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Over the period 1980 to 2000, BT and other providers adopted Internet product strategies when it became commercially advantageous. Attempted global alliances. MCI. In June 1994 BT and MCI Communications launched Concert Communications Services which was a $1 billion joint venture between the two companies. Its aim was to build a network which would provide easy global connectivity to multinational corporations. This alliance progressed further on 3 November 1996 when the two companies announced that they had agreed to a merger, creating a global telecommunications company called Concert plc. The proposal gained approval from the European Commission, the US Department of Justice, and the US Federal Communications Commission and looked set to proceed. However, in light of pressure from investors reacting to the slide in BT's share price on the London Stock Exchange, BT reduced its bid price for MCI, releasing MCI from its exclusivity clause and allowing it to speak to other interested parties. On 1 October 1997, Worldcom made a rival bid for MCI which was followed by a counter-bid from GTE.
BT sold its stake in MCI to Worldcom in 1998 for £4,159 million. As part of the deal, BT also bought out from MCI its 24.9% interest in Concert Communications, thereby making Concert a wholly owned part of BT. The reaction to the failure of the deal in the City of London was critical of then Chairman Iain Vallance and CEO Peter Bonfield, and the lack of confidence from the failed merger led to their removal. AT&T. As BT owned Concert in 1994, and still wanted access to the North American market, it needed a new partner. An AT&T/BT option had been mooted in the past, but stopped on regulatory grounds due to their individual virtual monopolies in their home markets. By 1996, this had receded to the point where a deal was possible, and a deal was consummated in 1998. At its height, the Concert managed network was extensive. Although Concert continued signing customers, its rate of revenue growth slowed, so that in 1999 David Dorman was made CEO with a brief to revive it. In late 2000, the BT and AT&T boards fell-out, partly due to each partner's excess debt and the resulting board room clear-outs, partly due to Concert's extensive annual losses. AT&T recognized that Concert was a threat to its ambitions if left intact, and so negotiated a deal where Concert was split in two in 2001: North America and Eastern Asia went to AT&T, the rest of the world and $400M to BT. BT's remaining Concert assets were merged into its BT Ignite, later BT Global Services group.
BT Ireland. In 2000, BT acquired Esat Telecom Group plc, and all its subsidiary companies, and Ireland On Line. It also purchased Telenor's minority shareholding in Esat Digifone. The Esat Telecom Group was split in two with the landline and internet operations were combining with Ocean to become part of BT Ignite. Esat Group was renamed Esat BT in July 2002, and eventually BT Ireland in April 2005. Esat Digifone became part of BT Wireless, before being spun off into a separate independent company mmo2 plc (now Telefónica Europe). EsatBT installed the first DSL lines in Ireland, to try and compete heavily with former state telecoms company Eircom and operate one exchange, in Limerick. 2001 debt crisis and sale, demerger. By 2001, BT had a debt of £30 billion, much of which was acquired during the bidding round for the 3rd generation mobile telephony (commonly known as 3G) licences. It had also failed in its series of proposed global mergers, and the funds flowing from its then virtual monopoly of the UK market place had been largely removed. It was also headed by two executives who had little support from the London Stock Exchange, particularly in light of a 60% drop in share price in sixteen months.
Philip Hampton joined as CFO, and in April 2001 Sir Iain Vallance was replaced as chairman by recognised turn around expert Sir Christopher Bland. In May 2001, BT carried out corporate Europe's largest ever rights issue, allowing it to raise £5.9 billion. A few days before, it sold stakes in Japan Telecom, in mobile operator J-Phone Communications, and in Airtel of India to Vodafone. In June 2001, BT's directory business was sold as Yell Group to a combination of private equity firms Apax Partners and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst for £2.1 billion. A demerger followed in November 2001, when the former mobile telecommunications business of BT, BT Cellnet, was hived off as a separate business named "mmO2". This included BT owned or operated networks in other countries, including BT Cellnet (UK), Esat Digifone (Ireland), and Viag Interkom (Germany). All networks now owned or operated by mmO2 (except Manx Telecom) were renamed as O2. The de-merger was accomplished via a share-swap, all British Telecommunications plc shareholders received one mmO2 plc and one BT Group plc (of which British Telecommunications is now a wholly owned subsidiary) share for each share they owned. British Telecommunications plc was de-listed on 16 November, and the two new companies started trading on 19 November.
Aftermath, 2001 to 2006. At the end of the series of sales, Sir Peter Bonfield resigned in October 2001. Bonfield was replaced by former Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen. During Bonfield's tenure the share price went from £4 to £15, and back again to £5. Bonfield's salary to 31 March 2001 was a basic of £780,000 (increasing to £820,000) plus a £481,000 bonus and £50,000 of other benefits including pension. He also received a deferred bonus, payable in shares three years' later, of £481,000, and additional bonuses of £3.3 million. mmO2 plc was replaced by O2 plc in a further share-swap in 2005, and subsequently bought in an agreed takeover by Telefónica for £18 billion and delisted. In 2004, BT launched Consult 21, a consultation organisation that was to aid BT 21CN in the eventual conversion to digital telephony. In 2004, BT was awarded the contract to deliver and manage N3, a secure and fast broadband network for the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) program, on behalf of the English National Health Service (NHS).
In 2005, BT made a number of acquisitions. In February 2005, BT acquired Infonet (now re-branded BT Infonet), a large telecoms company based in El Segundo, California, giving BT access to new geographies. It also acquired the Italian company Albacom. Then in April 2005, it bought Radianz from Reuters (now rebranded as BT Radianz), which expanded BT's coverage and provided BT with more buying power in certain countries. In August 2006, BT acquired online electrical retailer Dabs.com for £30.6 million. The BT Home Hub manufactured by Inventel was also launched in June 2006. In October 2006, BT confirmed that it would be investing 75% of its total capital spending, put at £10 billion over five years, in its new Internet Protocol (IP) based 21st century network (21CN). Annual savings of £1 billion per annum were expected when the transition to the new network was to have been completed in 2010, with over 50% of its customers to have been transferred by 2008. That month the first customers on to 21CN was successfully tested at Adastral Park in Suffolk. 2007 to 2012.
In January 2007, BT acquired Sheffield-based ISP, PlusNet plc, adding 200,000 customers. BT stated that PlusNet will continue to operate separately out of its Sheffield head-office. On 1 February 2007, BT announced agreed terms to acquire International Network Services Inc. (INS), an international provider of IT consultancy and software. In February 2007, Sir Michael Rake succeeded Sir Christopher Bland. In April that year, they acquired COMSAT International, followed in October by the acquisition of Lynx Technology. BT acquired Wire One Communications in June 2008 and folded the company into "BT Conferencing", its existing conferencing unit, as a new video business unit In July 2008, BT acquired the online business directory firm Ufindus for £20 million in order to expand its position in the local information market in GB. On 28 July 2008, BT acquired Ribbit, of Mountain View, California, "Silicon Valley's First Phone Company". Ribbit provides Adobe Flash/Flex APIs, allowing web developers to incorporate telephony features into their software as a service (SaaS) applications.
In the early days of its fibre broadband rollout, BT said it would deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to around 25% of the Country, with the rest catered for by the slower fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), which uses copper wiring to deliver the final stretch of the connection. In 2014, with less than 0.7% of the company's fibre network being FTTP, BT dropped the 25% target, saying that it was "far less relevant today" because of improvements made to the headline speed of FTTC, which had doubled to 80 Mbit/s since its fibre broadband rollout was first announced. To supplement FTTC, BT offered an 'FTTP on Demand' product. In January 2015, BT stopped taking orders for the on-demand product. On 1 April 2009, BT Engage IT was created from the merger of two previous BT acquisitions, Lynx Technology and Basilica. Apart from the name change not much else changed in operations for another 12 months. On 14 May 2009, BT said it was cutting up to 15,000 jobs in the coming year after it announced its results for the year to 31 March 2009. Then in July 2009, BT offered workers a long holiday for an up front sum of 25% of their annual wage or a one-off payment of £1000 if they agree to go part-time.
On 6 April 2011, BT launched the first online not-for-profit fundraising service for UK charities called BT MyDonate as part of its investment to the community. The service will pass on 100% of all donations made through the site to the charity, and unlike other services which take a proportion as commission and charge charities for using their services, BT will only pass on credit/debit card charges for each donation. The service allows people to register to give money to charity or collect fundraising donations. BT developed MyDonate with the support of Cancer Research UK, Changing Faces, KidsOut, NSPCC and Women's Aid. 2013 to 2020. In March 2013, BT was allocated 4G spectrum in the UK following an auction and assignment by Ofcom, after paying £201.5m. On 1 August 2013, BT launched its first television channels, BT Sport, to compete with rival broadcaster Sky Sports. Plans for the channels' launch came about when it was announced in June 2012 that BT had been awarded a package of broadcast rights for the Premier League from the 2013–14 to 2015–16 season, broadcasting 38 matches from each season. In February 2013, BT acquired ESPN Inc.'s UK and Ireland TV channels, continuing its expansion into sports broadcasting. ESPN America and ESPN Classic were both closed, while ESPN continued to be operated by BT. On 9 November 2013, BT announced it had acquired exclusive rights to the Champions League and Europa League for £897m, from the 2015 season, with some free games remaining including both finals.
On 1 November 2014, BT created a new central business services organisation to provide customer services and improve operational efficiency. On 24 November 2014, shares in BT rose considerably on the announcement that the company was in talks to buy back O2, while at the same time confirmed it was also in talks to acquire EE. BT subsequently entered into exclusive talks to buy EE for £12.5 billion on 15 December 2014 and confirmed on 5 February 2015, subject to regulatory approval. The deal combined BT's 10 million retail customers and EE's 24.5 million direct mobile subscribers. Deutsche Telekom would own 12% of BT, while Orange S.A. would own 4%. In March 2015, BT launched a 4G service as BT Mobile BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson announced that BT plans to migrate all of its customers onto the IP network by 2025, switching off the company's ISDN network. On 15 January 2016, BT received approval by the Competition and Markets Authority to acquire EE. The deal was officially completed on 29 January 2016 with Deutsche Telekom then owning 12% of BT, while Orange S.A. owned 4%.
On 1 February 2016, BT announced a new organisational structure to take effect from April 2016 after acquiring EE. The EE brand, network and high street stores became a second consumer division, operating alongside BT Consumer to serve customers with mobile services, broadband and TV and continued to deliver the Emergency Services Network contract awarded to EE in late 2015. There was to be a new BT Business and Public Sector division with around £5bn of revenues to serve small and large businesses as well as the public sector in the UK and Ireland. It was to comprise the existing BT Business division along with EE's business division and those parts of BT Global Services that are UK focused. There will also be another new division; BT Wholesale and Ventures that will comprise the existing BT Wholesale division along with EE's MVNO business as well as some specialist businesses such as Fleet, Payphones and Directories. Gerry McQuade, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Business at EE, was to be its CEO. The June 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum set off the Brexit process.
On 8 June 2017, BT appointed KPMG as its new auditor to replace PwC in the wake of a fraud scandal in Italy that triggered a major profit warning earlier that year. Also in of that year, KPMG fired six US employees over a scandal that calls into question efforts to ensure that public company accounts are being properly scrutinised. On 8 July 2017, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that BT "has called in consultants from McKinsey to conduct a review of its businesses in the hope of saving hundreds of millions of pounds per year. The work, dubbed 'Project Novator', is understood to include a potential merger of BT's struggling global services corporate networking and IT unit with its business and public sector division". On 28 July 2017, BT again announced organisational changes to "simplify its operating model, strengthen accountabilities and accelerate its transformation" to bring together its BT Consumer and EE divisions into a new unified BT Consumer division to operate across three brands – BT, EE and Plusnet. It was to take effect from 1 April 2018.
