foxes" in 1941. Together with Frank Cavett, she received a nomination for an Oscar for the screenplay of "Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman" (1947), starring Susan Hayward.
After the United States entered the Second World War, Parker and Alexander Woollcott collaborated to produce an anthology of her work as part of a series published by Viking Press for servicemen stationed overseas. With an introduction by W. Somerset Maugham, the volume compiled over two dozen of Parker's short stories, along with selected poems from "Enough Rope," "Sunset Gun," and "Death and Taxes," It was published in the United States in 1944 under the title "The Portable Dorothy Parker." Hers is one of three "Portable" series, including volumes devoted to William Shakespeare and The Bible, that have remained in continuous print.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Parker became an increasingly vocal advocate of civil liberties and civil rights, and a frequent critic of authority figures. During the Great Depression, she was among numerous American intellectuals and artists who became involved in related social movements. She reported in 1937 on the Loyalist cause in Spain for the Communist magazine, 'The New Masses.' At the behest of Otto Katz, a covert Soviet Comintern agent and operative of German Communist Party agent Willi Münzenberg, Parker helped to found the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in 1936, which the FBI suspected of being a Communist Party front. The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League's membership eventually grew to some 4,000 strong. According to David Caute, its often wealthy members were "able to contribute as much to [Communist] Party funds as the whole American working class," although they may not have been intending to support the Party cause.
Parker also served as chair of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee's fundraising arm, "Spanish Refugee Appeal". She organized Project Rescue Ship to transport Loyalist veterans to Mexico, headed Spanish Children's Relief, and lent her name to many other left-wing causes and organizations. Her former Round Table friends saw less and less of her, and her relationship with Robert Benchley became particularly strained (although they would reconcile). Parker met S. J. Perelman at a party in 1932 and, despite a rocky start (Perelman called it "a scarifying ordeal"), they remained friends for the next 35 years. They became neighbors when the Perelmans helped Parker and Campbell buy a run-down farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, near New Hope, a popular summer destination among many writers and artists from New York.
Parker was listed as a Communist by the publication "Red Channels" in 1950. The FBI compiled a 1,000-page dossier on her because of her suspected involvement in Communism during the era when Senator Joseph McCarthy was raising alarms about communists in government and Hollywood. As a result, movie studio bosses placed her on the Hollywood blacklist. Her final screenplay was "The Fan," a 1949 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan", directed by Otto Preminger.
Her marriage to Campbell was tempestuous, with tensions exacerbated by Parker's increasing alcohol consumption and Campbell's long-term affair with a married woman in Europe during World War II. They divorced in 1947, remarried in 1950, then separated in 1952 when Parker moved back to New York. From 1957 to 1962, she lived at the Volney Residential Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side and wrote book reviews for "Esquire magazine." Her writing became increasingly erratic due to her continued abuse of alcohol. She returned to Hollywood in 1961, reconciled with Campbell, and collaborated with him on a number of unproduced projects until Campbell died from a drug overdose in 1963.
Following Campbell's death, Parker returned to New York City and the Volney Residential hotel. In her later years, she denigrated the Algonquin Round Table, although it had brought her such early notoriety:
Parker occasionally participated in radio programs, including "Information Please" (as a guest) and "Author, Author" (as a regular panelist). She wrote for the "Columbia Workshop", and both Ilka Chase and Tallulah Bankhead used her material for radio monologues.
Parker died on June 7, 1967, of a heart attack at the age of 73. In her will, she bequeathed her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. Following King's death, her estate was bequeathed by his family to the NAACP. Her executor, Lillian Hellman, bitterly but unsuccessfully contested this disposition. Her ashes remained unclaimed in various places, including her attorney Paul O'Dwyer's filing cabinet, for approximately 17 years.
In 1988, the NAACP claimed Parker's remains and designed a memorial garden for them outside its Baltimore headquarters. The plaque reads,
On August 22, 1992, the 99th anniversary of Parker's birth, the United States Postal Service issued a 29¢ U.S. commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series. The Algonquin Round Table, as well as the number of other literary and theatrical greats who lodged at the hotel, contributed to the Algonquin Hotel being designated in 1987 as a New York City Historic Landmark. In 1996, the hotel was designated as a National Literary Landmark by the Friends of Libraries USA, based on the contributions of Parker and other members of the Round Table. The organization's bronze plaque is attached to the front of the hotel. Parker's birthplace at the Jersey Shore was also designated a National Literary Landmark by Friends of Libraries USA in 2005 and a bronze plaque marks the former site of her family house.
In 2014, Parker was elected to the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Parker inspired a number of fictional characters in several plays of her day. These included "Lily Malone" in Philip Barry's "Hotel Universe" (1932), "Mary Hilliard" (played by Ruth Gordon) in George Oppenheimer's "Here Today" (1932), "Paula Wharton" in Gordon's 1944 play "Over Twenty-one" (directed by George S. Kaufman), and "Julia Glenn" in the Kaufman-Moss Hart collaboration "Merrily We Roll Along" (1934). Kaufman's representation of her in "Merrily We Roll Along" led Parker, once his Round Table compatriot, to despise him. She also was portrayed as "Daisy Lester" in Charles Brackett's 1934 novel "Entirely Surrounded". She is mentioned in the original introductory lyrics in Cole Porter's song "Just One of Those Things" from the 1935 Broadway musical "Jubilee", which have been retained in the standard interpretation of the song as part of the Great American Songbook.
Parker is featured as a character in the novel "The Dorothy Parker Murder Case" by George Baxt (1984), in a series of "Algonquin Round Table Mysteries" by J.J. Murphy (2011– ), and in Ellen Meister's novel "Farewell, Dorothy Parker" (2013). She is the main character in "Love For Miss Dottie", a short story by Larry N Mayer, which was selected by writer Mary Gaitskill for the collection "Best New American Voices 2009" (Harcourt).
She has been portrayed on film and television by Dolores Sutton in "F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood" (1976), Rosemary Murphy in "Julia" (1977), Bebe Neuwirth in "Dash and Lilly" (1999), and Jennifer Jason Leigh in "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994). Neuwirth was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance, and Leigh received a number of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe nomination.
Television creator Amy Sherman-Palladino named her production company 'Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions' in tribute to Parker.
Tucson actress Lesley Abrams wrote and performed the one-woman show "Dorothy Parker's Last Call" in 2009 in Tucson, Arizona at the Winding Road Theater Ensemble. She reprised the role at the Live Theatre Workshop in Tucson in 2014. The play was selected to be part of the Capital Fringe Festival in DC in 2010.
In 2018, American drag queen Miz Cracker played Parker in the celebrity-impersonation game show episode of the Season 10 of "Rupaul's Drag Race".
In the 2010s some of her poems from the early 20th century have been set to music by the composer Marcus Paus as the operatic song cycle "Hate Songs for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra" (2014); Paus' "Hate Songs" was included on Tora Augestad's and the Oslo Philharmonic's album "Portraying Passion: Works by Weill/Paus/Ives" (2018) with works by Paus, Kurt Weill and Charles Ives. It was described by musicologist Ralph P. Locke as "one of the most engaging works" in recent years; "the cycle expresses Parker's favorite theme: how awful human beings are, especially the male of the species."
In 2014, lyrics taken from her book of poetry "Not So Deep as a Well" were, with the authorization of the NAACP, used by Canadian singer Myriam Gendron to create a folk album of the same name. Also in 2014, Chicago jazz bassist/singer/composer Katie Ernst issued her album "Little Words", consisting of her authorized settings of seven of Parker's poems. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8781 |
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion"; the "play for voices" "Under Milk Wood"; and stories and radio broadcasts such as "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog". He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his premature death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet".
Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. An undistinguished pupil, he left school at 16 and became a journalist for a short time. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager, and the publication in 1934 of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara, whom he married in 1937. In 1938, they moved to the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne where from 1949 they settled permanently and brought up their three children.
Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficult. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940s brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.
Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as "A Child's Christmas in Wales". During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma, from which he never recovered. He died on 9 November 1953. His body was returned to Wales, where he was interred at the churchyard of St Martin's in Laugharne on 25 November 1953.
Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. His position as one of the great modern poets has been much discussed, and he remains popular with the public.
Dylan Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 in Swansea, the son of Florence Hannah ("née" Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school. Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home. Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which could be translated as "son of the sea", after Dylan ail Don, a character in "The Mabinogion". His middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles. Dylan, pronounced [ˈdəlan] (Dull-an) in Welsh, caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the "dull one". When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation and gave instructions that it should be Dillan .
The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth. His childhood featured regular summer trips to Llansteffan where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there. His mother's family, the Williamses, lived in such farms as Waunfwlchan, Llwyngwyn, Maesgwyn and Penycoed. The memory of Fernhill, a dairy farm owned by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem "Fern Hill". Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood and struggled with these throughout his life. Thomas was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy. Thomas' formal education began at Mrs Hole's dame school, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in "Quite Early One Morning":
Never was there such a dame school as ours, so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom, where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick under the table during English literature.
In October 1925, Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading. In his first year one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. During his final school years he began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27 April (1930), is entitled "Osiris, come to Isis". In June 1928 Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death. In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the "South Wales Daily Post", only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.
In his free time, he joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles. In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang". In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.
Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published: "And death shall have no dominion", "Before I Knocked" and "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower". "And death shall have no dominion" appeared in the "New English Weekly" in May 1933. When "Light breaks where no sun shines" appeared in "The Listener" in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London, T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas and his first poetry volume, "18 Poems", was published in December 1934. "18 Poems" was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that the work was "the sort of bomb that bursts no more than once in three years". The volume was critically acclaimed and won a contest run by the "Sunday Referee", netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors including Philip Larkin. In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Thomas introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends, now known as The Kardomah Gang. In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt. On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him. In December 1935 Thomas contributed the poem "The Hand That Signed the Paper" to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly "New Verse". In 1936, his next collection "Twenty-five Poems", published by J. M. Dent, also received much critical praise. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.
In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and aged 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium. Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head in her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met. Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and in the second half of 1936 were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on 11 July 1937. In early 1938 they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on 30 January 1939.
By the late 1930s, Thomas was embraced as the "poetic herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. Thomas refused to align himself with them and declined to sign their manifesto. He later stated that he believed they were "intellectual muckpots leaning on a theory". Despite this, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.
During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930s, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as "The Map of Love". Ten stories in his next book, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in "The Map of Love" and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales. Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances. Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire "The Death of the King's Canary", though due to fears of libel the work was not published until 1976.
At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "an unreliable lung". Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service. Saddened to see his friends going on active service, he continued drinking and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.
In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a "three nights' blitz". Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded: "Our Swansea is dead". Soon after the bombing raids, Thomas wrote a radio play, "Return Journey Home", which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on 15 June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.
In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the "Daily Post". Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942, "This Is Colour" (a history of the British dyeing industry) and "New Towns For Old" (on post-war reconstruction). "These Are The Men" (1943) was a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanies Leni Riefenstahl's footage of an early Nuremberg Rally. "Conquest of a Germ" (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis. "Our Country" (1945) was a romantic tour of Britain set to Thomas's poetry.
In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity. In March 1943 Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.
In 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaen Cwm near Llangain, where Thomas resumed writing poetry, completing "Holy Spring" and "Vision and Prayer". In September Thomas and Caitlin moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), which inspired Thomas to pen the radio piece "Quite Early One Morning", a sketch for his later work, "Under Milk Wood". Of the poetry written at this time, of note is "Fern Hill", believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaen Cwm in mid-1945.
Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943 he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled "Reminiscences of Childhood" for the Welsh BBC. In December 1944 he recorded "Quite Early One Morning" (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC) but when Davies offered it for national broadcast BBC London turned it down. On 31 August 1945 the BBC Home Service broadcast "Quite Early One Morning", and in the three years beginning October 1945, Thomas made over a hundred broadcasts for the corporation. Thomas was employed not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.
By late September 1945 the Thomases had left Wales and were living with various friends in London. The publication of "Deaths and Entrances" in 1946 was a turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in "The Spectator", "This book alone, in my opinion, ranks him as a major poet".
In the second half of 1945 Thomas began reading for the BBC Radio programme, "Book of Verse", broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished. On 29 September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the "Third Programme", a high-culture network which provided opportunities for Thomas. He appeared in the play "Comus" for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" and Satan in an adaptation of "Paradise Lost". Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who regarded him as "useful should a younger generation poet be needed". He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and within Britain was "in every sense a celebrity".
Thomas visited the home of historian A. J. P. Taylor in Disley. Although Taylor disliked him intensely, he stayed for a month, drinking "on a monumental scale", up to 15 or 20 pints of beer a day. In late 1946 Thomas turned up at the Taylors' again, this time homeless and with Caitlin. Margaret Taylor let them take up residence in the garden summerhouse. After a three-month holiday in Italy, Thomas and family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford. He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts and worked further on his ideas for "Under Milk Wood". In May 1949 Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor. Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. Just before moving into there, Thomas rented "Pelican House" opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents who lived there from 1949 until 1953. It was there that his father died and the funeral was held.
Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on 25 July 1949.
American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses. The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium of the Poetry Centre in New York, took in about 40 venues. During the tour Thomas was invited to many parties and functions and on several occasions became drunk – going out of his way to shock people – and was a difficult guest. Thomas drank before some of his readings, though it is argued he may have pretended to be more affected by it than he actually was. The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicating a performer he was and how the tension would build before a performance: "Would he arrive only to break down on the stage? Would some dismaying scene take place at the faculty party? Would he be offensive, violent, obscene?" Caitlin said in her memoir, "Nobody ever needed encouragement less, and he was drowned in it."
On returning to Britain Thomas began work on two further poems, "In the white giant's thigh", which he read on the "Third Programme" in September 1950, and the incomplete "In country heaven". 1950 is also believed to be the year that he began work on "Under Milk Wood", under the working title 'The Town That Was Mad'. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'. Despite Cleverdon's urges, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary entitled 'Persian Oil'. Early that year Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris describes as "unusually blunt"; the ribald "Lament" and an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father "Do not go gentle into that good night".
Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures including the likes of T. S. Eliot. Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if Thomas had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas would describe the flat as his "London house of horror" and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.
Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin – after she had discovered he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems. The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements. The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, "A Child's Christmas in Wales", became his most popular prose work in America. The original 1952 recording of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, stating that it is "credited with launching the audiobook industry in the United States".
In April 1953 Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of "Under Milk Wood", solo, for the first time at Harvard University on 3 May. A week later the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York. He met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.
During this penultimate tour Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky who had become an admirer after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Thomas would provide the libretto on the theme of "the rediscovery of love and language in what might be left after the world after the bomb." The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his "In Memoriam Dylan Thomas" for tenor, string quartet, and four trombones. The first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.
Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair. During this time Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster and treated him for gout and gastritis.
After returning home, Thomas worked on "Under Milk Wood" in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on 15 October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America. Thomas flew to the States on 19 October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record "Under Milk Wood". Richard Burton starred in the first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954 the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.
Thomas's last collection "Collected Poems, 1934–1952", published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that "Thomas is the greatest living poet in the English language". Thomas's father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953 his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age and Caitlin had an abortion.
Thomas arrived in New York on 20 October 1953 to undertake another tour of poetry-reading and talks, organised by John Brinnin. Although he complained of chest trouble and gout while still in Britain, there is no record that he received medical treatment for either condition. He was in a melancholy mood about the trip and his health was poor; he relied on an inhaler to aid his breathing and there were reports that he was suffering from blackouts. His visit to say goodbye to BBC producer Philip Burton, a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice. The next day he visited a doctor for a smallpox vaccination certificate.
Plans called for a first appearance at a rehearsal of "Under Milk Wood" at the Poetry Centre. Brinnin, who was director of the Poetry Centre, did not travel to New York but remained in Boston to write. He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance, as he looked "pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self". Thomas told her he had had a terrible week, had missed her terribly and wanted to go to bed with her. Despite Reitell's previous misgivings about their relationship, they spent the rest of the day and night together. After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of "Under Milk Wood". They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.
The next day Reitell invited him to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep and spent the night at the hotel with him. Two days later, on 23 October, Herb Hannum, a friend from an earlier trip, noticed how sick Thomas looked and suggested an appointment with Feltenstein before the performances of "Under Milk Wood" that evening. Feltenstein administered injections and Thomas made it through the two performances, but collapsed immediately afterwards. Reitell later said that Feltenstein was "rather a wild doctor who thought injections would cure anything".
On the evening of 27 October Thomas attended his 39th birthday party but felt unwell and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day he took part in "Poetry and the Film", a recorded symposium at Cinema 16, with panellists Amos Vogel, Arthur Miller, Maya Deren, Parker Tyler, and Willard Maas.
A turning point came on 2 November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas had. By the end of the month over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog. On 3 November, Thomas spent most of the day in bed drinking. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, a pub he had found through Scottish poet Ruthven Todd, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring, "I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's the record!" The barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have imbibed more than half that amount. Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on 4 November. When phoned at the Chelsea that morning, he said he was feeling ill and postponed the engagement. Later he went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected his breathing. Reitell became increasingly concerned and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested she get male assistance, so she called upon the painter Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on 5 November Thomas's breathing became more difficult and his face turned blue. An ambulance was summoned.
Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes state that "the impression upon admission was acute alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain by alcohol, for which the patient was treated without response". Caitlin flew to America the following day and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were, "Is the bloody man dead yet?" She was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.
It is also now believed, however, that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia, as well as emphysema, immediately before his death. In their 2004 book "Dylan Remembered 1935–1953, Volume 2", David N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma. Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude: "The medical notes indicate that, on admission, Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung fields, both left and right." Thomas died at noon on 9 November, having never recovered from his coma.
Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes. At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death – pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite the poet's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.
The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography "Dylan Thomas in America" cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet"; Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer. Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in "Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?" claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable. FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise. Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death. Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincents, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner "was even more culpable than his use of morphine".
Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, "Caitlin Thomas – Leftover Life to Kill" (1957) and "My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story" (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship. "Ours was not only a love story, it was a drink story, because without alcohol it would never had got on its rocking feet", she wrote, and "The bar was our altar." Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs. In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.
Thomas died intestate, with assets to the value of £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Thomas's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on 24 November. Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote "The Times" obituary.
Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994 and was buried alongside him. Thomas's father "DJ" died on 16 December 1952 and his mother Florence in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009 and his youngest son Colm in 2012.
Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movement he refused to follow its creed. Instead Thomas is viewed as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful. Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote "... a further characteristic which distinguished Thomas's work from that of other poets. It was unclassifiable." Olson continued that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not explicate it.
Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle "Do not go gentle into that good night". His images were carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death and new life that linked the generations. Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite. Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones: "My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one, based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism derived (I'm afraid all this sounds wooly and pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the human anatomy".
Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and he was described by some critics as having been influenced by the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. This is attributed to Hopkins, who taught himself Welsh and who used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work. When Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. One poet Thomas greatly admired, and who is regarded as an influence, was Thomas Hardy. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited Hardy's work in his readings.
Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence. William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, "A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas", finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas. Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by poet Roy Campbell. Critics have explored the connection between the creation of Thomas's mythological pasts into his works such as "The Orchards", which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the "Mabinogion".
Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in "Fern Hill", "In Country Sleep", "Ballad of the Long-legged Bait" and "In the White Giant's Thigh" from "Under Milk Wood".
Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were "Mother Goose" rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:
I should say I wanted to write poetry in the beginning because I had fallen in love with words. The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes and before I could read them for myself I had come to love the words of them. The words alone. What the words stood for was of a very secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is the only expression I can think of, at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behaviour very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy. I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later, to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I had discovered the most important things, to me, that could be ever.
Thomas was an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" (1940) and "Quite Early One Morning" (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work was "After the Fair", printed in The New English Weekly on 15 March 1934. Jacob Korg believes that Thomas's fiction work can be classified into two main bodies, vigorous fantasies in a poetic style and, after 1939, more straightforward narratives. Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.
Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his "Collected Poems", he added "Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh." Despite this his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that "His inspiration and imagination were rooted in his Welsh background". Caitlin Thomas wrote that he worked "in a fanatically narrow groove, although there was nothing narrow about the depth and understanding of his feelings. The groove of direct hereditary descent in the land of his birth, which he never in thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."
Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's "whole attitude is that of the medieval bards." Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a 'difficult enterprise' to find traces of "cynghanedd" (consonant harmony) or "cerdd dafod" (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes his work, especially his earlier more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation: "rural and urban, chapel-going and profane, Welsh and English, Unforgiving and deeply compassionate." Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of "cynghanedd" in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt Thomas consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics; that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, Thomas's first in-depth biographer, wrote "No major English poet has ever been as Welsh as Dylan".
Although Thomas had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote, "Land of my fathers, and my fathers can keep it". While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama "The Three Weird Sisters". Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled "I only once heard Dylan express an opinion on Welsh Nationalism. He used three words. Two of them were Welsh Nationalism." Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years as he had not 'rejected enough' of the elements that Thomas disliked – "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality". Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of literary magazine "Wales", Thomas's father wrote that he was "afraid Dylan isn't much of a Welshman". Though FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.
Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York. When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet he opened by addressing the assembly, "Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry", querying how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication "Llareggub Revisited", "the strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's notoriety—not that he is bogus, but that attitudes to poetry attached themselves to him which not only threaten the prestige, effectiveness and accessibility to English poetry, but also destroyed his true voice and, at last, him." The Poetry Archive notes that "Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him of being drunk on language as well as whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that the sound of language is central to his style, he was also a disciplined writer who re-drafted obsessively".
Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. Those that have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947, "Nothing could be more wrongheaded than the English disputes about Dylan Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling obscure writer who can be enjoyed without understanding." Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading "Eighteen Poems", "The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow with one small book as Swinburne had with "Poems and Ballads"." Philip Larkin in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that "no one can 'stick words into us like pins'... like he [Thomas] can", but followed that by stating that he "doesn't use his words to any advantage". Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in his work, and claiming that he was 'frothing at the mouth with piss.' In 1956, the publication of the anthology "New Lines" featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940s. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated "Dylan Thomas was made to stand for everything they detest, verbal obscurity, metaphysical pretentiousness, and romantic rhapsodizing".
Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public. In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th. Several of his poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers. The BBC Radio programme, Desert Island Discs, in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording. John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960s when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, that the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place. Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970s and has become "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives and thus being ignored rather than studied.
In Swansea's maritime quarter are the Dylan Thomas Theatre, home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member, and the former Guildhall built in 1825 and now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas, by John Doubleday. Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of his favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill.
Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved. In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival. In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of Fern Hill.
In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on "Under Milk Wood" and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work. The Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of "Fern Hill" for the event. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8783 |
Fern Hill
Fern Hill (1945) is a poem by Dylan Thomas, first published in the October, 1945, Horizon magazine, with its first book publication as the last poem in "Deaths and Entrances".
The house Fernhill is just outside Llangain in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Thomas had extended stays here in the 1920s with his aunt Annie and her husband, Jim Jones, and wrote about the house in his short story, "The Peaches". His holidays here have been recalled in interviews with his schoolboy friends, and both the house and the Thomas family network in the area are detailed in the same book. A further account describes both Thomas’ childhood and later years on the family farms between Llangain and Llansteffan, as well as questioning whether the poem Fern Hill was inspired by the house Fernhill.
The poem starts as a straightforward evocation of his childhood visits to his Aunt Annie's farm:
In the middle section, the idyllic scene is expanded upon, reinforced by the lilting rhythm of the poem, the dreamlike, pastoral metaphors and allusion to Eden.
By the end, the poet's older voice has taken over, mourning his lost youth with echoes of the opening:
The poem uses internal half rhyme and full rhyme as well as end rhyme. Thomas was very conscious of the effect of spoken or intoned verse and explored the potentialities of sound and rhythm, in a manner reminiscent of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He always denied having conscious knowledge of Welsh, but "his lines chime with internal consonantal correspondence, or "cynghanedd", a prescribed feature of Welsh versification".
"Fern Hill" has been set to music by the American composer John Corigliano, for SATB chorus with orchestral accompaniment.
Samples of the "Fern Hill" poem read by Dylan Thomas himself are used in the track "Apple Towns" by the one-man act "Reflection Nebula".
"Happy as the Grass Was Green" became the title of a 1973 drama film. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8785 |
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), better known by his stage name David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. "Rolling Stone" placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and following his death in 2016, Bowie was dubbed "The Greatest Rock Star Ever" by the magazine.
Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity" became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single "Starman" and album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars", which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album "Young Americans". In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film "The Man Who Fell to Earth", directed by Nicolas Roeg, and released "Station to Station". In 1977, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album "Low", the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy". ""Heroes"" (1977) and "Lodger" (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.
After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)", and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with "Let's Dance"; the album's title track topped both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in "Labyrinth" (1986), Pontius Pilate in "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), and Nikola Tesla in "The Prestige" (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with "The Next Day." He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer at his home in New York City, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, "Blackstar" (2016).
Bowie was born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London. His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns; 2 October 1913 – 2 April 2001), was born at Shorncliffe Army Camp near Cheriton, Kent. Her paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants who had settled in Manchester. She worked as a waitress at a cinema in Royal Tunbridge Wells. His father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones (21 November 1912 – 5 August 1969), was from Doncaster, Yorkshire and worked as a promotions officer for the children's charity Barnardo's. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, on the boundary between Brixton and Stockwell in the south London borough of Lambeth. Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler.
In 1953, Bowie moved with his family to Bromley. Two years later, he started attending Burnt Ash Junior School. His voice was considered "adequate" by the school choir, and he demonstrated above-average abilities in playing the recorder. At the age of nine, his dancing during the newly-introduced music and movement classes was strikingly imaginative: teachers called his interpretations "vividly artistic" and his poise "astonishing" for a child. The same year, his interest in music was further stimulated when his father brought home a collection of American 45s by artists including the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard. Upon listening to Little Richard's song "Tutti Frutti", Bowie would later say that he had "heard God".
Bowie was first impressed with Presley when he saw his cousin dance to "Hound Dog". By the end of the following year, Bowie had taken up the ukulele and tea-chest bass, begun to participate in skiffle sessions with friends, and had started to play the piano; meanwhile, his stage presentation of numbers by both Presley and Chuck Berry—complete with gyrations in tribute to the original artists—to his local Wolf Cub group was described as "mesmerizing ... like someone from another planet". After taking his eleven-plus exam at the conclusion of his Burnt Ash Junior education, Bowie went to Bromley Technical High School.
It was an unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher Sandford wrote:
Bowie studied art, music, and design, including layout and typesetting. After his half-brother Terry Burns introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a Grafton saxophone in 1961. He was soon receiving lessons from baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross. He received a serious injury at school in 1962 when his friend George Underwood punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. After a series of operations during a four-month hospitalisation, his doctors determined that the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty depth perception and a permanently dilated pupil, which gave a false impression of a change in the iris's colour; the eye later became one of Bowie's most recognisable features. Despite their altercation, Bowie remained on good terms with Underwood, who went on to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.
Bowie formed his first band, the Konrads, in 1962 at the age of 15. Playing guitar-based rock and roll at local youth gatherings and weddings, the Konrads had a varying line-up of between four and eight members, Underwood among them. When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star. His mother arranged his employment as an electrician's mate. Frustrated by his bandmates' limited aspirations, Bowie left the Konrads and joined another band, the King Bees. He wrote to the newly successful washing-machine entrepreneur John Bloom inviting him to "do for us what Brian Epstein has done for the Beatles—and make another million." Bloom did not respond to the offer, but his referral to Dick James's partner Leslie Conn led to Bowie's first personal management contract.
Conn quickly began to promote Bowie. The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, was not commercially successful. Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their repertoire of Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon covers, Bowie quit the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues outfit, who incorporated folk and soul—"I used to dream of being their Mick Jagger", Bowie was to recall. Their cover of Bobby Bland's "I Pity the Fool" was no more successful than "Liza Jane", and Bowie soon moved on again to join the Lower Third, a blues trio strongly influenced by The Who. "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" fared no better, signalling the end of Conn's contract. Declaring that he would exit the pop music world "to study mime at Sadler's Wells", Bowie nevertheless remained with the Lower Third. His new manager, Ralph Horton, later instrumental in his transition to solo artist, soon witnessed Bowie's move to yet another group, the Buzz, yielding the singer's fifth unsuccessful single release, "Do Anything You Say". While with the Buzz, Bowie also joined the Riot Squad; their recordings, which included one of Bowie's original songs and material by The Velvet Underground, went unreleased. Kenneth Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager.
Dissatisfied with his stage name as Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he had popularised. His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched vocals, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut, "David Bowie", an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate. It was his last release for two years.
Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp in 1967 and enrolled in his dance class at the London Dance Centre. He commented in 1972 that meeting Kemp was when his interest in image "really blossomed". "He lived on his emotions, he was a wonderful influence. His day-to-day life was the most theatrical thing I had ever seen, ever. It was everything I thought Bohemia probably was. I joined the circus." Studying the dramatic arts under Kemp, from avant-garde theatre and mime to commedia dell'arte, Bowie became immersed in the creation of personae to present to the world. Satirising life in a British prison, meanwhile, the Bowie composition "Over the Wall We Go" became a 1967 single for Oscar; another Bowie song, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy Fury the following year. In January 1968, Kemp choreographed a dance scene for a BBC play, "The Pistol Shot", in the Theatre 625 series, and used Bowie with a dancer, Hermione Farthingale; the pair began dating, and moved into a London flat together. Playing acoustic guitar, Farthingale formed a group with Bowie and guitarist John Hutchinson named Feathers; between September 1968 and early 1969 the trio gave a small number of concerts combining folk, Merseybeat, poetry, and mime. Bowie and Farthingale broke up in early 1969 when she went to Norway to take part in a film, "Song of Norway"; this affected him, and several songs, such as "Letter to Hermione" and "Life on Mars?" reference her, and for the video accompanying "Where Are We Now?", he wore a T-shirt with the words "m/s Song of Norway". They were last together in January 1969 for the filming of "Love You till Tuesday", a 30-minute film that was not released until 1984: intended as a promotional vehicle, it featured performances from Bowie's repertoire, including "Space Oddity", which had not been released when the film was made.
After the break-up with Farthingale, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. In February and March 1969, he undertook a short tour with Marc Bolan's duo Tyrannosaurus Rex, as third on the bill, performing a mime act. On 11 July 1969, "Space Oddity" was released five days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch, and reached the top five in the UK. Continuing the divergence from rock and roll and blues begun by his work with Farthingale, Bowie joined forces with Finnigan, Christina Ostrom and Barrie Jackson to run a folk club on Sunday nights at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street. The club was influenced by the Arts Lab movement, developing into the Beckenham Arts Lab and became extremely popular. The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local park, the subject of his song "Memory of a Free Festival".
Bowie's second album followed in November; originally issued in the UK as "David Bowie", it caused some confusion with its predecessor of the same name, and the early US release was instead titled "Man of Words/Man of Music"; it was reissued internationally in 1972 by RCA Records as "Space Oddity". Featuring philosophical post-hippie lyrics on peace, love, and morality, its acoustic folk rock occasionally fortified by harder rock, the album was not a commercial success at the time of its release.
Bowie met Angela Barnett in April 1969. They married within a year. Her impact on him was immediate, and her involvement in his career far-reaching, leaving manager Ken Pitt with limited influence which he found frustrating. Having established himself as a solo artist with "Space Oddity", Bowie began to sense a lacking: "a full-time band for gigs and recording—people he could relate to personally". The shortcoming was underlined by his artistic rivalry with Marc Bolan, who was at the time acting as his session guitarist. The band Bowie assembled comprised John Cambridge, a drummer Bowie met at the Arts Lab, Tony Visconti on bass and Mick Ronson on electric guitar. Known as Hype, the bandmates created characters for themselves and wore elaborate costumes that prefigured the glam style of the Spiders from Mars. After a disastrous opening gig at the London Roundhouse, they reverted to a configuration presenting Bowie as a solo artist. Their initial studio work was marred by a heated disagreement between Bowie and Cambridge over the latter's drumming style. Matters came to a head when an enraged Bowie accused the drummer of the disturbance, exclaiming "You're fucking up my album." Cambridge left and was replaced by Mick Woodmansey. Not long after, the singer fired his manager and replaced him with Tony Defries. This resulted in years of litigation that concluded with Bowie having to pay Pitt compensation.
The studio sessions continued and resulted in Bowie's third album, "The Man Who Sold the World" (1970), which contained references to schizophrenia, paranoia, and delusion. Characterised by the heavy rock sound of his new backing band, it was a marked departure from the acoustic guitar and folk rock style established by "Space Oddity". To promote it in the US, Mercury Records financed a coast-to-coast publicity tour across America in which Bowie, between January and February 1971, was interviewed by radio stations and the media. Exploiting his androgynous appearance, the original cover of the UK version unveiled two months later depicted the singer wearing a dress: taking the garment with him, he wore it during interviews—to the approval of critics, including "Rolling Stone"s John Mendelsohn who described him as "ravishing, almost disconcertingly reminiscent of Lauren Bacall" – and in the street, to mixed reaction including laughter and, in the case of one male pedestrian, producing a gun and telling Bowie to "kiss my ass".
During the tour, Bowie's observation of two seminal American proto-punk artists led him to develop a concept that eventually found form in the Ziggy Stardust character: a melding of the persona of Iggy Pop with the music of Lou Reed, producing "the ultimate pop idol". A girlfriend recalled his "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy", and on his return to England he declared his intention to create a character "who looks like he's landed from Mars". The "Stardust" surname was a tribute to the "Legendary Stardust Cowboy", whose record he was given during the tour. Bowie would later cover "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Space Ship" on 2002's "Heathen".
"Hunky Dory" (1971) found Visconti, Bowie's producer and bassist, supplanted in both roles by Ken Scott and Trevor Bolder respectively. The album saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare such as "Kooks", a song written for his son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May. (His parents chose "his kooky name"—he was known as Zowie for the next 12 years—after the Greek word "zoe", life.) Elsewhere, the album explored more serious subjects, and found Bowie paying unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch", the latter a Velvet Underground pastiche. It was not a significant commercial success at the time.
Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed reddish-brown, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder, and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth in Kingston upon Thames on 10 February 1972. The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the next six months and creating, as described by Buckley, a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique—its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom." "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" (1972), combining the hard rock elements of "The Man Who Sold the World" with the lighter experimental rock and pop of "Hunky Dory", was released in June. "Starman", issued as an April single ahead of the album, was to cement Bowie's UK breakthrough: both single and album charted rapidly following his July "Top of the Pops" performance of the song. The album, which remained in the chart for two years, was soon joined there by the 6-month-old "Hunky Dory". At the same time the non-album single "John, I'm Only Dancing", and "All the Young Dudes", a song he wrote and produced for Mott the Hoople, were successful in the UK. The Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United States.
Bowie contributed backing vocals, keyboards, and guitar to Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough "Transformer", co-producing the album with Mick Ronson. The following year, Bowie co-produced and mixed The Stooges album "Raw Power" alongside Iggy Pop. His own "Aladdin Sane" (1973) topped the UK chart, his first number-one album. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", it contained songs he wrote while travelling to and across the US during the earlier part of the Ziggy tour, which now continued to Japan to promote the new album. "Aladdin Sane" spawned the UK top five singles "The Jean Genie" and "Drive-In Saturday".
Bowie's love of acting led his total immersion in the characters he created for his music. "Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David." With satisfaction came severe personal difficulties: acting the same role over an extended period, it became impossible for him to separate Ziggy Stardust—and later, the Thin White Duke—from his own character offstage. Ziggy, Bowie said, "wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour ... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity." His later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both "Ziggy Stardust" and "Aladdin Sane", were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. Footage from the final show was released the same year for the film "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars".
After breaking up the Spiders from Mars, Bowie attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona. His back catalogue was now highly sought after: "The Man Who Sold the World" had been re-released in 1972 along with "Space Oddity". "Life on Mars?", from "Hunky Dory", was released in June 1973 and peaked at No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart. Entering the same chart in September, Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", reached No. 6. "Pin Ups", a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, followed in October, producing a UK No. 3 hit in his version of the McCoys's "Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. It brought the total number of Bowie albums concurrently on the UK chart to six.
Bowie moved to the US in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles. "Diamond Dogs" (1974), parts of which found him heading towards soul and funk, was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's "1984" to music. The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs", and No. 5 in the US. To promote it, Bowie launched the Diamond Dogs Tour, visiting cities in North America between June and December 1974. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production was filmed by Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary, "Cracked Actor", featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with the singer's slide from heavy cocaine use into addiction, producing severe physical debilitation, paranoia, and emotional problems. He later commented that the accompanying live album, "David Live", ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory". "David Live" nevertheless solidified Bowie's status as a superstar, charting at No. 2 in the UK and No. 8 in the US. It also spawned a UK No. 10 hit in Bowie's cover of Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul.
The fruit of the Philadelphia recording sessions was "Young Americans" (1975). Biographer Christopher Sandford writes, "Over the years, most British rockers had tried, one way or another, to become black-by-extension. Few had succeeded as Bowie did now." The album's sound, which the singer identified as "plastic soul", constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. "Young Americans" yielded Bowie's first US number one, "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, who contributed backing vocals, and Carlos Alomar. Lennon called Bowie's work "great, but it's just rock'n'roll with lipstick on". Earning the distinction of being one of the first white artists to appear on the US variety show "Soul Train", Bowie mimed "Fame", as well as "Golden Years", his November single, which was originally offered to Elvis Presley, who declined it. "Young Americans" was a commercial success in both the US and the UK, and a re-issue of the 1969 single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's first number-one hit in the UK a few months after "Fame" achieved the same in the US. Despite his by now well established superstardom, Bowie, in the words of Sandford, "for all his record sales (over a million copies of "Ziggy Stardust" alone), existed essentially on loose change." In 1975, in a move echoing Ken Pitt's acrimonious dismissal five years earlier, Bowie fired his manager. At the culmination of the ensuing months-long legal dispute, he watched, as described by Sandford, "millions of dollars of his future earnings being surrendered" in what were "uniquely generous terms for Defries", then "shut himself up in West 20th Street, where for a week his howls could be heard through the locked attic door." Michael Lippman, Bowie's lawyer during the negotiations, became his new manager; Lippman in turn was awarded substantial compensation when Bowie fired him the following year.
"Station to Station" (1976), produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, introduced a new Bowie persona, "The Thin White Duke" of its title-track. Visually, the character was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the extraterrestrial being he portrayed in the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth" the same year. Developing the funk and soul of "Young Americans", "Station to Station"'s synthesizer-heavy arrangements prefigured the krautrock-influenced music of his next releases. The extent to which drug addiction was now affecting Bowie was made public when Russell Harty interviewed the singer for his London Weekend Television talk show in anticipation of the album's supporting tour. Shortly before the satellite-linked interview was scheduled to commence, the death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was announced. Bowie was asked to relinquish the satellite booking, to allow the Spanish Government to put out a live newsfeed. This he refused to do, and his interview went ahead. In the ensuing lengthy conversation with Harty, Bowie was incoherent and looked "disconnected". His sanity—by his own later admission—had become twisted from cocaine; he overdosed several times during the year, and was withering physically to an alarming degree.
"Station to Station"s January 1976 release was followed in February by a 3-month-long concert tour of Europe and North America. Featuring a starkly lit set, the Isolar – 1976 Tour with its iconic colour newsprint Isolar concert program, highlighted songs from the album, including the dramatic and lengthy title track, the ballads "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing", and the funkier "TVC 15" and "Stay". The core band that coalesced to record this album and tour—rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis—continued as a stable unit for the remainder of the 1970s. The tour was highly successful but mired in political controversy. Bowie was quoted in Stockholm as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader", and was detained by customs on the Russian/Polish border for possessing Nazi paraphernalia.
Matters came to a head in London in May in what became known as the "Victoria Station incident". Arriving in an open-top Mercedes convertible, Bowie waved to the crowd in a gesture that some alleged was a Nazi salute, which was captured on camera and published in "NME". Bowie said the photographer caught him in mid-wave. He later blamed his pro-fascism comments and his behaviour during the period on his addictions and the character of the Thin White Duke. "I was out of my mind, totally crazed. The main thing I was functioning on was mythology ... that whole thing about Hitler and Rightism ... I'd discovered King Arthur". According to playwright Alan Franks, writing later in "The Times", "he was indeed 'deranged'. He had some very bad experiences with hard drugs." Bowie's cocaine addiction, which had motivated these controversies, had much to do with his time living in Los Angeles, a city which alienated him. Discussing his flirtations with fascism in a 1980 interview with "NME", Bowie explained that Los Angeles was "where it had all happened. The fucking place should be wiped off the face of the Earth. To be anything to do with rock and roll and go and live in Los Angeles is, I think, just heading for disaster. It really is."
After recovering from addiction, Bowie apologised for these statements, and throughout the 1980s and '90s criticised racism in European politics and the American music industry. Nevertheless, Bowie's comments on fascism, as well as Eric Clapton's alcohol-fuelled denunciations of Pakistani immigrants in 1976, led to the establishment of Rock Against Racism.
Before the end of 1976, Bowie's interest in the burgeoning German music scene, as well as his drug addiction, prompted him to move to West Berlin to clean up and revitalise his career. There he was often seen riding a bicycle between his apartment on Hauptstraße in Schöneberg and Hansa Tonstudio, the recording studio he used, located on Köthener Straße in Kreuzberg, near the Berlin Wall. While working with Brian Eno and sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop, he began to focus on minimalist, ambient music for the first of three albums, co-produced with Tony Visconti, that became known as his Berlin Trilogy. During the same period, Iggy Pop, with Bowie as a co-writer and musician, completed his solo album debut "The Idiot" and its follow-up "Lust for Life", touring the UK, Europe, and the US in March and April 1977.
The album "Low" (1977), partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu!, evinced a move away from narration in Bowie's songwriting to a more abstract musical form in which lyrics were sporadic and optional. Although he completed the album in November 1976, it took his unsettled record company another three months to release it. It received considerable negative criticism upon its release—a release which RCA, anxious to maintain the established commercial momentum, did not welcome, and which Bowie's former manager, Tony Defries, who still maintained a significant financial interest in the singer's affairs, tried to prevent. Despite these forebodings, "Low" yielded the UK No. 3 single "Sound and Vision", and its own performance surpassed that of "Station to Station" in the UK chart, where it reached No. 2. Leading contemporary composer Philip Glass described "Low" as "a work of genius" in 1992, when he used it as the basis for his "Symphony No. 1 "Low""; subsequently, Glass used Bowie's next album as the basis for his 1996 "Symphony No. 4 "Heroes"". Glass has praised Bowie's gift for creating "fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading as simple pieces". Also in 1977, London released "Starting Point", a ten-song LP containing releases from Bowie's Deram period (1966—67).
Echoing "Low"s minimalist, instrumental approach, the second of the trilogy, ""Heroes"" (1977), incorporated pop and rock to a greater extent, seeing Bowie joined by guitarist Robert Fripp. Like "Low", ""Heroes"" evinced the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city of Berlin. Incorporating ambient sounds from a variety of sources including white noise generators, synthesisers and koto, the album was another hit, reaching No. 3 in the UK. Its title-track, though only reaching No. 24 in the UK singles chart, gained lasting popularity, and within months had been released in both German and French. Towards the end of the year, Bowie performed the song for Marc Bolan's television show "Marc", and again two days later for Bing Crosby's final CBS television Christmas special, when he joined Crosby in "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", a version of "The Little Drummer Boy" with a new, contrapuntal verse. Five years later, the duet proved a worldwide seasonal hit, charting in the UK at No. 3 on Christmas Day, 1982.
After completing "Low" and ""Heroes"", Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries. By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking the stage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental condition to want to make friends." Recordings from the tour made up the live album "Stage", released the same year. Bowie also recorded narration for an adaptation of Sergei Prokofiev's classical composition "Peter and the Wolf", which was released as an album in May 1978.
The final piece in what Bowie called his "triptych", "Lodger" (1979), eschewed the minimalist, ambient nature of the other two, making a partial return to the drum- and guitar-based rock and pop of his pre-Berlin era. The result was a complex mixture of new wave and world music, in places incorporating Hijaz non-Western scales. Some tracks were composed using Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards: "Boys Keep Swinging" entailed band members swapping instruments, "Move On" used the chords from Bowie's early composition "All the Young Dudes" played backwards, and "Red Money" took backing tracks from "Sister Midnight", a piece previously composed with Iggy Pop. The album was recorded in Switzerland. Ahead of its release, RCA's Mel Ilberman stated, "It would be fair to call it Bowie's "Sergeant Pepper" ... a concept album that portrays the Lodger as a homeless wanderer, shunned and victimized by life's pressures and technology." As described by biographer Christopher Sandford, "The record dashed such high hopes with dubious choices, and production that spelt the end—for fifteen years—of Bowie's partnership with Eno." "Lodger" reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 20 in the US, and yielded the UK hit singles "Boys Keep Swinging" and "DJ". Towards the end of the year, Bowie and Angie initiated divorce proceedings, and after months of court battles the marriage was ended in early 1980.
"Scary Monsters and Super Creeps" (1980) produced the number-one hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The song gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement when Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to act in the accompanying video, renowned as one of the most innovative of all time. While "Scary Monsters" used principles established by the Berlin albums, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically. The album's hard rock edge included conspicuous guitar contributions from Robert Fripp, Chuck Hammer, and Pete Townshend. As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway on 24 September, starring as John Merrick in "The Elephant Man".
Bowie paired with Queen in 1981 for a one-off single release, "Under Pressure". The duet was a hit, becoming Bowie's third UK number-one single. Bowie was given the lead role in the BBC's 1982 televised adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play "Baal". Coinciding with its transmission, a five-track EP of songs from the play, recorded earlier in Berlin, was released as "David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal". In March 1982, the month before Paul Schrader's film "Cat People" came out, Bowie's title song, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", was released as a single, becoming a minor US hit and entering the UK Top 30.
Bowie reached his peak of popularity and commercial success in 1983 with "Let's Dance". Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album went platinum in both the UK and the US. Its three singles became Top 20 hits in both countries, where its title track reached number one. "Modern Love" and "China Girl" each made No. 2 in the UK, accompanied by a pair of "absorbing" promotional videos that biographer David Buckley said "activated key archetypes in the pop world. 'Let's Dance', with its little narrative surrounding the young Aborigine couple, targeted 'youth', and 'China Girl', with its bare-bummed (and later partially censored) beach lovemaking scene (a homage to the film "From Here to Eternity"), was sufficiently sexually provocative to guarantee heavy rotation on MTV". Stevie Ray Vaughan was guest guitarist playing solo on "Let's Dance", although the video depicts Bowie miming this part. By 1983, Bowie had emerged as one of the most important video artists of the day. "Let's Dance" was followed by the Serious Moonlight Tour, during which Bowie was accompanied by guitarist Earl Slick and backing vocalists Frank and George Simms. The world tour lasted six months and was extremely popular." At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards Bowie received two awards including the inaugural Video Vanguard Award.
"Tonight" (1984), another dance-oriented album, found Bowie collaborating with Tina Turner and, once again, Iggy Pop. It included a number of cover songs, among them the 1966 Beach Boys hit "God Only Knows". The album bore the transatlantic Top 10 hit "Blue Jean", itself the inspiration for a short film that won Bowie a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video, "Jazzin' for Blue Jean". Bowie performed at Wembley Stadium in 1985 for Live Aid, a multi-venue benefit concert for Ethiopian famine relief. During the event, the video for a fundraising single was premiered, Bowie's duet with Mick Jagger. "Dancing in the Street" quickly went to number one on release. The same year, Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny Group to record "This Is Not America" for the soundtrack of "The Falcon and the Snowman". Released as a single, the song became a Top 40 hit in the UK and US.
Bowie was given a role in the 1986 film "Absolute Beginners". It was poorly received by critics, but Bowie's theme song, also named "Absolute Beginners", rose to No. 2 in the UK charts. He also appeared as Jareth, the Goblin King, in the 1986 Jim Henson film "Labyrinth", for which he worked with composer Trevor Jones and wrote five original songs. His final solo album of the decade was 1987's "Never Let Me Down", where he ditched the light sound of his previous two albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. Peaking at No. 6 in the UK, the album yielded the hits "Day-In, Day-Out" (his 60th single), "Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down". Bowie later described it as his "nadir", calling it "an awful album". Supporting "Never Let Me Down", and preceded by nine promotional press shows, the 86-concert Glass Spider Tour commenced on 30 May. Bowie's backing band included Peter Frampton on lead guitar. Critics maligned the tour as overproduced, saying it pandered to the current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing. The tour influenced concerts by later artists, including Britney Spears, Madonna, and U2.
Bowie shelved his solo career in 1989, retreating to the relative anonymity of band membership for the first time since the early 1970s. A hard-rocking quartet, Tin Machine came into being after Bowie began to work experimentally with guitarist Reeves Gabrels. The line-up was completed by Tony and Hunt Sales, whom Bowie had known since the late 1970s for their contribution, on bass and drums respectively, to Iggy Pop's 1977 album "Lust for Life".
Although he intended Tin Machine to operate as a democracy, Bowie dominated, both in songwriting and in decision-making. The band's album debut, "Tin Machine" (1989), was initially popular, though its politicised lyrics did not find universal approval: Bowie described one song as "a simplistic, naive, radical, laying-it-down about the emergence of Neo-Nazis"; in the view of biographer Christopher Sandford, "It took nerve to denounce drugs, fascism and TV ... in terms that reached the literary level of a comic book." EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" as well as "repetitive tunes" and "minimalist or no production". The album nevertheless reached No. 3 and went gold in the UK.
Tin Machine's first world tour was a commercial success, but there was growing reluctance—among fans and critics alike—to accept Bowie's presentation as merely a band member. A series of Tin Machine singles failed to chart, and Bowie, after a disagreement with EMI, left the label. Like his audience and his critics, Bowie himself became increasingly disaffected with his role as just one member of a band. Tin Machine began work on a second album, but Bowie put the venture on hold and made a return to solo work. Performing his early hits during the seven-month Sound+Vision Tour, he found commercial success and acclaim once again.
In October 1990, a decade after his divorce from Angie, Bowie and Somali-born supermodel Iman were introduced by a mutual friend. Bowie recalled, "I was naming the children the night we met ... it was absolutely immediate." They married in 1992. Tin Machine resumed work the same month, but their audience and critics, ultimately left disappointed by the first album, showed little interest in a second. "Tin Machine II"s arrival was marked by a widely publicised and ill-timed conflict over the cover art: after production had begun, the new record label, Victory, deemed the depiction of four ancient nude Kouroi statues, judged by Bowie to be "in exquisite taste", to be "a show of wrong, obscene images", requiring air-brushing and patching to render the figures sexless. Tin Machine toured again, but after the live album "" failed commercially, the band drifted apart, and Bowie, though he continued to collaborate with Gabrels, resumed his solo career.
On 20 April 1992, Bowie appeared at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, following the Queen singer's death the previous year. As well as performing "Heroes" and "All the Young Dudes", he was joined on "Under Pressure" by Annie Lennox, who took Mercury's vocal part; during his appearance, Bowie knelt and recited the Lord's Prayer at Wembley Stadium. Four days later, Bowie and Iman were married in Switzerland. Intending to move to Los Angeles, they flew in to search for a suitable property, but found themselves confined to their hotel, under curfew: the 1992 Los Angeles riots began the day they arrived. They settled in New York instead.
In 1993, Bowie released his first solo offering since his Tin Machine departure, the soul, jazz, and hip-hop influenced "Black Tie White Noise". Making prominent use of electronic instruments, the album, which reunited Bowie with "Let's Dance" producer Nile Rodgers, confirmed Bowie's return to popularity, hitting the number-one spot on the UK charts and spawning three Top 40 hits, including the Top 10 single "Jump They Say". Bowie explored new directions on "The Buddha of Suburbia" (1993), ostensibly a soundtrack album of his music composed for the BBC television adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel. Only the title track had been used in the television adaptation, although some of his themes for it were also present on the album. It contained some of the new elements introduced in "Black Tie White Noise", and also signalled a move towards alternative rock. The album was a critical success but received a low-key release and only made No. 87 in the UK charts.
Reuniting Bowie with Eno, the quasi-industrial "Outside" (1995) was originally conceived as the first volume in a non-linear narrative of art and murder. Featuring characters from a short story written by Bowie, the album achieved UK and US chart success, and yielded three Top 40 UK singles. In a move that provoked mixed reaction from both fans and critics, Bowie chose Nine Inch Nails as his tour partner for the Outside Tour. Visiting cities in Europe and North America between September 1995 and February 1996, the tour saw the return of Gabrels as Bowie's guitarist. On 7 January 1997, Bowie celebrated his half century with a 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, New York, at which he was joined in playing his songs and those of his guests, Lou Reed, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of the Cure, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Black Francis of the Pixies, and Sonic Youth.
Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996. Incorporating experiments in British jungle and drum 'n' bass, "Earthling" (1997) was a critical and commercial success in the UK and the US, and two singles from the album – "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking" – became UK Top 40 hits. Bowie's song "I'm Afraid of Americans" from the Paul Verhoeven film "Showgirls" was re-recorded for the album, and remixed by Trent Reznor for a single release. The heavy rotation of the accompanying video, also featuring Trent Reznor, contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Reznor also executive produced the "Lost Highway" soundtrack (1997) which begins and ends with different mixes of Bowie's "Outside" song "I'm Deranged". Bowie received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 12 February 1997. The Earthling Tour took in Europe and North America between June and November 1997. In November 1997, Bowie performed on the BBC's Children in Need charity single "Perfect Day", which reached number one in the UK. Bowie reunited with Visconti in 1998 to record "(Safe in This) Sky Life" for "The Rugrats Movie". Although the track was edited out of the final cut, it was later re-recorded and released as "Safe" on the B-side of Bowie's 2002 single "Everyone Says 'Hi'. The reunion led to other collaborations including a limited-edition single release version of Placebo's track "Without You I'm Nothing", co-produced by Visconti, with Bowie's harmonised vocal added to the original recording.
Bowie, with Reeves Gabrels, created the soundtrack for "", a 1999 computer game in which he and Iman also voiced characters based on their likenesses. Released the same year and containing re-recorded tracks from "Omikron", his album "Hours" featured a song with lyrics by the winner of his "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition, Alex Grant. Making extensive use of live instruments, the album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica. Sessions for the planned album "Toy", intended to feature new versions of some of Bowie's earliest pieces as well as three new songs, commenced in 2000, but the album was never released. Bowie and Visconti continued their collaboration, producing a new album of completely original songs instead: the result of the sessions was the 2002 album "Heathen".
On 25 June 2000, Bowie made his second appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in England, playing 30 years after his first. The performance was released as a posthumous live album in November 2018. On 27 June, Bowie performed a concert at BBC Radio Theatre in London, which was released in the compilation album "Bowie at the Beeb", which also featured BBC recording sessions from 1968 to 1972. Bowie and Iman's daughter was born on 15 August. His interest in Buddhism led him to support the Tibetan cause by performing at the February 2001 and February 2003 concerts to support Tibet House US at Carnegie Hall in New York.
In October 2001, Bowie opened the Concert for New York City, a charity event to benefit the victims of the September 11 attacks, with a minimalist performance of Simon & Garfunkel's "America", followed by a full band performance of "Heroes". 2002 saw the release of "Heathen", and, during the second half of the year, the Heathen Tour. Taking place in Europe and North America, the tour opened at London's annual "Meltdown" festival, for which Bowie was that year appointed artistic director. Among the acts he selected for the festival were Philip Glass, Television, and the Dandy Warhols. As well as songs from the new album, the tour featured material from Bowie's "Low" era. "Reality" (2003) followed, and its accompanying world tour, the A Reality Tour, with an estimated attendance of 722,000, grossed more than any other in 2004. On 13 June, Bowie headlined the last night of the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 in what would prove to be his last live show in the UK. On 25 June he suffered chest pain while performing at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked coronary artery, requiring an emergency angioplasty in Hamburg. The remaining 14 dates of the tour were cancelled.
In the years following his recuperation from the heart attack, Bowie reduced his musical output, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. He sang in a duet of his 1971 song "Changes" with Butterfly Boucher for the 2004 animated film "Shrek 2". During a relatively quiet 2005, he recorded the vocals for the song "(She Can) Do That", co-written with Brian Transeau, for the film "Stealth". He returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, appearing with Arcade Fire for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, and performed with the Canadian band for the second time a week later during the CMJ Music Marathon. He contributed backing vocals on TV on the Radio's song "Province" for their album "Return to Cookie Mountain", and joined with Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's 2005 album "No Balance Palace".
Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 February 2006. In April, he announced, "I'm taking a year off—no touring, no albums." He made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour's 29 May concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The event was recorded, and a selection of songs on which he had contributed joint vocals were subsequently released. He performed again in November, alongside Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a benefit event for Keep a Child Alive at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. The performance marked the last time Bowie performed his music on stage.
Bowie was chosen to curate the 2007 High Line Festival, selecting musicians and artists for the Manhattan event, including electronic pop duo AIR, surrealist photographer Claude Cahun, and English comedian Ricky Gervais. Bowie performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, "Anywhere I Lay My Head". In June 2008 a live album was released of a Ziggy Stardust-era concert from 1972. On the 40th anniversary of the July 1969 moon landing—and Bowie's accompanying commercial breakthrough with "Space Oddity"—EMI released the individual tracks from the original eight-track studio recording of the song, in a 2009 contest inviting members of the public to create a remix. "A Reality Tour", a double album of live material from the 2003 concert tour, was released in January 2010.
In late March 2011, "Toy", Bowie's previously unreleased album from 2001, was leaked onto the internet, containing material used for "Heathen" and most of its single B-sides, as well as unheard new versions of his early back catalogue.
On 8 January 2013, his 66th birthday, his website announced a new album, to be titled "The Next Day" and scheduled for release 8 March for Australia, 12 March for the United States, and 11 March for the rest of the world. Bowie's first studio album in a decade, "The Next Day" contains 14 songs plus 3 bonus tracks. His website acknowledged the length of his hiatus. Record producer Tony Visconti said 29 tracks were recorded for the album, some of which could appear on Bowie's next record, which he might start work on later in 2013. The announcement was accompanied by the immediate release of a single, "Where Are We Now?", written and recorded by Bowie in New York and produced by longtime collaborator Visconti.
A music video for "Where Are We Now?" was released onto Vimeo the same day, directed by New York artist Tony Oursler. The single topped the UK iTunes Chart within hours of its release, and debuted in the UK Singles Chart at No. 6, his first single to enter the Top 10 for two decades (since "Jump They Say" in 1993). A second video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", was released 25 February. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, it stars Bowie and Tilda Swinton as a married couple. On 1 March, the album was made available to stream for free through iTunes. "The Next Day" debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, was his first album to achieve that position since "Black Tie White Noise" (1993), and was the fastest-selling album of 2013 at the time. The music video for the song "The Next Day" created some controversy, initially being removed from YouTube for terms-of-service violation, then restored with a warning recommending viewing only by those 18 or over.
According to "The Times", Bowie ruled out ever giving an interview again. An exhibition of Bowie artefacts, called "David Bowie Is", was organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and shown there in 2013. The London exhibit was visited by 311,956 people, making it one of the most successful exhibitions ever staged at the museum. Later that year the exhibition began a world tour which started in Toronto and included stops in Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Groningen and Brooklyn, New York where the exhibit ended on 15 July at the Brooklyn Museum. Bowie was featured in a cameo vocal in the Arcade Fire song "Reflektor". A poll carried out by BBC History Magazine, in October 2013, named Bowie as the best-dressed Briton in history.
New information was released in September 2014 regarding his next compilation album, "Nothing Has Changed", which was released in November. The album featured rare tracks and old material from his catalogue in addition to a new song titled "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". In May 2015, "Let's Dance" was announced to be reissued as a yellow vinyl single on 16 July 2015 in conjunction with the "David Bowie Is" exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, Australia.
In August 2015, it was announced that Bowie was writing songs for a Broadway musical based on the "SpongeBob SquarePants" cartoon series. Bowie wrote and recorded the opening title song to the television series "The Last Panthers", which aired in November 2015. The theme that was used for "The Last Panthers" was also the title track for his January 2016 release "Blackstar" which is said to take cues from his earlier krautrock influenced work. According to "The Times": ""Blackstar" may be the oddest work yet from Bowie". On 7 December 2015, Bowie's musical "Lazarus" debuted in New York. His last public appearance was at opening night of the production.
"Blackstar" was released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday, and was met with critical acclaim. Following his death on 10 January, producer Tony Visconti revealed that Bowie had planned the album to be his swan song, and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death. Several reporters and critics subsequently noted that most of the lyrics on the album seem to revolve around his impending death, with CNN noting that the album "reveals a man who appears to be grappling with his own mortality". Visconti later said that Bowie had been planning a post-"Blackstar" album, and had written and recorded demo versions of five songs in his final weeks, suggesting that Bowie believed he had a few months left. The day following his death, online viewing of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day. On 15 January, "Blackstar" debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart; nineteen of his albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart, and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100 Singles Chart. "Blackstar" also debuted at number one on album charts around the world, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the US "Billboard" 200.
, more than 1.3 million people had visited the "David Bowie Is" exhibit, making it the most successful exhibition ever staged by the Victoria and Albert Museum in terms of worldwide attendance. The museum stated that the exhibition would continue to tour, with confirmed travel to Japan in 2017. In September 2016 a box set was released covering Bowie's mid-70s soul period, including "The Gouster", a previously unreleased 1974 album.
An EP, "No Plan", was released on 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday. Apart from "Lazarus", the EP includes three songs that Bowie had recorded during the "Blackstar" sessions, but were left off the album and subsequently appeared on the soundtrack album for the "Lazarus" musical in October 2016. A music video for the title track was also released. 2017 and 2018 also saw the release of a series of posthumous live albums, covering the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974, the Isolar tour of 1976 and the Isolar II tour of 1978. In the two years following his death, Bowie had sold 5 million records in the UK alone. In their top 10 list for the Global Recording Artist of the Year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named Bowie the second best-selling artist worldwide in 2016, behind Drake.
At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on 12 February 2017, Bowie won all five nominated awards: Best Rock Performance; Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package; and Best Rock Song. The wins marked Bowie's first ever in musical categories. On 8 January 2020, on what would have been Bowie's 73rd birthday, a previously unreleased version of the song "The Man Who Sold the World" was released, and two new releases were announced: a streaming-only EP entitled "Is It Any Wonder?" and a 9 track album entitled "CHANGESNOWBOWIE", set to be released on Record Store Day 2020.
While always primarily a musician, Bowie took acting roles throughout his career, appearing in over 30 movies, television shows and theatrical productions. Bowie's acting career was "productively selective," largely eschewing starring roles for cameos and supporting parts. Many critics have observed that, had Bowie not chosen to pursue music, he could have found great success as an actor. Other critics have noted that, while his screen presence was singular, his best contributions to film were the use of his songs in movies like "Lost Highway", "A Knight's Tale", "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and "Inglourious Basterds".
The beginnings of Bowie's acting career predate his commercial breakthrough as a musician. Studying avant-garde theatre and mime under Lindsay Kemp, he was given the role of Cloud in Kemp's 1967 theatrical production "Pierrot in Turquoise" (later made into the 1970 television film "The Looking Glass Murders"). Bowie filmed a walk-on role for the BBC drama series "Theater 625" that aired in May 1968. In the black-and-white short "The Image" (1969), he played a ghostly boy who emerges from a troubled artist's painting to haunt him. The same year, the film of Leslie Thomas's 1966 comic novel "The Virgin Soldiers" saw Bowie make a brief appearance as an extra.
In 1976, Bowie earned acclaim for his first major film role, portraying Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien from a dying planet, in "The Man Who Fell to Earth", directed by Nicolas Roeg. He later admitted that his severe cocaine use during the film's production left him in such a fragile state of mind that he barely understood the movie. "Just a Gigolo" (1979), an Anglo-German co-production directed by David Hemmings, saw Bowie in the lead role as Prussian officer Paul von Przygodski, who, returning from World War I, is discovered by a Baroness (Marlene Dietrich) and put into her gigolo stable. The movie was a critical and commercial bomb, and Bowie later expressed embarrassment at his role in it.
Bowie played Joseph Merrick in the Broadway theatre production "The Elephant Man", which he undertook wearing no stage make-up, and which earned high praise for his expressive performance. He played the part 157 times between 1980 and 1981. "Christiane F. – We Children from Bahnhof Zoo", a 1981 biographical film focusing on a young girl's drug addiction in West Berlin, featured Bowie in a cameo appearance as himself at a concert in Germany. Its soundtrack album, "Christiane F." (1981), featured much material from his Berlin Trilogy albums. In 1982, he starred in the titular role in a BBC adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht play "Baal". Bowie portrayed a vampire in Tony Scott's erotic horror film "The Hunger" (1983), with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. In Nagisa Oshima's film the same year, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", based on Laurens van der Post's novel "The Seed and the Sower", Bowie played Major Jack Celliers, a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp. Bowie had a cameo in "Yellowbeard", a 1983 pirate comedy created by Monty Python members and directed by Mel Damski.
To promote the single "Blue Jean" Bowie filmed the 21 minute short film "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" (1984) with director Julien Temple, and played the dual roles of romantic protagonist Vic and arrogant rock star Screaming Lord Byron. The short won Bowie his only non-posthumous Grammy award. Bowie had a supporting role as hitman Colin in the 1985 John Landis film "Into the Night". He declined to play the villain Max Zorin in the James Bond film "A View to a Kill" (1985). Bowie reteamed with Temple for "Absolute Beginners" (1986), a rock musical film adapted from Colin MacInnes's book of the same name about life in late 1950s London, in a supporting role as ad man Vendice Partners. The same year, Jim Henson's dark musical fantasy "Labyrinth" cast him as Jareth, the villainous Goblin King. Despite initial poor box office, the movie grew in popularity, becoming a cult film and arguably Bowie's most iconic movie role. Two years later, he played Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed biblical epic "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988).
In 1991, Bowie reteamed with director John Landis for an episode of the HBO sitcom "Dream On" and played a disgruntled restaurant employee opposite Rosanna Arquette in "The Linguini Incident". Bowie portrayed the mysterious FBI agent Phillip Jeffries in David Lynch's "" (1992). The prequel to the television series was poorly received at the time of its release, but has since been critically reevaluated. He took a small but pivotal role as his friend Andy Warhol in "Basquiat", artist/director Julian Schnabel's 1996 biopic of Jean-Michel Basquiat, another artist he considered a friend and colleague. Bowie co-starred in Giovanni Veronesi's Spaghetti Western "Il Mio West" (1998, released as "Gunslinger's Revenge" in the US in 2005) as the most feared gunfighter in the region. He played the aging gangster Bernie in Andrew Goth's "Everybody Loves Sunshine" (1999, released in the U.S. as "B.U.S.T.E.D."), and appeared as the host in the second season of the television horror anthology series "The Hunger". Despite having several episodes which focus on vampires and Bowie's involvement, the show had no plot connection to the 1983 film of the same name. In 1999, Bowie voiced two characters in the Sega Dreamcast game "", his only appearance in a video game.
In "Mr. Rice's Secret" (2000), Bowie played the title role as the neighbour of a terminally ill 12-year-old. Bowie appeared as himself in the 2001 Ben Stiller comedy "Zoolander", judging a "walk-off" between rival male models, and in Eric Idle's 2002 mockumentary "". In 2005, he filmed a commercial with Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio. Bowie portrayed a fictionalized version of physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan's film "The Prestige" (2006), which was about the bitter rivalry between two magicians in the late 19th century. Nolan later claimed that Bowie was his only preference to play Tesla, and that he personally appealed to Bowie to take the role after he initially passed. In the same year, he voice-acted in Luc Besson's animated film "Arthur and the Invisibles" as the powerful villain Maltazard, and appeared as himself in an episode of the Ricky Gervais television series "Extras". In 2007, he lent his voice to the character Lord Royal Highness in the "SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis" television film. In the 2008 film "August", directed by Austin Chick, he played a supporting role as Ogilvie, a "ruthless venture capitalist." Bowie's final film appearance was a cameo as himself in the 2009 teen comedy "Bandslam".
In a 2017 interview with "Consequence of Sound", director Denis Villeneuve revealed his intention to cast Bowie in "Blade Runner 2049" as the lead villain, Niander Wallace, but when news broke of Bowie's death in January of the same year, Villeneuve was forced to look for talent with similar "rock star" qualities. He eventually cast actor and lead singer of Thirty Seconds to Mars, Jared Leto. Talking about the casting process, Villeneuve said: "Our first thought [for the character] had been David Bowie, who had influenced "Blade Runner" in many ways. When we learned the sad news, we looked around for someone like that. He [Bowie] embodied the Blade Runner spirit.". David Lynch also hoped to have Bowie reprise his "Fire Walk With Me" character for "Twin Peaks: The Return" but Bowie's illness prevented this. His character was portrayed via archival footage. At Bowie's request, Lynch overdubbed Bowie's original dialogue with a different actor's voice, as Bowie was unhappy with his Cajun accent in the original movie.
Bowie's songs and stagecraft brought a new dimension to popular music in the early 1970s, strongly influencing both its immediate forms and its subsequent development. Bowie was a pioneer of glam rock, according to music historians Schinder and Schwartz, who credited Marc Bolan and Bowie with creating the genre. At the same time, he inspired the innovators of the punk rock music movement. When punk musicians were "noisily reclaiming the three-minute pop song in a show of public defiance", biographer David Buckley wrote that "Bowie almost completely abandoned traditional rock instrumentation." Bowie's record company promoted his unique status in popular music with the slogan, "There's old wave, there's new wave, and there's David Bowie".
Musicologist James Perone credited Bowie with having "brought sophistication to rock music", and critical reviews frequently acknowledged the intellectual depth of his work and influence. The Human League founder Martyn Ware remarked that he had lived his life "as though he were an art installation." The BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz likened Bowie to Pablo Picasso, writing that he was "an innovative, visionary, restless artist who synthesised complex avant garde concepts into beautifully coherent works that touched the hearts and minds of millions". U2 lead singer Bono commented, "I like Bowie when he’s evenly pulled in the direction of being a pop star and Picasso, where he's right down the middle. That’s usually my favorite, when the songwriting is disciplined but the recording is not. I love when he's pulled equally in the directions of art and populism."
Broadcaster John Peel contrasted Bowie with his progressive rock contemporaries, arguing that Bowie was "an interesting kind of fringe figure... on the outskirts of things". Peel said he "liked the idea of him reinventing himself... the one distinguishing feature about early-70s progressive rock was that it didn't progress. Before Bowie came along, people didn't want too much change". Buckley called the era "bloated, self-important, leather-clad, self-satisfied"; then Bowie "subverted the whole notion of what it was to be a rock star".
Buckley called Bowie "both star and icon. The vast body of work he has produced ... has created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture. ... His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure."
Through continual reinvention, his influence broadened and extended. Biographer Thomas Forget added, "Because he has succeeded in so many different styles of music, it is almost impossible to find a popular artist today that has not been influenced by David Bowie." In 2000, Bowie was voted by other music stars as the "most influential artist of all time" in a poll by "NME". Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" wrote that Bowie was confirmed by 1980 to be "the most important and influential artist since the Beatles". Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" stated that Bowie had "one of the supreme careers in popular music, art and culture of the 20th century" and "he was too inventive, too mercurial, too strange for all but his most devoted fans to keep up with". The BBC's Mark Easton argued that Bowie provided fuel for "the creative powerhouse that Britain has become" by challenging future generations "to aim high, to be ambitious and provocative, to take risks". Easton concluded that Bowie had "changed the way the world sees Britain. And the way Britain sees itself". Annie Zaleski of "Alternative Press" wrote, "Every band or solo artist who's decided to rip up their playbook and start again owes a debt to Bowie". In 2016, he was dubbed "The Greatest Rock Star Ever" by "Rolling Stone" magazine.
Numerous figures from the music industry whose careers Bowie had influenced paid tribute to him following his death; panegyrics on Twitter (tweets about him peaked at 20,000 a minute an hour after the announcement of his death) also came from outside the entertainment industry and pop culture, such as those from the Vatican, namely Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who quoted "Space Oddity", and the Federal Foreign Office, which thanked Bowie for his part in the fall of the Berlin Wall and referenced "Heroes".
On 7 January 2017, the BBC broadcast the 90-minute documentary "David Bowie: The Last Five Years", taking a detailed look at Bowie's last albums, "The Next Day" and "Blackstar", and his play "Lazarus". On 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday, a charity concert in his birthplace of Brixton was hosted by the actor Gary Oldman, a close friend. A David Bowie walking tour through Brixton was also launched, and other events marking his birthday weekend included concerts in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Tokyo.
On 6 February 2018, the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carried Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster and a mannequin affectionately named Starman into space. "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?" were looping on the car's sound system during the launch.
It was announced on 31 January 2019 that musician and actor Johnny Flynn would be playing Bowie in an upcoming biopic titled "Stardust" which will be set around Bowie's first trip to the United States in 1971. Christopher Bell is writing the script and Gabriel Range will direct. Actress Jena Malone has signed on to play Bowie's wife Angie while actor Marc Maron will play Bowie's record company publicist.
On 1 February 2019, Bowie's son Duncan Jones spoke out against the film saying that he knew nothing about it and was informed about it by a fan on Twitter. Jones also said that the film would not have permission to use any of Bowie's music. "Pretty certain nobody has been granted music rights for ANY biopic... I would know. I'm not saying this movie is not happening. I honestly wouldn't know. I'm saying that as it stands, this movie won't have any of dads music in it, & I can't imagine that changing."
From the time of his earliest recordings in the 1960s, Bowie employed a wide variety of musical styles. His early compositions and performances were strongly influenced by rock and rollers like Little Richard and Elvis Presley, and also the wider world of show business. He particularly strove to emulate the British musical theatre singer-songwriter and actor Anthony Newley, whose vocal style he frequently adopted, and made prominent use of for his 1967 debut release, "David Bowie" (to the disgust of Newley himself, who destroyed the copy he received from Bowie's publisher). Bowie's music hall fascination continued to surface sporadically alongside such diverse styles as hard rock and heavy metal, soul, psychedelic folk, and pop.
Musicologist James Perone observes Bowie's use of octave switches for different repetitions of the same melody, exemplified in his commercial breakthrough single, "Space Oddity", and later in the song "Heroes", to dramatic effect; Perone notes that "in the lowest part of his vocal register ... his voice has an almost crooner-like richness."
Voice instructor Jo Thompson describes Bowie's vocal vibrato technique as "particularly deliberate and distinctive". Schinder and Schwartz call him "a vocalist of extraordinary technical ability, able to pitch his singing to particular effect." Here, too, as in his stagecraft and songwriting, the singer's role playing is evident: historiographer Michael Campbell says that Bowie's lyrics "arrest our ear, without question. But Bowie continually shifts from person to person as he delivers them ... His voice changes dramatically from section to section." In a 2014 analysis of 77 "top" singers' vocal ranges, Bowie was 8th, just behind Christina Aguilera and just ahead of Paul McCartney. In addition to the guitar, Bowie also played a variety of keyboards, including piano, Mellotron, Chamberlin, and synthesizers; harmonica; alto and baritone saxophones; stylophone; viola; cello; koto (in the "Heroes" track "Moss Garden"); thumb piano; drums (on the "Heathen" track "Cactus"), and various percussion instruments.
Bowie was also a painter and artist. He moved to Switzerland in 1976, purchasing a chalet in the hills to the north of Lake Geneva. In the new environment, his cocaine use decreased and he found time for other pursuits outside his musical career. He devoted more time to his painting, and produced a number of post-modernist pieces. When on tour, he took to sketching in a notebook, and photographing scenes for later reference. Visiting galleries in Geneva and the Brücke Museum in Berlin, Bowie became, in the words of biographer Christopher Sandford, "a prolific producer and collector of contemporary art. ... Not only did he become a well-known patron of expressionist art: locked in Clos des Mésanges he began an intensive self-improvement course in classical music and literature, and started work on an autobiography."
One of Bowie's paintings sold at auction in late 1990 for $500, and the cover for his 1995 album "Outside" is a close-up of a self-portrait (from a series of five) he painted that same year. His first solo show was at The Gallery, Cork Street in 1995, entitled 'New Afro/Pagan and Work: 1975–1995'. He was invited to join the editorial board of the journal "Modern Painters" in 1998, and participated in the art hoax later that year.
In 1998, during an interview with Michael Kimmelman for "The New York Times", he said "Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own." Subsequently, in a 1999 interview for the BBC, he said "The only thing I buy obsessively and addictively is art". His art collection, which included works by Damien Hirst, Derek Boshier, Frank Auerbach, Henry Moore, and Jean-Michel Basquiat among others, was valued at over £10m in mid-2016.
After his death, his family decided to sell most of the collection because they "didn't have the space" to store it. On 10 and 11 November, three auctions were held at Sotheby's in London, first with 47 lots and second with 208 paintings, drawings, and sculptures, third with 100 design lots. The items on sale represented about 65 percent of the collection. Exhibition of the works in the auction attracted 51,470 visitors, the auction itself was attended by 1,750 bidders, with over 1,000 more bidding online. The auctions has overall sale total £32.9 million (app. $41.5 million), while the highest-selling item, Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti-inspired painting "Air Power", sold for £7.09 million.
"Bowie Bonds", an early example of celebrity bonds, were asset-backed securities of current and future revenues of the 25 albums (287 songs) that Bowie recorded before 1990. Issued in 1997, the bonds were bought for US$55 million by the Prudential Insurance Company of America. Royalties from the 25 albums generated the cash flow that secured the bonds' interest payments. By forfeiting ten years worth of royalties, Bowie received a payment of US$55 million up front. Bowie used this income to buy songs owned by his former manager, Tony Defries. The bonds liquidated in 2007 and the rights to the income from the songs reverted to Bowie.
In September 1998, Bowie launched an Internet service provider, BowieNet, developed in conjunction with Robert Goodale and Ron Roy. Subscribers to the dial-up service were offered exclusive content, as well as a BowieNet email address and Internet access. The service was closed by 2006.
Bowie married his first wife, Mary Angela Barnett on 19 March 1970 at Bromley Register Office in Bromley, London. They had an open marriage. Angela described their union as a marriage of convenience. "We got married so that I could work [to get a permit]. I didn't think it would last and David said, before we got married, 'I'm not really in love with you' and I thought that's probably a good thing," she said. Bowie said about Angela that "living with her is like living with a blow torch." Their son Duncan, born on 30 May 1971, was at first known as Zowie. Bowie and Angela divorced on 8 February 1980 in Switzerland. Bowie received custody of their son. After the gag order that was part of their divorce agreement ended, Angela wrote, "Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie", a memoir of their turbulent marriage.
On 24 April 1992, Bowie married Somali-American model Iman in a private ceremony in Lausanne. The wedding was later solemnised on 6 June in Florence. They had one daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Zahra Jones, born in August 2000. The couple resided primarily in New York City and London, as well as owning an apartment in Sydney's Elizabeth Bay and Britannia Bay House on the island of Mustique.
Bowie declared himself gay in an interview with Michael Watts for a 1972 issue of "Melody Maker", coinciding with his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust. According to Buckley, "If Ziggy confused both his creator and his audience, a big part of that confusion centred on the topic of sexuality." In a September 1976 interview with "Playboy", Bowie said, "It's true—I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me." His first wife, Angie, supports his claim of bisexuality and alleges that Bowie had a relationship with Mick Jagger.
In a 1983 interview with "Rolling Stone", Bowie said his public declaration of bisexuality was "the biggest mistake I ever made" and "I was always a closet heterosexual." On other occasions, he said his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture had been more a product of the times and the situation in which he found himself than of his own feelings.
"Blender" asked Bowie in 2002 whether he still believed his public declaration was his biggest mistake. After a long pause, he said, "I don't think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners nor be a representative of any group of people." Bowie said he wanted to be a songwriter and performer rather than a headline for his bisexuality, and in "puritanical" America, "I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do."
Buckley wrote that Bowie "mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock", and was probably "never gay, nor even consistently actively bisexual", instead experimenting "out of a sense of curiosity and a genuine allegiance with the 'transgressional'." Biographer Christopher Sandford said, according to Mary Finnigan—with whom Bowie had an affair in 1969—the singer and his first wife Angie "created their bisexual fantasy". Sandford wrote that Bowie "made a positive fetish of repeating the quip that he and his wife had met while 'fucking the same bloke' ... Gay sex was always an anecdotal and laughing matter. That Bowie's actual tastes swung the other way is clear from even a partial tally of his affairs with women." The BBC's Mark Easton wrote in 2016 that Britain was "far more tolerant of difference" and that gay rights, such as same-sex marriage, and gender equality would not have "enjoyed the broad support they do today without Bowie's androgynous challenge all those years ago".
Over the years, Bowie made numerous references to religions and to his evolving spirituality. Beginning in 1967, he became interested in Buddhism and considered becoming a Buddhist monk. After a few months' study at Tibet House in London, he was told by a Lama, "You don't want to be Buddhist... You should follow music." By 1975, Bowie admitted, "I felt totally, absolutely alone. And I probably was alone because I pretty much had abandoned God." In his will, Bowie stipulated that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in Bali "in accordance with the Buddhist rituals".
After Bowie married Iman in a private ceremony in 1992, he said they knew that their "real marriage, sanctified by God, had to happen in a church in Florence". Earlier that year, he knelt on stage at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recited the Lord's Prayer before a television audience. In 1993, Bowie said he had an "undying" belief in the "unquestionable" existence of God. In a separate 1993 interview, while describing the genesis of the music for his album "Black Tie White Noise", he said " … it was important for me to find something [musically] that also had no sort of representation of institutionalized and organized religion, of which I'm not a believer, I must make that clear." Interviewed in 2005, Bowie said whether God exists "is not a question that can be answered... I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm "almost" an atheist. Give me a couple of months... I've nearly got it right.
"Questioning [his] spiritual life [was] always ... germane" to Bowie's songwriting. The song "Station to Station" is "very much concerned with the Stations of the Cross"; the song also specifically references Kabbalah. Bowie called the album "extremely dark... the nearest album to a magick treatise that I've written". "Earthling" showed "the abiding need in me to vacillate between atheism or a kind of gnosticism... What I need is to find a balance, spiritually, with the way I live and my demise." Released shortly before his death, "Lazarus"—from his final album, "Blackstar"—began with the words, "Look up here, I'm in Heaven" while the rest of the album deals with other matters of mysticism and mortality.
In 1976, speaking as The Thin White Duke, Bowie's persona at the time, and "at least partially tongue-in-cheek", he made statements that expressed support for fascism and perceived admiration for Adolf Hitler in interviews with "Playboy", "NME", and a Swedish publication. Bowie was quoted as saying: "Britain is ready for a fascist leader... I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism... I believe very strongly in fascism, people have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership." He was also quoted as saying: "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars" and "You've got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up." Bowie later retracted these comments in an interview with "Melody Maker" in October 1977, blaming them on mental instability caused by his drug problems at the time, saying: "I was out of my mind, totally, completely crazed."
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bowie's public statements shifted sharply towards anti-racism and anti-fascism. In an interview with MTV anchor Mark Goodman in 1983, Bowie criticised the channel for not providing enough coverage of black musicians, becoming visibly uncomfortable when the host suggested concerns among midwestern viewers was a reason. The music videos for "China Girl" and "Let's Dance" were described by Bowie as a "very simple, very direct" statement against racism. The album "Tin Machine" took a more direct stance against fascism and Neo-Nazism, and was criticised for being too preachy.
At the 2014 Brit Awards on 19 February, Bowie became the oldest recipient of a Brit Award in the ceremony's history when he won the award for British Male Solo Artist, which was collected on his behalf by Kate Moss. His speech read: "I'm completely delighted to have a Brit for being the best male – but I am, aren't I Kate? Yes. I think it's a great way to end the day. Thank you very, very much and Scotland stay with us." Bowie's reference to the forthcoming September 2014 Scottish independence referendum garnered a significant reaction throughout the UK on social media.
In 2016, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore said he had wanted to use "Panic in Detroit" for his 1998 documentary "The Big One"; denied at first, he was given the rights after calling Bowie personally. "I've read stuff since his death saying that he wasn't that political and he stayed away from politics. But that wasn't the conversation that I had with him."
On 10 January 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of the album "Blackstar", Bowie died from liver cancer in his New York City apartment. He had been diagnosed 18 months earlier but had not made the news of his illness public. The Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove, who had worked with the singer on his Off-Broadway musical "Lazarus", explained that Bowie was unable to attend rehearsals due to the progression of the disease. He noted that Bowie had kept working during the illness.
Bowie's producer Tony Visconti wrote:
Following Bowie's death, fans gathered at impromptu street shrines. At the mural of Bowie in his birthplace of Brixton, south London, which shows him in his "Aladdin Sane" character, fans laid flowers and sang his songs. Other memorial sites included Berlin, Los Angeles, and outside his apartment in New York. After news of his death, sales of his albums and singles soared. Bowie had insisted that he did not want a funeral, and according to his death certificate he was cremated in New Jersey on 12 January. As he wished in his will, his ashes were scattered in a Buddhist ceremony in Bali, Indonesia.
Bowie's 1969 commercial breakthrough, the song "Space Oddity", won him an Ivor Novello Special Award For Originality. For his performance in the 1976 science fiction film "The Man Who Fell to Earth", he won a Saturn Award for Best Actor. In the ensuing decades he was honoured with numerous awards for his music and its accompanying videos, receiving, among others, six Grammy Awards and four Brit Awards—winning Best British Male Artist twice; the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1996; and the Brits Icon award for his "lasting impact on British culture", given posthumously in 2016.
In 1999, Bowie was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music the same year. He declined the royal honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and turned down a knighthood in 2003. Bowie later stated "I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don't know what it's for. It's not what I spent my life working for."
Bowie has sold over 100 million records worldwide. In the United Kingdom, he was awarded 9 platinum, 11 gold, and 8 silver albums, and in the United States, 5 platinum and 9 gold.
Five of Bowie's albums appear on "Rolling Stone"s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Four of Bowie's songs appear on the "Rolling Stone" list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Additionally, four of his songs are included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. According to Acclaimed Music, he is the fourth most celebrated artist in popular music history.
In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, he was ranked 29. In 2004, "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time. Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2016, "Rolling Stone" proclaimed Bowie "the greatest rock star ever".
In 2008, the spider "Heteropoda davidbowie" was named in Bowie's honour. On 5 January 2015, a main-belt asteroid was named 342843 Davidbowie. On 13 January 2016, Belgian amateur astronomers at MIRA Public Observatory created a "Bowie asterism" of seven stars which had been in the vicinity of Mars at the time of Bowie's death; the "constellation" forms the lightning bolt on Bowie's face from the cover of his "Aladdin Sane" album.
On 25 March 2018, a statue of Bowie was unveiled in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, the town where he debuted Ziggy Stardust. The statue features a likeness of Bowie in 2002 accompanied with various characters and looks from over his career, with Ziggy at the front.
Sources | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8786 |
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared alongside James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), and "Giant" (1956). In the next ten years he made a name in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films, notably "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) and "Hang 'Em High" (1968). Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.
Hopper made his directorial film debut with "Easy Rider" (1969), which he and co-star Peter Fonda wrote with Terry Southern. The film earned Hopper a Cannes Film Festival Award for "Best First Work" and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (shared with Fonda and Southern). Journalist Ann Hornaday wrote: "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, "Easy Rider" became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion". Film critic Matthew Hays wrote "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper".
Following the critical and commercial failure of his second film as director, "The Last Movie" (1971), he worked on various independent and foreign projects – in which he was frequently typecast as mentally disturbed outsiders in such films as "Mad Dog Morgan" (1976) and "The American Friend" (1977) – until he found new fame for his role as an American photojournalist in "Apocalypse Now" (1979). He went on to helm his third directorial work "Out of the Blue" (1980), for which he was again honored at Cannes, and appeared in "Rumble Fish" (1983) and "The Osterman Weekend" (1983). He saw a career resurgence in 1986 when he was widely acclaimed for his performances in "Blue Velvet" and "Hoosiers", the latter of which saw him nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His fourth directorial outing came about through "Colors" (1988), followed by an Emmy-nominated lead performance in "Paris Trout" (1991). Hopper found greater fame for portraying the villains of the films "Super Mario Bros." (1993), "Speed" (1994) and "Waterworld" (1995).
Hopper's later work included a leading role in the short-lived television series "Crash" (2008–2009), inspired by the film of the same name. He appeared in three films released posthumously: "Alpha and Omega" (2010), "The Last Film Festival" (2016) and the long-delayed "The Other Side of the Wind" (2018), which had been filmed in the early 1970s.
Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas, the son of Marjorie Mae (née Davis; July 12, 1917 – January 12, 2007) and James Millard Hopper (June 23, 1916 – August 7, 1982). He had Scottish ancestors. Hopper had two brothers, Marvin and David.
After World War II, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where the young Hopper attended Saturday art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. When he was 13, Hopper and his family moved to San Diego, where his mother worked as a lifeguard instructor and his father was a post office manager, having previously served in the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, in World War II. Hopper was voted most likely to succeed at Helix High School, where he was active in the drama club, speech and choir. It was there that he developed an interest in acting, studying at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the Actors Studio in New York City (he studied with Lee Strasberg for five years). Hopper struck up a friendship with actor Vincent Price, whose passion for art influenced Hopper's interest in art. He was especially fond of the plays of William Shakespeare.
Hopper was reported to have an uncredited role in "Johnny Guitar" in 1954 but he has stated that he was not in Hollywood when this film was made. Hopper made his debut on film in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) and "Giant" (1956). Dean's death in a car accident in September of 1955 affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterward that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Henry Hathaway on the film "From Hell to Texas" (1958). Hopper forced Hathaway to shoot more than 80 takes of a scene over several days before he acquiesced to Hathaway's direction. After filming was finally completed, Hathaway allegedly told Hopper that his career in Hollywood was finished.
In his book "Last Train to Memphis", American popular music historian Peter Guralnick says that in 1956, when Elvis Presley was making his first film in Hollywood, Hopper was roommates with fellow actor Nick Adams and the three became friends and socialized together. In 1959 Hopper moved to New York to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. In 1961, Hopper played his first lead role in "Night Tide", an atmospheric supernatural thriller involving a mermaid in an amusement park.
In a December 1994 interview on the "Charlie Rose Show", Hopper credited John Wayne with saving his career, as Hopper acknowledged that because of his insolent behavior, he could not find work in Hollywood for seven years. Hopper stated that because he was the son-in-law of actress Margaret Sullavan, a friend of John Wayne, Wayne hired Hopper for a role in "The Sons of Katie Elder" (1965), also directed by Hathaway, which enabled Hopper to restart his film career. Hopper acted in another John Wayne film, "True Grit" (1969), and during its production, he became well acquainted with Wayne. In both of the films with Wayne, Hopper's character is killed in the presence of Wayne's character, to whom he utters his dying words.
Hopper had a supporting role as the bet-taker, "Babalugats", in "Cool Hand Luke" (1967). In 1968, Hopper teamed with Peter Fonda, Terry Southern and Jack Nicholson to make "Easy Rider", which premiered in July 1969. With the release of "True Grit" a month earlier, Hopper had starring roles in two major box office films that summer. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director for his improvisational methods and innovative editing for "Easy Rider". The production was plagued by creative differences and personal acrimony between Fonda and Hopper, the dissolution of Hopper's marriage to Hayward, his unwillingness to leave the editor's desk and his accelerating abuse of drugs and alcohol. Hopper said of "Easy Rider": "The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere".
Besides showing drug use on film, it was one of the first films to portray the hippie lifestyle. Hopper became a stereotype for some male youths who rejected traditional jobs and traditional American culture, partly exemplified by Fonda's long sideburns and Hopper wearing shoulder-length hair and a long mustache. They were denied rooms in motels and proper service in restaurants as a result of their radical looks. Their long hair became a point of contention in various scenes during the film.
Hopper was unable to capitalize on his "Easy Rider" success for several years. In 1970 he filmed "The Last Movie", cowritten by Stewart Stern and photographed by Laszlo Kovacs in Peru, and completed production in 1971. It won the prestigious CIDALC Award at that year's Venice Film Festival, but Universal Studios leaders expected a blockbuster like "Easy Rider", and did not like the film or give it an enthusiastic release, while American film audiences found it confounding – as convoluted as an abstract painting. On viewing the first release print, fresh from the lab, in his screening room at Universal, MCA founder Jules Stein rose from his chair and said, "I just don't understand this younger generation." During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, which he had purchased in 1970, for almost an entire year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from "Easy Rider", he married singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas on Halloween of 1970. The marriage lasted eight days.
Hopper was able to sustain his lifestyle and a measure of celebrity by acting in numerous low budget and European films throughout the 1970s as the archetypal "tormented maniac", including "Mad Dog Morgan" (1976), "Tracks" (1976), and "The American Friend" (1977). With Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster "Apocalypse Now" (1979), Hopper returned to prominence as a hyper-manic Vietnam-era photojournalist. Stepping in for an overwhelmed director, Hopper won praise in 1980 for his directing and acting in "Out of the Blue". Immediately thereafter, Hopper starred as an addled short-order cook "Cracker" in the Neil Young/Dean Stockwell low-budget collaboration "Human Highway". Production was reportedly often delayed by his unreliable behavior. Peter Biskind states in the New Hollywood history "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" that Hopper's cocaine intake had reached three grams a day by this time, complemented by 30 beers, and some marijuana and Cuba libres.
After staging a "suicide attempt" (really more of a daredevil act) in a coffin using 17 sticks of dynamite during an "art happening" at the Rice University Media Center (filmed by professor and documentary filmmaker Brian Huberman), and later disappearing into the Mexican desert during a particularly extravagant bender, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in 1983.
Though Hopper gave critically acclaimed performances in Coppola's "Rumble Fish" (1983) and Sam Peckinpah's "The Osterman Weekend" (1983), it was not until he portrayed the gas-huffing, obscenity-screaming villain Frank Booth in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" (1986) that his career truly revived. On reading the script Hopper said to Lynch: "You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!" He won critical acclaim and several awards for this role, and in the same year received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an alcoholic assistant basketball coach in "Hoosiers". Also in 1986, Hopper portrayed Lt. Enright in the comedy horror "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2". In 1988, he directed "Colors", a critically acclaimed police procedural about gang violence in Los Angeles starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the 1991 HBO film "Paris Trout". Shortly thereafter, he played drug smuggler and DEA informant Barry Seal in the HBO film "Doublecrossed". He starred as King Koopa in "Super Mario Bros.", a 1993 critical and commercial failure loosely based on the video game of the same name. In 1993, he played Clifford Worley in "True Romance". He co-starred in the 1994 blockbuster "Speed" with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and as magic-phobic H.P. Lovecraft in the TV movie "Witch Hunt".
