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3111	39036121	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3111	Ariane 5	Ariane 5 is a retired European heavy-lift space launch vehicle operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. It was used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), low Earth orbit (LEO) or further into space. The launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017. In development since 2014, Ariane 6, a direct successor system was first launched in 2024. The system was designed as an expendable launch vehicle by the "Centre national d'études spatiales" (CNES), the French government's space agency, in cooperation with various European partners. Despite not being a direct derivative of its predecessor launch vehicle program, it was classified as part of the Ariane rocket family. Aérospatiale, and later ArianeGroup, was the prime contractor for the manufacturing of the vehicles, leading a multi-country consortium of other European contractors. Ariane 5 was originally intended to launch the Hermes spacecraft, and thus it was rated for human space launches. Since its first launch, Ariane 5 was refined in successive versions: "G", "G+", "GS", "ECA", and finally, "ES". The system had a commonly used dual-launch capability, where up to two large geostationary belt communication satellites can be mounted using a SYLDA ("Système de Lancement Double Ariane", meaning "Ariane Double-Launch System") carrier system. Up to three, somewhat smaller, main satellites are possible depending on size using a SPELTRA ("Structure Porteuse Externe Lancement Triple Ariane", which translates to "Ariane Triple-Launch External Carrier Structure"). Up to eight secondary payloads, usually small experiment packages or minisatellites, could be carried with an ASAP (Ariane Structure for Auxiliary Payloads) platform. Following the launch of 15 August 2020, Arianespace signed the contracts for the last eight Ariane 5 launches, before it was succeeded by the new Ariane 6 launcher, according to Daniel Neuenschwander, director of space transportation at the ESA. Ariane 5 flew its final mission on 5 July 2023. Vehicle description. Cryogenic main stage. Ariane 5's cryogenic H173 main stage (H158 for Ariane 5G, G+, and GS) was called the EPC ("Étage Principal Cryotechnique" — Cryotechnic Main Stage). It consisted of a diameter by high tank with two compartments, one for liquid oxygen and one for liquid hydrogen, and a Vulcain 2 engine at the base with a vacuum thrust of . The H173 EPC weighed about , including of propellant. After the main cryogenic stage runs out of fuel, it re-entered the atmosphere for an ocean splashdown. Solid boosters. Attached to the sides were two P241 (P238 for Ariane 5G and G+) solid rocket boosters (SRBs or EAPs from the French "Étages d'Accélération à Poudre"), each weighing about full and delivering a thrust of about . They were fueled by a mix of ammonium perchlorate (68%) and aluminium fuel (18%) and HTPB (14%). They each burned for 130 seconds before being dropped into the ocean. The SRBs were usually allowed to sink to the bottom of the ocean, but, like the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, they could be recovered with parachutes, and this was occasionally done for post-flight analysis. Unlike Space Shuttle SRBs, Ariane 5 boosters were not reused. The most recent attempt was for the first Ariane 5 ECA mission in 2009. One of the two boosters was successfully recovered and returned to the Guiana Space Center for analysis. Prior to that mission, the last such recovery and testing was done in 2003. The French M51 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) shared a substantial amount of technology with these boosters. In February 2000, the suspected nose cone of an Ariane 5 booster washed ashore on the South Texas coast, and was recovered by beachcombers before the government could get to it. Second stage. The second stage was on top of the main stage and below the payload. The original Ariane — Ariane 5G — used the EPS ("Étage à Propergols Stockables" — Storable Propellant Stage), which was fueled by monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and nitrogen tetroxide, containing of storable propellant. The EPS was subsequently improved for use on the Ariane 5G+, GS, and ES. The EPS upper stage was capable of repeated ignition, first demonstrated during flight V26 which was launched on 5 October 2007. This was purely to test the engine, and occurred after the payloads had been deployed. The first operational use of restart capability as part of a mission came on 9 March 2008, when two burns were made to deploy the first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) into a circular parking orbit, followed by a third burn after ATV deployment to de-orbit the stage. This procedure was repeated for all subsequent ATV flights. Ariane 5ECA used the ESC ("Étage Supérieur Cryotechnique" — Cryogenic Upper Stage), which was fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The ESC used the HM7B engine previously used in the Ariane 4 third stage. The propellent load of 14.7 tonne allowed the engine to burn for 945 seconds while providing 6.5 tonne of thrust. The ESC provided roll control during powered flight and full attitude control during payload separation using hydrogen gas thrusters. Oxygen gas thrusters allowed longitudinal acceleration after engine cutoff. The flight assembly included the Vehicle Equipment Bay, with flight electronics for the entire rocket, and the payload interface and structural support. Fairing. The payload and all upper stages were covered at launch by a fairing for aerodynamic stability and protection from heating during supersonic flight and acoustic loads. It was jettisoned once sufficient altitude has been reached, typically above . It was made by Ruag Space and since flight VA-238 it was composed of 4 panels. Launch pricing and market competition. , the Ariane 5 commercial launch price for launching a "midsize satellite in the lower position" was approximately €50 million, competing for commercial launches in an increasingly competitive market. The heavier satellite was launched in the upper position on a typical dual-satellite Ariane 5 launch and was priced higher than the lower satellite, on the order of €90 million . Total launch price of an Ariane 5 – which could transport up to two satellites to space, one in the "upper" and one in the "lower" positions – was around €150 million . Cancelled plans for future developments. Ariane 5 ME. The Ariane 5 ME (Mid-life Evolution) was in development into early 2015, and was seen as a stopgap between Ariane 5ECA/Ariane 5ES and the new Ariane 6. With first flight planned for 2018, it would have become ESA's principal launcher until the arrival of the new Ariane 6 version. ESA halted funding for the development of Ariane 5ME in late 2014 to prioritize development of Ariane 6. The Ariane 5ME was to use a new upper stage, with increased propellant volume, powered by the new Vinci engine. Unlike the HM-7B engine, it was to be able to restart several times, allowing for complex orbital maneuvers such as insertion of two satellites into different orbits, direct insertion into geosynchronous orbit, planetary exploration missions, and guaranteed upper stage deorbiting or insertion into graveyard orbit. The launcher was also to include a lengthened fairing up to and a new dual launch system to accommodate larger satellites. Compared to an Ariane 5ECA model, the payload to GTO was to increase by 15% to and the cost-per-kilogram of each launch was projected to decline by 20%. Development. Originally known as the Ariane 5ECB, Ariane 5ME was to have its first flight in 2006. However, the failure of the first ECA flight in 2002, combined with a deteriorating satellite industry, caused ESA to cancel development in 2003. Development of the Vinci engine continued, though at a lower pace. The ESA Council of Ministers agreed to fund development of the new upper stage in November 2008. In 2009, EADS Astrium was awarded a €200 million contract, and on 10 April 2012 received another €112 million contract to continue development of the Ariane 5ME with total development effort expected to cost €1 billion. On 21 November 2012, ESA agreed to continue with the Ariane 5ME to meet the challenge of lower priced competitors. It was agreed the Vinci upper stage would also be used as the second stage of a new Ariane 6, and further commonality would be sought. Ariane 5ME qualification flight was scheduled for mid-2018, followed by gradual introduction into service. On 2 December 2014, ESA decided to stop funding the development of Ariane 5ME and instead focus on Ariane 6, which was expected to have a lower cost per launch and allow more flexibility in the payloads (using two or four P120C solid boosters depending on total payload mass). Solid propellant stage. Work on the Ariane 5 EAP motors was continued in the Vega programme. The Vega 1st stage engine – the P80 engine – was a shorter derivation of the EAP. The P80 booster casing was made of filament wound graphite epoxy, much lighter than the current stainless steel casing. A new composite steerable nozzle was developed while new thermal insulation material and a narrower throat improved the expansion ratio and subsequently the overall performance. Additionally, the nozzle had electromechanical actuators which replaced the heavier hydraulic ones used for thrust vector control. These developments could maybe have made their way back into the Ariane programme, but this was most likely an inference based on early blueprints of the Ariane 6 having a central P80 booster and 2-4 around the main one. The incorporation of the ESC-B with the improvements to the solid motor casing and an uprated Vulcain engine would have delivered to LEO. This would have been developed for any lunar missions but the performance of such a design might not have been possible if the higher Max-Q for the launch of this launch vehicle would have posed a constraint on the mass delivered to orbit. Ariane 6. The design brief of the next generation launch vehicle Ariane 6 called for a lower-cost and smaller launch vehicle capable of launching a single satellite of up to to GTO. However, after several permutations the finalized design was nearly identical in performance to the Ariane 5, focusing instead on lowering fabrication costs and launch prices. , Ariane 6 was projected to be launched for about €70 million per flight, about half of the Ariane 5 price. Initially development of Ariane 6 was projected to cost €3.6 billion. In 2017, the ESA set 16 July 2020 as the deadline for the first flight. The Ariane 6 successfully completed its maiden flight on 9 July 2024. Notable launches. Ariane 5's first test flight (Ariane 5 Flight 501) on 4 June 1996 failed, with the rocket self-destructing 37 seconds after launch because of a malfunction in the control software. A data conversion from 64-bit floating-point value to 16-bit signed integer value to be stored in a variable representing horizontal bias caused a processor trap (operand error) because the floating-point value was too large to be represented by a 16-bit signed integer. The software had been written for the Ariane 4 where efficiency considerations (the computer running the software had an 80% maximum workload requirement) led to four variables being protected with a handler while three others, including the horizontal bias variable, were left unprotected because it was thought that they were "physically limited or that there was a large margin of safety". The software, written in Ada, was included in the Ariane 5 through the reuse of an entire Ariane 4 subsystem despite the fact that the particular software containing the bug, which was just a part of the subsystem, was not required by the Ariane 5 because it has a different preparation sequence than the Ariane 4. The second test flight (L502, on 30 October 1997) was a partial failure. The Vulcain nozzle caused a roll problem, leading to premature shutdown of the core stage. The upper stage operated successfully, but it could not reach the intended orbit. A subsequent test flight (L503, on 21 October 1998) proved successful and the first commercial launch (L504) occurred on 10 December 1999 with the launch of the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory satellite. Another partial failure occurred on 12 July 2001, with the delivery of two satellites into an incorrect orbit, at only half the height of the intended GTO. The ESA Artemis telecommunications satellite was able to reach its intended orbit on 31 January 2003, through the use of its experimental ion propulsion system. The next launch did not occur until 1 March 2002, when the Envisat environmental satellite successfully reached an orbit of above the Earth in the 11th launch. At , it was the heaviest single payload until the launch of the first ATV on 9 March 2008, at . The first launch of the ECA variant on 11 December 2002 ended in failure when a main booster problem caused the rocket to veer off-course, forcing its self-destruction three minutes into the flight. Its payload of two communications satellites (STENTOR and Hot Bird 7), valued at about €630 million, was lost in the Atlantic Ocean. The fault was determined to have been caused by a leak in coolant pipes allowing the nozzle to overheat. After this failure, Arianespace SA delayed the expected January 2003 launch for the Rosetta mission to 26 February 2004, but this was again delayed to early March 2004 due to a minor fault in the foam that protects the cryogenic tanks on the Ariane 5. The failure of the first ECA launch was the last failure of an Ariane 5 until flight 240 in January 2018. On 27 September 2003, the last Ariane 5G boosted three satellites (including the first European lunar probe, SMART-1), in Flight 162. On 18 July 2004, an Ariane 5G+ boosted what was at the time the heaviest telecommunication satellite ever, Anik F2, weighing almost . The first successful launch of the Ariane 5ECA took place on 12 February 2005. The payload consisted of the XTAR-EUR military communications satellite, a 'SLOSHSAT' small scientific satellite and a MaqSat B2 payload simulator. The launch had been scheduled for October 2004, but additional testing and a military launch (of a Helios 2A observation satellite) delayed the attempt. On 11 August 2005, the first Ariane 5GS (featuring the Ariane 5ECA's improved solid motors) boosted Thaicom 4, the heaviest telecommunications satellite to date at , into orbit. On 16 November 2005, the third Ariane 5ECA launch (the second successful ECA launch) took place. It carried a dual payload consisting of Spaceway F2 for DirecTV and Telkom-2 for PT Telekomunikasi of Indonesia. This was the launch vehicle's heaviest dual payload to date, at more than . On 27 May 2006, an Ariane 5ECA launch vehicle set a new commercial payload lifting record of . The dual-payload consisted of the Thaicom 5 and Satmex 6 satellites. On 4 May 2007, the Ariane 5ECA set another new commercial record, lifting into transfer orbit the Astra 1L and Galaxy 17 communication satellites with a combined weight of , and a total payload weight of . This record was again broken by another Ariane 5ECA, launching the Skynet 5B and Star One C1 satellites, on 11 November 2007. The total payload weight for this launch was of . On 9 March 2008, the first Ariane 5ES-ATV was launched to deliver the first ATV called "Jules Verne" to the International Space Station (ISS). The ATV was the heaviest payload ever launched by a European launch vehicle, providing supplies to the space station with necessary propellant, water, air and dry cargo. This was the first operational Ariane mission which involved an engine restart in the upper stage. The ES-ATV Aestus EPS upper stage was restartable while the ECA HM7-B engine was not. On 1 July 2009, an Ariane 5ECA launched TerreStar-1 (now EchoStar T1), which was then, at , the largest and most massive commercial telecommunication satellite ever built at that time until being overtaken by Telstar 19 Vantage, at , launched aboard Falcon 9. The satellite was launched into a lower-energy orbit than a usual GTO, with its initial apogee at roughly . On 28 October 2010, an Ariane 5ECA launched Eutelsat's W3B (part of its W Series of satellites) and Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT)'s BSAT-3b satellites into orbit. But the W3B satellite failed to operate shortly after the successful launch and was written off as a total loss due to an oxidizer leak in the satellite's main propulsion system. The BSAT-3b satellite, however, is operating normally. The VA253 launch on 15 August 2020 introduced two small changes that increased lift capacity by about ; these were a lighter avionics and guidance-equipment bay, and modified pressure vents on the payload fairing, which were required for the subsequent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. It also debuted a location system using Galileo navigation satellites. On 25 December 2021, VA256 launched the James Webb Space Telescope towards a Sun–Earth L2 halo orbit. The precision of trajectory following launch led to fuel savings credited with potentially doubling the lifetime of the telescope by leaving more hydrazine propellant on board for station-keeping than was expected. According to Rudiger Albat, the program manager for Ariane 5, efforts had been made to select components for this flight that had performed especially well during pre-flight testing, including "one of the best Vulcain engines that we've ever built." GTO payload weight records. On 22 April 2011, the Ariane 5ECA flight VA-201 broke a commercial record, lifting Yahsat 1A and Intelsat New Dawn with a total payload weight of to transfer orbit. This record was later broken again during the launch of Ariane 5ECA flight VA-208 on 2 August 2012, lifting a total of into the planned geosynchronous transfer orbit, which was broken again 6 months later on flight VA-212 with sent towards geosynchronous transfer orbit. In June 2016, the GTO record was raised to , on the first rocket in history that carried a satellite dedicated to financial institutions. The payload record was pushed a further , up to on 24 August 2016 with the launch of Intelsat 33e and Intelsat 36. On 1 June 2017, the payload record was broken again to carrying ViaSat-2 and Eutelsat-172B. In 2021 VA-255 put 11,210 kg into GTO. VA241 anomaly. On 25 January 2018, an Ariane 5ECA launched SES-14 and Al Yah 3 satellites. About 9 minutes and 28 seconds after launch, a telemetry loss occurred between the launch vehicle and the ground controllers. It was later confirmed, about 1 hour and 20 minutes after launch, that both satellites were successfully separated from the upper stage and were in contact with their respective ground controllers, but that their orbital inclinations were incorrect as the guidance systems might have been compromised. Therefore, both satellites conducted orbital procedures, extending commissioning time. SES-14 needed about 8 weeks longer than planned commissioning time, meaning that entry into service was reported early September instead of July. Nevertheless, SES-14 is still expected to be able to meet the designed lifetime. This satellite was originally to be launched with more propellant reserve on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle since the Falcon 9, in this specific case, was intended to deploy this satellite into a high inclination orbit that would require more work from the satellite to reach its final geostationary orbit. The Al Yah 3 was also confirmed healthy after more than 12 hours without further statement, and like SES-14, Al Yah 3's maneuvering plan was also revised to still fulfill the original mission. As of 16 February 2018, Al Yah 3 was approaching the intended geostationary orbit, after series of recovery maneuvers had been performed. The investigation showed that invalid inertial units' azimuth value had sent the vehicle 17° off course but to the intended altitude, they had been programmed for the standard geostationary transfer orbit of 90° when the payloads were intended to be 70° for this supersynchronous transfer orbit mission, 20° off norme. This mission anomaly ended the 82 consecutive launch success streak from 2003. Launch history. Launch statistics. Ariane 5 launch vehicles had accumulated 117 launches, 112 of which were successful, yielding a success rate. Between April 2003 and December 2017, Ariane 5 flew 83 consecutive missions without failure, but the launch vehicle suffered a partial failure in January 2018. List of launches. All launches are from Guiana Space Centre, ELA-3.
3112	48523215	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3112	Arianespace	Arianespace SA is a French company founded in March 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It operates two launch vehicles: Vega C, a small-lift rocket, and Ariane 6, a medium-to-heavy-lift rocket. Arianespace is a subsidiary of ArianeGroup, a joint venture between Airbus and Safran. European space launches are carried out as a collaborative effort between private companies and government agencies. The role of Arianespace is to market Ariane 6 launch services, prepare missions, and manage customer relations. At the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana, the company oversees the team responsible for integrating and preparing launch vehicles. The rockets themselves are designed and manufactured by other companies: ArianeGroup for the Ariane 6 and Avio for the Vega. The launch infrastructure at the CSG is owned by the European Space Agency, while the land itself belongs to and is managed by CNES, the French national space agency. , Arianespace had launched more than 850 satellites in 287 missions spanning 41 years. The company's first commercial launch was Spacenet 1, which took place on 23 May 1984. In addition to its facilities at the CSG, the company's main offices are in Évry-Courcouronnes, a suburb of Paris. History. The formation of Arianespace SA is closely associated with the desire of several European nations to pursue joint collaboration in the field of space exploration and the formation of a pan-national organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), to oversee such undertaking during 1973. Prior to the ESA's formation, France had been lobbying for the development of a new European expendable launch system to serve as a replacement for the Europa rocket. Accordingly, one of the first programmes launched by the ESA was the Ariane heavy launcher. The express purpose of this launcher was to facilitate the delivery of commercial satellites into geosynchronous orbit. France was the largest stakeholder in the Ariane development programme. French aerospace manufacturer Aérospatiale served as the prime contractor and held responsibility for performing the integration of all sections of the vehicle, while French engine manufacturer Société Européenne de Propulsion (SEP) provided the first, second and third stage engines (the third stage engines were produced in partnership with German aerospace manufacturer MBB). Other major companies involved included the French firms Air Liquide and Matra, Swedish manufacturer Volvo, and German aircraft producer Dornier Flugzeugwerke. Development of the third stage was a major focus point for the project - prior to Ariane, only the United States had ever flown a launcher that utilised hydrogen-powered upper stages. Immediately following the successful first test launch of an Ariane 1 on 24 December 1979, the French space agency Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) and the ESA created a new company, "Arianespace", for the purpose of promoting, marketing, and managing Ariane operations. According to Arianespace, at the time of its establishment, it was the world's first launch services company. Following a further three test launches, the first commercial launch took place on 10 September 1982, which ended in failure as a result of a turbopump having failed in the third stage. The six remaining flights of the Ariane 1 were successful, with the final flight occurring during February 1986. As a result of these repeated successes, orders for the Ariane launcher quickly mounted up; by early 1984, a total of 27 satellites had been booked to use Ariane, which was estimated to be half of the world's market at that time. As a result of the commercial success, after the tenth Ariane mission was flown, the ESA formally transferred responsibility for Ariane over to Arianespace. By early 1986, the Ariane 1, along with its Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 derivates, were the dominant launcher on the world market. The Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 were short-lived platforms while the more extensive Ariane 4 was being developed; it was a considerably larger and more flexible launcher that the earlier members of its family, having been intended from the onset to compete with the upper end of launchers worldwide. In comparison, while the Ariane 1 had a typical weight of 207 tonnes and could launch payloads of up to 1.7 tonnes into orbit; the larger Ariane 4 had a typical weight of 470 tonnes and could orbit payloads of up to 4.2 tonnes. Despite this, the Ariane 4 was actually 15 per cent smaller than the Ariane 3. On 15 June 1988, the first successful launch of the Ariane 4 was conducted. This maiden flight was considered a success, having placed multiple satellites into orbit. For the V50 launch onwards, an improved third stage, known as the "H10+", was adopted for the Ariane 4, which raised the rocket's overall payload capacity by 110 kg and increased its burn time by 20 seconds. Even prior to the first flight of the Ariane 4 in 1988, development of a successor, designated as the Ariane 5, had already commenced. In January 1985, the Ariane 5 was officially adopted as an ESA programme, and began an eleven-year development and test program to the first launch in 1996. It lacked the high levels of commonality that the Ariane 4 had with its predecessors, and had been designed not only for launching heavier payloads of up to 5.2 tonnes and at a 20 per cent cost reduction over the Ariane 4, but for a higher margin of safety due to the fact that the Ariane 5 was designed to conduct crewed space launches as well, being intended to transport astronauts using the proposed Hermes space vehicle. Development of the Ariane 5 was not without controversy as some ESA members considered the mature Ariane 4 platform to be more suited for meeting established needs for such launchers; it was reportedly for this reason that Britain chose not to participate in the Ariane 5 programme. For several years, Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 launchers were operated interchangeably; however, it was eventually decided to terminate all Ariane 4 operations in favour of concentrating on the newer Ariane 5. During the mid-1990s, French firms Aérospatiale and SEP, along with Italian firm Bombrini-Parodi-Delfino (BPD), held discussions on the development of a proposed Ariane Complementary Launcher (ACL). Simultaneously, Italy championed the concept of a new solid-propellant satellite launcher, referred to as Vega. During March 2003, contracts for Vega's development were signed by the ESA and CNES; Italy provided 65 per cent of funding while six additional nations contributed the remainder. In May 2004, it was reported that a contract was signed between commercial operator Arianespace and prime contractor ELV to perform vehicle integration at Kourou, French Guiana. On 13 February 2012, the first launch of the Vega took place; it was reported as being an "apparently perfect flight". Since entering commercial service, Arianespace markets Vega as a launch system tailored for missions to polar and Sun-synchronous orbits. During 2002, the ESA announced the Arianespace Soyuz programme in cooperation with Russia; a launch site for Soyuz was constructed as the Guiana Space Centre, while the Soyuz launch vehicle was modified for use at the site. On 4 February 2005, both funding and final approval for the initiative were granted. Arianespace had offered launch services on the modified Soyuz ST-B to its clients. On 21 October 2011, Arianespace launched the first Soyuz rocket ever from outside former Soviet territory. The payload consisted of two Galileo navigation satellites. Since 2011, Arianespace has ordered a total of 23 Soyuz rockets, enough to cover its needs until 2019 at a pace of three to four launches per year. On 21 January 2019, ArianeGroup and Arianespace announced that it had signed a one-year contract with the ESA to study and prepare for a mission to the Moon to mine regolith. In 2020, Arianespace suspended operations for nearly two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Operations were suspended on 18 March and are, as of 29 April, expected to resume on 11 May. The return to operations will observe a number of new health and safety guidelines including social distancing in the workplace. In 2023, Ariane 5 was retired with the introduction of new Ariane 6, that conducted its maiden flight on 9 July 2024. In August 2024, the ESA agreed to allow Avio—the prime contractor for the ESA-funded Vega—to directly commercialize Vega C and seek non-governmental customers. Arianespace had handled marketing of Vega launches prior to that time. The transition is anticipated to be complete by the end of 2025. Company and infrastructure. Arianespace "is the marketing and sales organization for the European space industry and various component suppliers." The primary shareholders of Arianespace are its suppliers, in various European nations. Arianespace had 24 shareholders in 2008, 21 in 2014, and just 17 . In 2015, Arianespace shareholding was restructured due to the creation of Airbus Safran Launchers (later renamed ArianeGroup), which is tasked with developing and manufacturing the Ariane 6 carrier rocket. Industrial groups Airbus and Safran pooled their shares along with the French government's CNES stake to form a partnership company holding just under 74% of Arianespace shares, while the remaining 26% is spread across suppliers in nine countries including further Airbus subsidiaries. Competition and pricing. By 2004, Arianespace reportedly held more than 50% of the world market for boosting satellites to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). During the 2010s, the disruptive force represented by the new sector entrant SpaceX forced Arianespace to cut back on its workforce and focus on cost-cutting to decrease costs to remain competitive against the new low-cost entrant in the launch sector. In the midst of pricing pressure from such companies, during November 2013, Arianespace announced that it was enacting pricing flexibility for the "lighter satellites" that it carries to Geostationary orbits aboard its Ariane 5. According to Arianespace's managing director: "It's quite clear there's a very significant challenge coming from SpaceX (...) therefore things have to change (...) and the whole European industry is being restructured, consolidated, rationalised and streamlined." During early 2014, Arianespace was considering requesting additional subsidies from European governments to face competition from SpaceX and unfavorable changes in the Euro-Dollar exchange rate. The company had halved subsidy support by €100m per year since 2002 but the fall in the value of the US Dollar meant Arianespace was losing €60m per year due to currency fluctuations on launch contracts. SpaceX had reportedly begun to take market share from Arianespace, Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen, a major customer of Arianespace, stated that: "Each year that passes will see SpaceX advance, gain market share and further reduce its costs through economies of scale." By September 2014, Arianespace had reportedly to sign four additional contracts for lower slots on an Ariane 5 SYLDA dispenser for satellites that otherwise could be flown on a SpaceX launch vehicle; this was claimed to have been allowed via cost reductions; it had signed a total of 11 contracts by that point, while two additional ones that were under advanced negotiations. At the time, Arianespace has a backlog of launches worth billion with 38 satellites to be launched on Ariane 5, 7 on Soyuz and 9 on Vega, claiming 60% of the global satellite launch market. However, since 2017, Arianespace's market share has been passed by SpaceX in commercial launches. Launch vehicles. Currently, Arianespace operates three launch vehicles: Ariane launch vehicles. Since the first launch in 1979, there have been several versions of the Ariane launch vehicle:
3116	122189	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3116	Accumulator (computing)	In a computer's central processing unit (CPU), the accumulator is a register in which intermediate arithmetic logic unit results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation (addition, multiplication, shift, etc.) to cache or main memory, perhaps only to be read right back again for use in the next operation. Accessing memory is slower than accessing a register like an accumulator because the technology used for the large main memory is slower (but cheaper) than that used for a register. Early electronic computer systems were often split into two groups, those with accumulators and those without. Modern computer systems often have multiple general-purpose registers that can operate as accumulators, and the term is no longer as common as it once was. However, to simplify their design, a number of special-purpose processors still use a single accumulator. Basic concept. Mathematical operations often take place in a stepwise fashion, using the results from one operation as the input to the next. For instance, a manual calculation of a worker's weekly payroll might look something like: A computer program carrying out the same task would follow the same basic sequence of operations, although the values being looked up would all be stored in computer memory. In early computers, the number of hours would likely be held on a punch card and the pay rate in some other form of memory, perhaps a magnetic drum. Once the multiplication is complete, the result needs to be placed somewhere. On a "drum machine" this would likely be back to the drum, an operation that takes considerable time. Then the very next operation has to read that value back in, which introduces another considerable delay. Accumulators dramatically improve performance in systems like these by providing a scratchpad area where the results of one operation can be fed to the next one for little or no performance penalty. In the example above, the basic weekly pay would be calculated and placed in the accumulator, which could then immediately be used by the income tax calculation. This removes one save and one read operation from the sequence, operations that generally took tens to hundreds of times as long as the multiplication itself. Accumulator machines. An accumulator machine, also called a 1-operand machine, or a CPU with "accumulator-based architecture", is a kind of CPU where, although it may have several registers, the CPU mostly stores the results of calculations in one special register, typically called "the accumulator". Almost all computers were accumulator machines with only the high-performance "supercomputers" having multiple registers. Then as mainframe systems gave way to microcomputers, accumulator architectures were again popular with the MOS 6502 being a notable example. Many 8-bit microcontrollers that are still popular , such as the PICmicro and 8051, are accumulator-based machines. Modern CPUs are typically 2-operand or 3-operand machines. The additional operands specify which one of many general-purpose registers (also called "general-purpose accumulators") are used as the source and destination for calculations. These CPUs are not considered "accumulator machines". The characteristic that distinguishes one register as being the accumulator of a computer architecture is that the accumulator (if the architecture were to have one) would be used as an "implicit" operand for arithmetic instructions. For instance, a CPU might have an instruction like: codice_1 that adds the value read from memory location "memaddress" to the value in the accumulator, placing the result back in the accumulator. The accumulator is not identified in the instruction by a register number; it is implicit in the instruction and no other register can be specified in the instruction. Some architectures use a particular register as an accumulator in some instructions, but other instructions use register numbers for explicit operand specification. History of the computer accumulator. Any system that uses a single "memory" to store the result of multiple operations can be considered an accumulator. J. Presper Eckert refers to even the earliest adding machines of Gottfried Leibniz and Blaise Pascal as accumulator-based systems. Percy Ludgate was the first to conceive a multiplier-accumulator (MAC) in his Analytical Machine of 1909. Historical convention dedicates a register to "the accumulator", an "arithmetic organ" that literally accumulates its number during a sequence of arithmetic operations: "The first part of our arithmetic organ ... should be a parallel storage organ which can receive a number and add it to the one already in it, which is also able to clear its contents and which can store what it contains. We will call such an organ an Accumulator. It is quite conventional in principle in past and present computing machines of the most varied types, e.g. desk multipliers, standard IBM counters, more modern relay machines, the ENIAC" (Goldstine and von Neumann, 1946; p. 98 in Bell and Newell 1971). Just a few of the instructions are, for example (with some modern interpretation): No convention exists regarding the names for operations from registers to accumulator and from accumulator to registers. Tradition (e.g. Donald Knuth's (1973) hypothetical MIX computer), for example, uses two instructions called "load accumulator" from register/memory (e.g. "LDA r") and "store accumulator" to register/memory (e.g. "STA r"). Knuth's model has many other instructions as well. Notable accumulator-based computers. The 1945 configuration of ENIAC had 20 accumulators, which could operate in parallel. Each one could store an eight decimal digit number and add to it (or subtract from it) a number it received. Most of IBM's early binary "scientific" computers, beginning with the vacuum tube IBM 701 in 1952, used a single 36-bit accumulator, along with a separate multiplier/quotient register to handle operations with longer results. The IBM 650, a decimal machine, had one 10 digit distributor and two ten-digit accumulators; the IBM 7070, a later, transistorized decimal machine had three accumulators. The IBM System/360, and Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-6, had 16 general-purpose registers, although the PDP-6 and its successor, the PDP-10, call them accumulators. The 12-bit PDP-8 was one of the first minicomputers to use accumulators, and inspired many later machines. The PDP-8 had but one accumulator. The HP 2100 and Data General Nova had 2 and 4 accumulators. The Nova was created when this follow-on to the PDP-8 was rejected in favor of what would become the PDP-11. The Nova provided four accumulators, AC0-AC3, although AC2 and AC3 could also be used to provide offset addresses, tending towards more generality of usage for the registers. The PDP-11 had 8 general-purpose registers, along the lines of the System/360 and PDP-10; most later CISC and RISC machines provided multiple general-purpose registers. Early 4-bit and 8-bit microprocessors such as the 4004, 8008 and numerous others, typically had single accumulators. The 8051 microcontroller has two, a primary accumulator and a secondary accumulator, where the second is used by instructions only when multiplying (MUL AB) or dividing (DIV AB); the former splits the 16-bit result between the two 8-bit accumulators, whereas the latter stores the quotient on the primary accumulator A and the remainder in the secondary accumulator B. As a direct descendant of the 8008, the 8080, and the 8086, the modern ubiquitous Intel x86 processors still uses the primary accumulator EAX and the secondary accumulator EDX for multiplication and division of large numbers. For instance, MUL ECX will multiply the 32-bit registers ECX and EAX and split the 64-bit result between EAX and EDX. However, MUL and DIV are special cases; other arithmetic-logical instructions (ADD, SUB, CMP, AND, OR, XOR, TEST) may specify any of the eight registers EAX, ECX, EDX, EBX, ESP, EBP, ESI, EDI as the accumulator (i.e. left operand and destination). This is also supported for multiply if the upper half of the result is not required. x86 is thus a fairly general register architecture, despite being based on an accumulator model. The 64-bit extension of x86, x86-64, has been further generalized to 16 instead of 8 general registers.
3117	1299696827	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3117	Abu Zubaydah	Abu Zubaydah ( ; , "Abū Zubaydah"; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Palestinian citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF). Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and has been in United States custody ever since, including years in the secret prison network of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was transferred among prisons in various countries including a year in Poland, as part of a United States extraordinary rendition program. During his time in CIA custody, Zubaydah was extensively interrogated; he was waterboarded 83 times and subjected to numerous other torture techniques including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, confinement in small dark boxes, deprivation of solid food, stress positions, and physical assaults. Videotapes of some of Zubaydah's interrogations are allegedly amongst those destroyed by the CIA in 2005. Zubaydah and ten other "high-value detainees" were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006. He and other former CIA detainees are held in Camp 7, where conditions are the most isolating. On July 24, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Polish government to pay Zubaydah damages. Zubaydah stated through his US lawyer that he would be donating the awarded funds to victims of torture. Biography and early activities. According to his younger brother Hesham, they had eight siblings. Hesham remembers his older brother "as a happy-go-lucky guy, and something of a womanizer". Born in Saudi Arabia, Zubaydah is reported to have studied computer science in Mysore, India, prior to his travel to Afghanistan/Pakistan at the age of 20 in 1991. In 1991 he joined the mujahideen and fought against Afghan Communist Government forces during the Afghan Civil War, perhaps serving under Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi. In 1992, Zubaydah was injured in an Afghan mortar attack, which left shrapnel in his head and caused severe memory loss, as well as the loss of the ability to speak for over one year. Zubaydah eventually became involved in the training camp known as the Khalden training camp, where he oversaw the flow of recruits and obtained passports and paperwork for men transferring out of Khalden. He may also have worked as an instructor there. Although originally described as an al-Qaeda training camp, this alleged connection, which has been used as justification for holding Zubaydah and others as enemy combatants, has come under scrutiny from multiple sources, and the camp may have shut its doors in 2001 in response to an ideological division with al-Qaeda. By 1999, the United States government was attempting to surveil Zubaydah. By March 2000, United States officials were reporting that Zubaydah was a "senior bin Laden official", the "former head of Egypt-based Islamic Jihad", a "trusted aide" to bin Laden with "growing power", who had "played a key role in the East Africa embassy attacks". Zubaydah was convicted "in absentia" in Jordan and sentenced to death by a Jordanian court for his role in plots to bomb U.S. and Israeli targets there. A senior Middle East security official said Zubaydah had directed the Jordanian cell and was part of "bin Laden's inner circle". In August 2001, the classified FBI report, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US", said that the foiled millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, had confessed that Zubaydah had encouraged him to blow up the Los Angeles airport and facilitated his mission. The report said that Zubaydah was also planning his own attack on the U.S. However, when Ressam was tried in December 2001, federal prosecutors did not try to connect him to Zubaydah or refer to any of this supposed evidence in its case. After the trial, Ressam recanted his confession, saying he had been coerced into giving it. According to a psychological evaluation conducted upon his capture, Zubaydah allegedly served as Osama bin Laden's senior lieutenant and counter-intelligence officer (i.e. third or fourth highest-ranking member of al Qaeda), managed a network of training camps, was involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by al Qaeda (including the planning of 9/11), and was engaged in planning future terrorist attacks against U.S. interests. These statements were widely echoed by members of the George W. Bush administration and other US officials. Zubaydah's perceived "value" as a detainee would later be used by George W. Bush to justify the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and Zubaydah's detention in secret CIA prisons around the world. However, Zubaydah's connection to al Qaeda is now often said to have beenaccording to Rebecca Gordon writing about "The al Qaeda Leader Who Wasn't"a fictitious charge. Others have said instead that it is merely overstated, and in response to his habeas corpus petition, the U.S. Government stated in 2009 that it did not contend Zubaydah had any involvement with the 9/11 attacks, or that he had even been a member of al Qaeda, simply because they did not have to: "In simple terms, the issue in this habeas corpus action is Petitioner's conduct", rather than membership or inclination: "Petitioner's personal philosophy is not relevant except to the extent that it is reflected in his actions". Capture. On March 28, 2002, CIA and FBI agents, in conjunction with Pakistani intelligence, raided several safe houses in Pakistan searching for Zubaydah. Zubaydah was apprehended from one of the targeted safe houses in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The Pakistani intelligence service had paid a small amount for a tip on his whereabouts. The United States paid far more to Pakistan for its assistance; a CIA source later said: "We paid $10 million for Zubaydah." During the raid, Zubaydah was shot in the thigh, the testicle, and the stomach with rounds from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Not recognized at first, he was piled into a pickup truck along with other prisoners by the Pakistani forces until a senior CIA officer identified him. He was taken by the Pakistanis to a Pakistani hospital nearby and treated for his wounds. The attending doctor told the CIA lead officer of the group which apprehended Zubaydah that he had never before seen a patient survive such severe wounds. The CIA flew in a doctor from Johns Hopkins University to ensure Zubaydah would survive during transit out of Pakistan. His pocket litter supposedly contained two bank cards, which showed that he had access to Saudi and Kuwaiti bank accounts; most al-Qaeda members used the preferred, untraceable hawala banking. According to James Risen: "It is not clear whether an investigation of the cards simply fell through the cracks, or whether they were ignored because no one wanted to know the answers about connections between al Qaeda and important figures in the Middle East—particularly in Saudi Arabia." One of Risen's sources chalks up the failure to investigate the cards to incompetence rather than foul play: "The cards were sent back to Washington and were never fully exploited. I think nobody ever looked at them because of incompetence." When Americans investigated the cards, Risen wrote that they worked with a Muslim financier with a questionable past, and with connections to the Afghan Taliban, al Qaeda, and Saudi intelligence. ... Saudi intelligence officials had seized all of the records related to the card from the Saudi financial institution in question; the records then disappeared. There was no longer any way to trace the money that had gone into the account. A search of the safehouse turned up Zubaydah's 10,000-page diaries, in which he recorded his thoughts as a young boy, older man, and at his current age. What appears to be multiple separate identities is how Zubaydah was piecing his memories together after his 1992 shrapnel head wound. As part of his therapy to regain his memories, he began recording a diary that detailed his life, emotions, and what people were telling him. He split information into categories, such as what he knew about himself and what people told him, and listed them under different names to distinguish one set from the other. This was later interpreted by some analysts reviewing the diary as symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which some others disputed and said to be incorrect. Zubaydah was handed to the CIA. Reports later alleged that he was transferred to secret CIA-operated prisons, known as black sites, in Pakistan, Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, Northern Africa, and Diego Garcia. Historically, renditions of prisoners to countries which commit torture have been illegal. A memo written by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee of the Office of the Legal Counsel, DOJ, days before Zubaydah's capture, provided a legal opinion providing for CIA renditions of detainees to places such as Thailand. In March 2009, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee launched a year-long study on how the CIA operated the secret prisons, or black sites, around the world. Top U.S. officials approved torture techniques. In the spring of 2002, immediately following the capture of Zubaydah, top Bush administration officials, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and US Attorney General John Ashcroft discussed at length whether or not the CIA could legally use harsh techniques against him. Condoleezza Rice specifically mentioned the SERE program during the meeting, saying, "I recall being told that U.S. military personnel were subjected to training to certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques". In addition, in 2002 and 2003, the administration briefed several Democratic Congressional leaders on the proposed "enhanced interrogation techniques". These congressional leaders included Nancy Pelosi, the future Speaker of the House, and Representative Jane Harman. Congressional officials have stated that the attitude in the briefings ranged from "quiet acquiescence, if not downright support". The documents show that top U.S. officials were intimately involved in the discussion and approval of the harsher interrogation techniques used on Zubaydah. Condoleezza Rice ultimately told the CIA the harsher interrogation tactics were acceptable, and Dick Cheney stated, "I signed off on it; so did others." During the discussions, US Attorney General John Ashcroft is reported as saying, "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly." Torture drawings. In December 2019, "The New York Times" published an article in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting which was based upon drawings made by Zubaydah, showing how he was tortured in "vivid and disturbing ways". The article includes some of the drawings as well as a link to a 61-page report titled "How America Tortures", and asserts that Zubaydah was never a member of Al Qaeda. In the article Zubaydah gives gruesome details of numerous types of torture including being locked up inside a small box called "the dog box" for "countless hours", which caused muscle contractions. "The very strong pain", he said, "made me scream unconsciously". According to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, over a single 20 day period, Zubaydah spent over 11 days locked in a "coffin size" box, and 29 hours in a box measuring 21 inches wide, 2 feet deep, and 2 feet high (). On May 9, 2023, Zubaydah's former attorney, Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall Law School, published a detailed report annotating the drawings. Interrogation of Zubaydah. Zubaydah was interrogated by two separate interrogation teams: the first from the FBI and one from the CIA. Ali Soufan, one of the FBI interrogators, later testified in 2009 on these issues to the Senate Committee that was investigating detainee treatment. Soufan, who witnessed part of the CIA interrogation of Zubaydah, described his treatment under the CIA as torture. The International Committee of the Red Cross and others later reached the same conclusion. While in CIA custody, Zubaydah's previously damaged left eye was surgically removed. Because of the urgency felt about the interrogation of Zubaydah, the CIA had consulted with the president about how to proceed. The General Counsel of the CIA asked for a legal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice about what was permissible during interrogation. August 2002 memo. In early July 2002, the Associate General Counsel CTC/Legal Group started drafting a memo to the Attorney General requesting the approval of "aggressive" interrogation methods, which otherwise would be prohibited under the provisions of Section 2340-2340B, Title 18, United States Code, on Abu Zubaydah. This memo, drafted by Office of Legal Counsel, Jay Bybee and his assistant John Yoo, is also referred to as the first Torture Memo. Addressed to CIA acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo at his request, the purpose of the memo was to describe and authorize specific "enhanced interrogation techniques" to be used on Zubaydah. On July 26, 2002, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo informed the CIA that Attorney General John Ashcroft had approved waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah. Journalists including Jane Mayer, Joby Warrick and Peter Finn, and Alex Koppelman have reported the CIA was already using these harsh tactics before the memo authorizing their use was written, and that it was used to provide after-the-fact legal support for harsh interrogation techniques. A Department of Justice 2009 report regarding prisoner abuses reportedly stated the memos were prepared one month after Zubaydah had already been subjected to the specific techniques authorized in an August 1, 2002, memo. John Kiriakou stated in July 2009 that Zubaydah was waterboarded in the early summer of 2002, months before the August 1, 2002, memo was written. The memo described ten techniques which the interrogators wanted to use: "(1) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed in a confinement box, and (10) the waterboard." Many of the techniques were, until then, generally considered illegal. Many other techniques developed by the CIA were held to constitute inhumane and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As reported later, many of these interrogation techniques were previously considered illegal under U.S. and international law and treaties at the time of Zubaydah's capture. For instance, the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding. Since 1930, the United States had defined sleep deprivation as an illegal form of torture. Many other techniques developed by the CIA constitute inhuman and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture, and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ensuing interrogation. At a CIA black site in Thailand, Zubaydah was subjected to various forms of increasingly harsh interrogation techniques, including temperature extremes, music played at debilitating volumes, and sexual humiliation. Zubaydah was also subjected to beatings, isolation, waterboarding, long-time standing, continuous cramped confinement, and sleep deprivation. Former CIA analyst and case officer John Kiriakou asserted that while Zubaydah was in CIA custody, a box of cockroaches was poured on him inside of a coffin he was confined to for two weeks, because of an irrational fear Zubaydah has of cockroaches. During Zubaydah's interrogation, Bush learned he was on painkillers for his wounds and was proving resistant. He said to the CIA director George Tenet, "Who authorized putting him on pain medication?" It was later reported that Zubaydah was denied painkillers during his interrogation. Waterboarding. Zubaydah was one of three or more high-value detainees to be waterboarded. The Bush administration in 2007 said that Zubaydah had been waterboarded once. John Kiriakou, a CIA officer who had seen the cables regarding Zubaydah's interrogation, publicly said in 2009 that Zubaydah was waterboarded once for 35 seconds before he started talking. Intelligence sources claimed as early as 2008 that Zubaydah had been waterboarded no less than ten times in the span of one week. Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times within the month of August 2002, the month the CIA was authorized to use this enhanced interrogation techniques on him. In January 2010, Kiriakou, in a memoir, said, "Now we know that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied." 2003 transfer to Guantanamo. In August 2010, the Associated Press reported that the CIA, having concluded its agents had gotten most of the information from Zubaydah, in September 2003 transferred him and three other high-value detainees to Guantanamo. They were held at what was informally known as "Strawberry Fields", a secret camp within the complex built especially for former CIA detainees. Concerned that a pending Supreme Court decision, "Rasul v. Bush" (2004), might go against the Bush administration and require providing the prisoners with counsel and having to reveal data about them, on March 27, 2004, the CIA took the four men back into custody and transported them out of Guantanamo to one of their secret sites. At the time, the moves were all kept secret. International Committee of the Red Cross report. In February 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded a report on the treatment of "14 high-value detainees", who had been held by the CIA and, after September 2006, by the military at Guantanamo. The ICRC described the twelve enhanced interrogation techniques covered in the OLC memos to the CIA: suffocation by water (which is described as "torture" by numerous US officials), prolonged stress standing position, beatings by use of a collar, beating and kicking, confinement in a box, prolonged nudity, sleep deprivation, exposure to cold temperature, prolonged shackling, threats of ill-treatment, forced shaving, and deprivation/restricted provision of solid food. Zubaydah was the only detainee of the 14 interviewed who had been subjected to all 12 of these interrogation techniques. He was also the only one of the 14 detainees to be put into close confinement. May 30, 2005, memo. The final memo mentioned Zubaydah several times. It claimed that due to the enhanced interrogation techniques, Zubaydah "provided significant information on two operatives, [including] José Padilla[,] who planned to build and detonate a 'dirty bomb' in the Washington DC area." This claim is strongly disputed by Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who first interrogated Zubaydah following his capture, by traditional means. He said the most valuable information was gained before torture was used. Other intelligence officers have also disputed that claim. Soufan, when asked in 2009 by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse during a Congressional hearing if the memo was incorrect, testified that it was. The memo noted that not all of the waterboarding sessions were necessary for Zubaydah, since the on-scene interrogation team determined he had stopped producing actionable intelligence. The memo reads: This is not to say that the interrogation program has worked perfectly. According to the IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have the information. See IG Report at 83–85. On at least one occasion, this may have resulted in what might be deemed in retrospect to have been the unnecessary use of enhanced techniques. On that occasion, although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within CIA Headquarters still believed he was withholding information. See id at 84. At the direction of CIA Headquarters, interrogators therefore used the waterboard one more time on Zubaydah. John McLaughlin, former acting CIA director, stated in 2006, "I totally disagree with the view that the capture of Zubaydah was unimportant. Zubaydah was woven through all of the intelligence prior to 9/11 that signaled a major attack was coming, and his capture yielded a great deal of important information." In his 2007 memoir, former CIA Director George Tenet writes: A published report in 2006 contended that Zubaydah was mentally unstable and that the administration had overstated his importance. Baloney. Zubaydah had been at the crossroads of many al-Qa'ida operations and was in position to—and did—share critical information with his interrogators. Apparently, the source of the rumor that Zubaydah was unbalanced was his personal diary, in which he adopted various personas. From that shaky perch, some junior Freudians leapt to the conclusion that Zubaydah had multiple personalities. In fact, Agency psychiatrists eventually determined that in his diary he was using a sophisticated literary device to express himself. Intelligence obtained from Zubaydah and its after effects. Zubaydah's capture was touted as the biggest of the War on Terror until that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The director of the FBI stated Zubaydah's capture would help deter future attacks. In a speech in 2006, Bush claimed that Zubaydah revealed useful intelligence when enhanced interrogation was used, including identification of two important suspects and information that allegedly helped foil a terrorist attack on American soil. These claims directly conflict with the reports of the FBI agents who first interrogated Zubaydah. He gave them the names before torture was used, and the third piece of information came from other sources who had been receiving crucial pieces of information from him without the use of harsher techniques, as well as other government officials. Iraq War (2003). The Bush administration relied on some of Zubaydah's claims in justifying the invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials stated that the allegations that Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked in the training of people on chemical weapons came from Zubaydah. The officials noted there was no independent verification of his claims. The U.S. government included statements made by Zubaydah in regards to al Qaeda's ability to obtain a dirty bomb to show a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report of 2004, Zubaydah said that "he had heard that an important al Qaeda associate, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence." However, the year before, in June 2003, Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were reported as saying there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. In the Senate Armed Services Committee 2008 report on the abuses of detainees, the Bush administration was described as having applied pressure to interrogators to find a link between Iraq and al Qaeda prior to the Iraq War. Major Paul Burney, a psychiatrist with the United States Army, said to the committee, "while we were [at Guantanamo] a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful." He said that higher-ups were "frustrated" and applied "more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell said: Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May 2002—well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion—its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida. So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course, later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop. Concerns. In 2004, media coverage of Abu Zubaydah began listing him as a "disappeared" prisoner, stating he had no access to the International Red Cross. In February 2005, the CIA was reported as uncomfortable keeping Zubaydah in indefinite custody. Less than 18 months later, Zubaydah and the thirteen other high-value detainees who had been in secret CIA custody were transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. After his transfer, the CIA denied access to Zubaydah. In 2008, the Office of the Inspector General, Department of Justice, complained that it had been prevented from seeing him, although it was conducting a study of the US treatment of its detainees. Zubaydah's mental health. Some people are concerned about Zubaydah's mental stability and how that has affected information he has given to interrogators. Ron Suskind noted in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11" (2006), that Zubaydah was mentally ill or disabled due to a severe head injury. He described Zubaydah as keeping a diary "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3"—a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. Zubaydah's diaries spanned ten years and recorded in numbing detail "what he ate, or wore, or trifling things [people] said". Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality." According to Suskind, this judgment was "echoed at the top of CIA and was briefed to the President and Vice President." Coleman stated Zubaydah was a "safehouse keeper" with mental problems, who "claimed to know more about al-Qaeda and its inner workings than he really did." Joseph Margulies, Zubaydah's co-counsel, wrote in an op-ed in the "Los Angeles Times" in 2009: Partly as a result of injuries he suffered while he was fighting the communists in Afghanistan, partly as a result of how those injuries were exacerbated by the CIA and partly as a result of his extended isolation, Zubaydah's mental grasp is slipping away. Today, he suffers blinding headaches and has permanent brain damage. He has an excruciating sensitivity to sounds, hearing what others do not. The slightest noise drives him nearly insane. In the last two years alone, he has experienced about 200 seizures. Already, he cannot picture his mother's face or recall his father's name. Gradually, his past, like his future, eludes him. Legal status. President Bush referred to Zubaydah in a speech to Congress September 2006 requesting a bill to authorize military commissions, following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in "Hamdan v. Rumsfeld" (2006) that held the tribunals as formulated by the executive branch were unconstitutional. Congress rapidly passed legislation that was signed by the president. Less than one month after Zubaydah's capture, Justice Department officials said Zubaydah was "a near-ideal candidate for a tribunal trial". Several months later in 2002, US officials said there was "no rush" to try Zubaydah via military commission. At his Combatant Status Review Tribunal in 2007, Zubaydah said he was told that the CIA realized he was not significant. "They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter, said Zubaydah, speaking in broken English, according to the new transcript of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Abu Zubaydah's lawyers, including Joseph Margulies and George Brent Mickum IV, filed a lawsuit in July 2008 challenging his detention at Guantanamo Bay detention camps after the "Boumediene v. Bush" ruling. The judge overseeing the case, Richard W. Roberts, failed to rule on any motions related to the case, even the preliminary ones. This led Zubaydah's lawyers to file a motion asking Judge Roberts to recuse himself for nonfeasance in January 2015. On March 16, 2016, Roberts retired early from the federal bench, citing unspecified health issues. The U.S. government has not officially charged Zubaydah with any crimes. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture reported that Zubaydah's CIA interrogators wanted him to "remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life." Joint Review Task Force. When he assumed Presidential office in January 2009, Barack Obama made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo. He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp and to institute a new review system composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the Joint Review Task Force classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request. Zayn al-lbidin Muhammed Husayn was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge but too dangerous to release. Although Obama promised that those deemed too innocent to charge but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board, less than a quarter of men have received a review. Husayn was denied approval for transfer on September 22, 2016. European Court of Human Rights decision. On 24 July 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Poland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it cooperated with US allowing the CIA to hold and torture Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on its territory in 2002–2003. The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men €100,000 in damages. It also awarded Zubaydah €30,000 to cover his costs. On 31 May 2018, the ECHR ruled that Romania and Lithuania also violated the rights of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2003–2005 and in 2005–2006 respectively, and Lithuania and Romania were ordered to pay €100,000 in damages each to Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri. U.S. Supreme Court decision. In connection with the European Court of Human Rights proceedings, Zubaydah filed suit in the U.S. seeking disclosure of information related to the matter. The U.S. government intervened, seeking to assert a state secrets privilege. The U.S. district court decided in favor of the government and dismissed the case. On appeal, the dismissal was reversed on a ruling that the state secrets privilege did not apply to information that was already publicly known. The Supreme Court reversed the appeal ruling in "United States v. Zubaydah", explaining that the state secrets privilege applies to the existence (or nonexistence) of a secret CIA facility and that revelation by government would confirm or deny that state secret.
