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In later medieval Christian commentary, this book is referred to as the 'second book of Ezra', and never as the 'Book of Nehemiah"; equally citations from this book are always introduced as "Ezra says ...", and never as 'Nehemiah says ...". Composition and date. The combined book Ezra–Nehemiah of the earliest Christian and Hebrew period was known as Ezra and was probably attributed to Ezra himself; according to a rabbinic tradition, however, Nehemiah was the real author but was forbidden to claim authorship because of his bad habit of disparaging others. The Nehemiah Memorial, chapters 1–7 and 11–13, may have circulated as an independent work before being combined with the Ezra material to form Ezra–Nehemiah. Determining the composition of the Memorial depends on the dates of Nehemiah's mission: It is commonly accepted that "Artaxerxes" was Artaxerxes I (there were two later kings of the same name), and that Nehemiah's first period in Jerusalem was therefore 445–433 BC; allowing for his return to Susa and second journey to Jerusalem, the end of the 5th century BC is therefore the earliest possible date for the Memorial. The Nehemiah Memorial is interrupted by chapters 8–10, which concern Ezra. These have sometimes been identified as another, separate work, the Ezra Memorial (EM), but other scholars believe the EM to be fictional and heavily altered by later editors. Both the Nehemiah and Ezra material are combined with numerous lists, Censuses and other material. The first edition of the combined Ezra–Nehemiah may date from the early 4th century BC; further editing continued well into the following centuries. External links. Commentaries Other Translations
Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah () is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah". Of all the prophets, Jeremiah comes through most clearly as a person, ruminating to his scribe Baruch about his role as a servant of God with little good news for his audience. His book is intended as a message to the Jews in exile in Babylon, explaining the disaster of exile as God's response to Israel's pagan worship: the people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children, their infidelity and rebelliousness made judgment inevitable, although restoration and a new covenant are foreshadowed. Authentic oracles of Jeremiah are probably to be found in the poetic sections of chapters 1 through 25, but the book as a whole has been heavily edited and added to by the prophet's followers (including, perhaps, his companion, the scribe Baruch) and later generations of Deuteronomists.
It has come down in two distinct though related versions, one in Hebrew, the other known from the Septuagint Greek translation. The dates of the two (Greek and Hebrew) can be suggested by the fact that the Greek shows concerns typical of the early Persian period, while the Masoretic (i.e., Hebrew) shows perspectives which, although known in the Persian period, did not reach their realisation until the 2nd century BCE. Structure. It is difficult to discern any structure in Jeremiah, probably because the book had such a long and complex composition history. It can be divided into roughly six sections: Summary. Historical background. The background to Jeremiah is briefly described in the superscription to the book: Jeremiah began his prophetic mission in the thirteenth year of king Josiah (about 627 BC) and continued after the eleventh year of king Zedekiah (586 BC), "when Jerusalem went into exile in the sixth month". During this period, Josiah instituted religious reforms, Babylon destroyed Assyria, Egypt briefly imposed vassal status on Judah, Babylon defeated Egypt and made Judah a Babylonian vassal (605 BC), Judah revolted but was subjugated again by Babylon (597 BC), and Judah revolted once more.
This revolt was the final one: Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple and exiled its king and many of the leading citizens in 586 BC, ending Judah's existence as an independent or quasi-independent kingdom and inaugurating the Babylonian exile. Overview. The book can be conveniently divided into biographical, prose and poetic strands, each of which can be summarised separately. The biographical material is to be found in chapters 26–29, 32, and 34–44, and focuses on the events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BCE; it provides precise dates for the prophet's activities beginning in 609 BCE. The non-biographical prose passages, such as the Temple sermon in chapter 7 and the covenant passage in , are scattered throughout the book; they show clear affinities with the Deuteronomists, the school of writers and editors who shaped the series of history books from Judges to Kings, and while it is unlikely they come directly from Jeremiah, they may well have their roots in traditions about what he said and did.
The poetic material is found largely in chapters 1–25 and consists of oracles in which the prophet speaks as God's messenger. These passages, dealing with Israel's unfaithfulness to God, the call to repentance, and attacks on the religious and political establishment, are mostly undated and have no clear context, but it is widely accepted that they represent the teachings of Jeremiah and are the earliest stage of the book. Allied to them, and also probably a reflection of the authentic Jeremiah, are further poetic passages of a more personal nature, which have been called Jeremiah's confessions or spiritual diary. In these poems the prophet agonises over the apparent failure of his mission, is consumed by bitterness at those who oppose or ignore him, and accuses God of betraying him. Composition. Texts and manuscripts. Jeremiah exists in two versions: a Greek translation, called the Septuagint, dating from the last few centuries BCE and found in the earliest Christian manuscripts, and the Masoretic Hebrew text of traditional Jewish bibles. The Greek version is shorter than the Hebrew by about one eighth, and arranges the material differently. Equivalents of both versions were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so it is clear that the differences mark important stages in the transmission of the text.
Most scholars hold that the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint version is older than the Masoretic text, and that the Masoretic evolved either from this or from a closely related version. The shorter version ultimately became canonical in Greek Orthodox churches, while the longer was adopted in Judaism and in Western Christian churches. Composition history. It is generally agreed that the three types of material interspersed through the book – poetic, narrative, and biographical – come from different sources or circles. Authentic oracles of Jeremiah are probably to be found in the poetic sections of chapters 1–25, but the book as a whole has been heavily edited and added to by followers (including perhaps the prophet's companion, the scribe Baruch) and later generations of Deuteronomists. The date of the final versions of the book (Greek and Hebrew) can be suggested by the fact that the Greek shows concerns typical of the early Persian period, while the Masoretic (i.e., Hebrew) shows perspectives which, although known in the Persian period, did not reach their realisation until the 2nd century BCE.
Literary development. The Book of Jeremiah grew over a long period of time. The Greek stage, looking forward to the fall of Babylon and aligning in places with Second Isaiah, had already seen major redaction (editing) in terms of overall structure, the superscriptions (sentences identifying following passages as the words of God or of Jeremiah), the assignment of historical settings, and arrangement of material, and may have been completed by the late Exilic period (last half of the 6th century BCE); the initial stages of the Masoretic Hebrew version may have been written not long afterwards, although chapter 33:14–26 points to a setting in post-exilic times. Jeremiah. According to its opening verses the book records the prophetic utterances of the priest Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, "to whom the word of YHWH came in the days of king Josiah" and after. Jeremiah lived during a turbulent period, the final years of the kingdom of Judah, from the death of king Josiah (609 BCE) and the loss of independence that followed, through the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the exile of much its population (587/586). The book depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, impetuous and often angered by the role into which he has been thrust, alternating efforts to warn the people with pleas to God for mercy, until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people." He does a number of prophetic symbolic acts, walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention. He is taunted and retaliates, is thrown in jail as the result, and at one point is thrown into a pit to die.
Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists. The Deuteronomists were a school or movement who edited the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings into a more or less unified history of Israel (the so-called Deuteronomistic History) during the Jewish exile in Babylon (6th century BCE). It is argued that the Deuteronomists played an important role in the production of the book of Jeremiah; for example, there is clear Deuteronomistic language in chapter 25, in which the prophet looks back over twenty-three years of unheeded prophecy. From the Deuteronomistic perspective the prophetic role implied, more than anything else, concern with law and covenant after the manner of Moses. On this reading Jeremiah was the last of a long line of prophets sent to warn Israel of the consequences of infidelity to God; unlike the Deuteronomists, for whom the call for repentance was always central, Jeremiah seems at some point in his career to have decided that further intercession was pointless, and that Israel's fate was sealed. Jeremiah as a new Moses.
The book's superscription claims that Jeremiah was active for forty years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah (627 BCE) to the fall of Jerusalem in 587. It is clear from the last chapters of the book, however, that he continued to speak in Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah, the Babylonian-appointed governor of Judah, in 582. This suggests that the superscription is trying to make a theological point about Jeremiah by comparing him to Moses – whereas Moses spent forty years leading Israel from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, Jeremiah's forty years saw Israel exiled from the land and Jeremiah himself ultimately in exile in Egypt. Themes. Covenant. Much of Jeremiah's prophetic preaching is based on the theme of the covenant between God and Israel (God would protect the people in return for their exclusive worship of him); Jeremiah insists that the covenant is conditional, and can be broken by Israel's apostasy (worship of gods other than Yahweh, the God of Israel). The people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children: their infidelity and rebelliousness makes judgement inevitable. Interspersed with this are references to repentance and renewal, although it is unclear whether Jeremiah thought that repentance could ward off judgement or whether it would have to follow judgement. The theme of restoration is strongest in chapter 31:32, which looks to a future in which a New Covenant, made with Israel and Judah, will not be broken. This is the theme of the "New Covenant" passage at chapter 31:31–34, drawing on Israel's past relationship with God through the covenant at Sinai to foresee a new future in which Israel will be obedient to God.
The "Confessions" of Jeremiah. Scholars from Heinrich Ewald onwards have identified several passages in Jeremiah which can be understood as "confessions": they occur in the first section of the book (chapters 1–25) and are generally identified as Jeremiah 11:18–12.6, 15:10–21, 17:14–18, 18:18–23, and 20:7–18. In these five passages, Jeremiah expresses his discontent with the message he is to deliver, but also his steadfast commitment to the divine call despite the fact that he had not sought it out. Additionally, in several of these "confessions", Jeremiah prays that the Lord will take revenge on the wicked. (for example, Jeremiah 12:3). Jeremiah's "confessions" are a type of individual lament. Such laments are found elsewhere in the psalms and the Book of Job. Like Job, Jeremiah curses the day of his birth (Jeremiah 20:14–18 and Job 3:3–10). Likewise, Jeremiah's exclamation "For I hear the whispering of many: Terror is all around!" matches Psalm 31:13 exactly. However, Jeremiah's laments are made unique by his insistence that he has been called by Yahweh to deliver his messages. These laments "provide a unique look at the prophet's inner struggle with faith, persecution, and human suffering".
Prophetic gestures. Prophetic gestures, also known as sign-acts or symbolic actions, were a form of communication in which a message was delivered by performing symbolic actions. Not unique to the book of Jeremiah, these were often bizarre and violated the cultural norms of the time. They served the purposes of both drawing an audience and causing that audience to ask questions, giving the prophet an opportunity to explain the meaning of the behavior. The recorder of the events in the written text (i.e. the author of the text) had neither the same audience nor, potentially, the same intent that Jeremiah had in performing these prophetic gestures. The following is a list – not exhaustive – of noteworthy sign-acts found in Jeremiah: Later interpretation and influence. Judaism. The influence of Jeremiah during and after the Exile was considerable in some circles, and three additional books, the Book of Baruch, Lamentations, and the Letter of Jeremiah, were attributed to him in Second Temple Judaism (Judaism in the period between the building of the Second Temple in about 515 BCE and its destruction in 70 CE); in the Greek Septuagint they stand between Jeremiah and the Book of Ezekiel, but only Lamentations is included in modern Jewish or Protestant bibles (the Letter of Jeremiah appears in Catholic bibles as the sixth chapter of Baruch). Jeremiah is mentioned by name in Chronicles and the Book of Ezra, both dating from the later Persian period, and his prophecy that the Babylonian exile would last 70 years was taken up and reapplied by the author of the Book of Daniel in the 2nd century BCE. Christianity. The understanding of the early Christians that Jesus represented a "new covenant" is based on , in which a future Israel will repent and give God the obedience he demands. The Gospel's portrayal of Jesus as a persecuted prophet owes a great deal to the account of Jeremiah's sufferings in chapters 37–44, as well as to the "Songs of the Suffering Servant" in Isaiah.
Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amoz, but there is evidence that much of it was composed during the Babylonian captivity and later. Johann Christoph Döderlein suggested in 1775 that the book contained the works of two prophets separated by more than a century, and Bernhard Duhm originated the view, held as a consensus through most of the 20th century, that the book comprises three separate collections of oracles: Proto-Isaiah (chapters 1–39), containing the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah; Deutero-Isaiah, or "the Book of Consolation", (chapters 40–55), the work of an anonymous 6th-century BCE author writing during the Exile; and Trito-Isaiah (chapters 56–66), composed after the return from Exile. Isaiah 1–33 promises judgment and restoration for Judah, Jerusalem and the nations, and chapters 34–66 presume that judgment has been pronounced and restoration follows soon. While few scholars today attribute the entire book, or even most of it, to one person, the book's essential unity has become a focus in more recent research.