In 1995, Hopper played a greedy TV self-help guru, Dr. Luther Waxling in "Search and Destroy". The same year, he starred as Deacon, the one-eyed nemesis of Kevin Costner in "Waterworld". And in 1996 he starred in the science fiction comedy "Space Truckers" directed by Stuart Gordon. In 1999, he starred in The Prophet's Game (a dark thriller), Directed by David Worth and also starring Stephanie Zimbalist, Robert Yocum, Sandra Locke, Joe Penny and Tracey Birdsall. In 2003, Hopper was in the running for the dual lead in the indie horror drama "Firecracker", but was ousted at the last minute in favor of Mike Patton. In 2005, Hopper played Paul Kaufman in George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead". In 2008, Hopper starred in "An American Carol". In 2008 he also played The Death in Wim Wenders' "Palermo Shooting". His last major feature film appearance was in the 2008 film "Elegy" with Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz and Debbie Harry. For his last performance, he was the voice of Tony, the alpha-male of the Eastern wolf pack inside the 2010 3D computer animated film "Alpha and Omega". He died before the movie was released. This brought the directors to dedicate the film to his memory at the beginning of the movie credits.
Hopper filmed scenes for "The Other Side of the Wind" in 1971, appearing as himself; after decades of legal, financial and technical delays, the film was finally released on Netflix in 2018.
Hopper debuted in an episode of the Richard Boone television series "Medic" in 1955, portraying a young epileptic.
He appeared as an arrogant young gunfighter, the Utah Kid, in the 1956 episode "Quicksand" of the first hour-long western television series "Cheyenne", starring Clint Walker. In the storyline, the Kid gave Cheyenne Bodie no choice but to kill him in a gunfight. In 1957 Hopper played thief Abe Larson in another "Cheyenne" episode titled "The Iron Trail." In 1957, he played Billy the Kid on the episode "Brannigan's Boots" of "Sugarfoot" with Will Hutchins.
He appeared in the very first episode of the popular TV series, "The Rifleman" (1958–1963) as protagonist Vernon Tippet. The series starred Chuck Connors and the premiere episode "The Sharpshooter" was written by Sam Peckinpah.
He subsequently appeared in over 140 episodes of television shows such as "Gunsmoke", "Bonanza", "Petticoat Junction", "The Twilight Zone", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", "The Defenders", "The Investigators", "The Legend of Jesse James", "Entourage", "The Big Valley", "The Time Tunnel", and "Combat!".
On 30 September 1970, Hopper appeared on the season 2-second episode of "The Johnny Cash Show" where he sang a duet with Cash entitled "Goin' Up Goin' Down". Cash said the song was written by Kris Kristofferson about Hopper. Hopper added that Kristofferson had written some songs for his Peruvian-shot movie "The Last Movie", in which Kristofferson appeared in his debut role with Julie Adams.j Hopper also recited Rudyard Kipling's famous poem If— during his appearance.
Hopper teamed with Nike in the early 1990s to make a series of television commercials. He appeared as a "crazed referee" in those ads. He portrayed villain Victor Drazen in the first season of the popular action drama "24".
Hopper appeared on the final two episodes of the cult 1991 television show "Fishing with John" with host "John Lurie".
Hopper starred as a U.S. Army colonel in the 2005 television series "E-Ring", a drama set at The Pentagon, but the series was canceled after 14 episodes aired. Hopper appeared in all 22 episodes that were filmed. He also played the part of record producer Ben Cendars in the Starz television series "Crash", which lasted two seasons (26 episodes).
Hopper had several artistic pursuits beyond film. He was a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor.
Hopper's fascination with art began with painting lessons at the Nelson-Atkins Museum while still a child in Kansas City, Missouri. Early in his career, he painted and wrote poetry, though many of his works were destroyed in a 1961 fire that burned scores of homes, including his, on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air. His painting style ranges from abstract impressionism to photorealism and often includes references to his cinematic work and to other artists.
Ostracized by the Hollywood film studios due to his reputation for being a "difficult" actor, Hopper turned to photography in the 1960s with a camera bought for him by his first wife Brooke Hayward. During this period he created the cover art for the Ike & Tina Turner single "River Deep – Mountain High" (released in 1966). He would become a prolific photographer, and noted writer Terry Southern profiled Hopper in "Better Homes and Gardens" as an up-and-coming photographer "to watch" in the mid-1960s. Hopper's early photography is known for portraits from the 1960s, and he began shooting portraits for "Vogue" and other magazines. His photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington and 1965 civil-rights march in Selma, Alabama, were published. His intimate and unguarded images of celebrities like Andy Warhol and Jane Fonda were the subject of gallery shows and were collected in a book, "1712 North Crescent Heights". The book, whose title was his address in the Hollywood Hills in the 1960s, was edited by Marin Hopper. In 1960–67, before the making of "Easy Rider", Hopper shot a selection of groundbreaking images that is seen as telling a remarkable history of art, artist, places and events of that time. "Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961–1967" was published in February 2011, by Taschen.
Hopper began working as a painter and a poet as well as a collector of art in the 1960s as well, particularly Pop Art. Over his lifetime he amassed a formidable array of 20th- and 21st-century art, including many of Julian Schnabel's works (such as a shattered-plate portrait of Hopper); numerous works from his early cohorts, such as Ed Ruscha, Edward Kienholz, Roy Lichtenstein ("Sinking Sun", 1964), and Warhol ("Double Mona Lisa", 1963); and pieces by contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst and Robin Rhode. He was involved in L.A.'s Virginia Dwan and Ferus galleries of the 1960s, and he was a longtime friend and supporter to New York dealer Tony Shafrazi. One of the first art works Hopper owned was an early print of Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans bought for US$75. Hopper also once owned Warhol's "Mao", which he shot one evening in a fit of paranoia, the two bullet holes possibly adding to the print's value. The print sold at Christie's, New York, for US$302,500 in January 2011. The proceeds of the two-day sale of some 300 pieces from Hopper's collection at Christie's went to his four children.
During his lifetime, Hopper's own work as well as his collection was shown in monographic and group exhibitions around the world including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; MAK Vienna: Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, Vienna; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Cinémathèque Française, Paris, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. In March 2010, it was announced that Hopper was on the "short list" for Jeffrey Deitch's inaugural show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). In April 2010, Deitch confirmed that Hopper's work, curated by Julian Schnabel, will indeed be the focus of his debut at MOCA. The title of the exhibition, "Double Standard", was taken from Hopper's iconic 1961 photograph of the two Standard Oil signs seen through an automobile windshield at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, and North Doheny Drive on historic Route 66 in Los Angeles. The image was reproduced on the invitation for Ed Ruscha's second solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery in 1964.
In 2013, Harper Collins published "Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream", a biography on Hopper by American writer Tom Folsom.
On the Gorillaz album "Demon Days", Hopper narrates the song "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head".
In the late 1980s, Hopper purchased a trio of nearly identical two-story, loft-style condominiums at 330 Indiana Avenue in Venice Beach, California – one made of concrete, one of plywood, and one of green roofing shingles – built by Frank Gehry and two artist friends of Hopper's, Chuck Arnoldi and Laddie John Dill, in 1981. In 1987, he commissioned an industrial-style main residence, with a corrugated metal exterior designed by Brian Murphy, as a place to display his artwork.
According to "Rolling Stone" magazine, Hopper was "one of Hollywood's most notorious drug addicts" for 20 years. He spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s living as an "outcast" in Taos, New Mexico after the success of "Easy Rider". Hopper was also "notorious for his troubled relationships with women", including Michelle Phillips, who divorced him after eight days of marriage. Hopper was married five times:
Hopper has been widely reported to be the godfather of actress Amber Tamblyn; in a 2009 interview with "Parade", Tamblyn explained that "godfather" was "just a loose term" for Hopper, Dean Stockwell and Neil Young, three famous friends of her father's, who were always around the house when she was growing up, and who were big influences on her life.
In 1994, Rip Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Hopper over a story Hopper told on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film "Easy Rider". According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him. A judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay US$475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another US$475,000 in punitive damages.
According to Newsmeat, Hopper donated US$2,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 and an equal amount in 2005.
Hopper was honored with the rank of commander of France's National Order of Arts and Letters, at a ceremony in Paris.
Despite being a Republican, Hopper supported Barack Obama in the 2008 US Presidential election. Hopper confirmed this in an election day appearance on the ABC daytime show "The View". He said his reason for not voting Republican was the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
On January 14, 2010, Hopper filed for divorce from his fifth wife Victoria Duffy. After citing her "outrageous conduct" and stating she was "insane", "inhuman" and "volatile", Hopper was granted a restraining order against her on February 11, 2010, and as a result, she was forbidden to come within of him or contact him. On March 9, 2010, Duffy refused to move out of the Hopper home, despite the court's order that she do so by March 15.
On March 23, 2010, he filed papers in court alleging Duffy had absconded with US$1.5 million of his art, refused his requests to return it, and then had "left town".
On April 5, 2010, a court ruled that Duffy could continue living on Hopper's property, and that he must pay US$12,000 per month spousal and child support for their daughter Galen. Hopper did not attend the hearing. On May 12, 2010, a hearing was held before Judge Amy Pellman in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court. Though Hopper died two weeks later, Duffy insisted at the hearing that he was well enough to be deposed. The hearing also dealt with whom to designate on Hopper's life insurance policy, which listed his wife as a beneficiary. A very ill Hopper did not appear in court though his estranged wife did – case BD518046. Despite Duffy's bid to be named the sole beneficiary of Hopper's million-dollar policy, the judge ruled against her and limited her claim to one-quarter of the policy. The remaining US$750,000 was to go to his estate.
On November 14, 2010, it was revealed that, despite Duffy's earlier assertion in her court papers of February 2010 that Hopper was mentally incompetent, and that his children had rewritten his estate plan in order to leave Duffy and her daughter, Hopper's youngest child Galen, destitute, Galen would in fact receive the proceeds of 40% of his estate.
On September 28, 2009, Hopper, then 73, was reportedly brought by ambulance to an unidentified Manhattan hospital wearing an oxygen mask and "with numerous tubes visible". On October 2, he was discharged, after receiving treatment for dehydration.
On October 29, Hopper's manager Sam Maydew reported that he had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. In January 2010, it was reported that Hopper's cancer had metastasized to his bones.
On March 18, 2010, he was honored with the 2,403rd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Surrounded by friends including Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen, David Lynch, Michael Madsen, family and fans, he attended its addition to the sidewalk six days later.
By March 2010, Hopper reportedly weighed only and was unable to carry on long conversations. According to papers filed in his divorce court case, Hopper was terminally ill and was unable to undergo chemotherapy to treat his prostate cancer.
Hopper died at his home in the coastal Venice district of Los Angeles on the morning of May 29, 2010, 12 days after his 74th birthday. His funeral took place on June 3, 2010, at San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. His body was buried at the Jesus Nazareno Cemetery in Ranchos de Taos.
The film "Alpha and Omega", which was among his last film roles, was dedicated to him as was the 2011 film "Restless", which starred his son Henry Hopper.
The moving image collection of Dennis Hopper is held at the Academy Film Archive. The Dennis Hopper Trust Collection represents Hopper's directorial efforts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8791 |
Detroit Red Wings
The Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference, and are one of the Original Six teams of the league. Founded in 1926, the team was known as the Detroit Cougars until 1930. For the 1930–31 and 1931–32 seasons the team was called the Detroit Falcons, and in 1932 changed their name to the Red Wings.
, the Red Wings have won the most Stanley Cup championships of any NHL franchise based in the United States (11) and are third overall in total Stanley Cup championships, behind the Montreal Canadiens (24) and Toronto Maple Leafs (13). The Wings played their home games at Joe Louis Arena from 1979 until 2017, after playing for 52 years in Olympia Stadium. They moved into the new Little Caesars Arena beginning with the 2017–18 season. The Red Wings are one of the most popular and successful franchises in the NHL; fans and sports commentators refer to the Detroit area as "Hockeytown", which has been a registered trademark owned by the franchise since 1996.
Between the 1931–32 and 1965–66 seasons, the Red Wings missed the playoffs only four times. Between the 1966–67 and 1982–83 seasons, the Red Wings made the playoffs only two times. However, thereafter, from 1983–84 to 2015–16, they made the playoffs 30 times in 32 seasons, including 25-straight from 1990–91 to 2015–16 (not counting the cancelled 2004–05 season), in 2006 this became the longest active streak of postseason appearances in all of North American professional sports and finished tied for the third longest streak in NHL history. Since 1983–84, the Red Wings have tallied six regular season first-place finishes and have won the Stanley Cup four times (1997, 1998, 2002, and 2008).
Following the 1926 Stanley Cup playoffs, during which the Western Hockey League (WHL) was widely reported to be on the verge of folding, the NHL held a meeting on April 17 to consider applications for expansion franchises, at which it was reported that five different groups sought a team for Detroit. During a subsequent meeting on May 15, the league approved a franchise to the Townsend-Seyburn group of Detroit and named Charles A. Hughes as governor. Frank and Lester Patrick, the owners of the WHL, made a deal to sell the league's players to the NHL and cease league operations. The new Detroit franchise purchased the players of the WHL's Victoria Cougars, who had won the Stanley Cup in 1925 and had made the Finals the previous winter, to play for the team. The new Detroit franchise also adopted the Cougars' nickname in honor of the folded franchise.
Since no arena in Detroit was ready at the time, the Cougars played their first season at the Border Cities Arena in Windsor, Ontario. For the 1927–28 season, the Cougars moved into the new Detroit Olympia, which would be their home rink until December 15, 1979. This was also the first season behind the bench for Jack Adams, who would be the face of the franchise for the next 36 years as either coach or general manager.
The Cougars made the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 1929 with Carson Cooper leading the team in scoring. The Cougars were outscored 7–2 in the two-game series with the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1930, the Cougars were renamed the Falcons, but their woes continued, as they usually finished near the bottom of the standings, even though they made the playoffs again in 1932.
In 1932, the NHL let grain merchant James E. Norris, who had made two previous unsuccessful bids to buy an NHL team, purchase the Falcons. Norris' first act was to choose a new name for the team—the Red Wings. Earlier in the century, Norris had been a member of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association (MAAA), a multi-sport club whose winged-wheel emblem derived from its cycling roots, and whose hockey team won the first Stanley Cup in 1893. Norris decided that a red version of the MAAA "Winged Wheelers" logo was perfect for a team playing in the "Motor City" and on October 5, 1932, the club was renamed the Red Wings. Norris also placed coach Jack Adams on a one-year probation for the 1932–33 NHL season. Adams managed to pass his probationary period by leading the renamed franchise to its first-ever playoff series victory, over the Montreal Maroons. The team then lost in the semi-finals to the New York Rangers.
In 1934, the Red Wings made the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time, with John Sorrell scoring 21 goals over 47 games and Larry Aurie leading the team in scoring. However, the Chicago Black Hawks defeated the Red Wings in the Finals, winning the best-of-five series in four games to claim their first title. Two seasons later, the Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup in 1936, defeating Toronto in four games. Detroit repeated as Stanley Cup champions in 1937, winning over the Rangers in the full five games. In 1938, the Montreal Canadiens and the Red Wings became the first NHL teams to play in Europe, playing in Paris and London. The Wings played nine games against the Canadiens and went 3–5–1. They did not play in Europe again until the pre-season and start of the 2009–10 NHL season, in Sweden, against the St. Louis Blues.
The Red Wings made the Stanley Cup Finals in three consecutive years during the early 1940s. In 1941, they were swept by the Boston Bruins, and in 1942, they lost a seven-game series to Toronto after winning the first three games. However, in 1943, with Mud Bruneteau and Syd Howe scoring 23 and 20 goals, respectively, Detroit won their third Stanley Cup by sweeping the Bruins. Through the rest of the decade, the team made the playoffs every year, and reached the Finals three more times.
In 1946, one of the greatest players in hockey history came into the NHL with the Red Wings. Gordie Howe, a right winger from Floral, Saskatchewan, only scored seven goals and 15 assists in his first season and would not reach his prime for a few more years. It was also the last season as head coach for Adams, who stepped down after the season to concentrate on his duties as general manager. He was succeeded by minor league coach Tommy Ivan. By his second season, Howe was paired with Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay to form what would become one of the great lines in NHL history: the "Production Line". Lindsay's 33 goals propelled the Red Wings to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they were swept by the Maple Leafs. Detroit reached the Finals again the following season, only to be swept again by Toronto.
During the 1950 Stanley Cup semi-finals, Leo Reise Jr. scored the winning goal in overtime, which prevented the Maple Leafs from winning four straight championships. In the Finals, the Red Wings defeated the New York Rangers in seven games. In Game 7, Pete Babando scored the game winner in double overtime. After the game, Lindsay skated around the Olympia ice with the Stanley Cup.
After being upset by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1951 semi-finals, Detroit won its fifth Stanley Cup, in 1952, sweeping both the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens, with the Production Line of Howe, Abel and Lindsay joined by second-year goaltender Terry Sawchuk. Detroit became the first team in 17 years to go undefeated in the playoffs. They also scored 24 playoff goals, compared to Toronto and Montreal's combined total of 5. Abel left the Red Wings for Chicago during the off-season, and his spot on the roster was replaced by Alex Delvecchio. In December 1952, James E. Norris died. He was succeeded as team president by his daughter, Marguerite, which made her the first woman to head an NHL franchise.
Following another playoff upset in 1953 at the hands of the Bruins, the Red Wings won back-to-back Stanley Cups, beating the rival powerhouse Montreal Canadiens. Both of the Stanley Cup Finals played between the two teams were decided in seven games. The seventh game during the 1954 Stanley Cup Finals was won with one of the oddest cup winning goals ever, when the 5'7" left winger Tony Leswick, known more for his relentless checking than scoring prowess, shot a puck towards the Montreal goal from the middle of the ice. Habs defenseman Doug Harvey tried to gain control of the wobbly puck with his glove, but instead redirected it past Montreal goalie Gerry McNeil. The repeat of the series the season after was closely contested, as all of the games were won by the home team, with Detroit taking the seventh game. Montreal was sorely lacking its all-star Maurice Richard, who was suspended after hitting a linesman during the regular season, and the Red Wings' stars carried their team, as Lindsay scored four goals in a single game and Howe scored 20 points during the playoffs, 12 of which during the Finals, all new records in the league.
The 1954–55 season ended a run of seven straight regular season titles, an NHL record. During the 1955 offseason, Marguerite Norris lost an intra-family power struggle, and was forced to turn over the Red Wings to her younger brother Bruce. Detroit and Montreal once again met, in the 1956 Stanley Cup Finals, but this time the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup, their first of five in a row. In 1957, Lindsay, who had scored 30 goals and led the league in assists with 55, teamed up with Harvey to help start the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA). As a result, he and goaltender Glenn Hall were promptly traded to Chicago.
In 1959, the Red Wings missed the playoffs for the first time in 21 years. However, within a couple of years, the franchise was able to rejuvenate itself. The Red Wings made the Finals in four of the next six years between 1961 and 1966. However, they came away empty-handed.
Only a year after making the Finals, the Red Wings finished a distant fifth, 24 points out of the playoffs. It was the beginning of a slump that they would not emerge from in almost 20 years. This period is derisively known as the "Dead Wings" era.
One factor in the Red Wings' decline was the end of the old development system. Another factor was Ned Harkness, who was hired as coach in 1970 and was promoted to general manager midway through the season. A successful college hockey coach, Harkness tried to force his two-way style of play on a veteran Red Wings team resistant to change. They chafed under his rule in which he demanded short hair and no smoking, and put other rules in place regarding drinking and phone calls. Harkness was forced to resign in 1974, ending the period colloquially referred to as "Darkness with Harkness".
In the expansion season of 1967–68, the Red Wings acquired longtime star left-winger Frank Mahovlich from the defending Cup champions in Toronto. Mahovlich would go on a line with Howe and Delvecchio, and in 1968–69, he scored a career-high 49 goals and had two All-Star seasons in Detroit. However, Mahovlich was traded to Montreal in 1971, while Howe announced his retirement in the same year. Throughout the decade, the Red Wings were hampered due to a number of factors.
During the 1979–80 season, the Red Wings left the Olympia for Joe Louis Arena. In 1982, after 50 years of family ownership, Bruce Norris sold the Red Wings to Mike Ilitch, founder of Little Caesars.
In 1983, the Red Wings drafted Steve Yzerman, a center from the Peterborough Petes, with their first-round pick. He led the team in scoring in his rookie year. That season, with John Ogrodnick, Ivan Boldirev, Ron Duguay, and Brad Park, Detroit made the playoffs for the first time in six years. Park ended up winning the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. Park was later asked to coach the Red Wings, only to be sacked after just 45 games in 1985–86. They did end up in last place with a 17–57–6 record for only 40 points. This was the same year that the Red Wings added enforcer Bob Probert, one of the most familiar faces of the team in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 1986–87 season, with Yzerman, now the captain following the departure of Danny Gare, joined by Petr Klima, Adam Oates, Gerard Gallant, defenseman Darren Veitch and new head coach Jacques Demers, the Red Wings won a playoff series for only the second time in the modern era. They made it all the way to the conference finals against the powerful Edmonton Oilers, but lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champions in five games. In 1988, they won their first division title in 23 years. They did so, however, in a relatively weak division, as no other team in the Norris finished above .500. As was the case in the previous season, they made it to the conference finals only to lose again to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Oilers in five games.
In 1989, Yzerman scored a career-best 65 goals, but Detroit was upset in the first round by the Chicago Blackhawks. The following season, Yzerman scored 62 goals, but the team missed the playoffs.
After the season, Demers was fired and was replaced by Bryan Murray as the new head coach. Murray was unable to get them back over .500, but they returned to the playoffs. Yzerman was joined by Sergei Fedorov, who would be an award-winner and frequent all-star for the team in the 1990s. In 1991, the team signed free agent Ray Sheppard, who would score a career-best 52 goals three years later. In 1993, the Red Wings acquired top defenseman Paul Coffey. Also joining the Red Wings around this time were draft picks Vladimir Konstantinov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Darren McCarty and Chris Osgood.
In 1993, former Montreal Canadiens coach Scotty Bowman was hired as the new head coach. In his second season, the lockout-shortened 1994–95 NHL season, Bowman guided Detroit to its first Finals appearance in 29 years, only to be swept by the New Jersey Devils.
During the 1995–96 season, they won an NHL record 62 games. After defeating the St. Louis Blues in seven games, the Red Wings would fall in the Western Conference finals to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.
The following season, the Red Wings acquired Brendan Shanahan and Larry Murphy. In the playoffs, they would defeat the St. Louis Blues, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Avalanche in the first three rounds. In the Finals, the Red Wings swept the Philadelphia Flyers. It was their first Stanley Cup since 1955, breaking the longest drought (42 years long) in the league at that time. Mike Vernon was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Misfortune befell the Red Wings six days after their championship; defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov, one of the members of the "Russian Five", suffered a brain injury in a limousine accident, and his career came to an abrupt end. As a result, the team dedicated the 1997–98 season to him. The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in four games, this time over the Washington Capitals, and Konstantinov was brought onto the ice in his wheelchair so he could touch it.
The following season, the Red Wings appeared to be poised to win a third consecutive Stanley Cup when they acquired three-time top blueliner Chris Chelios from his hometown Chicago Blackhawks in March 1999. Also acquired at the trade deadline were defenseman Ulf Samuelsson, winger Wendel Clark, and goaltender Bill Ranford. Despite high aspirations, however, Detroit would end up losing in the Western Conference semi-finals to Colorado in six games. In 2000, the Red Wings would finish second in the Central Division. Just like the previous season, however, they would lose to the Avalanche in the Western Conference semi-finals.
In 2001, Detroit, the NHL's second-best team in the regular season, were upset in the playoffs by the Los Angeles Kings. During the ensuing offseason, the team acquired goaltender Dominik Hasek (the defending Vezina Trophy winner) and forwards Luc Robitaille and Brett Hull. Russian prospect Pavel Datsyuk also joined the team. Strengthened by the additions, the Red Wings posted the league's best record in the 2001–02 regular season and defeated Colorado in seven games in the Western Conference finals after beating the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues in rounds one and two. The Red Wings then went on to capture another Stanley Cup, in five games, over the Carolina Hurricanes, with Nicklas Lidstrom winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' MVP. Bowman and Hasek both retired after the season.
The off-season saw the Red Wings promote associate coach Dave Lewis to the head coach position after Bowman's retirement. In the market for a new starting goaltender after Hasek's retirement, they signed Curtis Joseph from the Toronto Maple Leafs to a three-year, $24 million deal. Also new to the lineup was highly-touted Swedish prospect Henrik Zetterberg. The Red Wings finished the season second in the Western Conference, which pitted them in the 2003 playoffs against the seventh-seeded Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The Mighty Ducks shocked the hockey world when they swept the Red Wings in four games en route to a Finals appearance.
In the offseason, long time Red Wing Fedorov signed with the Mighty Ducks as a free agent. Additionally, Hasek opted to come out of retirement and join the Red Wings for the 2003–04 season. Joseph, despite being one of the highest-paid players in the NHL, spent part of the season in the minor leagues. Hasek himself would be sidelined with a groin injury. Notwithstanding, the Red Wings would finish atop of the Central Division and the NHL standings. The Red Wings eliminated the Nashville Predators in six games in the first round of the 2004 playoffs, which led to a second round match-up with the Calgary Flames. The teams split the first four games, and headed to Detroit for a pivotal Game 5, which the Red Wings lost 1–0. They were then eliminated two nights later in Calgary by the same score in overtime. The Red Wings did not play in the 2004–05 season due to the lockout, which cancelled the entire NHL season.
On July 15, 2005, Mike Babcock, former head coach in Anaheim, became the new head coach for the Red Wings. On November 21, 2005, defenseman Jiri Fischer went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the bench during a game against the Nashville Predators. The game was cancelled because of his injury and was made up on January 23, 2006. This was the first time in NHL history a game had been postponed due to an injury. While the game was played for the full 60 minutes, the Predators were allowed to maintain their 1–0 lead from the original game and won 3–2. The Red Wings won the Presidents' Trophy with a 58–16–8 record, earning them 124 points and secured home ice advantage for the entire playoffs. They opened the 2006 playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers with a 3–2 overtime victory at Joe Louis Arena, but the Oilers won four of the next five games to take the series.
Continuing the shakeup of the Red Wings roster, the offseason saw the departure of Brendan Shanahan, the return of Dominik Hasek and the retirement of Steve Yzerman. Yzerman retired with the additional distinction of having been the longest-serving team captain in NHL history.
The Red Wings opened the 2006–07 season with Nicklas Lidstrom as the new captain. The team retired Yzerman's jersey number 19 on January 2, 2007. The Red Wings finished first in the Western Conference and tied for first in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres, but the Sabres were awarded the Presidents' Trophy because they had more wins. Detroit advanced to the third round of the 2007 playoffs after defeating Calgary and the San Jose Sharks both in six games, coming back to win three-straight after the Sharks had a 2–1 series lead. The Red Wings would then lose to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks in the Western Conference finals in six games.
To start the 2007–08 campaign, Zetterberg recorded at least a point in each of Detroit's first 17 games, setting a club record. The Wings cruised to the playoffs, where they faced the Nashville Predators. After goaltender Dominik Hasek played poorly in Games 3 and 4 of the series, both losses, head coach Mike Babcock replaced him with Chris Osgood. Osgood never left the net for the remainder of the playoffs, as the Red Wings came back in that series on their way to winning their 11th Stanley Cup. The final victory came in Game 6 on June 4, 2008, against the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3–2. This was the Red Wings' fourth Stanley Cup in 11 years. Zetterberg scored the winning goal in the decisive game, and was also named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. It was the first time a team captained by a non-North American player (Lidstrom) won the Stanley Cup.
On July 2, 2008, the Red Wings announced the signing of Marian Hossa. On January 1, 2009, the Red Wings played the Chicago Blackhawks in the second NHL Winter Classic at Chicago's Wrigley Field, defeating them 6–4. Although they finished second in the conference to the San Jose Sharks, the Wings became the first team in NHL history to top 100 points in nine straight seasons. In the playoffs, the Red Wings swept the Columbus Blue Jackets, then defeated the eighth-seeded Anaheim Ducks in a hard-fought seven game series. They took on the vastly improved Chicago Blackhawks in the conference finals, winning in five games. The Red Wings would face the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Finals for a second consecutive year, but this series would feature a different outcome as the Penguins defeated the Red Wings in seven games. The Red Wings became only the second NHL team to lose the Stanley Cup at home in Game 7.
The Red Wings began the 2009–10 NHL season in Stockholm, losing both games to the St. Louis Blues 4–3 and 5–3, respectively. They were plagued by injuries throughout the season and lost the second most man games to injury, with only the last place Edmonton Oilers losing more. The beginning of the season was a struggle for the Red Wings, with key players out of the lineup, including Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, Johan Franzen, Valtteri Filppula and Niklas Kronwall. After the Olympic break, Detroit posted a record of 13–3–2 and earned 28 points, the most by any team in the NHL. This run helped them secure the fifth playoff seed in the Western Conference. Detroit won their first-round playoff series over the Phoenix Coyotes in seven games. In the second round, they would be defeated by the San Jose Sharks in five games.
A healthier Red Wings team finished the 2010–11 NHL season with a 47–25–10 record and 104 points to win the Central Division title. They once again faced the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round of the playoffs, this time sweeping them 4–0. The Red Wings then went go to face the Sharks in round two. After losing the first three games of the series, the Red Wings won three consecutive games to force a Game 7, becoming just the eighth team in NHL history to accomplish the feat. The Red Wings lost Game 7 to the Sharks by a score of 3–2 and were eliminated.
During the 2011 off-season, Red Wings defenseman Brian Rafalski retired. Detroit soon signed free agent defenseman Ian White to take his place. Long-time Red Wings Chris Osgood and Kris Draper also announced their retirement from hockey, with both soon taking positions within the club. Detroit signed goaltender Ty Conklin for his second tour of duty with the team. Tragedy struck the organization and the rest of the NHL upon the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash, which killed former Red Wings assistant coach Brad McCrimmon and defenseman Ruslan Salei, who had joined the KHL team during the summer. Stefan Liv, a former Red Wings goaltending prospect, was also among the fatalities. The Red Wings then added a patch to the left arm of their uniforms with the trio's initials.
During the season, the Red Wings won an NHL-record 23 consecutive home games. The Red Wings also made the NHL playoffs, extending their streak of 21-straight playoff appearances, as the fifth seed. They were defeated in five games by their opening round opponent, the Nashville Predators. On May 31, 2012, Nicklas Lidstrom retired.
Zetterberg was named successor to Lidstrom as team captain. On July 1, 2012, the first day of the NHL free agency period, the Red Wings signed Swiss forward Damien Brunner to a one-year, entry-level contract; forward Jordin Tootoo to a three-year, $5.7 million contract; and goaltender Jonas Gustavsson to a two-year, $3 million deal.
The team won their final four games of the 2012–13 season to earn the seventh seed of the playoffs. The Red Wings' 3–0 victory over the Dallas Stars on April 27, 2013 preserved their streak of 22 consecutive playoff appearances. As the seventh seed in the 2013 playoffs, the Red Wings faced the second-seeded Anaheim Ducks. They survived a fierce battle that included four overtime games, winning the series 4–3 after a 3–2 Game 7 victory in Anaheim. The next round pitted the Red Wings against the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks. Despite jumping out to a 3–1 series lead, the Red Wings would ultimately lose to the eventual Stanley Cup champions in seven games.
On July 5, 2013, the Red Wings signed long time Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson to a one-year contract and long time Florida Panther Stephen Weiss to a five-year contract. In the 2013–14 season, the Red Wings moved to the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference as part of the NHL's realignment. The move to the Eastern Conference allowed them to play a majority of their games against teams in the Eastern Standard Time Zone. On April 9, 2014, the Red Wings clinched their 23rd consecutive playoff appearance. They would be eliminated in the first round by the Boston Bruins.
On April 9, 2015, the Red Wings clinched their 24th consecutive playoff appearance, thus extending their streak. The team was eliminated in the first round by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Petr Mrazek had earned the starting goaltender role from Jimmy Howard, and Kronwall was suspended for Game 7 as Tampa Bay erased a 3–2 deficit to win the series. Mike Babcock, concluding the final year of his contract, left the Red Wings to become the new head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Jeff Blashill, head coach of the Red Wings' top minor league affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, was named his successor on June 9.
On April 9, 2016, despite the Red Wings losing 3–2 to the New York Rangers, the Ottawa Senators defeated the Boston Bruins 6–1 as the Red Wings narrowly made the playoffs and extended their streak to a 25th season. They would lose in the first round to the Lightning in five games.
On February 10, 2017, club owner Mike Ilitch died. The Red Wings' playoff appearance streak ended after 25 seasons in the 2016–17 season. The Red Wings won their last game at Joe Louis Arena 4–1 on April 9, 2017, against the New Jersey Devils.
The Red Wings played their first regular season game at Little Caesars Arena on October 5, 2017, winning 4–2 over the Minnesota Wild. The Red Wings finished the 2017–18 season with a 30–39–13 record. They missed the playoffs for the second season in a row, marking the first time since the early 1980s the team missed the playoffs in consecutive years. The Red Wings finished the 2018–19 season with a 32–40–10 record, missing the playoffs for a third consecutive season.
On April 19, 2019, the Red Wings announced that Steve Yzerman would rejoin the team as general manager and executive vice president. On February 21, 2020, the Red Wings became the first team to be eliminated from playoff contention before the trade deadline since the Pittsburgh Penguins did so in the 2003–04 season. On March 10, 2020, the Red Wings clinched the worst overall record in NHL for the first time since the 1985–86 season. On March 12, 2020, the 2019–20 season was suspended by the NHL due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 26, 2020, the NHL announced that the rest of the season was over for the seven teams that did not qualify for the 24-team Stanley Cup Playoffs, which included the Red Wings. This was the first time since the 1985–86 season that the Red Wings finished with less than 20 wins. The Red Wings also became the second team since the 2004–05 NHL lockout, and the subsequent start of the salary cap era, to finish with a sub-.300 points percentage, along with the 2016–17 Colorado Avalanche.
The Red Wings' jerseys (traditionally known in hockey as "sweaters") have been more or less the same since the 1930s – a white or red base with red or white piping. The only significant changes have been the replacement of the word "Detroit" with the "winged wheel" logo in 1932, and vertical arch lettering for the players' names and block letters in 1983. The Red Wings only wear the vertical arched letters in the regular season and playoffs, while using straight serifed nameplates during the preseason.
"The Hockey News" voted the Red Wings' "winged wheel" logo the second best in the league in 2008. The Red Wings, like all NHL teams, updated their jerseys to the new standard for the 2007–08 NHL season. The Red Wings kept their design as close to original as possible, the exceptions being: On the road (white) jersey, there was more red on the sleeves as the color panel began closer to the shoulder, and the letters of the captain and alternate captains were moved to the right shoulder.
When Adidas became the uniform outfitter starting with the 2017–18 season, the Red Wings kept the same basic look.
The Red Wings have rarely used any alternate logos or uniforms since the trend became popular in the 1990s, the sole exceptions were select games of the 1991–92 season commemorating the league's 75th anniversary, and for a commemorative game on January 27, 1994 at Chicago Stadium. Those jerseys were based on the uniforms worn by the team (then the Detroit Cougars) in 1927–28. The throwbacks are primarily white with five red horizontal stripes on the body, the broadest middle stripe bearing "Detroit" in bold letters, and three red stripes on the sleeves. This jersey served as the basis for the uniforms worn by Wayne Gretzky's team of NHLPA All-Stars, nicknamed the "99ers", for their exhibition tour in Europe during the 1994–95 NHL lockout.
The Red Wings wore alternative "retro" jerseys for the 2009 NHL Winter Classic in Chicago. The jerseys were based on the uniforms worn by the Detroit Cougars during their inaugural season of 1926–27. These jerseys were white, with a single bold red stripe on the sleeves and chest, and a uniquely styled white Old English "D" centered on the chest stripe. These jerseys were also worn for their final 2009 regular season home game, again against the Chicago Blackhawks. The Red Wings again used an alternate jersey mimicking throwback jerseys for the 2014 NHL Winter Classic against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Michigan Stadium.
The Red Wings wore a specially designed one-time only jersey for their Stadium Series game in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche on February 27, 2016. The majority of this jersey was the traditional red, decorated with a thick diagonal white stripe running from the player's right shoulder across the front towards the left hip. The bottom of each sleeve featured a thick white stripe from wrist to elbow. The crest on the front of the jersey was a stylized red "D". The words "Red Wings" were printed in all capital letters on the left side of the collar, and the phrase "EST. 1926" was printed inside the back of the collar. These jerseys featured the current Red Wings logo on the left shoulder cap. The names and numbers were printed larger than traditional NHL jerseys to increase visibility and player identification for fans watching the game at Coors Field, a stadium traditionally used for Major League Baseball.
The Red Wings unveiled a uniform patch on September 27, 2016 to honor Gordie Howe, who died on June 10, 2016. The patch was a depiction of Howe's jersey number 9, and was worn by the team above the logo on the front of the jersey on the left side of the chest for all 82 regular season games during the 2016–17 season.
The Red Wings wore a specially designed one-time only jersey for the Centennial Classic in Toronto against the Toronto Maple Leafs on January 1, 2017. It was a white jersey that had four stripes on the arms. Three of the stripes were red, while the fourth was silver. On the silver stripes were the years the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. The logo and numbers were outlined in silver.
The Red Wings' logo received significant media attention in August 2017 when it was discovered that a white supremacist group used a modified version of it, in which the wheel's spokes consisted of the occult SS symbol Black Sun; it was the aegis of their shields during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. As a result, the Red Wings condemned the group for the usage of the logo and threatened legal action.
The "Legend of the Octopus" is a sports tradition during Detroit Red Wings playoff games, in which an octopus is thrown onto the ice surface for good luck. During the playoffs, Joe Louis Arena was generally adorned with a giant octopus with red eyes, nicknamed "Al" after head ice manager Al Sobotka.
The 1952 playoffs featured the start of the octopus throw. The owner of a local fish market, Peter Cusimano, threw one from the stands onto the ice. The eight legs are symbolic of the eight wins it took to win the Stanley Cup at the time. The Red Wings went on to sweep both of their opponents that year en route to a Stanley Cup championship. The NHL has, at various times, tried to eliminate this tradition but it continues to this day.
Sobotka is the man responsible for removing the thrown creatures from the ice. When the Red Wings played at Joe Louis Arena, he was known for swinging the tossed octopuses above his head when walking off the ice. On April 19, 2008, the NHL sent a memo to the Red Wings that forbade this; they said that violating the mandate would result in a $10,000 fine. Instead, it was to up to the linesmen to remove the octopuses. In an email to the "Detroit Free Press", NHL spokesman Frank Brown justified the ban because matter flew off the octopus and got on the ice when Sobotka swung it above his head. This ban was later loosened to allow for the octopus twirling to take place at the Zamboni entrance.
Typically during the last minute or two of games that the Red Wings are winning, especially around the end of the season and during the playoffs, fans are known to start singing along to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." The song is played over the PA system and continues until it is muted while the crowd sings the words "Born and raised in South Detroit", then the song resumes over the speakers in the arena.
The Red Wings' flagship radio stations are Detroit sister stations WXYT-AM 1270 and WXYT-FM 97.1. Games are carried on both stations unless there is a conflict with Detroit Tigers baseball. There are several affiliate stations throughout Michigan and Southwestern Ontario.
The Red Wings' exclusive local television rights are held by Fox Sports Detroit.
Announcers:
Four members of the Red Wings organization have received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award:
Lynch called the first locally televised game at Olympia for the original WWJ-TV in 1949. He remained with the organization for 63 years, serving as director of publicity from 1975 to 1982, and was the public address announcer from 1982 until his death in 2012. From 2008 to 2012, a second PA announcer was added to work alongside him, first John Fossen, then Erich Freiny. Freiny took over as the sole PA announcer following Lynch's death.
"This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Detroit Red Wings. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Detroit Red Wings seasons".
"Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime losses, ROW = Regulation + OT wins, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against"
The Detroit Red Wings acknowledge an affiliation with a number of inductees to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Red Wings inductees include 65 former players and 12 builders of the sport. The 12 individuals recognized as builders by the Hall of Fame includes former Red Wings executives, general managers, head coaches, and owners. In addition to players and builders, several broadcasters were also awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. Budd Lynch, a radio play-by-play announcer, was the first Red Wings broadcaster to be awarded the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award. Lynch also served as Detroit's public address announcer from 1985 until his death in 2012. In addition to Lynch, Bruce Martyn, Mickey Redmond, and Dave Strader have also won the award.
The Red Wings have retired eight numbers. The first number the Red Wings retired was No. 9 in 1972 in honor of Gordie Howe, who played right wing for the team from 1946 to 1971. Howe won both the Art Ross Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy six times each and won the Stanley Cup as a Red Wing four times. In 2007, the Red Wings retired Steve Yzerman's No. 19. During Yzerman's career, he won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, the Conn Smythe Trophy, the Frank J. Selke Trophy, the Lester Patrick Trophy, and the Ted Lindsay Award. Yzerman served as Detroit's captain for 19 seasons, an NHL record, and won the Stanley Cup three times as a player with the Red Wings. The most recent retired number is Red Kelly's No. 4, which was retired on February 1, 2019. During Kelly's 13-year career with the Red Wings, he won four Stanley Cups, the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy three times, and the James Norris Memorial Trophy once.
The Red Wings have also made the number 6 of Larry Aurie and the number 16 of Vladimir Konstantinov no longer available for issue. However, the numbers are not considered to be officially retired. Although Aurie's number was retired in 1938 by James E. Norris, current team owners do not consider the number to be retired. Konstantinov's number has not been issued to any player since he was permanently disabled in a vehicle accident after the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals. Number 99 is also unavailable as it was retired by the league in honor of Wayne Gretzky.
All the players who have served as team captain with the Detroit franchise.
These players rank in the top ten in franchise history in scoring as of the end of the 2018–19 season. Figures are updated after each completed NHL season.
"Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game"
These players rank in the top ten in franchise history for wins as of the end of the 2018−19 season. Figures are updated after each completed NHL season. There is a four-way tie for ninth place in postseason wins, resulting in 12 players listed in that table.
"Note: GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; OT = Overtime losses; SO = Shutouts; GAA = Goals against average; * = current Red Wings player"
Footnotes
Citations | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8795 |
Demiurge
In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term "demiurge". Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered to be consequences of something else. Depending on the system, they may be considered to be either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity.
The word "demiurge" is an English word derived from "demiurgus", a Latinised form of the Greek or "dēmiurgós". It was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually came to mean "producer", and eventually "creator". The philosophical usage and the proper noun derive from Plato's "Timaeus", written 360 BC, where the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe. The demiurge is also described as a creator in the Platonic ( 310–90 BC) and Middle Platonic ( 90 BC – AD 300) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world after the model of the Ideas, but (in most Neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One". In the arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil, while the non-material world is good. According to some strains of Gnosticism, the demiurge is malevolent, as it is linked to the material world. In others, including the teaching of Valentinus, the demiurge is simply ignorant or misguided.
Plato, as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue "Timaeus" (28a ff.), 360 BC. The main character refers to the Demiurge as the entity who "fashioned and shaped" the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent, and so it desires a world as good as possible. Plato's work "Timaeus" is a philosophical reconciliation of Hesiod's cosmology in his "Theogony", syncretically reconciling Hesiod to Homer.
In Numenius's Neo-Pythagorean and Middle Platonist cosmogony, the Demiurge is second God as the "nous" or thought of intelligibles and sensibles.
Plotinus and the later Platonists worked to clarify the Demiurge. To Plotinus, the second emanation represents an uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras' Dyad). Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's "energeia" with Plato's Demiurge, which, as Demiurge and mind ("nous"), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism (also called idealism). In order to reconcile Aristotelian with Platonian philosophy, Plotinus metaphorically identified the demiurge (or "nous") within the pantheon of the Greek Gods as Zeus.
The first and highest aspect of God is described by Plato as the One (Τὸ Ἕν, "To Hen"), the source, or the Monad. This is the God above the Demiurge, and manifests through the actions of the Demiurge. The Monad emanated the demiurge or "Nous" (consciousness) from its "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself, causing self-reflection. This self-reflection of the indeterminate vitality was referred to by Plotinus as the "Demiurge" or creator. The second principle is organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or "dynamis", also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is "energeia" emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called "nous", Demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes the indeterminate vitality into the experience called the material world, universe, cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in "The Enneads" which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or "nous" (c.f. pantheism).
Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, "nous" as the contemplative faculty ("ergon") within man which orders the force ("dynamis") into conscious reality. In this, he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning: a doctrine he learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as "nous" (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius, as well as a connection between Hebrew and Platonic cosmology (see also Philo).
The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the "Nous" (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles:
Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' "Enneads", no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's "Timaeus". The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the Demiurge on the works of Numenius.
Later, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the "One", effectively altering the role of the Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict.
The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “One,” or Source. Here, at the summit of this system, the Source and Demiurge (material realm) coexist via the process of "henosis".
Iamblichus describes the One as a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect ("nous"), while among "the many" that follow it there is a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul ("psyche").
The "One" is further separated into spheres of intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects of thought, while the latter sphere is the domain of thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible "nous", the intellective "nous", and the "psyche" in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic philosophical schools of Aristotle's "actus" and "potentia" (actuality and potentiality) of the unmoved mover and Plato's Demiurge.
Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine "nous" with the intellectual triad being promoted to a "hebdomad" (pure intellect).
In the theoretic of Plotinus, "nous" produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the intellectualizing gods are followed by a triad of psychic gods.
Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God or Supreme Being and the demiurgic "creator" of the material. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in an unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine "in" materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to (or, at least possibly, the problem or cause that gives rise to) the problem of evil.
One Gnostic mythos describes the declination of aspects of the divine into human form. Sophia (Greek: Σοφία, lit. "wisdom"), the Demiurge's mother and partial aspect of the divine "Pleroma" or "Fullness," desired to create something apart from the divine totality, without the receipt of divine assent. In this act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, and concluded that only he existed, ignorant of the superior levels of reality.
The Demiurge, having received a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms furnished by his mother; working, however, blindly and ignorant even of the existence of the mother who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word "dēmiurgos" properly describes his relation to the material; he is the "father" of that which is animal like himself.
Thus Sophia's power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.
Psalm 82 begins (), "God stands in the assembly of El , in the midst of the gods he renders judgment", indicating a plurality of gods, although it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. Philo had inferred from the expression "Let us make man" of the Book of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to His helpers in the work of creation.
The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis. So Irenaeus tells of the system of Simon Magus, of the system of Menander, of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and of the system of Carpocrates. In the report of the system of Basilides, we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels.
The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus of Rome, makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of Him. Theodoret, who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number "powers", and so Epiphanius of Salamis represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.
In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with the teachings of Valentinus, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but still more prominent is their chief, "Yaldabaoth" (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth").
In the "Apocryphon of John" AD 120–180, the demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:
Now the archon ["ruler"] who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas ["fool"], and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.
He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. At the consummation of all things, all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.
Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", "leontoeides", and is said to have the body of a serpent. The demiurge is also described as having a fiery nature, applying the words of Moses to him: "the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire". Hippolytus claims that Simon used a similar description.
In "Pistis Sophia", Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame, and half darkness.
Under the name of "Nebro" (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal "Gospel of Judas". He is first mentioned in "The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld" as one of the twelve angels to come "into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld]". He comes from heaven, and it is said his "face flashed with fire and [his] appearance was defiled with blood". Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six, in turn, create another twelve angels "with each one receiving a portion in the heavens".
The most probable derivation of the name "Yaldabaoth" was that given by Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler. Gieseler believed the name was derived from the Aramaic "yaldā bahuth", , meaning "Son of Chaos". However, Gilles Quispel notes:
"Samael" literally means "Blind God" or "God of the Blind" in Hebrew (). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins but may, in addition, be evil; its name is also found in Judaism as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This link to Judeo-Christian tradition leads to a further comparison with Satan. Another alternative title for the demiurge is "Saklas", Aramaic for "fool".
The angelic name "Ariel" (meaning "the lion of God" in Hebrew) has also been used to refer to the Demiurge and is called his "perfect" name; in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth. The name has also been inscribed on amulets as "Ariel Ialdabaoth", and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel".
According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was "díkaios," severely just, the latter "agathós," or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, in reality, is the Son of the Good God. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.
It is in the system of Valentinus that the name "Dēmiurgos" is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system; we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc.
The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth ("he kátō sophía" or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual ("pneumatikoí"), the animal ("psychikoí") and the material ("hylikoí"). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter. And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of "Sophía" the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God.
In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united with Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either "hylikoí" or "pneumatikoí".
The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor "hyle"; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body ("hyle") and soul ("psyché"). In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world.
Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world. According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is also the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of "spiritual" beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a "spirit" of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no real knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.
The Valentinian Heracleon interpreted the devil as the "principle" of evil, that of "hyle" (matter). As he writes in his commentary on ,
The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. ... You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth.
This vilification of the creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and himself executing judgment."
Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world from Gnosticism. Quispel writes,
Gnosticism attributed falsehood or evil to the concept of the Demiurge or creator, though in some Gnostic traditions the creator is from a fallen, ignorant, or lesser—rather than evil—perspective, such as that of Valentinius.
The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge, which he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato. Plotinus, along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas, was the founder of Neoplatonism. In the ninth tractate of the second of his "Enneads", Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:
Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for "all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own" which, he declares, "have been picked up outside of the truth"; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions.
Whereas Plato's Demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, Gnosticism contends that the Demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation: "Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil" (generally quoted as "Against the Gnostics"). Plotinus argues of the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the "nous" or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil.
The majority of scholars tend to understand Plotinus' opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly (specifically Sethian), several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus' lifetime. Plotinus specifically points to the Gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge.
Though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus' opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Christos Evangeliou has contended that Plotinus' opponents might be better described as simply "Christian Gnostics", arguing that several of Plotinus' criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou thought the definition of the term "Gnostics" was unclear. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen, none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity—whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the "Enneads" as the Gnostics.
A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called "Gnostics" that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the "Enneads". Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism.
John D. Turner, professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library, stated that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian Gnosticism, which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such as dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism.
Emil Cioran also wrote his "Le mauvais démiurge" ("The Evil Demiurge"), published in 1969, influenced by Gnosticism and Schopenhauerian interpretation of Platonic ontology, as well as that of Plotinus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8796 |
D. B. Cooper
Dan Cooper is the pseudonym of an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the northwest United States, in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on the afternoon of Wednesday, The man purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper but, because of a news miscommunication, became known in popular lore as D. B. Cooper. He extorted $200,000 in ransom () and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and protracted FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or identified. It remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in commercial aviation history.
Many FBI agents are of the opinion that Cooper probably did not survive his high-risk jump, but his remains have never been recovered. The FBI maintained an active investigation for 45 years after the hijacking. Despite a case file that has grown to over 60 volumes over that period, no definitive conclusions have been reached regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts.
Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed over the years by investigators, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts. A young boy discovered a small cache of ransom bills along the banks of the Columbia River in February 1980. The find triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery, and the great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.
The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but the agency continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.
On Thanksgiving eve, November 24, 1971, a middle-aged man carrying a black attaché case approached the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines at Portland International Airport. He identified himself as "Dan Cooper" and used cash to purchase a one-way ticket on Flight 305, a 30-minute trip north to Seattle. Cooper boarded the aircraft, a Boeing 727-100 (FAA registration N467US), and took seat 18C (18E by one account, 15D by another) in the rear of the passenger cabin. Cooper was a quiet man who appeared to be in his mid-40s, wearing a business suit with a black tie and white shirt. He ordered a drink—bourbon and soda—while the flight was waiting to take off.
Flight 305, approximately one-third full, departed Portland on schedule at 2:50 p.m. PST. Shortly after takeoff, Cooper handed a note to Florence Schaffner, the flight attendant situated nearest to him in a jump seat attached to the aft stair door. Schaffner, assuming the note contained a lonely businessman's phone number, dropped it unopened into her purse. Cooper leaned toward her and whispered, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb."
The note was printed in neat, all-capital letters with a felt-tip pen. Its exact wording is unknown, because Cooper later reclaimed it, but Schaffner recalled that the note said that Cooper had a bomb in his briefcase. After Schaffner read the note, Cooper told her to sit beside him. Schaffner did as requested, then quietly asked to see the bomb. Cooper opened his briefcase long enough for her to glimpse eight red cylinders ("four on top of four") attached to wires coated with red insulation, and a large cylindrical battery. After closing the briefcase, he stated his demands: $200,000 in "negotiable American currency"; four parachutes (two primary and two reserve); and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft upon arrival. Schaffner conveyed Cooper's instructions to the pilots in the cockpit; when she returned, Cooper was wearing dark sunglasses.
The pilot, William Scott, contacted Seattle–Tacoma Airport air traffic control, which in turn informed local and federal authorities. The 36 other passengers were given false information that their arrival in Seattle would be delayed because of a "minor mechanical difficulty". Northwest Orient's president, Donald Nyrop, authorized payment of the ransom, and ordered all employees to cooperate fully with the hijacker's demands. The aircraft circled Puget Sound for approximately two hours to allow Seattle police and the FBI sufficient time to assemble Cooper's parachutes and ransom money, and to mobilize emergency personnel.
Flight attendant Tina Mucklow recalled that Cooper appeared familiar with the local terrain; at one point he remarked, "Looks like Tacoma down there," as the aircraft flew above it. He also correctly mentioned that McChord Air Force Base was only a 20-minute drive (at that time) from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Schaffner described him as calm, polite, and well-spoken, not at all consistent with the stereotypes (enraged, hardened criminals or "take-me-to-Cuba" political dissidents) popularly associated with air piracy at the time. Mucklow stated, "He wasn't nervous," she told investigators. "He seemed rather nice. He was never cruel or nasty. He was thoughtful and calm all the time." He ordered a second bourbon and soda, paid his drink tab (and attempted to give Mucklow the change), and offered to request meals for the flight crew during the stop in Seattle.
FBI agents assembled the ransom money from several Seattle-area banks – 10,000 unmarked 20-dollar bills, most with serial numbers beginning with the letter "L" indicating issuance by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and most from the 1963A or 1969 series – and made a microfilm photograph of each of them. Cooper rejected the military-issue parachutes offered by McChord AFB personnel, instead demanding civilian parachutes with manually operated ripcords. Seattle police obtained them from a local skydiving school.
At 5:24 p.m. PST, Cooper was informed that his demands had been met, and at 5:39 p.m. the aircraft landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. It was more than an hour after sunset and Cooper instructed Scott to taxi the jet to an isolated, brightly lit section of the apron and close each window shade in the cabin to deter police snipers. Northwest Orient's Seattle operations manager, Al Lee, approached the aircraft in street clothes to avoid the possibility that Cooper might mistake his airline uniform for that of a police officer. He delivered the cash-filled knapsack and parachutes to Mucklow via the aft stairs. Once the delivery was completed, Cooper ordered all passengers, Schaffner, and senior flight attendant Alice Hancock to leave the plane.
During refueling, Cooper outlined his flight plan to the cockpit crew: a southeast course toward Mexico City at the minimum airspeed possible without stalling the aircraft – approximately – at a maximum altitude. He further specified that the landing gear remain deployed in the takeoff/landing position, the wing flaps be lowered 15 degrees, and the cabin remain unpressurized. Copilot William Rataczak informed Cooper that the aircraft's range was limited to approximately under the specified flight configuration, which meant that a second refueling would be necessary before entering Mexico. Cooper and the crew discussed options and agreed on Reno, Nevada, as the refueling With the plane's rear exit door open and its staircase extended, Cooper directed the pilot to take off. Northwest's home office objected, on grounds that it was unsafe to take off with the aft staircase deployed. Cooper countered that it was indeed safe, but he would not argue the point; he would lower it once they were airborne.
An FAA official requested a face-to-face meeting with Cooper aboard the aircraft, which was denied. The refueling process was delayed because of a vapor lock in the fuel tanker truck's pumping mechanism. However, once refueling had been completed, the plane was able to take off.
At approximately 7:40 p.m., the Boeing 727 took off with only five people on board: Cooper, pilot Scott, flight attendant Mucklow, copilot Rataczak, and flight engineer H. E. Anderson. Two F-106 fighter aircraft were scrambled from McChord Air Force Base and followed behind the airliner, one above it and one below, out of Cooper's view. A Lockheed T-33 trainer, diverted from an unrelated Air National Guard mission, also shadowed the 727 before running low on fuel and turning back near the Oregon–California state line. Overall there were five planes in total trailing the hijacked plane. None of the pilots saw him jump or could pinpoint a location where he could have landed.
After takeoff, Cooper told Mucklow to join the rest of the crew in the cockpit and remain there with the door closed. As she complied, Mucklow observed Cooper tying something around his waist. At approximately 8:00 p.m., a warning light flashed in the cockpit, indicating that the aft airstair apparatus had been activated. The crew's offer of assistance via the aircraft's intercom system was curtly refused. The crew soon noticed a subjective change of air pressure, indicating that the aft door was open.
At approximately 8:13 p.m., the aircraft's tail section sustained a sudden upward movement, significant enough to require trimming to bring the plane back to level flight. At approximately 10:15 p.m., the aircraft's aft airstair was still deployed when Scott and Rataczak landed the 727 at Reno Airport. FBI agents, state troopers, sheriff's deputies, and Reno police surrounded the jet, as it had not yet been determined with certainty that Cooper was no longer aboard, but an armed search quickly confirmed his absence.
FBI agents recovered 66 unidentified latent fingerprints aboard the airliner. The agents also found Cooper's black clip-on tie, his tie clip and two of the four parachutes, one of which had been opened and two shroud (suspension) lines cut from its canopy. Authorities interviewed eyewitnesses in Portland, Seattle and Reno, and all those who personally interacted with Cooper. A series of composite sketches was developed.
Local police and FBI agents immediately began questioning possible suspects and among them considered more than 800; of these, all but two dozen were eliminated from the investigation. An Oregon man named D. B. Cooper who had a minor police record was one of the first persons of interest in the case. He was contacted by Portland police on the off-chance that the hijacker had used his real name or the same alias in a previous crime. He was quickly ruled out as a suspect, but a local reporter named James Long, rushing to meet an imminent deadline, confused the eliminated suspect's name with the pseudonym used by the hijacker. A wire service reporter (Clyde Jabin of UPI by most accounts, Joe Frazier of the AP by others) republished the error, followed by numerous other media sources; the moniker "D. B. Cooper" became lodged in the public's collective memory.
A precise search area was difficult to define, as even small differences in estimates of the aircraft's speed, or the environmental conditions along the flight path (which varied significantly by location and altitude), changed Cooper's projected landing point considerably. An important variable was the length of time he remained in free fall before pulling his ripcord—if indeed he succeeded in opening a parachute at all. Neither of the Air Force fighter pilots saw anything exit the airliner, either visually or on radar, nor did they see a parachute open; but at night, with extremely limited visibility and cloud cover obscuring any ground lighting below, an airborne human figure clad entirely in black clothing could easily have gone undetected. The T-33 pilots never made visual contact with the 727 at all.
In an experimental re-creation, Scott piloted the aircraft used in the hijacking in the same flight configuration. FBI agents, pushing a sled out of the open airstair, were able to reproduce the upward motion of the tail section described by the flight crew at 8:13 p.m. Based on this experiment, it was concluded that 8:13 p.m. was the most likely jump time. At that moment the aircraft was flying through a heavy rainstorm over the Lewis River in southwestern Washington.
Initial extrapolations placed Cooper's landing zone within an area on the southernmost outreach of Mount St. Helens, a few miles southeast of Ariel, Washington, near Lake Merwin, an artificial lake formed by a dam on the Lewis River. Search efforts focused on Clark and Cowlitz counties, encompassing the terrain immediately south and north, respectively, of the Lewis River in southwest Washington. FBI agents and sheriff's deputies from those counties searched large areas of the mountainous wilderness on foot and by helicopter. Door-to-door searches of local farmhouses were also carried out. Other search parties ran patrol boats along Lake Merwin and Yale Lake, the reservoir immediately to its east. No trace of Cooper, nor any of the equipment presumed to have left the aircraft with him, was found.
The FBI also coordinated an aerial search, using fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters from the Oregon Army National Guard, along the entire flight path (known as Victor 23 in standard aviation terminology but "Vector 23" in most Cooper from Seattle to Reno. Although numerous broken treetops and several pieces of plastic and other objects resembling parachute canopies were sighted and investigated, nothing relevant to the hijacking was found.
Shortly after the spring thaw in early 1972, teams of FBI agents aided by some 200 Army soldiers from Fort Lewis, along with Air Force personnel, National Guardsmen, and civilian volunteers, conducted another thorough ground search of Clark and Cowlitz counties for eighteen days in March, and then an additional eighteen days in April. Electronic Explorations Company, a marine salvage firm, used a submarine to search the depths of Lake Merwin. Two local women stumbled upon a skeleton in an abandoned structure in Clark County; it was later identified as the remains of a female teenager who had been abducted and murdered several weeks before. Ultimately, the search and recovery operation—arguably the most extensive, and intensive, in U.S. history—uncovered no significant material evidence related to the hijacking.
A month after the hijacking, the FBI distributed lists of the ransom serial numbers to financial institutions, casinos, racetracks, and other businesses that routinely conducted significant cash transactions, and to law enforcement agencies around the world. Northwest Orient offered a reward of 15% of the recovered money, to a maximum of $25,000. In early 1972, U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell released the serial numbers to the general public. In 1972, two men used counterfeit 20-dollar bills printed with Cooper serial numbers to swindle $30,000 from a "Newsweek" reporter named Karl Fleming in exchange for an interview with a man they falsely claimed was the hijacker.
In early 1973, with the ransom money still missing, "The Oregon Journal" republished the serial numbers and offered $1,000 to the first person to turn in a ransom bill to the newspaper or any FBI field office. In Seattle, the "Post-Intelligencer" made a similar offer with a $5,000 reward. The offers remained in effect until Thanksgiving 1974, and though there were several near-matches, no genuine bills were found. In 1975 Northwest Orient's insurer, Global Indemnity Co., complied with an order from the Minnesota Supreme Court and paid the airline's $180,000 claim on the ransom money.
Subsequent analyses indicated that the original landing zone estimate was inaccurate: Scott, who was flying the aircraft manually because of Cooper's speed and altitude demands, later determined that his flight path was significantly farther east than initially assumed. Additional data from a variety of sources—in particular Continental Airlines pilot Tom Bohan, who was flying four minutes behind Flight 305—indicated that the wind direction factored into drop zone calculations had been wrong, possibly by as much as 80 degrees. This and other supplemental data suggested that the actual drop zone was probably south-southeast of the original estimate, in the drainage area of the Washougal River.
On July 8, 2016, the FBI announced that it was suspending active investigation of the Cooper case, citing a need to focus its investigative resources and manpower on issues of higher and more urgent priority. Local field offices will continue to accept any legitimate physical evidence—related specifically to the parachutes or the ransom money—that may emerge in the future. The 60-volume case file compiled over the 45-year course of the investigation will be preserved for historical purposes at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. On the FBI website, there is currently a 28-part packet full of evidence gathered over the years. All the evidence is open to the public to read.
The official physical description of Cooper has remained unchanged and is considered reliable. Flight attendants Schaffner and Mucklow, who spent the most time with Cooper, were interviewed on the same night in separate cities, and gave nearly identical descriptions: to tall, , mid-40s, with close-set piercing brown eyes and swarthy skin.
Three major pieces of evidence were left on the plane when D.B. Cooper jumped: His black clip on tie, a mother of pearl tie clip, and eight filter-tipped Raleigh cigarette butts. The information about the tie and tie clip were not announced to the public for almost 20 years, when in 1991 it was revealed in the book "D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy". Sometime after the hijacking the cigarette butts were lost, and have not turned up since.
Only four pieces of evidence (two definite and two potential) linked to D. B. Cooper have turned up from 1978–2017:
In late 2007, the FBI announced that a partial DNA profile had been obtained from three organic samples found on Cooper's clip-on tie in 2001, though they later acknowledged that there is no evidence that the hijacker was the source of the sample material. "The tie had two small DNA samples, and one large sample," said Special Agent Fred Gutt. "It's difficult to draw firm conclusions from these samples." The Bureau also made public a file of previously unreleased evidence, including Cooper's 1971 plane ticket (price: $20.00, paid in cash), and posted previously unreleased composite sketches and fact sheets, along with a request to the general public for information which might lead to Cooper's positive identification.
They also disclosed that Cooper chose the older of the two primary parachutes supplied to him, rather than the technically superior professional sport parachute; and that from the two reserve parachutes, he selected a "dummy"—an unusable unit with an inoperative ripcord intended for classroom demonstrations, although it had clear markings identifying it to any experienced skydiver as non-functional. (He cannibalized the other, functional reserve parachute, possibly using its shrouds to tie the money bag shut, and to secure the bag to his body as witnessed by Mucklow.) The FBI stressed that inclusion of the dummy reserve parachute, one of four obtained in haste from a Seattle skydiving school, was accidental.
In March 2009, the FBI disclosed that Tom Kaye, a paleontologist from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, had assembled a team of "citizen sleuths", including scientific illustrator Carol Abraczinskas and metallurgist Alan Stone. The group, eventually known as the Cooper Research Team, reinvestigated important components of the case using GPS, satellite imagery, and other technologies unavailable in 1971. Although little new information was gained regarding the buried ransom money or Cooper's landing zone, they were able to find and analyze hundreds of minute particles on Cooper's tie using electron microscopy. "Lycopodium" spores (likely from a pharmaceutical product) were identified, as well as fragments of bismuth and aluminum.
In November 2011, Kaye announced that particles of pure (unalloyed) titanium had also been found on the tie. He explained that titanium, which was much rarer in the 1970s than in the 2010s, was at that time found only in metal fabrication or production facilities, or at chemical companies using it (combined with aluminum) to store extremely corrosive substances. The findings suggested that Cooper may have been a chemist or a metallurgist, or possibly an engineer or manager (the only employees who wore ties in such facilities at that time) in a metal or chemical manufacturing plant, or at a company that recovered scrap metal from those types of factories.
In January 2017, Kaye reported that rare earth minerals such as cerium and strontium sulfide had also been identified among particles from the tie. One of the rare applications for such elements in the 1970s was Boeing's supersonic transport development project, suggesting the possibility that Cooper was a Boeing employee. Other possible sources of the material included plants that manufactured cathode ray tubes, such as the Portland firms Teledyne and Tektronix.
Over the 45-year span of its active investigation, the FBI periodically made public some of its working hypotheses and tentative conclusions, drawn from witness testimony and the scarce physical evidence.
Cooper appeared to be familiar with the Seattle area and may have been an Air Force veteran, based on testimony that he recognized the city of Tacoma from the air as the jet circled Puget Sound, and his accurate comment to Mucklow that McChord AFB was approximately 20 minutes' driving time from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport—a detail most civilians would not know, or comment upon. His financial situation was very likely desperate. According to the FBI's retired chief investigator, Ralph Himmelsbach, extortionists and other criminals who steal large amounts of money nearly always do so because they need it urgently; otherwise, the crime is not worth the considerable risk. Alternatively, Cooper may have been "a thrill seeker" who made the jump "just to prove it could be done."
Agents theorized that Cooper took his alias from a popular Belgian comic book series of the 1970s featuring the fictional hero Dan Cooper, a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot who took part in numerous heroic adventures, including parachuting. (One cover from the series, reproduced on the FBI website, depicts test pilot Cooper skydiving in full paratrooper regalia.) Because the Dan Cooper comics were never translated into English, nor imported to the U.S., they speculated that he may have encountered them during a tour of duty in Europe. The Cooper Research Team suggested the alternative possibility that Cooper was Canadian, and found the comics in Canada, where they were also sold. They noted his specific demand for "negotiable American currency", a phrase seldom if ever used by American citizens; since witnesses stated that Cooper had no distinguishable accent, Canada would be his most likely country of origin if he were not a U.S. citizen.
Evidence suggested that Cooper was knowledgeable about flying technique, aircraft, and the terrain. He demanded four parachutes to force the assumption that he might compel one or more hostages to jump with him, thus ensuring he would not be deliberately supplied with sabotaged equipment. He chose a 727-100 aircraft because it was ideal for a bail-out escape, due to not only its aft airstair but also the high, aftward placement of all three engines, which allowed a reasonably safe jump despite the proximity of the engine exhaust. It had "single-point fueling" capability, a then-recent innovation that allowed all tanks to be refueled rapidly through a single fuel port. It also had the ability (unusual for a commercial jet airliner) to remain in slow, low-altitude flight without stalling; and Cooper knew how to control its air speed and altitude without entering the cockpit, where he could have been overpowered by the three pilots. In addition, Cooper was familiar with important details, such as the appropriate flap setting of 15 degrees (which was unique to that aircraft), and the typical refueling time. He knew that the aft airstair could be lowered during flight—a fact never disclosed to civilian flight crews, since there was no situation on a passenger flight that would make it necessary—and that its operation, by a single switch in the rear of the cabin, could not be overridden from the cockpit. Some of this knowledge was virtually unique to CIA paramilitary units.
In addition to planning his escape, Cooper retrieved the note and wore dark glasses, which indicated that he had a certain level of sophistication in avoiding the things that had aided the identification of the perpetrator of the best-known case of a ransom: the Lindbergh kidnapping. It is not clear how he could have reasonably expected to ever spend the money, fence it at a discount or otherwise profit. Although Cooper made the familiar-from-fiction demand of non-sequentially numbered small bills, mass publicity over the Lindbergh case had long made it public knowledge that even with 1930s technology, getting non-sequential bills in a ransom was no defense against the numbers being logged and used to track down a perpetrator. In the Lindbergh case, fencing what he could as hot money and being very careful with what he did personally pass, the perpetrator had been caught through the ransom money nonetheless, with identification and handwriting evidence brought in only at the trial.
Although unconscionably perilous by the high safety, training and equipment standards of skydivers, whether Cooper's jump was virtually suicidal is a matter of dispute. The author of an overview and comparison of World War II aircrew bail-outs with Cooper's drop asserts a probability for his survival, and suggests that like copycat Martin McNally, Cooper lost the ransom during descent. The mystery of how the ransom could have been washed into Tena Bar from any Cooper jump area remains. The Tena Bar find anomalies led one local journalist to suggest that Cooper dumped the ransom, knowing he could never spend it.
According to Kaye's research team, Cooper's meticulous planning may also have extended to the timing of his operation and even his choice of attire. "The FBI searched but couldn't find anyone who disappeared that weekend," Kaye wrote, suggesting that the perpetrator may have returned to his normal occupation. "If you were planning on going 'back to work on Monday', then you would need as much time as possible to get out of the woods, find transportation and get home. The very best time for this is in front of a four-day weekend, which is the timing Dan Cooper chose for his crime." Furthermore, "if he was planning ahead, he knew he had to hitchhike out of the woods, and it is much easier to get picked up in a suit and tie than in old blue jeans."
The Bureau was more skeptical, concluding that Cooper lacked crucial skydiving skills and experience. "We originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper," said Special Agent Larry Carr, leader of the investigative team from 2006 until its dissolution in 2016. "We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. A Boeing 727 at flaps 15 degrees and light weight probably flies at 150 knots or 172 mph. No experienced parachutist would have jumped in the pitch-black night, in the rain, with a 172 mph wind in his face wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky. He also missed that his reserve parachute was only for training and had been sewn shut—something a skilled skydiver would have checked." He also failed to bring or request a helmet, chose to jump with the older and technically inferior of the two primary parachutes supplied to him, and jumped into a probable 15 degrees Fahrenheit wind at 10,000 feet in November over Washington state without proper protection against the extreme wind chill.
The FBI speculated from the beginning that Cooper did not survive his jump. "Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his chute open," said Carr. Even if he did land safely, agents contended that survival in the mountainous terrain at the onset of winter would have been all but impossible without an accomplice at a predetermined landing point. This would have required a precisely timed jump—necessitating, in turn, cooperation from the flight crew. There is no evidence that Cooper requested or received any such help from the crew, nor that he had any clear idea where he was when he jumped into the stormy, overcast darkness.
The 1980 cash discovery launched several new rounds of conjecture and ultimately raised more questions than it answered. Initial statements by investigators and scientific consultants were founded on the assumption that the bundled bills washed freely into the Columbia River from one of its many connecting tributaries. An Army Corps of Engineers hydrologist noted that the bills had disintegrated in a "rounded" fashion and were matted together, indicating that they had been deposited by river action, as opposed to having been deliberately buried. That conclusion, if correct, supported the opinion that Cooper had not landed near Lake Merwin nor any tributary of the Lewis River, which feeds into the Columbia well downstream from Tina Bar. It also lent credence to supplemental speculation (see Later developments above) that placed the drop zone near the Washougal River, which merges with the Columbia upstream from the discovery site.
But the "free-floating" hypothesis presented its own difficulties; it did not explain the ten bills missing from one packet, nor was there a logical reason that the three packets would have remained together after separating from the rest of the money. Physical evidence was incompatible with geologic evidence: Himmelsbach observed that free-floating bundles would have had to wash up on the bank "within a couple of years" of the hijacking; otherwise the rubber bands would have long since deteriorated, an observation confirmed experimentally by the Cooper Research Team (see Subsequent FBI disclosures above). Geological evidence suggested that the bills arrived at Tina Bar well after 1974, the year of a Corps of Engineers dredging operation on that stretch of the river. Geologist Leonard Palmer of Portland State University found two distinct layers of sand and sediment between the clay deposited on the riverbank by the dredge and the sand layer in which the bills were buried, indicating that the bills arrived long after dredging had been completed. The Cooper Research Team later challenged Palmer's conclusion, citing evidence that the clay layer was a natural deposit. That finding, if true, favors an arrival time of less than one year after the event (based on the rubber band experiment), but does not help to explain how the bundles got to Tina Bar, nor from where they came.
Himmelsbach wrote, "I have to confess, if I [were] going to look for Cooper, I would head for the Washougal." The Washougal Valley and its surroundings have been searched repeatedly by private individuals and groups in subsequent years; to date, no discoveries directly traceable to the hijacking have been reported. Some investigators have speculated that the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens may have obliterated any remaining physical clues.
Alternative theories were advanced. Some surmised that the money had been found at a distant location by someone (or possibly even a wild animal), carried to the riverbank, and reburied there. The sheriff of Cowlitz County proposed that Cooper accidentally dropped a few bundles on the airstair, which then blew off the aircraft and fell into the Columbia River. One local newspaper editor theorized that Cooper, knowing he could never spend the money, dumped it in the river, or buried portions of it at Tena Bar (and possibly elsewhere) himself. No hypothesis offered to date satisfactorily explains all of the existing evidence.
In 1976, discussion arose over impending expiration of the statute of limitations on the hijacking. Most published legal analyses agreed that it would make little difference, as interpretation of the statute varies considerably from case to case and court to court, and a prosecutor could argue that Cooper had forfeited immunity on any of several valid technical grounds. The question was rendered irrelevant in November when a Portland grand jury returned an indictment "in absentia" against "John Doe, "aka" Dan Cooper" for air piracy and violation of the Hobbs Act. The indictment formally initiated prosecution that can be continued, should the hijacker be apprehended, at any time in the future.
Between 1971 and 2016, the FBI processed over a thousand "serious suspects", which included assorted publicity seekers and deathbed confessors, but nothing more than circumstantial evidence could be found to implicate any of them, all being linked by no more than conjecture or crackpot claims of responsibility.
In 2003, a Minnesota resident named Lyle Christiansen watched a television documentary about the Cooper hijacking and became convinced that his late brother Kenneth was Cooper. After repeated futile attempts to convince first the FBI, and then the author and film director Nora Ephron (who he hoped would make a movie about the case), he contacted a private investigator in New York City. In 2010 the detective, Skipp Porteous, published a book postulating that Christiansen was the hijacker. The following year, an episode of the History series "Brad Meltzer's Decoded" also summarized the circumstantial evidence linking Christiansen to the Cooper case.
Christiansen enlisted in the Army in 1944 and was trained as a paratrooper. The war had ended by the time he was deployed in 1945, but he made occasional training jumps while stationed in Japan with occupation forces in the late 1940s. After leaving the Army, he joined Northwest Orient in 1954 as a mechanic in the South Pacific, and subsequently became a flight attendant, and then a purser, based in Seattle. Christiansen was 45 years old at the time of the hijacking, but he was shorter (5 ft 8 in or 173 cm), thinner (150 pounds or 68 kg), and lighter complected than eyewitness descriptions. Christiansen smoked (as did the hijacker), and displayed a particular fondness for bourbon (Cooper's preferred beverage). He was also left-handed (evidence photos of Cooper's black tie show the tie clip applied from the left side, suggesting a left-handed wearer). Schaffner told a reporter that photos of Christiansen fit her memory of the hijacker's appearance more closely than those of other suspects she had been shown, but could not conclusively identify him. (Mucklow, who had the most contact with Cooper, has never granted a press interview.)
Christiansen reportedly had purchased a house with cash a few months after the hijacking. While dying of cancer in 1994, he told Lyle, "There is something you should know, but I cannot tell you." Lyle said he never pressed his brother to explain. After Christiansen's death, family members discovered gold coins and a valuable stamp collection, along with over $200,000 in bank accounts. They also found a folder of Northwest Orient news clippings which began about the time he was hired in the 1950s, and stopped just prior to the date of the hijacking, despite the fact that the hijacking was by far the most momentous news event in the airline's history. Christiansen continued to work part-time for the airline for many years after 1971, but apparently never clipped another Northwest news story.
Research by internet web sleuths would later uncover proof that Christiansen did not pay cash for the house he bought after the hijacking, but instead had a mortgage on the house and took 17 years to pay it off. The same search would also uncover proof that Christiansen had sold off almost two dozen acres of land for $17,000 per acre in the mid '90s, thus accounting for the large sum of money in his account at the time of his death.
Despite the publicity generated by Porteous's book and the 2011 television documentary, the FBI is standing by its position that Christiansen cannot be considered a prime suspect. It cites a poor match to eyewitness physical descriptions, a level of skydiving expertise above that predicted by their suspect profile, and an absence of direct incriminating evidence.
Jack Coffelt was a con man, ex-convict, and purported government informant who claimed to have been the chauffeur and confidant of Abraham Lincoln's last undisputed descendant, great-grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith. In 1972 he began claiming he was Cooper, and attempted through an intermediary, a former cellmate named James Brown, to sell his story to a Hollywood production company. He said he landed near Mount Hood, about southeast of Ariel, injuring himself and losing the ransom money in the process. Photos of Coffelt bear a resemblance to the composite drawings, although he was in his mid-fifties in 1971. He was reportedly in Portland on the day of the hijacking, and sustained leg injuries around that time which were consistent with a skydiving mishap.
Coffelt's account was reviewed by the FBI, which concluded that it differed in significant details from information that had not been made public, and was therefore a fabrication. Brown, undeterred, continued peddling the story long after Coffelt died in 1975. Multiple media venues, including the CBS news program "60 Minutes", considered and rejected it. In a 2008 book about Lincoln's descendants, author Charles Lachman revisited Coffelt's tale, although it had been discredited thirty-six years before.
L.D. Cooper, a leather worker and Korean War veteran, was proposed as a suspect in July 2011 by his niece, Marla Cooper. As an eight-year-old, she recalled Cooper and another uncle planning something "very mischievous", involving the use of "expensive walkie-talkies", at her grandmother's house in Sisters, Oregon, southeast of Portland. The next day flight 305 was hijacked; and though the uncles ostensibly were turkey hunting, L.D. Cooper came home wearing a bloody shirt—the result, he said, of an auto accident. Later, she said, her parents came to believe that L.D. Cooper was the hijacker. She also recalled that her uncle, who died in 1999, was obsessed with the Canadian comic book hero Dan Cooper (see Theories and conjectures), and "had one of his comic books thumbtacked to his wall"—although he was not a skydiver or paratrooper.
In August 2011, "New York" magazine published an alternative witness sketch, reportedly based on a description by Flight 305 eyewitness Robert Gregory, depicting horn-rimmed sunglasses, a "russet"-colored suit jacket with wide lapels, and marcelled hair. The article notes that L.D. Cooper had wavy hair that looked marcelled (as did Duane Weber). The FBI announced that no fingerprints had been found on a guitar strap made by L.D. Cooper. One week later, they added that his DNA did not match the partial DNA profile obtained from the hijacker's tie, but acknowledged, once again, that there is no certainty that the hijacker was the source of the organic material obtained from the tie. The Bureau has made no further public comment.
Barbara Dayton, a recreational pilot and University of Washington librarian who was born Robert Dayton in 1926, served in the U.S. Merchant Marine and then the Army during World War II. After discharge, Dayton worked with explosives in the construction industry and aspired to a professional airline career, but could not obtain a commercial pilot's license.
Dayton underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1969 and adopted the name Barbara; claiming to have staged the Cooper hijacking two years later, disguised as a man, to "get back" at the airline industry and the FAA, whose insurmountable rules and conditions had prevented her from becoming an airline pilot. Dayton said that the ransom money was hidden in a cistern near Woodburn, a suburban area south of Portland, but eventually recanted the entire story, ostensibly after learning that hijacking charges could still be brought. The FBI has never commented publicly on Dayton, who died in 2002.
Gossett was a Marine Corps, Army, and Army Air Forces veteran who saw action in Korea and Vietnam. His military experience included advanced jump training and wilderness survival. After retiring from military service in 1973, he worked as an ROTC instructor, taught military law at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and hosted a radio talk show in Salt Lake City which featured discussions about the paranormal. He died in 2003.
Gossett was widely known to be obsessed with the Cooper hijacking. He amassed a voluminous collection of Cooper-related news articles, and told one of his wives that he knew enough about the case to "write the epitaph for D.B. Cooper". Late in his life he reportedly told three of his sons, a retired Utah judge, and a friend in the Salt Lake City public defender's office that he had committed the hijacking. Photos of Gossett taken circa 1971 bear a close resemblance to the most widely circulated Cooper composite drawing.
According to Galen Cook, a lawyer who has collected information related to Gossett for years, Gossett once showed his sons a key to a Vancouver, British Columbia, safe deposit box which, he claimed, contained the long-missing ransom money. Gossett's eldest son, Greg, said that his father, a compulsive gambler who was always "strapped for cash", showed him "wads of cash" just before Christmas 1971, weeks after the Cooper hijacking. He speculated that Gossett gambled the money away in Las Vegas.
In 1988, Gossett changed his name to "Wolfgang" and became a Roman Catholic priest, which Cook and others interpreted as an effort to disguise his identity. Other circumstantial evidence includes testimony that Cook claims to have obtained from William Mitchell, a passenger on the hijacked aircraft, regarding a mysterious "physical detail" (which he will not divulge) common to the hijacker and Gossett. Cook also claims to have found "possible links" to Gossett in each of four letters signed by "D.B. Cooper" and mailed to three newspapers within days after the hijacking, although there is no evidence that the actual hijacker created or mailed any of the letters.
The FBI has no direct evidence implicating Gossett, and cannot even reliably place him in the Pacific Northwest at the time of the hijacking. "There is not one link to the D.B. Cooper case," said Special Agent Carr, "other than the statements [Gossett] made to someone."
Robert Richard Lepsy was a 33-year-old grocery store manager and married father of four from Grayling, Michigan, who disappeared in October 1969. His vehicle was found three days later at a local airport, and a man matching Lepsy's description was reportedly seen boarding a flight to Mexico. Authorities concluded that Lepsy had left voluntarily and closed their investigation.
Two years after the Cooper hijacking, family members noted that Lepsy's physical features resembled those in the Cooper composite drawings, and asserted that Cooper's clothing was described as very similar to Lepsy's grocery store uniform. Lepsy was declared legally dead in 1976. One of Lepsy's daughters submitted a DNA sample to the FBI in 2011, with unknown results. Although Lepsy was proposed as a Cooper suspect in a 2014 book, there is no record of public comment on him from the FBI.
List was an accountant, World War II and Korean War veteran who murdered his wife, three teenage children, and 85-year-old mother in Westfield, New Jersey, fifteen days before the Cooper hijacking, withdrew $200,000 from his mother's bank account, and disappeared. He came to the attention of the Cooper task force due to the timing of his disappearance, multiple matches to the hijacker's description, and the reasoning that "a fugitive accused of mass murder has nothing to lose." After his capture in 1989, List admitted to murdering his family, but denied any involvement in the Cooper hijacking. Although his name continues to crop up in Cooper articles and documentaries, no substantial evidence implicates him, and the FBI no longer considers him a suspect. He died in prison in 2008.
Theodore E. Mayfield was a Special Forces veteran, pilot, competitive skydiver, and skydiving instructor who served time in 1994 for negligent homicide after two of his students died when their parachutes failed to open. Later, he was found indirectly responsible for thirteen additional skydiving deaths due to faulty equipment and training. His criminal record also included armed robbery and transportation of stolen aircraft. In 2010, he was sentenced to three years' probation for piloting a plane 26 years after losing his pilot's license and rigging certificates. He was suggested repeatedly as a suspect early in the investigation, according to FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who knew Mayfield from a prior dispute at a local airport. He was ruled out, based partly on the fact that he called Himmelsbach less than two hours after Flight 305 landed in Reno to volunteer advice on standard skydiving practices and possible landing zones.
In 2006, two amateur researchers named Daniel Dvorak and Matthew Myers proposed Mayfield as a suspect once again, asserting that they had assembled a convincing circumstantial case. They theorized that Mayfield called Himmelsbach not to offer advice, but to establish an alibi; and they challenged Himmelsbach's conclusion that Mayfield could not possibly have found a phone in time to call the FBI less than four hours after jumping into the wilderness at night. Mayfield denied any involvement, and repeated a previous assertion that the FBI called "him" five times while the hijacking was still in progress to ask about parachutes, local skydivers, and skydiving techniques. (Himmelsbach said the FBI never called Mayfield.) Mayfield further charged that Dvorak and Myers asked him to play along with their theory, and "we'll all make a lot of money". Dvorak and Myers called any inference of collusion a "blatant lie". The FBI offered no comment beyond Himmelsbach's original statement that Mayfield, who died in 2015, was ruled out as a suspect early on.
McCoy (1942–1974) was an Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, first as a demolition expert, and later, with the Green Berets as a helicopter pilot. After his military service he became a warrant officer in the Utah National Guard and an avid recreational skydiver, with aspirations, he said, of becoming a Utah State Trooper.
On April 7, 1972, McCoy staged the best-known of the so-called "copycat" hijackings (see below). He boarded United Airlines' Flight 855 (a Boeing 727 with aft stairs) in Denver, Colorado, and brandishing what later proved to be a paperweight resembling a hand grenade and an unloaded handgun, he demanded four parachutes and $500,000. After delivery of the money and parachutes at San Francisco International Airport, McCoy ordered the aircraft back into the sky and bailed out over Provo, Utah, leaving behind his handwritten hijacking instructions and his fingerprints on a magazine he had been reading. Later, a handwriting expert compared the note found on the plane with McCoy's writing on military service records and determined that McCoy had written the note. He was arrested on April 9 with the ransom cash in his possession, and after trial and conviction, received a 45-year sentence. Two years later he escaped from Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary with several accomplices by crashing a garbage truck through the main gate. Tracked down three months later in Virginia Beach, McCoy was killed in a shootout with FBI agents.
In their 1991 book, "D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy", parole officer Bernie Rhodes and former FBI agent Russell Calame asserted that they had identified McCoy as Cooper. They cited obvious similarities in the two hijackings, claims by McCoy's family that the tie and mother-of-pearl tie clip left on the plane belonged to McCoy, and McCoy's own refusal to admit or deny that he was Cooper. A proponent of their theory was the FBI agent who killed McCoy. "When I shot Richard McCoy," he said, "I shot D. B. Cooper at the same time."
Although there is no reasonable doubt that McCoy committed the Denver hijacking, the FBI does not consider him a suspect in the Cooper case because of significant mismatches in age and description; a level of skydiving skill well above that thought to be possessed by the hijacker; and credible evidence that McCoy was in Las Vegas on the day of the Portland hijacking, and at home in Utah the day after, having Thanksgiving dinner with his family.
Robert Wesley Rackstraw (1943 – July 9, 2019) was a retired pilot and ex-convict who served on an army helicopter crew and other units during the Vietnam War. He came to the attention of the Cooper task force in February 1978, after he was arrested in Iran and deported to the U.S. to face explosives possession and check kiting charges. Several months later, while released on bail, Rackstraw attempted to fake his own death by radioing a false mayday call and telling controllers that he was bailing out of a rented plane over Monterey Bay. Police later arrested him in Fullerton on an additional charge of forging federal pilot certificates; the plane he claimed to have ditched was found, repainted, in a nearby hangar. Cooper investigators noted his physical resemblance to Cooper composite sketches (although he was only 28 in 1971), military parachute training, and criminal record, but eliminated him as a suspect in 1979 after no direct evidence of his involvement could be found.
In 2016, Rackstraw re-emerged as a suspect in a History Channel program and a book. On September 8, 2016, Thomas J. Colbert, the author of the book, and attorney Mark Zaid filed a lawsuit to compel the FBI to release its Cooper case file under the Freedom of Information Act. The suit alleges that the FBI suspended active investigation of the Cooper case "in order to undermine the theory that Rackstraw is D.B. Cooper so as to prevent embarrassment for the bureau's failure to develop evidence sufficient to prosecute him for the crime." In January 2018, Tom and Dawna Colbert reported that they had obtained a letter originally written in December 1971 and says that the codes it contains were deciphered and matched to three units Rackstraw was a part of while in the Army, and the FBI refused to acknowledge the findings because "it would have to admit that amateur sleuths had cracked a case the bureau couldn't."
One of the Flight 305 flight attendants reportedly "did not find any similarities" between photos of Rackstraw from the 1970s and her recollection of Cooper's appearance. Rackstraw's attorney called the renewed allegations "the stupidest thing I've ever heard", and Rackstraw himself told People.com, "It's a lot of [expletive], and they know it is." The FBI declined further comment. Rackstraw stated in a 2017 phone interview that he lost his job over the 2016 investigations. When approached by Colbert about claims that he was D. B. Cooper, "I told everybody I was (the hijacker)," Rackstraw said, before explaining the admission was a stunt.
A June 2018 article circulated claiming private investigators "decoded" a previously publicly unknown letter on file with the FBI, which purportedly includes a disguised confession.
Rackstraw died on July 9, 2019 from a heart condition.
Walter R. Reca (1933–2014) (born Walter R. Peca) was a Michigan native, a military veteran and original member of the Michigan Parachute Team. He was proposed as a suspect by his friend Carl Laurin, a former commercial airline pilot and expert parachuter himself, at a press conference on May 17, 2018. In 2008, Reca confessed to being D.B. Cooper to Laurin via a recorded phone call. In July 2018, Principia Media released a four-part documentary detailing their investigation.
Reca gave Laurin permission in a notarized letter to share his story after he died in 2014, aged 80. He also allowed Laurin to tape their phone conversations about the crime over a six-week period in late 2008. In the over three hours of recordings, Reca gave new details about the hijacking that the public had not heard before. He also confessed to his niece, Lisa Story. Using his years of training to determine the location of the jump, Laurin concluded that D.B. Cooper landed near Cle Elum, Washington.
According to written testimony, Jeff Osiadacz, a Cle Elum, Washington native, was driving his dump truck near Cle Elum the night of November 24, 1971, when he saw a man walking down the side of the road in the inclement weather. He assumed the man's car had broken down and was walking to get assistance. He did not have room in his truck to pick him up, and continued toward his destination, the Teanaway Junction Café just outside Cle Elum. After ordering coffee, the man from the side of the road also entered the café looking like a "drowned rat", according to Osiadacz. The man sat next to him and asked if he would be able to give his friend directions if he called him on the phone. Osiadacz agreed to this and spoke with the man's friend, giving him directions to the café. Shortly after that, Osiadacz left for the Grange Hall to play in a band. The man offered to pay for his coffee, and the two amicably parted.
Laurin began his search for the witness, after Reca described the landscape he saw while on his way to the drop zone: two bridges, some distinct lights; and his description of the exterior and interior of the café, as well as his encounter with Osiadacz. He described Osiadacz in detail, recalling that he was wearing western gear and had a guitar case. He dubbed him "Cowboy".
Laurin consulted a map to find these landmarks and began making phone calls about the "Cowboy who had driven a dump truck." Laurin was put in contact with Osiadacz, who recalled meeting a man that night, described what he was wearing and what he looked like, and confirmed his identity as Reca after seeing a photo Laurin sent him. In addition to the taped confession, Laurin also has a confession written by Reca and long underwear allegedly worn by Reca under his black pants during the hijacking.
In 2016, Laurin took the information to publisher Principia Media, who consulted with Joe Koenig, a forensic linguist. He evaluated all documents, including passports, identification cards, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Koenig found no evidence of tampering or manipulation and deemed all documentation authentic and contemporaneous. After comparing Laurin's research to the available FBI records, he found no discrepancies that eliminated Reca as a suspect. He also thought it particularly significant that Osiadacz's statement of events on the night of November 24, 1971, was identical to the account that Reca made five years earlier. Koenig publicly stated at the Principia Media press conference on May 17, 2018, that he believes that Walter R. Reca was D.B. Cooper. On January 8, 2019, Koenig published a book on Cooper, titled "Getting the Truth: I Am D.B. Cooper".
In November 2018, "The Oregonian" published an article that identified William J. Smith (1928–2018), of Bloomfield, New Jersey, as a possible suspect. The article was based on research from a U.S. Army data analyst who sent his findings to the FBI in mid-2018. Smith, a New Jersey native, was a World War II Navy veteran and would have been 43 at the time of the hijacking. After high school he enlisted in the Navy and volunteered for combat air crew training, citing his desire to fly. After the Navy, he worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and was impacted by the Penn Central Transportation Company bankruptcy in 1970, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history up until that time. The article theorized that the loss of his pension created a grudge against the corporate establishment and transportation industry. It also created a sudden need for money due to that loss of pension. In Smith's high school yearbook, a list of alumni killed in World War II lists an Ira Daniel Cooper, possibly the source for the hijacker's given name of "Dan Cooper." The analyst stated that Smith's Naval aviation experience would have given him knowledge of planes and parachutes, and that his railroad experience would have helped him find railroad tracks and hop on a train to escape the area after his jump. The U.S. Army analyst stated that his research began after he made connections between William J. Smith and the 1985 book "D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened" by Max Gunther.
"The Oregonian" article states that particles such as aluminum spiral chips found on the clip-on tie could have come from a locomotive maintenance facility. Furthermore, it states that Smith's information about the Seattle area may have come from his close friend from the railroad, Dan Clair, who was stationed at Fort Lewis during World War II. Smith and Clair worked together in Newark, New Jersey, at the Oak Island Yard, with Smith retiring as a Yardmaster for Conrail. The article also noted that a website devoted to the Lehigh Valley Railroad contained a picture of Smith, and stated that "the resemblance to the wanted-poster sketches was remarkable." The FBI responded to media requests on Smith by saying it would be "inappropriate" to comment about specific suspects.
