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It is thus more probable that the Baiuvarii emerged in the provinces of Noricum ripense and Raetia secunda following Odoacer's withdrawal of population to Italy in 488, and the subsequent expansion of Italian Ostrogothic, and Merovingian Frankish influence into the area. They are believed to have incorporated elements from several Germanic peoples, including the Sciri, Heruli, Suebi, Alemanni, Naristi, Thuringi and Lombards. They might also have included non-Germanic Romance people (romanized Celtic people).
The region was under the influence of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Theodoric the Great. During this period, the Frankish king Theudebert I (died 548) claimed control from the North Sea to Pannonia. After his death, his uncle Chlothar I appointed Garibald I as "dux" of Bavaria. He established the Agilolfings dynasty with his power base at Augsburg or Regensburg. By the 8th century, many Baiuvarii had converted to Christianity.
Through their ruling Agilolfings dynasty, they were closely connected with the Franks.
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Culture.
A collection of Bavarian tribal laws was compiled in the 8th century. This document is known as "Lex Baiuvariorum". Elements of it possibly date back to the 6th century. It is very similar to "Lex Thuringorum", which was the legal code of the Thuringi, with whom the Baiuvarii had close relations.
The funerary traditions of the Baiuvarii are similar to those of the Alemanni, but quite different from those of the Thuringi.
The Baiuvarii are distinguished by the presence of individuals with artificially deformed craniums in their cemeteries. These individuals were predominantly female; there is no undisputed evidence of males with artificially deformed skulls in Bavaria. Genetic and archeological evidence shows that these women were migrants from eastern cultures, who married Bavarii males, suggesting the importance of exogamy within the Bavarii culture. The migrant women were fully integrated in to Bavarii culture.
In 2018, genomic research showed that these foreign women had southeastern European and East Asian ancestry. The presence of these women among the Bavarii people indicates that men from the Bavarii culture practiced exogamy, preferentially marrying women from eastern populations.
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Genetics.
A genetic study published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" in 2018 examined the remains of 41 individuals buried at a Bavarian cemetery ca. 500 AD. Of these, 11 whole genomes were generated. The males were found to be genetically homogeneous and of north-central European origin. The females were less homogeneous, carried less Northern European ancestry, and were found to combine Southeast European and East Asian ancestry.
There were significant gender differences in skin, hair and eye pigmentation in the sample. While 80% of the Bavarii males had blond hair and blue eyes, the women had much higher rates of brown eyes and darker hair colors. The local women with East Asian and Southern European-related ancestry, generally had brown eyes, and 60% were dark haired.
No significant admixture with Roman populations from territories further south of the area was detected. Among modern populations, the surveyed male individuals did not have modified skulls and were found to be most closely related to modern-day Germans. |
Burgundians
The Burgundians were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared east in the middle Rhine region in the third century AD, and were later moved west into the Roman Empire, in Gaul. In the first and second centuries AD, they or a people with the same name were mentioned by Roman writers living west of the Vistula river, in the region of Germania, which is now part of Poland.
The Burgundians were first mentioned near the Rhine regions together with the Alamanni as early as the 11th panegyric to Emperor Maximian given in Trier in 291 AD, referring to events that must have happened between 248 and 291, and these two peoples apparently remained neighbours for centuries.
By 411 AD, Burgundians had established control over Roman cities on the Rhine, between Franks and Alamanni, including Worms, Speyer and Strasbourg. In 436 AD, Aëtius defeated the Burgundians on the Rhine with the help of Hunnish forces, and then in 443, he re-settled the Burgundians within the empire, in eastern Gaul. This Gaulish domain became the Kingdom of the Burgundians, which much later became a component of the Frankish Empire. The name of the kingdom survives in the regional appellation Burgundy, which is now a region of France although the modern region represents only a part of that kingdom.
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Another part of the Burgundians formed a contingent in Attila's Hunnic army by 451 AD.
Before clear documentary evidence begins, the Burgundians may have originally emigrated from the Baltic island of Bornholm to the Vistula region.
Name.
The ethnonym Burgundians is commonly used in English to refer to the "Burgundi" ("Burgundionei", "Burgundiones" or "Burgunds") who settled in eastern Gaul and the western Alps during the 5th century AD. The much larger original Kingdom of the Burgundians barely intersected the modern "Bourgogne" and more closely matched the boundaries of Franche-Comté in northeastern France, the Rhône-Alpes in southeastern France, Romandy in west Switzerland, and Aosta Valley, in north west Italy.
In modern usage, however, "Burgundians" can sometimes refer to later inhabitants of the geographical "Bourgogne" or "Borgogne" (Burgundy), named after the old kingdom, but not corresponding to the original boundaries of it. Between the 6th and 20th centuries, the boundaries and political connections of "Burgundy" have changed frequently. In modern times the only area still referred to as Burgundy is in France, which derives its name from the Duchy of Burgundy. But in the context of the Middle Ages the term Burgundian (or similar spellings) can refer even to the powerful political entity the Dukes controlled which included not only Burgundy itself but had actually expanded to have a strong association with areas now in modern Belgium and Southern Netherlands. The parts of the old Kingdom not within the French controlled Duchy tended to come under different names, except for the County of Burgundy.
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History.
Uncertain origins.
The origins of the Burgundians before they reached the area near the Roman-controlled Rhine is a subject of various old proposals, but these are doubted by some modern historians. As remarked by Susan Reynolds, citing Ian N. Wood:
They have long been associated with Scandinavian origin based on place-name evidence and archaeological evidence (Stjerna) and many consider their tradition to be correct (e.g. Musset, p. 62). According to such proposals, the Burgundians are believed to have then emigrated to the Baltic island of Bornholm ("the island of the Burgundians" in Old Norse). By about 250 AD, the population of Bornholm had largely disappeared from the island. Most cemeteries ceased to be used, and those that were still used had few burials (Stjerna, in German 1925:176). In "Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar" ("The Saga of Thorstein, Viking's Son"), a man (or group) named Veseti settled on a holm (island) called "borgundarhólmr" in Old Norse, i.e. Bornholm. Alfred the Great's translation of "Orosius" uses the name "Burgenda land" to refer to a territory next to the land of Sweons ("Swedes"). The 19th century poet and mythologist Viktor Rydberg asserted from an early medieval source, "Vita Sigismundi", that they themselves retained oral traditions about their Scandinavian origin.
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Roman accounts.
A people with the same name, Burgundiones, were described by early Roman writers as living in present-day Poland.
It has also been proposed that there several important Germanic tribes later found settled near Roman frontiers originally had their origins around the Baltic sea, including the Rugii, Goths, Gepidae, Vandals, and others. According to such proposals, their movement south created turmoil along the entire Roman frontier. Southwards migrations are believed to have triggered the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period. Writing in the 6th century, Jordanes reported that during the 3rd century AD, the Burgundians had been living near the Vistula basin, where they were almost annihilated by Fastida, king of the Gepids, whose kingdom was also originally near the mouth of the Vistula.
In the late 3rd century AD, the Burgundians appeared on the east bank of the Rhine, apparently confronting Roman Gaul. Zosimus (1.68) reports them being defeated by the emperor Probus in 278 near a river, together with the Silingi and Vandals. A few years later, Claudius Mamertinus mentions them along with the Alamanni, a Suebic people. These two peoples had moved into the Agri Decumates on the eastern side of the Rhine, an area still referred to today as Swabia, at times attacking Roman Gaul together and sometimes fighting each other. He also mentions that the Goths had previously defeated the Burgundians.
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Ammianus Marcellinus, on the other hand, claimed that the Burgundians descended from the Romans. The Roman sources do not speak of any specific migration from Poland by the Burgundians, and so there have historically been some doubts about the link between the eastern and western Burgundians.
In 369/370 AD, the Emperor Valentinian I enlisted the aid of the Burgundians in his war against the Alamanni.
Approximately four decades later, the Burgundians appear again. Following Stilicho's withdrawal of troops to fight Alaric I the Visigoth in 406–408 AD, a large group of peoples from central Europe north of the Danube came west and crossed the Rhine, entering the Empire near the lands of the Burgundians who had moved much earlier. The dominant groups were Alans, Vandals (Hasdingi and Silingi), and Danubian Suevi. The majority of these Danubian peoples moved through Gaul and eventually established themselves in kingdoms in Roman Hispania. One group of Alans was settled in northern Gaul by the Romans.
Some Burgundians were settled as "foederati" in the Roman province of Germania Prima along the Middle Rhine. Other Burgundians, however, remained outside the empire and apparently formed a contingent in Attila's Hunnic army by 451 AD.
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Kingdom.
Rhineland.
In 411, the Burgundian king Gundahar (or "Gundicar") set up a puppet emperor, Jovinus, in cooperation with Goar, king of the Alans. With the authority of the Gallic emperor that he controlled, Gundahar settled on the left (Roman) bank of the Rhine, between the river Lauter and the Nahe, seizing Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. Apparently as part of a truce, the Emperor Honorius later officially "granted" them the land, with its capital at the old Celtic Roman settlement of Borbetomagus (present Worms).
Despite their new status as "foederati", Burgundian raids into Roman Upper Gallia Belgica became intolerable and were ruthlessly brought to an end in 436, when the Roman general Aëtius called in Hun mercenaries, who overwhelmed the Rhineland kingdom in 437. Gundahar was killed in the fighting, reportedly along with the majority of the Burgundian tribe.
The destruction of Worms and the Burgundian kingdom by the Huns became the subject of heroic legends that were afterwards incorporated in the "Nibelungenlied"—on which Wagner based his Ring Cycle—where King Gunther (Gundahar) and Queen Brünhild hold their court at Worms, and Siegfried comes to woo Kriemhild. (In Old Norse sources the names are "Gunnar", "Brynhild", and "Gudrún" as normally rendered in English.) In fact, the "Etzel" of the "Nibelungenlied" is based on Attila the Hun.
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Settlement in eastern Gaul.
For reasons not cited in the sources, the Burgundians were granted "foederati" status a second time, and in 443 were resettled by Aëtius in Sapaudia, part of the Gallo-Roman province of Maxima Sequanorum. Burgundians probably even lived near "Lugdunum", known today as Lyon. A new king, Gundioc or "Gunderic", presumed to be Gundahar's son, appears to have reigned following his father's death. The historian Pline tells us that Gunderic ruled the areas of Saône, Dauphiny, Savoie and a part of Provence. He set up Vienne as the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy. In all, eight Burgundian kings of the house of Gundahar ruled until the kingdom was overrun by the Franks in 534.
As allies of Rome in its last decades, the Burgundians fought alongside Aëtius and a confederation of Visigoths and others against Attila at the Battle of Châlons (also called "The Battle of the Catalaunian Fields") in 451. The alliance between Burgundians and Visigoths seems to have been strong, as Gundioc and his brother Chilperic I accompanied Theodoric II to Spain to fight the Sueves in 455.
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Aspirations to the empire.
Also in 455, an ambiguous reference "infidoque tibi Burdundio ductu" implicates an unnamed treacherous Burgundian leader in the murder of the emperor Petronius Maximus in the chaos preceding the sack of Rome by the Vandals. The Patrician Ricimer is also blamed; this event marks the first indication of the link between the Burgundians and Ricimer, who was probably Gundioc's brother-in-law and Gundobad's uncle.
In 456, the Burgundians, apparently confident in their growing power, negotiated a territorial expansion and power sharing arrangement with the local Roman senators.
In 457, Ricimer overthrew another emperor, Avitus, raising Majorian to the throne. This new emperor proved unhelpful to Ricimer and the Burgundians. The year after his ascension, Majorian stripped the Burgundians of the lands they had acquired two years earlier. After showing further signs of independence, he was murdered by Ricimer in 461.
Ten years later, in 472, Ricimer–who was by now the son-in-law of the Western Emperor Anthemius–was plotting with Gundobad to kill his father-in-law; Gundobad beheaded the emperor (apparently personally). Ricimer then appointed Olybrius; both died, surprisingly of natural causes, within a few months. Gundobad seems then to have succeeded his uncle as Patrician and king-maker, and raised Glycerius to the throne.
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In 474, Burgundian influence over the empire seems to have ended. Glycerius was deposed in favor of Julius Nepos, and Gundobad returned to Burgundy, presumably at the death of his father Gundioc. At this time or shortly afterwards, the Burgundian kingdom was divided among Gundobad and his brothers, Godigisel, Chilperic II, and Gundomar I.
Consolidation of the kingdom.
According to Gregory of Tours, the years following Gundobad's return to Burgundy saw a bloody consolidation of power. Gregory states that Gundobad murdered his brother Chilperic, drowning his wife and exiling their daughters (one of whom was to become the wife of Clovis the Frank, and was reputedly responsible for his conversion). This is contested by, e.g., Bury, who points out problems in much of Gregory's chronology for the events.