The book can be read as an extended meditation on the destiny of Jerusalem into and after the Exile. The Deutero-Isaian part of the book describes how God will make Jerusalem the centre of his worldwide rule through a royal saviour (a messiah) who will destroy the oppressor (Babylon); this messiah is the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who is merely the agent who brings about Yahweh's kingship. Isaiah speaks out against corrupt leaders and for the disadvantaged, and roots righteousness in God's holiness rather than in Israel's covenant. Isaiah was one of the most popular works among Jews in the Second Temple period (c. 515 BCE – 70 CE). In Christian circles, it was held in such high regard as to be called "the Fifth Gospel", and its influence extends beyond Christianity to English literature and to Western culture in general, from the libretto of Handel's "Messiah" to a host of such everyday phrases as "swords into ploughshares" and "voice in the wilderness". Structure. General scholarly consensus through most of the 20th century saw three separate collections of oracles in the book of Isaiah. A typical outline based on this understanding of the book sees its underlying structure in terms of the identification of historical figures who might have been their authors:
While one part of the general consensus still holds, this perception of Isaiah as made up of three rather distinct sections underwent a radical challenge in the last quarter of the 20th century. The newer approach looks at the book in terms of its literary and formal characteristics, rather than authors, and sees in it a two-part structure divided between chapters 33 and 34: Summary. Seeing Isaiah as a two-part book (chapters 1–33 and 34–66) with an overarching theme leads to a summary of its contents like the following: The older understanding of this book as three fairly discrete sections attributable to identifiable authors leads to a more atomised picture of its contents, as in this example: Composition. Authorship. While it is widely accepted that the book of Isaiah is rooted in a historic prophet called Isaiah, who lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the 8th century BCE, it is also widely accepted that this prophet did not write the entire book of Isaiah. The composition history of Isaiah reflects a major difference in the way authorship was regarded in ancient Israel and in modern societies; the ancients did not regard it as inappropriate to supplement an existing work while remaining anonymous. While the authors are anonymous, it is plausible that all of them were priests, and the book may thus reflect Priestly concerns, in opposition to the increasingly successful reform movement of the Deuteronomists.
Historical context. The historic Isaiah ben Amoz lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the reigns of four kings from the mid to late 8th-century BCE. During this period, Assyria was expanding westward from its origins in modern-day northern Iraq towards the Mediterranean, destroying first Aram (modern Syria) in 734–732 BCE, then the Kingdom of Israel in 722–721, and finally subjugating Judah in 701. Proto-Isaiah is divided between verse and prose passages, and a currently popular theory is that the verse passages represent the prophecies of the original 8th-century Isaiah, while the prose sections are "sermons" on his texts composed at the court of Josiah a hundred years later, at the end of the 7th century. The conquest of Jerusalem by Babylon and the exile of its elite in 586 BCE ushered in the next stage in the formation of the book. Deutero-Isaiah addresses himself to the Jews in exile, offering them the hope of return. This was the period of the meteoric rise of Persia under its king Cyrus the Great – in 559 BCE he succeeded his father as ruler of a small vassal kingdom in modern eastern Iran, by 540 he ruled an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, and in 539 he conquered Babylon. Deutero-Isaiah's predictions of the imminent fall of Babylon and his glorification of Cyrus as the deliverer of Israel date his prophecies to 550–539 BCE, and probably towards the end of this period.
The Persians ended the Jewish exile, and by 515 BCE the exiles, or at least some of them, had returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple. The return, however, was not without problems: the returnees found themselves in conflict with those who had remained in the country and who now owned the land, and there were further conflicts over the form of government that should be set up. This background forms the context of Trito-Isaiah. Themes. Overview. The Book of Isaiah focuses on the main role of Jerusalem in God's plan for the world, seeing centuries of history as though they were all the single vision of the 8th-century prophet Isaiah. Walter Brueggemann has described this overarching narrative as "a continued meditation upon the destiny of Jerusalem". Holiness, righteousness, and God's plan. God's plan for the world is based on his choice of Jerusalem as the place where he will manifest himself, and of the line of David as his earthly representative – a theme that may possibly have originated with Jerusalem's reprieve from Assyrian attack in 701 BCE. God is "the holy one of Israel"; justice and righteousness are the qualities that mark the essence of God, and Israel has offended God through unrighteousness. Isaiah speaks out for the poor and the oppressed and against corrupt princes and judges, but unlike the prophets Amos and Micah he roots righteousness not in Israel's covenant with God but in God's holiness.
Monotheism. Isaiah 44:6 contains the first clear statement of Yahwist monotheism: "I am the first and I am the last; beside me there is no God". In Isaiah 44:09–20, this develops into a satire on the making and worship of idols, mocking the foolishness of the carpenter who worships the idol that he himself has carved. While Yahweh had shown his superiority to other gods before, in Second Isaiah he becomes the sole God of the world. This model of monotheism became the defining characteristic of post-Exilic Judaism and provided the basis for Christianity and for Islam. A new Exodus. A central theme in Second Isaiah is that of a new Exodus – the return of the exiled people Israel from Babylon to Jerusalem. The author imagines a ritualistic return to Zion (Judah), led by Yahweh. The importance of this theme is indicated by its placement at the beginning and end of Second Isaiah (40:3–5, 55:12–13). This new Exodus is repeatedly linked with Israel's Exodus from Egypt to Canaan under divine guidance, but with new elements. These links include the following:
Later interpretation and influence. 2nd Temple Judaism (515 BCE – 70 CE). Isaiah was one of the most popular works in the period between the foundation of the Second Temple c. 515 BCE and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. Isaiah's "shoot [which] will come up from the stump of Jesse" is alluded to or cited in the Psalms of Solomon and various apocalyptic works including the Similitudes of Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, and the third of the Sibylline oracles, all of which understood it to refer to a/the messiah and the messianic age. Isaiah 6, in which Isaiah describes his vision of God enthroned in the Temple, influenced the visions of God in works such as the "Book of the Watchers" section of the Book of Enoch, the Book of Daniel and others, often combined with the similar vision from the Book of Ezekiel. A very influential portion of Isaiah was the four so-called Songs of the Suffering Servant from Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52, in which God calls upon his servant to lead the nations (the servant is horribly abused, sacrifices himself in accepting the punishment due others, and is finally rewarded). Some Second Temple texts, including the Wisdom of Solomon and the Book of Daniel identified the Servant as a group – "the wise" who "will lead many to righteousness" (Daniel 12:3) – but others, notably the Similitudes of Enoch, understood it in messianic terms.
Christianity. The earliest Christians, building on the messianic interpretation of Enoch, interpreted Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the fourth of the songs, as a prophecy of the death and exaltation of Jesus, a role which Jesus himself accepted according to Luke 4:17–21. The Book of Isaiah has been immensely influential in the formation of Christianity, from the devotion to the Virgin Mary to anti-Jewish polemic, medieval passion iconography, and modern Christian feminism and liberation theology. The regard in which Isaiah was held was so high that the book was frequently called "the Fifth Gospel": the prophet who spoke more clearly of Christ and the Church than any others. Its influence extends beyond the Church and Christianity to English literature and to Western culture in general, from the libretto of Handel's "Messiah" to a host of such everyday phrases as "swords into ploughshares" and "voice in the wilderness".
Isaiah seems always to have had a prominent place in Hebrew Bible use, and it is probable that Jesus himself was deeply influenced by Isaiah. Thus many of the Isaiah passages that are familiar to Christians gained their popularity not directly from Isaiah but from the use of them by Jesus and the early Christian authors – this is especially true of the Book of Revelation, which depends heavily on Isaiah for its language and imagery. External links. Translations
Bilinear map In mathematics, a bilinear map is a function combining elements of two vector spaces to yield an element of a third vector space, and is linear in each of its arguments. Matrix multiplication is an example. A bilinear map can also be defined for modules. For that, see the article pairing. Definition. Vector spaces. Let formula_1 and formula_2 be three vector spaces over the same base field formula_3. A bilinear map is a function formula_4 such that for all formula_5, the map formula_6 formula_7 is a linear map from formula_8 to formula_9 and for all formula_10, the map formula_11 formula_12 is a linear map from formula_13 to formula_14 In other words, when we hold the first entry of the bilinear map fixed while letting the second entry vary, the result is a linear operator, and similarly for when we hold the second entry fixed. Such a map formula_15 satisfies the following properties. If formula_23 and we have for all formula_24 then we say that "B" is "symmetric". If "X" is the base field "F", then the map is called a "bilinear form", which are well-studied (for example: scalar product, inner product, and quadratic form).
Modules. The definition works without any changes if instead of vector spaces over a field "F", we use modules over a commutative ring "R". It generalizes to "n"-ary functions, where the proper term is "multilinear". For non-commutative rings "R" and "S", a left "R"-module "M" and a right "S"-module "N", a bilinear map is a map with "T" an -bimodule, and for which any "n" in "N", is an "R"-module homomorphism, and for any "m" in "M", is an "S"-module homomorphism. This satisfies for all "m" in "M", "n" in "N", "r" in "R" and "s" in "S", as well as "B" being additive in each argument. Properties. An immediate consequence of the definition is that whenever or . This may be seen by writing the zero vector 0"V" as (and similarly for 0"W") and moving the scalar 0 "outside", in front of "B", by linearity. The set of all bilinear maps is a linear subspace of the space (viz. vector space, module) of all maps from into "X". If "V", "W", "X" are finite-dimensional, then so is . For formula_25 that is, bilinear forms, the dimension of this space is (while the space of "linear" forms is of dimension ). To see this, choose a basis for "V" and "W"; then each bilinear map can be uniquely represented by the matrix , and vice versa.
Now, if "X" is a space of higher dimension, we obviously have . Continuity and separate continuity. Suppose formula_32 and formula_33 are topological vector spaces and let formula_34 be a bilinear map. Then "b" is said to be if the following two conditions hold: Many separately continuous bilinear that are not continuous satisfy an additional property: hypocontinuity. All continuous bilinear maps are hypocontinuous. Sufficient conditions for continuity. Many bilinear maps that occur in practice are separately continuous but not all are continuous. We list here sufficient conditions for a separately continuous bilinear map to be continuous. Composition map. Let formula_42 be locally convex Hausdorff spaces and let formula_45 be the composition map defined by formula_46 In general, the bilinear map formula_47 is not continuous (no matter what topologies the spaces of linear maps are given). We do, however, have the following results: Give all three spaces of linear maps one of the following topologies:
Blind Blake Arthur Blake (1896 – December 1, 1934), known as Blind Blake, was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He is known for recordings he made for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932. Early life. Little is known of Blake's life. Promotional materials from Paramount Records indicate he was born blind and gave his birthplace as Jacksonville, Florida, and it seems that he lived there during various periods. He may have had relatives in Patterson, Georgia. Some authors have written that in one recording he slipped into a Geechee (Gullah) dialect, suggesting a connection with the Sea Islands. Blind Willie McTell indicated that Blake's real name was Arthur Phelps, but later research has shown this is unlikely to be correct. In 2011, a group of researchers led by Alex van der Tuuk published various documents regarding Blake's life and death in the journal "Blues & Rhythm". One of these documents is his 1934 death certificate, which states he was born in 1896 in Newport News, Virginia, to Winter and Alice Blake (his mother's name is followed by a question mark). Nothing else is known of Blake until the 1920s, when he emerged as a recording musician.
Career. Blake recorded about 80 tracks for Paramount Records from 1926 to 1932. He was one of the most accomplished guitarists of his genre and played a diverse range of material. He is best known for his distinctive guitar playing, which was comparable in sound and style to ragtime piano. He may have lived in Jacksonville, going to Chicago for his recording sessions. According to van der Tuuk et al., he returned to Florida for the winter. In the 1930s he was reported to be playing in front of a Jacksonville hotel. Music. Blake's first recordings were made in 1926, and his records sold well. His first solo record was "Early Morning Blues", with "West Coast Blues" on the B-side. Both are considered excellent examples of his ragtime-based guitar style and were prototypes for the burgeoning Piedmont blues. Blake made his last recordings in 1932; his career ended with Paramount's bankruptcy. Stefan Grossman and Gayle Dean Wardlow have suggested it is possible that only one side of Blake's last record is actually by him; Champagne Charlie Is My Name' does not sound like Blake's playing or singing."