3118	7903804	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3118	Arithmetic	Arithmetic is an elementary branch of mathematics that deals with numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In a wider sense, it also includes exponentiation, extraction of roots, and taking logarithms. Arithmetic systems can be distinguished based on the type of numbers they operate on. Integer arithmetic is about calculations with positive and negative integers. Rational number arithmetic involves operations on fractions of integers. Real number arithmetic is about calculations with real numbers, which include both rational and irrational numbers. Another distinction is based on the numeral system employed to perform calculations. Decimal arithmetic is the most common. It uses the basic numerals from 0 to 9 and their combinations to express numbers. Binary arithmetic, by contrast, is used by most computers and represents numbers as combinations of the basic numerals 0 and 1. Computer arithmetic deals with the specificities of the implementation of binary arithmetic on computers. Some arithmetic systems operate on mathematical objects other than numbers, such as interval arithmetic and matrix arithmetic. Arithmetic operations form the basis of many branches of mathematics, such as algebra, calculus, and statistics. They play a similar role in the sciences, like physics and economics. Arithmetic is present in many aspects of daily life, for example, to calculate change while shopping or to manage personal finances. It is one of the earliest forms of mathematics education that students encounter. Its cognitive and conceptual foundations are studied by psychology and philosophy. The practice of arithmetic is at least thousands and possibly tens of thousands of years old. Ancient civilizations like the Egyptians and the Sumerians invented numeral systems to solve practical arithmetic problems in about 3000 BCE. Starting in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, the ancient Greeks initiated a more abstract study of numbers and introduced the method of rigorous mathematical proofs. The ancient Indians developed the concept of zero and the decimal system, which Arab mathematicians further refined and spread to the Western world during the medieval period. The first mechanical calculators were invented in the 17th century. The 18th and 19th centuries saw the development of modern number theory and the formulation of axiomatic foundations of arithmetic. In the 20th century, the emergence of electronic calculators and computers revolutionized the accuracy and speed with which arithmetic calculations could be performed. Definition, etymology, and related fields. Arithmetic is the fundamental branch of mathematics that studies numbers and their operations. In particular, it deals with numerical calculations using the arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In a wider sense, it also includes exponentiation, extraction of roots, and logarithm. The term "arithmetic" has its root in the Latin term which derives from the Ancient Greek words ("arithmos"), meaning , and ("arithmetike tekhne"), meaning . There are disagreements about its precise definition. According to a narrow characterization, arithmetic deals only with natural numbers. However, the more common view is to include operations on integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and sometimes also complex numbers in its scope. Some definitions restrict arithmetic to the field of numerical calculations. When understood in a wider sense, it also includes the study of how the concept of numbers developed, the analysis of properties of and relations between numbers, and the examination of the axiomatic structure of arithmetic operations. Arithmetic is closely related to number theory and some authors use the terms as synonyms. However, in a more specific sense, number theory is restricted to the study of integers and focuses on their properties and relationships such as divisibility, factorization, and primality. Traditionally, it is known as higher arithmetic. Numbers. Numbers are mathematical objects used to count quantities and measure magnitudes. They are fundamental elements in arithmetic since all arithmetic operations are performed on numbers. There are different kinds of numbers and different numeral systems to represent them. Kinds. The main kinds of numbers employed in arithmetic are natural numbers, whole numbers, integers, rational numbers, and real numbers. The natural numbers are whole numbers that start from 1 and go to infinity. They exclude 0 and negative numbers. They are also known as counting numbers and can be expressed as formula_1. The symbol of the natural numbers is formula_2. The whole numbers are identical to the natural numbers with the only difference being that they include 0. They can be represented as formula_3 and have the symbol formula_4. Some mathematicians do not draw the distinction between the natural and the whole numbers by including 0 in the set of natural numbers. The set of integers encompasses both positive and negative whole numbers. It has the symbol formula_5 and can be expressed as formula_6. Based on how natural and whole numbers are used, they can be distinguished into cardinal and ordinal numbers. Cardinal numbers, like one, two, and three, are numbers that express the quantity of objects. They answer the question "how many?". Ordinal numbers, such as first, second, and third, indicate order or placement in a series. They answer the question "what position?". A number is rational if it can be represented as the ratio of two integers. For instance, the rational number formula_7 is formed by dividing the integer 1, called the numerator, by the integer 2, called the denominator. Other examples are formula_8 and formula_9. The set of rational numbers includes all integers, which are fractions with a denominator of 1. The symbol of the rational numbers is formula_10. Decimal fractions like 0.3 and 25.12 are a special type of rational numbers since their denominator is a power of 10. For instance, 0.3 is equal to formula_11, and 25.12 is equal to formula_12. Every rational number corresponds to a finite or a repeating decimal. Irrational numbers are numbers that cannot be expressed through the ratio of two integers. They are often required to describe geometric magnitudes. For example, if a right triangle has legs of the length 1 then the length of its hypotenuse is given by the irrational number formula_13. is another irrational number and describes the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The decimal representation of an irrational number is infinite without repeating decimals. The set of rational numbers together with the set of irrational numbers makes up the set of real numbers. The symbol of the real numbers is formula_14. Even wider classes of numbers include complex numbers and quaternions. Numeral systems. A numeral is a symbol to represent a number and numeral systems are representational frameworks. They usually have a limited amount of basic numerals, which directly refer to certain numbers. The system governs how these basic numerals may be combined to express any number. Numeral systems are either positional or non-positional. All early numeral systems were non-positional. For non-positional numeral systems, the value of a digit does not depend on its position in the numeral. The simplest non-positional system is the unary numeral system. It relies on one symbol for the number 1. All higher numbers are written by repeating this symbol. For example, the number 7 can be represented by repeating the symbol for 1 seven times. This system makes it cumbersome to write large numbers, which is why many non-positional systems include additional symbols to directly represent larger numbers. Variations of the unary numeral systems are employed in tally sticks using dents and in tally marks. Egyptian hieroglyphics had a more complex non-positional numeral system. They have additional symbols for numbers like 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000. These symbols can be combined into a sum to more conveniently express larger numbers. For instance, the numeral for 10,405 uses one time the symbol for 10,000, four times the symbol for 100, and five times the symbol for 1. A similar well-known framework is the Roman numeral system. It has the symbols I, V, X, L, C, D, M as its basic numerals to represent the numbers 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1000. A numeral system is positional if the position of a basic numeral in a compound expression determines its value. Positional numeral systems have a radix that acts as a multiplicand of the different positions. For each subsequent position, the radix is raised to a higher power. In the common decimal system, also called the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, the radix is 10. This means that the first digit is multiplied by formula_15, the next digit is multiplied by formula_16, and so on. For example, the decimal numeral 532 stands for formula_17. Because of the effect of the digits' positions, the numeral 532 differs from the numerals 325 and 253 even though they have the same digits. Another positional numeral system used extensively in computer arithmetic is the binary system, which has a radix of 2. This means that the first digit is multiplied by formula_18, the next digit by formula_19, and so on. For example, the number 13 is written as 1101 in the binary notation, which stands for formula_20. In computing, each digit in the binary notation corresponds to one bit. The earliest positional system was developed by ancient Babylonians and had a radix of 60. Operations. Arithmetic operations are ways of combining, transforming, or manipulating numbers. They are functions that have numbers both as input and output. The most important operations in arithmetic are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Further operations include exponentiation, extraction of roots, and logarithm. If these operations are performed on variables rather than numbers, they are sometimes referred to as algebraic operations. Two important concepts in relation to arithmetic operations are identity elements and inverse elements. The identity element or neutral element of an operation does not cause any change if it is applied to another element. For example, the identity element of addition is 0 since any sum of a number and 0 results in the same number. The inverse element is the element that results in the identity element when combined with another element. For instance, the additive inverse of the number 6 is -6 since their sum is 0. There are not only inverse elements but also inverse operations. In an informal sense, one operation is the inverse of another operation if it undoes the first operation. For example, subtraction is the inverse of addition since a number returns to its original value if a second number is first added and subsequently subtracted, as in formula_21. Defined more formally, the operation "formula_22" is an inverse of the operation "formula_23" if it fulfills the following condition: formula_24 if and only if formula_25. Commutativity and associativity are laws governing the order in which some arithmetic operations can be carried out. An operation is commutative if the order of the arguments can be changed without affecting the results. This is the case for addition, for instance, formula_26 is the same as formula_27. Associativity is a rule that affects the order in which a series of operations can be carried out. An operation is associative if, in a series of two operations, it does not matter which operation is carried out first. This is the case for multiplication, for example, since formula_28 is the same as formula_29. Addition and subtraction. Addition is an arithmetic operation in which two numbers, called the addends, are combined into a single number, called the sum. The symbol of addition is formula_30. Examples are formula_31 and formula_32. The term summation is used if several additions are performed in a row. Counting is a type of repeated addition in which the number 1 is continuously added. Subtraction is the inverse of addition. In it, one number, known as the subtrahend, is taken away from another, known as the minuend. The result of this operation is called the difference. The symbol of subtraction is formula_33. Examples are formula_34 and formula_35. Subtraction is often treated as a special case of addition: instead of subtracting a positive number, it is also possible to add a negative number. For instance formula_36. This helps to simplify mathematical computations by reducing the number of basic arithmetic operations needed to perform calculations. The additive identity element is 0 and the additive inverse of a number is the negative of that number. For instance, formula_37 and formula_38. Addition is both commutative and associative. Multiplication and division. Multiplication is an arithmetic operation in which two numbers, called the multiplier and the multiplicand, are combined into a single number called the product. The symbols of multiplication are formula_39, formula_40, and *. Examples are formula_41 and formula_42. If the multiplicand is a natural number then multiplication is the same as repeated addition, as in formula_43. Division is the inverse of multiplication. In it, one number, known as the dividend, is split into several equal parts by another number, known as the divisor. The result of this operation is called the quotient. The symbols of division are formula_44 and formula_45. Examples are formula_46 and formula_47. Division is often treated as a special case of multiplication: instead of dividing by a number, it is also possible to multiply by its reciprocal. The reciprocal of a number is 1 divided by that number. For instance, formula_48. The multiplicative identity element is 1 and the multiplicative inverse of a number is the reciprocal of that number. For example, formula_49 and formula_50. Multiplication is both commutative and associative. Exponentiation and logarithm. Exponentiation is an arithmetic operation in which a number, known as the base, is raised to the power of another number, known as the exponent. The result of this operation is called the power. Exponentiation is sometimes expressed using the symbol ^ but the more common way is to write the exponent in superscript right after the base. Examples are formula_51 and formula_52^formula_53. If the exponent is a natural number then exponentiation is the same as repeated multiplication, as in formula_54. Roots are a special type of exponentiation using a fractional exponent. For example, the square root of a number is the same as raising the number to the power of formula_7 and the cube root of a number is the same as raising the number to the power of formula_56. Examples are formula_57 and formula_58. Logarithm is the inverse of exponentiation. The logarithm of a number formula_59 to the base formula_60 is the exponent to which formula_60 must be raised to produce formula_59. For instance, since formula_63, the logarithm base 10 of 1000 is 3. The logarithm of formula_59 to base formula_60 is denoted as formula_66, or without parentheses, formula_67, or even without the explicit base, formula_68, when the base can be understood from context. So, the previous example can be written formula_69. Exponentiation and logarithm do not have general identity elements and inverse elements like addition and multiplication. The neutral element of exponentiation in relation to the exponent is 1, as in formula_70. However, exponentiation does not have a general identity element since 1 is not the neutral element for the base. Exponentiation and logarithm are neither commutative nor associative. Types. Different types of arithmetic systems are discussed in the academic literature. They differ from each other based on what type of number they operate on, what numeral system they use to represent them, and whether they operate on mathematical objects other than numbers. Integer arithmetic. Integer arithmetic is the branch of arithmetic that deals with the manipulation of positive and negative whole numbers. Simple one-digit operations can be performed by following or memorizing a table that presents the results of all possible combinations, like an addition table or a multiplication table. Other common methods are verbal counting and finger-counting. For operations on numbers with more than one digit, different techniques can be employed to calculate the result by using several one-digit operations in a row. For example, in the method addition with carries, the two numbers are written one above the other. Starting from the rightmost digit, each pair of digits is added together. The rightmost digit of the sum is written below them. If the sum is a two-digit number then the leftmost digit, called the "carry", is added to the next pair of digits to the left. This process is repeated until all digits have been added. Other methods used for integer additions are the number line method, the partial sum method, and the compensation method. A similar technique is utilized for subtraction: it also starts with the rightmost digit and uses a "borrow" or a negative carry for the column on the left if the result of the one-digit subtraction is negative. A basic technique of integer multiplication employs repeated addition. For example, the product of formula_71 can be calculated as formula_72. A common technique for multiplication with larger numbers is called long multiplication. This method starts by writing the multiplier above the multiplicand. The calculation begins by multiplying the multiplier only with the rightmost digit of the multiplicand and writing the result below, starting in the rightmost column. The same is done for each digit of the multiplicand and the result in each case is shifted one position to the left. As a final step, all the individual products are added to arrive at the total product of the two multi-digit numbers. Other techniques used for multiplication are the grid method and the lattice method. Computer science is interested in multiplication algorithms with a low computational complexity to be able to efficiently multiply very large integers, such as the Karatsuba algorithm, the Schönhage–Strassen algorithm, and the Toom–Cook algorithm. A common technique used for division is called long division. Other methods include short division and chunking. Integer arithmetic is not closed under division. This means that when dividing one integer by another integer, the result is not always an integer. For instance, 7 divided by 2 is not a whole number but 3.5. One way to ensure that the result is an integer is to round the result to a whole number. However, this method leads to inaccuracies as the original value is altered. Another method is to perform the division only partially and retain the remainder. For example, 7 divided by 2 is 3 with a remainder of 1. These difficulties are avoided by rational number arithmetic, which allows for the exact representation of fractions. A simple method to calculate exponentiation is by repeated multiplication. For instance, the exponentiation of formula_73 can be calculated as formula_74. A more efficient technique used for large exponents is exponentiation by squaring. It breaks down the calculation into a number of squaring operations. For example, the exponentiation formula_75 can be written as formula_76. By taking advantage of repeated squaring operations, only 7 individual operations are needed rather than the 64 operations required for regular repeated multiplication. Methods to calculate logarithms include the Taylor series and continued fractions. Integer arithmetic is not closed under logarithm and under exponentiation with negative exponents, meaning that the result of these operations is not always an integer. Number theory. Number theory studies the structure and properties of integers as well as the relations and laws between them. Some of the main branches of modern number theory include elementary number theory, analytic number theory, algebraic number theory, and geometric number theory. Elementary number theory studies aspects of integers that can be investigated using elementary methods. Its topics include divisibility, factorization, and primality. Analytic number theory, by contrast, relies on techniques from analysis and calculus. It examines problems like how prime numbers are distributed and the claim that every even number is a sum of two prime numbers. Algebraic number theory employs algebraic structures to analyze the properties of and relations between numbers. Examples are the use of fields and rings, as in algebraic number fields like the ring of integers. Geometric number theory uses concepts from geometry to study numbers. For instance, it investigates how lattice points with integer coordinates behave in a plane. Further branches of number theory are probabilistic number theory, which employs methods from probability theory, combinatorial number theory, which relies on the field of combinatorics, computational number theory, which approaches number-theoretic problems with computational methods, and applied number theory, which examines the application of number theory to fields like physics, biology, and cryptography. Influential theorems in number theory include the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, Euclid's theorem, and Fermat's Last Theorem. According to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, every integer greater than 1 is either a prime number or can be represented as a unique product of prime numbers. For example, the number 18 is not a prime number and can be represented as formula_77, all of which are prime numbers. The number 19, by contrast, is a prime number that has no other prime factorization. Euclid's theorem states that there are infinitely many prime numbers. Fermat's Last Theorem is the statement that no positive integer values exist for formula_78, formula_60, and formula_80 that solve the equation formula_81 if formula_82 is greater than formula_83. Rational number arithmetic. Rational number arithmetic is the branch of arithmetic that deals with the manipulation of numbers that can be expressed as a ratio of two integers. Most arithmetic operations on rational numbers can be calculated by performing a series of integer arithmetic operations on the numerators and the denominators of the involved numbers. If two rational numbers have the same denominator then they can be added by adding their numerators and keeping the common denominator. For example, formula_84. A similar procedure is used for subtraction. If the two numbers do not have the same denominator then they must be transformed to find a common denominator. This can be achieved by scaling the first number with the denominator of the second number while scaling the second number with the denominator of the first number. For instance, formula_85. Two rational numbers are multiplied by multiplying their numerators and their denominators respectively, as in formula_86. Dividing one rational number by another can be achieved by multiplying the first number with the reciprocal of the second number. This means that the numerator and the denominator of the second number change position. For example, formula_87. Unlike integer arithmetic, rational number arithmetic is closed under division as long as the divisor is not 0. Both integer arithmetic and rational number arithmetic are not closed under exponentiation and logarithm. One way to calculate exponentiation with a fractional exponent is to perform two separate calculations: one exponentiation using the numerator of the exponent followed by drawing the nth root of the result based on the denominator of the exponent. For example, formula_88. The first operation can be completed using methods like repeated multiplication or exponentiation by squaring. One way to get an approximate result for the second operation is to employ Newton's method, which uses a series of steps to gradually refine an initial guess until it reaches the desired level of accuracy. The Taylor series or the continued fraction method can be utilized to calculate logarithms. The decimal fraction notation is a special way of representing rational numbers whose denominator is a power of 10. For instance, the rational numbers formula_89, formula_90, and formula_91 are written as 0.1, 3.71, and 0.0044 in the decimal fraction notation. Modified versions of integer calculation methods like addition with carry and long multiplication can be applied to calculations with decimal fractions. Not all rational numbers have a finite representation in the decimal notation. For example, the rational number formula_56 corresponds to 0.333... with an infinite number of 3s. The shortened notation for this type of repeating decimal is 0.. Every repeating decimal expresses a rational number. Real number arithmetic. Real number arithmetic is the branch of arithmetic that deals with the manipulation of both rational and irrational numbers. Irrational numbers are numbers that cannot be expressed through fractions or repeated decimals, like the root of 2 and . Unlike rational number arithmetic, real number arithmetic is closed under exponentiation as long as it uses a positive number as its base. The same is true for the logarithm of positive real numbers as long as the logarithm base is positive and not 1. Irrational numbers involve an infinite non-repeating series of decimal digits. Because of this, there is often no simple and accurate way to express the results of arithmetic operations like formula_93 or In cases where absolute precision is not required, the problem of calculating arithmetic operations on real numbers is usually addressed by truncation or rounding. For truncation, a certain number of leftmost digits are kept and remaining digits are discarded or replaced by zeros. For example, the number has an infinite number of digits starting with 3.14159... If this number is truncated to 4 decimal places, the result is 3.141. Rounding is a similar process in which the last preserved digit is increased by one if the next digit is 5 or greater but remains the same if the next digit is less than 5, so that the rounded number is the best approximation of a given precision for the original number. For instance, if the number is rounded to 4 decimal places, the result is 3.142 because the following digit is a 5, so 3.142 is closer to than 3.141. These methods allow computers to efficiently perform approximate calculations on real numbers. Approximations and errors. In science and engineering, numbers represent estimates of physical quantities derived from measurement or modeling. Unlike mathematically exact numbers such as or scientifically relevant numerical data are inherently inexact, involving some measurement uncertainty. One basic way to express the degree of certainty about each number's value and avoid false precision is to round each measurement to a certain number of digits, called significant digits, which are implied to be accurate. For example, a person's height measured with a tape measure might only be precisely known to the nearest centimeter, so should be presented as 1.62 meters rather than 1.6217 meters. If converted to imperial units, this quantity should be rounded to 64 inches or 63.8 inches rather than 63.7795 inches, to clearly convey the precision of the measurement. When a number is written using ordinary decimal notation, leading zeros are not significant, and trailing zeros of numbers not written with a decimal point are implicitly considered to be non-significant. For example, the numbers 0.056 and 1200 each have only 2 significant digits, but the number 40.00 has 4 significant digits. Representing uncertainty using only significant digits is a relatively crude method, with some unintuitive subtleties; explicitly keeping track of an estimate or upper bound of the approximation error is a more sophisticated approach. In the example, the person's height might be represented as meters or . In performing calculations with uncertain quantities, the uncertainty should be propagated to calculated quantities. When adding or subtracting two or more quantities, add the absolute uncertainties of each summand together to obtain the absolute uncertainty of the sum. When multiplying or dividing two or more quantities, add the relative uncertainties of each factor together to obtain the relative uncertainty of the product. When representing uncertainty by significant digits, uncertainty can be coarsely propagated by rounding the result of adding or subtracting two or more quantities to the leftmost last significant decimal place among the summands, and by rounding the result of multiplying or dividing two or more quantities to the least number of significant digits among the factors. (See .) More sophisticated methods of dealing with uncertain values include interval arithmetic and affine arithmetic. Interval arithmetic describes operations on intervals. Intervals can be used to represent a range of values if one does not know the precise magnitude, for example, because of measurement errors. Interval arithmetic includes operations like addition and multiplication on intervals, as in formula_94 and formula_95. It is closely related to affine arithmetic, which aims to give more precise results by performing calculations on affine forms rather than intervals. An affine form is a number together with error terms that describe how the number may deviate from the actual magnitude. The precision of numerical quantities can be expressed uniformly using normalized scientific notation, which is also convenient for concisely representing numbers which are much larger or smaller than 1. Using scientific notation, a number is decomposed into the product of a number between 1 and 10, called the "significand", and 10 raised to some integer power, called the "exponent". The significand consists of the significant digits of the number, and is written as a leading digit 1–9 followed by a decimal point and a sequence of digits 0–9. For example, the normalized scientific notation of the number 8276000 is formula_96 with significand 8.276 and exponent 6, and the normalized scientific notation of the number 0.00735 is formula_97 with significand 7.35 and exponent −3. Unlike ordinary decimal notation, where trailing zeros of large numbers are implicitly considered to be non-significant, in scientific notation every digit in the significand is considered significant, and adding trailing zeros indicates higher precision. For example, while the number 1200 implicitly has only 2 significant digits, the number explicitly has 3. A common method employed by computers to approximate real number arithmetic is called floating-point arithmetic. It represents real numbers similar to the scientific notation through three numbers: a significand, a base, and an exponent. The precision of the significand is limited by the number of bits allocated to represent it. If an arithmetic operation results in a number that requires more bits than are available, the computer rounds the result to the closest representable number. This leads to rounding errors. A consequence of this behavior is that certain laws of arithmetic are violated by floating-point arithmetic. For example, floating-point addition is not associative since the rounding errors introduced can depend on the order of the additions. This means that the result of formula_98 is sometimes different from the result of The most common technical standard used for floating-point arithmetic is called IEEE 754. Among other things, it determines how numbers are represented, how arithmetic operations and rounding are performed, and how errors and exceptions are handled. In cases where computation speed is not a limiting factor, it is possible to use arbitrary-precision arithmetic, for which the precision of calculations is only restricted by the computer's memory. Tool use. Forms of arithmetic can also be distinguished by the tools employed to perform calculations and include many approaches besides the regular use of pen and paper. Mental arithmetic relies exclusively on the mind without external tools. Instead, it utilizes visualization, memorization, and certain calculation techniques to solve arithmetic problems. One such technique is the compensation method, which consists in altering the numbers to make the calculation easier and then adjusting the result afterward. For example, instead of calculating formula_99, one calculates formula_100 which is easier because it uses a round number. In the next step, one adds formula_52 to the result to compensate for the earlier adjustment. Mental arithmetic is often taught in primary education to train the numerical abilities of the students. The human body can also be employed as an arithmetic tool. The use of hands in finger counting is often introduced to young children to teach them numbers and simple calculations. In its most basic form, the number of extended fingers corresponds to the represented quantity and arithmetic operations like addition and subtraction are performed by extending or retracting fingers. This system is limited to small numbers compared to more advanced systems which employ different approaches to represent larger quantities. The human voice is used as an arithmetic aid in verbal counting. Tally marks are a simple system based on external tools other than the body. This system relies on mark making, such as strokes drawn on a surface or notches carved into a wooden stick, to keep track of quantities. Some forms of tally marks arrange the strokes in groups of five to make them easier to read. The abacus is a more advanced tool to represent numbers and perform calculations. An abacus usually consists of a series of rods, each holding several beads. Each bead represents a quantity, which is counted if the bead is moved from one end of a rod to the other. Calculations happen by manipulating the positions of beads until the final bead pattern reveals the result. Related aids include counting boards, which use tokens whose value depends on the area on the board in which they are placed, and counting rods, which are arranged in horizontal and vertical patterns to represent different numbers. Sectors and slide rules are more refined calculating instruments that rely on geometric relationships between different scales to perform both basic and advanced arithmetic operations. Printed tables were particularly relevant as an aid to look up the results of operations like logarithm and trigonometric functions. Mechanical calculators automate manual calculation processes. They present the user with some form of input device to enter numbers by turning dials or pressing keys. They include an internal mechanism usually consisting of gears, levers, and wheels to perform calculations and display the results. For electronic calculators and computers, this procedure is further refined by replacing the mechanical components with electronic circuits like microprocessors that combine and transform electric signals to perform calculations. Others. There are many other types of arithmetic. Modular arithmetic operates on a finite set of numbers. If an operation would result in a number outside this finite set then the number is adjusted back into the set, similar to how the hands of clocks start at the beginning again after having completed one cycle. The number at which this adjustment happens is called the modulus. For example, a regular clock has a modulus of 12. In the case of adding 4 to 9, this means that the result is not 13 but 1. The same principle applies also to other operations, such as subtraction, multiplication, and division. Some forms of arithmetic deal with operations performed on mathematical objects other than numbers. Interval arithmetic describes operations on intervals. Vector arithmetic and matrix arithmetic describe arithmetic operations on vectors and matrices, like vector addition and matrix multiplication. Arithmetic systems can be classified based on the numeral system they rely on. For instance, decimal arithmetic describes arithmetic operations in the decimal system. Other examples are binary arithmetic, octal arithmetic, and hexadecimal arithmetic. Compound unit arithmetic describes arithmetic operations performed on magnitudes with compound units. It involves additional operations to govern the transformation between single unit and compound unit quantities. For example, the operation of reduction is used to transform the compound quantity 1 h 90 min into the single unit quantity 150 min. Non-Diophantine arithmetics are arithmetic systems that violate traditional arithmetic intuitions and include equations like formula_102 and formula_103. They can be employed to represent some real-world situations in modern physics and everyday life. For instance, the equation formula_102 can be used to describe the observation that if one raindrop is added to another raindrop then they do not remain two separate entities but become one. Axiomatic foundations. Axiomatic foundations of arithmetic try to provide a small set of laws, called axioms, from which all fundamental properties of and operations on numbers can be derived. They constitute logically consistent and systematic frameworks that can be used to formulate mathematical proofs in a rigorous manner. Two well-known approaches are the Dedekind–Peano axioms and set-theoretic constructions. The Dedekind–Peano axioms provide an axiomatization of the arithmetic of natural numbers. Their basic principles were first formulated by Richard Dedekind and later refined by Giuseppe Peano. They rely only on a small number of primitive mathematical concepts, such as 0, natural number, and successor. The Peano axioms determine how these concepts are related to each other. All other arithmetic concepts can then be defined in terms of these primitive concepts. Numbers greater than 0 are expressed by repeated application of the successor function formula_105. For example, formula_106 is formula_107 and formula_52 is formula_109. Arithmetic operations can be defined as mechanisms that affect how the successor function is applied. For instance, to add formula_83 to any number is the same as applying the successor function two times to this number. Various axiomatizations of arithmetic rely on set theory. They cover natural numbers but can also be extended to integers, rational numbers, and real numbers. Each natural number is represented by a unique set. 0 is usually defined as the empty set formula_111. Each subsequent number can be defined as the union of the previous number with the set containing the previous number. For example, formula_112, formula_113, and formula_114. Integers can be defined as ordered pairs of natural numbers where the second number is subtracted from the first one. For instance, the pair (9, 0) represents the number 9 while the pair (0, 9) represents the number −9. Rational numbers are defined as pairs of integers where the first number represents the numerator and the second number represents the denominator. For example, the pair (3, 7) represents the rational number formula_115. One way to construct the real numbers relies on the concept of Dedekind cuts. According to this approach, each real number is represented by a partition of all rational numbers into two sets, one for all numbers below the represented real number and the other for the rest. Arithmetic operations are defined as functions that perform various set-theoretic transformations on the sets representing the input numbers to arrive at the set representing the result. History. The earliest forms of arithmetic are sometimes traced back to counting and tally marks used to keep track of quantities. Some historians suggest that the Lebombo bone (dated about 43,000 years ago) and the Ishango bone (dated about 22,000 to 30,000 years ago) are the oldest arithmetic artifacts but this interpretation is disputed. However, a basic sense of numbers may predate these findings and might even have existed before the development of language. It was not until the emergence of ancient civilizations that a more complex and structured approach to arithmetic began to evolve, starting around 3000 BCE. This became necessary because of the increased need to keep track of stored items, manage land ownership, and arrange exchanges. All the major ancient civilizations developed non-positional numeral systems to facilitate the representation of numbers. They also had symbols for operations like addition and subtraction and were aware of fractions. Examples are Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as the numeral systems invented in Sumeria, China, and India. The first positional numeral system was developed by the Babylonians starting around 1800 BCE. This was a significant improvement over earlier numeral systems since it made the representation of large numbers and calculations on them more efficient. Abacuses have been utilized as hand-operated calculating tools since ancient times as efficient means for performing complex calculations. Early civilizations primarily used numbers for concrete practical purposes, like commercial activities and tax records, but lacked an abstract concept of number itself. This changed with the ancient Greek mathematicians, who began to explore the abstract nature of numbers rather than studying how they are applied to specific problems. Another novel feature was their use of proofs to establish mathematical truths and validate theories. A further contribution was their distinction of various classes of numbers, such as even numbers, odd numbers, and prime numbers. This included the discovery that numbers for certain geometrical lengths are irrational and therefore cannot be expressed as a fraction. The works of Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE are often regarded as the inception of Greek mathematics. Diophantus was an influential figure in Greek arithmetic in the 3rd century BCE because of his numerous contributions to number theory and his exploration of the application of arithmetic operations to algebraic equations. The ancient Indians were the first to develop the concept of zero as a number to be used in calculations. The exact rules of its operation were written down by Brahmagupta in around 628 CE. The concept of zero or none existed long before, but it was not considered an object of arithmetic operations. Brahmagupta further provided a detailed discussion of calculations with negative numbers and their application to problems like credit and debt. The concept of negative numbers itself is significantly older and was first explored in Chinese mathematics in the first millennium BCE. Indian mathematicians also developed the positional decimal system used today, in particular the concept of a zero digit instead of empty or missing positions. For example, a detailed treatment of its operations was provided by Aryabhata around the turn of the 6th century CE. The Indian decimal system was further refined and expanded to non-integers during the Islamic Golden Age by Middle Eastern mathematicians such as Al-Khwarizmi. His work was influential in introducing the decimal numeral system to the Western world, which at that time relied on the Roman numeral system. There, it was popularized by mathematicians like Leonardo Fibonacci, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries and also developed the Fibonacci sequence. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many popular textbooks were published to cover the practical calculations for commerce. The use of abacuses also became widespread in this period. In the 16th century, the mathematician Gerolamo Cardano conceived the concept of complex numbers as a way to solve cubic equations. The first mechanical calculators were developed in the 17th century and greatly facilitated complex mathematical calculations, such as Blaise Pascal's calculator and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's stepped reckoner. The 17th century also saw the discovery of the logarithm by John Napier. In the 18th and 19th centuries, mathematicians such as Leonhard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss laid the foundations of modern number theory. Another development in this period concerned work on the formalization and foundations of arithmetic, such as Georg Cantor's set theory and the Dedekind–Peano axioms used as an axiomatization of natural-number arithmetic. Computers and electronic calculators were first developed in the 20th century. Their widespread use revolutionized both the accuracy and speed with which even complex arithmetic computations can be calculated. In various fields. Education. Arithmetic education forms part of primary education. It is one of the first forms of mathematics education that children encounter. Elementary arithmetic aims to give students a basic sense of numbers and to familiarize them with fundamental numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It is usually introduced in relation to concrete scenarios, like counting beads, dividing the class into groups of children of the same size, and calculating change when buying items. Common tools in early arithmetic education are number lines, addition and multiplication tables, counting blocks, and abacuses. Later stages focus on a more abstract understanding and introduce the students to different types of numbers, such as negative numbers, fractions, real numbers, and complex numbers. They further cover more advanced numerical operations, like exponentiation, extraction of roots, and logarithm. They also show how arithmetic operations are employed in other branches of mathematics, such as their application to describe geometrical shapes and the use of variables in algebra. Another aspect is to teach the students the use of algorithms and calculators to solve complex arithmetic problems. Psychology. The psychology of arithmetic is interested in how humans and animals learn about numbers, represent them, and use them for calculations. It examines how mathematical problems are understood and solved and how arithmetic abilities are related to perception, memory, judgment, and decision making. For example, it investigates how collections of concrete items are first encountered in perception and subsequently associated with numbers. A further field of inquiry concerns the relation between numerical calculations and the use of language to form representations. Psychology also explores the biological origin of arithmetic as an inborn ability. This concerns pre-verbal and pre-symbolic cognitive processes implementing arithmetic-like operations required to successfully represent the world and perform tasks like spatial navigation. One of the concepts studied by psychology is numeracy, which is the capability to comprehend numerical concepts, apply them to concrete situations, and reason with them. It includes a fundamental number sense as well as being able to estimate and compare quantities. It further encompasses the abilities to symbolically represent numbers in numbering systems, interpret numerical data, and evaluate arithmetic calculations. Numeracy is a key skill in many academic fields. A lack of numeracy can inhibit academic success and lead to bad economic decisions in everyday life, for example, by misunderstanding mortgage plans and insurance policies. Philosophy. The philosophy of arithmetic studies the fundamental concepts and principles underlying numbers and arithmetic operations. It explores the nature and ontological status of numbers, the relation of arithmetic to language and logic, and how it is possible to acquire arithmetic knowledge. According to Platonism, numbers have mind-independent existence: they exist as abstract objects outside spacetime and without causal powers. This view is rejected by intuitionists, who claim that mathematical objects are mental constructions. Further theories are logicism, which holds that mathematical truths are reducible to logical truths, and formalism, which states that mathematical principles are rules of how symbols are manipulated without claiming that they correspond to entities outside the rule-governed activity. The traditionally dominant view in the epistemology of arithmetic is that arithmetic truths are knowable a priori. This means that they can be known by thinking alone without the need to rely on sensory experience. Some proponents of this view state that arithmetic knowledge is innate while others claim that there is some form of rational intuition through which mathematical truths can be apprehended. A more recent alternative view was suggested by naturalist philosophers like Willard Van Orman Quine, who argue that mathematical principles are high-level generalizations that are ultimately grounded in the sensory world as described by the empirical sciences. Others. Arithmetic is relevant to many fields. In daily life, it is required to calculate change when shopping, manage personal finances, and adjust a cooking recipe for a different number of servings. Businesses use arithmetic to calculate profits and losses and analyze market trends. In the field of engineering, it is used to measure quantities, calculate loads and forces, and design structures. Cryptography relies on arithmetic operations to protect sensitive information by encrypting data and messages. Arithmetic is intimately connected to many branches of mathematics that depend on numerical operations. Algebra relies on arithmetic principles to solve equations using variables. These principles also play a key role in calculus in its attempt to determine rates of change and areas under curves. Geometry uses arithmetic operations to measure the properties of shapes while statistics utilizes them to analyze numerical data. Due to the relevance of arithmetic operations throughout mathematics, the influence of arithmetic extends to most sciences such as physics, computer science, and economics. These operations are used in calculations, problem-solving, data analysis, and algorithms, making them integral to scientific research, technological development, and economic modeling.