In c. 500, when Gundobad and Clovis were at war, Gundobad appears to have been betrayed by his brother Godegisel, who joined the Franks; together Godegisel's and Clovis' forces "crushed the army of Gundobad". Gundobad was temporarily holed up in Avignon, but was able to re-muster his army and sacked Vienne, where Godegisel and many of his followers were put to death. From this point, Gundobad appears to have been the sole king of Burgundy. This would imply that his brother Gundomar was already dead, though there are no specific mentions of the event in the sources.
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Either Gundobad and Clovis reconciled their differences, or Gundobad was forced into some sort of vassalage by Clovis' earlier victory, as the Burgundian king appears to have assisted the Franks in 507 in their victory over Alaric II the Visigoth.
During the upheaval, sometime between 483 and 501, Gundobad began to set forth the "Lex Gundobada" (see below), issuing roughly the first half, which drew upon the "Lex Visigothorum". Following his consolidation of power, between 501 and his death in 516, Gundobad issued the second half of his law, which was more originally Burgundian.
Fall.
The Burgundians were extending their power over eastern Gaul—that is western Switzerland and eastern France, as well as northern Italy. In 493, Clovis, king of the Franks, married the Burgundian princess Clotilda (daughter of Chilperic), who converted him to the Catholic faith.
At first allied with Clovis' Franks against the Visigoths in the early 6th century, the Burgundians were eventually conquered at Autun by the Franks in 532 after a first attempt in the Battle of Vézeronce. The Burgundian kingdom was made part of the Merovingian kingdoms, and the Burgundians themselves were by and large absorbed as well.
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Physical appearance.
The 5th century Gallo-Roman poet and landowner Sidonius, who at one point lived with the Burgundians, described them as a long-haired people of immense physical size:
Language.
The Burgundians and their language were described as Germanic by the poet Sidonius Apollinaris. Herwig Wolfram has interpreted this as being because they had entered Gaul from "Germania".
More specifically their language is thought to have belonged to the East Germanic language group, based upon their presumed equivalence to the Burgundians named much earlier by Pliny in the east, and some names and placenames. However this is now considered uncertain. Little is known of the language. Some proper names of Burgundians are recorded, and some words used in the area in modern times are thought to be derived from the ancient Burgundian language, but it is often difficult to distinguish these from Germanic words of other origin, and in any case the modern form of the words is rarely suitable to infer much about the form in the old language.
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The language appears to have become extinct during the late 6th century, likely due to the early conversion of the Burgundians to Latin Christianity.
Religion.
Somewhere in the east the Burgundians had converted to the Arian Christianity from earlier Germanic paganism. Their Arianism proved a source of suspicion and distrust between the Burgundians and the Catholic Western Roman Empire.
Divisions were evidently healed or healing circa 500, however, as Gundobad, one of the last Burgundian kings, maintained a close personal friendship with Avitus, the bishop of Vienne. Moreover, Gundobad's son and successor, Sigismund, was himself a Catholic, and there is evidence that many of the Burgundian people had converted by this time as well, including several female members of the ruling family.
Law.
The Burgundians left three legal codes, among the earliest from any of the Germanic tribes.
The "Liber Constitutionum sive Lex Gundobada" ("The Book of Constitutions or Law of Gundobad"), also known as the "Lex Burgundionum", or more simply the "Lex Gundobada" or the "Liber", was issued in several parts between 483 and 516, principally by Gundobad, but also by his son, Sigismund. It was a record of Burgundian customary law and is typical of the many Germanic law codes from this period. In particular, the "Liber" borrowed from the "Lex Visigothorum" and influenced the later "Lex Ripuaria". The "Liber" is one of the primary sources for contemporary Burgundian life, as well as the history of its kings.
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Like many of the Germanic tribes, the Burgundians' legal traditions allowed the application of separate laws for separate ethnicities. Thus, in addition to the "Lex Gundobada", Gundobad also issued (or codified) a set of laws for Roman subjects of the Burgundian kingdom, the "Lex Romana Burgundionum" ("The Roman Law of the Burgundians").
In addition to the above codes, Gundobad's son Sigismund later published the "Prima Constitutio". |
Dots and boxes
Dots and boxes is a pencil-and-paper game for two players (sometimes more). It was first published in the 19th century by French mathematician Édouard Lucas, who called it . It has gone by many other names, including dots and dashes, game of dots, dot to dot grid, boxes, and pigs in a pen.
The game starts with an empty grid of dots. Usually two players take turns adding a single horizontal or vertical line between two unjoined adjacent dots. A player who completes the fourth side of a 1×1 box earns one point and takes another turn. A point is typically recorded by placing a mark that identifies the player in the box, such as an initial. The game ends when no more lines can be placed. The winner is the player with the most points. The board may be of any size grid. When short on time, or to learn the game, a 2×2 board (3×3 dots) is suitable. A 5×5 board, on the other hand, is good for experts.
Strategy.
For most novice players, the game begins with a phase of more-or-less randomly connecting dots, where the only strategy is to avoid adding the third side to any box. This continues until all the remaining (potential) boxes are joined into "chains" – groups of one or more adjacent boxes in which any move gives all the boxes in the chain to the opponent. At this point, players typically take all available boxes, then "open" the smallest available chain to their opponent. For example, a novice player faced with a situation like position 1 in the diagram on the right, in which some boxes can be captured, may take all the boxes in the chain, resulting in position 2. But with their last move, they have to open the next, larger chain, and the novice loses the game.
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A more experienced player faced with position 1 will instead play the "double-cross strategy", taking all but 2 of the boxes in the chain and leaving position 3. The opponent will take these two boxes and then be forced to open the next chain. By achieving position 3, player A wins. The same double-cross strategy applies no matter how many long chains there are: a player using this strategy will take all but two boxes in each chain and take all the boxes in the last chain. If the chains are long enough, then this player will win.
The next level of strategic complexity, between experts who would both use the double-cross strategy (if they were allowed to), is a battle for control: an expert player tries to force their opponent to open the first long chain, because the player who first opens a long chain usually loses. Against a player who does not understand the concept of a sacrifice, the expert simply has to make the correct number of sacrifices to encourage the opponent to hand them the first chain long enough to ensure a win. If the other player also sacrifices, the expert has to additionally manipulate the number of available sacrifices through earlier play.
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In combinatorial game theory, Dots and Boxes is an impartial game and many positions can be analyzed using Sprague–Grundy theory. However, Dots and Boxes lacks the normal play convention of most impartial games (where the last player to move wins), which complicates the analysis considerably.
Unusual grids and variants.
Dots and Boxes need not be played on a rectangular gridit can be played on a triangular grid or a hexagonal grid.
Dots and boxes has a dual graph form called "Strings-and-Coins". This game is played on a network of coins (vertices) joined by strings (edges). Players take turns cutting a string. When a cut leaves a coin with no strings, the player "pockets" the coin and takes another turn. The winner is the player who pockets the most coins. Strings-and-Coins can be played on an arbitrary graph.
In analyses of Dots and Boxes, a game that starts with outer lines already drawn is called a "Swedish board" while the standard version that starts fully blank is called an "American board". An intermediate version with only the left and bottom sides starting with drawn lines is called an "Icelandic board".
A related game is Dots, played by adding coloured dots to a blank grid, and joining them with straight or diagonal line in an attempt to surround an opponent's dots. |
Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Big Brother is a character and symbol in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party, Ingsoc, wields total power "for its own sake" over the inhabitants.
The ubiquitous slogan "Big Brother is watching you" serves as a constant reminder that Party members are not entitled to privacy. They are subject to constant surveillance to ensure their ideological purity. This is primarily through omnipresent telescreens that provide two-way video communication and constantly blare propaganda.
This close surveillance does not extend to the "proles", who constitute the majority of Oceanic society. They are viewed as inferior beings whose ideas and opinions simply do not matter because they lack both the intelligence and conviction to recognize and assert their latent political power. (In British English, "prole" is an abbreviation of proletarian. It is often derogatory.)
"Big Brother" has become a synecdoche for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance and a lack of choice in society.
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Character origins.
There are many theories about the origin of the character. In the essay section of his novel "1985", Anthony Burgess states that Orwell got the idea for the name of Big Brother from advertising billboards for educational correspondence courses from a company called Bennett's during World War II. The original posters showed J. M. Bennett himself, a kindly-looking old man offering guidance and support to would-be students with the phrase "Let me be your father." According to Burgess, after Bennett's death, his son took over the company and the posters were replaced with pictures of the son (who looked imposing and stern in contrast to his father's kindly demeanor) with the text "Let me be your big brother".
Additional speculation from Douglas Kellner of the University of California, Los Angeles, argued that Big Brother represents Joseph Stalin, representing Stalinism, and Adolf Hitler, representing Nazism. Another theory is that the inspiration for Big Brother was Brendan Bracken, the Minister of Information, a government department in wartime United Kingdom, until 1945. Orwell worked under Bracken on the BBC's Indian, Hong Kong and Malayan Service. Bracken was customarily referred to by his employees by his initials, B.B., the same initials as the character Big Brother. Orwell also resented the wartime censorship and need to manipulate information which he felt came from the highest levels of the Ministry of Information and from Bracken's office in particular.
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The idea of Big Brother could be also borrowed from the 1937 H. G. Wells novel "Star Begotten", in which "Big Brother" is referenced as a fictitious example of "mystical personifications" able to easily manipulate the common man, as well as the Soviet Union, where there was an ideology of "brotherly nations" or "brotherly countries". The Soviet Union presented itself as a big brother who watches over its younger brothers (other nations). The ideological word 'big brother' or 'older brother' was very well known and used in the Soviet Republics before and after the Second World War. In the "Circe" episode of James Joyce's "Ulysses" (1922) the prophet Elijah addresses God as "Big Brother up there, Mr President".
Portrayal in the novel.
Existence.
In the novel, it is unclear if Big Brother is or had been a real person, or is a fictional personification of the Party, similar to Britannia and Uncle Sam. Big Brother is described as appearing on posters and telescreens as a man in his mid-forties. In Party propaganda, Big Brother is presented as one of the founders of the Party.
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At one point, Winston Smith, the protagonist of Orwell's novel, tries "to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother. He thought it must have been at some time in the sixties, but it was impossible to be certain. In the Party histories, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days. His exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London".
In the fictional book "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", read by Winston Smith and purportedly written by political theorist Emmanuel Goldstein, Big Brother is referred to as infallible and all-powerful. No one has ever seen him and there is a reasonable certainty that he will never die. He is simply "the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world" since the emotions of love, fear and reverence are more easily focused on an individual (if only a face on the hoardings and a voice on the telescreens) than an organisation. When Winston Smith is later arrested, O'Brien repeats that Big Brother will never die. When Smith asks if Big Brother exists, O'Brien describes him as "the embodiment of the Party" and says that he will exist as long as the Party exists. When Winston asks "Does Big Brother exist the same way I do?" (meaning is Big Brother an actual human being), O'Brien replies "You do not exist" (meaning that Smith is now an unperson, an example of doublethink).
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Cult of personality.
Big Brother is the subject of a cult of personality. A spontaneous ritual of devotion to "BB" is illustrated at the end of the compulsory Two Minutes Hate:
Film adaptations.
The character, as represented solely by a single still photograph, was played in the 1954 BBC adaptation by production designer Roy Oxley. In the 1956 film adaptation, Big Brother was represented by an illustration of a stern-looking disembodied head.
In the film starring John Hurt released in 1984, the Big Brother photograph was of actor Bob Flag. Both Oxley and Flag sported small moustaches.
Use as metaphor.
Since the publication of "Nineteen Eighty-Four", the phrase "Big Brother" has come into common use to describe any prying or overly-controlling authority figure and attempts by government to increase surveillance. Big Brother and other Orwellian imagery are often referenced in the joke known as the Russian reversal.
Iain Moncreiffe and Don Pottinger jokingly mentioned in their 1956 book "Blood Royal" the sentence: "Without Little Father need for Big Brother", referring to the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union.
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The worldwide reality television show "Big Brother" is based on the novel's concept of people being under constant surveillance. In 2000, after the United States version of the CBS program "Big Brother" premiered, the Estate of George Orwell sued CBS and its production company Orwell Productions, Inc. in federal court in Chicago for copyright and trademark infringement. The case was "Estate of Orwell v. CBS", 00-c-5034 (ND Ill). On the eve of trial, the case settled worldwide to the parties' "mutual satisfaction", but the amount that CBS paid to the Orwell Estate was not disclosed. CBS had not asked the Estate for permission. Under current laws, the novel will remain under copyright protection until 2044 in the United States, it entered the public domain in 2020 within the European Union.
The magazine "Book" ranked Big Brother no. 59 on its "100 best characters in fiction since 1900" list. "Wizard" magazine rated him the 75th-greatest villain of all time.
