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The sail of "George Bancroft" is preserved at the Naval Submarine Base King's Bay, Georgia. "James K. Polk"s sail is on display at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "Mariano G. Vallejo"s sail is preserved at Mare Island, California, where she was built. The sail of "Lewis and Clark" is on display at the Patriot's Point Maritime Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.
Boats in class.
Submarines of the "Benjamin Franklin" class: |
Bastard Operator From Hell
The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) is a fictional rogue computer operator created by Simon Travaglia, who takes out his anger on users (who are "lusers" to him) and others who pester him with their computer problems, uses his expertise against his enemies and manipulates his employer.
Several people have written stories about BOFHs, but only those by Simon Travaglia are considered canonical.
The BOFH stories were originally posted in 1992 to Usenet by Travaglia, with some being reprinted in "Datamation." Since 2000 they have been published regularly in "The Register" (UK). Several collections of the stories have been published as books.
By extension, the term is also used to refer to any system administrator who displays the qualities of the original.
The early accounts of the BOFH took place in a university; later the scenes were set in an office workplace. In 2000 (BOFH 2k), the BOFH and his pimply-faced youth (PFY) assistant moved to a new company.
Influence.
The protagonist in Charles Stross's "The Laundry Files" series of novels named himself Bob Oliver Francis Howard in reference to the BOFH. As Bob Howard is a self-chosen pseudonym, and Bob is a network manager when not working as a computational demonologist, the name is all too appropriate. In the novella "Pimpf", he acquires a pimply-faced young assistant by the name of Peter-Fred Young.
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BOFH is a text adventure game written by Howard A. Sherman, which took part in the 2002 Interactive Fiction Competition and was placed 26th out of 38.
Simon Travaglia.
Simon Travaglia (born 1964) graduated from the University of Waikato, New Zealand in 1985. He worked as the IT infrastructure manager (2004–2008) and computer operator (1985–1992) at the University of Waikato and the infrastructure manager at the Waikato Innovation Park, Hamilton, New Zealand (since 2008). Since 1999 he is a freelance writer for "The Register". He lives in Hautapu, New Zealand. |
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.
Life and career.
McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. At about the age of four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his right leg. His brother Granville "Stick" McGhee, who also later became a musician and composed the song "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee", was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. Their father, George McGhee, was a factory worker, known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie's uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board.
McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with a local harmony group, the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet, and teaching himself to play guitar. He also played the five-string banjo and ukulele and studied piano. Surgery funded by the March of Dimes enabled McGhee to walk.
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At the age of 22, McGhee became a traveling musician, working in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and befriending Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced him greatly. After Fuller's death in 1941, J. B. Long of Columbia Records promoted McGhee as "Blind Boy Fuller No. 2". By that time, McGhee was recording for Columbia's subsidiary Okeh Records in Chicago, but his real success came after he moved to New York in 1942, when he teamed up with Sonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939, when Terry was Fuller's harmonica player. The pairing was an overnight success. They recorded and toured together until around 1980. As a duo, Terry and McGhee did most of their work from 1958 until 1980, spending 11 months of each year touring and recording dozens of albums.
Despite their later fame as "pure" folk artists playing for white audiences, in the 1940s Terry and McGhee had attempted to be successful recording artists, fronting a jump blues combo with honking saxophone and rolling piano, variously calling themselves "Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers" or "Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five", often with Champion Jack Dupree and Big Chief Ellis. They also appeared in the original Broadway productions of "Finian's Rainbow" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".
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During the blues revival of the 1960s, Terry and McGhee were popular on the concert and music festival circuits, occasionally adding new material but usually remaining faithful to their roots and playing to the tastes of their audiences.
Late in his life, McGhee appeared in small roles in films and on television. He and Terry appeared in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy "The Jerk". In 1987, McGhee gave a small but memorable performance as the ill-fated blues singer Toots Sweet in the supernatural thriller movie "Angel Heart." In his review of "Angel Heart", the critic Roger Ebert singled out McGhee for praise, declaring that he delivered a "performance that proves [saxophonist] Dexter Gordon isn't the only old musician who can act." McGhee appeared in the television series "Family Ties", in a 1988 episode entitled "The Blues, Brother", in which he played the fictional blues musician Eddie Dupre. He also appeared in the television series "Matlock", in a 1989 episode entitled "The Blues Singer", playing a friend of an old blues musician (Joe Seneca) who is accused of murder. In the episode, McGhee, Seneca and star Andy Griffith perform a duet of "The Midnight Special".
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Happy Traum, a former guitar student of McGhee's, edited a blues guitar instruction guide and songbook, "Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee", published in 1971, in which McGhee, between lessons, talked about his life and the blues. The autobiographical section features McGhee talking about growing up, his musical beginnings, and a history of the blues from the 1930s onward.
McGhee and Terry were both recipients of a 1982 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA.
One of McGhee's last concert appearances was at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival.
He died of stomach cancer on February 16, 1996, in Oakland, California, at the age of 80.
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International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 64 member-states act on measurement standards in areas including chemistry, ionising radiation, physical metrology, as well as the International System of Units (SI) and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It is based in Saint-Cloud, near Paris, France. The organisation has been referred to as IBWM (from its name in English) in older literature.
Function.
The BIPM has the mandate to provide the basis for a single, coherent system of measurements throughout the world, traceable to the International System of Units (SI). This task takes many forms, from direct dissemination of units to coordination through international comparisons of national measurement standards (as in electricity and ionising radiation).
Following consultation, a draft version of the BIPM Work Programme is presented at each meeting of the General Conference for consideration with the BIPM budget. The final programme of work is determined by the CIPM in accordance with the budget agreed to by the CGPM.
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Currently, the BIPM's main work includes:
The BIPM is one of the twelve member organisations of the International Network on Quality Infrastructure (INetQI), which promotes and implements QI activities in metrology, accreditation, standardisation and conformity assessment.
The BIPM has an important role in maintaining accurate worldwide time of day. It combines, analyses, and averages the official atomic time standards of member nations around the world to create a single, official Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Structure.
The BIPM is overseen by the International Committee for Weights and Measures (), a committee of eighteen members that meet normally in two sessions per year, which is in turn overseen by the General Conference on Weights and Measures () that meets in Paris usually once every four years, consisting of delegates of the governments of the Member States and observers from the Associates of the CGPM. These organs are also commonly referred to by their French initialisms.
History.
The creation of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures followed the Metre Convention of 1875, after the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), at the initiative of the International Geodetic Association. This process began with the 1855 Paris Exposition, shortly after the Great Exhibition, when the need for international standardization of weights and measures became apparent. During the process of unification of Germany, geodesists called for the establishment of an International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Europe. These trends culminated in the 1889 General Conference on Weights and Measures, with the distribution of the metre and kilogram standards to the States parties to the Metre Convention.
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When the metre was adopted as an international unit of length, it was well know that it no longer corresponded to its historical definition. Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, first president of both the International Geodetic Association and the International Committee for Weigths and Measures, took part to the remeasurement and extension of the arc measurement of Delambre and Méchain. At that time, mathematicians like Legendre and Gauss had developed new methods for processing data, including the least squares method which allowed to compare experimental data tainted with observational errors to a mathematical model. Moreover the International Bureau of Weights and Measures would have a central role for international geodetic measurements as Charles Édouard Guillaume's discovery of invar minimized the impact of measurement inaccuracies due to temperature systematic errors.
Geodetic standards and the Expositions Universelles (1855 /1867).
In the 19th century, units of measurement were defined by primary standards, and unique artifacts made of different alloys with distinct coefficients of expansion were the legal basis of units of length. A wrought iron ruler, the Toise of Peru, also called "Toise de l'Académie", was the French primary standard of the toise, and the metre was officially defined by an artifact made of platinum kept in the National Archives. Besides the latter, another platinum and twelve iron standards of the metre were made by Étienne Lenoir in 1799. One of them became known as the Committee Meter in the United States and served as standard of length in the United States Coast Survey until 1890.
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In 1855, the Dufour map (French: "Carte Dufour"), the first topographic map of Switzerland for which the metre was adopted as the unit of length, won the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle. However, the baselines for this map were measured in 1834 with three toises long measuring rods calibrated on a toise made in 1821 by Jean Nicolas Fortin for Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve.
The geodetic measuring device calibrated on the metre devised by Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero and Frutos Saavedra Meneses, was displayed by Jean Brunner at the Exhibition. The four-metre-long Spanish measuring instrument, which became known as the Spanish Standard (French: "Règle espagnole"), was compared with Borda's double-toise N° 1, which served as a comparison module for the measurement of all geodesic bases in France, and was also to be compared to the Ibáñez apparatus. These comparisons were essential, because of thermal expansion. Indeed, geodesists tried to accurately assess temperature of standards in the field in order to avoid temperature systematic errors.
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The Earth measurements thus underscored the importance of scientific methods at a time when statistics were implemented in geodesy. As a leading scientist of his time, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero was one of the 81 initial members of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and delegate of Spain to the first ISI session (now called World Statistic Congress) in Rome in 1887. On the sidelines of the Exposition Universelle (1855) and the second Congress of Statistics held in Paris, an association with a view to obtaining a uniform decimal system of measures, weights and currencies was created in 1855. Under the impetus of this association, a Committee for Weights and Measures and Monies (French: "Comité des poids, mesures et monnaies") would be created during the Exposition Universelle (1867) in Paris and would call for the international adoption of the metric system.
The metre and Struve Geodetic Arc (1816/1855).
In 1858, a Technical Commission was set up to continue cadastral surveying inaugurated under Muhammad Ali. This Commission suggested to buy geodetic devices which were ordered in France. Mohammed Sa'id Pasha entrusted to Ismail Mustafa al-Falaki the study of the precision apparatus calibrated against the metre intended to measure geodetic baselines and built by Jean Brunner in Paris. Ismail Mustafa had the task to carry out the experiments necessary for determining the expansion coefficients of the two platinum and brass bars, and to compare the Egyptian standard with a known standard. The Spanish standard designed by Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero and Frutos Saavedra Meneses was chosen for this purpose, as it had served as a model for the construction of the Egyptian standard.
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It was not until 1954 that the connection of the southerly extension of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey triangulations stretching from Hammerfest in Norway to the Black Sea, with an arc running northwards from South Africa through Egypt would bring the course of a major meridian arc back to land where Eratosthenes had founded geodesy. The Struve Geodetic arc measurement extended on a period of forty years and initiated an international scientific collaboration between Russian Empire and the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway with the involvement of proeminent astronomers such as Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, Carl Friedrich Gauss and George Biddell Airy. A French scientific instrument maker, Jean Nicolas Fortin, made three direct copies of the Toise of Peru, one for Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, a second for Heinrich Christian Schumacher in 1821 and a third for Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel in 1823. In 1831, Henri-Prudence Gambey also realised a copy of the Toise of Peru which was kept at Altona Observatory.
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According to geodesists, these standards were secondary standards deduced from the Toise of Peru. In continental Europe, except Spain, surveyors continued to use measuring instruments calibrated on the Toise of Peru. Among these, the toise of Bessel and the apparatus of Borda were respectively the main references for geodesy in Prussia and in France. These measuring devices consisted of bimetallic rulers in platinum and brass or iron and zinc fixed together at one extremity to assess the variations in length produced by any change in temperature. The combination of two bars made of two different metals allowed to take thermal expansion into account without measuring the temperature.
Metric act of 1866 and calls for an international standard unit of length.
In 1866, Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler's use of the metre and the creation of the Office of Standard Weights and Measures as an office within the Coast Survey contributed to the introduction of the Metric Act of 1866 allowing the use of the metre in the United States, and preceded the choice of the metre as international scientific unit of length and the proposal by the 1867 General Conference of the European Arc Measurement (German: "Europäische Gradmessung") to establish the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Moreover, it was asserted that the Toise of Peru, the standard of the toise constructed in 1735 for the French Geodesic Mission to the Equator, might be so much damaged that comparison with it would be worthless, while Bessel had questioned the accuracy of copies of this standard belonging to Altona and Koenigsberg Observatories, which he had compared to each other about 1840.
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This assertion was particularly worrying, because when the primary Imperial yard standard had partially been destroyed in 1834, a new standard of reference was constructed using copies of the "Standard Yard, 1760", instead of the pendulum's length as provided for in the Weights and Measures Act 1824, because the pendulum method proved unreliable.
International Geodetic Association.