3120	44217690	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3120	Andersonville, Georgia	Andersonville is a city in Sumter County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 237. It is located in the southwest part of the state, approximately southwest of Macon on the Central of Georgia railroad. During the American Civil War, it was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp, which is now Andersonville National Historic Site. Andersonville is part of the Americus micropolitan statistical area. History. The hamlet of Anderson was named for John Anderson, a director of the South Western Railroad in 1853 when it was extended from Oglethorpe to Americus. It was known as Anderson Station until the US post office was established in November 1855. The government changed the name of the station from "Anderson" to "Andersonville" in order to avoid confusion with the post office in Anderson, South Carolina. During the Civil War, the Confederate army established Camp Sumter at Andersonville to house incoming Union prisoners of war. The overcrowded Andersonville Prison was notorious for its bad conditions, and nearly 13,000 prisoners died there. After the war, Henry Wirz was convicted for war crimes related to the command of the camp. His trial was later regarded as unfair by several pro-confederacy groups, and a monument in his honor has been erected in Andersonville by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The town also served as a supply depot during the war period. It included a post office, a depot, a blacksmith shop and stable, a couple of general stores, two saloons, a school, a Methodist church, and about a dozen houses. Ben Dykes, who owned the land on which the prison was built, was both depot agent and postmaster. Until the establishment of the prison, the area was entirely dependent on agriculture, supported by dark reddish brown sandy loams later mapped as Greenville and Red Bay soil series. After the close of the prison and end of the war, the town continued economically dependent on agriculture, primarily the cultivation of cotton as a commodity crop. It was not until 1968, when the large-scale mining of kaolin, bauxitic kaolin, and bauxite was begun by Mulcoa, Mullite Company of America, that the town was dramatically altered. This operation exploited of scrub oak wilderness into a massive mining and refining operation. The company now ships more than 2000 tons of refined ore from Andersonville each week. In 1974, long-time mayor Lewis Easterlin and a group of concerned citizens decided to promote tourism in the town, redeveloping Main Street to look much as it did during the American Civil War. The city of Andersonville and the Andersonville National Historic Site, location of the prison camp, are now tourist attractions. Demographics. As of the census of 2000, there were 331 people, 124 households, and 86 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 142 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 65.26% White and 34.74% African American. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.21% of the population. There were 124 households, out of which 34.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.0% were married couples living together, 17.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.6% were non-families. 26.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.67 and the average family size was 3.21. In the city, the population was spread out, with 27.8% under the age of 18, 9.4% from 18 to 24, 31.4% from 25 to 44, 19.3% from 45 to 64, and 12.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 105.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.5 males. The median income for a household in the city was $29,107, and the median income for a family was $30,972. Males had a median income of $26,591 versus $20,000 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,168. About 19.8% of families and 23.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.3% of those under age 18 and 13.5% of those age 65 or over.
3122	1544984	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3122	Agra Canal	The Agra Canal is an important Indian irrigation work which starts from Okhla in Delhi. The Agra canal originates at the Okhla barrage, downstream of Nizamuddin bridge. The canal receives its water from the Yamuna River at Okhla, about to the south of New Delhi. The weir across the Yamuna was constructed of locally quarried stone. It was about long, and rises seven feet above the summer level of the river. From Okhla the canal follows a route south then southeast for in the high land between the Khari-Nadi and the Yamuna and finally joins the Utanga River about below Agra. Navigable branches connect the canal with Mathura and Agra. The canal irrigates about in Agra, and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Faridabad in Haryana, Bharatpur in Rajasthan and also some parts of Delhi. History. The canal opened in the year 1874. In the beginning, it was available for navigation, in Delhi, erstwhile Gurgaon, Mathura and Agra Districts, and Bharatpur State. Later, navigation was stopped in 1904 and the canal has, since then, been exclusively used for irrigation purposes only. At present, the canal does not flow in Gurgaon district, but only in Faridabad, which was earlier a part of Gurgaon. In recent times, Agra canal is an important landmark which separates Greater Faridabad from Faridabad.
3123	49715962	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3123	Amakusa	is a series of islands off the west coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Geography. The largest island of the Amakusa group is Shimoshima, which is 26.5 miles long and 13.5 miles at its widest (). It is situated at 32°20'N, 130°E, separated from the rest of Kumamoto Prefecture by the Yatsushiro Sea. While lacking high mountains with only four peaks surpassing , the island terrain is ruggedly hilly. To cope with the lack of flat arable land, farming is carried out on a terrace system of cultivation. History. Amakusa, along with the neighboring Shimabara Peninsula, became the site of the Shimabara rebellion in the 17th century, led by Christians. Following the rebellion, Kakure Kirishitan, the Christians who had survived, continued to practice their faith in secret, despite severe persecution. Economy. Amakusa produces a little coal and pottery stone, both being used by the potters of Hirado ware and Satsuma ware. Many kilns remain on the islands today, and pottery and pottery stone are still exported. Amakusa pottery has been recognised by the government. The retail company Muji brought out its own line of "Hakuji" home ware, which is produced out of ground translucent Amakusa stones kneaded into clay, using traditional techniques. People. Hidenoshin Koyama, who built Thomas Blake Glover's House in Glover Garden, came from this island. Kenta and Ko-shin, two of the three members of Wanima come from the island of Amakusa. Government. At present, the islands are organized as Amakusa District, Amakusa City, and Kami-amakusa City, all of which are under the administration of Kumamoto Prefecture. Transport. The islands are served by Amakusa Airfield, located on the north end of Shimoshima. The islands are connected to the mainland by the Five Bridges of Amakusa and by ferry from Hondo and Matsushima. There are also ferries between the islands and the neighboring prefectures of Kagoshima Prefecture and Nagasaki Prefecture. The ferry from Oniike on the north Shimoshima to Kuchinotsu, at the southern tip of the Shimabara Peninsula, is run by the Shimabara Railway and operates hourly each day. The ferry boat from Tomioka Port in Reihoku, sailing north to Mogi in Nagasaki Prefecture, is operated by Yasuda Sangyo Kisen Co. Ltd. Two ferries from Shinwa and Ushibuka, in the south of Shimoshima, connect Amakusa to Nagashima in Kagoshima Prefecture.
3124	48658991	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3124	Afterglow	An afterglow in meteorology consists of several atmospheric optical phenomena, with a general definition as a broad arch of whitish or pinkish sunlight in the twilight sky, consisting of the bright segment and the purple light. Purple light mainly occurs when the Sun is 2–6° below the horizon, from civil to nautical twilight, while the bright segment lasts until the end of the nautical twilight. Afterglow is often in cases of volcanic eruptions discussed, while its purple light is discussed as a different particular "volcanic purple light". Specifically in volcanic occurrences it is light scattered by fine particulates, like dust, suspended in the atmosphere. In the case of alpenglow, which is similar to the Belt of Venus, afterglow is used in general for the golden-red glowing light from the sunset and sunrise reflected in the sky, and in particularly for its last stage, when the purple light is reflected. The opposite of an afterglow is a foreglow, which occurs before sunrise. Sunlight reaches Earth around civil twilight during golden hour intensely in its low-energy and low-frequency red component. During this part of civil twilight after sunset and before sundawn the red sunlight remains visible by scattering through particles in the air. Backscattering, possibly after being reflected off clouds or high snowfields in mountain regions, furthermore creates a reddish to pinkish light. The high-energy and high-frequency components of light towards blue are scattered out broadly, producing the broader blue light of nautical twilight before or after the reddish light of civil twilight, while in combination with the reddish light producing the purple light. This period of blue dominating is referred to as the blue hour and is, like the golden hour, widely treasured by photographers and painters. After the 1883 eruption of the volcano Krakatoa, a remarkable series of red sunsets appeared worldwide. An enormous amount of exceedingly fine dust were blown to a great height by the volcano's explosion, and then globally diffused by the high atmospheric winds. Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" possibly depicts an afterglow during this period.
3125	5042921	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3125	Ammonius Grammaticus	Ammonius Grammaticus (; ; ) was a 4th-century Egyptian priest. In 391, he was involved in a violent revolt centred at Alexandria's Serapeum, where the pagan rebels tortured and killed captured Christians. After the suppression of the revolt and the destruction of the temple, Ammonius fled to Constantinople, where he became the tutor of the ecclesiastical historian Socrates. Ammonius was formerly identified as the author of a treatise titled "Peri homoíōn kai diaphórōn léxeōn" (περὶ ὁμοίων καὶ διαφόρων λέξεων, "On the Differences of Synonymous Expressions"). But it seems more probable that the real author was Herennius Philo of Byblus, who was born during the reign of Nero and lived till the reign of Hadrian, and that the treatise in its present form is a revision prepared by a later Byzantine editor, whose name may have been Ammonius. References. Attribution:
3129	1299008950	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3129	Algebraic closure	In mathematics, particularly abstract algebra, an algebraic closure of a field "K" is an algebraic extension of "K" that is algebraically closed. It is one of many closures in mathematics. Using Zorn's lemma or the weaker ultrafilter lemma, it can be shown that every field has an algebraic closure, and that the algebraic closure of a field "K" is unique up to an isomorphism that fixes every member of "K". Because of this essential uniqueness, we often speak of "the" algebraic closure of "K", rather than "an" algebraic closure of "K". The algebraic closure of a field "K" can be thought of as the largest algebraic extension of "K". To see this, note that if "L" is any algebraic extension of "K", then the algebraic closure of "L" is also an algebraic closure of "K", and so "L" is contained within the algebraic closure of "K". The algebraic closure of "K" is also the smallest algebraically closed field containing "K", because if "M" is any algebraically closed field containing "K", then the elements of "M" that are algebraic over "K" form an algebraic closure of "K". The algebraic closure of a field "K" has the same cardinality as "K" if "K" is infinite, and is countably infinite if "K" is finite. Existence of an algebraic closure and splitting fields. Let formula_1 be the set of all monic irreducible polynomials in "K"["x"]. For each formula_2, introduce new variables formula_3 where formula_4. Let "R" be the polynomial ring over "K" generated by formula_5 for all formula_6 and all formula_7 Write formula_8 with formula_9. Let "I" be the ideal in "R" generated by the formula_10. Since "I" is strictly smaller than "R", Zorn's lemma implies that there exists a maximal ideal "M" in "R" that contains "I". The field "K"1="R"/"M" has the property that every polynomial formula_11 with coefficients in "K" splits as the product of formula_12 and hence has all roots in "K"1. In the same way, an extension "K"2 of "K"1 can be constructed, etc. The union of all these extensions is the algebraic closure of "K", because any polynomial with coefficients in this new field has its coefficients in some "K""n" with sufficiently large "n", and then its roots are in "K""n"+1, and hence in the union itself. It can be shown along the same lines that for any subset "S" of "K"["x"], there exists a splitting field of "S" over "K". Separable closure. An algebraic closure "Kalg" of "K" contains a unique separable extension "Ksep" of "K" containing all (algebraic) separable extensions of "K" within "Kalg". This subextension is called a separable closure of "K". Since a separable extension of a separable extension is again separable, there are no finite separable extensions of "Ksep", of degree > 1. Saying this another way, "K" is contained in a "separably-closed" algebraic extension field. It is unique (up to isomorphism). The separable closure is the full algebraic closure if and only if "K" is a perfect field. For example, if "K" is a field of characteristic "p" and if "X" is transcendental over "K", formula_13 is a non-separable algebraic field extension. In general, the absolute Galois group of "K" is the Galois group of "Ksep" over "K".
3130	41373646	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3130	Advanced Power Management	Advanced power management (APM) is a technical standard for power management developed by Intel and Microsoft and released in 1992 which enables an operating system running an IBM-compatible personal computer to work with the BIOS (part of the computer's firmware) to achieve power management. Revision 1.2 was the last version of the APM specification, released in 1996. ACPI is the successor to APM. Microsoft dropped support for APM in Windows Vista. The Linux kernel still mostly supports APM, though support for APM CPU idle was dropped in version 3.0. Overview. APM uses a layered approach to manage devices. APM-aware applications (which include device drivers) talk to an OS-specific APM driver. This driver communicates to the APM-aware BIOS, which controls the hardware. There is the ability to opt out of APM control on a device-by-device basis, which can be used if a driver wants to communicate directly with a hardware device. Communication occurs both ways; power management events are sent from the BIOS to the APM driver, and the APM driver sends information and requests to the BIOS via function calls. In this way the APM driver is an intermediary between the BIOS and the operating system. Power management happens in two ways; through the above-mentioned function calls from the APM driver to the BIOS requesting power state changes, and automatically based on device activity. In APM 1.0 and APM 1.1, power management is almost fully controlled by the BIOS. In APM 1.2, the operating system can control PM time (e.g. suspend timeout). In 1997, Phoenix Technologies released "APM 2.0" which is a kernel device driver compatible with an APM 1.2 BIOS. Power management events. There are 12 power events (such as standby, suspend and resume requests, and low battery notifications), plus OEM-defined events, that can be sent from the APM BIOS to the operating system. The APM driver regularly polls for event change notifications. Power Management Events: APM functions. There are 21 APM function calls defined that the APM driver can use to query power management statuses, or request power state transitions. Example function calls include letting the BIOS know about current CPU usage (the BIOS may respond to such a call by placing the CPU in a low-power state, or returning it to its full-power state), retrieving the current power state of a device, or requesting a power state change. Power states. The APM specification defines system power states and device power states. System power states. APM defines five power states for the computer system: Device power states. APM also defines power states that APM-aware hardware can implement. There is no requirement that an APM-aware device implement all states. The four states are: Hardware components. CPU. The CPU core (defined in APM as the CPU clock, cache, system bus and system timers) is treated specially in APM, as it is the last device to be powered down, and the first device to be powered back up. The CPU core is always controlled through the APM BIOS (there is no option to control it through a driver). Drivers can use APM function calls to notify the BIOS about CPU usage, but it is up to the BIOS to act on this information; a driver cannot directly tell the CPU to go into a power saving state. ATA drives. The ATA specification and SATA specification defines APM provisions for hard drives, which specifies a trade-off between spin-down frequency and always-on performance. Unlike the BIOS-side APM, the ATA APM and SATA APM has never been deprecated. Aggressive spin-down frequencies may reduce drive lifespan by unnecessarily accumulating load cycles; most modern drives are specified to sustain 300,000 cycles and usually last at least 600,000. On the other hand, not spinning down the drive will cause extra power draw and heat generation; high temperatures also reduce the lifespan of hard drives.
3132	35874198	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3132	Adolphe Sax	Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (; 6 November 1814 – 7 February 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, and redesigned the bass clarinet in a fashion still used in the 21st century. He played the flute and clarinet. Early life. Antoine-Joseph Sax was born on 6 November 1814 in Dinant, in what is now Belgium, to Charles-Joseph Sax and his wife Marie-Joseph (Masson). While his given name was Antoine-Joseph, he was referred to as Adolphe from childhood. His father and mother were instrument designers themselves, who made several changes to the design of the French horn. Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age, entering two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of 15. He subsequently studied performance on those two instruments as well as voice at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Sax faced many brushes with death. As a child, he once fell from a height of three floors, hit his head on a stone and was believed dead. At the age of three, he drank a bowl full of acidic water, mistaking it for milk, and later swallowed a pin. He received serious burns from a gunpowder explosion and once fell onto a hot cast-iron frying pan, burning his side. Several times he avoided accidental poisoning and asphyxiation from sleeping in a room where varnished furniture was drying. Another time young Sax was struck on the head by a cobblestone and fell into a river, almost dying. His mother once said that "he's a child condemned to misfortune; he won't live". His neighbors called him "little Sax, the ghost". Career and later life. After leaving the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Sax began to experiment with new instrument designs, while his parents continued their business of making conventional instruments. Sax's first important invention was an improvement in bass clarinet design, which he patented at the age of 24. He relocated permanently to Paris in 1842 and began working on a new set of valved bugles. While he did not invent this instrument, his examples were much more successful than those of his rivals and became known as saxhorns. Hector Berlioz was so enamoured of these that he arranged in February 1844 for one of his pieces to be played entirely on saxhorns. They were made in seven different sizes and paved the way for the creation of the flugelhorn. Today saxhorns are sometimes used in concert bands, marching bands, and orchestras. The saxhorn also laid the groundwork for the modern euphonium. Sax also developed the "saxotromba" family, valved brass instruments with narrower bore than the saxhorns, in 1845, though they survived only briefly. The use of saxhorns spread rapidly. The saxhorn valves were accepted as state-of-the-art in their time and remain largely unchanged today. The advances made by Adolphe Sax were soon followed by the British brass band movement, which exclusively adopted the saxhorn family of instruments. A decade after saxhorns became available, the Jedforest Instrumental Band (1854) and The Hawick Saxhorn Band (1855) were formed in the Scottish Borders. The period around 1840 saw Sax inventing the , an early unsuccessful design of contrabass clarinet. On 28 June 1846 he patented the saxophone, intended for use in orchestras and military bands. By 1846 Sax had designed saxophones ranging from sopranino to subcontrabass, although not all were built. Composer Hector Berlioz wrote approvingly of the new instrument in 1842, but despite his support, saxophones did not become a standard part of the orchestra. Their ability to play technical passages easily like woodwinds yet project loudly like brass instruments led to their inclusion in military bands in France and elsewhere. During the Crimean War (1853–1856), Sax made two more inventions, though neither was ever actually built: First, he designed the "Saxotonnerre", a massive, locomotive-powered organ which was supposed to be so loud as to be heard across all of Paris at once. The second was developed in response to the Crimean War's Siege of Sevastopol where the French military and its allies were locked in a destructive conflict. As a potential solution to such lengthy sieges, Sax thus designed the "Saxocannon", a giant cannon whose half-ton round shots would be powerful enough to completely destroy an "average-sized city". Sax's reputation eventually helped secure him a job teaching at the Paris Conservatory in 1857. He continued to make instruments later in life and presided over the new saxophone course at the Paris Conservatory. Legal troubles involving patents continued for over 20 years, with rival instrument makers attacking the legitimacy of his patents and Sax suing them for patent infringement. He was driven into bankruptcy three times: in 1852, 1873 and 1877. Sax suffered from lip cancer between 1853 and 1858 but made a full recovery. In 1894 he died of pneumonia in Paris, in poverty, and was interred in section 5 (Avenue de Montebello) at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. Honors and awards. In his birthplace Dinant in Belgium, Mr Sax's House is dedicated to his life and saxophones.
3134	7611264	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3134	Aspirated consonant	In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with their unaspirated counterparts, but in some other languages, notably most South Asian languages and East Asian languages, the difference is contrastive. Transcription. In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), aspirated consonants are written using the symbols for voiceless consonants followed by the aspiration modifier letter , a superscript form of the symbol for the voiceless glottal fricative . For instance, represents the voiceless bilabial stop, and represents the aspirated bilabial stop. Voiced consonants are seldom actually aspirated. Symbols for voiced consonants followed by , such as , typically represent consonants with murmured voiced release (see below). In the grammatical tradition of Sanskrit, aspirated consonants are called voiceless aspirated, and breathy-voiced consonants are called voiced aspirated. There are no dedicated IPA symbols for degrees of aspiration and typically only two degrees are marked: unaspirated and aspirated . An old symbol for light aspiration was , but this is now obsolete. The aspiration modifier letter may be doubled to indicate especially strong or long aspiration. Hence, the two degrees of aspiration in Korean stops are sometimes transcribed or and , but they are usually transcribed and , with the details of voice onset time given numerically. Preaspirated consonants are marked by placing the aspiration modifier letter before the consonant symbol: represents the preaspirated bilabial stop. Unaspirated or tenuis consonants are occasionally marked with the modifier letter for unaspiration , a superscript equals sign: . Usually, however, unaspirated consonants are left unmarked: . Phonetics. Voiceless consonants are produced with the vocal folds open (spread) and not vibrating, and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed and vibrating (modal voice). Voiceless aspiration occurs when the vocal folds remain open after a consonant is released. An easy way to measure this is by noting the consonant's voice onset time, as the voicing of a following vowel cannot begin until the vocal folds close. In some languages, such as Navajo, aspiration of stops tends to be phonetically realised as voiceless velar airflow; aspiration of affricates is realised as an extended length of the frication. Aspirated consonants are not always followed by vowels or other voiced sounds. For example, in Eastern Armenian, aspiration is contrastive even word-finally, and aspirated consonants occur in consonant clusters. In Wahgi, consonants are aspirated only when they are in final position. Degree. The degree of aspiration varies: the voice onset time of aspirated stops is longer or shorter depending on the language or the place of articulation. Armenian and Cantonese have aspiration that lasts about as long as English aspirated stops, in addition to unaspirated stops. Korean has lightly aspirated stops that fall between the Armenian and Cantonese unaspirated and aspirated stops as well as strongly-aspirated stops whose aspiration lasts longer than that of Armenian or Cantonese. (See voice onset time.) Aspiration varies with place of articulation. The Spanish voiceless stops have voice onset times (VOTs) of about 5, 10, and 30 milliseconds, and English aspirated have VOTs of about 60, 70, and 80 ms. Voice onset time in Korean has been measured at 20, 25, and 50 ms for and 90, 95, and 125 for . Doubling. When aspirated consonants are doubled or geminated, the stop is held longer and then has an aspirated release. An aspirated affricate consists of a stop, fricative, and aspirated release. A doubled aspirated affricate has a longer hold in the stop portion and then has a release consisting of the fricative and aspiration. Preaspiration. Icelandic and Faroese have consonants with preaspiration , and some scholars interpret them as consonant clusters as well. In Icelandic, preaspirated stops contrast with double stops and single stops: Preaspiration is also a feature of Scottish Gaelic: Preaspirated stops also occur in most Sami languages. For example, in Northern Sami, the unvoiced stop and affricate phonemes , , , , are pronounced preaspirated (, , , ) in medial or final position. Fricatives and sonorants. Although most aspirated obstruents in the world's languages are stops and affricates, aspirated fricatives such as , and have been documented in Korean and Xuanzhou Wu, and has been described for Spanish, though these are allophones of other phonemes. Similarly, aspirated fricatives and even aspirated nasals, approximants, and trills occur in a few Tibeto-Burman languages, some Oto-Manguean languages, the Hmongic language Hmu, the Siouan language Ofo, and the Chumashan languages Barbareño and Ventureño. Some languages, such as Choni Tibetan, have as many as four contrastive aspirated fricatives , and . Voiced consonants with voiceless aspiration. True aspirated voiced consonants, as opposed to murmured (breathy-voice) consonants such as the that are common among the languages of India, are extremely rare. They have been documented in Kelabit. Phonology. Aspiration has varying significance in different languages. It is either allophonic or phonemic, and may be analyzed as an underlying consonant cluster. Allophonic. In some languages, stops are distinguished primarily by voicing, and voiceless stops are sometimes aspirated, while voiced stops are usually unaspirated. English voiceless stops are aspirated for most native speakers when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable. Pronouncing them as unaspirated in these positions, as is done by many Indian English speakers, may make them get confused with the corresponding voiced stop by other English-speakers. Conversely, this confusion does not happen with the native speakers of languages which have aspirated and unaspirated but not voiced stops, such as Mandarin Chinese. S+consonant clusters can vary between aspirated and unaspirated forms depending on whether the cluster crosses a morpheme boundary. For example, distend features an unaspirated [t] because it is not analyzed as comprising two morphemes. In contrast, distaste includes an aspirated middle [tʰ] since it is analyzed as dis- + taste, and the word taste begins with an aspirated [t]. Word-final voiceless stops are sometimes aspirated. Voiceless stops in Pashto are slightly aspirated prevocalically in a stressed syllable. Phonemic. In many languages, such as Hindi, tenuis and aspirated consonants are phonemic. Unaspirated consonants like and aspirated consonants like are separate phonemes, and words are distinguished by whether they have one or the other. Consonant cluster. Alemannic German dialects have unaspirated as well as aspirated ; the latter series are usually viewed as consonant clusters. Absence. French, Standard Dutch, Afrikaans, Tamil, Finnish, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Latvian and Modern Greek are languages that do not have phonetic aspirated consonants. Examples. Chinese. Standard Chinese (Mandarin) has stops and affricates distinguished by aspiration: for instance, , . In pinyin, tenuis stops are written with letters that represent voiced consonants in English, and aspirated stops with letters that represent voiceless consonants. Thus "d" represents , and "t" represents . Wu Chinese and Southern Min has a three-way distinction in stops and affricates: . In addition to aspirated and unaspirated consonants, there is a series of "muddy consonants", like . These are pronounced with slack or breathy voice: that is, they are weakly voiced. Muddy consonants as initial cause a syllable to be pronounced with low pitch or "light" (陽 "yáng") tone. Indian languages. Many Indo-Aryan languages have aspirated stops. Sanskrit, Hindustani, Bengali, Marathi, and Gujarati have a four-way distinction in stops: voiceless, aspirated, voiced, and voiced aspirated, such as . Punjabi has lost voiced aspirated consonants, which resulted in a tone system, and therefore has a distinction between voiceless, aspirated, and voiced: . Other languages such as Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada, have a distinction between voiced and voiceless, aspirated and unaspirated. However, in all of these languages, aspirated consonant occur (mostly) in borrowed words, and commonly substituted with their unaspirated counterparts. Armenian. Most dialects of Armenian have aspirated stops, and some have breathy-voiced stops. Classical and Eastern Armenian have a three-way distinction between voiceless, aspirated, and voiced, such as . Western Armenian has a two-way distinction between aspirated and voiced: . Western Armenian aspirated corresponds to Eastern Armenian aspirated and voiced , and Western voiced corresponds to Eastern voiceless . Greek. Ancient Greek, including the Classical Attic and Koine Greek dialects, had a three-way distinction in stops like Eastern Armenian: . These series were called , , ("psilá, daséa, mésa") "smooth, rough, intermediate", respectively, by Koine Greek grammarians. There were aspirated stops at three places of articulation: labial, coronal, and velar . Earlier Greek, represented by Mycenaean Greek, likely had a labialized velar aspirated stop , which later became labial, coronal, or velar depending on dialect and phonetic environment. The other Ancient Greek dialects, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and Arcadocypriot, likely had the same three-way distinction at one point, but Doric seems to have had a fricative in place of in the Classical period. Later, during the Koine and Medieval Greek periods, the aspirated and voiced stops of Attic Greek lenited to voiceless and voiced fricatives, yielding in Medieval and Modern Greek. Cypriot Greek is notable for aspirating its inherited (and developed across word-boundaries) voiceless geminate stops, yielding the series /pʰː tʰː cʰː kʰː/. Other uses. Debuccalization. The term "aspiration" sometimes refers to the sound change of debuccalization, in which a consonant is lenited (weakened) to become a glottal stop or fricative . Breathy-voiced release. So-called voiced aspirated consonants are nearly always pronounced instead with breathy voice, a type of phonation or vibration of the vocal folds. The modifier letter after a voiced consonant actually represents a breathy-voiced or murmured consonant, as with the "voiced aspirated" bilabial stop in the Indo-Aryan languages. This consonant is therefore more accurately transcribed as , with the diacritic for breathy voice, or with the modifier letter , a superscript form of the symbol for the voiced glottal fricative . Some linguists restrict the double-dot subscript to murmured sonorants, such as vowels and nasals, which are murmured throughout their duration, and use the superscript hook-aitch for the breathy-voiced release of obstruents.
3135	1301049449	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3135	Arteriovenous malformation	An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is an abnormal connection between arteries and veins, bypassing the capillary system. Usually congenital, this vascular anomaly is widely known because of its occurrence in the central nervous system (usually as a cerebral AVM), but can appear anywhere in the body. The symptoms of AVMs can range from none at all to intense pain or bleeding, and they can lead to other serious medical problems. Signs and symptoms. Symptoms of AVMs vary according to their location. Most neurological AVMs produce few to no symptoms. Often the malformation is discovered as part of an autopsy or during treatment of an unrelated disorder (an "incidental finding"); in rare cases, its expansion or a micro-bleed from an AVM in the brain can cause epilepsy, neurological deficit, or pain. The most general symptoms of a cerebral AVM include headaches and epileptic seizures, with more specific symptoms that normally depend on its location and the individual, including: Cerebral AVMs may present themselves in a number of different ways: Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations. Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations are abnormal communications between the veins and arteries of the pulmonary circulation, leading to a right-to-left blood shunt. They have no symptoms in up to 29% of all cases, however they can give rise to serious complications including hemorrhage, and infection. They are most commonly associated with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. Genetics. AVMs are usually congenital and are part of the RASopathy family of developmental syndromes. The understanding of the anomaly's genetic transmission patterns are incomplete, but there are known genetic mutations (for instance in the epithelial line, tumor suppressor PTEN gene) which can lead to an increased occurrence throughout the body. The anomaly can occur due to autosomal dominant diseases, such as hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. Pathophysiology. In the circulatory system, arteries carry blood away from the heart to the lungs and the rest of the body, where the blood normally passes through capillaries—where oxygen is released and waste products like carbon dioxide () absorbed—before veins return blood to the heart. An AVM interferes with this process by forming a direct connection of the arteries and veins, bypassing the capillary bed. AVMs can cause intense pain and lead to serious medical problems. Although AVMs are often associated with the brain and spinal cord, they can develop in other parts of the body. As an AVM lacks the dampening effect of capillaries on the blood flow, the AVM can get progressively larger over time as the amount of blood flowing through it increases, forcing the heart to work harder to keep up with the extra blood flow. It also causes the surrounding area to be deprived of the functions of the capillaries. The resulting tangle of blood vessels, often called a "nidus" (Latin for 'nest'), has no capillaries. It can be extremely fragile and prone to bleeding because of the abnormally direct connections between high-pressure arteries and low-pressure veins. One indicator is a pulsing 'whoosh' sound caused by rapid blood flow through arteries and veins, which has been given the term "bruit" (French for 'noise'). If the AVM is severe, this may produce an audible symptom which can interfere with hearing and sleep as well as cause psychological distress. Diagnosis. AVMs are diagnosed primarily by the following imaging methods: AVMs can occur in various parts of the body: AVMs may occur in isolation or as a part of another disease (for example, Sturge-Weber syndrome or hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia). AVMs have been shown to be associated with aortic stenosis. Bleeding from an AVM can be relatively mild or devastating. It can cause severe and less often fatal strokes. Treatment. Treatment for AVMs in the brain can be symptomatic, and patients should be followed by a neurologist for any seizures, headaches, or focal neurologic deficits. AVM-specific treatment may also involve endovascular embolization, neurosurgery or radiosurgery. Embolization, that is, cutting off the blood supply to the AVM with coils, particles, acrylates, or polymers introduced by a radiographically guided catheter, may be used in addition to neurosurgery or radiosurgery, but is rarely successful in isolation except in smaller AVMs. A gamma knife may also be used. If a cerebral AVM is detected before a stroke occurs, usually the arteries feeding blood into the nidus can be closed off to avert the danger. Interventional therapy may be relatively risky in the short term. Treatment of lung AVMs is typically performed with endovascular embolization alone, which is considered the standard of care. Epidemiology. The estimated detection rate of AVM in the US general population is 1.4/100,000 per year. This is approximately one-fifth to one-seventh the incidence of intracranial aneurysms. An estimated 300,000 Americans have AVMs, of whom 12% (approximately 36,000) will exhibit symptoms of greatly varying severity. History. Hubert von Luschka (1820–1875) and Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) first described arteriovenous malformations in the mid-1800s. Herbert Olivecrona (1891–1980) performed the first surgical excision of an intracranial AVM in 1932.