Duane L. Weber was a World War II Army veteran who served time in at least six prisons from 1945 to 1968 for burglary and forgery. He was proposed as a suspect by his widow, based primarily on a deathbed confession: Three days before he died in 1995, Weber told his wife, "I am Dan Cooper." The name meant nothing to her, she said; but months later, a friend told her of its significance in the hijacking. She went to her local library to research D.B. Cooper, found Max Gunther's book, and discovered notations in the margins in her husband's handwriting.
She then recalled, in retrospect, that Weber once had a nightmare during which he talked in his sleep about jumping from a plane, leaving his fingerprints on the "aft stairs". He also reportedly told her that an old knee injury had been incurred by "jumping out of a plane". Like the hijacker, Weber drank bourbon and chain smoked. Other circumstantial evidence included a 1979 trip to Seattle and the Columbia River, during which Weber took a walk alone along the river bank in the Tina Bar area; four months later Brian Ingram made his ransom cash discovery in the same area.
The FBI eliminated Weber as an active suspect in July 1998 when his fingerprints did not match any of those processed in the hijacked plane, and no other direct evidence could be found to implicate him. Later, his DNA also failed to match the samples recovered from Cooper's tie, though the bureau has since conceded that they cannot be certain that the organic material on the tie came from Cooper.
Cooper was not the first to attempt air piracy for personal gain. In early November 1971, for example, a Canadian man named Paul Joseph Cini hijacked an Air Canada DC-8 over Montana, but was overpowered by the crew when he put down his shotgun to strap on the parachute he had brought with him. Cooper's apparent success inspired a flurry of imitators, mostly during 1972. Some notable examples from that year:
Skyjacker – The Richard McCoy Jr. Story (March 2, 2011). ParachutistOnLine.com Retrieved February 25, 2013.
hijacked a United Airlines 727–100 in April after it left Denver, Colorado, diverted it to San Francisco, then bailed out over Utah with $500,000 in ransom money. He landed safely, but was arrested two days later.
In all, 15 hijackings similar to Cooper's — all unsuccessful — were attempted in 1972. With the advent of universal luggage searches in 1973 (see Airport security), the general incidence of hijackings dropped dramatically. There were no further notable Cooper imitators until July 11, 1980, when Glenn K. Tripp seized Northwest flight 608 at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, demanding $600,000 ($100,000 by an independent account), two parachutes, and the assassination of his boss. A quick-thinking flight attendant had secretly drugged Tripp's alcoholic beverage with Valium. After a 10-hour standoff, during which Tripp reduced his demands to three cheeseburgers and a head start on getting away, he was apprehended. But on January 21, 1983—while still on probation—he hijacked the same Northwest flight, this time en route, and demanded to be flown to Afghanistan. When the plane landed in Portland, he was shot and killed by FBI agents.
The Cooper hijacking marked the beginning of the end for unfettered and unscrutinized commercial airline travel. Despite the initiation of the federal Sky Marshal Program the previous year, 31 hijackings were committed in U.S. airspace in 1972; 19 of them were for the specific purpose of extorting money and most of the rest were attempts to reach Cuba. In 15 of the extortion cases, the hijackers also demanded parachutes. In early 1973, the FAA began requiring airlines to search all passengers and their bags. Amid multiple lawsuits charging that such searches violated Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure, federal courts ruled that they were acceptable when applied universally, and when limited to searches for weapons and explosives. Only two hijackings were attempted in 1973, both by psychiatric patients, one of whom intended to crash the airliner into the White House to kill President Nixon.
In the wake of multiple "copycat" hijackings in 1972, the FAA required that all Boeing 727 aircraft be fitted with a device, later dubbed the "Cooper vane", that prevents lowering of the aft airstair during flight. As a direct result of the hijacking, the installation of peepholes was mandated in all cockpit doors. This made it possible for the cockpit crew to observe people in the passenger cabin without having to open the cockpit door.
In 1978, the hijacked 727-100 aircraft was sold by Northwest to Piedmont Airlines where it was re-registered N838N and continued in domestic carrier service. In 1984 it was purchased by the now-defunct charter company Key Airlines, re-registered N29KA, and incorporated into the Air Force's civilian charter fleet that shuttled workers between Nellis Air Force Base and the Tonopah Test Range during the top-secret F-117 Nighthawk development program. In 1996, the aircraft was scrapped for parts in a Memphis boneyard.
In late April 2013, Earl Cossey – the owner of the skydiving school that furnished the four parachutes that were given to Cooper – was found dead in his home in Woodinville, a suburb of Seattle. His death was ruled a homicide due to blunt-force trauma to the head. The perpetrator remains unknown. Some commenters alleged possible links to the Cooper case, but authorities responded that they have no reason to believe that any such link exists. Woodinville officials later announced that burglary was most likely the motive for the crime.
Himmelsbach famously called Cooper a "rotten sleazy crook" but his bold and adventurous crime inspired a cult following that was expressed in song, film, and literature. Restaurants and bowling alleys in the Pacific Northwest hold regular Cooper-themed promotions and sell tourist souvenirs. A "Cooper Day" celebration has been held at the Ariel General Store and Tavern each November since 1974 with the exception of 2015, the year its owner, Dona Elliot, died.
Cooper has appeared in the story lines of the television series "Prison Break", "The Blacklist", "NewsRadio", "Leverage", "Journeyman", "Renegade", "Numb3rs", "30 Rock", and "Drunk History", as well as the 1981 film "The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper", the 2004 film "Without a Paddle", and a book titled "The Vesuvius Prophecy", based on "The 4400" TV series. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8799 |
Distributism
Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated.
Developed in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon the principles of Catholic social teaching, especially the teachings of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical "Rerum novarum" (1891) and Pope Pius XI in "Quadragesimo anno" (1931). It views both capitalism and socialism as equally flawed and exploitative, and it favors economic mechanisms such as cooperatives and member-owned mutual organizations as well as small businesses, and large-scale antitrust regulations.
Some Christian democratic political parties have advocated distributism in their economic policies.
According to distributists, property ownership is a fundamental right, and the means of production should be spread as widely as possible, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state capitalism/state socialism), a few individuals (plutocracy), or corporations (corporatocracy). Distributism, therefore, advocates a society marked by widespread property ownership. Co-operative economist Race Mathews argues that such a system is key to bringing about a just social order.
Distributism has often been described in opposition to both socialism and capitalism, which distributists see as equally flawed and exploitative. Furthermore, some distributists argue that socialism is the logical conclusion of capitalism as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the state, resulting in a form of socialism. Thomas Storck argues: "Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life." A few distributists were influenced by the economic ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his mutualist economic theory, and therefore the lesser-known anarchist branch of distributism of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement could be considered a form of free-market libertarian socialism due to their opposition to both state capitalism and state socialism.
Some have seen it more as an aspiration, which has been successfully realised in the short term by commitment to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity (these being built into financially independent local cooperatives and small family businesses), although proponents also cite such periods as the Middle Ages as examples of the historical long-term viability of distributism. Particularly influential in the development of distributist theory were Catholic authors G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, the "Chesterbelloc", two of distributism's earliest and strongest proponents.
The mid-to-late 19th century witnessed an increase in popularity of political Catholicism across Europe. According to historian Michael A. Riff, a common feature of these movements was opposition not only to secularism, but also to both capitalism and socialism. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII promulgated "Rerum novarum", in which he addressed the "misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class" and spoke of how "a small number of very rich men" had been able to "lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself". Affirmed in the encyclical was the right of all men to own property, the necessity of a system that allowed "as many as possible of the people to become owners", the duty of employers to provide safe working conditions and sufficient wages, and the right of workers to unionise. Common and government property ownership was expressly dismissed as a means of helping the poor.
Around the start of the 20th century, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc drew together the disparate experiences of the various cooperatives and friendly societies in Northern England, Ireland, and Northern Europe into a coherent political theory which specifically advocated widespread private ownership of housing and control of industry through owner-operated small businesses and worker-controlled cooperatives. In the United States in the 1930s, distributism was treated in numerous essays by Chesterton, Belloc and others in "The American Review", published and edited by Seward Collins. Pivotal among Belloc's and Chesterton's other works regarding distributism are "The Servile State", and "Outline of Sanity".
Although a majority of distributism's later supporters were not Catholics and many were in fact former radical socialists who had become disillusioned with socialism, distributist thought was adopted by the Catholic Worker Movement, conjoining it with the thought of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin concerning localized and independent communities. It also influenced the thought behind the Antigonish Movement, which implemented cooperatives and other measures to aid the poor in the Canadian Maritimes. Its practical implementation in the form of local cooperatives has been documented by Race Mathews in his 1999 book "Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society".
The position of distributists when compared to other political philosophies is somewhat paradoxical and complicated (see triangulation). Strongly entrenched in an organic but very English Catholicism, advocating culturally traditionalist and agrarian values, directly challenging the precepts of Whig history—Belloc was nonetheless an MP for the Liberal Party and Chesterton once stated "As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals". This liberalism is different from most modern forms, taking influence from William Cobbett and John Ruskin, who combined elements of radicalism, challenging the establishment position, but from a perspective of renovation, not revolution; seeing themselves as trying to restore the traditional liberties of England and her people which had been taken away from them, amongst other things, since the Industrial Revolution.
While converging with certain elements of traditional Toryism, especially an appreciation of the Middle Ages and organic society, there were several points of significant contention. While many Tories were strongly opposed to reform, the distributists in certain cases saw this not as conserving a legitimate traditional concept of England, but in many cases entrenching harmful errors and innovations. Belloc was quite explicit in his opposition to Protestantism as a concept and schism from the Catholic Church in general, considering the division of Christendom in the 16th century one of the most harmful events in European history. Elements of Toryism on the other hand were quite intransigent when it came to the Church of England as the established church, some even spurning their original legitimist ultra-royalist principles in regards to James II to uphold it.
Much of Dorothy L. Sayers' writings on social and economic matters has affinity with distributism. She may have been influenced by them, or have come to similar conclusions on her own. As an Anglican, the reasonings she gave are rooted in the theologies of Creation and Incarnation, and are slightly different from the Catholic Chesterton and Belloc.
Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, carpenters and plumbers who own their own tools, among others. The cooperative approach advances beyond this perspective to recognise that such property and equipment may be co-owned by local communities larger than a family, e.g. partners in a business.
In "Rerum novarum", Leo XIII states that people are likely to work harder and with greater commitment if they themselves possess the land on which they labour, which in turn will benefit them and their families as workers will be able to provide for themselves and their household. He puts forward the idea that when men have the opportunity to possess property and work on it, they will "learn to love the very soil which yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of the good things for themselves and those that are dear to them". He states also that owning property is not only beneficial for a person and their family, but is in fact a right, due to God having "given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race".
Similar views are presented by G. K. Chesterton in his 1910 book "What's Wrong with the World". Chesterton believes that whilst God has limitless capabilities, man has limited abilities in terms of creation. As such, man therefore is entitled to own property and to treat it as he sees fit, stating: "Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small." Chesterton summed up his distributist views in the phrase "Three acres and a cow".
According to Belloc, the distributive state (the state which has implemented distributism) contains "an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater number of owners of the means of production". This broader distribution does not extend to all property, but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, and so on. Distributism allows for society to have public goods such as parks and transit systems. Distributists accept that wage labor will remain a small part of the economy, with small business owners hiring employees, usually young, inexperienced people.
The kind of economic order envisaged by the early distributist thinkers would involve the return to some sort of guild system. The present existence of labor unions does not constitute a realization of this facet of distributist economic order, as labour unions are organized along class lines to promote class interests and frequently class struggle, whereas guilds are mixed class syndicates composed of both employers and employees cooperating for mutual benefit, thereby promoting class collaboration.
Distributism favors the dissolution of the current private bank system, or more specifically its profit-making basis in charging interest. Dorothy Day, for example, suggested abolishing legal enforcement of interest-rate contracts (usury). It would not entail nationalization but could involve government involvement of some sort. Distributists look favorably towards financial cooperatives and mutuals such as credit unions, building societies and mutual banks as preferred alternatives to banks.
Distributism appears to have one of its greatest influences in antitrust legislation in America and Europe designed to break up monopolies and excessive concentration of market power in one or only a few companies, trusts, interests, or cartels. Embodying the philosophy explained by Chesterton, above, that too much capitalism means too few capitalists, not too many, America's extensive system of antitrust legislation seeks to prevent the concentration of market power in a given industry into too few hands. Requiring that no company gain too great a share of any market is an example of how distributism has found its way into government policy. The assumption behind this legislation is the idea that having economic activity decentralized among many different industry participants is better for the economy than having one or a few large players in an industry. Note that antitrust regulation does take into account cases when only large companies are viable because of the nature of an industry, as in the case of natural monopolies like electricity distribution. It also accepts that mergers and acquisitions may improve consumer welfare; however, it generally prefers more economic agents to fewer, as this generally improves competition.
Social credit is an interdisciplinary distributive philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas (1879–1952), a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. It encompasses the fields of economics, political science, history, accounting, and physics. Its policies are designed, according to Douglas, to disperse economic and political power to individuals.
Distributism sees the family of two parents and their child or children as the central and primary social unit of human ordering and the principal unit of a functioning distributist society and civilization. This unit is also the basis of a multi-generational extended family, which is embedded in socially as well as genetically inter-related communities, nations, etc., and ultimately in the whole human family past, present and future. The economic system of a society should therefore be focused primarily on the flourishing of the family unit, but not in isolation: at the appropriate level of family context, as is intended in the principle of subsidiarity. Distributism reflects this doctrine most evidently by promoting the family, rather than the individual, as the basic type of owner; that is, distributism seeks to ensure that most families, rather than most individuals, will be owners of productive property. The family is, then, vitally important to the very core of distributist thought.
Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit. In "Quadragesimo anno", Pope Pius XI provided the classical statement of the principle: "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do". Thus, any activity of production (which distributism holds to be the most important part of any economy) ought to be performed by the smallest possible unit. This helps support distributism's argument that smaller units, families if possible, ought to be in control of the means of production, rather than the large units typical of modern economies.
In "Quadragesimo anno", Pope Pius XI further stated that "every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them". To prevent large private organizations from thus dominating the body politic, distributism applies this principle of subsidiarity to economic as well as to social and political action.
Distributists believe in a society that is as self-reliant as possible. Some may advocate that families and charitable organisations ought to provide an alternative to social security as a means of advancing the principles of subsidiary. However, many distributists reject the idea of eliminating social security.
Distributists such as Dorothy Day did not favour social security when it was introduced by the United States government. This rejection of the new program was due to the direct influence of the ideas of Hilaire Belloc over American distributists.
The Democratic Labour Party of Australia espouses distributism and does not hold the view of favouring the elimination of social security who for instance wish to "[r]aise the level of student income support payments to the Henderson poverty line".
The American Solidarity Party has a platform of favouring an adequate social security system, whereby they state: "We advocate for social safety nets that adequately provide for the material needs of the most vulnerable in society".
Distributism promotes a society of artisans and culture. This is influenced by an emphasis on small business, promotion of local culture, and favoring of small production over capitalistic mass production. A society of artisans promotes the distributist ideal of the unification of capital, ownership, and production rather than what distributism sees as an alienation of man from work.
This does not suggest that distributism necessarily favors a technological regression to a pre-Industrial Revolution lifestyle, but rather a more local ownership of factories and other industrial centers. Products such as food and clothing would be preferably returned to local producers and artisans instead of being mass-produced overseas.
Distributism does not favor one political order over another (political accidentalism). While some distributists such as Dorothy Day have been anarchists, it should be remembered that most Chestertonian distributists are opposed to the mere concept of anarchism. Chesterton thought that distributism would benefit from the discipline that theoretical analysis imposes, and that distributism is best seen as a widely encompassing concept inside of which any number of interpretations and perspectives can fit. This concept should fit in a political system broadly characterized by widespread ownership of productive property.
In the United States, the American Solidarity Party generally adheres to Distributist principals as its economic model. The Brazilian political party, Humanist Party of Solidarity is a distributist party, and distributism has influenced Christian Democratic parties in Continental Europe and the Democratic Labour Party in Australia. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam view their "Grand New Party", a roadmap for revising the Republican Party in the United States, as "a book written in the distributist tradition". The Pirate Party of Romania is also considered to be a distributist party.
Distributists usually use just war theory in determining whether a war should be fought or not. Historical positions of distributist thinkers provide insight into a distributist position on war. Both Belloc and Chesterton opposed British imperialism in general as well as specifically opposing the Second Boer War, but they supported British involvement in World War I.
On the other hand, prominent distributists such as Dorothy Day and those involved in the Catholic Worker Movement were/are strict pacifists, even to the point of condemning involvement in World War II at much personal cost.
Distributism is known to have had an influence on the economist E. F. Schumacher, a convert to Catholicism.
The Mondragon Corporation, based in the Basque Country in a region of Spain and France, was founded by a Catholic priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta, who seems to have been influenced by the same Catholic social and economic teachings that inspired Belloc, Chesterton, Father Vincent McNabb, and the other founders of distributism.
Distributist ideas were put into practice by The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, a group of artists and craftsmen who established a community in Ditchling, Sussex, England, in 1920, with the motto "Men rich in virtue studying beautifulness living in peace in their houses". The guild sought to recreate an idealised medieval lifestyle in the manner of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It survived almost 70 years until 1989.
The Big Society was the flagship policy idea of the 2010 UK Conservative Party general election manifesto. Some distributists claim that the rhetorical marketing of this policy was influenced by aphorisms of the distributist ideology and promotes distributism. It purportedly formed a part of the legislative programme of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement. The stated aim was "to create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a big society that will 'take power away from politicians and give it to people.'" The idea of the Big Society was suggested by Steve Hilton, who worked as director of strategy for David Cameron during the Coalition government before moving on to live and work in California. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8805 |
Dehydroepiandrosterone
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), also known as androstenolone, is an endogenous steroid hormone precursor. It is one of the most abundant circulating steroids in humans. DHEA is produced in the adrenal glands, the gonads, and the brain. It functions as a metabolic intermediate in the biosynthesis of the androgen and estrogen sex steroids both in the gonads and in various other tissues. However, DHEA also has a variety of potential biological effects in its own right, binding to an array of nuclear and cell surface receptors, and acting as a neurosteroid and modulator of neurotrophic factor receptors.
In the United States, DHEA is sold as an over-the-counter supplement, and medication called prasterone.
DHEA and other adrenal androgens such as androstenedione, although relatively weak androgens, are responsible for the androgenic effects of adrenarche, such as early pubic and axillary hair growth, adult-type body odor, increased oiliness of hair and skin, and mild acne. DHEA is potentiated locally via conversion into testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in the skin and hair follicles. Women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), who have a non-functional androgen receptor (AR) and are immune to the androgenic effects of DHEA and other androgens, have absent or only sparse/scanty pubic and axillary hair and body hair in general, demonstrating the role of DHEA and other androgens in body hair development at both adrenarche and pubarche.
DHEA is a weak estrogen. In addition, it is transformed into potent estrogens such as estradiol in certain tissues such as the vagina, and thereby produces estrogenic effects in such tissues.
As a neurosteroid and neurotrophin, DHEA has important effects in the central nervous system.
Although it functions as an endogenous precursor to more potent androgens such as testosterone and DHT, DHEA has been found to possess some degree of androgenic activity in its own right, acting as a low affinity (Ki = 1 μM), weak partial agonist of the androgen receptor (AR). However, its intrinsic activity at the receptor is quite weak, and on account of that, due to competition for binding with full agonists like testosterone, it can actually behave more like an antagonist depending on circulating testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels, and hence, like an antiandrogen. However, its affinity for the receptor is very low, and for that reason, is unlikely to be of much significance under normal circumstances.
In addition to its affinity for the androgen receptor, DHEA has also been found to bind to (and activate) the ERα and ERβ estrogen receptors with Ki values of 1.1 μM and 0.5 μM, respectively, and EC50 values of >1 μM and 200 nM, respectively. Though it was found to be a partial agonist of the ERα with a maximal efficacy of 30–70%, the concentrations required for this degree of activation make it unlikely that the activity of DHEA at this receptor is physiologically meaningful. Remarkably however, DHEA acts as a full agonist of the ERβ with a maximal response similar to or actually slightly greater than that of estradiol, and its levels in circulation and local tissues in the human body are high enough to activate the receptor to the same degree as that seen with circulating estradiol levels at somewhat higher than their maximal, non-ovulatory concentrations; indeed, when combined with estradiol with both at levels equivalent to those of their physiological concentrations, overall activation of the ERβ was doubled.
DHEA does not bind to or activate the progesterone, glucocorticoid, or mineralocorticoid receptors. Other nuclear receptor targets of DHEA besides the androgen and estrogen receptors include the PPARα, PXR, and CAR. However, whereas DHEA is a ligand of the PPARα and PXR in rodents, it is not in humans. In addition to direct interactions, DHEA is thought to regulate a handful of other proteins via indirect, genomic mechanisms, including the enzymes CYP2C11 and 11β-HSD1 – the latter of which is essential for the biosynthesis of the glucocorticoids such as cortisol and has been suggested to be involved in the antiglucocorticoid effects of DHEA – and the carrier protein IGFBP1.
DHEA has been found to directly act on several neurotransmitter receptors, including acting as a positive allosteric modulator of the NMDA receptor, as a negative allosteric modulator of the GABAA receptor, and as an agonist of the σ1 receptor.
In 2011, the surprising discovery was made that DHEA, as well as its sulfate ester, DHEA-S, directly bind to and activate TrkA and p75NTR, receptors of neurotrophins like nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), with high affinity. DHEA was subsequently also found to bind to TrkB and TrkC with high affinity, though it only activated TrkC not TrkB. DHEA and DHEA-S bound to these receptors with affinities in the low nanomolar range (around 5 nM), which were nonetheless approximately two orders of magnitude lower relative to highly potent polypeptide neurotrophins like NGF (0.01–0.1 nM). In any case, DHEA and DHEA-S both circulate at requisite concentrations to activate these receptors and were thus identified as important endogenous neurotrophic factors. They have since been labeled "steroidal microneurotrophins", due to their small-molecule and steroidal nature relative to their polypeptide neurotrophin counterparts. Subsequent research has suggested that DHEA and/or DHEA-S may in fact be phylogenetically ancient "ancestral" ligands of the neurotrophin receptors from early on in the evolution of the nervous system. The findings that DHEA binds to and potently activates neurotrophin receptors may explain the positive association between decreased circulating DHEA levels with age and age-related neurodegenerative diseases.
Similarly to pregnenolone, its synthetic derivative 3β-methoxypregnenolone (MAP-4343), and progesterone, DHEA has been found to bind to microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), specifically the MAP2C subtype (Kd = 27 μM). However, it is unclear whether DHEA increases binding of MAP2 to tubulin like pregnenolone.
DHEA is an uncompetitive inhibitor of (Ki = 17 μM; IC50 = 18.7 μM), and is able to lower levels and reduce NADPH-dependent free radical production. It is thought that this action may possibly be responsible for much of the antiinflammatory, antihyperplastic, chemopreventative, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, and antiobesic, as well as certain immunomodulating activities of DHEA (with some experimental evidence to support this notion available). However, it has also been said that inhibition of G6PDH activity by DHEA "in vivo" has not been observed and that the concentrations required for DHEA to inhibit G6PDH "in vitro" are very high, thus making the possible contribution of G6PDH inhibition to the effects of DHEA uncertain.
DHEA supplements have been promoted for their claimed cancer prevention properties, but there is no scientific evidence to support these claims.
DHEA has been found to competitively inhibit TRPV1.
DHEA is produced in the zona reticularis of the adrenal cortex under the control of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and by the gonads under the control of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). It is also produced in the brain. DHEA is synthesized from cholesterol via the enzymes cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme (CYP11A1; P450scc) and 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase (CYP17A1), with pregnenolone and 17α-hydroxypregnenolone as intermediates. It is derived mostly from the adrenal cortex, with only about 10% being secreted from the gonads. Approximately 50 to 70% of circulating DHEA originates from desulfation of DHEA-S in peripheral tissues. DHEA-S itself originates almost exclusively from the adrenal cortex, with 95 to 100% being secreted from the adrenal cortex in women.
Regular exercise is known to increase DHEA production in the body. Calorie restriction has also been shown to increase DHEA in primates. Some theorize that the increase in endogenous DHEA brought about by calorie restriction is partially responsible for the longer life expectancy known to be associated with calorie restriction.
Catalpol and a combination of acetyl-carnitine and propionyl-carnitine on 1:1 ratio also improves endogenous DHEA production and release due to direct cholinergic stimulation of CRH release and an increase of IGF-1 expression respectively.
In the circulation, DHEA is mainly bound to albumin, with a small amount bound to sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). The small remainder of DHEA not associated with albumin or SHBG is unbound and free in the circulation.
DHEA easily crosses the blood–brain barrier into the central nervous system.
DHEA is transformed into DHEA-S by sulfation at the C3β position via the sulfotransferase enzymes SULT2A1 and to a lesser extent SULT1E1. This occurs naturally in the adrenal cortex and during first-pass metabolism in the liver and intestines when exogenous DHEA is administered orally. Levels of DHEA-S in circulation are approximately 250 to 300 times those of DHEA. DHEA-S in turn can be converted back into DHEA in peripheral tissues via steroid sulfatase (STS).
The terminal half-life of DHEA is short at only 15 to 30 minutes. In contrast, the terminal half-life of DHEA-S is far longer, at 7 to 10 hours. As DHEA-S can be converted back into DHEA, it serves as a circulating reservoir for DHEA, thereby extending the duration of DHEA.
Metabolites of DHEA include DHEA-S, 7α-hydroxy-DHEA, 7β-hydroxy-DHEA, 7-keto-DHEA, 7α-hydroxyepiandrosterone, and 7β-hydroxyepiandrosterone, as well as androstenediol and androstenedione.
During pregnancy, DHEA-S is metabolized into the sulfates of 16α-hydroxy-DHEA and 15α-hydroxy-DHEA in the fetal liver as intermediates in the production of the estrogens estriol and estetrol, respectively.
Prior to puberty, DHEA and DHEA-S levels elevate upon differentiation of the zona reticularis of the adrenal cortex. Peak levels of DHEA and DHEA-S are observed around age 20, which is followed by an age-dependent decline throughout life eventually back to prepubertal concentrations. Plasma levels of DHEA in adult men are 10 to 25 nM, in premenopausal women are 5 to 30 nM, and in postmenopausal women are 2 to 20 nM. Conversely, DHEA-S levels are an order of magnitude higher at 1–10 μM. Levels of DHEA and DHEA-S decline to the lower nanomolar and micromolar ranges in men and women aged 60 to 80 years.
DHEA levels are as follows:
As almost all DHEA is derived from the adrenal glands, blood measurements of DHEA-S/DHEA are useful to detect excess adrenal activity as seen in adrenal cancer or hyperplasia, including certain forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome tend to have elevated levels of DHEA-S.
DHEA, also known as androst-5-en-3β-ol-17-one, is a naturally occurring androstane steroid and a 17-ketosteroid. It is closely related structurally to androstenediol (androst-5-ene-3β,17β-diol), androstenedione (androst-4-ene-3,17-dione), and testosterone (androst-4-en-17β-ol-3-one). DHEA is the 5-dehydro analogue of epiandrosterone (5α-androstan-3β-ol-17-one) and is also known as 5-dehydroepiandrosterone or as δ5-epiandrosterone.
The term "dehydroepiandrosterone" is ambiguous chemically because it does not include the specific positions within epiandrosterone at which hydrogen atoms are missing. DHEA itself is 5,6-didehydroepiandrosterone or 5-dehydroepiandrosterone. A number of naturally occurring isomers also exist and may have similar activities. Some isomers of DHEA are 1-dehydroepiandrosterone (1-androsterone) and 4-dehydroepiandrosterone. These isomers are also technically "DHEA", since they are dehydroepiandrosterones in which hydrogens are removed from the epiandrosterone skeleton.
Dehydroandrosterone (DHA) is the 3α-epimer of DHEA and is also an endogenous androgen.
DHEA was first isolated from human urine in 1934 by Adolf Butenandt and Kurt Tscherning. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8807 |
Discrete Fourier transform
In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite sequence of equally-spaced samples of a function into a same-length sequence of equally-spaced samples of the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT), which is a complex-valued function of frequency. The interval at which the DTFT is sampled is the reciprocal of the duration of the input sequence. An inverse DFT is a Fourier series, using the DTFT samples as coefficients of complex sinusoids at the corresponding DTFT frequencies. It has the same sample-values as the original input sequence. The DFT is therefore said to be a frequency domain representation of the original input sequence. If the original sequence spans all the non-zero values of a function, its DTFT is continuous (and periodic), and the DFT provides discrete samples of one cycle. If the original sequence is one cycle of a periodic function, the DFT provides all the non-zero values of one DTFT cycle.
The DFT is the most important discrete transform, used to perform Fourier analysis in many practical applications. In digital signal processing, the function is any quantity or signal that varies over time, such as the pressure of a sound wave, a radio signal, or daily temperature readings, sampled over a finite time interval (often defined by a window function). In image processing, the samples can be the values of pixels along a row or column of a raster image. The DFT is also used to efficiently solve partial differential equations, and to perform other operations such as convolutions or multiplying large integers.
Since it deals with a finite amount of data, it can be implemented in computers by numerical algorithms or even dedicated hardware. These implementations usually employ efficient fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms; so much so that the terms "FFT" and "DFT" are often used interchangeably. Prior to its current usage, the "FFT" initialism may have also been used for the ambiguous term "finite Fourier transform".
The "discrete Fourier transform" transforms a sequence of "N" complex numbers formula_1 into another sequence of complex numbers, formula_2 which is defined by
where the last expression follows from the first one by Euler's formula.
The transform is sometimes denoted by the symbol formula_3, as in formula_4 or formula_5 or formula_6.
can also be evaluated outside the domain formula_7, and that extended sequence is formula_8-periodic. Accordingly, other sequences of formula_8 indices are sometimes used, such as formula_10 (if formula_8 is even) and formula_12 (if formula_8 is odd), which amounts to swapping the left and right halves of the result of the transform.
The normalization factor multiplying the DFT and IDFT (here 1 and formula_14) and the signs of the exponents are merely conventions, and differ in some treatments. The only requirements of these conventions are that the DFT and IDFT have opposite-sign exponents and that the product of their normalization factors be formula_14. A normalization of formula_16 for both the DFT and IDFT, for instance, makes the transforms unitary. A discrete impulse, formula_17 at "n" = 0 and 0 otherwise; might transform to formula_18 for all "k" (use normalization factors 1 for DFT and formula_14 for IDFT). A DC signal, formula_18 at "k" = 0 and 0 otherwise; might inversely transform to formula_21 for all formula_22 (use formula_14 for DFT and 1 for IDFT) which is consistent with viewing DC as the mean average of the signal.
Let formula_24 and
Here we demonstrate how to calculate the DFT of formula_26 using :
The discrete Fourier transform is an invertible, linear transformation
with formula_33 denoting the set of complex numbers. Its inverse is known as Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform(IDFT). In other words, for any formula_34, an "N"-dimensional complex vector has a DFT and an IDFT which are in turn formula_8-dimensional complex vectors.
The inverse transform is given by:
The DFT is a linear transform, i.e. if formula_36 and formula_37, then for any complex numbers formula_38:
Reversing the time (i.e. replacing formula_22 by formula_41) in formula_42 corresponds to reversing the frequency (i.e. formula_43 by formula_44). Mathematically, if formula_45 represents the vector x then
If formula_36 then formula_49.
This table shows some mathematical operations on formula_42 in the time domain and the corresponding effects on its DFT formula_51 in the frequency domain.
The vectors formula_52
form an orthogonal basis over the set of "N"-dimensional complex vectors:
where formula_54 is the Kronecker delta. (In the last step, the summation is trivial if formula_55, where it is 1+1+⋅⋅⋅="N", and otherwise is a geometric series that can be explicitly summed to obtain zero.) This orthogonality condition can be used to derive the formula for the IDFT from the definition of the DFT, and is equivalent to the unitarity property below.
If formula_51 and formula_57 are the DFTs of formula_42 and formula_59 respectively then the Parseval's theorem states:
where the star denotes complex conjugation. Plancherel theorem is a special case of the Parseval's theorem and states:
These theorems are also equivalent to the unitary condition below.
The periodicity can be shown directly from the definition:
Similarly, it can be shown that the IDFT formula leads to a periodic extension.
Multiplying formula_42 by a "linear phase" formula_64 for some integer "m" corresponds to a "circular shift" of the output formula_51: formula_51 is replaced by formula_67, where the subscript is interpreted modulo "N" (i.e., periodically). Similarly, a circular shift of the input formula_42 corresponds to multiplying the output formula_51 by a linear phase. Mathematically, if formula_45 represents the vector x then
The convolution theorem for the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT) indicates that a convolution of two sequences can be obtained as the inverse transform of the product of the individual transforms. An important simplification occurs when one of sequences is N-periodic, denoted here by formula_74 because formula_75 is non-zero at only discrete frequencies, and therefore so is its product with the continuous function formula_76 That leads to a considerable simplification of the inverse transform.
where formula_78 is a periodic summation of the formula_79 sequence: formula_80
Customarily, the DFT and inverse DFT summations are taken over the domain formula_81 Defining those DFTs as formula_82 and formula_83 the result is:
In practice, the formula_79 sequence is usually length N or less, and formula_86 is a periodic extension of an N-length formula_87-sequence, which can also be expressed as a "circular function":
Then the convolution can be written as:
which gives rise to the interpretation as a "circular" convolution of formula_79 and formula_90 It is often used to efficiently compute their linear convolution. (see Circular convolution, Fast convolution algorithms, and Overlap-save)
Similarly, the cross-correlation of formula_79 and formula_86 is given by:
It can also be shown that:
The trigonometric interpolation polynomial
where the coefficients "X""k" are given by the DFT of "x""n" above, satisfies the interpolation property formula_99 for formula_100.
For even "N", notice that the Nyquist component formula_101 is handled specially.
This interpolation is "not unique": aliasing implies that one could add "N" to any of the complex-sinusoid frequencies (e.g. changing formula_102 to formula_103 ) without changing the interpolation property, but giving "different" values in between the formula_42 points. The choice above, however, is typical because it has two useful properties. First, it consists of sinusoids whose frequencies have the smallest possible magnitudes: the interpolation is bandlimited. Second, if the formula_42 are real numbers, then formula_106 is real as well.
In contrast, the most obvious trigonometric interpolation polynomial is the one in which the frequencies range from 0 to formula_107 (instead of roughly formula_108 to formula_109 as above), similar to the inverse DFT formula. This interpolation does "not" minimize the slope, and is "not" generally real-valued for real formula_42; its use is a common mistake.
Another way of looking at the DFT is to note that in the above discussion, the DFT can be expressed as the DFT matrix, a Vandermonde matrix,
where formula_112 is a primitive "N"th root of unity.
The inverse transform is then given by the inverse of the above matrix,
With unitary normalization constants formula_114, the DFT becomes a unitary transformation, defined by a unitary matrix:
where formula_116 is the determinant function. The determinant is the product of the eigenvalues, which are always formula_117 or formula_118 as described below. In a real vector space, a unitary transformation can be thought of as simply a rigid rotation of the coordinate system, and all of the properties of a rigid rotation can be found in the unitary DFT.
The orthogonality of the DFT is now expressed as an orthonormality condition (which arises in many areas of mathematics as described in root of unity):
If X is defined as the unitary DFT of the vector x, then
and the Parseval's theorem is expressed as
If we view the DFT as just a coordinate transformation which simply specifies the components of a vector in a new coordinate system, then the above is just the statement that the dot product of two vectors is preserved under a unitary DFT transformation. For the special case formula_122, this implies that the length of a vector is preserved as well — this is just Plancherel theorem,
A consequence of the circular convolution theorem is that the DFT matrix diagonalizes any circulant matrix.
A useful property of the DFT is that the inverse DFT can be easily expressed in terms of the (forward) DFT, via several well-known "tricks". (For example, in computations, it is often convenient to only implement a fast Fourier transform corresponding to one transform direction and then to get the other transform direction from the first.)
First, we can compute the inverse DFT by reversing all but one of the inputs (Duhamel "et al.", 1988):
Second, one can also conjugate the inputs and outputs:
Third, a variant of this conjugation trick, which is sometimes preferable because it requires no modification of the data values, involves swapping real and imaginary parts (which can be done on a computer simply by modifying pointers). Define formula_128 as formula_42 with its real and imaginary parts swapped—that is, if formula_130 then formula_131 is formula_132. Equivalently, formula_133 equals formula_134. Then
That is, the inverse transform is the same as the forward transform with the real and imaginary parts swapped for both input and output, up to a normalization (Duhamel "et al.", 1988).
The conjugation trick can also be used to define a new transform, closely related to the DFT, that is involutory—that is, which is its own inverse. In particular, formula_136 is clearly its own inverse: formula_137. A closely related involutory transformation (by a factor of ) is formula_138, since the formula_139 factors in formula_140 cancel the 2. For real inputs formula_26, the real part of formula_142 is none other than the discrete Hartley transform, which is also involutory.
The eigenvalues of the DFT matrix are simple and well-known, whereas the eigenvectors are complicated, not unique, and are the subject of ongoing research.
Consider the unitary form formula_143 defined above for the DFT of length "N", where
This matrix satisfies the matrix polynomial equation:
This can be seen from the inverse properties above: operating formula_143 twice gives the original data in reverse order, so operating formula_143 four times gives back the original data and is thus the identity matrix. This means that the eigenvalues formula_148 satisfy the equation:
Therefore, the eigenvalues of formula_143 are the fourth roots of unity: formula_148 is +1, −1, +"i", or −"i".
Since there are only four distinct eigenvalues for this formula_152 matrix, they have some multiplicity. The multiplicity gives the number of linearly independent eigenvectors corresponding to each eigenvalue. (There are "N" independent eigenvectors; a unitary matrix is never defective.)
The problem of their multiplicity was solved by McClellan and Parks (1972), although it was later shown to have been equivalent to a problem solved by Gauss (Dickinson and Steiglitz, 1982). The multiplicity depends on the value of "N" modulo 4, and is given by the following table:
Otherwise stated, the characteristic polynomial of formula_143 is:
No simple analytical formula for general eigenvectors is known. Moreover, the eigenvectors are not unique because any linear combination of eigenvectors for the same eigenvalue is also an eigenvector for that eigenvalue. Various researchers have proposed different choices of eigenvectors, selected to satisfy useful properties like orthogonality and to have "simple" forms (e.g., McClellan and Parks, 1972; Dickinson and Steiglitz, 1982; Grünbaum, 1982; Atakishiyev and Wolf, 1997; Candan "et al.", 2000; Hanna "et al.", 2004; Gurevich and Hadani, 2008).
A straightforward approach is to discretize an eigenfunction of the continuous Fourier transform,
of which the most famous is the Gaussian function.
Since periodic summation of the function means discretizing its frequency spectrum
and discretization means periodic summation of the spectrum,
the discretized and periodically summed Gaussian function yields an eigenvector of the discrete transform:
The closed form expression for the series can be expressed by Jacobi theta functions as
Two other simple closed-form analytical eigenvectors for special DFT period "N" were found (Kong, 2008):
For DFT period "N" = 2"L" + 1 = 4"K" + 1, where "K" is an integer, the following is an eigenvector of DFT:
For DFT period "N" = 2"L" = 4"K", where "K" is an integer, the following is an eigenvector of DFT:
The choice of eigenvectors of the DFT matrix has become important in recent years in order to define a discrete analogue of the fractional Fourier transform—the DFT matrix can be taken to fractional powers by exponentiating the eigenvalues (e.g., Rubio and Santhanam, 2005). For the continuous Fourier transform, the natural orthogonal eigenfunctions are the Hermite functions, so various discrete analogues of these have been employed as the eigenvectors of the DFT, such as the Kravchuk polynomials (Atakishiyev and Wolf, 1997). The "best" choice of eigenvectors to define a fractional discrete Fourier transform remains an open question, however.
If the random variable is constrained by
then
may be considered to represent a discrete probability mass function of , with an associated probability mass function constructed from the transformed variable,
For the case of continuous functions formula_162 and formula_163, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that
where formula_165 and formula_166 are the variances of formula_167 and formula_168 respectively, with the equality attained in the case of a suitably normalized Gaussian distribution. Although the variances may be analogously defined for the DFT, an analogous uncertainty principle is not useful, because the uncertainty will not be shift-invariant. Still, a meaningful uncertainty principle has been introduced by Massar and Spindel.
However, the Hirschman entropic uncertainty will have a useful analog for the case of the DFT. The Hirschman uncertainty principle is expressed in terms of the Shannon entropy of the two probability functions.
In the discrete case, the Shannon entropies are defined as
and
and the entropic uncertainty principle becomes
The equality is obtained for formula_172 equal to translations and modulations of a suitably normalized Kronecker comb of period formula_173 where formula_173 is any exact integer divisor of formula_8. The probability mass function formula_176 will then be proportional to a suitably translated Kronecker comb of period formula_177.
There is also a well-known deterministic uncertainty principle that uses signal sparsity (or the number of non-zero coefficients). Let formula_178 and formula_179 be the number of non-zero elements of the time and frequency sequences formula_180 and formula_181, respectively. Then,
As an immediate consequence of the inequality of arithmetic and geometric means, one also has formula_183. Both uncertainty principles were shown to be tight for specifically-chosen "picket-fence" sequences (discrete impulse trains), and find practical use for signal recovery applications.
It follows that for even formula_8 formula_189 and formula_190 are real-valued, and the remainder of the DFT is completely specified by just formula_191 complex numbers.
It is possible to shift the transform sampling in time and/or frequency domain by some real shifts "a" and "b", respectively. This is sometimes known as a generalized DFT (or GDFT), also called the shifted DFT or offset DFT, and has analogous properties to the ordinary DFT:
Most often, shifts of formula_197 (half a sample) are used.
While the ordinary DFT corresponds to a periodic signal in both time and frequency domains, formula_198 produces a signal that is anti-periodic in frequency domain (formula_199) and vice versa for formula_200.
Thus, the specific case of formula_201 is known as an "odd-time odd-frequency" discrete Fourier transform (or O2 DFT).
Such shifted transforms are most often used for symmetric data, to represent different boundary symmetries, and for real-symmetric data they correspond to different forms of the discrete cosine and sine transforms.
Another interesting choice is formula_202, which is called the centered DFT (or CDFT). The centered DFT has the useful property that, when "N" is a multiple of four, all four of its eigenvalues (see above) have equal multiplicities (Rubio and Santhanam, 2005)
The term GDFT is also used for the non-linear phase extensions of DFT. Hence, GDFT method provides a generalization for constant amplitude orthogonal block transforms including linear and non-linear phase types. GDFT is a framework
to improve time and frequency domain properties of the traditional DFT, e.g. auto/cross-correlations, by the addition of the properly designed phase shaping function (non-linear, in general) to the original linear phase functions (Akansu and Agirman-Tosun, 2010).
The discrete Fourier transform can be viewed as a special case of the z-transform, evaluated on the unit circle in the complex plane; more general z-transforms correspond to "complex" shifts "a" and "b" above.
The ordinary DFT transforms a one-dimensional sequence or array formula_42 that is a function of exactly one discrete variable "n". The multidimensional DFT of a multidimensional array formula_204 that is a function of "d" discrete variables formula_205 for formula_206 in formula_207 is defined by:
where formula_209 as above and the "d" output indices run from formula_210. This is more compactly expressed in vector notation, where we define formula_211 and formula_212 as "d"-dimensional vectors of indices from 0 to formula_213, which we define as formula_214:
where the division formula_216 is defined as formula_217 to be performed element-wise, and the sum denotes the set of nested summations above.
The inverse of the multi-dimensional DFT is, analogous to the one-dimensional case, given by:
As the one-dimensional DFT expresses the input formula_42 as a superposition of sinusoids, the multidimensional DFT expresses the input as a superposition of plane waves, or multidimensional sinusoids. The direction of oscillation in space is formula_220. The amplitudes are formula_221. This decomposition is of great importance for everything from digital image processing (two-dimensional) to solving partial differential equations. The solution is broken up into plane waves.
The multidimensional DFT can be computed by the composition of a sequence of one-dimensional DFTs along each dimension. In the two-dimensional case formula_222 the formula_223 independent DFTs of the rows (i.e., along formula_224) are computed first to form a new array formula_225. Then the formula_226 independent DFTs of "y" along the columns (along formula_227) are computed to form the final result formula_228. Alternatively the columns can be computed first and then the rows. The order is immaterial because the nested summations above commute.
An algorithm to compute a one-dimensional DFT is thus sufficient to efficiently compute a multidimensional DFT. This approach is known as the "row-column" algorithm. There are also intrinsically multidimensional FFT algorithms.
For input data formula_204 consisting of real numbers, the DFT outputs have a conjugate symmetry similar to the one-dimensional case above:
where the star again denotes complex conjugation and the formula_206-th subscript is again interpreted modulo formula_232 (for formula_233).
The DFT has seen wide usage across a large number of fields; we only sketch a few examples below (see also the references at the end). All applications of the DFT depend crucially on the availability of a fast algorithm to compute discrete Fourier transforms and their inverses, a fast Fourier transform.
When the DFT is used for signal spectral analysis, the formula_234 sequence usually represents a finite set of uniformly spaced time-samples of some signal formula_235, where formula_236 represents time. The conversion from continuous time to samples (discrete-time) changes the underlying Fourier transform of formula_237 into a discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT), which generally entails a type of distortion called aliasing. Choice of an appropriate sample-rate (see "Nyquist rate") is the key to minimizing that distortion. Similarly, the conversion from a very long (or infinite) sequence to a manageable size entails a type of distortion called "leakage", which is manifested as a loss of detail (a.k.a. resolution) in the DTFT. Choice of an appropriate sub-sequence length is the primary key to minimizing that effect. When the available data (and time to process it) is more than the amount needed to attain the desired frequency resolution, a standard technique is to perform multiple DFTs, for example to create a spectrogram. If the desired result is a power spectrum and noise or randomness is present in the data, averaging the magnitude components of the multiple DFTs is a useful procedure to reduce the variance of the spectrum (also called a periodogram in this context); two examples of such techniques are the Welch method and the Bartlett method; the general subject of estimating the power spectrum of a noisy signal is called spectral estimation.
A final source of distortion (or perhaps "illusion") is the DFT itself, because it is just a discrete sampling of the DTFT, which is a function of a continuous frequency domain. That can be mitigated by increasing the resolution of the DFT. That procedure is illustrated at .
See and .
The field of digital signal processing relies heavily on operations in the frequency domain (i.e. on the Fourier transform). For example, several lossy image and sound compression methods employ the discrete Fourier transform: the signal is cut into short segments, each is transformed, and then the Fourier coefficients of high frequencies, which are assumed to be unnoticeable, are discarded. The decompressor computes the inverse transform based on this reduced number of Fourier coefficients. (Compression applications often use a specialized form of the DFT, the discrete cosine transform or sometimes the modified discrete cosine transform.)
Some relatively recent compression algorithms, however, use wavelet transforms, which give a more uniform compromise between time and frequency domain than obtained by chopping data into segments and transforming each segment. In the case of JPEG2000, this avoids the spurious image features that appear when images are highly compressed with the original JPEG.
Discrete Fourier transforms are often used to solve partial differential equations, where again the DFT is used as an approximation for the Fourier series (which is recovered in the limit of infinite "N"). The advantage of this approach is that it expands the signal in complex exponentials formula_238, which are eigenfunctions of differentiation: formula_239. Thus, in the Fourier representation, differentiation is simple—we just multiply by formula_240. (However, the choice of formula_22 is not unique due to aliasing; for the method to be convergent, a choice similar to that in the trigonometric interpolation section above should be used.) A linear differential equation with constant coefficients is transformed into an easily solvable algebraic equation. One then uses the inverse DFT to transform the result back into the ordinary spatial representation. Such an approach is called a spectral method.
Suppose we wish to compute the polynomial product "c"("x") = "a"("x") · "b"("x"). The ordinary product expression for the coefficients of "c" involves a linear (acyclic) convolution, where indices do not "wrap around." This can be rewritten as a cyclic convolution by taking the coefficient vectors for "a"("x") and "b"("x") with constant term first, then appending zeros so that the resultant coefficient vectors a and b have dimension "d" > deg("a"("x")) + deg("b"("x")). Then,
Where c is the vector of coefficients for "c"("x"), and the convolution operator formula_243 is defined so
But convolution becomes multiplication under the DFT:
Here the vector product is taken elementwise. Thus the coefficients of the product polynomial "c"("x") are just the terms 0, ..., deg("a"("x")) + deg("b"("x")) of the coefficient vector
With a fast Fourier transform, the resulting algorithm takes O ("N" log "N") arithmetic operations. Due to its simplicity and speed, the Cooley–Tukey FFT algorithm, which is limited to composite sizes, is often chosen for the transform operation. In this case, "d" should be chosen as the smallest integer greater than the sum of the input polynomial degrees that is factorizable into small prime factors (e.g. 2, 3, and 5, depending upon the FFT implementation).
The fastest known algorithms for the multiplication of very large integers use the polynomial multiplication method outlined above. Integers can be treated as the value of a polynomial evaluated specifically at the number base, with the coefficients of the polynomial corresponding to the digits in that base (ex. formula_247). After polynomial multiplication, a relatively low-complexity carry-propagation step completes the multiplication.
When data is convolved with a function with wide support, such as for downsampling by a large sampling ratio, because of the Convolution theorem and the FFT algorithm, it may be faster to transform it, multiply pointwise by the transform of the filter and then reverse transform it. Alternatively, a good filter is obtained by simply truncating the transformed data and re-transforming the shortened data set.
The DFT can be interpreted as the complex-valued representation theory of the finite cyclic group. In other words, a sequence of formula_22 complex numbers can be thought of as an element of formula_22-dimensional complex space formula_250 or equivalently a function formula_251 from the finite cyclic group of order formula_22 to the complex numbers, formula_253. So formula_251 is a class function on the finite cyclic group, and thus can be expressed as a linear combination of the irreducible characters of this group, which are the roots of unity.
From this point of view, one may generalize the DFT to representation theory generally, or more narrowly to the representation theory of finite groups.
More narrowly still, one may generalize the DFT by either changing the target (taking values in a field other than the complex numbers), or the domain (a group other than a finite cyclic group), as detailed in the sequel.
Many of the properties of the DFT only depend on the fact that formula_255 is a primitive root of unity, sometimes denoted formula_256 or formula_257 (so that formula_258). Such properties include the completeness, orthogonality, Plancherel/Parseval, periodicity, shift, convolution, and unitarity properties above, as well as many FFT algorithms. For this reason, the discrete Fourier transform can be defined by using roots of unity in fields other than the complex numbers, and such generalizations are commonly called "number-theoretic transforms" (NTTs) in the case of finite fields. For more information, see number-theoretic transform and discrete Fourier transform (general).
The standard DFT acts on a sequence "x"0, "x"1, ..., "x""N"−1 of complex numbers, which can be viewed as a function {0, 1, ..., "N" − 1} → C. The multidimensional DFT acts on multidimensional sequences, which can be viewed as functions
This suggests the generalization to Fourier transforms on arbitrary finite groups, which act on functions "G" → C where "G" is a finite group. In this framework, the standard DFT is seen as the Fourier transform on a cyclic group, while the multidimensional DFT is a Fourier transform on a direct sum of cyclic groups.
Further, Fourier transform can be on cosets of a group.
There are various alternatives to the DFT for various applications, prominent among which are wavelets. The analog of the DFT is the discrete wavelet transform (DWT). From the point of view of time–frequency analysis, a key limitation of the Fourier transform is that it does not include "location" information, only "frequency" information, and thus has difficulty in representing transients. As wavelets have location as well as frequency, they are better able to represent location, at the expense of greater difficulty representing frequency. For details, see comparison of the discrete wavelet transform with the discrete Fourier transform. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8811 |
Dual polyhedron
In geometry, any polyhedron is associated with a second dual figure, where the vertices of one correspond to the faces of the other and the edges between pairs of vertices of one correspond to the edges between pairs of faces of the other. Such dual figures remain combinatorial or abstract polyhedra, but not all are also geometric polyhedra. Starting with any given polyhedron, the dual of its dual is the original polyhedron.
Duality preserves the symmetries of a polyhedron. Therefore, for many classes of polyhedra defined by their symmetries, the duals also belong to a symmetric class. Thus, the regular polyhedrathe (convex) Platonic solids and (star) Kepler–Poinsot polyhedraform dual pairs, where the regular tetrahedron is self-dual. The dual of an isogonal polyhedron, having equivalent vertices, is one which is isohedral, having equivalent faces. The dual of an isotoxal polyhedron (having equivalent edges) is also isotoxal.
Duality is closely related to "reciprocity" or "polarity", a geometric transformation that, when applied to a convex polyhedron, realizes the dual polyhedron as another convex polyhedron.
There are many kinds of duality. The kinds most relevant to elementary polyhedra are polar reciprocity and topological or abstract duality.
The dual of polyhedron "P" is often defined in terms of polar reciprocation about a sphere. Here, each vertex (pole) is associated with a face plane (polar plane or just polar) so that the ray from the center to the vertex is perpendicular to the plane, and the product of the distances from the center to each is equal to the square of the radius.
When the sphere has radius "r" and is centered at the origin, i.e. defined by equation formula_1 and "P" is a convex polyhedron then its polar dual is defined as
where "y"·"x" denotes the standard dot product of "y" and "x". Typically when no sphere is specified in the construction of the dual, then the unit sphere is used, meaning "r" = 1 in the above definition.
For each face of "P" described by the linear equation
the dual polyhedron "P"° will have a vertex ("x"0,"y"0,"z"0). Similarly, each vertex of "P" corresponds to a face of "P"°, and each edge of "P" corresponds to an edge of "P"°. The correspondence between the vertices, edges and faces of "P" and "P"° reverses inclusion. For example, if an edge of "P" contains a vertex, the corresponding edge of "P"° will be contained in the corresponding face.
For the more symmetrical polyhedra having an obvious centroid, it is common to make the polyhedron and sphere concentric, as in the Dorman Luke construction described below.
However, it is possible to reciprocate a polyhedron about any sphere, and the resulting form of the dual will depend on the size and position of the sphere; as the sphere is varied, so too is the dual form. The choice of center for the sphere is sufficient to define the dual up to similarity. If multiple symmetry axes are present, they will necessarily intersect at a single point, and this is usually taken to be the centroid. Failing that, a circumscribed sphere, inscribed sphere, or midsphere (one with all edges as tangents) is commonly used.
If a polyhedron in Euclidean space has an element passing through the center of the sphere, the corresponding element of its dual will go to infinity. Since Euclidean space never reaches infinity, the projective equivalent, called extended Euclidean space, may be formed by adding the required 'plane at infinity'. Some theorists prefer to stick to Euclidean space and say that there is no dual. Meanwhile, found a way to represent these infinite duals, in a manner suitable for making models (of some finite portion).
The concept of "duality" here is closely related to the duality in projective geometry, where lines and edges are interchanged. Projective polarity works well enough for convex polyhedra. But for non-convex figures such as star polyhedra, when we seek to rigorously define this form of polyhedral duality in terms of projective polarity, various problems appear.
Because of the definitional issues for geometric duality of non-convex polyhedra, argues that any proper definition of a non-convex polyhedron should include a notion of a dual polyhedron.
Any convex polyhedron can be distorted into a canonical form, in which a unit midsphere (or intersphere) exists tangent to every edge, and such that the average position of the points of tangency is the center of the sphere. This form is unique up to congruences.
If we reciprocate such a canonical polyhedron about its midsphere, the dual polyhedron will share the same edge-tangency points and so must also be canonical. It is the canonical dual, and the two together form a canonical dual pair.
Even when a pair of polyhedra cannot be obtained by reciprocation from each other, they may be called duals of each other as long as the vertices of one correspond to the faces of the other, and the edges of one correspond to the edges of the other, in an incidence-preserving way. Such pairs of polyhedra are still topologically or abstractly dual.
The vertices and edges of a convex polyhedron form a graph (the 1-skeleton of the polyhedron), embedded on a topological sphere, the surface of the polyhedron.
The same graph can be projected to form a Schlegel diagram on a flat plane. The graph formed by the edges and vertices of the dual polyhedron is its dual graph. More generally, for any polyhedron whose faces form a closed surface, the vertices and edges of the polyhedron form a graph embedded on this surface, and the vertices and edges of the (abstract) dual polyhedron form the dual graph.
An abstract polyhedron is a certain kind of partially ordered set (poset) of elements, such that adjacencies, or connections, between elements of the set correspond to adjacencies between elements (faces, edges, etc.) of a polyhedron. Every such poset has a dual poset, formed by reversing all of the order relations. If the poset is visualized as a Hasse diagram, the dual poset may be visualized simply by turning the Hasse diagram upside down.
Every geometric polyhedron corresponds to an abstract polyhedron in this way, and has an abstract dual polyhedron. However, for some types of non-convex geometric polyhedron, the dual polyhedron may not be realized geometrically.
For a uniform polyhedron, the face of the dual polyhedron may be found from the original polyhedron's vertex figure using the Dorman Luke construction.
As an example, the illustration below shows the vertex figure (red) of the cuboctahedron being used to derive a face (blue) of the rhombic dodecahedron.
Before beginning the construction, the vertex figure "ABCD" is obtained by cutting each connected edge at (in this case) its midpoint.
Dorman Luke's construction then proceeds:
In this example the size of the vertex figure was chosen so that its circumcircle lies on the intersphere of the cuboctahedron, which also becomes the intersphere of the dual rhombic dodecahedron.
Dorman Luke's construction can only be used where a polyhedron has such an intersphere and the vertex figure is cyclic. For instance, it can be applied to the uniform polyhedra.
Topologically, a self-dual polyhedron is one whose dual has exactly the same connectivity between vertices, edges and faces. Abstractly, they have the same Hasse diagram.
A geometrically self-dual polyhedron is not only topologically self-dual, but its polar reciprocal about a certain point, typically its centroid, is a similar figure. For example, the dual of a regular tetrahedron is another regular tetrahedron, reflected through the origin.
Every polygon is topologically self-dual (it has the same number of vertices as edges, and these are switched by duality), but will not in general be geometrically self-dual (up to rigid motion, for instance). Every polygon has a regular form which is geometrically self-dual about its intersphere: all angles are congruent, as are all edges, so under duality these congruences swap.
Similarly, every topologically self-dual convex polyhedron can be realized by an equivalent geometrically self-dual polyhedron, its canonical polyhedron, reciprocal about the center of the midsphere.
There are infinitely many geometrically self-dual polyhedra. The simplest infinite family are the canonical pyramids of "n" sides. Another infinite family, elongated pyramids, consists of polyhedra that can be roughly described as a pyramid sitting on top of a prism (with the same number of sides). Adding a frustum (pyramid with the top cut off) below the prism generates another infinite family, and so on.
There are many other convex, self-dual polyhedra. For example, there are 6 different ones with 7 vertices, and 16 with 8 vertices.
A self-dual non-convex icosahedron with hexagonal faces was identified by Brückner in 1900. Other non-convex self-dual polyhedra have been found, under certain definitions of non-convex polyhedra and their duals.
Trivially, the compound of any polyhedron and its dual is a self-dual figure.
If a polyhedron is self-dual, then the compound of the polyhedron with its dual will comprise congruent polyhedra. The regular compound of two tetrahedra, known as the Stella octangula, is the only regular compound with this property.
Duality can be generalized to "n"-dimensional space and dual polytopes; in two dimension these are called dual polygons.
The vertices of one polytope correspond to the ("n" − 1)-dimensional elements, or facets, of the other, and the "j" points that define a ("j" − 1)-dimensional element will correspond to "j" hyperplanes that intersect to give a ("n" − "j")-dimensional element. The dual of an "n"-dimensional tessellation or honeycomb can be defined similarly.
In general, the facets of a polytope's dual will be the topological duals of the polytope's vertex figures. For the polar reciprocals of the regular and uniform polytopes, the dual facets will be polar reciprocals of the original's vertex figure. For example, in four dimensions, the vertex figure of the 600-cell is the icosahedron; the dual of the 600-cell is the 120-cell, whose facets are dodecahedra, which are the dual of the icosahedron.
The primary class of self-dual polytopes are regular polytopes with palindromic Schläfli symbols. All regular polygons, {a} are self-dual, polyhedra of the form {a,a}, 4-polytopes of the form {a,b,a}, 5-polytopes of the form {a,b,b,a}, etc.
The self-dual regular polytopes are:
The self-dual (infinite) regular Euclidean honeycombs are:
The self-dual (infinite) regular hyperbolic honeycombs are: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8815 |
Double bass
The double bass, also known simply as the bass (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed, (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra.
The bass is a standard member of the orchestra's string section, as well as the concert band, and is featured in concertos, solo, and chamber music in Western classical music. The bass is used in a range of other genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango and many types of folk music.
The bass is a transposing instrument and is typically notated one octave higher than tuned to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff. The double bass is the only modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths (like a viol), rather than fifths, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2. On many Classical instruments the lowest string is extended to reach C1, allowing the double bass to double the cello an octave down.
The instrument's exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, with scholars divided on whether the bass is derived from the viol or the violin family.
The double bass is played with a bow (arco), or by plucking the strings (pizzicato), or via a variety of extended techniques. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed. In jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm. Classical music uses the natural sound produced acoustically by the instrument, as does traditional bluegrass. In jazz, blues, reggae, and related genres, the bass is frequently amplified.
The double bass stands around from scroll to endpin. However, other sizes are available, such as a or , which serve to accommodate a player's height and hand size. These sizes do not reflect the size relative to a full size, or bass; a bass is not half the length of a bass, but is only about 15% smaller. It is typically constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top, and ebony for the fingerboard. It is uncertain whether the instrument is a descendant of the viola da gamba or of the violin, but it is traditionally aligned with the violin family. While the double bass is nearly identical in construction to other violin family instruments, it also embodies features found in the older viol family.
The notes of the open strings are E1, A1, D2, and G2, the same as an acoustic or electric bass guitar. However, the resonance of the wood, combined with the violin-like construction and long scale length gives the double bass a much richer tone than the bass guitar, in addition to the ability to use a bow, while the fretless fingerboard accommodates smooth glissandos and legatos.
Like other violin and viol-family string instruments, the double bass is played either with a bow (arco) or by plucking the strings (pizzicato). In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed. In jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, except for some solos and occasional written parts in modern jazz that call for bowing.
In classical pedagogy, almost all of the focus is on performing with the bow and producing a good bowed tone; there is little work done on developing significant pizzicato skills. Bowed notes in the lowest register of the instrument produce a dark, heavy, mighty, or even menacing effect, when played with a fortissimo dynamic; however, the same low pitches played with a delicate pianissimo can create a sonorous, mellow accompaniment line. Classical bass students learn all of the different bow articulations used by other string section players (e.g., violin and cello), such as détaché, legato, staccato, sforzato, martelé ("hammered"-style), sul ponticello, sul tasto, tremolo, spiccato and sautillé. Some of these articulations can be combined; for example, the combination of sul ponticello and tremolo can produce eerie, ghostly sounds. Classical bass players do play pizzicato parts in orchestra, but these parts generally require simple notes (quarter notes, half notes, whole notes), rather than rapid passages.
Classical players perform both bowed and pizz notes using vibrato, an effect created by rocking or quivering the left hand finger that is contacting the string, which then transfers an undulation in pitch to the tone. Vibrato is used to add expression to string playing. In general, very loud, low-register passages are played with little or no vibrato, as the main goal with low pitches is to provide a clear fundamental bass for the string section. Mid- and higher-register melodies are typically played with more vibrato. The speed and intensity of the vibrato is varied by the performer for an emotional and musical effect.
In jazz, rockabilly and other related genres, much or all of the focus is on playing pizzicato. In jazz and jump blues, bassists are required to play rapid pizzicato walking basslines for extended periods. Jazz and rockabilly bassists develop virtuoso pizzicato techniques that enable them to play rapid solos that incorporate fast-moving triplet and sixteenth note figures. Pizzicato basslines performed by leading jazz professionals are much more difficult than the pizzicato basslines that classical bassists encounter in the standard orchestral literature, which are typically whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and occasional eighth note passages. In jazz and related styles, bassists often add semi-percussive "ghost notes" into basslines, to add to the rhythmic feel and to add fills to a bassline.
The double bass player stands, or sits on a high stool, and leans the instrument against their body, turned slightly inward to put the strings comfortably in reach. This stance is a key reason for the bass's sloped shoulders, which mark it apart from the other members of the violin family—the narrower shoulders facilitate playing the strings in their higher registers.
The double bass is generally regarded as a modern descendant of the string family of instruments that originated in Europe in the 15th century, and as such has been described as a "bass Violin." Before the 20th century many double basses had only three strings, in contrast to the five to six strings typical of instruments in the viol family or the four strings of instruments in the violin family. The double bass's proportions are dissimilar to those of the violin and cello; for example, it is deeper (the distance from front to back is proportionally much greater than the violin). In addition, while the violin has bulging shoulders, most double basses have shoulders carved with a more acute slope, like members of the viol family. Many very old double basses have had their shoulders cut or sloped to aid playing with modern techniques. Before these modifications, the design of their shoulders was closer to instruments of the violin family.
The double bass is the only modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths (like a viol), rather than fifths (see Tuning below). The issue of the instrument's exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, and the supposition that the double bass is a direct descendant of the viol family is one that has not been entirely resolved.
In his "A New History of the Double Bass", Paul Brun asserts that the double bass has origins as the true bass of the violin family. He states that, while the exterior of the double bass may resemble the viola da gamba, the internal construction of the double bass is nearly identical to instruments in the violin family, and very different from the internal structure of viols.
Double bass professor Larry Hurst argues that the "modern double bass is not a true member of either the violin or viol families". He says that "most likely its first general shape was that of a violone, the largest member of the viol family. Some of the earliest basses extant are violones, (including C-shaped sound holes) that have been fitted with modern trappings." Some existing instruments, such as those by Gasparo da Salò, were converted from 16th-century six-string contrabass violoni.
A person who plays this instrument is called a "bassist", "double bassist", "double bass player", "contrabassist", "contrabass player" or "bass player". The names contrabass and double bass refer to the instrument's range and use in the contra octave below the cello, also called the 16′ octave relative to the church pipe organ. The terms for the instrument among classical performers are contrabass (which comes from the instrument's Italian name, contrabbasso), string bass (to distinguish it from brass bass instruments in a concert band, such as tubas), or simply bass.
In jazz, blues, rockabilly and other genres outside of classical music, this instrument is commonly called the upright bass, standup bass or acoustic bass to distinguish it from the electric bass guitar. In folk and bluegrass music, the instrument is also referred to as a "bass fiddle" or "bass violin" (or more rarely as "doghouse bass" or "bull fiddle"). The upright bass is different from the acoustic bass guitar, which is a guitar-family instrument that is built like an acoustic guitar with a sturdier construction (although using the same E1–A1–D2–G2 tuning as the double bass).
The double bass is sometimes confusingly called the violone, bass violin or bass viol. Other colourful names or nicknames are found in other languages. In Hungarian, the double bass is called "nagybőgő", which roughly translates as "big crier", referring to its large voice. In Brazil, specifically the northeast region, it is also called "rabecão", meaning "big rabeca". The rabeca (or rabeca chuleira) is a type of fiddle from northeastern Brazil and northern Portugal used in Brazilian forró music. The rabeca is descended from the medieval rebec. In English, the instrument is sometimes called a bull fiddle.
In general, there are two major approaches to the design outline shape of the double bass: the "violin form" (shown in the labelled picture in the construction section); and the "viola da gamba" form (shown in the header picture of this article). A third less common design, called the "busetto" shape, can also be found, as can the even more rare "guitar" or "pear" shape. The back of the instrument can vary from being a round, carved back similar to that of the violin, to a flat and angled back similar to the viol family.
The double bass features many parts that are similar to members of the violin family, including a wooden, carved bridge to support the strings, two f-holes, a tailpiece into which the ball ends of the strings are inserted (with the tailpiece anchored around the endpin mount), an ornamental scroll near the pegbox, a nut with grooves for each string at the junction of the fingerboard and the pegbox and a sturdy, thick sound post, which transmits the vibrations from the top of the instrument to the hollow body and supports the pressure of the string tension. Unlike the rest of the violin family, the double bass still reflects influences from, and can be considered partly derived, from the viol family of instruments, in particular the violone, the lowest-pitched and largest bass member of the viol family. As with the other violin and viol family instruments that are played with a bow (and unlike mainly plucked or picked instruments like guitar), the double bass's bridge has an arc-like, curved shape. This is done because with bowed instruments, the player must be able to play individual strings. If the double bass were to have a flat bridge, it would be impossible to bow the A and D strings individually.
The double bass also differs from members of the violin family in that the shoulders are typically sloped and the back is often angled (both to allow easier access to the instrument, particularly in the upper range). Machine tuners are always fitted, in contrast to the rest of the violin family, where traditional wooden friction pegs are still the primary means of tuning. Lack of standardization in design means that one double bass can sound and look very different from another.
The double bass is closest in construction to violins, but has some notable similarities to the violone ("large viol"), the largest and lowest-pitched member of the viol family. Unlike the violone, however, the fingerboard of the double bass is unfretted, and the double bass has fewer strings (the violone, like most viols, generally had six strings, although some specimens had five or four). The fingerboard is made of ebony on high-quality instruments; on less expensive student instruments, other woods may be used and then painted or stained black (a process called "ebonizing"). The fingerboard is radiused using a curve, for the same reason that the bridge is curved: if the fingerboard and bridge were to be flat, then a bassist would not be able to bow the inner two strings individually. By using a curved bridge and a curved fingerboard, the bassist can align the bow with any of the four strings and play them individually. Unlike the violin and viola, but like the cello, the bass fingerboard is somewhat flattened out underneath the E string (the C string on cello). The vast majority of fingerboards cannot be adjusted by the performer; any adjustments must be made by a luthier. A very small number of expensive basses for professionals have adjustable fingerboards, in which a screw mechanism can be used to raise or lower the fingerboard height.
An important distinction between the double bass and other members of the violin family is the construction of the pegbox and the tuning mechanism. While the violin, viola, and cello all use friction pegs for tuning adjustments (tightening and loosening the string tension to raise or lower the string's pitch), the double bass has metal machine heads and gears. One of the challenges with tuning pegs is that the friction between the wood peg and the peg hole may become insufficient to hold the peg in place, particularly if the peg hole become worn and enlarged. The key on the tuning machine of a double bass turns a metal "worm", which drives a worm gear that winds the string. Turning the key in one direction tightens the string (thus raising its pitch); turning the key the opposite direction reduces the tension on the string (thus lowering its pitch). While this development makes fine tuners on the tailpiece (important for violin, viola and cello players, as their instruments use friction pegs for major pitch adjustments) unnecessary, a very small number of bassists use them nevertheless. One rationale for using fine tuners on bass is that for instruments with the low C extension, the pulley system for the long string may not effectively transfer turns of the key into changes of string tension/pitch. At the base of the double bass is a metal rod with a spiked or rubberized end called the endpin, which rests on the floor. This endpin is generally thicker and more robust than that of a cello, because of the greater mass of the instrument.
The materials most often used in double bass construction for fully carved basses (the type used by professional orchestra bassists and soloists) are maple (back, neck, ribs), spruce (top), and ebony (fingerboard, tailpiece). The tailpiece may be made from other types of wood or non-wood materials. Less expensive basses are typically constructed with laminated (plywood) tops, backs, and ribs, or are hybrid models produced with laminated backs and sides and carved solid wood tops. Some 2010-era lower- to mid-priced basses are made of willow, student models constructed of Fiberglass were produced in the mid-20th century, and some (typically fairly expensive) basses have been constructed of Carbon fiber.
Laminated (plywood) basses, which are widely used in music schools, youth orchestras, and in popular and folk music settings (including rockabilly, psychobilly, blues, etc.), are very resistant to humidity and heat, as well to the physical abuse they are apt to encounter in a school environment (or, for blues and folk musicians, to the hazards of touring and performing in bars). Another option is the hybrid body bass, which has a laminated back and a carved or solid wood top. It is less costly and somewhat less fragile (at least regarding its back) than a fully carved bass.
The soundpost and bass bar are components of the internal construction. All the parts of a double bass are glued together, except the soundpost, bridge, and tailpiece, which are held in place by string tension (although the soundpost usually remains in place when the instrument's strings are loosened or removed, as long as the bass is kept on its back. Some luthiers recommend changing only one string at a time to reduce the risk of the soundpost falling). If the soundpost falls, a luthier is needed to put the soundpost back into position, as this must be done with tools inserted into the f-holes; moreover, the exact placement of the soundpost under the bridge is essential for the instrument to sound its best. Basic bridges are carved from a single piece of wood, which is customized to match the shape of the top of each instrument. The least expensive bridges on student instruments may be customized just by sanding the feet to match the shape of the instrument's top. A bridge on a professional bassist's instrument may be ornately carved by a luthier.
Professional bassists are more likely to have adjustable bridges, which have a metal screw mechanism. This enables the bassist to raise or lower the height of the strings to accommodate changing humidity or temperature conditions. The metal tuning machines are attached to the sides of the pegbox with metal screws. While tuning mechanisms generally differ from the higher-pitched orchestral stringed instruments, some basses have non-functional, ornamental tuning pegs projecting from the side of the pegbox, in imitation of the tuning pegs on a cello or violin.
Famous double bass makers come from around the world and often represent varied national characteristics. The most highly sought (and expensive) instruments come from Italy and include basses made by Giovanni Paolo Maggini, Gasparo da Salò, the Testore family (Carlo Antonio, Carlo Giuseppe, Gennaro, Giovanni, Paulo Antonio), Celestino Puolotti, and Matteo Goffriller. French and English basses from famous makers are also sought out by players.
As of 2010, several manufacturers make travel instruments, which are double basses that have features which reduce the size of the instrument so that the instrument will meet airline travel requirements. Travel basses are designed for touring musicians. One type of travel bass has a much smaller body than normal, while still retaining all of the features needed for playing. While these smaller-body instruments appear similar to electric upright basses, the difference is that small-body travel basses still have a fairly large hollow acoustic sound chamber, while many EUBs are solid body, or only have a small hollow chamber. A second type of travel bass has a hinged or removable neck and a regular sized body. The hinged or removable neck makes the instrument smaller when it is packed for transportation.
The history of the double bass is tightly coupled to the development of string technology, as it was the advent of overwound gut strings, which first rendered the instrument more generally practicable, as wound or overwound strings attain low notes within a smaller overall string diameter than non-wound strings. Professor Larry Hurst argues that had "it not been for the appearance of the overwound gut string in the 1650s, the double bass would surely have become extinct". because thicknesses needed for regular gut strings made the lower-pitched strings almost unplayable and hindered the development of fluid, rapid playing in the lower register.
Prior to the mid-20th century, double bass strings were usually made of catgut but, since that time, steel has largely replaced it, because steel strings hold their pitch better and yield more volume when played with the bow. Gut strings are also more vulnerable to changes of humidity and temperature, and break more easily than steel strings.
Gut strings are nowadays mostly used by bassists who perform in baroque ensembles, rockabilly bands, traditional blues bands, and bluegrass bands. In some cases, the low E and A are wound in silver, to give them added mass. Gut strings provide the dark, "thumpy" sound heard on 1940s and 1950s recordings. The late Jeff Sarli, a blues upright bassist, said that "Starting in the 1950s, they began to reset the necks on basses for steel strings." Rockabilly and bluegrass bassists also prefer gut because it is much easier to perform the "slapping" upright bass style (in which the strings are percussively slapped and clicked against the fingerboard) with gut strings than with steel strings, because gut does not hurt the plucking fingers as much. A less expensive alternative to gut strings is nylon strings; the higher strings are pure nylon, and the lower strings are nylon wrapped in wire, to add more mass to the string, slowing the vibration, and thus facilitating lower pitches.
The change from gut to steel has also affected the instrument's playing technique over the last hundred years. Steel strings can be set up closer to the fingerboard and, additionally, strings can be played in higher positions on the lower strings and still produce clear tone. The classic 19th century Franz Simandl method does not use the low E string in higher positions because older gut strings, set up high over the fingerboard, could not produce clear tone in these higher positions. However, with modern steel strings, bassists can play with clear tone in higher positions on the low E and A strings, particularly when they use modern lighter-gauge, lower-tension steel strings.
The double bass bow comes in two distinct forms (shown below). The "French" or "overhand" bow is similar in shape and implementation to the bow used on the other members of the orchestral string instrument family, while the "German" or "Butler" bow is typically broader and shorter, and is held in a "hand shake" (or "hacksaw") position.
These two bows provide different ways of moving the arm and distributing force and weight on the strings. Proponents of the French bow argue that it is more maneuverable, due to the angle at which the player holds the bow. Advocates of the German bow claim that it allows the player to apply more arm weight on the strings. The differences between the two, however, are minute for a proficient player, and modern players in major orchestras use both bows.
The German bow (sometimes called the Butler bow) is the older of the two designs. The design of the bow and the manner of holding it descend from the older viol instrument family. With older viols, before frogs had screw threads to tighten the bow, players held the bow with two fingers between the stick and the hair to maintain tension of the hair. Proponents of the use of German bow claim that the German bow is easier to use for heavy strokes that require a lot of power.
Compared to the French bow, the German bow has a taller frog, and the player holds it with the palm angled upwards, as with the upright members of the viol family. When held in the traditionally correct manner, the thumb applies the necessary power to generate the desired sound. The index finger meets the bow at the point where the frog meets the stick. The index finger also applies an upward torque to the frog when tilting the bow. The little finger (or "pinky") supports the frog from underneath, while the ring finger and middle finger rest in the space between the hair and the shaft.
The French bow was not widely popular until its adoption by 19th-century virtuoso Giovanni Bottesini. This style is more similar to the traditional bows of the smaller string family instruments. It is held as if the hand is resting by the side of the performer with the palm facing toward the bass. The thumb rests on the shaft of the bow, next to the frog while the other fingers drape on the other side of the bow. Various styles dictate the curve of the fingers and thumb, as do the style of piece; a more pronounced curve and lighter hold on the bow is used for virtuoso or more delicate pieces, while a flatter curve and sturdier grip on the bow sacrifices some power for easier control in strokes such as detaché, spiccato, and staccato.
Double bass bows vary in length, ranging from . In general, a bass bow is shorter and heavier than a cello bow. Pernambuco, also known as Brazilwood, is regarded as an excellent quality stick material, but due to its scarcity and expense, other materials are increasingly being used. Inexpensive student bows may be constructed of solid fiberglass, which makes the bow much lighter than a wooden bow (even too light to produce a good tone, in some cases). Student bows may also be made of the less valuable varieties of brazilwood. Snakewood and carbon fiber are also used in bows of a variety of different qualities. The frog of the double bass bow is usually made out of ebony, although snakewood and buffalo horn are used by some luthiers. The frog is movable, as it can be tightened or loosened with a knob (like all violin family bows). The bow is loosened at the end of a practice session or performance. The bow is tightened before playing, until it reaches a tautness that is preferred by the player. The frog on a quality bow is decorated with mother of pearl inlay.
Bows have a leather wrapping on the wooden part of the bow near the frog. Along with the leather wrapping, there is also a wire wrapping, made of gold or silver in quality bows. The hair is usually horsehair. Part of the regular maintenance of a bow is having the bow "rehaired" by a luthier with fresh horsehair and having the leather and wire wrapping replaced. The double bass bow is strung with either white or black horsehair, or a combination of the two (known as "salt and pepper"), as opposed to the customary white horsehair used on the bows of other string instruments. Some bassists argue that the slightly rougher black hair "grabs" the heavier, lower strings better. As well, some bassists and luthiers believe that it is easier to produce a smoother sound with the white variety. Red hair (chestnut) is also used by some bassists. Some of the lowest-quality, lowest cost student bows are made with synthetic hair. Synthetic hair does not have the tiny "barbs" that real horsehair has, so it does not "grip" the string well or take rosin well.
String players apply rosin to the bow hair so it "grips" the string and makes it vibrate. Double bass rosin is generally softer and stickier than violin rosin to allow the hair to grab the thicker strings better, but players use a wide variety of rosins that vary from quite hard (like violin rosin) to quite soft, depending on the weather, the humidity, and the preference of the player. The amount used generally depends on the type of music being performed as well as the personal preferences of the player. Bassists may apply more rosin in works for large orchestra (e.g., Brahms symphonies) than for delicate chamber works. Some brands of rosin, such as Wiedoeft or Pop's double bass rosin, are softer and more prone to melting in hot weather. Other brands, such as Carlsson or Nyman Harts double bass rosin, are harder and less prone to melting.
Owing to their relatively small diameters, the strings themselves do not move much air and therefore cannot produce much sound on their own. The vibrational energy of the strings must somehow be transferred to the surrounding air.
To do this, the strings vibrate the bridge and this in turn vibrates the top surface. Very small amplitude but relatively large force variations (due to the cyclically varying tension in the vibrating string) at the bridge are transformed to larger amplitude ones by combination of bridge and body of the bass. The bridge transforms the high force, small amplitude vibrations to lower force higher amplitude vibrations on the top of the bass body. The top is connected to the back by means of a sound post, so the back also vibrates. Both the front and back transmit the vibrations to the air and act to match the impedance of the vibrating string to the acoustic impedance of the air.
Because the acoustic bass is a non fretted instrument, any string vibration due to plucking or bowing will cause an audible sound due to the strings vibrating against the fingerboard near to the fingered position. This busing sound gives the note its character.
The lowest note of a double bass is an E1 (on standard four-string basses) at approximately 41 Hz or a C1 (≈33 Hz), or sometimes B0 (≈31 Hz), when five strings are used. This is within about an octave above the lowest frequency that the average human ear can perceive as a distinctive pitch. The top of the instrument's fingerboard range is typically near D5, two octaves and a fifth above the open pitch of the G string (G2), as shown in the range illustration found at the head of this article. Playing beyond the end of the fingerboard can be accomplished by pulling the string slightly to the side.
Double bass symphony parts sometimes indicate that the performer should play harmonics (also called flageolet tones), in which the bassist lightly touches the string–without pressing it onto the fingerboard in the usual fashion–in the location of a note and then plucks or bows the note. Bowed harmonics are used in contemporary music for their "glassy" sound. Both natural harmonics and artificial harmonics, where the thumb stops the note and the octave or other harmonic is activated by lightly touching the string at the relative node point, extend the instrument's range considerably. Natural and artificial harmonics are used in plenty of virtuoso concertos for the double bass.
Orchestral parts from the standard Classical repertoire rarely demand the double bass exceed a two-octave and a minor third range, from E1 to G3, with occasional A3s appearing in the standard repertoire (an exception to this rule is Orff's "Carmina Burana", which calls for three octaves and a perfect fourth). The upper limit of this range is extended a great deal for 20th- and 21st-century orchestral parts (e.g., Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kijé Suite" (1933) bass solo, which calls for notes as high as D4 and E4). The upper range a virtuoso solo player can achieve using natural and artificial harmonics is hard to define, as it depends on the skill of the particular player. The high harmonic in the range illustration found at the head of this article may be taken as representative rather than normative.
Five-string instruments have an additional string, typically tuned to a low B below the E string (B0). On rare occasions, a higher string is added instead, tuned to the C above the G string (C3). Four-string instruments may feature the C extension extending the range of the E string downwards to C1 (sometimes B0).
Traditionally, the double bass is a transposing instrument. Since much of the double bass's range lies below the standard bass clef, it is notated an octave higher than it sounds to avoid having to use excessive ledger lines below the staff. Thus, when double bass players and cellists are playing from a combined bass-cello part, as used in many Mozart and Haydn symphonies, they will play in octaves, with the basses one octave below the cellos. This transposition applies even when bass players are reading the tenor and treble clef (which are used in solo playing and some orchestral parts). The tenor clef is also used by composers for cello and low brass parts. The use of tenor or treble clef avoids excessive ledger lines above the staff when notating the instrument's upper range. Other notation traditions exist. Italian solo music is typically written at the sounding pitch, and the "old" German method sounded an octave below where notation except in the treble clef, where the music was written at pitch.
The double bass is generally tuned in fourths, in contrast to other members of the orchestral string family, which are tuned in fifths (for example, the violin's four strings are, from lowest-pitched to highest-pitched: G–D–A–E). The standard tuning (lowest-pitched to highest-pitched) for bass is E–A–D–G, starting from E below second low C (concert pitch). This is the same as the standard tuning of a bass guitar and is one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of standard guitar tuning. Prior to the 19th-century, many double basses had only three strings; "Giovanni Bottesini (1821–1889) favored the three-stringed instrument popular in Italy at the time", because "the three-stringed instrument [was viewed as] being more sonorous". Many cobla bands in Catalonia still have players using traditional three-string double basses tuned A–D–G.
Throughout classical repertoire, there are notes that fall below the range of a standard double bass. Notes below low E appear regularly in the double bass parts found in later arrangements and interpretations of Baroque music. In the Classical era, the double bass typically doubled the cello part an octave below, occasionally requiring descent to C below the E of the four-string double bass. In the Romantic era and the 20th century, composers such as Wagner, Mahler, Busoni and Prokofiev also requested notes below the low E.
There are several methods for making these notes available to the player. Players with standard double basses (E–A–D–G) may play the notes below "E" an octave higher or if this sounds awkward, the entire passage may be transposed up an octave. The player may tune the low E string down to the lowest note required in the piece: D or C. Four-string basses may be fitted with a "low-C extension" (see below). Or the player may employ a five-string instrument, with the additional lower string tuned to C, or (more commonly in modern times) B, three octaves and a semitone below middle C. Several major European orchestras use basses with a fifth string.
In Britain, the US, Canada and Australia, most professional orchestral players use four-string double basses with a "C extension". This is an extra section of fingerboard mounted on the head of the bass. It extends the fingerboard under the lowest string and gives an additional four semitones of downward range. The lowest string is typically tuned down to C1, an octave below the lowest note on the cello (as it is quite common for a bass part to double the cello part an octave lower). More rarely this string may be tuned to a low B0, as a few works in the orchestral repertoire call for such a B, such as Respighi's "The Pines of Rome". In rare cases, some players have a low B extension, which has B as its lowest note. There are several varieties of extensions:
In the simplest mechanical extensions, there are no mechanical aids attached to the fingerboard extension except a locking nut or "gate" for the E note. To play the extension notes, the player reaches back over the area under the scroll to press the string to the fingerboard. The advantage of this "fingered" extension is that the player can adjust the intonation of all of the stopped notes on the extension, and there are no mechanical noises from metal keys and levers. The disadvantage of the "fingered" extension is that it can be hard to perform rapid alternations between low notes on the extension and notes on the regular fingerboard, such as a bassline that quickly alternates between G1 and D1.
The simplest type of mechanical aid is the use of wooden "fingers" or "gates" that can be closed to press the string down and fret the C, D, E, or E notes. This system is particularly useful for basslines that have a repeating pedal point such as a low D because once the note is locked in place with the mechanical finger the lowest string sounds a different note when played open.
The most complicated mechanical aid for use with extensions is the mechanical lever system nicknamed the "machine". This lever system, which superficially resembles the keying mechanism of reed instruments such as the bassoon, mounts levers beside the regular fingerboard (near the nut, on the E-string side), which remotely activate metal "fingers" on the extension fingerboard. The most expensive metal lever systems also give the player the ability to "lock" down notes on the extension fingerboard, as with the wooden "finger" system. One criticism of these devices is that they may lead to unwanted metallic clicking noises.
Once a mechanical "finger" of the wooden "finger" extension or the metal "finger" machine extension is locked down or depressed, it is not easy to make microtonal pitch adjustments or glissando effects, as is possible with a hand-fingered extension.
While the most common type of extension is the C extension, in rare cases, owners of five-string basses, in which the lowest string is normally a low B0, may use either a two semitone extension, providing a low A, or the very rare low G extension.
A small number of bass players tune their strings in fifths, like a cello but an octave lower (C1–G1–D2–A2 low to high). This tuning was used by the jazz player Red Mitchell and is used by some classical players, notably the Canadian bassist Joel Quarrington. Advocates of tuning the bass in fifths point out that all of the other orchestral strings are tuned in fifths (violin, viola, and cello), so this puts the bass in the same tuning approach. Fifth tuning provides a bassist with a wider range of pitch than a standard E–A–D–G bass, as it ranges (without an extension) from C1 to A2. Some players who use fifths tuning who play a five-string bass use an additional high E3 string (thus, from lowest to highest: C–G–D–A–E). Some fifth tuning bassists who only have a four string instrument and who are mainly performing soloistic works use the G–D–A–E tuning, thus omitting the low C string but gaining a high E. Some fifth tuning bassists who use a five-string use a smaller scale instrument, thus making fingering somewhat easier. The Berlioz–Strauss Treatise on Instrumentation (first published in 1844) states that "A good orchestra should have several four-string double-basses, some of them tuned in fifths and thirds." The book then shows a tuning of E1–G1–D2–A2) from bottom to top string. "Together with the other double-basses tuned in fourths, a combination of open strings would be available, which would greatly increase the sonority of the orchestra." However a six-string double bass can be tuned in fifths (C1–G1–D2–A2–E3–B3) which is a much larger range.
In classical solo playing the double bass is usually tuned a whole tone higher (F1–B1–E2–A2). This higher tuning is called "solo tuning", whereas the regular tuning is known as "orchestral tuning". Solo tuning strings are generally thinner than regular strings. String tension differs so much between solo and orchestral tuning that a different set of strings is often employed that has a lighter gauge. Strings are always labelled for either solo or orchestral tuning and published solo music is arranged for either solo or orchestral tuning. Some popular solos and concerti, such as the "Koussevitsky Concerto" are available in both solo and orchestral tuning arrangements. Solo tuning strings can be tuned down a tone to play in orchestra pitch, but the strings often lack projection in orchestral tuning and their pitch may be unstable.
Some contemporary composers specify highly specialized scordatura (intentionally changing the tuning of the open strings). Changing the pitch of the open strings makes different notes available as pedal points and harmonics.
Berio, for example, asks the player to tune their strings E1–G1–D2–G2 in "Sequenza XIVb" and Scelsi asks for both F1–A1–D2–E2 and F1–A1–F2–E2 in "Nuits". A variant and much less-commonly used form of solo tuning used in some Eastern European countries is (A1–D2–G2–C3), which omits the low E string from orchestral tuning and then adds a high C string. Some bassists with five-string basses use a high C3 string as the fifth string, instead of a low B0 string. Adding the high C string facilitates the performance of solo repertoire with a high tessitura (range). Another option is to utilize both a low C (or low B) extension and a high C string.
When choosing a bass with a fifth string, the player may decide between adding a higher-pitched string (a high C string) or a lower-pitched string (typically a low B). Six-stringed instruments are coming back into popularity after a lot of updates. To accommodate the additional fifth string, the fingerboard is usually slightly widened, and the top slightly thicker, to handle the increased tension. Most five-string basses are therefore larger in size than a standard four-string bass. Some five-stringed instruments are converted four-string instruments. Because these do not have wider fingerboards, some players find them more difficult to finger and bow. Converted four-string basses usually require either a new, thicker top, or lighter strings to compensate for the increased tension.
The six-string double bass has both a high C and a low B, making it very useful, and it is becoming more practical after several updates. It is ideal for solo and orchestral playing because it has a more playable range. Many people achieved this on a six-string violone by restringing it with double bass strings making the tuning B0–E1–A1–D2–G2–C3.
Double bassists either stand or sit to play the instrument. The instrument height is set by adjusting the endpin such that the player can reach the desired playing zones of the strings with bow or plucking hand. Bassists who stand and bow sometimes set the endpin by aligning the first finger in either first or half position with eye level, although there is little standardization in this regard. Players who sit generally use a stool about the height of the player's pants inseam length.
Traditionally, double bassists stood to play solo and sat to play in the orchestra or opera pit. Now, it is unusual for a player to be equally proficient in both positions, so some soloists sit (as with Joel Quarrington, Jeff Bradetich, Thierry Barbé, and others) and some orchestral bassists stand.
When playing in the instrument's upper range (above G3, the G below middle C), the player shifts the hand from behind the neck and flattens it out, using the side of the thumb to press down the string. This technique—also used on the cello—is called "thumb position". While playing in thumb position, few players use the fourth (little) finger, as it is usually too weak to produce reliable tone (this is also true for cellists), although some extreme chords or extended techniques, especially in contemporary music, may require its use.
Rockabilly style can be very demanding on the plucking hand, due to rockabilly's use of "slapping" on the fingerboard.
Performing on bass can be physically demanding, because the strings are under relatively high tension. Also, the space between notes on the fingerboard is large, due to scale length and string spacing, so players must hold their fingers apart for the notes in the lower positions and shift positions frequently to play basslines. As with all non-fretted string instruments, performers must learn to place their fingers precisely to produce the correct pitch. For bassists with shorter arms or smaller hands, the large spaces between pitches may present a significant challenge, especially in the lowest range, where the spaces between notes are largest. However, the increased use of playing techniques such as thumb position and modifications to the bass, such as the use of lighter-gauge strings at lower tension, have eased the difficulty of playing the instrument.
Bass parts have relatively fewer fast passages, double stops, or large jumps in range. These parts are usually given to the cello section, since the cello is a smaller instrument on which these techniques are more easily performed.
Until the 1990s, child-sized double basses were not widely available, and the large size of the bass prevented children from playing the instrument until they grew to a height and hand size that allowed them to play a -size model (the most common size). Starting in the 1990s, smaller , , , and even -sized instruments became more widely available, so children could start younger.
Despite the size of the instrument, it is not as loud as many other instruments, due to its low musical pitch. In a large orchestra, usually between four and eight bassists play the same bassline in unison to produce enough volume. In the largest orchestras, bass sections may have as many as ten or twelve players, but modern budget constraints make bass sections this large unusual.
When writing solo passages for the bass in orchestral or chamber music, composers typically ensure the orchestration is light so it does not obscure the bass. While amplification is rarely used in classical music, in some cases where a bass soloist performs a concerto with a full orchestra, subtle amplification called acoustic enhancement may be used. The use of microphones and amplifiers in a classical setting has led to debate within the classical community, as "...purists maintain that the natural acoustic sound of [Classical] voices [or] instruments in a given hall should not be altered".
In many genres, such as jazz and blues, players use amplification via a specialized amplifier and loudspeakers. A piezoelectric pickup connects to the amplifier with a -inch patch cable. Bluegrass and jazz players typically use less amplification than blues, psychobilly, or jam band players. In the latter cases, high overall volume from other amplifiers and instruments may cause unwanted acoustic feedback, a problem exacerbated by the bass's large surface area and interior volume. The feedback problem has led to technological fixes like electronic feedback eliminator devices (essentially an automated notch filter that identifies and reduces frequencies where feedback occurs) and instruments like the electric upright bass, which has playing characteristics like the double bass but usually little or no soundbox, which makes feedback less likely. Some bassists reduce the problem of feedback by lowering their onstage volume or playing further away from their bass amp speakers.
In rockabilly and psychobilly, percussively slapping the strings against the fingerboard is an important part of the bass playing style. Since piezoelectric pickups are not good at reproducing the sounds of strings being slapped against the fingerboard, bassists in these genres often use both piezoelectric pickups (for the low bass tone) and a miniature condenser mic (to pick up the percussive slapping sounds). These two signals are blended together using a simple mixer before the signal is sent to the bass amp.