The intimate relationships that necessarily existed between metrology and geodesy explain that the International Association of Geodesy, founded to combine the geodetic operations of different countries, in order to reach a new and more exact determination of the shape and dimensions of the Globe, prompted the project of reforming the foundations of the metric system, while expanding it and making it international. Not, as it was mistakenly assumed for a certain time, that the Association had the unscientific thought of modifying the length of the metre, in order to conform exactly to its historical definition according to the new values that would be found for the terrestrial meridian. But, busy combining the arcs measured in the different countries and connecting the neighbouring triangulations, geodesists encountered, as one of the main difficulties, the unfortunate uncertainty which reigned over the equations of the units of length used. Adolphe Hirsch, General Baeyer and Colonel Ibáñez decided, in order to make all the standards comparable, to propose to the Association to choose the metre for geodetic unit, and to create an international prototype metre differing as little as possible from the
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In 1867 at the second General Conference of the International Association of Geodesy held in Berlin, the question of an international standard unit of length was discussed in order to combine the measurements made in different countries to determine the size and shape of the Earth. According to a preliminary proposal made in Neuchâtel the precedent year, the General Conference recommended the adoption of the metre in replacement of the toise of Bessel, the creation of an International Metre Commission, and the foundation of a World institute for the comparison of geodetic standards, the first step towards the creation of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.
Saint Petersburg Academy.
Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler's metrological and geodetic work also had a favourable response in Russia. In 1869, the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences sent to the French Academy of Sciences a report drafted by Otto Wilhelm von Struve, Heinrich von Wild, and Moritz von Jacobi, whose theorem has long supported the assumption of an ellipsoid with three unequal axes for the figure of the Earth, inviting his French counterpart to undertake joint action to ensure the universal use of the metric system in all scientific work. The French Academy of Sciences and the Bureau des Longitudes in Paris drew the attention of the French government to this issue. In November 1869, Napoleon III issued invitations to join the International Metre Commission.
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The International Metre Commission (1870/1872).
The French government gave practical support to the creation of an International Metre Commission, which met in Paris in 1870 and again in 1872 with the participation of about thirty countries. There was much discussion within this commission, considering the opportunity either to keep as definitive the units represented by the standards of the Archives, or to return to the primitive definitions, and to correct the units to bring them closer to them. Since its origin, the metre has kept a double definition; it is both the ten-millionth part of the quarter meridian and the length represented by the "Mètre des Archives". The first is historical, the second is metrological. The first solution prevailed, in accordance with common sense and in accordance with the advice of the French Academy of Sciences. Abandoning the values represented by the standards, would have consecrated an extremely dangerous principle, that of the change of units to any progress of measurements; the Metric System would be perpetually threatened with change, that is to say with ruin. Thus the Commission called for the creation of a new international prototype metre which length would be as close as possible to that of the "Mètre des Archives" and the arrangement of a system where national standards could be compared with it.
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At the session on 12 October 1872 of the Permanent Committee of the International Metre Commission, which was to become the International Committee for Weights and Measures, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero was elected president. On 19 April 1875, Ibáñez' presidency was confirmed and Adolphe Hirsch was elected secretary of the International Committee for Weights and Measures. On 6 May 1873 during the 6th session of the French section of the Metre Commission, Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville cast a 20-kilogram platinum-iridium ingot from Matthey in his laboratory at the École normale supérieure (Paris). On 13 May 1874, 250 kilograms of platinum-iridium to be used for several national prototypes of the metre was cast at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. When a conflict broke out regarding the presence of impurities in the metre-alloy of 1874, a member of the Preparatory Committee since 1870 and president of the Permanent Committee of the International Metre Commission, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero intervened with the French Academy of Sciences to rally France to the project to create an International Bureau of Weights and Measures equipped with the scientific means necessary to redefine the units of the metric system according to the progress of sciences. In fact, the chemical analysis of the alloy produced in 1874 by the French section revealed contamination by ruthenium and iron which led the International Committee for Weights and Measures to reject, in 1877, the prototypes produced by the French section from the 1874 alloy. It also seemed at the time that the production of prototypes with an X profile was only possible through the extrusion process, which resulted in iron contamination. However, it soon turned out that the prototypes designed by Henri Tresca could be produced by milling.
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The 1875 Metre Convention and the founding of the BIPM.
The principal tasks facing the delegates at the 1875 conference was the replacement of the existing metre and kilogram artefacts that were held by the French Government and the setting up of an organization to administer the maintenance of standards around the globe. The conference did not concern itself with other units of measure. The conference had undertones of Franco-German political manoeuvring, particularly since the French had been humiliated by the Prussians during the war a few years previously. Although France lost control of the metric system, they ensured that it passed to international rather than German control and that the international headquarters were in Paris.
Two members of the Permanent Committee of the International Metre Commission, the German astronomer, Wilhelm Julius Foerster, director of the Berlin Observatory and director of the German Weights and Measures Service, and the Swiss geodesist of German origin, Adolphe Hirsch were also among the main architects of the Metre Convention. While the German astronomer Wilhelm Julius Foerster along with the Russian and Austrian representatives boycotted the Permanent Committee of the International Metre Commission in order to prompt the reunion of the Diplomatic Conference of the Metre and to promote the foundation of a permanent International Bureau of Weights and Measures, Adolphe Hirsch, delegate of Switzerland at this Diplomatic Conference in 1875, conformed to the opinion of Italy and Spain to create, in spite of French reluctance, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France as a permanent institution at the disadvantage of the "Conservatoire national des arts et métiers".
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Spain notably supported France for this outcome and the first president of the International Committee for Weights and Measures, the Spanish geodesist, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero received the Grand Officer medal of the Légion d'Honneur for his diplomatic role on this issue and was awarded the Poncelet Prize for his scientific contribution to metrology. Indeed, as Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero was collaborating with the French on the extension of the arc measurement of Delambre and Méchain since 1853, and was president of both the Permanent Committee of the International Metre Commission since 1872 and the Permanent Commission of the International Association of Geodesy since 1874, he was to play a pivotal role in reconciling French and German interests. The Metre Convention was signed on 20 May 1875 in Paris and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures was created under the supervision of the International Committee for Weights and Measures, presided by Carlos Ibáñez e ibáñez de Ibero.
The 1889 General Conference on Weights and Measures.
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In 1889, the General Conference on Weights and Measures, presided by Alfred Descloizeaux, met at the Pavillon de Breteuil, the seat of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. It performed the first great deed dictated by the motto inscribed in the pediment of the splendid edifice that is the metric system: "A tous les temps, à tous les peuples" (For all times, to all peoples); and this deed consisted in the approval and distribution, among the governments of the states supporting the Metre Convention, of prototype standards of hitherto unknown precision intended to propagate the metric unit throughout the whole world.
For metrology the matter of expansibility was fundamental; as a matter of fact, the temperature measuring error related to the length measurement in proportion to the expansibility of the standard and the constantly renewed efforts of metrologists to protect their measuring instruments against the interfering influence of temperature revealed clearly the importance they attached to the expansion-induced errors. It was common knowledge, for instance, that effective measurements were possible only inside a building, the rooms of which were well protected against the changes in outside temperature, and the very presence of the observer created an interference against which it was often necessary to take strict precautions. Thus, the Contracting States also received a collection of thermometers whose accuracy made it possible to ensure that of length measurements. The international prototype would also be a "line standard"; that is, the metre was defined as the distance between two lines marked on the bar, so avoiding the wear problems of end standards.
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The comparison of the new prototypes of the metre with each other involved the development of special measuring equipment and the definition of a reproducible temperature scale. The BIPM's thermometry work led to the discovery of special alloys of iron–nickel, in particular invar, whose practically negligible coefficient of expansion made it possible to develop simpler baseline measurement methods, and for which its director, the Swiss physicist Charles-Edouard Guillaume, was granted the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920. Guillaume's Nobel Prize marked the end of an era in which metrology was leaving the field of geodesy to become an autonomous scientific discipline able of redefining the metre through technological applications of physics. On the other hand, the fondation of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey by Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler paved the way to the actual definition of the metre, with Charles Sanders Peirce being the first to experimentally link the metre to the wave length of a spectral line. Albert Abraham Michelson soon took up the idea and improved it.
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Additional roles for standardized time.
In 1987 the International Bureau of Weights and Measures took over some of the work of the International Time Bureau when it was dissolved in 1987. The remaining tasks were assigned to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), which replaced the International Polar Motion Service and the earth-rotation section of the International Time Bureau. Already in 1936, irregularities in the speed of Earth's rotation due to the unpredictable movement of air and water masses were discovered through the use of quartz clocks. They implied that the Earth's rotation was an imprecise way of determining time. In 1967, the second was redefined based on atomic clocks. resulting in the International Atomic Time (TAI). The International Bureau of Weights and Measures began to establish atomic clocks world-wide, numbering more than 450 currently.
The 2019 revision of the SI.
The International System of Units (SI, abbreviated from the French "Système international (d'unités)"), the modern form of the metric system was revised in 2019. It is the only system of measurement with an official status in nearly every country in the world. It comprises a coherent system of units of measurement starting with seven base units, which are the second (the unit of time with the symbol s), metre (length, m), kilogram (mass, kg), ampere (electric current, A), kelvin (thermodynamic temperature, K), mole (amount of substance, mol), and candela (luminous intensity, cd). Since 2019, the magnitudes of all SI units have been defined by declaring exact numerical values for seven "defining constants" when expressed in terms of their SI units. These defining constants are the hyperfine transition frequency of caesium Δ"ν"Cs, the speed of light in vacuum "c", the Planck constant "h", the elementary charge "e", the Boltzmann constant "k", the Avogadro constant "N"A, and the luminous efficacy "K"cd.
Directors.
Since its establishment, the directors of the BIPM have been: |
Bayonne
Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.
Bayonne is located at the confluence of the Nive and Adour Rivers, in the northern part of the cultural region of the Basque Country. It is the seat of the Communauté d'agglomération du Pays Basque which roughly encompasses the western half of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, including the coastal city of Biarritz. The area also constitutes the southern part of Gascony, where the Aquitaine Basin joins the beginning of the Pre-Pyrenees.
Together with nearby Anglet, Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and several smaller communes, Bayonne forms an urban area with 273,137 inhabitants in the 2018 census, 51,411 of whom lived in the commune of Bayonne proper. It is also a part of Basque Eurocity Bayonne-San Sebastián.
The site on the left bank of the Nive and the Adour was probably occupied before ancient times; a fortified enclosure was attested to in the 1st century, while the Tarbelli occupied the territory. Archaeological studies have confirmed the presence of a Roman castrum, a stronghold in Novempopulania at the end of the 4th century, before the city was populated by the Vascones.
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In 1023, Bayonne was the capital of Labourd. In the 12th century, it extended to the confluence of the Nive River and beyond. During that time, its first bridge spanning the Adour was built. The city came under English control in 1152 through the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine; it became important commercially and, to a lesser degree, militarily thanks to maritime trade. In 1177, Richard the Lion Heart of England took control of the city, separating it from the Viscount of Labourd.
In 1451, the city was taken by the Crown of France after the Hundred Years' War. The loss of trade with the English was followed by the river gradually filling with silt and becoming impassable to ships. As the city developed to the north, its position was weakened compared to earlier times. The district of Saint-Esprit developed initially from settlement by Sephardic Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish expulsions dictated by the Alhambra Decree. This community brought skill in chocolate making, and Bayonne gained a reputation for chocolate.
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The course of the Adour was changed in 1578 by dredging under the direction of Louis de Foix, and the river returned to its former mouth. Bayonne flourished after regaining the maritime trade that it had lost for more than a hundred years. In the 17th century, the city was fortified by Vauban, whose works were followed as models of defense for 100 years. In 1814, Bayonne and its surroundings were the scene of fighting between the Napoleonic troops and the Spanish-Anglo-Portuguese coalition led by the Duke of Wellington. It was the last time the city was under siege.
In 1951, the Lacq gas field was discovered in the region; most of its extracted oil and sulphur are shipped from the port of Bayonne. During the second half of the 20th century, many housing estates were built, forming new districts on the periphery. The city developed to form a conurbation with Anglet and Biarritz; the agglomeration became the heart of a vast Basque-Landes urban area.