On 18 April 2018, BT announced further organisational changes after unification of BT Consumer and EE divisions, bringing together its BT Business and Public Sector and BT Wholesale and Ventures divisions into a new unified division known as "BT Enterprise". It was to include BT's Ventures business which "acts as an incubator for potential new growth areas of the company" and to report as a single unit from 1 October 2018. 2021 to present. In February 2021, BT and EE launched a fixed-line home broadband service that can also use the mobile network. With the introduction of the Hybrid Connect device, customers who lost connection through their Smart Hub 2 would automatically be connected to EE's mobile network, giving them an uninterrupted connection that BT described as "unbreakable". In June 2021, French telecommunications company Altice acquired a 12% stake in BT, increasing to 18% in December 2021 and 24.5% in May 2023. Patrick Drahi's purchase of 650 million shares cost about £960 million. Altice's increasing stake in BT Group posed questions around the national security of the United Kingdom's infrastructure, and the UK government opened an investigation in May 2022 to look into possible security implications. In August 2022, the government completed its investigation and ruled that Drahi would not be required to cut his stake in BT, concluding that the investment did not pose any national security risks.
In July 2023, BT announced the appointment of businesswoman Allison Kirkby as its chief executive, replacing Philip Jansen in February 2024. In June 2024, Carlos Slim acquired a 3.2% equity stake in the group. Two months later, Sunil Mittal's Bharti Enterprises paid around £3.2bn for Drahi's 24.5% stake. Operations. BT Group is a holding company; the majority of its businesses and assets are held by its wholly owned subsidiary British Telecommunications plc. BT's businesses are operated under special government regulation by the British telecoms regulator Ofcom (formerly Oftel). BT has been found to have significant market power in some markets following market reviews by Ofcom. In these markets, BT is required to comply with additional obligations such as meeting reasonable requests to supply services and not to discriminate. BT runs the telephone exchanges, trunk network and local loop connections for the vast majority of British fixed-line telephones. Apart from KCOM Group, which serves Kingston upon Hull, BT is the only UK telecoms operator to have a universal service obligation which means it must provide a fixed telephone line to any address in the UK, at a uniform price throughout the country. This requirement was introduced by the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which also covers provision of directories, a directory enquiry service, and public call boxes. Legislation in 2018 added a minimum standard of fixed broadband service, subject to a cap on the cost of provision, which Ofcom implemented as a set of conditions applying to BT and KCOM in 2020. Reduced usage of public phone boxes led Ofcom to vary the conditions relating to them in 2022.
As well as continuing to provide service in those traditional areas in which BT has an obligation to provide services or is closely regulated, BT has expanded into more profitable products and services where there is less regulation. These are, principally, broadband internet service and bespoke solutions in telecommunications and information technology. Branding. In 2019, a simplified BT logo and brand was launched to replace the previous multi-coloured globe logo. In April 2022, BT announced its intentions to focus on the EE brand for consumer products. Corporate affairs. Buildings and facilities. As BT operates in around 180 countries, it owns and leases a range of buildings and facilities in the UK and around the world. In 2001, it sold some of its UK property portfolio for £2.38 billion to Telereal Trillium in a 30-year leaseback. The deal included 6,700 properties and contributed towards alleviating its debt at the time, with the main advantage being flexibility as it allows BT to vacate property over time, so as to adapt to changing operational requirements.
Headquarters. Until December 2021, BT Group's world headquarters and registered office was the BT Centre, a 10-storey office building at 81 Newgate Street in the City of London, opposite St Paul's tube station. In November 2021, BT relocated to new headquarters at One Braham, a brand new 18-storey building completed earlier in 2021. In March 2024, BT Group opened a new multi-million-pound hub and Welsh headquarters in Cardiff for 1,000 BT Group employees. Buildings and stations. Some of its UK buildings and stations are: Telecommunications towers. BT remains one of the largest owners of telecommunications towers in the UK and were a major node in its microwave network. Its BT Tower in London is notable for numerous reasons such as being the tallest building in the UK from its construction in the 1960s until the early 1980s, its revolving restaurant at the top known as 'Top of the Tower' in operation through the late 1960s and 1970s, and remains one of the UK's most important communications nerve centres, the heart of a vast broadcasting and communications network. It carries approximately 95% of the UK's TV content, including live broadcasts and 99% of all live football games as well as pioneering the first international HD, 3D and 4K television transmissions. It serves media production and distribution customers around the world and as part of the Things Connected Network launched in London, it became the highest building in the world to host an Internet of things (IoT) base station in September 2016. Some of its towers are:
Other. Some of its other UK facilities are: Divisions. BT Group is organised into the following divisions: Corporate governance. BT's board of directors as of November 2021: BT's executive committee as of March 2018: Pension fund. BT has the second largest defined benefit pension plan of any UK public company. The trustees valued the scheme at £36.7 billion at the end of 2010; an actuarial valuation valued the deficit of the scheme at £9.043 billion as of 31 December 2008. Following a change in the regulations governing inflation index linking, the deficit was estimated at £5.2 billion in November 2010. Sponsorships. BT sponsored Scotland's domestic rugby union championship and cup competitions between 1999 and 2006. On 31 July 2012, it was announced that BT agreed a three-year sponsorship deal with Ulster Rugby and sees BT become the Official Communications Partner. BT's logo will appear on the Ulster Rugby shirt sleeve for all friendlies, Heineken Cup and RaboDirect Pro12 matches as well as a significant brand presence at their home ground; Ravenhill Stadium.
On 29 July 2013, it was announced that BT had partnered up with Scottish Rugby Union in a four-year sponsorship deal with its two professional clubs; Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors that will commence from August 2013. The deal involves BT Sport becoming the new shirt sponsor for both clubs as well as being promoted with BT Group at their respective home grounds; Scotstoun Stadium and Murrayfield Stadium. On 13 May 2014, BT joined Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media as founding partners of Internet Matters, a not-for-profit organisation that provides online safety advice for parents and their children. On 28 May 2014, it was announced that BT agreed a £20 million four-year sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby Union which includes BT securing the naming rights for Murrayfield Stadium which becomes BT Murrayfield Stadium, become sponsor of the Scotland sevens team, become principal and exclusive sponsor of Scotland's domestic league and cup competitions from next season, taking over the role from The Royal Bank of Scotland and become sponsor of Scottish Rugby's four new academies that aims to drive forward standards for young players who have aspirations to play professionally.
On 14 April 2015, it was announced that as part of BT's current £20 million four-year sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby Union that was announced in May 2014, BT has completed its sponsorship portfolio following an additional investment of £3.6 million for the 3 years remaining of its sponsorship deal, to become the new shirt sponsor for the Scotland national teams. On 27 January 2016, it was announced that BT, alongside YouTube will be the new joint headline sponsors in a three-year deal with Edinburgh International Television Festival. The two companies will "share prominence across all branding of the 41st TV Festival, including the famous MacTaggart Lecture and will work closely with the festival organisers in their bid to reflect new trends in a rapidly transforming industry, from new ways of distributing content to technical innovations such as virtual reality". BT is the founding and principal partner of the Wayne Rooney Foundation, which was established to improve the lives of children and young people. The Foundation will run events "to raise vital funds to support the work of key organisations dedicated to supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people". These organisations are four chosen charities which are, Manchester United Foundation, NSPCC, Claire House Children's Hospice and Alder Hey Children's Hospital. The first of these events was Wayne's testimonial match in August 2016 between Manchester United F.C. and Everton F.C. which raised £1.2 million. The match was screened live through BT Sport with BT MyDonate being the official fundraising platform for the testimonial, with both online and text options for donations promoted during the match.
On 26 May 2017, it was announced that BT is to sponsor the 2017 British Urban Film Festival (BUFF) and sees BT host every event of the film festival, including the Awards at the BT Tower. BT will also broadcast the awards ceremony on BT.com and will have the opportunity to screen films acquired from the festival on its BT TV store platform. On 6 September 2017, it was announced that BT had extended its current £20 million four-year sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby Union that was announced in May 2014, for a further three years beginning from June 2018. The new deal sees BT retain the naming rights to BT Murrayfield Stadium, alongside its role as principal partner of the Scotland national team and Scotland 7s. BT's logo will continue to be displayed on the front of Scotland rugby shirts across the world, in the Six Nations Championship, as well as the summer and autumn test matches. BT will also continue to be promoted at Edinburgh Rugby and Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow. Historical financial performance. BT's financial results have been as follows:
Controversies. World Wide Web hyperlink patent. In 2001, BT discovered it owned a patent () which it believed gave it patent rights on the use of hyperlink technology on the World Wide Web. The corresponding UK patent had already expired, but the US patent was valid until 2006. On 11 February 2002, BT began a court case relating to its claims in a US federal court against the internet service provider Prodigy Communications Corporation. In the case "British Telecommunications plc v. Prodigy", the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on 22 August 2002 that the BT patent was not applicable to web technology and granted Prodigy's request for summary judgment of non-infringement. Behavioural targeting. In early 2008 it was announced that BT had entered into a contract (along with Virgin Media and TalkTalk) with the spyware company Phorm (responsible under their 121Media guise for the Apropos rootkit) to intercept and analyse their users' click-stream data and sell the anonymised aggregate information as part of Phorm's OIX advertising service. The practice, known as "behavioural targeting" and condemned by critics as "data pimping", came under intense fire from various internet communities and other interested-parties who believe that the interception of data without the consent of users and web site owners is illegal under UK law (RIPA). At a more fundamental level, many have argued that the ISPs and Phorm have no right to sell a commodity (a user's data, and the copyrighted content of web sites) to which they have no claim of ownership. In response to questions about Phorm and the interception of data by the Webwise system Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, indicated his disapproval of the concept and is quoted as saying of his data and web history:
Huawei infrastructure access. Beginning in 2010 the UK intelligence community investigated Huawei, the Chinese supplier of BT's new fibre infrastructure with increasing urgency after the United States, Canada and Australia prevented the company from operating in their countries. Although BT had notified the UK government in 2003 of Huawei's interest in their £10bn network upgrade contract, they did not raise the security implications as BT failed to explain that the Chinese company would have unfettered access to critical infrastructure. On 16 December 2012 the then prime minister David Cameron was supplied with an in-depth report indicating that the intelligence services had very grave doubts regarding Huawei, and that UK governmental, military, and civilian privacy may have been under serious threat. On 7 June 2013, British lawmakers concluded that BT should not have allowed Huawei access to the UK's communications network without ministerial oversight, saying they were 'deeply shocked' that BT did not inform government that they were allowing Huawei and ZTE, both with ties to the Chinese military, unfettered access to critical national systems. Furthermore, ministers discovered that the agency with the responsibility to ensure Chinese equipment and code was threat-free was entirely staffed by Huawei employees. Subsequently, parliamentarians confirmed that in case of an attack on the UK there was nothing that could be done to stop Chinese infiltration.
By 2016 Huawei had put measures in place to ensure the integrity of UK national security. Specifically their UK work is now overseen by a board that includes directors from GCHQ, the Cabinet Office and the Home Office. ZTE, another Chinese company that supplies extensive network equipment and subscriber hardware used with BT 'Infinity', was also under scrutiny by parliament's intelligence and security committee after the US, Canada, Australia and the European Union declared the company a security risk. In 2020 following a government ruling, BT began removing Huawei equipment from its broadband and mobile networks in order to comply with new restrictions on the usage of Huawei equipment. As of 2023, the process is still ongoing. Alleged complicity with drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia. In September 2012, BT entered into a $23 million deal with the US military to provide a key communications cable connecting RAF Croughton, a US military base on UK soil, with Camp Lemonnier, a large US base in Djibouti. Camp Lemonnier is used as a base for American drone attacks in Yemen and Somalia, and has been described by "The Economist" as "the most important base for drone operations outside the war zone of Afghanistan."
Human rights groups including Reprieve and Amnesty International have criticised the use of armed drones outside declared war zones. Evidence produced by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Stanford University's International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic suggest that drone strikes have caused substantial civilian casualties, and may be illegal under international law. In 2013, BT was the subject of a complaint by Reprieve to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, following their refusal to explain whether or not their infrastructure was used to facilitate drone strikes. The subsequent refusal of this complaint was appealed in May 2014, on the basis that the UK National Contact Point's decision did not follow the OECD Guidelines. The issue of bias was also raised, due to the appointment of Lord Ian Livingston as government minister for the department which was processing the complaint: Livingston had occupied a senior position at BT when the cable between RAF Croughton and Camp Lemonnier was originally built.