His complex and intricate fingerpicking inspired Reverend Gary Davis, Jorma Kaukonen, Ry Cooder, Arlen Roth, John Fahey, Ralph McTell, David Bromberg, Leon Redbone and many others. Big Bill Broonzy, hearing Blake in person in the early 1920s, said of his guitar playing "He made it sound like every instrument in the band- saxophone, trombone, clarinets, bass fiddles, pianos- everything. I never had seed then and I haven't to this day yet seed no one that could take his natural fingers and pick as much guitar as Blind Blake." The track "You Gonna Quit Me" from Bob Dylan's 1992 album "Good as I Been to You" is a cover of Blind Blake's "You Gonna Quit Me Blues." Personal life. Blake married Beatrice McGee around 1931. In the following year he made his final recording at the Paramount headquarters, in Grafton, Wisconsin, just before the label went out of business. Death. For decades nothing was known of him after this point, and it was rumored that he met with a violent death. Reverend Gary Davis heard he had been hit by a streetcar in 1934 and Big Bill Broonzy thought that he had frozen to death after falling over drunk during a Chicago blizzard and was too overweight to get back up. The research of van der Tuuk et al. suggests that Blake stayed in Wisconsin, living in Milwaukee's Brewer's Hill neighborhood, where Paramount boarded many of its artists. He seems not to have found work as a musician. In April 1933, he was hospitalized with pneumonia and never fully recovered. On December 1, 1934, after three weeks of decline, Beatrice Blake summoned an ambulance. He had a pulmonary hemorrhage and died on the way to the hospital. The cause of death was listed as pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Glen Oaks Cemetery, in Glendale, Wisconsin in a previously unmarked grave.
In literature. Blake figures in the plot of Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel, "Killing Floor" (1997), and there are references to him in Child's 2011 prequel, "The Affair". Reference to Blake is made again in "The Sentinel" (2020), written by Lee Child and his brother Andrew Child, when Jack Reacher is on the lookout for venues in Nashville, 'where Blind Blake could have played'. Blake's original recording of "Diddy Wah Diddy" is referenced on the cover of Robert Crumb's "Zap Comix" #1. In television. "Blind Blake" and his song "Police Dog Blues" appear in "Reacher", Season 1, the TV series based on Lee Child's novel, "Killing Floor". The main character Jack Reacher (a blues lover) arrives at the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia looking for some trace of Blake.
Brian Lara Brian Charles Lara, (born 2 May 1969) is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He holds several cricketing records, including the record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket, with 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994, and the record for the highest individual score in an international Test innings, after scoring 400 not out at Antigua during the 4th test against England in 2004. Lara also held, for 18 years, the record of scoring the highest number of runs in a single over of a Test match when he scored 28 runs off an over of Robin Peterson of South Africa in 2003, until his record was overtaken by Jasprit Bumrah in 2022. As captain, Lara led the West Indies team to win the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy, the first time the team won any major ICC trophy since winning the 1979 Cricket World Cup. Lara topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions, and his match-winning performance of 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1999 was rated by Wisden the second-best batting performance in the history of Test cricket, next only to the 270 runs scored by Sir Donald Bradman in The Ashes Test match of 1937. Muttiah Muralitharan has hailed Lara as his toughest opponent among all batsmen in the world.
Lara was awarded the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World awards in 1994 and 1995 and is also one of only three cricketers to receive the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, the other two being Sir Garfield Sobers and Shane Warne. Brian Lara was appointed honorary member of the Order of Australia on 27 November 2009, and in September 2012 he was inducted to the ICC's Hall of Fame as a 2012–13 season inductee. In 2013, Lara received Honorary Life Membership of the MCC becoming the 31st West Indian to receive the honor. Brian Lara is popularly nicknamed as "The Prince of Port of Spain" or simply "The Prince". Early life. Brian is one of eleven siblings. His father Bunty and one of his older sisters Agnes Cyrus enrolled him in the local Harvard Coaching Clinic at the age of six for weekly coaching sessions on Sundays. As a result, Lara had a very early education in correct batting technique. Lara's first school was St. Joseph's Roman Catholic primary. He then went to San Juan Secondary School, which is located on Moreau Road, Lower Santa Cruz. A year later, at fourteen years old, he moved on to Fatima College where he started his development as a promising young player under cricket coach Harry Ramdass. Aged 14, he amassed 745 runs in the schoolboys' league, with an average of 126.16 per innings, which earned him selection for the Trinidad and Tobago national under-16 team. When he was 15 years old, he played in his first West Indian under-19 youth tournament and that same year, Lara represented West Indies in Under-19 cricket.
Cricket career. Early first-class career. 1987 was a breakthrough year for Lara, when in the West Indies Youth Championships he scored 498 runs breaking the record of 480 by Carl Hooper set the previous year. He captained the tournament-winning Trinidad and Tobago, who profited from a match-winning 116 from Lara. In January 1988, Lara made his first-class debut for Trinidad and Tobago in the Red Stripe Cup against Leeward Islands. In his second first-class match he made 92 against a Barbados attack containing Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall, two greats of West Indies teams. Later in the same year, he captained the West Indies team in Australia for the Bicentennial Youth World Cup where the West Indies reached the semi-finals. Later that year, his innings of 182 as captain of the West Indies Under-23s against the touring Indian team further elevated his reputation. His first selection for the full West Indies team followed in due course, but unfortunately coincided with the death of his father and Lara withdrew from the team. In 1989, he captained a West Indies B Team in Zimbabwe and scored 145.
In 1990, at the age of 20, Lara became Trinidad and Tobago's youngest-ever captain, leading them that season to victory in the one-day Geddes Grant Shield. It was also in 1990 that he made his belated Test debut for West Indies against Pakistan, scoring 44 and 5. He had made his ODI debut a month earlier against Pakistan, scoring 11. International career. In January 1993, Lara scored 277 versus Australia in Sydney. This, his maiden Test century in his fifth Test, was the turning point of the series as West Indies won the final two Tests to win the series 2–1. Lara went on to name his daughter Sydney after scoring 277 at the SCG. Lara holds several world records for high scoring. He has the highest individual score in both first-class cricket (501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994) and Test cricket (400 not out for the West Indies against England in 2004). Lara amassed his world record 501 in 474 minutes off only 427 balls. He hit 308 in boundaries (10 sixes and 62 fours). His partners were Roger Twose (115 partnership – 2nd wicket), Trevor Penney (314 – 3rd), Paul Smith (51 – 4th) and Keith Piper (322 unbroken – 5th). Earlier in that season Lara scored six centuries in seven innings while playing for Warwickshire.
He is the only man to have reclaimed the Test record score, having scored 375 against England in 1994, a record that stood until Matthew Hayden's 380 against Zimbabwe in 2003. His 400 not out also made him the second player (after Donald Bradman) to score two Test triple-centuries, and the second (after Bill Ponsford) to score two first-class quadruple-centuries. He has scored nine double-centuries in Test cricket, third after Bradman's twelve and Kumar Sangakkara's eleven. As a captain, he scored five double-centuries, which is the highest by any one who is in charge. In 1995 Lara in the Test match away series against England, scored 3 centuries in three consecutive Matches which earned him the Man of the Series award. The Test Series was eventually drawn 2–2. He also held the record for the highest total number of runs in a Test career, after overtaking Allan Border in an innings of 226 played at Adelaide Oval, Australia in November 2005. Lara captained the West Indies from 1998 to 1999, when West Indies suffered their first whitewash at the hands of South Africa. Following this they played Australia in a four-Test series which was drawn 2–2, with Lara scoring 546 runs including three centuries and one double hundred. In the second Test at Kingston he scored 213 while in the third Test he scored 153* in the second innings as West Indies chased down 311 with one wicket left. He won the Man of the Match award for both matches and was also named Man of the Series.
The Wisden 100 rates Lara's 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown in 1998–99 as the second-best innings ever after Sir Donald Bradman's 270 against England in Melbourne in 1936–37. In 2001 Lara was named the Man of the Carlton Series in Australia with an average of 46.50, the highest average by a West Indian in that series, scoring two half centuries and one century, 116 against Australia. That same year Lara amassed 688 runs in the three match away Test series against Sri Lanka making three centuries, and one fifty—including the double-century and a century in the first and second innings of the 3rd Test match at the Sinhalese Sports Ground, equating to 42% of the team's runs in that series. These extraordinary performances led Muttiah Muralitharan to state that Lara was the most dangerous batsman he had ever bowled to. Lara was reappointed as captain against the touring Australians in 2003, and struck 110 in his first Test match back in charge, showing a return to stellar performance. Later that season, under his captaincy, West Indies won the two match Test series against Sri Lanka 1–0 with Lara making a double-century in the First Test. In September 2004, West Indies won the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy in England under his captaincy. For his performances in 2004, he was named both in the World Test XI and ODI XI by ICC.
In March 2005, Lara declined selection for the West Indies team because of a dispute over his personal Cable & Wireless sponsorship deal, which clashed with the Cricket Board's main sponsor, Digicel. Six other players were involved in this dispute, including stars Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo. Lara said he declined selection in a stand of solidarity, when these players were dropped because of their sponsorship deals. The issue was resolved after the first Test of the series against the touring South African team. Lara returned to the team for the second Test (and scored a huge first innings score of 196), but in the process lost his captaincy indefinitely to the newly appointed Shivnarine Chanderpaul. In the next Test, against the same opponents, he scored a 176 in the first innings. After a one-day series against South Africa, he scored his first Test century against the visiting Pakistanis in the first Test at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados which the West Indies eventually won.
For his performances in 2005, he was named in the World Test XI by ICC. On 26 April 2006 Lara was reappointed the captain of the West Indies cricket team for the third time. This followed the resignation of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who had been captain for thirteen months—in which the West Indies won just one of the 14 Test matches they had competed. In May 2006, Lara led the West Indies to successful One-Day series victories against Zimbabwe and India. Lara's team played Australia in the finals of the DLF Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy where they finished runners up in both finals. On 16 December 2006 he became the first player for the West Indies to pass 10,000 One Day International runs, and, along with Sachin Tendulkar, one of only two players, at the time, to do so in both forms of the game. On 10 April 2007 Lara confirmed his retirement from one-day cricket post the 2007 Cricket World Cup. A few days later he announced that he would in fact be retiring from all international cricket after the tournament.
Lara played his final international game on 21 April 2007 in a dead rubber World Cup game against England. He was run out for 18 after a mix-up with Marlon Samuels; England won the game by 1 wicket. Before the end of this World Cup Glenn McGrath stated that Lara is the greatest batsman that he has ever bowled to. Retirement. On 19 April 2007 Lara announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket, indicating that the West Indies vs England match on 21 April 2007 would be his last international appearance. He was run out after a bad mixup with Marlon Samuels for 18, as England went on to win the match by one wicket. He announced before the 2007 Cricket World Cup that this would be his last appearance in One Day Internationals. After his last match, in the post-game presentation interview, he asked the fans, "Did I entertain?", to which he received a resounding cheer from the crowd, after which he went out and took his 'lap of honour' where he met and shook hands with many of the fans. Lara stated this would be his last appearance in international cricket, he has also indicated his interest in retaining some involvement in the sport.
On 23 July 2007 Lara agreed to sign for the Indian Cricket League. He is the former captain of the Mumbai Champs. He volunteered to play for his home team Trinidad and Tobago during the start of 2008 domestic season, after not playing for them for the previous two years. He made his comeback a memorable one with a match winning hundred over Guyana, followed by a dismissive undefeated half-century in the second innings, scored at over two runs per ball. In the third-round game (Trinidad and Tobago got a bye in the second round). Lara suffered a fractured arm against the Leeward Islands in St Maarten on 19 January, which kept him out of the ICL season. He nevertheless affirmed his commitment to returning to Twenty20 cricket, and on 27 June 2010 appeared for the Marylebone Cricket Club match against a touring Pakistan team, scoring 37 from 32 balls. In 2012, Lara became involved with the Bangladesh Premier League team Chittagong Kings as their brand ambassador. On the occasion of bicentennial anniversary of Lord's ground he played for the team of MCC, under the leadership of Sachin Tendulkar against the Rest of World XI in a 50 over game. He went on to score a half century in an eventual win for the MCC. 2010 return.
After negotiations between Surrey and Lara for the 2010 Friends Provident t20 failed to come to anything, Lara declared that he still wanted to sign a contract to play Twenty20 cricket. Late in the year he joined Southern Rocks, a Zimbabwean side, to compete in the 2010–11 Stanbic Bank 20 Series. On his debut for the Rocks, and his first-ever Twenty20 match, he scored a half-century, top-scoring for the Rocks with 65. He added 34 runs in his next two innings, but then left the competition, citing "commitments elsewhere". After expressing his interest to play in the 2011 fourth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and despite not having played active cricket for four years, Brian Lara still managed to attract the highest reserve price of $400,000 ahead of the IPL players' auction in early January 2011; however, no franchise bought him. In July 2014, he played for the MCC side in the Bicentenary Celebration match at Lord's. On 18 November 2016, Brian Lara signed with Newcastle C&S D5's side The Bennett Hotel Centurions.