In 2014, Bayonne was a commune with more than 45,000 inhabitants, the heart of the urban area of Bayonne and of the "Agglomeration Côte Basque-Adour". This includes Anglet and Biarritz. It is an important part of the Basque "Bayonne-San Sebastián Eurocity" and it plays the role of economic capital of the Adour basin. Modern industries—metallurgy and chemicals—have been established to take advantage of procurement opportunities and sea shipments through the harbour. Business services today represent the largest source of employment. Bayonne is also a cultural capital, a city with strong Basque and Gascon influences, and a rich historical past. Its heritage is expressed in its architecture, the diversity of collections in museums, its gastronomic specialties, and traditional events such as the noted Fêtes de Bayonne.
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The inhabitants of the commune are known as "Bayonnais" or "Bayonnaises".
Toponymy.
Etymology.
While the modern Basque spelling is "Baiona" and the same in Gascon Occitan, "the name "Bayonne" poses a number of problems both historical and linguistic which have still not been clarified". There are different interpretations of its meaning.
The termination "-onne" in "Bayonne" can come from many in hydronyms "-onne" or toponyms derived from that. In certain cases the element "-onne" follows an Indo-European theme: "*ud-r/n" (Greek "húdōr" giving hydro, Gothic "watt" meaning "water") hence "*udnā" meaning "water" giving "unna" then "onno" in the glossary of Vienne. "Unna" therefore would refer to the Adour. This toponymic type evoking a river traversing a locality is common. The appellative "unna" seems to be found in the name of the Garonne ("Garunna" 1st century; "Garonna" 4th century). However, it is possible to see a pre-Celtic suffix "-ona" in the name of the Charente ("Karantona" in 875) or the Charentonne ("Carentona" in 1050).
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It could also be an augmentative Gascon from the original Latin radical "Baia-" with the suffix "-ona" in the sense of "vast expanse of water" or a name derived from the Basque "bai" meaning "river" and "ona" meaning "good", hence "good river".
The proposal by Eugene Goyheneche repeated by Manex Goyhenetche and supported by Jean-Baptiste Orpustan is "bai una", "the place of the river" or "bai ona" "hill by the river"—"Ibai" means "river" in Basque and "muinoa" means "hill".
"It has perhaps been lost from sight that many urban place names in France, from north to south, came from the element "Bay-" or "Bayon-" such as: Bayons, Bayonville, Bayonvillers and pose the unusual problem of whether they are Basque or Gascon" adds Pierre Hourmat. However, the most ancient form of Bayonne: "Baiona", clearly indicates a feminine or a theme of "-a" whereas this is not the case for Béon or Bayon. In addition, the "Bayon-" in Bayonville or Bayonvillers in northern France is clearly the personal Germanic name "Baio".
Old attestations.
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The names of the Basque province of Labourd and the locality of Bayonne have been attested from an early period with the place name "Bayonne" appearing in the Latin form "Lapurdum" after a period during which the two names could in turn designate a Viscounty or Bishopric.
"Labourd" and "Bayonne" were synonymous and used interchangeably until the 12th century before being differentiated: Labord for the province and Bayonne for the city. The attribution of Bayonne as "Civitas Boatium", a place mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary and by Paul Raymond in his 1863 dictionary, has been abandoned. The city of the "Boïates" may possibly be La Teste-de-Buch but is certainly not Bayonne.
The following table details the origins of Labord, Bayonne, and other names in the commune.
Sources:
Origins:
History.
Prehistory.
In the absence of accurate objective data there is some credence to the probable existence of a fishing village on the site in a period prior to ancient times. Numerous traces of human occupation have been found in the Bayonne region from the Middle Paleolithic especially in the discoveries at Saint-Pierre-d'Irube, a neighbouring locality. On the other hand, the presence of a mound about high has been detected in the current Cathedral Quarter overlooking the Nive, which formed a natural protection and a usable port on the left bank of the Nive. At the time, the mound was surrounded north and west by the Adour swamps. At its foot lies the famous "Bayonne Sea"—the junction of the two rivers—which may have been about wide between Saint-Esprit and the Grand Bayonne and totally covered the current location of Bourg-Neuf (in the district of Petit Bayonne). To the south, the last bend of the Nive widens near the Saint-Léon hills. Despite this, the narrowing of the Adour valley allows easier crossing than anywhere else along the entire length of the estuary.
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In conclusion, the strategic importance of this height was so obvious it must be presumed that it has always been inhabited.
Ancient times.
The oldest documented human occupation site is located on a hill overlooking the Nive and its confluence with the Adour.
In the 1st century AD, during the Roman occupation, Bayonne already seems to have been of some importance since the Romans surrounded the city with a wall to keep out the Tarbelli, Aquitani, or the proto-Basque who then occupied a territory that extended south of modern-day Landes, to the modern French Basque country, the Chalosse, the valleys of the Adour, the mountain streams of Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and to the Gave d'Oloron.
The archaeological discoveries of October and November 1995 provided a shred of evidence to support this projection. In the four layers of sub-soil along the foundation of the Gothic cathedral (in the "apse of the cathedral" area), a 2-metre depth was found of old objects from the end of the 1st century—in particular sigillated Gallic ceramics from Montans imitating Italian styles, thin-walled bowls, and fragments of amphorae. In the "southern sector" near the cloister door, there were objects from the second half of the 1st century as well as coins from the first half of the 3rd century.
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A very high probability of human presence, not solely military, seems to provisionally confirm the occupation of the site at least around the third century.
A Roman castrum dating to the end of the 4th century has been proven as a fortified place of Novempopulania. Named "Lapurdum", the name became the name of the province of "Labourd". According to Eugene Goyheneche, the name "Baiona" designated the city, the port, and the cathedral while that of "Lapurdum" was only a territorial designation. This Roman settlement was strategic as it allowed the monitoring of the trans-Pyrenean roads and of local people rebellious to the Roman power. The construction covered 6 to 10 hectares according to several authors.
Middle Ages.
The geographical location of the locality at the crossroads of a river system oriented from east to west and the road network connecting Europe to the Iberian Peninsula from north to south, predisposed the site to the double role of fortress and port. The city, after being Roman, alternated between the Vascones and the English for three centuries from the 12th to the 15th century.
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The Romans left the city in the 4th century and the Basques, who had always been present, dominated the former Novempopulania province between the Garonne, the Ocean, and the Pyrénées. Novempopulania was renamed Vasconia and then Gascony after a Germanic deformation (resulting from the Visigoth and Frankish invasions). Basquisation of the plains region was too weak against the advance of romanization. From the mixture between the Basque and Latin language Gascon was created.
Documentation on Bayonne for the period from the High Middle Ages are virtually nonexistent, with the exception of two Norman intrusions: one questionable in 844 and a second attested in 892.
When Labourd was created in 1023, Bayonne was the capital and the Viscount resided there. The history of Bayonne proper started in 1056 when Raymond II the Younger, Bishop of Bazas, had the mission to build the Church of Bayonne
The construction was under the authority of Raymond III of Martres, Bishop of Bayonne from 1122 to 1125, combined with Viscount Bertrand for the Romanesque cathedral, the rear of which can still be seen today, and the first wooden bridge across the Adour extending the Mayou bridge over the Nive, which inaugurated the heyday of Bayonne. From 1120, new districts were created under population pressure. The development of areas between the old Roman city of Grand Bayonne and the Nive also developed during this period, then between the Nive and the Adour at the place that became Petit Bayonne. A Dominican Order Convent was located there in 1225 then that of the Cordeliers in 1247. Construction of and modifications to the defences of the city also developed to protect the new districts.
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In 1130, the King of Aragon Alfonso the Battler besieged the city without success. Bayonne became an Angevin possession when Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry Plantagenet, the future king of England, in 1152. This alliance gave Bayonne many commercial privileges. The Bayonnaises became carriers of Bordeaux wines and other south-western products like resin, ham, and woad to England. Bayonne was then an important military base. In 1177, King Richard separated the Viscounty of Labourd whose capital then became Ustaritz. Like many cities at the time, in 1215 Bayonne obtained the award of a municipal charter and was emancipated from feudal powers.
The official publication, in 1273, of a Coutume unique to the city, remained in force for five centuries until the separation of Bayonne from Labourd.
Bayonnaise industry at that time was dominated by shipbuilding: wood (oak, beech, chestnut from the Pyrenees, and pine from Landes) being overabundant. There was also maritime activity in providing crews for whaling, commercial marine or, and it was often so at a time when it was easy to turn any merchant ship into a warship, the English Royal Navy.
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Renaissance and modern times.
Jean de Dunois – a former companion at arms of Joan of Arc—captured the city on 20 August 1451 and annexed it to the Crown "without making too many victims", but at the cost of a war indemnity of 40,000 gold Écus payable in a year,—thanks to the opportunism of the bishop who claimed to have seen "a large white cross surmounted by a crown which turns into a fleur-de-lis in the sky" to dissuade Bayonne from fighting against the royal troops.
The city continued to be fortified by the kings of France to protect it from danger from the Spanish border. In 1454, Charles VII created a separate judicial district: the "Seneschal of Lannes" a "single subdivision of Guyenne during the English period" which had jurisdiction over a wide area including Bayonne, Dax and Saint-Sever and which exercised civil justice, criminal jurisdiction within the competence of the district councilors. Over time, the "Seneschal of the Sword", which was at Dax, lost any role other than protocol, and Bayonne, along with Dax and Saint-Sever, became the de facto seat of a separate Seneschal under the authority of a "lieutenant-general of the Seneschal".
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In May 1462, King Louis XI authorized the holding of two annual fairs by letters patent after signing the Treaty of Bayonne after which it was confirmed by the coutoumes of the inhabitants in July 1472 following the death of Charles de Valois, Duke de Berry, the king's brother.
At the time the Spanish Inquisition raged in the Iberian Peninsula, Spanish and Portuguese Jews fled Spain and also later, Portugal, then settled in Southern France, including in Saint-Esprit (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), a northern district of Bayonne located along the northern bank of the Adour river. They brought with them chocolate and the recipe for its preparation. In 1750, the Jewish population in Saint-Esprit (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) is estimated to have reached about 3,500 people.
The golden age of the city ended in the 15th century with the loss of trade with England and the silting of the port of Bayonne created by the movement of the course of the Adour to the north.
At the beginning of the 16th century Labourd suffered the emergence of the plague. Its path can be tracked by reading the "Registers". In July 1515, the city of Bayonne was "prohibited to welcome people from plague-stricken places" and on 21 October, "we inhibit and prohibit all peasants and residents of this city [...] to go Parish Bidart [...] because of the contagion of the plague". On 11 April 1518, the plague raged in Saint-Jean-de-Luz and the city of Bayonne "inhibited and prohibited for all peasants and city inhabitants and other foreigners to maintain relationships at the location and Parish of Saint-Jean-de-Luz where people have died of the plague". On 11 November 1518, the plague was present in Bayonne to the point that in 1519 the city council moved to the district of Brindos (Berindos at the time) in Anglet.
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In 1523, Marshal Odet of Foix, Viscount of Lautrec resisted the Spaniards under Philibert of Chalon in the service of Charles V and lifted the siege of Bayonne. It was at Château-Vieux that the ransom demand for the release of Francis I, taken prisoner after his defeat at the Battle of Pavia, was gathered.
The meeting in 1565 between Catherine de Medici and the envoy of Philip II: the Duke of Alba, is known as the "Interview of Bayonne". At the time that Catholics and Protestants tore each other apart in parts of the kingdom of France, Bayonne seemed relatively untouched by these troubles. An iron fist from the city leaders did not appear to be unknown. In fact, they never hesitated to use violence and criminal sanctions for keeping order in the name of the "public good". Two brothers, Saubat and Johannes Sorhaindo who were both lieutenants of the mayor of Bayonne in the second half of the 16th century, perfectly embody this period. They often wavered between Catholicism and Protestantism but always wanted to ensure the unity and prestige of the city.
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In the 16th century, the king's engineers, under the direction of Louis de Foix, were dispatched to rearrange the course of the Adour by creating an estuary to maintain the river bed. The river discharged in the right place to the Ocean on 28 October 1578. The port of Bayonne then attained a greater level of activity. Fishing for cod and whale ensured the wealth of fishermen and shipowners.
From 1611 to 1612, the college Principal of Bayonne was a man of 26 years old with a future: Cornelius Jansen known as "Jansénius", the future Bishop of Ypres. Bayonne became the birthplace of Jansenism, an austere science which strongly disrupted the monarchy of Louis XIV.
During the sporadic conflicts that troubled the French countryside from the mid 17th century, Bayonne peasants were short of powder and projectiles. They attached the long hunting knives in the barrels of their muskets and that way they fashioned makeshift spears later called "bayonets". In that same century, Vauban was charged by Louis XIV to fortify the city. He added a citadel built on a hill overlooking the district of "San Espirit Cap deou do Punt".