3138	27015025	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3138	Atlanta	Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the county seat of Fulton County and extends into neighboring DeKalb County. With a population of 498,715 at the 2020 census and estimated at 520,070 in 2024, Atlanta is the eighth-most populous city in the Southeast and 36th-most populous city in the U.S. Atlanta is classified as a Beta + global city. The Atlanta metropolitan area has an estimated population of over 6.4 million and is the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over above sea level, Atlanta features unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States. Atlanta was originally founded as the terminus of a major state-sponsored railroad, but it soon became the convergence point among several railroads, spurring its rapid growth. The largest was the Western and Atlantic Railroad, from which the name "Atlanta" is derived, signifying the city's growing reputation as a major hub of transportation. During the American Civil War, it served a strategically important role for the Confederacy until it was captured in 1864. The city was almost entirely burned to the ground during General William T. Sherman's March to the Sea. However, the city rebounded dramatically in the post-war period and quickly became a national industrial center and the unofficial capital of the "New South". After World War II, it also became a manufacturing and technology hub. During the 1950s and 1960s, it became a major organizing center of the American civil rights movement, with Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and many other locals becoming prominent figures in the movement's leadership. In the modern era, Atlanta has remained a major center of transportation, with Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport becoming the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic in 1998 (a position it has held every year since, except for 2020), with an estimated 93.7 million passengers in 2022. With a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $473 billion in 2021, Atlanta has the 11th-largest economy among cities in the U.S. and the 22nd-largest in the world. Its economy is considered diverse, with dominant sectors in industries including transportation, aerospace, logistics, healthcare, news and media operations, film and television production, information technology, finance, and biomedical research and public policy. Atlanta established itself on the world stage when it won and hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics. The Games impacted Atlanta's development growth into the 21st century, and significantly sparked investment in the city's universities, parks, and tourism industry. The gentrification of some of its neighborhoods has intensified in the 21st century with the growth of the Atlanta Beltline. This has altered its demographics, politics, aesthetics, and culture. History. Native American settlements. For thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers in North Georgia, the indigenous Creek people and their ancestors inhabited the area. Standing Peachtree, a Creek village where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Native American settlement to what is now Atlanta. Through the early 19th century, European Americans systematically encroached on the Creek of northern Georgia, forcing them out of the area from 1802 to 1825. The Creek were forced to leave the area in 1821, under Indian Removal by the federal government, and European American settlers arrived the following year. Western and Atlantic Railroad. In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest. The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would be linked to Savannah. After engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the "zero milepost" was driven into the ground in what is now Foundry Street, Five Points. When asked in 1837 about the future of the little village, Stephen Harriman Long, the railroad's chief engineer said the place would be good "for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else". A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as "Terminus", and later "Thrasherville", after a local merchant who built homes and a general store in the area. By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents and was renamed "Marthasville" to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. Later, John Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed "Atlanta", supposedly a feminine version of the word "Atlantic", referring to the Western and Atlantic Railroad. (Atalanta was also Martha Lumpkin's middle name.) The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847. American Civil War. By 1860, Atlanta's population had grown to 9,554. During the American Civil War, the nexus of multiple railroads in Atlanta made the city a strategic hub for the distribution of military supplies. In 1864, the Union Army moved southward following the capture of Chattanooga and began its invasion of north Georgia. The region surrounding Atlanta was the location of several major army battles, culminating with the Battle of Atlanta and a four-month-long siege of the city by the Union Army under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood decided to retreat from Atlanta, and he ordered the destruction of all public buildings and possible assets that could be of use to the Union Army. On the next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to the Union Army, and on September 7, Sherman ordered the city's civilian population to evacuate. On November 11, 1864, Sherman prepared for the Union Army's March to the Sea by ordering the destruction of Atlanta's remaining military assets. Reconstruction and late 19th century. After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt during the Reconstruction era. The work attracted many new residents. Due to the city's superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868. In the 1880 Census, Atlanta had surpassed Savannah as Georgia's largest city. Beginning in the 1880s, Henry W. Grady, the editor of the "Atlanta Constitution" newspaper, promoted Atlanta to potential investors as a city of the "New South" that would be based upon a modern economy and less reliant on agriculture. By 1885, the founding of the Georgia School of Technology (now the Georgia Institute of Technology) and the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of historically black colleges made up of units for men and women, had established Atlanta as a center for higher education. In 1895, Atlanta hosted the Cotton States and International Exposition, which attracted nearly 800,000 attendees and successfully promoted the New South's development to the world. 20th century. During the first decades of the 20th century, Atlanta enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth. In three decades' time, Atlanta's population tripled as the city limits expanded to include nearby streetcar suburbs. The city's skyline grew taller with the construction of the Equitable, Flatiron, Empire, and Candler buildings. Sweet Auburn emerged as a center of Black commerce. The period was also marked by strife and tragedy. Increased racial tensions led to the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when Whites attacked Blacks, leaving at least 27 people dead and over 70 injured, with extensive damage in Black neighborhoods. In 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent, was convicted of the murder of a 13-year-old girl in a highly publicized trial. He was sentenced to death, but the governor commuted his sentence to life. An enraged and organized lynch mob took him from jail in 1915 and hanged him in Marietta. The Jewish community in Atlanta and across the country were horrified. On May 21, 1917, the Great Atlanta Fire destroyed 1,938 buildings in what is now the Old Fourth Ward, resulting in one fatality and the displacement of 10,000 people. On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of "Gone with the Wind", the epic film based on the best-selling novel by Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell. The gala event at Loew's Grand Theatre was attended by the film's legendary producer, David O. Selznick, and the film's stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland, but Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel, an African-American actress, was barred from the event due to racial segregation laws. Atlanta played a vital role in the Allied effort during World War II. Colonel Blake Van Leer, the president of Georgia Tech, played a significant part by lobbying war-related manufacturing companies like Lockheed Martin to move to Atlanta, successfully lobbying the Government to build military bases, in turn helping attract thousands of new residents through new jobs. Van Leer also launched major research centers, which included Neely Nuclear Research Center and funds to help make Georgia Tech the "MIT" of the south while also founding Southern Polytechnic State University. These new defense industries attracted thousands of new residents and generated revenues, resulting in rapid population and economic growth. In the 1950s, the city's newly constructed highway system, supported by federal subsidies, allowed middle class Atlantans the ability to relocate to the suburbs. As a result, the city began to make up an ever-smaller proportion of the metropolitan area's population. Civil rights movement. African-American veterans returned from World War II seeking full rights in their country and began heightened activism. In exchange for support by that portion of the Black community that could vote, in 1948 the mayor ordered the hiring of the first eight African-American police officers in the city. Much controversy preceded the 1956 Sugar Bowl, when the Pitt Panthers, with African-American fullback Bobby Grier on the roster, met the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. There had been controversy over whether Grier should be allowed to play due to his race, and whether Georgia Tech should even play at all due to Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin's opposition to racial integration. After Griffin publicly sent a telegram to the state's Board of Regents requesting Georgia Tech not to engage in racially integrated events, Georgia Tech's president Blake R. Van Leer rejected the request and threatened to resign. Later, students from both Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia held a protest against Griffin's stance, which soon turned into a riot. The students broke windows, upturned parking meters, hung Griffin in effigy, and marched all the way to the governor's mansion, surrounding it until 3:30 a.m. Griffin publicly blamed Georgia Tech's president for the "riots" and requested he be replaced and Georgia Tech's state funding be cut off. On December 5 the Georgia Tech board of regents voted 13–1 in favor of allowing the game to proceed as scheduled. In the 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. While Atlanta in the postwar years had relatively minimal racial strife compared to other cities, Blacks were limited by discrimination, segregation, and continued disenfranchisement of most voters. In 1961, the city attempted to thwart blockbusting by realtors by erecting road barriers in Cascade Heights, countering the efforts of civic and business leaders to foster Atlanta as the "city too busy to hate." Desegregation of the public sphere came in stages, with public transportation desegregated by 1959, the restaurant at Rich's department store by 1961, movie theaters by 1963, and public schools by 1973 (nearly 20 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional). In 1960, Whites comprised 61.7% of the city's population. During the 1950s–70s, suburbanization and White flight from urban areas led to a significant demographic shift. By 1970, African Americans were the majority of the city's population and exercised their recently enforced voting rights and political influence by electing Atlanta's first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973. Under Mayor Jackson's tenure, Atlanta's airport was modernized, strengthening the city's role as a transportation center. The opening of the Georgia World Congress Center in 1976 further confirmed Atlanta's rise as a convention city. Construction of the city's subway system began in 1975, with rail service commencing in 1979. Despite these improvements, Atlanta lost more than 100,000 residents between 1970 and 1990, over 20% of its population. At the same time, it developed new office space after attracting numerous corporations, with an increasing portion of workers from northern areas. 1996 Summer Olympic games. Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Following the announcement, the city government undertook several major construction projects to improve Atlanta's parks, sporting venues, and transportation infrastructure; however, for the first time, none of the $1.7 billion cost of the games was governmentally funded. While the games experienced transportation and accommodation problems and, despite extra security precautions, there was the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the spectacle was a watershed event in Atlanta's history. For the first time in Olympic history, every one of the record 197 national Olympic committees invited to compete sent athletes, sending more than 10,000 contestants participating in a record 271 events. The related projects such as Atlanta's Olympic Legacy Program and civic effort initiated a fundamental transformation of the city in the following decade. 21st century. During the 2000s, the city of Atlanta underwent a profound physical, cultural, and demographic change. As some of the African-American middle and upper classes also began to move to the suburbs, a booming economy drew numerous new migrants from other cities in the United States, who contributed to changes in the city's demographics. African Americans made up a decreasing portion of the population, from a high of 67% in 1990 to 54% in 2010. From 2000 to 2010, Atlanta gained 22,763 white residents, 5,142 Asian residents, and 3,095 Hispanic residents, while the city's Black population decreased by 31,678. Much of the city's demographic change during the decade was driven by young, college-educated professionals: from 2000 to 2009, the three-mile radius surrounding Downtown Atlanta gained 9,722 residents aged 25 to 34 and holding at least a four-year degree, an increase of 61%. This was similar to the tendency in other cities for young, college educated, single or married couples to live in downtown areas. In the lead-up to the 1996 Summer Olympics, the Atlanta Housing Authority demolished nearly all of its public housing. Residents instead received vouchers to pay for private housing; a wave of mixed housing was built using funding from the HOPE VI program under CEO Renee Lewis Glover (1994–2013). In 2005, the city approved the $2.8 billion BeltLine project. It was intended to convert a disused 22-mile freight railroad loop that surrounds the central city into an art-filled multi-use trail and light rail transit line, which would increase the city's park space by 40%. The project stimulated retail and residential development along the loop, but has been criticized for its adverse effects on some Black communities. In 2013, the project received a federal grant of $18 million to develop the southwest corridor. In September 2019, the James M. Cox Foundation gave $6 million to the PATH Foundation which will connect the Silver Comet Trail to The Atlanta BeltLine, which was expected to be completed by 2022. Upon completion, the total combined interconnected trail distance around Atlanta for the Atlanta BeltLine and Silver Comet Trail will be the longest paved trail surface in the U.S., totaling about . Atlanta's cultural offerings expanded during the 2000s: the High Museum of Art doubled in size; the Alliance Theatre won a Tony Award; and art galleries were established on the once-industrial Westside. The College Football Hall of Fame relocated to Atlanta and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights museum was constructed. The city of Atlanta was the subject of a massive cyberattack which began in March 2018. In December 2019, Atlanta hosted the Miss Universe 2019 pageant competition. On June 16, 2022, Atlanta was selected as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Geography. Atlanta encompasses , of which is land and is water. The city is situated in the Deep South of the southeastern United States among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. At above mean sea level, Atlanta has the highest elevation among major cities east of the Mississippi River. Atlanta straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. Rainwater that falls on the south and east side of the divide flows into the Atlantic Ocean, while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Atlanta developed on a ridge south of the Chattahoochee River, which is part of the ACF River Basin. The river borders the far northwestern edge of the city, and much of its natural habitat has been preserved, in part by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. Atlanta is southeast of Marietta, southwest of Alpharetta, southwest of Greenville, South Carolina, east of Birmingham, Alabama, and southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina. Despite having lost significant tree canopy coverage between 1973 and 1999, Atlanta now has the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States and is often called "City of Trees" or "The City in a Forest". Cityscape. Neighborhoods. Atlanta is divided into 242 officially defined neighborhoods. The city contains three major high-rise districts, which form a north–south axis along Peachtree: Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead. Surrounding these high-density districts are leafy, low-density neighborhoods, most of which are dominated by single-family homes. Downtown contains the most office space in the metro area, much of it occupied by government entities. Downtown is home to the city's sporting venues and many of its tourist attractions. Midtown is the city's second-largest business district, containing the offices of many of the region's law firms. Midtown is known for its art institutions, cultural attractions, institutions of higher education, and dense form. Buckhead, the city's uptown district, is north of Downtown and the city's third-largest business district. The district is marked by an urbanized core along Peachtree Road, surrounded by suburban single-family neighborhoods situated among woods and rolling hills. Surrounding Atlanta's three high-rise districts are the city's low- and medium-density neighborhoods, where the craftsman bungalow single-family home is dominant. The eastside is marked by historic streetcar suburbs, built from the 1890s to the 1930s as havens for the upper middle class. These neighborhoods, many of which contain their own villages encircled by shaded, architecturally distinct residential streets, include the Victorian Inman Park, Bohemian East Atlanta, and eclectic Old Fourth Ward. On the westside and along the BeltLine on the eastside, former warehouses and factories have been converted into housing, retail space, and art galleries, transforming the once-industrial areas such as West Midtown into model neighborhoods for smart growth, historic rehabilitation, and infill construction. In southwest Atlanta, neighborhoods closer to downtown originated as streetcar suburbs, including the historic West End, while those farther from downtown retain a postwar suburban layout. These include Collier Heights and Cascade Heights, historically home to most of the city's upper middle-class African-American population. Northwest Atlanta contains the areas of the city to west of Marietta Boulevard and to the north of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, including those neighborhoods remote to downtown, such as Riverside, Bolton and Whittier Mill. The latter is one of Atlanta's designated Landmark Historical Neighborhoods. Vine City, though technically Northwest, adjoins the city's Downtown area and has recently been the target of community outreach programs and economic development initiatives. Gentrification of the city's neighborhoods is one of the more controversial and transformative forces shaping contemporary Atlanta. The gentrification of Atlanta has its origins in the 1970s, after many of Atlanta's neighborhoods had declined and suffered the urban decay that affected other major American cities in the mid-20th century. When neighborhood opposition successfully prevented two freeways from being built through the city's east side in 1975, the area became the starting point for Atlanta's gentrification. After Atlanta was awarded the Olympic games in 1990, gentrification expanded into other parts of the city, stimulated by infrastructure improvements undertaken in preparation for the games. New development post-2000 has been aided by the Atlanta Housing Authority's eradication of the city's public housing. As noted above, it allowed development of these sites for mixed-income housing, requiring developers to reserve a considerable portion for affordable housing units. It has also provided for other former residents to be given vouchers to gain housing in other areas. Construction of the Beltline has stimulated new and related development along its path. Architecture. Most of Atlanta was burned in the final months of the American Civil War, depleting the city of a large stock of its historic architecture. Yet architecturally, the city had never been traditionally "southern": Atlanta originated as a railroad town rather than a southern seaport dominated by the planter class, such as Savannah or Charleston. Because of its later development, many of the city's landmarks share architectural characteristics with buildings in the Northeast or Midwest, as they were designed at a time of shared national architectural styles. During the late 20th century, Atlanta embraced the global trend of modern architecture, especially for commercial and institutional structures. Examples include the State of Georgia Building built in 1966, and the Georgia-Pacific Tower in 1982. Many of the most notable examples from this period were designed by world renowned Atlanta architect John Portman. Most of the buildings that define the downtown skyline were designed by Portman during this period, including the Westin Peachtree Plaza and the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. In the latter half of the 1980s, Atlanta became one of the early homes of postmodern buildings that reintroduced classical elements to their designs. Many of Atlanta's tallest skyscrapers were built in this period and style, displaying tapering spires or otherwise ornamented crowns, such as One Atlantic Center (1987), 191 Peachtree Tower (1991), and the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta (1992). Also completed during the era was the Bank of America Plaza built-in 1992. At , it is the tallest building in the city and the 14th-tallest in the United States. The city's embrace of modern architecture has often translated into an ambivalent approach toward historic preservation, leading to the destruction of many notable architectural landmarks. These include the Equitable Building (1892–1971), Terminal Station (1905–1972), and the Carnegie Library (1902–1977). In the mid-1970s, the Fox Theatre, now a cultural icon of the city, would have met the same fate if not for a grassroots effort to save it. More recently, preservationists may have made some inroads. For example, in 2016 activists convinced the Atlanta City Council not to demolish the Atlanta-Fulton Central Library, the last building designed by noted architect Marcel Breuer. Climate. Under the Köppen classification, Atlanta has a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa") with generous precipitation year-round, typical for the Upland South. The city is situated in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 8a, with the northern and western suburbs, as well as part of Midtown transitioning to 7b. Summers are hot and humid, with temperatures somewhat moderated by the city's elevation. Winters are overall mild but variable, occasionally susceptible to snowstorms even if in small quantities on several occasions, unlike the central and southern portions of the state. Warm air from the Gulf of Mexico can bring spring-like highs while strong Arctic air masses can push lows into the teens °F (−7 to −12 °C). July averages , with high temperatures reaching on an average of 47 days per year, though readings are not seen most years. January averages , with temperatures in the suburbs slightly cooler due largely to the urban heat island effect. Lows at or below freezing can be expected 36 nights annually, but the last occurrences of temperatures below were December 24, 2022, and January 2014, eight years apart. Extremes range from on February 13, 1899 to on June 30, 2012. Average dewpoints in the summer range from in June to in July. Typical of the southeastern U.S., Atlanta receives abundant rainfall that is evenly distributed throughout the year, though late spring and early fall are somewhat drier. The average annual precipitation is , while snowfall is typically light and rare with a normal of per winter. The heaviest single snowfall occurred on January 23, 1940, with around of snow. However, ice storms usually cause more problems than snowfall does, the most severe occurring on January 7, 1973. Tornadoes are rare in the city itself, but the March 14, 2008, EF2 tornado damaged prominent structures in downtown Atlanta. Demographics. Population. The 2020 United States census reported that Atlanta had a population of 498,715. The population density was 3,685.45 persons per square mile (1,422.95/km2). The racial and ethnic makeup of Atlanta (including Hispanics) was 51.0% Black or African American, 40.9% non-Hispanic white, 4.2% Asian and 0.3% Native American, and 1.0% from other races. 2.4% of the population reported two or more races. Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 6.0% of the city's population. The median income for a household in the city was $77,655 in 2022. The per capita income for the city was $60,778 in 2022. Approximately 17.7% percent of the population was living below the poverty line in 2022. Circa 2024, of the Atlanta residents, 391,711 of them lived in Fulton County and 28,292 of them lived in DeKalb County. In the 1920s, the Black population began to grow in Southern metropolitan cities like Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, and Memphis. Since the 1970s, Atlanta has been widely recognized as a hub of African American political activism, education, entrepreneurship, and culture—earning it the reputation of being a Black mecca. However, in the 1990s, Atlanta started to experience Black flight. African Americans have moved outside the city seeking a lower cost of living or better public schools. The African-American share of Atlanta's population has declined faster than that of any racial group. The city's share of Black residents shrank from 67% in 1990 to 47% in 2020. Blacks made up nine percent of new Atlanta residents between 2010 and 2020. At the same time, Atlanta is home to a sizable foreign-born Black population, notably from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Somalia, Liberia, and Nigeria. With many notable investments occurring in Atlanta initiated by the 1996 Summer Olympics, the non-Hispanic White population of Atlanta began to rebound after several decades of White flight to Atlanta's suburbs. Between 2000 and 2020, the proportion of Whites in the city had strong growth. In two decades, Atlanta's White population grew from 33% to 39% of the city's population. Whites made up the majority of new Atlanta residents between 2010 and 2020. The Hispanic and Latino populations of metro Atlanta have grown significantly in recent years. The largest Hispanic ancestries in Atlanta are Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban. There is a growing population of Mexican ancestry throughout the region, with notable concentrations along the Buford Highway and I-85 corridor, and now extending into Gwinnett County. In 2013, Metro Atlanta had the 19th largest Hispanic population in the United States. The Atlanta area also has a fast growing Asian American population. The largest groups of Asian origin are those of Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Pakistani and Japanese descent. Pew Research Center ranks the Atlanta area among the top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas by Indian population in 2019. Early immigrants in the Atlanta area were mostly Jews and Greeks. Since 2010, the Atlanta area has experienced notable immigration from India, China, South Korea, and Jamaica. Other notable source countries of immigrants are Vietnam, Eritrea, Nigeria, the Arabian gulf, Ukraine and Poland. Within a few decades, and in keeping with national trends, immigrants from England, Ireland, and German-speaking central Europe were no longer the majority of Atlanta's foreign-born population. The city's Italians included immigrants from northern Italy, many of whom had been in Atlanta since the 1890s; more recent arrivals from southern Italy; and Sephardic Jews from the Isle of Rhodes, which Italy had seized from Turkey in 1912. Europeans from Great Britain, Ireland and Germany settled in the city as early as the 1840s. Most of Atlanta's European population are from the United Kingdom and Germany. Bosnian refugees settled in Atlanta. Vietnamese people, Cambodians, Ethiopians and Eritreans were the earliest refugees formally brought to the city. Of the total population five years and older, 83.3% spoke only English at home, while 8.8% spoke Spanish, 3.9% another Indo-European language, and 2.8% an Asian language. Among them, 7.3% of Atlantans were born abroad (86th in the US). Atlanta's dialect has traditionally been a variation of Southern American English. The Chattahoochee River long formed a border between the Coastal Southern and Southern Appalachian dialects. Because of the development of corporate headquarters in the region, attracting migrants from other areas of the country, by 2003, "Atlanta" magazine concluded that Atlanta had become significantly "de-Southernized". A Southern accent was considered a handicap in some circumstances. In general, Southern accents are less prevalent among residents of the city and inner suburbs and among younger people; they are more common in the outer suburbs and among older people. At the same time, some residents of the city speak in Southern variations of African-American English. Sexual orientation and gender identity. Atlanta has a thriving and diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. According to a survey by the Williams Institute, Atlanta ranked third among major American cities, behind San Francisco and slightly behind Seattle, with 12.8% of the city's total population identifying as LGB. The Midtown and Cheshire Bridge areas have historically been the epicenters of LGBT culture in Atlanta. Atlanta formed a reputation for being a place inclusive to LGBT people after former mayor Ivan Allen Jr. dubbed it "the city too busy to hate" in the 1960s (referring to racial relations). Atlanta has consistently scored 100% on the Human Rights Campaign's Municipal Equality Index that measures how inclusive a city's laws, policies and services are for LGBT people who live or work there. Religion. Religion in Atlanta, while historically centered on Protestant Christianity, now encompasses many faiths, as a result of the city and metro area's increasingly international population. Some 63% of residents identified as some type of Protestant according to the Pew Research Center in 2014, but in recent decades the Roman Catholic Church has increased in numbers and influence because of new migrants to the region. Metro Atlanta also has numerous ethnic or national Christian congregations, including Korean and Indian churches. Per the Public Religion Research Institute in 2020, overall, 73% of the population identify with some tradition or denomination of Christianity; despite continuing religious diversification, historically African-American Protestant churches continue prevalence in the whole metropolitan area alongside historic Black Catholic churches. The larger non-Christian faiths according to both studies are Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. Overall, there are over 1,000 places of worship within Atlanta. Economy. With a GDP of $385 billion, the Atlanta metropolitan area's economy is the 8th-largest in the country and the 15th-largest in the world. Corporate operations play a major role in Atlanta's economy, as the city claims the nation's third-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies (tied for third with Chicago). It also hosts the global headquarters of several corporations such as The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, Arby's, AT&T Mobility, Georgia-Pacific, Chick-fil-A, Church's Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts, Norfolk Southern Railway, Mercedes-Benz USA, NAPA Auto Parts, Papa Johns, Porsche AG, Newell Brands, Rollins, Inc., Marble Slab Creamery, and UPS. Over 75% of Fortune 1000 companies conduct business operations in the city's metro area, and the region hosts offices of over 1,250 multinational corporations. Many corporations are drawn to the city by its educated workforce; , 45% of adults aged 25 or older residing in the city have at least four-year college degrees, compared to the national average of 28%. Atlanta was born as a railroad town, and logistics continue to represent an important part of the city's economy to this day. In 2021, major freight railroad Norfolk Southern moved their headquarters to Atlanta, and the city hosts major classification yards for Norfolk Southern and CSX. Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport, and the headquarters of Delta Air Lines. Delta operates the world's largest airline hub at Hartsfield-Jackson and is metro Atlanta's largest employer. UPS, the world's largest courier company, operates an air cargo hub at Hartsfield-Jackson, and has their headquarters in neighboring Sandy Springs. Media is also an important aspect of Atlanta's economy. In the 1980s, media mogul Ted Turner founded the Cable News Network (CNN), Turner Network Television (TNT), HLN (HLN), Turner Classic Movies (TCM), The Cartoon Network, Inc. and its namesake television network, TruTV (truTV) and the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in the city. Around the same time, Cox Enterprises, now the nation's third-largest cable television service and the publisher of over a dozen American newspapers, moved its headquarters to the city. Notable sports networks headquartered in Atlanta include TNT Sports, NBA TV, Bally Sports South, and Bally Sports Southeast. The Weather Channel is also based just outside of the city in suburban Cobb County. Information technology (IT) has become an increasingly important part of Atlanta's economic output, earning the city the nickname the "Silicon peach". , Atlanta contains the fourth-largest concentration of IT jobs in the US, numbering 85,000+. The city is also ranked as the sixth fastest-growing for IT jobs, with an employment growth of 4.8% in 2012 and a three-year growth near 9%, or 16,000 jobs. Companies are drawn to Atlanta's lower costs and educated workforce. Recently, Atlanta has been the center for film and television production, largely because of the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which awards qualified productions a transferable income tax credit of 20% of all in-state costs for film and television investments of $500,000 or more. Film and television production facilities based in Atlanta include Techwood Studios, Pinewood Atlanta Studios, Tyler Perry Studios, Williams Street Productions, and the EUE/Screen Gems soundstages. Film and television production injected $9.5 billion into Georgia's economy in 2017, with Atlanta garnering most of the projects. Atlanta has emerged as the all-time most popular destination for film production in the United States and one of the 10 most popular destinations globally. Compared to other American cities, Atlanta's economy was disproportionately affected by the Great Recession, with the city's economy being ranked 68th among 100 American cities in a September 2014 report due to an elevated unemployment rate, declining real income levels, and a depressed housing market. From 2010 to 2011, Atlanta saw a 0.9% contraction in employment and plateauing income growth at 0.4%. Although unemployment had decreased to 7% by late 2014, this was still higher than the national unemployment rate of 5.8%. Atlanta's housing market has also struggled, with home prices dropping by 2.1% in January 2012, reaching levels not seen since 1996. Compared with a year earlier, the average home price in Atlanta plummeted to 17.3% in February 2012, thus becoming the largest annual drop in the history of the index for any American or global city. The decline in home prices prompted some economists to deem Atlanta the worst housing market in the nation at the height of the depression. Nevertheless, the city's real estate market has resurged since 2012, so much median home value and rent growth significantly outpaced the national average by 2018, thanks to a rapidly-growing regional economy. Arts and culture. Atlanta has drawn residents from many other parts of the U.S., in addition to many recent immigrants to the U.S. who have made the metropolitan area their home, establishing Atlanta as the cultural and economic hub of an increasingly multi-cultural metropolitan area. This unique cultural combination reveals itself in the arts district of Midtown, the quirky neighborhoods on the city's eastside, and the multi-ethnic enclaves found along Buford Highway. Arts and theater. Atlanta is one of few United States cities with permanent, professional, and resident companies in all major performing arts disciplines: opera (Atlanta Opera), ballet (Atlanta Ballet), orchestral music (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), and theater (the Alliance Theatre). Atlanta attracts many touring Broadway acts, concerts, shows, and exhibitions catering to a variety of interests. Atlanta's performing arts district is concentrated in Midtown Atlanta at the Woodruff Arts Center, which is home to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre. The city frequently hosts touring Broadway acts, especially at The Fox Theatre, a historic landmark among the highest-grossing theaters of its size. As a national center for the arts, Atlanta is home to significant art museums and institutions. The renowned High Museum of Art is arguably the South's leading art museum. The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) and the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film are the only such museums in the Southeast. Contemporary art museums include the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Institutions of higher education contribute to Atlanta's art scene, with the Savannah College of Art and Design's Atlanta campus providing the city's arts community with a steady stream of curators. Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum contains the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast. The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is the only museum in the nation to focus on art by women of the African diaspora. Georgia Tech's Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking features the largest collection of paper and paper-related artifacts in the world. Atlanta has become one of the U.S.'s best cities for street art in recent years. It is home to Living Walls, an annual street art conference and the Outerspace Project, an annual event series that merges public art, live music, design, action sports, and culture. Examples of street art in Atlanta can be found on the Atlanta Street Art Map. Music. Atlanta is home to the nationally known Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, whose music directors have included Robert Shaw (1967–1988), Yoel Levi (1988–2000), Robert Spano (2001–2021), and Nathalie Stutzmann (2022–present). The orchestra presents a season-long series of concerts including prominent world soloists such as pianists Kirill Gerstein, Yeol Eum Son, Inon Barnatan, Lang Lang, Francesco Piemontesi, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, singer Andrea Bocelli and many others. Atlanta has played a major or contributing role in the development of various genres of American music at different points in the city's history. Beginning as early as the 1920s, Atlanta emerged as a center for country music, which was brought to the city by migrants from Appalachia. During the countercultural 1960s, Atlanta hosted the Atlanta International Pop Festival, with the 1969 festival taking place more than a month before Woodstock and featuring many of the same bands. The city was also a center for Southern rock during its 1970s heyday: the Allman Brothers Band's hit instrumental "Hot 'Lanta" is an ode to the city, while Lynyrd Skynyrd's famous live rendition of "Free Bird" was recorded at the Fox Theatre in 1976, with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant directing the band to "play it pretty for Atlanta". During the 1980s, Atlanta had an active punk rock scene centered on two of the city's music venues, 688 Club and the Metroplex, and Atlanta famously played host to the Sex Pistols' first U.S. show, which was performed at the Great Southeastern Music Hall. The 1990s saw the city produce major mainstream acts across many different musical genres. Country music artist Travis Tritt, and R&B sensations Xscape, TLC, Usher and Toni Braxton, were just some of the musicians who call Atlanta home. The city also gave birth to Atlanta hip hop, a sub-genre that gained relevance and success with the introduction of the home-grown Atlantans known as Outkast, along with other Dungeon Family artists such as Organized Noize and Goodie Mob; however, it was not until the 2000s that Atlanta moved "from the margins to becoming hip-hop's center of gravity with another sub-genre called Crunk, part of a larger shift in hip-hop innovation to the South and East". In the 2000s, Atlanta was recognized by the Brooklyn-based "Vice" magazine for its indie rock scene, which revolves around the various live music venues found on the city's alternative eastside. To facilitate further local development, the state government provides qualified businesses and productions a 15% transferable income tax credit for in-state costs of music investments. Film and television. As the national leader for motion picture and television production, and a top ten global leader, Atlanta plays a significant role in the entertainment industry. Atlanta is home to the Tyler Perry Studios which is one of the largest film production studios in the U.S. Atlanta doubles for other parts of the world and fictional settlements in blockbuster productions, among them the newer titles from "The Fast and the Furious" franchise and Marvel features such as "Ant-Man" (2015), ' (2016), "The Change Up" (2011), "Black Panther" and ' (both 2018). On the other hand, "Gone With the Wind" (1939), "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977), "The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979), "Sharky's Machine" (1981), "The Slugger's Wife" (1985), "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989), "ATL" (2006), "Ride Along" (2014) and "Baby Driver" (2017) are among several notable examples of films actually set in Atlanta. It was announced in 2022 a film about the 1956 Sugar Bowl and '56 Atlanta riots would be produced here. TV shows. The city also provides the backdrop for shows such as "Ozark", "Watchmen", "The Walking Dead", "Stranger Things", "Love Is Blind", "Star", "Dolly Parton's Heartstrings", "The Outsider", "The Vampire Diaries", "The Real Housewives of Atlanta", "" and "Atlanta", in addition to a myriad of animated and reality television programming. Festivals. Atlanta's festival season stretches from January through November. Atlanta has more festivals than any city in the southeastern United States. Some notable festivals in Atlanta include the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Shaky Knees Music Festival, Dragon Con, the Peachtree Road Race, Music Midtown, the Atlanta Film Festival, National Black Arts Festival, Festival Peachtree Latino, the neighborhood festivals in Inman Park, Atkins Park, Virginia-Highland (Summerfest), and the Little Five Points Halloween festival. Tourism. , Atlanta is the seventh-most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year. Although the most popular attraction among visitors to Atlanta is the Georgia Aquarium, and until 2012, the world's largest indoor aquarium, Atlanta's tourism industry is mostly driven by the city's history museums and outdoor attractions. Atlanta contains a notable number of historical museums and sites, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, which includes the preserved childhood home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his final resting place; the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum, which houses a massive painting and diorama in-the-round, depicting the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War; the World of Coca-Cola, featuring the history of the world-famous soft drink brand and its well-known advertising; the College Football Hall of Fame, which honors college football and its athletes; the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which explores the civil rights movement and its connection to contemporary human rights movements throughout the world; the Carter Center and Presidential Library, housing U.S. President Jimmy Carter's papers and other material relating to the Carter administration and the Carter family's life; and the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, where Mitchell wrote the best-selling novel "Gone with the Wind". Atlanta contains several outdoor attractions. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, adjacent to Piedmont Park, is home to the Kendeda Canopy Walk, a skywalk that allows visitors to tour one of the city's last remaining urban forests from above the ground. The Canopy Walk is the only canopy-level pathway of its kind in the United States. Zoo Atlanta, in Grant Park, accommodates over 1,300 animals representing more than 220 species. Home to the nation's largest collections of gorillas and orangutans, the zoo is one of only four zoos in the U.S. to house giant pandas. Festivals showcasing arts and crafts, film, and music, including the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and Music Midtown, respectively, are also popular with tourists. Tourists are drawn to the city's culinary scene, which comprises a mix of urban establishments garnering national attention, ethnic restaurants serving cuisine from every corner of the world, and traditional eateries specializing in Southern dining. Since the turn of the 21st century, Atlanta has emerged as a sophisticated restaurant town. Many restaurants opened in the city's gentrifying neighborhoods have received praise at the national level, including Bocado, Bacchanalia, and Miller Union in West Midtown, Empire State South in Midtown, and Two Urban Licks and Rathbun's on the east side. In 2011, "The New York Times" characterized Empire State South and Miller Union as reflecting "a new kind of sophisticated Southern sensibility centered on the farm but experienced in the city". Visitors seeking to sample international Atlanta are directed to Buford Highway, the city's international corridor, and suburban Gwinnett County. There, the nearly-million immigrants that make Atlanta home have established various authentic ethnic restaurants representing virtually every nationality on the globe. For traditional Southern fare, one of the city's most famous establishments is The Varsity, a long-lived fast food chain and the world's largest drive-in restaurant. Mary Mac's Tea Room and Paschal's are more formal destinations for Southern food. Cuisine. Atlanta is best known for its barbecue, hamburgers, Southern fried chicken, and lemon pepper wings. Buford Highway (immediately northeast of Atlanta) is home to many authentic ethnic cuisines such as Mexican and Asian foods. Atlanta's culinary landscape is highlighted by its inclusion in the prestigious Michelin Guide, featuring several restaurants recognized for their exceptional cuisine and premier dining destination in the Southeast. Atlanta's rapidly expanding food scene is marked by a notable diversity, particularly with the increasing variety and number of Indian restaurants across the city and its metropolitan area, including Chai Pani, a Michelin Guide restaurant. Sports. Sports are an important part of the culture of Atlanta. The city is home to professional franchises for four major team sports: the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer. In addition, many of the city's universities participate in collegiate sports. The city also regularly hosts international, professional, and collegiate sporting events. The Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. Originally established as the Boston Red Stockings in 1871, they are the oldest continually operating professional sports franchise in the United States. The Braves franchise overall has won eighteen National League pennants and four World Series championships in three different cities, with their first in 1914 as the Boston Braves, in 1957 as the Milwaukee Braves, and in 1995 and 2021 as the Atlanta Braves. The 1995 title occurred during an unprecedented run of 14 straight divisional championships from 1991 to 2005. The team plays at Truist Park, having moved from Turner Field for the 2017 season. The new stadium is outside the city limits, located northwest of downtown in the Cumberland/Galleria area of Cobb County. The Atlanta Falcons have played in Atlanta since their inception in 1966. The team plays its home games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, having moved from the Georgia Dome in 2017. The Falcons have won the division title six times (1980, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2016) and the NFC championship in 1998 and 2016. They have been unsuccessful in both of their Super Bowl trips, losing to the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999 and to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI in 2017, the largest comeback in Super Bowl history. In 2019, Atlanta also briefly hosted an Alliance of American Football team, the Atlanta Legends, but the league was suspended during its first season and the team folded. The Atlanta Hawks were founded in 1946 as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, playing in Moline, Illinois. They moved to Atlanta from St. Louis in 1968 and play their games in State Farm Arena. The Atlanta Dream of the Women's National Basketball Association shared an arena with the Hawks for most of their existence; however the WNBA team moved to a smaller arena in the southern Atlanta suburb of College Park in 2021. Professional soccer has been played in some form in Atlanta since 1967. Atlanta's first professional soccer team was the Atlanta Chiefs of the original North American Soccer League which won the 1968 NASL Championship and defeated English first division club Manchester City F.C. twice in international friendlies. In 1998 the Atlanta Silverbacks were formed, playing the new North American Soccer League. They now play as an amateur club in the National Premier Soccer League. In 2017, Atlanta United FC began play as Atlanta's first premier-division professional soccer club since the Chiefs. They won MLS Cup 2018, defeating the Portland Timbers 2–0. Fan reception has been very positive; the team has broken several single-game and season attendance records for both MLS and the U.S. Open Cup. The club is estimated by Forbes to be the most valuable club in Major League Soccer. The United States Soccer Federation moved their headquarters from Chicago to Atlanta in 2023 with the help of Falcons and Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank, with the new training center bearing his name. In ice hockey, Atlanta has had two National Hockey League franchises, both of which relocated to a city in Canada after playing in Atlanta for fewer than 15 years. The Atlanta Flames (now the Calgary Flames) played from 1972 to 1980, and the Atlanta Thrashers (now the Winnipeg Jets) played from 1999 to 2011. The Atlanta Gladiators, a minor league hockey team in the ECHL, have played in the Atlanta suburb of Duluth since 2003. The ASUN Conference moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 2019. Several other emerging sports also have professional franchises in Atlanta. The Georgia Swarm compete in the National Lacrosse League. The Atlanta Vibe compete in the Pro Volleyball Federation. In Rugby union, on September 21, 2018, Major League Rugby announced that Atlanta was one of the expansion teams joining the league for the 2020 season named Rugby ATL. while in Rugby league, on March 31, 2021, Atlanta Rhinos left the USA Rugby League and turned fully professional for the first time, joining the new North American Rugby League. Atlanta has long been known as the "capital" of college football in America. It is home to four-time national champion Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football and the Georgia State Panthers. Also, Atlanta is within a few hours driving distance of many of the universities that make up the Southeastern Conference, college football's most profitable and popular conference, and annually hosts the SEC Championship Game. Other annual college football events include the Aflac Kickoff Game, the Celebration Bowl, the MEAC/SWAC Challenge, and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl which is one of College Football's major New Year's Six Bowl games and a College Football Playoff bowl. Atlanta additionally hosted the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship and eventually would the host the 2025 event in the city as well. Atlanta regularly hosts a variety of sporting events. Most famous was the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics. The city has hosted the Super Bowl three times: Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994, Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, and Super Bowl LIII in 2019. In professional golf, The Tour Championship, the final PGA Tour event of the season, is played annually at East Lake Golf Club. In 2001 and 2011, Atlanta hosted the PGA Championship, one of the four major championships in men's professional golf, at the Atlanta Athletic Club. In 2011, Atlanta hosted professional wrestling's annual WrestleMania. In soccer, Atlanta has hosted numerous international friendlies and CONCACAF Gold Cup matches. The city has hosted the NCAA Final Four Men's Basketball Championship five times, most recently in 2020. Atlanta will serve as one of the eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Every summer, Atlanta hosts the Atlanta Open, a men's professional tennis tournament. Running is a popular local sport, and the city declares itself to be "Running City USA". The city hosts the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest race, annually on Independence Day. Atlanta also hosts the nation's largest Thanksgiving day half marathon, which starts and ends at Center Parc Stadium. The Atlanta Marathon, which starts and ends at Centennial Olympic Park, routes through many of the city's historic landmarks. Parks and recreation. Atlanta's 343 parks, nature preserves, and gardens cover , which amounts to only 5.6% of the city's total acreage, compared to the national average of just over 10%. However, 77% of Atlantans live within a 10-minute walk of a park, a percentage slightly better than the national average of 76%. In its 2023 ParkScore ranking, The Trust for Public Land reported that among the park systems of the 100 most populous U.S. cities, Atlanta's park system received a ranking of 28. Piedmont Park, in Midtown, is Atlanta's most iconic green space. The park, which underwent a major renovation and expansion in recent years, attracts visitors from across the region and hosts cultural events throughout the year. Shirley Clarke Franklin Park, a 280-acre green space and reservoir, opened in 2021 and is the city's largest park. Other notable city parks include Centennial Olympic Park, a legacy of the 1996 Summer Olympics that forms the centerpiece of the city's tourist district; Woodruff Park, which anchors the campus of Georgia State University; Grant Park, home to Zoo Atlanta; and Chastain Park, which houses an amphitheater used for live music concerts. The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, in the northwestern corner of the city, preserves a stretch of the river for public recreation opportunities. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, adjacent to Piedmont Park, contains formal gardens, including a Japanese garden and a rose garden, woodland areas, and a conservatory that includes indoor exhibits of plants from tropical rainforests and deserts. The BeltLine, a former rail corridor that forms a loop around Atlanta's core, has been transformed into a series of parks, connected by a multi-use trail, increasing Atlanta's park space by 40%. Atlanta offers resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. Golf and tennis are popular in Atlanta, and the city contains six public golf courses and 182 tennis courts. Facilities along the Chattahoochee River cater to watersports enthusiasts, providing the opportunity for kayaking, canoeing, fishing, boating, or tubing. The city's only skate park, a facility that offers bowls, curbs, and smooth-rolling concrete mounds, is at Historic Fourth Ward Park. Tree canopy. Atlanta has a reputation as a "city in a forest" due to an abundance of trees that is rare among major cities. The city's main street is named after a tree, and beyond the Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead business districts, the skyline gives way to a dense canopy of woods that spreads into the suburbs. The city is home to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, an annual arts and crafts festival held one weekend during early April, when the native dogwoods are in bloom. The nickname is factually accurate, as vegetation covers 47.9% of the city as of 2017, the highest among all major American cities, and well above the national average of 27%. Atlanta's tree coverage does not go unnoticed—it was the main reason cited by "National Geographic" in naming Atlanta a "Place of a Lifetime". The city's lush tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings, has increasingly been under assault from man and nature due to heavy rains, drought, aged forests, new pests, and urban construction. A 2001 study found Atlanta's heavy tree cover declined from 48% in 1974 to 38% in 1996. Community organizations and the city government are addressing the problem. Trees Atlanta, a non-profit organization founded in 1985, has planted and distributed over 113,000 shade trees in the city, and Atlanta's government has awarded $130,000 in grants to neighborhood groups to plant trees. Fees are additionally imposed on developers that remove trees on their property per a citywide ordinance, active since 1993. Government. Atlanta is governed by a mayor and the 15-member Atlanta City Council. The city council consists of one member from each of the city's 12 districts and three at-large members. The mayor may veto a bill passed by the council, but the council can override the veto with a two-thirds majority. The mayor of Atlanta is Andre Dickens, a Democrat elected on a nonpartisan ballot whose first term in office began on January 3, 2022. Every mayor elected since 1973 has been Black. In 2001, Shirley Franklin became the first woman to be elected mayor of Atlanta, and the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major Southern city. Atlanta city politics suffered from a notorious reputation for corruption during the 1990s administration of Mayor Bill Campbell, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2006 on three counts of tax evasion in connection with gambling winnings during trips he took with city contractors. As the state capital, Atlanta is the site of most of Georgia's state government. The Georgia State Capitol building, located downtown, houses the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state, as well as the General Assembly. The Governor's Mansion is in a residential section of Buckhead. Atlanta serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The City of Atlanta annexed the CDC into its territory effective January 1, 2018. Atlanta also plays an important role in the federal judiciary system, containing the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Historically, Atlanta has been a stronghold for the Democratic Party. Although municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, nearly all of the city's elected officials are registered Democrats. The city is split among 14 state house districts and four state senate districts, all held by Democrats. At the federal level, Atlanta is split between three congressional districts. Most of the city is in the 5th district, represented by Democrat Nikema Williams. Much of southern Atlanta is in the 13th district, represented by Democrat David Scott. A small portion in the north is in the 11th district, represented by Republican Barry Loudermilk. Emergency services. The city is served by the Atlanta Police Department (APD), which numbers 2,000 officers and oversaw a 40% decrease in the city's crime rate between 2001 and 2009. In 2012, "Forbes" ranked Atlanta as the 6th most dangerous American city but by 2023 the city dropped out of its top 10. Despite some improvement in crime, street gangs have continued to plague the city since the 1980s. In 2022, there was a 200% increase in gang-related charges in the city. In 2023, Money Inc named Atlanta the third worst gang city in the U.S. Also in 2023, it was estimated that about 1,000 gangs in the Atlanta area were responsible for at least 70% of all crime including identity theft, credit card fraud, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation Gang Task Force in partnership with the APD is leading efforts in dismantling gang activity and arresting culprits. The Atlanta Fire Rescue Department provides fire protection and first responder emergency medical services to the city from its 35 fire stations. In 2017, AFRD responded to over 100,000 calls for service over a coverage area of . The department also protects Hartsfield–Jackson with five fire stations on the property, serving over 1 million passengers from over 100 countries. The department protects over 3000 high-rise buildings, of the rapid rail system, and of interstate highway. The Georgia National Guard is based in the city. Emergency ambulance services are provided to city residents by hospital-based Grady EMS (Fulton County), and American Medical Response (DeKalb County). Atlanta in January 2017 declared the city was a "welcoming city" and "will remain open and welcoming to all". Nonetheless, Atlanta does not consider itself to be a "sanctuary city". Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said: "Our city does not support ICE. We don't have a relationship with the U.S. Marshal's Service. We closed our detention center to ICE detainees, and we would not pick up people on an immigration violation." In 2025, Atlanta Public Safety Training Center opened a $118 million training center for police and firefighters. Education. Tertiary education. With more than 15 colleges and universities, including three law schools and two medical schools, Atlanta is considered one of the nation's largest hubs for higher education. Three universities have earned the highest classification of "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, is a prominent public research university in Midtown. It offers highly ranked degree programs in engineering, design, industrial management, the sciences, business, and architecture. Georgia State University is a major public research university based in Downtown Atlanta; it is the second largest in student population of the 26 public colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia and is a significant contributor to the revitalization of the city's central business district. Atlanta is home to nationally renowned private colleges and universities, most notably Emory University, a leading liberal arts and research institution that operates Emory Healthcare, the largest health care system in Georgia. The City of Atlanta annexed Emory into its territory effective January 1, 2018. The Atlanta University Center is also in the city; it is the nation's only contiguous consortium of historically black colleges, comprising Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Morehouse School of Medicine. Atlanta contains a campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, a private art and design university that has proven to be a major factor in the recent growth of Atlanta's visual art community. Atlanta also boasts American Bar Association accredited law schools: Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, Emory University School of Law, and Georgia State University College of Law. The University of Georgia's Terry College of Business operates a satellite campus in Atlanta's Buckhead district, a major financial center in the city. This location facilitates Executive and Professional MBA programs plus executive education offerings. The Buckhead campus also serves as a hub where Terry students, alumni, faculty, and staff can engage with the business community. The Atlanta Regional Council of Higher Education (ARCHE) is dedicated to strengthening synergy among 19 public and private colleges and universities in the Atlanta region. Participating Atlanta region colleges and universities partner on joint-degree programs, cross-registration, library services, and cultural events. Primary and secondary education. Approximately 49,000 students are enrolled in 106 schools in Atlanta Public Schools (APS), some of which are operated as charter schools. Atlanta is served by many private schools including, without limitation, Atlanta Jewish Academy, Atlanta International School, The Westminster Schools, Pace Academy, The Lovett School, The Paideia School, Holy Innocents' Episcopal School and Roman Catholic parochial schools operated by the Archdiocese of Atlanta. In 2018 the City of Atlanta annexed a portion of DeKalb County containing the Centers for Disease Control and Emory University; this portion will be zoned to the DeKalb County School District until 2024, when it will transition into APS. In 2017 the number of children living in the annexed territory who attended public schools was nine. Media. The primary network-affiliated television stations in Atlanta are WXIA-TV 11 (NBC), WANF 46 (CBS), WSB-TV 2 (ABC), and WAGA-TV 5 (Fox). Other major commercial stations include WPXA-TV 14 (Ion), WPCH-TV 17, (CW), WUVG-TV 34 (Univision/UniMás), WUPA 69 (Ind.), and WATL 36 (MyNetworkTV). WPXA-TV, WUVG-TV and WAGA-TV are network O&O's. On August 16, 2025, WUPA will be an O&O. WUPA will be a CBS affiliate and WANF will be an independent station. The Atlanta metropolitan area is served by two public television stations (both PBS member stations), and two public radio stations. WGTV 8 is the flagship station of the statewide Georgia Public Television network, while WABE-TV is owned by Atlanta Public Schools. Georgia Public Radio is listener-funded and comprises one NPR member station, WABE, a classical music station also operated by Atlanta Public Schools. The second public radio, listener-funded NPR member station is WCLK, a jazz music station owned and operated by Clark Atlanta University. Atlanta is served by "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution", its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" is the result of a 1950 merger between "The Atlanta Journal" and "The Atlanta Constitution", with staff consolidation occurring in 1982 and separate publication of the morning "Constitution" and afternoon "Journal" ceasing in 2001. Alternative weekly newspapers include "Creative Loafing", which has a weekly print circulation of 80,000. "Atlanta Daily World" is the oldest Black newspaper in Atlanta and one of the earliest Black newspapers in American history. "Atlanta" magazine is a monthly general-interest magazine based in and covering Atlanta. Transportation. Atlanta's transportation infrastructure comprises a complex network that includes a heavy rail rapid transit system, a light rail streetcar loop, a multi-county bus system, Amtrak service via the Crescent, multiple freight train lines, an Interstate Highway System, several airports, including the world's busiest, and over of bike paths. Atlanta has a network of freeways that radiate out from the city, and automobiles are the dominant means of transportation in the region. Three major interstate highways converge in Atlanta: I-20 (east-west), I-75 (northwest-southeast), and I-85 (northeast-southwest). The latter two combine in the middle of the city to form the Downtown Connector (I-75/85), which carries more than 340,000 vehicles per day and is one of the most congested segments of interstate highway in the United States. Atlanta is mostly encircled by Interstate 285, a beltway locally known as "the Perimeter" that has come to mark the boundary between "Inside the Perimeter" (ITP), the city and close-in suburbs, and "Outside the Perimeter" (OTP), the outer suburbs and exurbs. The heavy reliance on automobiles for transportation in Atlanta has resulted in traffic, commute, and air pollution rates that rank among the worst in the country. The City of Atlanta has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 15.2 percent of Atlanta households lacked a car, and increased slightly to 16.4 percent in 2016. The national average is 8.7 percent in 2016. Atlanta averaged 1.31 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8. The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) provides public transportation in the form of buses, heavy rail, and a downtown light rail loop. Notwithstanding heavy automotive usage in Atlanta, the city's subway system is the eighth busiest in the country. MARTA rail lines connect key destinations, such as the airport, Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, and Perimeter Center. However, significant destinations, such as Emory University and Cumberland, remain unserved. As a result, a 2011 Brookings Institution study placed Atlanta 91st of 100 metro areas for transit accessibility. Emory University operates its Cliff shuttle buses with 200,000 boardings per month, while private minibuses supply Buford Highway. Amtrak, the national rail passenger system, provides service to Atlanta via the "Crescent train" (New York–New Orleans), which stops at Peachtree Station. In 2014, the Atlanta Streetcar opened to the public. The streetcar's line, which is also known as the Downtown Loop, runs around the downtown tourist areas of Peachtree Center, Centennial Olympic Park, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, and Sweet Auburn. The Atlanta Streetcar line is also being expanded on in the coming years to include a wider range of Atlanta's neighborhoods and important places of interest, with a total of over of track in the plan. Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport as measured by passenger traffic and aircraft traffic. The facility offers air service to over 150 U.S. destinations and more than 75 international destinations in 50 countries, with over 2,500 arrivals and departures daily. Delta Air Lines maintains its largest hub at the airport. Situated () south of downtown in Clayton and Fulton counties, the airport covers most of the land inside a wedge formed by Interstate 75, Interstate 85, and Interstate 285. Cycling is a growing mode of transportation in Atlanta, more than doubling since 2009, when it comprised 1.1% of all commutes (up from 0.3% in 2000). Although Atlanta's lack of bike lanes and hilly topography may deter many residents from cycling, the city's transportation plan calls for the construction of of bike lanes by 2020, with the BeltLine helping to achieve this goal. In 2012, Atlanta's first "bike track" was constructed on 10th Street in Midtown. The two lane bike track runs from Monroe Drive west to Charles Allen Drive, with connections to the Beltline and Piedmont Park. Starting in June 2016, Atlanta received a bike sharing program, known as Relay Bike Share, with 100 bikes in Downtown and Midtown, which expanded to 500 bikes at 65 stations as of April 2017. According to the 2016 American Community Survey (five-year average), 68.6% of working city of Atlanta residents commuted by driving alone, 7% carpooled, 10% used public transportation, and 4.6% walked. About 2.1% used all other forms of transportation, including taxi, bicycle, and motorcycle. About 7.6% worked at home. The city has also become one of a handful of "scooter capitals", where companies like Lime and Bird have gained a major foothold by placing electric scooters on street corners and byways. Sister cities. Atlanta's sister cities are:
3144	7436027	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3144	A Doll's House	A Doll's House (Danish and ; also translated as "A Doll House") is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town . The play concerns the fate of a married woman, who, at the time in Norway, lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world. Despite the fact that Ibsen denied it was his intent to write a feminist play, it was a great sensation at the time and caused a "storm of outraged controversy" that went beyond the theater to the world of newspapers and society. In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, "A Doll's House" held the distinction of being the world's most-performed play that year. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of "A Doll's House" on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value. The title of the play is most commonly translated as "A Doll's House", though some scholars use "A Doll House". John Simon says that "A Doll's House" is "the British term for what [Americans] call a 'dollhouse. Egil Törnqvist says of the alternative title: "Rather than being superior to the traditional rendering, it simply sounds more idiomatic to Americans." Wife of Torvald; she is a mother of three. She is living out the ideal of the 19th-century wife. She feels stifled in her marriage. Nora's husband; a recently promoted bank manager. He professes to be enamored of his wife. A family friend. He is terminally ill. The dialogue implies that his "tuberculosis of the spine" originates from a venereal disease contracted by his father. (The character's name in Michael Meyer's 1965 translation is Peter Rank.) Nora's old school friend, widowed, is seeking employment. She was in a relationship with Krogstad prior to the play's setting. (Some English translations localize the spelling of the name "Kristine" to "Christine".) An employee at Torvald's bank. He is a single father pushed to desperation. We are led to believe that he is a scoundrel, but events reveal him to be a long-lost lover of Kristine. Nora and Torvald's three children: Ivar, Bobby, and Emmy. Nanny to the Helmer children, and former nanny to their mother Nora. She says that she gave up her own daughter to "strangers" when she became the only mother that Nora knew. The Helmers' maid. Delivers a Christmas tree to the Helmer household at the beginning of the play. Synopsis. Act One. The play opens around Christmas time as Nora Helmer enters her home carrying many packages and presents. Nora's husband, Torvald, is working in his study when she arrives. He playfully rebukes her for spending so much money on Christmas gifts, calling her his "little squirrel". He teases her about how, the previous year, she had spent weeks making gifts and ornaments by hand because money was scarce. This year, Torvald is due a promotion at the bank where he works, so Nora feels that they can let themselves go a little. The maid announces two visitors: Mrs. Kristine Linde, an old friend of Nora's, who has come seeking employment; and Dr. Rank, a close friend of the family, who is let into the study. Kristine has had a difficult few years, ever since her husband died leaving her with no money or children. Nora says that things have not been easy for them either: Torvald became sick, and they had to travel to Italy so he could recover. Kristine explains that, when her mother was ill, she had to take care of her brothers, but, now that they are grown, she feels her life is "unspeakably empty". Nora promises to talk to Torvald about finding her a job. Kristine gently tells Nora that she is like a child. Nora is offended, so she tells her that she got money from "some admirer" so they could travel to Italy to improve Torvald's health. She told Torvald that her father gave her the money, but, in fact, she illegally borrowed it without his knowledge (women were forbidden from conducting financial activities such as signing checks without a man's endorsement). Since then, she has been secretly working and saving up to pay off the loan. Krogstad, a lower-level employee at Torvald's bank, arrives and goes into the study. Nora is clearly uneasy when she sees him. Dr. Rank leaves the study and mentions that he feels wretched, though like everyone he wants to go on living. In contrast to his physical illness, he says that the man in the study, Krogstad, is "morally diseased". After the meeting with Krogstad, Torvald comes out of the study. Nora asks him if he can give Kristine a position at the bank and Torvald is very positive, saying that this is a fortunate moment, as a position has just become available. Torvald, Kristine, and Dr. Rank leave the house, leaving Nora alone. The nanny returns with the children, and Nora plays with them for a while until Krogstad creeps through the ajar door into the living room and surprises her. Krogstad tells Nora that Torvald intends to fire him from the bank and asks her to intercede with Torvald to allow him to keep his job. She refuses, and Krogstad blackmails her about the loan she took out for the trip to Italy; he knows that she obtained this loan by forging her father's signature after his death. Krogstad leaves, and, when Torvald returns, Nora tries to convince him not to fire Krogstad. Torvald refuses to hear her pleas, explaining that Krogstad is a liar and a hypocrite and that, years before, he had committed a crime: he forged other people's signatures. Torvald feels physically ill in the presence of a man "poisoning his own children with lies and dissimulation". Act Two. Kristine arrives to help Nora repair a dress for a costume function that she and Torvald plan to attend the next day. Torvald returns from the bank, and Nora pleads with him to reinstate Krogstad, claiming she is worried Krogstad will publish libelous articles about Torvald and ruin his career. Torvald dismisses her fears and explains that, although Krogstad is a good worker and seems to have turned his life around, he must be fired because he is too familiar around Torvald in front of other bank personnel. Torvald then retires to his study to work. Dr. Rank then arrives. Nora asks him for a favor, but Rank responds by revealing that he has entered the terminal stage of his disease and that he has always been secretly in love with her. Nora tries to deny the first revelation and make light of it but is more disturbed by his declaration of love. She then clumsily attempts to tell him that she is not in love with him but loves him dearly as a friend. Having been fired by Torvald, Krogstad arrives at the house. Nora convinces Dr. Rank to go into Torvald's study so he will not see Krogstad. When Krogstad confronts Nora, he declares that he no longer cares about the remaining balance of Nora's loan but that he will instead preserve the associated bond to blackmail Torvald into not only keeping him employed but also promoting him. Nora explains that she has done her best to persuade her husband, but he refuses to change his mind. Krogstad informs Nora that he has written a letter detailing her crime (forging her father's signature of surety on the bond) and put it in Torvald's mailbox, which is locked. Nora tells Kristine of her difficult situation, gives her Krogstad's card with his address, and asks her to try to convince him to relent. Torvald enters and tries to retrieve his mail, but Nora distracts him by begging him to help her with the dance she has been rehearsing for the costume party, feigning anxiety about performing. She dances so badly and acts so childishly that Torvald agrees to spend the whole evening coaching her. When the others go to dinner, Nora stays behind for a few minutes and contemplates killing herself. Act Three. Kristine tells Krogstad that she only married her husband because she had no other means to support her sick mother and young siblings and that she has returned to offer him her love again. She believes that he would not have stooped to unethical behavior if he had not been devastated by her abandonment and in dire financial straits. Krogstad changes his mind and offers to take back his letter from Torvald. Kristine, however, decides that Torvald should know the truth for the sake of his and Nora's marriage. After Torvald literally drags Nora home from the party, Rank follows them. They chat for a while, with Dr. Rank conveying obliquely to Nora that this is a final goodbye, as he has determined that his death is near. Dr. Rank leaves, and Torvald retrieves his letters. As he reads them, Nora prepares to run away for good, but Torvald confronts her with Krogstad's letter. Enraged, he declares that she is now completely in Krogstad's power; she must yield to Krogstad's demands and keep quiet about the whole affair. He berates Nora, calling her a dishonest and immoral woman and telling her that she is unfit to raise their children. He says that from now on their marriage will be only a matter of appearances. A maid enters, delivering a letter from Krogstad to Nora, which Torvald demands to read himself. Torvald then exults that he is saved, as Krogstad has returned the incriminating bond, which Torvald immediately burns along with Krogstad's letters. He takes back his harsh words to his wife and tells her that he forgives her. Nora realizes that her husband is not the strong and gallant man she thought he was and that he truly loves himself more than he does Nora. Torvald explains that, when a man has forgiven his wife, it makes him love her all the more since it reminds him that she is totally dependent on him, like a child. He preserves his peace of mind by thinking of the incident as a mere mistake that she made owing to her foolishness, one of her most endearing feminine traits. Nora tells Torvald that she is leaving him and, in a confrontational scene, expresses her sense of betrayal and disillusionment. She says he has never loved her and they have become strangers to each other. She feels betrayed by his response to the scandal involving Krogstad, and she says she must get away to understand herself. She says that she has been treated like a doll to play with for her whole life, first by her father and then by him. Torvald insists that she fulfill her duty as a wife and mother, but Nora says that she has duties to herself that are just as important and that she cannot be a good mother or wife without learning to be more than a plaything. She reveals that she had expected that he would want to sacrifice his reputation for hers and that she had planned to kill herself to prevent him from doing so. She now realizes that Torvald is not at all the kind of person she had believed him to be and that their marriage has been based on mutual fantasies and misunderstandings. Nora leaves her keys and wedding ring; Torvald breaks down and begins to cry, baffled by what has happened. After Nora leaves the room, Torvald, for one second, still has a sense of hope and exclaims to himself "The most wonderful thing of all—?", just before the door downstairs is heard closing. Alternative ending. Ibsen's German agent felt that the original ending would not play well in German theaters. In addition, copyright laws of the time would not preserve Ibsen's original work. Therefore, for it to be considered acceptable, and prevent the translator from altering his work, Ibsen was forced to write an alternative ending for the German premiere. In this ending, Nora is led to her children after having argued with Torvald. Seeing them, she collapses, and as the curtain is brought down, it is implied that she stays. Ibsen later called the ending a disgrace to the original play and referred to it as a "barbaric outrage". Virtually all productions today use the original ending, as do nearly all the film versions of the play. Composition and publication. Real-life inspiration. "A Doll's House" was based on the life of Laura Kieler (maiden name Laura Smith Petersen), a good friend of Ibsen. Much that happened between Nora and Torvald happened to Laura and her husband, Victor. Similar to the events in the play, Laura signed an illegal loan to save her husband's life—in this case, to find a cure for his tuberculosis. She wrote to Ibsen, asking for his recommendation of her work to his publisher, thinking that the sales of her book would repay her debt. At his refusal, she forged a check for the money. At this point, she was found out. In real life, when Victor discovered Laura's secret loan, he divorced her and had her committed to an asylum. Two years later, she returned to her husband and children at his urging, and she went on to become a well-known Danish author, living to the age of 83. Ibsen wrote "A Doll's House" when Laura Kieler had been committed to the asylum. The fate of this friend of the family shook him deeply, perhaps also because Laura had asked him to intervene at a crucial point in the scandal, which he did not feel able or willing to do. Instead, he turned this life situation into an aesthetically shaped, successful drama. In the play, Nora leaves Torvald with head held high, though facing an uncertain future given the limitations single women faced in the society of the time. Kieler eventually rebounded from the shame of the scandal and had her own successful writing career while remaining discontented with sole recognition as "Ibsen's Nora" years afterward. Composition. Ibsen started thinking about the play around May 1878, although he did not begin its first draft until a year later, having reflected on the themes and characters in the intervening period (he visualized its protagonist, Nora, for instance, as having approached him one day wearing "a blue woolen dress"). He outlined his conception of the play as a "modern tragedy" in a note written in Rome on 19 October 1878. "A woman cannot be herself in modern society", he argues, since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint!" Publication. Ibsen sent a fair copy of the completed play to his publisher on 15 September 1879. It was first published in Copenhagen on 4 December 1879, in an edition of 8,000 copies that sold out within a month; a second edition of 3,000 copies followed on 4 January 1880, and a third edition of 2,500 was issued on 8 March. Production history. "A Doll's House" received its world premiere on 21 December 1879 at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, with Betty Hennings as Nora, Emil Poulsen as Torvald, and Peter Jerndorff as Dr. Rank. Writing for the Norwegian newspaper "Folkets Avis", the critic Erik Bøgh admired Ibsen's originality and technical mastery: "Not a single declamatory phrase, no high dramatics, no drop of blood, not even a tear." Every performance of its run was sold out. Another production opened at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, on 8 January 1880, while productions in Christiania (with Johanne Juell as Nora and Arnoldus Reimers as Torvald) and Bergen followed shortly after. In Germany, the actress Hedwig Raabe refused to perform the play as written, declaring, ""I" would never leave "my" children!" Since the playwright's wishes were not protected by copyright, Ibsen decided to avoid the danger of being rewritten by a lesser dramatist by committing what he called a "barbaric outrage" on his play himself and giving it an alternative ending in which Nora did not leave. A production of this version opened in Flensburg in February 1880. This version was also played in Hamburg, Dresden, Hanover, and Berlin, although, in the wake of protests and a lack of success, Raabe eventually restored the original ending. Another production of the original version, some rehearsals of which Ibsen attended, opened on 3 March 1880 at the Residence Theatre in Munich. In Great Britain, the only way in which the play was initially allowed to be given in London was in an adaptation by Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman called "Breaking a Butterfly". This adaptation was produced at the Princess Theatre on 3 March 1884. Writing in 1896 in his book "The Foundations of a National Drama", Jones says: "A rough translation from the German version of A Doll's House was put into my hands, and I was told that if it could be turned into a sympathetic play, a ready opening would be found for it on the London boards. I knew nothing of Ibsen, but I knew a great deal of Robertson and H. J. Byron. From these circumstances came the adaptation called "Breaking a Butterfly"." H. L. Mencken writes that it was "A Doll's House" "denaturized and dephlogisticated. [...] Toward the middle of the action Ibsen was thrown to the fishes, and Nora was saved from suicide, rebellion, flight and immorality by making a faithful old clerk steal her fateful promissory note from Krogstad's desk. [...] The curtain fell upon a happy home." Before 1889, there were two private productions of the play in London (in its original form as Ibsen wrote it). In 1886, the first production in England took place at Eleanor Marx's lodgings in London and featured her as Nora and her friend George Bernard Shaw in the role of Krogstad; both were champions of Ibsen. The first public British production of the play in its regular form opened on 7 June 1889 at the Novelty Theatre, starring Janet Achurch as Nora and Charles Charrington as Torvald. Achurch played Nora again for a seven-day run in 1897. Soon after its London premiere, Achurch brought the play to Australia in 1889. The play was first seen in the US in 1883 in Louisville, Kentucky; Helena Modjeska acted Nora. The play made its Broadway premiere at the Palmer's Theatre on 21 December 1889, starring Beatrice Cameron as Nora Helmer. It was first performed in France in 1894. Other productions in the US include one in 1902 starring Minnie Maddern Fiske, a 1937 adaptation with acting script by Thornton Wilder and starring Ruth Gordon, a 1971 production starring Claire Bloom, and a 1997 production starring Janet McTeer. A new translation by Zinnie Harris at the Donmar Warehouse, starring Gillian Anderson, Toby Stephens, Anton Lesser, Tara FitzGerald and Christopher Eccleston opened in May 2009. The play was performed by in March 2011, one of their early performances following their December 2010 Lower Manhattan launch. In August 2013, Young Vic produced a new adaptation of "A Doll's House" directed by Carrie Cracknell based on the English language version by Simon Stephens. In September 2014, in partnership with Brisbane Festival, La Boite Theatre Company located in Brisbane, Australia, hosted an adaptation of "A Doll's House" written by Lally Katz and directed by Stephen Mitchell Wright. In June 2015, Space Arts Centre in London staged an adaptation of "A Doll's House" featuring the discarded alternate ending. 'Manaveli' Toronto staged a Tamil version of "A Doll's House" () on 30 June 2018, translated and directed by Mr P Vikneswaran. The drama was very well received by the Tamil community in Toronto and was staged again a few months later. The same stage play was filmed at the beginning of 2019 and screened in Toronto on 4 May 2019. The film was received with very good reviews, and the artists were hailed for their performance. Arrangements were made to screen the film in London, at Safari Cinema Harrow, on 7 July 2019. From September 2019 to October 2019, the Lyric Hammersmith in London hosted a new adaptation of the play by Tanika Gupta who moved the setting of the play to colonial India. Though the plot largely remained unchanged, the protagonists were renamed Tom and Niru Helmer and a conversation was added regarding the British oppression of the Indian public. One significant shift was the lack of a slamming door at the end of the play. They also published a pack of teaching materials which includes extracts from the adapted play script. A production of "A Doll's House" by The Jamie Lloyd Company starring Jessica Chastain was scheduled to play at the Playhouse Theatre in London in mid-2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the play was postponed to a later date. In November 2022, it was announced that the production would instead premiere on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre. It began previews on 13 February 2023 and officially opened on 9 March, running until 10 June. It starred Chastain, Arian Moayed, Michael Patrick Thornton, and Okieriete Onaodowan. Analysis and criticism. "A Doll's House" questions the traditional roles of men and women in 19th-century marriage. To many 19th-century Europeans, this was scandalous. The covenant of marriage was considered holy, and to portray it as Ibsen did was controversial. The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, however, found Ibsen's willingness to examine society without prejudice exhilarating. The Swedish playwright August Strindberg criticised the play in his volume of essays and short stories "Getting Married" (1884). Strindberg questioned Nora's walking out and leaving her children behind with a man that she herself disapproved of so much that she would not remain with him. Strindberg also considers that Nora's involvement with an illegal financial fraud that involved Nora forging a signature, all done behind her husband's back, and then Nora's lying to her husband regarding Krogstad's blackmail, are serious crimes that should raise questions at the end of the play, when Nora is moralistically judging her husband. Strindberg also points out that Nora's complaint that she and Torvald "have never exchanged one serious word about serious things" is contradicted by the discussions that occur in act one and two. The reasons Nora leaves her husband are complex, and various details are hinted at throughout the play. In the last scene, she tells her husband she has been "greatly wronged" by his disparaging and condescending treatment of her, and his attitude towards her in their marriage—as though she were his "doll wife"—and the children in turn have become her "dolls", leading her to doubt her own qualifications to raise her children. She is troubled by her husband's behavior in regard to the scandal of the loaned money. She does not love her husband, feels completely confused and that they are strangers, and suggests that her issues are shared by many women. George Bernard Shaw suggests that she left to begin "a journey in search of self-respect and apprenticeship to life" and that her revolt is "the end of a chapter of human history". Michael Meyer argued that the play's theme is not women's rights but rather "the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person". In a speech given to the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement" since he wrote "without any conscious thought of making propaganda", his task having been "the "description of humanity"". The play, however, is associated with feminism, as Miriam Schneir includes it in her anthology "", labeling it as one of the essential feminist works. Because of the departure from traditional behavior and theatrical convention involved in Nora's leaving home, her act of slamming the door as she leaves has come to represent the play itself. In "Iconoclasts" (1905), James Huneker noted "That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world." Chinese writer Lu Xun evaluated the ending in the 1923 speech, What happens after Nora leaves home, in which he compares Nora's lack of economic independence to China's political and economic repression. Adaptations. Film. "A Doll's House" has been adapted for the cinema on many occasions, including:
3146	27015025	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3146	AIM-7 Sparrow	The AIM-7 Sparrow (Air Intercept Missile) is an American medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile operated by the United States Air Force, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, and various other air forces and navies. Sparrow and its derivatives were the West's principal beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air missile from the late 1950s until the 1990s. It remains in service, although it is being phased out in aviation applications in favor of the more advanced AIM-120 AMRAAM. The early Sparrow was intended primarily for use against larger targets, especially bombers, and had numerous operational limitations in other uses. Against smaller targets, the need to receive a strong reflected radar signal made it difficult to achieve lock-on at the missile's effective range. As the launching aircraft's own radar needed to be pointed at the target throughout the engagement, this meant that in fighter-vs-fighter combat the enemy fighter would often approach within the range of shorter-range infrared homing missiles while the launching aircraft had to continue flying towards its target. Additionally, early models were only effective against targets at roughly the same or higher altitudes, below which reflections from the ground became a problem. A number of upgraded Sparrow designs were developed to address these issues. In the early 1970s, the RAF developed the Skyflash version with an inverse monopulse seeker and improved motor, while the Italian Air Force introduced the similar Aspide. Both could be fired at targets below the launching fighter ("look-down, shoot-down"), were more resistant to countermeasures, and were much more accurate in the terminal phase. This basic concept then became part of the US Sparrows in the M model (for monopulse) and some of these were later updated as the P model, the last to be produced in the US. Aspides sold to China resulted in the locally produced PL-11. The Japan Self-Defense Forces also employ the Sparrow missile, though it is being phased out and replaced by the Mitsubishi AAM-4. The Sparrow was also used as the basis for a surface-to-air missile, the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow, used by a number of navies for air defense. Fired at low altitude and flying directly at its target, though, the range of the missile in this role is greatly reduced because of the higher air density of the lower atmosphere. With the retirement of the Sparrow in the air-to-air role, a new version of the Sea Sparrow was produced to address this concern, producing the larger and more capable RIM-162 ESSM. Development. Sparrow I. The Sparrow emerged from a late-1940s United States Navy program to develop a guided rocket weapon for air-to-air use. In 1947 the Navy contracted Sperry to build a beam-riding version of a standard HVAR, the standard unguided aerial rocket, under Project Hotshot. The weapon was initially dubbed KAS-1, then AAM-2, and — from 1948 on — AAM-N-2. The airframe was developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. The diameter of the HVAR proved to be inadequate for the electronics, leading Douglas to expand the missile's airframe to diameter. The prototype weapon began unpowered flight tests in 1947, and made its first aerial interception in 1952. After a protracted development cycle the initial AAM-N-2 Sparrow entered limited operational service in 1954 with specially modified Douglas F3D Skyknight all-weather carrier night fighters. In 1956, they were joined by the McDonnell F3H-2M Demon and Vought F7U Cutlass fighter aircraft. Compared to the modern versions, the Sparrow I was more streamlined and featured a bullet-shaped airframe with a long pointed nose. Sparrow I was a limited and rather primitive weapon. The limitations of beam-riding guidance (which was slaved to an optical sight on single-seater fighters and to radar on night fighters) restricted the missile to attacks against targets flying a straight course and made it essentially useless against a maneuvering target. Only about 2,000 rounds were produced to this standard. Sparrow II. As early as 1950, Douglas examined equipping the Sparrow with an active radar seeker, initially known as XAAM-N-2a "Sparrow II, the original retroactively becoming Sparrow I". In 1952, it was given the new code AAM-N-3. The active radar made the Sparrow II a "fire and forget" weapon, allowing several to be fired at separate targets at the same time. By 1955, Douglas proposed going ahead with development, intending it to be the primary weapon for the F5D Skylancer interceptor. It was later selected, with some controversy, to be the primary weapon for the Canadian Avro Arrow supersonic interceptor, along with the new Astra fire-control system. For Canadian use and as a second source for US missiles, Canadair was selected to build the missiles in Quebec. The small size of the missile forebody and the K-band AN/APQ-64-radar limited performance, and it was never able to work in testing. After considerable development and test firings in the U.S. and Canada, Douglas abandoned development in 1956. Canadair continued development until the Arrow was cancelled in 1959. Sparrow III. Concurrently with the development of the Sparrow I, in 1951 Raytheon began work on a semi-active radar-homing version, the AAM-N-6 "Sparrow III". The first of these weapons entered United States Navy service in 1958. The AAM-N-6a was similar to the -6, and included changes to the guidance electronics to make it effective at higher closing speeds. It was originally designed to take the Thiokol LR44-RM-2 liquid-fuel rocket motor, but the decision was made to retain the solid fuel rocket motor. The -6a was also selected to arm the Air Force's "F-110A Spectre" (F-4 Phantom) fighters in 1962, known to them as the AIM-101. It entered production in 1959, with 7500 being built. With an improved Rocketdyne solid-fuel motor, the AAM-N-6b started production in 1963. The new motor significantly increased the maximum range to for head-on attacks. This new missile also improved tail-on performance, with the AAM-N-6a being capable of firing on only targets with 300 ft/sec closing velocity, and AAM-N-6b being capable of firing on targets with a 300 knot opening velocity (-300 knot closing velocity or higher). During this year the Air Force and Navy agreed on standardized naming conventions for their missiles. The Sparrows became the AIM-7 series. The original Sparrow I and aborted Sparrow II became the AIM-7A and AIM-7B, despite both being out of service. The -6, -6a, and -6b became the AIM-7C, AIM-7D, and AIM-7E respectively. 25,000 AIM-7Es were produced and saw extensive use during the Vietnam War, where its performance was considered disappointing. The mixed results were a combination of reliability problems (exacerbated by the tropical climate), limited pilot training in fighter-to-fighter combat, and restrictive rules of engagement that generally prohibited BVR (beyond visual range) engagements. The Pk (kill probability) of the AIM-7E was less than 10%; US fighter pilots shot down 59 aircraft out of the 612 Sparrows fired. Of the 612 AIM-7D/E/E-2 missiles fired, 97 (or 15.8%) hit their targets, resulting in 56 (or 9.2%) kills. Two kills were obtained beyond visual range. In 1969, an improved version, the E-2, was introduced with clipped wings and various changes to the fuzing. Considered a "dogfight Sparrow", the AIM-7E-2 was intended to be used at shorter ranges where the missile was still travelling at high speeds, and in the head-on aspect, making it much more useful in the visual limitations imposed on the engagements. Even so, its kill rate was only 13% in combat, leading to a practice of ripple-firing all four at once in hopes of increasing kill probability. Its worst tendency was to detonate prematurely about 1,000 feet ahead of the launching aircraft, but it also had many motor failures, erratic flights, and fuzing problems. An E-3 version included additional changes to the fuzing, and the E-4 featured a modified seeker for use with the F-14 Tomcat. Post Vietnam. Work began in the mid-1960s on a new version in an attempt to address the weapon's limitations. The AIM-7F, which entered service in 1976, had a dual-stage rocket motor for longer range and solid-state electronics for greatly improved reliability. The reduction in volume from the new guidance system also enabled a larger warhead to be fitted, improving the missile's lethality. The issues encountered by AIM-7 were not exclusive to the US either, with both British Aerospace and the Italian firm Selenia developing improved missiles at the behest of their national governments as the BAe Skyflash and Selenia Aspide. Notably, both missiles incorporated more reliable inverse monopulse seekers, a feature American AIM-7s would not gain until the 1980s. The most common version of the Sparrow today, the AIM-7M, entered service in 1982 and featured a new inverse monopulse seeker (matching the capabilities of Skyflash and Aspide), active radar proximity fuse, digital controls, improved ECM resistance, and better low-altitude performance. It was used to good advantage in the 1991 Gulf War, where it scored many USAF air-to-air kills. Of 44 missiles fired, 30 (68.2%) hit their intended targets resulting in 24/26 (54.5%/59.1%) kills. 19 kills were obtained beyond visual range. The AIM-7P is similar in most ways to the M versions, and was primarily an upgrade for existing M-series missiles. Changes were mainly to the software, improving low-level performance. A follow-on Block II upgrade added a new rear receiver allowing the missile to receive mid-course correction from the launching aircraft. The U.S. Navy planned to operate the missile through 2018. The Sparrow is now being phased out with the availability of the active-radar AIM-120 AMRAAM, but is likely to remain in service for several years. Proposals. Sparrow X was a subvariant of the Sparrow I armed with the same nuclear warhead as the MB-1 Genie was proposed in 1958 but was cancelled shortly thereafter. AIM-7F Multishot was a proposal under the US Navy's F-4X program of the 1960s to equip the then under development missiles and their launch platforms with a datalink for track-via-missile guidance akin to that of AIM-54 Phoenix, which would enable multiple AIM-7 missiles to be guided simultaneously. As each missile would only need terminal illumination from the F-4's radar, it could engage multiple aircraft simultaneously as long as it kept all targets within view of its radar. As this modification would have required all-new solid state electronics for the AN/AWG-10 radars on the launching F-4s, it was not pursued. AIM-7R was to add an infrared homing seeker to an otherwise unchanged AIM-7P Block II. A general wind-down of the budget led to it being cancelled in 1997. Foreign versions. Canada. As part of the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow program, Canadair (now Bombardier) partnered with Douglas Aircraft Company in the development of the Sparrow II (AAM-N-3/AIM-7B). After Douglas dropped out of this program, Canadair continued on with it until the termination of the Arrow project. The AAM-N-3 Sparrow II was unique in that it had a fully active radar guidance system. This combined both a radar transmitter and receiver in the missile, making it unnecessary for the pilot to keep the aircraft aimed at the target after firing the missile, unlike semi-active radar homing (SARH) missiles which require continuous radar-assisted guidance throughout flight. This allowed the aircraft that fired the AAM-N-3 to turn away, prosecute other targets, and/or escape from potential retaliatory missiles fired by the enemy aircraft during the time it took for the Sparrow to reach its target. Despite the significant advantages of this design over SARH guidance, all subsequent models of the Sparrow use semi-active radar homing. To accommodate the active radar guidance system, the AAM-N-3 Sparrow II had a much greater volume than its predecessor. Its size would subsequently set the precedent for all future Sparrow variants. In 1959, Canadair had completed five missiles based on airframes from Douglas, and built two models from scratch, when the program was cancelled with the cancellation of the Arrow. Italy. The Italian company Selenia (now Leonardo S.p.A.) licensed the AIM-7E Sparrow technology from the US, and produced its own version. Later in the 1970s, Alenia started to produce an improved version of the AIM-7 called the Aspide. Compared to the AIM-7E, it received an improved new monopulse guidance system that allowed for a better hit ratio and easier targeting of enemies at low altitude with ground-clutter confusion. It also received a new and more powerful engine and new control surfaces. These control surfaces were each independent of the others, giving the missile greatly improved maneuverability over the AIM-7E and the British Skyflash that still used dependent control surfaces. People's Republic of China. The PL-11 and HQ-6 are a family of Chinese missiles developed by the Shanghai Academy of Science and Technology, largely based on the Italian Aspide version of the Sparrow missile. Soviet Union. The Soviet Union acquired an AIM-7 in 1968 and a Vympel team started copying it as the K-25. The missile did not enter production as the R-23 was thought to have better versatility, range, signal processing logic, and immunity to interference. K-25 work ended in 1971, but analysis of the Sparrow was later used to inform the design of the Vympel R-27, particularly the servomechanisms and movable wings. UK. British Aerospace (BAe) licensed the AIM-7E-2 technology in the 1970s, producing the Skyflash missile. Skyflash used a Marconi XJ521 monopulse seeker together with improvements to the electronics. It was powered by the Aerojet Mk52 mod 2 rocket engine (later by the Rocketdyne Mk38 mod 4). Skyflash entered service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) on their Phantom FG.1 & FGR.2 in 1978, and later on the Tornado F.3. Skyflash was also exported to Sweden for use on their Viggen fighters. An upgraded version with active radar seeker called Active Sky Flash was proposed by BAe and Thomson-CSF, but the RAF opted to procure AIM-120 AMRAAM instead. Design. The Sparrow has four major sections: guidance section, warhead, control, and rocket motor (currently the Hercules MK-58 solid-propellant rocket motor). It has a cylindrical body with four wings at mid-body and four tail fins. Although the external dimensions of the Sparrow remained relatively unchanged from model to model, the internal components of newer missiles represent major improvements, with vastly increased capabilities. The warhead is of the continuous-rod type. As with other semi-active radar guided missiles, the missile does not generate radar signals, but instead homes in on reflected continuous-wave signals from the launch platform's radar. The receiver also senses the guidance radar to enable comparisons that enhance the missile's resistance to passive jamming. Principle of guidance. The launching aircraft illuminates the target with its radar. In 1950s radars, these were single-target tracking devices using a nutating horn as part of the antenna, thereby sweeping the beam in a small cone. Signal processing is applied to determine the direction of maximum illumination, thereby developing a signal to steer the antenna toward the target. The missile detects the reflected signal from the target with a high-gain antenna in a similar fashion and steers the entire missile toward closure with the target. The missile guidance also samples a portion of the illuminating signal via rearward-pointing waveguides. The comparison of these two signals enabled logic circuits to determine the true target reflection signal, even if the target were to eject radar-reflecting chaff.
3147	27015025	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3147	AIM-120 AMRAAM	The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) ( ) is an American beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It uses active transmit-receive radar guidance instead of semi-active receive-only radar guidance. When an AMRAAM missile is launched, NATO pilots use the brevity code "Fox Three". The AMRAAM largely replaced the AIM-7 Sparrow as the principal beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile in U.S. inventory. more than 14,000 had been produced for the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, and 33 international customers. The AMRAAM has been used in several engagements, achieving 16 air-to-air kills in conflicts over Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, India, and Syria. In the long term, it is expected to eventually be replaced by the long range AIM-260 JATM in U.S. service and the MBDA Meteor in some European countries. Origins. AIM-7 Sparrow MRM. The AIM-7 Sparrow medium range missile (MRM) was purchased by the US Navy from original developer Hughes Aircraft in the 1950s as its first operational air-to-air missile with "beyond visual range" (BVR) capability. With an effective range of about , it was introduced as a radar beam-riding missile and then it was improved to a semi-active radar guided missile which would home in on reflections from a target illuminated by the radar of the launching aircraft. It was effective at visual to beyond visual range. The early beam riding versions of the Sparrow missiles were integrated onto the McDonnell F3H Demon and Vought F7U Cutlass, but the definitive AIM-7 Sparrow was the primary weapon for the all-weather McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter/interceptor, which lacked an internal gun in its U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and early U.S. Air Force versions. The F-4 carried up to four AIM-7s in built-in recesses under its belly. Designed for use against non-maneuvering targets such as bombers, the missiles initially performed poorly against fighters over North Vietnam, and were progressively improved until they proved highly effective in dogfights. Together with the short-range, infrared-guided AIM-9 Sidewinder, they replaced the AIM-4 Falcon IR and radar guided series for use in air combat by the USAF as well. A disadvantage to semi-active homing was that only one target could be illuminated by the launching fighter plane at a time. Also, the launching aircraft had to remain pointed in the direction of the target (within the azimuth and elevation of its own radar set) which could be difficult or dangerous in air-to-air combat. An active-radar variant called the Sparrow II was developed to address these drawbacks, but the U.S. Navy pulled out of the project in 1956. The Royal Canadian Air Force, which took over development in the hopes of using the missile to arm their prospective Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow interceptor, soon followed in 1958. The electronics of the time simply could not be miniaturized enough to make Sparrow II a viable working weapon. It would take decades, and a new generation of digital electronics, to produce an effective active-radar air-to-air missile as compact as the Sparrow. AIM-54 Phoenix LRM. The US Navy later developed the AIM-54 Phoenix long-range missile (LRM) for the fleet air defense mission. It was a large , Mach 5 missile designed to counter cruise missiles and the bombers that launched them. Originally intended for the straight-wing Douglas F6D Missileer and then the navalized General Dynamics–Grumman F-111B, it finally saw service with the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, the only fighter capable of carrying such a heavy missile. The Phoenix was the first US fire-and-forget, multiple-launch, radar-guided missile: one which used its own active guidance system to guide itself without help from the launch aircraft when it closed on its target. This, in theory, gave a Tomcat with a six-Phoenix load the unprecedented capability of tracking and destroying up to six targets beyond visual range, as far as away—the only US fighter with such capability. A full load of six Phoenix missiles and its dedicated launcher exceeded a typical Vietnam-era bomb load. Its service in the US Navy was primarily as a deterrent, as its use was hampered by restrictive rules of engagement in conflicts such as 1991 Gulf War, Southern Watch (enforcing no-fly zones), and Iraq War. The US Navy retired the Phoenix in 2004 in light of availability of the AIM-120 AMRAAM on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and the pending retirement of the F-14 Tomcat from active service in late 2006. ACEVAL/AIMVAL. The Department of Defense conducted an extensive evaluation of air combat tactics and missile technology from 1974 to 1978 at Nellis AFB using the F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle equipped with Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles as the blue force and aggressor F-5E aircraft equipped with AIM-9L all-aspect Sidewinders as the red force. This joint test and evaluation (JT&E) was designated Air Combat Evaluation/Air Intercept Missile Evaluation (ACEVAL/AIMVAL). A principal finding was that the necessity to produce illumination for the Sparrow until impact resulted in the red force's being able to launch their all-aspect Sidewinders before impact, resulting in mutual kills. What was needed was Phoenix-type multiple-launch and terminal active capability in a Sparrow-size airframe. This led to a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with European allies (principally the UK and Germany for development) for the US to develop an advanced, medium-range, air-to-air missile with the USAF as lead service. ASRAAM. The MOA also saw an agreement to develop a replacement for the Sidewinder, specifically; an advanced ‘dogfight’ air-to-air missile, capable of better covering the range disparity that would emerge between such short-range missiles and the eventual AMRAAM. This task fell to a British-German design team, with the Germans leaving the project in 1989. The missile would emerge as the British Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM), entering service in 1998. While the U.S. never adopted the ASRAAM — instead opting to continue upgrading the Sidewinder — the ASRAAM did enter into service with the British, Indian, and Australian militaries. The UK has continued to upgrade the ASRAAM, with the ‘Block 6’ variant entering service in 2022. Requirements. By the 1990s, the reliability of the Sparrow had improved significantly, relative to its use in Vietnam, with it accounting for the largest number of aerial targets destroyed in the Desert Storm phase of the Gulf War. However, while the USAF had passed on the Phoenix and its own similar AIM-47 Falcon/Lockheed YF-12 to optimize dogfight performance, it still needed a multiple-launch fire-and-forget capability for the F-15 and F-16. The AMRAAM would need to be fitted on fighters as small as the F-16, and fit in the same spaces that were designed to fit the Sparrow on the F-4 Phantom. The European partners needed AMRAAM to be integrated on aircraft as small as the BAe Sea Harrier. The US Navy needed the AMRAAM to be carried on the F/A-18 Hornet and wanted capability for two to be carried on a launcher that normally carried one Sparrow to allow for more air-to-ground weapons. Finally, the AMRAAM became one of the primary air-to-air weapons of the new Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter, which needed to place all of its weapons into internal weapons bays in order to help achieve an extremely low radar cross-section. Development. AMRAAM was developed as the result of an agreement (the Family of Weapons MOA, no longer in effect by 1990), among the United States and several other NATO nations to develop air-to-air missiles and to share production technology. Under this agreement, the U.S. was to develop the next generation medium range missile (AMRAAM) and Europe would develop the next generation short range missile (ASRAAM). Although Europe initially adopted the AMRAAM, an effort to develop the MDBA Meteor, a competitor to AMRAAM, was begun in UK. Eventually, the ASRAAM was developed solely by the British, but using another source for its infrared seeker. After protracted development, the deployment of AMRAAM (AIM-120A) began in September 1991 in US Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle fighter squadrons. The US Navy soon followed (in 1993) in its McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet squadrons. The Russian Air Force counterpart of AMRAAM is the somewhat similar R-77 (NATO codename AA-12 Adder), sometimes referred to in the West as the "AMRAAMski". Likewise, France began its own air-to-air missile development with the MICA concept that used a common airframe for separate radar-guided and infrared-guided versions. Operational history. United States. The AMRAAM was used operationally for the first time on December 27, 1992, when a USAF General Dynamics F-16D Fighting Falcon shot down an Iraqi MiG-25 that violated the southern no-fly-zone. This missile had been returned from the flight line as defective a day earlier. The AMRAAM gained a second victory in January 1993 when an Iraqi MiG-23 was shot down by a USAF F-16C. On 28 February 1994, a Republika Srpska Air Force J-21 Jastreb aircraft was shot down by a USAF F-16C that was patrolling the UN-imposed no-fly zone over Bosnia. In that engagement, at least three other Serbian aircraft were shot down by USAF F-16Cs using AIM-9 missiles (Banja Luka incident). At that point, three launches in combat had resulted in three kills, resulting in the AMRAAMs being informally named "slammer" in the second half of the 1990s. In 1994, two USAF F-15 fighters patrolling Iraq's Northern No-Fly Zone mistook a pair of US Army Black Hawk helicopters for Iraqi helicopters, and shot them down. One was downed with an AIM-120, and one with an AIM-9 Sidewinder. In 1998 and 1999 AMRAAMs were again fired by USAF F-15 fighters at Iraqi aircraft violating the No-Fly-Zone, but this time they failed to hit their targets. During spring 1999, AMRAAMs saw their main combat action during Operation Allied Force, the Kosovo bombing campaign. Six Serbian MiG-29s were shot down by NATO (four USAF F-15Cs, one USAF F-16C, and one Dutch F-16A MLU), all of them using AIM-120 missiles (the supposed kill by the F-16C may have actually been friendly fire, a man-portable SA-7 fired by Serbian infantry). On 18 June 2017, a US Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet engaged and shot down a Sukhoi Su-22 of the Syrian Air Force over northern Syria, using an AIM-120. An AIM-9X Sidewinder had failed to bring down the Syrian jet. Some sources have claimed the AIM-9X was decoyed by flares, although the F/A-18E pilot, Lieutenant Commander Michael "MOB" Tremel stated it was unclear why the AIM-9X failed, mentioning no use of flares by the Su-22, saying "I [lost] the smoke trail, and I have no idea what happened to the missile at that point". Turkey. On 23 March 2014 a Turkish Air Force F-16 from 182 Squadron shot down a Syrian Arab Air Force MiG-23BN with an AIM-120C-7. On 24 November 2015 a Turkish Air Force F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24M strike aircraft with an AIM-120 missile over northern Syria after it allegedly crossed into Turkish airspace. On 1 March 2020, Turkish Air Force F-16s downed two Su-24s belonging to the Syrian Air Force using two AIM-120C-7s. On 3 March 2020, a Syrian Air Force L-39 was shot down over Idlib by Turkish Air Force F-16s from inside Turkish airspace with AIM-120C-7 at a distance of about . As of 2020, this has been the longest range AIM-120 kill. Pakistan. On 27 February 2019, India stated that Pakistan Air Force (PAF) used AMRAAMs during the 2019 Jammu and Kashmir airstrikes. Indian officials displayed fragments of an alleged AIM-120C-5 missile as a proof of its usage during the engagement. Saudi Arabia. During the Yemeni War, Saudi Arabia extensively used F-15 and Typhoon aircraft together with Patriot batteries to intercept and down Yemeni drones and missiles. In November 2021, a possible Foreign Military Sales contract was notified to the US Congress regarding the provision to Saudi Arabia for a mix of 280 AIM-120C-7 and C-8 missiles and related support equipment and service that would be used on Saudi F-15 and Typhoon aircraft. The deal was required to replenish Saudi missiles stock, running low due to extensive use of AMRAAMs and Patriots against Yemeni missiles and drones. Spain. On 7 August 2018, a Spanish Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon accidentally launched a missile in Estonia. There were no human casualties, but a ten-day search operation for the missile was unsuccessful. Effectiveness. The kill probability (Pk) is determined by several factors, including aspect (head-on interception, side-on or tail-chase), altitude, the speed of the missile and the target, and how hard the target can turn. Typically, if the missile has sufficient energy during the terminal phase, which comes from being launched at close range to the target from an aircraft with an altitude and speed advantage, it will have a good chance of success. This chance drops as the missile is fired at longer ranges as it runs out of overtake speed at long ranges, and if the target can force the missile to turn it might bleed off enough speed that it can no longer chase the target. Operationally, the missile, which was designed for beyond visual range combat, has a Pk of 0.59. The targets included six MiG-29s, a MiG-25, a MiG-23, two Su-22s, a Galeb, and a US Army Blackhawk that was targeted by mistake. Operational features summary. AMRAAM has an all-weather, beyond-visual-range (BVR) capability. It improves the aerial combat capabilities of US and allied aircraft to meet the threat of enemy air-to-air weapons as they existed in 1991. AMRAAM serves as a follow-on to the AIM-7 Sparrow missile series. The new missile is faster, smaller, and lighter, and has improved capabilities against low-altitude targets. It also incorporates a datalink to guide the missile to a point where its active radar turns on and makes terminal intercept of the target. An inertial reference unit and micro-computer system makes the missile less dependent upon the fire-control system of the aircraft. Once the missile closes in on the target, its active radar guides it to intercept. This feature, known as "fire-and-forget", frees the aircrew from the need to further provide guidance, enabling the aircrew to aim and fire several missiles simultaneously at multiple targets and break a radar lock after the missile seeker goes active and guides itself to the targets. The missile also features the ability to "Home on Jamming," giving it the ability to switch over from active radar homing to passive homing – homing on jamming signals from the target aircraft. Software on board the missile allows it to detect if it is being jammed, and guide on its target using the proper guidance system. Guidance system overview. Interception course stage. AMRAAM uses two-stage guidance when fired at long range. The aircraft passes data to the missile just before launch, giving it information about the location of the target aircraft from the launch point, including its direction and speed. This information is generally obtained using the launching aircraft's radar, although it could come from an infrared search and track system, from another fighter aircraft via a data link, or from an AWACS aircraft. Using its built-in inertial navigation system (INS), the missile uses the information provided pre-launch to fly on an interception course toward the target. After launch, if the firing aircraft or surrogate continues to track the target, periodic updates, e.g. changes in the target's direction and speed, are sent from the launch aircraft to the missile, allowing the missile to adjust its course, via actuation of the rear fins, so that it is able to close to a self-homing distance where it will be close enough to "catch" the target aircraft in the "basket" (the missile's radar field of view in which it will be able to lock onto the target aircraft, unassisted by the launch aircraft). Not all armed services using the AMRAAM have elected to purchase the mid-course update option, which limits AMRAAM's effectiveness in some scenarios. The RAF initially opted not to use mid-course update for its Tornado F3 force, only to discover that without it, testing proved the AMRAAM was less effective in beyond visual range (BVR) engagements than the older semi-active radar homing BAE Skyflash (a development of the Sparrow), since the AIM-120's own radar is necessarily of lesser range and power as compared to that of the launch aircraft. Terminal stage and impact. Once the missile closes to self-homing distance, it turns on its active radar seeker and searches for the target aircraft. If the target is in or near the expected location, the missile will find it and guide itself to the target from this point. If the missile is fired at short range, within visual range (WVR) or the near BVR, it can use its active seeker just after launch to guide it to intercept. Boresight Visual mode. Apart from the radar-slaved mode, there is a free guidance mode, called "Visual". This mode is host-aircraft radar guidance-free—the missile just fires and locks onto the first thing it sees. This mode can be used for defensive shots, i.e. when the enemy has numerical superiority. Variants and upgrades. Air-to-air missile versions. There are currently four main variants of AMRAAM, all in service with the United States Air Force, United States Navy, and the United States Marine Corps. AIM-120A. AIM-120A is no longer in production and shares the enlarged wings and fins with the successor, the AIM-120B. AIM-120B. AIM-120B deliveries began in 1994. This variant had improved electronics, including a digital processor, upgraded memory, and electronic unit hardware chassis upgrades. AIM-120C. AIM-120C deliveries began in 1996. The C-variant has been steadily upgraded since it was introduced.The AIM-120C has smaller "clipped" aerosurfaces to enable increased internal carriage on the USAF F-22 Raptor from four to six AMRAAMs. The AIM-120C-5 and above have an improved HOBs (High Off Bore-Sight) capability which improves its G overload and seekers field of view over the previous variants allowing the missile to be more maneuverable and be used at targets that are offset from the launching aircraft frontal view which allows for greater flexibility during air-to-air combat. The AIM-120C-6 contained an improved fuze (Target Detection Device) compared to its predecessor. The AIM-120C-7 development began in 1998 and included improvements in homing and greater range (actual amount of improvement unspecified). It was successfully tested in 2003 and is currently being produced for both domestic and foreign customers. It helped the U.S. Navy replace the F-14 Tomcats with F/A-18E/F Super Hornets – the loss of the F-14's long-range AIM-54 Phoenix missiles (already retired) is offset with a longer-range AMRAAM-D. The lighter weight of the enhanced AMRAAM enables an F/A-18E/F pilot greater bring-back weight upon carrier landings. FMRAAM. The FMRAAM (Future Medium Range Air to Air Missile) was a modified ramjet powered version of the AMRAAM that was conceived during the mid-1990s to fulfill British requirements for a new longer range missile on their new Eurofighter Typhoon fighter. The FMRAAM was to use the Aérospatiale liquid fueled RASCAL (Ramjet for Small Calibre) propulsion system. It competed with and lost to the MBDA Meteor, thus never reaching production. Work on a ramjet motor for the AMRAAM continued under the Variable Flow Ducted Rocket - Flight Vehicle Concept (VFDR-FVC) program in the 2000s, with a prototype demonstrator tested by Aerojet by 2008. AIM-120D. AIM-120D is an upgraded version of the AMRAAM with improvements in almost all areas, including 50% greater range (than the already-extended range AIM-120C-7) and better guidance over its entire flight envelope yielding an improved kill probability (Pk). Initial production began in 2006 under the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase of program testing and ceased in September 2009. Raytheon began testing the D model on August 5, 2008, the company reported that an AIM-120D launched from an F/A-18F Super Hornet passed within lethal distance of a QF-4 target drone at the White Sands Missile Range. The range of the AIM-120D is classified, but is thought to extend to about or potentially up to . The AIM-120D (P3I Phase 4) is a development of the AIM-120C with a two-way data link, more accurate navigation using a GPS-enhanced IMU, an expanded no-escape envelope, improved HOBS (high off-boresight) capability, and a max speed of Mach 4. The AIM-120D is a joint USAF/USN project for which Follow-on Operational Test and Evaluation (FOT&E) was completed in 2014. The USN was scheduled to field it from 2014, and AIM-120D will be carried by all Pacific carrier groups by 2020, although the 2013 sequestration cuts could push back this later date to 2022. The Royal Australian Air Force requested 450 AIM-120D missiles, which would make it the first foreign operator of the missile. The procurement, approved by the US Government in April 2016, will cost $1.1 billion and will be integrated for use on the F/A-18F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler and the F-35 Lightning II aircraft. There were also plans for Raytheon to develop a ramjet-powered derivative of the AMRAAM, the Future Medium Range Air-Air Missile (FMRAAM). The FMRAAM was not produced since the target market, the British Ministry of Defence, chose the Meteor missile over the FMRAAM for a BVR missile for the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft. Raytheon is also working with the Missile Defense Agency to develop the Network Centric Airborne Defense Element (NCADE), an anti-ballistic missile derived from the AIM-120. This weapon will be equipped with a ramjet engine and an infrared homing seeker derived from the Sidewinder missile. In place of a proximity-fuzed warhead, the NCADE will use a kinetic energy hit-to-kill vehicle based on the one used in the Navy's RIM-161 Standard Missile 3. The -120A and -120B models are currently nearing the end of their service life while the -120D variant achieved initial operational capability in 2015. AMRAAM was due to be replaced by the USAF, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps after 2020 by the Joint Dual Role Air Dominance Missile (Next Generation Missile), but it was terminated in the 2013 budget plan. Exploratory work was started in 2017 on a replacement called Long-Range Engagement Weapon. In 2017, work on the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM) began to create a longer-ranged replacement for the AMRAAM to contend with foreign weapons like the Chinese PL-15. Flight tests are planned to begin in 2021 and initial operational capability is slated for 2022, facilitating the end of AMRAAM production by 2026. In July 2022, Raytheon announced the AIM-120D-3 became the longest-range variant in testing, as well as an air-launched adaptation of the NASAMS-based AMRAAM-ER called the AMRAAM-AXE (air-launched extended envelope). The development of AIM-120D-3 and AMRAAM-AXE is likely driven by the PL-15 performance. The AIM-120D-3 and the AIM-120C-8 variant for international customers were developed under the Form, Fit, Function Refresh (F3R) program and feature 15 upgraded circuit cards in the missile guidance section and the capability to continuously upgrade future software enhancements. All AMRAAMs planned for production are either the AIM-120D-3 or the AIM-120C-8 incorporating F3R functionality as of April 2023. Ground-launched systems. The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and fielded in 1994–1995, consists of a number of towed batteries (containing six AMRAAM launching canisters with integrated launching rails) along with separate radar trucks and control station vehicles. The US Marine Corps and the US Army tested launching AMRAAM missiles from a six-rail carrier on HMMWV as part of their CLAWS (Complementary Low-Altitude Weapon System) and SLAMRAAM (Surface Launched AMRAAM) programs, which were canceled due to budgetary cuts. A more recent version is the "High Mobility Launcher" for the NASAMS, made in cooperation with Raytheon (Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace was already a subcontractor on the SLAMRAAM system), where the launch-vehicle is a Humvee (M1152A1 HMMWV), containing four AMRAAMs and two optional AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. AMRAAM-ER. As part of the SLAMRAAM project, Raytheon offered the Extended Range upgrade to surface-launched AMRAAM, called AMRAAM-ER. The missile is an Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile using AMRAAM head with two-stage guidance system. It was first shown at the Paris Air Show 2007 and was test-fired in 2008. Following the cancellation of SLAMRAAM funding in 2011, development of the NASAMS version restarted in 2014. In February 2015 Raytheon announced the AMRAAM-ER missile option for NASAMS, with expected production in 2019, and the first flight test took place in August 2016. Engagement envelope was expanded with a 50 percent increase in maximum range and 70 percent increase in maximum altitude. In 2019 Qatar placed an order for AMRAAM-ER missiles as part of a NASAMS purchase. The missile was testfired at Andøya Space Center in May 2021. In February 2024, Raytheon flight-tested an upgraded version of AMRAAM-ER with an improved rocket motor and control actuator system and an AIM-120C-8 guidance head. Raytheon has proposed an air-launched adaptation of the missile called AMRAAM-AXE, from "Air-launched Extended Envelope". On October 25, 2024, the United States government agreed to sell 3 NASAMS system and 123 AMRAAM-ER missiles to Taiwan. Foreign sales. Canadair, now Bombardier, had largely helped with the development of the AIM-7 Sparrow and Sparrow II, and assisted to a lesser extent in the AIM-120 development. In 2003, the RCAF placed an order for 97 AIM-120C-5 and later C-7 missiles. These missiles have been in service on the CF-18 Hornet since 2004, and fully replaced the AIM-7 Sparrow in the 2010s. In 2020, the Canadian Government was approved by the U.S. DoD for 32 advanced AIM-120D missiles to supplement the AIM-120C stockpile. The package included the 32 active AIM-120D-3 missiles, as well as 18 Captive Training Missiles, and a variety of training equipment and spare parts for $140M. Canada is one of a few countries currently authorized to purchase the longer range AIM-120D missile. In early 1995 South Korea ordered 88 AIM-120A missiles for its KF-16 fleet. In 1997 South Korea ordered 737 additional AIM-120B missiles. In 2006 Poland received AIM-120C-5 missiles to arm its new F-16C/D Block 52+ fighters. In 2017 Poland ordered AIM-120C-7 missiles. In early 2006, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) ordered 500 AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles as part of a $650 million F-16 ammunition deal to equip its F-16C/D Block 50/52+ and F-16A/B Block 15 MLU fighters. The PAF got the first three F-16C/D Block 50/52+ aircraft on July 3, 2010, and first batch of AMRAAMs on July 26, 2010. In 2007, the United States government agreed to sell 218 AIM-120C-7 missiles to Taiwan as part of a large arms sales package that also included 235 AGM-65G-2 Maverick missiles. Total value of the package, including launchers, maintenance, spare parts, support and training rounds, was estimated at US$421 million. This supplemented an earlier Taiwanese purchase of 120 AIM-120C-5 missiles a few years ago. In 2008 there were announcements of new or additional sales to Singapore, Finland, Morocco and South Korea; in December 2010 the Swiss government requested 150 AIM-120C-7 missiles. Sales to Finland have stalled, because the manufacturer has not been able to fix a mysterious bug that causes the rocket motors of the missile to fail in cold tests. On May 5, 2015, the State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Royal Malaysian Air Force for AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM missiles and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $21 million. In March 2016, the US government approved the sales of 36 units of AIM-120C-7 missiles to the Indonesian Air Force to equip their fleet of F-16 C/D Block 25. The AIM-120C-7 is also equipped for the upgraded F-16 A/B Block 15 OCU through Falcon Star-eMLU upgrade project. In March 2019, the US Department of State and Defense Security Cooperation Agency formally signed off on a US$240.5 million foreign military sale to support Australia's introduction of the NASAMS and LAND 19 Phase 7B program. As part of the deal, the Australian government requested up to 108 Raytheon AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM, six AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM Air Vehicles Instrumented; and six spare AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM guidance sections. In December 2019, the United States Congress approved the sale of AIM-120C-7/C-8 to the Republic of Korea. According to the Federal Register document, the AIM-120C-8 is a refurbished version of AIM-120C-7, which replaced some discontinued parts with equivalent commercial parts and its capabilities are identical to AIM-120C-7. This was the first time the C-8 version of AMRAAM has appeared in the US arms sales contract. Later, Japan, the Netherlands, the UAE, Spain and Norway received approval to purchase AIM-120C-8s. In November 2021, Saudi Arabia received approval to purchase 280 AIM-120C-7/C-8s. Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Norway have been approved to purchase the AIM-120D. Norway ordered 205 AIM-120D and 60 AIM-120D-3 in November 2022, and an unspecified number of AIM-120C-8 in October 2024. In March 2023, the United States government agreed to sell 200 AIM-120C-8 missiles to Taiwan. In mid 2023 Germany has requested the purchase of more than 1,000 AIM-120 C8 missiles in addition to the MBDA Meteor which are to be used by the German Air Force. In November 2023, the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration signed a contract worth US$605 million to purchase the AIM-120C-8, replacing the older AIM-120B, which will be sold back to the US for further donation to Ukraine. In January 2024, Turkish Air Force ordered 952 AIM-120C-8s included in a larger package of sales worth over US$23 Billion. In October 2024, Argentine Air Force ordered 36 AIM-120C-8s and 2 AIM-120C-8 guidance sections included in a larger package of sales worth over US$941 million. Future. On May 2, 2023, then-Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the AIM-260 JATM — the ostensible replacement of the AIM-120 — would "hopefully" enter production in 2023, as well as confirming that the JATM is expected to arm the Air Force's upcoming unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft. As of May 2024, the House Armed Services Committee was investigating whether more late-variant AMRAAMs would be required in light of the AIM-260 JATM not having entered full-scale production, despite the USAF having previously stated in May 2023 that AIM-260 development and production was on-schedule. The AIM-260 is believed to have been in initial production by 2024. In September 2024, Raytheon has suggested that with the range enhancements of the AIM-120D-3, it may serve as a complement to the JATM, rather than be fully-replaced; the JATM would be "very expensive" and would serve as a "kick-the-door-down" weapon while the AMRAAM would be the "affordable" and "capacity" missile. In March 2025, a $94.5 million contract (titled "AMRAAM Risk Reduction") was awarded to Raytheon in which the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center specifies the program excludes AMRAAM variants "...developed after the AIM-120D (i.e. AIM-120E and beyond)." This led to several sources reporting that an AIM-120E variant was "hinted at." However, an Air Force spokesperson clarified that "we don’t have any details that we can provide at this time."