The double bass's large size and relative fragility make it cumbersome to handle and transport. Most bassists use soft cases, referred to as gig bags, to protect the instrument during transport. These range from inexpensive, thin unpadded cases used by students (which only protect against scratches and rain) to thickly padded versions for professional players, which also protect against bumps and impacts. Some bassists carry their bow in a hard bow case; more expensive bass cases have a large pocket for a bow case. Players also may use a small cart and end pin-attached wheels to move the bass. Some higher-priced padded cases have wheels attached to the case. Another option found in higher-priced padded cases are backpack straps, to make it easier to carry the instrument.
Hard flight cases have cushioned interiors and tough exteriors of carbon fiber, graphite, fiberglass, or Kevlar. The cost of good hard cases–several thousand US dollars–and the high airline fees for shipping them tend to limit their use to touring professionals.
Double bass players use various accessories to help them to perform and rehearse. Three types of mutes are used in orchestral music: a wooden mute that slides onto the bridge, a rubber mute that attaches to the bridge and a wire device with brass weights that fits onto the bridge. The player uses the mute when the Italian instruction "con sordino" ("with mute") appears in the bass part, and removes it in response to the instruction "senza sordino" ("without mute"). With the mute on, the tone of the bass is quieter, darker, and more somber. Bowed bass parts with a mute can have a nasal tone. Players use a third type of mute, a heavy rubber practice mute, to practice quietly without disturbing others (e.g., in a hotel room).
A quiver is an accessory for holding the bow. It is often made of leather and it attaches to the bridge and tailpiece with ties or straps. It is used to hold the bow while a player plays pizzicato parts.
A wolf tone eliminator is used to lessen unwanted sympathetic vibrations in the part of a string between the bridge and the tailpiece which can cause tone problems for certain notes. It is a rubber tube cut down the side that is used with a cylindrical metal sleeve which also has a slot on the side. The metal cylinder has a screw and a nut that fastens the device to the string. Different placements of the cylinder along the string influence or eliminate the frequency at which the wolf tone occurs. It is essentially an attenuator that slightly shifts the natural frequency of the string (and/or instrument body) cutting down on the reverberation. The wolf tone occurs because the strings below the bridge sometimes resonate at pitches close to notes on the playing part of the string. When the intended note makes the below-the-bridge string vibrate sympathetically, a dissonant "wolf note" or "wolf tone" can occur. In some cases, the wolf tone is strong enough to cause an audible "beating" sound. The wolf tone often occurs with the note G on the bass.
In orchestra, instruments tune to an A played by the oboist. Due to the three-octave gap between the oboist's tuning A and the open A string on the bass (for example, in an orchestra that tunes to 440 Hz, the oboist plays an A4 at 440 Hz and the open A1 of the bass is 55 Hz) it can be difficult to tune the bass by ear during the short period that the oboist plays the tuning note. Violinists, on the other hand, tune their A string to the same frequency as the oboist's tuning note. To ensure the bass is in tune, some bassists use an electronic tuner that indicates pitch on a small display. Bassists who play in styles that use a bass amp, such as blues, rockabilly, or jazz, may use a stompbox-format electronic tuner, which mutes the bass pickup during tuning.
A double bass stand is used to hold the instrument in place and raise it a few inches off the ground. A wide variety of stands are available, and there is no one common design.
The double bass as a solo instrument enjoyed a period of popularity during the 18th century and many of the most popular composers from that era wrote pieces for the double bass. The double bass, then often referred to as the Violone, used different tunings from region to region. The "Viennese tuning" (A1–D2–F2–A2) was popular, and in some cases a fifth string or even sixth string was added (F1–A1–D2–F2–A2). The popularity of the instrument is documented in Leopold Mozart's second edition of his Violinschule, where he writes "One can bring forth difficult passages easier with the five-string violone, and I heard unusually beautiful performances of concertos, trios, solos, etc."
The earliest known concerto for double bass was written by Joseph Haydn 1763, and is presumed lost in a fire at the Eisenstadt library. The earliest known existing concertos are by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, who composed two concertos for the double bass and a Sinfonia Concertante for viola and double bass. Other composers that have written concertos from this period include Johann Baptist Vanhal, Franz Anton Hoffmeister (3 concertos), Leopold Kozeluch, Anton Zimmermann, Antonio Capuzzi, Wenzel Pichl (2 concertos), and Johannes Matthias Sperger (18 concertos). While many of these names were leading figures to the music public of their time, they are generally unknown by contemporary audiences. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's concert aria, "Per Questa Bella Mano", K.612 for bass, double bass obbligato, and orchestra contains impressive writing for solo double bass of that period. It remains popular among both singers and double bassists today.
The double bass eventually evolved to fit the needs of orchestras that required lower notes and a louder sound. The leading double bassists from the mid-to-late 18th century, such as Josef Kämpfer, Friedrich Pischelberger, and Johannes Mathias Sperger employed the "Viennese" tuning. Bassist Johann Hindle (1792–1862), who composed a concerto for the double bass, pioneered tuning the bass in fourths, which marked a turning point for the double bass and its role in solo works. Bassist Domenico Dragonetti was a prominent musical figure and an acquaintance of Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. His playing was known all the way from his homeland Italy to the Tsardom of Russia and he found a prominent place performing in concerts with the Philharmonic Society of London. Beethoven's friendship with Dragonetti may have inspired him to write difficult, separate parts for the double bass in his symphonies, such as the impressive passages in the third movement of the Fifth Symphony, the second movement of the Seventh Symphony, and last movement of the Ninth Symphony. These parts do not double the cello part.
Dragonetti wrote ten concertos for the double bass and many solo works for bass and piano. During Rossini's stay in London in the summer of 1824, he composed his Duetto for cello and double bass for Dragonetti and the cellist David Salomons. Dragonetti frequently played on a three string double bass tuned G–D–A from top to bottom. The use of only the top three strings was popular for bass soloists and principal bassists in orchestras in the 19th century, because it reduced the pressure on the wooden top of the bass, which was thought to create a more resonant sound. As well, the low E-strings used during the 19th century were thick cords made of gut, which were difficult to tune and play.
In the 19th century, the opera conductor, composer, and bassist Giovanni Bottesini was considered the "Paganini of the double bass" of his time, a reference to the violin virtuoso and composer. Bottesini's bass concertos were written in the popular Italian opera style of the 19th century, which exploit the double bass in a way that was not seen beforehand. They require virtuosic runs and great leaps to the highest registers of the instrument, even into the realm of natural and artificial harmonics. Many 19th century and early 20th century bassists considered these compositions unplayable, but in the 2000s, they are frequently performed. During the same time, a prominent school of bass players in the Czech region arose, which included Franz Simandl, Theodore Albin Findeisen, Josef Hrabe, Ludwig Manoly, and Adolf Mišek. Simandl and Hrabe were also pedagogues whose method books and studies remain in use in the 2000s.
The leading figure of the double bass in the early 20th century was Serge Koussevitzky, best known as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who popularized the double bass in modern times as a solo instrument. Because of improvements to the double bass with steel strings and better set-ups, the bass is now played at a more advanced level than ever before and more and more composers have written works for the double bass. In the mid-century and in the following decades, many new concerti were written for the double bass, including Nikos Skalkottas's Concerto (1942), Eduard Tubin's Concerto (1948), Lars-Erik Larsson's Concertino (1957), Gunther Schuller's Concerto (1962), Hans Werner Henze's Concerto (1966) and Frank Proto's Concerto No. 1 (1968).
The "Solo For Contrabass" is one of the parts of John Cage's "Concert For Piano And Orchestra" and can be played as a solo, or with any of the other parts both orchestral and/or piano. Similarly, his solo contrabass parts for the orchestral work "Atlas Eclipticalis" can also be performed as solos. Cage's indeterminate works such as "Variations I", "Variations II", "Fontana Mix", "Cartridge Music" et al. can be arranged for a solo contrabassist. His work "26.1.1499 For A String Player" is often realized by a solo contrabass player, although it can also be played by a violinist, violist, or cellist.
From the 1960s through the end of the century Gary Karr was the leading proponent of the double bass as a solo instrument and was active in commissioning or having hundreds of new works and concerti written especially for him. Karr was given Koussevitzky's famous solo double bass by Olga Koussevitsky and played it in concerts around the world for 40 years before, in turn, giving the instrument to the International Society of Bassists for talented soloists to use in concert. Another important performer in this period, Bertram Turetzky, commissioned and premiered more than 300 double bass works.
In the 1970s, 1980 and 1990s, new concerti included Nino Rota's "Divertimento for Double Bass and Orchestra" (1973), Alan Ridout's concerto for double bass and strings (1974), Jean Françaix's Concerto (1975), Frank Proto's Concerto No. 2, Einojuhani Rautavaara's "Angel Of Dusk" (1980), Gian Carlo Menotti's Concerto (1983), Christopher Rouse's Concerto (1985), Henry Brant's Ghost Nets (1988) and Frank Proto's "Carmen Fantasy for Double Bass and Orchestra" (1991) and "Four Scenes after Picasso" Concerto No. 3 (1997). Peter Maxwell Davies' lyrical Strathclyde Concerto No. 7, for double bass and orchestra, dates from 1992.
In the first decade of the 21st century, new concerti include Frank Proto's "Nine Variants on Paganini" (2002), Kalevi Aho's Concerto (2005), John Harbison's "Concerto for Bass Viol" (2006), André Previn's Double Concerto for violin, double bass, and orchestra (2007) and John Woolrich's "To the Silver Bow", for double bass, viola and strings (2014).
Reinhold Glière wrote an Intermezzo and Tarantella for double bass and piano, Op. 9, No. 1 and No. 2 and a Praeludium and Scherzo for double bass and piano, Op. 32 No. 1 and No. 2. Paul Hindemith wrote a rhythmically challenging Double Bass Sonata in 1949. Frank Proto wrote his Sonata "1963" for Double Bass and Piano. In the Soviet Union, Mieczysław Weinberg wrote his Sonata No. 1 for double bass solo in 1971. Giacinto Scelsi wrote two double bass pieces called "Nuits" in 1972, and then in 1976, he wrote "Maknongan", a piece for any low-voiced instrument, such as double bass, contrabassoon, or tuba. Vincent Persichetti wrote solo works—which he called "Parables"—for many instruments. He wrote Parable XVII for Double Bass, Op. 131 in 1974. Sofia Gubaidulina penned a Sonata for double bass and piano in 1975. In 1976 American minimalist composer Tom Johnson wrote "Failing - a very difficult piece for solo string bass" in which the player has to perform an extremely virtuosic solo on the bass whilst simultaneously reciting a text which says how very difficult the piece is and how unlikely he or she is to successfully complete the performance without making a mistake.
In 1977 Dutch-Hungarian composer Geza Frid wrote a set of variations on The Elephant from Saint-Saëns' Le Carnaval des Animaux for scordatura Double Bass and string orchestra. In 1987 Lowell Liebermann wrote his Sonata for Contrabass and Piano Op. 24. Fernando Grillo wrote the "Suite No. 1" for double bass (1983/2005). Jacob Druckman wrote a piece for solo double bass entitled "Valentine". US double bass soloist and composer Bertram Turetzky (born 1933) has performed and recorded more than 300 pieces written by and for him. He writes chamber music, baroque music, classical, jazz, renaissance music, improvisational music and world music
US minimalist composer Philip Glass wrote a prelude focused on the lower register that he scored for timpani and double bass. Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti, whose composing career spans from the 1930s to the first decade of the 21st century, wrote a solo work for bass in 1983 entitled "Naked Angel Face per contrabbasso". Fellow Italian composer Franco Donatoni wrote a piece called "Lem for contrabbasso" in the same year. In 1989, French composer Pascal Dusapin (born 1955) wrote a solo piece called "In et Out" for double bass. In 1996, the Sorbonne-trained Lebanese composer Karim Haddad composed "Ce qui dort dans l'ombre sacrée" ("He who sleeps in the sacred shadows") for Radio France's Presence Festival. Renaud Garcia-Fons (born 1962) is a French double bass player and composer, notable for drawing on jazz, folk, and Asian music for recordings of his pieces like "Oriental Bass" (1997).
Two significant recent works written for solo bass include, Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No.11 for double bass and electronic sounds and Elliott Carter's Figment III, for solo double bass. The German composer Gerhard Stäbler wrote "Co-wie Kobalt" (1989–90), "...a music for double bass solo and grand orchestra". Charles Wuorinen added several important works to the repertoire, "Spinoff" trio for double bass, violin and conga drums, and "Trio for Bass Instruments" double bass, tuba and bass trombone, and in 2007 "Synaxis" for double bass, horn, oboe and clarinet with timpani and strings. The suite "Seven Screen Shots" for double bass and piano (2005) by Ukrainian composer Alexander Shchetynsky has a solo bass part that includes many unconventional methods of playing. The German composer Claus Kühnl wrote "Offene Weite / Open Expanse" (1998) and "Nachtschwarzes Meer, ringsum…" (2005) for double bass and piano.In 1997 Joel Quarrington commissioned the American / Canadian composer Raymond Luedeke to write his "Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra", a piece he performed with The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, and, in a version for small orchestra, with The Nova Scotia Symphony Orchestra. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8816 |
Deicide (band)
Deicide is an American death metal band formed in 1987 by drummer Steve Asheim and guitarist brothers Eric and Brian Hoffman as "Carnage", then hiring bassist/vocalist Glen Benton and becoming "Amon". They would later change the band name to Deicide in 1989. The band rose to mainstream success in 1992 with their second album "Legion", and is credited as the second best-selling death metal band of the Soundscan Era, after Cannibal Corpse. Since their debut album in 1990, Deicide has released twelve studio albums, one live album, two compilation albums and two live DVDs. In November 2003, their first two albums, "Deicide" and "Legion", were ranked second and third place respectively in best-selling death metal albums of the SoundScan era. Deicide is known for their lyrics, which cover topics such as Satanism, anti-Christianity and blasphemy. Their lyrics have resulted in bans, lawsuits and criticism from religious groups and the public.
Deicide was formed in Tampa, Florida on July 21, 1987, after guitarist Brian Hoffman called Glen Benton, replying to an advertisement the latter had placed in a local music magazine. Hoffman and his brother, along with drummer Steve Asheim, had previously played together as the band "Carnage", which was in need of a bassist and vocalist. Carnage played cover songs by Slayer, Exodus, Celtic Frost and Dark Angel.
The new band, called Amon, consisted of Benton (bass and vocals), Hoffman, Hoffman's brother Eric (guitars) and Steve Asheim (drums). Within a month, they had recorded the "Feasting the Beast" 8-track demo in Benton's garage and had started playing the occasional gig in the Tampa area. In 1989, Amon recorded their second demo, "Sacrificial", at Morrisound with producer Scott Burns.
Malevolent Creation guitarist Phil Fasciana recalls an early Carnage show: "It was like Slayer intensified a thousand times." "I guess Carnage had hollowed out a mannequin and filled it with fuckin' blood and guts from a butcher shop... and then they threw the fuckin' thing on the floor. Morbid Angel had these pit bulls with them back then and they were just tearing the meat up. It was a really weird scene, man. There was blood and meat everywhere."
Benton reportedly stormed into Roadrunner Records' A&R man Monte Conner's office and presented him with the demo, saying, "Sign us, you fucking asshole!" The next day contracts were issued to the band. In 1989 the band's name was changed to Deicide at the request of Roadrunner Records.
Deicide then released their self-titled debut album, also produced by Scott Burns at Morrisound, in 1990. Their debut featured re-recorded versions of all six of the "Sacrificial" tunes that had secured them their record deal.
Both the Hoffman brothers tended to play technical solos at fast speeds and with overlapping riffs, which gave Deicide the definitive heavy sound and complex song structures. This lineup remained intact until November 25, 2004, in the wake of increasing animosity between Glen Benton and the Hoffmans allegedly in regards to royalties and publishing. The Hoffman brothers later went on to reform Amon.
Shortly after, the guitar roles were then filled by ex-Cannibal Corpse guitarist Jack Owen, and Vital Remains guitarist Dave Suzuki. Following the tour, Suzuki was replaced by Ralph Santolla, formerly of Death, Iced Earth and Sebastian Bach. Santolla stated he is a Catholic and this has received a small amount of shock and ridicule from some metal fans. In spite of this, Deicide's eighth studio album "The Stench of Redemption" album received rave reviews.
In January 2007, Benton left the European tour and returned home to the United States as a result of legal issues at home. Asheim announced that Seth van Loo, from opening act Severe Torture, and Garbaty "Yaha", from the Polish death metal band Dissenter, would be replacing Glen Benton starting on January 9 in the Netherlands, until Benton could rejoin the tour. Benton rejoined in Paris on January 13.
On May 24, 2007, it was announced Ralph Santolla had left Deicide. Subsequently, he joined Florida's Obituary and appears on their album "Xecutioner's Return" as well as the tour. Then on July 20, 2007, guitarist Jack Owen (ex-Cannibal Corpse) announced that Deicide is "on hiatus" and he has joined Ohio based death/thrash combo Estuary for touring purposes. The band did a Balkan tour, dubbed "Balkans AssassiNation Tour", in October 2007 alongside Krisiun, Incantation and Inactive Messiah.
By November 2007, Deicide began work on its ninth studio album at Florida's Morrisound Studios. Entitled "Till Death Do Us Part", the follow-up to 2006's "The Stench of Redemption" promised to be Deicide's "most savage and aggressive [offering] to date," according to a press release. Drummer Steve Asheim recorded drum tracks and Benton started recording vocals in December. By April 2008 two songs off this album were posted online. It was finally released on April 28, 2008. As the record was coming out, Benton considered retiring from music, in the midst of personal matters including a custody battle.
On January 6, 2009, Deicide posted a blog on their official Myspace page saying they had signed a worldwide record deal with Century Media, with Ralph Santolla returning to the band for a European tour. They were said to be working on material for a summer 2010 release. In early 2009 they toured with Vital Remains and Order of Ennead. Guitarist Kevin Quirion of Order of Ennead joined the band in the summer of 2009.
In June 2010, Glen Benton revealed that the next Deicide album was to be titled "To Hell with God". It was produced by Mark Lewis at Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, Florida, and was released on February 15, 2011.
Deicide released their eleventh studio album, "In the Minds of Evil", on November 26, 2013.
In November 2016, it was apparent that guitarist Jack Owen had been replaced by Monstrosity guitarist Mark English without an official announcement made by the band. Owen went on to join Six Feet Under in February 2017.
On October 9, 2014, The Village Voice reported that Deicide had started working on new material for their twelfth studio album. On March 10, 2017, Deicide announced a short U.S. tour which would begin in May and also issued an update on then-upcoming twelfth studio album: "the new record is almost completed, right now its down to scheduling, this run of shows were setting up is to introduce and work in our new guitarist Mark English, that and I need a break from this thing called Florida…". The album, titled "Overtures of Blasphemy", was released on September 14, 2018.
On June 6, 2018, former guitarist Ralph Santolla died due to complications following a heart attack and was taken off life support since being in a coma for a week.
Deicide has received considerable controversy relating to their albums and lyrics, which include vehement anti-Christian themes, such as "Death to Jesus", "Fuck Your God", "Kill the Christian", "Behead the Prophet" and "Scars of the Crucifix", among others. Drummer Asheim said, "The whole point of Satanic music is to blaspheme against the Church", "I don't believe in or worship a devil. Life is short enough without having to waste it doing this whole organised praying, hoping, wishing-type thing on some superior being".
Most of the controversy surrounded frontman Benton for a rash of shocking interviews and wild statements. Benton has repeatedly branded an inverted cross into his forehead on at least 12 different occasions. During an interview with "NME" magazine, he shot and killed a squirrel with a pellet gun to prevent any further damage to his electrical system in the attic at the location the interview was held. This act garnered negative attention from critics and some animal rights activists. Benton had professed beliefs in theistic Satanism during Deicide's early years, claimed to slaughter rodents for fun, and that he held beliefs in demonic possession and that he was possessed. Such statements had eventually been concluded as tongue-in-cheek and little more than sensationalism by band members questioned alternatively. Additionally, Benton claimed in the early 1990s that he would commit suicide at the age of 33 to "mirror" a lifespan opposite that of Jesus Christ. However, he passed that age in 2000 and did not commit suicide, rebutting in 2006 that these statements had been "asinine remarks" and that "only cowards and losers" choose to kill themselves.
Deicide has been banned from playing in several venues (such as Valparaiso, Chile over a promotional poster featuring Jesus Christ with a bullet hole in his forehead) and with various festivals such as Hellfest, after several graves had been spray-painted with "When Satan Rules His World", a reference to a song from Deicide's 1995 album "Once Upon the Cross". In addition, their music video for "Homage for Satan", which features blood-splattered zombies on a rampaging mission to capture a priest, was banned from UK music TV channel Scuzz.
In 1992, Deicide was on tour in Europe with Atrocity from Germany and Gorefest, a Dutch death metal band. In Stockholm, during the Gorefest set, a bomb was discovered on-stage. It exploded in the club in which they were playing. The bomb was located to the rear of the stage, behind a heavy, fireproof door. The explosion was big enough to deform the door and blow it off its hinges. Deicide managed to play three songs before the police decided to stop the concert and evacuate the club. At first, Benton blamed that attack on the Norwegian black metal scene, where Deicide's brand of death metal was despised. Many people blamed animal rights activists who were angered at Deicide's lyrical themes of animal sacrifice. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8817 |
Division of labour
The division of labour is the separation of tasks in any economic system so that participants may specialize (specialization). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialized capabilities and either form combinations or trade to take advantage of the capabilities of others in addition to their own. Specialized capabilities may include equipment or natural resources in addition to skills and training and complex combinations of such assets are often important, as when multiple items of specialized equipment and skilled operators are used to produce a single product. The division of labour is the motive for trade and the source of economic interdependence.
After the Neolithic Revolution, pastoralism and agriculture led to more reliable and abundant food supplies, which increased the population and led to specialization of labour, including new classes of artisans, warriors, and the development of elites. This specialization was furthered by the process of industrialisation, and Industrial Revolution-era factories. Accordingly many classical economists as well as some mechanical engineers such as Charles Babbage were proponents of division of labour. Also, having workers perform single or limited tasks eliminated the long training period required to train craftsmen, who were replaced with lesser paid but more productive unskilled workers.
Historically, an increasing division of labour is associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and the increasing complexity of industrialised processes. The concept and implementation of division of labour has been observed in ancient Sumerian (Mesopotamian) culture, where assignment of jobs in some cities coincided with an increase in trade and economic interdependence. Division of labour generally also increases both producer and individual worker productivity.
In Plato's "Republic", the origin of the state lies in the natural inequality of humanity, which is embodied in the division of labour.
Silvermintz notes that "Historians of economic thought credit Plato, primarily on account of arguments advanced in his Republic, as an early proponent of the division of labour." Notwithstanding this, Silvermintz argues that "While Plato recognizes both the economic and political benefits of the division of labour, he ultimately critiques this form of economic arrangement insofar as it hinders the individual from ordering his own soul by cultivating acquisitive motives over prudence and reason."
Xenophon, in the fourth century BC, makes a passing reference to division of labour in his 'Cyropaedia' (a.k.a. Education of Cyrus).
The 14th-century scholar Ibn Khaldun emphasized the importance of the division of labour in the production process. In his Muqaddimah, he states:
Sir William Petty was the first modern writer to take note of the division of labour, showing its existence and usefulness in Dutch shipyards. Classically the workers in a shipyard would build ships as units, finishing one before starting another. But the Dutch had it organized with several teams each doing the same tasks for successive ships. People with a particular task to do must have discovered new methods that were only later observed and justified by writers on political economy.
Petty also applied the principle to his survey of Ireland. His breakthrough was to divide up the work so that large parts of it could be done by people with no extensive training.
Bernard de Mandeville discusses the matter in the second volume of "The Fable of the Bees" (1714). This elaborates many matters raised by the original poem about a 'Grumbling Hive'. He says:
In his introduction to "The Art of the Pin-Maker" ("Art de l'Épinglier") (1761), Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau writes about the "division of this work":
By "division of this work", Duhamel du Monceau is referring to the subdivisions of
the text describing the various trades involved in the pin making activity; this can also be described as a division of labour.
In the first sentence of "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776), Adam Smith foresaw the essence of industrialism by determining that division of labour represents a substantial increase in productivity. Like du Monceau, his example was the making of pins. Unlike Plato, Smith famously argued that the difference between a street porter and a philosopher was as much a consequence of the division of labour as its cause. Therefore, while for Plato the level of specialization determined by the division of labour was externally determined, for Smith it was the dynamic engine of economic progress. However, in a further chapter of the same book, Smith criticizes the division of labour saying it can lead to "the almost entire corruption and degeneracy of the great body of the people. … unless the government takes some pains to prevent it." The contradiction has led to some debate over Smith's opinion of the division of labour. Alexis de Tocqueville agreed with Smith: "Nothing tends to materialize man, and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind, more than extreme division of labor." Adam Ferguson shared similar views to Smith, though was generally more negative.
The specialization and concentration of the workers on their single subtasks often leads to greater skill and greater productivity on their particular subtasks than would be achieved by the same number of workers each carrying out the original broad task. Smith uses the example of a production capability of an individual pin maker compared to a manufacturing business that employed 10 men.
“One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind, where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day;”
Smith saw the importance of matching skills with equipment – usually in the context of an organization. For example, pin makers were organized with one making the head, another the body, each using different equipment. Similarly, he emphasized a large number of skills, used in cooperation and with suitable equipment, were required to build a ship.
In the modern economic discussion, the term human capital would be used. Smith's insight suggests that the huge increases in productivity obtainable from technology or technological progress are possible because human and physical capital are matched, usually in an organization. See also a short discussion of Adam Smith's theory in the context of business processes.
Babbage wrote a seminal work "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures" analyzing perhaps for the first time the division of labour in factories.
In the "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" 1785, Kant notes the value of the division of labour:All crafts, trades and arts have profited from the division of labour; for when each worker sticks to one particular kind of work that needs to be handled differently from all the others, he can do it better and more easily than when one person does everything. Where work is not thus differentiated and divided, where everyone is a jack-of-all-trades, the crafts remain at an utterly primitive level.
Marx argued that increasing the specialization may also lead to workers with poorer overall skills and a lack of enthusiasm for their work. He described the process as alienation: workers become more and more specialized and work becomes repetitive, eventually leading to complete alienation from the process of production. The worker then becomes "depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine".
Additionally, Marx argued that the division of labour creates less-skilled workers. As the work becomes more specialized, less training is needed for each specific job, and the workforce, overall, is less skilled than if one worker did one job entirely.
Among Marx's theoretical contributions is his sharp distinction between the economic and the social division of labour. That is, some forms of labour co-operation are purely due to "technical necessity", but others are a result of a "social control" function related to a class and status hierarchy. If these two divisions are conflated, it might appear as though the existing division of labour is technically inevitable and immutable, rather than (in good part) socially constructed and influenced by power relationships. He also argues that in a communist society, the division of labour is transcended, meaning that balanced human development occurs where people fully express their nature in the variety of creative work that they do.
Henry David Thoreau criticized the division of labour in "Walden" (published in 1854), on the basis that it removes people from a sense of connectedness with society and with the world at large, including nature. He claimed that the average man in a civilized society is less wealthy, in practice than one in "savage" society. The answer he gave was that self-sufficiency was enough to cover one's basic needs.
Thoreau's friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, criticized the division of labour in "The American Scholar"; a widely informed, holistic citizenry is vital for the spiritual and physical health of the country.
In his seminal work, "The Division of Labor in Society", Émile Durkheim observes that the division of labour appears in all societies and positively correlates with societal advancement because it increases as a society progresses. Durkheim arrived at the same conclusion regarding the positive effects of the division of labour as his theoretical predecessor, Adam Smith. In "The Wealth of the Nations", Smith observes the division of labour results in "a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour." While they shared this belief, Durkheim believed the division of labour applied to all "biological organisms generally" while Smith believed this law applied "only to human societies." This difference may result from the influence of Charles Darwin’s "On the Origin of Species" on Durkheim’s writings. For example, Durkheim observed an apparent relationship between "the functional specialization of the parts of an organism" and "the extent of that organism's evolutionary development," which he believed "extended the scope of the division of labour so as to make its origins contemporaneous with the origins of life itself…implying that its conditions must be found in the essential properties of all organized matter."
Since Durkheim’s division of labour applied to all organisms, he considered it a "natural law" and worked to determine whether it should be embraced or resisted by first analyzing its functions. Durkheim hypothesized that the division of labour fosters social solidarity, yielding "a wholly moral phenomenon" that ensures "mutual relationships" among individuals.
As social solidarity cannot be directly quantified, Durkheim indirectly studies solidarity by "classify[ing] the different types of law to find...the different types of social solidarity which correspond to it." Durkheim categorizes: criminal laws and their respective punishments as promoting mechanical solidarity, a sense of unity resulting from individuals engaging in similar work who hold shared backgrounds, traditions, and values; and civil laws as promoting organic solidarity, a society in which individuals engage in different kinds of work that benefit society and other individuals. Durkheim believes that organic solidarity prevails in more advanced societies, while mechanical solidarity typifies less developed societies. He explains that in societies with more mechanical solidarity, the diversity and division of labour is much less, so individuals have a similar worldview. Similarly, Durkheim opines that in societies with more organic solidarity, the diversity of occupations is greater, and individuals depend on each other more, resulting in greater benefits to society as a whole.
Durkheim’s work enabled social science to progress more efficiently "in … the understanding of human social behavior."
Marx's theories, including the negative claims regarding the division of labour have been criticized by the Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises.
The main argument here is the economic gains accruing from the division of labour far outweigh the costs. It is argued that it is fully possible to achieve balanced human development within capitalism, and alienation is downplayed as mere romantic fiction.
In "The Use of Knowledge in Society", Friedrich A. Hayek states:
The issue reaches its broadest scope in the controversies about globalization, which is often interpreted as a euphemism for the expansion of world trade based on comparative advantage.
This would mean that countries specialize in the work they can do at the lowest relative cost measured in terms of the opportunity cost of not using resources for other work, compared to the opportunity costs experienced countries. Critics, however, allege that international specialization cannot be explained sufficiently in terms of "the work nations do best", rather this specialization is guided more by commercial criteria, which favour some countries over others.
The OECD recently advised (28 June 2005) that:
Few studies have taken place regarding the global division of labour. Information can be drawn from ILO and national statistical offices.
In one study, Deon Filmer estimated that 2.474 billion people participated in the global non-domestic labour force in the mid-1990s. Of these,
The majority of workers in industry and services were wage and salary earners – 58 percent of the industrial workforce and 65 percent of the services workforce. But a big portion was self-employed or involved in family labour. Filmer suggests the total of employees worldwide in the 1990s was about 880 million, compared with around a billion working on own account on the land (mainly peasants), and some 480 million working on own account in industry and services. The 2007 ILO Global Employment Trends Report indicated that services have surpassed agriculture for the first time in human history: "In 2006 the service sector’s share of global employment overtook agriculture for the first time, increasing from 39.5 percent to 40 percent. Agriculture decreased from 39.7 percent to 38.7 percent. The industry sector accounted for 21.3 percent of total employment."
In the modern world, those specialists most preoccupied in their work with theorizing about the division of labour are those involved in management and organization. In view of the global extremities of the division of labour, the question is often raised about what division of labour would be most ideal, beautiful, efficient and just.
Two styles of management that are seen in modern organizations are control and commitment, the control being the division of labour style of the past and commitment being the style of the future. Control management is based on the principles of job specialization and the division of labour. This is the assembly line style of job specialization where employees are given a very narrow set of tasks or one specific task. Commitment division of labour is oriented on including the employee and building a level of internal commitment towards accomplishing tasks. Tasks include more responsibility and are coordinated based on expertise rather than formal position.
Job specialization is advantageous in developing employee expertise in a field and boosting organizational production. However, disadvantages of job specialization included limited employee skill, a dependence on entire department fluency, and employee discontent with repetitious tasks.
It is widely accepted that the division of labour is to a great extent inevitable, simply because no one can do all tasks at once. Labour hierarchy is a very common feature of the modern workplace structure, but of course, the way these hierarchies are structured can be influenced by a variety of different factors.
Size, cost, and the development of new technology are factors that have influenced job specialization structures in the modern workplace. The cost of job specialization is what limits small organizations from dividing their labour responsibilities, but as organizations increase in size there is a correlation in the rise of the division of labour. Technological developments have led to a decrease in the amount of job specialization in organizations as new technology makes it easier for fewer employees to accomplish a variety of tasks and still enhance production. New technology has also been supportive in the flow of information between departments helping to reduce the feeling of department isolation.
It is often agreed that the most equitable principle in allocating people within hierarchies is that of true (or proven) competency or ability. This important concept of meritocracy could be read as an explanation or as a justification of why a division of labour is the way it is.
In general, in capitalist economies, such things are not decided consciously. Different people try different things, and that which is most effective cost-wise (produces the most and best output with the least input) will generally be adopted. Often techniques that work in one place or time do not work as well in another. This does not present a problem, as the only requirement of a capitalist system is that you turn a profit.
Adam Smith famously said in "The Wealth of Nations" that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. This is because it is by the exchange that each person can be specialized in their work and yet still have access to a wide range of goods and services. Hence, reductions in barriers to exchange lead to increases in the division of labour and so help to drive economic growth. Limitations to the division of labour have also been related to coordination and transportation costs.
There can be motivational advantages to a reduced division of labour (which has been termed ‘job enlargement’ and 'job enrichment'). Jobs that are too specialized in a narrow range of tasks are said to result in demotivation due to boredom and alienation. Hence, a Taylorist approach to work design contributed to worsened industrial relations.
There are also limitations to the division of labour (and the division of work) that result from work-flow variations and uncertainties. These help to explain issues in modern work organization, such as task consolidations in business process reengineering and the use of multi-skilled work teams. For instance, one stage of a production process may temporarily work at a slower pace, forcing other stages to slow down. One answer to this is to make some portion of resources mobile between stages so that those resources must be capable of undertaking a wider range of tasks. Another is to consolidate tasks so that they are undertaken one after another by the same workers and other resources. Stocks between stages can also help to reduce the problem to some extent but are costly and can hamper quality control. Modern flexible manufacturing systems require both flexible machines and flexible workers.
In project-based work, the coordination of resources is a difficult issue for the project manager as project schedules and resulting resource bookings are based on estimates of task durations and so are subject to subsequent revisions. Again, consolidating tasks so that they are undertaken consecutively by the same resources and having resources available that can be called on at short-notice from other tasks can help to reduce such problems, though at the cost of reduced specialization.
There are also advantages in a reduced division of labour where knowledge would otherwise have to be transferred between stages. For example, having a single person deal with a customer query means that only that one person has to be familiarised with the customer’s details. It is also likely to result in the query being handled faster due to the elimination of delays in passing the query between different people.
The clearest exposition of the principles of sexual division of labour across the full range of human societies can be summarized by a large number of logically complementary implicational constraints of the following form: if women of childbearing ages in a given community tend to do X (e.g., preparing soil for planting) they will also do Y (e.g., the planting) while for men the logical reversal in this example would be that if men plant they will prepare the soil. "Entailment Theory and Method: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Sexual Division of Labor" by White, Brudner and Burton (1977, public domain), using statistical entailment analysis, shows that tasks more frequently chosen by women in these order relations are those more convenient in relation to childrearing. This type of finding has been replicated in a variety of studies, including modern industrial economies. These entailments do not restrict how much work for any given task could be done by men (e.g., in cooking) or by women (e.g., in clearing forests) but are only least-effort or role-consistent tendencies. To the extent that women clear forests for agriculture, for example, they tend to do the entire agricultural sequence of tasks on those clearings. In theory, these types of constraints could be removed by provisions of child care, but ethnographic examples are lacking.
Job satisfaction has been shown to improve as an employee is given the task of a specific job. Students who have received PhDs in a chosen field later report increased satisfaction compared to their previous jobs. This can be attributed to their high levels of specialization. The higher the training needed for the specialized job position, the higher is the level of job satisfaction as well, although many highly specialized jobs can be monotonous and produce high rates of burn out periodically.
In contrast to the division of labour, a division of work refers to the division of a large task, contract, or project into smaller tasks—each with a separate schedule within the overall project schedule. Division of labour, instead, refers to the allocation of tasks to individuals or organizations according to the skills and/or equipment those people or organizations possess. Often division of labour and division of work are both part of the economic activity within an industrial nation or organization.
Job divided into elemental parts is sometimes called disaggregated work. The workers specializing in particular parts of the job are called specialists or professionals. The workers doing a portion of a non-recurring work may be called contractors, freelancers or temporary workers. Modern communication technologies, in particular the internet, gave rise to sharing economy which is orchestrated by online marketplaces of various kinds of disaggregated work. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8824 |
Davy lamp
The Davy lamp is a safety lamp for use in flammable atmospheres, invented in 1815 by Sir Humphry Davy. It consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. It was created for use in coal mines, to reduce the danger of explosions due to the presence of methane and other flammable gases, called "firedamp" or "minedamp."
Davy's invention was preceded by that of William Reid Clanny, an Irish doctor at Bishopwearmouth, who had read a paper to the Royal Society in May 1813. The more cumbersome Clanny safety lamp was successfully tested at Herrington Mill, and he won medals, from the Royal Society of Arts.
Despite his lack of scientific knowledge, engine-wright George Stephenson devised a lamp in which the air entered via tiny holes, through which the flames of the lamp could not pass. A month before Davy presented his design to the Royal Society, Stephenson demonstrated his own lamp to two witnesses by taking it down Killingworth Colliery and holding it in front of a fissure from which firedamp was issuing.
The first trial of a Davy lamp with a wire sieve was at Hebburn Colliery on 9 January 1816. A letter from Davy (which he intended to be kept private) describing his findings and various suggestions for a safety lamp was made public at a meeting in Newcastle on 3 November 1815, and a paper describing the lamp was formally presented at a Royal Society meeting in London on 9 November. For it, Davy was awarded the Society's Rumford Medal. Davy's lamp differed from Stephenson's in that the flame was surrounded by a screen of gauze, whereas Stephenson's prototype lamp had a perforated plate contained in a glass cylinder (a design mentioned in Davy's Royal Society paper as an alternative to his preferred solution). For his invention Davy was given £2,000 worth of silver (the money being raised by public subscription), whilst Stephenson was accused of stealing the idea from Davy, because the fully developed 'Geordie lamp' had not been demonstrated by Stephenson until after Davy had presented his paper at the Royal Society, and (it was held) previous versions had not actually been safe.
A local committee of enquiry gathered in support of Stephenson exonerated him, showing that he had been working separately to create the Geordie lamp, and raised a subscription for him of £1,000. Davy and his supporters refused to accept their findings, and would not see how an uneducated man such as Stephenson could come up with the solution he had: Stephenson himself freely admitted that he had arrived at a practical solution on the basis of an erroneous theory. In 1833, a House of Commons committee found that Stephenson had equal claim to having invented the safety lamp. Davy went to his grave claiming that Stephenson had stolen his idea. The Stephenson lamp was used almost exclusively in North East England, whereas the Davy lamp was used everywhere else. The experience gave Stephenson a lifelong distrust of London-based, theoretical, scientific experts.
The lamp consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. The screen acts as a flame arrestor; air (and any firedamp present) can pass through the mesh freely enough to support combustion, but the holes are too fine to allow a flame to propagate through them and ignite any firedamp outside the mesh. It originally burned a heavy vegetable oil.
The lamp also provided a test for the presence of gases. If flammable gas mixtures were present, the flame of the Davy lamp burned higher with a blue tinge. Lamps were equipped with a metal gauge to measure the height of the flame. Miners could place the safety lamp close to the ground to detect gases, such as carbon dioxide, that are denser than air and so could collect in depressions in the mine; if the mine air was oxygen-poor (asphyxiant gas), the lamp flame would be extinguished ("black damp" or "chokedamp"). A methane-air flame is extinguished at about 17% oxygen content (which will still support life), so the lamp gave an early indication of an unhealthy atmosphere, allowing the miners to get out before they died of asphyxiation.
In 1816, the Cumberland Pacquet reported a demonstration of the Davy lamp at William Pit, Whitehaven. Placed in a blower "... the effect was grand beyond description. At first a blue flame was seen to cap the flame of the lamp, - then succeeded a lambent flame, playing in the cylinder; and shortly after, the flame of the firedamp expanded, so as to completely fill the wire gauze. For some time, the flame of the lamp was seen through that of the firedamp, which became ultimately extinguished without explosion. Results more satisfactory were not to be wished..." Another correspondent to the paper commented "The Lamp offers absolute security to the miner... With the excellent ventilation of the "Whitehaven Collieries" and the application of Sir HUMPHRY's valuable instrument, the accidents from the explosion of' (carburetted) 'hydrogene which have occurred (although comparatively few for such extensive works) will by this happy invention be avoided".
However, this prediction was not fulfilled: in the next thirty years, firedamp explosions in Whitehaven pits killed 137 people. More generally, the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines reported in 1835 that the introduction of the Davy lamp had led to an increase in mine accidents; the lamp encouraged the working of mines and parts of mines that had previously been closed for safety reasons. For example, in 1835, 102 men and boys were killed by a firedamp explosion in a Wallsend colliery working the Bensham seam, described at the subsequent inquest by John Buddle as "a dangerous seam, which required the utmost care in keeping in a working state", which could only be worked with the Davy lamp. The coroner noted that a previous firedamp explosion in 1821 had killed 52, but directed his jury that any finding on the wisdom of continuing to work the seam was outside their province.
The lamps had to be provided by the miners themselves, not the owners, as traditionally the miners had bought their own candles from the company store. Miners still preferred the better illumination from a naked light, and mine regulations insisting that only safety lamps be used were draconian in principle, but in practice neither observed nor enforced. After two accidents in two years (1838–9) in Cumberland pits, both caused by safety checks being carried out by the light of a naked flame, the Royal Commission on Children's Employment commented both on the failure to learn from the first accident, and on the "further absurdity" of "carrying a Davy lamp in one hand for the sake of safety, and a naked lighted candle in the other, as if for the sake of danger. Beyond this there can be no conceivable thoughtlessness and folly; and when such management is allowed in the mine of two of the most opulent coal-proprietors in the kingdom, we cease to wonder at anything that may take place in mines worked by men equally without capital and science"
Another reason for the increase in accidents was the unreliability of the lamps themselves. The bare gauze was easily damaged, and once just a single wire broke or rusted away, the lamp became unsafe.
Work carried out by a scientific witness and reported by the committee showed that the Davy lamp became unsafe in airflows so low that a Davy lamp carried at normal walking pace against normal airflows in walkways was only safe if provided with a draught shield (not normally fitted), and the committee noted that accidents had happened when the lamp was "in general and careful use; no one survived to tell the tale of how these occurrences took place; conjecture supplied the want of positive knowledge most unsatisfactorily; but incidents are recorded which prove what must follow unreasonable testing of the lamp; and your Committee are constrained to believe that ignorance and a false reliance upon its merits, in cases attended with unwarrantable risks, have led to disastrous consequences" The "South Shields Committee", a body set up by a public meeting there (in response to an explosion at the St Hilda pit in 1839) to consider the prevention of accidents in mines had shown that mine ventilation in the North-East was generally deficient, with an insufficient supply of fresh air giving every opportunity for explosive mixtures of gas to accumulate. A subsequent select committee in 1852 concurred with this view; firedamp explosions could best be prevented by improving mine ventilation (by the use of steam ejectors: the committee specifically advised against fan ventilation), which had been neglected because of over-reliance on the safety of the Davy lamp.
The practice of using a Davy lamp and a candle together was not entirely absurd, however, if the Davy lamp is understood to be not only a safe light in an explosive atmosphere, but also a gauge of firedamp levels. In practice, however, the warning from the lamp was not always noticed in time, especially in the working conditions of the era.
The "Regulation and Inspection of Mines Act" of 1860 therefore required coal mines to have an adequate amount of ventilation, constantly produced, to dilute and render harmless noxious gases so that work areas were - under ordinary circumstances - in a fit state to be worked (areas where a normally safe atmosphere could not be ensured were to be fenced off "as far as possible"): it also required safety lamps to be examined and securely locked by a duly authorised person before use.
Even when new and clean, illumination from the safety lamps was very poor, and the problem was not fully resolved until electric lamps became widely available in the late 19th century.
A modern-day equivalent of the Davy lamp has been used in the Olympic flame torch relays. It was used in the relays for the Sydney, Athens, Turin, Beijing, Vancouver and Singapore Youth Olympic Games. It was also used for the Special Olympics Shanghai, Pan American and Central African games and for the London 2012 Summer Olympics relay.
Lamps are still made in Eccles, Greater Manchester; in Aberdare, South Wales; and in Kolkata, India.
A replica of a Davy lamp is located in front of the ticket office at the Stadium of Light (Sunderland AFC) which is built on a former coal mine.
In 2015, Bersham Colliery in Wrexham, Wales, which is now a mining museum, invited visitors to bring their Davy Lamps and other industrial heirlooms to the museum for identification. The National Mining Museum Scotland at Newtongrange, Scotland, also celebrated the 200th anniversary of the invention. In 2016, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, where the Davy lamp prototype is displayed, decided to have the invention 3D scanned, reverse engineered and presented to the museum visitors in a more accessible digital format via a virtual reality cabinet. At first sight it appears to be a traditional display cabinet but has a touch screen with various options for visitors to view and reference the virtual exhibits inside. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8826 |
Docklands Light Railway
The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system opened in 1987 to serve the redeveloped Docklands area of East London, England. It reaches north to Stratford, south to Lewisham across the River Thames, west to and in the City of London financial district, and east to Beckton, London City Airport, and to Woolwich Arsenal south of the river.
The system uses minimal staffing on trains and at major interchange stations; the four below-ground stations are staffed to comply with underground station health and safety regulations.
The DLR is operated under a franchise awarded by Transport for London to KeolisAmey Docklands, a joint venture between transport operator Keolis and infrastructure specialists Amey plc. It was previously run for over 17 years by Serco Docklands, part of the Serco Group. The system is owned by Docklands Light Railway Ltd, part of the London Rail division of Transport for London. In 2017/18 the DLR carried 121.8 million passenger journeys. It has been extended multiple times and further extensions are under consideration.
The docks immediately east of Central London began to decline in the early 1960s as cargo became containerised. They had been connected to the national railway network via the London and Blackwall Railway (L&BR), which was closed in 1966 for lack of traffic. The opening of the Tilbury container docks, further east in Essex, finally rendered them redundant, and in 1980 the government gained control of the now-derelict area.
As early as 1972, consideration was given to how to redevelop the moribund Docklands. Travis Morgan & Partners were commissioned by the London Docklands Study Team to consider the issue. They proposed, among other recommendations, that a "minitram" people-mover system capable of carrying up to 20 people in each unit should be constructed to connect the Docklands with the planned Fleet line tube railway terminus at Fenchurch Street railway station. The Greater London Council formed a Docklands Joint Committee with the Boroughs of Greenwich, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets in 1974 to undertake the redevelopment of the area. A light railway system was envisaged, terminating either at Tower Hill Underground station or at Fenchurch Street, but both options were seen as too expensive. Nonetheless, in 1976 another report proposed a conventional tube railway for the area and London Transport obtained Parliamentary powers to build a line from Charing Cross railway station to Fenchurch Street, Surrey Docks (now Surrey Quays railway station), the Isle of Dogs, North Greenwich and Custom House to Woolwich Arsenal. This was intended to be the second stage of the Fleet line – which had been renamed the Jubilee line, the first stage of which opened in 1979 from to . However, when the Conservative Party came to power in May 1979 under Margaret Thatcher, the plans to extend the Jubilee line were halted and the new government insisted that a lower-cost option should be pursued.
The government created the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) in July 1981 to coordinate the redevelopment of the Docklands. The need to provide a cheap public transport solution led to it commissioning London Transport to evaluate a number of exclusively light rail options. The core of the route ran alongside the Great Eastern line out of London and south along the former London & Blackwall Railway line through the Isle of Dogs. Three terminus options were proposed at the west end, at Tower Hill, Minories and Aldgate East. The Tower Hill option would have required a low-level interchange to be constructed alongside the existing Underground station, but this would have been a very costly venture. The Minories option, a high-level station virtually on the site of the old Minories railway station, was selected and became the current Tower Gateway DLR terminus. Aldgate East would have been perhaps the most ambitious of all of the options, as it originally envisaged a low-level connection with the District line that would have allowed DLR trains to run on Underground tracks to a variety of central London destinations. However, it quickly became apparent that there was no capacity on the existing network for integrating the DLR into the Underground.
Two southern terminus options were put forward, at Cubitt Town (today's Island Gardens station) and Tiller Road, on the west side of Millwall Dock, with two possible routes to reach them. A "western" route would have run from the Westferry station alongside West Ferry Road via Cuba Street, then either terminating at Tiller Road or continuing over Millwall Docks Cut to a terminus at Cubitt Town. The "central" option required the West India Docks to be infilled or bridged and would run down the middle of the peninsula, through what was at the time an area of derelict warehouses. Ultimately this latter option was chosen, though the 1981 London Transport report warned that without extensive development around Canary Wharf the area would be "very isolated with poor traffic prospects" – as indeed it was, for a number of years.
The contract for the initial system was awarded to GEC Mowlem in 1984 and the system was constructed from 1985 to 1987 at a cost of £77 million. The line was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 30 July 1987, and passenger services began on 31 August.
The initial system comprised two routes, from and Stratford to . It was mainly elevated on disused railway viaducts or new concrete viaducts, and adopted disused surface railway formations between Poplar and Stratford. The trains were fully automated, controlled by computer, and had no driver; a Passenger Service Agent (PSA) on each train, originally referred to as a "Train Captain", was responsible for patrolling the train, checking tickets, making announcements and controlling the doors. PSAs could take control of the train in circumstances including equipment failure and emergencies. A total of eleven EMUs supplied by Linke-Hofmann-Busche comprised the first generation of the Docklands Light Railway rolling stock.
The system was lightweight, with stations designed for trains of only a single articulated vehicle. The three branches totalled , had 15 stations, and were connected by a flat triangular junction near . Services ran from Tower Gateway to Island Gardens and from Stratford to Island Gardens; the north side of the junction was used only for access to the depot at Poplar. The stations were mostly of a common design and constructed from standard components. A common feature was a short half-cylindrical glazed blue canopy. All stations were above ground and were generally unstaffed, although later extension included stations below ground which were required by law to be staffed in case of evacuation.
The initial system had a relatively low capacity, but the Docklands area very quickly developed into a major financial centre and employment zone, increasing traffic. In particular Tower Gateway, at the edge of the City of London, attracted criticism for its poor connections, as it did not connect directly with the nearby Tower Hill tube station or Fenchurch Street railway station. The criticism arose partly because the system usage was higher than expected. Plans were developed, before the system opened, to extend it to in the west and Beckton in the east. Stations and trains were extended to two-unit length, and the system was expanded into the heart of the City of London to through a tunnel, which opened in 1991. This extension left on a stub. The original trains were not suitable for underground usage due to not meeting the fire safety laws for underground trains. They were operated for a time on the above-ground sections only, and were later sold.
As the Canary Wharf office complex grew, Canary Wharf DLR station was redeveloped from a small wayside station to a large one with six platforms serving three tracks and a large overall roof, fully integrated into the malls below the office towers.
The east of Docklands needed better transport connections to encourage development, and a fourth branch, towards Beckton, was planned, with several route options available. A route from via and the north side of the Royal Docks complex was chosen, and opened in 1994. Initially it was thought the line was likely to be underutilised, due to the sparse development in the area. As part of this extension, one side of the original flat triangular junction was replaced by a grade-separated junction west of Poplar. Poplar was rebuilt to give cross-platform interchange between the Stratford and Beckton lines, with a new grade-separated junction built east of the station at the divergence of the Stratford and Beckton lines.
Early on, Lewisham London Borough Council commissioned a feasibility study into extending the system under the River Thames. This led the council to advocate an extension via Greenwich and Deptford, terminating at Lewisham railway station. The ambitions of the operators were supported by politicians in Parliament, including the future Labour Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and Lord Whitty; and by 1996 construction work had begun.
The Lewisham extension opened on 20 November 1999. It left the Island Gardens route south of the Crossharbour turn-back sidings, and dropped gently to , where a street-level station replaced the high-level one on the former London & Blackwall Railway viaduct. The line then entered a tunnel, following the route of the viaduct to a shallow subsurface station at , accessible by stairs or a lift. It crossed under the Thames to in the centre of Greenwich, and surfaced at Greenwich railway station, with cross-platform interchange between the northbound track and the London-bound main line. The line snaked on a concrete viaduct to , before descending to at street level, close to Lewisham town centre, terminating in two platforms between and below the main-line platforms at Lewisham railway station, with buses stopping outside the station. The extension quickly proved profitable.
The next developments were aided by a five-year programme of investment for public transport across London that was unveiled by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone on 12 October 2004. On 2 December 2005, an eastward branch along the approximate route of the former Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway on the southern side of the Royal Docks complex opened from Canning Town to via .
A further extension from to Woolwich Arsenal opened on 10 January 2009, providing interchange with the North Kent main line, close to the planned future stop on the Crossrail line to Abbey Wood via West India and Royal Docks, met by Private Finance Initiative funding. Construction began in June 2005, the same month that the contracts were finalised, and the tunnels were completed on 23 July 2007, and formally opened by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London on 12 January 2009. Following completion, the project was shortlisted for the 2009 Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award.
The original was closed in mid-2008 for complete reconstruction. The two terminal tracks either side of a narrow island platform were replaced by a single track between two platforms, one for arriving passengers and the other for departing (Spanish solution). It reopened on 2 March 2009.
As part of an upgrade to allow three-car trains, strengthening work was necessary at the Delta Junction north of . It was decided to include this in a plan for further grade separation to eliminate the conflict between services to Stratford and from Bank. A new timetable was introduced, with improved frequencies at peak hours. The new grade-separated route from Bank to Canary Wharf is used throughout the day, bypassing West India Quay station until mid-evening. Work on this project proceeded concurrently with the three-car upgrade work and the 'diveunder' (sometimes referred to as a flyunder but DLR have coined the term in this instance 'diveunder'), and the improved timetable came into use on 24 August 2009.
In addition to the three-car station extensions, part of which was funded from the 2012 Olympics budget, a line was opened from Canning Town to Stratford and Stratford International railway station along the former North London Line of the national railway system, with additional stations. It parallels the London Underground Jubilee line for much of its length. A substantial multi-level flying junction was built south of Canning Town to enable trains from Bank/Poplar and Stratford International to operate to either of the eastern termini at Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal. There are through trains between all these points, with different patterns at different times of the day. The extension suffered some delay in opening, being completed in August 2011. It provides a direct link between two of the major Olympics locations: the Stadium and Park at Stratford and the ExCeL adjacent to Custom House on the Beckton line.
The DLR has of tracks, with 45 stations. There are six branches: to Lewisham in the south, and Stratford International in the north, and Woolwich Arsenal in the east, and Central London in the west, splitting to and .
The northern, southern and south-eastern branches terminate at the National Rail stations at Stratford, Stratford International, Lewisham and Woolwich Arsenal. Other interchanges with National Rail are at Limehouse, Greenwich and West Ham, while out of station interchanges for Oyster card holders exist between Shadwell DLR station and London Overground's station of the same name, and between Fenchurch Street and the DLR's western termini Tower Gateway and Bank.
Between Limehouse and Tower Gateway, the DLR runs parallel to the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway.
Although the layout allows many different routes, the following are operated in normal service:
There is capability for an additional shuttle from Canning Town to Prince Regent when exhibitions are in progress at the ExCeL exhibition centre.
At terminal stations trains reverse direction in the platforms except at Bank where there is a reversing headshunt in the tunnel beyond the station. Many peak-hour trains on the Lewisham route from Stratford turn back at Canary Wharf. During service disruption or planned engineering work, trains can also turn back at and . Trains serve every station on the route, but trains from Bank to Lewisham do not call at West India Quay because they are routed along the diveunder track to avoid junction conflicts. During long-term works for extension projects, other routes may be operated at weekends, such as Beckton to Lewisham if the Bank branch is closed.
Most stations are elevated, with others at street level, in cutting or underground. Access to the platforms is mostly by staircase and lift, with escalators at some stations. From the outset the system has been fully accessible to wheelchairs; much attention was paid to quick and effective accessibility for all passengers. The stations have high platforms matching the floor height of the cars, allowing level access for passengers with wheelchairs or pushchairs.
Most stations are of a modular design dating back to the initial system, extended and improved with two side platforms, each with separate access from the street, and platform canopies, although few examples remain of the original, distinctive rounded roof design. Stations are unstaffed, except the underground stations at , , , Stratford International and Woolwich Arsenal for safety reasons, a few of the busier interchange stations, and City Airport, which has a ticket office for passengers unfamiliar with the system. Canning Town, Custom House and Prince Regent are normally staffed on the platform whenever there is a significant exhibition at the ExCeL exhibition centre.
On 3 July 2007, DLR officially launched an art programme called DLR Art, similar to that on the London Underground, Art on the Underground. Alan Williams was appointed to produce the first temporary commission, called "Sidetrack", which portrays the ordinary and extraordinary sights, often unfamiliar to passengers, on the system and was displayed throughout the network.
The system is part of the London fare zone system, and Travelcards that cover the appropriate zones are valid. There are one-day and season DLR-only "Rover" tickets, plus a one-day DLR "Rail and River Rover" ticket for the DLR and City Cruises river boats. Oyster pay-as-you-go is also available; or NFC enabled bank card holders (contactless) passengers need to touch both in and out on the platform readers or pass through the automatic gates. Tickets can be purchased from ticket machines at the entrance to the platforms, and are required before entering the platform. There are no ticket barriers at DLR-only stations, and correct ticketing is enforced by random on-train inspections by the PSA. Users of pay-as-you-go Oyster cards or a contactless bank card who have failed to touch in at the start of the journey, as well as other passengers without a correct ticket, may be liable to a £80 penalty fare or prosecution for fare evasion. There are barriers at Bank, , Woolwich Arsenal, West Ham and , where the DLR platforms are within a London Underground or National Rail barrier line.
Within a year of launch, annual passenger numbers reached 17 million. This increased to 64 million in 2009, to more than 80 million in 2011, and most recently to 110.2 million annual passengers in Fiscal Year 2014. While the first five years were plagued by unreliability and operational problems, the system has now become highly reliable. In 2008, 87% of the population of North Woolwich were in favour of the DLR.
The Parliamentary Transport Select Committee has reviewed light rail. Due to the success of the DLR, proposals for similar systems elsewhere have emerged. The North and West London Light Railway is a plan for an orbital railway serving the other side of London.
The DLR has been successful, as have other recent light rail systems. However, the DLR has been criticised for having been designed with insufficient capacity to meet the demand that quickly arose. The level of demand was underestimated. In 1989 such criticism was aimed at GEC, a major contractor for construction.
Until 1 July 2013, the only bicycles that were allowed were folding ones. DLR stated that this is because if evacuation is required, they would slow down the process. DLR cars, especially older rolling stock, were not designed with bicycles in mind – if they were allowed, they might obstruct doors and emergency exits. Since January 2014 full-size bicycles have been allowed on DLR trains at off-peak hours and weekends (except Bank Station, where bicycles are not permitted for safety reasons).
The DLR is operated by 145 high-floor bi-directional single-articulated Electric Multiple Units (EMUs). Each car has four doors on each side, and two or three cars make up a train. There are no cabs because normal operations are automated, and a small driver's console is concealed behind a locked panel at each end, from which the PSA can drive the car. Consoles at each door opening allow the PSA to control door closure and make announcements whilst patrolling the train. With the absence of a driver's position, the fully glazed car ends provide a forward and rear view for passengers. The top speed is .
Despite having high floors and being automated, the cars are derived from a German light-rail design intended for street running. All cars look similar but there have been several different types, some still in service, others sold to other operators. B2007 units were purchased from Bombardier in 2005 and delivered between 2007 and 2010.
In 2017, TfL opened bidding for new trains to run on the DLR. It will order 43 new trains, which will increase capacity by 30% when they are introduced in 2022. The contract will be awarded in 2018 and the trains will feature charging points and air-conditioning.
On 12 June 2019, it was announced CAF have been successful in their bid and have been awarded the contract to provide the new trains, entering service in 2023.
There are operating and maintenance depots at Poplar, now secondary to the larger site at Beckton, built on the site of the Beckton Gas Works in 1996 and accessed via a spur at Gallions Reach. Rolling stock is kept at both locations, which have maintenance workshops and extensive open-air carriage sidings. The Poplar depot, which is also the operating headquarters of Docklands Light Railway Ltd, Keolis Amey Docklands Ltd and the Emirates Air-Line cable car, houses diesel locomotives used for track maintenance. Poplar depot is alongside the north side of the Stratford line east of the station, and Beckton depot is to the east of the line on a long spur north-east of Gallions Reach. Beckton Depot has the only level crossing on DLR. It is an AHB type and the barriers are down unless a user wants to cross, much like Appleford but AHB styled.
One of the diesel locos stabled at Poplar is 1979 GEC Traction 0-4-0, one of three built for Shotton Steelworks. Since they were used at the steelworks, one has been scrapped, one has recently been acquired by the Yorkshire Wolds Railway and the third is now at Poplar named "Kevin Keaney". Its original nickname was "Sooty" because of the amount of exhaust this old engine produced.
Originally the DLR used signalling based on a fixed-block technology developed by GEC-General Signal and General Railway Signal. This was replaced in 1994 with a moving-block TBTC (Transmission Based Train Control) system developed by Alcatel, called SelTrac. The SelTrac system was bought by Thales in 2007 and updates are provided by Thales Rail Signalling Solutions. The same technology is used by rapid transit systems including Vancouver's SkyTrain, Toronto's SRT, San Francisco's Municipal Railway (MUNI) and Hong Kong's MTR. The SelTrac S40 system has also been adopted by the London Underground Jubilee line and Northern line. Transmissions occur via an inductive loop cable between each train's Vehicle On-Board Controller (VOBC) and the control centre (VCC, SMC) at Beckton. If this link is broken and communication is lost between the VOBC and VCC, SMC, the train stops until it is authorised to move again. If the whole system fails the train can run in restricted manual at for safety until the system is restored and communication is re-established. Emergency brakes can be applied if the train breaks the speed limit during manual control or overshoots a fixed stopping point, or if it leaves the station when the route has not been set.
With the development of the eastern Docklands as part of the Thames Gateway initiative and London's staging of the 2012 Summer Olympics, several extensions and enhancements have been undertaken.
Capacity has been increased by upgrading for trains with three cars, each with four doors per side. The alternative of more frequent trains was rejected as the signalling changes needed would have cost no less than upgrading to longer trains and with fewer benefits. The railway was built for single-car operation, and the upgrade required both strengthening viaducts to take heavier trains and lengthening many pre-extension platforms which were not originally built to take three-car trains. The extra capacity was useful for the 2012 Summer Olympics, which increased the use of London's transport network. The main contractor for the expansion and alteration works was Taylor Woodrow.
Elverson Road, Royal Albert, Gallions Reach and Cutty Sark have not been extended for three-car trains; such extension may be impossible in some cases. Selective door operation is used, with emergency walkways in case a door fails to remain shut. is underground, and both costs and the risk to nearby historic buildings prevent platform extension. The tunnel has an emergency walkway. Additional work beyond that needed to take the three-car trains was also carried out at some stations. This included replacing canopies with more substantial ones along the full platform length. A new has been built east of the former location as nearby curves precluded lengthening. now has a third platform.
For this upgrade DLR purchased an additional 31 cars compatible with existing rolling stock. The works were originally planned as three phases: Bank-Lewisham, Poplar-Stratford, and the Beckton branch. The original £200m contract was awarded on 3 May 2007. Work started in 2007 and Bank-Lewisham was originally due to be completed in 2009. However, the work programme for the first two phases was merged and the infrastructure work was completed by the end of January 2010. The Lewisham-Bank route now runs three-car trains exclusively. They started running on the Beckton branch on 9 May 2011. Stratford to Lewisham and Bank to Woolwich Arsenal services sometimes operate as three-car trains; other routes will run the longer trains when demand requires it.
The extension to Stratford International, taking over the North London Line from Canning Town to Stratford, links the Docklands area with domestic high-speed services on High Speed 1. It was an important part of transport improvements for the 2012 Olympic Games, much of which were held on a site adjoining Stratford International. The first contract for construction work was awarded on 10 January 2007 and construction started in mid-2007. Originally scheduled to open in mid-2010, the line opened on 31 August 2011. On 11 November 2015 the Mayor of London announced that all stations on this line would be rezoned from zone 3 to zone 2/3.
Station names in bold are former North London Line stations.
New stations are:
From Canning Town to Stratford the extension runs parallel to the Jubilee line of the London Underground. As well as providing interchange with the adjacent Jubilee line stations, there are additional DLR stations at Star Lane, Abbey Road and Stratford High Street.
At Stratford new platforms have been built for the North London Line at the northern end of the station. The old platforms (formerly 1 and 2) adjacent to the Jubilee line have been rebuilt for the DLR, renumbered 16 (towards Stratford International) and 17 (towards Beckton/Woolwich Arsenal). Interchange between the Stratford International branch and DLR trains via Poplar is possible although the platforms are widely separated and at different levels. There is no physical connection between the two branches. As part of the Transport & Works Act (TWA) application, Royal Victoria on the Beckton branch has been extended to accommodate three-car trains, with a siding to enable trains to reverse there, using land released by the closure of the parallel North London Line. A partly grade-separated junction has been built south of Canning Town to prevent conflicting movements between the Bank branch and the Stratford International branch to and from the Beckton and Woolwich Arsenal branches.
One of the tunnel portals for Crossrail is on the original site of Pudding Mill Lane station. As a consequence, work was carried out to divert the DLR between City Mill River and the River Lea onto a new viaduct further south. This included a replacement station, which opened on 28 April 2014. The former station stood on the only significant section of single track on the system, between Bow Church and Stratford, though the opportunity was taken to double the track in three stages, to improve capacity. There was originally no provision for works beyond the realigned section in the Crossrail Act.
Mooted in the late 2010s as part of the Gallions Reach Crossing, the extension was first formally proposed in November 2019 by Transport for London as part of the draft Thamesmead and Abbey Wood OAPF (Opportunity Area Planning Framework), with proposed stations at 'Armada Riverside' and 'Thamesmead Central'.
As part of the construction of the London City Airport extension in the mid 2000s, a gap in the viaduct due west of the western end of Royal Victoria Dock, between and stations - was passively safeguarded for a future station when development came forward on the brownfield and industrial sites. The potential of development on the land was on hold for until the late 2010s, as the area was being safeguarded for the route of the Silvertown Tunnel, a new Thames river crossing currently under construction on the site.
As part of the 2018 budget, the Chancellor announced funding for the DLR to support development in the Royal Docks. Following completion of the Silvertown Tunnel in the mid 2020s, around 5,000 homes will be built on the site, and a new DLR station would be constructed.
In July 2014, a Transport Supporting Paper from the London Infrastructure Plan 2050 by the Mayor of London considered the closure of Tower Gateway DLR station and the branch serving it, with a replacement interchange being provided via new platforms at Tower Hill Underground station. This would increase train frequencies to Bank by approximately 30%, thereby unlocking more capacity on the Bank branch. However, this document notes that this would be a long term aspiration - around 2050.
The extension to Dagenham Dock in East London, via the Barking Riverside development was first proposed in 2003, and was anticipated that the project could be completed and open for use by 2017, at a cost of around £750m. In November 2008, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced that due to financial constraints the extension, along with a number of other transport projects, had been cancelled. The Barking Riverside development will now be served by an extension of the London Overground to a new station at Barking Riverside, costing around £260m.
In February 2006 a proposal to extend the DLR to from DLR branch was revealed. The idea, originating from a DLR "Horizon Study", is at a very early stage at the moment, but would involve extending the line from Bank in bored tunnels under Central London to the Charing Cross Jubilee line platforms, which would be brought back to public use. These platforms are now on a spur off the current Jubilee line and are not used by passenger trains. It has since been revealed that a proposed route as far as will be investigated.
While not confirmed, it is probable that the Charing Cross scheme would use the overrun tunnels between Charing Cross Jubilee platforms and slightly west of . These tunnels were intended to be incorporated into the abandoned Phase 2 of the "Fleet Line" (Phase 1 became the original Jubilee line, prior to the Jubilee line Extension). However they would need enlargement because DLR gauge is larger than tube gauge and current safety regulations would require an emergency walkway in the tunnel.
Two reasons driving the proposal are capacity problems at Bank, having just one interchange between the DLR and the central portion of Underground, and the difficult journeys faced by passengers from Kent and South Coast between their rail termini and the DLR. Intermediate stations would be at City Thameslink/Ludgate Circus and Aldwych, which was intended for future connection with the proposed but now abandoned Cross River Tram.
In 2011, strategy documents proposed a DLR extension to and . Transport for London have considered driving a line from via north to the rail termini. The main benefit of such an extension would be to broaden the available direct transport links to the Canary Wharf site. It would create a new artery in central London and help relieve the Northern and Circle lines and provide another metro line to serve the High Speed line into Euston.
This possible extension was considered during the latest Horizon Study. The route would follow the Southeastern line and terminate between and stations. It has been seen as attractive to the district, as has the current terminus at Lewisham, built in an earlier extension. A map published in 2010 by Transport for London suggests that a further extension from Catford to has also been considered.
However, early plans showed problems due to being only marginally lower than the busy A20 road, which impedes any extension. The plan is however being revised. When the Lewisham extension was first completed there were proposals to continue further to Beckenham to link it up with the Tramlink system. However, the way in which Lewisham station was built impedes this possible extension and it would prove costly to redevelop.
Another proposal is to by taking over the Bromley North Line, a short National Rail branch line which has no direct services into Central London. The scheme being considered by Transport for London and the London Borough of Bromley would convert the branch line to DLR operation. Although Lewisham Council planned to re-route the A20 road and redevelop the area south of Lewisham DLR station, the plans published in 2012 have no safeguarded route for an extension, making one unlikely.
DLR was a wholly owned subsidiary of London Regional Transport until 1992 when it was transferred to the London Docklands Development Corporation.
The infrastructure is owned by Docklands Light Railway Ltd, part of the London Rail division of Transport for London, which also manages London Overground, London Trams, Emirates Air Line and Crossrail. The first franchise was awarded to Serco Docklands Limited for seven years; operations began in April 1997. A management buyout backed by Serco management later sold its shares to Serco. A two-year extension was granted in 2002.
In February 2005 Transport for London announced that Balfour Beatty/Keolis, First Carillion, RATP/Transdev and Serco had been shortlisted to operate the franchise.
In November 2005 Transport for London announced that Serco had retained the franchise for seven years from May 2006.
The Lewisham, City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal extensions were designed, financed, built and maintained by private companies (concessionnaires): City Greenwich Lewisham (CGL) Rail, City Airport Rail Enterprises (CARE), and Woolwich Arsenal Rail Enterprises (WARE). In 2011, Transport Trading Limited (a subsidiary of Transport for London) bought out the companies responsible for the City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal extensions, leaving only the Lewisham extension under private ownership.
In July 2012 Transport for London called for expressions of interest in bidding for the next DLR franchise. In January 2013 Serco's contract was extended until September 2014.
In April 2013 Transport for London announced that Go-Ahead/Colas Rail, Keolis/Amey, Serco and Stagecoach had been shortlisted to bid for the next franchise. However, on 30 August, just over a week before the bid submission date of 9 September 2013, Go-Ahead/Colas Rail pulled out of the running. The franchise was awarded to Keolis/Amey with a handover date of 7 December 2014.
The DLR appears in the video to Sean Paul and Clean Bandit's single "Rockabye". Poplar, Canary Wharf and Heron Quays stations appear, interspersed with scenes of New York in winter, in the official video for the single "Trains and Winter Rains" by Enya, released in 2008.
Woolwich Arsenal plays an underground station in Athens in "Jason Bourne".
The DLR also appears in the 2007 film "28 Weeks Later". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8827 |
Dundee
Dundee (; or "Dùn Dèagh" ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2018 was 148,750, giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or 6,420/sq mi, the second-highest in Scotland. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of "Dundee City" (officially the "City of Dundee"), it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland.
Historically part of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century and established itself as an important east coast trading port. Rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry. This, along with its other major industries, gave Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism".
Today, Dundee is promoted as "One City, Many Discoveries" in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities and of the RRS "Discovery", Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed at Discovery Point. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom's digital entertainment industry, including mobile app development and gaming. Dundee has two universities – the University of Dundee and the Abertay University. In 2014, Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UK's first UNESCO City of Design for its diverse contributions to fields including medical research, comics and video games.
A unique feature of Dundee is that its two professional football clubs, Dundee F.C. and Dundee United F.C., have stadiums all but adjacent to each other.
With the decline of traditional industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate and reinvent itself as a cultural centre. In pursuit of this, a £1 billion master plan to regenerate and to reconnect the Waterfront to the city centre started in 2001 and is expected to be completed within a 30-year period. The V&A Dundee – the first branch of the V&A to operate outside of London – is the main centre piece of the waterfront project.
In recent years, Dundee's international profile has risen. "GQ" magazine named Dundee the 'Coolest Little City in Britain' in 2015 and "The Wall Street Journal" ranked Dundee at number 5 on its 'Worldwide Hot Destinations' list for 2018.
The name "Dundee" is made up of two parts: the common Celtic place-name element "dun", meaning fort; and a second part that may derive from a Celtic element, cognate with the Gaelic "dè", meaning 'fire'.
While earlier evidence for human occupation is abundant, Dundee's success and growth as a seaport town arguably came as a result of William the Lion's charter, granting Dundee to his younger brother, David (later Earl of Huntingdon) in the late 12th century. The situation of the town and its promotion by Earl David as a trading centre led to a period of prosperity and growth. The earldom was passed down to David's descendants, amongst whom was John Balliol. The town became a Royal Burgh on John's coronation as king in 1292. The town and its castle were occupied by English forces for several years during the First War of Independence and recaptured by Robert the Bruce in early 1312. The original Burghal charters were lost during the occupation and subsequently renewed by Bruce in 1327.
The burgh suffered considerably during the conflict known as the Rough Wooing of 1543 to 1550, and was occupied by the English forces of Andrew Dudley from 1547. In 1548, unable to defend the town against an advancing Scottish force, Dudley ordered that the town be burnt to the ground. In 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Dundee was again besieged, this time by the Royalist Marquess of Montrose. The town was finally destroyed by Parliamentarian forces led by George Monck in 1651. The town played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Jacobite cause when John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee raised the Stuart standard on the Dundee Law in 1689. The town was held by the Jacobites in the 1715–16 rising, and on 6 January 1716 the Jacobite claimant to the throne, James VIII and III (the Old Pretender), made a public entry into the town. Many in Scotland, including many in Dundee, regarded him as the rightful king.
A notable resident of Dundee was Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan of Camperdown, Baron of Lundie (1 July 1731 to 4 August 1804). He was born in Dundee on 1 July 1731, the son of Alexander Duncan of Lundie, Provost of Dundee. Adam was educated in Dundee and later joined the Royal Navy on board the sloop Trial. He rose to be admiral and in October 1797 defeated the Dutch fleet off Camperdown (north of Haarlem). This was seen as one of the most significant actions in naval history.
The economy of mediaeval Dundee centred on the export of raw wool, with the production of finished textiles being a reaction to recession in the 15th century. Two government Acts in the mid 18th century had a profound effect on Dundee's industrial success: the textile industry was revolutionised by the introduction of large four-storey mills, stimulated in part by the 1742 Bounty Act which provided a government-funded subsidy on Osnaburg linen produced for export. Expansion of the whaling industry was triggered by the second Bounty Act, introduced in 1750 to increase Britain's maritime and naval skill base. Dundee, and Scotland more generally, saw rapid population increase at end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, with the city's population increasing from 12,400 in 1751 to 30,500 in 1821.
The phasing out of the linen export bounty between 1825 and 1832 stimulated demand for cheaper textiles, particularly for cheaper, tough fabrics. The discovery that the dry fibres of jute could be lubricated with whale oil (of which Dundee had a surfeit, following the opening of its gasworks) to allow it to be processed in mechanised mills resulted in the Dundee mills rapidly converting from linen to jute, which sold at a quarter of the price of flax. Interruption of Prussian flax imports during the Crimean War and of cotton during the American Civil War resulted in a period of inflated prosperity for Dundee and the jute industry dominated Dundee throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Unprecedented immigration, notably of Irish workers, led to accelerated urban expansion, and at the height of the industry's success, Dundee supported 62 jute mills, employing some 50,000 workers. Cox Brothers, who owned the massive Camperdown Works in Lochee, were one of the largest jute manufacturers in Europe and employed more than 5,000 workers.
The rise of the textile industries brought with it an expansion of supporting industries, notably of the whaling, maritime and shipbuilding industries, and extensive development of the waterfront area started in 1815 to cope with increased demand for port capacity. At its height, 200 ships per year were built there, including Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic research vessel, the . This ship is now on display at Discovery Point in the city. A significant whaling industry was also based in Dundee, largely existing to supply the jute mills with whale oil. Whaling ceased in 1912 and shipbuilding ceased in 1981.
While the city's economy was dominated by the jute industry, it also became known for smaller industries. Most notable among these were James Keiller's and Sons, established in 1795, which pioneered commercial marmalade production, and the publishing firm DC Thomson, which was founded in the city in 1905. Dundee was said to be built on the 'three Js': Jute, Jam and Journalism.
The town was also the location of one of the worst rail disasters in British history, the Tay Bridge disaster. The first Tay Rail Bridge was opened in 1878. It collapsed some 18 months later during a storm, as a passenger train passed over it, resulting in the loss of 75 lives. The most destructive fire in the city's history came in 1906, reportedly sending "rivers of burning whisky" through the street.
The jute industry fell into decline in the early 20th century, partly due to reduced demand for jute products and partly due to an inability to compete with the emerging industry in Calcutta. This gave rise to unemployment levels far in excess of the national average, peaking in the inter-war period, but major recovery was seen in the post-war period, thanks to the arrival first of American light engineering companies like Timex and NCR, and subsequent expansion into microelectronics.
A£1 billion master plan to regenerate Dundee Waterfront is expected to last for a 30-year period between 2001 and 2031. The aims of the project are to reconnect the city centre to the waterfront; to improve facilities for walking, cyclists and buses; to replace the existing inner ring road with a pair of east/west tree-lined boulevards; and to provide a new civic square and a regenerated railway station and arrival space at the western edge. A new Victoria and Albert Museum opened on 15 September 2018.
Dundee was granted Royal Burgh status on the coronation of John Balliol as King of Scotland in 1292. The city has two mottos— ("Gift of God") and "Prudentia et Candore" (With Thought and Purity) although usually only the latter is used for civic purposes.
Prior to 1996, Dundee was governed by the City of Dundee District Council. This was formed in 1975, implementing boundaries imposed in the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Under these boundaries, the Angus burgh and district of Monifieth, and the Perth electoral division of Longforgan (which included Invergowrie) were annexed to the county of the city of Dundee. In 1996, the Dundee City unitary authority was created following implementation of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. This placed Monifieth and Invergowrie in the unitary authorities of Angus and Perth and Kinross, largely reinstating the pre-1975 county boundaries. Some controversy has ensued as a result of these boundary changes, with Dundee city councillors arguing for the return of Monifieth and Invergowrie.
Dundee is one of 32 council areas of Scotland, and is represented by the Dundee City Council – a local council composed of 29 elected councillors. Previously the city was a county of a city and later a district of the Tayside region. Council meetings take place in the City Chambers, which opened in 1933 in City Square. The civic head and chair of the council is known as the Lord Provost, a position similar to that of mayor in other cities. The political head of the council is known as the Leader of the Council or Leader of the Administration. The Leader chairs the Policy & Resources Committee. Dundee House, the new headquarters for the city council on North Lindsay Street, opened in August 2011. This has replaced Tayside House which was demolished in 2013 as part of the Dundee Waterfront improvements.
Elections to the council are normally on a four-year cycle. The most recent election took place on 4 May 2017. Since 2007, the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 has meant that there are eight multi-member wards which elect three or four councillors by single transferable vote, to produce a form of proportional representation. The 2012 elections gave the SNP overall control of the council with 16 seats. However the 2017 contest saw the SNP lose their majority, although they remained the largest party with 14 councillors. Scotland's longest-serving councillor, Ian Borthwick, sits on the council.
For elections to the British House of Commons at Westminster, the city area and portions of the Angus council area are divided in two constituencies. The constituencies of Dundee East and Dundee West are represented by Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party) and Chris Law (Scottish National Party), respectively, both of whom were re-elected at the 2019 General Election. For elections to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, the city area is divided between three constituencies. The Dundee City East constituency and the Dundee City West constituency are entirely within the city area. The Angus South (Holyrood) constituency includes north-eastern and north-western portions of the city area. All three constituencies are within the North East Scotland electoral region: Shona Robison (SNP) is the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Dundee East constituency; Joe Fitzpatrick (SNP) is the current MSP for the Dundee West constituency and Graeme Dey (SNP) is the current MSP for the Angus South constituency.
Dundee was also part of the pan-Scotland European Parliament constituency until the 31st January 2020 when the U.K. left the EU. Seven Members of the European Parliament (MEP)s were elected using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation. In the last European Election Scotland voted, it returned three SNP MEPs, one Liberal Democrat MEP, one Conservative and Unionist MEP and one Brexit Party MEP, to the European Parliament.
Winston Churchill served as one of two MPs for Dundee from 1908 to 1922.
On 18 September 2014, Dundee was one of four council areas to vote "Yes" in the Scottish independence referendum, with 57.3% voting "Yes" on a 78.8% turnout. With the highest Yes vote for any local authority in Scotland, some in the Yes Scotland campaign nicknamed Dundee the 'Yes City', including former First Minister Alex Salmond.
Dundee sits on the north bank of the Firth of Tay on the eastern, North Sea Coast of Scotland. The city lies NNE of Edinburgh and NNW of London. The built-up area occupies a roughly rectangular shape long by wide, aligned in an east to west direction and occupies an area of . The town is bisected by a line of hills stretching from Balgay Hill (elevation of 143 m) in the west end of the city, through the Dundee Law (174 m) which occupies the centre of the built up area, to Gallow Hill (83 m), between Baxter Park and the Eastern Cemetery. North of this ridge lies a valley through which cuts the Dighty Water burn, the elevation falling to around 45 m. North of the Dighty valley lie the Sidlaw Hills, the most prominent hill being Craigowl Hill (455 m).
The western and eastern boundaries of the city are marked by two burns that are tributaries of the River Tay. On the western-most boundary of the city, the Lochee burn meets the Fowlis burn, forming the Invergowrie burn, which meets the Tay at Invergowrie basin. The Dighty Water enters Dundee from the village of Strathmartine and marks the boundaries of a number of northern districts of the city, joining the Tay between Barnhill and Monifieth. The Scouring burn in the west end of the city and Dens Burn in the east, both of which played important roles in the industrial development of the city, have now been culverted over.
The city lies within the Sidlaw-Ochil anticline, and the predominant bedrock type is Old Red Sandstone of the Arbuthnott-Garvock group. Differential weathering of a series of igneous intrusions has yielded a number of prominent hills in the landscape, most notably the Dundee Law (a late Silurian/early Devonian Mafic rock intrusion) and Balgay hill (a Felsic rock intrusion of similar age). In the east of the city, in Craigie and Broughty Ferry, the bedrock geology is of extrusive rocks, including mafic lava and tuff.
The land surrounding Dundee, particularly that in the lower lying areas to the west and east of the city, bears high quality soil that is particularly suitable for arable farming. It is predominantly of a brown forest soil type with some gleying, the lower parts being formed from raised beach sands and gravels derived from Old Red Sandstone and lavas.
Very little of pre-Reformation Dundee remains, the destruction suffered in the War of the Rough Wooing being almost total, with only scattered, roofless shells remaining. The area occupied by the medieval burgh of Dundee extends between East Port and West Port, which formerly held the gates to the walled city. The shoreline has been altered considerably since the early 19th century through development of the harbour area and land reclamation. Several areas on the periphery of the burgh saw industrial development with the building of textile mills from the end of the 18th century. Their placement was dictated by the need for a water supply for the modern steam powered machinery, and areas around the Lochee Burn (Lochee), Scouring Burn (Blackness) and Dens Burn (Dens Road area) saw particular concentrations of mills. The post war period saw expansion of industry to estates along the Kingsway.
Working class housing spread rapidly and without control throughout the Victorian era, particularly in the Hawkhill, Blackness Road, Dens Road and Hilltown areas. Despite the comparative wealth of Victorian Dundee as a whole, living standards for the working classes were very poor. A general lack of town planning coupled with the influx of labour during the expansion of the jute industry resulted in insanitary, squalid and cramped housing for much of the population. While gradual improvements and slum clearance began in the late 19th century, the building of the groundbreaking Logie housing estate marked the beginning of Dundee's expansion through the building of planned housing estates, under the vision of city architect James Thomson, whose legacy also includes the housing estate of Craigiebank and the beginnings of an improved transport infrastructure by planning the Kingsway bypass.
Modernisation of the city centre continued in the post-war period. The medieval Overgate was demolished in the early 1960s to make way for a shopping centre, followed by construction of the inner ring road and the Wellgate Shopping Centre. The Tay Road Bridge, completed in 1966 had as its northern landfall the docklands of central Dundee, and the new associated road system resulted in the city centre being cut off from the river. An acute shortage of housing in the late 1940s was addressed by a series of large housing estates built in the northern environs including the Fintry, Craigie, Charleston and Douglas areas in the 1950s and early 1960s. These were followed by increasingly cost-effective and sometimes poorly planned housing in throughout the 1960s. Much of this, in particular the high-rise blocks of flats at Lochee, Kirkton, Trottick, Whitfield, Ardler and Menzieshill, and the prefabricated Skarne housing blocks at Whitfield, have been demolished since the 1990s or are scheduled for future demolition.
The climate, like the rest of lowland Scotland, is Oceanic (Köppen-Geiger classification Cfb). Mean temperature and rainfall are typical for the east coast of Scotland, and with the city's sheltered estuarine position, mean daily maxima are slightly higher than coastal areas to the North, particularly in spring and summer. The summers are still chilly when compared with similar latitudes in continental Europe, something compensated for by the mild winters, similar to the rest of the British Isles. The nearest official Met Office weather station is Mylnefield, Invergowrie which is about west of the City Centre.
A record high of was recorded in July 2013. The warmest month was July 2006, with an average temperature of (average high , average low ). In an 'average' year the warmest day should reach , and in total just 1.63 days should equal or exceed a temperature of per year, illustrating the rarity of such warmth.
Dundee's recorded population reached a peak of 182,204 at the 1971 census.
According to the 2001 census, the City of Dundee had a population of 154,674. A more recent population estimate of the City of Dundee has been recorded at 156,561 in 2012. The demographic make-up of the population is much in line with the rest of Scotland. The age group from 30 to 44 forms the largest portion of the population (20%). The median age of males and females living in Dundee was 37 and 40 years, respectively, compared to 37 and 39 years for those in the whole of Scotland.
The place of birth of the town's residents was 94.16% United Kingdom (including 87.85% from Scotland), 0.42% Republic of Ireland, 1.33% from other European Union (EU) countries, and 3.09% from elsewhere in the world. The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 35.92% in full-time employment, 10.42% in part-time employment, 4.25% self-employed, 5.18% unemployed, 7.82% students with jobs, 4.73% students without jobs, 15.15% retired, 4.54% looking after home or family, 7.92% permanently sick or disabled, and 4.00% economically inactive for other reasons. Compared with the average demography of Scotland, Dundee has both low proportions of people born outside the United Kingdom and for people over 75 years old.
Natives of Dundee are called Dundonians and are often recognisable by their distinctive dialect of Scots as well as their accent, which most noticeably substitutes the monophthong /ɛ/ (pronounced "eh") in place of the diphthong /aj/ (pronounced "ai"). Dundee, and Scotland more generally, saw rapid population increase at end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, with the city's population increasing from 12,400 in 1751 to 30,500 in 1821. Of particular significance was an influx of Irish workers in the early to mid-19th century, attracted by the prospect of employment in the textiles industries. In 1851, 18.9% of people living in Dundee were of Irish birth.
The city has also attracted immigrants from Italy, fleeing poverty and famine, in the 19th century Jews, fleeing from the Russia controlled portions of partitioned Poland and from German occupation in the 20th. Today, Dundee has a sizeable ethnic minority population, and has around 4,000 Asian residents which is the fourth-largest Asian community in Scotland. The city also has 1.0% of residents from a Black/African/Caribbean background.
Dundee has a higher proportion of university students – one in seven of the population – than any other town in Europe, except Heidelberg. The 14.2% come from all around the world to attend the local universities and colleges. Dundee is a major attraction for Northern Irish students who make up 5% of the total student population. The city's universities are believed to hold the highest percentage of Northern Irish students outside of Northern Ireland and have a big impact on the local economy and culture. However, this has declined in recent years due to the increase of tuition fees for students elsewhere in the UK. Dundee also has a lot of students from abroad, mostly from the Republic of Ireland and other EU countries but with an increasing number from countries from the Far East and Nigeria.
The period following World War II was notable for the transformation of the city's economy. While jute still employed one-fifth of the working population, new industries were attracted and encouraged. NCR Corporation selected Dundee as the base of operations for the UK in late 1945, primarily because of the lack of damage the city had sustained in the war, good transport links and high productivity from long hours of sunshine. Production started in the year before the official opening of the plant on 11 June 1947. A fortnight after the 10th anniversary of the plant the 250,000th cash register was produced.
By the 1960s, NCR had become the principal employer of the city producing cash registers, and later ATMs, at several of its Dundee plants. The firm developed magnetic-strip readers for cash registers and produced early computers. Astral, a Dundee-based firm that manufactured and sold refrigerators and spin dryers was merged into Morphy Richards and rapidly expanded to employ over 1,000 people. The development in Dundee of a Michelin tyre-production facility helped to absorb the unemployment caused by the decline of the jute industry, particularly with the abolition of the jute control by the Board of Trade on 30 April 1969.
Employment in Dundee changed dramatically during the 1980s with the loss of nearly 10,000 manufacturing jobs due to closure of the shipyards, cessation of carpet manufacturing and the disappearance of the jute trade. To combat growing unemployment and declining economic conditions, Dundee was declared an Enterprise Zone in January 1984. In 1983, the first Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computers were produced in Dundee by Timex. In the same year the company broke production records, despite a sit-in by workers protesting against job cuts and plans to demolish one of the factory buildings to make way for a supermarket. Timex closed its Dundee plant in 1993 following an acrimonious six-month industrial dispute.
Dundee is a regional employment and education centre, with around 325,000 people within 30 minutes' drive of the city centre and 860,000 people within one hour. Many people from North East Fife, Angus and Perth and Kinross commute to the city. As of 2015, there were 395 employers who employed 250 or more staff; over a five-year period (2011–2015) the number of registered enterprises in Dundee increased by 20.9% from 2,655 to 3,210. The largest employers in the city are NHS Tayside, Dundee City Council, University of Dundee, Tayside Contracts, Tesco, D. C. Thomson & Co and BT.
Other employers include limited and private companies such as NCR, Michelin, Alliance Trust, Aviva, Royal Bank of Scotland, Asda, Stagecoach Strathtay, Tokheim, Scottish Citylink, Rochen Limited, C J Lang & Son (SPAR Scotland), Joinery and Timber Creations, HBOS, Debenhams, Xplore Dundee, and W. L. Gore and Associates. Between 2009 and 2014 the hardest-hit sectors, in terms of jobs, were Information and Communication, Construction and Manufacturing which each lost around 500 full-time jobs. By contrast, the Professional, Scientific and Technical sector saw an upsurge in jobs in addition to the Business Administration and Support Service sector which increased by approximately 1,000 full-time and 300 part-time jobs in the same six-year period. Gross median weekly earnings of full-time employees in Dundee in 2015 was £523.50; men received £563.40 and women £451.80. Gross weekly pay for all employees in Dundee has increased from £325.00 in 2000 to £380.00 in 2015.
The biomedical and biotechnology sectors, including start-up biomedical companies arising from university research, employ just under 1,000 people directly and nearly 2,000 indirectly. Information technology and video game development have been important industries in the city for more than 20 years. Rockstar North, developer of "Lemmings" and the "Grand Theft Auto" series was founded in Dundee as DMA Design by David Jones; an undergraduate of the Abertay University. Other game development studios in Dundee include Denki, Ruffian Games, Dynamo Games, 4J Studios and Outplay Entertainment, among others.
Dundee is also a key retail destination for North East Scotland and has been ranked 4th in Retail Rankings in Scotland. The city centre offers a wide variety of retailers, department stores and independent/specialist stores. The Murraygate and High Street forms the main pedestrian area and is home to a number of main anchors such as Marks and Spencer, Accessorise and Zara. The main pedestrian area also connects the two large shopping centres; the Overgate Centre which is anchored by Debenhams, H&M, Next, Argos, and The Perfume Shop and the Wellgate Centre by Home Bargains, T. J. Hughes, B&M, Superdrug, Iceland, Holland & Barrett, Poundland, Savers, The Works, Hydro Electric, Bright house, Other retail areas in the city include Gallagher Retail Park, Kingsway East Retail Park and Kingsway West Retail Park.
The city and its landscape are dominated by The Law and the Firth of Tay. The Law, a large hill to the north of the City Centre was the site of an Iron Age Hill Fort, upon which the Law War Memorial, designed by Thomas Braddock, was erected in 1921 to commemorate the fallen of World War I. The waterfront, much altered by reclamation in the 19th century, retains several of the docks that once were the hub of the jute and whaling industries, including the Camperdown and Victoria Docks. The Victoria Dock is the home of the frigate HMS "Unicorn" and the North Carr Lightship, while Captain Scott's RRS "Discovery" occupies Craig Pier, from where the ferries to Fife once sailed.
The oldest building in the city is St Mary's Tower, which dates from the late 15th century. This forms part of the City Churches, which consist of St Clement's Church, dating to 1787–8 and built by Samuel Bell, Old St Paul's and St David's Church, built in 1841–42 by William Burn, and St Mary's Church, rebuilt in 1843–44, also by Burn, following a fire. Other significant churches in the city include the Gothic Revival Episcopal Cathedral of St Paul's, built by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1853 on the former site of Dundee Castle in the High Street, and the Catholic St. Andrew's Cathedral, built in 1835 by George Mathewson in Nethergate.
As a result of the destruction suffered during the Rough Wooing, little of the mediaeval city (aside from St Mary's Tower) remains and the earliest surviving domestic structures date from the Early Modern Era. A notable example is the Wishart Arch (or East Port) in Cowgate. It is the last surviving portion of the city walls. Dating from prior to 1548, it owes its continued existence to its association with the Protestant martyr George Wishart, who is said to have preached to plague victims from the East Port in 1544. Another is the building complex on the High Street known as Gardyne's Land, parts of which date from around 1560. The Howff burial ground in the northern part of the City Centre also dates from this time; it was given to the city by Mary Queen of Scots in 1564, having previously served as the grounds of a Franciscan abbey.