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French Revolution and Empire.
Activity in Bayonne peaked in the 18th century. The Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1726. Trade with Spain, the Netherlands, the Antilles, the cod fishery off the shores of Newfoundland, and construction sites maintained a high level of activity in the port.
In 1792, the district of Saint-Esprit (that revolutionaries renamed "Port-de-la-Montagne") located on the right bank of the Adour, was separated from the city and renamed "Jean-Jacques Rousseau". It was reunited with Bayonne on 1 June 1857. For 65 years, the autonomous commune was part of the department of Landes.
In 1808, at the Château of Marracq, the act of abdication of the Spanish king Charles IV in favour of Napoleon was signed under the "friendly pressure" of the Emperor. In the process, the Bayonne Statute was initialed as the first Spanish constitution.
Also in 1808, the French Empire imposed on the Duchy of Warsaw the Convention of Bayonne to buy from France the debts owed to it by Prussia. The debt, amounting to more than 43 million francs in gold, was bought at a discounted rate of 21 million francs. However, although the duchy made its payments in installments to France over a four-year period, Prussia was unable to pay it (due to a very large indemnity it owed to France resulting from the Treaties of Tilsit), causing the Polish economy to suffer heavily.
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Trade was the wealth of the city in the 18th century but suffered greatly in the 19th century, severely sanctioned by conflict with Spain, its historic trading partner in the region. The Siege of Bayonne marked the end of the period with the surrender of the Napoleonic troops of Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult who were defeated by the coalition led by Wellington on 5 May 1814.
19th and 20th centuries.
In 1854, the railway arrived from Paris bringing many tourists eager to enjoy the beaches of Biarritz. Bayonne turned instead to the steel industry with the forges of the Adour. The Port took on an industrial look but its slow decline seemed inexorable in the 19th century. The discovery of the Lacq gas field restored a certain dynamism.
The Treaty of Bayonne was concluded on 2 December 1856. It overcame the disputes in fixing the Franco-Spanish border in the area extending from the mouth of the Bidassoa to the border between Navarre and Aragon.The city built three light railway lines to connect to Biarritz at the beginning of the 20th century. The most direct line, that of the "Tramway Bayonne-Lycée–Biarritz" was operated from 1888 to 1948. In addition, a line further north served Anglet, operated by the "Chemin de fer Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz" company from 1877 to 1953. Finally, a line following the Adour to its mouth and to the Atlantic Ocean by the bar in Anglet, was operated by "VFDM réseau basque" from 1919 to 1948.
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On the morning of 23 December 1933, sub-prefect Anthelme received Gustave Tissier, the director of the "Crédit Municipal de Bayonne". He responded well, with some astonishment, to his persistent interview. It did not surprise him to see the man unpacking what became the scam of the century.
"Tissier, director of the "Crédit Municipal", was arrested and imprisoned under suspicion of forgery and misappropriation of public funds. He had issued thousands of false bonds in the name of "Crédit Municipal" [...]"
This was the beginning of the Stavisky Affair which, together with other scandals and political crises, led to the Paris riots of 6 February 1934.
The World Wars.
The 249th Infantry Regiment, created from the 49th Infantry Regiment, was engaged in operations in the First World War, including action at Chemin des Dames, especially on the plateau of Craonne. 700 Bayonnaises perished in the conflict. A centre for engagement of foreign volunteers was established in August 1914, in Bayonne. Many nationalities were represented, particularly the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Czechs, and the Poles.
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During the Second World War, Bayonne was occupied by the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf from 27 June 1940 to 23 August 1944.
On 5 April 1942, the Allies made a landing attempt in Bayonne but after a barge penetrated the Adour with great difficulty, the operation was cancelled.
On 21 August 1944, after blowing up twenty ships in port, German troops withdrew. On the 22nd, a final convoy of five vehicles passed through the city. It transported Gestapo Customs agents and some elements of the "Feldgendarmerie". One or more Germans opened fire with machine guns killing three people. On the 23rd, there was an informal and immediate installation of a "special municipal delegation" by the young deputy prefect Guy Lamassoure representing the Provisional Government of the French Republic which had been established in Algiers since 27 June.
Policy and administration.
List of mayors under the Ancient Régime.
The Gramont family provided captains and governors in Bayonne from 1472 to 1789 as well as mayors, a post which became hereditary from 28 January 1590 by concession of Henry IV to Antoine II of Gramont. From the 15th century, they resided in the Château Neuf then in the Château-Vieux from the end of the 16th century:
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Modern times.
List of Successive Mayors
Cantons of Bayonne.
As per the Decree of 22 December 1789, Bayonne was part of two cantons: Bayonne-North-east, which includes part of Bayonne commune plus Boucau, Saint-Pierre-d'Irube, Lahonce, Mouguerre, and Urcuit; and Bayonne Northwest which consisted of the rest of Bayonne commune plus Anglet, Arcangues, and Bassussarry.
In a first revision of cantons in 1973, three cantons were created from the same total; geographic area: Bayonne North, Bayonne East, and Bayonne West. A further reconfiguration, in 1982, focused primarily on Bayonne and, apart from Bayonne North Canton, which also includes Boucau, the cantons of Bayonne East and Bayonne West did not change.
Starting from the 2015 French departmental elections which took place on 22 and 29 March, a new division took effect following the decree of 25 February 2014 Once again three cantons centred on Bayonne are defined: Bayonne-1—with part of Anglet; Bayonne-2—which includes Boucau; and Bayonne-3 now define the cantonal territorial division of the area.
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Judicial and administrative proceedings.
Bayonne is the seat of many courts for the region. It falls under the jurisdiction of the "Tribunal d'instance" (District court) of Bayonne, the "Tribunal de grande instance" (High Court) of Bayonne, the "Cour d'appel" (Court of Appeal) of Pau, the "Tribunal pour enfants" (Juvenile court) of Bayonne, the "Conseil de prud'hommes" (Labour Court) of Bayonne, the "Tribunal de commerce" (Commercial Court) of Bayonne, the "Tribunal administratif" (Administrative tribunal) of Pau, and the "Cour administrative d'appel" (Administrative Court of Appeal) of Bordeaux.
The commune has a police station, a Departmental Gendarmerie, an Autonomous Territorial Brigade of the district Gendarmerie, squadron 24/2 of Mobile Gendarmerie and a Tax collection office.
Intercommunality.
The commune is part of twelve inter-communal structures of which eleven are based in the commune:
The city of Bayonne is part of the "Communauté d'agglomération du Pays Basque" which also includes Anglet, Biarritz, Bidart, Boucau, Hendaye and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The statutory powers of the structure extend to economic development—including higher education and research—housing and urban planning, public transport—through Transdev—alternative and the collection and recovery waste collection and management of rain and coastal waters, the sustainable development, interregional cooperation and finally 106.
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In addition, Bayonne is part of the Basque Bayonne-San Sebastián Eurocity which is a European economic interest grouping (EEIG) established in 1993 based in San Sebastián.
Twin towns – Sister cities.
Bayonne has twinning associations with:
Geography.
Bayonne is located in the south-west of France on the western border between Basque Country and Gascony. It developed at the confluence of the Adour and tributary on the left bank, the Nive, 6 km from the Atlantic coast. The commune was part of the Basque province of Labourd.
Geology and relief.
Bayonne occupies a territory characterized by a flat relief to the west and to the north towards the Landes forest, tending to slightly raise towards the south and east. The city has developed at the confluence of the Adour and Nive from the ocean. The meeting point of the two rivers coincides with a narrowing of the Adour valley. Above this, the alluvial plain extends for nearly towards both Tercis-les-Bains and Peyrehorade, and is characterized by swampy meadows called "barthes". These are influenced by floods and high tides. Downstream from this point, the river has shaped a large, wide bed in the sand dunes, creating a significant bottleneck at the confluence.
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The occupation of the hill that dominates this narrowing of the valley developed through a gradual spread across the lowlands. Occupants built embankments and the aggradation from flood soil.
The Nive has played a leading role in the development of the Bayonne river system in recent geological time by the formation of alluvial terraces; these form the sub-soil of Bayonne beneath the surface accumulations of silt and aeolian sands. The drainage network of the western Pre-Pyrenees evolved mostly from the Quaternary, from south-east to northwest, oriented east–west. The Adour was captured by the gaves and this system, together with the Nive, led to the emergence of a new alignment of the lower Adour and the Adour-Nive confluence. This capture has been dated to the early Quaternary (80,000 years ago).
Before this capture, the Nive had deposited pebbles from the Mindel glaciation of medium to large sizes; this slowed erosion of the hills causing the bottleneck at Bayonne. After the deposit of the lowest alluvial terrace ( high at Grand Bayonne), the course of the Adour became fixed in its lower reaches.
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Subsequent to these deposits, there was a rise in sea level in the Holocene period (from 15,000 to 5000 years ago). This explains the invasion of the lower valleys with fine sand, peat, and mud with a thickness of more than below the current bed of the Adour and the Nive in Bayonne. These same deposits are spread across the barthes.
In the late Quaternary, the current topographic physiognomy was formed—i.e. a set of hills overlooking a swampy lowland. The promontory of Bassussarry–Marracq ultimately extended to the Labourdin foothills. The Grand Bayonne hill is an example. Similarly, on the right bank of the Nive, the heights of Château-Neuf (Mocoron Hill) met the latest advance of the plateau of Saint-Pierre-d'Irube (height ). On the right bank of the Adour, the heights of Castelnau (today the citadel), with an altitude of , and Fort (today Saint-Esprit), with an altitude of , rise above the Barthes of the Adour, the Nive, Bourgneuf, Saint-Frédéric, Sainte-Croix, Aritxague, and Pontots.
The area of the commune is and its altitude varies between .
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Hydrography.
The city developed along the river Adour. The river is part of the Natura 2000 network from its source at Bagnères-de-Bigorre to its exit to the Atlantic Ocean after Bayonne, between Tarnos (Landes) for the right bank and Anglet (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) for the left bank.
Apart from the Nive, which joins the left bank of the Adour after of a sometimes tumultuous course, two tributaries join the Adour in Bayonne commune: the "Ruisseau de Portou" and the "Ruisseau du Moulin Esbouc". Tributaries of the Nive are the "Ruisseau de Hillans" and the "Ruisseau d'Urdaintz" which both rise in the commune.
Climate.
The nearest weather station is that of Biarritz-Anglet.
The climate of Bayonne is relatively similar to that of its neighbour Biarritz, described below, with fairly heavy rainfall; the oceanic climate is due to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The average winter temperature is around 8 °C, and around 20 °C in summer. The lowest temperature recorded was −12.7 °C on 16 January 1985 and the highest 40.6 °C on 4 August 2003 in the 2003 European heat wave. Rains on the Basque coast are rarely persistent except during winter storms. They often take the form of intense thunderstorms of short duration.
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Transport.
Road.
Bayonne is located at the intersection of the A63 autoroute (Bordeaux-Spain) and the D1 extension of the A64 autoroute (towards Toulouse). The city is served by three interchanges—two of them on the A63: exit (Bayonne Nord) serves the northern districts of Bayonne but also allows quick access to the centre while exit (Bayonne Sud) provides access to the south and also serves Anglet. The third exit is the D1 / A64 via the Mousserolles interchange (exit Bayonne Mousserolles) which links the district of the same name and also serves the neighbouring communes of Mouguerre and Saint-Pierre-d'Irube.
Bayonne was traversed by Route nationale 10 connecting Paris to Hendaye but this is now downgraded to a departmental road D810. Route nationale 117, linking Bayonne to Toulouse has been downgraded to departmental road D817.
Bridges.
There are several bridges over both the Nive and the Adour, linking the various districts.
Coming from upstream on the Adour, there is the A63 bridge, then the Saint-Frédéric bridge which carries the D 810, then the railway bridge that replaced the old Eiffel iron bridge, the Saint-Esprit bridge, and finally the Grenet bridge. The Saint-Esprit bridge connects the Saint-Esprit district to the Amiral-Bergeret dock just upstream of the confluence with the river Nive. In 1845, the old bridge, originally made of wood, was rebuilt in masonry with seven arches supporting a deck wide. It was then called the Nemours Bridge in honour of Louis of Orleans, sixth Duke of Nemours, who laid the first stone. The bridge was finally called Saint-Esprit. Until 1868, the bridge had a moving span near the left bank. It was expanded in 1912 to facilitate the movement of horse-drawn carriages and motor vehicles.