Overcharging. In February 2017, a review of the telecoms market by Ofcom found that BT's landline only contracts provided poor value to customers. Ofcom ordered BT to reduce their prices but stopped short of demanding that customers were compensated. In January 2021, Law firm Mishcon de Reya filed a claim with the Competition Appeal Tribunal against BT worth £600 million, accusing them of historic overcharging on landlines. The class action lawsuit claims BT have increased their prices for line-only services every year since 2009, whilst the wholesale cost for delivering these services has reduced. The claimants suggest that customers could be entitled to compensation of up to £500 each. Bidding rules violation. In 2020, BT was fined £6.3m by the telecoms regulator Ofcom for violating the law on a large public sector deal in Northern Ireland. Under Ofcom's regulations, the BT network shall handle all wholesale customers similarly. In its report, Ofcom found that BT's network violated the rules by failing to supply Eir with the same details on its on-demand fiber-to-the-premises offering as its own rival team.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, BT Group continues to maintain operations in Russia, primarily to ensure that communication links, such as phone calls between the UK and Russia, remain functional. In March 2022, BT explored the possibility of severing ties with Rostelecom, Russia's state-backed telecom operator, but concluded that such a move would disrupt communication capabilities between the two nations. OFCOM fines for non-functioning 999 calls. On 25 June 2023, a "catastrophic failure" in BT's network resulted in nearly 14,000 attempted 999 emergency calls not being connected. Ofcom fined BT £17.5 million, citing the telecom giant's lack of preparedness and poorly documented backup procedures. Historical documents. Records of the Post Office Corporation (Telecommunications division) 19691981 and its predecessors (including Post Office Telegraph and Telephone Service 18641969 and some private telegraph and telephone companies) are Public Records, and are held by BT Archives.
Balmoral Castle Balmoral Castle () is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, west of Ballater and west of Aberdeen. The estate and its original castle were bought from the Farquharson family in 1852 by Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Soon afterwards the house was found to be too small and the current Balmoral Castle was commissioned. The architect was William Smith of Aberdeen, and his designs were amended by Prince Albert. Balmoral remains the private property of the monarch and is not part of the Crown Estate. It was the summer residence of Queen Elizabeth II, who died there on 8 September 2022. The castle is an example of Scottish baronial architecture, and is classified by Historic Environment Scotland as a category A listed building. The new castle was completed in 1856 and the old castle demolished shortly thereafter. The Balmoral Estate has been added to by successive members of the royal family, and now covers an area of 21,725 hectares (53,684 acres) of land. It is a working estate, including grouse moors, forestry and farmland, as well as managed herds of deer, Highland cattle, sheep and ponies.
Etymology. Balmoral is pronounced or sometimes locally . It was first recorded as 'Bouchmorale' in 1451, and it was pronounced by local Scottish Gaelic speakers. The first element in the name is thought to be the Gaelic "both", meaning "a hut", but the second part is uncertain. Adam Watson and Elizabeth Allan wrote in "The Place Names of Upper Deeside" that the second part meant "big spot (of ground)". Alexander MacBain suggested this was originally the Pictish "*mor-ial", "big clearing" (cf. Welsh "mawr-ial"). Alternatively, the second part could be a saint's name. History. King Robert II of Scotland (1316–1390) had a hunting lodge in the area. Historical records also indicate that a house at Balmoral was built by Sir William Drummond in 1390. The estate was later tenanted by Alexander Gordon, second son of the 1st Earl of Huntly. A tower house was built on the estate by the Gordons. In 1662, the estate passed to Charles Farquharson of Inverey, brother of John Farquharson, the "Black Colonel". The Farquharsons were Jacobite sympathisers and James Farquharson of Balmoral was involved in both the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings. He was wounded at the Battle of Falkirk (1746). The Farquharson estates were forfeited, and passed to the Farquharsons of Auchendryne. In 1798, James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife, acquired Balmoral and leased the castle. Sir Robert Gordon, a younger brother of George Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, acquired the lease in 1830. He made major alterations to the original castle at Balmoral, including baronial-style extensions that were designed by John Smith of Aberdeen.
Royal acquisition. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert first visited Scotland in 1842, five years after she acceded to the throne and two years after their marriage. During this first visit they stayed at Edinburgh, and at Taymouth Castle in Perthshire, the home of John Campbell, 2nd Marquess of Breadalbane. They returned in 1844 to stay at Blair Castle, and in 1847, when they rented Ardverikie House by Loch Laggan. Frequent rain during the last trip led Sir James Clark, the queen's doctor, to recommend Deeside instead, for its healthier climate. Sir Robert Gordon died in 1847 and his lease on Balmoral reverted to Lord Aberdeen. In February 1848 an arrangement was made that Prince Albert would acquire the remaining part of the lease on Balmoral, together with its furniture and staff, without having seen the property first. The royal couple arrived for their first visit on 8 September 1848. Victoria found the house "small but pretty", and recorded in her diary that: "All seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils". The surrounding hilly landscape reminded them of Thuringia, Albert's homeland in Germany.
The house was soon confirmed to be too small, and in 1848, John and William Smith were commissioned to design new offices, cottages, and other ancillary buildings. Improvements to the woodlands, gardens and estate buildings were also being made, with the assistance of the landscape gardener James Beattie, and possibly the painter James Giles. Major additions to the old house were considered in 1849, but by then negotiations were under way to purchase the estate from James Duff, 4th Earl Fife. After seeing a corrugated iron cottage at the Great Exhibition of 1851, Prince Albert ordered a prefabricated iron building for Balmoral from E. T. Bellhouse & Co., to serve as a temporary ballroom and dining room. It was in use by 1 October 1851, and would serve as a ballroom until 1856. The sale was completed in June 1852, the price being £32,000 () and Prince Albert formally took possession that autumn. The neighbouring estate of Birkhall was bought at the same time, and the lease on Abergeldie Castle secured as well. To mark the occasion, the "Purchase Cairn" was erected in the hills overlooking the castle, the first of many cairns on the estate.
Construction of the new house. Space was needed for the growing family of Victoria and Albert, for additional staff, and for accommodation for visiting friends and official visitors such as cabinet members. Thus extension of the existing structure would not provide enough space, and a larger house needed to be built. In early 1852, this was commissioned from William Smith. The son of John Smith (who designed the 1830 alterations of the original castle), William Smith, was the city architect of Aberdeen from 1852. On learning of the commission, William Burn sought an interview with the prince, apparently to complain that Smith previously had plagiarised his work, however, Burn was unsuccessful in depriving Smith of the appointment. William Smith's designs were amended by Prince Albert, who took a close interest in details such as turrets and windows. Construction began in mid-1853, on a site some northwest of the original building that was considered to have a better vista. Another consideration was that during construction the family would still be able to use the old house. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone on 28 September 1853, during her annual autumn visit. By the autumn of 1855, the royal apartments were ready for occupancy, although the tower was still under construction and the servants had to be lodged in the old house. By coincidence, shortly after their arrival at the estate that autumn, news circulated about the fall of Sevastopol, ending the Crimean War, resulting in wild celebrations by royalty and locals alike. While visiting the estate soon afterwards, Prince Frederick of Prussia asked for the hand of Victoria, Princess Royal.
The new house was completed in 1856, and the old castle was later demolished. By autumn 1857, a new bridge across the Dee, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel linking Crathie and Balmoral was finished. Balmoral Castle is built from granite quarried at Invergelder on the estate. It consists of two main blocks, each arranged around a courtyard. The southwestern block contains the main rooms, while the northeastern contains the service wings. At the southeast is an clock tower topped with turrets, one of which has a balustrade similar to a feature at Castle Fraser. Being similar in style to the demolished castle of the 1830s, the architecture of the new house is considered to be somewhat dated for its time when contrasted with the richer forms of Scots baronial being developed by William Burn and others during the 1850s. As an exercise in Scots baronial, it is sometimes described as too ordered, pedantic, and even Germanic as a consequence of Prince Albert's influence on the design. However, the purchase of a Scottish estate by Victoria and Albert and their adoption of a Scottish architectural style were influential for the ongoing revival of Highland culture. They decorated Balmoral with tartans and attended highland games at Braemar. Queen Victoria expressed an affinity for Scotland, even professing herself to be a Jacobite. Added to the work of Sir Walter Scott, this became a major factor in promoting the adoption of Highland culture by Lowland Scots. Historian Michael Lynch comments that "the Scottishness of Balmoral helped to give the monarchy a truly British dimension for the first time".
Victoria and Albert at Balmoral. Even before the completion of the new house, the pattern of the life of the royal couple in the Highlands was soon established. Victoria took long walks of up to four hours daily and Albert spent many days hunting deer and game. In 1849, diarist Charles Greville described their life at Balmoral as resembling that of gentry rather than royalty. Victoria began a policy of commissioning artists to record Balmoral, its surroundings, and its staff. Over the years, numerous painters were employed at Balmoral, including Edwin and Charles Landseer, and Carl Haag. During the 1850s, new plantations were established near the house and exotic conifers were planted on the grounds. Prince Albert had an active role in these improvements, overseeing the design of parterres, the diversion of the main road north of the river via a new bridge, and plans for farm buildings. These buildings included a model dairy that he developed in 1861, the year of his death. The dairy was completed by Victoria. Subsequently, she also built several monuments to her husband on the estate. These include a pyramid-shaped cairn built a year after Albert's death, on top of "Craig Lurachain". A large statue of Albert with a dog and a gun by William Theed, was inaugurated on 15 October 1867, the twenty-eighth anniversary of their engagement.
Following Albert's death, Victoria spent increasing periods at Balmoral, staying for as long as four months a year during early summer and autumn. She placed numerous mementos of Albert on display. Few further changes were made to the grounds, with the exception of some alterations to mountain paths, the erection of various cairns and monuments, and the addition of some cottages ("Karim Cottage" and "Baile na Coille") built for senior staff. It was during this period that Victoria began to depend on her servant, John Brown. He was a local ghillie from Crathie, who became one of her closest companions during her long mourning. In 1887, Balmoral Castle was the birthplace of Victoria Eugenie, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She was born to Princess Beatrice, the fifth daughter of Victoria and Albert. Victoria Eugenie became queen of Spain when she married King Alfonso XIII in 1906. In September 1896, Victoria welcomed Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and Empress Alexandra, a granddaughter of Victoria, to Balmoral. Four years later Victoria made her last visit to the estate, three months before her death on 22 January 1901.
After Victoria. After Victoria's death, the royal family continued to use Balmoral during annual autumn visits. George V had substantial improvements made during the 1910s and 1920s, including formal gardens to the south of the castle. During the Second World War, royal visits to Balmoral ceased. In addition, due to the conflict with Germany, "Danzig Shiel", a lodge built by Victoria in Ballochbuie, was renamed "Garbh Allt Shiel" and the "King of Prussia's Fountain" was removed from the grounds. In the 1950s, Prince Philip added herbaceous borders and a water garden. During the 1980s, new staff buildings were built close to the castle. Death of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth II had been at the castle since July 2022 for her annual summer holiday and had been receiving medical care there. In a break with tradition, Balmoral Castle, rather than Buckingham Palace, was the location of the appointment of British Prime Minister Liz Truss on 6 September 2022, due to concerns regarding the Queen's mobility issues. Elizabeth died at Balmoral at 15:10 BST on 8 September 2022 at the age of 96. She was the first monarch to die at Balmoral, and this was the first time a monarch had died in Scotland since James V died in 1542 at Falkland Palace. The Queen's coffin lay in repose in the ballroom of the castle for three days, to allow the Royal Family, estate staff and neighbours to pay their respects. On 11 September, the coffin was transported to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh for the start of the state funeral proceedings.