Coaching. In December 2021 Brian Lara was appointed as Batting Coach and Strategic Advisor of the Sunrisers Hyderabad team for the 2022 season of the Indian Premier League. Personal life. Lara's father died in 1989 of a heart attack. His mother died in 2002 of cancer. Lara has two daughters with Trinidadian journalist and model Leasel Rovedas. Lara has dated former British lingerie model Lynnsey Ward. Honours. In 2009, Lara was made an honorary Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to West Indian and Australian cricket. Lara was one of four persons to receive the highest award of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in July. Lara received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sheffield on Wednesday 10 January 2007. The ceremony took place at the Trinidad Hilton, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. In September 2009, Lara was inducted as an honorary lifetime member of the Royal St. Kitts Golf Club. On 29 October 2011 Lara was conferred with an honorary doctorate of laws by the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.
On 14 September 2012 he was inducted to the ICC's Hall of Fame at the awards ceremony held in Colombo, Sri Lanka as a 2012–13 season inductee. The Brian Lara Stadium, in Trinidad and Tobago, opened in 2017, was named in his honour. On 4 July 2019 Lara was bestowed with an honorary doctorate by the D Y Patil International University of India. Philanthropy. Lara has established the Pearl and Bunty Lara Foundation, which is a charitable organisation in memory of his parents that aims to address health and social care issues. He is an Ambassador for Sport of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and travels on a diplomatic passport to promote his country throughout the world. On 7 September 2008 he took part in Soccer Aid 2008, and on 6 June 2010 in Soccer Aid 2010, playing for the Rest of the World vs a team of England celebrities and ex-pros. Lara was also a talented football player in his youth and often played with his friends Dwight Yorke, Shaka Hislop and Russell Latapy while growing up together in Trinidad. Yorke, Hislop and Latapy would go on to play for Trinidad and Tobago at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. External links.
Beagle The Beagle is a small breed of scent hound, similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle was developed primarily for hunting rabbit or hare, known as beagling. Possessing a great sense of smell and superior tracking instincts, the Beagle is the primary breed used as a detection dog for prohibited agricultural imports and foodstuffs in quarantine around the world. The beagle is a popular pet due to its size and good temper. The modern breed was developed in Great Britain around the 1830s from several breeds, including the Talbot Hound, the North Country Beagle, the Southern Hound, and possibly the Harrier. Beagles have been depicted in popular culture since Elizabethan times in literature and paintings and more recently in film, television, and comic books. History. The origin of the Beagle is uncertain. In the 11th century, William the Conqueror brought the St. Hubert Hound and the Talbot hound to Britain. In Britain, both of these strains were then crossed with Greyhounds to give them speed and stamina for deer hunting. Beagles are similar to the Harrier and the extinct Southern Hound, though they are smaller and slower.
From the Middle Ages, "Beagle" was used as a generic description for the smaller hounds, though these dogs differed considerably from the modern breed. Miniature breeds of Beagle-type dogs were known from the times of Edward II and Henry VII, who both had packs of Glove Beagles, so named since they were small enough to fit on a glove, and Queen Elizabeth I kept a breed known as a Pocket Beagle, which stood at the shoulder. Small enough to fit in a "pocket" or saddlebag, they rode along on the hunt. The larger hounds would run the prey to ground, then the hunters would release the small dogs to continue the chase through underbrush. Elizabeth I referred to the dogs as her "singing Beagles" and often entertained guests at her royal table by letting her Pocket Beagles cavort amid their plates and cups. 19th-century sources refer to these breeds interchangeably and it is possible that the two names refer to the same small variety. In George Jesse's "Researches into the History of the British Dog" from 1866, the early 17th-century poet and writer Gervase Markham is quoted referring to the beagle as small enough to sit on a man's hand and to the:
By the 18th century, two breeds had been developed for hunting hare and rabbit: the Southern Hound and the North Country Beagle (or Northern Hound). The Southern Hound, a tall, heavy dog with a square head, and long, soft ears, was common from south of the River Trent and probably closely related to the Talbot Hound. Though slow, it had stamina and an excellent scenting ability. The North Country Beagle was bred chiefly in Yorkshire and was common in the northern counties. It was smaller than the Southern Hound, less heavy-set, and with a more pointed muzzle. It was faster than its southern counterpart but its scenting abilities were less well-developed. Standards for the Pocket Beagle were drawn up as late as 1901; these genetic lines are now extinct, although modern breeders have attempted to recreate the variety. Development of the modern breed. Reverend Phillip Honeywood established a Beagle pack in Essex in the 1830s; it is believed that this pack formed the basis for the modern breed. Although details of the pack's lineage are not recorded, it is thought that North Country Beagles and Southern Hounds were strongly represented; William Youatt suspected that Harriers formed a good majority of the Beagle's bloodline, but the origin of the Harrier is itself obscure. Honeywood's Beagles were small, standing at about at the shoulder, and pure white according to John Mills (writing in "The Sportsman's Library" in 1845). Prince Albert and Lord Winterton also had Beagle packs around this time, and royal favour no doubt led to some revival of interest in the breed, but Honeywood's pack was regarded as the finest of the three.
Although credited with the development of the modern breed, Honeywood concentrated on producing dogs for hunting and it was left to Thomas Johnson to refine the breeding to produce dogs that were both attractive and capable hunters. Two strains were developed: the rough-coated and smooth-coated varieties. The rough-coated beagle survived until the beginning of the 20th century, and there were even records of one making an appearance at a dog show as late as 1969, but this variety is now extinct, having probably been absorbed into the standard beagle bloodline. In the 1840s, a standard Beagle type was beginning to develop. The distinction between the North Country Beagle and Southern Hound had been lost, but there was still a large variation in size, character, and reliability among the emerging packs. In 1856, "Stonehenge" (the pseudonym of John Henry Walsh), writing in the "Manual of British Rural Sports", was still dividing beagles into four varieties: the medium Beagle; the dwarf or lapdog beagle; the fox beagle (a smaller, slower version of the Foxhound); and the rough-coated or terrier beagle, which he classified as a cross between any of the other varieties and one of the Scottish terrier breeds. Stonehenge also gives the start of a standard description:
By 1887, the threat of extinction was on the wane: there were 18 Beagle packs in England. The Beagle Club was formed in 1890 and the first standard drawn up at the same time. The following year the Association of Masters of Harriers and Beagles was formed. Both organisations aimed to further the best interests of the breed, and both were keen to produce a standard type of Beagle. By 1902, the number of packs had risen to 44. Export. Beagles were in the United States by the 1840s at the latest, but the first dogs were imported strictly for hunting and were of variable quality. Since Honeywood had only started breeding in the 1830s, it is unlikely these dogs were representative of the modern breed, and the description of them as looking like straight-legged Dachshunds with weak heads has little resemblance to the standard. Serious attempts at establishing a quality bloodline began in the early 1870s when General Richard Rowett from Illinois imported some dogs from England and began breeding. Rowett's Beagles are believed to have formed the models for the first American standard, drawn up by Rowett, L. H. Twadell, and Norman Ellmore in 1887.
Popularity. On its formation, the Association of Masters of Harriers and Beagles took over the running of a regular show at Peterborough that had started in 1889, and the Beagle Club in the UK held its first show in 1896. The regular showing of the breed led to the development of a uniform type, and the Beagle continued to prove a success up until the outbreak of World War I when all shows were suspended. After the war, the breed was again struggling for survival in the UK: the last of the Pocket Beagles was probably lost during this time, and registrations fell to an all-time low. A few breeders (notably Reynalton Kennels) managed to revive interest in the dog and by World War II, the breed was once again doing well. Registrations dropped again after the end of the war but almost immediately recovered.
Name. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the first mention of "beagle" in English literature dates from c. 1475 in "The Squire of Low Degree". The origin of the word "beagle" is uncertain, although it has been suggested that the word derives from the French "begueule" which means "gate throat". It is not known why the black and tan Kerry Beagle, present in Ireland since Celtic times, has the "beagle" description, since at it is significantly taller than the modern day Beagle, and in earlier times was even larger. Some writers suggest that the Beagle's scenting ability may have come from cross-breeding earlier strains with the Kerry Beagle. Originally used for hunting stags, it is today used for hare and drag hunting. Appearance.
The tricoloured Beaglewhite with large black areas and light brown shadingis the most common. Tricoloured Beagles occur in a number of shades, from the "Classic Tri" with a jet black saddle (also known as "Blackback"), to the "Dark Tri" (where faint brown markings are intermingled with more prominent black markings), to the "Faded Tri" (where faint black markings are intermingled with more prominent brown markings). Some tricoloured dogs have a broken pattern, sometimes referred to as "pied". These dogs have mostly white coats with patches of black and brown hair. Tricolour Beagles are almost always born black and white. The white areas are typically set by eight weeks, but the black areas may fade to brown as the puppy matures. (The brown may take between one and two years to fully develop.) Some Beagles gradually change colour during their lives, and may lose their black markings entirely. Two-colour varieties always have a white base colour with areas of the second colour. Tan and white is the most common two-colour variety, but there is a wide range of other colours including lemon, a very light tan; red, a reddish, almost orange, brown; and liver, a darker brown, and black. Liver is not common and is not permitted in some standards; it tends to occur with yellow eyes. Ticked or mottled varieties may be either white or black with different coloured flecks ("ticking"), such as the blue-mottled or bluetick Beagle, which has spots that appear to be a midnight-blue colour, similar to the colouring of the Bluetick Coonhound. Some tricolour Beagles also have ticking of various colours in their white areas.
Saddle-patterned Beagles that express ancient domino (eA) are called hare-pied. Domino restricts eumelanin production leading to a smaller and faded saddle. Dark hairs in the area of the saddle have a light-coloured hair base. The nose pigment may be lightened down the middle. Sense of smell. Alongside the Bloodhound and Basset Hound, the Beagle has one of the best developed senses of smell of any dog. In the 1950s, John Paul Scott and John Fuller began a 13-year study of canine behaviour. As part of this research, they tested the scenting abilities of various breeds by putting a mouse in a one-acre field and timing how long it took the dogs to find it. The Beagles found it in less than a minute while Fox Terriers took 15 minutes and Scottish Terriers failed to find it at all. The long ears and large lips of the Beagle probably assist in trapping the scents close to the nose. Variations. Breed varieties. The American Kennel Club recognises two separate varieties of Beagle: the 13-inch for hounds less than , and the 15-inch for those between . The Canadian Kennel Club recognises a single type, with a height not exceeding . The Kennel Club (UK) and FCI affiliated clubs recognise a single type, with a height of between .
English and American varieties are sometimes mentioned. However, there is no official recognition from any Kennel Club for this distinction. Beagles fitting the American Kennel Club standard – which disallows animals over – are smaller on average than those fitting the Kennel Club standard which allows heights up to . Pocket Beagles are sometimes advertised for sale but while the UK Kennel Club originally specified a standard for the pocket Beagle in 1901, the variety is now not recognised by any Kennel Club. A strain known as Patch Hounds was developed by Willet Randall and his family from 1896 specifically for their rabbit hunting ability. They trace their bloodline back to Field Champion Patch, but do not necessarily have a patchwork marking. Crossbreeds. In the 1850s, John Henry Walsh (Stonehenge) recommended a cross between a Beagle and a Scottish Terrier as a retriever. He found the crossbreed to be a good worker, silent and obedient, but it had the drawback that it was small and could barely carry a hare. More recently, the trend has been for "designer dogs" and one of the most popular has been the Beagle/Pug cross known as a puggle. Some puppies of this cross are less excitable than a Beagle and with a lower exercise requirement, similar to the Pug parent; but many are highly excitable and require vigorous exercise.
Temperament. The Beagle has an even temper and gentle disposition. Described in several breed standards as "merry", they are amiable and typically neither aggressive nor timid, although this depends on the individual. They enjoy company, and although they may initially be standoffish with strangers, they are easily won over. They make poor guard dogs for this reason, although their tendency to bark or howl when confronted with the unfamiliar makes them good watch dogs. In a 1985 study conducted by Ben and Lynette Hart, the Beagle was given the highest excitability rating, along with the Yorkshire Terrier, Cairn Terrier, Miniature Schnauzer, West Highland White Terrier, and Fox Terrier. They are ranked 72nd in Stanley Coren's "The Intelligence of Dogs", as Coren places them among the group with the lowest degree of working/obedience intelligence. Coren's scale, however, does not assess understanding, independence, or creativity. Beagles are excellent with children and this is one of the reasons they have become popular family pets. Beagles are pack animals; they are prone to separation anxiety, a condition which causes them to destroy things when left unattended. Not all Beagles will howl, but most will bark when confronted with strange situations, and some will bay (also referred to as "speaking", "giving tongue", or "opening") when they catch the scent of potential quarry. They also generally get along well with cats and other dogs. They are not too demanding with regard to exercise; their inbred stamina means they do not easily tire when exercised, but they also do not need to be worked to exhaustion before they will rest. Regular exercise helps ward off the weight gain to which the breed is prone.