Several castles can be found in Dundee, mostly from the Early Modern Era. The earliest parts of Mains Castle in Caird Park were built by David Graham in 1562 on the site of a hunting lodge of 1460. Dudhope Castle, originally the seat of the Scrymgeour family, dates to the late 16th century and was built on the site of a keep of 1460. Claypotts Castle, a striking Z plan castle in West Ferry, was built by John Strachan and dates from 1569 to 1588. In 1495 Broughty Castle was built and remained in use as a major defensive structure until 1932, playing a role in the Anglo-Scottish Wars and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The castle stands on a shallow tip projecting into the Firth, alongside two beaches, one of sand, the other of pebbles. The ruins of Powrie Castle, north of Fintry, date from the 16th-century castle north.
North of the City Churches, at the end of Reform Street, lies the High School of Dundee, built in 1829–34 by George Angus in a Greek Revival style. Another school building of note is Morgan Academy on Forfar Road, built in 1863, designed by John Dick Peddie in a Dutch Gothic style.
Dundee's industrial history as a centre for textile production is apparent throughout the city. Numerous former jute mills remain standing and while some lay derelict, many have been converted for other uses. Of particular note are the Tay Works, built by the Gilroy Brothers c.1850–1865, Camperdown Works in Lochee, which built and owned by Cox Brothers, one of Europe's largest jute manufacturing companies, and begun in 1849, and Upper Dens Mill and Lower Dens Works, built by the Baxter Brothers in the mid-19th century.
A more recent landmark is the Tower Building of the University of Dundee built between 1959 and 1961. At the time of its construction only the Old Steeple was taller in the city. The Tower was built to replace the original college buildings which stood on the site. The building houses the university's main administration and includes galleries and the university's Archive, Records Management and Museum Services.
Many 1960s landmark multi-storey housing buildings were demolished in the late 2000s. The former Tayside House block, nicknamed 'Faulty Towers' by many local people, was demolished in 2013 as part of the waterfront redevelopment program. According to the architectural historian Charles McKean and his co-authors of Lost Dundee, the best views in the city were from Tayside House, because these were the only views from which the building itself could not be seen.
Dundee is served by the A90 road which connects the city to the M90 and Perth in the west, and Forfar and Aberdeen in the north. The part of the road that is in the city is a dual carriageway and forms the city's main bypass on its north side, known as the Kingsway. East of the A90's Forfar Road junction, the Kingsway East continues as the A972, and meets the A92 at the Scott Fyffe roundabout. Travelling east, the A92 connects the city to Arbroath and Montrose and to the south with Fife via the Tay Road Bridge.
The A930 links the city with coastal settlements to the east, including, Monifieth and Carnoustie. Progressing westward from where the A92 meets the Tay Road Bridge at the Riverside Roundabout, the A85 follows the southern boundary of the city along Riverside Drive and towards the A90 at the Swallow Roundabout. The A85 multiplexes with the A90 and diverges again at Perth.
Also meeting the A92 and A85 at the Riverside Roundabout is the A991 Inner Ring Road, which surrounds the perimeter of the city centre, returning to the A92 on the east side of the Tay Road Bridge. The A923 Dundee to Dunkeld road meets the A991 at the Dudhope Roundabout, and the A929 links the A991 to the A90 via Forfar Road.
Dundee has an extensive network of bus routes. The Seagate bus station is the city's main terminus for journeys out of town. Xplore Dundee operates most of the intra-city services, with other more rural services operated by Stagecoach Strathtay. The city's two railway stations are the main Dundee station near the waterfront, which has now finished re-construction as part of the waterfront re-development program, and the much smaller Broughty Ferry station at the eastern end of the city.
There are other nearby stations at Invergowrie, Balmossie and Monifieth. Passenger services at Dundee are provided by Abellio ScotRail, CrossCountry, Caledonian Sleeper and London North Eastern Railway. No freight trains serve the city since the Freightliner terminal in Dundee was closed in the 1980s. There are also many intercity bus services offered by Megabus, Citylink and National Express.
Dundee Airport offers commercial flights to London Stansted Airport. Flights to Birmingham Airport and Belfast City were discontinued in December 2012. The airport is capable of serving small aircraft and is located west of the city centre, adjacent to the River Tay. The nearest major international airport is Edinburgh Airport, to the south.
The nearest international passenger seaport is Newcastle.
The cargo port of Dundee is one of the largest economic generators in the city and is operated by Forth Ports. Seafarers arriving at the port are offered welfare and pastoral assistance by seafarers charity Apostleship of the Sea.
Dundee is home to two universities and a student population of approximately 20,000.
The University of Dundee became an independent entity in 1967, after 70 years of being incorporated into the University of St Andrews. It was founded in 1881 by Mary Ann Baxter and her distant cousin John Boyd Baxter as University College, Dundee, and teaching began in 1883. It fully merged with the University of St Andrews in 1897 and was reorganised as Queen's College, Dundee in 1954. Significant research in biomedical fields is carried out in the School of Life Sciences. The University is also home to Dundee Law School, situated in the Scrymgeour Building on the main campus and the School of Medicine, based at the city's Ninewells Hospital. The university also incorporates the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and the teacher training college.
Abertay University was founded as Dundee Institute of Technology in 1888. Previously, the buildings formed Bell Street Technical College, a further education college. It was granted university status in 1994 under the Further and Higher Education Act, 1992. The university is noted for its computing and creative technology courses, particularly in the fields of computer games technology and cyber-security. Notable alumni include David Jones, founder of DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North), Sir Brian Souter, founder of Stagecoach, and Lord Iain McNicol, former General Secretary of the Labour Party.
Dundee College is the city's umbrella further education college, which was established in 1985 as an institution of higher education and vocational training. As of 2013, it merged with Angus College in Arbroath, to become Dundee and Angus College (D&A College).
The Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education was established in Dundee in Blackness Road in 2002. It is a research-led institution of higher education which are currently offering programmes accredited by SQA in the study of Islam and Muslims, Arabic language and Islamic Economics and Finance. It is an independent institution. It is named after its patron, Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Schools in Dundee have a pupil enrolment of over 20,300. There are 37 primary state schools and 8 secondary state schools in the city. There are 11 primary and 2 secondary Roman Catholic denominational schools which, as in the rest of Scotland, are open to children of all denominations. The remainder are non-denominational. There is also one specialist school that caters for pupils with learning difficulties aged between five and 18 from Dundee and the surrounding area.
Dundee has one independent school, the High School of Dundee, which was founded in the 13th century by the Abbot and monks of Lindores Abbey. The current building was designed by George Angus in a Greek Revival style and built in 1832–34. Notable students in the early modern period included Thomas Thomson, Hector Boece, and the brothers James, John and Robert Wedderburn who were the authors of "The Gude and Godlie Ballatis", used early in the Scottish Reformation as a vehicle to spread Protestant theology. It was the earliest reformed school in Scotland, having adopted the new religion in 1554. According to Blind Harry's largely apocryphal work "The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace", William Wallace was also educated in Dundee.
The Church of Scotland Presbytery of Dundee is responsible for overseeing the worship of 37 congregations in and around the Dundee area, although changing population patterns have led to some of the churches becoming linked charges. Due to their city centre location, the City Churches, Dundee Parish Church (St Mary's) and the Steeple Church, are the most prominent Church of Scotland buildings in Dundee. They are on the site of the medieval parish kirk of St Mary, of which only the 15th-century west tower survives. The attached church was once the largest parish church in medieval Scotland.
Dundee was unusual among Scottish medieval burghs in having two parish kirks; the second, dedicated to St Clement, has disappeared, but its site was approximately that of the present City Square. Other presbyterian groups include the Free Church which meet at St. Peters (the historic church of Robert Murray M'Cheyne) where prominent theologians David Robertson and Sinclair B. Ferguson regularly preach.
In the Middle Ages Dundee was also the site of houses of the Dominicans (Blackfriars), and Franciscans (Greyfriars), and had a number of hospitals and chapels. These establishments were sacked during the Scottish Reformation, in the mid-16th century, and were reduced to burial grounds, now Barrack Street (also referred to as the Dek-tarn street) and The Howff burial ground, respectively.
St. Paul's Cathedral is the seat of the Scottish Episcopal Diocese of Brechin. It is charged with overseeing the worship of 9 congregations in the city, as well as a further 17 in Angus, the Carse of Gowrie and parts of Aberdeenshire. The diocese is led by Bishop Nigel Peyton. St. Andrew's Cathedral is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dunkeld, led by Bishop Stephen Robson. The diocese is responsible for overseeing 15 congregations in Dundee and 37 in the surrounding area, including St Mary, Our Lady of Victories Church in the city.
There are Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, United Reformed Church, Pentecostalist and Salvation Army churches in the city, and non-mainstream Christian groups are also well represented, including the Unitarians, the Society of Friends, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Christadelphians, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Muslims are served by the Dundee Central Mosque built in 2000 to replace their former premises on the Hilltown. There are three other mosques in the city including;
Jamia Masjid Tajdare Madina on Victoria Road, Jame Masjid Bilal on Dura Street and Al Maktoum Mosque on Wilkie's Lane. Alongside these there is an Islamic Society on the University of Dundee campus.
The Sikh community is served by the Guru Nanak Gurdwara on Victoria Road, which serves its community in Dundee.
A recorded Jewish community has existed in the city since the early 19th century. There is a small Orthodox synagogue at Dudhope Park that was built in the 1960s, with the Hebrew Burial Grounds located three miles (5 km) to the east. Dundee Buddhist Group is a Buddhist Temple based in Reform Street. There is also a Hindu mandir in Taylor's Lane situated in the West End of the city.
Dundee made a bid to be named the 2017 UK City of Culture, and on 19 June 2013 was named as one of the four short-listed cities alongside Hull, Leicester and Swansea Bay. Ultimately, Dundee's bid was unsuccessful, with Hull winning the contest. Dundee came in fifth place in a newspaper survey regarding numbers of cultural venues in the United Kingdom, ahead of other Scottish cities.
Dundee bid to become the European Capital of Culture in 2023 but due to the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union in June 2016, Dundee's bid, along with those of other British cities submitting bids, was discontinued by the European Commission.
The city's main museum and art gallery, McManus Galleries, is in Albert Square. The exhibits include work by James McIntosh Patrick, Alberto Morrocco and David McClure amongst the collection of fine and decorative art, items from Dundee's history and natural history artefacts.
Dundee Contemporary Arts (abbreviated DCA) opened in 1999 is an international art centre in the Nethergate close to Dundee Rep, which houses two contemporary art galleries, a two-screen arthouse cinema, a print studio, a visual research centre and a café bar.
Britain's only full-time public observatory, Mills Observatory at the summit of the city's Balgay Hill, was given to the city by linen manufacturer and keen amateur scientist John Mills in 1935.
Sensation Science Centre in the Greenmarket is a science centre based on the five senses with a series of interactive shows and exhibits. Verdant Works is a museum dedicated to the once dominant jute industry in Dundee and is based in a former jute mill.
The University of Dundee also runs several public museums and galleries, including the D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum and the Tayside Medical History Museum. The university, through Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design also offers the Cooper Gallery for contemporary art, and its archives including: the abcD (artists' books collection Dundee); the REWIND Archive (video art collection); and the Richard Demarco Digital Archive.
The V&A Dundee Museum of Design opened in September 2018 and is built south of Craig Harbour onto the River Tay in a building designed by Kengo Kuma. It was officially opened by the Earl and Countess of Strathearn in 2019. It is the centrepiece of the city's waterfront redevelopment. The new museum may bring another 500,000 extra visitors to the city and create up to 900 jobs.
The city's archival records are mostly kept by two archives: Dundee City Archives, operated by Dundee City Council and the University of Dundee's Archive Services.
Dundee City Archives holds the official records of the city and of the former Tayside Regional Council. The archive also holds the records of various people, groups and organisations connected to the city. The university's Archive Services hold a wide range of material relating to the university and its predecessor institutions and to individuals associated with the university, such as D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. Archive Services also holds the archives of several individuals, businesses and organisations based in Dundee and the surrounding area. The records held include a substantial number of business archives relating to the jute and linen industry in Dundee; records of other businesses including the archives of the Alliance Trust and the department store G. L. Wilson; the records of the Brechin Diocese of the Scottish Episcopal Church; and the NHS Tayside Archive. The same archive also holds the Michael Peto collection which includes thousands of the photojournalist's photographs, negatives, slides, publications and papers.
Dundee has a strong literary heritage, with several authors having been born, lived or studied in the city. These include A. L. Kennedy, Rosamunde Pilcher, Kate Atkinson, Thomas Dick, Mary Shelley, Mick McCluskey, John Burnside and Neil Forsyth. The Dundee International Book Prize is a biennial competition open to new authors, offering a prize of £10,000 and publication by Polygon Books. Past winners have included: Andrew Murray Scott, Claire-Marie Watson and Malcolm Archibald. William McGonagall, regularly cited as the "world's worst poet", worked and wrote in the city, often giving performances of his work in pubs and bars. Many of his poems are about the city and events therein, such as his work "The Tay Bridge Disaster".
Dundee's poetic heritage is represented by the 2013 poetry anthology "Whaleback City"' edited by W. N. Herbert and Andy Jackson (Dundee University Press) containing poems by McGonagall, Don Paterson, Douglas Dunn, John Burnside and many others. City of Recovery Press was founded in Dundee, and has become a controversial figure in documenting the darker side of the city.
The Dundee Mountain Film Festival (DMFF), held in the last weekend of November, presents the best presenters and films of the year in mountaineering, mountain culture and adventure sport, along with an art and trade exhibition.
DMFF is also one of the members of International Alliance for Mountain Film (IAMF) among other important international mountain film festivals.
Dundee Contemporary Arts hosts an annual horror film festival called "Dundead", which started in 2011.
The city also has two Multiplex cinemas, Odeon and Cineworld.
Dundee is home to a full-time repertory ensemble, which originated in 1939. One of its alumni, Hollywood actor Brian Cox, is a native of the city. The Dundee Repertory Theatre, built in 1982, is also the base for the Scottish Dance Theatre company.
Dundee's principal concert auditorium, the Caird Hall (named after its benefactor, the jute baron James Key Caird) in the City Square regularly hosts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Various smaller venues host local and international musicians during Dundee's annual Jazz, Guitar and Blues Festivals.
Dundee has hosted the National Mod a number of times – 1902, 1913, 1937, 1959 and 1974.
Dundee also hosted BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend back in 2006 and was due to host for a second time in 2020 but it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this, there is speculation that the city will host the 2021 festival.
Popular music groups such as the 1970s soul-funk outfit Average White Band, the Associates, the band Spare Snare, Danny Wilson, The Hazey Janes, and the Indie rock bands The View and The Law are from Dundee. Musician, songwriter and performer Michael Marra was born and raised in Dundee. Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue and singer-songwriter KT Tunstall are former pupils of the High School of Dundee, although Tunstall is not a native of the city. The Northern Irish indie rock band Snow Patrol was formed by students at the University of Dundee. Brian Molko, lead singer of Placebo, grew up in the city as did Ian Cussick, singer of Lake. At the end of June, Dundee hosts an annual blues festival known as the "Dundee Blues Bonanza".
Dundee is home to DC Thomson & Son Ltd, established in 1905, which produces over 200 million magazines, newspapers and comics every year; these include "The Beano", "The Dandy" and "The Press and Journal".
Dundee is home to one of eleven BBC Scotland broadcasting centres, located within the Nethergate Centre. STV North's Tayside news and advertising operations are based in the Seabraes area of the city, from where an "STV News Tayside" opt-out bulletin is broadcast, (though not on Digital Satellite), within the nightly regional news programme, "STV News at Six". The city also had a community internet TV station called The Dundee Channel which was launched on 1 September 2009.
The city has three local radio stations. Radio Tay was launched on 17 October 1980. The station split frequencies in January 1995 launching Tay FM for a younger audience and Tay 2 playing classic hits. In 1999, Discovery 102 was launched, later to be renamed Wave 102 following a claim by The Discovery Channel that the station could mistakenly be linked to its brand.
Dundee has two professional football clubs: Dundee, founded in 1893, and Dundee United, founded in 1909 as Dundee Hibernian. Both teams currently play in the Scottish Championship. Their grounds Dens Park and Tannadice Park are just 100 metres apart, closer together than any other football stadiums in the UK. The Dundee derby is one of the most highly anticipated fixtures in Scottish football. Dundee is one of four British cities to have produced two European Cup semi-finalists. Dundee lost to A.C. Milan in 1963 and Dundee United lost to A.S. Roma in 1984. Dundee also reached the semi-finals of the forerunner to the UEFA Cup in 1968 and Dundee United were runners-up in the UEFA Cup in 1987. There are also seven junior football teams in the area: Dundee North End, East Craigie, Lochee Harp, Lochee United, Dundee Violet, Broughty Athletic and Downfield.
Dundee Stars, the main ice hockey team, play at the Dundee Ice Arena. The team joined the Elite League in the 2010/2011 season. They are one of three professional ice hockey teams in Scotland, and play against teams from England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the Elite League. in the 2013/2014 season, Dundee Stars won the Gardiner Conference trophy, their only one to date. The majority of the players are from Canada and the United States. Omar Pacha is the current head coach and general manager of the Dundee Stars. There are also two amateur ice hockey teams, Dundee Tigers and Dundee Comets, who both play in the Scottish National League.
The city is also home to six rugby union teams. Dundee High School Former Pupils play in Scottish National League Division One, the second tier of Scottish club rugby. The remainder of the teams compete in the Caledonia Regional League – Harris Academy FP play in Caledonia Division One, Morgan Academy FP and Panmure in Caledonia Division Two Midlands, Dundee University Medics and Stobswell in Caledonia Division Three Midlands.
Local sports clubs include Dundee Handball Club, Grove Menzieshill Hockey Club; Dundee Wanderers Hockey Club, Dundee Northern Lights floorball club, Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, Dundee City Aquatics, Dundee Hurricanes and Dundee & Angus Radio Controlled Car Klub (DARCCK).
The new £36 million Olympia leisure centre with multi-storey car park was scheduled to open in late 2012, but only three weeks from the original opening date, the date was pushed back by a further six months.
There is a velodrome, Caird Park Velodrome.
Dundee and the surrounding area is supplied with water by Scottish Water. Dundee, along with parts of Perthshire and Angus is supplied from Lintrathen and Backwater reservoirs in Glen Isla. Electricity distribution is by Scottish Hydro Electric plc, part of the Scottish and Southern Energy group.
Waste management is handled by Dundee City Council. There is a kerbside recycling scheme that currently only serves 15,500 households in Dundee. Cans, glass and plastic bottles are collected on a weekly basis. Compostable material and non-recyclable material are collected on alternate weeks. Paper is collected for recycling on a four-weekly basis.
Recycling centres and points are at a number of locations in Dundee. Items accepted include steel and aluminium cans, cardboard, paper, electrical equipment, engine oil, fridges and freezers, garden waste, gas bottles, glass, liquid food and drinks cartons, plastic bottles, plastic carrier bags, rubble, scrap metal, shoes and handbags, spectacles, textiles, tin foil, wood and yellow pages. Recent figures taken in 2008, suggest the city council has a recycling rate of 36.1%.
Law enforcement is provided by Police Scotland. The headquarters of the Dundee Branch of Police Scotland is situated in West Bell Street. There are also four police stations which serve the city: Maryfield, Lochee, Downfield and Longhaugh.
Healthcare is supplied in the area by NHS Tayside. Ninewells Hospital, is the only hospital with an accident and emergency department in the area. Primary Health Care in Dundee is supplied by a number of General Practices. Dundee is also served by the East Central Region of the Scottish Ambulance Service which covers the city, Tayside and Kingdom of Fife. There is one ambulance station for the city; on West School Road.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service operate three fire stations, covering the city and surrounding villages. The main station is at Blackness Road and there is a control room at Macalpine Road fire station.
Chronologically: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8828 |
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Do Not Adjust Your Set (DNAYS) was a British television series produced originally by Rediffusion, London, then, by the fledgling Thames Television for British commercial television channel ITV from 26 December 1967 to 14 May 1969. The show took its name from the message (frequently seen on the TV screen in those days) which was displayed when there was a problem with transmission.
It included early appearances of Denise Coffey, David Jason, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin; the last three became members of the Monty Python comedy troupe soon afterwards. Although originally conceived as a children's programme, it quickly acquired a following amongst many adults, including future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman (as mentioned by Cleese himself in the stage performance tour "Paying My Ex-Wife", in October 2010).
Satirical comedy/art/pop group The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band also performed a song or two in each programme and frequently appeared as extras in sketches. The programme itself comprised a series of frequently satirical sketches, often presented in a bizarre, surreal and disjointed style which anticipates "Monty Python's Flying Circus", which followed five months after the last episode of "DNAYS". Strange animations between sketches were crafted for the final episodes by the then-unknown Terry Gilliam, who soon graduated to "Python" with Palin, Jones and Idle – part of Gilliam's "Christmas cards" animation reappeared there in the "Joy to the World" segment.
One long-running feature of the show was "Captain Fantastic", a superhero parody featuring David Jason in improbable and even macabre adventures against villainess Mrs. Black (Coffey). These segments were shot entirely on film, on location in London. The feature was so popular with the young audience that after DNAYS itself ended Captain Fantastic briefly continued in its own right.
In 1968, DNAYS won an international award, the Prix Jeunesse, in Munich.
Nine of the 14 episodes from the first (Rediffusion) series were released on DVD in the UK and the US in August 2005. Both releases use the same NTSC Region 0 discs made from telerecordings of the original videotapes. In this DVD release, the episodes are renumbered 1 to 9, although, in fact they are episodes 1-2, 5-6, and 9-13 from series 1 (a similar fault was made on the release of "At Last the 1948 Show"). The sole surviving episode from series 2 and "Do Not Adjust Your Stocking" were not included. Contrary to claims on the packaging, Terry Gilliam's animations also do not appear on this release, although Gilliam does appear as one of the additional writers in the credits for episodes three and four. The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band are seen playing their song "Death Cab for Cutie" (also performed in the Beatles' film "Magical Mystery Tour") on the DVD, Episode 7.
The British Film Institute released a comprehensive DVD release of the surviving material on 16 September 2019. This includes the surviving episodes from both series, including the 4th episode of the first series which was only discovered after the earlier release, from a copy sent to the jury of the Prix de Jeunesse award. The surviving copy is on a semi-professional videotape copy made in the Thames era, and is thus the only series 1 episode with magnetic rather than optical sound quality. The BFI release features episodes in their original numbering, and includes the Christmas special, together with some Terry Gilliam animations that appeared in otherwise lost episodes and were restored from Gilliam's own masters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8829 |
West Memphis Three
The West Memphis Three are three men known for being convicted as teenagers in 1994, of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the juveniles killed the children as part of a Satanic ritual.
The case generated widespread controversy and was the subject of several documentaries. Celebrities and musicians have held fundraisers to support efforts to free the men, who they say are innocent.
In July 2007, new forensic evidence was presented, and a report jointly issued by the state and the defense team stated: "Although most of the genetic material recovered from the scene was attributable to the victims of the offenses, some of it cannot be attributed to either the victims or the defendants."
Following a 2010 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court regarding newly produced DNA evidence and potential juror misconduct, the West Memphis Three negotiated a plea bargain with prosecutors. On August 19, 2011, they entered Alford pleas, which allowed them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict them. Judge David Laser accepted the pleas and sentenced the three to time served. They were released with 10-year suspended sentences, having served 18 years.
On May 5, 1993, three eight-year-old boys—Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers—were reported missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. The first report to the police was made by Byers' adoptive father, John Mark Byers, around 7:00 pm. The boys were allegedly last seen together by three neighbors, who in affidavits told of seeing them playing together around 6:30 pm the evening they disappeared, and seeing Terry Hobbs, Steve Branch's stepfather, calling them to come home. Initial police searches made that night were limited. Friends and neighbors also conducted a search that night, which included a cursory visit to the location where the bodies were later found.
A more thorough police search for the children began around 8:00 am on May 6, led by the Crittenden County Search and Rescue personnel. Searchers canvassed all of West Memphis but focused primarily on Robin Hood Hills, where the boys were reported last seen. Despite a shoulder-to-shoulder search of Robin Hood Hills by a human chain, searchers found no sign of the missing boys.
Around 1:45 pm, juvenile Parole Officer Steve Jones spotted a boy's black shoe floating in a muddy creek that led to a major drainage canal in Robin Hood Hills. A subsequent search of the ditch revealed the bodies of three boys. They had been stripped naked and were hogtied with their own shoelaces: their right ankles tied to their right wrists behind their backs, the same with their left arms and legs. Their clothing was found in the creek, some of it twisted around sticks that had been thrust into the muddy ditch bed. The clothing was mostly turned inside-out; two pairs of the boys' underwear were never recovered. Christopher Byers had lacerations to various parts of his body, and mutilation of his scrotum and penis.
The autopsies, by the forensic pathologist Frank J. Peretti, indicated that Byers died of "multiple injuries", while Moore and Branch died of "multiple injuries with drowning".
Police initially suspected the boys had been raped; however, later expert testimony disputed this finding. Trace amounts of sperm DNA were found on a pair of pants recovered from the scene. Prosecution experts claim Byers' wounds were the results of a knife attack and that he had been purposely castrated by the murderer; defense experts claim the injuries were more probably the result of post-mortem animal predation. Police believed the boys were assaulted and killed at the location where they were found; critics argued that the assault, at least, was unlikely to have occurred at the creek.
Byers was the only victim with drugs in his system; he was prescribed Ritalin (methylphenidate) in January 1993, as part of treatment of an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The initial autopsy report describes the drug as Carbamazepine, and that dosage was found to be at sub-therapeutic level. His father John Mark Byers said that Christopher may not have taken his prescription on May 5, 1993.
Stevie Edward Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, were all second graders at Weaver Elementary School. Each had achieved the rank of "Wolf" in the local Cub Scout pack, and they were best friends.
Stevie Branch was the son of Steven and Pamela Branch, who divorced when he was an infant. His mother was awarded custody and later married Terry Hobbs. Branch was eight years old, 4 ft. 2 tall, weighed 65 lbs, and had blond hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and riding a black and red bicycle. He was an honor student. He lived with his mother, Pamela Hobbs, his stepfather, Terry Hobbs, and a four-year-old half-sister, Amanda. Steve Edward Branch is buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Steele, Missouri.
Christopher Byers was born to Melissa DeFir and Ricky Murray. His parents divorced when he was four years old; shortly afterward, his mother married John Mark Byers, who adopted the boy. Byers was eight years old, 4 ft. tall, weighed 52 lbs, and had light brown hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, dark shoes, and a white long-sleeved shirt. He lived with his mother, Sharon Melissa Byers, his adoptive father, John Mark Byers, and his stepbrother, Shawn Ryan Clark, aged 13. According to his mother, Christopher was a typical eight-year-old. "He still believed in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus". Christopher Mark Byers is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery East in Memphis, Tennessee.
Michael Moore was the son of Todd and Dana Moore. He was eight years old, 4 ft. 2 tall, weighed 55 lbs, and had brown hair. He was last seen wearing blue pants, a blue Boy Scouts of America shirt, and an orange and blue Boy Scout hat, and riding a light green bicycle. Moore enjoyed wearing his scout uniform even when he was not at meetings. He was considered the leader of the three. He lived with his parents and his nine-year-old sister, Dawn. James Michael Moore is buried in Crittenden Memorial Park Cemetery in Marion, Arkansas.
In 1994, a memorial was erected for the three murder victims. The memorial is located in the playground of Weaver Elementary School in West Memphis, where all three victims were second graders at the time of the crime. In May 2013, for the 20th anniversary of the slayings, Weaver Elementary School principal Sheila Grissom raised funds to refurbish the memorial.
At the time of their arrests, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was 17 years old, Jason Baldwin was 16 years old, and Damien Echols was 18 years old.
Baldwin and Echols had been previously arrested for vandalism and shoplifting, respectively, and Misskelley had a reputation for his temper and for engaging in fistfights with other teenagers at school. Misskelley and Echols had dropped out of high school; however, Baldwin earned high grades and demonstrated a talent for drawing and sketching, and was encouraged by one of his teachers to study graphic design in college. Echols and Baldwin were close friends, and bonded over their similar tastes in music and fiction, and over their shared distaste for the prevailing cultural climate of West Memphis, situated in the Bible Belt. Baldwin and Echols were acquainted with Misskelley from school, but were not close friends with him.
Echols' family was poor and received frequent visits from social workers, and he rarely attended school. He and a girlfriend had run off and later broken into a trailer during a rain storm; they were arrested, though only Echols was charged with burglary.
Echols spent several months in a mental institution in Arkansas and afterward received "full disability" status from the Social Security Administration. During Echols' trial, Dr. George W. Woods testified (for the defense) that Echols suffered from:
serious mental illness characterized by grandiose and persecutory delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, disordered thought processes, substantial lack of insight, and chronic, incapacitating mood swings.
At his death penalty sentencing hearing, Echols' psychologist reported that months before the murders, Echols had claimed that he obtained super powers by drinking human blood. At the time of his arrest, Echols was working part-time with a roofing company and expecting a child with his girlfriend, Domini Teer.
Early in the investigation, the WMPD briefly regarded two West Memphis teenagers as suspects. Chris Morgan and Brian Holland, both with drug offense histories, had abruptly departed for Oceanside, California, four days after the bodies were discovered. Morgan was presumed to be at least casually familiar with all three murdered boys, having previously driven an ice cream truck route in their neighborhood.
Arrested in Oceanside on May 17, 1993, Morgan and Holland both took polygraph exams administered by California police. Examiners reported that both men's charts indicated deception when they denied involvement in the murders. During subsequent questioning, Morgan claimed a long history of drug and alcohol use, along with blackouts and memory lapses. He claimed that he "might have" killed the victims but quickly recanted this part of his statement.
California police sent blood and urine samples from Morgan and Holland to the WMPD, but there is no indication WMPD investigated Morgan or Holland as suspects following their arrest in California. The relevance of Morgan's recanted statement would later be debated in trial, but it was eventually barred from admission as evidence.
The citing of a black male as a possible alternate suspect was implied during the beginning of the Misskelley trial. According to local West Memphis police officers, on the evening of May 5, 1993, at 8:42 pm, workers in the Bojangles' restaurant located about a mile from the crime scene in Robin Hood Hills reported seeing a black male who seemed "mentally disoriented" inside the restaurant's ladies' room. The man was bleeding and had brushed against the restroom walls. Officer Regina Meeks responded to the call, taking the restaurant manager's report through the eatery's drive-through window. By then, the man had left, and police did not enter the restroom on that date.
The day after the victims' bodies were found, Bojangles' manager Marty King, thinking there was a possible connection to the bloody man found in the bathroom, reported the incident to police officers who then inspected the ladies' room. King gave the officers a pair of sunglasses he thought the man had left behind, and the detectives took some blood samples from the walls and tiles of the restroom. Police detective Bryn Ridge testified that he later lost those blood scrapings. A hair identified as belonging to a black male was later recovered from a sheet wrapped around one of the victims.
Police officers James Sudbury and Steve Jones felt that the crime had "cult" overtones, and that Damien Echols might be a suspect because he had an interest in occultism, and Jones felt Echols was capable of murdering children. The police interviewed Echols on May 7, two days after the bodies were discovered. During a polygraph examination, he denied any involvement. The polygraph examiner claimed that Echols' chart indicated deception. On May 9, during a formal interview by Detective Bryn Ridge, Echols mentioned that one of the victims had wounds to the genitals; law enforcement viewed this knowledge as incriminating.
After a month had passed with little progress in the case, police continued to focus their investigation upon Echols, interrogating him more frequently than any other person. Nonetheless, they claimed he was not regarded as a direct suspect but a source of information.
On June 3, the police interrogated Jessie Misskelley, Jr. Despite his reported IQ of 72 (categorizing him as borderline intellectual functioning) and his status as a minor, Miskelley was questioned alone; his parents were not present during the interrogation. Misskelley's father gave permission for Misskelley to go with police but did not explicitly give permission for his son to be questioned or interrogated. Misskelley was questioned for roughly 12 hours. Only two segments, totaling 46 minutes, were recorded. Misskelley quickly recanted his confession, citing intimidation, coercion, fatigue, and veiled threats from police. Misskelley specifically said he was "scared of the police" during this confession.
Though he was informed of his Miranda rights, Misskelley later claimed he did not fully understand them. In 1996, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that Misskelley's confession was voluntary and that he did, in fact, understand the Miranda warning and its consequences. Portions of Misskelley's statements to the police were leaked to the press and reported on the front page of the Memphis "Commercial Appeal" before any of the trials began.
Shortly after Misskelley's first confession, police arrested Echols and his close friend Baldwin. Eight months after his original confession, on February 17, 1994, Misskelley made another statement to police. His lawyer, Dan Stidham, remained in the room and continually advised Misskelley not to say anything. Misskelley ignored this advice and went on to detail how the boys were abused and murdered. Stidham, who was later elected to a municipal judgeship, has written a detailed critique of what he asserts are major police errors and misconceptions during their investigation. Stidham made similar comments during a radio show interview in May 2010.
Vicki Hutcheson, a new resident of West Memphis, would play an important role in the investigation, though she would later recant her testimony, claiming her statements were fabricated due in part to coercion from police.
On May 6, 1993 (before the victims were found later the same day), Hutcheson took a polygraph exam by Detective Don Bray at the Marion Police Department, to determine whether or not she had stolen money from her West Memphis employer. Hutcheson's young son, Aaron, was also present, and proved such a distraction that Bray was unable to administer the polygraph. Aaron, a playmate of the murdered boys', mentioned to Bray that the boys had been killed at "the playhouse." When the bodies proved to have been discovered near where Aaron indicated, Bray asked Aaron for further details, and Aaron claimed that he had witnessed the murders committed by Satanists who spoke Spanish. Aaron's further statements were wildly inconsistent, and he was unable to identify Baldwin, Echols, or Misskelley from photo line-ups, and there was no "playhouse" at the location Aaron indicated. A police officer leaked portions of Aaron's statements to the press contributing to the growing belief that the murders were part of a Satanic rite.
On or about June 1, 1993, Hutcheson agreed to police suggestions to place hidden microphones in her home during an encounter with Echols. Misskelley agreed to introduce Hutcheson to Echols. During their conversation, Hutcheson reported that Echols made no incriminating statements. Police said the recording was "inaudible", but Hutcheson claimed the recording was audible. On June 2, 1993, Hutcheson told police that about two weeks after the murders were committed, she, Echols, and Misskelley attended a Wiccan meeting in Turrell, Arkansas. Hutcheson claimed that, at the Wiccan meeting, a drunken Echols openly bragged about killing the three boys. Misskelley was first questioned on June 3, 1993, a day after Hutcheson's purported confession. Hutcheson was unable to recall the Wiccan meeting location and did not name any other participants in the purported meeting. Hutcheson was never charged with theft. She claimed she had implicated Echols and Misskelley to avoid facing criminal charges, and to obtain a reward for the discovery of the murderers.
Misskelley was tried separately, and Echols and Baldwin were tried together in 1994. Under the ""Bruton" rule", Misskelley's confession could not be admitted against his co-defendants; thus he was tried separately. All three defendants pleaded not guilty.
During Misskelley's trial, Richard Ofshe, an expert on false confessions and police coercion, and Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, testified that the brief recording of Misskelley's interrogation was a "classic example" of police coercion. Critics have also stated that Misskelley's various "confessions" were in many respects inconsistent with each other, as well as with the particulars of the crime scene and murder victims, including (for example) an "admission" that Misskelley watched Damien rape one of the boys. Police had initially suspected that the victims had been raped because their anuses were dilated. However, there was no forensic evidence indicating that the murdered boys had been raped. Dilation of the anus is a normal post-mortem condition.
On February 5, 1994, Misskelley was convicted by a jury of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. The court sentenced him to life plus 40 years in prison. His conviction was appealed, but the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
Three weeks later, Echols and Baldwin went on trial. The prosecution accused the three young men of committing a Satanic murder. The prosecution called Dale W. Griffis, a graduate of the unaccredited Columbia Pacific University, as an expert in the occult to testify the murders were a Satanic ritual. On March 19, 1994 Echols and Baldwin were found guilty on three counts of murder. The court sentenced Echols to death and Baldwin to life in prison.
At trial, the defense team argued that news articles from the time could have been the source for Echols' knowledge about the genital mutilation, and Echols said his knowledge was limited to what was "on TV".
The prosecution claimed that Echols' knowledge was nonetheless too close to the facts, since there was no public reporting of drowning or that one victim had been mutilated more than the others. Echols testified that Detective Ridge's description of their earlier conversation (which was not recorded) regarding those particular details was inaccurate (and indeed that some other claims by Ridge were "lies"). Mara Leveritt, an investigative journalist and the author of "Devil's Knot", argues that Echols' information may have come from police leaks, such as Detective Gitchell's comments to Mark Byers, that circulated amongst the local public. The defense team objected when the prosecution attempted to question Echols about his past violent behaviors, but the defense objections were overruled.
There has been widespread criticism of how the police handled the crime scene. Misskelley's former attorney Dan Stidham cites multiple substantial police errors at the crime scene, characterizing it as "literally trampled, especially the creek bed." The bodies, he said, had been removed from the water before the coroner arrived to examine the scene and determine the state of rigor mortis, allowing the bodies to decay on the creek bank and to be exposed to sunlight and insects. The police did not telephone the coroner until almost two hours after the discovery of the floating shoe, resulting in a late appearance by the coroner. Officials failed to drain the creek in a timely manner and secure possible evidence in the water (the creek was sandbagged after the bodies were pulled from the water).
Stidham calls the coroner's investigation "extremely substandard." There was a small amount of blood found at the scene that was never tested. According to HBO's documentaries "" (1996) and "" (2000), no blood was found at the crime scene, indicating that the location where the bodies were found was not necessarily the location where the murders actually happened. After the initial investigation, the police failed to control disclosure of information and speculation about the crime scene.
According to Leveritt, "Police records were a mess. To call them disorderly would be putting it mildly." Leveritt speculated that the small local police force was overwhelmed by the crime, which was unlike any they had ever investigated. Police refused an unsolicited offer of aid and consultation from the violent crimes experts of the Arkansas State Police, and critics suggested this was due to the WMPD's being under investigation by the Arkansas State Police for suspected theft from the Crittenden County drug task force. Leveritt further noted that some of the physical evidence was stored in paper sacks obtained from a supermarket (with the supermarket's name printed on the bags) rather than in containers of known and controlled origin.
When police speculated about the assailant, the juvenile probation officer assisting at the scene of the murders speculated that Echols was "capable" of committing the murders," stating: "it looks like Damien Echols finally killed someone."
Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist and criminal profiler, stated in the film "Paradise Lost 2" that human bite marks could have been left on at least one of the victims. However, these potential bite marks were first noticed in photographs years after the trials and were not inspected by a board-certified medical examiner until four years after the murders. The defense's expert testified that the mark in question was not an adult bite mark, while experts put on by the State concluded that there was no bite mark at all. The State's experts had examined the actual bodies for any marks, and others conducted expert photo analysis of injuries. Upon further examination, it was concluded that if the marks were bite marks, they did not match the teeth of any of the three convicted.
In May 1994, the three defendants appealed their convictions; the convictions were upheld on direct appeal. In June 1996, Misskelley's lawyer, Dan Stidham, was preparing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2007, Echols petitioned for a retrial, based on a statute permitting post-conviction testing of DNA evidence due to technological advances made since 1994 which might provide exoneration for the wrongfully convicted. However, the original trial judge, Judge David Burnett, disallowed presentation of this information in his court. This ruling was in turn thrown out by the Arkansas Supreme Court as to all three defendants on November 4, 2010.
John Mark Byers, the adoptive father of victim Christopher Byers, gave a knife to cameraman Doug Cooper, who was working with documentary makers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky while filming the first "" feature. The knife was a folding hunting knife manufactured by Kershaw. According to the statements given by Berlinger and Sinofsky, Cooper informed them of his receipt of the knife on December 19, 1993. After the documentary crew returned to New York, Berlinger and Sinofsky were reported to have discovered what appeared to be blood on the knife. HBO executives ordered them to return the knife to the West Memphis Police Department. The knife was not received at the West Memphis Police Department until January 8, 1994.
Byers initially claimed the knife had never been used. However, after blood was found on the knife, Byers stated that he had used it only once, to cut deer meat. When told the blood matched both his and Chris' blood type, Byers said he had no idea how that blood might have gotten on the knife. During interrogation, West Memphis police suggested to Byers that he might have left the knife out accidentally, and Byers agreed with this. Byers later stated that he may have cut his thumb. Further testing of the knife produced inconclusive results about the source of the blood. Uncertainty remained due to the small amount of blood and because both John Mark Byers and Chris Byers had the same HLA-DQα genotype.
Byers agreed to and passed a polygraph test about the murders during the filming of "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations", but the documentary indicated that Byers was under the influence of several psychoactive prescription medications that could have affected the test results.
Following their convictions, Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin submitted imprints of their teeth. These were compared to the alleged bite marks on Stevie Branch's forehead that had not been mentioned in the original autopsy or trial. No matches were found. John Mark Byers had his teeth removed in 1997, after the first trial but before an imprint could be made. His stated reasons for the removal are apparently contradictory. He has claimed both that the seizure medication he was taking caused periodontal disease, and that he planned the removal because of other kinds of dental problems which had troubled him for years.
After an expert examined autopsy photos and noted what he thought might be the imprint of a belt buckle on Byers' corpse, the elder Byers revealed to the police that he had spanked his stepson shortly before the boy disappeared.
In October 2003, Vicki Hutcheson, who had played a part in the arrests of Misskelley, Echols, and Baldwin, gave an interview to the "Arkansas Times" in which she stated that every word she had given to the police was a fabrication. She further asserted that the police had implied that if she did not cooperate with them they would take away her child. She said that when she visited the police station, employees had photographs of Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley on the wall and were using them as dart targets. She also claims that an audiotape the police said was "unintelligible" (and that they eventually lost) was perfectly clear and contained no incriminating statements.
In 2007, DNA collected from the crime scene was tested. None was found to match DNA from Echols, Baldwin, or Misskelley. A hair "not inconsistent with" Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs, was found tied into the knots used to bind one of the victims. The prosecutors, while conceding that no DNA evidence tied the accused to the crime scene, said: "The State stands behind its convictions of Echols and his codefendants." Pamela Hobbs' May 5, 2009 declaration in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Arkansas, Western Division indicates that "one hair was consistent with the hair of [Terry's] friend, David Jacoby" (Point 16), and:
In July 2008, it was revealed that Kent Arnold, the jury foreman on the Echols-Baldwin trial, had discussed the case with an attorney prior to the beginning of deliberations. Arnold was accused of advocating for the guilt of the West Memphis Three and sharing knowledge of inadmissible evidence, like the Jessie Misskelley statements, with other jurors. At the time, legal experts agreed that this issue could result in the reversal of the convictions of Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols.
In September 2008, attorney (now judge) Daniel Stidham, who represented Misskelley in 1994, testified at a postconviction relief hearing. Stidham testified under oath that during the trial, Judge David Burnett erred by making an improper communication with the jury during its deliberations. Stidham overheard Judge Burnett discuss taking a lunch break with the jury foreman and heard the foreman reply that the jury was almost finished. He testified Judge Burnett responded, "You'll need food for when you come back for sentencing," and that the foreman asked in return what would happen if the defendant was acquitted. Stidham said the judge closed the door without answering. He testified that his own failure to put this incident on the court record and his failure to meet the minimum requirements in state law to represent a defendant in a capital murder case was evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel and that Misskelley's conviction should therefore be vacated.
On October 29, 2007, papers were filed in federal court by Echols's defense lawyers seeking a retrial or his immediate release from prison. The filing cited DNA evidence linking Terry Hobbs (stepfather of one of the victims) to the crime scene, and new statements from Hobbs' now ex-wife. Also presented in the filing was new expert testimony that the supposed knife marks on the victims, including the injuries to Byers' genitals, were in fact the result of animal predation after the bodies had been dumped.
On September 10, 2008, Circuit Court Judge David Burnett denied the request for a retrial, citing the DNA tests as inconclusive. That ruling was appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the case on September 30, 2010.
On November 4, 2010, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered a lower judge to consider whether newly analyzed DNA evidence might exonerate the three. The justices also instructed the lower court to examine claims of misconduct by the jurors who sentenced Damien Echols to death and Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin to life in prison.
In early December 2010, David Burnett was elected to the Arkansas State Senate. Circuit Court Judge David Laser was selected to replace David Burnett and preside in the evidentiary hearings mandated by the successful appeal.
After weeks of negotiations, on August 19, 2011, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were released from prison as part of a plea deal, making the hearings ordered by the Arkansas Supreme Court unnecessary. The three entered into unusual Alford plea deals. The Alford plea is a legal mechanism that allows defendants to plead guilty while still asserting their actual innocence, in cases where defendants concede that prosecutors have sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. Stephen Braga, an attorney with Ropes & Gray who took up Echols's defense on a pro bono basis beginning in 2009, negotiated the plea agreement with prosecutors.
Under the deal, Judge David Laser vacated the previous convictions, including the capital murder convictions for Echols and Baldwin, and ordered a new trial. Each man then entered an Alford plea to lesser charges of first- and second-degree murder while verbally stating their innocence. Judge Laser then sentenced them to time served, a total of 18 years and 78 days, and they were each given a suspended imposition of sentence for 10 years. If they re-offend they can be sent back to prison for 21 years.
Factors cited by prosecutor Scott Ellington for agreeing to the plea deal included that two of the victims' families had joined the cause of the defense, that the mother of a witness who testified about Echols's confession had questioned her daughter's truthfulness, and that the State Crime Lab employee who collected fiber evidence at the Echols and Baldwin homes after their arrests had died. As part of the plea deal, the three men cannot pursue civil action against the state for wrongful imprisonment.
Many of the men's supporters, and opponents who still believe them guilty, were unhappy with the unusual plea deal. In 2011, supporters pushed Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe to pardon Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley based on their innocence. Beebe said he would deny the request unless there was evidence showing someone else committed the murders. Prosecutor Scott Ellington said the Arkansas state crime laboratory would help seek other suspects by running searches on any DNA evidence produced in private laboratory tests during the defense team's investigation. This would include running the results through the FBI's Combined DNA Index System database. Ellington said that, although he still considered the men guilty, the three would likely be acquitted if a new trial were held because of the powerful legal counsel representing them now, the loss of evidence over time, and the change of heart among some of the witnesses.
The families of the three victims are divided in their opinions as to the guilt or innocence of the West Memphis Three. In 2000, the biological father of Christopher Byers, Rick Murray, expressed his doubts about the guilty verdicts on the West Memphis Three website. In 2007, Pamela Hobbs, the mother of victim Stevie Branch, joined those who have publicly questioned the verdicts, calling for a reopening of the verdicts and further investigation of the evidence. In late 2007, John Mark Byers—who was previously vehement in his belief that Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin were guilty—also announced that he now believes that they are innocent. "I had made the comment if it were ever proven the three were innocent, I'd be the first to lead the charge for their freedom," said Byers, and take "every opportunity that I have to voice that the West Memphis Three are innocent and the evidence and proof prove they're innocent." Byers has spoken to the media on behalf of the convicted, and has expressed his desire for justice for the families of both the victims and the three accused.
In 2010, district Judge Brian S. Miller ordered Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of victim Stevie Branch, to pay $17,590 to Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for legal costs stemming from a defamation lawsuit he filed against the band. Miller dismissed a suit Hobbs filed over Maines' remarks and writings implying that he was involved in killing his stepson. The judge said Hobbs had chosen to involve himself in public discussion over whether the convictions were just.
John E. Douglas, a former longtime FBI agent and current criminal profiler, said that the murders were more indicative of a single murderer intent on degrading and punishing the victims, than of a trio of "unsophisticated" teenagers. Douglas believed that the perpetrator had a violent history and was familiar with the victims and with local geography. Douglas was formerly FBI Unit Chief for 25 years of the Investigative Support Unit of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. He stated in his report for Echols's legal team that there was no evidence the murders were linked to satanic rituals and that post-mortem animal predation could explain the alleged knife injuries. He said that the victims had died from a combination of blunt force trauma and drowning, in a crime which he believed was driven by personal cause.
Three films, "", "", and "", directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, have documented this case and are strongly critical of the verdict. The films marked the first time Metallica allowed their music to be used in a movie, which drew attention to the case.
There have been a number of books about the case, also arguing that the suspects were wrongly convicted: "Devil's Knot" by Mara Leveritt; "Blood of Innocents" by Guy Reel; and "The Last Pentacle of the Sun: Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three", edited by Brett Alexander Savory & M. W. Anderson, and featuring dark fiction and non-fiction by well-known writers of speculative fiction. In 2005, Damien Echols completed his memoir, "Almost Home, Vol 1", offering his perspective of the case. A biography of John Mark Byers by Greg Day named "Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three" was published in May 2012.
Many songs were written about the case, and two albums released in support of the defendants. In 2000, The album "Free the West Memphis 3" was released by KOCH Records. Organized by Eddie Spaghetti of the band Supersuckers, the album featured a number of original songs about the case and other recordings by artists such as Steve Earle, Tom Waits, L7, and Joe Strummer. In 2002, Henry Rollins worked with other vocalists from various rock, hip hop, punk and metal groups and members of Black Flag and the Rollins Band on the compilation album "". All money raised from sales of the album are donated to the legal funds of the West Memphis Three. Metalcore band Zao's 2002 album "Parade of Chaos" included a track inspired by the case named "Free The Three". On April 28, 2011, the band Disturbed released a song entitled "3" as a download on their website. The song is about the West Memphis Three, with 100% of the proceeds going to their benefit foundation for their release.
A website by Martin David Hill, containing approximately 160,000 words and intending to be a "thorough investigation", collates and discusses many details surrounding the murders and investigation, including some anecdotal information.
Investigative journalist Aphrodite Jones undertook an exploration of the case on her Discovery Network show "True Crime With Aphrodite Jones" following the DNA discoveries. The episode premiered May 5, 2011, with extensive background information included on the show's page at the Investigation Discovery site. In August 2011, White Light Productions announced that the West Memphis Three would be featured on their new program "Wrongfully Convicted".
In January 2010, the CBS television news journal "48 Hours" aired "The Memphis 3", an in-depth coverage of the history of the case including interviews with Echols and supporters. On September 17, 2011, "48 Hours" re-aired the episode with the update of their release and interviews from Echols and his wife, and Baldwin. "Piers Morgan Tonight" aired an episode on September 29, 2011, about the three's plans for the future and continued investigations on the case.
"West of Memphis", directed and written by Amy J. Berg, and produced by Peter Jackson, as well as by Echols himself, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Actor Johnny Depp, a longtime supporter of the West Memphis Three and personal friend of Damien Echols, was on hand to support the film in its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012.
Atom Egoyan directed a dramatized feature film of the case, titled "Devil's Knot", released in U.S. theaters on May 9, 2014. The film stars Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth.
Jessie Misskelley Jr. (born July 10, 1975) was arrested in connection to the murders of May 5, 1993. After a reported 12 hours of interrogation by police, Misskelley, who has an IQ of 72, confessed to the murders, and implicated Baldwin and Echols. However, the confession was at odds with facts known by police, such as the time of the murders. Under the ""Bruton" rule", his confession could not be admitted against his co-defendants and thus he was tried separately. Misskelley was convicted by a jury of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. The court sentenced him to life plus 40 years in prison. His conviction was appealed and affirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
On August 19, 2011, Misskelley, along with Baldwin and Echols, entered an Alford plea. Judge David Laser then sentenced them to 18 years and 78 days, the amount of time they had served, and also levied a suspended sentence of 10 years. All three were released from prison that same day. Since his release, Misskelley has become engaged to his high school girlfriend and enrolled in a community college to train as an auto mechanic.
Charles Jason Baldwin (born April 11, 1977) along with Misskelley and Echols, entered an Alford plea on August 19, 2011. Baldwin pleaded guilty to three counts of first degree murder while still asserting his actual innocence. The judge then sentenced the three men to 18 years and 78 days, the amount of time they had served, and also levied a suspended sentence of 10 years.
Baldwin was initially resistant to agree to this deal, insisting as a matter of principle that he would not plead guilty to something he did not do. But, he said, his refusal would have meant that Echols stayed on death row. "This was not justice," he said of the deal. "However, they're trying to kill Damien." Since his release, Baldwin has moved to Seattle to live with friends. He is in a relationship with a woman who befriended him while he was in prison. He has stated that he plans on enrolling in college to become a lawyer in order to help wrongfully convicted persons prove their innocence. Baldwin said in a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan that he worked for a construction company and he was learning how to drive.
Damien Wayne Echols (born Michael Wayne Hutchison, December 11, 1974) was on death row, locked-down 23 hours per day at the Varner Unit Supermax. On August 19, 2011, Echols, along with Baldwin and Misskelley, was released from prison after their attorneys and the judge handling the upcoming retrial agreed to a deal. Under the terms of the Alford guilty plea, Echols and his co-defendants accepted the sufficiency of evidence supporting the three counts of first degree murder while maintaining their innocence. DNA evidence at the scene was not found to include any from Echols or his co-defendants.
Echols, ADC# 000931, entered the system on March 19, 1994. Until August 2011, he was incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC) Varner Unit Supermax. In prison in 1999, he married landscape architect Lorri Davis. He moved to New York City after his release.
Echols' mental stability during the years immediately prior to the murders and during his trial was the focus of his appellate legal team in their appeal attempts. In his efforts to win a new trial, Echols, 27 at the time of the appeal, claimed he was incompetent to stand trial because of a history of mental illness. The record on appeal spells out a long history of Echols' mental health problems, including a May 5, 1992, Arkansas Department of Youth Services referral for possible mental illness, a year to the day before the murders. Hospital records for his treatment in Little Rock 11 months before the killings show a history of self-mutilation and assertions to hospital staff that he gained power by drinking blood, that he had inside him the spirit of a woman who had killed her husband, and that he was having hallucinations. He also told mental health workers that he was "going to influence the world."
The appellate legal team argued that Echols did not waive his assertion that he was not mentally competent before his 1994 trial because he was not competent to waive it. To assist in the appeals process, Echols' appellate legal team retained a Berkeley, California-based forensic psychiatrist, Dr. George Woods, to make their case.
Echols' lawyers claimed that his condition worsened during the trial, when he developed a "psychotic euphoria that caused him to believe he would evolve into a superior entity" and eventually be transported to a different world. His psychosis dominated his perceptions of everything going on in court, Woods wrote. Echols's mental state while in prison awaiting trial was also called into question by his appellate team.
While in prison, Echols wrote letters to Gloria Shettles, an investigator for his defense team. Echols sought to overturn his conviction based on trial error, including juror misconduct, as well as the results of a DNA Status Report filed on July 17, 2007, which concluded "none of the genetic material recovered at the scene of the crimes was attributable to Mr. Echols, Echols' co-defendant, Jason Baldwin, or defendant Jessie Misskelley ... Although most of the genetic material recovered from the scene was attributable to the victims of the offenses, some of it cannot be attributed to either the victims or the defendants." Advanced DNA and other scientific evidence – combined with additional evidence from several different witnesses and experts – released in October 2007 had cast strong doubts on the original convictions. A hearing on Echols' petition for a writ of habeas corpus was held in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
On August 19, 2011, Echols, along with Baldwin and Misskelley, entered an Alford plea, while asserting their innocence. The judge sentenced them to 18 years and 78 days, the amount of time they had served, and levied a suspended sentence of 10 years. Echols' sentence was reduced to three counts of first degree murder. Lawyers representing the West Memphis Three reached the plea deal that allowed the men to be released from prison. They were transferred to the hearing with their possessions. The plea deal did not technically result in a full exoneration; some of the convictions would stand, but the men would not admit guilt. The counsel representing the men said they would continue to pursue full exoneration.
Echols relocated to Salem, Massachusetts with his wife and has no intentions of returning to Arkansas. In an interview with Piers Morgan, he said that he would like to have a career in writing and visual arts.
Echols self-published the memoir, "Almost Home: My Life Story Vol. 1" (2005), while still in prison. After his release, he has worked on a number of additional media projects. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8832 |
Donald Dewar
Donald Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish Labour Party politician, the inaugural First Minister of Scotland and an advocate of Scottish devolution.
Dewar first entered politics in the early 1960s, and was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen South following the 1966 general election. After losing his seat in 1970, he served in the House of Commons again from 1978 until his death in 2000. He served as Secretary of State for Scotland in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet from 1997 to 1999, successfully campaigning for a Scottish Parliament in the 1997 Scottish devolution referendum.
Having led the Labour campaign in the run up to the first Scottish Parliament election, he subsequently became the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Anniesland on 6 May 1999, and was appointed Leader of the Scottish Labour Party a day later and became the first Scottish First Minister as the head of a devolved coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.
On 11 October 2000, Dewar died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 63 while still in office. He was succeeded as First Minister and Scottish Labour leader by Henry McLeish.
Dewar was born in Glasgow on 21 August 1937 as the only child of Alasdair (1897–1973) and Mary Dewar ("née" Bennett). His father was a dermatologist and a former general practitioner. Both Dewar's parents had ill health during his childhood; his father contracted tuberculosis and his mother suffered from a benign brain tumour when Donald was young.
He attended The Glasgow Academy, and was admitted to the University of Glasgow in 1957, where he gained an MA degree in History in 1961, a second-class LLB degree in 1964, and was an editor of the "Glasgow University Guardian".
Dewar met several future politicians at the university Dialectic Society, including John Smith (who would later become leader of the Labour Party), Sir Menzies Campbell (who would later become leader of the Liberal Democrats) and Lord Irvine of Lairg (who would serve as Lord Chancellor in the same Cabinet as Dewar). At university, he also served as chair of the Glasgow University Labour Club and president of the Glasgow University Union.
On 20 July 1964, Dewar married Alison Mary McNair, with whom he had two children: a daughter, Marion, and a son, Ian. In 1972, McNair separated from Dewar and entered a relationship with the then Derry Irvine, a prominent Scottish barrister in London. Dewar and his wife divorced in 1973, and he never remarried. Dewar and Lord Irvine of Lairg never reconciled, even though they later served in the same Cabinet from May 1997 until 1999.
He worked as a solicitor in Glasgow after graduating from university, and was also a member of the Labour Party, and soon turned his sights towards being elected to parliament. In 1962, he was selected as the Labour candidate for the Aberdeen South constituency. In the 1964 general election, he failed to win the seat, but won it at the 1966 general election at the age of 28—defeating Priscilla Tweedsmuir by 1,799 votes.
In his maiden speech to the House of Commons in the same year, Dewar spoke against a proposed increase on potato tax. His speech became his first political success: as the tax was repealed the following year in 1967. Also in 1967, Dewar was made a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Education Secretary Anthony Crosland, with whom Dewar later confessed to having never establishing a rapport—saying Crosland was a "very odd man".
Dewar remained in that position at the Department of Education until 1969, in which year Dewar opposed a visit to Aberdeen by the Springbok rugby team and staged a silent vigil near the team's ground. In April 1968, he was proposed for a Minister of State position by Roy Jenkins, but was not appointed. Dewar lost his constituency seat to the Conservative candidate Iain Sproat at the 1970 general election by over 1,000 votes.
Dewar spent much of the 1970s looking for another parliamentary seat. He hosted a Friday evening talk show on Radio Clyde, and in June 1971 was beaten by Dennis Canavan when he applied for the seat of West Stirlingshire. He worked as a solicitor for much of that decade and became a reporter on children's panels and was involved with the Lanarkshire local authority. Dewar became a partner in Ross Harper Murphy, in 1975.
In September 2009, Dennis Canavan said Dewar reacted callously when his son was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1989. The disease eventually killed him. Canavan said Dewar remarked, "Oh no! That's all we need. He was mad enough before but I shudder to think what he'll be like now."
Donald Dewar was selected for the seat Glasgow Garscadden by a majority of three, after Dewar's friend in the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers MP Willie Small died unexpectedly. He was returned to parliament at a by-election on 13 April 1978, a crucial victory which was seen as halting the rise of the Scottish National Party. In Scotland's first referendum on devolution, held in March 1979, he campaigned for a "Yes" vote alongside the Conservative Alick Buchanan-Smith and the Liberal Russell Johnston. Though they won a narrow majority, it fell short of the 40% required, contributing to the downfall of the Callaghan Government, in May 1979.
Dewar gained a parliamentary platform as chairman of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. After a year honing his inquisitorial skills, he joined the front bench in November 1980 as a Scottish affairs spokesman when Michael Foot became party leader. In 1981, as the Labour Party divided itself further due to internal disagreement, Dewar was almost deselected in his constituency by hard left activists, but he successfully defended himself against this threat.
He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming Shadow Scottish Secretary in November 1983. On 21 December 1988, Dewar was in Lockerbie after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, as the member of the Shadow Cabinet in charge of Scottish affairs. In 1992, John Smith made him Shadow Social security Secretary and three years later, Dewar was made a Chief Whip for the Labour Party by Tony Blair.
At the 1997 general election, he became MP for Glasgow Anniesland, which was mostly the same constituency with minor boundary changes. Labour won this election by a landslide, and Dewar was given the post of Secretary of State for Scotland. He was able to start the devolution process he dreamt of years earlier, and worked tirelessly on creating the Scotland Act, popularly referred to as "Smith's unfinished business". When ratified, this was to give Scotland its first Parliament for nearly 300 years.
In January 1998, he confirmed that he would stand for a seat in the Scottish Parliament. The first elections to the Scottish Parliament were held on 6 May 1999, with Dewar leading the Scottish Labour Party against their main opponents, the Scottish National Party led by Alex Salmond.
He was elected as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Anniesland, having the unusual distinction of being both an MP and MSP for the same constituency. Although Scottish Labour won more seats than any other party, they did not have a majority in Parliament to allow them to form an Executive without the help of a smaller party. A deal was agreed with the Scottish Liberal Democrats to form a coalition, with Dewar agreeing to their demand for the abolition of up front tuition fees for university students.
On 13 May 1999, Dewar was nominated as First Minister, and was officially appointed by the Queen on 17 May at a ceremony in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. He later travelled to the Court of Session to be sworn in by the Lord President and receive the Great Seal of Scotland.
On 16 June, Dewar set out the legislative programme for the Executive which included: an Education bill to improve standards in Scottish schools; land reform to give right of access to the countryside, a bill to abolish the feudal system of land tenure; and a bill to establish National Parks in Scotland.
In April 2000, Dewar was admitted to hospital for tests on his heart, following a previous test where a minor irregularity was discovered. In May 2000, he had surgery to repair a leaking heart valve, and was forced to take a three-month break from Parliament, with Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace taking over as Acting First Minister. He returned to work on 14 August 2000.
Dewar dealt with the 2000 exam results fiasco and the lorry drivers' strike, and attended the Labour Party conference in Brighton, but at the end of September he told the historian Tom Devine in Dublin that if there was no surge of the energy of old, he would have to reappraise the situation within a few months.
On 10 October 2000 around lunchtime, Dewar sustained a fall. He seemed fine at first, but later that day suffered a massive brain haemorrhage which was possibly triggered by the anticoagulant medication he was taking following heart surgery. He died the following day in Edinburgh's Western General Hospital, never having regained consciousness. He was 63 years old.
Dewar's funeral service was held at Glasgow Cathedral, amid scenes of mourning unknown for a politician in Scotland's largest city. He was cremated on 18 October 2000, and his ashes were scattered at Lochgilphead in Argyll.
"Although he has become something of a political legend, Donald would have abhorred any attempt to turn him into some kind of secular saint. He would have been horrified at a Diana-style out-pouring of synthetic grief at his untimely death." — Iain MacWhirter, "Sunday Herald", 15 October 2000.
One of the first scandals to hit the new Scottish Parliament occurred when allegations that the lobbying arm of public relations company Beattie Media had privileged access to ministers were published, prompting Dewar to ask the standards committee to investigate the reports. The Minister for Finance, Jack McConnell, was called to appear before the standards committee during the investigation although he was later cleared of any wrongdoing and the committee declared there was no evidence he had been influenced from lobbying by Beattie Media.
Dewar also threatened to sack any minister or aide who briefed the media against another member of the Scottish Executive, following public rows between Jack McConnell and the Minister of Health and Community Care, Susan Deacon over the budget allocated to health .
Dewar amassed a personal fortune in excess of £2,000,000 including public utility shares, antiques and artwork with a value of over £400,000.
Dewar's work for the Scottish Parliament has led him to be called the "Father of the Nation".
In May 2002, then Prime Minister Tony Blair unveiled a statue of Donald Dewar at the top of Glasgow's Buchanan Street, a street in Glasgow city centre. In keeping with his famous unkempt appearance, it showed Dewar wearing a slightly crushed jacket.
The statue was taken down in October 2005 to be cleaned, and was re-erected on high plinth in December in an effort to protect it from vandalism. On the base of the statue were inscribed the opening words of the Scotland Act: "There Shall Be A Scottish Parliament", a phrase to which Dewar himself famously said, "I like that!"
Dewar called the Old Royal High School on Calton Hill in Edinburgh a "nationalist shibboleth", mainly because it had been the proposed site of the Scottish Assembly in the 1979 referendum. Dewar's opposition to the Calton Hill site partly contributed to the selection of the Holyrood site, which proved expensive.
The First ScotRail Class 334 train "334001" was named "Donald Dewar" in his memory. The "Dewar Arts Award" was created by the Scottish Executive in 2002 dedicated to his memory. This award supports talented young Scottish artists. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8833 |
Digimon
Digimon ( "Dejimon", branded as Digimon: Digital Monsters, stylized as DIGIMON), short for "Digital Monsters" ( "Dejitaru Monsutā"), is a Japanese media franchise encompassing virtual pet toys, anime, manga, video games, films and a trading card game. The franchise focuses on the eponymous creatures, who inhabit a "Digital World", a parallel universe that originated from Earth's various communication networks.
The franchise was created in 1997 as a series of virtual pets, akin to—and influenced in style by—the contemporary Tamagotchi or nano Giga Pet toys. The creatures were first designed to look cute and iconic even on the devices' small screens; later developments had them created with a harder-edged style influenced by American comics. The franchise gained momentum with its first anime incarnation, "Digimon Adventure", and an early video game, "Digimon World", both released in 1999. Several anime series and films based on them have been released, and the video game series has expanded into genres such as role-playing, racing, fighting, and MMORPGs.
In 1996, the Tamagotchi was released, created by Akihiro Yokoi, Aki Maita and Takeichi Hongo. The Tamagotchi was one of the inspirations for the first release of the "Digimon" franchise, a device marketed in June 1997 with the name Digimon, short for "Digital Monster". Aiming at the male audience and created by Akiyoshi Hongo (a pseudonym that refers to the creators of "Tamagotchi"), this device shows to players a virtual pet composed entirely of data and designed to play and fight. In February 1998, the "DigiMon" fighting game, compatible with Windows 95 and developed by Rapture Technologies, Inc., was announced. The one-shot manga "C'mon Digimon", designed by Tenya Yabuno, was published in the Japanese magazine V-Jump by Shueisha in 1997.
A second generation of "virtual pets" was marketed six months after the launch of the first, followed by a third in 1998. Each player starts with a baby-level digital creature that has a limited number of attacks and transformations and to make the creature stronger by training and nourishing the creature; when the player is successful in a workout, the Digimon becomes strong, when the player fails, the Digimon becomes weak. Two devices can be connected, allowing two players to battle with their respective creatures, an innovation at the time, however, the battle is only possible from the moment the creature is in the child level or bigger. Playgrounds and subways were where the majority of users of the apparatus were concentrated; The virtual pet was banned in some Asian schools by being considered by parents and teachers as very noisy and violent. The first Digimon were created by Japanese designer Kenji Watanabe, influenced by American comics, which were beginning to gain popularity in Japan, and as such began to make his characters look stronger and "cool." Other types of Digimon, which until the year 2000 totaled 279, came from extensive discussions and collaborations between the Bandai company members.
Digimon hatch from types of eggs which are called . In the English iterations of the franchise there is another type of Digi-Egg that can be used to digivolve, or transform, Digimon. This second type of Digi-Egg is called a in Japanese. They age via a process called "Digivolution" which changes their appearance and increases their powers. The effect of Digivolution, however, is not permanent in the partner Digimon of the main characters in the anime, and Digimon who have digivolved will most of the time revert to their previous form after a battle or if they are too weak to continue. Some Digimon act feral. Most, however, are capable of intelligence and human speech. They are able to digivolve by the use of Digivices that their human partners have. There are currently over 1400 Digimon.
The "Digimon" anime series was produced by Toei Animation and Bandai of Japan. Beginning in 1999, an anime series was green-lit as the first of the "Digimon" films aired in theaters. Originally, "Digimon Adventure" was supposed to be a short film, but after the storyboard was finished, a request for the film to become a children's television series was made. Several anime series have since been produced, with the first six series localized into English for release in Western markets.
Several "Digimon" featurette films were released in Japan, with some of them seasonal tie-ins for their respective television series.
In the United States, "Digimon Adventure" premiered in August 1999 on the Fox Broadcasting Company. An English-language adaptation of the series produced by Saban Entertainment (later Sensation Animation), the series was broadcast on Fox Kids. Saban would dub the first four anime series in the franchise, which were collectively retitled "Digimon: Digital Monsters". Some scenes from the original version were modified or omitted in order to comply with Fox's standards and practices. The show also featured more jokes and added dialogue, along with a completely different musical score. As a cross-promotional stunt, 2001 and 2002 saw "Digi-Bowl" specials co-produced with Fox Sports; "NFL on Fox" commentator Terry Bradshaw provided interstitial segments in-between episodes as if the episodes were actually a football game.
The Walt Disney Company would acquire Saban during the third series, "Digimon Tamers". Reruns of the first three series began airing on the cable network ABC Family, while the fourth series, "Digimon Frontier", premiered on UPN as part of a deal between Disney and UPN. UPN aired the series until late August 2003, when they severed their ties to Disney. "Frontier" aired on ABC Family concurrently, and also aired in reruns on Toon Disney under the Jetix branding.
An English version of "Digimon Data Squad", produced by Studiopolis, would premiere October 1, 2007, on Toon Disney. In September 2012, Saban Brands, a successor to Saban Entertainment, announced it had acquired the "Digimon" anime franchise. Saban would announce that they would be producing an English dub for "Digimon Xros Wars", retitled "Digimon Fusion", for broadcast on Nickelodeon in the United States starting September 7, 2013. After three episodes, the show was moved to Nicktoons starting October 13, 2013.
Previously, Funimation Entertainment had online streaming rights to subtitled versions of "Digimon Adventure 02" and "Digimon Tamers". "Digimon Adventure", "Adventure 02", and "Tamers", would later begin streaming on Netflix in 2013 and 2014 with Japanese audio and English subtitles. Crunchyroll began streaming the English-subtitled version of "Digimon Fusion" outside Japan in November 2011. The English-localized version of its first season became available on Netflix starting September 13, 2014, with the second season arriving on March 8, 2016. After Crunchyroll acquired streaming rights to the dubbed versions and Funimation acquired rights to the subtitled versions, the dubbed versions of "Adventure", "Adventure 02", and "Tamers" were briefly removed from Netflix.
In Canada, the English versions of "Digimon" were broadcast on YTV, with the exception of "Data Squad", which aired in Family Channel's Jetix block. YTV would eventually acquire "Digimon Fusion", but only the first 26 episodes were shown.
In the United Kingdom, "Digimon" first aired on Fox Kids. ITV's children's slot CITV would broadcast "Adventure", "Adventure 02" and several episodes of "Tamers" during after school hours from 2001–2002. The rest of "Tamers" aired on Fox Kids from 2002–04. "Digimon Frontier" was originally announced to be broadcast on Jetix, but the series was later dropped. The series eventually saw a release on October 29, 2018. From 2011, "Digimon Data Squad" airs on Kix!.
According to Fox Kids' (2000–03) and Kix's (2010–) BARB Television ratings, "Adventure", "Adventure 02" & "Tamers" have been the most popular series'/seasons in the United Kingdom and was consistently in the weekly top 10 broadcasts for both channels for new episodes. Broadcast rights and merchandising sub-licensing rights for "Digimon Fusion" in the UK have been acquired by ITV Studios Global Entertainment. "Digimon Fusion" has aired since Spring 2014 on digital terrestrial channel, CITV.
"Digimon" first appeared in narrative form in the one-shot manga "C'mon Digimon", released in the summer of 1997. "C'mon Digimon" spawned the popular "Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01" manga, written by Hiroshi Izawa, which began serialization on November 21, 1998.
A Chinese manhua was written and drawn by Yuen Wong Yu (余 遠鍠 "Yu Yuen-wong"), who based its storyline on the television series. This adaptation covers "Digimon Adventure" in five volumes, "Digimon Adventure 02" in two, "Digimon Tamers" in four, and "Digimon Frontier" in three. The original stories are heavily abridged, though on rare occasions events play out differently from the anime. The Chinese-language version was published by Rightman Publishing Ltd. in Hong Kong. Yu also wrote "D-Cyber".
Two English versions were also released. The first one was published by Chuang Yi in Singapore. The second one, which was adapted by Lianne Sentar, was released by TOKYOPOP in North America.The three volumes for "Digimon Frontier" have been released by Chuang Yi in English. These have not been released by TOKYOPOP in North America or Europe. However, the Chuang Yi releases of "Digimon Frontier" were distributed by Madman Entertainment in Australia.
Dark Horse Comics published American-style Digimon comic books, adapting the first thirteen episodes of the English dub of "Digimon Adventure" in 2001. The story was written by Daniel Horn and Ryan Hill, and illustrated by Daniel Horn and Cara L. Niece.
The Italian publishing company, Panini, approached Digimon in different ways in different countries. While Germany created their own adaptations of episodes, the United Kingdom (UK) reprinted the Dark Horse titles, then translated some of the German adaptations of "Adventure 02" episodes. Eventually the UK comics were given their own original stories, which appeared in both the UK's official "Digimon Magazine" and the official UK Fox Kids companion magazine, "Wickid". These original stories only roughly followed the continuity of "Adventure 02". When the comic switched to the "Tamers" series the storylines adhered to continuity more strictly; sometimes it would expand on subject matter not covered by the original Japanese anime (such as Mitsuo Yamaki's past) or the English adaptations of the television shows and movies (such as Ryo's story or the movies that remained undubbed until 2005). In a money saving venture, the original stories were later removed from "Digimon Magazine", which returned to printing translated German adaptations of "Tamers" episodes. Eventually, both magazines were cancelled.
The "Digimon" series has a large number of video games which usually have their own independent storylines with a few sometimes tying into the stories of the anime series or manga series. The games consists of a number of genres including life simulation, adventure, video card game, strategy and racing games, though they are mainly action role-playing games.
In late 2009, Bandai created a webpage in Japanese showing a new game to be released in 2010 called "", which uses the same engine as their predecessors "Digimon World DS" and "Digimon World Dawn and Dusk" and was released on July 1, 2010. In February 2010, a website for the online multiplayer game, "Digimon Battle Online", was launched, showing it to be based primarily in the world of the Tamers saga and its characters.
On September 22, 2011, online game publisher Joymax announced the release of an MMORPG game called "Digimon Masters", which was developed by the Korean publisher DIGITALIC.
In 2011, Bandai posted a countdown on a teaser site. Once the countdown was finished, it revealed a reboot of the Digimon World series titled "". An enhanced version of the game released on Nintendo 3DS as "Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode" in 2013.
A new fighting game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 was revealed in the summer of 2014, named "Digimon All-Star Rumble". It was released in North America, Europe and Australia in November of the same year. "", a role-playing game in the "Digimon Story" sub-series, was released in 2015 for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 in Japan. It has also been released with English subtitles in North America and the rest of the world in 2016.
The Digimon Collectible Card Game is a card game based on Digimon, first introduced in Japan in 1997 and published by Bandai. The third season ("Digimon Tamers") utilized this aspect of the franchise by making the card game an integral part of the season. Versions of the card game are also included in some of the Digimon video games including "Digital Card Battle" and "Digimon World 3". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8835 |
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, (17 January 1871 – 11 March 1936) was a Royal Navy officer. After serving in the Mahdist War and then the response to the Boxer Rebellion, he commanded the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, a tactically indecisive engagement after which his aggressive approach was contrasted with the caution of his commander Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. He is remembered for his comment at Jutland that "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today", after two of his ships exploded. Later in the war he succeeded Jellicoe as Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, in which capacity he received the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of the war. He then followed Jellicoe's path a second time, serving as First Sea Lord—a position that Beatty held longer (7 years 9 months) than any other First Sea Lord. While First Sea Lord, he was involved in negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 in which it was agreed that the United States, Britain and Japan should set their navies in a ratio of 5:5:3, with France and Italy maintaining smaller ratio fleets of 1.75 each.
Beatty was born into an Anglo-Irish family at Howbeck Lodge in the parish of Stapeley, near Nantwich, Cheshire, on 17 January 1871. He was the second son of five children born to Captain David Longfield Beatty (of a family of Borodale, County Wexford, and formerly of Dublin, Ireland) and Katherine (or Katrine) Edith, daughter of Nicholas Sadleir, of Dunboyne Castle, County Meath, Ireland. David Longfield had been an officer in the Fourth Hussars where he formed a relationship with Katrine, the wife of another officer.
Katrine had fair hair and blue eyes, soft wide lips, and overall an air of command. Beatty's father was tall, dark haired with big hands and feet. Both David and his elder brother Charles were short, about with small hands and feet. Charles was fair haired taking after his mother's features, whereas David had more the look of his father. After the affair between David Longfield and Katrine became known, David Longfield's father (Beatty's grandfather), David Vandeleur Beatty (1815–1881), arranged for his son to be posted to India in the hope that the scandalous relationship might end. David Longfield resigned from the regiment on 21 November 1865, with the honorary rank of Captain. He took up residence with Katrine in Cheshire and in 1869 sold his commission. David Longfield was unable to marry Katrine until Katrine had obtained a divorce on 21 February 1871, after the birth of their first two sons. Beatty's birth certificate recorded his mother's surname as Beatty, and his parents' eventual marriage at St Michael's Church in Liverpool was kept secret.
Beatty's early education concentrated on horsemanship, hunting and learning to be a gentleman. Beatty had a close relationship with his elder brother Charles, who became his ally against their oppressive and overbearing father. They remained close throughout life, so much so that the only time Beatty felt despair was at his brother's death. Beatty later wrote to his wife about Charles, "we lived together, played together, rode together, fought together." His brothers would later join the British Army, but early on young David developed an interest in ships and the sea and expressed a desire to join the Royal Navy. In 1881 Beatty's grandfather died and David Longfield succeeded to the 18th century mansion, 'Borodale', outside Enniscorthy, in County Wexford. After retiring from the army David Longfield established a business training horses first in Cheshire and then at 'The Mount', near Rugby, Warwickshire. On inheriting and following the death of his wife at 'The Mount', David Longfield returned to Ireland abandoning the training business.
Beatty was educated at Kilkenny College and in 1882 entered Burney's Naval Academy at Gosport, which was a 'crammer' for boys wishing to take the entrance examinations for the Royal Navy.
Beatty joined the Royal Navy as a cadet passing into the training ship HMS "Britannia" tenth out of ninety-nine candidates in January 1884. During his two years at "Britannia", moored at Dartmouth, he was beaten three times for various infractions. He passed out of "Britannia" eighteenth out of the thirty-three remaining cadets at the end of 1885. Beatty's letters home made no complaint about the poor living conditions in "Britannia", and generally he was extrovert, even aggressive, and resented discipline. However, he understood how far he could transgress without serious consequences, and this approach continued throughout his career.
Beatty was given orders to join the China Station in January 1886, but the posting did not appeal to his mother, who wrote to Lord Charles Beresford, then a senior naval officer, member of parliament and personal friend, to use his influence to obtain something better. Beatty was, in February 1886, instead appointed to , flagship of Admiral the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son Alfred, who was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Squadron. This proved an excellent social opening for Beatty, who established a longstanding relationship with the Duke's eldest daughter, Marie, and with other members of the court. "Alexandra" was both steam powered and a fully ship-rigged sailing ship, with iron armour and a mixed battery of and rifled guns. Life in the Mediterranean fleet was considerably easier than cadet life, with visits to friendly ports all around the Mediterranean, but Beatty was concerned to work diligently towards naval examinations, which would determine seniority and future promotion prospects. Beatty was promoted to midshipman on 15 May 1886 and assigned to assist Lieutenant Stanley Colville on watchkeeping duties: Colville was to play an important part in Beatty's future career.
Beatty left HMS "Alexandra" in March 1889 and joined the cruiser in July 1889 for manoeuvres before joining the sailing corvette in September 1889, in which he was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 14 May 1890. Next he attended courses at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich during which he was somewhat distracted from his naval career by the delights of London. Beatty scored a first-class examination pass in Torpedoes, but only seconds in Seamanship, Gunnery and Pilotage, and a third in Navigation. A biography states that "his cabin at Greenwich was full of photographs of actresses, some of which were signed in the most endearing terms". After attending the gunnery school, , he undertook a posting to a torpedo boat in July 1891 and then a tour in from 19 January 1892.
Beatty joined the Royal Yacht "Victoria and Albert" in July 1892 while Queen Victoria was holidaying in the Mediterranean: Victoria was in mourning for her grandson, Albert Duke of Clarence, who had died January 1892. Promoted to lieutenant on 25 August 1892, he rejoined HMS "Ruby" in August 1892 and then transferred to the battleship in September 1893 (which had only recently been involved in the fleet accident where she had rammed and sunk the battleship ). He transferred to the battleship in September 1895.
Beatty gained recognition during the Mahdist War for his actions in the campaign to recapture the Sudan. Stanley Colville was placed in command of the gunboats attached to the British expeditionary force in Egypt and as Beatty's former commander in HMS "Trafalgar" and superior in HMS "Alexandra" he requested that Beatty join him. Control of the river Nile was considered vitally important for any expedition into Egypt and the Sudan. Beatty was seconded to the Egyptian government on 3 June 1896 and appointed second in command of the river flotilla. Colville was wounded during the operation, leaving Beatty in command of the gunboats for the successful attack on Dongola. The campaign halted at Dongola to regroup and Beatty returned to Britain on leave. He was commended by Kitchener for his part in the campaign and as a result was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.
Beatty was again seconded to the Egyptian government for the next phase of the campaign. This was now at Lord Kitchener's specific request, for the Khartoum expedition. Beatty first commanded the gunboat "El Teb" but this was capsized attempting to ascend the Fourth Cataract. Beatty then took command of gunboat "Fateh" between October 1897 and August 1898: the gunboats were frequently in action advancing along the Nile ahead of the army and saw action at the Battle of Omdurman, where Beatty made the acquaintance of Winston Churchill who had become a cavalry officer in Beatty's father's old regiment, the 4th Hussars, and had there learnt his family history. In a few hours 10,000 Dervishes were killed by rifle and machine gun fire without any of them getting within 600 yards of the British force. This battle marked the effective end of resistance to the expeditionary force, but the gunboats were called into service to transport troops to Fashoda, south along the White Nile, where a small force of French troops had made a difficult land crossing and staked a claim to the area. Despite the ensuing crisis, the French were persuaded to withdraw without incident. Kitchener commended Beatty for his efforts in the campaign and as a result Beatty was promoted to commander, ahead of 400 other lieutenants, on 15 November 1898.
Beatty was appointed executive officer of the small battleship , flagship of the China Station, on 20 April 1899. The first year of his tour of duty was uneventful, but unrest against foreigners was growing in China. The Boxer movement was a secret Chinese peasant society committed to resisting oppression both from foreigners and from the Chinese government. The Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi partly encouraged the Boxer's opposition to foreigners in an attempt to turn their attention away from herself. The name was derived from ritual exercises supposed to make their users immune to bullets, which resembled boxing.
In the summer of 1900 the rebellion reached Peking, where the German legation was attacked and foreign nationals withdrew to the relative safety of the Legation Quarter. Government troops joined forces with the rebels and the railway to the Treaty Port of Tientsin was interrupted. Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, then the Commander-in-Chief of the China Station, sent reinforcements to Peking, but they were insufficient to defend the Legation. An attempt was therefore made to send more troops from Tientsin, where British ships had been joined by French, German, Russian, American, Austrian, Italian and Japanese. The international naval brigade force of naval marines placed itself under the senior officer present, which was Seymour. After an urgent call for help from the Legation, Seymour set out on 10 June 1900 with 2,000 troops to attempt to break through to Peking in the Seymour Expedition. The force got about half way before abandoning the attempt because the railway line had been torn up. By now rebels had begun destroying the track behind the force, cutting it off from Tientsin.
On 11 June 1900, Beatty and 150 men from HMS "Barfleur" landed as part of a force of 2,400 defending Tientsin from 15,000 Chinese troops plus Boxers. On 16 June 1900 the Taku forts were bombarded and captured to ensure ships could still reach the port. Fierce fighting broke out throughout the foreign areas and railway station, and Beatty was injured. He later took part in the successful relief of the naval brigade and was promoted to captain on 8 November 1900. Beatty returned to Britain, where he required an operation to restore proper use of his left arm.
Beatty had returned from leave after the Sudan campaign, but finding life in Ireland at the family home not to his taste, stayed instead with his brother at Newmarket, Suffolk. The location allowed him good hunting, and access to aristocratic houses where his recent heroic reputation from the campaign made him an honoured guest. Out hunting one day he chanced to meet Ethel Tree, daughter of Chicago department store founder Marshall Field. Beatty was immediately taken with her, for her good looks and her ability to hunt. The immediate difficulty with the match was that Ethel was married already to Arthur Tree, with a son, Ronald Tree.
After the Boxer Campaign, the couple had at first exchanged letters, which Beatty signed 'Jack', as Ethel was still a married woman and discretion was advised. Ethel became involved with another man and the exchange of letters ceased but on Beatty's return she sent him a telegram and letter inviting him to resume their friendship. Beatty did not respond until after surgery on his arm in September 1900 when he wrote, "I landed from China with my heart full of rage, and swore I did not care if I ever saw you again, or if I were killed or not. And now I have arrived with the firm determination not to see you at all in my own mind... Unfortunately I shall go on loving you to the bitter end... To me always a Queen, if not always mine, Good-bye."
Despite this estrangement, the couple again met foxhunting and resumed a discreet relationship. Marshall Field was at first unimpressed by the impecunious Beatty as a future son-in-law, but was persuaded by his heroic reputation, impressive record of promotion and future prospects. There was the possibility that Field might revoke the settlement he had made on his daughter at the time of her first marriage and the new couple would have no means of support. Beatty's father was also unhappy about the match, fearing a repeat of the difficulties he had faced with his own relationship with a married woman, but with the added risk of publicity because both Beatty and Ethel were famous and the risk that Beatty's illegitimacy might be exposed. Beatty went so far as to consult a fortune teller, Mrs. Roberts, who predicted a fine outcome to the match. Ethel wrote to Arthur, telling him that it was her firm intention never to live with him again as his wife, though not naming any particular person or reason. Arthur agreed to co-operate, and filed for divorce in America on the grounds of desertion, which was granted 9 May 1901. Beatty and Ethel married on 22 May 1901 at the registry office, St. George's, Hanover Square, London with no family attending. Although Arthur Tree was himself from a wealthy American family, he now had to adjust to reduced circumstances without Ethel's support. He elected to remain in Britain and their son Ronald remained with him. Ronald and his mother were never reconciled from his perception that she had deserted his father, but he visited in later life and became friendly with Beatty. Ronald later became a member of parliament and, during the Second World War became a link between the British and United States governments, lending his country house, Ditchley Park near Oxford, to Winston Churchill for weekend visits when the official residences were considered unsafe. Beatty and Ethel set up home at Hanover Lodge in Regent's Park, London.
The couple had two sons, David Field Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty (1905–1972) born at the Capua Palace in Malta, and the Hon. Peter Randolph Louis Beatty (1910–1949). His marriage to a very wealthy heiress allowed Beatty an independence that most other officers lacked. She is reputed to have commented after he was threatened with disciplinary action following the straining of his ship's engines, "What? Court-martial my David? I'll buy them a new ship."
In May 1902 he was passed fit for sea duty and was appointed captain of the cruiser on 2 June, spending two months in exercises with the Channel Fleet under Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson before joining the Mediterranean Fleet. Beatty worked hard to raise efficiency so that she was highly rated in gunnery and other competitions by the time he left the ship 19 December 1902. Ethel decided not to be left behind so rented the Capua Palace on Malta, home port of the Mediterranean Fleet, where she became part of the island's high society.
Beatty took command of the cruiser in the Mediterranean Fleet in November 1903 and then commanded the cruiser in the Mediterranean Fleet from October 1904. He then became the naval advisor to the Army Council in 1906 and, after having been appointed a naval Aide-de-Camp to the King on 5 November 1908, he became captain of the battleship in the Atlantic Fleet in December 1908. At the request of Alfred Winsloe, the Fourth Sea Lord, he was promoted to rear-admiral on 1 January 1910 by a special order in council since he had not completed the requisite time as a captain. He was offered the post of second-in-command of the Atlantic Fleet, but declined it and asked for one in the Home Fleet. As the Atlantic Fleet post was a major command, the Admiralty were very unimpressed and his attitude nearly ruined his career. Beatty, as a rapidly promoted war hero, with no financial worries and with a degree of support in Royal circles, felt more confident than most naval officers in standing firm on requesting a posting nearer home. He was approaching two years on half pay (which would trigger automatic retirement from the navy) when on 8 January 1912 his career was saved by the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Churchill had met Beatty when Beatty was commander of a gunboat on the Nile supporting the army at the Battle of Omdurman, in which Churchill took part as a cavalry officer. A "probably apocryphal" story relates that as Beatty walked into Churchill's office at the Admiralty, Churchill looked him over and said, "You seem very young to be an Admiral." Unfazed, Beatty replied, "And you seem very young to be First Lord." Churchill – who was himself only thirty-eight years old in 1912 – took to him immediately and he was appointed Naval Secretary.
Beatty became Rear-Admiral Commanding the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron on 1 March 1913. Beatty was late taking up his new post, choosing not to cut short a holiday in Monte Carlo. On his eventual arrival, he set about drafting standing orders regarding how the squadron was to operate. He noted, "Captains...to be successful must possess, in a marked degree, initiative, resource, determination, and no fear of accepting responsibility". He went on "...as a rule instructions will be of a very general character so as to avoid interfering with the judgement and initiative of captains...The admiral will rely on captains to use all the information at their disposal to grasp the situation quickly and anticipate his wishes, using their own discretion as to how to act in unforeseen circumstances..." The approach outlined by Beatty contradicted the views of many within the navy, who felt that ships should always be closely controlled by their commanding admiral, and harked back to reforms attempted by Admiral George Tryon. It is argued that Tryon had attempted to introduce greater independence and initiative amongst his captains, which he believed would be essential in the confusion of a real war situation, but had ironically been killed in an accident caused by captains rigorously obeying incorrect but precise orders issued by Tryon himself.
Beatty chose Lieutenant Ralph Seymour as his flag lieutenant, despite Seymour being unknown to him. Seymour had aristocratic connections, which may have appealed to Beatty since he sought connections in society, but it was also the case that Seymour's sister was a longstanding close friend of Churchill's wife. Appointments by influence were common in the navy at this time, but the significance of Beatty's choice lay in Seymour's relative inexperience as a signals officer, which later resulted in difficulties in battle.
On the eve of the First World War in 1914, Beatty was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and promoted to acting vice-admiral in February 1915 and given command of the Battle Cruiser Fleet a month later. He was confirmed in the rank of vice-admiral on 9 August 1915. He led the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron at the actions at Heligoland Bight (1914), Dogger Bank (1915) and Jutland (1916).
Jutland proved to be decisive in Beatty's career, despite the loss of two of his battlecruisers. Beatty is reported to have remarked (to his Flag Captain, Ernle Chatfield, later First Sea Lord in the early 1930s), "there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today", after two of them had exploded within half an hour during the battle. In any case Beatty's actions succeeded in drawing the German High Seas Fleet into action against the British Grand Fleet.
Beatty succeeded Admiral John Jellicoe as commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet and received promotion to the acting rank of admiral in December 1916. With his dashing style, he was the antithesis of his predecessor. Beatty's marriage was failing disastrously at the time, and the result was to be a decade-long love affair between Beatty and Eugénie Godfrey-Faussett, wife of Captain Bryan Godfrey-Faussett. Under Beatty's command the Grand Fleet maintained its dominance of the North Sea until the end of the War.
Beatty escorted the German High Seas Fleet to internment at Scapa Flow in November 1918 giving the order from his flagship that "the German Flag will be hauled down at sunset and will not be raised again without permission". This was not a lawful order, as the fleet remained the property of the German Government having been interned rather than having surrendered, but nevertheless Beatty enforced it.
Beatty was promoted to substantive full admiral on 1 January 1919 and to Admiral of the Fleet on 1 May 1919. He was created 1st Earl Beatty, Viscount Borodale and Baron Beatty of the North Sea and Brooksby on 18 October 1919. He became First Sea Lord on 1 November 1919. In this capacity he was involved in negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 in which it was agreed that the United States, Britain and Japan should set their navies in a ratio of 5:5:3, with France and Italy maintaining smaller fleets.
During the First Labour Government of 1924, with Japan increasingly hostile to the UK, Beatty lobbied the Clynes Committee for construction of the Singapore Naval Base to continue. Beatty wrote out, but did not send, a threat of resignation. The government were trying to cut back on the numbers of cruisers constructed; the other Sea Lords attributed the building of the "Kent" class to Beatty's lobbying, but government desire to alleviate shipyard unemployment was probably a more important factor.
Despite further rumours that he would resign, Beatty remained in office when the Conservatives took power in the autumn of 1924. Supported by the First Lord of the Admiralty William Bridgeman, he clashed with the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, once again over the number of cruisers required by the Royal Navy. At this stage of his career Churchill was opposed to what he saw as excessive defence spending. This may seem odd in light of his previous and subsequent reputation, but in the 1920s no major war seemed to be on the horizon. Beatty also at this time pressed hard for the return of responsibility for naval aviation from the newly formed Royal Air Force to the Royal Navy.
In 1926 Beatty was considered for the post of Governor General of Canada but was rejected by the Colonial Secretary Leo Amery as he had "no manners and an impossible American wife".
By the time of his retirement from the Royal Navy in July 1927 a great deal of time was being spent preparing for the Coolidge Conference in Geneva, although Beatty did not himself attend as he had to remain in London to supervise the deployment of naval and marine forces against nationalist unrest in China and Egypt. On his last day in office (30 July) he attended a Cabinet at which Bridgeman reported the breakdown of the Geneva Conference as the Americans refused to accept any gun smaller than 8-inch for their cruisers, and after leaving office he congratulated Bridgeman that the Americans had not been able to achieve "command of the sea at any cost". Beatty was appointed a member of the Privy Council on 25 July 1927. Stephen Roskill wrote that whilst Beatty and his disciple Chatfield deserve some praise for the Royal Navy's comparative readiness in 1939, his main achievement was to maintain the morale of the Navy at a time of serious defence cuts, and that without his strong leadership the Royal Navy might have suffered more events like the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931.