Architecture. Though called a castle, Balmoral's primary function is that of a country house. It is a "typical and rather ordinary" country house from the Victorian period. The tower and "pepper pot turrets" are characteristic features of the residence's Scottish baronial style. The seven-storey tower is an architectural feature borrowed from medieval defensive tower houses. The "pepper pot" turrets were influenced by the style of 16th-century French châteaux. Other features of the Scottish baronial style are the crow-stepped gables, dormer windows, and battlemented porte-cochère. Ownership. Balmoral is private property and, unlike the monarch's official residences, is not the property of the Crown. It was originally purchased privately by Prince Albert, for Queen Victoria, meaning that no revenues from the estate go to Parliament or the public purse, as would otherwise be the case for property owned outright by the monarch by the Civil List Act 1760. Along with Sandringham House in Norfolk, ownership of Balmoral was inherited by Edward VIII on his accession in 1936. When he abdicated later the same year, however, he retained ownership of them. A financial settlement was devised, under which Balmoral and Sandringham were purchased by Edward's brother and successor to the Crown, George VI.
Elizabeth II inherited the Balmoral estate from her father, and then after her death, ownership passed to her eldest son King Charles III, but the estate is managed by trustees under Deeds of Nomination and Appointment. Estate. Extent and operation. Balmoral Estate is within the Cairngorms National Park and is partly within the Deeside and Lochnagar National Scenic Area. The estate contains a wide variety of landscapes, from the Dee river valley to open mountains. There are seven Munros (hills in Scotland over ) within the estate, the highest being Lochnagar at . This mountain was the setting for a children's story, "The Old Man of Lochnagar", told originally by Charles III to his younger brothers, Andrew and Edward. The story was published in 1980, with royalties accruing to the Prince's Trust (now the King's Trust). The estate also incorporates the Delnadamph Lodge estate, bought by Elizabeth II in 1978. The estate extends to Loch Muick in the southeast where an old boat house and the Royal Bothy (hunting lodge) now named "Glas-allt-Shiel", built by Victoria, are located.
The working estate includes grouse moors, forestry, and farmland, as well as managed herds of deer, Highland cattle, and ponies. It also offers access to the public for fishing (paid) and hiking during certain seasons. Approximately of the estate are covered by trees, with almost used for forestry that yields nearly 10,000 tonnes of wood per year. "Ballochbuie Forest", one of the largest remaining areas of old Caledonian pine growth in Scotland, consists of approximately . It is managed with only minimal or no intervention. The principal mammal on the estate is the red deer with a population of 2,000 to 2,500 head. The areas of Lochnagar and Ballochbuie were designated in 1998 by the Secretary of State for Scotland as Special Protection Areas (SPA) under the European Union (EU) Birds Directive. Bird species inhabiting the moorlands include red grouse, black grouse, ptarmigan, and the capercaillie. Ballochbuie is also protected as a Special Area of Conservation by the EU Habitats Directive, as "one of the largest remaining continuous areas of native Caledonian Forest". In addition, there are four sites of special scientific interest on the estate.
The royal family employs approximately 50 full-time and 50–100 part-time staff to maintain the working estate. There are approximately 150 buildings on the estate, including Birkhall, formerly home to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, where King Charles III and Queen Camilla spent their honeymoon in 2005. Craigowan Lodge is regularly used by the family and friends of the royal family and has also been used while Balmoral Castle was being prepared for a royal visit. Six smaller buildings on the estate are let as holiday cottages. The hunting lodge of Inchnabobart has also been used by the royal family. Public access to gardens and castle grounds. In 1931, the gardens and castle grounds were opened to the public for the first time. They are now open daily between April and the end of July, after which royal family members arrive at the castle for their annual stay. The ballroom was the only room in the castle that could be viewed by the public until 2024. In 2024, limited numbers of the public were able to view the interior and several rooms used by members of the royal family during a month-long summer tour programme. This was the first time since the castle was completed in 1855 that it was open to the public. In addition, the gift shop, restaurant and café were redesigned and renovated, prioritising local Scottish craftsmanship and premium textiles.
Craigowan Lodge. Craigowan Lodge is a seven-bedroom stone house approximately from the main castle in Balmoral. More rustic than the castle, the lodge was often used by Prince Charles and Princess Diana when they visited. In May 1981 Charles and Diana posed for a photo at the lodge before their July 1981 wedding. In the obituary of Prince Michael Andreevich of Russia in 2008, it was noted that his family spent most of World War II at Craigowan Lodge. The lodge has been in the news periodically since 2005 because Elizabeth II and Prince Philip often spent the first few days of their summer holiday there. During the summer, the castle is a lucrative source of income from tourists. Sometimes, the Queen arrived at Balmoral before the tourist season was over. In popular culture. Parts of the films "Mrs Brown" (1997) and "The Queen" (2006) were based on events at Balmoral. In both films, substitute locations were used: Blairquhan Castle in "The Queen" and Duns Castle in "Mrs Brown". In the Netflix series "The Crown", Ardverikie House was used as a stand-in. In the sci-fi film "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004), three helicopters of the Royal Air Force crash in Scotland during an attempt to evacuate the Royal Family from Balmoral Castle. An illustration of the castle features on the reverse of £100 notes issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Breton language Breton (, , ; ) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language group spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of the insular branch instead of the extinct continental grouping. Breton was brought from Great Britain to Armorica (the ancient name for the coastal region that includes the Brittany peninsula) by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages, making it an Insular Celtic language. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, another Southwestern Brittonic language. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric, both Western Brittonic languages, are more distantly related, and the Goidelic languages (Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic) have a slight connection due to both of their origins being from Insular Celtic. Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger". However, the number of children attending bilingual classes rose 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.
History and status. Breton is spoken in Lower Brittany (), roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha (west of Saint-Brieuc) and La Roche-Bernard (east of Vannes). It comes from a Brittonic language community that once extended from Great Britain to Armorica (present-day Brittany) and had even established a toehold in Galicia (in present-day Spain). Old Breton is attested from the 9th century. It was the language of the upper classes until the 12th century, after which it became the language of commoners in Lower Brittany. The nobility, followed by the bourgeoisie, adopted French. The written language of the Duchy of Brittany was Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature. Some philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton come from Old Breton. The recognized stages of the Breton language are: Old Breton – to , Middle Breton – to , Modern Breton – to present. The French monarchy was not concerned with the minority languages of France, spoken by the lower classes, and required the use of French for government business as part of its policy of national unity. During the French Revolution, the government introduced policies favouring French over the regional languages, which it pejoratively referred to as . The revolutionaries assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages to try to keep the peasant masses under-informed. In 1794, Bertrand Barère submitted his "report on the " to the Committee of Public Safety in which he said that "federalism and superstition speak Breton".
Since the 19th century, under the Third, Fourth and now Fifth Republics, the French government has attempted to stamp out minority languages—including Breton—in state schools, in an effort to build a national culture. Teachers humiliated students for using their regional languages, and such practices prevailed until the late 1960s. In the early 21st century, due to the political centralization of France, the influence of the media, and the increasing mobility of people, only about 200,000 people are active speakers of Breton, a dramatic decline from more than 1 million in 1950. The majority of today's speakers are more than 60 years old, and Breton is now classified as an endangered language. At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton; the other half were bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, and this rapid decline has continued, with likely no monolingual speakers left today. A statistical survey in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in Lower Brittany, of whom about 190,000 were aged 60 or older. Few 15- to 19-year-olds spoke Breton. In 1993, parents were finally legally allowed to give their children Breton names.
Revival efforts. In 1925, Professor Roparz Hemon founded the Breton-language review . During its 19-year run, tried to raise the language to the level of a great international language. Its publication encouraged the creation of original literature in all genres, and proposed Breton translations of internationally recognized foreign works. In 1946, replaced . Other Breton-language periodicals have been published, which established a fairly large body of literature for a minority language. In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion. Since their establishment, Diwan schools have provided fully immersive primary school and partially immersive secondary school instruction in Breton for thousands of students across Brittany. This has directly contributed to the growing numbers of school-age speakers of Breton. The "Asterix" comic series has been translated into Breton. According to the comic, the Gaulish village where Asterix lives is in the Armorica peninsula, which is now Brittany. Some other popular comics have also been translated into Breton, including "The Adventures of Tintin", , "Titeuf", "Hägar the Horrible", "Peanuts" and "Yakari".
Some original media are created in Breton. The sitcom, , is in Breton. Radio Kerne, broadcasting from Finistère, has exclusively Breton programming. Some movies ("Lancelot du Lac", "Shakespeare in Love", "Marion du Faouet", "Sezneg") and TV series ("Columbo", "Perry Mason") have also been translated and broadcast in Breton. Poets, singers, linguists, and writers who have written in Breton, including Yann-Ber Kallocʼh, Roparz Hemon, Añjela Duval, Xavier de Langlais, Pêr-Jakez Helias, Youenn Gwernig, Glenmor, Vefa de Saint-Pierre and Alan Stivell are now known internationally. Today, Breton is the only living Celtic language that is not recognized by a national government as an official or regional language. The first Breton dictionary, the "Catholicon", was also the first French dictionary. Edited by Jehan Lagadec in 1464, it was a trilingual work containing Breton, French and Latin. Today bilingual dictionaries have been published for Breton and languages including English, Dutch, German, Spanish and Welsh. A monolingual dictionary, was published in 1995. The first edition contained about 10,000 words, and the second edition of 2001 contains 20,000 words.
In the early 21st century, the ("Public Office for the Breton language") began a campaign to encourage daily use of Breton in the region by both businesses and local communes. Efforts include installing bilingual signs and posters for regional events, as well as encouraging the use of the Spilhennig to let speakers identify each other. The office also started an Internationalization and localization policy asking Google, Firefox and SPIP to develop their interfaces in Breton. In 2004, the Breton Wikipedia started, which counts more than 85,000 articles as of August 2024. In March 2007, the signed a tripartite agreement with Regional Council of Brittany and Microsoft for the consideration of the Breton language in Microsoft products. In October 2014, Facebook added Breton as one of its 121 languages after three years of talks between the and Facebook. France has twice chosen to enter the Eurovision Song Contest with songs in Breton; once in 1996 in Oslo with " by Dan Ar Braz and the fifty piece band Héritage des Celtes, and most recently in 2022 in Turin with " by Alvan Morvan Rosius and vocal trio Ahez. These are two of five times France has chosen songs in one of its minority languages for the contest, the others being in 1992 (bilingual French and Antillean Creole), 1993 (bilingual French and Corsican), and 2011 (Corsican).
Geographic distribution and dialects. Breton is spoken mainly in Lower Brittany, but also in a more dispersed way in Upper Brittany (where it is spoken alongside Gallo and French), and in areas around the world that have Breton emigrants. The four traditional dialects of Breton correspond to medieval bishoprics rather than to linguistic divisions. They are (, of the county of Léon), (, of Trégor), (, of ), and (, of Vannes). was spoken up to the beginning of the 20th century in the region of Guérande and Batz-sur-Mer. There are no clear boundaries between the dialects because they form a dialect continuum, varying only slightly from one village to the next. , however, requires a little study to be intelligible with most of the other dialects. Official status. Nation. French is the sole official language of France. Supporters of Breton and other minority languages continue to argue for their recognition, and for their place in education, public schools, and public life. Constitution. In July 2008, the legislature amended the French Constitution, adding article 75-1: (the regional languages belong to the heritage of France).
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which obliges signatory states to recognize minority and regional languages, was signed by France in 1999 but has not been ratified. On 27 October 2015, the Senate rejected a draft constitutional law ratifying the charter. Region. Regional and departmental authorities use Breton to a very limited extent. Some bilingual signage has also been installed, such as street name signs in Breton towns. Under the French law known as Toubon, it is illegal for commercial signage to be in Breton alone. Signs must be bilingual or French only. Since commercial signage usually has limited physical space, most businesses have signs only in French. , the Breton language agency, was set up in 1999 by the Brittany region to promote and develop the daily use of Breton. It helped to create the campaign, to encourage enterprises, organisations and communes to promote the use of Breton, for example by installing bilingual signage or translating their websites into Breton. Education.
In the late 20th century, the French government considered incorporating the independent Breton-language immersion schools (called ) into the state education system. This action was blocked by the French Constitutional Council based on the 1994 amendment to the Constitution that establishes French as the language of the republic. Therefore, no other language may be used as a language of instruction in state schools. The Toubon Law implemented the amendment, asserting that French is the language of public education. The Diwan schools were founded in Brittany in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion. Since their establishment, Diwan schools have provided fully immersive primary school and partially immersive secondary school instruction in Breton for thousands of students across Brittany. This has directly contributed to the growing numbers of school-age speakers of Breton. The schools have also gained fame from their high level of results in school exams, including those on French language and literature. Breton-language schools do not receive funding from the national government, though the Brittany Region may fund them.