Health. A 2024 study in the UK found a life expectancy of 12.5 years compared to an average of 12.7 for purebreeds and 12 for crossbreeds. A 2024 Italian study found a life expectancy of 11 years for the breed compared to 10 years overall. Beagles may be prone to epilepsy, but this can often be controlled with medication. Hypothyroidism and a number of types of dwarfism occur in Beagles. Two conditions in particular are unique to the breed: "Funny Puppy", in which the puppy is slow to develop and eventually develops weak legs, a crooked back and although normally healthy, is prone to a range of illnesses; and Musladin-Lueke syndrome (MLS) in which the eyes are slanted and the outer toes are underdeveloped but otherwise development is as normal. Hip dysplasia, common in Harriers and in some larger breeds, is rarely considered a problem in Beagles. Beagles are considered a chondrodystrophic breed, meaning that they are prone to types of disk diseases. In rare cases, Beagles may develop immune mediated polygenic arthritis (where the immune system attacks the joints) even at a young age. The symptoms can sometimes be relieved by steroid treatments. Another rare disease in the breed is neonatal cerebellar cortical degeneration. Affected puppies are slow, have lower co-ordination, fall more often, and do not have a normal gait. It has an estimated carrier rate of 5% and affected rate of 0.1%. A genetic test is available.
Their long floppy ears can mean that the inner ear does not receive a substantial air flow or that moist air becomes trapped, and this can lead to ear infections. Beagles may also be affected by a range of eye problems; two common ophthalmic conditions in beagles are glaucoma and corneal dystrophy. "Cherry eye", a prolapse of the gland of the third eyelid, and distichiasis, a condition in which eyelashes grow into the eye causing irritation, sometimes exist; both these conditions can be corrected with surgery. They can suffer from several types of retinal atrophy. Failure of the nasolacrimal drainage system can cause dry eye or leakage of tears onto the face. The cause of primary open angle glaucoma in the Beagle is an autosomal recessive mutation in the ADAMTS10 gene. As field dogs they are prone to minor injuries such as cuts and sprains, and, if inactive, obesity is a common problem as they will eat whenever food is available and rely on their owners to regulate their weight. When working or running free they are also likely to pick up parasites such as fleas, ticks, harvest mites, and tapeworms, and irritants such as grass seeds can become trapped in their eyes, soft ears, or paws.
Beagles may exhibit a behaviour known as reverse sneezing, in which they sound as if they are choking or gasping for breath, but are actually drawing air in through the mouth and nose. The exact cause of this behaviour is not known, but it can be a common occurrence and is not harmful to the dog. Canine juvenile polyarteritis syndrome, also known as juvenile polyarteritis syndrome of beagle dogs is a multisystemic necrotising vasculitis of the small arteries. The condition is characterised by a reoccurrent acute fever and cervicalgia over a period of 3-7 days. The Beagle is predisposed with most reports concerning the breed — whence the name 'Beagle pain syndrome'. Hunting. Beagles were developed primarily for hunting rabbit or hare, an activity known as beagling. They were seen as ideal hunting companions for the elderly who could follow on horseback without exerting themselves, for young hunters who could keep up with them on ponies, and for the poorer hunters who could not afford to maintain a stable of good hunting horses. Before the advent of the fashion for foxhunting in the 19th century, hunting was an all day event where the enjoyment was derived from the chase rather than the kill. In this setting, the tiny Beagle was well matched to the hare, as unlike Harriers they would not quickly finish the hunt, but because of their excellent scent-tracking skills and stamina they were almost guaranteed to eventually catch the hare. The Beagle packs would run closely together ("so close that they might be covered with a sheet") which was useful in a long hunt, as it prevented stray dogs from obscuring the trail. In thick undergrowth they were also preferred to spaniels when hunting pheasant.
With the fashion for faster hunts, the beagle fell out of favour for chasing hare, but was still employed for rabbit hunting. In "Anecdotes of Dogs" (1846), Edward Jesse says: In the United States they appear to have been employed chiefly for hunting rabbits from the earliest imports. Hunting hare with Beagles became popular again in Britain in the mid-19th century and continued until it was made illegal in Scotland by the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, and in England and Wales by the Hunting Act 2004. Under this legislation, Beagles may still pursue rabbits with the landowner's permission. Drag hunting is popular where hunting is no longer permitted or for those owners who do not wish to participate in hunting a live animal, but still wish to exercise their dog's innate skills. The traditional foot pack consists of up to 40 Beagles, marshaled by a Huntsman who directs the pack and who is assisted by a variable number of whippers-in whose job is to return straying hounds to the pack. The Master of the Hunt is in overall day-to-day charge of the pack, and may or may not take on the role of Huntsman on the day of the hunt.
As hunting with Beagles was seen as ideal for young people, many of the British public schools traditionally maintained Beagle packs. Protests were lodged against Eton's use of Beagles for hunting as early as 1902 but the pack is still in existence today. In 2001, the Wye College beagle pack was taken by the Animal Liberation Front. School and university packs are still maintained by Eton, Marlborough, Radley, the Royal Agricultural University, and Christ Church, Oxford. In addition to organised beagling, Beagles have been used for hunting or flushing to guns (often in pairs) a wide range of game including snowshoe hare, cottontail rabbits, game birds, roe deer, red deer, bobcat, coyote, wild boar, and foxes, and have even been recorded as being used to hunt stoat. In most of these cases, the beagle is employed as a gun dog, flushing game for hunter's guns. Detection. Beagles are used as detection dogs in the Beagle Brigade of the United States Department of Agriculture. These dogs are used to detect food items in luggage being taken into the United States. After trialling several breeds, Beagles were chosen because they are relatively small and unintimidating for people who are uncomfortable around dogs, easy to care for, intelligent and work well for rewards. They are also used for this purpose in a number of other countries including by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in New Zealand, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, and in Canada, Japan, and the People's Republic of China. Larger breeds are generally used for detection of explosives as this often involves climbing over luggage and on large conveyor belts, work for which the smaller Beagle is not suited.
Use in animal testing. Beagles are one of the dog breeds most often used in animal testing, due to their size, temperament, and historical utilisation. In the United States, as many as 65,000 Beagles are used every year for medical, cosmetic, beauty, and other chemical tests. Most are bred specifically for this purpose, by companies such as Envigo, and live inside controlled laboratory facilities. Beagles are used in a range of research procedures: fundamental biological research, applied human medicine, applied veterinary medicine, and protection of man, animals, or the environment. Of the 8,018 dogs used in testing in the UK in 2004, 7,799 were Beagles (97.3%). In the UK, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 gave special status to primates, equids, cats and dogs and in 2005 the Animal Procedures Committee (set up by the act) ruled that testing on mice was preferable, even though a greater number of individual animals were involved. In 2005, beagles were involved in less than 0.3% of the total experiments on animals in the UK, but of the 7,670 experiments performed on dogs 7406 involved Beagles (96.6%). In the UK, companies breeding animals for research must be licensed under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act.
Bans and activism against Beagle testing. Testing of cosmetic products on animals is banned in the member states of the European Community, although France protested the ban and has made efforts to have it lifted. It is permitted in the United States but is not mandatory if safety can be ascertained by other methods, and the test species is not specified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). When testing toxicity of food additives, food contaminants, and some drugs and chemicals the FDA uses Beagles and miniature pigs as surrogates for direct human testing. The Beagle Freedom Project has successfully advocated for Beagles to be adopted or released from labs. Minnesota was the first state to enact a Beagle Freedom adoption law in 2014, mandating that dogs and cats are allowed to be adopted once they have completed research testing. Anti-vivisection groups have reported on abuse of animals inside testing facilities. In 1997 footage secretly filmed by a freelance journalist inside Huntingdon Life Sciences in the UK showed staff punching and screaming at Beagles. Consort Kennels, a UK-based breeder of Beagles for testing, closed down in 1997 after pressure from animal rights groups.
There are various examples of activists utilising Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain information about taxpayer funding of animal testing. The White Coat Waste Project reported that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded experiments in which 28 Beagles were infected by disease-causing parasites and that dogs taking part in the experiments were "vocalizing in pain." In response, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called on all members of the National Institute of Health to resign and stated that there is a "need to find a new NIH director to replace the outgoing Francis Collins who will shut down research that violates the dignity of nonhuman animals." Animal welfare research. A 2023 research article report lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in beagles kept in larger areas with toys. A 2024 article researches the use of environmental enrichment in lab beagles by adding toys to their cages. Other roles. Although bred for hunting, Beagles are versatile and are nowadays employed for various other roles in detection, therapy, and as family pets.
Beagles are used as sniffer dogs for termite detection in Australia, and have been mentioned as possible candidates for drug and explosive detection. Because of their gentle nature and unimposing build, they are also frequently used in pet therapy, visiting the sick and elderly in hospital. In June 2006, a trained Beagle assistance dog was credited with saving the life of its owner after using her owner's mobile phone to dial an emergency number. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a Beagle search and rescue dog with a Colombian rescue squad was credited with locating the owner of the Hôtel Montana, who was subsequently rescued after spending 100 hours buried in the rubble. Beagles were hired by New York City to help with bedbug detection, although some have expressed doubts about the role of such dogs in this type of detection. References. Informational notes a. In this article "Beagle" (with a capital B) is used to distinguish the modern breed from other beagle-type dogs. c. The Harts posed the following question to a panel of 96 experts, half of which were veterinary surgeons and the other half dog obedience trial judges:
d. The specific references in each of the author's works are as follows: Shakespeare: ""Sir Toby Belch": She's a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me: what o' that?" "Twelfth Night" (c. 1600) Act II Scene III Webster: ""Mistress Tenterhook"': You are a sweet beagle" "Westward Ho" (1607) Act III Scene IV:2 Dryden: "The rest in shape a beagle's whelp throughout, With broader forehead and a sharper snout" "The Cock and the Fox", and again: "About her feet were little beagles seen" in "Palamon and Arcite" both from "Fables, Ancient and Modern" (1700) Tickell: "Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn, The deep-mouth'd beagle, and the sprightly horn" "To a Lady before Marriage" (published posthumously in 1749) Fielding: "'What the devil would you have me do?' cries the Squire, turning to Blifil, 'I can no more turn her, than a beagle can turn an old hare.'" "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" (1749) Chapter 7. Cowper: "For persevering chase and headlong leaps, True beagle as the staunchest hound he keeps" "The Progress of Error" (1782) Pope: "Thus on a roe the well-breath'd beagle flies, And rends his hide fresh-bleeding with the dart" "The Iliad of Homer" (1715–20) Book XV:697–8 Citations Bibliography
Boiled leather Boiled leather, often referred to by its French translation, cuir bouilli (), was a historical material common in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period and used for various purposes. It was leather that had been treated so that it became tough and rigid, as well as able to hold moulded decoration. It was the usual material for the robust carrying-cases that were made for important pieces of metalwork, instruments such as astrolabes, personal sets of cutlery, books, pens and the like. It was used for some armour, being both much cheaper and much lighter than plate armour, but could not withstand a direct blow from a blade, nor a gunshot. Alternative names are "moulded leather" and "hardened leather". In the course of making the material it becomes very soft, and can be impressed into a mould to give it the desired shape and decoration, which most surviving examples have. Pieces such as chests and coffers also usually have a wooden inner core. Various recipes for making cuir bouilli survive, and do not agree with each other; probably there were a range of recipes, partly reflecting different final uses. Vegetable-tanned leather is generally specified. Scholars have debated the subject at length and attempted to recreate the historical material. Many, but not all, sources agree that the process involved immersion of the leather in water, but not actual boiling.
Military use. Cuir bouilli was used for cheap and light armour, although it was much less effective than plate armour, which was extremely expensive and too heavy for much to be worn by infantry (as opposed to knights fighting on horseback). However, cuir bouilli could be reinforced against slashing blows by the addition of metal bands or strips, especially in helmets. Modern experiments on simple cuir bouilli have shown that it can reduce the depth of an arrow wound considerably, especially if coated with a crushed mineral facing mixed with glue, as one medieval Arab author recommended. In addition, "armour based on hide has the unique advantage that it can, in extremis, provide some nutrition" when actually boiled. Josephus records that the Jewish defenders in the Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 were reduced to eating their shields and other leather kit, as was the Spanish expedition of Tristan de Luna in 1559. Versions of cuir bouilli were used since ancient times, especially for shields, in many parts of the world. Although in general leather does not survive long burial, and excavated archaeological evidence for it is rare, an Irish shield of cuir bouilli with wooden formers, deposited in a peat bog, has survived for some 2,500 years. It was commonly used in the Western world for helmets; the pickelhaube, the standard German helmet, was not replaced by a steel stahlhelm until 1916, in the midst of World War I. As leather does not conduct heat the way metal does, firemen continued to use boiled leather helmets until World War II, and the invention of strong plastics.