The iconic image of Big Brother (played by David Graham) played a key role in Apple's "1984" television commercial introducing the Macintosh. The Orwell Estate viewed the Apple commercial as a copyright infringement and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple and its advertising agency. The commercial was never televised again, though the date mentioned in the ad (24 January) was but two days later, making it unlikely that it would have been re-aired regardless. Subsequent ads featuring Steve Jobs for a variety of products have mimicked the format and appearance of that original ad campaign, with the appearance of Jobs nearly identical to that of Big Brother.
China's Social Credit System has been described as akin to "Big Brother" by detractors, where citizens and businesses are given or deducted good behavior points depending on their choices. |
Binary search
In computer science, binary search, also known as half-interval search, logarithmic search, or binary chop, is a search algorithm that finds the position of a target value within a sorted array. Binary search compares the target value to the middle element of the array. If they are not equal, the half in which the target cannot lie is eliminated and the search continues on the remaining half, again taking the middle element to compare to the target value, and repeating this until the target value is found. If the search ends with the remaining half being empty, the target is not in the array.
Binary search runs in logarithmic time in the worst case, making formula_1 comparisons, where formula_2 is the number of elements in the array. Binary search is faster than linear search except for small arrays. However, the array must be sorted first to be able to apply binary search. There are specialized data structures designed for fast searching, such as hash tables, that can be searched more efficiently than binary search. However, binary search can be used to solve a wider range of problems, such as finding the next-smallest or next-largest element in the array relative to the target even if it is absent from the array.
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There are numerous variations of binary search. In particular, fractional cascading speeds up binary searches for the same value in multiple arrays. Fractional cascading efficiently solves a number of search problems in computational geometry and in numerous other fields. Exponential search extends binary search to unbounded lists. The binary search tree and B-tree data structures are based on binary search.
Algorithm.
Binary search works on sorted arrays. Binary search begins by comparing an element in the middle of the array with the target value. If the target value matches the element, its position in the array is returned. If the target value is less than the element, the search continues in the lower half of the array. If the target value is greater than the element, the search continues in the upper half of the array. By doing this, the algorithm eliminates the half in which the target value cannot lie in each iteration.
Procedure.
Given an array formula_3 of formula_2 elements with values or records formula_5sorted such that formula_6, and target value formula_7, the following subroutine uses binary search to find the index of formula_7 in formula_3.
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This iterative procedure keeps track of the search boundaries with the two variables formula_10 and formula_12. The procedure may be expressed in pseudocode as follows, where the variable names and types remain the same as above, codice_1 is the floor function, and codice_2 refers to a specific value that conveys the failure of the search.
function binary_search(A, n, T) is
L := 0
R := n − 1
while L ≤ R do
m := L + floor((R - L) / 2)
if A[m] < T then
L := m + 1
else if A[m] > T then
R := m − 1
else:
return m
return unsuccessful
Alternatively, the algorithm may take the ceiling of formula_17. This may change the result if the target value appears more than once in the array.
Alternative procedure.
In the above procedure, the algorithm checks whether the middle element (formula_15) is equal to the target (formula_7) in every iteration. Some implementations leave out this check during each iteration. The algorithm would perform this check only when one element is left (when formula_32). This results in a faster comparison loop, as one comparison is eliminated per iteration, while it requires only one more iteration on average.
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Hermann Bottenbruch published the first implementation to leave out this check in 1962.
Where codice_3 is the ceiling function, the pseudocode for this version is:
function binary_search_alternative(A, n, T) is
L := 0
R := n − 1
while L != R do
m := L + ceil((R - L) / 2)
if A[m] > T then
R := m − 1
else:
L := m
if A[L] = T then
return L
return unsuccessful
Duplicate elements.
The procedure may return any index whose element is equal to the target value, even if there are duplicate elements in the array. For example, if the array to be searched was formula_51 and the target was formula_52, then it would be correct for the algorithm to either return the 4th (index 3) or 5th (index 4) element. The regular procedure would return the 4th element (index 3) in this case. It does not always return the first duplicate (consider formula_53 which still returns the 4th element). However, it is sometimes necessary to find the leftmost element or the rightmost element for a target value that is duplicated in the array. In the above example, the 4th element is the leftmost element of the value 4, while the 5th element is the rightmost element of the value 4. The alternative procedure above will always return the index of the rightmost element if such an element exists.
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Procedure for finding the leftmost element.
To find the leftmost element, the following procedure can be used:
If formula_70 and formula_71, then formula_72 is the leftmost element that equals formula_7. Even if formula_7 is not in the array, formula_10 is the rank of formula_7 in the array, or the number of elements in the array that are less than formula_7.
Where codice_1 is the floor function, the pseudocode for this version is:
function binary_search_leftmost(A, n, T):
L := 0
R := n
while L < R:
m := L + floor((R - L) / 2)
if A[m] < T:
L := m + 1
else:
R := m
return L
Procedure for finding the rightmost element.
To find the rightmost element, the following procedure can be used:
If formula_94 and formula_95, then formula_96 is the rightmost element that equals formula_7. Even if "formula_7" is not in the array, formula_99 is the number of elements in the array that are greater than "formula_7".
Where codice_1 is the floor function, the pseudocode for this version is:
function binary_search_rightmost(A, n, T):
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L := 0
R := n
while L < R:
m := L + floor((R - L) / 2)
if A[m] > T:
R := m
else:
L := m + 1
return R - 1
Approximate matches.
The above procedure only performs "exact" matches, finding the position of a target value. However, it is trivial to extend binary search to perform approximate matches because binary search operates on sorted arrays. For example, binary search can be used to compute, for a given value, its rank (the number of smaller elements), predecessor (next-smallest element), successor (next-largest element), and nearest neighbor. Range queries seeking the number of elements between two values can be performed with two rank queries.
Performance.
In terms of the number of comparisons, the performance of binary search can be analyzed by viewing the run of the procedure on a binary tree. The root node of the tree is the middle element of the array. The middle element of the lower half is the left child node of the root, and the middle element of the upper half is the right child node of the root. The rest of the tree is built in a similar fashion. Starting from the root node, the left or right subtrees are traversed depending on whether the target value is less or more than the node under consideration.
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In the worst case, binary search makes formula_105 iterations of the comparison loop, where the formula_106 notation denotes the floor function that yields the greatest integer less than or equal to the argument, and formula_107 is the binary logarithm. This is because the worst case is reached when the search reaches the deepest level of the tree, and there are always formula_105 levels in the tree for any binary search.
The worst case may also be reached when the target element is not in the array. If formula_109 is one less than a power of two, then this is always the case. Otherwise, the search may perform formula_105iterations if the search reaches the deepest level of the tree. However, it may make formula_111 iterations, which is one less than the worst case, if the search ends at the second-deepest level of the tree.
On average, assuming that each element is equally likely to be searched, binary search makes formula_112 iterations when the target element is in the array. This is approximately equal to formula_113 iterations. When the target element is not in the array, binary search makes formula_114 iterations on average, assuming that the range between and outside elements is equally likely to be searched.
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In the best case, where the target value is the middle element of the array, its position is returned after one iteration.
In terms of iterations, no search algorithm that works only by comparing elements can exhibit better average and worst-case performance than binary search. The comparison tree representing binary search has the fewest levels possible as every level above the lowest level of the tree is filled completely. Otherwise, the search algorithm can eliminate few elements in an iteration, increasing the number of iterations required in the average and worst case. This is the case for other search algorithms based on comparisons, as while they may work faster on some target values, the average performance over "all" elements is worse than binary search. By dividing the array in half, binary search ensures that the size of both subarrays are as similar as possible.
Space complexity.
Binary search requires three pointers to elements, which may be array indices or pointers to memory locations, regardless of the size of the array. Therefore, the space complexity of binary search is formula_115 in the word RAM model of computation.
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Derivation of average case.
The average number of iterations performed by binary search depends on the probability of each element being searched. The average case is different for successful searches and unsuccessful searches. It will be assumed that each element is equally likely to be searched for successful searches. For unsuccessful searches, it will be assumed that the intervals between and outside elements are equally likely to be searched. The average case for successful searches is the number of iterations required to search every element exactly once, divided by formula_2, the number of elements. The average case for unsuccessful searches is the number of iterations required to search an element within every interval exactly once, divided by the formula_117 intervals.
Successful searches.
In the binary tree representation, a successful search can be represented by a path from the root to the target node, called an "internal path". The length of a path is the number of edges (connections between nodes) that the path passes through. The number of iterations performed by a search, given that the corresponding path has length , is formula_118 counting the initial iteration. The "internal path length" is the sum of the lengths of all unique internal paths. Since there is only one path from the root to any single node, each internal path represents a search for a specific element. If there are elements, which is a positive integer, and the internal path length is formula_119, then the average number of iterations for a successful search formula_120, with the one iteration added to count the initial iteration.
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Since binary search is the optimal algorithm for searching with comparisons, this problem is reduced to calculating the minimum internal path length of all binary trees with nodes, which is equal to:
formula_121
For example, in a 7-element array, the root requires one iteration, the two elements below the root require two iterations, and the four elements below require three iterations. In this case, the internal path length is:
formula_122
The average number of iterations would be formula_123 based on the equation for the average case. The sum for formula_119 can be simplified to:
formula_125
Substituting the equation for formula_119 into the equation for formula_127:
formula_128
For integer , this is equivalent to the equation for the average case on a successful search specified above.
Unsuccessful searches.
Unsuccessful searches can be represented by augmenting the tree with "external nodes", which forms an "extended binary tree". If an internal node, or a node present in the tree, has fewer than two child nodes, then additional child nodes, called external nodes, are added so that each internal node has two children. By doing so, an unsuccessful search can be represented as a path to an external node, whose parent is the single element that remains during the last iteration. An "external path" is a path from the root to an external node. The "external path length" is the sum of the lengths of all unique external paths. If there are formula_2 elements, which is a positive integer, and the external path length is formula_130, then the average number of iterations for an unsuccessful search formula_131, with the one iteration added to count the initial iteration. The external path length is divided by formula_132 instead of formula_2 because there are formula_132 external paths, representing the intervals between and outside the elements of the array.
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This problem can similarly be reduced to determining the minimum external path length of all binary trees with formula_2 nodes. For all binary trees, the external path length is equal to the internal path length plus formula_136. Substituting the equation for formula_119:
formula_138
Substituting the equation for formula_130 into the equation for formula_140, the average case for unsuccessful searches can be determined:
formula_141
Performance of alternative procedure.
Each iteration of the binary search procedure defined above makes one or two comparisons, checking if the middle element is equal to the target in each iteration. Assuming that each element is equally likely to be searched, each iteration makes 1.5 comparisons on average. A variation of the algorithm checks whether the middle element is equal to the target at the end of the search. On average, this eliminates half a comparison from each iteration. This slightly cuts the time taken per iteration on most computers. However, it guarantees that the search takes the maximum number of iterations, on average adding one iteration to the search. Because the comparison loop is performed only formula_105 times in the worst case, the slight increase in efficiency per iteration does not compensate for the extra iteration for all but very large formula_109.
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Running time and cache use.
In analyzing the performance of binary search, another consideration is the time required to compare two elements. For integers and strings, the time required increases linearly as the encoding length (usually the number of bits) of the elements increase. For example, comparing a pair of 64-bit unsigned integers would require comparing up to double the bits as comparing a pair of 32-bit unsigned integers. The worst case is achieved when the integers are equal. This can be significant when the encoding lengths of the elements are large, such as with large integer types or long strings, which makes comparing elements expensive. Furthermore, comparing floating-point values (the most common digital representation of real numbers) is often more expensive than comparing integers or short strings.
On most computer architectures, the processor has a hardware cache separate from RAM. Since they are located within the processor itself, caches are much faster to access but usually store much less data than RAM. Therefore, most processors store memory locations that have been accessed recently, along with memory locations close to it. For example, when an array element is accessed, the element itself may be stored along with the elements that are stored close to it in RAM, making it faster to sequentially access array elements that are close in index to each other (locality of reference). On a sorted array, binary search can jump to distant memory locations if the array is large, unlike algorithms (such as linear search and linear probing in hash tables) which access elements in sequence. This adds slightly to the running time of binary search for large arrays on most systems.
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Binary search versus other schemes.
Sorted arrays with binary search are a very inefficient solution when insertion and deletion operations are interleaved with retrieval, taking formula_144 time for each such operation. In addition, sorted arrays can complicate memory use especially when elements are often inserted into the array. There are other data structures that support much more efficient insertion and deletion. Binary search can be used to perform exact matching and set membership (determining whether a target value is in a collection of values). There are data structures that support faster exact matching and set membership. However, unlike many other searching schemes, binary search can be used for efficient approximate matching, usually performing such matches in formula_145 time regardless of the type or structure of the values themselves. In addition, there are some operations, like finding the smallest and largest element, that can be performed efficiently on a sorted array.
Linear search.