3149	47377378	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3149	AGM-88 HARM	The AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) is a tactical, air-to-surface anti-radiation missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions coming from surface-to-air radar systems. It was originally developed by Texas Instruments as a replacement for the AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM system. Production was later taken over by Raytheon Corporation when it purchased the defense production business of Texas Instruments. Description. The AGM-88 can detect, attack and destroy a radar antenna or transmitter with minimal aircrew input. The proportional guidance system that homes in on enemy radar emissions has a fixed antenna and seeker head in the missile's nose. A smokeless, solid-propellant, booster-sustainer rocket motor propels the missile at speeds over Mach 2. The HARM was a missile program led by the U.S. Navy, and it was first carried by the A-6E, A-7, and F/A-18A/B aircraft, and then it equipped the EA-6B and EA-18G dedicated electronic attack aircraft. RDT&E for use on the F-14 aircraft was begun, but not completed. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) put the HARM onto the F-4G Wild Weasel aircraft, and later on specialized F-16s equipped with the HARM Targeting System (HTS). The missile has three operational modes: Pre-Briefed (PB), Target Of Opportunity (TOO) and Self-Protect (SP). The HTS pod, used by the USAF only, allows F-16s to detect and automatically target radar systems with HARMs instead of relying on the missile's sensors alone. History. Deployment. United States. The HARM missile was approved for full production in March 1983, obtained initial operating capability (IOC) on the A-7E Corsair II in late 1983 and then deployed in late 1985 with VA-46 aboard the aircraft carrier USS "America". In 1986, the first successful firing of the HARM from an EA-6B was performed by VAQ-131. It was soon used in combat—in March 1986 against a Libyan S-200 surface to air missiles site in the Gulf of Sidra, and then during Operation Eldorado Canyon in April. HARM was used extensively by the Navy, Marine Corps, and the Air Force in Operation Desert Storm during the Persian Gulf War of 1991. During the Gulf War, the HARM was involved in a friendly fire incident when the pilot of an F-4G Wild Weasel escorting a B-52G bomber mistook the latter's tail gun radar for an Iraqi AAA site—this was after the tail gunner of the B-52 had targeted the F-4G, mistaking it for an Iraqi MiG. The F-4 pilot launched the missile and then saw that the target was the B-52, which was hit. It survived with shrapnel damage to the tail and no casualties. The B-52 (serial number 58-0248) was subsequently renamed "In HARM's Way". "Magnum" is spoken over the radio to announce the launch of an AGM-88. During the Gulf War, if an aircraft was illuminated by enemy radar a bogus "Magnum" call on the radio was often enough to convince the operators to power down. This technique would also be employed in Yugoslavia during air operations in 1999. On 28 April 1999, during this campaign, an early variant of the AGM-88, after being fired in self defense mode by a NATO jet, lost its radio frequency track as the Serbian air defense radar was turned off, hitting a house in the Gorna Banya district of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, causing damages, but no casualties. During the 1990s and early 2000s and during the initial weeks of the operation Iraqi Freedom, the HARM was used to enforce the Iraqi No-Fly-Zones, degrading the Iraqi air defenses trying to engage US and allied patrolling aircraft. During the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, deconflicting US Army Patriot batteries and allied aircraft routes turned out being more difficult than expected, resulting in three major friendly fire incidents: in one of them, on March 24, 2003, a USAF F-16CJ Fighting Falcon fired an AGM-88 HARM at a Patriot missile battery after the Patriot's radar had locked onto and prepared to fire at the aircraft, causing the pilot to mistake it for an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system because the aircraft was in air combat operations and was on its way to a mission near Baghdad. The HARM damaged the Patriot's radar system with no casualties. Starting in March 2011, during Operation Unified Protector against Libya, US Navy EA-18Gs had their combat debut using HARMs against Libyan air defenses together with USAF F-16CJs and Italian Tornadoes. On 24 February 2024, a US Navy EA-18G Growler from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower destroyed a Houthi-operated Mi-24/35 attack helicopter on the ground with an AGM-88E AARGM. Israel. In 2013, US President Barack Obama offered the AGM-88 to Israel for the first time. Italy. Starting in March 2011, during Operation Unified Protector, Italian Tornados employed AGM-88 HARMs against Libyan air defenses. Ukraine. In mid-2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US supplied AGM-88 HARM missiles to Ukraine. It was only disclosed after Russian forces showed footage of a tail fin from one of these missiles in early August 2022. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said in recent aid packages they had included a number of anti-radiation missiles that can be fired by Ukrainian aircraft. As built, Soviet-era aircraft do not have the computer architecture to accept NATO standard weapons. Indeed, none of the former Warsaw Pact countries, even those that have had their Soviet-era aircraft updated, were enabled to fire a HARM before. The interface seemed difficult unless using a "crude modification", such as integrating it with an added e-tablet into the cockpit, building a nearly totally independent subsystem within the carrying aircraft. As suggested by Domenic Nicholis, defense correspondent for the Telegraph in the UK, the HARM missile is possibly operating in one of its three modes that enables it to find its target once flying after being released towards a possible enemy air defense and electronic emission area. Pre mission or during flight, NATO signals intelligence aircraft or different intelligence would be providing the overall electromagnetic emissions battlefield to locate the Russian radars where the Ukrainian jets, armed with HARMs would be directed to fire them. This allows the missile to achieve a very long range attack profile, even if it's possible that the missile does not find a target while flying, going wasted. A second possible use of the HARM is operating it in a mode called "HARM as sensor". Similar to the described mode before, the missile acts as both sensor and weapon, not requiring a sensor pod. A simple interface would show that the missile has a target and the pilot can launch it. In this way the range is shorter, and the jet could be under threat already, but would maximize the possibility to hit the emitter. In August 2022, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed that the Ukrainians have successfully integrated the AGM-88 HARM missile onto their "MiG aircraft", hinting the MiG-29 was the chosen fighter jet with video evidence of AGM-88 missiles fired by upgraded Ukrainian MiG-29s released by the Ukrainian Air Force a few days later. Speaking on 19 September, US Air Force General James B. Hecker said the effort to integrate AGM-88 HARM missiles into the Ukrainian Su-27s and MiG-29s took "some months" to achieve. This does not give the Ukrainian Air Force the same "capabilities that it would on an F-16." However he said: "Even though you don't get a kinetic kill ... you can get local air superiority for a period of time where you can do what you need to do." During early September 2022, a Ukrainian Su-27S was spotted with an AGM-88 HARM fitted on the wing pylons. This is the first case of an Su-27 being spotted with an AGM-88 fitted. The missile has been directly fitted to the APU-470 missile launchers, the same launcher used by MiG-29 and Su-27 to fire missiles like the R-27 (air-to-air missile). This suggests that mounting the missile on Soviet aircraft is much easier than experts initially believed, being as simple as "requiring just an interface for the different wirings and the hanging points of the missile". The earlier footage of a Ukrainian MiG-29 using an AGM-88 indicated that the display recognized the missile as a R-27EP, which is designed to lock onto airborne radars. This suggests that the aircraft are using their own avionics to fire the missile, without the need for additional modifications. In December, the Ukrainian Air Force released a video showing a MiG-29 firing two HARM missiles in a volley. Russia has made the first claim of the war that they have shot down four HARM missiles. Variants. AGM-88E AARGM. The AGM-88E Advanced Antiradiation Guided Missile (AARGM) has an updated guidance section and modified control section, along with the rocket motor and warhead section, wings, and fins from the AGM-88 HARM. It utilizes millimeter-wave radar for precise terminal guidance, countering the enemy's radar shut-down capability, and has the ability to transmit images of the target before impact. Northrop Grumman took control of the AARGM program after acquiring Orbital ATK in 2018. The AGM-88E is in use by the US Navy, US Marine Corps, Italian Air Force, and German Air Force. In June 2003, Orbital ATK was awarded a $223m contract to develop the AARGM. Subsequently, in November 2005, the Italian Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense entered into a memorandum of agreement to jointly fund the project. The U.S. Navy demonstrated the AARGM's capability during Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) in spring 2012 with live firing of 12 missiles. Aircrew and maintenance training with live missiles was completed in June. The Navy authorized Full-Rate Production (FRP) of the AARGM in August 2012, with 72 missiles for the Navy and nine for the Italian Air Force to be delivered in 2013. A U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet squadron will be the first forward-deployed unit with the AGM-88E. In September 2013, ATK delivered the 100th AARGM to the U.S. Navy. The AGM-88E program is on schedule and on budget, with Full Operational Capability (FOC) planned for September 2014. The AGM-88E was designed to improve the effectiveness of legacy HARM variants against fixed and relocatable radar and communications sites, particularly those that would shut down to throw off anti-radiation missiles, by attaching a new seeker to the existing Mach 2-capable rocket motor and warhead section, adding a passive anti-radiation homing receiver, satellite and inertial navigation system, a millimeter-wave radar for terminal guidance, and the ability to beam up images of the target via a satellite link just seconds before impact. This model of the HARM will be integrated onto the F/A-18C/D/E/F, EA-18G, Tornado ECR, Eurofighter EK aircraft, and later on the F-35 (externally). In September 2015, the AGM-88E successfully hit a mobile ship target in a live fire test, demonstrating the missile's ability to use antiradiation homing and millimeter-wave radar to detect, identify, locate, and engage moving targets. In December 2019, the German Air Force ordered the AARGM. On August 4, 2020, Northrop Grumman's Alliant Techsystems Operations division, based in Northridge, California, was awarded a $12,190,753 IDIQ contract for AARGM depot sustainment support, guidance section and control section repair, and equipment box test and inspection. On August 31, 2020, the same Northrop Grumman division was allocated roughly $80.9 million to develop new technology for the AARGM. AGM-88F HCSM. Although the US Navy/Marine Corps chose the Orbital ATK-produced AGM-88E AARGM, Raytheon developed its own update of the HARM, known as the AGM-88F HARM Control Section Modification (HCSM). This modification was tested in collaboration with and eventually adopted by the US Air Force. It includes upgrades such as satellite and inertial navigation controls, designed to minimize collateral damage and friendly fire. The Republic of China (Taiwan), Bahrain, and Qatar have purchased AGM-88Bs retrofitted with the HCSM upgrade. AGM-88G AARGM-ER. The Navy's FY 2016 budget included funding for an AARGM-Extended Range (ER) that uses the existing guidance system and warhead of the AGM-88E with a dual-pulse solid rocket motor to double the range. In September 2016, Orbital ATK unveiled its AARGM-ER, which incorporates a redesigned control section and rocket motor for twice the range and internal carriage on the Lockheed Martin F-35A and F-35C Lightning II, with integration on P-8 Poseidon, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and Eurofighter Typhoon planned afterwards; internal carriage on the F-35B is not possible due to internal space limitations. The new missile, designated AGM-88G, utilizes the AARGM's warhead and guidance systems in a new airframe that replaces the mid-body wings with aerodynamic strakes along the sides with control surfaces relocated to low-drag tail surfaces and a more powerful propulsion system for greater speed and double the range of its predecessor. It weighs and is slightly shorter than earlier variants at in length. The U.S. Navy awarded Orbital ATK a contract for AARGM-ER development in January 2018. The USAF later joined the AARGM-ER program, involved in internal F-35A/C integration work. The AARGM-ER received Milestone-C approval in August 2021, and the first low-rate initial production contract was awarded the next month; initial operational capability was planned for 2023. The AARGM-ER completed its first, second, third, fourth, and fifth flight tests in July 2021, January 2022, July 2022, December 2022, and May 2023 respectively. In February 2023, the U.S. Navy began exploring the feasibility of launching the AARGM-ER from ground-based launchers and the P-8 Poseidon. On February 27, 2023, Australia asked to purchase up to 63 AGM-88G AARGM-ERs. On June 5, 2023, The Netherlands announced the acquisition of the AARGM-ER for the use on their F-35A fleet. On October 23, 2023, Finland was approved by the U.S. State Department to proceed with purchase of up to 150 AGM-88G AARGM-ERs. On January 12, 2024, Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract to integrate the AARGM-ER with all three F-35 variants. On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) made it public that the State Department has approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of the Netherlands of the AARGM-ER and related equipment for an estimated cost of $700 million. On September 27, 2024, the U.S. State Department approved the sale of $405 million worth of AARGM-ERs to Australia. Stand-in Attack Weapon. In May 2022, the USAF awarded contracts to L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to begin the first phase of development for the Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW). While previous HARMs were meant to attack air defense radars, the SiAW will have a broader target set including theater ballistic missile launchers, cruise and anti-ship missile launchers, GPS jamming platforms, and anti-satellite systems. It will have a shorter range than standoff weapons, being fired by an aircraft after penetrating enemy airspace. The SiAW will fit inside the F-35's internal weapon bays. The Air Force plans to have an operational weapon by 2026. Northrop Grumman was chosen to continue development of the SiAW in September 2023, and it will be derived from the AARGM-ER. Lockheed Martin's offering for the program was the hypersonic Mako missile. Evaluation. During Operation Allied Force, NATO reportedly fired 743 HARMs during the course of the 78-day campaign, but could confirm the destruction of only three of the original 25 SA-6 batteries. Over half of the HARMs expended were preemptive targeting shots (PETs), fired at suspected SAM sites, but without a radar to target. During the campaign, Serbian SAM sites fired more than 800 SAMs with only two NATO aircraft downed; the majority from fixed sites were fired without radar guidance. Radars were also forced to operate for only 20 seconds or less to avoid destruction by HARMs. According to Benjamin Lambeth, the F-117 that was downed did not have support from HARM-carrying F-16CJ aircraft. * Royal Australian Air Force: AGM-88E variant ordered; to be used on EA-18G Growlers. On 28 April 2017, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency stated that Australia intended to purchase 70 AGM-88B and 40 AGM-88E missiles. 163 AGM-88G missiles were ordered in 2024. * Royal Bahraini Air Force: 50 AGM-88Bs refurbished to the AGM-88F standard were ordered in May 2019 to be integrated on newly upgraded F-16 Block 70 fighters. * Egyptian Air Force: * German Air Force: * Hellenic Air Force: AGM-88B Block IIIA and AGM-88E variants. AGM-88E AARGM on order. * Israeli Air Force * Italian Air Force: AGM-88E variant. * Kuwait Air Force * Royal Moroccan Air Force: AGM-88B variant. * Qatar Emiri Air Force: 100 AGM-88F. * Royal Saudi Air Force * Republic of Korea Air Force * Spanish Air and Space Force * Republic of China Air Force: 50 AGM-88Bs refurbished to AGM-88F standard ordered in June 2017, with delivery by 2027 for the ROCAF's F-16 Block 70 fleet. Another 100 AGM-88Bs were ordered in March 2023. * Turkish Air Force: 96 AGM-88Bs and 96 AGM-88Es ordered in 2024 upon existing inventory. * Ukrainian Air Force * United Arab Emirates Air Force * United States Air Force * United States Marine Corps * United States Navy * Finnish Air Force: up to 150 AGM-88Gs will be bought. * Royal Netherlands Air Force: up to 265 AGM-88Gs will be purchased. * Polish Air Force: Ordered more than 200 AGM-88G AARGM-ERs to be used with F-35s.
3151	7903804	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3151	AGM-65 Maverick	The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground missile (AGM) designed for close air support. It is the most widely produced precision-guided missile in the Western world, and is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, air defenses, ships, ground transportation and fuel storage facilities. Development began in 1966 at Hughes Aircraft Company as the first missile to use an electronic contrast seeker. It entered service with the United States Air Force in August 1972. Since then, it has been exported to more than 30 countries and is certified on 25 aircraft. The Maverick served during the Vietnam, Yom Kippur, Iran–Iraq, and Persian Gulf Wars, along with other smaller conflicts, destroying enemy forces and installations with varying degrees of success. Since its introduction into service, numerous Maverick versions had been designed and produced using electro-optical, laser, and imaging infrared guidance systems. The AGM-65 has two types of warhead: one has a contact fuze in the nose, the other has a heavyweight warhead fitted with a delayed-action fuze, which penetrates the target with its kinetic energy before detonating. The missile is currently produced by Raytheon Missiles & Defense. The Maverick shares the same configuration as Hughes' AIM-4 Falcon and AIM-54 Phoenix, and measures more than in length and in diameter. Development. The Maverick's development history began in 1965, when the United States Air Force (USAF) began a program to develop a replacement to the AGM-12 Bullpup. With a range of , the radio-guided Bullpup was introduced in 1959 and was considered a "silver bullet" by operators. However, the launch aircraft was required to fly straight towards the target during the missile's flight instead of performing evasive maneuvers, thus endangering itself. Even when it hit, the small warhead was only useful against small targets like bunkers; when used against larger targets like the Thanh Hóa Bridge it did little more than char the structure. The USAF began a series of projects to replace Bullpup, both larger versions of Bullpup, models C and D, as well as a series of Bullpup adaptations offering fire-and-forget guidance. Among the latter were the AGM-83 Bulldog, AGM-79 Blue Eye and AGM-80 Viper. From 1966 to 1968, Hughes Missile Systems Division and Rockwell competed for the contract to build an entirely new fire-and-forget missile with far greater range performance than any of the Bullpup versions. Each were allocated $3 million for preliminary design and engineering work of the Maverick in 1966. In 1968, Hughes emerged with the $95 million contract for further development and testing of the missile; at the same time, contract options called for 17,000 missiles to be procured. Hughes conducted a smooth development of the AGM-65 Maverick, with the first unguided test launch from an F-4 on 18 September 1969, with the first guided test on 18 December successfully performing a direct hit on a M41 tank target at the Air Force Missile Development Center at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. In July 1971, the USAF and Hughes signed a $69.9 million contract for 2,000 missiles, the first of which was delivered in 1972. Although early operational results were favorable, military planners predicted that the Maverick would fare less successfully in the hazy conditions of Central Europe, where it would have been used against Warsaw Pact forces. As such, development of the AGM-65B "Scene Magnified" version began in 1975 before it was delivered during the late 1970s. When production of the AGM-65A/B was ended in 1978, more than 35,000 missiles had been built. More versions of the Maverick appeared, among which was the laser-guided AGM-65C/E. Development of the AGM-65C started in 1978 by Rockwell, who built a number of development missiles for the USAF. Due to high cost, the version was not procured by the USAF, and instead entered service with the United States Marine Corps (USMC) as the AGM-65E. Another major development was the AGM-65D, which employed an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker. By imaging on radiated heat, the IIR is all-weather operable as well as showing improved performance in acquiring and tracking the hot engines, such as in tanks and trucks, that were to be one of its major missions. The seekerhead mechanically scanned the scene over a nitrogen-cooled 4-by-4 pixel array using a series of mirrored facets machined into the inner surface of the ring-shaped main gyroscope. The five-year development period of the AGM-65D started in 1977 and ended with the first delivery to the USAF in October 1983. The version received initial operating capability in February 1986. The AGM-65F is a hybrid Maverick combining the AGM-65D's IIR seeker with the warhead and propulsion components of the AGM-65E. Deployed by the United States Navy (USN), the AGM-65F is optimized for maritime strike roles. The first AGM-65F launch from the P-3C took place in 1989, and in 1994, the USN awarded Unisys a contract to integrate the version with the P-3C. Meanwhile, Hughes produced the AGM-65G, which essentially has the same guidance system as the D, with some software modifications that track larger targets. In the mid-1990s to early 2000s, there were several ideas for enhancing the Maverick's potential. Among them was the stillborn plan to incorporate the Maverick millimeter wave active radar homing, which can determine the exact shape of a target. Another study called "Longhorn Project" was conducted by Hughes, and later Raytheon following the absorption of Hughes into Raytheon, looked into a Maverick version equipped with turbojet engines instead of rocket motors. The "Maverick ER", as it was dubbed, would have a "significant increase in range" compared to the Maverick's current range of . The proposal was abandoned, but if the Maverick ER had entered production, it would have replaced the AGM-119B Penguin carried on the MH-60R. The most modern versions of the Maverick are the AGM-65H/K, which were in production . The AGM-65H was developed by coupling the AGM-65B with a charge-coupled device (CCD) seeker optimized for desert operations and which has three times the range of the original TV-sensor; a parallel USN program aimed at rebuilding AGM-65Fs with newer CCD seekers resulted in the AGM-65J. The AGM-65K, meanwhile, was developed by replacing the AGM-65G's IR guidance system with an electro-optical television guidance system. Design. The Maverick has a modular design, allowing for different combinations of the guidance package and warhead to be attached to the rocket motor to produce a different weapon. It has long-chord delta wings and a cylindrical body, reminiscent of the AIM-4 Falcon and the AIM-54 Phoenix. Different models of the AGM-65 have used electro-optical, laser, and imaging infrared guidance systems. The AGM-65 has two types of warhead: one has a contact fuze in the nose, the other has a heavyweight warhead fitted with a delayed-action fuze, which penetrates the target with its kinetic energy before detonating. The latter is most effective against large, hard targets. The propulsion system for both types is a solid-fuel rocket motor behind the warhead. The Maverick missile is unable to lock onto targets on its own; it has to be given input by the pilot or weapon systems officer after which it follows the path to the target autonomously. In most modern aircraft with MFDs, an A-10 Thunderbolt II for example, the video feed from the seeker head is relayed to a screen in the cockpit, where the pilot can check the locked target of the missile before launch. A crosshair on the heads-up display is shifted by the pilot to set the approximate target, where the missile will then automatically recognize and lock on to the target. Once the missile is launched, it requires no further assistance from the launch vehicle and tracks its target automatically. This fire-and-forget property is not shared by the E version that uses semi-active laser homing. While the Maverick missile's seeker can be used as a way to locate and lock targets, external targeting pods are used more often. The seeker head follows the movements of the targeting pod and attempts to point at the same point on the ground. G-forces throughout flight, however, often cause misalignment in the seeker head, requiring pilots to boresight the missile seeker to the targeting pod prior to locking up a target. To boresight, a certain reference point on the ground is locked by the targeting pod, known as the Sensor Point of Interest (SPI). The Maverick missile's seeker head is then adjusted to correct small offsets, so that it points at the same SPI as the targeting pod. This allows for simpler target acquisition and deployment. Deployment. The Maverick was declared operational on 30 August 1972 with the F-4D/Es and A-7s initially cleared for the type; the missile made its combat debut four months later with the USAF in Operation Linebacker II, the last major USAF operation of the Vietnam War. During the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, the Israelis used Mavericks to destroy and disable enemy vehicles. Deployment of early versions of the Mavericks in these two wars were successful due to the favorable atmospheric conditions that suited the electro-optical TV seeker. Ninety-nine missiles were fired during the two wars, eighty-four of which were successful.. The Maverick was used for trials with the BGM-34A unmanned aerial vehicle in 1972–1973. Targeting could be carried out with a TV camera in the nose of the UAV or using the seeker of an AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missile also carried by the UAV to locate the target for the Maverick's camera to lock on to. In June 1975, during a border confrontation, a formation of Iranian F-4E Phantoms destroyed a group of Iraqi tanks by firing 12 Mavericks at them. Five years later, during Operation Morvarid as part of the Iran–Iraq War, Iranian F-4s used Mavericks to sink three Osa II missile boats and four P-6 combat ships. Due to weapons embargoes, Iran had to equip its AH-1J SeaCobra helicopters with AGM-65 Maverick missiles and used them with some success in various operations such as Operation Fath ol-Mobin wherein Iranian AH-1Js fired 11 Mavericks. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. In early 1991, the US-led Coalition executed Operation Desert Storm during which Mavericks played a crucial role in the ousting of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Employed by F-15E Strike Eagles, F/A-18 Hornets, AV-8B Harriers, F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, but used mainly by the last two, more than 5,000 Mavericks were used to attack armored targets. The most-used variant by the USAF was the IIR-guided AGM-65D. The reported hit rate by USAF Mavericks was 80–90%, while for the USMC it was 60%. In October 1991, during the early days of the Yugoslav Wars, a Yugoslav MiG-29 fired a Maverick at the Banski dvori, the seat of the Croatian government in Zagreb. The Maverick was used again in Iraq during the 2003 Iraq War, during which 918 were fired. The first time the Maverick was fired from a Lockheed P-3 Orion at a hostile vessel was when the USN and coalition units came to the aid of Libyan rebels to engage the Libyan Coast Guard vessel "Vittoria" in the port of Misrata, Libya, during the late evening of 28 March 2011. "Vittoria" was engaged and fired upon by a USN P-3C Maritime Patrol aircraft with AGM-65 Maverick missiles. Launch platforms. United States. LAU-117 Maverick launchers have been used on US Army, USN, USAF, and USMC aircraft (some platforms may load LAU-88 triple-rail launchers when configured and authorized): Export. The Maverick has been exported to at least 35 countries:
3152	27015025	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3152	AIM-54 Phoenix	The AIM-54 Phoenix is an American active radar-guided, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only operational launch platform. The AIM-54 Phoenix was the United States' only operational long-range AAM during its service life; its operational capabilities were supplemented by the AIM-7 Sparrow (and later, the AIM-120 AMRAAM), which served as the primary medium-range AAM and the AIM-9 Sidewinder, serving as the primary short-range or "dogfight" AAM. The combination of Phoenix missile and the Tomcat's AN/AWG-9 guidance radar meant that it was the first aerial weapons system that could simultaneously engage multiple targets. Due to its active radar tracking, the brevity code "Fox Three" was used when firing the AIM-54. The act of the missile achieving a radar lock with its own radar is known under brevity as "Going Pitbull". Both the missile and the aircraft were used by Iran and the United States Navy (USN). In US service both are now retired, the AIM-54 Phoenix in 2004 and the F-14 in 2006. They were replaced by the shorter-range AIM-120 AMRAAM, employed on the F/A-18 Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet; in its AIM-120D version, the latest version of the AMRAAM just matches the Phoenix's maximum range. In July 2024, the USN announced the operational fielding of the AIM-174, the "Air-Launched Configuration" of the RIM-174 Standard ERAM, the first dedicated long-range AAM to be fielded by the U.S. military since the AIM-54's retirement. The AIM-54 has been used in 62 air-to-air strikes, all by Iran during the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. Following the retirement of the F-14 by the USN, the weapon's only current operator is the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. Development. Background. Since 1951, the Navy faced the initial threat from the Tupolev Tu-4K 'Bull' carrying anti-ship missiles or nuclear bombs. Eventually, during the height of the Cold War, the threat would have expanded into regimental-size raids of Tu-16 Badger and Tu-22M Backfire bombers equipped with low-flying, long-range, high-speed, nuclear-armed cruise missiles and considerable electronic countermeasures (ECM) of various types. This combination was considered capable of saturating fleet defenses and threatening carrier groups. The Navy would require a long-range, long-endurance interceptor aircraft to defend carrier battle groups against this threat. The proposed Douglas F6D Missileer was intended to fulfill this mission and oppose the attack as far as possible from the fleet it was defending. The weapon needed for interceptor aircraft, the Bendix AAM-N-10 Eagle, was to be an air-to-air missile of unprecedented range when compared to contemporary AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. It would work together with Westinghouse AN/APQ-81 radar. The Missileer project was cancelled in December 1960. AIM-54. In the early 1960s, the U.S. Navy made the next interceptor attempt with the F-111B, and they needed a new missile design. At the same time, the USAF canceled the projects for their land-based high-speed interceptor aircraft, the North American XF-108 Rapier and the Lockheed YF-12, and left the capable AIM-47 Falcon missile at a quite advanced stage of development, but with no effective launch platform. The AIM-54 Phoenix, developed for the F-111B fleet air defense fighter, had an airframe with four cruciform fins that was a scaled-up version of the AIM-47. One characteristic of the Missileer ancestry was that the radar sent it mid-course corrections, which allowed the fire control system to "loft" the missile up over the target into thinner air where it had better range. The F-111B was canceled in 1968. Its weapons system, the AIM-54 working with the AWG-9 radar, migrated to the new U.S. Navy fighter project, the VFX, which would later become the F-14 Tomcat. The AIM-54 Phoenix was also considered by the Royal Air Force to be used on Avro Vulcan bomber planes as part of an air defence aircraft. This missileer conversion would have used 12 missiles onboard and an extensive modification to the Vulcan's radar. In 1977, development of a significantly improved Phoenix version, the AIM-54C, was developed to better counter projected threats from tactical anti-naval aircraft and cruise missiles, and its final upgrade included a re-programmable memory capability to keep pace with emerging ECM. Usage in comparison to other weapon systems. The AIM-54/AWG-9 combination had multiple track (up to 24 targets) and multiple launch (up to six Phoenixes can be launched nearly simultaneously) capability, regardless of weather conditions or heavy enemy electronic warfare, known as jamming. The large missile is equipped with a conventional warhead. The AIM-54 is designed for ejection launch, where a pyrotechnic charge forcefully jettisons it from either a LAU-93 or a LAU-132 launcher before its solid propellant rocket motor ignites. On the F-14, four missiles can be carried under the fuselage tunnel attached to special aerodynamic pallets, plus two under glove stations. A full load of six Phoenix missiles and the unique launch rails weighs in at over , about twice the weight of Sparrows, putting it above the allowable bringback load (which also would include enough fuel for go-around attempts). As such, carrying six Phoenix missiles would necessitate the jettison of at least some of the Phoenix missiles if they were not used. The most common air superiority payload was a mix of two Phoenix, three Sparrow, and two Sidewinder missiles. Most other US aircraft relied on the smaller, semi-active medium-range AIM-7 Sparrow. Semi-active guidance meant the aircraft no longer had a search capability while supporting the launched Sparrow, reducing situational awareness. The Tomcat's radar could track up to 24 targets in track-while-scan mode, with the AWG-9 selecting up to six potential targets for the missiles. The pilot or radar intercept officer (RIO) could then launch the Phoenix missiles once parameters were met. The large tactical information display (TID) in the RIO's cockpit gave information to the aircrew (the pilot had the ability to monitor the RIO's display) and the radar could continually search and track multiple targets after Phoenix missiles were launched, thereby maintaining situational awareness of the battlespace. The Link 4 datalink allowed US Navy Tomcats to share information with the E-2C Hawkeye AEW aircraft. During Desert Shield in 1990, the Link 4A was introduced; this allowed the Tomcats to have a fighter-to-fighter datalink capability, further enhancing overall situational awareness. The F-14D entered service with JTIDS that brought the even better Link 16 datalink "picture" to the cockpit. Active guidance. The Phoenix has several guidance modes and achieves its longest range by using mid-course updates from the F-14A/B AWG-9 radar (APG-71 radar in the F-14D) as it climbs to cruise between and at close to Mach 5. The Phoenix uses this high altitude to maximize its range by reducing atmospheric drag. At around from the target, the missile activates its own radar to provide terminal guidance. Minimum engagement range for the Phoenix is around ; at this range active homing would initiate upon launch. If the AWG-9 radar lost radar lock on a target before the missile had activated its own radar, the missile proceeded on a ballistic trajectory with no further guidance, known as 'going dumb'. Service history. U.S. combat experience. The AIM-54 Phoenix was retired from USN service on September 30, 2004. F-14 Tomcats were retired on September 22, 2006. They were replaced by shorter-range AIM-120 AMRAAMs, employed on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Despite the much-vaunted capabilities, the Phoenix was rarely used in combat, with only two confirmed launches and no confirmed targets destroyed in US Navy service. The USAF F-15 Eagle had responsibility for overland combat air patrol duties in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, primarily because of the onboard F-15 IFF capabilities. The Tomcat did not have the requisite IFF capability mandated by the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) to satisfy the rules of engagement to utilize the Phoenix capability at beyond visual range. The AIM-54 was not adopted by any foreign nation besides Iran, or any other US armed service, and was not used on any aircraft other than the F-14. Iranian combat experience. On January 7, 1974, as part of Project "Persian King", the Imperial Iranian Air Force placed an order for 424 AIM-54As, later increasing it by 290 missiles that June. Of the initial order, 274 missiles and 10 training rounds were delivered for US$150 million, until the 1979 Revolution ended deliveries and left the remaining 150 missiles embargoed and the additional order of 290 cancelled. According to Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop, during the Iran–Iraq War AIM-54s fired by IRIAF Tomcats achieved 78 victories against Iraqi MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-25s, Tu-22s, Su-20/22s, Mirage F 1s, Super Étendards, and even two AM-39 Exocets and a C-601. This includes two occasions where one AIM-54 was responsible for the downing of two Iraqi aircraft, as well as an incident on January 7, 1981, where a Phoenix fired at a four-ship of MiG-23s downed three and damaged the fourth. The US refused to supply spare parts and maintenance after the 1979 Revolution, except for a brief period during the Iran–Contra affair. According to Cooper, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force kept its F-14 fighters and AIM-54 missiles in regular use during the entire Iran–Iraq War, though periodic lack of spares grounded large parts of the fleet at times. During late 1987, the stock of AIM-54 missiles was at its lowest, with fewer than 50 operational missiles available. The missiles needed fresh thermal batteries that could only be purchased from the US. Iran found a clandestine buyer that supplied it with batteries, which cost up to US$10,000 each. Iran received spares and parts for both the F-14s and AIM-54s from various sources during the Iran–Iraq War, and has received more spares after the conflict. Iran started a program to build spares for the planes and missiles, and although there are claims that it no longer relies on outside sources to keep its F-14s and AIM-54s operational, there is evidence that Iran continues to procure parts clandestinely. Both the F-14 Tomcat and the AIM-54 Phoenix missile continue in the service of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. Iran claimed to be working on building an equivalent missile and in 2013 unveiled the Fakour-90, an upgraded and reverse-engineered version of the Phoenix. Variants. There were also test, evaluation, ground training, and captive air training versions of the missile; designated ATM-54, AEM-54, DATM-54A, and CATM-54. The flight versions had A and C versions. The DATM-54 was not made in a C version as there was no change in the ground handling characteristics. Characteristics. The following is a list of AIM-54 Phoenix specifications:
3155	7606617	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3155	Lockheed AC-130	The Lockheed AC-130 gunship is a heavily armed, long-endurance, ground-attack variant of the C-130 Hercules transport, fixed-wing aircraft. It carries a wide array of ground-attack weapons that are integrated with sensors, navigation, and fire-control systems. Unlike other modern military fixed-wing aircraft, the AC-130 relies on visual targeting. Since its large profile and low operating altitudes around 7,000 feet (2,100 m) make it an easy target, its close air support missions are usually flown at night. The airframe is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, while Boeing is responsible for the conversion into a gunship and for aircraft support. Developed during the Vietnam War as "Project Gunship II", the AC-130 replaced the Douglas AC-47 Spooky, or "Gunship I". The sole operator is the United States Air Force, which uses the AC-130J Ghostrider. Close air support roles include supporting ground troops, escorting convoys, and urban operations. Air-interdiction missions are conducted against planned targets and targets of opportunity. Force-protection missions include defending air bases and other facilities. AC-130Js are based at Hurlburt Field, Florida and Cannon AFB, New Mexico; gunships can be deployed worldwide. The squadrons are part of the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), a component of the United States Special Operations Command. The AC-130 has an unpressurized cabin, with the weaponry mounted to fire from the port side of the fuselage. During an attack, the gunship performs a pylon turn, flying in a large circle around the target, so is able to fire at it for far longer than in a conventional strafing attack. The AC-130H Spectre was armed with two M61 Vulcan cannons, one L/60 Bofors 40 mm cannon, and M137 cannon and M37 recoil mechanism from the M102 howitzer; after 1994, the cannons were removed. The upgraded AC-130U Spooky has a GAU-12 Equalizer cannon in place of the Spectre's two cannons, an improved fire-control system, and increased ammunition capacity. The new AC-130J was based on the MC-130J Commando II special-operations tanker. The AC-130W Stinger II is a modified C-130H with upgrades including a precision strike package. Development. Origins. During the Vietnam War, the C-130 Hercules was selected to replace the Douglas AC-47 Spooky gunship (Project Gunship I) to improve mission endurance and increase capacity to carry munitions. Capable of flying faster than helicopters and at high altitudes with excellent loiter time, the use of the pylon turn allowed the AC-47 to deliver continuous, accurate fire to a single point on the ground. In 1967, JC-130A 54-1626 was selected for conversion into the prototype AC-130A gunship (Project Gunship II). The modifications were done at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base by the Aeronautical Systems Division. A direct-view night-vision telescope was installed in the forward door, an early forward-looking infrared device was placed in the forward part of the left wheel well, with miniguns and rotary cannons fixed facing down and aft along the left side. The analog fire-control computer prototype was handcrafted by Wing Commander Tom Pinkerton at the USAF Avionics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB. Flight testing of the prototype was performed primarily at Eglin Air Force Base, followed by further testing and modifications. By September 1967, the aircraft was certified ready for combat testing and was flown to Nha Trang Air Base, South Vietnam, for a 90-day test program. The AC-130 was later supplemented by the AC-119 Shadow (Project Gunship III), which later proved to be underpowered. Seven more airframes were converted to the "Plain Jane" configuration like the AC-130 prototype in 1968, and one aircraft received the "Surprise Package" refit in 1969. The Surprise Package upgrade included the latest 20 mm rotary autocannons and 40 mm Bofors cannon, but no 7.62 mm close-support armament. The Surprise Package configuration served as a test bed for the avionic systems and armament for the AC-130E. In 1970, 10 more AC-130As were acquired under the "Pave Pronto" project. In the summer of 1971, Surprise Package AC-130s were converted to the Pave Pronto configuration and assumed the new nickname of "Thor". Conversion of C-130Es into AC-130Es for the "PAVE Spectre" project followed. Regardless of their project names, the aircraft were more commonly referred to by the squadron's call sign, Spectre. Recent and planned upgrades. In 2007, AFSOC initiated a program to upgrade the armament of AC-130s. The test program planned for the 25 mm GAU-12/U and 40 mm Bofors cannon on the AC-130U gunships to be replaced with two 30 mm Mk 44 Bushmaster II cannons. In 2007, the Air Force modified four AC-130U gunships as test platforms for the Bushmasters. These were referred to as AC-130U Plus 4 or AC-130U+4. AFSOC, however, canceled its plans to install the new cannons on its fleet of AC-130Us. It has since removed the guns and reinstalled the original 40 mm and 25 mm cannons and returned the planes to combat duty. Brigadier General Bradley A. Heithold, AFSOC's director of plans, programs, requirements, and assessments, said on 11 August 2008 that the effort was canceled because of problems with the Bushmaster's accuracy in tests "at the altitude we were employing it". Also, schedule considerations drove the decision, he said. Plans were made for the possible replacement of the 105 mm M102 howitzer with a breech-loading variant of the 120 mm M120 mortar. The 120mm breech-loading mortar concept offers more flexibility with the use of munitions that are currently available with greater lethality, precision strike capabilities, reduction in collateral damage, and decreased casualties in danger close scenarios. Also, using the newer AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (based on the Hydra 70 rockets), or the Viper Strike glide bombs can dramatically increase the standoff capability of the AC-130. The conceptual breechloading variant of the 120 mm M120 mortar has several key advantages over the conventional M102 105 mm howitzer. 100 rounds of ammunition weighs for the M102 105 mm howitzer compared to for the M120 120 mm mortar. The recoil load is with the 105 mm howitzer compared to with the M120 120 mm mortar. The gun recoiling weight for the M102 105 mm howitzer is compared to for the M120 120 mm mortar. The muzzle pressure for the M102 105 mm howitzer is compared to for the M120 120 mm mortar. In 2010, the Air Force awarded L-3 Communications a $61 million (~$ in ) contract to add precision strike packages to eight MC-130W Combat Spear special-mission aircraft to give them a gunship-like attack capability; such-equipped MC-130Ws are known as Dragon Spears. AFSOC is arming these aircraft to relieve the high operational demands on AC-130 gunships until new AC-130Js enter service. The MC-130W Dragon Spear was renamed AC-130W Stinger II in 2011. The precision strike packages consist of a 30 mm gun and several precision guided munitions. Rails are mounted on the outboard pylon of the wing for four Hellfire missiles, SDBs, or SDB IIs under each. Ten common launch tubes (CLTs) are mounted on the rear ramp to fire Griffin A missiles; additional missiles are stored in the aircraft that can be reloaded in flight. CLTs are able to fire other small munitions able to fit inside the -diameter, -long tubes. The AC-130J Ghostrider came from a 2011 initiative that sought to acquire 16 new gunships based on newly built MC-130J Commando II special-operations tankers outfitted with a "precision strike package" to give them an attack capability, requesting $1.6 billion from fiscal years 2011 through 2015. This was to increase the size of the gunship fleet to 33 aircraft, a net increase of eight after the planned retirement of eight aging AC-130Hs. The first aircraft would be bought in fiscal 2012, followed by two in fiscal 2013, five in fiscal 2014, and the final eight in fiscal 2015. The decision to retain the C-130 came after funding for 16 C-27Js was removed from the fiscal 2010 budget. The AC-130J was to follow the path of the Dragon Spear program. On 9 January 2013, the Air Force began converting the first MC-130J into an AC-130J. The first AC-130J was delivered to AFSOC on 29 July 2015. The first AC-130J gunships achieved initial operational capability (IOC) on 30 September 2017. The AC-130J has two planned increments: the Block 10 configuration includes an internal 30 mm gun, small diameter bombs, and laser-guided missiles launched from the rear cargo door; and Block 20 configuration adds a 105 mm cannon, large aircraft infrared countermeasures, wing-mounted Hellfire missiles, and radio-frequency countermeasures. The Air Force decided to add a 105 mm cannon to the AC-130J in addition to the 30 mm cannon and smart bombs, the shells being more accurate and cheaper than dropping SDBs. AFSOC also pursued a directed-energy weapon on board the AC-130J by 2022, similar to the previous Advanced Tactical Laser program. It was to produce a beam of up to 120 kW, or potentially even 180–200 kW, weigh about , defensively destroy antiaircraft missiles, and offensively engage communications towers, boats, cars, and aircraft. A laser armament would have only been installed on a few aircraft rather than the entire AC-130J fleet; the laser would be mounted on the side in place of the 30 mm cannon. AFSOC eventually ruled out the idea in 2024 after the project was delayed by years, determining that placing a laser out the side of the airframe would yield so much air turbulence that it would disrupt the beam. In addition to this, while the laser weapon on the Lockheed AC-130 turned out to be a failure, Lockheed has been examining concepts for the integration of the laser module system onto the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, he said. Other potential additions include an active denial system to perform airborne crowd control, and small unmanned aerial vehicles from the CLTs to provide remote video feed and coordinates to weapons operators through cloud cover. Called the Tactical Off-board Sensor (TOBS), the drones would be expendable and fly along a programmed orbit to verify targets the aircraft cannot see itself because of bad weather or standing off from air defenses. AFSOC was to initially use the Raytheon Coyote small UAV for the TOBS mission, as it is an off-the-shelf design with a one-hour endurance, but planned to fulfill the role with a new drone capable of a four-hour endurance by 2019. The Air Force was also interested in acquiring a glide bomb that can be launched from the CLTs, capable of hitting ground vehicles traveling as fast as 120 km/h (70 mph) while above . In June 2016, Dynetics was awarded a contract by SOCOM to integrate its tactical munition onto the AC-130. Designated the GBU-69/B Small Glide Munition, the weapon weighs and is armed with a blast-fragmentation warhead that can detonate by direct impact or at a selected height; despite being smaller, being unpowered allows for its warhead to be heavier than those on the Hellfire and Griffin A missiles, and , respectively. Guidance is provided by a GPS receiver with anti-spoofing software and four distributed-aperture semiactive laser seeker apertures adapted from the WGU-59/B APKWS for terminal guidance. Approval for fielding occurred in early 2017. Dynetics was awarded a contract to deliver an initial batch of 70 SGMs in June 2017, with plans to buy up to 1,000. The SGM can travel . Future. , AC-130 gunships have been providing close air support for special operators for 56 years. Although the aircraft have been kept relevant through constant upgrades to their weaponry, sensor packages, and countermeasures, they are not expected to be survivable in future nonpermissive environments due to their high signatures and low airspeeds. Military analysts, such as the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, have suggested that AFSOC invest in more advanced technologies to fill the role to operate in future contested combat zones, including a mix of low-cost disposable unmanned and stealthy strike aircraft. AFSOC is considering a number of changes to the AC-130J in order to make it effective against advanced adversaries including removing the 105mm cannon and upgrading the aircraft with small cruise missiles, an AESA radar, and adaptive mission networking enhancements. In 2025, it was announced that the aircraft has carried out launch tests of Black Arrow, also known as the Small Cruise Missile (SCL) using its Ramp Launch Tubes. Design. Overview. The AC-130 is a heavily armed, long-endurance aircraft carrying an array of weapons against ground targets that are integrated with sophisticated sensors, navigation, and fire-control systems. It is capable of delivering precision firepower or area-saturation fire over a target area over a long period of time, at night, or in adverse weather. The sensor suite consists of an electro-optical image sensor, infrared sensor, and radar. These sensors allow the gunship to visually or electronically identify friendly ground forces and targets in most weather conditions. The AC-130U is equipped with the AN/APQ-180, a synthetic aperture radar, for long-range target detection and identification. The gunship's navigational devices include inertial navigation systems and a global positioning system. The AC-130U employs technologies developed in the 1990s, which allow it to attack two targets simultaneously. It has twice the munitions capacity of the AC-130H. Although the AC-130U conducts some operations in daylight, most of its combat missions are conducted at night. The AC-130H's unit cost is US$132.4 million, and the AC-130U's cost is $190 million (fiscal 2001 dollars). Upgrades. During the Vietnam War era, the various AC-130 versions following the Pave Pronto modifications were equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector system called Black Crow (designated AN/ASD-5), a highly sensitive passive device with a phased-array antenna located in the left-front nose radome that could pick up localized deviations in the Earth's magnetic field normally used to detect submerged submarines. The Black Crow system was slaved into the targeting computers of the AC-130A/E/H, enabling the detection of the unshielded ignition coils of North Vietnamese trucks hidden under dense jungle foliage along the Ho Chi Minh trail. It could also detect hand-held transmitter signals of air controllers on the ground to identify and locate targets. The PGM-38/U enhanced 25 mm high-explosive incendiary round was created to expand the AC-130U gunships' mission in standoff range and survivability for its 25 mm GAU-12/U gun. This round is a combination of the existing PGU-25 HEI and a M758 fuze designated as FMU-151/B to meet the MIL-STD-1316. The FMU-151 has an improved arming delay with multisensitive range. Operational history. Vietnam War. The AC-130 gunship first arrived in South Vietnam on 21 September 1967 under the Gunship II program and began combat operations over Laos and South Vietnam that same year. In June 1968, AC-130s were deployed to Tan Son Nhut AB near Saigon for support against the Tet Offensive. By 30 October 1968, enough AC-130 Gunship IIs arrived to form a squadron, the 16th Special Operations Squadron of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. At this time, the C-130A gunship was designated the AC-130A. On 18 August 1968, an AC-130 gunship flying an armed reconnaissance mission in Vietnam's III Corps was diverted to support the Katum Special Forces Camp. The ground commander quickly assessed the accurate fire and capabilities of this weapons system and called for fire on his own perimeter when the Viet Cong attempted to bridge the wire on the west side of his position. By December 1968, most AC-130s flew under F-4 Phantom II escort (to protect the gunship against heavy and concentrated antiaircraft fire) from the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, normally three Phantoms per gunship. On 24 May 1969, the first Spectre gunship was lost to enemy fire. In late 1969, under code name "Surprise Package", 56-0490 arrived with solid-state, laser-illuminated, low light-level TV with a companion YAG laser designator, an improved forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor, video recording for TV and FLIR, an inertial navigation system, and a prototype digital fire-control computer. The remaining AC-130s were refitted with upgraded similar equipment in the summer of 1970, and then redeployed to Ubon RTAFB. On 25 October 1971, the first "Cadillac" gunship, the AC-130E, arrived in Vietnam. On 17 February 1972, the first 105mm cannon arrived for service with Spectre and was installed on Gunship 570. It was used from mid-February until the aircraft received battle damage to its right flap. The cannon was switched to Gunship 571 and was used until 30 March when the aircraft was shot down. On 28 January 1973, the Vietnam peace accord went into effect, marking the end of Spectre operations in Vietnam. Spectre was still needed and active in the region, supporting operations in Laos and Cambodia. On 22 February 1973, American offensive operations in Laos ended and the gunships became totally committed to operations in the Cambodian conflict. On 12 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge was threatening the capital of Phnom Penh and AC-130s were called on to help in Operation Eagle Pull, the final evacuation of American and allied officials from Phnom Penh before it was conquered by the communists. The AC-130 was also over Saigon on 30 April 1975 to protect the final evacuation in Operation Frequent Wind. Spectres were also called in when the USS "Mayaguez" was seized, on the open sea, by Khmer Rouge soldiers and sailors on 15 May 1975. Six AC-130s and 52 air crew members were lost during the war. AC-130s reportedly destroyed more than 10,000 trucks and participated in many crucial close-air-support missions in Vietnam. Cold War and later action. With the conclusion of hostilities in Southeast Asia in the mid-1970s, the AC-130H became the sole gunship in the regular Air Force, home based at Hurlburt Field, Florida, while the AC-130A fleet was transferred to the Air Force Reserve's 919th Tactical Airlift Group (919 TAG) at Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field #3/Duke Field, Florida. With the transition to the AC-130A, the 919 TAG was then redesignated as the 919th Special Operations Group. In the late 1970s, when the AC-130H fleet was first being modified for in-flight refueling capability, a demonstration mission was planned and flown from Hurlburt Field, Florida, nonstop, to conduct a 2-hour live-fire mission over Empire Firing Range in the Republic of Panama, then return home. This 13-hour mission with two in-flight refuelings from KC-135 tankers proved the validity of flying long-range missions outside the contiguous United States to attack targets then return to home base without intermediate stops. AC-130s from both the 4th and 16th Special Operations Squadrons have been deployed in nearly every conflict in which the United States has been involved, officially and unofficially, since the end of the Vietnam War. In July 1979, AC-130H crews deployed to Howard Air Force Base, Panama, as a precaution against possible hostile actions against American personnel during the Nicaraguan Revolution. New time aloft and nonstop distance records were subsequently set by a 16th SOS two-ship AC-130H formation flight that departed Hurlburt Field on 13 November 1979 and landed on 15 November at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, a distance of and 29 hours 43 minutes nonstop, refueling four times in-flight. Refueling support for the Guam deployment was provided by KC-135 crews from the 305th Air Refueling Wing from Grissom AFB, Indiana. In November 1979, four AC-130H gunships flew nonstop from Hurlburt Field to Anderson AFB, Guam, because of the hostage situation at the US Embassy in Iran. On Guam, AC-130H crews developed communications-out/lights-out refueling procedures for later employment by trial-and-error. This deployment with the 1 SOW/CC as task force commander was directed from the office of the CJCS for fear that Iranian militants could begin executing American Embassy personnel who had been taken hostage on 4 November. One early option considered AC-130H retaliatory punitive strikes deep within Iran. Later gunship flights exceeded the 1979 Hurlburt-to-Guam flight. Upon return in March 1980, the four planes soon found themselves in Egypt to support the ill-fated hostage rescue attempt. During Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada in 1983, AC-130s suppressed enemy air-defense systems and attacked ground forces enabling the assault of the Point Salines Airfield via airdrop and air-land of friendly forces. The AC-130 aircrew earned the Lieutenant General William H. Tunner Award for the mission. The AC-130Hs of the 16th Special Operations Squadron unit maintained an ongoing rotation to Howard AB, Panama, monitoring activities in El Salvador and other Central American points of interest, with rules of engagement eventually permitting attacks on FMLN targets. This commitment of maintainers and crews started in 1983 and lasted until 1990. The AC-130 is considered to have hastened the end of the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s. Crews flew undercover missions from Honduras and attacked guerrilla camps and concentrations. AC-130s also had a primary role during the United States invasion of Panama (named Operation Just Cause) in 1989, when they destroyed Panama Defense Force headquarters and numerous command-and-control facilities, and provided close air support for US ground troops. Aircrews earned the Mackay Trophy for the most meritorious flight of the year, and the Tunner Award. Gulf War and the 1990s. During the Gulf War of 1990–1991 (Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm), Regular Air Force and Air Force Reserve AC-130s provided close air support and force protection (air base defense) for ground forces, and battlefield interdiction. The primary interdiction targets were early-warning/ground-control intercept sites along the southern border of Iraq. At its standard altitude of , the aircraft had a proven ability to engage moving ground targets. The first gunship to enter the Battle of Khafji helped stop a southbound Iraqi armored column on 29 January 1991. One day later, three more gunships provided further aid to Marines participating in the operation. The gunships attacked Iraqi positions and columns moving south to reinforce their positions north of the city. Despite the threat of SAMs and increasing visibility during the early morning hours of 31 January 1991, one AC-130H, AF Serial No. 69-6567, call-sign Spirit 03, opted to stay to continue to protect the Marines. A lone Iraqi with a Strela-2 MANPADS shot Spirit 03 down, and all 14 crew members were killed. The loss of Spirit 03 did however result in the US DoD joining the development of the AN/AAQ-24 Directed Infrared Countermeasures System which, in its updated laser-based form, is now a common fit across large US military aircraft. The military has used AC-130 gunships during the humanitarian operations in Somalia (Operation Restore Hope and Operation United Shield) in 1992–93 and Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti in 1994. AC-130s took part in Operation Assured Response in Liberia in 1996 and in Operation Silver Wake in 1997, the evacuation of American non-combatants from Albania. AC-130s took part in the NATO missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo during the 1990s. The AC-130U gunship set a new record for the longest sustained flight by any C-130 on 22 and 23 October 1997, when two AC-130U gunships flew 36 hours nonstop from Hurlburt Field to Taegu Air Base (Daegu), South Korea, being refueled seven times in the air by KC-135 tankers. The two gunships took on 410,000 lb (186,000 kg) of fuel. Gunships also were part of the buildup of US forces in 1998 to compel Iraq to allow UNSCOM weapons inspections. War on Terror. The US has used gunships with deployments to the War in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Freedom's Sentinel, 2001–21), and Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003–11). AC-130 strikes were directed by special forces on known Taliban locations during the early days of the war in Afghanistan. US Special Operations Forces used the AC-130 to support its operations. The day after arriving in Afghanistan, the AC-130s attacked Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces near the city of Kunduz and were directly responsible for the city's surrender the next day. On 26 November 2001, Spectres were called in to put down a rebellion at the prison fort of Qala-i-Jangi. The 16 SOS flew missions over Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Kandahar, Shkin, Asadabad, Bagram, Baghran, Tora Bora, and virtually every other part of Afghanistan. The Spectre participated in countless operations within Afghanistan, performing on-call close air support and armed reconnaissance. In March 2002, three AC-130 Spectres provided 39 crucial combat missions in support of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. During the intense fighting, the planes fired more than 1,300x 40mm and 1,200x 105mm rounds. Close air support was the main mission of the AC-130 in Iraq. Night after night, at least one AC-130 was in the air to fulfill one or more air-support requests (ASRs). A typical mission had the AC–130 supporting a single brigade's ASRs followed by aerial refueling and another two hours with another brigade or SOF team. The use of AC-130s in places like Fallujah, urban settings where insurgents were among crowded populations of non-combatants, was criticized by human rights groups. AC-130s were also used for intelligence gathering with their sophisticated long-range video, infrared and radar sensors. In 2007, US Special Operations forces also used the AC-130 in attacks on suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Somalia. Eight AC-130H and 17 AC-130U aircraft were in active-duty service as of July 2010. In March 2011, the Air Force deployed two AC-130U gunships to take part in Operation Odyssey Dawn, the US military intervention in Libya, which eventually came under NATO as Operation Unified Protector. By September 2013, 14 MC-130W Dragon Spear aircraft have been converted to AC-130W Stinger II gunships. The Stinger gunships have been deployed to Afghanistan to replace the aging AC-130H aircraft and provide an example for the new AC-130J Ghostrider. Modifications began by cutting holes in the plane to make room for weapons and adding kits and bomb bases for laser-guided munitions. Crews added a 105 mm cannon, 20-inch infrared and electro-optical sensors, and the ability to carry 250-lb bombs on the wings. The final AC-130H Spectre gunship, tail number 69-6569 "Excalibur" was retired on 26 May 2015 at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. On 15 November 2015, two days after the attacks in Paris by ISIL, AC-130s and A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft destroyed a convoy of over 100 ISIL-operated oil tanker trucks in Syria. The attacks were part of an intensification of the US-led military intervention against ISIL called Operation Tidal Wave II (named after the original Operation Tidal Wave during World War II, a failed attempt to raid German oil fields that resulted in heavy aircraft and aircrew loss) in an attempt to cut off oil smuggling as a source of funding for the group. On 3 October 2015, an AC-130 mistakenly attacked the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 people and injuring over 30. In five separate runs, the gunship struck the hospital, which had been erroneously identified as the source of attacks on coalition members. Subsequent inquiries led to punishment of 16 military personnel and cited "human error" as the root cause. On 30 September 2017, the Air Force declared the AC-130J Ghostrider had achieved initial operational capability, with six gunships having been delivered; the aircraft is planned to reach full operational capability by 2023 with 37 gunships delivered. The J-variant is lighter and more fuel efficient than previous versions, able to fly at with a range of and service ceiling of . The AC-130U returned from its final combat deployment on 8 July 2019; the final AC-130U was retired in June 2020. AFSOC started taking delivery of the AC-130J in spring 2019, and the aircraft began deploying to Afghanistan by the summer. On 21 November 2023, the Air Force released a statement that an AC-130J had performed a retaliatory strike on Iranian-backed militia group in central Iraq. The strike happened near Al-Asad Airbase after the militia members reportedly launched a ballistic missile against Al-Asad airbase. The Deputy Press Secretary of The Pentagon, Sabrina Singh stated "This self-defense strike resulted in some hostile fatalities." Notably the AC-130J's transponder remained on during the strike, and the remainder of its sortie. Variants. In service. AC-130J Ghostrider Based on MC-130J; 32 aircraft were procured as of 2014 to replace the AC-130H. As of 2018, the first AC-130J Ghostrider squadron, the 73rd Special Operations Squadron, is operating from Hurlburt Field, Florida. Retired. AC-130A Spectre (Project Gunship II, Surprise Package, Pave Pronto) Conversions of C-130As; 19 completed; transferred to Air Force Reserve in 1975, retired in 1995. AC-130E Spectre (Pave Spectre, Pave Aegis) Conversions of C-130Es; 11 completed; 10 upgraded to AC-130H configuration. AC-130H Spectre Upgraded AC-130E aircraft; 8 completed; last aircraft retired in 2015. AC-130U Spooky The 3rd generation AC-130 gunship. The variant was retired in June 2020. AC-130W Stinger II (formerly known as the MC-130W Dragon Spear) In May 2012 MC-130W Dragon Spear was renamed to AC-130W Stinger II.12 MC-130W's converted to gunships. The variant was retired in July 2022. Aircraft on display. One of the first seven AC-130A aircraft deployed to Vietnam was AF serial no. 53–3129, named "First Lady" in November 1970. This aircraft was a conversion of the first production C-130. On 25 March 1971, it took an anti-aircraft artillery hit in the belly just aft of the nose gear wheel well over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. The 37 mm shell destroyed everything below the crew deck and barely missed striking two crew members. The pilot was able to crash land the aircraft safely. In 1975, after the conclusion of US involvement in the Vietnam war, it was transferred to the Air Force Reserve, where it served with the 711th Special Operations Squadron of the 919th Special Operations Wing. In 1980, the aircraft was upgraded from the original three-bladed propellers to the quieter four-bladed propellers and was eventually retired in late 1995. The retirement also marked an end to the Air Force Reserve Command flying the AC-130A. The aircraft now sits on display in the final Air Force Reserve Command configuration with grey paint, black markings, and the four-bladed Hamilton Sunstrand 54H60-91 props at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, USA. A second aircraft, AF serial no. 56–0509, named the "Ultimate End", was originally accepted as a C-130A by the Air Force on 28 February 1957, and modified to the AC-130A configuration on 27 July 1970. The aircraft participated in the Vietnam War and the rescue of the SS Mayaguez. "Ultimate End" demonstrated the durability of the C-130 after surviving hits in five places by 37 mm anti-aircraft artillery on 12 December 1970, extensive left wing leading edge damage on 12 April 1971 and a 57 mm round damaging the belly and injuring one crewman on 4 March 1972. "Ultimate End" was reassigned to the Air Force Reserve's 919th Special Operations Wing at Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field No.3 / Duke Field on 17 June 1975, where it continued in service until retired in the fall 1994 and transferred to Air Force Special Operations Command's "Heritage Air Park" at Hurlburt Field, Florida. While assigned to the 711th Special Operations Squadron, "Ultimate End" served in Operations JUST CAUSE in Panama, DESERT STORM in Kuwait and Iraq, and UPHOLD DEMOCRACY in Haiti. After 36 years and seven months of service, 24 years as a gunship, "Ultimate End" retired from service on 1 October 1994. It made its last flight from Duke Field to Hurlburt Field on 20 October 1994. The Spectre Association dedicated "Ultimate End" (which served with the 16 SOS in Vietnam) on 4 May 1995. Lt Col Michael Byers, then 16 SOS commander, represented the active-duty gunship force and Clyde Gowdy of the Spectre Association represented all Spectre personnel past and present for the unveiling of a monument at the aircraft and the dedication as a whole. A third AC-130A, AF serial no. 54–1630, is on display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Named "Azrael" for the angel of death in Islam who severs the soul from the body, this aircraft figured prominently in the closing hours of Operation Desert Storm. On 26 February 1991, Coalition ground forces were driving the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. With an Air Force Reserve crew called to active duty, Azrael was sent to the Al Jahra highway (Highway 80) between Kuwait City and Basra, Iraq, to intercept the convoys of tanks, trucks, buses, and cars fleeing the battle. Facing SA-6 and SA-8 surface-to-air missiles and 37 mm and 57 mm radar-guided anti-aircraft artillery the crew attacked and destroyed or disabled most of the convoys. "Azrael" was also assigned to the 919th Special Operations Wing and retired to the museum in October 1995. Another AC-130A, AF serial no. 54–1626, the original prototype AC-130 named "Gunship II" is on display at the outdoor Air Park at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. This aircraft served in Southeast Asia from 1967 to 1972, then served in JC-130A test configuration. It was transferred to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in 1976, and converted back to AC-130A configuration in the late 1990s. AC-130A serial no. 54–1623, c/n 3010, named "Ghost Rider" served in Southeast Asia and later conflicts until being retired in 1997 to Dobbins AFB, Georgia. Ghost Rider eventually was transferred and displayed at the Aviation Wing Museum at Marietta, Georgia. AC-130A serial no. 55–0014, named "Jaws of Death," initially served as a C-130A cargo aircraft before being converted to AC-130A configuration in 1970 and being deployed in Southeast Asia from 1971 to 1975. The aircraft also participated in Operation Desert Storm as part of Joint Task Force Proven Force in 1991 before being retired in 1995, when it was flown to Robins Air Force Base, Georgia and placed on display at the adjacent Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins. AC-130H serial no. 69-6575, named "Wicked Wanda" is on display at the Hurlburt Field, FL airpark. AC-130U serial no. 87-0128, named "Big Daddy" is on display at the Hurlburt Field, FL airpark.
3160	2051880	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3160	Alternative algebra	In abstract algebra, an alternative algebra is an algebra in which multiplication need not be associative, only alternative. That is, one must have for all "x" and "y" in the algebra. Every associative algebra is obviously alternative, but so too are some strictly non-associative algebras such as the octonions. The associator. Alternative algebras are so named because they are the algebras for which the associator is alternating. The associator is a trilinear map given by formula_3. By definition, a multilinear map is alternating if it vanishes whenever two of its arguments are equal. The left and right alternative identities for an algebra are equivalent to formula_4 formula_5 Both of these identities together imply that: formula_6 formula_7 formula_8 formula_9 for all formula_10 and formula_11. This is equivalent to the "flexible identity" formula_12 The associator of an alternative algebra is therefore alternating. Conversely, any algebra whose associator is alternating is clearly alternative. By symmetry, any algebra which satisfies any two of: is alternative and therefore satisfies all three identities. An alternating associator is always totally skew-symmetric. That is, formula_16 for any permutation formula_17. The converse holds so long as the characteristic of the base field is not 2. Properties. Artin's theorem states that in an alternative algebra the subalgebra generated by any two elements is associative. Conversely, any algebra for which this is true is clearly alternative. It follows that expressions involving only two variables can be written unambiguously without parentheses in an alternative algebra. A generalization of Artin's theorem states that whenever three elements formula_18 in an alternative algebra associate (i.e., formula_19), the subalgebra generated by those elements is associative. A corollary of Artin's theorem is that alternative algebras are power-associative, that is, the subalgebra generated by a single element is associative. The converse need not hold: the sedenions are power-associative but not alternative. The Moufang identities hold in any alternative algebra. In a unital alternative algebra, multiplicative inverses are unique whenever they exist. Moreover, for any invertible element formula_10 and all formula_11 one has formula_25 This is equivalent to saying the associator formula_26 vanishes for all such formula_10 and formula_11. If formula_10 and formula_11 are invertible then formula_31 is also invertible with inverse formula_32. The set of all invertible elements is therefore closed under multiplication and forms a Moufang loop. This "loop of units" in an alternative ring or algebra is analogous to the group of units in an associative ring or algebra. Kleinfeld's theorem states that any simple non-associative alternative ring is a generalized octonion algebra over its center. The structure theory of alternative rings is presented in the book "Rings That Are Nearly Associative" by Zhevlakov, Slin'ko, Shestakov, and Shirshov. Occurrence. The projective plane over any alternative division ring is a Moufang plane. Every composition algebra is an alternative algebra, as shown by Guy Roos in 2008: A composition algebra "A" over a field "K" has a "norm n" that is a multiplicative homomorphism: formula_33 connecting ("A", ×) and ("K", ×). Define the form ( _ : _ ): "A" × "A" → "K" by formula_34 Then the trace of "a" is given by ("a":1) and the conjugate by "a"* = ("a":1)e – "a" where e is the basis element for 1. A series of exercises prove that a composition algebra is always an alternative algebra.