The word cuirass for a breastplate indicates that these were originally made of leather. In the Late Middle Ages, the heyday of plate armour, cuir bouilli continued to be used even by the rich for horse armour and often for tournament armour, as well as by ordinary infantry soldiers. Tournaments were increasingly regulated in order to reduce the risk to life, and in 1278 Edward I of England organized one in Windsor Great Park at which cuir bouilli armour was worn, and the king provided swords made of whale bone and parchment. The account of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 by Jean de Wavrin, who was present on the French side, describes the crucial force of English longbowmen as having on their heads either cuir bouilli helmets, or wicker with iron strips, or nothing (the last, he says, were also barefoot). A few pieces of Roman horse armour in cuir bouilli have been excavated. Evidence from documents such as inventories show that it was common in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and used by the highest ranks, but survivals are very few. In 1547 the Master of Armoury in the Tower of London ordered 46 sets of bards and crinets in preparation for the final invasion of Scotland in the war known as the Rough Wooing. In September that year the English cavalry were crucial in the decisive victory at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. The German Count Palatine of the Rhine had six sets of cuir bouilli horse armour for his and his family's use in the 16th century. Often the shaffron for the horse's head would be in steel, though leather ones are also known.
Cuir bouilli was also very common for scabbards. However surviving specimens of leather armour are rare, more so than the various types of civilian containers. It is believed that many leather pieces are depicted in sculpted tomb monuments, where they are more highly decorated than metal pieces would have been. Cuir bouilli was also often used for elaborate figurative crests on some helmets. The material is mentioned in Froissart's "Chronicles of the Hundred Years' War", and Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1300s, says of the knight Sir Thopas: (Note: "jambeaux" are greaves – shin armour). The large decorative crests that came to top some helmets in the late Middle Ages were often made of cuir bouilli, as is the famous example belonging to the Black Prince and hung with other "achievements" over his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. His wooden shield also has the heraldic animals appliqued in cuir bouilli. Examples of other uses. As well as the crests on helmets described above, cuir bouilli was probably used sculpturally in various contexts, over a wood or plaster framework where necessary. When Henry V of England died in France, his effigy in cuir bouilli was placed on top of his coffin for the journey back to England.
A near life-size crucifix in the Vatican Museums is in cuir bouilli over wood. This is of special interest to art historians because it was made in 1540 as a replica of a crucifix in silver presented by Charlemagne some 740 years before; an object of great interest as possibly the first of the long line of monumental crucifixes in Western art. In 1540, the original silver was melted down for church plate to replace that looted in the Sack of Rome in 1527. It seems likely that the leather was moulded directly from the original and it is possible that the wooden core underneath is actually the Carolingian original, with the leather replacing the sheets of silver originally fitted over the wood. Cuir bouilli has also been employed to bind books, mainly between the 9th and 14th centuries. Other uses include high boots for especially tough use, which were called "postillion's boots" in England. Another use was for large bottles or jugs called "blackjacks", "bombards", or "costerns". There is an English reference to these from 1373.
Buffer overflow In programming and information security, a buffer overflow or buffer overrun is an anomaly whereby a program writes data to a buffer beyond the buffer's allocated memory, overwriting adjacent memory locations. Buffers are areas of memory set aside to hold data, often while moving it from one section of a program to another, or between programs. Buffer overflows can often be triggered by malformed inputs; if one assumes all inputs will be smaller than a certain size and the buffer is created to be that size, then an anomalous transaction that produces more data could cause it to write past the end of the buffer. If this overwrites adjacent data or executable code, this may result in erratic program behavior, including memory access errors, incorrect results, and crashes. Exploiting the behavior of a buffer overflow is a well-known security exploit. On many systems, the memory layout of a program, or the system as a whole, is well defined. By sending in data designed to cause a buffer overflow, it is possible to write into areas known to hold executable code and replace it with malicious code, or to selectively overwrite data pertaining to the program's state, therefore causing behavior that was not intended by the original programmer. Buffers are widespread in operating system (OS) code, so it is possible to make attacks that perform privilege escalation and gain unlimited access to the computer's resources. The famed Morris worm in 1988 used this as one of its attack techniques.
Programming languages commonly associated with buffer overflows include C and C++, which provide no built-in protection against accessing or overwriting data in any part of memory and do not automatically check that data written to an array (the built-in buffer type) is within the boundaries of that array. Bounds checking can prevent buffer overflows, but requires additional code and processing time. Modern operating systems use a variety of techniques to combat malicious buffer overflows, notably by randomizing the layout of memory, or deliberately leaving space between buffers and looking for actions that write into those areas ("canaries"). Technical description. A buffer overflow occurs when data written to a buffer also corrupts data values in memory addresses adjacent to the destination buffer due to insufficient bounds checking. This can occur when copying data from one buffer to another without first checking that the data fits within the destination buffer. Example. In the following example expressed in C, a program has two variables which are adjacent in memory: an 8-byte-long string buffer, A, and a two-byte big-endian integer, B.
char A[8] = ""; unsigned short B = 1979; Initially, A contains nothing but zero bytes, and B contains the number 1979. Now, the program attempts to store the null-terminated string with ASCII encoding in the A buffer. strcpy(A, "excessive"); is 9 characters long and encodes to 10 bytes including the null terminator, but A can take only 8 bytes. By failing to check the length of the string, it also overwrites the value of B: B's value has now been inadvertently replaced by a number formed from part of the character string. In this example "e" followed by a zero byte would become 25856. Writing data past the end of allocated memory can sometimes be detected by the operating system to generate a segmentation fault error that terminates the process. To prevent the buffer overflow from happening in this example, the call to strcpy could be replaced with strlcpy, which takes the maximum capacity of A (including a null-termination character) as an additional parameter and ensures that no more than this amount of data is written to A:
strlcpy(A, "excessive", sizeof(A)); When available, the strlcpy library function is preferred over strncpy which does not null-terminate the destination buffer if the source string's length is greater than or equal to the size of the buffer (the third argument passed to the function). Therefore A may not be null-terminated and cannot be treated as a valid C-style string. Exploitation. The techniques to exploit a buffer overflow vulnerability vary by architecture, operating system, and memory region. For example, exploitation on the heap (used for dynamically allocated memory), differs markedly from exploitation on the call stack. In general, heap exploitation depends on the heap manager used on the target system, while stack exploitation depends on the calling convention used by the architecture and compiler. Stack-based exploitation. There are several ways in which one can manipulate a program by exploiting stack-based buffer overflows: The attacker designs data to cause one of these exploits, then places this data in a buffer supplied to users by the vulnerable code. If the address of the user-supplied data used to affect the stack buffer overflow is unpredictable, exploiting a stack buffer overflow to cause remote code execution becomes much more difficult. One technique that can be used to exploit such a buffer overflow is called "trampolining". Here, an attacker will find a pointer to the vulnerable stack buffer and compute the location of their shellcode relative to that pointer. The attacker will then use the overwrite to jump to an instruction already in memory which will make a second jump, this time relative to the pointer. That second jump will branch execution into the shellcode. Suitable instructions are often present in large code. The Metasploit Project, for example, maintains a database of suitable opcodes, though it lists only those found in the Windows operating system.
Heap-based exploitation. A buffer overflow occurring in the heap data area is referred to as a heap overflow and is exploitable in a manner different from that of stack-based overflows. Memory on the heap is dynamically allocated by the application at run-time and typically contains program data. Exploitation is performed by corrupting this data in specific ways to cause the application to overwrite internal structures such as linked list pointers. The canonical heap overflow technique overwrites dynamic memory allocation linkage (such as malloc meta data) and uses the resulting pointer exchange to overwrite a program function pointer. Microsoft's GDI+ vulnerability in handling JPEGs is an example of the danger a heap overflow can present. Barriers to exploitation. Manipulation of the buffer, which occurs before it is read or executed, may lead to the failure of an exploitation attempt. These manipulations can mitigate the threat of exploitation, but may not make it impossible. Manipulations could include conversion to upper or lower case, removal of metacharacters and filtering out of non-alphanumeric strings. However, techniques exist to bypass these filters and manipulations, such as alphanumeric shellcode, polymorphic code, self-modifying code, and return-to-libc attacks. The same methods can be used to avoid detection by intrusion detection systems. In some cases, including where code is converted into Unicode, the threat of the vulnerability has been misrepresented by the disclosers as only Denial of Service when in fact the remote execution of arbitrary code is possible.
Practicalities of exploitation. In real-world exploits there are a variety of challenges which need to be overcome for exploits to operate reliably. These factors include null bytes in addresses, variability in the location of shellcode, differences between environments, and various counter-measures in operation. NOP sled technique. A NOP-sled is the oldest and most widely known technique for exploiting stack buffer overflows. It solves the problem of finding the exact address of the buffer by effectively increasing the size of the target area. To do this, much larger sections of the stack are corrupted with the no-op machine instruction. At the end of the attacker-supplied data, after the no-op instructions, the attacker places an instruction to perform a relative jump to the top of the buffer where the shellcode is located. This collection of no-ops is referred to as the "NOP-sled" because if the return address is overwritten with any address within the no-op region of the buffer, the execution will "slide" down the no-ops until it is redirected to the actual malicious code by the jump at the end. This technique requires the attacker to guess where on the stack the NOP-sled is instead of the comparatively small shellcode.
Because of the popularity of this technique, many vendors of intrusion prevention systems will search for this pattern of no-op machine instructions in an attempt to detect shellcode in use. A NOP-sled does not necessarily contain only traditional no-op machine instructions. Any instruction that does not corrupt the machine state to a point where the shellcode will not run can be used in place of the hardware assisted no-op. As a result, it has become common practice for exploit writers to compose the no-op sled with randomly chosen instructions which will have no real effect on the shellcode execution. While this method greatly improves the chances that an attack will be successful, it is not without problems. Exploits using this technique still must rely on some amount of luck that they will guess offsets on the stack that are within the NOP-sled region. An incorrect guess will usually result in the target program crashing and could alert the system administrator to the attacker's activities. Another problem is that the NOP-sled requires a much larger amount of memory in which to hold a NOP-sled large enough to be of any use. This can be a problem when the allocated size of the affected buffer is too small and the current depth of the stack is shallow (i.e., there is not much space from the end of the current stack frame to the start of the stack). Despite its problems, the NOP-sled is often the only method that will work for a given platform, environment, or situation, and as such it is still an important technique.
The jump to address stored in a register technique. The "jump to register" technique allows for reliable exploitation of stack buffer overflows without the need for extra room for a NOP-sled and without having to guess stack offsets. The strategy is to overwrite the return pointer with something that will cause the program to jump to a known pointer stored within a register which points to the controlled buffer and thus the shellcode. For example, if register A contains a pointer to the start of a buffer then any jump or call taking that register as an operand can be used to gain control of the flow of execution. In practice a program may not intentionally contain instructions to jump to a particular register. The traditional solution is to find an unintentional instance of a suitable opcode at a fixed location somewhere within the program memory. Figure on the left contains an example of such an unintentional instance of the i386 codice_1 instruction. The opcode for this instruction is codice_2. This two-byte sequence can be found at a one-byte offset from the start of the instruction codice_3 at address codice_4. If an attacker overwrites the program return address with this address the program will first jump to codice_4, interpret the opcode codice_2 as the codice_1 instruction, and will then jump to the top of the stack and execute the attacker's code.
When this technique is possible the severity of the vulnerability increases considerably. This is because exploitation will work reliably enough to automate an attack with a virtual guarantee of success when it is run. For this reason, this is the technique most commonly used in Internet worms that exploit stack buffer overflow vulnerabilities. This method also allows shellcode to be placed after the overwritten return address on the Windows platform. Since executables are mostly based at address codice_8 and x86 is a little endian architecture, the last byte of the return address must be a null, which terminates the buffer copy and nothing is written beyond that. This limits the size of the shellcode to the size of the buffer, which may be overly restrictive. DLLs are located in high memory (above codice_9) and so have addresses containing no null bytes, so this method can remove null bytes (or other disallowed characters) from the overwritten return address. Used in this way, the method is often referred to as "DLL trampolining".