Linear search is a simple search algorithm that checks every record until it finds the target value. Linear search can be done on a linked list, which allows for faster insertion and deletion than an array. Binary search is faster than linear search for sorted arrays except if the array is short, although the array needs to be sorted beforehand. All sorting algorithms based on comparing elements, such as quicksort and merge sort, require at least formula_146 comparisons in the worst case. Unlike linear search, binary search can be used for efficient approximate matching. There are operations such as finding the smallest and largest element that can be done efficiently on a sorted array but not on an unsorted array.
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Trees.
A binary search tree is a binary tree data structure that works based on the principle of binary search. The records of the tree are arranged in sorted order, and each record in the tree can be searched using an algorithm similar to binary search, taking on average logarithmic time. Insertion and deletion also require on average logarithmic time in binary search trees. This can be faster than the linear time insertion and deletion of sorted arrays, and binary trees retain the ability to perform all the operations possible on a sorted array, including range and approximate queries.
However, binary search is usually more efficient for searching as binary search trees will most likely be imperfectly balanced, resulting in slightly worse performance than binary search. This even applies to balanced binary search trees, binary search trees that balance their own nodes, because they rarely produce the tree with the fewest possible levels. Except for balanced binary search trees, the tree may be severely imbalanced with few internal nodes with two children, resulting in the average and worst-case search time approaching formula_109 comparisons. Binary search trees take more space than sorted arrays.
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Binary search trees lend themselves to fast searching in external memory stored in hard disks, as binary search trees can be efficiently structured in filesystems. The B-tree generalizes this method of tree organization. B-trees are frequently used to organize long-term storage such as databases and filesystems.
Hashing.
For implementing associative arrays, hash tables, a data structure that maps keys to records using a hash function, are generally faster than binary search on a sorted array of records. Most hash table implementations require only amortized constant time on average. However, hashing is not useful for approximate matches, such as computing the next-smallest, next-largest, and nearest key, as the only information given on a failed search is that the target is not present in any record. Binary search is ideal for such matches, performing them in logarithmic time. Binary search also supports approximate matches. Some operations, like finding the smallest and largest element, can be done efficiently on sorted arrays but not on hash tables.
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Set membership algorithms.
A related problem to search is set membership. Any algorithm that does lookup, like binary search, can also be used for set membership. There are other algorithms that are more specifically suited for set membership. A bit array is the simplest, useful when the range of keys is limited. It compactly stores a collection of bits, with each bit representing a single key within the range of keys. Bit arrays are very fast, requiring only formula_148 time. The Judy1 type of Judy array handles 64-bit keys efficiently.
For approximate results, Bloom filters, another probabilistic data structure based on hashing, store a set of keys by encoding the keys using a bit array and multiple hash functions. Bloom filters are much more space-efficient than bit arrays in most cases and not much slower: with formula_149 hash functions, membership queries require only formula_150 time. However, Bloom filters suffer from false positives.
Other data structures.
There exist data structures that may improve on binary search in some cases for both searching and other operations available for sorted arrays. For example, searches, approximate matches, and the operations available to sorted arrays can be performed more efficiently than binary search on specialized data structures such as van Emde Boas trees, fusion trees, tries, and bit arrays. These specialized data structures are usually only faster because they take advantage of the properties of keys with a certain attribute (usually keys that are small integers), and thus will be time or space consuming for keys that lack that attribute. As long as the keys can be ordered, these operations can always be done at least efficiently on a sorted array regardless of the keys. Some structures, such as Judy arrays, use a combination of approaches to mitigate this while retaining efficiency and the ability to perform approximate matching.
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Variations.
Uniform binary search.
Uniform binary search stores, instead of the lower and upper bounds, the difference in the index of the middle element from the current iteration to the next iteration. A lookup table containing the differences is computed beforehand. For example, if the array to be searched is , the middle element (formula_15) would be . In this case, the middle element of the left subarray () is and the middle element of the right subarray () is . Uniform binary search would store the value of as both indices differ from by this same amount. To reduce the search space, the algorithm either adds or subtracts this change from the index of the middle element. Uniform binary search may be faster on systems where it is inefficient to calculate the midpoint, such as on decimal computers.
Exponential search.
Exponential search extends binary search to unbounded lists. It starts by finding the first element with an index that is both a power of two and greater than the target value. Afterwards, it sets that index as the upper bound, and switches to binary search. A search takes formula_152 iterations before binary search is started and at most formula_153 iterations of the binary search, where formula_154 is the position of the target value. Exponential search works on bounded lists, but becomes an improvement over binary search only if the target value lies near the beginning of the array.
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Interpolation search.
Instead of calculating the midpoint, interpolation search estimates the position of the target value, taking into account the lowest and highest elements in the array as well as length of the array. It works on the basis that the midpoint is not the best guess in many cases. For example, if the target value is close to the highest element in the array, it is likely to be located near the end of the array.
A common interpolation function is linear interpolation. If formula_3 is the array, formula_156 are the lower and upper bounds respectively, and formula_7 is the target, then the target is estimated to be about formula_158 of the way between formula_10 and formula_12. When linear interpolation is used, and the distribution of the array elements is uniform or near uniform, interpolation search makes formula_161 comparisons.
In practice, interpolation search is slower than binary search for small arrays, as interpolation search requires extra computation. Its time complexity grows more slowly than binary search, but this only compensates for the extra computation for large arrays.
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Fractional cascading.
Fractional cascading is a technique that speeds up binary searches for the same element in multiple sorted arrays. Searching each array separately requires formula_162 time, where formula_149 is the number of arrays. Fractional cascading reduces this to formula_164 by storing specific information in each array about each element and its position in the other arrays.
Fractional cascading was originally developed to efficiently solve various computational geometry problems. Fractional cascading has been applied elsewhere, such as in data mining and Internet Protocol routing.
Generalization to graphs.
Binary search has been generalized to work on certain types of graphs, where the target value is stored in a vertex instead of an array element. Binary search trees are one such generalization—when a vertex (node) in the tree is queried, the algorithm either learns that the vertex is the target, or otherwise which subtree the target would be located in. However, this can be further generalized as follows: given an undirected, positively weighted graph and a target vertex, the algorithm learns upon querying a vertex that it is equal to the target, or it is given an incident edge that is on the shortest path from the queried vertex to the target. The standard binary search algorithm is simply the case where the graph is a path. Similarly, binary search trees are the case where the edges to the left or right subtrees are given when the queried vertex is unequal to the target. For all undirected, positively weighted graphs, there is an algorithm that finds the target vertex in formula_1 queries in the worst case.
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Noisy binary search.
Noisy binary search algorithms solve the case where the algorithm cannot reliably compare elements of the array. For each pair of elements, there is a certain probability that the algorithm makes the wrong comparison. Noisy binary search can find the correct position of the target with a given probability that controls the reliability of the yielded position. Every noisy binary search procedure must make at least formula_166 comparisons on average, where formula_167 is the binary entropy function and formula_168 is the probability that the procedure yields the wrong position. The noisy binary search problem can be considered as a case of the Rényi-Ulam game, a variant of Twenty Questions where the answers may be wrong.
Quantum binary search.
Classical computers are bounded to the worst case of exactly formula_169 iterations when performing binary search. Quantum algorithms for binary search are still bounded to a proportion of formula_170 queries (representing iterations of the classical procedure), but the constant factor is less than one, providing for a lower time complexity on quantum computers. Any "exact" quantum binary search procedure—that is, a procedure that always yields the correct result—requires at least formula_171 queries in the worst case, where formula_172 is the natural logarithm. There is an exact quantum binary search procedure that runs in formula_173 queries in the worst case. In comparison, Grover's algorithm is the optimal quantum algorithm for searching an unordered list of elements, and it requires formula_174 queries.
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History.
The idea of sorting a list of items to allow for faster searching dates back to antiquity. The earliest known example was the Inakibit-Anu tablet from Babylon dating back to . The tablet contained about 500 sexagesimal numbers and their reciprocals sorted in lexicographical order, which made searching for a specific entry easier. In addition, several lists of names that were sorted by their first letter were discovered on the Aegean Islands. "Catholicon", a Latin dictionary finished in 1286 CE, was the first work to describe rules for sorting words into alphabetical order, as opposed to just the first few letters.
In 1946, John Mauchly made the first mention of binary search as part of the Moore School Lectures, a seminal and foundational college course in computing. In 1957, William Wesley Peterson published the first method for interpolation search. Every published binary search algorithm worked only for arrays whose length is one less than a power of two until 1960, when Derrick Henry Lehmer published a binary search algorithm that worked on all arrays. In 1962, Hermann Bottenbruch presented an ALGOL 60 implementation of binary search that placed the comparison for equality at the end, increasing the average number of iterations by one, but reducing to one the number of comparisons per iteration. The uniform binary search was developed by A. K. Chandra of Stanford University in 1971. In 1986, Bernard Chazelle and Leonidas J. Guibas introduced fractional cascading as a method to solve numerous search problems in computational geometry.
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Implementation issues.
When Jon Bentley assigned binary search as a problem in a course for professional programmers, he found that ninety percent failed to provide a correct solution after several hours of working on it, mainly because the incorrect implementations failed to run or returned a wrong answer in rare edge cases. A study published in 1988 shows that accurate code for it is only found in five out of twenty textbooks. Furthermore, Bentley's own implementation of binary search, published in his 1986 book "Programming Pearls", contained an overflow error that remained undetected for over twenty years. The Java programming language library implementation of binary search had the same overflow bug for more than nine years.
In a practical implementation, the variables used to represent the indices will often be of fixed size (integers), and this can result in an arithmetic overflow for very large arrays. If the midpoint of the span is calculated as formula_175, then the value of formula_176 may exceed the range of integers of the data type used to store the midpoint, even if formula_10 and formula_12 are within the range. If "formula_10" and "formula_12" are nonnegative, this can be avoided by calculating the midpoint as formula_181.
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An infinite loop may occur if the exit conditions for the loop are not defined correctly. Once "formula_10" exceeds "formula_12", the search has failed and must convey the failure of the search. In addition, the loop must be exited when the target element is found, or in the case of an implementation where this check is moved to the end, checks for whether the search was successful or failed at the end must be in place. Bentley found that most of the programmers who incorrectly implemented binary search made an error in defining the exit conditions.
Library support.
Many languages' standard libraries include binary search routines: |
Belle and Sebastian
Belle and Sebastian are a Scottish indie pop band formed in Glasgow in 1996. Led by Stuart Murdoch, the band has released twelve studio albums. They are often compared with acts such as the Smiths and Nick Drake. The band took their name from the 1965 television series "Belle and Sebastian".
History.
Formation, early years and "Tigermilk" (1994–1996).
In 1994, Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David both enrolled at Stow College's Beatbox programme for unemployed musicians in Glasgow. Together, with music professor Alan Rankine (formerly of the Associates), they recorded some demos, which in 1996 were picked up by the college's Music Business course that produces and releases one single each year on the college's label, Electric Honey. As Murdoch had a number of songs already and the label was extremely impressed with the demos, he was granted permission to record a full-length album, which was recorded mostly live over three days, entitled "Tigermilk".
Murdoch and David recruited local musicians Stevie Jackson (guitar and vocals), Isobel Campbell (cello/vocals), Chris Geddes (keys) and Richard Colburn (drums), the latter of whom shared a flat with David and was a student on the Music Business course, to perform on the album, with Murdoch describing the process as a "product of botched capitalism". The band chose the name Belle and Sebastian from a short story Murdoch had written inspired by the television series of the same name, about a six-year-old boy and his dog, named Belle, a Great Pyrenees. In June 1996, Electric Honey pressed up one thousand copies of "Tigermilk" on vinyl.
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"If You're Feeling Sinister" and early EPs (1996–1998).
The warm response "Tigermilk" received led to the band being signed to Jeepster Records in August 1996, who released their second album "If You're Feeling Sinister" on 18 November. The album was named by "Spin" as one of the 100 greatest albums between 1985 and 2005, and it is widely considered the band's masterpiece. Just before the recording of "Sinister", Sarah Martin (violin/vocals) joined the band.
Following this a series of EPs were released throughout 1997. The first of these was "Dog on Wheels", released in May and consisting of four demo tracks recorded prior to the real formation of the band. In fact, the only long-term band members to play on the songs were Murdoch, David, and Mick Cooke, who played trumpet on the EP but would not officially join the band until a few years later. It charted at No. 59 in the UK singles chart. The "Lazy Line Painter Jane" EP followed in July. The track was recorded in the church where Murdoch lived and features vocals from Monica Queen. The EP narrowly missed out on the UK top 40, peaking at No. 41. The last of the EPs was October's "3.. 6.. 9 Seconds of Light". The EP was made Single of the Week in both the "NME" and "Melody Maker" and reached No. 32 in the charts, thus becoming the band's first top 40 single.
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Despite the band's growing popularity, during this period they kept a low profile at the insistence of Murdoch, who was still regaining his strength following years struggling with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The band played gigs sporadically, rarely gave interviews, and refused to appear in publicity photographs, often getting friends and acquaintances to pose instead. The relative reclusiveness helped to create an aura of mystique around them.