Another teaching method is a bilingual approach by ("Two Languages") in the State schools, created in 1979. ("Awakening") was created in 1990 for bilingual education in the Catholic schools. Statistics. In 2018, 18,337 pupils (about 2% of all students in Brittany) attended , and schools, and their number has increased yearly. This was short of the goal of Jean-Yves Le Drian (president of the Regional Council), who aimed to have 20,000 students in bilingual schools by 2010, and of "their recognition" for "their place in education, public schools, and public life"; nevertheless he describes being encouraged by the growth of the movement. In 2007, some 4,500 to 5,000 adults followed an evening or correspondence one Breton-language course. The transmission of Breton in 1999 was estimated to be 3 percent. Other forms of education. In addition to bilingual education (including Breton-medium education) the region has introduced the Breton language in primary education, mainly in the department of Finistère. These "initiation" sessions are generally one to three hours per week, and consist of songs and games.
Schools in secondary education ( and ) offer some courses in Breton. In 2010, nearly 5,000 students in Brittany were reported to be taking this option. Additionally, the University of Rennes 2 has a Breton language department offering courses in the language along with a master's degree in Breton and Celtic Studies. Phonology. Vowels. Vowels in Breton may be short or long. All unstressed vowels are short; stressed vowels can be short or long (vowel lengths are not noted in usual orthographies as they are implicit in the phonology of particular dialects, and not all dialects pronounce stressed vowels as long). An emergence of a schwa sound occurs as a result of vowel neutralization in post-tonic position, among different dialects. All vowels can also be nasalized, which is noted by appending an 'n' letter after the base vowel, or by adding a combining tilde above the vowel (most commonly and easily done for "a" and "o" due to the Portuguese letters), or more commonly by non-ambiguously appending an letter after the base vowel (this depends on the orthographic variant).
Diphthongs are . Grammar. Nouns. Breton nouns are marked for gender and number. While Breton gender is fairly typical of gender systems across western Europe (with the exception of Basque and modern English), Breton number markers demonstrate rarer behaviors. Gender. Breton has two genders: masculine () and feminine (), having largely lost its historic neuter () as has also occurred in the other Celtic languages as well as across the Romance languages. Certain suffixes ("-ach/-aj, -(a)dur, -er, -lecʼh, -our, -ti, -va") are masculine, while others ("-enti, -er, -ez, -ezh, -ezon, -i", "-eg", "-ell", and the singulative "-enn") are feminine. The suffix "-eg" can be masculine or feminine. There are certain non-determinant factors that influence gender assignment. Biological sex is applied for animate referents. Metals, time divisions (except for "hour", "night" and "week") and mountains tend to be masculine, while rivers, cities and countries tend to be feminine. However, gender assignment to certain words often varies between dialects.
Number. Number in Breton is primarily based on an opposition between singular and plural. However, the system is full of complexities in how this distinction is realized. Although modern Breton has lost its ancestral dual number marker, relics of its use are preserved in various nouns pertaining to body parts, including the words for eyes, ears, cheeks, legs, armpits, arms, hands, knees, thighs, and wings. This is seen in a prefix (formed in , or ) that is etymologically derived from the prefixation of the number two. The dual is no longer productive, and has merely been lexicalized in these cases rather than remaining a part of Breton grammar. The (etymologically) already dual words for eyes () and ears () can be pluralized "again" to form and . Like other Brythonic languages, Breton has a singulative suffix that is used to form singulars out of collective nouns, for which the morphologically less complex form is the plural. Thus, the singulative of the collective "mice" is "mouse". However, Breton goes beyond Welsh in the complications of this system. Collectives can be pluralized to make forms which are different in meaning from the normal collective-- "fish" (singular) is pluralized to , singulativized to , referring to a single fish out of a school of fish, and this singulative of the plural can then be pluralized again to make "fishes".
On top of this, the formation of plurals is complicated by two different pluralizing functions. The "default" plural formation is contrasted with another formation which is said to "emphasize variety or diversity" – thus two semantically different plurals can be formed out of : "parks" and "various different parks". Ball reports that the latter pluralizer is used only for inanimate nouns. Certain formations have been lexicalized to have meanings other than that which might be predicted solely from the morphology: "water" pluralized forms which means not "waters" but instead "rivers", while now has come to mean "running waters after a storm". Certain forms have lost the singular from their paradigm: means "news" and is not used, while has become the regular plural, 'different news items'. Meanwhile, certain nouns can form doubly marked plurals with lexicalized meanings – "child" is pluralized once into "children" and then pluralized a second time to make "groups of children". The diminutive suffix also has the somewhat unusual property of triggering double marking of the plural: means "little child", but the doubly pluralized means "little children"; boat has a singular diminutive and a simple plural , thus its diminutive plural is the doubly pluralized .
As seen elsewhere in many Celtic languages, the formation of the plural can be hard to predict, being determined by a mix of semantic, morphological and lexical factors. The most common plural marker is , with its variant ; most nouns that use this marker are inanimates but collectives of both inanimate and animate nouns always use it as well. Most animate nouns, including trees, take a plural in . However, in some dialects the use of this affix has become rare. Various masculine nouns including occupations as well as the word ("Englishman", plural ) take the suffix , with a range of variants including , , and . The rare pluralizing suffixes / and are used for a few nouns. When they are appended, they also trigger a change in the vowel of the root: triggers a vowel harmony effect whereby some or all preceding vowels are changed to ( "cousin" → "cousins"; "crow" → "crows"; "partridge" → "partridges"); the changes associated with / are less predictable. Various nouns instead form their plural merely with ablaut: or in the stem being changed to : "wing" → "wings"; "tooth" → "teeth"; "rope" → "ropes".
Another set of nouns have lexicalized plurals that bear little if any resemblance to their singulars. These include "girl" → , "pig" → , "cow" → , and "dog" → . In compound nouns, the head noun, which usually comes first, is pluralized. Verbal aspect. As in other Celtic languages as well as English, a variety of verbal constructions is available to express grammatical aspect, for example: showing a distinction between progressive and habitual actions: Inflected prepositions. As in other modern Celtic languages, Breton pronouns are fused into preceding prepositions to produce a sort of inflected preposition. Below are some examples in Breton, Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx, along with English translations. In the examples above the Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx) use the preposition meaning "at" to show possession, whereas the Brittonic languages use "with". The Goidelic languages, however, do use the preposition "with" to express "belong to" (Irish , Scottish , Manx , The book belongs to me).
The Welsh examples are in literary Welsh. The order and preposition may differ slightly in colloquial Welsh (Formal , North Wales , South Wales ). Initial consonant mutations. Breton has four initial consonant mutations: though modern Breton lost the nasal mutation of Welsh (but for rare words such the word "door": "dor" "an nor"), it also has a "hard" mutation, in which voiced stops become voiceless, and a "mixed" mutation, which is a mixture of hard and soft mutations. Word order. Normal word order, like the other Insular Celtic languages, is at its core VSO (verb-subject-object), which is most apparent in embedded clauses. However, Breton finite verbs in main clauses are additionally subject to V2 word order in which the finite main clause verb is typically the second element in the sentence. That makes it perfectly possible to put the subject or the object at the beginning of the sentence, largely depending on the focus of the speaker. The following options are possible (all with a little difference in meaning):
Vocabulary. Breton uses much more borrowed vocabulary than its relatives further north; by some estimates a full 40% of its core vocabulary consists of loans from French. Orthography. The first extant Breton texts, contained in the Leyde manuscript, were written at the end of the 8th century: 50 years prior to the Strasbourg Oaths, considered to be the earliest example of French. Like many medieval orthographies, Old- and Middle Breton orthography was at first not standardised, and the spelling of a particular word varied at authors' discretion. In 1499, however, the "Catholicon", was published; as the first dictionary written for both French and Breton, it became a point of reference on how to transcribe the language. The orthography presented in the "Catholicon" was largely similar to that of French, in particular with respect to the representation of vowels, as well as the use of both the Latinate digraph —a remnant of the sound change > in Latin—and Brittonic or to represent before front vowels. As phonetic and phonological differences between the dialects began to magnify, many regions, particularly the Vannes country, began to devise their own orthographies. Many of these orthographies were more closely related to the French model, albeit with some modifications. Examples of these modifications include the replacement of Old Breton - with - to denote word-final (an evolution of Old Breton in the Vannes dialect) and use of - to denote the initial mutation of (today this mutation is written ). and thus needed another transcription.
In the 1830s Jean-François Le Gonidec created a modern phonetic system for the language. During the early years of the 20th century, a group of writers known as elaborated and reformed Le Gonidec's system. They made it more suitable as a super-dialectal representation of the dialects of Cornouaille, Leon and Trégor (known as from , and in Breton). This KLT orthography was established in 1911. At the same time writers of the more divergent Vannetais dialect developed a phonetic system also based on that of Le Gonidec. Following proposals made during the 1920s, the KLT and Vannetais orthographies were merged in 1941 to create an orthographic system to represent all four dialects. This ("wholly unified") orthography was significant for the inclusion of the digraph , which represents a in Vannetais and corresponds to a in the KLT dialects. In 1955 François Falcʼhun and the group proposed a new orthography. It was designed to use a set of graphemes closer to the conventions of French. This ("University Orthography", known in Breton as ) was given official recognition by the French authorities as the "official orthography of Breton in French education." It was opposed in the region and today is used only by the magazine and the publishing house Emgléo Breiz.
In the 1970s, a new standard orthography was devised – the or . This system is based on the derivation of the words. Today the majority of writers continue to use the "Peurunvan orthography", and it is the version taught in most Breton-language schools. Alphabet. Breton is written in the Latin script. "Peurunvan", the most commonly used orthography, consists of the following letters: The circumflex, grave accent, trema and tilde appear on some letters. These diacritics are used in the following way: Differences between and. Both orthographies use the above alphabet, although is used only in . Differences between the two systems are particularly noticeable in word endings. In Peurunvan, final obstruents, which are devoiced in absolute final position and voiced in sandhi before voiced sounds, are represented by a grapheme that indicates a voiceless sound. In OU they are written as voiced but represented as voiceless before suffixes: "big", "bigger". In addition, Peurunvan maintains the KLT convention, which distinguishes noun/adjective pairs by nouns written with a final voiced consonant and adjectives with a voiceless one. No distinction is made in pronunciation, e.g. "Breton language" vs. "Breton (adj)".
Pronunciation of the Breton alphabet. Notes: Sample texts. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Words and phrases in Breton. Visitors to Brittany may encounter words and phrases (especially on signs and posters) such as the following: Borrowing from Breton by other languages. The English words and have been borrowed from French, which took them from Breton. However, this is uncertain: for instance, is or ("long stone"), ("straight stone") (two words: noun + adjective) in Breton. "Dolmen" is a misconstructed word (it should be ). Some studies state that these words were borrowed from Cornish. can be directly translated from Welsh as "long stone" (which is exactly what a or is). The Cornish surnames Mennear, Minear and Manhire all derive from the Cornish ("long stone"), as does "settlement by the long stone". The French word ("to jabber in a foreign language") is derived from Breton ("bread") and ("wine"). The French word ("large seagull") is derived from Breton , which shares the same root as English "gull" (Welsh , Cornish ).
.bzh. .bzh is an approved Internet generic top-level domains intended for Brittany and the Breton culture and languages. In 2023, the Breton internet extension .bzh had more than 12,000 registrations. Alongside the promotion of the .bzh internet extension, the www.bzh association promotes other services to develop Brittany's image on the web: campaign for a Breton flag emoji (), and email service. References. Notes Further reading External links. Dictionaries Learning Bible
Broch In archaeology, a broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Brochs are roundhouse buildings found throughout Atlantic Scotland. The word broch is derived from the Lowland Scots 'brough', meaning fort. In the mid-19th century, Scottish antiquaries called brochs 'burgs', after Old Norse borg, with the same meaning. Brochs are often referred to as dùns in the west, and they are the most spectacular of a complex class of buildings found in northern Scotland. There are approximately 571 candidate broch sites throughout the country, according to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. The origin of brochs is still subject to ongoing research. While most archaeologists believed 80 years ago that brochs were built by immigrants, there is now little doubt that the hollow-walled broch tower was an invention in what is now Scotland. The first brochs may have been built circa 300 BCE, and there is evidence to suggest that they were used primarily for defensive or offensive purposes.