Beatty spent much of his life (when not at sea) in Leicestershire, and lived at Brooksby Hall and Dingley Hall. In July 1930 he denounced the London Naval Treaty in the House of Lords as "a great and deplorable blunder to which we are about to be committed by signing away the sea power by which the British Empire came into being". Beatty also claimed: "If any sane man erects an edifice, or has great possessions, he protects them by insurance. The Navy is the insurance company of the economic unity of the Empire. Under the Naval Treaty of London the Navy will be totally and entirely inadequate to provide that insurance".
Beatty's old commander Admiral John Jellicoe died on 19 November 1935. Already suffering from heart failure, and sick with influenza, Beatty defied doctors' orders and left his bed to act as a pallbearer, saying, "What will the Navy say if I fail to attend Jellicoe's funeral?" He was so obviously ill that, as the funeral procession passed up Fleet Street, a bystander sent a glass of brandy out to him. He also insisted on attending the funeral of King George V in January 1936. These acts hastened his own death.
Beatty died at around 1 am on 12 March 1936.
At Beatty's funeral his coffin was draped in the Union Flag flown by his flagship in 1919. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, said "In him something of the spirit of Nelson seemed to have come back". The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, called in the House of Commons for a public memorial to Beatty to be erected, but no action was taken until after the Second World War, when busts of Beatty and Jellicoe were unveiled in Trafalgar Square on 21 October (Trafalgar Day) 1948.
Beatty had requested in his will that he would like to be buried next to his wife Ethel at Dingley: however he was actually buried at St Paul's Cathedral and therefore the double grave at Dingley Church contains only his wife's body.
A number of serious errors have been identified in Beatty's handling of his squadron at the Battle of Jutland:
After the war a report of the battle was prepared by the Admiralty under First Sea Lord Rosslyn Wemyss. Before the report was published, Beatty was himself appointed First Sea Lord, and immediately requested amendments to the report. When the authors refused to comply, he ordered it to be destroyed and instead had prepared an alternative report, which proved highly critical of Jellicoe. Considerable argument broke out as a result, with significant numbers of servicemen disputing the published version, including Admiral Reginald Bacon, who wrote his own book about the battle, criticising the version sponsored by Beatty and highly critical of Beatty's own part in the battle.
Besides actively encouraging the publication of books and articles designed to praise his role at the Battle of Jutland and denigrate Jellicoe's, after his retirement Beatty assisted with the preparation of a 5,200 line poem "The Epic of Jutland" by Shane Leslie.
Beatty was granted the Freedom of the City of London on 16 June 1919 at the same ceremony as Lord Haig. In June 1920, the Great Central Railway gave the name "Earl Beatty" to one of their newly built 4-6-0 express passenger locomotives, no. 1164 of class 9P (LNER class B3). It carried the name until withdrawal in September 1947. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8837 |
Dictum of Kenilworth
The Dictum of Kenilworth, issued on 31 October 1266, was a pronouncement designed to reconcile the rebels of the Second Barons' War with the royal government of England. After the baronial victory at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, Simon de Montfort took control of royal government, but at the Battle of Evesham the next year Montfort was killed, and King Henry III restored to power. A group of rebels held out in the stronghold of Kenilworth Castle, however, and their resistance proved difficult to crush.
A siege of the castle was started, but through papal intervention King Henry later entered on a more conciliatory path. A commission was appointed to draw up an arrangement that would be acceptable to both sides. The resulting Dictum of Kenilworth offered the rebels the right to buy back forfeited estates, at prices depending on their level of involvement in the rebellion. After initial resistance, the terms were eventually accepted. By the summer of 1267, the country was pacified, and this spirit of reconciliation would last until the 1290s. The Dictum of Kenilworth was later incorporated into the Statute of Marlborough.
At the Battle of Lewes in 1264, the rebellious barons, led by Simon de Montfort, had defeated the royal army and taken King Henry III captive. For the next year, the reins of government were in Montfort's hands, but his support soon began to crumble. On 4 August 1265, Montfort faced an army led by Prince Edward (later King Edward I) and the powerful Earl of Gloucester, who had recently defected to the royalist side, at the Battle of Evesham. The battle resulted in a complete royal victory; Montfort was killed, and King Henry III was restored to full power.
Part of the rebellious forces held out, however, and their stronghold was the virtually impregnable Kenilworth Castle. In the summer of 1266, a siege of the castle was initiated, but the effort proved futile. There were rumours that Montfort's son Simon the Younger was planning an invasion of England from Normandy, and this was the hope that the rebels hung on to. It was in this situation that the papal legate Ottobuono Fieschi exerted his influence, to make the king pursue a more conciliatory policy. In August, the king summoned a parliament at Kenilworth, where the siege was ongoing. He commissioned a number of earls, barons and bishops to draft a treaty of reconciliation.
The commission was created by parliament appointing three bishops and three barons, who then selected one more bishop, two earls, and three more barons.
The final committee consisted of the bishops of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Worcester and St. David's, the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, and six barons (Philip Basset, John Balliol, Robert Walerand, Alan la Zouche, Roger de Somery and Warin Basingbourne). This committee was given until All Saints Day (1 November) to come up with provisions for a settlement. The result, known as the Dictum of Kenilworth, was made public on 31 October 1266.
The primary point of the Dictum was the re-establishment of royal authority. The Provisions of Oxford, that had been forced on the king, were repudiated, and it was made clear that the appointment of ministers was entirely a royal prerogative. King Henry in turn reconfirmed Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. Measures were taken to renounce the increasing veneration of the fallen Simon de Montfort, whom some were already starting to consider a martyr and a possible saint.
The rebels had previously been completely disinherited, and their land taken into the king's hands. The Dictum instead extended a pardon, and restored land to their previous owners, contingent on payment of certain penalties that were proportional to the level of involvement in the rebellion. It was traditional to value land at ten times its annual yield, and most of the rebels were subsequently fined at half of this amount: five times the annual yield of their lands.
Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby, was singled out in particular for his central involvement in the rebellion, and for him the multiple was seven rather than five. The same was the case for Henry de Hastings, who was the commander of Kenilworth Castle. Those who had not taken part in the fighting themselves, but had incited others to rise up against the king, were fined at two years' value, while those who had been compelled to fight, or played only a minor part, had to pay one year's value of their land. The proceedings from the fines were awarded to royal supporters, some of whom had already been awarded parts of the rebels' land, and now had to give it back.
Hostilities did not end with the publication of the Dictum. The garrison at Kenilworth refused to accept the terms given, and held out until 14 December, when deprivation forced them to surrender. In April 1267, the earl of Gloucesterwho had been central both to the royal victory at Evesham and to the drafting of the Dictumturned against the king. He occupied the city of London, and set himself up as the champion of the disinherited. After negotiations involving both Edward and Ottobuono, Gloucester relented, and by June a settlement was reached. Gloucester had forced a change to the conditions of the Dictum, whereby the disinherited were allowed to recover their lands before they had paid their fines rather than after; an arrangement that made repayment much easier. In the summer of that year, Prince Edward moved at the Isle of Ely, where the last of the rebels still held out, and forced them into submission under terms favourable to the rebels.
In November 1267, parliament met at Marlborough. Here an important provision was issued that would become known to history as the Statute of Marlborough. This statute incorporated the clauses of the Dictum of Kenilworth that dealt with the restoration of royal power, and reconciliation between the loyalists and the rebels. The Statute of Marlborough became a basis for royal government, and the relationship between the king and his subjects, and as such the Dictum lived on in English constitutional history.
The spirit of peace and reconciliation established by the Dictum of Kenilworth lasted for the remainder of Henry III's reign and into the 1290s. In 1270, Prince Edward left the country to go on crusade in the Holy Land. When his father died in 1272, Edward felt in a safe enough position to wait until 1274 before returning home to claim the throne. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8838 |
London Docklands
London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Newham, and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. After the docks closed, the area had become derelict and poverty-ridden by the 1980s. The Docklands' regeneration began later that decade; it has been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name "London Docklands" was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 and has since been almost universally adopted. The redevelopment created wealth, but also led to some conflict between the new and old communities in the area.
In Roman and medieval times, ships arriving in the River Thames tended to dock at small quays in the present-day City of London or Southwark, an area known as the Pool of London. However, these gave no protection against the elements, were vulnerable to thieves and suffered from a lack of space at the quayside. The Howland Great Dock in Rotherhithe (built in 1696, and later to form the core of the Surrey Commercial Docks) was designed to address these problems, providing a large, secure and sheltered anchorage with room for 120 large vessels. It was a major commercial success, and provided for two phases of expansion during the Georgian and Victorian eras.
The first of the Georgian docks was the West India (opened in 1802), followed by the London (1805), the East India (also 1805), the Surrey (1807), the Regent's Canal Dock (1820), St Katharine (1828) and the West India South (1829). The Victorian docks were mostly further east, comprising the Royal Victoria (1855), Millwall (1868) and Royal Albert (1880). The King George V Dock was a late addition in 1921.
Three principal kinds of docks existed. Wet docks were where ships were laid up at anchor and loaded or unloaded. Dry docks, which were far smaller, took individual ships for repairing. Ships were built at dockyards along the riverside. In addition, the river was lined with innumerable warehouses, piers, jetties and dolphins (mooring points). The various docks tended to specialise in different forms of produce. The Surrey Docks concentrated on timber, for instance; Millwall took grain; St Katharine took wool, sugar and rubber; and so on.
The docks required an army of workers, chiefly lightermen (who carried loads between ships and quays aboard small barges called lighters) and quayside workers, who dealt with the goods once they were ashore. Some of the workers were highly skilled: the lightermen had their own livery company or guild, while the deal porters (workers who carried timber) were famous for their acrobatic skills. Most were unskilled and worked as casual labourers. They assembled at certain points, such as pubs, each morning, where they were selected more or less at random by foremen. For these workers, it was effectively a lottery whether they would get work on any particular day. This arrangement continued until as late as 1965, although it was somewhat regularised after the creation of the National Dock Labour Scheme in 1947.
The main dockland areas were originally low-lying marshes, mostly unsuitable for agriculture and lightly populated. With the establishment of the docks, the dock workers formed a number of tight-knit local communities with their own distinctive cultures and slang. Due to poor communications with other parts of London, they tended to develop in some isolation. Road access to the Isle of Dogs, for example, was only via two swing bridges. Local sentiment there was so strong that Ted Johns, a local community campaigner, and his supporters, in protest at the lack of social provision from the state, unilaterally declared independence for the area, set up a so-called "Island Council" with Johns himself as its elected leader, and blocked off the two access roads.
The docks were originally built and managed by a number of competing private companies. From 1909, they were managed by the Port of London Authority (PLA) which amalgamated the companies in a bid to make the docks more efficient and improve labour relations. The PLA constructed the last of the docks, the King George V, in 1921, as well as greatly expanding the Tilbury docks.
German bombing during the Second World War caused massive damage to the docks, with 380,000 tons of timber destroyed in the Surrey Docks in a single night. Nonetheless, following post-war rebuilding they experienced a resurgence of prosperity in the 1950s. The end came suddenly, between approximately 1960 and 1970, when the shipping industry adopted the newly invented container system of cargo transportation. London's docks were unable to accommodate the much larger vessels needed by containerization, and the shipping industry moved to deep-water ports such as Tilbury and Felixstowe. Between 1960 and 1980, all of London's docks were closed, leaving around eight square miles (21 km²) of derelict land in East London.
Efforts to redevelop the docks began almost as soon as they were closed, although it took a decade for most plans to move beyond the drawing board and another decade for redevelopment to take full effect. The situation was greatly complicated by the large number of landowners involved: the PLA, the Greater London Council (GLC), the British Gas Corporation, five borough councils, British Rail and the Central Electricity Generating Board.
To address this problem, in 1981 the Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, formed the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) to redevelop the area. This was a statutory body appointed and funded by central government (a quango), with wide powers to acquire and dispose of land in the Docklands. It also served as the development planning authority for the area.
Another important government intervention was the designation in 1982 of an enterprise zone, an area in which businesses were exempt from property taxes and had other incentives, including simplified planning and capital allowances. This made investing in the Docklands a significantly more attractive proposition and was instrumental in starting a property boom in the area.
The LDDC was controversial; it was accused of favouring elitist luxury developments rather than affordable housing, and it was unpopular with the local communities, who felt that their needs were not being addressed. Nonetheless, the LDDC was central to a remarkable transformation in the area, although how far it was in control of events is debatable. It was wound up in 1998 when control of the Docklands area was handed back to the respective local authorities.
The massive development programme managed by the LDDC during the 1980s and 1990s saw a huge area of the Docklands converted into a mixture of residential, commercial and light industrial space. The clearest symbol of the whole effort was the ambitious Canary Wharf project that constructed Britain's tallest building at the time and established a second major financial centre in London. However, there is no evidence that the LDDC foresaw this scale of development; nearby Heron Quays had already been developed as low-density offices when Canary Wharf was proposed, and similar development was already underway on Canary Wharf itself, Limehouse Studios being the most famous occupant.
Canary Wharf was far from trouble-free; the property slump of the early 1990s halted further development for several years. Developers found themselves, for a time, saddled with property that they were unable to sell or let.
The Docklands historically had poor transport connections. This was addressed by the LDDC with the construction of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which connected the Docklands with the City. According to Transport for London, the owner of the project, it was a remarkably inexpensive development, costing only £77 million in its first phase, as it relied on reusing disused railway infrastructure and derelict land for much of its length. The LDDC originally requested a full London Underground line, but the Government refused to fund it.
The LDDC also built the Limehouse Link tunnel, a cut and cover road tunnel linking the Isle of Dogs to The Highway (the A1203 road) at a cost of over £150 million per kilometre, one of the most expensive stretches of road ever built.
The LDDC also contributed to the development of London City Airport (IATA airport code LCY), opened in October 1987 on the spine of the Royal Docks.
The London Underground's Jubilee line was extended eastwards in 1999; it now serves Rotherhithe/Surrey Quays at Canada Water station, the Isle of Dogs at Canary Wharf tube station, Greenwich at North Greenwich tube station and the nearby Royal Docks at Canning Town station. The DLR was extended in 1994 to serve much of the Royal Docks area when the Beckton branch was opened. The Isle of Dogs branch was extended further south, and in 1999 it began serving Greenwich town centre—including the Cutty Sark museum—Deptford and finally Lewisham. In 2005, a new branch of the DLR opened from Canning Town to serve what used to be the eastern terminus of the North London Line, including a station at London City Airport. It was then further extended to Woolwich Arsenal in 2009.
Further development projects are being proposed and put into practice within the London Dockland area, such as:
In the early 21st century, redevelopment is spreading into the more suburban parts of east and southeast London, and into the parts of the counties of Kent and Essex that abut the Thames Estuary. See Thames Gateway and Lower Lea Valley for further information on this trend.
The numbers of several London Buses routes are prefixed "D" for Docklands; all run on the north bank of the River Thames as part of the London bus network, and act as feeder buses to the DLR. The "D" network was developed in the early stages of Docklands redevelopment; it was originally much larger, but as transport rapidly improved across east London, the need for the "D" routes reduced. Today only four remain, running primarily in Tower Hamlets and briefly into Newham and Hackney. Docklands Buses operates all routes apart from route D3, which is run by Stagecoach London.
The population of the Docklands has more than doubled during the last 30 years, and the area has become both a major business centre and, for many, an increasingly desirable area to live. Canary Wharf has become one of Europe's biggest clusters of skyscrapers and a major extension to the financial services district of the City of London.
Although most of the old wharfs and warehouses have been demolished, some have been restored and converted into flats. Most of the docks themselves have survived and are now used as marinas or watersports centres; a major exception is the Surrey Commercial Docks, which are now largely filled in. Although large ships can—and occasionally still do—visit the old docks, all of the commercial traffic has moved downriver.
The revival of the Docklands has had major effects in run-down surrounding areas. Greenwich and Deptford are undergoing large-scale redevelopment, chiefly as a result of the improved transport links making them more attractive to commuters.
The Docklands' redevelopment has, however, had some less beneficial aspects. The massive property boom and consequent rise in house prices has led to friction between the new arrivals and the old Docklands communities, who have complained of being squeezed out. It has also made for some of the most striking disparities to be seen anywhere in Britain: luxury executive flats constructed alongside run-down public housing estates.
The Docklands' status as a symbol of Margaret Thatcher's Britain has also made it a target for terrorists. After a failed attempt to bomb Canary Wharf in 1992, a large IRA bomb exploded at South Quay on 9 February 1996. Two people died in the explosion, forty people were injured and an estimated £150 million of damage was caused. This bombing ended an IRA ceasefire. James McArdle was imprisoned for 25 years after a trial at Woolwich Crown Court that ended on 24 June 1998. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and royal prerogative of mercy officially signed by Queen Elizabeth II, McArdle was released on 28 June 2000.
London Docklands is served by its own free newspaper, the "Docklands", launched in 2006 by Archant London following the purchase of "Docklands News", the ex-LDDC newspaper that was then owned by Ivy Communications. It is delivered weekly to properties and available to pick up from various locations in the area. It has the highest circulation of any newspaper in the area. A sister title, "The Peninsula", was launched in 2007, covering the Greenwich Peninsula.
In a further sign of regeneration in the area, the Docklands now has its own symphony orchestra, Docklands Sinfonia; this was formed in January 2009 and is based at St Anne's Limehouse.
The offices of "The Independent" group of publications were at one time situated in the Docklands. In 2008, Independent News & Media announced that "The Independent" would be moving its offices to Northcliffe House in Kensington.
Since 1990, the London's Docklands has become one of the world's leading global internet hubs since the opening of the carrier-neutral Telehouse campus which hosts the vast majority of LINX's internet peering traffic, occupying over 73,000 square metres. In August 2016, Telehouse Europe opened $177 million North Two data centre of 24,000 square metres that became the only UK data centre to own a 132 kV on-campus grid substation that is directly connected to the National Grid, reducing transmission losses and improving power density and service continuity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8839 |
Diesel multiple unit
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also generally classed as DMUs. Diesel-powered units may be further classified by their transmission type: diesel–mechanical "DMMU", diesel–hydraulic "DHMU", or diesel–electric "DEMU".
The diesel engine may be located above the frame in an engine bay or under the floor. Driving controls can be at both ends, on one end, or in a separate car.
DMUs are usually classified by the method of transmitting motive power to their wheels.
In a diesel–mechanical multiple unit (DMMU), the rotating energy of the engine is transmitted via a gearbox and driveshaft directly to the wheels of the train, like a car. The transmissions can be shifted manually by the driver, as in the great majority of first-generation British Rail DMUs, but in most applications, gears are changed automatically.
In a diesel–hydraulic multiple unit (DHMU), a hydraulic torque converter, a type of fluid coupling, acts as the transmission medium for the motive power of the diesel engine to turn the wheels. Some units feature a hybrid mix of hydraulic and mechanical transmissions, usually reverting to the latter at higher operating speeds as this decreases engine RPM and noise.
In a diesel–electric multiple unit (DEMU), a diesel engine drives an electrical generator or an alternator which produces electrical energy. The generated current is then fed to electric traction motors on the wheels or bogies in the same way as a conventional diesel–electric locomotive.
On some DEMUs, such as the Bombardier Voyager family, each car is entirely self-contained and has its own engine, generator and electric motors. In other designs, such as the British Rail Class 207 or the Stadler GTW and Stadler Flirt DMU, some cars within the consist may be entirely unpowered or only feature electric motors, obtaining electric current from other cars in the consist which have a generator and engine.
With diesel–electric transmission, some DMU can be no other than an EMU without pantograph, which "is substituted" by one or more on-board diesel generators; this kind of DEMU can be potentially upgraded to electro-diesel multiple unit "EDMU", becoming a bi-mode multiple units train (BMU), just adding one or two pantographs (with opportune converters, if necessary) and related modifications on the electric system.
A train composed of DMU cars scales well, as it allows extra passenger capacity to be added at the same time as motive power. It also permits passenger capacity to be matched to demand, and for trains to be split and joined en route. It is not necessary to match the power available to the size and weight of the train, as each unit is capable of moving itself. As units are added, the power available to move the train increases by the necessary amount. DMUs may have better acceleration capabilities, with more power-driven axles, making them more suitable for routes with frequent closely spaced stops, as compared with conventional locomotive and unpowered carriage setups.
Distribution of the propulsion among the cars also results in a system that is less vulnerable to single-point-of-failure outages. Many classes of DMU are capable of operating with faulty units still in the consist. Because of the self-contained nature of diesel engines, there is no need to run overhead electric lines or electrified track, which can result in lower system construction costs.
Such advantages must be weighed against the underfloor noise and vibration that may be an issue with this type of train.
Generally diesel traction has several downsides compared to electric traction, namely higher fuel costs, more noise and exhaust as well as worse acceleration and top speed performance. The power to weight ratio also tends to be worse.
DMUs have further disadvantages compared to diesel locomotives in that they cannot be swapped out when approaching or passing onto an electrified line, necessitating either passengers to change trains or Diesel operation on electrified lines. Similarly the lost investment once electrification reduces the demand for diesel rolling stock is higher than with locomotive hauled trains where only the locomotive has to be replaced. Finally, incremental maintenance costs for DMUs are significantly higher than with electric (EMUs), because of the added fueling, lubrication, replacement and maintenance of engine parts and systems in every car.
NMBS/SNCB uses its NMBS/SNCB Class 41 DMU's on the few remaining unelectrified lines. As electrification progresses, the DMU's become less and less important.
Diesel multiple units cover large number of passenger lines in Croatia which are operated by the national operator Croatian Railways. On Croatian Railways, DMU's have important role since they cover local, regional and distant lines all across the country. Country's two largest towns, Zagreb and Split, are connected with an Inter City service that is provided by DMU tilting trains "RegioSwinger" (Croatian series 7123) since 2004. Those trains may also cover other lines in the country depending on need and availability.
Luxury DMU series 7021, built in France, started to operate for Yugoslav Railways in 1972 and after 1991 stil remained in service of Croatian Railways until 2005. Units 7121 and 7122 (which came as a replacement for 7221 units), together with the newest series 7022 and 7023 built in 2010's Croatia, cover many of the country's local and regional services on unelectrified or partly electrified lines.
Elron has since 2015 a Stadler Flirt fleet, with 20 trains DEMU version.
In the Republic of Ireland the Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), which controlled the republic's railways between 1945 and 1986, introduced DMUs in the mid-1950s and they were the first diesel trains on many main lines.
DMUs are used mostly on shorter and less frequently travelled routes in remote and often poorer areas like Banat and Bukovina. The national railway company CFR uses Malaxa class 77 and 78 DMUs locally built between the 1920s and 50s and refurbished in the 70s. It also uses a smaller number of other newer DMUs. Main DMU in use is the Class 96 Siemens Desiro aka Săgeata Albastră (Blue Arrow).
The first significant use of DMUs in the United Kingdom was by the Great Western Railway, which introduced its small but successful series of diesel–mechanical GWR railcars in 1934. The London and North Eastern Railway and London, Midland and Scottish Railway also experimented with DMUs in the 1930s, the LMS both on its own system, and on that of its Northern Irish subsidiary, but development was curtailed by World War II.
After nationalisation, British Railways (BR) revived the concept in the early 1950s. At that time there was an urgent need to move away from expensive steam traction which led to many experimental designs using diesel propulsion and multiple units. The early DMUs proved successful, and under BR's 1955 Modernisation Plan the building of a large fleet was authorised. These BR "First Generation" DMUs were built between 1956 and 1963.
BR required that contracts for the design and manufacture of new locomotives and rolling stock be split between numerous private firms as well as BR's own workshops, while different BR Regions laid down different specifications. The result was a multitude of different types, one of which was:
In 1960, British Railways introduced its Blue Pullman high-speed DEMUs.
These were few in number and relatively short-lived, but they paved the way for the very successful InterCity 125 or High Speed Train (HST) units, which were built between 1975 and 1982 to take over most principal express services on non-electrified routes.
These trains run with a streamlined power car at each end and (typically) 7 to 9 intermediate trailer cars. Although originally classified as DEMUs, the trailer cars are very similar to loco-hauled stock, and the power cars were later reclassified as locomotives under Class 43. They remain in widespread use.
By the early 1980s, many of the surviving First Generation units were reaching the end of their design life, leading to spiralling maintenance costs, poor reliability and a poor public image for the railway. A stopgap solution was to convert some services back to locomotive haulage, as spare locomotives and hauled coaching stock were available, but this also increased operating costs. Commencing in the mid '80s, British Rail embarked upon its so called "Sprinterisation" programme, to replace most of the first generation DMUs and many locomotive-hauled trains with three new families of DMU:
Following the impact of the privatisation of British Rail in the late 1990s, several other diesel–hydraulic DMU families have been introduced:
In 2018 the first bi and tri-mode electro-diesel multiple units were introduced:
Canada generally follows similar buffer strength requirements to the US, but new services are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. As a result, several types of lightweight DMUs have been used:
Costa Rica has purchased several Apolo 2400 series DMU railcars from the former narrow gauge operator in Spain, which are run in commuter service.
A type of diesel multiple units in the U.S. was the Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC). The RDC was a single passenger car with two diesel engines and two sets of controls.
In the United States only FRA-compliant DMU systems are permitted on freight rail corridors. This is due to the Federal Railway Administration setting higher coupling strength requirements than European regulators, effectively prohibiting the use of lighter weight European-style inter-city rail DMUs on U.S. main line railways without timesharing with freight operations or special waivers from the FRA. This has greatly restricted the development of DMUs within the U.S. as no other country requires the much heavier FRA compliant vehicles, and no export market for them exists.
Operations using FRA-compliant vehicles:
Operations using non FRA-compliant vehicles:
Proposed operations:
DMUs were first introduced to Australia in the late mid-20th century for use on quiet branch lines that could not justify a locomotive hauled service. Today, DMUs are widely used throughout Australia's southern states:
In Queensland, heritage DMUs are used on the Savannahlander and Gulflander tourist trains.
Chinese manufactured (CNR Tangshan) DEMU was introduced in Bangladesh from May 25, 2013. DEMU is the country's first-ever commuter train service starting its journey on the Chittagong–Fouzdarhat line. These DEMUs also operate on the Chittagong Circular Railway and on the Bangladesh Railway's service between Dhaka and Narayanganj.
DMUs (DEMUs) are widely used in India. DEMUs in India are used in both the 8 coach format and the 4 coach format. These trains replaced many (up to 10 car) trains with a WDM-2 or WDM-3A locomotive in the middle. These old trains had the loco controls duplicated in the Driving Trailer coach and all the actuation information reaching the locomotive through thin communication lines. This was called 'push-pull train'. The longest running such push-pull service operated between Diva - Bhiwandi Road and Vasai Road and was recently converted into an MEMU train service in 2018.
First generation DMU:
Rated power was 700 HP and had 3 or 6 coaches, made first by ICF.
Transmission was Voith-hydraulic.
Max speed 100 kmph.
Second generation DMU:
Rated power is 1400 HP and have 8 coaches.
Max speed is 105 kmph.
Transmission is DC electric.
Made at HCF and RCF.
Third generation DMU:
Rated power is 1600 HP and have 10 coaches.
Max speed is 110 kmph.
Transmission is AC electric.
Made at ICF.
State-owned company PT.INKA builds several type of DMU, some of which operate in urban and suburban areas:
In Japan, where gasoline-driven railbuses (on small private lines) and railmotors (Kihani 5000 of the national railways) had been built since the 1920s, the first two streamlined DMUs came in service in 1937, class Kiha 43000 (キハ43000系).
The service of several hundreds (in sum even thousands) of diesel railcars and DMUs started in 1950s following the improvement of fuel supply that was critical during World War II.
The Southrail or the South Main Line of the Philippine National Railways which travels South of the Luzon island is one of the oldest rail lines in Asia and in the world.
The Southrail of Philippine National Railways uses Hyundai Rotem DMUs together with second-hand DMUs from East Japan Railway Company or JR East and Kanto Railway. These are Kiha 52, Kiha 59 which is also known as the "Kogane" and Kiha 350. Trains such as the Hyundai Rotem DMUs Kiha 350 and Kiha 52 are often used for Metro Commuter Line services, while Kiha 59 is mostly used for Bicol interprovincial services and sometimes also for the Metro Commuter services.
Korail operates many DMUs. The DHC (Diesel Hydraulic Car), which made its debut for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, can reach speeds up to and serves Saemaul-ho trains.
DMUs were first introduced to Sri Lanka in 1940. The aim of this was connecting minor railway stations and stops on the main line where most express trains don't have a halt.
The DMUs are now usually used on the Taiwan Railway Administration Hualien–Taitung Line, North-Link Line, South-Link Line. DMUs in Taiwan are classified as Class DR.
DMU manufacturers include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8840 |
Donald A. Wollheim
Donald Allen Wollheim (October 1, 1914 – November 2, 1990) was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell.
A founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th-century United States.
Ursula K. Le Guin called Wollheim "the tough, reliable editor of Ace Books, in the Late Pulpalignean Era, 1966 and '67, " which is when he published her first two novels, in an Ace Double.
"The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" (first edition, 1979) calls Wollheim "one of the first and most vociferous sf fans." He published numerous fanzines and co-edited the early "Fanciful Tales of Space and Time". His importance to early fandom is chronicled in the 1974 book "The Immortal Storm" by Sam Moskowitz and in the 1977 book "The Futurians" by Damon Knight.
Wollheim organized what was later deemed the first American science fiction convention, when a group from New York met with a group from Philadelphia on October 22, 1936 in Philadelphia. The modern Philcon convention claims descent from this event. Out of this meeting, plans were formed for regional and national meetings, including the first Worldcon.
Wollheim was a member of the New York Science Fiction League, one of the clubs established by Hugo Gernsback to promote science fiction. When payment was not forthcoming for the first story he sold to Gernsback, Wollheim formed a group with several other authors, and successfully sued for payment. He was expelled from the Science Fiction League as "a disruptive influence" but was later reinstated. From the September 1935 issue of Gernsback's "Wonder Stories":
In 1937 Wollheim founded the Fantasy Amateur Press Association, whose first mailing (July 1937) included this statement from him: "There are many fans desiring to put out a voice who dare not, for fear of being obliged to keep it up, and for the worry and time taken by subscriptions and advertising. It is for them and for the fan who admits it is his hobby and not his business that we formed the FAPA." In 1938, with several friends, he formed the Futurians—arguably the best-known of the science fiction clubs. At one time or another, the membership included Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth, James Blish, John Michel, Judith Merril, Robert A. W. Lowndes, Richard Wilson, Damon Knight, Virginia Kidd, and Larry T. Shaw. In 1943 Wollheim married fellow Futurian Elsie Balter (1910–1996). It proved to be a lasting marriage and publishing partnership.
The Futurians became less fan-oriented and more professional after 1940. Its conferences and workshops focused on writing, editing, and publishing, with many of its members interested in all three.
Wollheim's first story, "The Man from Ariel", was published in the January 1934 issue of "Wonder Stories" when he was nineteen.
He was not paid for the story, and when he learned that other authors had not been paid either, he said so in the "Bulletin" of the Terrestrial Fantascience Guild. Publisher Hugo Gernsback eventually settled with Wollheim and the other authors out of court for $75. However, when Wollheim submitted another story ("The Space Lens") under the pseudonym Millard Verne Gordon, he was once again cheated by Gernsback who published it in the September 1935 issue. His third known story was published in "Fanciful Tales of Time and Space", Fall 1936, a fanzine that he edited himself. That year he also published and edited another short-lived fanzine, "Phantagraph".
Wollheim's stories were published regularly from 1940; at the same time he was becoming an important editor. In the 1950s and 60s he wrote chiefly novels. He usually used pseudonyms for works aimed at grownups, and wrote children's novels under his own name. Notable and popular were the eight "Mike Mars" books for children, which explored different facets of the NASA space program. Also well-received were the "Secret" books for young readers: "The Secret of Saturn's Rings" (1954), "Secret of the Martian Moons" (1955), and "The Secret of the Ninth Planet" (1959). As Martin Pearson he published the "Ajax Calkins" series, which became the basis for his novel "Destiny's Orbit" (1962). A sequel, "Destination: Saturn" was published in 1967 in collaboration with Lin Carter. "The Universe Makers" (1971) is a discussion of themes and philosophy in science fiction.
One of Wollheim's short stories, "Mimic", was made into the film of the same name, released in 1997.
His daughter Betsy declared: "In true editorial fashion, he was honest about the quality of his own writing. He felt it was fair to middling at best. He always knew that his great talent was as an editor."
Robert Silverberg said that Wollheim was "one of the most significant figures in 20th century American science fiction publishing," adding, "A plausible case could be made that he was "the" most significant figure—responsible in large measure for the development of the science fiction paperback, the science fiction anthology, and the whole post-Tolkien boom in fantasy fiction."
In late 1940, Wollheim noticed a new magazine titled "Stirring Detective and Western Stories" on the newsstands. He wrote to the publishers, Albing Publications, to see if they were interested in adding a science fiction title to their list, and he was invited to meet them. They did not have capital, however, and only guaranteed him a salary if the magazines were successful. He approached some of his fellow Futurians for free stories (some published under pseudonyms to protect their reputations with paying editors). It resulted in Wollheim's editing two of the earliest periodicals devoted to science fiction, the "Cosmic Stories" and "Stirring Science Stories" magazines starting in February 1941. After the magazines were cancelled later in 1941, Wollheim was able to find another publisher, Manhattan Fiction Publications, and a fourth issue of "Stirring" appeared, dated March 1942. Wartime constraints prevented ongoing publication, and there were no more issues of either title.
Wollheim edited the first science fiction anthology to be mass-marketed, "The Pocket Book of Science Fiction" (1943). It was also the first book containing the words "science fiction" in the title. It included works by Robert A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, T. S. Stribling, Stephen Vincent Benét, Ambrose Bierce, and H. G. Wells. In 1945 Wollheim edited the first hardcover anthology from a major publisher and the first omnibus, "The Viking Portable Novels of Science". He also edited the first anthology of original science fiction, "The Girl With the Hungry Eyes" (1947), although there is evidence that this last was originally intended to be the first issue of a new magazine.
Between 1947 and 1951 he was editor at the pioneering paperback publisher Avon Books, where he made available highly affordable editions of the works of A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, and C. S. Lewis' "Silent Planet" space trilogy, bringing these previously little known authors a wide readership. During this period he also edited eighteen issues of the influential "Avon Fantasy Reader" as well as three of the "Avon Science Fiction Reader". These periodicals contained mostly reprints and a few original stories.
In 1952 Wollheim left Avon to work for A. A. Wyn at the Ace Magazine Company and spearheaded a new paperback book list, Ace Books. In 1953 he introduced science fiction to the Ace lineup, and for 20 years as editor-in-chief was responsible for their multi-genre list and, most important to him, their renowned sf list. Wollheim invented the "Ace Doubles" series which consisted of pairs of books, usually by different authors, bound back-to-back with two "front" covers. Because these paired books had to fit a fixed total page length, one or both were usually abridged to fit, and Wollheim often made other editorial alterations—as witness the differences between Poul Anderson's Ace novel "War of the Wing-Men" and its definitive revised edition, "The Man Who Counts". Among the authors who made their paperback debuts in Ace Doubles were Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Leigh Brackett, Ursula K. Le Guin, and John Brunner. William S. Burroughs' first book, "Junkie", was published as an Ace Double. Wollheim also helped develop Marion Zimmer Bradley, Robert Silverberg, Avram Davidson, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Thomas Burnett Swann, Jack Vance, and Roger Zelazny, among others. While at Ace, he and co-editor Terry Carr began an annual anthology series, "The World's Best Science Fiction", the first collection of what they considered the best of the prior year's short stories, from magazines, hardcovers, paperback collections and other anthologies.
In the early 1960s Ace reintroduced Edgar Rice Burroughs' work, which had long been out of print, and in 1965, Ace bought the paperback rights to "Dune" (Herbert's title worried Wollheim, who feared it would be mistaken for a western). Eventually, Ace introduced single paperback books and became one of the preeminent genre publishers. Ace and Ballantine dominated sf in the 1960s and built the genre by publishing original material as well as reprints.
Before the 1960s, no American paperback publisher would publish fantasy. It was believed that there was no public for fantasy and that it would not sell. Wollheim published an unauthorized paperback edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" in three volumes, the first mass-market paperback edition of Tolkien's epic, despite not being a fantasy fan. In a 2006 interview his daughter, Betsy Wollheim, said:
Tolkien authorized a paperback edition of "The Hobbit" in 1961, though that edition was never made available outside the U.K. Eventually, he supported paperback editions of "The Lord of the Rings" and several of his other texts, but whether he was persuaded to do so by the sales of the Ace editions is unknown. In any case, Ace was forced to cease publishing the unauthorized edition and to pay Tolkien for their sales following a grass-roots campaign by Tolkien's U.S. fans. A 1993 court determined that the copyright loophole suggested by Ace Books was invalid and its paperback edition was found to have been a violation of copyright under U.S. law(at this time, the U.S. had yet to join the International Copyright Convention, and most laws on the books existed to protect domestic creations from foreign infringement. Houghton Mifflin was technically in violation of the law when they exceeded their import limits and failed to renew their interim copyright). In the "Locus" obituary for Donald Wollheim, however, more details emerge:
Wollheim left Ace in 1971. Frederik Pohl describes the circumstances:
Unfortunately, when Wyn died [in 1968] the company was sold to a consortium headed by a bank. ... Few of them had any publishing experience before they found themselves running Ace. It showed. Before long, bills weren't being paid, authors' advances and royalties were delayed, budgets were cut back, and most of Donald's time was spent trying to soothe authors and agents who were indignant, and had every right to be, at the way they were treated.
Upon leaving Ace, he and his wife, Elsie Balter Wollheim, founded DAW Books, named for his initials. DAW can claim to be the first mass market specialist science fiction and fantasy fiction publishing house. DAW issued its first four titles in April 1972. Most of the writers whom he had developed at Ace went with him to DAW: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, A. Bertram Chandler, Kenneth Bulmer, Gordon R. Dickson, A. E. van Vogt, and Jack Vance. In later years, when his distributor, New American Library, threatened to withhold Thomas Burnett Swann's Biblical fantasy "How Are the Mighty Fallen" (1974) because of its homosexual content, Wollheim fought vigorously against their decision and they relented.
His later author discoveries included Tanith Lee, Jennifer Roberson, Michael Shea, Tad Williams, Celia S. Friedman, and C. J. Cherryh, whose "Downbelow Station" (1982) was the first DAW book to win the Hugo Award for best novel. He was also able to give a number of British writers—including E. C. Tubb, Brian Stableford, Barrington Bayley, and Michael Coney—a new American audience. He published translations of international sf as well as anthologies of translated stories, "Best From the Rest of the World." With the help of Arthur W. Saha, Wollheim also edited and published the popular "Annual World's Best Science Fiction" anthology from 1971 until his death.
Algis Budrys in 1966 gave Wollheim a Galaxy Bookshelf award "for doing his job". Upon Wollheim's death in 1990, the prolific editor Robert Silverberg argued (above) that he may have been ""the" most significant figure" in American SF publishing.
Robert Jordan credits Wollheim for helping to launch his (Jordan's) career. Wollheim made an offer for Jordan's first novel, "Warriors of the Ataii", though he withdrew the offer when Jordan requested some minor changes to the contract. Jordan claims that Wollheim's first, 'laudatory' letter convinced him that he could write, and so he chose to remember the first letter and forget about the second. The novel was never published, but Jordan went on to write the immensely successful "Wheel of Time" series for a different publisher.
Marion Zimmer Bradley referred to him as "a second father", Frederik Pohl called him "a founder", and Robert Silverberg says he was "seriously underrated" and "one of the great shapers of science-fiction publishing in the United States". In 1977 scholar Robert Scholes named Wollheim "one of the most important editors and publishers of science fiction."
From 1975 on, Wollheim received several special awards for his contributions to science fiction and to fantasy, including one at the 1975 World SF Convention and runner-up to Ian & Betty Ballantine at the 1975 World Fantasy Convention.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in 2002, its seventh class of two deceased and two living persons. He is the third person inducted primarily for his work as editor or publisher, after the inaugural 1996 pair Hugo Gernsback and John W Campbell.
As editor:
As writer: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8843 |
Digital cinema
Digital cinema refers to the use of digital technology to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be shipped to movie theaters, a digital movie can be distributed to cinemas in a number of ways: over the Internet or dedicated satellite links, or by sending hard drives or optical discs such as Blu-ray discs. Digital movies are projected using a digital video projector instead of a film projector. Digital cinema is distinct from high-definition television and does not necessarily use traditional television or other traditional high-definition video standards, aspect ratios, or frame rates. In digital cinema, resolutions are represented by the horizontal pixel count, usually 2K (2048×1080 or 2.2 megapixels) or 4K (4096×2160 or 8.8 megapixels). As digital-cinema technology improved in the early 2010s, most theaters across the world converted to digital video projection.
The transition from film to digital video was preceded by cinema's transition from analog to digital audio, with the release of the Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio coding standard in 1991. Its main basis is the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT), a lossy audio compression algorithm. It is a modification of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) algorithm, which was first proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972 and was originally intended for image compression. The DCT was adapted into the MDCT by J.P. Princen, A.W. Johnson and Alan B. Bradley at the University of Surrey in 1987, and then Dolby Laboratories adapted the MDCT algorithm along with perceptual coding principles to develop the AC-3 audio format for cinema needs. Cinema in the 1990s typically combined analog video with digital audio.
Digital media playback of high-resolution 2K files has at least a 20-year history. Early video data storage units (RAIDs) fed custom frame buffer systems with large memories. In early digital video units, content was usually restricted to several minutes of material. Transfer of content between remote locations was slow and had limited capacity. It was not until the late 1990s that feature-length films could be sent over the "wire" (Internet or dedicated fiber links). On October 23, 1998, Digital Light Processing (DLP) projector technology was publicly demonstrated with the release of "The Last Broadcast", the first feature-length movie, shot, edited and distributed digitally. In conjunction with Texas Instruments, the movie was publicly demonstrated in five theaters across the United States (Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), Minneapolis, Providence, and Orlando).
In the United States, on June 18, 1999, Texas Instruments' "DLP Cinema" projector technology was publicly demonstrated on two screens in Los Angeles and New York for the release of Lucasfilm's "". In Europe, on February 2, 2000, Texas Instruments' "DLP Cinema" projector technology was publicly demonstrated, by Philippe Binant, on one screen in Paris for the release of "Toy Story 2".
From 1997 to 2000, the JPEG 2000 image compression standard was developed by a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president). In contrast to the original 1992 JPEG standard, which is a DCT-based lossy compression format for static digital images, JPEG 2000 is a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based compression standard that could be adapted for motion imaging video compression with the Motion JPEG 2000 extension. JPEG 2000 technology was later selected as the video coding standard for digital cinema in 2004.
On January 19, 2000, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, in the United States, initiated the first standards group dedicated towards developing digital cinema. By December 2000, there were 15 digital cinema screens in the United States and Canada, 11 in Western Europe, 4 in Asia, and 1 in South America. Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) was formed in March 2002 as a joint project of many motion picture studios (Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros. Studios) to develop a system specification for digital cinema.
In April 2004, in cooperation with the American Society of Cinematographers, DCI created standard evaluation material (the ASC/DCI StEM material) for testing of 2K and 4K playback and compression technologies. DCI selected JPEG 2000 as the basis for the compression in the system the same year. Initial tests with JPEG 2000 produced bit-rates of around 75125 Mbps for 2K resolution and 100200 Mbps for 4K resolution.
In China, in June 2005, an e-cinema system called "dMs" was established and was used in over 15,000 screens spread across China's 30 provinces. dMs estimated that the system would expand to 40,000 screens in 2009. In 2005 the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network launched in the UK by Arts Alliance Media creating a chain of 250 2K digital cinema systems. The roll-out was completed in 2006. This was the first mass roll-out in Europe. AccessIT/Christie Digital also started a roll-out in the United States and Canada. By mid 2006, about 400 theaters were equipped with 2K digital projectors with the number increasing every month. In August 2006, the Malayalam digital movie "Moonnamathoral", produced by Benzy Martin, was distributed via satellite to cinemas, thus becoming the first Indian digital cinema. This was done by Emil and Eric Digital Films, a company based at Thrissur using the end-to-end digital cinema system developed by Singapore-based DG2L Technologies.
In January 2007, "Guru" became the first Indian film mastered in the DCI-compliant JPEG 2000 Interop format and also the first Indian film to be previewed digitally, internationally, at the Elgin Winter Garden in Toronto. This film was digitally mastered at Real Image Media Technologies in India. In 2007, the UK became home to Europe's first DCI-compliant fully digital multiplex cinemas; Odeon Hatfield and Odeon Surrey Quays (in London), with a total of 18 digital screens, were launched on 9 February 2007. By March 2007, with the release of Disney's "Meet the Robinsons", about 600 screens had been equipped with digital projectors. In June 2007, Arts Alliance Media announced the first European commercial digital cinema Virtual Print Fee (VPF) agreements (with 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures). In March 2009 AMC Theatres announced that it closed a $315 million deal with Sony to replace all of its movie projectors with 4K digital projectors starting in the second quarter of 2009; it was anticipated that this replacement would be finished by 2012.
In January 2011, the total number of digital screens worldwide was 36,242, up from 16,339 at end 2009 or a growth rate of 121.8 percent during the year. There were 10,083 d-screens in Europe as a whole (28.2 percent of global figure), 16,522 in the United States and Canada (46.2 percent of global figure) and 7,703 in Asia (21.6 percent of global figure). Worldwide progress was slower as in some territories, particularly Latin America and Africa. As of 31 March 2015, 38,719 screens (out of a total of 39,789 screens) in the United States have been converted to digital, 3,007 screens in Canada have been converted, and 93,147 screens internationally have been converted. At the end of 2017, virtually all of the world's cinema screens were digital (98%).
Despite the fact that today, virtually all global movie theaters have converted their screens to digital cinemas, some major motion pictures even as of 2019 are shot on film. For example, Quentin Tarantino released his latest film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" in 70 mm and 35 mm in selected theaters across the United States and Canada.
In addition to the equipment already found in a film-based movie theatre (e.g., a sound reinforcement system, screen, etc.), a DCI-compliant digital cinema requires a digital projector and a powerful computer known as a "server". Movies are supplied to the theatre as a digital file called a Digital Cinema Package (DCP). For a typical feature film, this file will be anywhere between 90 GB and 300 GB of data (roughly two to six times the information of a Blu-ray disc) and may arrive as a physical delivery on a conventional computer hard drive or via satellite or fibre-optic broadband Internet. As of 2013, physical deliveries of hard drives were most common in the industry. Promotional trailers arrive on a separate hard drive and range between 200 GB and 400 GB in size.
Regardless of how the DCP arrives, it first needs to be copied onto the internal hard drives of the server, usually via a USB port, a process known as "ingesting". DCPs can be, and in the case of feature films almost always are, encrypted, to prevent illegal copying and piracy. The necessary decryption keys are supplied separately, usually as email attachments and then "ingested" via USB. Keys are time-limited and will expire after the end of the period for which the title has been booked. They are also locked to the hardware (server and projector) that is to screen the film, so if the theatre wishes to move the title to another screen or extend the run, a new key must be obtained from the distributor. Several versions of the same feature can be sent together. The original version (OV) is used as the basis of all the other playback options. Version files (VF) may have a different sound format (e.g. 7.1 as opposed to 5.1 surround sound) or subtitles. 2D and 3D versions are often distributed on the same hard drive.
The playback of the content is controlled by the server using a "playlist". As the name implies, this is a list of all the content that is to be played as part of the performance. The playlist will be created by a member of the theatre's staff using proprietary software that runs on the server. In addition to listing the content to be played the playlist also includes automation cues that allow the playlist to control the projector, the sound system, auditorium lighting, tab curtains and screen masking (if present), etc. The playlist can be started manually, by clicking the "play" button on the server's monitor screen, or automatically at pre-set times.
Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), a joint venture of the six major studios, published the first version (V1.0) of a system specification for digital cinema in July 2005. The main declared objectives of the specification were to define a digital cinema system that would ""present a theatrical experience that is better than what one could achieve now with a traditional 35mm Answer Print"", to provide global standards for interoperability such that any DCI-compliant content could play on any DCI-compliant hardware anywhere in the world and to provide robust protection for the intellectual property of the content providers.
The DCI specification calls for picture encoding using the ISO/IEC 15444-1 "JPEG2000" (.j2c) standard and use of the CIE XYZ color space at 12 bits per component encoded with a 2.6 gamma applied at projection. Two levels of resolution for both content and projectors are supported: 2K (2048×1080) or 2.2 MP at 24 or 48 frames per second, and 4K (4096×2160) or 8.85 MP at 24 frames per second. The specification ensures that 2K content can play on 4K projectors and vice versa. Smaller resolutions in one direction are also supported (the image gets automatically centered). Later versions of the standard added additional playback rates (like 25 fps in SMPTE mode). For the sound component of the content the specification provides for up to 16 channels of uncompressed audio using the "Broadcast Wave" (.wav) format at 24 bits and 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling.
Playback is controlled by an XML-format Composition Playlist, into an MXF-compliant file at a maximum data rate of 250 Mbit/s. Details about encryption, key management, and logging are all discussed in the specification as are the minimum specifications for the projectors employed including the color gamut, the contrast ratio and the brightness of the image. While much of the specification codifies work that had already been ongoing in the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the specification is important in establishing a content owner framework for the distribution and security of first-release motion-picture content.
In addition to DCI's work, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) released its Digital Cinema System Requirements. The document addresses the requirements of digital cinema systems from the operational needs of the exhibitor, focusing on areas not addressed by DCI, including access for the visually impaired and hearing impaired, workflow inside the cinema, and equipment interoperability. In particular, NATO's document details requirements for the Theatre Management System (TMS), the governing software for digital cinema systems within a theatre complex, and provides direction for the development of security key management systems. As with DCI's document, NATO's document is also important to the SMPTE standards effort.
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) began work on standards for digital cinema in 2000. It was clear by that point in time that HDTV did not provide a sufficient technological basis for the foundation of digital cinema playback. In Europe, India and Japan however, there is still a significant presence of HDTV for theatrical presentations. Agreements within the ISO standards body have led to these non-compliant systems being referred to as Electronic Cinema Systems (E-Cinema).
Only four manufacturers make DCI-approved digital cinema projectors; these are Sony, Barco, Christie and NEC. Except for Sony, who use their own SXRD technology, all use the Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology developed by Texas Instruments (TI). D-Cinema projectors are similar in principle to digital projectors used in industry, education, and domestic home cinemas, but differ in two important respects. First, projectors must conform to the strict performance requirements of the DCI specification. Second, projectors must incorporate anti-piracy devices intended to enforce copyright compliance such as licensing limits. For these reasons all projectors intended to be sold to theaters for screening current release movies "must" be approved by the DCI before being put on sale. They now pass through a process called CTP (compliance test plan). Because feature films in digital form are encrypted and the decryption keys (KDMs) are locked to the serial number of the server used (linking to both the projector serial number and server is planned in the future), a system will allow playback of a protected feature only with the required KDM.
Three manufacturers have licensed the DLP Cinema technology developed by Texas Instruments (TI): Christie Digital Systems, Barco, and NEC. While NEC is a relative newcomer to Digital Cinema, Christie is the main player in the U.S. and Barco takes the lead in Europe and Asia. Initially DCI-compliant DLP projectors were available in 2K only, but from early 2012, when TI's 4K DLP chip went into full production, DLP projectors have been available in both 2K and 4K versions. Manufacturers of DLP-based cinema projectors can now also offer 4K upgrades to some of the more recent 2K models. Early DLP Cinema projectors, which were deployed primarily in the United States, used limited 1280×1024 resolution or the equivalent of 1.3 MP (megapixels). Digital Projection Incorporated (DPI) designed and sold a few DLP Cinema units (is8-2K) when TI's 2K technology debuted but then abandoned the D-Cinema market while continuing to offer DLP-based projectors for non-cinema purposes. Although based on the same 2K TI "light engine" as those of the major players they are so rare as to be virtually unknown in the industry. They are still widely used for pre-show advertising but not usually for feature presentations.
TI's technology is based on the use of digital micromirror devices (DMDs). These devices are manufactured from silicon using similar technology to that of computer memory chips. The surface of these devices is covered by a very large number of microscopic mirrors, one for each pixel, so a 2K device has about 2.2 million mirrors and a 4K device about 8.8 million. Each mirror vibrates several thousand times a second between two positions: In one, light from the projector's lamp is reflected towards the screen, in the other away from it. The proportion of the time the mirror is in each position varies according to the required brightness of each pixel. Three DMD devices are used, one for each of the primary colors. Light from the lamp, usually a Xenon similar to those used in film projectors with a power between 1 kW and 7 kW, is split by colored filters into red, green and blue beams which are directed at the appropriate DMD. The 'forward' reflected beam from the three DMMDs is then re-combined and focused by the lens onto the cinema screen.
Alone amongst the manufacturers of DCI-compliant cinema projectors Sony decided to develop its own technology rather than use TI's DLP technology. SXRD (Silicon X-tal (Crystal) Reflective Display) projectors have only ever been manufactured in 4K form and, until the launch of the 4K DLP chip by TI, Sony SXRD projectors were the only 4K DCI-compatible projectors on the market. Unlike DLP projectors, however, SXRD projectors do not present the left and right eye images of stereoscopic movies sequentially, instead they use half the available area on the SXRD chip for each eye image. Thus during stereoscopic presentations the SXRD projector functions as a sub 2K projector, the same for HFR 3D Content.
However, largely due to ongoing failure issues with their SXRD devices, Sony decided in late April, 2020 that they would no longer manufacture digital cinema projectors.
In late 2005, interest in digital 3-D stereoscopic projection led to a new willingness on the part of theaters to co-operate in installing 2K stereo installations to show Disney's "Chicken Little" in 3-D film. Six more digital 3-D movies were released in 2006 and 2007 (including "Beowulf", "Monster House" and "Meet the Robinsons"). The technology combines a single digital projector fitted with either a polarizing filter (for use with polarized glasses and silver screens), a filter wheel or an emitter for LCD glasses. "RealD" uses a ""ZScreen"" for polarisation and MasterImage uses a filter wheel that changes the polarity of projector's light output several times per second to alternate quickly the left-and-right-eye views. Another system that uses a filter wheel is Dolby 3D. The wheel changes the wavelengths of the colours being displayed, and tinted glasses filter these changes so the incorrect wavelength cannot enter the wrong eye. "XpanD" makes use of an external emitter that sends a signal to the 3D glasses to block out the wrong image from the wrong eye.
RGB laser projection for digital cinema: producing the purest colors and the brightest images.
In Asia, on July 13, 2017, an LED screen for digital cinema developed by Samsung Electronics was publicly demonstrated on one screen at Lotte Cinema World Tower in Seoul. First installation in Europe is in Arena Sihlcity Cinema in Zürich. These displays do not use a projector; instead they use a MicroLED video wall, and can offer higher contrast ratios, higher resolutions, and overall improvements in image quality. MicroLED allows for the elimination of display bezels, creating the illusion of a single large screen. This is possible due to the large amount of spacing in between pixels in MicroLED displays. Sony already sells MicroLED displays as a replacement for conventional cinema screens.
Digital distribution of movies has the potential to save money for film distributors. To print an 80-minute feature film can cost US$1,500 to $2,500, so making thousands of prints for a wide-release movie can cost millions of dollars. In contrast, at the maximum 250 megabit-per-second data rate (as defined by DCI for digital cinema), a feature-length movie can be stored on an off-the-shelf 300 GB hard drive for $50 and a broad release of 4000 'digital prints' might cost $200,000. In addition hard drives can be returned to distributors for reuse. With several hundred movies distributed every year, the industry saves billions of dollars. The digital-cinema roll-out was stalled by the slow pace at which exhibitors acquired digital projectors, since the savings would be seen not by themselves but by distribution companies. The Virtual Print Fee model was created to address this by passing some of the saving on to the cinemas. As a consequence of the rapid conversion to digital projection, the number of theatrical releases exhibited on film is dwindling. As of 4 May 2014, 37,711 screens (out of a total of 40,048 screens) in the United States have been converted to digital, 3,013 screens in Canada have been converted, and 79,043 screens internationally have been converted.
Realization and demonstration, on October 29, 2001, of the first digital cinema transmission by satellite in Europe of a feature film by Bernard Pauchon, Alain Lorentz, Raymond Melwig and Philippe Binant.
Digital cinemas can deliver live broadcasts from performances or events. This began initially with live broadcasts from the New York Metropolitan Opera delivering regular live broadcasts into cinemas and has been widely imitated ever since. Leading territories providing the content are the UK, the USA, France and Germany. The Royal Opera House, Sydney Opera House, English National Opera and others have found new and returning audiences captivated by the detail offered by a live digital broadcast featuring handheld and cameras on cranes positioned throughout the venue to capture the emotion that might be missed in a live venue situation. In addition these providers all offer additional value during the intervals e.g. interviews with choreographers, cast members, a backstage tour which would not be on offer at the live event itself. Other live events in this field include live theatre from NT Live, Branagh Live, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Berlin Philharmoniker.
In the last ten years this initial offering of the arts has also expanded to include live and recorded music events such as Take That Live, One Direction Live, Andre Rieu, live musicals such as the recent Miss Saigon and a record-breaking Billy Elliot Live In Cinemas. Live sport, documentary with a live question and answer element such as the recent Oasis documentary, lectures, faith broadcasts, stand up comedy, museum and gallery exhibitions, TV specials such as the record-breaking "Doctor Who" fiftieth anniversary special "The Day Of The Doctor", have all contributed to creating a valuable revenue stream for cinemas large and small all over the world. Subsequently, live broadcasting, formerly known as Alternative Content, has become known as Event Cinema and a trade association now exists to that end. Ten years on the sector has become a sizeable revenue stream in its own right, earning a loyal following amongst fans of the arts, and the content limited only by the imagination of the producers it would seem. Theatre, ballet, sport, exhibitions, TV specials and documentaries are now established forms of Event Cinema. Worldwide estimations put the likely value of the Event Cinema industry at $1bn by 2019.
Event Cinema currently accounts for on average between 1-3% of overall box office for cinemas worldwide but anecdotally it's been reported that some cinemas attribute as much as 25%, 48% and even 51% (the Rio Bio cinema in Stockholm) of their overall box office. It is envisaged ultimately that Event Cinema will account for around 5% of the overall box office globally. Event Cinema saw 6 worldwide records set and broken over from 2013-15 with notable successes Dr Who ($10.2m in 3 days at the box office - event was also broadcast on terrestrial TV simultaneously), Pompeii Live by the British Museum, Billy Elliot, Andre Rieu, One Direction, Richard III by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Event Cinema is defined more by the frequency of events rather than by the content itself. Event Cinema events typically appear in cinemas during traditionally quieter times in the cinema week such as the Monday-Thursday daytime/evening slot and are characterised by the One Night Only release, followed by one or possibly more 'Encore' releases a few days or weeks later if the event is successful and sold out. On occasion more successful events have returned to cinemas some months or even years later in the case of NT Live where the audience loyalty and company branding is so strong the content owner can be assured of a good showing at the box office.
The digital formation of sets and locations, especially in the time of growing film series and sequels, is that virtual sets, once computer generated and stored, can be easily revived for future films.
Considering digital film images are documented as data files on hard disk or flash memory, varying systems of edits can be executed with the alteration of a few settings on the editing console with the structure being composed virtually in the computer's memory. A broad choice of effects can be sampled simply and rapidly, without the physical constraints posed by traditional cut-and-stick editing. Digital cinema allows national cinemas to construct films specific to their cultures in ways that the more constricting configurations and economics of customary film-making prevented. Low-cost cameras and computer-based editing software have gradually enabled films to be produced for minimal cost. The ability of digital cameras to allow film-makers to shoot limitless footage without wasting pricey celluloid has transformed film production in some Third World countries. From consumers' perspective digital prints don't deteriorate with the number of showings. Unlike celluloid film, there is no projection mechanism or manual handling to add scratches or other physically generated artefacts. Provincial cinemas that would have received old prints can give consumers the same cinematographic experience (all other things being equal) as those attending the premiere.
A number of high-profile film directors, including Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell and Quentin Tarantino have publicly criticized digital cinema and advocated the use of film and film prints. Most famously, Tarantino has suggested he may retire because, though he can still shoot on film, because of the rapid conversion to digital, he cannot project from 35 mm prints in the majority of American cinemas. Steven Spielberg has stated that though digital projection produces a much better image than film if originally shot in digital, it is "inferior" when it has been converted to digital. He attempted at one stage to release "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" solely on film. Paul Thomas Anderson recently was able to create 70-mm film prints for his film "The Master" .
Film critic Roger Ebert criticized the use of DCPs after a cancelled film festival screening of Brian DePalma's film "Passion" at New York Film Festival as a result of a lockup due to the coding system.
The theoretical resolution of 35 mm film is greater than that of 2K digital cinema. 2K resolution (2048×1080) is also only slightly greater than that of consumer based 1080p HD (1920x1080). However, since digital post-production techniques became the standard in the early 2000s, the majority of movies, whether photographed digitally or on 35 mm film, have been mastered and edited at the 2K resolution. Moreover, 4K post production was becoming more common as of 2013. As projectors are replaced with 4K models the difference in resolution between digital and 35 mm film is somewhat reduced. Digital cinema servers utilize far greater bandwidth over domestic "HD", allowing for a difference in quality (e.g., Blu-ray colour encoding 4:2:0 48Mbit/s MAX datarate, DCI D-Cinema 4:4:4 250Mbit/s 2D/3D, 500Mbit/s HFR3D). Each frame has greater detail.
Owing to the smaller dynamic range of digital cameras, correcting poor digital exposures is more difficult than correcting poor film exposures during post-production. A partial solution to this problem is to add complex video-assist technology during the shooting process. However, such technologies are typically available only to high-budget production companies. Digital cinemas' efficiency of storing images has a downside. The speed and ease of modern digital editing processes threatens to give editors and their directors, if not an embarrassment of choice then at least a confusion of options, potentially making the editing process, with this 'try it and see' philosophy, lengthier rather than shorter. Because the equipment needed to produce digital feature films can be obtained more easily than celluloid, producers could inundate the market with cheap productions and potentially dominate the efforts of serious directors. Because of the quick speed in which they are filmed, these stories sometimes lack essential narrative structure.
The projectors used for celluloid film were largely the same technology as when film/movies were invented over 100 years ago. The evolutions of adding sound and wide screen could largely be accommodated by bolting on sound decoders, and changing lenses. This well proven and understood technology had several advantages 1) The life of a mechanical projector of around 35 years 2) a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 15 years and 3) an average repair time of 15 minutes (often done by the projectionist). On the other hand, digital projectors are around 10 times more expensive, have a much shorter life expectancy due to the developing technology (already technology has moved from 2K to 4K) so the pace of obsolescence is higher. The MTBF has not yet been established, but the ability for the projectionist to effect a quick repair has gone.
The electronic transferring of digital film, from central servers to servers in cinema projection booths, is an inexpensive process of supplying copies of newest releases to the vast number of cinema screens demanded by prevailing saturation-release strategies. There is a significant saving on print expenses in such cases: at a minimum cost per print of $1200–2000, the cost of celluloid print production is between $5–8 million per film. With several thousand releases a year, the probable savings offered by digital distribution and projection are over $1 billion. The cost savings and ease, together with the ability to store film rather than having to send a print on to the next cinema, allows a larger scope of films to be screened and watched by the public; minority and small-budget films that would not otherwise get such a chance.
The initial costs for converting theaters to digital are high: $100,000 per screen, on average. Theaters have been reluctant to switch without a cost-sharing arrangement with film distributors. A solution is a temporary "Virtual Print Fee" system, where the distributor (who saves the money of producing and transporting a film print) pays a fee per copy to help finance the digital systems of the theaters. A theater can purchase a film projector for as little as $10,000 (though projectors intended for commercial cinemas cost two to three times that; to which must be added the cost of a long-play system, which also costs around $10,000, making a total of around $30,000–$40,000) from which they could expect an average life of 30–40 years. By contrast, a digital cinema playback system—including server, media block, and projector—can cost two to three times as much, and would have a greater risk of component failure and obsolescence. (In Britain the cost of an entry level projector including server, installation, etc., would be £31,000 [$50,000].)
Archiving digital masters has also turned out to be both tricky and costly. In a 2007 study, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences found the cost of long-term storage of 4K digital masters to be "enormously higher—up to 11 times that of the cost of storing film masters." This is because of the limited or uncertain lifespan of digital storage: No current digital medium—be it optical disc, magnetic hard drive or digital tape—can reliably store a motion picture for as long as a hundred years or more (something that film—properly stored and handled—does very well). The short history of digital storage media has been one of innovation and, therefore, of obsolescence. Archived digital content must be periodically removed from obsolete physical media to up-to-date media. The expense of digital image capture is not necessarily less than the capture of images onto film; indeed, it is sometimes greater. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8844 |
Democratic Progressive Party
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a Taiwanese nationalist and liberal political party in Taiwan. Controlling both the Taiwan Presidency and the unicameral Legislative Yuan, it is the majority ruling party and the dominant party in the Pan-Green Coalition.
Founded in 1986, the DPP is one of two major parties in Taiwan, along with the historically dominant Kuomintang. It has traditionally been associated with strong advocacy of human rights, anti-communism, and a distinct Taiwanese identity. The incumbent President and former leader of the DPP, Tsai Ing-wen, is the second member of the DPP to hold the office.
The DPP is a long-term member of Liberal International and a founding member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats. It represented Taiwan in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation. The DPP and its affiliated parties are widely classified as socially liberal because of their strong support for human rights, including support for gender equality. They are also proponents of a Taiwanese national identity. In addition, the DPP is more willing to increase military expenditures to defend against a potential Chinese invasion, and on foreign policy favors closer ties with the United States and Japan.
The DPP's roots were in opposition to the Kuomintang's one-party authoritarian rule. It was founded as the Tangwai – or "outside-the-KMT" – movement. This movement culminated in the formation of the DPP as an alternative party on 28 September 1986 when eighteen founding members met at Grand Hotel Taipei. A total of 132 people joined the party that day. The new party contested the 1986 election as "nonpartisan" when competing parties remained illegal under national law until the following year. The first members of the party drew heavily from the ranks of family members and defense lawyers of political prisoners as well as intellectuals and artists who had spent time abroad. Such individuals were strongly committed to political change that would ensure constitutional support in Republic of China's freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. The party did not at the outset give open support to an independent Republic of China's national identity – a move that could have invited a violent crackdown by the Republic of China's Kuomintang rulers. Its platform was pro-environment and pro-democracy.
As more and more of its demands were met during the 1990s – such as the direct popular election of Republic of China's president and all representatives in its National Assembly and Legislative Yuan, and open discussion of Republic of China's repressive past as represented in the February 28 Incident and its long martial law aftermath – a greater variety of views could be advocated in the more liberal political atmosphere. Since 1991, party members began openly promoting a national identity for Taiwan separate from China. The DPP doctrine adopted to reform of the Constitution to change the name of Republic of China to "Republic of Taiwan", though the DPP have no aim to amend the Constitution through a referendum. In fact, it is part of the DPP's Taiwanese nationalist ideology.
Once the DPP had representation in the Legislative Yuan (LY, or Parliament), the party used the legislature as a forum to challenge the government. However, it did not emerge as a formidable force until 1991, when the elderly LY members elected from mainland China provinces in 1948 retired. As the major opposition in the LY, the DPP worked with then-President Lee Teng-hui, the then-leader of KMT, to push through a series of amendments to transfer into a semi-presidential system (for example, Republic of China's premier would no longer have to be confirmed by the LY). Among the electoral reforms, a PR list was adopted and aboriginal seats in the LY created.
The DPP won the presidency with the election of Chen Shui-bian in March 2000 with a plurality, due to Pan-Blue voters splitting their vote between the Kuomintang and independent candidate James Soong, ending 91 years of KMT rule in the Republic of China. Chen softened the party's stance on independence to appeal to moderate voters, appease the United States, and placate China. He also promised not to change the ROC state symbols or declare formal independence as long as the People's Republic of China did not attack Taiwan.
The DPP became the largest party having reached a plurality in the Legislative Yuan for the first time in 2002 following the 2001 legislative election. However, a majority coalition between the KMT, People First Party, and New Party prevented it from taking control of the chamber.
In 2004, President Chen Shui-bian was re-elected by a narrow margin. He and Vice President Annette Lu had been involved in an assassination attempt only hours before the election. The KMT candidate, Lien Chan, demanded a recount the following morning. A judicial recount under the jurisdiction of a special panel of the High Court began on 10 May 2004 and ended on 18 May 2004. It was conducted by about 460 teams situated in 21 courthouses across the Taiwan area. Each team had seven members – one judge, two members each from the district court and the local government election authorities and two witnesses each representing the plaintiff (Pan-Blue Coalition) and the defendant (Pan-Green Coalition). Disputed votes were sent to High Court in Taipei for verification. After the recount, President Chen was confirmed the winner of the election by a smaller margin (25,563 as opposed to 29,518 originally). In the later legislative election, the Pan-Blue Coalition opposition retained control of the chamber.
The DPP suffered a significant election defeat in nationwide local and county elections in December 2005. The pan-blue coalition captured 16 of 23 county and city government offices under the leadership of popular Taipei mayor and KMT Party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou.
The results led to a shake up of the party leadership. Su Tseng-chang resigned as DPP chairman soon after election results were announced. Su had pledged to step down if the DPP lost either Taipei County or failed to win 10 of the 23 mayor/magistrate positions. Vice President Annette Lu was appointed acting DPP leader. Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun was elected in a three-way race against legislator Chai Trong-rong and Wong Chin-chu with 54.4% of the vote.
Premier Frank Hsieh, DPP election organizer and former mayor of Kaohsiung twice tendered a verbal resignation immediately following the election, but his resignation was not accepted by President Chen until 17 January 2006 after the DPP chairmanship election had concluded. The former DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang was appointed to replace Hsieh as premier. Hsieh and his cabinet resigned en masse on January 24 to make way for Su and his new cabinet. President Chen had offered the position of Presidential Office Secretary-General (vacated by Su) to the departing premier, but Hsieh declined and left office criticizing President Chen for his tough line on dealing with China.
On 30 September 2007, the DPP approved a resolution asserting a separate identity from China and called for the enactment of a new constitution for a "normal nation". It struck an accommodating tone by advocating general use of "Taiwan" as the country's name without calling for abandonment of the name Republic of China.
In the national elections held in early months of 2008, the DPP won less than 25% of the seats (38.2% vote share) in the new Legislative Yuan while its presidential candidate, former Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh, lost to KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou by a wide margin (41.55% vs. 58.45%). In May, the DPP elected Tsai Ing-wen as the new leader, Tsai became the first female leader of the DPP and the first female leader to lead a major party in Taiwan.
The first months since backed to the opposition were dominated by press coverage of the travails of Chen Shui-bian and his wife Wu Shu-jen. On 15 August 2008, Chen resigned from the DPP and apologized: "Today I have to say sorry to all of the DPP members and supporters. I let everyone down, caused you humiliation and failed to meet your expectations. My acts have caused irreparable damage to the party. I love the DPP deeply and am proud of being a DPP member. To express my deepest regrets to all DPP members and supporters, I announce my withdrawal from the DPP immediately. My wife Wu Shu-jen is also withdrawing from the party." DPP Chairperson followed with a public statement on behalf of the party: "In regard to Chen and his wife's decision to withdraw from the party and his desire to shoulder responsibility for his actions as well as to undergo an investigation by the party's anti-corruption committee, we respect his decision and accept it."
The DPP vowed to reflect on public misgivings towards the party. Chairperson Tsai insisted on the need for the party to remember its history, defend Republic of China's sovereignty and national security, and maintain its confidence.
The party re-emerged as a voice in Taiwan's political debate when Ma's administration reached the end of its first year in office. The DPP marked the anniversary with massive rallies in Taipei and Kaohsiung. Tsai's address to the crowd in Taipei on May 17 proclaimed a "citizens' movement to protect Republic of China" seeking to "protect our democracy and protect Republic of China."
On 16 January 2016, Taiwan held a general election for its presidency and for the Legislative Yuan. The DPP gained the presidential seat, with the election of Tsai Ing-wen, who received 56.12% of the votes, while her opponent Eric Chu gained 31.2%. In addition, the DPP gained a majority of the Legislative Yuan, winning 68 seats in the 113-seat legislature, up from 40 in 2012 election, thus giving them the majority for the first time in its history.
President Tsai won reelection to the presidency on 11 January 2020, and the Democratic Progressive Party retained its legislative majority, winning 61 seats.
Programs supported by the party include moderate social welfare policies involving the rights of women, senior citizens, children, young people, labor, minorities, indigenous peoples, farmers, and other disadvantaged sectors of the society. Furthermore, its platform includes a legal and political order based on human rights and democracy; balanced economic and financial administration; fair and open social welfare; educational and cultural reform; and, independent defence and peaceful foreign policy with closer ties to United States and Japan. For these reasons, it used to be considered a party of the center-left economically though its base consisted largely of the middle class. The party also has a social liberal stance that includes support for gender equality and LGBT rights (the party have supported same-sex marriage under Tsai's leadership), and also have a strong social conservative base, including support from the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Since the democratisation of Taiwan in the 1990s, the DPP has had its strongest performance in the Hokkien-speaking counties and cities of Taiwan, compared with the predominantly Hakka and Mandarin-speaking counties, that tend to support the Kuomintang.
The primary political axis in Taiwan involves the issue of Taiwan independence versus eventual unification with China. Although the differences tend to be portrayed in polarized terms, both major coalitions have developed modified, nuanced and often complex positions. Though opposed in the philosophical origins, the practical differences between such positions can sometimes be subtle.
The current official position of the party is that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country whose territory consists of Taiwan and its surrounding smaller islands and whose sovereignty derives only from the ROC citizens living in Taiwan (similar philosophy of self-determination), based on the "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" in 1999. It considers Taiwan as an independent nation under the name of Republic of China, making a formal declaration of independence unnecessary. The DPP rejects the so-called "One China principle" defined in 1992 as the basis for official diplomatic relations with the PRC and advocates a Taiwanese national identity which is separate from mainland China. The DPP argues that its efforts to promote a Taiwanese national identity are merely an effort to normalize a Taiwanese identity repressed during years of authoritarian Kuomintang rule. The DPP also differs from the KMT on foreign and defense policies in that the DPP considers relations with the United States, Japan, and European states, among other democratic countries, crucial for Taiwan's security.
In contrast, the KMT or pan-blue coalition agrees that the Republic of China is an independent and sovereign country that is not part of the PRC, but argues that a one China principle (with different definitions across the strait) can be used as the basis for talks with China. The KMT also opposes the purposes of Taiwan independence and argues that efforts to establish a Taiwanese national identity separated from the Chinese national identity are unnecessary and needlessly provocative. Some KMT conservative officials have called efforts from DPP "anti-China" (opposing migrants from mainland China, whom DPP officials did not recognize as Taiwanese, but Chinese). At the other end of the political spectrum, the acceptance by the DPP of the symbols of the Republic of China is opposed by the Taiwan Solidarity Union.
The first years of the DPP as the ruling party drew accusations from the opposition that, as a self-styled Taiwanese nationalist party, the DPP was itself inadequately sensitive to the ethnographic diversity of Taiwan's population. Where the KMT had been guilty of Chinese chauvinism, the critics charged, the DPP might offer nothing more as a remedy than Hoklo chauvinism.
China has maintained a hostile position toward the DPP. It has made some efforts to moderate its tone since passing its Anti-Secession Law in 2005 to prevent a popular backlash from Taiwan's voters. In 2008, China stated it was willing to negotiate with any party in Taiwan that "accepts the so-called 1992 consensus" (the consensus agreed by the KMT and the Communist Party of China). The DPP denies the existence of the 1992 consensus between China and Taiwan and demands a greater democratic opening in China.
The deep-rooted hostility between Taiwanese aborigines and (Taiwanese) Hoklo, and the aboriginal communities effective KMT networks contribute to aboriginal skepticism against the DPP and the aboriginals tendency to vote for the KMT. Aboriginals have criticized politicians for abusing the "indigenization" movement for political gains, such as aboriginal opposition to the DPP's "rectification" by recognizing the Truku for political reasons, where the Atayal and Seediq slammed the Truku for their name rectification. In 2008, the majority of mountain townships voted for Ma Ying-jeou. However, the DPP share of the aboriginal vote has been rising.
The National Party Congress selects, for two-year terms, the 30 members of the Central Executive Committee and the 11 members of the Central Review Committee. The Central Executive Committee, in turn, chooses the 10 members of the Central Standing Committee. The DPP since 2012 also has a "China Affairs Committee" to deal with Cross-Strait relations; the name caused some controversy within the party and in the Taiwan media, with critics suggesting that "Mainland Affairs Committee" or "Cross-Strait Affairs Committee" would show less of a hostile "One Country on Each Side" attitude.
For many years the DPP officially recognized several factions within its membership, such as the New Tide faction (), the Formosa faction (), the Justice Alliance faction () and Welfare State Alliance faction (). Each faction endorsed slightly different policies. The factions were often generationally identifiable, representing individuals who had entered the party at different times. In 2006, the party ended recognition of factions. The factions have since stated that they will comply with the resolution. However, the factions are still referred to by name in national media. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8845 |
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, during the Civil War. It changed the legal status under federal law of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from slave to free. As soon as a slave escaped the control of the Confederate government, either by running away across Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, the slave was permanently free. Ultimately, the Union victory brought the proclamation into effect in all of the former Confederacy. The remaining slaves, those in the areas not in revolt, were freed by state action during the war, or by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in December 1865.
With Congress' approval, in 1862 Lincoln ended slavery in the District of Columbia with partial compensation; this long-standing issue was now addressable since the Senators of the states in rebellion, who had blocked such a measure so as not to set a precedent, left Congress in 1861. As for the states, Lincoln believed that he had no authority as President to end slavery, which was a state matter. However, Lincoln was not only President, he was Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. As such, he could take military measures. His order carefully limited the Proclamation to those areas in insurrection, where civil government was not respected and his military authority, therefore, applied. As a war measure, it hurt the South economically by removing its labor force, helped the Union militarily by making Union soldiers out of freed slaves, and took an implicit statement toward black citizenship by accepting blacks as soldiers and trusting them with arms. (Up until this point, there had been no blacks in combat positions in the Army.) The Proclamation also ended any chances of the Confederate government gaining recognition from England or France, which were anti-slavery and whose support for the Union it increased. It marked a major shift in the stated goals of the war, admitting what the South had claimed all along: the Union was fighting the war to end slavery. Psychologically, it was the turning point of the war.
The proclamation was directed to all of the areas in rebellion and all segments of the executive branch (including the Army and Navy) of the United States. It proclaimed the freedom of all slaves in the ten states in rebellion. Even though it excluded areas not in rebellion, including the border slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, it still applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million slaves in the country.
The Proclamation followed a series of warnings in the summer of 1862 under the Second Confiscation Act, allowing Confederate supporters 60 days to surrender, or face confiscation of land and slaves. The Proclamation also ordered that suitable persons among those freed could be enrolled into the paid service of United States' forces, and ordered the Union Army (and all segments of the Executive branch) to "recognize and maintain the freedom of" the ex-slaves. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not outlaw slavery, and did not grant citizenship to the ex-slaves (called freedmen). But in addition to the goal of preserving the Union, for the first time it made the eradication of slavery an explicit war goal. The symbolic importance of the federal government outlawing slavery, even on a limited basis, was enormous. For the first time, the Union (the country) was publicly committed to ending slavery everywhere. It meant escaped slaves would no longer be returned South, that the hated Fugitive Slave Laws were dead. It also said that former slaves could fight in the military against their former owners, using weapons the Northern army would supply. This would soon supply fresh troops for the Union army, but its psychological impact was also enormous. This was the South's nightmare: a slave revolt supported by the North.
Around 25,000 to 75,000 slaves were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place. It could not be enforced in the areas still in rebellion, but as the Union army took control of Confederate regions, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the liberation of more than three and a half million slaves in those regions. Prior to the Proclamation, in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, escaped slaves were either returned to their masters or held in camps as contraband for later return. The Proclamation applied only to slaves in Confederate-held lands; it did not apply to those in the four slave states that were not in rebellion (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri, which were unnamed), nor to Tennessee (unnamed but occupied by Union troops since 1862) and lower Louisiana (also under occupation), and specifically excluded those counties of Virginia soon to form the state of West Virginia. Also specifically excluded (by name) were some regions already controlled by the Union army. Emancipation in those places would come after separate state actions (as in West Virginia) or the December 1865 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which made slavery and indentured servitude, except for those duly convicted of a crime, illegal everywhere subject to United States jurisdiction.
On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued a preliminary warning that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in any state that did not end its rebellion against the Union by January 1, 1863. None of the Confederate states did so, and Lincoln's order was signed and took effect on January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation outraged white Southerners and their sympathizers, who saw it as the beginning of a race war, like in Haiti. It angered some Northern Democrats, energized abolitionists, and undermined those Europeans that wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy. The Proclamation lifted the spirits of African Americans both free and slave. It led many slaves to escape from their masters and get to Union lines to obtain their freedom, and to join the Union Army.
The Emancipation Proclamation broadened the goals of the Civil War. While slavery had been a major issue that led to the war, Lincoln's only stated goal at the start of the war was to maintain the Union. The Proclamation made freeing the slaves an explicit goal of the Union war effort. Establishing the abolition of slavery as one of the two primary war goals served to deter intervention by Britain and France. The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To ensure the abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., Lincoln also insisted that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require abolition in new state laws (which occurred during the war in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana); Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) and pushed for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress passed the 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on January 31, 1865, and it was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865, ending legal slavery in the United States.
The United States Constitution of 1787 did not use the word "slavery" but included several provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise (in Article I, Section 2) allocated Congressional representation based "on the whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons". Under the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2), "no person held to service or labour in one state" would be freed by escaping to another. allowed Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the "Importation of Persons", but not until 1808. However, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment—which states that, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—slaves were understood as property. Although abolitionists used the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it became part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property with "Dred Scott v. Sandford" (1857). Socially, slavery was also supported in law and in practice by a pervasive culture of white supremacy. Nonetheless, between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery, except the border states of Maryland and Delaware. Maryland did not abolish slavery until 1864, and Delaware was one of the last states to hold onto slavery; it was still legal in Delaware when the thirteenth amendment was issued. No Southern state did so, and the slave population of the South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million people at the beginning of the American Civil War, when most slave states sought to break away from the United States.
Lincoln understood that the Federal government's power to end slavery in peacetime was limited by the Constitution which before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. Against the background of the American Civil War, however, Lincoln issued the Proclamation under his authority as "Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution. As such, he claimed to have the martial power to free persons held as slaves in those states that were in rebellion "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion". He did not have Commander-in-Chief authority over the four slave-holding states that were not in rebellion: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, and so those states were not named in the Proclamation. The fifth border jurisdiction, West Virginia, where slavery remained legal but was in the process of being abolished, was, in January 1863, still part of the legally recognized, "reorganized" state of Virginia, based in Alexandria, which was in the Union (as opposed to the Confederate state of Virginia, based in Richmond).
The Proclamation applied in the ten states that were still in rebellion in 1863, and thus did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slave-holding border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland or Delaware) which were Union states. Those slaves were freed by later separate state and federal actions.
The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, under a recognized Union government, so it was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties then in the process of forming the new state of West Virginia, and seven additional counties and two cities in the Union-controlled Tidewater region of Virginia. Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and 13 named parishes of Louisiana, which were mostly under federal control at the time of the Proclamation. These exemptions left unemancipated an additional 300,000 slaves.
The Emancipation Proclamation has been ridiculed, notably in an influential passage by Richard Hofstadter for "freeing" only the slaves over which the Union had no power. These slaves were freed due to Lincoln's "war powers". This act cleared up the issue of contraband slaves. It automatically clarified the status of over 100,000 now-former slaves. Some 20,000 to 50,000 slaves were freed the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception). In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves were freed at once on January 1, 1863.
The Proclamation provided the legal framework for the emancipation of nearly all four million slaves as the Union armies advanced, and committed the Union to ending slavery, which was a controversial decision even in the North. Hearing of the Proclamation, more slaves quickly escaped to Union lines as the Army units moved South. As the Union armies advanced through the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (approximately 3.9 million, according to the 1860 Census) were freed by July 1865.
While the Proclamation had freed most slaves as a war measure, it had not made slavery illegal. Of the states that were exempted from the Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia prohibited slavery before the war ended. In 1863, President Lincoln proposed a moderate plan for the Reconstruction of the captured Confederate State of Louisiana. Only 10% of the state's electorate had to take the loyalty oath. The state was also required to accept the Proclamation and abolish slavery in its new constitution. Identical Reconstruction plans would be adopted in Arkansas and Tennessee. By December 1864, the Lincoln plan abolishing slavery had been enacted in Louisiana, as well as in Arkansas and Tennessee. However, in Delaware and Kentucky, slavery continued to be legal until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required individuals to return runaway slaves to their owners. During the war, Union generals such as Benjamin Butler declared that slaves in occupied areas were contraband of war and accordingly refused to return them. This decision was controversial because it implied recognition of the Confederacy as a separate, independent sovereign state under international law, a notion that Lincoln steadfastly denied. As a result, he did not promote the contraband designation. In addition, as contraband, these people were legally designated as "property" when they crossed Union lines and their ultimate status was uncertain.
Image:Emancipation proclamation.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|"First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln" by Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1864) "(Clickable image—use cursor to identify.)"|alt=A dark-haired, bearded, middle-aged man holding documents is seated among seven other men.]]
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In December 1861, Lincoln sent his first annual message to Congress (the State of the Union Address, but then typically given in writing and not referred to as such). In it he praised the free labor system, as respecting human rights over property rights; he endorsed legislation to address the status of contraband slaves and slaves in loyal states, possibly through buying their freedom with federal taxes, and also the funding of strictly voluntary colonization efforts. In January 1862, Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican leader in the House, called for total war against the rebellion to include emancipation of slaves, arguing that emancipation, by forcing the loss of enslaved labor, would ruin the rebel economy. On March 13, 1862, Congress approved a "Law Enacting an Additional Article of War", which stated that from that point onward it was forbidden for Union Army officers to return fugitive slaves to their owners. On April 10, 1862, Congress declared that the federal government would compensate slave owners who freed their slaves. Slaves in the District of Columbia were freed on April 16, 1862, and their owners were compensated.
On June 19, 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in all current and future United States territories (though not in the states), and President Lincoln quickly signed the legislation. By this act, they repudiated the 1857 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the "Dred Scott Case" that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in U.S. territories. This joint action by Congress and President Lincoln also rejected the notion of popular sovereignty that had been advanced by Stephen A. Douglas as a solution to the slavery controversy, while completing the effort first legislatively proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1784 to confine slavery within the borders of existing states.
In July, Congress passed and Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act of 1862, containing provisions for court proceedings to liberate slaves held by convicted "rebels", or of slaves of rebels that had escaped to Union lines. The Act applied in cases of criminal convictions, to those who were slaves of "disloyal" masters, and to slaves in rebel territory that was captured by the Union forces. Unlike the first Confiscation Act, the second one explicitly said that all slaves covered under the law would be permanently freed, stating "all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." However, Lincoln's position continued to be that Congress lacked power to free all slaves within the borders of rebel held states, but Lincoln as commander in chief could do so if he deemed it a proper military measure, and that Lincoln had already drafted plans to do.
Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves. In the summer of 1862, Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential New York Tribune wrote a famous editorial entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" demanding a more aggressive attack on the Confederacy and faster emancipation of the slaves: "On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one ... intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel ... that the rebellion, if crushed tomorrow, would be renewed if slavery were left in full vigor and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union." Lincoln responded in his from August 22, 1862, in terms of the limits imposed by his duty as president to save the Union:
Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer wrote in this context about Lincoln's letter: "Unknown to Greeley, Lincoln composed this after he had already drafted a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he had determined to issue after the next Union military victory. Therefore, this letter, was in truth, an attempt to position the impending announcement in terms of saving the Union, not freeing slaves as a humanitarian gesture. It was one of Lincoln's most skillful public relations efforts, even if it has cast longstanding doubt on his sincerity as a liberator." Historian Richard Striner argues that "for years" Lincoln's letter has been misread as "Lincoln only wanted to save the Union." However, within the context of Lincoln's entire career and pronouncements on slavery this interpretation is wrong, according to Striner. Rather, Lincoln was softening the strong Northern white supremacist opposition to his imminent emancipation by tying it to the cause of the Union. This opposition would fight for the Union but not to end slavery, so Lincoln gave them the means and motivation to do both, at the same time. In his 2014 book, "Lincoln's Gamble", journalist and historian Todd Brewster asserted that Lincoln's desire to reassert the saving of the Union as his sole war goal was in fact crucial to his claim of legal authority for emancipation. Since slavery was protected by the Constitution, the only way that he could free the slaves was as a tactic of war—not as the mission itself. But that carried the risk that when the war ended, so would the justification for freeing the slaves. Late in 1862, Lincoln asked his Attorney General, Edward Bates, for an opinion as to whether slaves freed through a war-related proclamation of emancipation could be re-enslaved once the war was over. Bates had to work through the language of the Dred Scott decision to arrive at an answer, but he finally concluded that they could indeed remain free. Still, a complete end to slavery would require a constitutional amendment.
Conflicting advice, to free all slaves, or not free them at all, was presented to Lincoln in public and private. Thomas Nast, a cartoon artist during the Civil War and the late 1800s considered "Father of the American Cartoon", composed many works including a two-sided spread that showed the transition from slavery into civilization after President Lincoln signed the Proclamation. Nast believed in equal opportunity and equality for all people, including enslaved Africans or free blacks. A mass rally in Chicago on September 7, 1862, demanded an immediate and universal emancipation of slaves. A delegation headed by William W. Patton met the president at the White House on September 13. Lincoln had declared in peacetime that he had no constitutional authority to free the slaves. Even used as a war power, emancipation was a risky political act. Public opinion as a whole was against it. There would be strong opposition among Copperhead Democrats and an uncertain reaction from loyal border states. Delaware and Maryland already had a high percentage of free blacks: 91.2% and 49.7%, respectively, in 1860.
Lincoln first discussed the proclamation with his cabinet in July 1862. He drafted his "preliminary proclamation" and read it to Secretary of State William Seward, and Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, on July 13. Seward and Welles were at first speechless, then Seward referred to possible anarchy throughout the South and resulting foreign intervention; Welles apparently said nothing. On July 22, Lincoln presented it to his entire cabinet as something he had determined to do and he asked their opinion on wording. Although Secretary of War Edwin Stanton supported it, Seward advised Lincoln to issue the proclamation after a major Union victory, or else it would appear as if the Union was giving "its last shriek of retreat".
In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Emancipation. In the battle, though the Union suffered heavier losses than the Confederates and General McClellan allowed the escape of Robert E. Lee's retreating troops, Union forces turned back a Confederate invasion of Maryland, eliminating more than a quarter of Lee's army in the process. On September 22, 1862, five days after Antietam occurred, and while living at the Soldier's Home, Lincoln called his cabinet into session and issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. According to Civil War historian James M. McPherson, Lincoln told Cabinet members that he had made a covenant with God, that if the Union drove the Confederacy out of Maryland, he would issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had first shown an early draft of the proclamation to Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, an ardent abolitionist, who was more often kept in the dark on presidential decisions. The final proclamation was issued January 1, 1863. Although implicitly granted authority by Congress, Lincoln used his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, "as a necessary war measure" as the basis of the proclamation, rather than the equivalent of a statute enacted by Congress or a constitutional amendment. Some days after issuing the final Proclamation, Lincoln wrote to Major General John McClernand: "After the commencement of hostilities I struggled nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the "institution"; and when finally I conditionally determined to touch it, I gave a hundred days fair notice of my purpose, to all the States and people, within which time they could have turned it wholly aside, by simply again becoming good citizens of the United States. They chose to disregard it, and I made the peremptory proclamation on what appeared to me to be a military necessity. And being made, it must stand."
Initially, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed only a small percentage of the slaves, those who were behind Union lines in areas not exempted. Most slaves were still behind Confederate lines or in exempted Union-occupied areas. Secretary of State William H. Seward commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Had any slave state ended its secession attempt before January 1, 1863, it could have kept slavery, at least temporarily. The Proclamation only gave the Lincoln Administration the legal basis to free the slaves in the areas of the South that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. It effectively destroyed slavery as the Union armies advanced south and conquered the entire Confederacy.
The Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for the enrollment of freed slaves into the United States military. During the war nearly 200,000 blacks, most of them ex-slaves, joined the Union Army. Their contributions gave the North additional manpower that was significant in winning the war. The Confederacy did not allow slaves in their army as soldiers until the last month before its defeat.
Though the counties of Virginia that were soon to form West Virginia were specifically exempted from the Proclamation (Jefferson County being the only exception), a condition of the state's admittance to the Union was that its constitution provide for the gradual abolition of slavery (an immediate emancipation of all slaves was also adopted there in early 1865). Slaves in the border states of Maryland and Missouri were also emancipated by separate state action before the Civil War ended. In Maryland, a new state constitution abolishing slavery in the state went into effect on November 1, 1864. The Union-occupied counties of eastern Virginia and parishes of Louisiana, which had been exempted from the Proclamation, both adopted state constitutions that abolished slavery in April 1864. In early 1865, Tennessee adopted an amendment to its constitution prohibiting slavery. Slaves in Kentucky and Delaware were not emancipated until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.
The Proclamation was issued in two parts. The first part, issued on September 22, 1862, was a preliminary announcement outlining the intent of the second part, which officially went into effect 100 days later on January 1, 1863, during the second year of the Civil War. It was Abraham Lincoln's declaration that all slaves would be permanently freed in all areas of the Confederacy that had not already returned to federal control by January 1863. The ten affected states were individually named in the second part (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina). Not included were the Union slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky. Also not named was the state of Tennessee, in which a Union-controlled military government had already been set up, based in the capital, Nashville. Specific exemptions were stated for areas also under Union control on January 1, 1863, namely 48 counties that would soon become West Virginia, seven other named counties of Virginia including Berkeley and Hampshire counties, which were soon added to West Virginia, New Orleans and 13 named parishes nearby.
Union-occupied areas of the Confederate states where the proclamation was put into immediate effect by local commanders included Winchester, Virginia, Corinth, Mississippi, the Sea Islands along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, Key West, Florida, and Port Royal, South Carolina.
It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave; historian Lerone Bennett Jr. alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves. However, as a result of the Proclamation, many slaves were freed during the course of the war, beginning with the day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Port Royal, South Carolina record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. Estimates of how many thousands of slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are varied. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation." This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of eastern North Carolina, the Mississippi Valley, northern Alabama, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a large part of Arkansas, and the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower Shenandoah Valley, and the area around Alexandria were covered. Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers.