"The Boy with the Arab Strap", "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant" and Line-up Changes (1998–2003).
The band released their third LP, "The Boy with the Arab Strap" in 1998, and it reached No. 12 in the UK charts. "Arab Strap" garnered an NPR interview and positive reviews from "Rolling Stone" and "The Village Voice," and others; however, the album has its detractors, including "Pitchfork", who gave the album a particularly poor review, calling it a "parody" of their earlier work (Pitchfork has since removed the review from their website and re-reviewed the album positively in 2018). During the recording of the album, long-time studio trumpet-player Mick Cooke was asked to join the band as a full member. The "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song" EP followed later that year.
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In 1999, the band was awarded with Best Newcomer (for their third album) at the BRIT Awards, upsetting better-known acts such as Steps and 5ive. That same year, the band hosted their own festival, the Bowlie Weekender. "Tigermilk" was also given a full release by Jeepster before the band started work on their next LP. The result was "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant", which became the band's first top 10 album in the UK, though critics felt that the band were starting to stagnate. A stand-alone single, "Legal Man", reached No. 15 and gave them their first appearance on Top of the Pops.
As the band's popularity and recognition was growing worldwide, their music began appearing in films and on television. The 2000 film "High Fidelity" mentions the band (with Jack Black's character referring to them as "old sad bastard music" and disdaining their soft style) and features a clip from the song "Seymour Stein" from "The Boy with the Arab Strap". Two songs by the band ("Expectations" and "Piazza, New York Catcher") appeared on the soundtrack for the 2007 hit film "Juno." Also, the title track from "Arab Strap" was played over the end credits of the UK television series "Teachers," and the lyric "Colour my life with the chaos of trouble" from the song was quoted by one of the characters in the 2009 film "(500) Days of Summer".
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Stuart David soon left the band to concentrate on his side project, Looper, and his book writing, which included his "The Idle Thoughts of a Daydreamer". He was replaced by Bobby Kildea of V-Twin. The "Jonathan David" single, sung by Stevie Jackson, was released in June 2001 and was followed by "I'm Waking Up to Us" in November, which saw the band use an outside producer (Mike Hurst) for the first time. Most of 2002 was spent touring and recording a soundtrack album, "Storytelling" (for "Storytelling" by Todd Solondz). Campbell left the band in the spring of 2002, in the middle of the band's North American tour to pursue a solo career, first as The Gentle Waves, and later under her own name. She later collaborated with singer Mark Lanegan on three albums.
"Dear Catastrophe Waitress", "The Life Pursuit" and hiatus (2003–2010).
The band left Jeepster in 2002, signing a four-album deal with Rough Trade Records. Their first album for Rough Trade, "Dear Catastrophe Waitress", was released in 2003 and was produced by Trevor Horn. The album showed a markedly more "produced" sound compared to their first four LPs, as the band was making a concerted effort to produce more "radio-friendly" music. At this point, the band began to engage more with the press and started appearing in publicity shots. The album was warmly received and is credited with restoring the band's "indie cred". The album also marked the return of Murdoch as the group's primary songwriter, following the poorly received "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant" and "Storytelling", both of which were more collaborative than the band's early work. A documentary DVD, "Fans Only", was released by Jeepster in October 2003, featuring promotional videos, live clips and unreleased footage. A single from the album, "Step into My Office, Baby" followed in November 2003; it would be their first single to be taken from an album, and included a track recorded with Divine Comedy producer Darren Allison entitled "Love on the March".
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The Thin Lizzy-inspired "I'm a Cuckoo" was the second single from the album. It achieved their highest chart position yet, reaching No. 14 in the UK. The "Books" EP followed, a double A-side single led by "Wrapped Up in Books" from "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" and the new "Your Cover's Blown". This EP became the band's third top 20 UK release, and the band was nominated for both the Mercury Music Prize and an Ivor Novello Award. In January 2005, B&S was voted Scotland's greatest band in a poll by The List, beating Simple Minds, Idlewild, Travis, Franz Ferdinand, and The Proclaimers, among others.
In April 2005, members of the band visited Israel and the Palestinian territories with the UK charity War on Want; the group subsequently recorded a song inspired by the trip titled "The Eighth Station of the Cross Kebab House", which would first appear on the digital-download version of the charity album and would later have a physical release as a B-side on 2006's "Funny Little Frog" single. "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds", a compilation of the Jeepster singles and EPs, was released in May 2005 while the band were recording their seventh album in California. The result of the sessions was "The Life Pursuit", produced by Tony Hoffer. The album, originally intended to be a double album, became the band's highest-charting album upon its release in February 2006, peaking at No. 8 in the UK and No. 65 on the US "Billboard" 200. "Funny Little Frog", which preceded it, also proved to be their highest-charting single, debuting at No. 13.
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On 6 July 2006, the band played a historic show with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. The opening act at the 18,000 seat sell-out concert was The Shins. The members of the band see this as a landmark event, with Stevie Jackson saying, "This is the biggest thrill of my entire life". In October 2006, members of the band helped put together a CD collection of new songs for children titled "Colours Are Brighter", with the involvement of major bands such as Franz Ferdinand and The Flaming Lips.
On 18 November 2008 the band released "The BBC Sessions", which features songs from the period of 1996–2001 (including the last recordings featuring Isobel Campbell before she left the band), along with a second disc featuring a recording of a live performance in Belfast from Christmas 2001.
"Write About Love" and "Girls In Peacetime Want to Dance" (2010–2016).
On 17 July 2010, the band performed their first UK gig in almost four years to a crowd of around 30,000 at Latitude Festival in Henham Park, Southwold. They performed two new songs, "I Didn't See It Coming" and "I'm Not Living in the Real World".
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Their eighth studio album, released in the UK and internationally on 25 September 2010, was titled "Write about Love". The first single from the album, as well as the record's title track "Write about Love", was released in the US on 7 September 2010. "Write about Love" entered the UK albums chart in its first week of release, peaking at No. 8 as of 19 October 2010. Norah Jones is featured on the track "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John", and Carey Mulligan sings on the title track.
In December 2010 Belle and Sebastian curated the sequel to the "Bowlie Weekender" in the form of "Bowlie 2" presented by All Tomorrow's Parties.
In 2013, Pitchfork TV released an hour-long documentary in February, directed by RJ Bentler which focused on the band's 1996 album "If You're Feeling Sinister", as well as the formation and early releases of the band. The documentary featured interviews with every member that was present on the album, as well as several archival photos and videos from the band's early days. The band compiled a second compilation album "The Third Eye Centre" which included the B-sides and rarities released after "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds", from the albums "Dear Catastrophe Waitress", "The Life Pursuit", and "Write about Love". In an interview at the end of 2013, Mick Cooke confirmed he had left the band on good terms.
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The band received an 'Outstanding Contribution to Music Award' at the NME Awards 2014.
In 2014, the band returned to the studio, recording in Atlanta, Georgia for their ninth studio album, along with announcing tour dates for various festivals and concerts across the world during 2014. Their ninth album "Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance" was released on 19 January 2015. It was their first album with Dave McGowan, who had been their touring bassist since 2011.
The Belle and Sebastian song "There's Too Much Love" forms much of the soundtrack for the Brazilian film "The Way He Looks", about a blind, gay teenage boy and his friends, released in 2014.
Belle and Sebastian performed at the Glastonbury Festival on 28 June 2015, on 'The Other Stage' and at O2 Academy, Glasgow in March 2017 which was televised in the UK as part of the 'BBC 6 MUSIC Presents Festival'.
"How to Solve Our Human Problems", "A Bit of Previous" and "Late Developers" (2017–present).
In mid-2017, the band put out a new single, "We Were Beautiful". During the same year, the band appeared in the news for a comical story that occurred during their US tour, in which they accidentally forgot Colburn in a North Dakota Walmart. In December 2017 and January and February 2018, the band released a trio of EPs under the name "How to Solve Our Human Problems".
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On 3 November 2018, the band announced that Dave McGowan had become a member.
In August 2019, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Bowlie Weekender festival, Belle & Sebastian held a third festival, dubbed the "Boaty Weekender". Unlike the previous two festivals, the Boaty Weekender was held on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea instead of UK holiday parks.
The band's eleventh studio album, "A Bit of Previous", was released in May 2022.
In January 2023, the band announced the surprise release of their twelfth studio album, "Late Developers". Lead single "I Don't Know What You See in Me" was released on 9 January 2023 with the album released on 13 January 2023.
Band members.
Current members
Former members
Timeline
Discography.
Studio albums |
Broadcast domain
A broadcast domain is a logical division of a computer network, in which all nodes can reach each other by broadcast at the data link layer. A broadcast domain can be within the same LAN segment or it can be bridged to other LAN segments.
In terms of current popular technologies, any computer connected to the same Ethernet repeater or switch is a member of the same broadcast domain. Further, any computer connected to the same set of interconnected switches or repeaters is a member of the same broadcast domain. Routers and other network-layer devices form boundaries between broadcast domains.
The notion of a broadcast domain can be compared with a collision domain, which would be all nodes on the same set of inter-connected repeaters and divided by switches and network bridges. Collision domains are generally smaller than and contained within broadcast domains. While some data-link-layer devices are able to divide the collision domains, broadcast domains are only divided by network-layer devices such as routers or layer-3 switches. Separating VLANs divides broadcast domains as well.
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Further explanation.
The distinction between broadcast and collision domains comes about because simple Ethernet and similar systems use a shared medium for communication. In simple Ethernet (without switches or bridges), data frames are transmitted to all other nodes on a network. Each receiving node checks the destination address of each frame and simply ignores any frame not addressed to its own MAC address or the broadcast address.
Switches act as buffers, receiving and analyzing the frames from each connected network segment. Frames destined for nodes connected to the originating segment are not forwarded by the switch. Frames destined for a specific node on a different segment are sent only to that segment. Only broadcast frames are forwarded to all other segments. This reduces unnecessary traffic and collisions.
In such a switched network, transmitted frames may not be received by all other reachable nodes. Nominally, only broadcast frames will be received by all other nodes. Collisions are localized to the physical-layer network segment they occur on. Thus, the broadcast domain is the entire inter-connected layer-2 network, and the segments connected to each switch or bridge port are each a collision domain. To clarify; repeaters do not divide collision domains but switches do. This means that since switches have become commonplace, collision domains are isolated to the specific segment between the switch port and the connected node. Full-duplex segments, or links, don't form a collision domain as there is a dedicated channel between each transmitter and receiver, eliminating the possibility of collisions.
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Broadcast domain control.
With a sufficiently sophisticated switch, it is possible to create a network in which a broadcast domain is strictly controlled. One implementation of this concept is a private VLAN. Another implementation is possible with Linux and iptables. One analogy is that by creating multiple VLANs, the number of broadcast domains increases, but the size of each broadcast domain decreases. This is because a VLAN defines a broadcast domain.
This is achieved by designating one or more "provider" nodes, either by MAC address or switch port. Broadcast frames are allowed to originate from these sources and are sent to all other nodes. Broadcast frames from all other sources are directed only to the provider nodes. Traffic from other sources not destined to the provider nodes (peer-to-peer traffic) is blocked.
The result is a network based on a nominally shared transmission system; like Ethernet, but in which client nodes cannot communicate with each other, only with the provider. Allowing direct data link layer communication between client nodes exposes the network to various security attacks, such as ARP spoofing. |
Beechcraft
Beechcraft is an American brand of civil aviation and military aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of Beech Aircraft Corporation, an American manufacturer of general aviation, commercial, and military aircraft, ranging from light single-engined aircraft to twin-engined turboprop transports, business jets, and military trainers. Beech later became a division of Raytheon and then Hawker Beechcraft before a bankruptcy sale turned its assets over to Textron (parent company of Beech's historical cross-town Wichita rival, Cessna Aircraft Company). It remains a brand of Textron Aviation.
History.
Beech Aircraft Company was founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1932 by Walter Beech as president, his wife Olive Ann Beech as secretary, Ted A. Wells as vice president of engineering, K. K. Shaul as treasurer, and investor C. G. Yankey as vice president. The company began operations in an idle Cessna factory. With designer Ted Wells, they developed the first aircraft under the Beechcraft name, the classic Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing, which first flew in November 1932. Over 750 Staggerwings were built, with 352 manufactured for the United States Army Air Forces and 67 for the United States Navy during World War II.
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Beechcraft was not Beech's first company, as he had previously formed Travel Air in 1924 and the design numbers used at Beechcraft followed the sequence started at Travel Air, and were then continued at Curtiss-Wright, after Travel Air had been absorbed into the much larger company in 1929. Beech had become president of Curtiss-Wright's airplane division and VP of sales, but was dissatisfied with being so far removed from aircraft production. He quit to form Beechcraft, using the original Travel Air facilities and employing many of the same people. Model numbers prior to 11/11000 were built under the "Travel Air" name, while Curtiss-Wright built the CW-12, 14, 15, and 16 as well as previous successful Travel Air models (mostly the model 4).