Protective countermeasures. Various techniques have been used to detect or prevent buffer overflows, with various tradeoffs. The following sections describe the choices and implementations available. Choice of programming language. Assembly, C, and C++ are popular programming languages that are vulnerable to buffer overflow in part because they allow direct access to memory and are not strongly typed. C provides no built-in protection against accessing or overwriting data in any part of memory. More specifically, it does not check that data written to a buffer is within the boundaries of that buffer. The standard C++ libraries provide many ways of safely buffering data, and C++'s Standard Template Library (STL) provides containers that can optionally perform bounds checking if the programmer explicitly calls for checks while accessing data. For example, a codice_10's member function codice_11 performs a bounds check and throws an codice_12 exception if the bounds check fails. However, C++ behaves just like C if the bounds check is not explicitly called. Techniques to avoid buffer overflows also exist for C.
Languages that are strongly typed and do not allow direct memory access, such as COBOL, Java, Eiffel, Python, and others, prevent buffer overflow in most cases. Many programming languages other than C or C++ provide runtime checking and in some cases even compile-time checking which might send a warning or raise an exception, while C or C++ would overwrite data and continue to execute instructions until erroneous results are obtained, potentially causing the program to crash. Examples of such languages include Ada, Eiffel, Lisp, Modula-2, Smalltalk, OCaml and such C-derivatives as Cyclone, Rust and D. The Java and .NET Framework bytecode environments also require bounds checking on all arrays. Nearly every interpreted language will protect against buffer overflow, signaling a well-defined error condition. Languages that provide enough type information to do bounds checking often provide an option to enable or disable it. Static code analysis can remove many dynamic bound and type checks, but poor implementations and awkward cases can significantly decrease performance. Software engineers should carefully consider the tradeoffs of safety versus performance costs when deciding which language and compiler setting to use.
Use of safe libraries. The problem of buffer overflows is common in the C and C++ languages because they expose low level representational details of buffers as containers for data types. Buffer overflows can be avoided by maintaining a high degree of correctness in code that performs buffer management. It has also long been recommended to avoid standard library functions that are not bounds checked, such as codice_13, codice_14 and codice_15. The Morris worm exploited a codice_13 call in fingerd. Well-written and tested abstract data type libraries that centralize and automatically perform buffer management, including bounds checking, can reduce the occurrence and impact of buffer overflows. The primary data types in languages in which buffer overflows are common are strings and arrays. Thus, libraries preventing buffer overflows in these data types can provide the vast majority of the necessary coverage. However, failure to use these safe libraries correctly can result in buffer overflows and other vulnerabilities, and naturally any bug in the library is also a potential vulnerability. "Safe" library implementations include "The Better String Library", Vstr and Erwin. The OpenBSD operating system's C library provides the strlcpy and strlcat functions, but these are more limited than full safe library implementations.
In September 2007, Technical Report 24731, prepared by the C standards committee, was published. It specifies a set of functions that are based on the standard C library's string and IO functions, with additional buffer-size parameters. However, the efficacy of these functions for reducing buffer overflows is disputable. They require programmer intervention on a per function call basis that is equivalent to intervention that could make the analogous older standard library functions buffer overflow safe. Buffer overflow protection. Buffer overflow protection is used to detect the most common buffer overflows by checking that the stack has not been altered when a function returns. If it has been altered, the program exits with a segmentation fault. Three such systems are Libsafe, and the "StackGuard" and "ProPolice" gcc patches. Microsoft's implementation of Data Execution Prevention (DEP) mode explicitly protects the pointer to the Structured Exception Handler (SEH) from being overwritten. Stronger stack protection is possible by splitting the stack in two: one for data and one for function returns. This split is present in the Forth language, though it was not a security-based design decision. Regardless, this is not a complete solution to buffer overflows, as sensitive data other than the return address may still be overwritten.
This type of protection is also not entirely accurate because it does not detect all attacks. Systems like StackGuard are more centered around the behavior of the attacks, which makes them efficient and faster in comparison to range-check systems. Pointer protection. Buffer overflows work by manipulating pointers, including stored addresses. PointGuard was proposed as a compiler-extension to prevent attackers from reliably manipulating pointers and addresses. The approach works by having the compiler add code to automatically XOR-encode pointers before and after they are used. Theoretically, because the attacker does not know what value will be used to encode and decode the pointer, one cannot predict what the pointer will point to if it is overwritten with a new value. PointGuard was never released, but Microsoft implemented a similar approach beginning in Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. Rather than implement pointer protection as an automatic feature, Microsoft added an API routine that can be called. This allows for better performance (because it is not used all of the time), but places the burden on the programmer to know when its use is necessary.
Because XOR is linear, an attacker may be able to manipulate an encoded pointer by overwriting only the lower bytes of an address. This can allow an attack to succeed if the attacker can attempt the exploit multiple times or complete an attack by causing a pointer to point to one of several locations (such as any location within a NOP sled). Microsoft added a random rotation to their encoding scheme to address this weakness to partial overwrites. Executable space protection. Executable space protection is an approach to buffer overflow protection that prevents execution of code on the stack or the heap. An attacker may use buffer overflows to insert arbitrary code into the memory of a program, but with executable space protection, any attempt to execute that code will cause an exception. Some CPUs support a feature called NX ("No eXecute") or XD ("eXecute Disabled") bit, which in conjunction with software, can be used to mark pages of data (such as those containing the stack and the heap) as readable and writable but not executable.
Some Unix operating systems (e.g. OpenBSD, macOS) ship with executable space protection (e.g. W^X). Some optional packages include: Newer variants of Microsoft Windows also support executable space protection, called Data Execution Prevention. Proprietary add-ons include: Executable space protection does not generally protect against return-to-libc attacks, or any other attack that does not rely on the execution of the attackers code. However, on 64-bit systems using ASLR, as described below, executable space protection makes it far more difficult to execute such attacks. Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions. CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) is a computer processor technology designed to improve security. It operates at a hardware level by providing a hardware-enforced type (a CHERI capability) that authorises access to memory. Traditional pointers are replaced by addresses accompanied by metadata that limit what can be accessed through any given pointer. Address space layout randomization.
Address space layout randomization (ASLR) is a computer security feature that involves arranging the positions of key data areas, usually including the base of the executable and position of libraries, heap, and stack, randomly in a process' address space. Randomization of the virtual memory addresses at which functions and variables can be found can make exploitation of a buffer overflow more difficult, but not impossible. It also forces the attacker to tailor the exploitation attempt to the individual system, which foils the attempts of internet worms. A similar but less effective method is to rebase processes and libraries in the virtual address space. Deep packet inspection. The use of deep packet inspection (DPI) can detect, at the network perimeter, very basic remote attempts to exploit buffer overflows by use of attack signatures and heuristics. This technique can block packets that have the signature of a known attack. It was formerly used in situations in which a long series of No-Operation instructions (known as a NOP-sled) was detected and the location of the exploit's payload was slightly variable.
Packet scanning is not an effective method since it can only prevent known attacks and there are many ways that a NOP-sled can be encoded. Shellcode used by attackers can be made alphanumeric, metamorphic, or self-modifying to evade detection by heuristic packet scanners and intrusion detection systems. Testing. Checking for buffer overflows and patching the bugs that cause them helps prevent buffer overflows. One common automated technique for discovering them is fuzzing. Edge case testing can also uncover buffer overflows, as can static analysis. Once a potential buffer overflow is detected it should be patched. This makes the testing approach useful for software that is in development, but less useful for legacy software that is no longer maintained or supported. History. Buffer overflows were understood and partially publicly documented as early as 1972, when the Computer Security Technology Planning Study laid out the technique: "The code performing this function does not check the source and destination addresses properly, permitting portions of the monitor to be overlaid by the user. This can be used to inject code into the monitor that will permit the user to seize control of the machine." Today, the monitor would be referred to as the kernel.
The earliest documented hostile exploitation of a buffer overflow was in 1988. It was one of several exploits used by the Morris worm to propagate itself over the Internet. The program exploited was a service on Unix called finger. Later, in 1995, Thomas Lopatic independently rediscovered the buffer overflow and published his findings on the Bugtraq security mailing list. A year later, in 1996, Elias Levy (also known as Aleph One) published in "Phrack" magazine the paper "Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit", a step-by-step introduction to exploiting stack-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Since then, at least two major internet worms have exploited buffer overflows to compromise a large number of systems. In 2001, the Code Red worm exploited a buffer overflow in Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 and in 2003 the SQL Slammer worm compromised machines running Microsoft SQL Server 2000. In 2003, buffer overflows present in licensed Xbox games have been exploited to allow unlicensed software, including homebrew games, to run on the console without the need for hardware modifications, known as modchips. The PS2 Independence Exploit also used a buffer overflow to achieve the same for the PlayStation 2. The Twilight hack accomplished the same with the Wii, using a buffer overflow in "".
Barry Bonds Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Bonds was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986 to 1992 and the San Francisco Giants from 1993 to 2007. He is considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Recognized as an all-around player, Bonds received a record seven National League (NL) Most Valuable Player Awards and 12 Silver Slugger Awards, along with 14 All-Star selections. He holds many MLB hitting records, including most career home runs (762), most home runs in a single season (73, set in 2001), and the records for the most walks and intentional walks in a career, season, and in consecutive games. Bonds led MLB in on-base plus slugging six times and placed within the top five hitters in 12 of his 17 qualifying seasons. For his defensive play in the outfield, he won eight Gold Glove Awards. He also had 514 stolen bases, becoming the first and only MLB player to date with at least 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases. Bonds is ranked first in career Wins Above Replacement among all major league position players by Baseball Reference and second by FanGraphs, behind only Babe Ruth.
Despite his accolades, Bonds led a controversial career, notably as a central figure in baseball's steroids scandal. He was indicted in 2007 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to a grand jury during the federal government's investigation of BALCO, a manufacturer of an undetectable steroid. After the perjury charges were dropped, Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2011, but was exonerated on appeal in 2015. During his 10 years of eligibility, he did not receive the 75% of the vote needed to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Some voters of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) stated they did not vote for Bonds because they believe he used performance-enhancing drugs. Early life. Bonds was born in Riverside, California, to Patricia (née Howard) and then-future major leaguer Bobby Bonds, and grew up in San Carlos and attended Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, where he excelled in baseball, basketball, and football. He played on the junior varsity team during his freshman year and on the varsity team for the remainder of his high school career. He garnered a .467 batting average his senior year, and was named prep All-American. The Giants drafted Bonds in the second round (39th overall) of the 1982 MLB draft as a high school senior, but the Giants and Bonds were unable to agree on contract terms when Tom Haller's maximum offer was $70,000 ($ today) and Bonds's minimum to go pro was $75,000, so Bonds instead decided to attend college.
College career. Bonds attended Arizona State University, hitting .347 with 45 home runs and 175 runs batted in (RBI). In 1984, he batted .360 and had 30 stolen bases. In 1985, he hit 23 home runs with 66 RBI and a .368 batting average. He was a Sporting News All-American selection that year. He tied the NCAA record with seven consecutive hits in the College World Series as a sophomore and was named to All-Time College World Series Team in 1996. Bonds was not well-liked by his Sun Devil teammates, in part because in the words of longtime coach Jim Brock, he was "rude, inconsiderate and self-centered". When he was suspended for breaking curfew, the other players initially voted against his return even though he was easily the best player on the team. He graduated from Arizona State in 1986 with a degree in criminology. He was named ASU On Deck Circle Most Valuable Player; other winners include Dustin Pedroia, Willie Bloomquist, Paul Lo Duca, and Ike Davis. During college, he played part of one summer in the amateur Alaska Baseball League with the Alaska Goldpanners.
Professional career. Draft and minor leagues. The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted Bonds with the sixth overall pick of the 1985 Major League Baseball draft. He joined the Prince William Pirates of the Carolina League and was named July 1985 Player of the Month for the league. In 1986, he hit .311 with seven home runs and 37 RBI in 44 games for the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League. Pittsburgh Pirates (1986–1992). Before Bonds made it to the major leagues in Pittsburgh, Pirate fan attendance was low, with 1984 and 1985 attendance below 10,000 per game for the 81-game home schedule, with attendance woes being a combination of the economic problems of Western Pennsylvania in the early 1980s as well as the Pittsburgh drug trials that directly affected the Pirates going from World Series champions to nearly relocating to Denver in only six years. Bonds made his major league debut on May 30, 1986, finishing 0-for-5 with a walk in a 6–4 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. On June 4, he hit his first major league home run and drove in four runs, helping the Pirates to a 12–3 win over the Atlanta Braves. In 1986, Bonds led National League (NL) rookies with 16 home runs, 48 RBI, 36 stolen bases, and 65 walks, but he finished sixth in Rookie of the Year voting. He played center field in 1986, but switched to left field with the arrival of centerfielder Andy Van Slyke in 1987.