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On the Nive coming from upstream to downstream, there is the A63 bridge then the "Pont Blanc" (White bridge) railway bridge, and then D810 bridge, the Génie bridge (or "Pont Millitaire"), the Pannecau bridge, the Marengo bridge leading to the covered markets, and the Mayou Bridge. The Pannecau bridge was long named "Bertaco bridge" and was rebuilt in masonry under Napoleon III. According to François Lafitte Houssat, "[...] a municipal ordinance of 1327 provided for the imprisonment of any quarrellsome woman of bad character in an iron cage dropped into the waters of the Nive River from the bridge. The practice lasted until 1780 [...]" This punishment bore the evocative name of "cubainhade".
Cycling network.
The commune is traversed by the "Vélodyssée". Bicycle paths are located along the left bank of the Adour, a large part of the left bank of the Nive, and along various axes of the city where there are some bicycle lanes. The city offers free bicycles on loan.
Public transport.
Urban network.
Most of the lines of the "Chronoplus" bus network operated by the "Transdev agglomeration of Bayonne" link Bayonne to other communes in the urban transport perimeter: Anglet, Biarritz, Bidart, Boucau, Saint-Pierre-d'Irube and Tarnos The Bayonne free shuttle Bayonne serves the city centre (Grand and Petit Bayonne) by connecting several parking stations; other free shuttles perform other short trips within the commune.
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Interurban networks.
Bayonne is connected to many cities in the western half of the department such as Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Saint-Palais by the Pyrenees-Atlantiques long-distance coach network of "Transport 64" managed by the General Council. Since the network restructuring in the summer of 2013, the lines converge on Bayonne. Bayonne is also served by services from the Landes departmental network, "XL'R".
Rail transport.
The Gare de Bayonne is located in the Saint-Esprit district and is an important station on the Bordeaux-Irun railway. It is also the terminus of lines leading from Toulouse to Bayonne and from Bayonne to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. It is served by TGV, Intercités, Intercités de nuit, and TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine trains (to Hendaye, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, Dax, Bordeaux, Pau, and Tarbes).
Air transport.
Bayonne is served by the Biarritz – Anglet – Bayonne Airport (IATA code: BIQ • ICAO code: LFBZ), located on the communal territories of Anglet and Biarritz. The airport was returned to service in 1954 after repair of damage from bombing during the Second World War.
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Demographics.
In 2017, the commune had 51,228 inhabitants.
Education.
Bayonne commune is attached to the Academy of Bordeaux. It has an information and guidance center (CIO).
As of 14 December 2015, Bayonne had 10 kindergartens, 22 elementary or primary schools (12 public and 10 private primary schools including two ikastolas). 2 public colleges (Albert Camus and Marracq colleges), 5 private colleges (La Salle Saint-Bernard, Saint Joseph, Saint-Amand, Notre-Dame and Largenté) which meet the criteria of the first cycle of second degree studies. For the second cycle,Bayonne has 3 public high schools (René-Cassin school (general education), the Louis de Foix school (general, technological and vocational education), and the Paul Bert vocational school), 4 private high schools (Saint-Louis Villa Pia (general education), Largenté, Bernat Etxepare (general and technological), and Le Guichot vocational school).
There are also the Maurice Ravel Conservatory of Music, Dance, and Dramatic Art and the art school of the urban community of Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz.
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Culture.
Cultural festivities and events.
For 550 years, every holy Thursday, Friday and Saturday the "Foire au Jambon" (Ham festival) is held to mark the beginning of the season.
An annual summer festival has been held in the commune since 1932 for five days, organized around parades, bulls races, fireworks, and music in the Basque and Gascon tradition. These festivals have become the most important festive events in France in terms of attendance.
Bayonne has the oldest French bullfighting tradition. A bylaw regulating the "encierro" is dated 1283: cows, oxen and bulls are released each year in the streets of Petit Bayonne during the summer festivals. The current arena, opened in 1893, is the largest in South-west France with more than 10,000 seats. A dozen bullfights are held each year, attracting the biggest names in bullfighting. Throughout summer several "novilladas" also take place. The city is a member of the "Union of French bullfighting cities".
Health.
Bayonne is the focus of much of the hospital services for the agglomeration of Bayonne and the southern Landes. In this area, all inhabitants are less than 35 km from a hospital offering medical, obstetrical, surgical, or psychiatric care. The hospitals for all the Basque Coast are mainly established in Bayonne (the main site of Saint-Léon and Cam-de-Prats) and also in Saint-Jean-de-Luz which has several clinics.
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Religion.
Christian worship.
Bayonne is in the Diocese of Bayonne, Lescar and Oloron, with a suffragan bishop since 2002 under the Archdiocese of Bordeaux. Monseigneur Marc Aillet has been the bishop of this diocese since 15 October 2008. The diocese is located in Bayonne in the Place Monseigneur-Vansteenberghe.
Besides Bayonne Cathedral in Grand Bayonne, Bayonne has Saint-Esprit, Saint Andrew (Rue des Lisses), Arènes (Avenue of the Czech Legion), Saint-Étienne, and Saint-Amand (Avenue Marechal Soult) churches.
The "Carmel of Bayonne", located in the Marracq district, has had a community of Carmelite nuns since 1858.
The "Way of Baztan" (also "ruta del Baztan" or "camino Baztanés") is a way on the pilgrimage of Camino de Santiago which crosses the Pyrenees further west by the lowest pass (by the "Col de Belate", 847 m). It is the ancient road used by pilgrims descending to Bayonne then either along the coast on the "Way of Soulac" or because they landed there from England, for example, to join the French Way as soon as possible in Pamplona. The "Way of Bayonne" joins the French Way further downstream at Burgos.
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The Protestant church is located at the corner of Rue Albert-I st and Rue du Temple. A gospel church is located in the Saint-Esprit district where there is also a church belonging to the Gypsy Evangelical Church of the Protestant Federation of France.
Jewish worship.
The synagogue was built in 1837 in the Saint-Esprit district north of the town. The Jewish community of Bayonne is old—it consists of different groups of fugitives from Navarre and Portugal who established at Saint-Esprit-lès-Bayonne after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1496. In 1846, the Central Consistory moved to Saint-Esprit which was integrated with Bayonne in 1857.
The Jewish Cemetery of Bayonne was established in 1689 in the Saint-Étienne neighborhood in the northern quarter of the city. It was remodeled and enlarged in the 18th and 19th century and covers and area of two hectares.
Economy.
Population and income tax.
In 2011, the median household income tax was €22,605, placing Bayonne 28,406th place among the 31,886 communes with more than 49 households in metropolitan France.
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In 2011, 47.8% of households were not taxable.
Employment.
In 2011, the population aged from 15 to 64 years was 29,007 persons of which 70.8% were employable, 60.3% in employment and 10.5% unemployed. While there were 30,012 jobs in the employment area, against 29,220 in 2006, and the number of employed workers residing in the employment area was 17,667, the indicator of job concentration is 169.9% which means that the employment area offers nearly two jobs for every available worker.
Businesses and shops.
Bayonne is the economic capital of the agglomeration of Bayonne and southern Landes. The table below details the number of companies located in Bayonne according to their industry:
The table below shows employees by business establishments in terms of numbers:
The following comments apply to the two previous tables:
In 2013, 549 new establishments were created in Bayonne including 406 sole proprietorships.
Workshops and Industry.
Bayonne has few of such industries, as indicated in the previous tables. There is "Plastitube" specializing in plastic packaging (190 employees). The Izarra liqueur company set up a distillery in 1912 at Quai Amiral-Bergeret and has long symbolized the economic wealth of Bayonne. Industrial activities are concentrated in the neighbouring communes of Boucau, Tarnos (Turbomeca), Mouguerre, and Anglet.
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Bayonne is known for its fine chocolates, produced in the town for 500 years, and Bayonne ham, a cured ham seasoned with peppers from nearby Espelette. Izarra, the liqueur made in bright green or yellow colours, is distilled locally. It is said by some that Bayonne is the birthplace of mayonnaise, supposedly a corruption of "Bayonnaise", the French adjective describing the city's people and produce. Now bayonnaise can refer to a particular mayonnaise flavoured with the Espelette chillis.
Bayonne is now the centre of certain craft industries that were once widespread, including the manufacture of "makilas", traditional Basque walking-sticks. The Fabrique Alza just outside the city is known for its "palas", bats used in "pelota", the traditional Basque sport.
Service activities.
The active tertiary sector includes some large retail chains such as those detailed by geographer Roger Brunet: BUT (240 staff), Carrefour (150 staff), E.Leclerc (150 staff), Leroy Merlin (130 staff), and Galeries Lafayette (120 employees). Banks, cleaning companies (Onet, 170 employees), and security (Brink's, 100 employees) are also major employers in the commune, as is urban transport which employs nearly 200 staff. Five health clinics, providing a total of more than 500 beds, each employ 120 to 170 staff.
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The port of Bayonne.
The port of Bayonne is located at the mouth of the Adour, downstream of the city. It also occupies part of communes of Anglet and Boucau in Pyrenees-Atlantiques and Tarnos in Landes. It benefits greatly from the natural gas field of Lacq to which it is connected by pipeline. This is the ninth largest French port for trade with an annual traffic of about 4.2 million tonnes of which 2.8 is export. It is also the largest French port for export of maize. It is the property of the Aquitaine region who manage and control the site. Metallurgical products movement are more than one million tons per year and maize exports to Spain vary between 800,000 and 1 million tons. The port also receives refined oil products from the TotalEnergies oil refinery at Donges (800,000 tons per year). Fertilizers are a traffic of 500,000 tons per year and sulphur from Lacq, albeit in sharp decline, is 400,000 tons.
The port also receives Ford and General Motors vehicles from Spain and Portugal and wood both tropical and from Landes.
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Tourism services.
Due to its proximity to the ocean and the foothills of the Pyrenees as well as its historic heritage, Bayonne has developed important activities related to tourism.
On 31 December 2012, there were 15 hotels in the city offering more than 800 rooms to visitors, but there were no camp sites. The tourist infrastructure in the surrounding urban area of Bayonne complements the local supply with around 5800 rooms spread over nearly 200 hotels and 86 campsites offering over 14,000 beds.
The Information site of the Bayonne Tourist Office, VisitBayonne.com is featured
on the Global Visit List
Sights.
The Nive divides Bayonne into Grand Bayonne and Petit Bayonne with five bridges between the two, both quarters still being backed by Vauban's walls. The houses lining the Nive are examples of Basque architecture, with half-timbering and shutters in the national colours of red and green. The much wider Adour is to the north. The Pont Saint-Esprit connects Petit Bayonne with the Quartier Saint-Esprit across the Adour, where the massive Citadelle and the railway station are located. Grand Bayonne is the commercial and civic hub, with small pedestrianised streets packed with shops, plus the cathedral and the Hôtel de Ville.
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The Cathédrale Sainte-Marie is a Gothic-style building constructed between the 13th and 15th centuries. The tower spires were not added until the 19th century, during a substantial restoration project. The cathedral houses the shrine of Saint-Léon de Carentan, 9th-century Bishop of Bayonne, and is a recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Nearby is the Château Vieux, some of which dates back to the 12th century, where the governors of the city were based, including the English Black Prince.
The Musée Basque is an ethnographic museum of the entire Basque Country. Opened in February 1924, the museum has special exhibitions on Basque agriculture and history, seafaring, "pelota", and handicrafts.
The Musée Bonnat began with a large collection bequeathed by the local-born painter Léon Bonnat. The museum is one of the best galleries in south west France and has paintings by Edgar Degas, El Greco, Sandro Botticelli, and Francisco Goya, among others.
At the back of Petit Bayonne is the Château Neuf, among the ramparts. Now an exhibition space, it was started by the newly arrived French in 1460 to control the city. The walls nearby have been opened to visitors. They are important for plant life now and Bayonne's botanic gardens adjoin the walls on both sides of the Nive.
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The area across the Adour is largely residential and industrial, with much demolished to make way for the railway. The Saint-Esprit church was part of a bigger complex built by Louis XI to care for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. It is home to a wooden "Flight into Egypt" sculpture.
Overlooking the quarter is Vauban's 1680 Citadelle. The soldiers of Wellington's army who died besieging the citadelle in 1813 are buried in the nearby English Cemetery, visited by Queen Victoria and other British dignitaries when staying in Biarritz.