In 1942 Beech won its first Army-Navy "E" Award production award and became one of the elite five percent of war contracting firms in the country to win five straight awards for production efficiency, mostly for the production of the Beechcraft Model 18 which remains in widespread use worldwide. Beechcraft ranked 69th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
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After the war, the Staggerwing was replaced by the revolutionary Beechcraft Bonanza with a distinctive V-tail. Perhaps the best known Beech aircraft, the single-engined Bonanza has been manufactured in various models since 1947. The Bonanza has had the longest production run of any airplane, past or present, in the world. Other important Beech aircraft are the King Air and Super King Air line of twin-engined turboprops, in production since 1964, the Baron, a twin-engined variant of the Bonanza, and the Beechcraft Model 18, originally a business transport and commuter airliner from the late 1930s through the 1960s, which remains in active service as a cargo transport.
In 1950, Olive Ann Beech was installed as president and CEO of the company, after the sudden death of her husband from a heart attack on November 29 of that year. She continued as CEO until Beech was purchased by Raytheon Company on February 8, 1980. Ted Wells had been replaced as chief engineer by Herbert Rawdon, who remained at the post until his retirement in the early 1960s.
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Throughout much of the mid-to-late 20th century, Beechcraft was considered one of the "Big Three" in the field of general aviation manufacturing, along with Cessna and Piper Aircraft.
In 1973, Beechcraft found Beechcraft Heritage Museum to host its historical aircraft.
In 1994, Raytheon merged Beechcraft with the Hawker product line it had acquired in 1993 from British Aerospace, forming Raytheon Aircraft Company. In 2002, the Beechcraft brand was revived to again designate the Wichita-produced aircraft. In 2006, Raytheon sold Raytheon Aircraft to Goldman Sachs creating Hawker Beechcraft. Since its inception Beechcraft has resided in Wichita, Kansas, also the home of chief competitor Cessna, the birthplace of Learjet and of Stearman, whose trainers were used in large numbers during WW II.
The entry into bankruptcy of Hawker Beechcraft on May 3, 2012, ended with its emergence on February 16, 2013, as a new entity, Beechcraft Corporation, with the Hawker Beechcraft name being retired. The new and much smaller company produce the King Air line of aircraft as well as the T-6 and AT-6 military trainer/attack aircraft, as well as the piston-powered single-engined Bonanza and twin-engined Baron aircraft. The jet line was discontinued, but the new company continues to support the aircraft already produced with parts, plus engineering and airworthiness documentation.
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By October 2013, the company, now financially turned around, was up for sale.
On December 26, 2013, Textron agreed to purchase Beechcraft, including the discontinued Hawker jet line, for $1.4 billion. The sale was concluded in the first half of 2014, with government approval. Textron CEO Scott Donnelly indicated that Beechcraft and Cessna would be combined to form a new light aircraft manufacturing concern, Textron Aviation, that would result in US$65M–$85M in annual savings over keeping the companies separate. Textron has kept both the Beechcraft and Cessna names as separate brands.
Products.
As of July 2019, Textron Aviation was producing the following models under the Beechcraft brand name: |
Battle of Peleliu
The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II by the US military, was fought between the United States and Japan during the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign of World War II, from 15 September to 27 November 1944, on the island of Peleliu.
US Marines of the 1st Marine Division and then soldiers of the US Army's 81st Infantry Division fought to capture an airfield on the small coral island of Peleliu. The battle was part of a larger offensive campaign known as Operation Forager, which ran from June to November 1944 in the Pacific Theater.
Major General William Rupertus, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, predicted that the island would be secured within four days. However, after repeated Imperial Japanese Army defeats in previous island campaigns, Japan had developed new island-defense tactics and well-crafted fortifications, which allowed them to offer stiff resistance and extended the battle to more than two months. The heavily outnumbered Japanese defenders put up such staunch resistance, often fighting to the death in the name of the Japanese Emperor, that the island became known in Japanese as the "Emperor's Island."
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In the US, the battle was controversial because of the island's negligible strategic value and the high casualty rate incurred by American troops during the fighting, which exceeded that of all other amphibious operations during the Pacific War. The National Museum of the Marine Corps called it "the bitterest battle of the war for the Marines".
Background.
By 1944, American victories in the Southwest and Central Pacific had brought the war closer to Japan, with American bombers able to strike at the Japanese main islands from air bases secured during the Mariana Islands campaign (June–August 1944). There was disagreement among the U.S. Joint Chiefs over two proposed strategies to defeat the Japanese Empire. The strategy proposed by General Douglas MacArthur called for the recapture of the Philippines, followed by the capture of Okinawa, then an attack on the Japanese home islands. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz favored a more direct strategy of bypassing the Philippines but seizing Okinawa and Taiwan as staging areas to an attack on the Japanese mainland, followed by the future invasion of Japan's southernmost islands.
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The 1st Marine Division had already been chosen to make the assault. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt traveled to Pearl Harbor to personally meet both MacArthur and Nimitz and hear their arguments. In the end, MacArthur's strategy was chosen. However, before MacArthur could retake the Philippines, the Palau Islands, specifically Peleliu and Angaur, were to be neutralized and an airfield built to protect the southern flank of MacArthur's planned landings on the Philippines.
Preparations.
Japanese.
By 1944, Peleliu was occupied by about 11,000 Japanese troops of the 14th Infantry Division, along with a handful of Korean laborers. Considered a crack unit, the division had been detached from the Kwantung Army in Manchuria to garrison Peleliu after the fall of the Marshall Islands earlier in 1944, and had arrived on the island in May. Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, commander of the division's 2nd Regiment, led the preparations for the island's defense.
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Nakagawa's defenses were centered on Peleliu's highest point, Umurbrogol Mountain, a collection of hills and steep ridges located at the center of Peleliu and overlooking a large portion of the island, including the crucial airfield. The Umurbrogol contained some 500 limestone caves, connected via tunnel by Japanese engineers. Many of these caves were former mine shafts developed by Nanyo Kohatsu Kaisha (South Seas Development Company), a Japanese firm established in 1921 primarily to develop the sugar industry in Saipan, where its headquarters were located. However, the company also owned and worked the phosphate deposits on Peleliu. The phosphate material was mined with native labor and transported via narrow gauge railcars operated by manpower to a phosphate refinery located at the wharf on Peleliu.
The mines and caves were turned into defensive positions. Engineers added sliding armored steel doors with multiple openings to many cave entrances, providing extra protection and concealment for both artillery and machine guns. Cave entrances were opened or altered to be slanted as a defense against grenade and flamethrower attacks. The caves and bunkers were connected to a vast tunnel and trench system throughout central Peleliu, which allowed the Japanese to evacuate or reoccupy positions as needed, and to take advantage of shrinking interior lines.
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The Japanese garrison was well armed with and mortars and anti-aircraft cannons, backed by a light tank unit and an anti-aircraft detachment. The Japanese also used the beach terrain to their advantage. The northern end of the landing beaches faced a coral promontory that overlooked the beaches from a small peninsula, a spot later known to the Marines who assaulted it simply as "The Point". Holes were blasted into the Point to accommodate a gun and six 20 mm cannons. The positions were then sealed shut, leaving only a thin slit to fire on the beaches. The Japanese constructed similar positions along the stretch of landing beaches on the western shore of Peleliu.
The beaches were also filled with thousands of obstacles for the landing craft, principally mines and a large number of heavy artillery shells buried with the fuses exposed, designed to explode when they were run over. Nakagawa placed a battalion along the beach to defend against the landing, but this unit was meant to merely delay the inevitable American advance inland. Neither Nakagawa nor his superior officers expected the garrison to survive if Peleliu was attacked, and Japanese military planners made no contingencies to evacuate any survivors.
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American.
Unlike the Japanese, who drastically altered their tactics for the upcoming battle, the American invasion plan was unchanged from that of previous amphibious landings, even after suffering 3,000 casualties and enduring two months of delaying tactics while overcoming entrenched Japanese defenders at the Battle of Biak. On Peleliu, American planners chose to land on the southwest beaches because of their proximity to the airfield on south Peleliu. The 1st Marine Regiment, commanded by Colonel Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, was to land on the northern end of the beaches. The 5th Marine Regiment, under Colonel Harold Harris, would land in the center, and the 7th Marine Regiment, under Colonel Herman Hanneken, would land at the southern end.
The division's artillery regiment, the 11th Marines under Colonel William Harrison, would land after the infantry regiments. The plan was for the 1st and 7th Marines to push inland, guarding the 5th Marines' flanks and allowing them to capture the airfield located directly to the center of the landing beaches. The 5th Marines were to push across to the eastern shore of Peleliu, cutting the island in half. The 1st Marines would push north into the Umurbrogol, while the 7th Marines would clear the southern end of the island. Only one battalion was held in reserve, with the U.S. Army's 81st Infantry Division available for support from Angaur, just south of Peleliu.
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On 4 September the Marines shipped off from their station on Pavuvu, north of Guadalcanal, a trip across the Pacific to Peleliu. A Navy Underwater Demolition Team cleared the beaches of some obstacles, while warships began their pre-invasion bombardment of Peleliu on 12 September.
The battleships , , , and , heavy cruisers , , and , and light cruisers , and , led by the command ship , subjected the island to a massive three-day bombardment, pausing only to permit air strikes from the three aircraft carriers, five light aircraft carriers, and eleven escort carriers that sailed with the attack force. A total of 519 rounds of shells, 1,845 rounds of shells and 1,793 bombs pounded Peleliu during this period.
The Americans believed the bombardment to be successful, as Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf claimed that the Navy had run out of targets. In reality, most Japanese soldiers survived; even the battalion left to defend the beaches was virtually unscathed. During the initial American assault, the island's defenders exercised unusual firing discipline to avoid giving away their positions. However, the bombardment destroyed Japan's aircraft on the island and the buildings surrounding the airfield. The Japanese remained in their fortified positions, waiting to attack the American landing troops.
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Opposing forces.
American order of battle.
United States Pacific Fleet
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
US Third Fleet
Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.
Joint Expeditionary Force (Task Force 31)
Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson
Expeditionary Troops (Task Force 36)
III Amphibious Corps
Major General Julian C. Smith, USMC
Western Landing Force (TG 36.1)
Major General Roy S. Geiger, USMC
1st Marine Division
Beach assignments
Japanese order of battle.
Palau District Group
Lieutenant General Sadae Inoue (HQ on Koror Island)
Vice Admiral Yoshioka Ito
Maj. Gen. Kenjiro Murai
14th Division (Lt. Gen. Sadae)
Peleliu Sector Unit (Lt. Col. Kunio Nakagawa)
Battle.
Landing.
US Marines began landing on Peleliu at 08:32 on 15 September. The 1st Marines landed to the north on White Beach 1 and 2, while the 5th and 7th Marines landed to the center and south on Orange Beach 1, 2, and 3. As the additional landing craft approached the beaches, the Marines on shore were caught in a crossfire when the Japanese opened the steel doors guarding their positions and began firing artillery. The positions on the coral promontories guarding each flank fired on the Marines with 47 mm guns and 20 mm cannons. By 09:30 the Japanese had destroyed 60 LVTs and DUKWs.
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The 1st Marines were quickly bogged down by heavy fire from the high coral ridge on their left flank, "The Point". Puller's LVT was hit by a dud high velocity artillery round, and his communications section was destroyed on its way to the beach by a hit from a 47 mm round. The 7th Marines faced a cluttered Orange Beach 3, with natural and man-made obstacles forcing the LVTs to bunch together and approach in column.
The 5th Marines made the most progress on the first day, aided by cover provided by coconut groves. As they approached the airfield they were met with Nakagawa's first counterattack. His armored tank company attacked across the airfield, attempting to push the Marines back to the beach, but was swiftly engaged by tanks, howitzers, naval guns, and dive bombers. Nakagawa's tanks and escorting infantrymen were quickly destroyed.
At the end of the first day, the Americans held their stretch of landing beaches but little else. Their biggest push in the south moved inland, but the 1st Marines to the north made very little progress in the face of extremely heavy Japanese resistance. The Marines had suffered 200 dead and 900 wounded on the first day. Rupertus, still unaware of his enemy's change of tactics, believed the Japanese defenses would quickly crumble since their perimeter had been broken.
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Airfield/South Peleliu.
On 16 September the 5th Marines moved to capture the airfield and push toward Peleliu's eastern shore. The entire regiment crossed the airfield simultaneously, enduring heavy artillery fire from the highlands to the north, and suffered heavy casualties in the process. After capturing the airfield, they rapidly advanced to the eastern end of Peleliu, leaving the island's southern defenders to be destroyed by the 7th Marines.