The distribution of brochs is centred on northern Scotland, with the densest concentrations found in Caithness, Sutherland, and the Northern Isles. A few examples occur in the Scottish Borders and on the west coast of Dumfries and Galloway, and near Stirling. The original interpretation of brochs was that they were defensive structures, places of refuge for the community and their livestock. They were sometimes regarded as the work of Danes or Picts, and from the 1930s to the 1960s, archaeologists regarded them as castles where local landowners held sway over a subject population. However, the castle theory fell from favour among Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s, due to a lack of supporting archaeological evidence. These archaeologists suggested defensibility was never a major concern in the siting of a broch, and argued that they may have been the "stately homes" of their time, objects of prestige and very visible demonstrations of superiority for important families. Once again, however, there is a lack of archaeological proof for this reconstruction, and the sheer number of brochs makes it problematic. The article concludes by stating that the purpose of brochs may have been a combination of defensive, offensive, and symbolic functions.
Origin and definition. The word "broch" is derived from Lowland Scots 'brough', meaning (among other things) fort. In the mid-19th century Scottish antiquaries called brochs 'burgs', after Old Norse ', with the same meaning. Place names in Scandinavian Scotland such as Burgawater and Burgan show that Old Norse ' is the older word used for these structures in the north. Brochs are often referred to as "dùn" in the west. Antiquarians began to use the spelling "broch" in the 1870s. A precise definition for the word has proved elusive. Brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout Atlantic Scotland. The Shetland Amenity Trust lists about 120 sites in Shetland as candidate brochs, while the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) identifies a total of 571 candidate broch sites throughout the country. Researcher Euan MacKie, using a restricted definition, has proposed a much smaller total for Scotland of 104. The origin of brochs is a subject of continuing research. Eighty years ago most archaeologists believed that brochs, usually regarded as the 'castles' of Iron Age chieftains, were built by immigrants who had been pushed northward after being displaced first by the intrusions of Belgic tribes into what is now southeast England at the end of the 2nd century BC and later by the Roman invasion of southern Britain beginning in AD 43. Yet there is now little doubt that the hollow-walled broch tower was an invention in what is now Scotland; even the kinds of pottery found inside them that most resembled south British styles were local hybrid forms.
The first of the modern review articles on the subject (MacKie 1965) did not, as is commonly believed, propose that brochs were built by immigrants, but rather that a hybrid culture formed from the blending of a small number of immigrants with the native population of the Hebrides produced them in the 1st century BC, basing them on earlier, simpler, promontory forts. This view contrasted, for example, with that of Sir W. Lindsay Scott, who argued, following V. Gordon Childe (1935), for a wholesale migration into Atlantic Scotland of people from southwest England. MacKie's theory has fallen from favour too, mainly because starting in the 1970s there was a general move in archaeology away from 'diffusionist' explanations towards those pointing to exclusively indigenous development. Meanwhile, the increasing number – albeit still pitifully few – of radiocarbon dates for the primary use of brochs (as opposed to their later, secondary use) still suggests that most of the towers were built in the 1st centuries BC and AD. A few may be earlier, notably the one proposed for Old Scatness Broch in Shetland, where a sheep bone dating to between 390 and 200 BC has been reported.
The other broch claimed to be substantially older than the 1st century BC is Crosskirk in Caithness, but a recent review of the evidence suggests that it cannot plausibly be assigned a date earlier than the 1st centuries BC/AD. Distribution. The distribution of brochs is centred on northern Scotland. Caithness, Sutherland and the Northern Isles have the densest concentrations, but there are many examples in the west of Scotland and the Hebrides. Although mainly concentrated in the northern Highlands and the Islands, a few examples occur in the Borders (for example Edin's Hall Broch and Bow Castle Broch), on the west coast of Dumfries and Galloway, and near Stirling. In a sketch there appears to be a broch by the river next to Annan Castle in Dumfries and Galloway. This small group of southern brochs has never been satisfactorily explained. Purposes. The original interpretation of brochs, favoured by 19th-century antiquarians, was that they were defensive structures, places of refuge for the community and their livestock. They were sometimes regarded as the work of Danes or Picts. From the 1930s to the 1960s, archaeologists such as V. Gordon Childe and later John Hamilton regarded them as castles where local landowners held sway over a subject population.
The castle theory fell from favour among Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s, due to a lack of supporting archaeological evidence. These archaeologists suggested defensibility was never a major concern in the siting of a broch, and argued that they may have been the "stately homes" of their time, objects of prestige and very visible demonstrations of superiority for important families (Armit 2003). Once again, however, there is a lack of archaeological proof for this reconstruction, and the sheer number of brochs, sometimes in places with a lack of good land, makes it problematic. Brochs' close groupings and profusion in many areas may indeed suggest that they had a primarily defensive or even offensive function. Some of them were sited beside precipitous cliffs and were protected by large ramparts, artificial or natural: a good example is at Burland near Gulberwick in Shetland, on a clifftop and cut off from the mainland by huge ditches. Often they are at key strategic points. In Shetland they sometimes cluster on each side of narrow stretches of water: the Broch of Mousa, for instance, is directly opposite another at Burraland in Sandwick. In Orkney there are more than a dozen on the facing shores of Eynhallow Sound, and many at the exits and entrances of the great harbour of Scapa Flow. In Sutherland quite a few are placed along the sides and at the mouths of deep valleys. Writing in 1956 John Stewart suggested that brochs in Shetland were forts put up by a military society to scan and protect the countryside and seas.
Finally, some archaeologists consider broch sites individually, doubting that there ever was a single common purpose for which every broch was constructed. There are differences in the positions, dimensions and likely status of broch in the various areas in which brochs are found. For example, the broch "villages" which occur at a few places in Orkney have no parallel in the Western Isles. Structures. Generally, brochs have a single entrance with bar-holes, door-checks and lintels. There are mural cells and there is a scarcement (ledge), perhaps for timber-framed lean-to dwellings lining the inner face of the wall. Also there is a spiral staircase winding upwards between the inner and outer wall and connecting the galleries. Brochs vary from in internal diameter, with walls. On average, the walls only survive to a few metres in height. There are five extant examples of towers with significantly higher walls: Dun Carloway on Lewis, Dun Telve and Dun Troddan in Glenelg, Mousa in Shetland and Dun Dornaigil in Sutherland, all of whose walls exceed in height.
Mousa's walls are the best preserved and are still tall; it is not clear how many brochs originally stood so high. A frequent characteristic is that the walls are galleried: with an open space between, the outer and inner wall skins are separate but tied together with linking stone slabs; these linking slabs may in some cases have served as steps to higher floors. It is normal for there to be a cell breaking off from the passage beside the door; this is known as the guard cell. It has been found in some Shetland brochs that guard cells in entrance passageways are close to large door-check stones. Although there was much argument in the past, it is now generally accepted among some archaeologists that brochs were roofed, perhaps with a conical timber framed roof covered with a locally sourced thatch. The evidence for this assertion is still very scanty, although excavations at Dun Bharabhat, Lewis, may support it. The main difficulty with the interpretation continues to be identifying potential sources of structural timber, though bog and driftwood may have been sources.
Very few of the brochs on the islands of Orkney and Shetland have cells on the ground floor. Most brochs have scarcements (ledges) which may have allowed the construction of a wooden first floor (spotted by the antiquary George Low in Shetland in 1774), and excavations at Loch na Berie on the Isle of Lewis may show signs of a further, second floor (e.g. stairs on the first floor, which head upwards). Some brochs such as Dun Dornaigil and Culswick in Shetland have unusual triangular lintels above the entrance door. As in the case of Old Scatness in Shetland (near Jarlshof) and Burroughston on Shapinsay, brochs were sometimes located close to arable land and a source of water (some have wells or natural springs rising within their central space). Sometimes, on the other hand, they were sited in wilderness areas (e.g. Levenwick and Culswick in Shetland, Castle Cole in Sutherland). Brochs are often built beside the sea (Carn Liath, Sutherland); sometimes they are on islands in lochs (e.g. Clickimin in Shetland).
About 20 Orcadian broch sites include small settlements of stone buildings surrounding the main tower. Examples include Howe, near Stromness, Gurness Broch in the north west of Mainland, Orkney, Midhowe on Rousay and Lingro near Kirkwall (destroyed by a farmer in the 1980s). There are "broch village" sites in Caithness, but elsewhere they are unknown. Most brochs are unexcavated. The end of the broch building period seems to have come around AD 100–200. Those that have been properly examined show that they continued to be in use for many centuries, with the interiors often modified and changed, and that they underwent many phases of habitation and abandonment. Heritage status. The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland's Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof sites are on the United Kingdom "Tentative List" of possible nominations for the UNESCO World Heritage Programme list of sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humankind. This list, published in July 2010, includes sites that may be nominated for inscription over the next 5–10 years.
New broch planned. The Caithness Broch Project was set up in 2013 as a project in experimental archaeology to build a broch using traditional techniques such as drystone walling. Purposes of the project include possible insights into the purpose of brochs, preservation of local skills in techniques such as drystone wall building, and to attract tourists. a site had not been acquired, and the funding required, estimated at £1m–£3m, had not yet been arranged.
Billy Crystal William Edward Crystal (born March 14, 1948) is an American comedian, actor, and filmmaker. He is known as a standup comedian and for his film and stage roles. Crystal has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award as well as nominations for three Grammy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2007, the Critics' Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2023. Crystal gained prominence for television roles as Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom "Soap" from 1977 to 1981 and as a cast member and frequent host of "Saturday Night Live" from 1984 to 1985. Crystal then became known for his roles in films such as "Running Scared" (1986), "Throw Momma from the Train" (1987), "Memories of Me" (1988), "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989), "City Slickers" (1991), "Mr. Saturday Night" (1992), "Forget Paris" (1995), "Father's Day" (1997), "America's Sweethearts" (2001), and "Parental Guidance" (2012). Crystal is the voice of Mike Wazowski in Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." franchise. He has hosted the Academy Awards 9 times, beginning in 1990 and most recently in 2012.
Crystal made his Broadway debut in his one man show "700 Sundays" in 2004, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. Crystal returned to the show again in 2014 which was filmed by HBO and received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special nomination. He wrote and starred in the Broadway musical "Mr. Saturday Night" based on his film in 2022, for which Crystal received two Tony Award nominations for Best Actor in a Musical and Best Book of a Musical. He has written five books including his memoir "Still Foolin' Em" (2013). Early life and education. William Edward Crystal was born at Doctors Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and initially raised in the Bronx. As a toddler, he moved with his family to 549 East Park Avenue in Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. Crystal and his older brothers Joel, who later became an art teacher, and Richard, nicknamed Rip, were the sons of Helen ("née" Gabler), a housewife, and Jack Crystal, who owned and operated the Commodore Music Store, founded by Crystal's grandfather, Julius Gabler. Crystal's father was also a jazz promoter, a producer, and an executive for an affiliated jazz record label, Commodore Records, founded by Crystal's uncle, musician and songwriter Milt Gabler.
Crystal is Jewish (his ancestors emigrated from Austria, Russia, and Lithuania), and he grew up attending Temple Emanu-El (Long Beach, New York) where he had his bar mitzvah. The three young brothers would entertain by reprising comedy routines from the likes of Bob Newhart, Rich Little and Sid Caesar records their father would bring home. Jazz artists such as Arvell Shaw, Pee Wee Russell, Eddie Condon, and Billie Holiday were often guests in the home. With the decline of Dixieland jazz and the rise of discount record stores, in 1963, Crystal's father lost his business and died later that year at the age of 54 after having a heart attack. His mother died in 2001. After graduating from Long Beach High School in 1965, Crystal attended Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, on a baseball scholarship. Crystal never played baseball at Marshall because the program was suspended during his first year. Crystal did not return to Marshall as a sophomore, instead deciding to stay in New York to be close to his future wife. He studied acting at HB Studio. Crystal attended Nassau Community College with her and later transferred to New York University, where he was a film and television directing major. Crystal graduated from NYU in 1970 with a BFA from its then School of Fine Arts. One of his instructors was Martin Scorsese, while Oliver Stone and Christopher Guest were among his classmates.