The distillery of the famous local liqueur Izarra is located on the northern bank of the Adour and is open to visitors. |
Bubblegum Crisis
is a 1987 to 1991 cyberpunk original video animation (OVA) series produced by Youmex and animated by AIC and Artmic.
The series involves the adventures of the Knight Sabers, an all-female group of mercenaries who don powered exoskeletons and fight numerous problems, most frequently rogue robots. The success of the series spawned several sequel series.
Plot.
The series begins in late 2032, seven years after the Second Great Kanto earthquake has split Tokyo geographically and culturally in two and it also forced the United States of America to annex Japan in the legitimate name of keeping the peace and from it descending into anarchy. During the first episode, disparities in wealth are shown to be more pronounced than in previous periods in post-war Japan. The main adversary is Genom, a megacorporation with immense power and global influence. Its main product are boomers—artificial cybernetic life forms that are usually in the form of humans, with most of their bodies being machine; also known as "cyberoids". While Boomers are intended to serve mankind, they become deadly instruments in the hands of ruthless individuals. The AD Police (Advanced Police) are tasked to deal with Boomer-related crimes. One of the series' themes is the inability of the department to deal with threats due to political infighting, red tape, and an insufficient budget.
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Setting.
The setting displays strong influences from the movies "Blade Runner" and "Streets of Fire". The opening sequence of episode 1 is even modeled on that of the latter film. The humanoid robots known as "boomers" in the series were inspired by several movies, including Replicants from the aforementioned "Blade Runner", the titular cyborgs of the "Terminator" film franchise, and the Beast from the film "Krull".
Suzuki explained in a 1993 "Animerica" interview the meaning behind the cryptic title: "We originally named the series 'bubblegum' to reflect a world in crisis, like a chewing-gum bubble that's about to burst."
Production.
The series started with Toshimichi Suzuki's intention to remake the 1982 film "Techno Police 21C". In 1985, he met Junji Fujita and the two discussed ideas, and decided to collaborate on what later became "Bubblegum Crisis". Kenichi Sonoda acted as character designer, and designed the four female leads. Masami Ōbari created the mechanical designs. Obari would also go on to direct episodes 5 and 6. Satoshi Urushihara acted as the chief production supervisor and guest character designer for Episode 7.
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The OVA series is eight episodes long, made as eight separate works, with lengths varying from 26 to 52 minutes.
A common misunderstanding that has developed, dating back as far as at least the mid-2000s, is that the series was planned and written to be 13 episodes, and that either legal or financial issues resulted in the series having only eight episodes. The prevalence of this belief has resulted in it appearing in discussions of the series, even in Anime News Network articles and encyclopedia, and an "Otaku USA" feature from 2011.
However, commentaries and interviews with production staff contradict this. Production designer Hideki Kakinuma said in commentary notes that appeared with the 2018 Animeigo release of the OVA series, "At the time there was no plan to make it into a series, each film was going to be made one at a time." Katsuhito Akiyama, director of OVA parts 1, 2, and 3 echoed this in a November 1997 interview, recalling challenges in directing the OVA parts and creating a narrative due to a lack of long-term plan, "...it was not easy to keep on producing episodes without knowing a clear plan of how many total they want us to make." Further the staff don't discuss or mention the existence of these issues hampering the project in these interviews and commentaries, which included directors, voice actresses, character designers, even AIC president Tōru Miura. Akiyama recalled the experience of working on the production as "fun".
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Cast.
Additional voices.
English: Amanda Tancredi, Chuck Denson Jr., Chuck Kinlaw, David Kraus, Eliot Preschutti, Gray Sibley, Hadley Eure, Hank Troscianiec, J. Patrick Lawlor, Jack Bowden, Jay Bryson, Kevin Reilly, Marc Garber, Marc Matney, Michael Sinterniklaas, Scott Simpson, Sean Clay, Sophia Tolar, Steve Lalla, Steve Rassin, Steve Vernon, Zach Hanner
Release.
In North America, AnimEigo first released "Bubblegum Crisis" to VHS and Laserdisc in 1991 in Japanese with English subtitles. The series is notable in that it was one of the few early anime series that were brought over from Japan unedited and subtitled in English. While anime has become much more popular in the years since, in 1991, it was still mostly unknown as a storytelling medium in North America. "Bubblegum Crisis" was aired in the US when it first aired on PBS affiliate Superstation KTEH in the 1990s, and STARZ!'s Action Channel in 2000.
An English dub of the series was produced beginning in 1994 by AnimEigo through Southwynde Studios in Wilmington, NC, and released to VHS and Laserdisc beginning that year. A digitally-remastered compilation, featuring bilingual audio tracks and production extras, was released on DVD in 2004 by AnimEigo. The company later successfully crowdfunded a collector's edition Blu-ray release through Kickstarter in November 2013. The series was released on a regular edition Blu-ray on September 25, 2018. The series is currently available for streaming on Night Flight Plus.
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Soundtracks.
There are eight soundtrack releases (one per OVA), as well as numerous "vocal" albums which feature songs "inspired by" the series as well as many drawn directly from it.
Reception.
Critical reception of "Bubblegum Crisis" has been generally positive. Raphael See of THEM Anime Reviews gave the series a rating of 4 out of 5 stars, praising the quality of the animation, the soundtrack, and the series' sense of humor. However, he suggested it was held back by a low quality dub, a lack of character development, and an inconsistent plot, saying that while some episodes were "really solid", others would leave out many major details, forcing the viewer to make their own assumptions: "Overall, not a bad watch. In fact, at times, "Bubblegum Crisis" can be really good. Unfortunately, oversights and carelessness here and there keep this series from being all it can be."
Tim Henderson of Anime News Network gave the series an A− rating, praising the animation, soundtrack, story, and characters. He states that the series gets better with every passing episode, and that the final two episodes are the best of the series.
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Legacy.
Masaki Kajishima and Hiroki Hayashi, who both worked on the "Bubblegum Crisis" OVAs, cite the show as being the inspiration for their harem series "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki". In an interview with AIC, Hayashi described "Bubblegum Crisis" as "a pretty gloomy anime. Serious fighting, complicated human relationships, and dark Mega Tokyo." They thought it would be fun to create some comedy episodes with ideas like the girls going to the hot springs, but it was rejected by the sponsors. He also said that there was a trend to have a bunch of characters of one gender and a single one of the other gender, and asked what if Mackey (Sylia's brother) was a main character, reversing the "Bubblegum" scenario. This idea then became the basis for Tenchi. Hayashi said that Mackey is "sort of" the original model for Tenchi.
Kevin Siembieda's becoming aware of "Boomers" being already in use in this caused him to change his planned name for the "Rifts" RPG which he had named after the "Boom Gun"–wielding power armor which was also renamed to "Glitter Boy".
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Other entries.
Crossover appearances.
In 1993, it appeared on "Scramble Wars", a crossover event between "Bubblegum Crisis", "Gall Force", "Genesis Survivor Gaiarth", "AD Police" and "Riding Bean". In 2023, the theme song "Konya Wa Hurricane" appeared in the series "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off".
Other media.
Novels.
The series' creator Toshimichi Suzuki wrote two novels:
Comic book.
In Japan, a number of comic books were produced that featured characters and storylines based in the same universe. Some were very much thematically linked to the OVA series, while others were "one-shots" or comedy features. A number of artists participated in the creation of these comics, including Kenichi Sonoda, who had produced the original Knight Saber character designs. A North American comic based in the "Bubblegum Crisis" universe was published in English by Dark Horse Comics.
Live-action movie.
In May 2009 it was announced that a live-action movie of "Bubblegum Crisis" was in the early stages of production. A production agreement was signed at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film was expected to be released in late 2012 with a budget of 30 million. The production staff was said to have consulted with the original anime's staff members, Shinji Aramaki and Kenichi Sonoda, to help maintain consistency with the world of the original. However, no further developments have been announced. |
Black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term "black" as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "Black race" as socially constructed. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified "black", and these social constructs have changed over time. In a number of countries, societal variables affect classification as much as skin color, and the social criteria for "blackness" vary. Some perceive the term 'black' as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result neither use nor define it, especially in African countries with little to no history of colonial racial segregation.
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In the anglosphere the term can carry a variety of meanings depending on the country. In the United Kingdom, "black" was historically equivalent with "person of color", a general term for non-European peoples. While the term "person of color" is commonly used and accepted in the United States, the near-sounding term "colored person" is considered highly offensive, except in South Africa, where it is a descriptor for a person of mixed race. In other regions such as Australasia, settlers applied the adjective "black" to the indigenous population. It was universally regarded as highly offensive in Australia until the 1960s and 70s. "Black" was generally not used as a noun, but rather as an adjective qualifying some other descriptor (e.g. "black ****"). As desegregation progressed after the 1967 referendum, some Aboriginals adopted the term, following the American fashion, but it remains problematic.
Several American style guides, including the "AP Stylebook", changed their guides to capitalize the 'b' in 'black', following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, an African American. The "ASA Style Guide" says that the 'b' should not be capitalized.
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Africa.
Northern Africa.
Numerous communities of dark-skinned peoples are present in North Africa, some dating from prehistoric communities. Others descend from migrants via the historical trans-Saharan trade or, after the Arab invasions of North Africa in the 7th century, from slaves from the trans-Saharan slave trade in North Africa.
In the 18th century, the Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Warrior King" (1672–1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black soldiers, called his Black Guard.
According to Carlos Moore, resident scholar at Brazil's University of the State of Bahia, in the 21st century Afro-multiracials in the Arab world, including Arabs in North Africa, self-identify in ways that resemble multi-racials in Latin America. He claims that darker-toned Arabs, much like darker-toned Latin Americans, consider themselves white because they have some distant white ancestry.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had a mother who was a dark-skinned Nubian Sudanese (Sudanese Arab) woman and a father who was a lighter-skinned Egyptian. In response to an advertisement for an acting position, as a young man he said, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish".
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Due to the patriarchal nature of Arab society, Arab men, including during the slave trade in North Africa, enslaved more African women than men. The female slaves were often put to work in domestic service and agriculture. The men interpreted the Quran to permit sexual relations between a male master and his enslaved females outside of marriage (see Ma malakat aymanukum and sex), leading to many mixed-race children. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab master's child, she was considered as "umm walad" or "mother of a child", a status that granted her privileged rights. The child was given rights of inheritance to the father's property, so mixed-race children could share in any wealth of the father. Because the society was patrilineal, the children inherited their fathers' social status at birth and were born free.
Some mixed-race children succeeded their respective fathers as rulers, such as Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, who ruled Morocco from 1578 to 1608. He was not technically considered as a mixed-race child of a slave; his mother was Fulani and a concubine of his father.
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In early 1991, non-Arabs of the Zaghawa people of Sudan attested that they were victims of an intensifying Arab apartheid campaign, segregating Arabs and non-Arabs (specifically, people of Nilotic ancestry). Sudanese Arabs, who controlled the government, were widely referred to as practicing apartheid against Sudan's non-Arab citizens. The government was accused of "deftly manipulating Arab solidarity" to carry out policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Sudanese Arabs are also black people in that they are culturally and linguistically Arabized indigenous peoples of Sudan of mostly Nilo-Saharan, Nubian, and Cushitic ancestry; their skin tone and appearance resembles that of other black people.
American University economist George Ayittey accused the Arab government of Sudan of practicing acts of racism against black citizens. According to Ayittey, "In Sudan... the Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks – Arab apartheid." Many African commentators joined Ayittey in accusing Sudan of practicing Arab apartheid.
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Sahara.
In the Sahara, the native Tuareg Berber populations kept "negro" slaves. Most of these captives were of Nilo-Saharan extraction, and were either purchased by the Tuareg nobles from slave markets in the Western Sudan or taken during raids. Their origin is denoted via the Ahaggar Berber word "Ibenheren" (sing. "Ébenher"), which alludes to slaves that only spoke a Nilo-Saharan language. These slaves were also sometimes known by the borrowed Songhay term "Bella".
Similarly, the Sahrawi indigenous peoples of the Western Sahara observed a class system consisting of high castes and low castes. Outside of these traditional tribal boundaries were "Negro" slaves, who were drawn from the surrounding areas.
North-Eastern Africa.