In his early years, Bonds batted as the leadoff hitter. With Van Slyke also in the outfield, the Pirates had a venerable defensive tandem that worked together to cover a lot of ground on the field although they were not close off the field. The Pirates experienced a surge in fan enthusiasm with Bonds on the team and set the club attendance record of 52,119 in the 1987 home opener. That year, he hit .261 with 25 home runs, along with 32 stolen bases and 59 RBI in 150 games. Bonds improved in 1988, hitting .283 with 24 home runs and 58 RBI in 144 games. The Pirates broke the record set the previous year with 54,089 attending the home opener. Bonds now fit into a highly respected lineup featuring Bobby Bonilla, Van Slyke, and Jay Bell. He finished with 19 homers, 58 RBI, and 14 outfield assists in 1989, which was second in the NL. Following the season, rumors that he would be traded to the Dodgers for Jeff Hamilton and John Wetteland, but the team denied the rumors and no such trade occurred. Bonds won his first MVP Award in 1990, hitting .301 with 33 home runs and 114 RBI in 151 games. He also stole 52 bases, which was third in the league, and joined the 30–30 and 20–50 clubs for the first time. He won his first Gold Glove Award and Silver Slugger Award. That year, the Pirates won the National League East title for their first postseason berth since winning the 1979 World Series. However, the Cincinnati Reds, whose last postseason berth had also been in 1979 when they lost to the Pirates in that year's NLCS, defeated the Pirates in the NLCS en route to winning the 1990 World Series.
In 1991, Bonds again put up great numbers, batting .292 with 25 homers and driving in 116 runs in 153 games, earning him another Gold Glove and Silver Slugger. He finished second to the Atlanta Braves' Terry Pendleton (the NL batting champion) in the MVP voting. In March 1992, Pirates general manager Ted Simmons agreed to a deal with Atlanta Braves counterpart John Schuerholz to trade Bonds, in exchange for Alejandro Peña, Keith Mitchell, and a player to be named later. Pirates manager Jim Leyland opposed the trade vehemently, and the proposal was rescinded. Bonds stayed with Pittsburgh and won his second MVP award that season. While hitting .311 with 34 homers and 103 RBI, he propelled the Pirates to their third straight National League East division title. However, Pittsburgh was defeated by the Braves in a seven-game National League Championship Series. Bonds participated in the final play of Game 7 of the NLCS, whereby he fielded a base hit by Francisco Cabrera and attempted to throw out Sid Bream at home plate. The throw to Pirates catcher Mike LaValliere was late and Bream scored the winning run. For the third consecutive season, the NL East Champion Pirates were denied a trip to the World Series. Following the loss, Bonds and star teammate Doug Drabek were expected to command salaries too high for Pittsburgh to again sign them.
Bonds was never well-liked by reporters or fans while in Pittsburgh, despite winning two MVP awards. One paper even gave him an "award" as the "MDP" (Most Despised Pirate). San Francisco Giants (1993–2007). 1993 season. In 1993, Bonds left the Pirates to sign a lucrative free agent contract worth a then-record $43.75 million (equivalent to $ million in ) over six years with the Giants, with whom his father had spent the first seven years of his career, and with whom his godfather Willie Mays played 22 of his 24 Major League seasons. The deal was at that time the largest in baseball history, in terms of both total value and average annual salary. Once he signed with the Giants, Bonds had intended to wear the number 24, his number during most of his stay with the Pirates and, after receiving Mays's blessing, the Giants were willing to unretire it until the public commotion from fans and media became too much. To honor his father, Bonds switched his jersey number to 25, as it had been Bobby's number in San Francisco.
In an emotional press conference announcing the signing, Bonds described joining the Giants as going "home" and following in the footsteps of his father and godfather as "unbelievable" and "a boyhood dream come true". His father joined the team as a coach in the same year. During a game against the Colorado Rockies on May 12, 1993, both Bonds and his father, along with Jerald Clark and Ron Hassey of the Rockies, were ejected for their role in an on-field fight. Bonds hit .336 in 1993, leading the NL with 46 home runs and 123 RBI in 159 games en route to his second consecutive MVP award, and third overall. As good as the Giants were (winning 103 games), the Atlanta Braves won 104 in what some call the last great pennant race (because the wild card was instituted the year after). 1994 season. In the strike-shortened season of 1994, Bonds hit .312 with 37 home runs, 81 RBI and a league-leading 74 walks in 112 games. He finished fourth in MVP voting. 1995 season. In 1995, Bonds played in 144 games, hitting .294 with 33 homers and 104 RBI, but finished only 12th in MVP voting. In 1994, he appeared in a small role as himself in the television film "Jane's House", starring James Woods and Anne Archer. 1996 season.
In 1996, Bonds became the first National League player and second major league player (of the current list of six) to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season. The other members of the 40–40 club are José Canseco (1988), Alex Rodriguez (1998), Alfonso Soriano (2006), Ronald Acuña Jr. (2023), and Shohei Ohtani (2024). His father Bobby Bonds was one home run short in 1973 when he hit 39 home runs and stole 43 bases. Bonds hit his 300th and 301st home runs off the Florida Marlins' John Burkett on April 27. He became the fourth player in history to join the 300–300 club with 300 stolen bases and 300 home runs for a career, joining Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, and his father. Bonds's totals for the season included 129 runs driven in, a .308 average and a then-National League record 151 walks. He finished fifth in the MVP balloting. 1997 season. In 1997, Bonds hit .291, his lowest average since 1989. He hit 40 home runs for the second straight year and drove in 101 runs, leading the league in walks again with 145. He also stole 37 bases, tying his father for having the most 30–30 seasons (five), and he again placed fifth in the MVP balloting. 1998 season.
With two outs in the ninth inning of a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 28, 1998, Bonds became only the fifth player in baseball history to be given an intentional walk with the bases loaded. Nap Lajoie (1901), Del Bissonette (1928) and Bill Nicholson (1944) were three others in the 20th century who received that rare honor. The first to receive one was Abner Dalrymple in 1881. On August 23, Bonds hit his 400th career home run. By doing so, he became the first player ever to enter the 400–400 club by having career totals of 400 home runs and 400 stolen bases; he is still the only player to have achieved this feat. The milestone home run came off Kirt Ojala, who, like Burkett, was pitching for the Marlins. For the season, he hit .303 with 37 home runs and drove in 122 runs, winning his eighth Gold Glove, He finished eighth in the MVP voting. 1999 season. 1999 marked a career-low, up to that point, for Bonds in terms of playing time. Bonds started off the 1999 season hitting well by batting .366 in the month of April with four home runs and 12 RBI in the Giants' first 12 games of the season. But on April 18, he was placed on the 15-day disabled list for only the second time in his career up to that point. Bonds had suffered a torn tendon in his biceps as well as bone spurs in his elbow, both of which required surgery and cost him the rest of April and all of May.
Upon returning to action on June 9, Bonds struggled somewhat at the plate for the remainder of the 1999 season. A series of nagging injuries including elbow pain, knee inflammation and groin issues hampered his play. Only hitting .248 after his return from the disabled list, he still managed to slug 34 home runs, drive in 83 runs as well as hit for a .617 slugging percentage, despite missing nearly two full months with injuries and only playing in 102 games. Bill James ranked Bonds as the best player of the 1990s. He added that the decade's second-best player, Craig Biggio, had been closer in production to the decade's 10th-best player than to Bonds. In 1999, with statistics through 1997 being considered, Bonds ranked Number 34 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, making him the highest-ranking active player. When the Sporting News list was redone in 2005, Bonds was ranked 6th behind Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Hank Aaron. Bonds was omitted from 1999's Major League Baseball All-Century Team, to which Ken Griffey Jr. was elected. James wrote of Bonds, "Certainly the most unappreciated superstar of my lifetime. ... Griffey has always been more popular, but Bonds has been a far, far greater player." In 1999, he rated Bonds as the 16th-best player of all time. "When people begin to take in all of his accomplishments," he predicted, "Bonds may well be rated among the five greatest players in the history of the game." 2000 season.
In 2000, Bonds hit .306 with career bests through that time in both slugging percentage (.688) and home runs (49) in just 143 games. He also drew a league-leading 117 walks. 2001 season. The next year, Bonds's offensive production reached even higher levels, breaking not only his own personal records but several major league records. In the Giants' first 50 games in 2001, he hit 28 home runs, including 17 in May—a career high. This early stretch included his 500th home run hit on April 17 against Terry Adams of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also hit 39 home runs by the All-star break (a major league record), drew a major league record 177 walks, and had a .515 on-base average, a feat not seen since Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams over forty years earlier. Bonds' slugging percentage was a major league record .863 (411 total bases in 476 at-bats), and he ended the season with a major league record 73 home runs. On October 4, by homering off Wilfredo Rodríguez in the 159th game of the season, Bonds tied the previous record of 70 set by Mark McGwire—which McGwire set in the 162nd game in 1998. He then broke the record by hitting numbers 71 and 72 the following night off Chan Ho Park. Bonds added his 73rd off Dennis Springer on October 7. The ball was later sold to toy manufacturer Todd McFarlane for $450,000. He previously bought Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball from 1998. Bonds received the Babe Ruth Home Run Award for leading MLB in home runs that season. 2002 season.
Bonds re-signed with the Giants for a five-year, $90 million contract on January 15, 2002. He hit five home runs in the Giants' first four games of the season, tying Lou Brock's 35-year record for most home runs after four games. He won the NL batting title with a career-high .370 average, and also recorded 46 home runs, 110 RBI, and just 47 strikeouts in 403 at-bats. Despite playing in nine fewer games than the previous season, he drew 198 walks, a major-league record; 68 of them were intentional walks, surpassing Willie McCovey's 45 in 1969 for another Major League record. He slugged .799, then the fourth-highest total all time. Bonds broke Ted Williams' major league record for on-base average with .582. Bonds also hit his 600th home run, less than a year and a half after hitting his 500th. The home run came on August 9 at home against Kip Wells of the Pirates. 2002 postseason. Bonds batted .322 with eight home runs, 16 RBI, and 27 walks in the postseason en route to the 2002 World Series, which the Giants lost in seven games to the Anaheim Angels. 2003 season.
In 2003, Bonds played in just 130 games. He hit 45 home runs in just 390 at-bats, along with a .341 batting average. He slugged .749, walked 148 times, and had an on-base average well over .500 (.529) for the third straight year. He also became the only member of the career 500 home run/500 stolen base club by stealing second base on June 23 off pitcher Éric Gagné in the 11th inning of a tied ball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers (against whom Bonds had tallied his 500th home run). Bonds scored the game-winning run later that inning. 2004 season. In 2004, Bonds had perhaps his best season. He hit .362 en route to his second National League batting title, and broke his own record by walking 232 times (including an MLB record 120 intentional walks). He slugged .812, which was fourth-highest of all time, and broke his on-base percentage record with a .609 average. Bonds passed Mays on the career home run list by hitting his 661st off Ben Ford on April 13. He then hit his 700th off Jake Peavy on September 17. Bonds hit 45 home runs in 373 at-bats, and struck out just 41 times, putting himself in elite company, as few major leaguers have ever had more home runs than strikeouts in a season. Bonds would win his fourth consecutive MVP award and his seventh overall. His seven MVP awards are four more than any other player in history. In addition, no other player from either league has been awarded the MVP four times in a row. (The MVP award was first given in 1931). The 40-year-old Bonds also broke Willie Stargell's 25-year record as the oldest player to win a Most Valuable Player Award (Stargell, at 39 years, 8 months, was National League co-MVP with Keith Hernandez in 1979). On July 4, he tied and passed Rickey Henderson's career bases on balls record with his 2,190th and 2,191st career walks.
As Bonds neared Aaron's record, Aaron was called on for his opinion of Bonds. He clarified that he was a fan and admirer of Bonds and avoided the controversy regarding whether the record should be denoted with an asterisk for Bonds's alleged steroid usage. He felt recognition and respect for the award was something to be determined by the fans. As the steroid controversy received greater media attention during the offseason before the 2005 season, Aaron expressed some reservations about the statements Bonds made on the issue. Aaron expressed that he felt drug and steroid use to boost athletic performance was inappropriate. Aaron was frustrated that the media could not focus on events that occurred in the field of play and wished drugs or gambling allegations such as those associated with Pete Rose could be emphasized less. In 2007, Aaron felt the whole steroid use issue was very controversial and decided that he would not attend any possible record-breaking games. Aaron congratulated Bonds through the media including a video played on the scoreboard when Bonds eventually broke Aaron's record in August 2007. 2005 season.

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