Booker T. Washington, as a boy of 9 in Virginia, remembered the day in early 1865:
The Proclamation represented a shift in the war objectives of the North—reuniting the nation was no longer the only goal. It represented a major step toward the ultimate abolition of slavery in the United States and a "new birth of freedom".
Runaway slaves who had escaped to Union lines had previously been held by the Union Army as "contraband of war" under the Confiscation Acts; when the proclamation took effect, they were told at midnight that they were free to leave. The Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia had been occupied by the Union Navy earlier in the war. The whites had fled to the mainland while the blacks stayed. An early program of Reconstruction was set up for the former slaves, including schools and training. Naval officers read the proclamation and told them they were free.
Slaves had been part of the "engine of war" for the Confederacy. They produced and prepared food; sewed uniforms; repaired railways; worked on farms and in factories, shipping yards, and mines; built fortifications; and served as hospital workers and common laborers. News of the Proclamation spread rapidly by word of mouth, arousing hopes of freedom, creating general confusion, and encouraging thousands to escape to Union lines. George Washington Albright, a teenage slave in Mississippi, recalled that like many of his fellow slaves, his father escaped to join Union forces. According to Albright, plantation owners tried to keep the Proclamation from slaves but news of it came through the "grapevine". The young slave became a "runner" for an informal group they called the "4Ls" ("Lincoln's Legal Loyal League") bringing news of the proclamation to secret slave meetings at plantations throughout the region.
Robert E. Lee saw the Emancipation Proclamation as a way for the Union to bolster the number of soldiers it could place on the field, making it imperative for the Confederacy to increase their own numbers. Writing on the matter after the sack of Fredericksburg, Lee wrote "In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution, our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies, until God, in his mercy, shall bless us with the establishment of our independence." Lee's request for a drastic increase of troops would go unfulfilled.
The Proclamation was immediately denounced by Copperhead Democrats who opposed the war and advocated restoring the union by allowing slavery. Horatio Seymour, while running for the governorship of New York, cast the Emancipation Proclamation as a call for slaves to commit extreme acts of violence on all white southerners, saying it was "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilized Europe". The Copperheads also saw the Proclamation as an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power. Editor Henry A. Reeves wrote in Greenport's "Republican Watchman" that "In the name of freedom of Negroes, [the proclamation] imperils the liberty of white men; to test a utopian theory of equality of races which Nature, History and Experience alike condemn as monstrous, it overturns the Constitution and Civil Laws and sets up Military Usurpation in their Stead."
Racism remained pervasive on both sides of the conflict and many in the North supported the war only as an effort to force the South to stay in the Union. The promises of many Republican politicians that the war was to restore the Union and not about black rights or ending slavery, were now declared lies by their opponents citing the Proclamation. Copperhead David Allen spoke to a rally in Columbiana, Ohio, stating, "I have told you that this war is carried on for the Negro. There is the proclamation of the President of the United States. Now fellow Democrats I ask you if you are going to be forced into a war against your Brithren of the Southern States for the Negro. I answer No!" The Copperheads saw the Proclamation as irrefutable proof of their position and the beginning of a political rise for their members; in Connecticut, H. B. Whiting wrote that the truth was now plain even to "those stupid thick-headed persons who persisted in thinking that the President was a conservative man and that the war was for the restoration of the Union under the Constitution".
War Democrats who rejected the Copperhead position within their party, found themselves in a quandary. While throughout the war they had continued to espouse the racist positions of their party and their disdain of the concerns of slaves, they did see the Proclamation as a viable military tool against the South, and worried that opposing it might demoralize troops in the Union army. The question would continue to trouble them and eventually lead to a split within their party as the war progressed.
Lincoln further alienated many in the Union two days after issuing the preliminary copy of the Emancipation Proclamation by suspending habeas corpus. His opponents linked these two actions in their claims that he was becoming a despot. In light of this and a lack of military success for the Union armies, many War Democrat voters who had previously supported Lincoln turned against him and joined the Copperheads in the off-year elections held in October and November.
In the 1862 elections, the Democrats gained 28 seats in the House as well as the governorship of New York. Lincoln's friend Orville Hickman Browning told the president that the Proclamation and the suspension of habeas corpus had been "disastrous" for his party by handing the Democrats so many weapons. Lincoln made no response. Copperhead William Javis of Connecticut pronounced the election the "beginning of the end of the utter downfall of Abolitionism in the United States".
Historians James M. McPherson and Allan Nevins state that though the results looked very troubling, they could be seen favorably by Lincoln; his opponents did well only in their historic strongholds and "at the national level their gains in the House were the smallest of any minority party's in an off-year election in nearly a generation. Michigan, California, and Iowa all went Republican... Moreover, the Republicans picked up five seats in the Senate." McPherson states "If the election was in any sense a referendum on emancipation and on Lincoln's conduct of the war, a majority of Northern voters endorsed these policies."
The initial Confederate response was one of expected outrage. The Proclamation was seen as vindication for the rebellion, and proof that Lincoln would have abolished slavery even if the states had remained in the Union. In an August 1863 letter to President Lincoln, U.S. Army general Ulysses S. Grant observed that the Proclamation, combined with the usage of black soldiers by the U.S. Army, profoundly angered the Confederacy, saying that "the emancipation of the Negro, is the heaviest blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a great deal about it and profess to be very angry." A few months after the Proclamation took effect, the Confederacy passed a law in May 1863 demanding "full and ample retaliation" against the U.S. for such measures. The Confederacy stated that the black U.S. soldiers captured while fighting against the Confederacy would be tried as slave insurrectionists in civil courts—a capital offense with automatic sentence of death. Less than a year after the law's passage, the Confederates massacred black U.S. soldiers at Fort Pillow.
However, some Confederates welcomed the Proclamation, as they believed it would strengthen pro-slavery sentiment in the Confederacy and, thus, lead to greater enlistment of white men into the Confederate army. According to one Confederate man from Kentucky, "The Proclamation is worth three hundred thousand soldiers to our Government at least... It shows exactly what this war was brought about for and the intention of its damnable authors." Even some Union soldiers concurred with this view and expressed reservations about the Proclamation, not on principle, but rather because they were afraid it would increase the Confederacy's determination to fight on and maintain slavery. One Union soldier from New York stated worryingly after the Proclamation's passage, "I know enough of the Southern spirit that I think they will fight for the institution of slavery even to extermination."
As a result of the Proclamation, the price of slaves in the Confederacy increased in the months after its issuance, with one Confederate from South Carolina opining in 1865 that "now is the time for Uncle to buy some negro women and children."
As Lincoln had hoped, the Proclamation turned foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union by gaining the support of anti-slavery countries and countries that had already abolished slavery (especially the developed countries in Europe such as the United Kingdom or France). This shift ended the Confederacy's hopes of gaining official recognition.
Since the Emancipation Proclamation made the eradication of slavery an explicit Union war goal, it linked support for the South to support for slavery. Public opinion in Britain would not tolerate support for slavery. As Henry Adams noted, "The Emancipation Proclamation has done more for us than all our former victories and all our diplomacy." In Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi hailed Lincoln as "the heir of the aspirations of John Brown". On August 6, 1863, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: "Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure".
Mayor Abel Haywood, a representative for workers from Manchester, England, wrote to Lincoln saying, "We joyfully honor you for many decisive steps toward practically exemplifying your belief in the words of your great founders: 'All men are created free and equal.'" The Emancipation Proclamation served to ease tensions with Europe over the North's conduct of the war, and combined with the recent failed Southern offensive at Antietam, to remove any practical chance for the Confederacy to receive foreign support in the war.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in November 1863 made indirect reference to the Proclamation and the ending of slavery as a war goal with the phrase "new birth of freedom". The Proclamation solidified Lincoln's support among the rapidly growing abolitionist element of the Republican Party and ensured that they would not block his re-nomination in 1864.
In December 1863, Lincoln issued his "Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction", which dealt with the ways the rebel states could reconcile with the Union. Key provisions required that the states accept the "Emancipation Proclamation" and thus the freedom of their slaves, and accept the Confiscation Acts, as well as the Act banning of slavery in United States territories.
Near the end of the war, abolitionists were concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation would be construed solely as a war measure, Lincoln's original intent, and would no longer apply once fighting ended. They were also increasingly anxious to secure the freedom of all slaves, not just those freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Thus pressed, Lincoln staked a large part of his 1864 presidential campaign on a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery uniformly throughout the United States. Lincoln's campaign was bolstered by separate votes in both Maryland and Missouri to abolish slavery in those states. Maryland's new constitution abolishing slavery took effect in November 1864. Slavery in Missouri was ended by executive proclamation of its governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, on January 11, 1865.
Winning re-election, Lincoln pressed the lame duck 38th Congress to pass the proposed amendment immediately rather than wait for the incoming 39th Congress to convene. In January 1865, Congress sent to the state legislatures for ratification what became the Thirteenth Amendment, banning slavery in all U.S. states and territories. The amendment was ratified by the legislatures of enough states by December 6, 1865, and proclaimed 12 days later. There were about 40,000 slaves in Kentucky and 1,000 in Delaware who were liberated then.
As the years went on and American life continued to be deeply unfair towards blacks, cynicism towards Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation increased. Perhaps the strongest attack was Lerone Bennett's "" (2000), which claimed that Lincoln was a white supremacist who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in lieu of the real racial reforms for which radical abolitionists pushed. In his "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation", Allen C. Guelzo noted the professional historians' lack of substantial respect for the document, since it has been the subject of few major scholarly studies. He argued that Lincoln was the US's "last Enlightenment politician" and as such was dedicated to removing slavery strictly within the bounds of law.
Other historians have given more credit to Lincoln for what he accomplished within the tensions of his cabinet and a society at war, for his own growth in political and moral stature, and for the promise he held out to the slaves. More might have been accomplished if he had not been assassinated. As Eric Foner wrote:
Lincoln was not an abolitionist or Radical Republican, a point Bennett reiterates innumerable times. He did not favor immediate abolition before the war, and held racist views typical of his time. But he was also a man of deep convictions when it came to slavery, and during the Civil War displayed a remarkable capacity for moral and political growth.
Kal Ashraf wrote:
Perhaps in rejecting the critical dualism–Lincoln as individual emancipator pitted against collective self-emancipators–there is an opportunity to recognise the greater persuasiveness of the combination. In a sense, yes: a racist, flawed Lincoln did something heroic, and not in lieu of collective participation, but next to, and enabled, by it. To venerate a singular –Great Emancipator' may be as reductive as dismissing the significance of Lincoln's actions. Who he was as a man, no one of us can ever really know. So it is that the version of Lincoln we keep is also the version we make.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made many references to the Emancipation Proclamation during the civil rights movement. These include a speech made at an observance of the hundredth anniversary of the issuing of the Proclamation made in New York City on September 12, 1962 where he placed it alongside the Declaration of Independence as an "imperishable" contribution to civilization, and "All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations". He lamented that despite a history where the United States "proudly professed the basic principles inherent in both documents", it "sadly practiced the antithesis of these principles". He concluded "There is but one way to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation. That is to make its declarations of freedom real; to reach back to the origins of our nation when our message of equality electrified an unfree world, and reaffirm democracy by deeds as bold and daring as the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation."
King's most famous invocation of the Emancipation Proclamation was in a speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (often referred to as the "I Have a Dream" speech). King began the speech saying "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination."
In the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates developed a strategy to call on President John F. Kennedy to bypass a Southern segregationist opposition in the Congress by issuing an executive order to put an end to segregation. This envisioned document was referred to as the "Second Emancipation Proclamation".
On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy appeared on national television to address the issue of civil rights. Kennedy, who had been routinely criticized as timid by some of the leaders of the civil rights movement, told Americans that two black students had been peacefully enrolled in the University of Alabama with the aid of the National Guard despite the opposition of Governor George Wallace.
John Kennedy called it a "moral issue" Invoking the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation he said
In the same speech, Kennedy announced he would introduce comprehensive civil rights legislation to the United States Congress which he did a week later (he continued to push for its passage until his assassination in November 1963). Historian Peniel E. Joseph holds Lyndon Johnson's ability to get that bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed on July 2, 1964 was aided by "the moral forcefulness of the June 11 speech" which turned "the narrative of civil rights from a regional issue into a national story promoting racial equality and democratic renewal".
During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson invoked the Emancipation Proclamation holding it up as a promise yet to be fully implemented.
As Vice President while speaking from Gettysburg on May 30, 1963 (Memorial Day), at the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, Johnson connected it directly with the ongoing civil rights struggles of the time saying "One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin... In this hour, it is not our respective races which are at stake—it is our nation. Let those who care for their country come forward, North and South, white and Negro, to lead the way through this moment of challenge and decision... Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact. To the extent that the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in fact, to that extent we shall have fallen short of assuring freedom to the free."
As president, Johnson again invoked the proclamation in a speech presenting the Voting Rights Act at a joint session of Congress on Monday, March 15, 1965. This was one week after violence had been inflicted on peaceful civil rights marchers during the Selma to Montgomery marches. Johnson said "... it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome. As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil, I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed—more than 100 years—since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than 100 years ago that Abraham Lincoln—a great President of another party—signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact. A century has passed—more than 100 years—since equality was promised, and yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise, and the promise is unkept. The time of justice has now come, and I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come, and when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American."
In episode 86 of "The Andy Griffith Show", Andy asks Barney to explain the Emancipation Proclamation to Opie who is struggling with history at school. Barney brags about his history expertise, yet it is apparent he cannot answer Andy's question. He finally becomes frustrated and explains it is a proclamation for certain people who wanted emancipation.
In "", Chef asks the military commander if he has "ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation?" To which the military commander replies: "I dont listen to hip-hop."
The Emancipation Proclamation is celebrated around the world including on stamps of nations such as the Republic of Togo. The United States commemorative was issued on August 16, 1963, the opening day of the Century of Negro Progress Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Designed by Georg Olden, an initial printing of 120 million stamps was authorized. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9515 |
Erwin Rommel
Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German general and military theorist. Popularly known as the Desert Fox, he served as field marshal in the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as serving in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, and the army of Imperial Germany.
Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the "Pour le Mérite" for his actions on the Italian Front. In 1937 he published his classic book on military tactics, "Infantry Attacks", drawing on his experiences in that war. In World War II, he distinguished himself as the commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign established his reputation as one of the ablest tank commanders of the war, and earned him the nickname "der Wüstenfuchs", "the Desert Fox". Among his British adversaries he had a reputation for chivalry, and his phrase "war without hate" has been used to describe the North African campaign. A number of historians have since rejected the phrase as myth and uncovered numerous examples of war crimes and abuses both towards enemy soldiers and native populations in Africa during the conflict. Other historians note that there is no evidence Rommel was involved or known about these crimes, with some pointing out that the war in the desert, as fought by Rommel and his opponents, still came as close to a clean fight as there was in World War II. He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
With the Nazis gaining power in Germany, by 1938 Rommel uncritically supported Nazi regime and expressed antisemitism to a certain degree. Rommel accepted the new regime, with historians giving different accounts on the specific period and his motivations. He is generally considered a supporter and close friend of Adolf Hitler, at least until near the end of the war, if not necessarily sympathetic to the party and the paramilitary forces associated with it. His stance towards Nazi ideology, his level of knowledge of the Holocaust, and his involvement in war crimes remain matters of debate among scholars. In 1944, Rommel was implicated in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Because of Rommel's status as a national hero, Hitler desired to eliminate him quietly instead of immediately executing him, as many other plotters were. Rommel was given a choice between committing suicide, in return for assurances that his reputation would remain intact and that his family would not be persecuted following his death, or facing a trial that would result in his disgrace and execution; he chose the former and committed suicide using a cyanide pill. Rommel was given a state funeral, and it was announced that he had succumbed to his injuries from the strafing of his staff car in Normandy.
Rommel has become a larger-than-life figure in both Allied and Nazi propaganda, and in postwar popular culture, with numerous authors considering him an apolitical, brilliant commander and a victim of the Third Reich, although this assessment is contested by other authors as the Rommel myth. Rommel's reputation for conducting a clean war was used in the interest of the West German rearmament and reconciliation between the former enemies – the United Kingdom and the United States on one side and the new Federal Republic of Germany on the other. Several of Rommel's former subordinates, notably his chief of staff Hans Speidel, played key roles in German rearmament and integration into NATO in the postwar era. The German Army's largest military base, the Field Marshal Rommel Barracks, Augustdorf, is named in his honour.
Rommel was born on 15 November 1891, in Southern Germany at Heidenheim, from Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, then part of the German Empire. He was the third of five children to Erwin Rommel Senior (1860–1913) and his wife Helene von Lutz, whose father, Karl von Luz, headed the local government council. As a young man, Rommel's father had been an artillery lieutenant. Rommel had one older sister who was an art teacher and his favourite sibling, one older brother named Manfred who died in infancy and two younger brothers, of whom one became a successful dentist and the other an opera singer.
At age 18 Rommel joined the local 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment as a "Fähnrich" (ensign), in 1910, studying at the Officer Cadet School in Danzig. He graduated in November 1911 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in January 1912 and was assigned to the 124th Infantry in Weingarten. He was posted to Ulm in March 1914 to the 46th Field Artillery Regiment, XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps, as a battery commander. He returned to the 124th when war was declared. While at Cadet School, Rommel met his future wife, 17-year-old Lucia (Lucie) Maria Mollin (1894–1971), of Polish and Italian descent.
During World War I, Rommel fought in France as well as in the Romanian (notably at the Second Battle of the Jiu Valley) and Italian campaigns. He successfully employed the tactics of penetrating enemy lines with heavy covering fire coupled with rapid advances, as well as moving forward rapidly to a flanking position to arrive at the rear of hostile positions, to achieve tactical surprise. His first combat experience was on 22 August 1914 as a platoon commander near Verdun, when – catching a French garrison unprepared – Rommel and three men opened fire on them without ordering the rest of his platoon forward. The armies continued to skirmish in open engagements throughout September, as the static trench warfare typical of the First World War was still in the future. For his actions in September 1914 and January 1915, Rommel was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. Rommel was promoted to "Oberleutnant" (first lieutenant) and transferred to the newly created Royal Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion of the "Alpenkorps" in September 1915, as a company commander. In November 1916 in Danzig, Rommel and Lucia married.
In August 1917, his unit was involved in the battle for Mount Cosna, a heavily fortified objective on the border between Hungary and Romania, which they took after two weeks of difficult uphill fighting. The Mountain Battalion was next assigned to the Isonzo front, in a mountainous area in Italy. The offensive, known as the Battle of Caporetto, began on 24 October 1917. Rommel's battalion, consisting of three rifle companies and a machine gun unit, was part of an attempt to take enemy positions on three mountains: Kolovrat, Matajur, and Stol. In two and a half days, from 25 to 27 October, Rommel and his 150 men captured 81 guns and 9,000 men (including 150 officers), at the loss of six dead and 30 wounded. Rommel achieved this remarkable success by taking advantage of the terrain to outflank the Italian forces, attacking from unexpected directions or behind enemy lines, and taking the initiative to attack when he had orders to the contrary. In one instance, the Italian forces, taken by surprise and believing that their lines had collapsed, surrendered after a brief firefight. In this battle, Rommel helped pioneer infiltration tactics, a new form of maneuver warfare just being adopted by German armies, and later by foreign armies, and described by some as Blitzkrieg without tanks. He played no role in the early adoption of Blitzkrieg in World War II though. Acting as advance guard in the capture of Longarone on 9 November, Rommel again decided to attack with a much smaller force. Convinced that they were surrounded by an entire German division, the 1st Italian Infantry Division – 10,000 men – surrendered to Rommel. For this and his actions at Matajur, he received the order of Pour le Mérite.
In January 1918, Rommel was promoted to "Hauptmann" (captain) and assigned to a staff position in the 64th Army Corps, where he served for the remainder of the war.
Rommel remained with the 124th Regiment until October 1920. The regiment was involved in quelling riots and civil disturbances that were occurring throughout Germany at this time. Wherever possible Rommel avoided the use of force in these confrontations. In 1919 he was briefly sent to Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, where he restored order by "sheer force of personality" in the 32nd Internal Security Company, which was composed of rebellious and pro-communist sailors. He decided against storming the nearby city of Lindau, which had been taken by revolutionary communists. Instead, Rommel negotiated with the city council and managed to return it to the legitimate government through diplomatic means. This was followed by his defence of Schwäbisch Gmünd, again bloodless. He was then posted to the Ruhr, where a red army was responsible for fomenting unrest. Historian praises Rommel as a coolheaded and moderate mind, exceptional amid the many takeovers of revolutionary cities by regular and irregular units and the associated massive violence.
According to Reuth, this period left an indelible impression on Rommel's mind that "Everyone in this Republic was fighting each other," along with direct experience of people attempting to convert Germany into a socialist republic on Soviet lines. There are similarities with Hitler's experiences: like Rommel, Hitler had known the solidarity of trench warfare and had then participated in the Reichswehr's suppression of the First and Second Bavarian Soviet Republics. The need for national unity thus became a decisive legacy of the first World War. Brighton notes that while both believed in the Stab-in-the-back myth, Rommel was able to succeed using peaceful methods because he saw the problem in empty stomachs rather than in Judeo-Bolshevism – which right-wing soldiers such as Hitler blamed for the chaos in Germany.
On 1 October 1920 Rommel was appointed to a company command with the 13th Infantry Regiment in Stuttgart, a post he held for the next nine years. He was then assigned as an instructor at the Dresden Infantry School from 1929 to 1933, and during this time was promoted to major, in April 1932. While at Dresden, he wrote a manual on infantry training, published in 1934. In October 1933 he was promoted to "Oberstleutnant" (lieutenant colonel) and given his next command, the 3rd "Jäger" Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, stationed at Goslar. Here he first met Hitler, who inspected his troops on 30 September 1934. In September 1935 Rommel was moved to the War Academy at Potsdam as an instructor, for the next three years. His book "Infanterie greift an" ("Infantry Attacks"), a description of his wartime experiences along with his analysis, was published in 1937. It became a bestseller, which, according to Scheck, later "enormously influenced" many armies of the world; Adolf Hitler was one of many people who owned a copy.
Hearing of Rommel's reputation as an outstanding military instructor, in February 1937 Hitler assigned him as the War Ministry liaison officer to the Hitler Youth in charge of military training. Here he clashed with Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth leader, over the training that the boys should receive. Trying to fulfill a mission assigned to him by the Ministry of War, Rommel had twice proposed a plan that would have effectively subordinated Hitler Youth to the army, removing it from NSDAP control. That went against Schirach's express wishes. Schirach appealed directly to Hitler; consequently, Rommel was quietly removed from the project in 1938. He had been promoted to "Oberst" (colonel), on 1 August 1937, and in 1938 he was appointed commandant of the Theresian Military Academy at Wiener Neustadt. In October 1938 Hitler specially requested that Rommel be seconded to command the "Führerbegleitbatallion" (his escort battalion). This unit accompanied Hitler whenever he travelled outside of Germany. During this period Rommel indulged his interest in engineering and mechanics by learning about the inner workings and maintenance of internal combustion engines and heavy machine guns. He memorized logarithm tables in his spare time and enjoyed skiing and other outdoor sports.During his visit to Switzerland in 1938 he reported that Swiss soldiers he met showed "remarkable understanding of our Jewish problem". Butler comments that he did share the view (popular in Germany and many European countries during that time) that the Jews were loyal to themselves as a people more than their nations. Despite this, other pieces of evidence show that he considered the Nazi racial ideologies to be rubbish. Searle comments that Rommel knew the official stand of the regime, but in this case, the phrase was ambiguous and there is no evidence after or before this event that he ever sympathized with the anti-Semitism of the Nazi movement. Rommel's son Manfred Rommel stated in documentary "The Real Rommel", published in 2001 by Channel 4 that his father would "look the other way" when faced with Jewish violence on the streets. According to the documentary Rommel also requested prof of "Aryan descent" from the Italian boyfriend of his illegitimate daughter Gertrud.
Rommel was promoted to "Generalmajor" on 23 August 1939 and assigned as commander of the "Führerbegleitbatallion", tasked with guarding Hitler and his field headquarters during the invasion of Poland, which began on 1 September. According to Remy, Rommel's private letters at this time show that he did not understand Hitler's true nature and intentions, as he quickly went from predicting a swift peaceful settlement of tensions to approving Hitler's reaction ("bombs will be retaliated with bombs") to the Gleiwitz incident (a false flag operation staged by Hitler and used as a pretext for the invasion). Hitler took a personal interest in the campaign, often moving close to the front in the "Führersonderzug" (headquarters train). Rommel attended Hitler's daily war briefings and accompanied him everywhere, making use of the opportunity to observe first-hand the use of tanks and other motorized units. On 26 September Rommel returned to Berlin to set up a new headquarters for his unit in the Reich Chancellery. Rommel returned briefly to occupied Warsaw on 5 October to prepare for the German victory parade. In a letter to his wife he claimed the inhabitants of the German bombed city were now "rescued".
Following the campaign in Poland, Rommel began lobbying for command of one of Germany's panzer divisions, of which there were then only ten. Rommel's successes in World War I were based on surprise and manoeuvre, two elements for which the new panzer units were ideally suited. Rommel received a promotion to a general's rank from Hitler ahead of more senior officers. Rommel obtained the command he aspired to, despite having been earlier turned down by the army's personnel office, which had offered him command of a mountain division instead. According to Caddick-Adams, he was backed by Hitler, the influential Fourteenth Army commander Wilhelm List (a fellow Württemberger middle-class "military outsider") and likely Guderian as well.
Going against military protocol, this promotion added to Rommel's growing reputation as one of Hitler's favoured commanders, although his later outstanding leadership in France quelled complaints about his self-promotion and political scheming. The 7th Panzer Division had recently been converted to an armoured division consisting of 218 tanks in three battalions (thus, one tank regiment, instead of the two assigned to a standard panzer division), with two rifle regiments, a motorcycle battalion, an engineer battalion, and an anti-tank battalion. Upon taking command on 10 February 1940, Rommel quickly set his unit to practising the maneuvers they would need in the upcoming campaign.
The invasion began on 10 May 1940. By the third day Rommel and the advance elements of his division, together with a detachment of the 5th Panzer Division under Colonel Hermann Werner, had reached the River Meuse, where they found the bridges had already been destroyed (Guderian and Reinhardt reached the river on the same day). Rommel was active in the forward areas, directing the efforts to make a crossing, which were initially unsuccessful because of suppressive fire by the French on the other side of the river. Rommel brought up tanks and flak units to provide counter-fire and had nearby houses set on fire to create a smokescreen. He sent infantry across in rubber boats, appropriated the bridging tackle of the 5th Panzer Division, personally grabbed a light machine gun to fight off a French counterattack supported by tanks, and went into the water himself, encouraging the sappers and helping lash together the pontoons. By 16 May Rommel reached Avesnes, and contravening all orders and doctrine, he pressed on to Cateau. That night, the French II Army Corps was shattered and on 17 May, Rommel's forces took 10,000 prisoners, losing 36 men in the process. He was surprised to find out only his vanguard had followed his tempestuous surge. The High Command and Hitler had been extremely nervous about his disappearance, although they awarded him the Knight's Cross. Rommel's (and Guderian's) successes and the new possibilities offered by the new tank arm were welcomed by a small number of generals, but worried and paralysed the rest.
On 20 May, Rommel reached Arras. General Hermann Hoth received orders that the town should be bypassed and its British garrison thus isolated. He ordered the 5th Panzer Division to move to the west and the 7th Panzer Division to the east, flanked by the SS Division "Totenkopf". The following day, the British launched a counterattack, meeting the SS "Totenkopf" with two infantry battalions supported by heavily armoured Matilda Mk I and Matilda II tanks in the Battle of Arras. The German 37 mm anti-tank gun proved ineffective against the heavily armoured Matildas. The 25th Panzer Regiment and a battery of anti-aircraft guns were called in to support, and the British withdrew.
On 24 May, Field Marshal von Rundstedt and Field Marshal von Kluge issued a halt order, which Hitler approved. The reason for this decision is still a matter of debate. The halt order was lifted on 26 May. 7th Panzer continued its advance, reaching Lille on 27 May. For the assault, Hoth placed the 5th Panzer Division's Panzer Brigade under Rommel's command. The Siege of Lille continued until 31 May, when the French garrison of 40,000 men surrendered. 7th Panzer was given six days' leave, during which Rommel was summoned to Berlin to meet with Hitler. He was the only divisional commander present at the planning session for "Fall Rot" (Case Red), the second phase of the invasion of France. By this time the evacuation of the BEF was complete; over 338,000 Allied troops had been evacuated across the Channel, though they had to leave behind all their heavy equipment and vehicles.
Rommel, resuming his advance on 5 June, drove for the River Seine to secure the bridges near Rouen. Advancing in two days, the division reached Rouen to find it defended by three French tanks; after they managed to destroy a number of German tanks before being taken out; the German force enraged by this resistance forbade fire brigade access to the burning district of old Normal capital, and as a result most of the historic quarter was reduced to ashes According to David Fraser Rommel instructed the German artillery to bomb the city as a "fire demonstration"According to one witness report the smoke from burning Rouen was intense enough that it reached Paris Daniel Allen Butler states that the bridges to the city were already destroyed. After the fall of the city both French civilians of Black African descent and colonial troops were executed on 9th of June. The number of Black civilians and prisoners mass murdered is estimated at around 100 On 10 June, Rommel reached the coast near Dieppe, sending Hoth the message "Bin an der Küste" or "Am on the coast". On 17 June, 7th Panzer was ordered to advance on Cherbourg, where additional British evacuations were under way. The division advanced in 24 hours, and after two days of shelling, the French garrison surrendered on 19 June. The speed and surprise that it was consistently able to achieve, to the point at which both the enemy and the "Oberkommando des Heeres" (OKH; German High Command) at times lost track of its whereabouts, earned the 7th Panzers the nickname "Gespensterdivision" (Ghost Division).
After the armistice with the French was signed on 22 June, the division was placed in reserve, being sent first to the Somme and then to Bordeaux to re-equip and prepare for "Unternehmen Seelöwe" (Operation Sea Lion), the planned invasion of Britain. This invasion was later cancelled, as Germany was not able to acquire the air superiority needed for a successful outcome, while the "Kriegsmarine" was massively outnumbered by the Royal Navy.
In France, Rommel ordered the execution of one French officer who refused three times to cooperate when being taken prisoner; there are disputes as to whether this execution was justified. Bewley remarks that the shooting of a prisoner who does not behave as a prisoner is a legal option; however, this act was brutal because the officer did not have a gun. Caddick-Adams comments that this would make Rommel a war criminal condemned by his own hand, and that other authors overlook this episode. Butler notes that the officer refused to surrender three times and thus died in a courageous but foolhardy way. French historian Petitfrère remarks that Rommel was in a hurry and had no time for useless palavers, although this act was still debatable. Telp remarks that, "For all his craftiness, Rommel was chivalrous by nature and not prone to order or condone acts of needless violence ... He treated prisoners of war with consideration. On one occasion, he was forced to order the shooting of a French lieutenant-colonel for refusing to obey his captors." Scheck says, "Although there is no evidence incriminating Rommel himself, his unit did fight in areas where German massacres of black French prisoners of war were extremely common in June 1940."
There are reports that during the fighting in France, Rommel's 7th Panzer Division committed atrocities against surrendering French troops and captured prisoners of war. The atrocities, according to Martin S. Alexander, included the murder of 50 surrendering officers and men at Quesnoy and the nearby Airaines. According to Richardot, on June 7, the commanding French officer Charles N'Tchoréré and his company surrendered to the 7th Panzer Division. He was then executed by the 25th Infantry Regiment (the 7th Panzer Division did not have a 25th Infantry Regiment). Journalist Alain Aka states simply that he was executed by one of Rommel's soldiers and his body was driven over by tank. Erwan Bergot reports that he was killed by the SS, this however is rejected by Scheck who writes there were no SS units in the area. Historian John Morrow states he was shot in the neck by a Panzer officer, without mentioning the unit of the perpetrators of this crime. The website of the National Federation of Volunteer Servicemen (F.N.C.V., France) states that N'Tchoréré was pushed against the wall and, despite protests from his comrades and newly liberated German prisoners, was shot by the SS. Elements of the division are considered by Scheck to have been "likely" responsible for the execution of POWs in Hangest-sur-Somme, while Scheck reports that they were too far away to have been involved in the massacres at Airaines and nearby villages. Scheck says that the German units fighting there came from the 46th and 2nd Infantry Division, and possibly from the 6th and 27th Infantry Division as well. Morrow, citing Scheck, says that the 7th Panzer Division carried out "cleansing operations". French historian counts the number of victims of the 7th Panzer Division in Airaines at 109, mostly French-African soldiers from Senegal. Historian Daniel Butler agrees that it was possible that the massacre at Le Quesnoy happened given the existence of Nazis, such as Hanke, in Rommel's division, while stating that in comparison with other German units, few sources regarding such actions of the men of the 7th Panzer exist. Butler believes that "it's almost impossible to imagine" Rommel authorising or countenancing such actions. He also writes that "Some accusers have twisted a remark in Rommel's own account of the action in the village of Le Quesnoy as proof that he at least tacitly condoned the executions—'any enemy troops were either wiped out or forced to withdraw'—but the words themselves as well as the context of the passage hardly support the contention." Showalter writes: "In fact, the garrison of Le Quesnoy, most of them Senegalese, took heavy toll of the German infantry in house-to-house fighting. Unlike other occasions in 1940, when Germans and Africans met, there was no deliberate massacre of survivors. Nevertheless, the riflemen took few prisoners, and the delay imposed by the tirailleurs forced the Panzers to advance unsupported until Rommel was ordered to halt for fear of coming under attack by Stukas." Claus Telp comments that Airaines was not in the sector of the 7th, but at Hangest and Martainville, elements of the 7th might have shot some prisoners and used British Colonel Broomhall as a human shield (although Telp is of the opinion that it was unlikely that Rommel approved of, or even knew about, these two incidents). Historian David Stone notes that acts of shooting surrendered prisoners were carried out by Rommel's 7th Panzer Division and observes contradictory statements in Rommel's account of the events; Rommel initially wrote that "any enemy troops were wiped out or forced to withdraw" but also added that "many prisoners taken were hopelessly drunk." Stone attributes the massacres of soldiers from the 53ème Regiment d'Infanterie Coloniale (N'Tchoréré's unit) on 7 June to the 5th Infantry Division.
On 6 February 1941, Rommel was appointed commander of the new "Deutsches Afrika Korps" (DAK), consisting of the 5th Light Division (later renamed 21st Panzer Division) and of the 15th Panzer Division. He was promoted to "Generalleutnant" three days later and flew to Tripoli on 12 February. The DAK had been sent to Libya in Operation Sonnenblume to support Italian troops who had been roundly defeated by British Commonwealth forces in Operation Compass. His efforts in the Western Desert Campaign earned Rommel the nickname the "Desert Fox" from British journalists. Allied troops in Africa were commanded by General Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief, Middle East Command.
According to German historian Wolfgang Proske, Rommel forbade his soldiers to buy anything from the Jewish population of Tripoli, used Jewish slave labour and commanded Jews to clear out minefields by walking on them ahead of his forces. According to Proske, some of the Libyan Jews were eventually sent to concentration camps. According to the BBC, on 9 October 1942, Italian racial laws were extended to Libya, and by the end of the war, hundreds of Jews used as slave labour would perish from ill treatment.
Historian Jens Hoppe notes that Libya was the colony of an Axis power and thus it was unlike Tunisia, which was directly under Nazi Germany's control. Libyan Jews deported to Tunisia were under the control of the 'Sicherheitsdienst', led by Rauff, and the Wehrmacht's use of Jewish forced labour in Tunisia began under Nehring on 6 December 1942. According to Rudolf Rahn, it was von Arnim (who had led the Axis forces in North Africa since 8 December) who assigned Jewish labour companies to individual units. In Libya, it was Bastico, the antisemitic governor of Libya and commander-in-chief of Italian forces in North Africa, who ordered the use of Jewish forced labour and controlled the camps.
Historians Christian Schweizer and Peter Lieb note that: "Over the last few years, even though the social science teacher Wolfgang Proske has seeked to participate in the discussion [on Rommel] with very strong opinions, his biased submissions are not scientifically received."
According to the publication Jewish Communities of the World edited by Anthony Lerman, in 1942 under the German occupation, the Benghazi quarter that housed Jewish population was plundered and 2000 Jews were deported across the desert, a fifth of whom died
Rommel and his troops were technically subordinate to Italian commander-in-chief General Italo Gariboldi. Disagreeing with the orders of the "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" (OKW, German armed forces high command) to assume a defensive posture along the front line at Sirte, Rommel resorted to subterfuge and insubordination to take the war to the British. According to Remy, the General Staff tried to slow him down but Hitler encouraged him to advance—an expression of the conflict that had existed between Hitler and the army leadership since the invasion of Poland. He decided to launch a limited offensive on 24 March with the 5th Light Division, supported by two Italian divisions. This thrust was not anticipated by the British, who had Ultra intelligence showing that Rommel had orders to remain on the defensive until at least May, when the 15th Panzer Division were due to arrive.
The British Western Desert Force had meanwhile been weakened by the transfer in mid-February of three divisions for the Battle of Greece. They fell back to Mersa El Brega and started constructing defensive works. Rommel continued his attack against these positions to prevent the British from building up their fortifications. After a day of fierce fighting on 31 March, the Germans captured Mersa El Brega. Splitting his force into three groups, Rommel resumed the advance on 3 April. Benghazi fell that night as the British pulled out of the city. Gariboldi, who had ordered Rommel to stay in Mersa El Brega, was furious. Rommel was equally forceful in his response, telling Gariboldi, "One cannot permit unique opportunities to slip by for the sake of trifles." A signal arrived from General Franz Halder reminding Rommel that he was to halt in Mersa El Brega. Knowing Gariboldi could not speak German, Rommel told him the message gave him complete freedom of action. Gariboldi backed down.
On 4 April, Rommel was advised by his supply officers that fuel was running short, which could result in a delay of up to four days. The problem was Rommel's fault, as he had not advised his supply officers of his intentions, and no fuel dumps had been set up. Rommel ordered the 5th Light Division to unload all of their lorries and to return to El Agheila to collect fuel and ammunition. Driving through the night, they were able to reduce the halt to a single day. Fuel supply was problematic throughout the campaign, as no petrol was available locally; it had to be brought from Europe by tanker and then carried by road to where it was needed. Food and fresh water were also in short supply, and it was difficult to move tanks and other equipment off-road through the sand. Cyrenaica was captured by 8 April, except for the port city of Tobruk, which was besieged on 11 April.
The siege of Tobruk was not technically a siege, as the defenders were still able to move supplies and reinforcements into the city via the port. Rommel knew that by capturing the port he could greatly reduce the length of his supply lines and increase his overall port capacity, which was insufficient even for day-to-day operations and only half that needed for offensive operations. The city, which had been heavily fortified by the Italians during their 30-year occupation, was garrisoned by the 18th Infantry Brigade of the Australian 7th Division, the Australian 9th Division, HQ 3rd Armoured Brigade, several thousand British infantrymen, and one regiment of Indian infantry, for a total of 36,000 men. The commanding officer was Australian Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead. Hoping to catch the defenders off-guard, Rommel launched a failed attack on 14 April.
Rommel requested reinforcements, but the OKW, then completing preparations for Operation Barbarossa, refused. General Friedrich Paulus, head of the Operations Branch of OKH, arrived on 25 April to review the situation. He was present for a second failed attack on the city on 30 April. On 4 May Paulus ordered that no further attempts should be made to take Tobruk via a direct assault. This order was not open to interpretation, and Rommel had no choice but to comply. Aware of this order from intelligence reports, Churchill urged Wavell to seize the initiative. While awaiting further reinforcements and a shipment of 300 tanks that were already on their way, Wavell launched a limited offensive code named Operation Brevity on 15 May. The British briefly seized Sollum, Fort Capuzzo, and the important Halfaya Pass, a bottleneck along the coast near the border between Libya and Egypt. Rommel soon forced them to withdraw. On 15 June Wavell launched Operation Battleaxe. The attack was defeated in a four-day battle at Sollum and Halfaya Pass, resulting in the loss of 98 British tanks. The Germans lost 12 tanks, while capturing and seriously damaging over 20 British tanks. The defeat resulted in Churchill replacing Wavell with General Claude Auchinleck as theatre commander. Rommel appointed Heinrich Kirchheim as commander of 5th Light Division on 16 May, became displeased and replaced him with Johann von Ravenstein on 30 May 1941.
In August, Rommel was appointed commander of the newly created Panzer Group Africa, with Fritz Bayerlein as his chief of staff. The Afrika Korps, comprising the 15th Panzer Division and the 5th Light Division, now reinforced and redesignated 21st Panzer Division, was put under command of Generalleutnant Ludwig Crüwell. In addition to the Afrika Korps, Rommel's Panzer Group had the 90th Light Division and four Italian divisions, three infantry divisions investing Tobruk, and one holding Bardia. The two Italian armoured divisions, "Ariete" and "Trieste", were still under Italian control. They formed the Italian XX Motorized Corps under the command of General Gastone Gambara. Two months later Hitler decided he must have German officers in better control of the Mediterranean theatre, and appointed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring as Commander in Chief, South. Kesselring was ordered to get control of the air and sea between Africa and Italy.
Following his success in Battleaxe, Rommel returned his attention to the capture of Tobruk. He made preparations for a new offensive, to be launched between 15 and 20 November. Meanwhile, Auchinleck reorganised Allied forces and strengthened them to two corps, XXX and XIII, which formed the British Eighth Army, which was placed under the command of Alan Cunningham. Auchinleck had 770 tanks and double the number of Axis aircraft. Rommel opposed him with the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions with a total of 260 tanks, the 90th Light Infantry division, five Italian infantry divisions, and one Italian armoured division of 278 tanks.
Auchinleck launched Operation Crusader, a major offensive to relieve Tobruk, on 18 November 1941. The XIII Corps on the right were assigned to attack Sidi Omar, Capuzzo, Sollum, and Bardia; the XXX Corps (which included most of the armour) were to move on the left southern flank to a position about south of Tobruk, with the expectation that Rommel would find this move so threatening that he would move his armour there in response. Once Rommel's tanks were written down, the British 70th Infantry Division would break out of Tobruk to link up with XXX Corps. Rommel reluctantly decided on 20 November to call off his planned attack on Tobruk.
Some elements of the 7th Armoured Division were stopped on 19 January by the Italian "Ariete" Armoured Division at Bir el Gobi, but they also managed to capture the airfields at Sidi Rezegh, from Tobruk. Engaging the Allied tanks located there became Rommel's primary objective. Noting that the British armour was separated into three groups incapable of mutual support, he concentrated his Panzers so as to gain local superiority. The expected breakout from Tobruk, which took place on 20 November, was stopped by the Italians. The airfield at Sidi Rezegh was retaken by 21st Panzer on 22 November. In four days of fighting, the Eighth Army lost 530 tanks and Rommel only 100. The German forces near Halfaya Pass were cut off on 23 November.
Wanting to exploit the British halt and their apparent disorganisation, on 24 November Rommel counterattacked near the Egyptian border in an operation that became known as the "dash to the wire". Unknown to Rommel, his troops passed within of a major British supply dump. Cunningham asked Auchinleck for permission to withdraw into Egypt, but Auchinleck refused, and soon replaced Cunningham as commander of Eighth Army with Major General Neil Ritchie. The German counterattack stalled as it outran its supplies and met stiffening resistance, and was criticised by the German High Command and some of Rommel's staff officers.
While Rommel drove into Egypt, the remaining Commonwealth forces east of Tobruk threatened the weak Axis lines there. Unable to reach Rommel for several days, Rommel's Chief of Staff, Siegfried Westphal, ordered the 21st Panzer Division withdrawn to support the siege of Tobruk. On 27 November the British attack on Tobruk linked up with the defenders, and Rommel, having suffered losses that could not easily be replaced, had to concentrate on regrouping the divisions that had attacked into Egypt. By 7 December Rommel fell back to a defensive line at Gazala, just west of Tobruk, all the while under heavy attack from the Desert Air Force. The Bardia garrison surrendered on 2 January and Halfaya on 17 January 1942. The Allies kept up the pressure, and Rommel was forced to retreat all the way back to the starting positions he had held in March, reaching El Agheila in December 1941. The British had retaken almost all of Cyrenaica, but Rommel's retreat dramatically shortened his supply lines.
On 5 January 1942 the Afrika Korps received 55 tanks and new supplies and Rommel started planning a counterattack. On 21 January, Rommel launched the attack. Caught by surprise by the Afrika Korps, the Allies lost over 110 tanks and other heavy equipment. The Axis forces retook Benghazi on 29 January and Timimi on 3 February, with the Allies pulling back to a defensive line just before the Tobruk area south of the coastal town of Gazala. Rommel placed a thin screen of mobile forces before them, and held the main force of the Panzerarmee well back near Antela and Mersa Brega. Between December 1941 and June 1942, Rommel had excellent information about the disposition and intentions of the Commonwealth forces. Bonner Fellers, the US diplomat in Egypt, was sending detailed reports to the US State Department using a compromised code.
Following Kesselring's successes in creating local air superiority around the British naval and air bases at Malta in April 1942, an increased flow of supplies reached the Axis forces in Africa. With his forces strengthened, Rommel contemplated a major offensive operation for the end of May. He knew the British were planning offensive operations as well, and he hoped to pre-empt them. While out on reconnaissance on 6 April, he was severely bruised in the abdomen when his vehicle was the target of artillery fire. The British had 900 tanks in the area, 200 of which were new Grant tanks. Unlike the British, the Axis forces had no armoured reserve; all operable equipment was put into immediate service. Rommel's Panzer Army Africa had a force of 320 German tanks; 50 of these were the light Panzer II model. In addition, 240 Italian tanks were in service, but these were under-gunned and poorly armoured.
Early in the afternoon of 26 May 1942, Rommel attacked first and the Battle of Gazala commenced. Italian infantry supplemented with small numbers of armoured forces assaulted the centre of the Gazala fortifications. To give the impression that this was the main assault, spare aircraft engines mounted on trucks were used to create huge clouds of dust. Ritchie was not convinced by this display, and left the 4th and 22nd Armoured Brigades in position at the south end of the Commonwealth position. Under the cover of darkness, the bulk of Rommel's motorized and armoured forces (15th and 21st Panzers, 90th Light Division, and the Italian Ariete and Trieste Divisions) drove south to skirt the left flank of the British, coming up behind them and attacking to the north the following morning. Throughout the day a running armour battle occurred, where both sides took heavy losses. The Grant tanks proved to be impossible to knock out except at close range.
Renewing the attack on the morning of 28 May, Rommel concentrated on encircling and destroying separate units of the British armour. Repeated British counterattacks threatened to cut off and destroy the Afrika Korps. Running low on fuel, Rommel assumed a defensive posture, forming "the Cauldron". He made use of the extensive British minefields to shield his western flank. Meanwhile, Italian infantry cleared a path through the mines to provide supplies. On 30 May Rommel resumed the offensive, attacking westwards to link with elements of Italian X Corps, which had cleared a path through the Allied minefields to establish a supply line. On 1 June, Rommel accepted the surrender of some 3,000 soldiers of the 150th Brigade. On 2 June he demanded surrender of French soldiers at Bir Hakeim, threatening to "exterminate" them if they do not comply. On 6 June, 90th Light Division and the "Trieste" Division assaulted the Free French strongpoint in the Battle of Bir Hakeim, but the defenders continued to thwart the attack until finally evacuating on 10 June. With his communications and the southern strongpoint of the British line thus secured, Rommel shifted his attack north again, relying on the British minefields of the Gazala lines to protect his left flank. Threatened with being completely cut off, the British began a retreat eastward toward Egypt on 14 June, the so-called "Gazala Gallop".
On 15 June Axis forces reached the coast, cutting off the escape for the Commonwealth forces still occupying the Gazala positions. With this task completed, Rommel struck for Tobruk while the enemy was still confused and disorganised. Tobruk's defenders were at this point the 2nd South African Infantry Division, 4th Antiaircraft Brigade, 11th Indian Infantry, 32nd Army Tank, and 201st Guards Brigades, all under command of Major General Hendrik Klopper. The assault on Tobruk began at dawn on 20 June, and Klopper surrendered at dawn the following day. With Tobruk, Rommel achieved the capture of 32,000 defenders, the port, and huge quantities of supplies. Only at the fall of Singapore, earlier that year, had more British Commonwealth troops been captured at one time. On 22 June, Hitler promoted Rommel to Generalfeldmarschall for this victory.
Following his success at Gazala and Tobruk, Rommel wanted to seize the moment and not allow 8th Army a chance to regroup. He strongly argued that the Panzerarmee should advance into Egypt and drive on to Alexandria and the Suez Canal, as this would place almost all the Mediterranean coastline in Axis hands, ease conditions on the Eastern Front, and potentially lead to the capture from the south of the oil fields in the Caucasus and Middle East. Indeed, Allied strategists feared that if Rommel captured Egypt, he would next overrun the Middle East before possibly linking up with the forces besieging the Caucasus. However, Hitler viewed the North African campaign primarily as a way to assist his Italian allies, not as an objective in and of itself. He would not consider sending Rommel the reinforcements and supplies he needed to take and hold Egypt, as this would have required diverting men and supplies from his primary focus: the Eastern Front.
Rommel's success at Tobruk worked against him, as Hitler no longer felt it was necessary to proceed with Operation Herkules, the proposed attack on Malta. Auchinleck relieved Ritchie of command of the Eighth Army on 25 June, and temporarily took command himself. Rommel knew that delay would only benefit the British, who continued to receive supplies at a faster rate than Rommel could hope to achieve. He pressed an attack on the heavily fortified town of Mersa Matruh, which Auchinleck had designated as the fall-back position, surrounding it on 28 June. The 2nd New Zealand Division and 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division were almost caught, with 50th Division fleeing on the 27th and 2nd Division escaping after a short engagement during the pre-dawn hours of 28 June. The four divisions of X Corps were caught in the encirclement, and were ordered by Auchinleck to attempt a breakout. The 29th Indian Infantry Brigade was nearly destroyed, losing 6,000 troops and 40 tanks. The fortress fell on 29 June. In addition to stockpiles of fuel and other supplies, the British abandoned hundreds of tanks and trucks. Those that were functional were put into service by the Panzerarmee.
After the Fall of Tobruk, the Allied POWs were quickly delivered to the POW camps. All POWs had to endure extremely hard living condition. Non-European soldiers were mistreated and several were shot if they were giving the captors troubles. Karen Horn in her publication "Narratives from North Africa: South African prisoner-of-war experience following the fall of Tobruk" describes a witness statement reporting execution of a group of black soldiers by German guards transporting them to prisoner of war camps. Horn writes that both German and Italian forces did not view black and coloured prisoners as regular troops; and "we do know that German and Italian treatment of black Allied soldiers was for the most part dreadful". According to Horn, black soldiers were threatened with death if they refused to work, which would constitute violation of Geneva Convention, and describes other types of mistreatment such as giving their food rations to one biscuit per day and giving them minimum water rations. Furthermore another witness report describes how Indian and black soldiers were barred from seeking cover in shelters during Allied bombings. Throughout the forced labour the captured soldiers were subjected to assaults by both German and Italian guards supervising their work.
According to Karen Horn, Rommel himself was considered by the South African POWs as an efficient and proper soldier. This impression was one of the factors that helped the POWs to identify with the German captors to a degree, whom they would less likely defy than the Italians. Maurice Remy writes that prisoners in North Africa were the responsibility of the Italians (under whose administration the POW camps were operated) anyway. According to Remy, no incident of assault by the soldiers of the Afrika Korps themselves against the prisoners (in the process of delivering them to the Italian side) is currently known. His position on the matter of POWs did not show effect on the way they were treated in camps though. Despite his insistence that the black and white prisoners should be in the same compounds and accorded the same treatment, the black and white POWs were only kept together at the early state of detention, with the black POWs being singled out for harsher tasks and maltreatment. Although, in segregating the prisoners, it was the Italian side that followed the Geneva Convention which discouraged gathering of prisoners of different races and nationalities. The South African soldier Job Maseko recalls that, after Rommel visited his camp and asked Maseko about the prisoner's conditions, the commandant Major Schroeder (who had warned Maseko against talking) imposed even more brutal methods.
Rommel continued his pursuit of the Eighth Army, which had fallen back to heavily prepared defensive positions at El Alamein. This region is a natural choke point, where the Qattara Depression creates a relatively short line to defend that could not be outflanked to the south because of the steep escarpment. During this time Germans prepared numerous propaganda postcards and leaflets for Egyptian and Syrian population urging them to "chase English out of the cities", warning them about "Jewish peril" and with one leaflet printed in 296,000 copies and aimed at Syria stating among others "Because Marshal Rommel, at the head of the brave Axis troops, is already rattling the last gates of England's power! Arabs! Help your friends achieve their goal:abolishing the English-Jewish-American tyranny!" On 1 July the First Battle of El Alamein began. Rommel had around 100 available tanks. The Allies were able to achieve local air superiority, with heavy bombers attacking the 15th and 21st Panzers, who had also been delayed by a sandstorm. The 90th Light Division veered off course and were pinned down by South African artillery fire. Rommel continued to attempt to advance for two more days, but repeated sorties by the Desert Air Force meant he could make no progress. On 3 July, he wrote in his diary that his strength had "faded away". Attacks by 21st Panzer on 13 and 14 July were repulsed, and an Australian attack on 16–17 July was held off with difficulty. Throughout the first half of July, Auchinleck concentrated attacks on the Italian 60th Infantry Division Sabratha at Tel el Eisa. The ridge was captured by the 26th Australian Brigade on 16 July. Both sides suffered similar losses throughout the month, but the Axis supply situation remained less favourable. Rommel realised that the tide was turning. A break in the action took place at the end of July as both sides rested and regrouped.
Preparing for a renewed drive, the British replaced Auchinleck with General Harold Alexander on 8 August. Bernard Montgomery was made the new commander of Eighth Army that same day. The Eighth Army had initially been assigned to General William Gott, but he was killed when his plane was shot down on 7 August. Rommel knew that a British convoy carrying over 100,000 tons of supplies was due to arrive in September. He decided to launch an attack at the end of August with the 15th and 21st Panzer Division, 90th Light Division, and the Italian XX Motorized Corps in a drive through the southern flank of the El Alamein lines. Expecting an attack sooner rather than later, Montgomery fortified the Alam el Halfa ridge with the 44th Division, and positioned the 7th Armoured Division about to the south.
The Battle of Alam el Halfa was launched on 30 August. The terrain left Rommel with no choice but to follow a similar tactic as he had at previous battles: the bulk of the forces attempted to sweep around from the south while secondary attacks were launched on the remainder of the front. It took much longer than anticipated to get through the minefields in the southern sector, and the tanks got bogged down in unexpected patches of quicksand (Montgomery had arranged for Rommel to acquire a falsified map of the terrain). Under heavy fire from British artillery and aircraft, and in the face of well prepared positions that Rommel could not hope to outflank for lack of fuel, the attack stalled. By 2 September, Rommel realized the battle was unwinnable, and decided to withdraw.
Montgomery had made preparations to cut the Germans off in their retreat, but in the afternoon of 2 September he visited Corps commander Brian Horrocks and gave orders to allow the Germans to retire. This was to preserve his own strength intact for the main battle which was to come. On the night of 3 September the 2nd New Zealand Division and 7th Armoured Division positioned to the north engaged in an assault, but they were repelled in a fierce rearguard action by the 90th Light Division. Montgomery called off further action to preserve his strength and allow for further desert training for his forces. In the attack Rommel had suffered 2,940 casualties and lost 50 tanks, a similar number of guns, and 400 lorries, vital for supplies and movement. The British losses, except tank losses of 68, were much less, further adding to the numerical inferiority of Panzer Army Afrika. The Desert Air Force inflicted the highest proportions of damage on Rommel's forces. He now realized the war in Africa could not be won. Physically exhausted and suffering from a liver infection and low blood pressure, Rommel flew home to Germany to recover his health. General Georg Stumme was left in command in Rommel's absence.
Improved decoding by British intelligence (see Ultra) meant that the Allies had advance knowledge of virtually every Mediterranean convoy, and only 30 percent of shipments were getting through. In addition, Mussolini diverted supplies intended for the front to his garrison at Tripoli and refused to release any additional troops to Rommel. The increasing Allied air superiority and lack of fuel meant Rommel was forced to take a more defensive posture than he would have liked for the second Battle of El Alamein. The German defences to the west of the town included a minefield deep with the main defensive line – itself several thousand yards deep – to its west. This, Rommel hoped, would allow his infantry to hold the line at any point until motorized and armoured units in reserve could move up and counterattack any Allied breaches. The British offensive began on 23 October. Stumme, in command in Rommel's absence, died of an apparent heart attack while examining the front on 24 October, and Rommel was ordered to return from his medical leave, arriving on the 25th. Montgomery's intention was to clear a narrow path through the minefield at the northern part of the defenses, at the area called Kidney Ridge, with a feint to the south. By the end of 25 October, the 15th Panzer, the defenders in this sector, had only 31 serviceable tanks remaining of their initial force of 119. Rommel brought the 21st Panzer and Ariete Divisions north on 26 October, to bolster the sector. On 28 October, Montgomery shifted his focus to the coast, ordering his 1st and 10th Armoured Divisions to attempt to swing around and cut off Rommel's line of retreat. Meanwhile, Rommel concentrated his attack on the Allied salient at Kidney Ridge, inflicting heavy losses. However, Rommel had only 150 operational tanks remaining, and Montgomery had 800, many of them Shermans.
Montgomery, seeing his armoured brigades losing tanks at an alarming rate, stopped major attacks until the early hours of 2 November, when he opened Operation Supercharge, with a massive artillery barrage. This was followed by penetration at the salient by two armoured and two infantry divisions. Rommel's counterattack at 11:00 inflicted severe casualties on the Commonwealth troops, but by 20:00, with only 35 tanks remaining, he ordered his forces to disengage and begin to withdraw. At midnight, he informed the OKW of his decision, and received a reply directly from Hitler the following afternoon: he ordered Rommel and his troops to hold their position to the last man. Rommel, who believed that the lives of his soldiers should never be squandered needlessly, was stunned. While he (like all members of the Wehrmacht) had pledged an oath of absolute obedience to Hitler, he thought this order was pointless, even madness, and had to be disobeyed. Rommel initially complied with the order, but after discussions with Kesselring and others, he issued orders for a retreat on 4 November. The delay proved costly in terms of his ability to get his forces out of Egypt. He later said the decision to delay was what he most regretted from his time in Africa. Meanwhile, the British 1st and 7th Armoured Division had broken through the German defences and were preparing to swing north and surround the Axis forces. On the evening of the 4th, Rommel finally received word from Hitler authorizing the withdrawal. By this time it was impossible for Rommel to save his non-motorized units.
As Rommel attempted to withdraw his forces before the British could cut off his retreat, he fought a series of delaying actions. Heavy rains slowed movements and grounded the Desert Air Force, which aided the withdrawal. According to Kourt von Esebeck, those German parts of Panzerarmee Africa that were motorized slipped away from El Alamein, all vehicles had been taken away from Italian forces, leaving them behind, but were under pressure from the pursuing Eighth Army. According to officers of the Italian X Corps, they were not deliberately abandoned and an effort to save all divisions would only have led to destruction of more units. A series of short delaying actions was fought over the coastal highway, but no line could be held for any length of time, as Rommel lacked the armour and fuel to defend his open southern flank. Rommel continued to retreat west, abandoning Halfaya Pass, Sollum, Mersa Brega and El Agheila. The line Rommel was aiming for was 'Gabes gap' in Tunisia. Luftwaffe Field Marshal Kesselring strongly criticized Rommel's decision to retreat all the way to Tunisia, as each airfield the Germans abandoned extended the range of the Allied bombers and fighters. Rommel defended his decision, pointing out that if he tried to assume a defensive position the Allies would destroy his forces and take the airfields anyway; the retreat saved the lives of his remaining men and shortened his supply lines. By now, Rommel's remaining forces fought in reduced strength combat groups, whereas the Allied forces had great numerical superiority and control of the air. Upon his arrival in Tunisia, Rommel noted with some bitterness the reinforcements, including the 10th Panzer Division, arriving in Tunisia following the Allied invasion of Morocco.
Robert Satloff writes in his book "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands" that as the German and Italian forces retreated across Libya towards Tunisia, the Jewish population became victim upon which they released their anger and frustration. According to Satloff Afrika Korps soldiers plundered Jewish property all along the Libyan coast. This violence and persecution only came to an end with the arrival of General Montgomery in Tripoli on January 23 1943. According to Maurice Remy, although there were anti-Semitic individuals in the Afrika Korps, actual cases of abuse are not known, even against the Jewish soldiers of the Eighth Army. Remy quotes Isaac Levy, the Senior Jewish Chaplain of the Eighth Army, as saying that he had never seen "any sign or hint that the soldiers [of the Afrika Korps] are anti-Semitic.". "The Telegraph" comments: "Accounts suggest that it was not Field Marshal Erwin Rommel but the ruthless SS colonel Walter Rauff who stripped Tunisian Jews of their wealth."
According to several historians, allegations and stories that associate Rommel and the Afrika Korps with the harassing and plundering of Jewish gold and property in Tunisia are usually known under the name "Rommel's treasure" or "Rommel's gold".
Michael FitzGerald comments that the treasure should be named more accurately as Rauff's gold, as Rommel had nothing to do with its acquisition or removal. Jean-Christoph Caron comments that the treasure legend has a real core and that Jewish property was looted by the SS in Tunisia and later might have been hidden or sunken around the port city of Corsica, where Rauff was stationed in 1943. The person who gave birth to the full-blown legend was the SS soldier Walter Kirner, who presented a false map to the French authorities. Caron and Jörg Müllner, his co-author of the ZDF documentary "Rommel's treasure" (Rommels Schatz) tell Die Welt that "Rommel had nothing to do with the treasure, but his name is assocỉated with everything that happened in the war in Africa."
Having reached Tunisia, Rommel launched an attack against the U.S. II Corps which was threatening to cut his lines of supply north to Tunis. Rommel inflicted a sharp defeat on the American forces at the Kasserine Pass in February, his last battlefield victory of the war, and his first engagement against the United States Army.
Rommel immediately turned back against the British forces, occupying the Mareth Line (old French defences on the Libyan border). While Rommel was at Kasserine at the end of January 1943, the Italian General Giovanni Messe was appointed commander of Panzer Army Africa, renamed the Italo-German Panzer Army in recognition of the fact that it consisted of one German and three Italian corps. Though Messe replaced Rommel, he diplomatically deferred to him, and the two coexisted in what was theoretically the same command. On 23 February "Armeegruppe Afrika" was created with Rommel in command. It included the Italo-German Panzer Army under Messe (renamed 1st Italian Army) and the German 5th Panzer Army in the north of Tunisia under General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim.
The last Rommel offensive in North Africa was on 6 March 1943, when he attacked Eighth Army at the Battle of Medenine. The attack was made with 10th, 15th, and 21st Panzer Divisions. Alerted by Ultra intercepts, Montgomery deployed large numbers of anti-tank guns in the path of the offensive. After losing 52 tanks, Rommel called off the assault. On 9 March he returned to Germany. Command was handed over to General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim. Rommel never returned to Africa. The fighting there continued on for another two months, until 13 May 1943, when General Messe surrendered the "Armeegruppe Afrika" to the Allies.
Having arrived in Tunisia German forces ordered establishment of Judenrat and terrorised the local Jewish population into slave labour
Mark Wills writes that the newly arrived German force forcefully conscripted 2000 young Jewish men, with 5000 rounded up in next 6 months. This forced labour was used in extremely dangerous situations near targets of bombing raids, facing hunger and violence.
Commenting on Rommel's conquest of Tunisia, Marvin Perry writes that: "The bridgehead Rommel established in Tunisia enabled the SS to herd Jews into slave labor camps."
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Der Spiegel writes that: "The SS had established a network of labor camps in Tunisia. More than 2,500 Tunisian Jews died in six months of German rule, and the regular army was also involved in executions." Caron writes on "Der Spiegel" that the camps were organized in early December 1942 by Nehring, the commander in Tunisia, and Rauff, while Rommel was retreating. As commander of the German Afrika Korps, Nehring would continue to use Tunesian forced labour. Historian Clemens Vollnhals writes that use of Jews by Afrika Korps as forced labour is barely known, but it did happen alongside persecution of Jewish population(although on smaller scale than in Europe) and some of the labourers have died According to Caddick-Adams, no Waffen-SS served under Rommel in Africa at any time and most of the activities of Rauff's detachment happened after Rommel's departure. Shepherd notes that during this time Rommel was retreating and there is no evident that he had contact with the Einsatzkommando Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Martin Cüppers Smith Addressing the call of some authors to contextualize Rommel's actions in Italy and North Africa, Wolfgang Mährle notes that while it is undeniable that Rommel played the role of a "Generalfeldmarschall" in a criminal war, this only illustrates in a limited way his personal attitude and the actions resulted from that.
On 23 July 1943 Rommel was moved to Greece as commander of Army Group E to counter a possible British invasion. He arrived in Greece on 25 July, but was recalled to Berlin the same day because of the overthrow of Mussolini. Rommel was to be posted to Italy as commander of the newly formed Army Group B. On 16 August 1943 Rommel's headquarters moved to Lake Garda in northern Italy and formally assumed command of the army group, which consisted of the 44th Infantry Division, the 26th Panzer Division and the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. When Italy announced its armistice with the Allies on 8 September, his forces took part in Operation Achse, disarming the Italian forces.
Hitler met with Rommel and Kesselring to discuss future operations in Italy on 30 September 1943. Rommel insisted on a defensive line north of Rome, while Kesselring was more optimistic and advocated holding a line south of Rome. Hitler preferred Kesselring's recommendation, and therefore revoked his previous decision for the subordination of Kesselring's forces to Rommel's army group. On 19 October Hitler decided that Kesselring would be the overall commander of the forces in Italy, sidelining Rommel.
Rommel had wrongly predicted that the collapse of the German line in Italy would be fast. On 21 November Hitler gave Kesselring overall command of the Italian theater, moving Rommel and Army Group B to Normandy in France with responsibility for defending the French coast against the long anticipated Allied invasion.
On 4 November 1943, Rommel became General Inspector of the Western Defences. He was given a staff that befitted an army group commander, and the powers to travel, examine and make suggestions on how to improve the defences, but not a single soldier. Hitler, who was having a disagreement with him over military matters, intended to use Rommel as a psychological trump card.
There was broad disagreement in the German High Command as to how best to meet the expected allied invasion of Northern France. The Commander-in-Chief West, Gerd von Rundstedt, believed there was no way to stop the invasion near the beaches because of the Allied navies' firepower, as had been experienced at Salerno. He argued that the German armour should be held in reserve well inland near Paris, where they could be used to counter-attack in force in a more traditional military doctrine. The allies could be allowed to extend themselves deep into France, where a battle for control would be fought, allowing the Germans to envelop the allied forces in a pincer movement, cutting off their avenue of retreat. He feared the piecemeal commitment of their armoured forces would cause them to become caught in a battle of attrition which they could not hope to win.
The notion of holding the armour inland to use as a mobile reserve force from which they could mount a powerful counterattack applied the classic use of armoured formations as seen in France 1940. These tactics were still effective on the Eastern Front, where control of the air was important but did not dominate the action. Rommel's own experiences at the end of the North African campaign revealed to him that the Germans would not be allowed to preserve their armour from air attack for this type of massed assault. Rommel believed their only opportunity would be to oppose the landings directly at the beaches, and to counterattack there before the invaders could become well established. Though there had been some defensive positions established and gun emplacements made, the Atlantic Wall was a token defensive line. Rundstedt had confided to Rommel that it was for propaganda purposes only.
Upon arriving in Northern France Rommel was dismayed by the lack of completed works. According to Ruge, Rommel was in a staff position and could not issue orders, but he took every effort to explain his plan to commanders down to the platoon level, who took up his words eagerly, but "more or less open" opposition from the above slowed down the process. Finally, Rundstedt, who only respected Rommel grudgingly (he called him Field Marshal Cub), intervened and supported Rommel's request for being made a commander. It was granted in 15 January 1944, when "much valuable time had been lost."
He set out to improve the fortifications along the Atlantic Wall with great energy and engineering skill. This was a compromise: Rommel now commanded the 7th and 15th armies; he also had authority over a 20-kilometer-wide strip of coastal land between Zuiderzee and the mouth of the Loire. The chain of command was convoluted: the airforce and navy had their own chiefs, as did the South and Southwest France and the Panzer group; Rommel also needed Hitler's permissions to use the tank divisions. Undeterred, Rommel had millions of mines laid and thousands of tank traps and obstacles set up on the beaches and throughout the countryside, including in fields suitable for glider aircraft landings, the so-called Rommel's asparagus.(The Allies would later counter these with Hobart's Funnies) In April 1944 Rommel promised Hitler that the preparations would be complete by 1 May, but by the time of the Allied invasion the preparations were far from finished. The quality of some of the troops manning them was poor and many bunkers lacked sufficient stocks of ammunition.
Rundstedt expected the Allies to invade in the Pas-de-Calais because it was the shortest crossing point from Britain, its port facilities were essential to supplying a large invasion force, and the distance from Calais to Germany was relatively short. Rommel and Hitler's views on the matter is a matter of debate between authors, with both seeming to change their positions.
Hitler vacillated between the two strategies. In late April, he ordered the I SS Panzer Corps placed near Paris, far enough inland to be useless to Rommel, but not far enough for Rundstedt. Rommel moved those armoured formations under his command as far forward as possible, ordering General Erich Marcks, commanding the 84th Corps defending the Normandy section, to move his reserves into the frontline. Although Rommel was the dominating personality in Normandy with Rundstedt willing to delegate most of the responsibilities to him (the central reserve was Rundstedt's idea but he did not oppose to some form of coastal defense, and gradually came under the influence of Rommel's thinking), Rommel's strategy of an armor-supported coastal defense line was opposed by some officers, most notably Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, who was supported by Guderian. Hitler compromised and gave Rommel three divisions (the 2nd, the 21st and the 116th Panzer), let Rundstedt retain four and turned the other three to Army Group G, pleasing no one.
The Allies staged elaborate deceptions for D-Day (see Operation Fortitude), giving the impression that the landings would be at Calais. Although Hitler himself expected a Normandy invasion for a while, Rommel and most Army commanders in France believed there would be two invasions, with the main invasion coming at the Pas-de-Calais. Rommel drove defensive preparations all along the coast of Northern France, particularly concentrating fortification building in the River Somme estuary. By D-Day on 6 June 1944 nearly all the German staff officers, including Hitler's staff, believed that Pas-de-Calais was going to be the main invasion site, and continued to believe so even after the landings in Normandy had occurred.
The 5 June storm in the channel seemed to make a landing very unlikely, and a number of the senior officers were away from their units for training exercises and various other efforts. On 4 June the chief meteorologist of the 3 Air Fleet reported that weather in the channel was so poor there could be no landing attempted for two weeks. On 5 June Rommel left France and on 6 June he was at home celebrating his wife's birthday. He was recalled and returned to his headquarters at 10pm. Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Rundstedt had requested the reserves be transferred to his command. At 10am Keitel advised that Hitler declined to release the reserves but that Rundstedt could move the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend closer to the coast, with the Panzer-Lehr-Division placed on standby. Later in the day, Rundstedt received authorisation to move additional units in preparation for a counterattack, which Rundstedt decided to launch on 7 June. Upon arrival, Rommel concurred with the plan. By nightfall, Rundstedt, Rommel and Speidel continued to believe that the Normandy landing might have been a diversionary attack, as the Allied deception measures still pointed towards Calais. The 7 June counterattack did not take place because Allied air bombardments prevented the 12th SS's timely arrival. All this made the German command structure in France in disarray during the opening hours of the D-Day invasion.
Facing relatively small-scale German counterattacks, the Allies secured five beachheads by nightfall of 6 June, landing 155,000 troops. The Allies pushed ashore and expanded their beachhead despite strong German resistance. Rommel believed that if his armies pulled out of range of Allied naval fire, it would give them a chance to regroup and re-engage them later with a better chance of success. While he managed to convince Rundstedt, they still needed to win over Hitler. At a meeting with Hitler at his Wolfsschlucht II headquarters in Margival in northern France on 17 June, Rommel warned Hitler about the inevitable collapse in the German defences, but was rebuffed and told to focus on military operations.
By mid-July the German position was crumbling. On 17 July 1944, as Rommel was returning from visiting the headquarters of the I SS Panzer Corps, a fighter piloted by Charley Fox of 412 Squadron, or of No. 602 Squadron RAF or Johannes Jacobus le Roux of No. 602 Squadron RAF strafed his staff car near Sainte-Foy-de-Montgommery. The driver sped up and attempted to get off the main roadway, but a 20 mm round shattered his left arm, causing the vehicle to veer off of the road and crash into trees. Rommel was thrown from the car, suffering injuries to the left side of his face from glass shards and three fractures to his skull. He was hospitalised with major head injuries (assumed to be almost certainly fatal).
The role that Rommel played in the military's resistance against Hitler or the 20 July plot is difficult to ascertain, as most of the leaders who were directly involved did not survive and limited documentation on the conspirators' plans and preparations exists. One piece of evidence that points to the possibility that Rommel came to support the assassination plan was General Eberbach's confession to his son (eavesdropped on by British agencies) while in British captivity, which stated that Rommel explicitly said to him that Hitler and his close associates had to be killed because this would be the only way out for Germany. This conversation occurred about a month before Rommel was coerced into committing suicide. Other notable evidence includes the papers of Rudolf Hartmann (who survived the later purge) and Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, who were among the leaders of the military resistance (alongside General Hans Speidel, Colonel Karl-Richard Koßmann, Colonel Eberhard Finckh and Lieutenant Colonel Caesar von Hofacker). These papers, accidentally discovered by historian Christian Schweizer in 2018 while doing research on Rudolf Hartmann, include Hartmann's eyewitness account of a conversation between Rommel and Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel in May 1944, as well as photos of the mid-May 1944 meeting between the inner circle of the resistance and Rommel at Kossmann's house. According to Hartmann, by the end of May, in another meeting at Hartmann's quarters in Mareil-Marly, Rommel showed "decisive determination" and clear approval of the inner circle's plan.
According to a post-war account by Karl Strölin, three of Rommel's friends—the "Oberbürgermeister" of Stuttgart, Strölin (who had served with Rommel in the First World War), Alexander von Falkenhausen and Carl Heinrich von Stülpnagel—began efforts to bring Rommel into the anti-Hitler conspiracy in early 1944. According to Strölin, sometime in February, Rommel agreed to lend his support to the resistance. On 15 April 1944 Rommel's new chief of staff, Hans Speidel, arrived in Normandy and reintroduced Rommel to Stülpnagel. Speidel had previously been connected to Carl Goerdeler, the civilian leader of the resistance, but not to the plotters led by Claus von Stauffenberg, and came to Stauffenberg's attention only upon his appointment to Rommel's headquarters. The conspirators felt they needed the support of a field marshal on active duty. Erwin von Witzleben, who would have become commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht had the plot succeeded, was a field marshal, but had been inactive since 1942. The conspirators gave instructions to Speidel to bring Rommel into their circle.
Speidel met with former foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath and Strölin on 27 May in Germany, ostensibly at Rommel's request, although the latter was not present. Neurath and Strölin suggested opening immediate surrender negotiations in the West, and, according to Speidel, Rommel agreed to further discussions and preparations. Around the same timeframe, the plotters in Berlin were not aware that Rommel had allegedly decided to take part in the conspiracy. On 16 May, they informed Allen Dulles, through whom they hoped to negotiate with the Western Allies, that Rommel could not be counted on for support.
At least initially, Rommel opposed assassinating Hitler. According to some authors, he gradually changed his attitude. After the war, his widow—among others—maintained that Rommel believed an assassination attempt would spark civil war in Germany and Austria, and Hitler would have become a martyr for a lasting cause. Instead, Rommel reportedly suggested that Hitler be arrested and brought to trial for his crimes; he did not attempt to implement this plan when Hitler visited Margival, France, on 17 June. The arrest plan would have been highly improbable, as Hitler's security was extremely tight. Rommel would have known this, having commanded Hitler's army protection detail in 1939. He was in favour of peace negotiations, and repeatedly urged Hitler to negotiate with the Allies, which is dubbed by some as "hopelessly naive", considering no one would trust Hitler, and "as naive as it was idealistic, the attitude he showed to the man he had sworn loyalty". According to Reuth, the reason Lucie Rommel did not want her husband to be associated with any conspiracy was that even after the war, the German population neither grasped nor wanted to comprehend the reality of the genocide, thus conspirators were still treated as traitors and outcasts. On the other hand, the resistance depended on the reputation of Rommel to win over the population. Some officers who had worked with Rommel also recognized the relationship between Rommel and the resistance: Westphal said that Rommel did not want any more senseless sacrifices. Butler, using Ruge's recollections, reports that when told by Hitler himself that "no one will make peace with me", Rommel told Hitler that if he was the obstacle for peace, he should resign or kill himself, but Hitler insisted on fanatical defense. Reuth, based on Jodl's testimony, reports that Rommel forcefully presented the situation and asked for political solutions from Hitler, who rebuffed that Rommel should leave politics to him. Brighton comments that Rommel seemed devoted, even though he did not have much faith in Hitler anymore, considering he kept informing Hitler in person and by letter about his changing beliefs, despite facing a military dilemma as well as a personal struggle. Lieb remarks that Rommel's attitude in describing the situation honestly and requiring political solutions was almost without precedent and contrary to the attitude of many other generals. Remy comments that Rommel put himself and his family (which he had briefly considered evacuating to France, but refrained from doing so) at risk for the resistance out of a combination of his concern for the fate of Germany, his indignation at atrocities and the influence of people around him.
On 15 July, Rommel wrote a letter to Hitler giving him a "last chance" to end the hostilities with the Western Allies, urging Hitler to "draw the proper conclusions without delay". What Rommel did not know was that the letter took two weeks to reach Hitler because of Kluge's precautions. Various authors report that many German generals in Normandy, including some SS officers like Hausser, Bittrich, Dietrich (a hard-core Nazi and Hitler's long-time supporter) and Rommel's former opponent Geyr von Schweppenburg pledged support to him, even against Hitler's orders, while Kluge supported him with much hesitation. Von Rundstedt encouraged Rommel to carry out his plans but refused to do anything himself, remarking that it had to be a man who was still young and loved by the people, while von Manstein was also approached by Rommel but categorically refused, although he did not report them to Hitler either. Peter Hoffmann reports that he also attracted into his orbit officials who had previously refused to support the conspiracy, like Julius Dorpmüller and Karl Kaufmann (According to Russell A. Hart, reliable details of the conversations are now lost, although they certainly met.)
On 17 July, Rommel was incapacitated by an Allied air attack, which many authors describe as a fateful event that drastically altered the outcome of the bomb plot. Writer Ernst Jünger commented: "The blow that felled Rommel ... robbed the plan of the shoulders that were to be entrusted the double weight of war and civil war - the only man who had enough naivety to counter the simple terror that those he was about to go against possessed."
After the failed bomb attack of 20 July, many conspirators were arrested and the dragnet expanded to thousands. Rommel was first implicated when Stülpnagel, after his suicide attempt, repeatedly muttered "Rommel" in delirium. Under torture, Hofacker named Rommel as one of the participants. Additionally, Goerdeler had written down Rommel's name on a list as potential Reich President (according to Stroelin, they had not managed to announce this intention to Rommel yet and he probably never heard of it until the end of his life). On 27 September, Martin Bormann submitted to Hitler a memorandum which claimed that "the late General Stülpnagel, Colonel von Hofacker, Kluge's nephew who has been executed, Lieutenant Colonel Rathgens, and several ... living defendants have testified that Field Marshal Rommel was perfectly in the picture about the assassination plan and has promised to be at the disposal of the New Government." Gestapo agents were sent to Rommel's house in Ulm and placed him under surveillance.
Historian Peter Lieb considers the memorandum, as well as Eberbach's conversation and the testimonies of surviving resistant members (including Hartmann) to be the three key sources that indicate Rommel's support of the assassination plan. He further notes that while Speidel had an interest in promoting his own post-war career, his testimonies should not be dismissed, considering his bravery as an early resistance figure. Remy writes that even more important than Rommel's attitude to the assassination is the fact Rommel had his own plan to end the war. He began to contemplate this plan some months after El Alamein and carried it out with a lonely decision and conviction, and in the end, had managed to bring military leaders in the West to his side.
Rommel's case was turned over to the "Court of Military Honour"—a drumhead court-martial convened to decide the fate of officers involved in the conspiracy. The court included Generalfeldmarshall Wilhelm Keitel, Generalfeldmarshall Gerd von Rundstedt, Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, General der Infanterie Walther Schroth and Generalleutnant Karl-Wilhelm Specht, with General der Infanterie Karl Kriebel and Generalleutnant Heinrich Kirchheim (whom Rommel had fired after Tobruk in 1941) as deputy members and Generalmajor Ernst Maisel as protocol officer. The Court acquired information from Speidel, Hofacker and others that implicated Rommel, with Keitel and Ernst Kaltenbrunner assuming that he had taken part in the subversion. Keitel and Guderian then made the decision that favoured Speidel's case and at the same time shifted the blame to Rommel. By normal procedure, this would lead to Rommel's being brought to Roland Freisler's People's Court, a kangaroo court that always decided in favour of the prosecution. However, Hitler knew that having Rommel branded and executed as a traitor would severely damage morale on the home front. He thus decided to offer Rommel the chance to take his own life.
Two generals from Hitler's headquarters, Wilhelm Burgdorf and Ernst Maisel, visited Rommel at his home on 14 October 1944. Burgdorf informed him of the charges and offered him three options: he could choose to defend himself personally to Hitler in Berlin, or if he refused to do so (which would be taken as an admission of guilt), he would either face the People's Court—which would have been tantamount to a death sentence—or choose a quiet suicide. In the former case, his family would have suffered even before the all-but-certain conviction and execution, and his staff would have been arrested and executed as well. In the latter case, the government would claim that he died a hero and bury him with full military honours, and his family would receive full pension payments. Burgdorf had brought a cyanide capsule.
Rommel denied involvement in the plot, declaring his love for Hitler, and saying that he would gladly serve his "Fatherland" again. "Der Spiegel" notes that he was talking to the "messengers of death" – Burgdorf and Maisel – and some would claim that he was acting out of helpless defense – although "Der Spiegel" thought his love for Hitler was sincere. Remy, however, suggests that Rommel was trying in some way to apologise to Hitler about whom he had conflicting emotions, which Maisel realised and found "disgusting" and "a hypocrisy", because Maisel – a loyal, unapologetic Hitler supporter, even after the war – could not understand how someone could try to kill someone he loved; Rommel's previous replies about his role in the attempt had made Maisel believe that he was part of the plot.
Before the two officers came, Rommel had told his family and friends that he would not reach Berlin alive, considering the fact that his appearing before a court "would be the end of Hitler", too. He now realized that an SS detachment had surrounded his village and he could not contact even his headquarters. With that in mind, Rommel opted to commit suicide, and explained his decision to his wife and son. Wearing his Afrika Korps jacket and carrying his field marshal's baton, Rommel went to Burgdorf's Opel, driven by SS Master Sergeant Heinrich Doose, and was driven out of the village. After stopping, Doose and Maisel walked away from the car, leaving Rommel with Burgdorf. Five minutes later Burgdorf gestured to the two men to return to the car, and Doose noticed that Rommel was slumped over, having taken the cyanide. He died before being taken to the Wagner-Schule field hospital. Ten minutes later, the group telephoned Rommel's wife to inform her of his death. Witnesses were struck by the smile of deep contempt on the dead man's face, never seen in life, and his widow thought it was for Hitler.
The official story of Rommel's death, as reported to the public, stated that Rommel had died of either a heart attack or a cerebral embolism—a complication of the skull fractures he had suffered in the earlier strafing of his staff car. To strengthen the story still further, Hitler ordered an official day of mourning in commemoration. As previously promised, Rommel was given a state funeral. The fact that his state funeral was held in Ulm instead of Berlin had, according to his son, been stipulated by Rommel. Hitler sent Field Marshal von Rundstedt, who was unaware that Rommel had died as a result of Hitler's orders, as his representative at Rommel's funeral. The body was cremated so no incriminating evidence would be left. The truth behind Rommel's death became known to the Allies when intelligence officer Charles Marshall interviewed Rommel's widow, Lucia Rommel, as well as from a letter by Rommel's son Manfred in April 1945.
Rommel's grave is located in Herrlingen, a short distance west of Ulm. For decades after the war on the anniversary of his death, veterans of the Africa campaign, including former opponents, would gather at his tomb in Herrlingen.
On the Italian front in the First World War Rommel was a successful tactician in fast-developing mobile battle, and this shaped his subsequent style as a military commander. He found that taking initiative and not allowing the enemy forces to regroup led to victory. Some authors, like Porch, comment that his enemies were often less organised, second-rate, or depleted, and his tactics were less effective against adequately led, trained and supplied opponents and proved insufficient in the later years of the war. Others point out that through his career, he frequently fought while out-numbered and out-gunned, sometimes overwhelmingly so, while having to deal with internal opponents in Germany who hoped that he would fail.
Rommel is praised by numerous authors as a great leader of men. The historian and journalist Basil Liddell Hart concludes that he was a strong leader worshipped by his troops, respected by his adversaries and deserving to be named as one of the "Great Captains of History". Owen Connelly concurs, writing that "No better exemplar of military leadership can be found" and quoting Friedrich von Mellenthin on the inexplicable mutual understanding that existed between Rommel and his troops. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9516 |
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl ( , also ; ; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was a German philosopher who established the school of phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. In his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called phenomenological reduction. Arguing that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserl redefined phenomenology as a transcendental-idealist philosophy. Husserl's thought profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond.
Husserl studied mathematics, taught by Karl Weierstrass and Leo Königsberger, and philosophy taught by Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. He taught philosophy as a "Privatdozent" at Halle from 1887, then as professor, first at Göttingen from 1901, then at Freiburg from 1916 until he retired in 1928, after which he remained highly productive. In 1933, due to racial laws, having been born to a Jewish family, he was expelled from the library of the University of Freiburg, and months later resigned from the Deutsche Akademie. Following an illness, he died in Freiburg in 1938.
Husserl was born in 1859 in Prostějov, a town in the Margraviate of Moravia, which was then in the Austrian Empire, and which today is Prostějov in the Czech Republic. He was born into a Jewish family, the second of four children. His father was a milliner. His childhood was spent in Prostějov, where he attended the secular elementary school. Then Husserl traveled to Vienna to study at the "Realgymnasium" there, followed next by the Staatsgymnasium in Olomouc (Ger.: Olmütz).
At the University of Leipzig from 1876 to 1878, Husserl studied mathematics, physics, and astronomy. At Leipzig he was inspired by philosophy lectures given by Wilhelm Wundt, one of the founders of modern psychology. Then he moved to the Frederick William University of Berlin (the present-day Humboldt University of Berlin) in 1878 where he continued his study of mathematics under Leopold Kronecker and the renowned Karl Weierstrass. In Berlin he found a mentor in Thomas Masaryk, then a former philosophy student of Franz Brentano and later the first president of Czechoslovakia. There Husserl also attended Friedrich Paulsen's philosophy lectures. In 1881 he left for the University of Vienna to complete his mathematics studies under the supervision of Leo Königsberger (a former student of Weierstrass). At Vienna in 1883 he obtained his PhD with the work "Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung" ("Contributions to the Calculus of Variations").
Evidently as a result of his becoming familiar with the New Testament during his twenties, Husserl asked to be baptized into the Lutheran Church in 1886. Husserl's father Adolf had died in 1884. Herbert Spiegelberg writes, "While outward religious practice never entered his life any more than it did that of most academic scholars of the time, his mind remained open for the religious phenomenon as for any other genuine experience." At times Husserl saw his goal as one of moral "renewal". Although a steadfast proponent of a radical and rational "autonomy" in all things, Husserl could also speak "about his vocation and even about his mission under God's will to find new ways for philosophy and science," observes Spiegelberg.
Following his PhD in mathematics, Husserl returned to Berlin to work as the assistant to Karl Weierstrass. Yet already Husserl had felt the desire to pursue philosophy. Then professor Weierstrass became very ill. Husserl became free to return to Vienna where, after serving a short military duty, he devoted his attention to philosophy. In 1884 at the University of Vienna he attended the lectures of Franz Brentano on philosophy and philosophical psychology. Brentano introduced him to the writings of Bernard Bolzano, Hermann Lotze, J. Stuart Mill, and David Hume. Husserl was so impressed by Brentano that he decided to dedicate his life to philosophy; indeed, Franz Brentano is often credited as being his most important influence, e.g., with regard to intentionality. Following academic advice, two years later in 1886 Husserl followed Carl Stumpf, a former student of Brentano, to the University of Halle, seeking to obtain his habilitation which would qualify him to teach at the university level. There, under Stumpf's supervision, he wrote "Über den Begriff der Zahl" ("On the Concept of Number") in 1887, which would serve later as the basis for his first important work, "Philosophie der Arithmetik" (1891).
In 1887 Husserl married Malvine Steinschneider, a union that would last over fifty years. In 1892 their daughter Elizabeth was born, in 1893 their son Gerhart, and in 1894 their son Wolfgang. Elizabeth would marry in 1922, and Gerhart in 1923; Wolfgang, however, became a casualty of the First World War. Gerhart would become a philosopher of law, contributing to the subject of comparative law, teaching in the United States and after the war in Austria.
Following his marriage Husserl began his long teaching career in philosophy. He started when he was in 1887 as a "Privatdozent" at the University of Halle. In 1891 he published his "Philosophie der Arithmetik. Psychologische und logische Untersuchungen" which, drawing on his prior studies in mathematics and philosophy, proposed a psychological context as the basis of mathematics. It drew the adverse notice of Gottlob Frege, who criticized its psychologism.
In 1901 Husserl with his family moved to the University of Göttingen, where he taught as "extraordinarius professor". Just prior to this a major work of his, "Logische Untersuchungen" (Halle, 1900–1901), was published. Volume One contains seasoned reflections on "pure logic" in which he carefully refutes "psychologism". This work was well received and became the subject of a seminar given by Wilhelm Dilthey; Husserl in 1905 traveled to Berlin to visit Dilthey. Two years later in Italy he paid a visit to Franz Brentano his inspiring old teacher and to Constantin Carathéodory the mathematician. Kant and Descartes were also now influencing his thought. In 1910 he became joint editor of the journal "Logos". During this period Husserl had delivered lectures on "internal time consciousness", which several decades later his former student Heidegger edited for publication.
In 1912 at Freiburg the journal "Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung" ("Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research") was founded by Husserl and his school, and which published articles of their phenomenological movement from 1913 to 1930. His important work "Ideen" was published in its first issue. Before beginning "Ideen" Husserl's thought had reached the stage where "each subject is 'presented' to itself, and to each all others are 'presentiated' ("Vergegenwärtigung"), not as parts of nature but as pure consciousness." "Ideen" advanced his transition to a "transcendental interpretation" of phenomenology, a view later criticized by, among others, Jean-Paul Sartre. In "Ideen" Paul Ricœur sees the development of Husserl's thought as leading "from the psychological cogito to the transcendental cogito." As phenomenology further evolves, it leads (when viewed from another vantage point in Husserl's 'labyrinth') to "transcendental subjectivity". Also in "Ideen" Husserl explicitly elaborates the eidetic and phenomenological reductions. In 1913 Karl Jaspers visited Husserl at Göttingen.
In October 1914 both his sons were sent to fight on the Western Front of World War I and the following year one of them, Wolfgang Husserl, was badly injured. On 8 March 1916, on the battlefield of Verdun, Wolfgang was killed in action. The next year his other son Gerhart Husserl was wounded in the war but survived. His own mother Julia died. In November 1917 one of his outstanding students and later a noted philosophy professor in his own right, Adolf Reinach, was killed in the war while serving in Flanders.
Husserl had transferred in 1916 to the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg (Freiburg im Breisgau) where he continued bringing his work in philosophy to fruition, now as a full professor. Edith Stein served as his personal assistant during his first few years in Freiburg, followed later by Martin Heidegger from 1920 to 1923. The mathematician Hermann Weyl began corresponding with him in 1918. Husserl gave four lectures on Phenomenological method at University College, London in 1922. The University of Berlin in 1923 called on him to relocate there, but he declined the offer. In 1926 Heidegger dedicated his book "Sein und Zeit" ("Being and Time") to him "in grateful respect and friendship." Husserl remained in his professorship at Freiburg until he requested retirement, teaching his last class on 25 July 1928. A "Festschrift" to celebrate his seventieth birthday was presented to him on 8 April 1929.
Despite retirement, Husserl gave several notable lectures. The first, at Paris in 1929, led to "Méditations cartésiennes" (Paris 1931). Husserl here reviews the "epoché" or transcendental reduction, presented earlier in his pivotal "Ideen" (1913), in terms of a further reduction of experience to what he calls a 'sphere of ownness.' From within this sphere, which Husserl enacts in order to show the impossibility of solipsism, the transcendental ego finds itself always already paired with the lived body of another ego, another monad. This 'a priori' interconnection of bodies, given in perception, is what founds the interconnection of consciousnesses known as transcendental intersubjectivity, which Husserl would go on to describe at length in volumes of unpublished writings. There has been a debate over whether or not Husserl's description of ownness and its movement into intersubjectivity is sufficient to reject the charge of solipsism, to which Descartes, for example, was subject. One argument against Husserl's description works this way: instead of infinity and the Deity being the ego's gateway to the Other, as in Descartes, Husserl's ego in the "Cartesian Meditations" itself becomes transcendent. It remains, however, alone (unconnected). Only the ego's grasp "by analogy" of the Other (e.g., by conjectural reciprocity) allows the possibility for an 'objective' intersubjectivity, and hence for community.
In 1933, the racial laws of the new Nazi regime were enacted. On 6 April Husserl was banned from using the library at the University of Freiburg, or any other academic library; the following week, after a public outcry, he was reinstated. Yet his colleague Heidegger was elected Rector of the university on 21–22 April, and joined the Nazi Party. By contrast, in July Husserl resigned from the Deutsche Akademie.