In Ethiopia and Somalia, the slave classes mainly consisted of captured peoples from the Sudanese-Ethiopian and Kenyan-Somali international borders or other surrounding areas of Nilotic and Bantu peoples who were collectively known as "Shanqella" and "Adone" (both analogues to "negro" in an English-speaking context). Some of these slaves were captured during territorial conflicts in the Horn of Africa and then sold off to slave merchants. The earliest representation of this tradition dates from a seventh or eighth century BC inscription belonging to the Kingdom of Damat.
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These captives and others of analogous morphology were distinguished as "tsalim barya" (dark-skinned slave) in contrast with the Afroasiatic-speaking nobles or "saba qayh" ("red men") or light-skinned slave; while on the other hand, western racial category standards do not differentiate between "saba qayh" ("red men"—light-skinned) or "saba tiqur" ("black men"—dark-skinned) Horn Africans (of either Afroasiatic-speaking, Nilotic-speaking or Bantu origin) thus considering all of them as "black people" (and in some case "negro") according to Western society's notion of race.
Southern Africa.
In South Africa, the period of colonisation resulted in many unions and marriages between European and Africans (Bantu peoples of South Africa and Khoisans) from various tribes, resulting in mixed-race children. As the European colonialists acquired control of territory, they generally pushed the mixed-race and African populations into second-class status. During the first half of the 20th century, the white-dominated government classified the population according to four main racial groups: "Black", "White", "Asian" (mostly Indian), and "Coloured". The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European ancestry (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Coloured definition occupied an intermediary political position between the Black and White definitions in South Africa. It imposed a system of legal racial segregation, a complex of laws known as apartheid.
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The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria in the Population Registration Act of 1945 to determine who belonged in which group. Minor officials administered tests to enforce the classifications. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether the individual should be considered Coloured or Black, the "pencil test" was used. A pencil was inserted into a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough to hold the pencil, rather than having it pass through, as it would with smoother hair. If so, the person was classified as Black. Such classifications sometimes divided families.
Sandra Laing is a South African woman who was classified as Coloured by authorities during the apartheid era, due to her skin colour and hair texture, although her parents could prove at least three generations of European ancestors. At age 10, she was expelled from her all-white school. The officials' decisions based on her anomalous appearance disrupted her family and adult life. She was the subject of the 2008 biographical dramatic film "Skin", which won numerous awards. During the apartheid era, those classed as "Coloured" were oppressed and discriminated against. But, they had limited rights and overall had slightly better socioeconomic conditions than those classed as "Black". The government required that Blacks and Coloureds live in areas separate from Whites, creating large townships located away from the cities as areas for Blacks.
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In the post-apartheid era, the Constitution of South Africa has declared the country to be a "Non-racial democracy". In an effort to redress past injustices, the ANC government has introduced laws in support of affirmative action policies for Blacks; under these they define "Black" people to include "Africans", "Coloureds" and "Asians". Some affirmative action policies favor "Africans" over "Coloureds" in terms of qualifying for certain benefits. Some South Africans categorized as "African Black" say that "Coloureds" did not suffer as much as they did during apartheid. "Coloured" South Africans are known to discuss their dilemma by saying, "we were not white enough under apartheid, and we are not black enough under the ANC (African National Congress)".
In 2008, the High Court in South Africa ruled that Chinese South Africans who were residents during the apartheid era (and their descendants) are to be reclassified as "Black people", solely for the purposes of accessing affirmative action benefits, because they were also "disadvantaged" by racial discrimination. Chinese people who arrived in the country after the end of apartheid do not qualify for such benefits.
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Other than by appearance, "Coloureds" can usually be distinguished from "Blacks" by language. Most speak Afrikaans or English as a first language, as opposed to Bantu languages such as Zulu or Xhosa. They also tend to have more European-sounding names than Bantu names.
Asia.
Afro-Asians.
"Afro-Asians" or "African-Asians" are persons of mixed sub-Saharan African and Asian ancestry. In the United States, they are also called "black Asians" or "Blasians". Historically, Afro-Asian populations have been marginalized as a result of human migration and social conflict.
Western Asia.
Arab world.
In the medieval Arab world, the ethnic designation of "Black" encompassed not only Zanj, or Africans, but also communities like Zutt, Sindis and Indians from the Indian subcontinent. Historians estimate that between the advent of Islam in 650 CE and the abolition of slavery in the Arabian Peninsula in the mid-20th century, 10 to 18 million black Africans (known as the Zanj) were enslaved by east African slave traders and transported to the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. This number far exceeded the number of slaves who were taken to the Americas. Slavery in Saudi Arabia and slavery in Yemen was abolished in 1962, slavery in Dubai in 1963, and slavery in Oman in 1970.
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Several factors affected the visibility of descendants of this diaspora in 21st-century Arab societies: The traders shipped more female slaves than males, as there was a demand for them to serve as concubines in harems in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. Male slaves were castrated in order to serve as harem guards. The death toll of black African slaves from forced labor was high. The mixed-race children of female slaves and Arab owners were assimilated into the Arab owners' families under the patrilineal kinship system. As a result, few distinctive Afro-Arab communities have survived in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries.
Distinctive and self-identified black communities have been reported in countries such as Iraq, with a reported 1.2 million black people (Afro-Iraqis), and they attest to a history of discrimination. These descendants of the Zanj have sought minority status from the government, which would reserve some seats in Parliament for representatives of their population. According to Alamin M. Mazrui et al., generally in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries, most of these communities identify as both black and Arab.
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Iran.
Afro-Iranians are people of black African ancestry residing in Iran. During the Qajar dynasty, many wealthy households imported black African women and children as slaves to perform domestic work. This slave labor was drawn exclusively from the Zanj, who were Bantu-speaking peoples that lived along the African Great Lakes, in an area roughly comprising modern-day Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi.
Israel.
About 150,000 East African and black people live in Israel, amounting to just over 2% of the nation's population. The vast majority of these, some 120,000, are Beta Israel, most of whom are recent immigrants who came during the 1980s and 1990s from Ethiopia. In addition, Israel is home to more than 5,000 members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem movement that are ancestry of African Americans who emigrated to Israel in the 20th century, and who reside mainly in a distinct neighborhood in the Negev town of Dimona. Unknown numbers of black converts to Judaism reside in Israel, most of them converts from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
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Additionally, there are around 60,000 non-Jewish African immigrants in Israel, some of whom have sought asylum. Most of the migrants are from communities in Sudan and Eritrea, particularly the Niger-Congo-speaking Nuba groups of the southern Nuba Mountains; some are illegal immigrants.
Turkey.
Beginning several centuries ago, during the period of the Ottoman Empire, tens of thousands of Zanj captives were brought by slave traders to plantations and agricultural areas situated between Antalya and Istanbul, which gave rise to the Afro-Turk population in present-day Turkey. Some of their ancestry remained "in situ", and many migrated to larger cities and towns. Other black slaves were transported to Crete, from where they or their descendants later reached the İzmir area through the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, or indirectly from Ayvalık in pursuit of work.
Apart from the historical Afro-Turk presence Turkey also hosts a sizeable immigrant black population since the end of the 1990s. The community is composed mostly of modern immigrants from Ghana, Ethiopia, DRC, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia and Senegal. According to official figures 1.5 million Africans live in Turkey and around 25% of them are located in Istanbul. Other studies state the majority of Africans in Turkey lives in Istanbul and report Tarlabaşı, Dolapdere, Kumkapı, Yenikapı and Kurtuluş as having a strong African presence.
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Most of the African immigrants in Turkey come to Turkey to further migrate to Europe. Immigrants from Eastern Africa are usually refugees, meanwhile Western and Central African immigration is reported to be economically driven. It is reported that African immigrants in Turkey regularly face economic and social challenges, notably racism and opposition to immigration by locals.
Southern Asia.
The Siddi are an ethnic group inhabiting India and Pakistan. Members are descended from the Bantu peoples of Southeast Africa. Some were merchants, sailors, indentured servants, slaves or mercenaries. The Siddi population is currently estimated at 270,000–350,000 individuals, living mostly in Karnataka, Gujarat, and Hyderabad in India and Makran and Karachi in Pakistan. In the Makran strip of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces in southwestern Pakistan, these Bantu descendants are known as the Makrani. There was a brief "Black Power" movement in Sindh in the 1960s and many Siddi are proud of and celebrate their African ancestry.
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Southeastern Asia.
Negritos, are a collection of various, often unrelated peoples, who were once considered a single distinct population of closely related groups, but genetic studies showed that they descended from the same ancient East Eurasian meta-population which gave rise to modern East Asian peoples, and consist of several separate groups, as well as displaying genetic heterogeneity. They inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia, and are now confined primarily to Southern Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands of India.
Negrito means "little black people" in Spanish (negrito is the Spanish diminutive of negro, i.e., "little black person"); it is what the Spaniards called the aborigines that they encountered in the Philippines. The term "Negrito" itself has come under criticism in countries like Malaysia, where it is now interchangeable with the more acceptable Semang, although this term actually refers to a specific group.
They have dark skin, often curly-hair and Asiatic facial characteristics, and are stockily built.
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Negritos in the Philippines frequently face discrimination. Because of their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they are marginalized and live in poverty, unable to find employment.
Europe.
Western Europe.
France.
While census collection of ethnic background is illegal in France, it is estimated that there are about 2.5 – 5 million black people residing there.
Germany.
As of 2020, there are approximately one million black people living in Germany.
Netherlands.
Afro-Dutch are residents of the Netherlands who are of Black African or Afro-Caribbean ancestry. They tend to be from the former and present Dutch overseas territories of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and Suriname. The Netherlands also has sizable Cape Verdean and other African communities.
Portugal.
As of 2021, there were at least 232,000 people of recent Black-African immigrant background living in Portugal. They mainly live in the regions of Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra. As Portugal doesn't collect information dealing with ethnicity, the estimate includes only people that, as of 2021, hold the citizenship of a Sub Saharan African country or people who have acquired Portuguese citizenship from 2008 to 2021, thus excluding descendants, people of more distant African ancestry or people who have settled in Portugal generations ago and are now Portuguese citizens.
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Spain.
The term "Moors" has been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims, especially those of Arab or Berber ancestry, whether living in North Africa or Iberia. Moors were not a distinct or self-defined people. Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name to Muslim Arabs, Berbers, Sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans alike.
Isidore of Seville, writing in the 7th century, claimed that the Latin word Maurus was derived from the Greek "mauron", μαύρον, which is the Greek word for "black". Indeed, by the time Isidore of Seville came to write his "Etymologies", the word Maurus or "Moor" had become an adjective in Latin, "for the Greeks call black, mauron". "In Isidore's day, Moors were black by definition..."
Afro-Spaniards are Spanish nationals of West/Central African ancestry. Today, they mainly come from Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. Additionally, many Afro-Spaniards born in Spain are from the former Spanish colony Equatorial Guinea. Today, there are an estimated 683,000 Afro-Spaniards in Spain.
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United Kingdom.
According to the Office for National Statistics, at the 2001 census there were more than a million black people in the United Kingdom; 1% of the total population described themselves as "Black Caribbean", 0.8% as "Black African", and 0.2% as "Black other". Britain encouraged the immigration of workers from the Caribbean after World War II; the first symbolic movement was of those who came on the ship the "Empire Windrush" and, hence, those who migrated between 1948 and 1970 are known as the Windrush generation. The preferred official umbrella term is "black, Asian and minority ethnic" (BAME), but sometimes the term "black" is used on its own, to express unified opposition to racism, as in the Southall Black Sisters, which started with a mainly British Asian constituency, and the National Black Police Association, which has a membership of "African, African-Caribbean and Asian origin".
Eastern Europe.
As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered many of their citizens the chance to study in Russia. Over a period of 40 years, about 400,000 African students from various countries moved to Russia to pursue higher studies, including many black Africans. This extended beyond the Soviet Union to many countries of the Eastern bloc.
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Balkans.
Due to the slave trade in the Ottoman Empire that had flourished in the Balkans, the coastal town of Ulcinj in Montenegro had its own black community. In 1878, that community consisted of about 100 people.
Oceania.
Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous Australians have been referred to as "black people" in Australia since the early days of European settlement. While originally related to skin colour, the term is used today to indicate Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander ancestry in general and can refer to people of any skin pigmentation.