This area was hotly contested by the Japanese, who still occupied numerous pillboxes. Heat indices were around , and the Marines suffered high casualties from heat exhaustion. Further complicating the situation, the Marines' drinking water was distributed in empty oil drums, which contaminated the water with the oil residue. Regardless, by 23 September the 5th and 7th Marines had accomplished their objectives, holding the airfield and the southern portion of the island, although the airfield remained under threat of sustained Japanese fire from the heights of Umurbrogol Mountain until the end of the battle.
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American forces began using the airfield on 17 September. Stinson OY-1 Sentinels from VMO-3 began aerial spotting missions for Marine artillery and naval gunfire support. On 26 September Marine F4U Corsairs from VMF-114 landed on the airstrip. The Corsairs began dive-bombing missions across Peleliu, firing rockets into open cave entrances in support of infantry attacks, and dropping napalm. This was only the second time that napalm had been used in the Pacific theater, and it proved effective at burning away vegetation hiding spider holes, usually killing their occupants. The time from takeoff to the target area for the Corsairs operating from Peleliu Airfield was very short, sometimes only 10 to 15 seconds. Most pilots did not bother to raise their landing gear, leaving them down during the strike. After a strike was completed, the Corsair simply turned back into the landing pattern again.
The Point.
"The Point" at the end of the northern landing beaches continued to cause heavy Marine casualties from the enfilading fire of Japanese heavy machine guns and anti-tank artillery across the landing beaches. Puller ordered Captain George P. Hunt, commander of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, to capture the position. Hunt's company approached "The Point" short on supplies, having lost most of its machine guns while approaching the beaches. Hunt's second platoon was pinned down for nearly a day in an anti-tank trench between fortifications. The rest of his company was threatened when the Japanese cut a hole in their line, surrounding his unit and leaving his right flank cut off.
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A rifle platoon then began knocking out the Japanese gun positions one by one. Using smoke grenades for concealment, the platoon swept through each hole, destroying the positions via a combination of rifle grenades and close-quarters combat. After knocking out six machine gun positions, the Marines faced a cave housing the 47 mm gun. A lieutenant blinded the gun crew with a smoke grenade, allowing Corporal Henry W. Hahn to launch a grenade through the cave's aperture. The grenade detonated the 47 mm's shells, forcing the Japanese defenders out with their bodies alight and their ammunition belts exploding around their waists. A Marine fire team was positioned on the flank of the cave, where the emerging occupants were gunned down.
K Company had captured "The Point", but Nakagawa again counterattacked. Over the next 30 hours the Japanese counterattacked four times against a single company, critically low on supplies, out of water and virtually surrounded. The Marines had to resort to hand-to-hand combat to fend off the Japanese attackers. By the time reinforcements arrived, the company had successfully repulsed all the Japanese attacks, but had been reduced to 18 men, suffering 157 casualties during the battle for The Point. Hunt and Hahn were both awarded the Navy Cross for their actions.
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Ngesebus Island.
The 5th Marines—after securing the airfield—were sent to capture Ngesebus Island, just north of Peleliu. Ngesebus was occupied by multiple Japanese artillery positions and was the site of an airfield still under construction. The tiny island was connected to Peleliu by a narrow causeway, but 5th Marines commander Harris opted instead to make a shore-to-shore amphibious landing, predicting the causeway to be an obvious target for the island's defenders.
Harris coordinated a pre-landing bombardment of the island on 28 September, carried out by Army guns, naval guns, howitzers from the 11th Marines, strafing runs from VMF-114's Corsairs and fire from the approaching LVTs. Unlike the Navy's bombardment of Peleliu, Harris' assault on Ngesebus successfully killed most of the Japanese defenders. The Marines still faced opposition in the ridges and caves, but the island fell quickly, with relatively light casualties for the 5th Marines. They had suffered 15 killed and 33 wounded and inflicted 470 casualties on the Japanese.
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Bloody Nose Ridge.
After capturing "The Point", the 1st Marines moved north into the Umurbrogol pocket, nicknamed "Bloody Nose Ridge" by the Marines. Puller led his men in numerous assaults, but each incurred severe casualties from Japanese fire. The 1st Marines' movement was constrained by the narrow paths between the ridges, with each ridge fortification able to support the others with direct and indirect fires.
The Marines took increasingly heavy casualties as they slowly advanced through the ridges. The Japanese again showed unusual fire discipline, striking only when they could inflict maximum casualties. As casualties mounted, Japanese snipers began to take aim at stretcher bearers, knowing that if stretcher bearers were injured or killed, more would have to return to replace them, providing more targets. In small groups, Japanese soldiers also frequently attempted to infiltrate the American lines at night. The Marines built two-man fighting holes, so one Marine could sleep while the other kept watch for infiltrators.
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A particularly intense engagement occurred on Bloody Nose Ridge, when the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines—under the command of Major Raymond Davis—attacked Hill 100. Over six days of fighting, the battalion suffered 71% casualties. Captain Everett P. Pope and his company penetrated deep into the ridges, leading his remaining 90 men to seize what he thought was Hill 100. It took a day's fighting to reach what he thought was the crest of the hill, which was in fact another ridge occupied by more Japanese defenders.
Trapped at the base of the ridge, Pope set up a small defensive perimeter, which was attacked relentlessly by the Japanese throughout the night. The Marines ran out of ammunition and had to fight the attackers with knives and fists, even resorting to throwing coral rock and empty ammunition boxes at the Japanese. Pope and his men managed to hold out until dawn, which brought on more deadly fire. When they evacuated the position, only nine men remained. Pope later received the Medal of Honor for the action.
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The Japanese inflicted 70% casualties on Puller's 1st Marines, or 1,749 men. After six days of fighting in the ridges of the Umurbrogol, Geiger sent elements of the U.S. Army's 81st Infantry Division to Peleliu to relieve the regiment. The 321st Regiment Combat Team landed on the western beaches of Peleliu—at the northern end of Umurbrogol mountain—on 23 September. The warren of ridges still occupied by Japanese troops became colloquially known as "the Pocket" by American forces on Peleliu. The 321st and the 7th Marines had fully encircled this "Pocket" by 24 September, D+9.
By 15 October the 7th Marines had suffered 46% casualties, and Geiger relieved them with the 5th Marines. Col. Harris adopted siege tactics, using bulldozers and flamethrower tanks to methodically destroy Japanese positions, and pushed into the ridges from the north. On 30 October the 81st Infantry Division took over command of Peleliu. It would take another six weeks, using the same tactics as the Marines, to finally reduce "The Pocket".
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After emerging victorious in the Battle of Angaur, the 81st Infantry Division was ordered to assist the 1st Marine Division in their efforts to seize Peleliu. The 81st Infantry Division eventually relieved the 1st Marine Division, and assumed command of combat operations on Peleliu. The 81st Infantry Division remained engaged on the island until the end of organized Japanese resistance on 18 January 1945.
On 24 November Nakagawa proclaimed, "Our sword is broken and we have run out of spears". He then burnt his regimental colors and performed ritual suicide. He was posthumously promoted to lieutenant general for his concerted defensive campaign on Peleliu. On 27 November the island was declared secure, ending the 73-day-long battle.
A Japanese lieutenant with twenty-six 2nd Infantry soldiers and eight 45th Guard Force sailors held out in the caves on Peleliu until 22 April 1947, only surrendering after a former Japanese admiral convinced them the war was over.
Aftermath.
The reduction of the Japanese positions in "the Pocket" around Umurbrogol mountain has been called the most difficult fight that the U.S. military encountered during the entire war. The 1st Marine Division was severely mauled, and remained out of action until the invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945. In total, the 1st Marine Division suffered over 6,500 casualties during a month of combat on Peleliu, over one third of the entire division. The 81st Infantry Division also suffered heavy losses, incurring 3,300 casualties during its tenure on the island.
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Postwar statisticians calculated that it took U.S. forces over 1,500 rounds of ammunition to kill each individual Japanese defender, and that the Americans expended 13.32 million rounds of .30-calibre, 1.52 million rounds of .45-calibre, 693,657 rounds of .50-calibre bullets, 118,262 hand grenades, and 150,000 mortar rounds over the course of the battle.
The battle was controversial in the United States. Many felt that too many American lives had been lost for an island that had little strategic value. The Japanese defenders lacked the means to interfere with potential US operations in the Philippines, and the airfield captured on Peleliu did not play a key role in any subsequent operations. Instead, Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands was used as a staging base for the invasion of Okinawa. The high casualty rate exceeded all other amphibious operations during the Pacific War.
In addition, few news reports were published about the battle because Rupertus' prediction of a "three days" victory motivated only six war reporters to report from shore. The battle was also overshadowed by MacArthur's return to the Philippines and the Allies' push towards Germany in Europe.
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The battles for Angaur and Peleliu offered the Americans a preview of future Japanese island defense, but American planners made few adjustments to their tactics before the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Naval bombardment prior to amphibious assault at Iwo Jima was only slightly more effective than at Peleliu, but at Okinawa the preliminary shelling was greatly improved. Frogmen performing underwater demolition at Iwo Jima confused the enemy by sweeping both coasts, but later alerted Japanese defenders to the exact assault beaches at Okinawa. American ground forces at Peleliu gained experience in assaulting heavily fortified positions, which they would encounter again on both Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
At the recommendation of Admiral William Halsey Jr., the planned occupation of Yap Island in the Caroline Islands was canceled. Halsey actually recommended that the landings on Peleliu and Angaur be canceled, too, and their Marines and soldiers be sent to Leyte Island instead, but this plan was overruled by Nimitz.
In his book "With the Old Breed", Eugene Sledge describes his experiences in the Battle for Peleliu. One of the final scenes in "Parer's War", a 2014 Australian television film, shows the Battle of Peleliu recorded by Damien Parer with his camera at the time of his death.
Individual honors.
Japan.
Posthumous promotions.
For heroism: |
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (17 July 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, beginning when Nazi Germany and its Axis allies attacked and became locked in a protracted struggle with the Soviet Union for control over the Soviet city of Stalingrad (now known as Volgograd) in southern Russia. The battle was characterized by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in aerial raids; the battle epitomized urban warfare, being the single largest and costliest urban battle in military history. It was the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entirety of World War II—and arguably in all of human history—as both sides suffered tremendous casualties amidst ferocious fighting in and around the city. The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II, as Germany's was forced to withdraw a considerable amount of military forces from other regions to replace losses on the Eastern Front. By the time the hostilities ended, the German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army had been destroyed and Army Group B was routed. The Soviets' victory at Stalingrad shifted the Eastern Front's balance of power in their favour, while also boosting the morale of the Red Army.
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Both sides placed great strategic importance on Stalingrad, for it was the largest industrial centre of the Soviet Union and an important transport hub on the Volga River: controlling Stalingrad meant gaining access to the oil fields of the Caucasus and having supreme authority over the Volga River. The city also held significant symbolic importance because it bore the name of Joseph Stalin, the incumbent leader of the Soviet Union. As the conflict progressed, Germany's fuel supplies dwindled and thus drove it to focus on moving deeper into Soviet territory and taking the country's oil fields at any cost. The German military first clashed with the Red Army's Stalingrad Front on the distant approaches to Stalingrad on 17 July. On 23 August, the 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army launched their offensive with support from intensive bombing raids by the "Luftwaffe", which reduced much of the city to rubble. The battle soon degenerated into house-to-house fighting, which escalated drastically as both sides continued pouring reinforcements into the city. By mid-November, the Germans, at great cost, had pushed the Soviet defenders back into narrow zones along the Volga's west bank. However, winter set in within a few months and conditions became particularly brutal, with temperatures often dropping tens of degrees below freezing. In addition to fierce urban combat, brutal trench warfare was prevalent at Stalingrad as well.
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On 19 November, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the Romanian armies protecting the 6th Army's flanks. The Axis flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was encircled. Adolf Hitler was determined to hold the city for Germany at all costs and forbade the 6th Army from trying a breakout; instead, attempts were made to supply it by air and to break the encirclement from the outside. Though the Soviets were successful in preventing the Germans from making enough airdrops to the trapped Axis armies at Stalingrad, heavy fighting continued for another two months. On 2 February 1943, the 6th Army, having exhausted their ammunition and food, finally capitulated after several months of battle, making it the first of Hitler's field armies to have surrendered.
In modern Russia, the legacy of the Red Army's victory at Stalingrad is commemorated among the Days of Military Honour. It is also well known in many other countries that belonged to the Allied powers, and has thus become ingrained in popular culture. Likewise, in a number of the post-Soviet states, the Battle of Stalingrad is recognized as an important aspect of what is known as the Great Patriotic War.
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Background.