Career. 1976–1985: Stand-up, "Soap", and "SNL". Crystal returned to New York City. For four years, he was part of a comedy trio with two friends. They played colleges and coffee houses and Crystal worked as a substitute teacher on Long Island. Crystal later became a solo act and performed regularly at "The Improv" and "Catch a Rising Star". In 1976, he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and on an episode of "All in the Family". Crystal was on the dais for the Dean Martin celebrity roast of Muhammad Ali on February 19, 1976, where he performed impressions of both Ali and sportscaster Howard Cosell. This began a lifelong friendship between Ali and Crystal. Crystal was scheduled to appear on the first episode of "NBC Saturday Night" on October 11, 1975 (the show was later renamed "Saturday Night Live" on March 26, 1977), but his sketch was cut. Crystal did perform on episode 17 of that first season, doing a monologue of an old jazz man capped by the line "Can you dig it? I knew that you could." Host Ron Nessen introduced him as "Bill Crystal." Crystal made a guest appearance on "The Love Boat" Season 2 Episode 5, which aired on October 20, 1978. He also made game show appearances such as "The Hollywood Squares," "All Star Secrets" and "The $20,000 Pyramid." To this day, Crystal holds the Pyramid franchise's record for getting his contestant partner to the top of the pyramid in the winner's circle in the fastest time: 26 seconds.
Crystal's earliest prominent role was as Jodie Dallas on "Soap," one of the first unambiguously gay characters in the cast of an American television series. He continued in the role during the series's entire 1977–1981 run. In 1982, Crystal hosted his own variety show, "The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour" on NBC. When Crystal arrived to shoot the fifth episode, he learned it had been canceled after only the first two aired. After hosting "Saturday Night Live" twice, on March 17, 1984, and the show's ninth season finale on May 5, Crystal joined the regular cast for the 1984–85 season. His most famous recurring sketch was his parody of Fernando Lamas, a smarmy talk-show host whose catchphrase, "You look... mahvelous!", became a media sensation, including ads for Diet Pepsi. Also in the 1980s, Crystal starred in an episode of Shelley Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theatre" as the smartest of the three little pigs. Crystal's first film role was in Joan Rivers' 1978 film "Rabbit Test", the story of the "world's first pregnant man." Crystal appeared briefly in the Rob Reiner "rockumentary" "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984) as Morty The Mime, a waiter dressed as a mime at one of Spinal Tap's parties. He shared the scene with a then-unknown, non-speaking Dana Carvey, stating famously that "Mime is money." 1986–1999: Oscar host and leading man status.
Due to the success of Crystal's standup and "SNL" career, in 1985, he released an album of his stand-up material titled "Mahvelous!". The title track "You Look Marvelous", written by Crystal and Paul Shaffer, had an accompanying music video that debuted on MTV. Both the song and video features Crystal in character as his SNL persona of talk show host Fernando Lamas. The video features Lamas cruising around in what was at the time the world's longest stretch limousine, built by custom-coach designer and builder Vini Bergeman, surrounded by models in bikinis. The single peaked at No. 58 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the US and No. 17 in Canada. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording at the 1986 Grammy Awards. He later starred in the action comedy "Running Scared" (1986) opposite Gregory Hines. Film critic of the "Chicago Sun-Times" Roger Ebert praised the two for their on-screen chemistry writing, "But Crystal and Hines...don't need a plot because they have so much good dialogue and such a great screen relationship."
During this time, Crystal hosted the Academy Awards broadcast a total of nine times, from 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004 and 2012. His hosting was critically praised, resulting in two Primetime Emmy Award wins for hosting and writing the 63rd Academy Awards and an Emmy win for writing the 64th Academy Awards. "San Francisco Chronicle" columnist John Carman raved about Crystal's performance for the 70th Academy Awards writing, "It was the best Oscar show in two decades...Crystal was back in razor form." "The Seattle Times" television editor Kay McFadden praised Crystal commenting that "he possesses nearly impeccable timing and judgment." Crystal reunited with director Rob Reiner in "The Princess Bride" (1987), in a comedic supporting role as "Miracle Max." Reiner got Crystal to accept the part by saying, "How would you like to play Mel Brooks?" Reiner also allowed Crystal to ad-lib, and his parting shot, "Have fun storming the castle!" is a frequently quoted line. Critic Roger Ebert described Crystal as a highlight of the film writing "the funniest sequences in the film stars Billy Crystal and Carol Kane, both unrecogizable behind makeup, as an ancient wizard and crone who specialize in bringing the dead back to life." Reiner directed Crystal for a third time in the romantic comedy "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989). Crystal starred alongside Meg Ryan, Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher in a script written by Nora Ephron. "The Hollywood Reporter" praised the film and Crystal's performance writing, "Crystal's lustrous, deeply-shaded performance is certain to win him legions of new fans; indeed, his prowess as a comic reaches its deepest human dimension here." Crystal was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy losing to Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989). The film has since become an iconic classic for the genre and is Crystal's most celebrated film. In 2019, the BBC named the film the greatest romantic comedy of all time.
In 1991, Crystal created and produced the HBO six-part comedy miniseries "Sessions" starring Michael McKean and Elliott Gould. The "Los Angeles Times" praised the project describing it as "swankily written, elegantly staged and perfectly cast." Crystal then starred in the award-winning buddy comedy "City Slickers" (1991), which proved very successful both commercially and critically and for which Crystal was nominated for his second Golden Globe. The film was followed by a sequel, which was less successful. The name of his company is Face Productions. "Entertainment Weekly" praised Crystal's performance writing, "It's also the first movie ever to do the talented Billy Crystal justice...he's far more pleasureful to watch in this sort of dramatic-comedy role than, say, Robin Williams, because his comfy, urban-shlemiel personality helps ground the jokes." Following the significant success of these films, Crystal wrote, directed, and starred in "Mr. Saturday Night" (1992) and "Forget Paris" (1995). In the former, Crystal played a serious role in aging makeup, as an egotistical comedian who reflects back on his career.
In 1992, Crystal narrated "Dr. Seuss Video Classics: Horton Hatches the Egg". He was originally asked to voice Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story" (1995) but turned it down, a decision he later regretted due to the popularity of the series. Crystal later films include a supporting roles in Kenneth Branagh's William Shakespeare epic "Hamlet" (1996), and Woody Allen's critically acclaimed comedy ensemble film "Deconstructing Harry" (1997). Crystal had starred opposite Robin Williams in "Father's Day" (1997) and had success alongside Robert De Niro in Harold Ramis' mobster comedy "Analyze This" (1999). In 1996, Crystal was the guest star of the third episode of "Muppets Tonight" and hosted three Grammy Awards Telecasts: the 29th Grammys; the 30th Grammys; and the 31st Grammys. Crystal was a guest on the first and the last episode of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," which concluded February 6, 2014, after 22 seasons on the air. 2000–2014: Later film work and Broadway debut.
Crystal returned as the host for the 2012 Oscar ceremony, after Eddie Murphy resigned from hosting. His nine times is second only to Bob Hope's 19 in most ceremonies hosted. At the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony in 2011, Crystal appeared as a presenter for a digitally inserted Bob Hope and before doing so was given a standing ovation. Film critic Roger Ebert said when Crystal came onstage about two hours into the show, he got the first laughs of the broadcast. Crystal's hosting gigs have regularly included an introductory video segment in which he comedically inserts himself into scenes of that year's nominees in addition to a song following his opening monologue. In 2013, Crystal released his autobiographical memoir "Still Foolin' Em". The audiobook version was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards. In the fall of 2013, Crystal brought the show, "700 Sundays" back to Broadway for a two-month run at the Imperial Theatre. HBO filmed the January 3–4, 2014 performances for a special, which debuted on their network on April 19, 2014, entitled "Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays". The televised special received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations including Outstanding Variety Special, and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special.
In 2014, Crystal paid tribute to his close friend Robin Williams at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards. In his tribute, Crystal talked about their friendship, saying, "As genius as he was on stage, he was the greatest friend you could ever imagine. Supportive. Protective. Loving. It's very hard to talk about him in the past because he was so present in all of our lives. For almost 40 years, he was the brightest star in the comedy galaxy… [His] beautiful light will continue to shine on us forever. And the glow will be so bright, it'll warm your heart. It'll make your eyes glisten. And you'll think to yourselves: Robin Williams. What a concept." Crystal stated that paying tribute to Williams so publicly and so soon after Williams had died was one of "the hardest things I've had to do" and that "I was really worried that I wasn't going to get through it." Crystal soon after appeared on "The View" where he and Whoopi Goldberg shared stories about Williams, reminiscing about their friendship, and their collaborations together on "Comic Relief". 2015–present: Return to Broadway.
In 2015, Crystal co-starred alongside Josh Gad on the FX comedy series "The Comedians", which ran for just one season before being canceled. His series received mixed reviews with many critics noting the chemistry developed further as the series went on. The series was compared to backstage shows such as "The Larry Sanders Show" and "30 Rock". Kate Kulzick of "The A.V. Club" wrote "The odd-couple pairing of Crystal and Gad works well, with their generational divide providing many of the show's early highlights...The friendly rapport that develops between the fictionalized Billy and Josh allows them to relax a bit and get to know each other better". In 2016, Crystal gave one of the eulogies for Muhammad Ali at his funeral. In his remembrance of Ali, Crystal talked about his admiration for Ali as a boxer, and humanitarian. He also shared stories of their unlikely friendship after Crystal did a series of impersonations of him. Crystal stated of Ali's legacy, "Only once in a thousand years or so, do we get to hear a Mozart, or see a Picasso, or read a Shakespeare. Ali was one of them. And yet, at his heart, he was still a kid from Louisville who ran with the gods and walked with the crippled and smiled at the foolishness of it all."
In the fall of 2021, Crystal reprised the role of Buddy Young Jr., in a theatrical musical staging of "Mr. Saturday Night" at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA. In 2022, Crystal adapted his 1992 movie "Mr. Saturday Night" into a Broadway musical with the same name. Crystal stars in the musical reprising his role from the film alongside David Paymer. The production began previews on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre on March 29, 2022, prior to officially opening on April 27. Crystal earned the Drama League Award for Contribution to the Theater Award for "his extraordinary work on stages across the country and commitment to mentorship in the field." Crystal performed a number with the ensemble from his musical at the 75th Tony Awards. Crystal also performed what he described as Yiddish scat singing. Crystal went into the crowd teaching Lin-Manuel Miranda and Samuel L. Jackson as well as the rest of the audience. "The New York Times" praised Crystal on his bit, describing it as a highlight of the telecast writing, "one of the few moments that broke through...is when [Crystal] brought it out into the audience, and threw it up to the balcony, he showed how precision delivery and command of a room can make even the oldest, silliest material impossibly compelling."
In 2023, Crystal was celebrated by the Kennedy Center Honors. Tributes came from Rob Reiner, Meg Ryan, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro, Jay Leno, and Bob Costas. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Marc Shaiman did a tribute to Crystal's "Oscar Medleys" to the tunes of "Too Marvelous for Words", "It Had to Be You" (the theme from "When Harry Met Sally..."), and "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music". Acting credits and accolades. Crystal has received numerous accolades including six Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program as the host of the "31st Annual Grammy Awards" (1989), "63rd Academy Awards" (1991), and "70th Academy Awards" (1998) and the Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for writing his comedy special "Midnight Train to Moscow" (1990), and the "63rd Academy Awards" and "64th Academy Awards" (1992). For his Broadway debut, his one man show "700 Sundays" (2005), Crystal won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event, and the Drama Desk Award. He received further Tony nominations for Best Actor in a Musical and Best Book of a Musical for "Mr. Saturday Night" (2022).