Later Husserl lectured at Prague in 1935 and Vienna in 1936, which resulted in a very differently styled work that, while innovative, is no less problematic: "Die Krisis" (Belgrade 1936). Husserl describes here the cultural crisis gripping Europe, then approaches a philosophy of history, discussing Galileo, Descartes, several British philosophers, and Kant. The apolitical Husserl before had specifically avoided such historical discussions, pointedly preferring to go directly to an investigation of consciousness. Merleau-Ponty and others question whether Husserl here does not undercut his own position, in that Husserl had attacked in principle historicism, while specifically designing his phenomenology to be rigorous enough to transcend the limits of history. On the contrary, Husserl may be indicating here that historical traditions are merely features given to the pure ego's intuition, like any other. A longer section follows on the "lifeworld" ["Lebenswelt"], one not observed by the objective logic of science, but a world seen in our subjective experience. Yet a problem arises similar to that dealing with 'history' above, a chicken-and-egg problem. Does the lifeworld contextualize and thus compromise the gaze of the pure ego, or does the phenomenological method nonetheless raise the ego up transcendent? These last writings presented the fruits of his professional life. Since his university retirement Husserl had "worked at a tremendous pace, producing several major works."
After suffering a fall the autumn of 1937, the philosopher became ill with pleurisy. Edmund Husserl died at Freiburg on 27 April 1938, having just turned 79. His wife Malvine survived him. Eugen Fink, his research assistant, delivered his eulogy. Gerhard Ritter was the only Freiburg faculty member to attend the funeral, as an anti-Nazi protest.
Husserl was incorrectly rumoured to have been denied the use of the library at Freiburg as a result of the anti-Jewish legislation of April 1933. However, among other disabilities Husserl was unable to publish his works in Nazi Germany [see above footnote to "Die Krisis" (1936)]. It was also rumoured that his former pupil Martin Heidegger informed Husserl that he was discharged, but it was actually the previous rector.
Apparently Husserl and Heidegger had moved apart during the 1920s, which became clearer after 1928 when Husserl retired and Heidegger succeeded to his university chair. In the summer of 1929 Husserl had studied carefully selected writings of Heidegger, coming to the conclusion that on several of their key positions they differed: e.g., Heidegger substituted "Dasein" ["Being-there"] for the pure ego, thus transforming phenomenology into an anthropology, a type of psychologism strongly disfavored by Husserl. Such observations of Heidegger, along with a critique of Max Scheler, were put into a lecture Husserl gave to various "Kant Societies" in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Halle during 1931 entitled "Phänomenologie und Anthropologie".
In the war-time 1941 edition of Heidegger's primary work, "Being and Time" ("Sein und Zeit", first published in 1927), the original dedication to Husserl was removed. This was not due to a negation of the relationship between the two philosophers, however, but rather was the result of a suggested censorship by Heidegger's publisher who feared that the book might otherwise be banned by the Nazi regime. The dedication can still be found in a footnote on page 38, thanking Husserl for his guidance and generosity. Husserl, of course, had died three years earlier. In post-war editions of "Sein und Zeit" the dedication to Husserl is restored. The complex, troubled, and sundered philosophical relationship between Husserl and Heidegger has been widely discussed.
On 4 May 1933, Professor Edmund Husserl addressed the recent regime change in Germany and its consequences:The future alone will judge which was the true Germany in 1933, and who were the true Germans—those who subscribe to the more or less materialistic-mythical racial prejudices of the day, or those Germans pure in heart and mind, heirs to the great Germans of the past whose tradition they revere and perpetuate.After his death, Husserl's manuscripts, amounting to approximately 40,000 pages of ""Gabelsberger"" stenography and his complete research library, were in 1939 smuggled to the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium by the Franciscan priest Herman Van Breda. There they were deposited at Leuven to form the "Husserl-Archives" of the Higher Institute of Philosophy. Much of the material in his research manuscripts has since been published in the Husserliana critical edition series.
In his first works Husserl tries to combine mathematics, psychology and philosophy with a main goal to provide a sound foundation for mathematics. He analyzes the psychological process needed to obtain the concept of number and then tries to build up a systematical theory on this analysis. To achieve this he uses several methods and concepts taken from his teachers. From Weierstrass he derives the idea that we generate the concept of number by counting a certain collection of objects.
From Brentano and Stumpf he takes over the distinction between "proper" and "improper" presenting. In an example Husserl explains this in the following way: if you are standing in front of a house, you have a proper, direct presentation of that house, but if you are looking for it and ask for directions, then these directions (e.g. the house on the corner of this and that street) are an indirect, improper presentation. In other words, you can have a proper presentation of an object if it is actually present, and an improper (or symbolic, as he also calls it) one if you only can indicate that object through signs, symbols, etc. Husserl's "Logical Investigations" (1900–1901) is considered the starting point for the formal theory of wholes and their parts known as mereology.
Another important element that Husserl took over from Brentano is intentionality, the notion that the main characteristic of consciousness is that it is always intentional. While often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" or the relationship between mental acts and the external world, Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of "mental phenomena", by which they could be distinguished from "physical phenomena". Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act, has a content, is directed at an object (the "intentional object"). Every belief, desire, etc. has an object that it is about: the believed, the wanted. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish mental phenomena and physical phenomena, because physical phenomena lack intentionality altogether.
Some years after the 1900–1901 publication of his main work, the "Logische Untersuchungen" ("Logical Investigations"), Husserl made some key conceptual elaborations which led him to assert that in order to study the structure of consciousness, one would have to distinguish between the act of consciousness and the phenomena at which it is directed (the objects as intended). Knowledge of essences would only be possible by "bracketing" all assumptions about the existence of an external world. This procedure he called "epoché". These new concepts prompted the publication of the "Ideen" ("Ideas") in 1913, in which they were at first incorporated, and a plan for a second edition of the "Logische Untersuchungen".
From the "Ideen" onward, Husserl concentrated on the ideal, essential structures of consciousness. The metaphysical problem of establishing the reality of what we perceive, as distinct from the perceiving subject, was of little interest to Husserl in spite of his being a transcendental idealist. Husserl proposed that the world of objects—and of ways in which we direct ourselves toward and perceive those objects—is normally conceived of in what he called the "natural standpoint", which is characterized by a belief that objects exist distinct from the perceiving subject and exhibit properties that we see as emanating from them. Husserl proposed a radical new phenomenological way of looking at objects by examining how we, in our many ways of being intentionally directed toward them, actually "constitute" them (to be distinguished from materially creating objects or objects merely being figments of the imagination); in the Phenomenological standpoint, the object ceases to be something simply "external" and ceases to be seen as providing indicators about what it is, and becomes a grouping of perceptual and functional aspects that imply one another under the idea of a particular object or "type". The notion of objects as real is not expelled by phenomenology, but "bracketed" as a way in which we regard objectsinstead of a feature that inheres in an object's essence founded in the relation between the object and the perceiver. In order to better understand the world of appearances and objects, phenomenology attempts to identify the invariant features of how objects are perceived and pushes attributions of reality into their role as an attribution about the things we perceive (or an assumption underlying how we perceive objects). The major dividing line in Husserl's thought is the turn to transcendental idealism.
In a later period, Husserl began to wrestle with the complicated issues of intersubjectivity, specifically, how communication about an object can be assumed to refer to the same ideal entity ("Cartesian Meditations", Meditation V). Husserl tries new methods of bringing his readers to understand the importance of phenomenology to scientific inquiry (and specifically to psychology) and what it means to "bracket" the natural attitude. "The Crisis of the European Sciences" is Husserl's unfinished work that deals most directly with these issues. In it, Husserl for the first time attempts a historical overview of the development of Western philosophy and science, emphasizing the challenges presented by their increasingly (one-sidedly) empirical and naturalistic orientation. Husserl declares that mental and spiritual reality possess their own reality independent of any physical basis, and that a science of the mind ('') must be established on as scientific a foundation as the natural sciences have managed: "It is my conviction that intentional phenomenology has for the first time made spirit as spirit the field of systematic scientific experience, thus effecting a total transformation of the task of knowledge."
Husserl's thought is revolutionary in several ways, most notably in the distinction between "natural" and "phenomenological" modes of understanding. In the former, sense-perception in correspondence with the material realm constitutes the known reality, and understanding is premised on the accuracy of the perception and the objective knowability of what is called the "real world". Phenomenological understanding strives to be rigorously "presuppositionless" by means of what Husserl calls "phenomenological reduction". This reduction is not conditioned but rather transcendental: in Husserl's terms, pure consciousness of absolute Being. In Husserl's work, consciousness of any given thing calls for discerning its meaning as an "intentional object". Such an object does not simply strike the senses, to be interpreted or misinterpreted by mental reason; it has already been selected and grasped, grasping being an etymological connotation, of "percipere", the root of "perceive".
From "Logical Investigations" (1900/1901) to "Experience and Judgment" (published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names. For example, there are names that have the role of properties that uniquely identify an object. Each of these names expresses a meaning and designates the same object. Examples of this are "the victor in Jena" and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle", "Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible intuition".
Husserl also identifies a series of "formal words" which are necessary to form sentences and have no sensible correlates. Examples of formal words are "a", "the", "more than", "over", "under", "two", "group", and so on. Every sentence must contain formal words to designate what Husserl calls "formal categories". There are two kinds of categories: meaning categories and formal-ontological categories. Meaning categories relate judgments; they include forms of conjunction, disjunction, forms of plural, among others. Formal-ontological categories relate objects and include notions such as set, cardinal number, ordinal number, part and whole, relation, and so on. The way we know these categories is through a faculty of understanding called "categorial intuition".
Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl calls a "situation of affairs" ("Sachlage"). It is a passive constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to constitute a "state of affairs" ("Sachverhalt"). One situation of affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states of affairs. For example, suppose "a" and "b" are two sensible objects in a certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, ""a""a"", two judgments which designate the same state of affairs. For Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a reference base.
Husserl believed that "truth-in-itself" has as ontological correlate "being-in-itself", just as meaning categories have formal-ontological categories as correlates. Logic is a formal theory of judgment, that studies the formal "a priori" relations among judgments using meaning categories. Mathematics, on the other hand, is formal ontology; it studies all the possible forms of being (of objects). Hence for both logic and mathematics, the different formal categories are the objects of study, not the sensible objects themselves. The problem with the psychological approach to mathematics and logic is that it fails to account for the fact that this approach is about formal categories, and not simply about abstractions from sensibility alone. The reason why we do not deal with sensible objects in mathematics is because of another faculty of understanding called "categorial abstraction." Through this faculty we are able to get rid of sensible components of judgments, and just focus on formal categories themselves.
Thanks to "eidetic intuition" (or "essential intuition"), we are able to grasp the possibility, impossibility, necessity and contingency among concepts and among formal categories. Categorial intuition, along with categorial abstraction and eidetic intuition, are the basis for logical and mathematical knowledge.
Husserl criticized the logicians of his day for not focusing on the relation between subjective processes that give us objective knowledge of pure logic. All subjective activities of consciousness need an ideal correlate, and objective logic (constituted noematically) as it is constituted by consciousness needs a noetic correlate (the subjective activities of consciousness).
Husserl stated that logic has three strata, each further away from consciousness and psychology than those that precede it.
The ontological correlate to the third stratum is the "theory of manifolds". In formal ontology, it is a free investigation where a mathematician can assign several meanings to several symbols, and all their possible valid deductions in a general and indeterminate manner. It is, properly speaking, the most universal mathematics of all. Through the posit of certain indeterminate objects (formal-ontological categories) as well as any combination of mathematical axioms, mathematicians can explore the apodeictic connections between them, as long as consistency is preserved.
According to Husserl, this view of logic and mathematics accounted for the objectivity of a series of mathematical developments of his time, such as "n"-dimensional manifolds (both Euclidean and non-Euclidean), Hermann Grassmann's theory of extensions, William Rowan Hamilton's Hamiltonians, Sophus Lie's theory of transformation groups, and Cantor's set theory.
Jacob Klein was one student of Husserl who pursued this line of inquiry, seeking to "desedimentize" mathematics and the mathematical sciences.
After obtaining his PhD in mathematics, Husserl began analyzing the foundations of mathematics from a psychological point of view. In his habilitation thesis, "On the Concept of Number" (1886) and in his "Philosophy of Arithmetic" (1891), Husserl sought, by employing Brentano's descriptive psychology, to define the natural numbers in a way that advanced the methods and techniques of Karl Weierstrass, Richard Dedekind, Georg Cantor, Gottlob Frege, and other contemporary mathematicians. Later, in the first volume of his "Logical Investigations", the "Prolegomena of Pure Logic", Husserl, while attacking the psychologistic point of view in logic and mathematics, also appears to reject much of his early work, although the forms of psychologism analysed and refuted in the "Prolegomena" did not apply directly to his "Philosophy of Arithmetic". Some scholars question whether Frege's negative review of the "Philosophy of Arithmetic" helped turn Husserl towards modern Platonism, but he had already discovered the work of Bernard Bolzano independently around 1890/91. In his "Logical Investigations", Husserl explicitly mentioned Bolzano, G. W. Leibniz and Hermann Lotze as inspirations for his newer position.
Husserl's review of Ernst Schröder, published before Frege's landmark 1892 article, clearly distinguishes sense from reference; thus Husserl's notions of noema and object also arose independently. Likewise, in his criticism of Frege in the "Philosophy of Arithmetic", Husserl remarks on the distinction between the content and the extension of a concept. Moreover, the distinction between the subjective mental act, namely the content of a concept, and the (external) object, was developed independently by Brentano and his school, and may have surfaced as early as Brentano's 1870s lectures on logic.
Scholars such as J. N. Mohanty, Claire Ortiz Hill, and Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock, among others, have argued that Husserl's so-called change from psychologism to Platonism came about independently of Frege's review.
For example, the review falsely accuses Husserl of subjectivizing everything, so that no objectivity is possible, and falsely attributes to him a notion of abstraction whereby objects disappear until we are left with numbers as mere ghosts. Contrary to what Frege states, in Husserl's "Philosophy of Arithmetic" we already find two different kinds of representations: subjective and objective. Moreover, objectivity is clearly defined in that work. Frege's attack seems to be directed at certain foundational doctrines then current in Weierstrass's Berlin School, of which Husserl and Cantor cannot be said to be orthodox representatives.
Furthermore, various sources indicate that Husserl changed his mind about psychologism as early as 1890, a year before he published the "Philosophy of Arithmetic". Husserl stated that by the time he published that book, he had already changed his mind—that he had doubts about psychologism from the very outset. He attributed this change of mind to his reading of Leibniz, Bolzano, Lotze, and David Hume. Husserl makes no mention of Frege as a decisive factor in this change. In his "Logical Investigations", Husserl mentions Frege only twice, once in a footnote to point out that he had retracted three pages of his criticism of Frege's "The Foundations of Arithmetic", and again to question Frege's use of the word "Bedeutung" to designate "reference" rather than "meaning" (sense).
In a letter dated 24 May 1891, Frege thanked Husserl for sending him a copy of the "Philosophy of Arithmetic" and Husserl's review of Ernst Schröder's "Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik". In the same letter, Frege used the review of Schröder's book to analyze Husserl's notion of the sense of reference of concept words. Hence Frege recognized, as early as 1891, that Husserl distinguished between sense and reference. Consequently, Frege and Husserl independently elaborated a theory of sense and reference before 1891.
Commentators argue that Husserl's notion of noema has nothing to do with Frege's notion of sense, because "noemata" are necessarily fused with noeses which are the conscious activities of consciousness. "Noemata" have three different levels:
Consequently, in intentional activities, even non-existent objects can be constituted, and form part of the whole noema. Frege, however, did not conceive of objects as forming parts of senses: If a proper name denotes a non-existent object, it does not have a reference, hence concepts with no objects have no truth value in arguments. Moreover, Husserl did not maintain that predicates of sentences designate concepts. According to Frege the reference of a sentence is a truth value; for Husserl it is a "state of affairs." Frege's notion of "sense" is unrelated to Husserl's noema, while the latter's notions of "meaning" and "object" differ from those of Frege.
In detail, Husserl's conception of logic and mathematics differs from that of Frege, who held that arithmetic could be derived from logic. For Husserl this is not the case: mathematics (with the exception of geometry) is the ontological correlate of logic, and while both fields are related, neither one is strictly reducible to the other.
Reacting against authors such as J. S. Mill, Christoph von Sigwart and his own former teacher Brentano, Husserl criticised their psychologism in mathematics and logic, i.e. their conception of these abstract and "a priori" sciences as having an essentially empirical foundation and a prescriptive or descriptive nature. According to psychologism, logic would not be an autonomous discipline, but a branch of psychology, either proposing a prescriptive and practical "art" of correct judgement (as Brentano and some of his more orthodox students did) or a description of the factual processes of human thought. Husserl pointed out that the failure of anti-psychologists to defeat psychologism was a result of being unable to distinguish between the foundational, theoretical side of logic, and the applied, practical side. Pure logic does not deal at all with "thoughts" or "judgings" as mental episodes but about "a priori" laws and conditions for any theory and any judgments whatsoever, conceived as propositions in themselves.
Since "truth-in-itself" has "being-in-itself" as ontological correlate, and since psychologists reduce truth (and hence logic) to empirical psychology, the inevitable consequence is scepticism. Psychologists have also not been successful in showing how from induction or psychological processes we can justify the absolute certainty of logical principles, such as the principles of identity and non-contradiction. It is therefore futile to base certain logical laws and principles on uncertain processes of the mind.
This confusion made by psychologism (and related disciplines such as biologism and anthropologism) can be due to three specific prejudices:
1. The first prejudice is the supposition that logic is somehow normative in nature. Husserl argues that logic is theoretical, i.e., that logic itself proposes "a priori" laws which are themselves the basis of the normative side of logic. Since mathematics is related to logic, he cites an example from mathematics: If we have a formula like "(a + b)(a – b) = a² – b²" it does not tell us how to think mathematically. It just expresses a truth. A proposition that says: "The product of the sum and the difference of a and b "should" give us the difference of the squares of a and b" does express a normative proposition, but this normative statement "is based on" the theoretical statement "(a + b)(a – b) = a² – b²".
2. For psychologists, the acts of judging, reasoning, deriving, and so on, are all psychological processes. Therefore, it is the role of psychology to provide the foundation of these processes. Husserl states that this effort made by psychologists is a "metábasis eis állo génos" (Gr. μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος, "a transgression to another field"). It is a metábasis because psychology cannot provide any foundations for "a priori" laws which themselves are the basis for all the ways we should think correctly. Psychologists have the problem of confusing intentional activities with the object of these activities. It is important to distinguish between the act of judging and the judgment itself, the act of counting and the number itself, and so on. Counting five objects is undeniably a psychological process, but the number 5 is not.
3. Judgments can be true or not true. Psychologists argue that judgments are true because they become "evidently" true to us. This evidence, a psychological process that "guarantees" truth, is indeed a psychological process. Husserl responds by saying that truth itself, as well as logical laws, always remain valid regardless of psychological "evidence" that they are true. No psychological process can explain the "a priori" objectivity of these logical truths.
From this criticism to psychologism, the distinction between psychological acts and their intentional objects, and the difference between the normative side of logic and the theoretical side, derives from a Platonist conception of logic. This means that we should regard logical and mathematical laws as being independent of the human mind, and also as an autonomy of meanings. It is essentially the difference between the real (everything subject to time) and the ideal or irreal (everything that is atemporal), such as logical truths, mathematical entities, mathematical truths and meanings in general.
David Carr commented on Husserl's following in his 1970 dissertation at Yale: "It is well known that Husserl was always disappointed at the tendency of his students to go their own way, to embark upon fundamental revisions of phenomenology rather than engage in the communal task" as originally intended by the radical new science. Notwithstanding, he did attract philosophers to phenomenology.
Martin Heidegger is the best known of Husserl's students, the one whom Husserl chose as his successor at Freiburg. Heidegger's magnum opus "Being and Time" was dedicated to Husserl. They shared their thoughts and worked alongside each other for over a decade at the University of Freiburg, Heidegger being Husserl's assistant during 1920–1923. Heidegger's early work followed his teacher, but with time he began to develop new insights distinctively variant. Husserl became increasingly critical of Heidegger's work, especially in 1929, and included pointed criticism of Heidegger in lectures he gave during 1931. Heidegger, while acknowledging his debt to Husserl, followed a political position offensive and harmful to Husserl after the Nazis came to power in 1933, Husserl being of Jewish origin and Heidegger infamously being then a Nazi proponent. Academic discussion of Husserl and Heidegger is extensive.
At Göttingen in 1913 Adolf Reinach (1884–1917) "was now Husserl's right hand. He was above all the mediator between Husserl and the students, for he understood extremely well how to deal with other persons, whereas Husserl was pretty much helpless in this respect." He was an original editor of Husserl's new journal, "Jahrbuch"; one of his works (giving a phenomenological analysis of the law of obligations) appeared in its first issue. Reinach was widely admired and a remarkable teacher. Husserl, in his 1917 obituary, wrote, "He wanted to draw only from the deepest sources, he wanted to produce only work of enduring value. And through his wise restrain he succeeded in this."
Edith Stein was Husserl's student at Göttingen while she wrote her "On the Problem of Empathy" (1916). She then became his assistant at Freiburg 1916–1918. She later adapted her phenomenology to the modern school of Thomas Aquinas".
Ludwig Landgrebe became assistant to Husserl in 1923. From 1939 he collaborated with Eugen Fink at the Husserl-Archives in Leuven. In 1954 he became leader of the Husserl-Archives. Landgrebe is known as one of Husserl's closest associates, but also for his independent views relating to history, religion and politics as seen from the viewpoints of existentialist philosophy and metaphysics.
Eugen Fink was a close associate of Husserl during the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote the "Sixth Cartesian Meditation" which Husserl said was the truest expression and continuation of his own work. Fink delivered the eulogy for Husserl in 1938.
Roman Ingarden, an early student of Husserl at Freiburg, corresponded with Husserl into the mid-1930s. Ingarden did not accept, however, the later transcendental idealism of Husserl which he thought would lead to relativism. Ingarden has written his work in German and Polish. In his "Spór o istnienie świata" (Ger.: "Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt", Eng.: "Dispute about existence of the world") he created his own realistic position, which also helped to spread phenomenology in Poland.
Max Scheler met Husserl in Halle in 1901 and found in his phenomenology a methodological breakthrough for his own philosophy. Scheler, who was at Göttingen when Husserl taught there, was one of the original few editors of the journal "Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung" (1913). Scheler's work "Formalism in Ethics and Nonformal Ethics of Value" appeared in the new journal (1913 and 1916) and drew acclaim. The personal relationship between the two men, however, became strained, due to Scheler's legal troubles, and Scheler returned to Munich. Although Scheler later criticised Husserl's idealistic logical approach and proposed instead a "phenomenology of love", he states that he remained "deeply indebted" to Husserl throughout his work.
Nicolai Hartmann was once thought to be at the center of phenomenology, but perhaps no longer. In 1921 the prestige of Hartmann the Neo-Kantian, who was Professor of Philosophy at Marburg, was added to the Movement; he "publicly declared his solidarity with the actual work of "die Phänomenologie"." Yet Hartmann's connections were with Max Scheler and the Munich circle; Husserl himself evidently did not consider him as a phenomenologist. His philosophy, however, is said to include an innovative use of the method.
Emmanuel Levinas in 1929 gave a presentation at one of Husserl's last seminars in Freiburg. Also that year he wrote on Husserl's "Ideen" (1913) a long review published by a French journal. With Gabrielle Peiffer, Levinas translated into French Husserl's "Méditations cartésiennes" (1931). He was at first impressed with Heidegger and began a book on him, but broke off the project when Heidegger became involved with the Nazis. After the war he wrote on Jewish spirituality; most of his family had been murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania. Levinas then began to write works that would become widely known and admired.
Alfred Schutz's "Phenomenology of the Social World" seeks to rigorously ground Max Weber's interpretive sociology in Husserl's phenomenology. Husserl was impressed by this work and asked Schutz to be his assistant.
Jean-Paul Sartre was also largely influenced by Husserl, although he later came to disagree with key points in his analyses. Sartre rejected Husserl's transcendental interpretations begun in his "Ideen" (1913) and instead followed Heidegger's ontology.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception" is influenced by Edmund Husserl's work on perception, intersubjectivity, intentionality, space, and temporality, including Husserl's theory of retention and protention. Merleau-Ponty's description of 'motor intentionality' and sexuality, for example, retain the important structure of the noetic/noematic correlation of "Ideas I", yet further concretize what it means for Husserl when consciousness particularizes itself into modes of intuition. Merleau-Ponty's most clearly Husserlian work is, perhaps, "the Philosopher and His Shadow." Depending on the interpretation of Husserl's accounts of eidetic intuition, given in Husserl's "Phenomenological Psychology" and "Experience and Judgment", it may be that Merleau-Ponty did not accept the "eidetic reduction" nor the "pure essence" said to result. Merleau-Ponty was the first student to study at the Husserl-archives in Leuven.
Gabriel Marcel explicitly rejected existentialism, due to Sartre, but not phenomenology, which has enjoyed a wide following among French Catholics. He appreciated Husserl, Scheler, and (but with apprehension) Heidegger. His expressions like "ontology of sensability" when referring to the body, indicate influence by phenomenological thought.
Kurt Gödel is known to have read "Cartesian Meditations". He expressed very strong appreciation for Husserl's work, especially with regard to "bracketing" or "epoché".
Hermann Weyl's interest in intuitionistic logic and impredicativity appears to have resulted from his reading of Husserl. He was introduced to Husserl's work through his wife, Helene Joseph, herself a student of Husserl at Göttingen.
Colin Wilson has used Husserl's ideas extensively in developing his "New Existentialism," particularly in regards to his "intentionality of consciousness," which he mentions in a number of his books.
Rudolf Carnap was also influenced by Husserl, not only concerning Husserl's notion of essential insight that Carnap used in his "Der Raum", but also his notion of "formation rules" and "transformation rules" is founded on Husserl's philosophy of logic.
Karol Wojtyla, who would later become Pope John Paul II, was influenced by Husserl. Phenomenology appears in his major work, "The Acting Person" (1969). Originally published in Polish, it was translated by Andrzej Potocki and edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka in the "Analecta Husserliana". "The Acting Person" combines phenomenological work with Thomistic ethics.
Paul Ricœur has translated many works of Husserl into French and has also written many of his own studies of the philosopher. Among other works, Ricœur employed phenomenology in his "Freud and Philosophy" (1965).
Jacques Derrida wrote several critical studies of Husserl early in his academic career. These included his dissertation, "The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy," and also his introduction to "The Origin of Geometry". Derrida continued to make reference to Husserl in works such as "Of Grammatology".
Stanisław Leśniewski and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz were inspired by Husserl's formal analysis of language. Accordingly, they employed phenomenology in the development of categorial grammar.
José Ortega y Gasset visited Husserl at Freiburg in 1934. He credited phenomenology for having 'liberated him' from a narrow neo-Kantian thought. While perhaps not a phenomenologist himself, he introduced the philosophy to Iberia and Latin America.
Wilfrid Sellars, an influential figure in the so-called "Pittsburgh School" (Robert Brandom, John McDowell) had been a student of Marvin Farber, a pupil of Husserl, and was influenced by phenomenology through him:
Hans Blumenberg received his habilitation in 1950, with a dissertation on 'Ontological distance', an inquiry into the crisis of Husserl's phenomenology.
Roger Scruton, despite some disagreements with Husserl, drew upon his work in "Sexual Desire" (1986).
The influence of the Husserlian phenomenological tradition in the 21st century extends beyond the confines of the European and North American legacies. It has already started to impact (indirectly) scholarship in Eastern and Oriental thought, including research on the impetus of philosophical thinking in the history of ideas in Islam. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9518 |
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design and application of equipment, devices and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electrical power generation, distribution and use.
Electrical engineering is now divided into a wide range of fields, including computer engineering, power engineering, telecommunications, radio-frequency engineering, signal processing, instrumentation, and electronics. Many of these disciplines overlap with other engineering branches, spanning a huge number of specializations including hardware engineering, power electronics, electromagnetics and waves, microwave engineering, nanotechnology, electrochemistry, renewable energies, mechatronics, and electrical materials science. See glossary of electrical and electronics engineering.
Electrical engineers typically hold a degree in electrical engineering or electronic engineering. Practising engineers may have professional certification and be members of a professional body or an international standards organization. These include the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) "(formerly the IEE)". The IEC prepares international standards for electrical engineering, developed through consensus, thanks to the work of 20,000 electrotechnical experts, coming from 172 countries worldwide.
Electrical engineers work in a very wide range of industries and the skills required are likewise variable. These range from circuit theory to the management skills of a project manager. The tools and equipment that an individual engineer may need are similarly variable, ranging from a simple voltmeter to a top end analyzer to sophisticated design and manufacturing software.
Electricity has been a subject of scientific interest since at least the early 17th century. William Gilbert was a prominent early electrical scientist, and was the first to draw a clear distinction between magnetism and static electricity. He is credited with establishing the term "electricity". He also designed the versorium: a device that detects the presence of statically charged objects. In 1762 Swedish professor Johan Wilcke invented a device later named electrophorus that produced a static electric charge. By 1800 Alessandro Volta had developed the voltaic pile, a forerunner of the electric battery.
In the 19th century, research into the subject started to intensify. Notable developments in this century include the work of Hans Christian Ørsted who discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field that will deflect a compass needle, of William Sturgeon who, in 1825 invented the electromagnet, of Joseph Henry and Edward Davy who invented the electrical relay in 1835, of Georg Ohm, who in 1827 quantified the relationship between the electric current and potential difference in a conductor, of Michael Faraday (the discoverer of electromagnetic induction in 1831), and of James Clerk Maxwell, who in 1873 published a unified theory of electricity and magnetism in his treatise "Electricity and Magnetism".
In 1782 Georges-Louis Le Sage developed and presented in Berlin probably the world's first form of electric telegraphy, using 24 different wires, one for each letter of the alphabet. This telegraph connected two rooms. It was an electrostatic telegraph that moved gold leaf through electrical conduction.
In 1795, Francisco Salva Campillo proposed an electrostatic telegraph system. Between 1803–1804, he worked on electrical telegraphy and in 1804, he presented his report at the Royal Academy of Natural Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. Salva's electrolyte telegraph system was very innovative though it was greatly influenced by and based upon two new discoveries made in Europe in 1800 – Alessandro Volta's electric battery for generating an electric current and William Nicholson and Anthony Carlyle's electrolysis of water. Electrical telegraphy may be considered the first example of electrical engineering. Electrical engineering became a profession in the later 19th century. Practitioners had created a global electric telegraph network and the first professional electrical engineering institutions were founded in the UK and USA to support the new discipline. Francis Ronalds created an electric telegraph system in 1816 and documented his vision of how the world could be transformed by electricity. Over 50 years later, he joined the new Society of Telegraph Engineers (soon to be renamed the Institution of Electrical Engineers) where he was regarded by other members as the first of their cohort. By the end of the 19th century, the world had been forever changed by the rapid communication made possible by the engineering development of land-lines, submarine cables, and, from about 1890, wireless telegraphy.
Practical applications and advances in such fields created an increasing need for standardised units of measure. They led to the international standardization of the units volt, ampere, coulomb, ohm, farad, and henry. This was achieved at an international conference in Chicago in 1893. The publication of these standards formed the basis of future advances in standardisation in various industries, and in many countries, the definitions were immediately recognized in relevant legislation.
During these years, the study of electricity was largely considered to be a subfield of physics since the early electrical technology was considered electromechanical in nature. The Technische Universität Darmstadt founded the world's first department of electrical engineering in 1882 and introduced the first degree course in electrical engineering in 1883. The first electrical engineering degree program in the United States was started at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the physics department under Professor Charles Cross, though it was Cornell University to produce the world's first electrical engineering graduates in 1885. The first course in electrical engineering was taught in 1883 in Cornell's Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts. It was not until about 1885 that Cornell President Andrew Dickson White established the first Department of Electrical Engineering in the United States. In the same year, University College London founded the first chair of electrical engineering in Great Britain. Professor Mendell P. Weinbach at University of Missouri soon followed suit by establishing the electrical engineering department in 1886. Afterwards, universities and institutes of technology gradually started to offer electrical engineering programs to their students all over the world.
During these decades use of electrical engineering increased dramatically. In 1882, Thomas Edison switched on the world's first large-scale electric power network that provided 110 volts — direct current (DC) — to 59 customers on Manhattan Island in New York City. In 1884, Sir Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine allowing for more efficient electric power generation. Alternating current, with its ability to transmit power more efficiently over long distances via the use of transformers, developed rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s with transformer designs by Károly Zipernowsky, Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri (later called ZBD transformers), Lucien Gaulard, John Dixon Gibbs and William Stanley, Jr.. Practical AC motor designs including induction motors were independently invented by Galileo Ferraris and Nikola Tesla and further developed into a practical three-phase form by Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky and Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown. Charles Steinmetz and Oliver Heaviside contributed to the theoretical basis of alternating current engineering. The spread in the use of AC set off in the United States what has been called the "war of the currents" between a George Westinghouse backed AC system and a Thomas Edison backed DC power system, with AC being adopted as the overall standard.
During the development of radio, many scientists and inventors contributed to radio technology and electronics. The mathematical work of James Clerk Maxwell during the 1850s had shown the relationship of different forms of electromagnetic radiation including the possibility of invisible airborne waves (later called "radio waves"). In his classic physics experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz proved Maxwell's theory by transmitting radio waves with a spark-gap transmitter, and detected them by using simple electrical devices. Other physicists experimented with these new waves and in the process developed devices for transmitting and detecting them. In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi began work on a way to adapt the known methods of transmitting and detecting these "Hertzian waves" into a purpose built commercial wireless telegraphic system. Early on, he sent wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles. In December 1901, he sent wireless waves that were not affected by the curvature of the Earth. Marconi later transmitted the wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of .
Millimetre wave communication was first investigated by Jagadish Chandra Bose during 18941896, when he reached an extremely high frequency of up to 60GHz in his experiments. He also introduced the use of semiconductor junctions to detect radio waves, when he patented the radio crystal detector in 1901.
In 1897, Karl Ferdinand Braun introduced the cathode ray tube as part of an oscilloscope, a crucial enabling technology for electronic television. John Fleming invented the first radio tube, the diode, in 1904. Two years later, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode.
In 1920, Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave oven in 1946 by Percy Spencer. In 1934, the British military began to make strides toward radar (which also uses the magnetron) under the direction of Dr Wimperis, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936.
In 1941, Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first fully functional and programmable computer using electromechanical parts. In 1943, Tommy Flowers designed and built the Colossus, the world's first fully functional, electronic, digital and programmable computer. In 1946, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) of John Presper Eckert and John Mauchly followed, beginning the computing era. The arithmetic performance of these machines allowed engineers to develop completely new technologies and achieve new objectives.
The first working transistor was a point-contact transistor invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain while working under William Shockley at the Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) in 1947. They then invented the bipolar junction transistor in 1948. While early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, they opened the door for more compact devices.
The surface passivation process, which electrically stabilized silicon surfaces via thermal oxidation, was developed by Mohamed M. Atalla at BTL in 1957. This led to the development of the monolithic integrated circuit chip. The first integrated circuits were the hybrid integrated circuit invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in 1958 and the monolithic integrated circuit chip invented by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959.
The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at BTL in 1959. It was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. It revolutionized the electronics industry, becoming the most widely used electronic device in the world. The MOSFET is the basic element in most modern electronic equipment, and has been central to the electronics revolution, the microelectronics revolution, and the Digital Revolution. The MOSFET has thus been credited as the birth of modern electronics, and possibly the most important invention in electronics.
The MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuit chips. Atalla first proposed the concept of the MOS integrated circuit (MOS IC) chip in 1960, followed by Kahng in 1961. The earliest experimental MOS IC chip to be fabricated was built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA Laboratories in 1962. MOS technology enabled Moore's law, the doubling of transistors on an IC chip every two years, predicted by Gordon Moore in 1965. Silicon-gate MOS technology was developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild in 1968. Since then, the MOSFET has been the basic building block of modern electronics. The mass-production of silicon MOSFETs and MOS integrated circuit chips, along with continuous MOSFET scaling miniaturization at an exponential pace (as predicted by Moore's law), has since led to revolutionary changes in technology, economy, culture and thinking.
The Apollo program which culminated in landing astronauts on the Moon with Apollo 11 in 1969 was enabled by NASA's adoption of advances in semiconductor electronic technology, including MOSFETs in the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP) and silicon integrated circuit chips in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC).
The development of MOS integrated circuit technology in the 1960s led to the invention of the microprocessor in the early 1970s. The first single-chip microprocessor was the Intel 4004, released in 1971. It began with the "Busicom Project" as Masatoshi Shima's three-chip CPU design in 1968, before Sharp's Tadashi Sasaki conceived of a single-chip CPU design, which he discussed with Busicom and Intel in 1968. The Intel 4004 was then designed and realized by Federico Faggin at Intel with his silicon-gate MOS technology, along with Intel's Marcian Hoff and Stanley Mazor and Busicom's Masatoshi Shima. The microprocessor led to the development of microcomputers and personal computers, and the microcomputer revolution.
Electrical engineering has many subdisciplines, the most common of which are listed below. Although there are electrical engineers who focus exclusively on one of these subdisciplines, many deal with a combination of them. Sometimes certain fields, such as electronic engineering and computer engineering, are considered separate disciplines in their own right.
Power engineering deals with the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity as well as the design of a range of related devices. These include transformers, electric generators, electric motors, high voltage engineering, and power electronics. In many regions of the world, governments maintain an electrical network called a power grid that connects a variety of generators together with users of their energy. Users purchase electrical energy from the grid, avoiding the costly exercise of having to generate their own. Power engineers may work on the design and maintenance of the power grid as well as the power systems that connect to it. Such systems are called "on-grid" power systems and may supply the grid with additional power, draw power from the grid, or do both. Power engineers may also work on systems that do not connect to the grid, called "off-grid" power systems, which in some cases are preferable to on-grid systems. The future includes Satellite controlled power systems, with feedback in real time to prevent power surges and prevent blackouts.
Control engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of dynamic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to behave in the desired manner. To implement such controllers, electrical engineers may use electronic circuits, digital signal processors, microcontrollers, and programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airliners to the cruise control present in many modern automobiles. It also plays an important role in industrial automation.
Control engineers often utilize feedback when designing control systems. For example, in an automobile with cruise control the vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the motor's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback.
Electronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits that use the properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tuned circuit, which allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a single station, is just one example of such a circuit. Another example to research is a pneumatic signal conditioner.
Prior to the Second World War, the subject was commonly known as "radio engineering" and basically was restricted to aspects of communications and radar, commercial radio, and early television. Later, in post-war years, as consumer devices began to be developed, the field grew to include modern television, audio systems, computers, and microprocessors. In the mid-to-late 1950s, the term "radio engineering" gradually gave way to the name "electronic engineering".
Before the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, electronic circuits were constructed from discrete components that could be manipulated by humans. These discrete circuits consumed much space and power and were limited in speed, although they are still common in some applications. By contrast, integrated circuits packed a large number—often millions—of tiny electrical components, mainly transistors, into a small chip around the size of a coin. This allowed for the powerful computers and other electronic devices we see today.
Microelectronics engineering deals with the design and microfabrication of very small electronic circuit components for use in an integrated circuit or sometimes for use on their own as a general electronic component. The most common microelectronic components are semiconductor transistors, although all main electronic components (resistors, capacitors etc.) can be created at a microscopic level.
Nanoelectronics is the further scaling of devices down to nanometer levels. Modern devices are already in the nanometer regime, with below 100 nm processing having been standard since around 2002.
Microelectronic components are created by chemically fabricating wafers of semiconductors such as silicon (at higher frequencies, compound semiconductors like gallium arsenide and indium phosphide) to obtain the desired transport of electronic charge and control of current. The field of microelectronics involves a significant amount of chemistry and material science and requires the electronic engineer working in the field to have a very good working knowledge of the effects of quantum mechanics.
Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals. Signals can be either analog, in which case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information. For analog signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal processing may involve the compression, error detection and error correction of digitally sampled signals.
Signal Processing is a very mathematically oriented and intensive area forming the core of digital signal processing and it is rapidly expanding with new applications in every field of electrical engineering such as communications, control, radar, audio engineering, broadcast engineering, power electronics, and biomedical engineering as many already existing analog systems are replaced with their digital counterparts. Analog signal processing is still important in the design of many control systems.
DSP processor ICs are found in many types of modern electronic devices, such as digital television sets, radios, Hi-Fi audio equipment, mobile phones, multimedia players, camcorders and digital cameras, automobile control systems, noise cancelling headphones, digital spectrum analyzers, missile guidance systems, radar systems, and telematics systems. In such products, DSP may be responsible for noise reduction, speech recognition or synthesis, encoding or decoding digital media, wirelessly transmitting or receiving data, triangulating position using GPS, and other kinds of image processing, video processing, audio processing, and speech processing.
Telecommunications engineering focuses on the transmission of information across a communication channel such as a coax cable, optical fiber or free space. Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier signal to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission; this is known as modulation. Popular analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system and these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engineer.
Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. These two are sometimes combined to form a two-way communication device known as a transceiver. A key consideration in the design of transmitters is their power consumption as this is closely related to their signal strength. Typically, if the power of the transmitted signal is insufficient once the signal arrives at the receiver's antenna(s), the information contained in the signal will be corrupted by noise.
Instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure, flow, and temperature. The design of such instruments requires a good understanding of physics that often extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example, flight instruments measure variables such as wind speed and altitude to enable pilots the control of aircraft analytically. Similarly, thermocouples use the Peltier-Seebeck effect to measure the temperature difference between two points.
Often instrumentation is not used by itself, but instead as the sensors of larger electrical systems. For example, a thermocouple might be used to help ensure a furnace's temperature remains constant. For this reason, instrumentation engineering is often viewed as the counterpart of control.
Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems. This may involve the design of new hardware, the design of PDAs, tablets, and supercomputers, or the use of computers to control an industrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline. Desktop computers represent a tiny fraction of the devices a computer engineer might work on, as computer-like architectures are now found in a range of devices including video game consoles and DVD players.
Mechatronics is an engineering discipline which deals with the convergence of electrical and mechanical systems. Such combined systems are known as electromechanical systems and have widespread adoption. Examples include automated manufacturing systems, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, and various subsystems of aircraft and automobiles.
"Electronic systems design" is the subject within electrical engineering that deals with the multi-disciplinary design issues of complex electrical and mechanical systems.
The term "mechatronics" is typically used to refer to macroscopic systems but futurists have predicted the emergence of very small electromechanical devices. Already, such small devices, known as Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), are used in automobiles to tell airbags when to deploy, in digital projectors to create sharper images, and in inkjet printers to create nozzles for high definition printing. In the future it is hoped the devices will help build tiny implantable medical devices and improve optical communication.
Biomedical engineering is another related discipline, concerned with the design of medical equipment. This includes fixed equipment such as ventilators, MRI scanners, and electrocardiograph monitors as well as mobile equipment such as cochlear implants, artificial pacemakers, and artificial hearts.
Aerospace engineering and robotics an example is the most recent electric propulsion and ion propulsion.
Electrical engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in electrical engineering, electronics engineering, electrical engineering technology, or electrical and electronic engineering. The same fundamental principles are taught in all programs, though emphasis may vary according to title. The length of study for such a degree is usually four or five years and the completed degree may be designated as a Bachelor of Science in Electrical/Electronics Engineering Technology, Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Technology, or Bachelor of Applied Science depending on the university. The bachelor's degree generally includes units covering physics, mathematics, computer science, project management, and a variety of topics in electrical engineering. Initially such topics cover most, if not all, of the subdisciplines of electrical engineering. At some schools, the students can then choose to emphasize one or more subdisciplines towards the end of their courses of study.
At many schools, electronic engineering is included as part of an electrical award, sometimes explicitly, such as a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical and Electronic), but in others electrical and electronic engineering are both considered to be sufficiently broad and complex that separate degrees are offered.
Some electrical engineers choose to study for a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Engineering/Master of Science (MEng/MSc), a Master of Engineering Management, a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Engineering, an Engineering Doctorate (Eng.D.), or an Engineer's degree. The master's and engineer's degrees may consist of either research, coursework or a mixture of the two. The Doctor of Philosophy and Engineering Doctorate degrees consist of a significant research component and are often viewed as the entry point to academia. In the United Kingdom and some other European countries, Master of Engineering is often considered to be an undergraduate degree of slightly longer duration than the Bachelor of Engineering rather than postgraduate.
In most countries, a bachelor's degree in engineering represents the first step towards professional certification and the degree program itself is certified by a professional body. After completing a certified degree program the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements (including work experience requirements) before being certified. Once certified the engineer is designated the title of Professional Engineer (in the United States, Canada and South Africa), Chartered Engineer or Incorporated Engineer (in India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Zimbabwe), Chartered Professional Engineer (in Australia and New Zealand) or European Engineer (in much of the European Union).
The advantages of licensure vary depending upon location. For example, in the United States and Canada "only a licensed engineer may seal engineering work for public and private clients". This requirement is enforced by state and provincial legislation such as Quebec's Engineers Act. In other countries, no such legislation exists. Practically all certifying bodies maintain a code of ethics that they expect all members to abide by or risk expulsion. In this way these organizations play an important role in maintaining ethical standards for the profession. Even in jurisdictions where certification has little or no legal bearing on work, engineers are subject to contract law. In cases where an engineer's work fails he or she may be subject to the tort of negligence and, in extreme cases, the charge of criminal negligence. An engineer's work must also comply with numerous other rules and regulations, such as building codes and legislation pertaining to environmental law.
Professional bodies of note for electrical engineers include the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). The IEEE claims to produce 30% of the world's literature in electrical engineering, has over 360,000 members worldwide and holds over 3,000 conferences annually. The IET publishes 21 journals, has a worldwide membership of over 150,000, and claims to be the largest professional engineering society in Europe. Obsolescence of technical skills is a serious concern for electrical engineers. Membership and participation in technical societies, regular reviews of periodicals in the field and a habit of continued learning are therefore essential to maintaining proficiency. An MIET(Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology) is recognised in Europe as an Electrical and computer (technology) engineer.
In Australia, Canada, and the United States electrical engineers make up around 0.25% of the labor force.
From the Global Positioning System to electric power generation, electrical engineers have contributed to the development of a wide range of technologies. They design, develop, test, and supervise the deployment of electrical systems and electronic devices. For example, they may work on the design of telecommunication systems, the operation of electric power stations, the lighting and wiring of buildings, the design of household appliances, or the electrical control of industrial machinery.
Fundamental to the discipline are the sciences of physics and mathematics as these help to obtain both a qualitative and quantitative description of how such systems will work. Today most engineering work involves the use of computers and it is commonplace to use computer-aided design programs when designing electrical systems. Nevertheless, the ability to sketch ideas is still invaluable for quickly communicating with others.
Although most electrical engineers will understand basic circuit theory (that is the interactions of elements such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, and inductors in a circuit), the theories employed by engineers generally depend upon the work they do. For example, quantum mechanics and solid state physics might be relevant to an engineer working on VLSI (the design of integrated circuits), but are largely irrelevant to engineers working with macroscopic electrical systems. Even circuit theory may not be relevant to a person designing telecommunication systems that use off-the-shelf components. Perhaps the most important technical skills for electrical engineers are reflected in university programs, which emphasize strong numerical skills, computer literacy, and the ability to understand the technical language and concepts that relate to electrical engineering.
A wide range of instrumentation is used by electrical engineers. For simple control circuits and alarms, a basic multimeter measuring voltage, current, and resistance may suffice. Where time-varying signals need to be studied, the oscilloscope is also an ubiquitous instrument. In RF engineering and high frequency telecommunications, spectrum analyzers and network analyzers are used. In some disciplines, safety can be a particular concern with instrumentation. For instance, medical electronics designers must take into account that much lower voltages than normal can be dangerous when electrodes are directly in contact with internal body fluids. Power transmission engineering also has great safety concerns due to the high voltages used; although voltmeters may in principle be similar to their low voltage equivalents, safety and calibration issues make them very different. Many disciplines of electrical engineering use tests specific to their discipline. Audio electronics engineers use audio test sets consisting of a signal generator and a meter, principally to measure level but also other parameters such as harmonic distortion and noise. Likewise, information technology have their own test sets, often specific to a particular data format, and the same is true of television broadcasting.
For many engineers, technical work accounts for only a fraction of the work they do. A lot of time may also be spent on tasks such as discussing proposals with clients, preparing budgets and determining project schedules. Many senior engineers manage a team of technicians or other engineers and for this reason project management skills are important. Most engineering projects involve some form of documentation and strong written communication skills are therefore very important.
The workplaces of engineers are just as varied as the types of work they do. Electrical engineers may be found in the pristine lab environment of a fabrication plant, on board a Naval ship, the offices of a consulting firm or on site at a mine. During their working life, electrical engineers may find themselves supervising a wide range of individuals including scientists, electricians, computer programmers, and other engineers.
Electrical engineering has an intimate relationship with the physical sciences. For instance, the physicist Lord Kelvin played a major role in the engineering of the first transatlantic telegraph cable. Conversely, the engineer Oliver Heaviside produced major work on the mathematics of transmission on telegraph cables. Electrical engineers are often required on major science projects. For instance, large particle accelerators such as CERN need electrical engineers to deal with many aspects of the project including the power distribution, the instrumentation, and the manufacture and installation of the superconducting electromagnets. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9531 |
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is a branch of physics involving the study of the electromagnetic force, a type of physical interaction that occurs between electrically charged particles. The electromagnetic force is carried by electromagnetic fields composed of electric fields and magnetic fields, and it is responsible for electromagnetic radiation such as light. It is one of the four fundamental interactions (commonly called forces) in nature, together with the strong interaction, the weak interaction, and gravitation. At high energy the weak force and electromagnetic force are unified as a single electroweak force.
Electromagnetic phenomena are defined in terms of the electromagnetic force, sometimes called the Lorentz force, which includes both electricity and magnetism as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. The electromagnetic force plays a major role in determining the internal properties of most objects encountered in daily life. The electromagnetic attraction between atomic nuclei and their orbital electrons holds atoms together. Electromagnetic forces are responsible for the chemical bonds between atoms which create molecules, and intermolecular forces. The electromagnetic force governs all chemical processes, which arise from interactions between the electrons of neighboring atoms.
There are numerous mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field. In classical electrodynamics, electric fields are described as electric potential and electric current. In Faraday's law, magnetic fields are associated with electromagnetic induction and magnetism, and Maxwell's equations describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and altered by each other and by charges and currents.
The theoretical implications of electromagnetism, particularly the establishment of the speed of light based on properties of the "medium" of propagation (permeability and permittivity), led to the development of special relativity by Albert Einstein in 1905.
Originally, electricity and magnetism were considered to be two separate forces. This view changed with the publication of James Clerk Maxwell's 1873 "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" in which the interactions of positive and negative charges were shown to be mediated by one force. There are four main effects resulting from these interactions, all of which have been clearly demonstrated by experiments:
While preparing for an evening lecture on 21 April 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted made a surprising observation. As he was setting up his materials, he noticed a compass needle deflected away from magnetic north when the electric current from the battery he was using was switched on and off. This deflection convinced him that magnetic fields radiate from all sides of a wire carrying an electric current, just as light and heat do, and that it confirmed a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism.
At the time of discovery, Ørsted did not suggest any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, nor did he try to represent the phenomenon in a mathematical framework. However, three months later he began more intensive investigations. Soon thereafter he published his findings, proving that an electric current produces a magnetic field as it flows through a wire. The CGS unit of magnetic induction (oersted) is named in honor of his contributions to the field of electromagnetism.
His findings resulted in intensive research throughout the scientific community in electrodynamics. They influenced French physicist André-Marie Ampère's developments of a single mathematical form to represent the magnetic forces between current-carrying conductors. Ørsted's discovery also represented a major step toward a unified concept of energy.
This unification, which was observed by Michael Faraday, extended by James Clerk Maxwell, and partially reformulated by Oliver Heaviside and Heinrich Hertz, is one of the key accomplishments of 19th-century mathematical physics. It has had far-reaching consequences, one of which was the understanding of the nature of light. Unlike what was proposed by the electromagnetic theory of that time, light and other electromagnetic waves are at present seen as taking the form of quantized, self-propagating oscillatory electromagnetic field disturbances called photons. Different frequencies of oscillation give rise to the different forms of electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves at the lowest frequencies, to visible light at intermediate frequencies, to gamma rays at the highest frequencies.
Ørsted was not the only person to examine the relationship between electricity and magnetism. In 1802, Gian Domenico Romagnosi, an Italian legal scholar, deflected a magnetic needle using a Voltaic pile. The factual setup of the experiment is not completely clear, so if current flowed across the needle or not. An account of the discovery was published in 1802 in an Italian newspaper, but it was largely overlooked by the contemporary scientific community, because Romagnosi seemingly did not belong to this community.
An earlier (1735), and often neglected, connection between electricity and magnetism was reported by a Dr. Cookson. The account stated:A tradesman at Wakefield in Yorkshire, having put up a great number of knives and forks in a large box ... and having placed the box in the corner of a large room, there happened a sudden storm of thunder, lightning, &c. ... The owner emptying the box on a counter where some nails lay, the persons who took up the knives, that lay on the nails, observed that the knives took up the nails. On this the whole number was tried, and found to do the same, and that, to such a degree as to take up large nails, packing needles, and other iron things of considerable weight ... E. T. Whittaker suggested in 1910 that this particular event was responsible for lightning to be "credited with the power of magnetizing steel; and it was doubtless this which led Franklin in 1751 to attempt to magnetize a sewing-needle by means of the discharge of Leyden jars."
The electromagnetic force is one of the four known fundamental forces. The other fundamental forces are:
All other forces (e.g., friction, contact forces) are derived from these four fundamental forces.
The electromagnetic force is responsible for practically all phenomena one encounters in daily life above the nuclear scale, with the exception of gravity. Roughly speaking, all the forces involved in interactions between atoms can be explained by the electromagnetic force acting between the electrically charged atomic nuclei and electrons of the atoms. Electromagnetic forces also explain how these particles carry momentum by their movement. This includes the forces we experience in "pushing" or "pulling" ordinary material objects, which result from the intermolecular forces that act between the individual molecules in our bodies and those in the objects. The electromagnetic force is also involved in all forms of chemical phenomena.
A necessary part of understanding the intra-atomic and intermolecular forces is the effective force generated by the momentum of the electrons' movement, such that as electrons move between interacting atoms they carry momentum with them. As a collection of electrons becomes more confined, their minimum momentum necessarily increases due to the Pauli exclusion principle. The behaviour of matter at the molecular scale including its density is determined by the balance between the electromagnetic force and the force generated by the exchange of momentum carried by the electrons themselves.
In 1600, William Gilbert proposed, in his "De Magnete", that electricity and magnetism, while both capable of causing attraction and repulsion of objects, were distinct effects. Mariners had noticed that lightning strikes had the ability to disturb a compass needle. The link between lightning and electricity was not confirmed until Benjamin Franklin's proposed experiments in 1752. One of the first to discover and publish a link between man-made electric current and magnetism was Romagnosi, who in 1802 noticed that connecting a wire across a voltaic pile deflected a nearby compass needle. However, the effect did not become widely known until 1820, when Ørsted performed a similar experiment. Ørsted's work influenced Ampère to produce a theory of electromagnetism that set the subject on a mathematical foundation.
A theory of electromagnetism, known as classical electromagnetism, was developed by various physicists during the period between 1820 and 1873 when it culminated in the publication of a treatise by James Clerk Maxwell, which unified the preceding developments into a single theory and discovered the electromagnetic nature of light. In classical electromagnetism, the behavior of the electromagnetic field is described by a set of equations known as Maxwell's equations, and the electromagnetic force is given by the Lorentz force law.
One of the peculiarities of classical electromagnetism is that it is difficult to reconcile with classical mechanics, but it is compatible with special relativity. According to Maxwell's equations, the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant that is dependent only on the electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability of free space. This violates Galilean invariance, a long-standing cornerstone of classical mechanics. One way to reconcile the two theories (electromagnetism and classical mechanics) is to assume the existence of a luminiferous aether through which the light propagates. However, subsequent experimental efforts failed to detect the presence of the aether. After important contributions of Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré, in 1905, Albert Einstein solved the problem with the introduction of special relativity, which replaced classical kinematics with a new theory of kinematics compatible with classical electromagnetism. (For more information, see History of special relativity.)
In addition, relativity theory implies that in moving frames of reference, a magnetic field transforms to a field with a nonzero electric component and conversely, a moving electric field transforms to a nonzero magnetic component, thus firmly showing that the phenomena are two sides of the same coin. Hence the term "electromagnetism". (For more information, see Classical electromagnetism and special relativity and Covariant formulation of classical electromagnetism.)
The Maxwell equations are "linear," in that a change in the sources (the charges and currents) results in a proportional change of the fields. Nonlinear dynamics can occur when electromagnetic fields couple to matter that follows nonlinear dynamical laws. This is studied, for example, in the subject of magnetohydrodynamics, which combines Maxwell theory with the Navier–Stokes equations.
Electromagnetic units are part of a system of electrical units based primarily upon the magnetic properties of electric currents, the fundamental SI unit being the ampere. The units are:
In the electromagnetic cgs system, electric current is a fundamental quantity defined via Ampère's law and takes the permeability as a dimensionless quantity (relative permeability) whose value in a vacuum is unity. As a consequence, the square of the speed of light appears explicitly in some of the equations interrelating quantities in this system.
Formulas for physical laws of electromagnetism (such as Maxwell's equations) need to be adjusted depending on what system of units one uses. This is because there is no one-to-one correspondence between electromagnetic units in SI and those in CGS, as is the case for mechanical units. Furthermore, within CGS, there are several plausible choices of electromagnetic units, leading to different unit "sub-systems", including Gaussian, "ESU", "EMU", and Heaviside–Lorentz. Among these choices, Gaussian units are the most common today, and in fact the phrase "CGS units" is often used to refer specifically to CGS-Gaussian units. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9532 |
Euphemism
A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes to downplay. Euphemisms may be used to mask profanity or refer to taboo topics such as disability, sex, excretion, or death in a polite way.
"Euphemism" comes from the Greek word () which refers to the use of 'words of good omen'; it is a compound of (), meaning 'good, well', and (), meaning 'prophetic speech; rumour, talk'. "Eupheme" is a reference to the female Greek spirit of words of praise and positivity, etc. The term "euphemism" itself was used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks; with the meaning "to keep a holy silence" (speaking well by not speaking at all).
Reasons for using euphemisms vary by context and intent. Commonly, euphemisms are used to avoid directly addressing subjects that might be deemed negative or embarrassing, e.g. death, sex, excretory bodily functions. They may be created for innocent, well-intentioned purposes or nefariously and cynically, intentionally to deceive and confuse.
Euphemisms are also used to mitigate, soften or downplay the gravity of large-scale injustices, war crimes, or other events that warrant a pattern of avoidance in official statements or documents. For instance, one reason for the comparative scarcity of written evidence documenting the exterminations at Auschwitz, relative to their sheer number, is "directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms".
Euphemisms are sometimes used to lessen the opposition to a political move. For example, according to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the neutral Hebrew lexical item פעימות "peimót" ("beatings (of the heart)"), rather than נסיגה "nesigá" ("withdrawal"), to refer to the stages in the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank (see Wye River Memorandum), in order to lessen the opposition of right-wing Israelis to such a move. The lexical item פעימות "peimót", which literally means "beatings (of the heart)" is thus a euphemism for "withdrawal".
Euphemism may be used as a rhetorical strategy, in which case its goal is to change the valence of a description.
The act of labeling a term as a euphemism can in itself be controversial, as in the following two examples:
There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase "visually impaired" is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for "blind". However, "visual impairment" can be a broader term, including, for example, people who have partial sight in one eye, those with uncorrectable mild to moderate poor vision, or even those who wear glasses, groups that would be excluded by the word "blind" or even "partially blind".
The coining and usage of euphemisms reveals what the coiner or speaker/writer considers, perhaps only sub-consciously, to be shameful, and may thus be an indication of prejudices or opinions held.
Phonetic euphemism is used to replace profanities, diminishing their intensity. Modifications include:
To alter the pronunciation or spelling of a taboo word (such as a swear word) to form a euphemism is known as "taboo deformation", or a minced oath. In American English, words that are unacceptable on television, such as "fuck", may be represented by deformations such as "freak", even in children's cartoons. Feck is a minced oath originating in Hiberno-English and popularised outside of Ireland by the British sitcom "Father Ted". Some examples of Cockney rhyming slang may serve the same purpose: to call a person a "berk" sounds less offensive than to call a person a "cunt", though "berk" is short for Berkeley Hunt, which rhymes with "cunt".
Euphemisms formed from understatements include: "asleep" for dead and "drinking" for consuming alcohol. "Tired and emotional" is a notorious euphemism for "drunk", used by British parliamentarians of one another.
Pleasant, positive, worthy, neutral or non-descript terms are substituted for explicit or unpleasant ones, with many substituted terms deliberately coined by socio-political progressive movements, cynically by planned marketing, public relations or advertising initiatives, including:
Over time it becomes socially unacceptable to use the former word, as one is effectively down-grading the matter concerned to its former lower status, and the euphemism becomes dominant, due to a wish not to offend.
The use of a term with a softer connotation, though it shares the same meaning. For instance, "screwed up" is a euphemism for "fucked up"; "hook-up" and "laid" are euphemisms for sexual intercourse.
Expressions or words from a foreign language may be imported for use as a replacement for an offensive word. For example, the French word "enceinte" was sometimes used instead of the English word "pregnant"; "abattoir" for "slaughter-house", although in French the word retains its explicit violent meaning "a place for beating down", conveniently lost on non-French speakers. "Entrepreneur" for "business-man", adds glamour; "douche" (French: shower) for vaginal irrigation device; "bidet" (French: little pony) for "vessel for intimate ablutions". Ironically, whilst in English physical "handicap" is almost always substituted for a modern euphemism, in French the English word "handicap" is used as a euphemism for their problematic words "infirmité" or "invalidité".
Periphrasis, or circumlocution, is one of the most common: to "speak around" a given word, implying it without saying it. Over time, circumlocutions become recognized as established euphemisms for particular words or ideas.
Places which have become associated with unpleasant events may be renamed, for example the English nuclear energy plant Windscale, after a damaging radiation leak was renamed Sellafield.
Bureaucracies frequently spawn euphemisms intentionally, as doublespeak expressions. For example, in the past, the US military used the term "sunshine units" for contamination by radioactive isotopes. An effective death sentence in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge often used the clause "imprisonment without right to correspondence": the person sentenced would be shot soon after conviction. As early as 1939, Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich used the term "Sonderbehandlung" ("special treatment") to mean summary execution (most likely by hanging) of persons viewed as "disciplinary problems" by the Nazis even before commencing the systematic extermination of the Jews. Heinrich Himmler, aware that the word had come to be known to mean murder, replaced that euphemism with one in which Jews would be "guided" (to their deaths) through the slave-labor and extermination camps after having been "evacuated" to their doom. Such was part of the formulation of "Endlösung der Judenfrage" (the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question"), which became infamous to the entire world during the Nuremberg Trials.
Euphemisms frequently over time themselves become taboo words, through the linguistic process known as semantic change (specifically pejoration) described by W. V. O. Quine, and more recently dubbed the "euphemism treadmill" by Harvard professor Steven Pinker. For instance, "toilet" is an 18th-century euphemism, replacing the older euphemism "house-of-office", which in turn replaced the even older euphemisms "privy-house" and "bog-house". The act of human defecation is possibly the most needy candidate for the euphemism in all eras. In the 20th century, where the old euphemisms "lavatory" (a place where one washes) or "toilet" (a place where one dresses) had grown from long usage (e.g. in the United States) too synonymous with the crude act they sought to deflect, they were sometimes replaced with "bathroom" (a place where one bathes) "washroom" (a place where one washes) or "restroom" (a place where one rests) or even by the extreme form "powder-room" (a place where one applies facial cosmetics). The form "water closet", which in turn became euphemised to "W.C.", is a less deflective form.
Another example in American English is the replacement of colored with Negro (euphemism by foreign language), then the "honest" non-euphemistic form "Black" making a brief appearance (due to 1960s political forces attempting to normalise black skin) before being suppressed again by the present euphemistic "African American". Venereal disease, which associated shameful bacterial infection with a seemingly worthy ailment emanating from Venus the goddess of love, soon lost its deflective force in the post-classical education era, as "VD", which has now been replaced by the three-letter acronym "STI".
The word "shit" appears to have originally been a euphemism for defecation in Pre-Germanic, as the Proto-Indo-European root *"", from which it was derived, meant 'to cut off'.
Euphemisms are at risk of being misunderstood and used literally by young children who are acquiring language, and by older people who are learning a foreign language. An example is the "pregnant fireman" type of children's solecism, where a child might hear someone define pregnancy euphemistically as "carrying a child," then mistakenly extend that meaning and refer to a fireman literally carrying a child as pregnant.
Doublespeak is a term sometimes used for deliberate euphemistic misuse of words to distort or reverse their meaning, as in a "Ministry of Peace" which wages war, and a "Ministry of Love" which imprisons and tortures. It is a portmanteau of the terms "Newspeak" and "doublethink", which originate from George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
The word "euphemism" itself can be used as a euphemism. In the animated TV special "Halloween Is Grinch Night" (see Dr. Seuss), a child asks to go to the "euphemism", where "euphemism" is being used as a euphemism for "outhouse". This euphemistic use of "euphemism" also occurred in the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" where a character requests, "Martha, will you show her where we keep the, uh, euphemism?"
The song Makin' Whoopee from the 1928 musical Whoopee! introduced us to a new euphemism for sexual intercourse. The phrase "make whoopee" was often used on the popular game show The Newlywed Game starting in the late 1960s, whenever the host asked a question about sexual relations. This successfully avoided the network censors.
In Wes Anderson's film "Fantastic Mr. Fox", the replacement of swear words by the word "cuss" became a humorous motif throughout the film.
In Tom Hanks's web series "Electric City", the use of profanity has been censored by the word "expletive". "[Expletive deleted]" entered public discourse after its notorious use in censoring transcripts of the Watergate tapes.
In Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series, the curses of the scientist Ebling Mis have all been replaced with the word "unprintable". In fact, there is only one case of his curses being referred to as such, leading some readers to mistakenly assume that the euphemism is Ebling's, rather than Asimov's. The same word has also been used in his short story "Flies".
George Carlin has stated in audio books and his stand-up shows that euphemisms soften everyday language and take the life out of it.
In "Battlestar Galactica" (2004), use of the words "frak" and "frakking" was directly substituted for the English slang words "fuck" and "fucking", confounding the censors. Other science fiction series have similarly used word substitution to avoid censorship, such as "frell" instead of "fuck" in "Farscape", "gorram" and "rutting" instead of "goddamn" and "fucking" in "Firefly", and "frag" instead of "fuck" in "Babylon 5". "The Good Place" takes this word substitution to its logical extreme, replacing all profanities with similar-sounding English words under the premise that such words may not be spoken in a perfect afterlife in order to avoid making anyone uncomfortable; "son of a bitch" becomes "son of a bench", "bullshit" becomes "bullshirt", and "fuck" becomes "fork".
In "The Sims" series, the word WooHoo is used as a euphemistic slang for various activities of sexual intercourse in the series. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9534 |
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for "The Faerie Queene", an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and is often considered one of the greatest poets in the English language.
Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is still some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. His parenthood is obscure, but he was probably the son of John Spenser, a journeyman clothmaker. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors' School and matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In 1578, he became for a short time secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester. In 1579, he published "The Shepheardes Calender" and around the same time married his first wife, Machabyas Childe. They had two children, Sylvanus (d. 1638) and Katherine.
In July 1580, Spenser went to Ireland in service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. Spenser served under Lord Gray with Walter Raleigh at the Siege of Smerwick massacre. When Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed on in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and lands in the Munster Plantation. Raleigh acquired other nearby Munster estates confiscated in the Second Desmond Rebellion. Some time between 1587 and 1589, Spenser acquired his main estate at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork. He later bought a second holding to the south, at Rennie, on a rock overlooking the river Blackwater in North Cork. Its ruins are still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as "Spenser's Oak" until it was destroyed in a lightning strike in the 1960s. Local legend has it that he penned some of "The Faerie Queene" under this tree.
In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, "The Faerie Queene", having travelled to London to publish and promote the work, with the likely assistance of Raleigh. He was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. He probably hoped to secure a place at court through his poetry, but his next significant publication boldly antagonised the queen's principal secretary, Lord Burghley (William Cecil), through its inclusion of the satirical "Mother Hubberd's Tale". He returned to Ireland.
In 1591, Spenser published a translation in verse of Joachim Du Bellay's sonnets, "Les Antiquités de Rome", which had been published in 1558. Spenser's version, "Ruines of Rome: by Bellay", may also have been influenced by Latin poems on the same subject, written by Jean or Janis Vitalis and published in 1576.
By 1594, Spenser's first wife had died, and in that year he married a much younger Elizabeth Boyle, sister of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork. He addressed to her the sonnet sequence "Amoretti". The marriage itself was celebrated in "Epithalamion". They had a son named Peregrine.
In 1596, Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled "A View of the Present State of Ireland". This piece, in the form of a dialogue, circulated in manuscript, remaining unpublished until the mid-seventeenth century. It is probable that it was kept out of print during the author's lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally "pacified" by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, if necessary by violence.
In 1598, during the Nine Years' War, Spenser was driven from his home by the native Irish forces of Aodh Ó Néill. His castle at Kilcolman was burned, and Ben Jonson, who may have had private information, asserted that one of his infant children died in the blaze.
In the year after being driven from his home, 1599, Spenser travelled to London, where he died at the age of forty-six – "for want of bread", according to Ben Jonson; one of Jonson's more doubtful statements, since Spenser had a payment to him authorised by the government and was due his pension. His coffin was carried to his grave in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey by other poets, who threw many pens and pieces of poetry into his grave with many tears. His second wife survived him and remarried twice. His sister Sarah, who had accompanied him to Ireland, married into the Travers family, and her descendants were prominent landowners in Cork for centuries.
Thomas Fuller, in "Worthies of England", included a story where the Queen told her treasurer, William Cecil, to pay Spenser one hundred pounds for his poetry. The treasurer, however, objected that the sum was too much. She said, "Then give him what is reason". Without receiving his payment in due time, Spenser gave the Queen this quatrain on one of her progresses:
I was promis'd on a time,
To have a reason for my rhyme:
From that time unto this season,
I receiv'd nor rhyme nor reason.
She immediately ordered the treasurer pay Spenser the original £100.
This story seems to have attached itself to Spenser from Thomas Churchyard, who apparently had difficulty in getting payment of his pension, the only other pension Elizabeth awarded to a poet. Spenser seems to have had no difficulty in receiving payment when it was due as the pension was being collected for him by his publisher, Ponsonby.
"The Shepheardes Calender" is Edmund Spenser's first major work, which appeared in 1579. It emulates Virgil's "Eclogues" of the first century BCE and the "Eclogues" of Mantuan by Baptista Mantuanus, a late medieval, early renaissance poet. An eclogue is a short pastoral poem that is in the form of a dialogue or soliloquy. Although all the months together form an entire year, each month stands alone as a separate poem. Editions of the late 16th and early 17th centuries include woodcuts for each month/poem, and thereby have a slight similarity to an emblem book which combines a number of self-contained pictures and texts, usually a short vignette, saying, or allegory with an accompanying illustration.
Spenser's masterpiece is the epic poem "The Faerie Queene". The first three books of "The Faerie Queene" were published in 1590, and a second set of three books were published in 1596. Spenser originally indicated that he intended the poem to consist of twelve books, so the version of the poem we have today is incomplete. Despite this, it remains one of the longest poems in the English language. It is an allegorical work, and can be read (as Spenser presumably intended) on several levels of allegory, including as praise of Queen Elizabeth I. In a completely allegorical context, the poem follows several knights in an examination of several virtues. In Spenser's "A Letter of the Authors", he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devises", and that the aim behind "The Faerie Queene" was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline".
Spenser published numerous relatively short poems in the last decade of the sixteenth century, almost all of which consider love or sorrow. In 1591, he published "Complaints", a collection of poems that express complaints in mournful or mocking tones. Four years later, in 1595, Spenser published "Amoretti and Epithalamion". This volume contains eighty-nine sonnets commemorating his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle. In "Amoretti", Spenser uses subtle humour and parody while praising his beloved, reworking Petrarchism in his treatment of longing for a woman. "Epithalamion", similar to "Amoretti", deals in part with the unease in the development of a romantic and sexual relationship. It was written for his wedding to his young bride, Elizabeth Boyle. Some have speculated that the attention to disquiet in general reflects Spenser's personal anxieties at the time, as he was unable to complete his most significant work, "The Faerie Queene". In the following year Spenser released "Prothalamion", a wedding song written for the daughters of a duke, allegedly in hopes to gain favour in the court.
Spenser used a distinctive verse form, called the Spenserian stanza, in several works, including "The Faerie Queene". The stanza's main meter is iambic pentameter with a final line in iambic hexameter (having six feet or stresses, known as an Alexandrine), and the rhyme scheme is . He also used his own rhyme scheme for the sonnet. In a Spenserian sonnet, the last line of every quatrain is linked with the first line of the next one, yielding the rhyme scheme .
Though Spenser was well read in classical literature, scholars have noted that his poetry does not rehash tradition, but rather is distinctly his. This individuality may have resulted, to some extent, from a lack of comprehension of the classics. Spenser strove to emulate such ancient Roman poets as Virgil and Ovid, whom he studied during his schooling, but many of his best-known works are notably divergent from those of his predecessors. The language of his poetry is purposely archaic, reminiscent of earlier works such as "The Canterbury Tales" of Geoffrey Chaucer and "Il Canzoniere" of Francesco Petrarca, whom Spenser greatly admired.
An Anglican and a devotee of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Spenser was particularly offended by the anti-Elizabethan propaganda that some Catholics circulated. Like most Protestants near the time of the Reformation, Spenser saw a Catholic church full of corruption, and he determined that it was not only the wrong religion but the anti-religion. This sentiment is an important backdrop for the battles of "The Faerie Queene".
Spenser was called "the Poet's Poet" by Charles Lamb, and was admired by John Milton, William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron, Alfred Tennyson and others. Among his contemporaries Walter Raleigh wrote a commendatory poem to "The Faerie Queene" in 1590, in which he claims to admire and value Spenser's work more so than any other in the English language. John Milton in his "Areopagitica" mentions "our sage and serious poet Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas". In the eighteenth century, Alexander Pope compared Spenser to "a mistress, whose faults we see, but love her with them all."
In his work "A View of the Present State of Irelande" (1596), Spenser discussed future plans to subjugate Ireland, the most recent rising, led by Hugh O'Neill, having demonstrated the futility of previous efforts. The work is partly a defence of Lord Arthur Grey de Wilton, who was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1580, and who greatly influenced Spenser's thinking on Ireland.
The goal of this piece was to show that Ireland was in great need of reform. Spenser believed that "Ireland is a diseased portion of the State, it must first be cured and reformed, before it could be in a position to appreciate the good sound laws and blessings of the nation". In "A View of the Present State of Ireland", Spenser categorises the "evils" of the Irish people into three prominent categories: laws, customs and religion. These three elements work together in creating the disruptive and degraded people. One example given in the work is the native law system called "Brehon law" which trumps the established law given by the English monarchy. This system has its own court and way of dealing with infractions. It has been passed down through the generations and Spenser views this system as a native backward custom which must be destroyed. (Brehon law methods of dealing with murder by imposing an "éraic", or fine, on the murderer's whole family particularly horrified the English, in whose Protestant view a murderer should die for his act.)
Spenser wished devoutly that the Irish language should be eradicated, writing that if children learn Irish before English, "Soe that the speach being Irish, the hart must needes be Irishe; for out of the aboundance of the hart, the tonge speaketh".
He pressed for a scorched earth policy in Ireland, noting that the destruction of crops and animals had been successful in crushing the Second Desmond Rebellion (1579–83), when, despite the rich and bountiful land:
"'Out of everye corner of the woode and glenns they came creepinge forth upon theire handes, for theire legges could not beare them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spake like ghostes, crying out of theire graves; they did eate of the carrions, happye wheare they could find them, yea, and one another soone after, in soe much as the verye carcasses they spared not to scrape out of theire graves; and if they found a plott of water-cresses or shamrockes, theyr they flocked as to a feast… in a shorte space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentyfull countrye suddenly lefte voyde of man or beast: yett sure in all that warr, there perished not manye by the sworde, but all by the extreamytie of famine ... they themselves had wrought'"
1590:
1591:
1592:
1595:
1596:
Posthumous:
Washington University in St. Louis professor Joseph Lowenstein, with the assistance of several undergraduate students, has been involved in creating, editing, and annotating a digital archive of the first publication of poet Edmund Spenser's collective works in 100 years. A large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has been given to support this ambitious project centralized at Washington University with support from other colleges in the United States.
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Electricity generation
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery to end users (transmission, distribution, etc.) or its storage (using, for example, the pumped-storage method).
A characteristic of electricity is that it is not freely available in nature in large amounts, so it must be "produced" (that is, transforming other forms of energy to electricity). Production is carried out in power stations (also called "power plants"). Electricity is most often generated at a power plant by electromechanical generators, primarily driven by heat engines fueled by combustion or nuclear fission but also by other means such as the kinetic energy of flowing water and wind. Other energy sources include solar photovoltaics and geothermal power.
The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered in the 1820s and early 1830s by British scientist Michael Faraday. His method, still used today, is for electricity to be generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or Faraday disc, between the poles of a magnet. Central power stations became economically practical with the development of alternating current (AC) power transmission, using power transformers to transmit power at high voltage and with low loss.
Commercial electricity production started in 1870 with the coupling of the dynamo to the hydraulic turbine. The mechanical production of electric power began the Second Industrial Revolution and made possible several inventions using electricity, with the major contributors being Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla. Previously the only way to produce electricity was by chemical reactions or using battery cells, and the only practical use of electricity was for the telegraph.
Electricity generation at central power stations started in 1882, when a steam engine driving a dynamo at Pearl Street Station produced a DC current that powered public lighting on Pearl Street, New York. The new technology was quickly adopted by many cities around the world, which adapted their gas-fueled street lights to electric power. Soon after electric lights would be used in public buildings, in businesses, and to power public transport, such as trams and trains.
The first power plants used water power or coal. Today a variety of energy sources are used, such as coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and oil, as well as solar energy, tidal power, and geothermal sources.
Several fundamental methods exist to convert other forms of energy into electrical energy. Utility-scale generation is achieved by rotating electric generators or by photovoltaic systems. A small proportion of electric power distributed by utilities is provided by batteries. Other forms of electricity generation used in niche applications include the triboelectric effect, the piezoelectric effect, the thermoelectric effect, and betavoltaics.
Electric generators transform kinetic energy into electricity. This is the most used form for generating electricity and is based on Faraday's law. It can be seen experimentally by rotating a magnet within closed loops of conducting material (e.g. copper wire). Almost all commercial electrical generation is done using electromagnetic induction, in which mechanical energy forces a generator to rotate:
Electrochemistry is the direct transformation of chemical energy into electricity, as in a battery. Electrochemical electricity generation is important in portable and mobile applications. Currently, most electrochemical power comes from batteries. Primary cells, such as the common zinc–carbon batteries, act as power sources directly, but secondary cells (i.e. rechargeable batteries) are used for storage systems rather than primary generation systems. Open electrochemical systems, known as fuel cells, can be used to extract power either from natural fuels or from synthesized fuels. Osmotic power is a possibility at places where salt and fresh water merge.
The photovoltaic effect is the transformation of light into electrical energy, as in solar cells. Photovoltaic panels convert sunlight directly to DC electricity. Power inverters can then convert that to AC electricity if needed. Although sunlight is free and abundant, solar power electricity is still usually more expensive to produce than large-scale mechanically generated power due to the cost of the panels. Low-efficiency silicon solar cells have been decreasing in cost and multijunction cells with close to 30% conversion efficiency are now commercially available. Over 40% efficiency has been demonstrated in experimental systems. Until recently, photovoltaics were most commonly used in remote sites where there is no access to a commercial power grid, or as a supplemental electricity source for individual homes and businesses. Recent advances in manufacturing efficiency and photovoltaic technology, combined with subsidies driven by environmental concerns, have dramatically accelerated the deployment of solar panels. Installed capacity is growing by 40% per year led by increases in Germany, Japan, United States, China, and India.
The selection of electricity production modes and their economic viability varies in accordance with demand and region. The economics vary considerably around the world, resulting in widespread residential selling prices, e.g. the price in Iceland is 5.54 cents per kWh while in some island nations it is 40 cents per kWh. Hydroelectric plants, nuclear power plants, thermal power plants and renewable sources have their own pros and cons, and selection is based upon the local power requirement and the fluctuations in demand. All power grids have varying loads on them but the daily minimum is the base load, often supplied by plants which run continuously. Nuclear, coal, oil, gas and some hydro plants can supply base load. If well construction costs for natural gas are below $10 per MWh, generating electricity from natural gas is cheaper than generating power by burning coal.
Thermal energy may be economical in areas of high industrial density, as the high demand cannot be met by local renewable sources. The effect of localized pollution is also minimized as industries are usually located away from residential areas. These plants can also withstand variation in load and consumption by adding more units or temporarily decreasing the production of some units.
Nuclear power plants can produce a huge amount of power from a single unit. However, disasters in Japan have raised concerns over the safety of nuclear power, and the capital cost of nuclear plants is very high.
Hydroelectric power plants are located in areas where the potential energy from falling water can be harnessed for moving turbines and the generation of power. It may not be an economically viable single source of production where the ability to store the flow of water is limited and the load varies too much during the annual production cycle.
Due to advancements in technology, and with mass production, renewable sources other than hydroelectricity (solar power, wind energy, tidal power, etc.) experienced decreases in cost of production, and the energy is now in many cases cost-comparative with fossil fuels. Many governments around the world provide subsidies to offset the higher cost of any new power production, and to make the installation of renewable energy systems economically feasible. However, their use is frequently limited by their intermittent nature; sometimes less than demand, sometimes more than transmission constraints allow, in which case their production may be curtailed.
Electric generators were known in simple forms from the discovery of electromagnetic induction in the 1830s. In general, some form of prime mover such as an engine or the turbines described above, drives a rotating magnetic field past stationary coils of wire thereby turning mechanical energy into electricity. The only commercial scale electricity production that does not employ a generator is solar PV.
Almost all commercial electrical power on Earth is generated with a turbine, driven by wind, water, steam or burning gas. The turbine drives a generator, thus transforming its mechanical energy into electrical energy by electromagnetic induction. There are many different methods of developing mechanical energy, including heat engines, hydro, wind and tidal power. Most electric generation is driven by heat engines. The combustion of fossil fuels supplies most of the energy to these engines, with a significant fraction from nuclear fission and some from renewable sources. The modern steam turbine (invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884) currently generates about 80% of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources. Turbine types include:
Although turbines are most common in commercial power generation, smaller generators can be powered by gasoline or diesel engines. These may used for backup generation or as a prime source of power within isolated villages.
Total worldwide gross production of electricity in 2016 was 25,082 TWh. Sources of electricity were coal and peat 38.3%, natural gas 23.1%, hydroelectric 16.6%, nuclear power 10.4%, oil 3.7%, solar/wind/geothermal/tidal/other 5.6%, biomass and waste 2.3%.
Total energy consumed at all power plants for the generation of electricity was which was 36% of the total for primary energy sources (TPES) of 2008. Electricity output (gross) was , efficiency was 39%, and the balance of 61% was generated heat. A small part, or about 3% of the input total, of the heat was utilized at co-generation heat and power plants. The in-house consumption of electricity and power transmission losses were .
The amount supplied to the final consumer was which was 33% of the total energy consumed at power plants and heat and power co-generation (CHP) plants.
Note that the vertical axes of these two charts are not to the same scale.
The United States has long been the largest producer and consumer of electricity, with a global share in 2005 of at least 25%, followed by China, Japan, Russia, and India. In 2011, China overtook the United States to become the largest producer of electricity.
Data source of values (electric power generated) is IEA/OECD.
Listed countries are top 20 by population or top 20 by GDP (PPP) and Saudi Arabia based on CIA World Factbook 2009.
Solar PV* is Photovoltaics
Bio other* = 198 TWh (Biomass) + 69 TWh (Waste) + 4 TWh (other)
Variations between countries generating electrical power affect concerns about the environment. In France only 10% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, the US is higher at 70% and China is at 80%. The cleanliness of electricity depends on its source. Most scientists agree that emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-based electricity generation account for a significant portion of world greenhouse gas emissions; in the United States, electricity generation accounts for nearly 40% of emissions, the largest of any source. Transportation emissions are close behind, contributing about one-third of U.S. production of carbon dioxide.
In the United States, fossil fuel combustion for electric power generation is responsible for 65% of all emissions of sulfur dioxide, the main component of acid rain. Electricity generation is the fourth highest combined source of NOx, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter in the US.
In July 2011, the UK parliament tabled a motion that "levels of (carbon) emissions from nuclear power were approximately three times lower per kilowatt hour than those of solar, four times lower than clean coal and 36 times lower than conventional coal". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9540 |
Design of experiments
The design of experiments (DOE, DOX, or experimental design) is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. The term is generally associated with experiments in which the design introduces conditions that directly affect the variation, but may also refer to the design of quasi-experiments, in which natural conditions that influence the variation are selected for observation.
In its simplest form, an experiment aims at predicting the outcome by introducing a change of the preconditions, which is represented by one or more independent variables, also referred to as "input variables" or "predictor variables." The change in one or more independent variables is generally hypothesized to result in a change in one or more dependent variables, also referred to as "output variables" or "response variables." The experimental design may also identify control variables that must be held constant to prevent external factors from affecting the results. Experimental design involves not only the selection of suitable independent, dependent, and control variables, but planning the delivery of the experiment under statistically optimal conditions given the constraints of available resources. There are multiple approaches for determining the set of design points (unique combinations of the settings of the independent variables) to be used in the experiment.
Main concerns in experimental design include the establishment of validity, reliability, and replicability. For example, these concerns can be partially addressed by carefully choosing the independent variable, reducing the risk of measurement error, and ensuring that the documentation of the method is sufficiently detailed. Related concerns include achieving appropriate levels of statistical power and sensitivity.
Correctly designed experiments advance knowledge in the natural and social sciences and engineering. Other applications include marketing and policy making. The study of the design of experiments is an important topic in metascience.
A theory of statistical inference was developed by Charles S. Peirce in "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" (1877–1878) and "A Theory of Probable Inference" (1883), two publications that emphasized the importance of randomization-based inference in statistics.
Charles S. Peirce randomly assigned volunteers to a blinded, repeated-measures design to evaluate their ability to discriminate weights.
Peirce's experiment inspired other researchers in psychology and education, which developed a research tradition of randomized experiments in laboratories and specialized textbooks in the 1800s.
Charles S. Peirce also contributed the first English-language publication on an optimal design for regression models in 1876. A pioneering optimal design for polynomial regression was suggested by Gergonne in 1815. In 1918, Kirstine Smith published optimal designs for polynomials of degree six (and less).
The use of a sequence of experiments, where the design of each may depend on the results of previous experiments, including the possible decision to stop experimenting, is within the scope of Sequential analysis, a field that was pioneered by Abraham Wald in the context of sequential tests of statistical hypotheses. Herman Chernoff wrote an overview of optimal sequential designs, while adaptive designs have been surveyed by S. Zacks. One specific type of sequential design is the "two-armed bandit", generalized to the multi-armed bandit, on which early work was done by Herbert Robbins in 1952.
A methodology for designing experiments was proposed by Ronald Fisher, in his innovative books: "The Arrangement of Field Experiments" (1926) and "The Design of Experiments" (1935). Much of his pioneering work dealt with agricultural applications of statistical methods. As a mundane example, he described how to test the lady tasting tea hypothesis, that a certain lady could distinguish by flavour alone whether the milk or the tea was first placed in the cup. These methods have been broadly adapted in biological, psychological, and agricultural research.
This example of design experiments is attributed to Harold Hotelling, building on examples from Frank Yates. The experiments designed in this example involve combinatorial designs.
Weights of eight objects are measured using a pan balance and set of standard weights. Each weighing measures the weight difference between objects in the left pan and any objects in the right pan by adding calibrated weights to the lighter pan until the balance is in equilibrium. Each measurement has a random error. The average error is zero; the standard deviations of the probability distribution of the errors is the same number σ on different weighings; errors on different weighings are independent. Denote the true weights by
We consider two different experiments:
The question of design of experiments is: which experiment is better?
The variance of the estimate "X"1 of θ1 is σ2 if we use the first experiment. But if we use the second experiment, the variance of the estimate given above is σ2/8. Thus the second experiment gives us 8 times as much precision for the estimate of a single item, and estimates all items simultaneously, with the same precision. What the second experiment achieves with eight would require 64 weighings if the items are weighed separately. However, note that the estimates for the items obtained in the second experiment have errors that correlate with each other.
Many problems of the design of experiments involve combinatorial designs, as in this example and others.
False positive conclusions, often resulting from the pressure to publish or the author's own confirmation bias, are an inherent hazard in many fields. A good way to prevent biases potentially leading to false positives in the data collection phase is to use a double-blind design. When a double-blind design is used, participants are randomly assigned to experimental groups but the researcher is unaware of what participants belong to which group. Therefore, the researcher can not affect the participants' response to the intervention.
Experimental designs with undisclosed degrees of freedom are a problem. This can lead to conscious or unconscious "p-hacking": trying multiple things until you get the desired result. It typically involves the manipulation - perhaps unconsciously - of the process of statistical analysis and the degrees of freedom until they return a figure below the p So the design of the experiment should include a clear statement proposing the analyses to be undertaken. P-hacking can be prevented by preregistering researches, in which researchers have to send their data analysis plan to the journal they wish to publish their paper in before they even start their data collection, so no data manipulation is possible (https://osf.io). Another way to prevent this is taking the double-blind design to the data-analysis phase, where the data are sent to a data-analyst unrelated to the research who scrambles up the data so there is no way to know which participants belong to before they are potentially taken away as outliers.
Clear and complete documentation of the experimental methodology is also important in order to support replication of results.
An experimental design or randomized clinical trial requires careful consideration of several factors before actually doing the experiment. An experimental design is the laying out of a detailed experimental plan in advance of doing the experiment. Some of the following topics have already been discussed in the principles of experimental design section:
The independent variable of a study often has many levels or different groups. In a true experiment, researchers can have an experimental group, which is where their intervention testing the hypothesis is implemented, and a control group, which has all the same element as the experimental group, without the interventional element. Thus, when everything else except for one intervention is held constant, researchers can certify with some certainty that this one element is what caused the observed change. In some instances, having a control group is not ethical. This is sometimes solved using two different experimental groups. In some cases, independent variables cannot be manipulated, for example when testing the difference between two groups who have a different disease, or testing the difference between genders (obviously variables that would be hard or unethical to assign participants to). In these cases, a quasi-experimental design may be used.
In the pure experimental design, the independent (predictor) variable is manipulated by the researcher - that is - every participant of the research is chosen randomly from the population, and each participant chosen is assigned randomly to conditions of the independent variable. Only when this is done is it possible to certify with high probability that the reason for the differences in the outcome variables are caused by the different conditions. Therefore, researchers should choose the experimental design over other design types whenever possible. However, the nature of the independent variable does not always allow for manipulation. In those cases, researchers must be aware of not certifying about causal attribution when their design doesn't allow for it. For example, in observational designs, participants are not assigned randomly to conditions, and so if there are differences found in outcome variables between conditions, it is likely that there is something other than the differences between the conditions that causes the differences in outcomes, that is - a third variable. The same goes for studies with correlational design. (Adér & Mellenbergh, 2008).
It is best that a process be in reasonable statistical control prior to conducting designed experiments. When this is not possible, proper blocking, replication, and randomization allow for the careful conduct of designed experiments.
To control for nuisance variables, researchers institute control checks as additional measures. Investigators should ensure that uncontrolled influences (e.g., source credibility perception) do not skew the findings of the study. A manipulation check is one example of a control check. Manipulation checks allow investigators to isolate the chief variables to strengthen support that these variables are operating as planned.
One of the most important requirements of experimental research designs is the necessity of eliminating the effects of spurious, intervening, and antecedent variables. In the most basic model, cause (X) leads to effect (Y). But there could be a third variable (Z) that influences (Y), and X might not be the true cause at all. Z is said to be a spurious variable and must be controlled for. The same is true for intervening variables (a variable in between the supposed cause (X) and the effect (Y)), and anteceding variables (a variable prior to the supposed cause (X) that is the true cause). When a third variable is involved and has not been controlled for, the relation is said to be a zero order relationship. In most practical applications of experimental research designs there are several causes (X1, X2, X3). In most designs, only one of these causes is manipulated at a time.
Some efficient designs for estimating several main effects were found independently and in near succession by Raj Chandra Bose and K. Kishen in 1940 at the Indian Statistical Institute, but remained little known until the Plackett–Burman designs were published in "Biometrika" in 1946. About the same time, C. R. Rao introduced the concepts of orthogonal arrays as experimental designs. This concept played a central role in the development of Taguchi methods by Genichi Taguchi, which took place during his visit to Indian Statistical Institute in early 1950s. His methods were successfully applied and adopted by Japanese and Indian industries and subsequently were also embraced by US industry albeit with some reservations.
In 1950, Gertrude Mary Cox and William Gemmell Cochran published the book "Experimental Designs," which became the major reference work on the design of experiments for statisticians for years afterwards.
Developments of the theory of linear models have encompassed and surpassed the cases that concerned early writers. Today, the theory rests on advanced topics in linear algebra, algebra and combinatorics.
As with other branches of statistics, experimental design is pursued using both frequentist and Bayesian approaches: In evaluating statistical procedures like experimental designs, frequentist statistics studies the sampling distribution while Bayesian statistics updates a probability distribution on the parameter space.
Some important contributors to the field of experimental designs are C. S. Peirce, R. A. Fisher, F. Yates, R. C. Bose, A. C. Atkinson, R. A. Bailey, D. R. Cox, G. E. P. Box, W. G. Cochran, W. T. Federer, V. V. Fedorov, A. S. Hedayat, J. Kiefer, O. Kempthorne, J. A. Nelder, Andrej Pázman, Friedrich Pukelsheim, D. Raghavarao, C. R. Rao, Shrikhande S. S., J. N. Srivastava, William J. Studden, G. Taguchi and H. P. Wynn.
The textbooks of D. Montgomery, R. Myers, and G. Box/W. Hunter/J.S. Hunter have reached generations of students and practitioners.
Some discussion of experimental design in the context of system identification (model building for static or dynamic models) is given in and
Laws and ethical considerations preclude some carefully designed
experiments with human subjects. Legal constraints are dependent on
jurisdiction. Constraints may involve
institutional review boards, informed consent
and confidentiality affecting both clinical (medical) trials and
behavioral and social science experiments.
In the field of toxicology, for example, experimentation is performed
on laboratory "animals" with the goal of defining safe exposure limits
for "humans". Balancing
the constraints are views from the medical field. Regarding the randomization of patients,
"... if no one knows which therapy is better, there is no ethical
imperative to use one therapy or another." (p 380) Regarding
experimental design, "...it is clearly not ethical to place subjects
at risk to collect data in a poorly designed study when this situation
can be easily avoided...". (p 393) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9541 |
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