By the spring of 1942, despite the failure of Operation Barbarossa to defeat the Soviet Union in a single campaign, the Wehrmacht had captured vast territories, including Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic republics. On the Western Front, Germany held most of Europe, the U-boat offensive was curbing American support, and in North Africa, Erwin Rommel had just captured Tobruk. In the east, the Germans had stabilized a front running from Leningrad to Rostov, with several minor salients. Hitler remained confident of breaking the Red Army, despite heavy losses west of Moscow in the winter of 1941–42, because large parts of Army Group Centre had been rested and re-equipped. Hitler decided that the 1942 summer campaign would target the southern Soviet Union. The initial objectives around Stalingrad were to destroy the city's industrial capacity and block the Volga River traffic, crucial for connecting the Caucasus and Caspian Sea to central Russia. The capture of Stalingrad would also disrupt Lend-Lease supplies via the Persian Corridor.
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On 23 July 1942, Hitler expanded the campaign's objectives to include occupying Stalingrad, a city with immense propaganda value due to its name, which bore that of the Soviet leader. Hitler ordered the annihilation of Stalingrad's population, declaring that after its capture, all male citizens would be killed and women and children deported due to their "thoroughly communistic" nature. The city's fall was intended to secure the northern and western flanks of the German advance on Baku to capture its petroleum resources. This expansion of objectives stemmed from German overconfidence and an underestimation of Soviet reserves.
Meanwhile, Stalin, convinced that the main German attack would target Moscow, prioritized defending the Soviet capital. As the Soviet winter counteroffensive of 1941–1942 culminated in March, the Soviet high command began planning for the summer campaign. Although Stalin desired a general offensive, he was dissuaded by Chief of the General Staff Boris Shaposhnikov, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Aleksandr Vasilevsky, and Western Main Direction commander Georgy Zhukov. Ultimately, Stalin instructed that the summer campaign be based on "active strategic defense," while also ordering local offensives across the Eastern Front. Southwestern Main Direction commander Semyon Timoshenko proposed an attack from the Izyum salient south of Kharkov to encircle and destroy the German 6th Army. Despite opposition from Shaposhnikov and Vasilevsky, Stalin approved the plan.
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After delays in troop movements and logistical challenges, the Kharkov operation began on 12 May. The Soviets achieved initial success, prompting 6th Army commander Friedrich Paulus to request reinforcements. However, a German counterattack on 13 May halted the Soviet advance. On 17 May, Ewald von Kleist's forces launched Operation Fridericus I, encircling and destroying much of the Soviet forces in the ensuing Second Battle of Kharkov. The defeat at Kharkov left the Soviets vulnerable to the German summer offensive. Despite the setback, Stalin continued to prioritize defending Moscow, allocating only limited reinforcements to the Southwestern Front.
The commitment of panzer divisions needed for Case Blue to the Second Battle of Kharkov further delayed the offensive's start. On 1 June, Hitler modified the summer plans, delaying Case Blue to 20 June after preliminary operations in Ukraine.
Prelude.
Army Group South was selected for a sprint forward through the southern Russian steppes into the Caucasus to capture the vital Soviet oil fields there. The planned summer offensive, code-named "Fall Blau" (Case Blue), was to include the German 6th, 17th, 4th Panzer and 1st Panzer Armies.
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Hitler intervened, however, ordering the Army Group to split in two. Army Group South (A), under the command of Wilhelm List, was to continue advancing south towards the Caucasus as planned with the 17th Army and First Panzer Army. Army Group South (B), including Paulus's 6th Army and Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, was to move east towards the Volga and Stalingrad. Army Group B was commanded by General Maximilian von Weichs.
The start of "Case Blue" had been planned for late May 1942. However, a number of German and Romanian units that were to take part in "Blau" were besieging Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Delays in ending the siege pushed back the start date for "Blau" several times, and the city did not fall until early July.
Operation Fridericus I by the Germans against the "Izyum bulge", pinched off the Soviet salient in the Second Battle of Kharkov, and resulted in the envelopment of a large Soviet force between 17 May and 29 May. Similarly, Operation Wilhelm attacked Voltshansk on 13 June, and Operation Fridericus attacked Kupiansk on 22 June.
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"Blau" finally opened as Army Group South began its attack into southern Russia on 28 June 1942. The German offensive achieved rapid success, as Soviet forces offered little resistance in the vast empty steppes and started streaming eastward. Several attempts to re-establish a defensive line failed when German units outflanked them. Two major pockets were formed and destroyed: the first, northeast of Kharkov, on 2 July, and a second, around Millerovo, Rostov Oblast, a week later. Meanwhile, the Hungarian 2nd Army and the German 4th Panzer Army had launched an assault on Voronezh, capturing the city on 5 July.
The initial advance of the 6th Army was so successful that Hitler intervened and ordered the 4th Panzer Army to join Army Group South (A) to the south. A massive road block resulted when the 4th Panzer and the 1st Panzer choked the roads, stopping both in their tracks while they cleared the mess of thousands of vehicles. The traffic jam is thought to have delayed the advance by at least one week. With the advance now slowed, Hitler changed his mind and reassigned the 4th Panzer Army back to the attack on Stalingrad.
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By the end of July, Soviet forces were pushed back across the Don River. At this point, the Don and Volga Rivers are only apart, and the Germans left their main supply depots west of the Don. The Germans began using the armies of their Italian, Hungarian and Romanian allies to guard their left (northern) flank. Italian actions were also mentioned in official German communiques. Italian forces were generally held in little regard by the Germans, and were accused of low morale: in reality, the Italian divisions fought comparatively well, with the 3rd Infantry Division "Ravenna" and 5th Infantry Division "Cosseria" showing spirit, according to a German liaison officer. Italian forces were forced to retreat only after a massive armoured attack in which German reinforcements failed to arrive in time.
To the south, Army Group A was pushing far into the Caucasus, but the advance slowed as supply lines grew overextended. The two German army groups were too far apart to support one another.
After German intentions became clear in July, Stalin appointed General Andrey Yeryomenko commander of the Southeastern Front on 1 August 1942. Yeryomenko and Commissar Nikita Khrushchev were tasked with planning the defence of Stalingrad. Beyond the Volga River on the eastern boundary of Stalingrad, additional Soviet units were formed into the 62nd Army under Lieutenant General Vasiliy Chuikov on 11 September 1942. Tasked with holding the city at all costs, Chuikov proclaimed, "We will defend the city or die in the attempt." The battle earned him one of his two Hero of the Soviet Union awards.
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Orders of battle.
Red Army.
During the defence of Stalingrad, the Red Army deployed five armies in and around the city (28th, 51st, 57th, 62nd and 64th Armies); and an additional nine armies in the encirclement counteroffensive (24th, 65th, 66th Armies and 16th Air Army from the north as part of the Don Front offensive, and 1st Guards Army, 5th Tank, 21st Army, 2nd Air Army and 17th Air Army from the south as part of the Southwestern Front).
Attack on Stalingrad.
Initial attack.
German forces first clashed with the Stalingrad Front on 17 July on the distant approaches to Stalingrad, in the bend of the Don. A significant clash in the early stages of the battle was fought at Kalach, in which "We had had to pay a high cost in men and material ... left on the Kalach battlefield were numerous burnt-out or shot-up German tanks." Military historian David Glantz indicated that four hard-fought battles – collectively known as the Kotluban Operations – north of Stalingrad, where the Soviets made their greatest stand, decided Germany's fate before the Nazis ever set foot in the city itself, and were a turning point in the war. Beginning in late August and lasting into October, the Soviets committed between two and four armies in hastily coordinated and poorly controlled attacks against the Germans' northern flank. The actions resulted in over 200,000 Soviet Army casualties but did slow the German assault.
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The Germans formed bridgeheads across the Don on 20 August, with the 295th and 76th Infantry Divisions enabling the XIVth Panzer Corps "to thrust to the Volga north of Stalingrad." The German 6th Army was only a few dozen kilometres from Stalingrad. The 4th Panzer Army, ordered south on 13 July to block the Soviet retreat "weakened by the 17th Army and the 1st Panzer Army", had turned northwards to help take the city from the south. On 19 August, German forces were in position to launch an attack on the city.
On 23 August, the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad in pursuit of the 62nd and 64th Armies, which had fallen back into the city. Kleist said after the war:
The Soviets had enough warning of the German advance to ship grain, cattle, and railway cars across the Volga out of harm's way. This "harvest victory" left the city short of food even before the German attack began. Before the "Heer" reached the city itself, the "Luftwaffe" had cut off shipping on the Volga. In the days between 25 and 31 July, 32 Soviet ships were sunk, with another nine crippled.
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"Generaloberst" Wolfram von Richthofen's "Luftflotte 4" dropped some 1,000 tons of bombs on 23 August, with the aerial attack on Stalingrad being the most single intense aerial bombardment at that point on the Eastern Front, and the heaviest bombing raid that had ever taken place on the Eastern Front. At least 90% of the city's housing stock was obliterated as a result. The Stalingrad Tractor Factory continued to turn out T-34 tanks up until German troops burst into the plant. The 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment was the only non-German unit selected by the "Wehrmacht" to enter Stalingrad city during assault operations, with it fighting as part of the 100th Jäger Division.
Georgy Zhukov, who was deputy commander-in-chief and commander of Stalingrad's defence during the battle, noted the importance of the battle, stating that:Stalin rushed all available troops to the east bank of the Volga, some from as far away as Siberia. Regular river ferries were quickly destroyed by the Luftwaffe, which then targeted troop barges being towed slowly across by tugs. It has been said that Stalin prevented civilians from leaving the city in the belief that their presence would encourage greater resistance from the city's defenders. Civilians, including women and children, were put to work building trenchworks and protective fortifications. Casualties due to the air raid on 23 August and beyond are debated, as between 23 and 26 August, Soviet reports indicate 955 people were killed and another 1,181 wounded as a result of the bombing. However, death toll of civilians due to the bombing has been estimated to have been 40,000, or as many as 70,000, though these estimates may be exaggerated. Also estimated are 150,000 wounded.
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The Soviet Air Force, the "Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily" (VVS), was swept aside by the Luftwaffe. The VVS bases in the immediate area lost 201 aircraft between 23 and 31 August, and despite meagre reinforcements of some 100 aircraft in August, it was left with just 192 serviceable aircraft, 57 of which were fighters.
Early on 23 August, the German 16th Panzer and 3rd Motorized Divisions attacked out of the Vertyachy bridgehead with a force 120 tanks and over 200 armored personnel carriers strong. The German attack broke through the 1382nd Rifle Regiment of the 87th Rifle Division and the 137th Tank Brigade, which were forced to retreat towards Dmitryevka. The 16th Panzer Division drove east towards the Volga, supported by the strikes of Henschel Hs 129 ground attack aircraft. Crossing the railway line to Stalingrad at 564 km Station around midday, both divisions continued their rush towards the river. Around 15:00, Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz's Panzer Detachment and the "kampfgruppe" of the 2nd Battalion, 64th Panzer Grenadier Regiment from the 16th Panzer reached the area of Latashanka, Rynok, and Spartanovka, northern suburbs of Stalingrad, and the Stalingrad Tractor Factory.
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A Soviet female soldier stated about the battle that:One of the first units to offer resistance in this area was the 1077th Anti-Aircraft Regiment, covering the Stalingrad Tractor Factory and the Volga ferry near Latashanka. The majority of the regiment was composed of men, but its directing and rangefinding crews and unit headquarters were made up of women. Several women also crewed anti-aircraft guns. The 1077th was notified of the German tanks' approach at 14:30 and its 6th Battery, dominating the Sukhaya Mechatka ravine, claimed the destruction of 28 German tanks. Later that day, its 3rd Battery on the road between Yerzovka and Stalingrad, saw particularly intense fighting against the 16th Panzer, reportedly fighting "shot for shot." Two women were decorated for their actions that day, and the regiment's report praised the "exceptional steadfastness and heroism" of the women soldiers. The regiment lost 35 guns, eighteen killed, 46 wounded, and 74 missing on 23 and 24 August. The 16th Panzer Division's history mentioned its encounter with the regiment, claiming the destruction of 37 guns, and the unit's surprise that its opponents had in part included women.
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In the early stages of the battle, the NKVD organised poorly armed "Workers' militias" similar to those that had defended the city twenty-four years earlier, composed of civilians not directly involved in war production for immediate use in the battle. The civilians were often sent into battle without rifles. Staff and students from the local technical university formed a "tank destroyer" unit. They assembled tanks from leftover parts at the tractor factory. These tanks, unpainted and lacking gun-sights, were driven directly from the factory floor to the front line. They could only be aimed at point-blank range through the bore of their gun barrels. Chuikov later remarked that soldiers approaching the battle would say "We are entering hell", but after one or two days, they said "No, this isn't hell, this is ten times worse than hell".
By the end of August, Army Group South (B) had finally reached the Volga, north of Stalingrad. Another advance to the river south of the city followed, while the Soviets abandoned their Rossoshka position for the inner defensive ring west of Stalingrad. The wings of the 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army met near Jablotchni along the Zaritza on 2 September.
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