Crystal received nominations for three Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album for "You Look Marvelous" (1986), Best Spoken Word Album for "Still Foolin' Em" (2014), and Best Musical Theatre Album for "Mr. Saturday Night" (2023). He also received three Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performances in the romantic comedy "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989), the western comedy "City Slickers" (1991), and Crystal's directorial debut "Mr. Saturday Night" (1992). Crystal has also received numerous honors including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and was awarded with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2007 where he was honored by Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro, Martin Short, and Rob Reiner at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. Crystal was made one of the Disney Legends in 2013 and also received the Critics' Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2023. Personal life.
On June 4, 1970, Crystal married his high school sweetheart, Janice Goldfinger. Crystal has long credited his parents, "who always looked like they loved being together," with setting an example for his own marriage. They have two daughters: actress Jennifer and Lindsay, a producer, and are grandparents. They lived in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In January 2025, their home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire. Crystal received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from New York University in 2016 and spoke at the commencement at Yankee Stadium. Philanthropy. In 1986, Crystal started hosting "Comic Relief" on HBO with Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg. Founded by Bob Zmuda, Comic Relief raises money for homeless people in the United States. On September 6, 2005, on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", Crystal and Jay Leno were the first celebrities to sign a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to be auctioned off for Gulf Coast relief. Crystal has participated in the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. His personal history is featured in the "Finding Our Families, Finding Ourselves" exhibit in the genealogy wing of the museum.
Political views. Crystal is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has appeared in advertisements on behalf of the party. Crystal was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, during Trump's 2016 Presidential campaign. Crystal supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 United States presidential election. Sports. On March 12, 2008, Crystal signed a one-day minor league contract to play with the New York Yankees, and he was invited to the team's major league spring training. Crystal wore uniform number 60 in honor of his upcoming 60th birthday. On March 13, in a spring training game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Crystal led off as the designated hitter. He managed to make contact, fouling a fastball up the first base line, but was eventually struck out by Pirates pitcher Paul Maholm on six pitches and was later replaced in the batting order by Johnny Damon. Crystal was released on March 14, his 60th birthday. Crystal's boyhood idol was Yankee Hall of Fame legend Mickey Mantle, who had signed a program for him when Crystal attended a game where Mantle had hit a home run. Years later on "The Dinah Shore Show", in one of his first television appearances, Crystal met Mantle in person and had Mantle re-sign the same program. Crystal would be good friends with Mantle until Mantle's death in 1995. He and Bob Costas together wrote the eulogy Costas read at Mantle's funeral, and George Steinbrenner then invited Crystal to emcee the unveiling of Mantle's monument at Yankee Stadium. In his 2013 memoir "Still Foolin' 'Em", Crystal said that after the ceremony, near the Yankees clubhouse, he was punched in the stomach by Joe DiMaggio, who was angry at Crystal for not having introduced him to the crowd as the "Greatest living player."
Crystal also was well known for his impressions of Yankees Hall of Famer turned broadcaster Phil Rizzuto. Rizzuto, known for his quirks calling games, did not travel to Anaheim, California in 1996 to call the game for WPIX. Instead, Crystal joined the broadcasters in the booth and pretended to be Rizzuto for a few minutes during the August 31 game. Although a lifelong Yankees fan, he is a part-owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, even earning a World Series ring in 2001 when the Diamondbacks beat his beloved Yankees. In "City Slickers", Crystal wore a New York Mets baseball cap. In the 1986 film "Running Scared", his character is an avid Chicago Cubs fan, wearing a Cubs' jersey in several scenes. In the 2012 film "Parental Guidance", Crystal's character is the announcer for the Fresno Grizzlies, a Minor League Baseball team, who aspires to announce for their Major League affiliate, the San Francisco Giants. Crystal appeared in Ken Burns's 1994 documentary "Baseball", telling personal stories about his life-long love of baseball, including meeting Casey Stengel as a child and Ted Williams as an adult. Crystal is also a longtime Los Angeles Clippers fan and season ticket holder.
Black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. A black hole has a great effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, but has no locally detectable features according to general relativity. In many ways, a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light. Quantum field theory in curved spacetime predicts that event horizons emit Hawking radiation, with the same spectrum as a black body of a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. This temperature is of the order of billionths of a kelvin for stellar black holes, making it essentially impossible to observe directly. Objects whose gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace. In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild found the first modern solution of general relativity that would characterise a black hole. Due to his influential research, the Schwarzschild metric is named after him. David Finkelstein, in 1958, first published the interpretation of "black hole" as a region of space from which nothing can escape. Black holes were long considered a mathematical curiosity; it was not until the 1960s that theoretical work showed they were a generic prediction of general relativity. The discovery of neutron stars by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967 sparked interest in gravitationally collapsed compact objects as a possible astrophysical reality. The first black hole known was Cygnus X-1, identified by several researchers independently in 1971.
Black holes typically form when massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. Supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses () may form by absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, or via direct collapse of gas clouds. There is consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centres of most galaxies. The presence of a black hole can be inferred through its interaction with other matter and with electromagnetic radiation such as visible light. Matter falling toward a black hole can form an accretion disk of infalling plasma, heated by friction and emitting light. In extreme cases, this creates a quasar, some of the brightest objects in the universe. Stars passing too close to a supermassive black hole can be shredded into streamers that shine very brightly before being "swallowed." If other stars are orbiting a black hole, their orbits can be used to determine the black hole's mass and location. Such observations can be used to exclude possible alternatives such as neutron stars. In this way, astronomers have identified numerous stellar black hole candidates in binary systems and established that the radio source known as Sagittarius A*, at the core of the Milky Way galaxy, contains a supermassive black hole of about 4.3 million solar masses.
History. The idea of a body so big that even light could not escape was briefly proposed by English astronomical pioneer and clergyman John Michell and independently by French scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace. Both scholars proposed very large stars rather than the modern model of stars with extraordinary density. Michell's idea, in a short part of a letter published in 1784, calculated that a star with the same density but 500 times the radius of the sun would not let any emitted light escape; the surface escape velocity would exceed the speed of light. Michell correctly noted that such supermassive but non-radiating bodies might be detectable through their gravitational effects on nearby visible bodies. In 1796, Laplace mentioned that a star could be invisible if it were sufficiently large while speculating on the origin of the Solar System in his book "Exposition du Système du Monde." Franz Xaver von Zach asked Laplace for a mathematical analysis, which Laplace provided and published in journal edited by von Zach.
Scholars of the time were initially excited by the proposal that giant but invisible 'dark stars' might be hiding in plain view, but enthusiasm dampened when the wavelike nature of light became apparent in the early nineteenth century, since light was understood as a wave rather than a particle, it was unclear what, if any, influence gravity would have on escaping light waves. General relativity. In 1915, Albert Einstein developed his theory of general relativity, having earlier shown that gravity does influence light's motion. Only a few months later, Karl Schwarzschild found a solution to the Einstein field equations that describes the gravitational field of a point mass and a spherical mass. A few months after Schwarzschild, Johannes Droste, a student of Hendrik Lorentz, independently gave the same solution for the point mass and wrote more extensively about its properties. This solution had a peculiar behaviour at what is now called the Schwarzschild radius, where it became singular, meaning that some of the terms in the Einstein equations became infinite. The nature of this surface was not quite understood at the time.
In 1924, Arthur Eddington showed that the singularity disappeared after a change of coordinates. In 1933, Georges Lemaître realised that this meant the singularity at the Schwarzschild radius was a non-physical coordinate singularity. Arthur Eddington commented on the possibility of a star with mass compressed to the Schwarzschild radius in a 1926 book, noting that Einstein's theory allows us to rule out overly large densities for visible stars like Betelgeuse because "a star of 250 million km radius could not possibly have so high a density as the Sun. Firstly, the force of gravitation would be so great that light would be unable to escape from it, the rays falling back to the star like a stone to the earth. Secondly, the red shift of the spectral lines would be so great that the spectrum would be shifted out of existence. Thirdly, the mass would produce so much curvature of the spacetime metric that space would close up around the star, leaving us outside (i.e., nowhere)." In 1931, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated, using special relativity, that a non-rotating body of electron-degenerate matter above a certain limiting mass (now called the Chandrasekhar limit at ) has no stable solutions. His arguments were opposed by many of his contemporaries like Eddington and Lev Landau, who argued that some yet unknown mechanism would stop the collapse. They were partly correct: a white dwarf slightly more massive than the Chandrasekhar limit will collapse into a neutron star, which is itself stable.
In 1939, Robert Oppenheimer and others predicted that neutron stars above another limit, the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, would collapse further for the reasons presented by Chandrasekhar, and concluded that no law of physics was likely to intervene and stop at least some stars from collapsing to black holes. Their original calculations, based on the Pauli exclusion principle, gave it as . Subsequent consideration of neutron-neutron repulsion mediated by the strong force raised the estimate to approximately to . Observations of the neutron star merger GW170817, which is thought to have generated a black hole shortly afterward, have refined the TOV limit estimate to ~. Oppenheimer and his co-authors interpreted the singularity at the boundary of the Schwarzschild radius as indicating that this was the boundary of a bubble in which time stopped. This is a valid point of view for external observers, but not for infalling observers. The hypothetical collapsed stars were called "frozen stars", because an outside observer would see the surface of the star frozen in time at the instant where its collapse takes it to the Schwarzschild radius.
Also in 1939, Einstein attempted to prove that black holes were impossible in his publication "On a Stationary System with Spherical Symmetry Consisting of Many Gravitating Masses", using his theory of general relativity to defend his argument. Months later, Oppenheimer and his student Hartland Snyder provided the Oppenheimer–Snyder model in their paper "On Continued Gravitational Contraction", which predicted the existence of black holes. In the paper, which made no reference to Einstein's recent publication, Oppenheimer and Snyder used Einstein's own theory of general relativity to show the conditions on how a black hole could develop, for the first time in contemporary physics. Golden age. In 1958, David Finkelstein identified the Schwarzschild surface as an event horizon, "a perfect unidirectional membrane: causal influences can cross it in only one direction". This did not strictly contradict Oppenheimer's results, but extended them to include the point of view of infalling observers. Finkelstein's solution extended the Schwarzschild solution for the future of observers falling into a black hole. A complete extension had already been found by Martin Kruskal, who was urged to publish it.
These results came at the beginning of the golden age of general relativity, which was marked by general relativity and black holes becoming mainstream subjects of research. This process was helped by the discovery of pulsars by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967, which, by 1969, were shown to be rapidly rotating neutron stars. Until that time, neutron stars, like black holes, were regarded as just theoretical curiosities; but the discovery of pulsars showed their physical relevance and spurred a further interest in all types of compact objects that might be formed by gravitational collapse. In this period more general black hole solutions were found. In 1963, Roy Kerr found the exact solution for a rotating black hole. Two years later, Ezra Newman found the axisymmetric solution for a black hole that is both rotating and electrically charged. Through the work of Werner Israel, Brandon Carter, and David Robinson the no-hair theorem emerged, stating that a stationary black hole solution is completely described by the three parameters of the Kerr–Newman metric: mass, angular momentum, and electric charge.
At first, it was suspected that the strange features of the black hole solutions were pathological artefacts from the symmetry conditions imposed, and that the singularities would not appear in generic situations. This view was held in particular by Vladimir Belinsky, Isaak Khalatnikov, and Evgeny Lifshitz, who tried to prove that no singularities appear in generic solutions. However, in the late 1960s Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking used global techniques to prove that singularities appear generically. For this work, Penrose received half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, Hawking having died in 2018. Based on observations in Greenwich and Toronto in the early 1970s, Cygnus X-1, a galactic X-ray source discovered in 1964, became the first astronomical object commonly accepted to be a black hole. Work by James Bardeen, Jacob Bekenstein, Carter, and Hawking in the early 1970s led to the formulation of black hole thermodynamics. These laws describe the behaviour of a black hole in close analogy to the laws of thermodynamics by relating mass to energy, area to entropy, and surface gravity to temperature. The analogy was completed when Hawking, in 1974, showed that quantum field theory implies that black holes should radiate like a black body with a temperature proportional to the surface gravity of the black hole, predicting the effect now known as Hawking radiation.

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