Being identified as either "black" or "white" in Australia during the 19th and early 20th centuries was critical in one's employment and social prospects. Various state-based Aboriginal Protection Boards were established which had virtually complete control over the lives of Indigenous Australians – where they lived, their employment, marriage, education and included the power to separate children from their parents. Aborigines were not allowed to vote and were often confined to reserves and forced into low paid or effectively slave labour. The social position of mixed-race or "half-caste" individuals varied over time. A 1913 report by Baldwin Spencer states that:
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After the First World War, however, it became apparent that the number of mixed-race people was growing at a faster rate than the white population, and, by 1930, fear of the "half-caste menace" undermining the White Australia ideal from within was being taken as a serious concern. Cecil Cook, the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, noted that:
The official policy became one of biological and cultural assimilation: "Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture to half-castes and eventually the race will become white". This led to different treatment for "black" and "half-caste" individuals, with lighter-skinned individuals targeted for removal from their families to be raised as "white" people and prohibited from speaking their native language and practicing traditional customs, a process now known as the Stolen Generation.
The second half of the 20th century to the present has seen a gradual shift towards improved human rights for Aboriginal people. In a 1967 referendum, more than 90% of the Australian population voted to end constitutional discrimination and to include Aborigines in the national census. During this period, many Aboriginal activists began to embrace the term "black" and use their ancestry as a source of pride. Activist Bob Maza said:
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In 1978, Aboriginal writer Kevin Gilbert received the National Book Council award for his book "Living Black: Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert", a collection of Aboriginal people's stories, and in 1998 was awarded (but refused to accept) the Human Rights Award for Literature for "Inside Black Australia", a poetry anthology and exhibition of Aboriginal photography. In contrast to previous definitions based solely on the degree of Aboriginal ancestry, the Government changed the legal definition of Aboriginal in 1990 to include any:
This nationwide acceptance and recognition of Aboriginal people led to a significant increase in the number of people self-identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. The reappropriation of the term "black" with a positive and more inclusive meaning has resulted in its widespread use in mainstream Australian culture, including public media outlets, government agencies, and private companies. In 2012, a number of high-profile cases highlighted the legal and community attitude that identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is not dependent on skin color, with a well-known boxer Anthony Mundine being widely criticized for questioning the "blackness" of another boxer and journalist Andrew Bolt being successfully sued for publishing discriminatory comments about Aboriginals with light skin.
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Melanesians.
The region of Melanesia is named from Greek , "black", and , "island", etymologically meaning "islands of black [people]", in reference to the dark skin of the indigenous peoples. Early European settlers, such as Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez, noted the resemblance of the people to those in Africa.
Melanesians, along with other Pacific Islanders, were frequently deceived or coerced during the 19th and 20th centuries into forced labour for sugarcane, cotton, and coffee planters in countries distant to their native lands in a practice known as blackbirding. In Queensland, some 55,000 to 62,500 were brought from the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea to work in sugarcane fields. Under the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901, most islanders working in Queensland were repatriated back to their homelands.
Those who remained in Australia, commonly called South Sea Islanders, often faced discrimination similarly to Indigenous Australians by white-dominated society. Many indigenous rights activists have South Sea Islander ancestry, including Faith Bandler, Evelyn Scott and Bonita Mabo.
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Many Melanesians have taken up the term 'Melanesia' as a way to empower themselves as a collective people. Stephanie Lawson writes that the term "moved from a term of denigration to one of affirmation, providing a positive basis for contemporary subregional identity as well as a formal organisation". For instance, the term is used in the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which seeks to promote economic growth among Melanesian countries.
Other.
John Caesar, nicknamed "Black Caesar", a convict and bushranger with parents born in an unknown area in Africa, was one of the first people of recent black African ancestry to arrive in Australia.
At the 2006 Census, 248,605 residents declared that they were born in Africa. This figure pertains to all immigrants to Australia who were born in nations in Africa regardless of race, and includes white Africans.
North America.
Canada.
"Black Canadians" is a designation used for people of black African ancestry who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The majority of black Canadians are of Caribbean origin, though the population also consists of African American immigrants and their descendants (including black Nova Scotians), as well as many African immigrants.
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Black Canadians often draw a distinction between those of Afro-Caribbean ancestry and those of other African roots. The term "African Canadian" is occasionally used by some black Canadians who trace their heritage to the first slaves brought by British and French colonists to the North American mainland. Promised freedom by the British during the American Revolutionary War, thousands of Black Loyalists were resettled by the Crown in Canada afterward, such as Thomas Peters. In addition, an estimated ten to thirty thousand fugitive slaves reached freedom in Canada from the Southern United States during the Antebellum years, aided by people along the Underground Railroad.
Many black people of Caribbean origin in Canada reject the term "African Canadian" as an elision of the uniquely Caribbean aspects of their heritage, and instead identify as "Caribbean Canadian". Unlike in the United States, where "African American" has become a widely used term, in Canada controversies associated with distinguishing African or Caribbean heritage have resulted in the term "black Canadian" being widely accepted there.
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United States.
There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere. The number of enslaved people sold to the New World varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more enslaved people than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million enslaved West Africans arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:
By the early 1900s, "nigger" had become a pejorative word in the United States. In its stead, the term "colored" became the mainstream alternative to "negro" and its derived terms. After the American Civil Rights Movement, the terms "colored" and "negro" gave way to "black". "Negro" had superseded "colored" as the most polite word for African Americans at a time when "black" was considered more offensive. This term was accepted as normal, including by people classified as Negroes, until the later Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s. One well-known example is the use by Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of "Negro" in his famous speech of 1963, I Have a Dream. During the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, some African-American leaders in the United States, notably Malcolm X, objected to the word "Negro" because they associated it with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second-class citizens, or worse. Malcolm X preferred "Black" to "Negro", but later gradually abandoned that as well for "Afro-American" after leaving the Nation of Islam.
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Since the late 1960s, various other terms for African Americans have been more widespread in popular usage. Aside from "black American", these include "Afro-American" (in use from the late 1960s to 1990) and "African American" (used in the United States to refer to Black Americans, people often referred to in the past as "American Negroes").
In the first 200 years that black people were in the United States, they primarily identified themselves by their specific ethnic group (closely allied to language) and not by skin color. Individuals identified themselves, for example, as Ashanti, Igbo, Bakongo, or Wolof. However, when the first captives were brought to the Americas, they were often combined with other groups from West Africa, and individual ethnic affiliations were not generally acknowledged by English colonists. In areas of the Upper South, different ethnic groups were brought together. This is significant as the captives came from a vast geographic region: the West African coastline stretching from Senegal to Angola and in some cases from the south-east coast such as Mozambique. A new "African-American" identity and culture was born that incorporated elements of the various ethnic groups and of European cultural heritage, resulting in fusions such as the Black church and African-American English. This new identity was based on provenance and slave status rather than membership in any one ethnic group.
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By contrast, slave records from Louisiana show that the French and Spanish colonists recorded more complete identities of the West Africans, including ethnicities and given tribal names.
The U.S. racial or ethnic classification "black" refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation, from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry (in any discernible percentage). There are also certain cultural traits associated with being "African American", a term used effectively as a synonym for "black person" within the United States.
In March 1807, Great Britain, which largely controlled the Atlantic, declared the transatlantic slave trade illegal, as did the United States. (The latter prohibition took effect 1 January 1808, the earliest date on which Congress had the power to do so after protecting the slave trade under of the United States Constitution.)
By that time, the majority of black people in the United States were native-born, so the use of the term "African" became problematic. Though initially a source of pride, many blacks feared that the use of African as an identity would be a hindrance to their fight for full citizenship in the United States. They also felt that it would give ammunition to those who were advocating repatriating black people back to Africa. In 1835, black leaders called upon Black Americans to remove the title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro" or "Colored American". A few institutions chose to keep their historic names, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. African Americans popularly used the terms "Negro" or "colored" for themselves until the late 1960s.
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The term "black" was used throughout but not frequently since it carried a certain stigma. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King Jr. uses the terms "negro" fifteen times and "black" four times. Each time that he uses "black", it is in parallel construction with "white"; for example, "black men and white men".
With the successes of the American Civil Rights Movement, a new term was needed to break from the past and help shed the reminders of legalized discrimination. In place of "Negro", activists promoted the use of "black" as standing for racial pride, militancy, and power. Some of the turning points included the use of the term "Black Power" by Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) and the popular singer James Brown's song "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud".
In 1988, the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson urged Americans to use instead the term "African American" because it had a historical cultural base and was a construction similar to terms used by European descendants, such as German American, Italian American, etc. Since then, African American and black have often had parallel status. However, controversy continues over which, if any, of the two terms is more appropriate. Maulana Karenga argues that the term African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates their geographical and historical origin. Others have argued that "black" is a better term because "African" suggests foreignness, although black Americans helped found the United States. Still others believe that the term "black" is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones. Some surveys suggest that the majority of Black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "black", although they have a slight preference for "black" in personal settings and "African American" in more formal settings.
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In the U.S. census race definitions, black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins in the black racial groups of Africa. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the grouping includes individuals who self-identify as African American, as well as persons who emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. The grouping is thus based on geography, and may contradict or misrepresent an individual's self-identification, since not all immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are "black". The Census Bureau also notes that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as scientific or anthropological.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities (~95%). Immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term.
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Recent surveys of African Americans using a genetic testing service have found varied ancestries that show different tendencies by region and sex of ancestors. These studies found that on average, African Americans have 73.2–80.9% West African, 18–24% European, and 0.8–0.9% Native American genetic heritage, with large variation between individuals.
According to studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, U.S. residents consistently overestimate the size, physical strength, and formidability of young black men.
New Great Migration.
The New Great Migration is not evenly distributed throughout the South. As with the earlier Great Migration, the New Great Migration is primarily directed toward cities and large urban areas, such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Virginia Beach, San Antonio, Memphis, Orlando, Nashville, Jacksonville, and so forth. North Carolina's Charlotte metro area in particular, is a hot spot for African American migrants in the US. Between 1975 and 1980, Charlotte saw a net gain of 2,725 African Americans in the area. This number continued to rise as between 1985 and 1990 as the area had a net gain of 7,497 African Americans, and from 1995 to 2000 the net gain was 23,313 African Americans.
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This rise in net gain points to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Houston being a growing hot spots for the migrants of The New Great Migration. The percentage of Black Americans who live in the South has been increasing since 1990, and the biggest gains have been in the region's large urban areas, according to census data. The Black population of metro Atlanta more than doubled between 1990 and 2020, surpassing 2 million in the most recent census. The Black population also more than doubled in metro Charlotte while Greater Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth both saw their Black populations surpass 1 million for the first time. Several smaller metro areas also saw sizable gains, including San Antonio; Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.; and Orlando. Primary destinations are states that have the most job opportunities, especially Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida and Texas. Other southern states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama and Arkansas, have seen little net growth in the African American population from return migration.
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One-drop rule.
From the late 19th century, the South used a colloquial term, the "one-drop rule", to classify as black a person of any known African ancestry. This practice of hypodescent was not put into law until the early 20th century. Legally, the definition varied from state to state. Racial definition was more flexible in the 18th and 19th centuries before the American Civil War. For instance, President Thomas Jefferson held in slavery persons who were legally white (less than 25% black) according to Virginia law at the time, but, because they were born to slave mothers, they were born into slavery, according to the principle of "partus sequitur ventrem", which Virginia adopted into law in 1662.
Outside of the United States, some other countries have adopted the one-drop rule, but the definition of who is black and the extent to which the one-drop "rule" applies varies greatly from country to country.
The one-drop rule may have originated as a means of increasing the number of black slaves and was maintained as an attempt to keep the white race "pure". One of the results of the one-drop rule was the uniting of the African-American community. Some of the most prominent abolitionists and civil-rights activists of the 19th century were multiracial, such as Frederick Douglass, Robert Purvis and James Mercer Langston. They advocated equality for all.
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Blackness.
The concept of blackness in the United States has been described as the degree to which one associates themselves with mainstream African-American culture, politics, and values. To a certain extent, this concept is not so much about race but more about political orientation, culture and behavior. Blackness can be contrasted with "acting white", where black Americans are said to behave with assumed characteristics of stereotypical white Americans with regard to fashion, dialect, taste in music, and possibly, from the perspective of a significant number of black youth, academic achievement.
Due to the often political and cultural contours of blackness in the United States, the notion of blackness can also be extended to non-black people. Toni Morrison once described Bill Clinton as the first black President of the United States, because, as she put it, he displayed "almost every trope of blackness". Clinton welcomed the label.
The question of blackness also arose in the Democrat Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Commentators questioned whether Obama, who was elected the first president with black ancestry, was "black enough", contending that his background is not typical because his mother was a white American and his father was a black student visitor from Kenya. Obama chose to identify as black and African American.
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