3162	329764	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3162	Arbitrage	Arbitrage (, ) is the practice of taking advantage of a difference in prices in two or more marketsstriking a combination of matching deals to capitalize on the difference, the profit being the difference between the market prices at which the unit is traded. Arbitrage has the effect of causing prices of the same or very similar assets in different markets to converge. When used by academics in economics, an arbitrage is a transaction that involves no negative cash flow at any probabilistic or temporal state and a positive cash flow in at least one state; in simple terms, it is the possibility of a risk-free profit after transaction costs. For example, an arbitrage opportunity is present when there is the possibility to instantaneously buy something for a low price and sell it for a higher price. In principle and in academic use, an arbitrage is risk-free; in common use, as in statistical arbitrage, it may refer to "expected" profit, though losses may occur, and in practice, there are always risks in arbitrage, some minor (such as fluctuation of prices decreasing profit margins), some major (such as devaluation of a currency or derivative). In academic use, an arbitrage involves taking advantage of differences in price of a "single" asset or "identical" cash-flows; in common use, it is also used to refer to differences between "similar" assets (relative value or convergence trades), as in merger arbitrage. The term is mainly applied in the financial field. People who engage in arbitrage are called arbitrageurs (). Etymology. "Arbitrage" is a French word and denotes a decision by an arbitrator or arbitration tribunal (in modern French, " usually means referee or umpire). It was first defined as a financial term in 1704 by French mathematician Mathieu de la Porte in his treatise " as a consideration of different exchange rates to recognise the most profitable places of issuance and settlement for a bill of exchange (" [, in modern spelling] ".) Arbitrage equilibrium. If the market prices do not allow for profitable arbitrage, the prices are said to constitute an arbitrage equilibrium, or an arbitrage-free market. An arbitrage equilibrium is a precondition for a general economic equilibrium. The 'no-arbitrage assumption' is used in quantitative finance to calculate a unique risk neutral price for derivatives. Arbitrage-free pricing approach for bonds. Arbitrage-free pricing for bonds is the method of valuing a coupon-bearing financial instrument by discounting its future cash flows by multiple discount rates. By doing so, a more accurate price can be obtained than if the price is calculated with a present-value pricing approach. Arbitrage-free pricing is used for bond valuation and to detect arbitrage opportunities for investors. For the purpose of valuing the price of a bond, its cash flows can each be thought of as packets of incremental cash flows with a large packet upon maturity, being the principal. Since the cash flows are dispersed throughout future periods, they must be discounted back to the present. In the present-value approach, the cash flows are discounted with one discount rate to find the price of the bond. In arbitrage-free pricing, multiple discount rates are used. The present-value approach assumes that the bond yield will stay the same until maturity. This is a simplified model because interest rates may fluctuate in the future, which in turn affects the yield on the bond. For this reason, the discount rate may differ for each cash flow. Each cash flow can be considered a zero-coupon instrument that pays one payment upon maturity. The discount rates used should be the rates of multiple zero-coupon bonds with maturity dates the same as each cash flow and similar risk as the instrument being valued. By using multiple discount rates, the arbitrage-free price is the sum of the discounted cash flows. Arbitrage-free price refers to the price at which no price arbitrage is possible. The idea of using multiple discount rates obtained from zero-coupon bonds and discounting a similar bond's cash flow to find its price is derived from the yield curve, which is a curve of the yields of the same bond with different maturities. This curve can be used to view trends in market expectations of how interest rates will move in the future. In arbitrage-free pricing of a bond, a yield curve of similar zero-coupon bonds with different maturities is created. If the curve were to be created with Treasury securities of different maturities, they would be stripped of their coupon payments through bootstrapping. This is to transform the bonds into zero-coupon bonds. The yield of these zero-coupon bonds would then be plotted on a diagram with time on the "x"-axis and yield on the "y"-axis. Since the yield curve displays market expectations on how yields and interest rates may move, the arbitrage-free pricing approach is more realistic than using only one discount rate. Investors can use this approach to value bonds and find price mismatches, resulting in an arbitrage opportunity. If a bond valued with the arbitrage-free pricing approach turns out to be priced higher in the market, an investor could have such an opportunity: If the outcome from the valuation were the reverse case, the opposite positions would be taken in the bonds. This arbitrage opportunity comes from the assumption that the prices of bonds with the same properties will converge upon maturity. This can be explained through market efficiency, which states that arbitrage opportunities will eventually be discovered and corrected. The prices of the bonds in t1 move closer together to finally become the same at tT. Conditions for arbitrage. Arbitrage may take place when: Arbitrage is not simply the act of buying a product in one market and selling it in another for a higher price at some later time. The transactions must occur "simultaneously" to avoid exposure to market risk, or the risk that prices may change in one market before both transactions are complete. In practical terms, this is generally possible only with securities and financial products that can be traded electronically, and even then, when each leg of the trade is executed, the prices in the market may have moved. Missing one of the legs of the trade (and subsequently having to trade it soon after at a worse price) is an 'execution risk' referred to as 'leg risk'. In the simplest example, any good sold in one market should sell for the same price in another. Traders may, for example, find that the price of wheat is lower in agricultural regions than in cities, purchase the good, and transport it to another region to sell at a higher price. This type of price arbitrage is the most common, but this simple example ignores the cost of transport, storage, risk, and other factors. "True" arbitrage requires that there is no market risk involved. Where securities are traded on more than one exchange, arbitrage occurs by simultaneously buying in one and selling on the other. See rational pricing, particularly § arbitrage mechanics, for further discussion. Mathematically it is defined as follows: formula_1 where formula_2, formula_3 denotes the portfolio value at time "t" and "T" is the time the portfolio ceases to be available on the market. This means that the value of the portfolio is never negative, and guaranteed to be positive at least once over its lifetime. Negative, or anti-, arbitrage is similarly defined as formula_4 and occurs naturally in arbitrage relations as the seller view as opposed to the buyer view. Price convergence. Arbitrage has the effect of causing prices, and thus purchasing power, in different markets to converge. As a result of arbitrage, the currency exchange rates and the prices of securities and other financial assets in different markets tend to converge. The speed at which they do so is a measure of market efficiency. Arbitrage tends to reduce price discrimination by encouraging people to buy an item where the price is low and resell it where the price is high (as long as the buyers are not prohibited from reselling and the transaction costs of buying, holding, and reselling are small, relative to the difference in prices in the different markets). Arbitrage moves different currencies toward purchasing power parity. Assume that a car purchased in the United States is cheaper than the same car in Canada. Canadians would buy their cars across the border to exploit the arbitrage condition. At the same time, Americans would buy US cars, transport them across the border, then sell them in Canada. Canadians would have to buy American dollars to buy the cars and Americans would have to sell the Canadian dollars they received in exchange. Both actions would increase demand for US dollars and supply of Canadian dollars. As a result, there would be an appreciation of the US currency. This would make US cars more expensive and Canadian cars less so until their prices were similar. On a larger scale, international arbitrage opportunities in commodities, goods, securities, and currencies tend to change exchange rates until the purchasing power is equal. In reality, most assets exhibit some difference between countries. These, transaction costs, taxes, and other costs provide an impediment to this kind of arbitrage. Similarly, arbitrage affects the difference in interest rates paid on government bonds issued by the various countries, given the expected depreciation in the currencies relative to each other (see interest rate parity). Risks. Arbitrage transactions in modern securities markets involve fairly low day-to-day risks, but can face extremely high risk in rare situations, particularly financial crises, and can lead to bankruptcy. Formally, arbitrage transactions have negative skew – prices can get a small amount closer (but often no closer than 0), while they can get very far apart. The day-to-day risks are generally small because the transactions involve small differences in price, so an execution failure will generally cause a small loss (unless the trade is very big or the price moves rapidly). The rare case risks are extremely high because these small price differences are converted to large profits via leverage (borrowed money), and in the rare event of a large price move, this may yield a large loss. The principal risk, which is typically encountered on a routine basis, is classified as execution risk. This transpires when an aspect of the financial transaction does not materialize as anticipated. Infrequent, albeit critical, risks encompass counterparty and liquidity risks. The former, counterparty risk, is characterized by the failure of the other participant in a substantial transaction, or a series of transactions, to fulfill their financial obligations. Liquidity risk, conversely, emerges when an entity is necessitated to allocate additional monetary resources as margin, but encounters a deficit in the required capital. In the academic literature, the idea that seemingly very low-risk arbitrage trades might not be fully exploited because of these risk factors and other considerations is often referred to as limits to arbitrage. Execution risk. Generally, it is impossible to close two or three transactions at the same instant; therefore, there is the possibility that when one part of the deal is closed, a quick shift in prices makes it impossible to close the other at a profitable price. However, this is not necessarily the case. Many exchanges and inter-dealer brokers allow multi legged trades (e.g. basis block trades on LIFFE). Competition in the marketplace can also create risks during arbitrage transactions. As an example, if one was trying to profit from a price discrepancy between IBM on the NYSE and IBM on the London Stock Exchange, they may purchase a large number of shares on the NYSE and find that they cannot simultaneously sell on the LSE. This leaves the arbitrageur in an unhedged risk position. In the 1980s, risk arbitrage was common. In this form of speculation, one trades a security that is clearly undervalued or overvalued, when it is seen that the wrong valuation is about to be corrected. The standard example is the stock of a company, undervalued in the stock market, which is about to be the object of a takeover bid; the price of the takeover will more truly reflect the value of the company, giving a large profit to those who bought at the current price, if the merger goes through as predicted. Traditionally, arbitrage transactions in the securities markets involve high speed, high volume, and low risk. At some moment a price difference exists, and the problem is to execute two or three balancing transactions while the difference persists (that is, before the other arbitrageurs act). When the transaction involves a delay of weeks or months, as above, it may entail considerable risk if borrowed money is used to magnify the reward through leverage. One way of reducing this risk is through the illegal use of inside information, and risk arbitrage in leveraged buyouts was associated with some of the famous financial scandals of the 1980s, such as those involving Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky. Mismatch. Another risk occurs if the items being bought and sold are not identical and the arbitrage is conducted under the assumption that the prices of the items are correlated or predictable; this is more narrowly referred to as a convergence trade. In the extreme case this is merger arbitrage, described below. In comparison to the classical quick arbitrage transaction, such an operation can produce disastrous losses. Counterparty risk. As arbitrages generally involve "future" movements of cash, they are subject to counterparty risk: the risk that a counterparty fails to fulfill their side of a transaction. This is a serious problem if one has either a single trade or many related trades with a single counterparty, whose failure thus poses a threat, or in the event of a financial crisis when many counterparties fail. This hazard is serious because of the large quantities one must trade in order to make a profit on small price differences. For example, if one purchases many risky bonds, then hedges them with CDSes, profiting from the difference between the bond spread and the CDS premium, in a financial crisis, the bonds may default "and" the CDS writer/seller may fail, due to the stress of the crisis, causing the arbitrageur to face steep losses. Liquidity risk. Arbitrage trades are necessarily synthetic, "leveraged" trades, as they involve a short position. If the assets used are not identical (so a price divergence makes the trade temporarily lose money), or the margin treatment is not identical, and the trader is accordingly required to post margin (faces a margin call), the trader may run out of capital (if they run out of cash and cannot borrow more) and be forced to sell these assets at a loss even though the trades may be expected to ultimately make money. In effect, arbitrage traders synthesise a put option on their ability to finance themselves. Prices may diverge during a financial crisis, often termed a "flight to quality"; these are precisely the times when it is hardest for leveraged investors to raise capital (due to overall capital constraints), and thus they will lack capital precisely when they need it most. Gray market. Grey market arbitrage is the sale of goods purchased through informal channels to earn the difference in price. Excessive gray market arbitrage will lead to arbitrage behaviors in formal channels, which will reduce returns due to factors such as price confusion, and may even cause prices to plummet in severe cases. Types. Spatial arbitrage. Also known as geographical arbitrage, this is the simplest form of arbitrage. In spatial arbitrage, an arbitrageur looks for price differences between geographically separate markets. For example, there may be a bond dealer in Virginia offering a bond at 100-12/23 and a dealer in Washington bidding 100-15/23 for the same bond. For whatever reason, the two dealers have not spotted the difference in the prices, but the arbitrageur does. The arbitrageur immediately buys the bond from the Virginia dealer and sells it to the Washington dealer. Crypto arbitrage. Also known as interexchange arbitrage, this is the form of arbitrage that takes advantage of the difference between two or more crypto exchanges. For example, on HTX token like LSK could be priced at $1.39 while on Gate it could be sold for $1.5. Although there are some risks involved in that type of arbitrage, such as network and exchange fees, blockchain overload, and inability to deposit or withdraw funds, this activity remains one of the most profitable ventures in crypto. Latency arbitrage. For very short amounts of time, the prices of two assets that are either fungible or related by a strict pricing relationship may temporarily go out of sync as the market makers are slow to update the prices. This momentary mispricing creates the opportunity for an arbitrageur to capture the difference between the two prices. For example, the price of calls and puts on an underlying should be related by put-call parity. If these prices are misquoted relative to the put-call parity relationship, it provides an arbitrageur the opportunity to profit from the mispricing. Latency arbitrage is often mentioned especially in electronic processing in the financial field, where the use of fast server hardware allows an arbitrageur to realize opportunities that may exist for as little as nanoseconds. A study by the Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom found that this practice generates as much as $5 billion per year in profit. Merger arbitrage. Also called risk arbitrage, merger arbitrage generally consists of buying/holding the stock of a company that is the target of a takeover while shorting the stock of the acquiring company. Usually, the market price of the target company is less than the price offered by the acquiring company. The spread between these two prices depends mainly on the probability and the timing of the takeover being completed as well as the prevailing level of interest rates. The bet in a merger arbitrage is that such a spread will eventually be zero, if and when the takeover is completed. The risk is that the deal "breaks" and the spread massively widens. Municipal bond arbitrage. Municipal bond arbitrage, also called "municipal bond relative value arbitrage", "municipal arbitrage", or just "muni arb", is a hedge fund strategy involving one of two approaches. The term "arbitrage" is also used in the context of the Income Tax Regulations governing the investment of proceeds of municipal bonds; these regulations, aimed at the issuers or beneficiaries of tax-exempt municipal bonds, are different and, instead, attempt to remove the issuer's ability to arbitrage between the low tax-exempt rate and a taxable investment rate. Generally, managers seek relative value opportunities by being both long and short municipal bonds with a duration-neutral book. The relative value trades may be between different issuers, different bonds issued by the same entity, or capital structure trades referencing the same asset (in the case of revenue bonds). Managers aim to capture the inefficiencies arising from the heavy participation of non-economic investors (i.e., high income "buy and hold" investors seeking tax-exempt income) as well as the "crossover buying" arising from corporations' or individuals' changing income tax situations (i.e., insurers switching their munis for corporates after a large loss as they can capture a higher after-tax yield by offsetting the taxable corporate income with underwriting losses). There are additional inefficiencies arising from the highly fragmented nature of the municipal bond market which has two million outstanding issues and 50,000 issuers, in contrast to the Treasury market which has 400 issues and a single issuer. Second, managers construct leveraged portfolios of AAA- or AA-rated tax-exempt municipal bonds with the duration risk hedged by shorting the appropriate ratio of taxable corporate bonds. These corporate equivalents are typically interest rate swaps referencing Libor or SIFMA. The arbitrage manifests itself in the form of a relatively cheap longer maturity municipal bond, which is a municipal bond that yields significantly more than 65% of a corresponding taxable corporate bond. The steeper slope of the municipal yield curve allows participants to collect more after-tax income from the municipal bond portfolio than is spent on the interest rate swap; the carry is greater than the hedge expense. Positive, tax-free carry from muni arb can reach into the double digits. The bet in this municipal bond arbitrage is that, over a longer period of time, two similar instruments—municipal bonds and interest rate swaps—will correlate with each other; they are both very high quality credits, have the same maturity and are denominated in the same currency. Credit risk and duration risk are largely eliminated in this strategy. However, basis risk arises from use of an imperfect hedge, which results in significant, but range-bound principal volatility. The end goal is to limit this principal volatility, eliminating its relevance over time as the high, consistent, tax-free cash flow accumulates. Since the inefficiency is related to government tax policy, and hence is structural in nature, it has not been arbitraged away. However, many municipal bonds are callable, and this adds substantial risks to the strategy. Convertible bond arbitrage. A convertible bond is a bond that an investor can return to the issuing company in exchange for a predetermined number of shares in the company. A convertible bond can be thought of as a corporate bond with a stock call option attached to it. The price of a convertible bond is sensitive to three major factors: Given the complexity of the calculations involved and the convoluted structure that a convertible bond can have, an arbitrageur often relies on sophisticated quantitative models in order to identify bonds that are trading cheap versus their theoretical value. Convertible arbitrage consists of buying a convertible bond and hedging two of the three factors in order to gain exposure to the third factor at a very attractive price. For instance an arbitrageur would first buy a convertible bond, then sell fixed income securities or interest rate futures (to hedge the interest rate exposure) and buy some credit protection (to hedge the risk of credit deterioration). Eventually what he or she would be left with is something similar to a call option on the underlying stock, acquired at a very low price. He or she could then make money either selling some of the more expensive options that are openly traded in the market or delta hedging his or her exposure to the underlying shares. Depository receipts. A depositary receipt is a security that is offered as a "tracking stock" on another foreign market. For instance, a Chinese company wishing to raise more money may issue a depository receipt on the New York Stock Exchange, as the amount of capital on the local exchanges is limited. These securities, known as ADRs (American depositary receipt) or GDRs (global depository receipt) depending on where they are issued, are typically considered "foreign" and therefore trade at a lower value when first released. Many ADR's are exchangeable into the original security (known as fungibility) and actually have the same value. In this case, there is a spread between the perceived value and real value, which can be extracted. Other ADR's that are not exchangeable often have much larger spreads. Since the ADR is trading at a value lower than what it is worth, one can purchase the ADR and expect to make money as its value converges on the original. However, there is a chance that the original stock will fall in value too, so by shorting it one can hedge that risk. Cross-border arbitrage. Cross-border arbitrage exploits different prices of the same stock in different countries: Example: Apple is trading on NASDAQ at US$108.84. The stock is also traded on the German electronic exchange, XETRA. If 1 euro costs US$1.11, a cross-border trader could enter a buy order on the XETRA at €98.03 per Apple share and a sell order at €98.07 per share. Some brokers in Germany do not offer access to the U.S. exchanges. Hence if a German retail investor wants to buy Apple stock, he needs to buy it on the XETRA. The cross-border trader would sell the Apple shares on XETRA to the investor and buy the shares in the same second on NASDAQ. Afterwards, the cross-border trader would need to transfer the shares bought on NASDAQ to the German XETRA exchange, where he is obliged to deliver the stock. In most cases, the quotation on the local exchanges is done electronically by high-frequency traders, taking into consideration the home price of the stock and the exchange rate. This kind of high-frequency trading benefits the public, as it reduces the cost to the German investor and enables them to buy U.S. shares. Dual-listed companies. A dual-listed company (DLC) structure involves two companies incorporated in different countries contractually agreeing to operate their businesses as if they were a single enterprise, while retaining their separate legal identity and existing stock exchange listings. In integrated and efficient financial markets, stock prices of the twin pair should move in lockstep. In practice, DLC share prices exhibit large deviations from theoretical parity. Arbitrage positions in DLCs can be set up by obtaining a long position in the relatively underpriced part of the DLC and a short position in the relatively overpriced part. Such arbitrage strategies start paying off as soon as the relative prices of the two DLC stocks converge toward theoretical parity. However, since there is no identifiable date at which DLC prices will converge, arbitrage positions sometimes have to be kept open for considerable periods of time. In the meantime, the price gap might widen. In these situations, arbitrageurs may receive margin calls, after which they would most likely be forced to liquidate part of the position at a highly unfavorable moment and suffer a loss. Arbitrage in DLCs may be profitable, but is also very risky. A good illustration of the risk of DLC arbitrage is the position in Royal Dutch Shell—which had a DLC structure until 2005—by the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM, see also the discussion below). Lowenstein (2000) describes that LTCM established an arbitrage position in Royal Dutch Shell in the summer of 1997, when Royal Dutch traded at an 8 to 10 percent premium. In total, $2.3 billion was invested, half of which was long in Shell and the other half was short in Royal Dutch (Lowenstein, p. 99). In the autumn of 1998, large defaults on Russian debt created significant losses for the hedge fund and LTCM had to unwind several positions. Lowenstein reports that the premium of Royal Dutch had increased to about 22 percent and LTCM had to close the position and incur a loss. According to Lowenstein (p. 234), LTCM lost $286 million in equity pairs trading and more than half of this loss is accounted for by the Royal Dutch Shell trade. (See further under Limits to arbitrage.) Private to public equities. The market prices for privately held companies are typically viewed from a return on investment perspective (such as 25%), whilst publicly held and or exchange listed companies trade on a price to earnings ratio (P/E) (such as a P/E of 10, which equates to a 10% return on investment (ROI)). Thus, if a publicly traded company specialises in the acquisition of privately held companies, from a per-share perspective there is a gain with every acquisition that falls within these guidelines. E.g., Berkshire Hathaway. Private to public equities arbitrage is a term that can arguably be applied to investment banking in general. Private markets to public markets differences may also help explain the overnight windfall gains enjoyed by principals of companies that just did an initial public offering (IPO). Regulatory arbitrage. Regulatory arbitrage "is an avoidance strategy of regulation that is exercised as a result of a regulatory inconsistency". In other words, where a regulated institution takes advantage of the difference between its real (or economic) risk and the regulatory position. For example, if a bank, operating under the Basel I accord, has to hold 8% capital against default risk, but the real risk of default is lower, it is profitable to securitise the loan, removing the low-risk loan from its portfolio. On the other hand, if the real risk is higher than the regulatory risk then it is profitable to make that loan and hold on to it, provided it is priced appropriately. Regulatory arbitrage can result in parts of entire businesses being unregulated as a result of the arbitrage. This process can increase the overall riskiness of institutions under a risk insensitive regulatory regime, as described by Alan Greenspan in his October 1998 speech on The Role of Capital in Optimal Banking Supervision and Regulation. The term "Regulatory Arbitrage" was used for the first time in 2005 when it was applied by Scott V. Simpson, a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, to refer to a new defence tactic in hostile mergers and acquisitions where differing takeover regimes in deals involving multi-jurisdictions are exploited to the advantage of a target company under threat. In economics, regulatory arbitrage (sometimes, tax arbitrage) may refer to situations when a company can choose a nominal place of business with a regulatory, legal or tax regime with lower costs. This can occur particularly where the business transaction has no obvious physical location. In the case of many financial products, it may be unclear "where" the transaction occurs. Regulatory arbitrage can include restructuring a bank by outsourcing services such as IT. The outsourcing company takes over the installations, buying out the bank's assets and charges a periodic service fee back to the bank. This frees up cashflow usable for new lending by the bank. The bank will have higher IT costs, but counts on the multiplier effect of money creation and the interest rate spread to make it a profitable exercise. Example: Suppose the bank sells its IT installations for US$40 million. With a reserve ratio of 10%, the bank can create US$400 million in additional loans (there is a time lag, and the bank has to expect to recover the loaned money back into its books). The bank can often lend (and securitize the loan) to the IT services company to cover the acquisition cost of the IT installations. This can be at preferential rates, as the sole client using the IT installation is the bank. If the bank can generate 5% interest margin on the 400 million of new loans, the bank will increase interest revenues by 20 million. The IT services company is free to leverage their balance sheet as aggressively as they and their banker agree to. This is the reason behind the trend towards outsourcing in the financial sector. Without this money creation benefit, it is actually more expensive to outsource the IT operations as the outsourcing adds a layer of management and increases overhead. According to PBS "Frontline"'s 2012 four-part documentary, "Money, Power, and Wall Street", regulatory arbitrage, along with asymmetric bank lobbying in Washington and abroad, allowed investment banks in the pre- and post-2008 period to continue to skirt laws and engage in the risky proprietary trading of opaque derivatives, swaps, and other credit-based instruments invented to circumvent legal restrictions at the expense of clients, government, and publics. Due to the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid coverage, one form of Regulatory Arbitrage can now be found when businesses engage in "Medicaid Migration", a maneuver by which qualifying employees who would typically be enrolled in company health plans elect to enroll in Medicaid instead. These programs that have similar characteristics as insurance products to the employee, but have radically different cost structures, resulting in significant expense reductions for employers. Telecom arbitrage. Telecom arbitrage companies allow phone users to make international calls for free through certain access numbers. Such services are offered in the United Kingdom; the telecommunication arbitrage companies get paid an interconnect charge by the UK mobile networks and then buy international routes at a lower cost. The calls are seen as free by the UK contract mobile phone customers since they are using up their allocated monthly minutes rather than paying for additional calls. Such services were previously offered in the United States by companies such as FuturePhone.com. These services would operate in rural telephone exchanges, primarily in small towns in the state of Iowa. In these areas, the local telephone carriers are allowed to charge a high "termination fee" to the caller's carrier in order to fund the cost of providing service to the small and sparsely populated areas that they serve. However, FuturePhone (as well as other similar services) ceased operations upon legal challenges from AT&T and other service providers. Statistical arbitrage. Statistical arbitrage is an imbalance in expected nominal values. A casino has a statistical arbitrage in every game of chance that it offers, referred to as the house advantage, house edge, vigorish, or house vigorish. Gray market. Grey market arbitrage involves buying items through marketing channels that sell them without the permission of the product trademark owner and sells them in the legitimate market. A Swiss watch sold by an approved dealer for £42,600 is an excellent example of a grey market product; customers can buy the identical watch for £27,227 on the Chrono24 website, which is an unlicensed 'grey market.'
3165	1301450707	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3165	ACF Fiorentina	ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the current club was refounded in August 2002 following bankruptcy. Fiorentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence; only four clubs have played in more Serie A seasons. Fiorentina has won two Italian league titles, in 1955–56 and again in 1968–69, as well as six Coppa Italia trophies and one Supercoppa Italiana. On the European stage, Fiorentina won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1960–61. They also lost five finals, finishing runners-up in the 1956–57 European Cup (the first Italian team to reach the final in the top continental competition), the 1961–62 Cup Winners' Cup, the 1989–90 UEFA Cup, and in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 editions of the UEFA Conference League, being the first club to record two consecutive final appearances and two consecutive defeats in the competition's history. Fiorentina is one of fifteen European teams that have played in the finals of all three major continental competitions (the European Cup/Champions League, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup/Europa League) and in 2023, by reaching the Europa Conference League final, Fiorentina became the first team to reach all four major European club competition finals (excluding the one-off match of the UEFA Super Cup). Since 1931, the club have played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which currently has a capacity of 43,147. The stadium has used several names over the years and has undergone several renovations. Fiorentina are known widely by the nickname "Viola", a reference to their distinctive purple colours. History. Foundation prior to World War II. Associazione Calcio Fiorentina was founded in the autumn of 1926 by local noble and National Fascist Party member Luigi Ridolfi Vay da Verrazzano, who initiated the merger of two older Florentine clubs, CS Firenze and PG Libertas. The aim of the merger was to give Florence a strong club to rival those of the more dominant Italian Football Championship sides of the time from Northwest Italy. Also influential was the cultural revival and rediscovery of , an ancestor of modern football that was played by members of the family. After a rough start and three seasons in lower leagues, Fiorentina reached "" in 1931. That same year saw the opening of the new stadium, originally named after Giovanni Berta, a prominent fascist, but now known as Stadio Artemio Franchi. At the time, the stadium was a masterpiece of engineering, and its inauguration was monumental. To be able to compete with the best teams in Italy, Fiorentina strengthened their team with some new players, notably the Uruguayan Pedro Petrone, nicknamed "el Artillero". Despite enjoying a good season and finishing in fourth place, Fiorentina were relegated the following year, although they would return quickly to . In 1941, they won their first Coppa Italia, but the team were unable to build on their success during the 1940s due to World War II and other troubles. First "scudetto" and '50–'60s. In 1950, Fiorentina started to achieve consistent top-five finishes in the domestic league. The team consisted of players such as well-known goalkeeper Giuliano Sarti, Sergio Cervato, Francesco Rosella, Guido Gratton, Giuseppe Chiappella, Aldo Scaramucci, Brazilian Julinho, and Argentinian Miguel Montuori. This team won Fiorentina's first "scudetto" (Italian championship) in 1955–56, 12 points ahead of second-place Milan. Milan beat Fiorentina to top spot the following year. Fiorentina became the first Italian team to play in a European Cup final, when a disputed penalty led to a 2–0 defeat at the hands of Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid. Fiorentina were runners-up again in the three subsequent seasons. In the 1960–61 season, the club won the Coppa Italia again and was also successful in Europe, winning the first Cup Winners' Cup against Scottish side Rangers. After several years of runner-up finishes, Fiorentina dropped away slightly in the 1960s, bouncing from fourth to sixth place, although the club won the Coppa Italia and the Mitropa Cup in 1966. Second "scudetto" and '70s. While the 1960s did result in some trophies and good Serie A finishes for Fiorentina, nobody believed that the club could challenge for the title. The 1968–69 season started with Milan as frontrunners, but on matchday 7, it lost to Bologna and was overtaken by Gigi Riva's Cagliari. Fiorentina, after an unimpressive start, then moved to the top of the Serie A, but the first half of its season finished with a 2–2 draw against Varese, leaving Cagliari as outright league leader. The second half of the season was a three-way battle between the three contending teams, Milan, Cagliari and Fiorentina. Milan fell away, instead focusing its efforts on the European Cup, and it seemed that Cagliari would retain top spot. After Cagliari lost against , however, Fiorentina took over at the top. The team then won all of its remaining matches, beating rivals Juve in Turin on the penultimate matchday to seal its second, and last, national title. In the European Cup competition the following year, Fiorentina had some good results, including a win in the Soviet Union against , but was eventually knocked out in the quarter-finals after a 3–0 defeat in Glasgow to Celtic. "Viola" players began the 1970s decade with "scudetto" sewed on their breast, but the period was not especially fruitful for the team. After a fifth-place finish in 1971, they finished in mid-table almost every year, even flirting with relegation in 1972 and 1978. The "Viola" did win the Anglo-Italian League Cup in 1974 and won the Coppa Italia again in 1975. The team consisted of young talents like Vincenzo Guerini and Moreno Roggi, who suffered bad injuries, and above all Giancarlo Antognoni, who would later become an idol to Fiorentina's fans. The young average age of the players led to the team being called "Fiorentina Ye-Ye". Pontello era. In 1980, Fiorentina was bought by Flavio Pontello, who came from a rich housebuilding family. He quickly changed the team's anthem and logo, leading to some complaints by the fans, but he started to bring in high-quality players such as Francesco Graziani and Eraldo Pecci from Torino; Daniel Bertoni from Sevilla; Daniele Massaro from Monza; and a young Pietro Vierchowod from Como. The team was built around Giancarlo Antognoni, and in 1982, Fiorentina were involved in an exciting duel with rivals Juventus. After a bad injury to Antognoni, the league title was decided on the final day of the season when Fiorentina were denied a goal against Cagliari and were unable to win. Juventus won the title with a disputed penalty and the rivalry between the two teams erupted. The following years were strange for Fiorentina, who vacillated between high finishes and relegation battles. Fiorentina also bought two interesting players, "El Puntero" Ramón Díaz and, most significantly, the young Roberto Baggio. In 1990, Fiorentina fought to avoid relegation right up until the final day of the season, but did reach the UEFA Cup final, where they again faced Juventus. The Turin team won the trophy, but Fiorentina's "tifosi" once again had real cause for complaint: the second leg of the final was played in Avellino (Fiorentina's home ground was suspended), a city with many Juventus fans, and emerging star Roberto Baggio was sold to the rival team on the day of the final. Pontello, suffering from economic difficulties, was selling all the players and was forced to leave the club after serious riots in Florence's streets. The club was then acquired by the famous filmmaker Mario Cecchi Gori. Cecchi Gori era: from Champions League to bankruptcy. The first season under Cecchi Gori's ownership was one of stabilisation, after which the new chairman started to sign some good players like Brian Laudrup, Stefan Effenberg, Francesco Baiano and, most importantly, Gabriel Batistuta, who became an iconic player for the team during the 1990s. In 1993, however, Cecchi Gori died and was succeeded as chairman by his son, Vittorio. Despite a good start to the season, Cecchi Gori fired the coach, Luigi Radice, after a defeat against Atalanta, and replaced him with Aldo Agroppi. The results were dreadful: Fiorentina fell into the bottom half of the standings and were relegated on the last day of the season. Claudio Ranieri was brought in as coach for the 1993–94 season, and that year, Fiorentina dominated Serie B, Italy's second division. Upon their return to Serie A, Ranieri put together a good team centred around new top scorer Batistuta, signing the young talent Rui Costa from Benfica and the new world champion Brazilian defender Márcio Santos. The former became an idol to Fiorentina fans, while the second disappointed and was sold after only a season. The "Viola" finished the season in tenth place. The following season, Cecchi Gori bought other important players, namely Swedish midfielder Stefan Schwarz. The club again proved its mettle in cup competitions, winning the Coppa Italia against Atalanta and finishing joint-third in Serie A. In the summer, Fiorentina became the first non-national champions to win the Supercoppa Italiana, defeating Milan 2–1 at the San Siro. Fiorentina's 1996–97 season was disappointing in the league, but they did reach the Cup Winners' Cup semi-final by beating Gloria Bistrița, Sparta Prague and Benfica. The team lost the semi-final to the eventual winner of the competition, Barcelona (away 1–1; home 0–2). The season's main signings were Luís Oliveira and Andrei Kanchelskis, the latter of whom suffered from many injuries. At the end of the season, Ranieri left Fiorentina for Valencia in Spain, with Cecchi Gori appointing Alberto Malesani as his replacement. Fiorentina played well but struggled against smaller teams, although they did manage to qualify for the UEFA Cup. Malesani left Fiorentina after only a season and was succeeded by Giovanni Trapattoni. With Trapattoni's expert guidance and Batistuta's goals, Fiorentina challenged for the title in 1998–99 but finished the season in third, earning them qualification for the Champions League. The following year was disappointing in Serie A, but "Viola" played some historical matches in the Champions League, beating Arsenal 1–0 at the old Wembley Stadium and Manchester United 2–0 in Florence. They were ultimately eliminated in the second group stage. At the end of the season, Trapattoni left the club and was replaced by Turkish coach Fatih Terim. More significantly, however, Batistuta was sold to Roma, who eventually won the title the following year. Fiorentina played well in 2000–01 and stayed in the top half of Serie A, despite the resignation of Terim and the arrival of Roberto Mancini. They also won the Coppa Italia for the sixth and last time. The year 2001 heralded major changes for Fiorentina, as the terrible state of the club's finances was revealed: they were unable to pay wages and had debts of around US$50 million. The club's owner, Vittorio Cecchi Gori, was able to raise some more money, but this soon proved to be insufficient to sustain the club. Fiorentina were relegated at the end of the 2001–02 season and went into judicially-controlled administration in June 2002. This form of bankruptcy (sports companies cannot exactly fail in this way in Italy, but they can suffer a similar procedure) meant that the club was refused a place in Serie B for the 2002–03 season, and as a result effectively ceased to exist. Della Valle era: from fourth tier to Europe (2000s and 2010s). The club was promptly re-established in August 2002 as Associazione Calcio Fiorentina e Florentia Viola with shoe and leather entrepreneur Diego Della Valle as new owner and the club was admitted into Serie C2, the fourth tier of Italian football. The only player to remain at the club in its new incarnation was Angelo Di Livio, whose commitment to the club's cause further endeared him to the fans. Helped by Di Livio and 30-goal striker Christian Riganò, the club won its Serie C2 group with considerable ease, which would normally have led to a promotion to Serie C1. Due to the bizarre "Caso Catania" (Catania Case), the club skipped Serie C1 and was admitted into Serie B, something that was only made possible by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC)'s decision to resolve the Catania situation by increasing the number of teams in Serie B from 20 to 24 and promoting Fiorentina for "sports merits". In the 2003 off-season, the club also bought back the right to use the Fiorentina name and the famous shirt design, and re-incorporated itself as ACF Fiorentina. The club finished the 2003–04 season in sixth place and won the playoff against Perugia to return to top-flight football. In their first season back in Serie A, the club struggled to avoid relegation, only securing survival on the last day of the season on head-to-head record against Bologna and Parma. In 2005, Della Valle decided to appoint Pantaleo Corvino as new sports director, followed by the appointment of Cesare Prandelli as head coach in the following season. The club made several signings during the summer transfer market, most notably Luca Toni and Sébastien Frey. This drastic move earned them a fourth-place finish with 74 points and a Champions League qualifying round ticket. Toni scored 31 goals in 38 appearances, the first player to pass the 30-goal mark since Antonio Valentin Angelillo in the 1958–59 season, for which he was awarded the European Golden Boot. On 14 July 2006, Fiorentina were relegated to Serie B due to their involvement in the "Calciopoli" scandal and given a 12-point penalty. The team was reinstated to the Serie A on appeal, but with a 19-point penalty for the 2006–07 season. The team's 2006–07 Champions League place was also revoked. After the start of the season, Fiorentina's penalisation was reduced from 19 points to 15 on appeal to the Italian courts. In spite of this penalty, they managed to secure a place in the UEFA Cup. Despite Toni's departure to Bayern Munich, Fiorentina had a strong start to the 2007–08 season and were tipped by Italy national team head coach Marcello Lippi, among others, as a surprise challenger for the "scudetto", and although this form tailed off towards the middle of the season, the "Viola" managed to qualify for the Champions League. In Europe, the club reached the semi-final of the UEFA Cup, where they were ultimately defeated by Rangers on penalties. The 2008–09 season continued this success, a fourth-place finish assuring Fiorentina's spot in 2010's Champions League playoffs. Their European campaign was also similar to that of the previous run, relegated to the 2008–09 UEFA Cup and were eliminated by Ajax in the end. In the 2009–10 season, Fiorentina started their domestic campaign strongly before steadily losing momentum and slipped to mid-table positions at the latter half of the season. In Europe, the team proved to be a surprise dark horse: after losing their first away fixture against Lyon, they staged a comeback with a five-match streak by winning all their remaining matches (including defeating Liverpool home and away). The "Viola" qualified as group champions, but eventually succumbed to Bayern Munich due to the away goals rule. This was controversial due to a mistaken refereeing decision by Tom Henning Øvrebø, who allowed a clearly offside goal for Bayern in the first leg. Bayern eventually finished the tournament as runners-up, making a deep run all the way to the final. The incident called into attention the possible implementation of video replays in football. Despite a good European run and reaching the semi-finals in the Coppa Italia, Fiorentina failed to qualify for Europe. During this period, on 24 September 2009, Andrea Della Valle resigned from his position as chairman of Fiorentina, and announced all duties would be temporarily transferred to Mario Cognini, Fiorentina's vice-president until a permanent position could be filled. In June 2010, the "Viola" bid farewell to long-time manager Cesare Prandelli, by then the longest-serving coach in the team's history, who was departing to coach the Italy national team. Catania manager Siniša Mihajlović was appointed to replace him. The club spent much of the early 2010–11 season in last place, but their form improved and Fiorentina ultimately finished ninth. Following a 1–0 defeat to Chievo in November 2011, Mihajlović was sacked and replaced by Delio Rossi. After a brief period of improvements, the "Viola" were again fighting relegation, prompting the sacking of Sporting Director Pantaleo Corvino in early 2012 following a 0–5 home defeat to Juventus. Their bid for survival was kept alive by a number of upset victories away from home, notably at Roma and Milan. During a home game against Novara, trailing 0–2 within half an hour, manager Rossi decided to substitute midfielder Adem Ljajić early. Ljajić sarcastically applauded him in frustration, whereupon Rossi retaliated by physical assaulting his player, an action that ultimately prompted his termination by the club. His replacement, caretaker manager Vincenzo Guerini, then guided the team away from the relegation zone to a 13th-place finish to end the turbulent year. To engineer a resurrection of the club after the disappointing season, the Della Valle family invested heavily in the middle of 2012, buying 17 new players and appointing Vincenzo Montella as head coach. The team began the season well, finishing the calendar year in joint third place and eventually finishing the 2012–13 season in fourth, enough for a position in the 2013–14 Europa League. The club lost fan favourite Stevan Jovetić during the middle of 2013, selling him to English Premier League club Manchester City for a €30 million transfer fee. They also sold Adem Ljajić to Roma and Alessio Cerci to Torino, using the funds to bring in Mario Gómez, Josip Iličić and Ante Rebić, among others. During the season, Fiorentina topped their Europa League group, moving on to the round of 32 to face Danish side Esbjerg fB, which Fiorentina defeated 4–2 on aggregate. In the following round of 16, however, they then lost to Italian rivals Juventus 2–1 on aggregate, ousting Fiorentina from the competition. At the end of the season, the team finished fourth again in the league, and also finishing the year as Coppa Italia runners-up after losing 3–1 to Napoli in the final. In 2014–15, during the 2015 winter transfer window, the team club sold star winger Juan Cuadrado to Chelsea for €30 million but were able to secure the loan of Mohamed Salah in exchange, who was a revelation in the second half of the season. Their 2014–15 Europa League campaign saw them progress to the semi-finals, where they were knocked-out by Spanish side Sevilla, the eventual champions. In the 2014–15 domestic season, Fiorentina once again finished fourth, thus qualifying for the 2015–16 Europa League. In June 2015, Vincenzo Montella was sacked as manager after the club grew impatient with the coaches inability to prove his commitment to the club, and was replaced by Paulo Sousa, who lasted until June 2017 and the appointment of Stefano Pioli. Club captain Davide Astori died suddenly at the age of 31 in March 2018. Astori had suffered a cardiac arrest while in a hotel room before an away game. The club subsequently retired Astori's kit number, 13. Fiorentina suffered during the 2018–19 Serie A campaign and ended the season on a 14 match winless streak, finishing in 16th place with only 41 points, 3 points from the relegation zone. On 9 April 2019, Pioli resigned as manager and was replaced by Montella. Commisso era (2019–"present"). On 6 June 2019, the club was sold to Italian-American billionaire Rocco Commisso for around 160 million euros. The sale marked the end of the Della Valle family's seventeen-year association with the club. Vincenzo Montella was confirmed as coach for the first season of the new era despite the team's poor end to the previous campaign, which saw them finish only three points clear of the relegation zone. Fiorentina continued their struggles from the previous year, spending the majority of the season in lower midtable. Montella was sacked on 21 December after a 7 match winless run which left the club in 15th place, and was replaced by Giuseppe Iachini. In November 2020 Cesare Prandelli returned to Fiorentina, replacing Giuseppe Iachini as coach. Under coach Vincenzo Italiano, who arrived in 2021, Fiorentina reached and lost two consecutive finals of the UEFA Europa Conference League, in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 editions, being the first club to record two consecutive final appearances in the competition's history, and becoming the first team to lose two consecutive European finals since Benfica in 2013 and 2014 UEFA Europa League finals. Players. Current squad. Managerial history. Fiorentina have had many managers and head coaches throughout their history. Below is a chronological list from the club's foundation in 1926 to the present day. Colours and badge. Badge. The official emblem of the city of Florence, a red fleur-de-lis on a white field, has been the staple in the all-round symbolism of the club. Over the course of the club's history, they have had several badge changes, all of which incorporated Florence's fleur-de-lis in some way. The first one was nothing more than the city's coat of arms, a white shield with the red fleur-de-lis inside. It was soon changed to a very stylised fleur-de-lis, always red, and sometimes even without the white field. The most common symbol, adopted for about 20 years, had been a white lozenge with the flower inside. During the season they were Italian champions, the lozenge disappeared and the flower was overlapped with the "scudetto". The logo introduced by owner Flavio Pontello in 1980 was particularly distinct, consisting of one-half of the city of Florence's emblem and one-half of the letter "F", for Fiorentina. People disliked it when it was introduced, believing it was a commercial decision and, above all, because the symbol bore more of a resemblance to a halberd than a fleur-de-lis. Until the 2022–23 season, when the club unveiled a new, stylistically simplified badge, the logo was a kite shaped double lozenge bordered in gold. The outer lozenge had a purple background with the letters "AC" in white and the letter "F" in red, standing for the club's name. The inner lozenge was white with a gold border and the red Giglio of Florence. This logo had been in use from 1992 to 2002, but after the 2008 financial crisis and resurrection of the club the new one couldn't use the same logo. Florence's "comune" instead granted Florentia Viola use of the stylised coat of arms used in other city documents. Diego Della Valle acquired the current logo the following year in a judicial auction for a fee of €2.5 million, making it the most expensive logo in Italian football. Kit and colours. When Fiorentina was founded in 1926, the players wore red and white halved shirts derived from the colour of the city emblem. The more well-known and highly distinctive purple kit was adopted in 1928 and has been used ever since, giving rise to the nickname "La Viola" ("The Purple (team)"). Tradition has it that Fiorentina got their purple kit by mistake after an accident washing the old red and white coloured kits in the river. The away kit has always been predominantly white, sometimes with purple and red elements, sometimes all-white. The shorts had been purple when the home kit was with white shorts. In the 1995–96 season, it was all-red with purple borders and two lilies on the shoulders. The red shirt has been the most worn 3rd shirt by Fiorentina, although they also wore rare yellow shirts ('97–'98, '99–'00 and '10–'11) and a sterling version, mostly in the Coppa Italia, in 2000–01. For the 2017–18 season and the first time in its history, the club used five kits during the season, composing of one home kit (all-purple) and four away kits, each one representing one historic quartiere of the city of Florence: all-blue (Santa Croce), all-white (Santo Spirito), all-green (San Giovanni) and all-red (Santa Maria Novella). Anthem. "Canzone Viola" (Purple Song) is the title of the Fiorentina's song, nowadays better known as "Oh Fiorentina". It is the oldest official football anthem in Italy and one of the oldest in the world. Dated 1930 and born only four years after the creation of the club, the song was written by a 12-year-old child, Enzo Marcacci, and musically arranged by maestro Marco Vinicio. It was published for the first time by the publisher Marcello Manni, who later became the owner of the rights. It soon achieved notoriety thanks to the printed media and the Ordine del Marzocco, a sort of original viola-club, which printed the lyrics of the song and distributed it to a home match on November 22, 1931. The song was recorded by Narciso Parigi in 1959 and again in 1965; the latter version replaced the original edition as the Fiorentina anthem. Subsequently, Narciso Parigi himself acquired the ownership of the rights, which he donated in 2002 to the supporter club Collettivo Autonomo Viola. Fiorentina as a company. A.C. Fiorentina S.p.A. was unable to register for 2002–03 Serie B due to financial difficulties, and then the sports title was transferred to a new company thanks to Article 52 of N.O.I.F., while the old company was liquidated. At that time the club was heavily relying on windfall profit from selling players, especially in pure player swap or cash plus player swap that potentially increased the cost by the increase in amortisation of player contracts (an intangible assets). For example, Marco Rossi joined Fiorentina for Lire 17 billion in 2000, but at the same time Lorenzo Collacchioni moved to Salernitana for Lire 1 billion, meaning the club had a player profit of Lire 997 million and extra Lire 1 billion to be amortised in 5-years. In 1999, Emiliano Bigica also swapped with Giuseppe Taglialatela, which the latter was valued for Lire 10 billion. The operating income (excluding windfall profit from players trading) of 2000–01 season was minus Lire 113,271,475,933 (minus €58,499,835). It was only boosted by the sales of Francesco Toldo and Rui Costa in June 2001 (a profit of Lire 134.883 billion; €69.661 million). However, it was alleged they were to transfer to Parma for a reported Lire 140 million. The two players eventually joined Inter Milan and A.C. Milan in 2001–02 financial year instead, for undisclosed fees. Failing to have financial support from the owner Vittorio Cecchi Gori, the club was forced to windup due to its huge imbalance in operating income. Since re-established in 2002, ACF Fiorentina S.p.A. are yet to self-sustain to keep the team in top division as well as in European competitions. In the 2005 financial year, which cover the first Serie A season, the club made a net loss of €9,159,356, followed by a net loss of €19,519,789. In 2006 (2005–06 Serie A and 2006–07 Serie A), Fiorentina heavily invested on players, meaning the amortisation of intangible asset (the player contract) had increased from €17.7 million to €24 million. However the club suffered from the 2006 Italian football scandal, which meant the club did not qualify for Europe. In 2007 Fiorentina almost broke-even, with a net loss of just €3,704,953. In the 2007 financial year the TV revenue increased after they qualified to the 2007–08 UEFA Cup. Despite qualifying to the 2008–09 UEFA Champions League, Fiorentina made a net loss of €9,179,484 in 2008 financial year after the increase in TV revenue was outweighed by the increase in wage. In the 2009 financial year, Fiorentina made a net profit of €4,442,803, largely due to the profit on selling players (€33,631,489 from players such as Felipe Melo, Giampaolo Pazzini and Zdravko Kuzmanović; increased from about €3.5 million in 2008). However it was also offset by the write-down of selling players (€6,062,545, from players such as Manuel da Costa, Arturo Lupoli and Davide Carcuro). After the club failed to qualify to Europe at the end of 2009–10 Serie A, as well as lack of player profit, Fiorentina turnover was decreased from €140,040,713 in 2009 to just €79,854,928, despite the wage bill also falling, "la Viola" still made a net loss of €9,604,353. In the 2011 financial year, the turnover slipped to €67,076,953, as the club's lack of capital gains from selling players and 2010 financial year still included the instalments from UEFA for participating 2009–10 UEFA Europa League. Furthermore, the gate income had dropped from €11,070,385 to €7,541,260. The wage bill did not fall much and in reverse the amortisation of transfer fee had sightly increased due to new signings. "La Viola" had savings in other costs but counter-weighted by huge €11,747,668 write-down for departed players, due to D'Agostino, Frey and Mutu, but the former would counter-weight by co-ownership financial income, which all made the operating cost remained high as worse as last year. Moreover, in 2010 the result was boosted by acquiring the asset from subsidiary (related to AC Fiorentina) and the re-valuation of its value in separate balance sheet. If deducting that income (€14,737,855), 2010 financial year was net loss 24,342,208 and 2011 result was worse with €8,131,876 only in separate balance sheet. In 2012, the club benefited from the sales of Matija Nastasić and Valon Behrami, followed by Stevan Jovetić and Adem Ljajić in 2013. In 2014, due to €28.4 million drop from the windfall profit of selling players, the club recorded their worst financial results since re-foundation, despite the fact the club maintained the same level of windfall profit, the result was still worse than in 2013. Moreover, Fiorentina also revealed that the club had a relevant football net income of minus €19.5 million in the first assessment period of UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations in the 2013–14 season (in May 2014). (aggregate of 2012 and 2013 results), which within the limit of minus €45 million, as well as minus €25.5 million in assessment period 2014–15 (aggregate of 2012, 2013 and 2014 results). However, as the limit was reduced to minus €30 million in assessment period 2015–16, 2016–17 and 2017–18 season, the club had to achieve a relevant net income of positive €5.6 million in 2015 financial year. "La Viola" sold Juan Cuadrado to Chelsea in January 2015 for €30 million fee, to make the club eligible to 2016–17 edition of UEFA competitions.
3168	1294058320	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3168	Afrobeat	Afrobeat (also known as Afrofunk) is a West African music genre, fusing influences from Nigerian (such as Yoruba) and Ghanaian (such as highlife) music, with American funk, jazz, and soul influences. With a focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion, the style was pioneered in the 1960s by Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who popularised it both within and outside Nigeria. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most "challenging and charismatic music performers." Distinct from Afrobeat is Afrobeats, a combination of sounds originating in West Africa in the 21st century. This takes on diverse influences and is an eclectic combination of genres such as hip hop, house, jùjú, ndombolo, R&B, soca, and dancehall. The two genres, though often conflated, are not the same. History. Afrobeat evolved in Nigeria in the late 1960s by Fela Anikulapo Kuti, (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun) who, with drummer Tony Allen, experimented with different contemporary music of that time. Afrobeat was influenced by a combination of different genres, such as highlife, fuji, and jùjú, as well as Yoruba vocal traditions, rhythm, and instruments. In the late 1950s, Kuti left Lagos to study abroad at the London School of Music, where he took lessons in piano and percussion and was exposed to jazz. Fela Kuti returned to Lagos and played a highlife-jazz hybrid, albeit, without commercial success. In 1969, Kuti and his band went on a trip to the U.S. and met a woman by the name of Sandra Smith, a singer and former Black Panther. Sandra Smith (now known as Sandra Izsadore or Sandra Akanke Isidore) introduced Kuti to many writings of activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, and his biggest influence of all, Malcolm X. As Kuti was interested in African-American politics, Smith would make it her duty to inform Kuti of current events; in return, Kuti would fill her in on African culture. Since Kuti stayed at Smith's house and spent so much time with her, he started to re-evaluate his music genre. That was when Kuti realized that he was not playing African music. From that day forward, Kuti changed his sound and the message behind his music. Upon arriving in Nigeria, Kuti had also changed the name of his group to "Africa '70". The new sound hailed from a club he established called the Afrika Shrine. The band maintained a five-year residency at the Afrika Shrine from 1970 to 1975 while Afrobeat thrived among Nigerian youth. Another influential person , a Nigerian musician touring from Paris, France, with his Matumbo orchestra in the 1970s. The name was partially born out of an attempt to distinguish Fela Kuti's music from the soul music of American artists such as James Brown. Prevalent in his and Lagbaja's music are native Nigerian harmonies and rhythms, taking contrasting elements and combining, modernizing, and improvising upon them. Politics is essential to Afrobeat because Kuti uses social criticism to pave the way for change. His message can be described as confrontational and controversial, which relates to the political climate of most African countries in the 1970s, many of which were dealing with political injustice and military corruption while recovering from the transition from colonial governments to self-determination. Many bands took up the style as the genre spread throughout the African continent. The recordings of these bands and their songs were rarely heard or exported outside the originating countries, but many can now be found on compilation albums and CDs from specialist record shops. Influence. Many jazz musicians have been attracted to the aromatic genre of Afrobeat. From Roy Ayers in the 1970s to Randy Weston in the 1990s, there have been collaborations that resulted in albums such as "Africa: Centre of the World" by Roy Ayers, released on the Polydore label in 1981. In 1994, Branford Marsalis, the American jazz saxophonist, included samples of Fela's "Beasts of No Nation" on his "Buckshot LeFonque" album. Afrobeat has also profoundly influenced various contemporary producers and musicians, such as Brian Eno and David Byrne, who credit Fela Kuti as an essential influence. Both worked on Talking Heads' highly acclaimed 1980 album "Remain in Light", which brought polyrhythmic Afrobeat influences to Western music. The new generation of DJs and musicians of the 2000s who have fallen in love with both Kuti's material and other rare releases have made compilations and remixes of these recordings, thus re-introducing the genre to new generations of listeners and fans of afropop and groove. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a small Afrobeat scene began in Brooklyn, New York, with projects including Antibalas, The Daktaris and the Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra. Since then, other artists like Zongo Junction have come onto the scene. Many others have cited Afrobeat as an influence, like Daptone Records-adjacent groups The Budos Band and El Michels Affair. The horn section of Antibalas have been guest musicians on TV on the Radio's highly acclaimed 2008 album "Dear Science", as well as on British band Foals' 2008 album "Antidotes". Further examples are Val Veneto, Radio Bantu, Tam Tam Afrobeat, Combo Makabro, Marabunta Orquesta, Minga!, Antropofonica, Guanabana Afrobeat Orquesta, El Gran Capitan, Morbo y Mambo, Luka Afrobeat Orquesta or NikiLauda. Some Afrobeat influence can also be found in the music of Vampire Weekend and Paul Simon. In 2020, Antibalas was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album. Afrobeat artists of the 2000s and present continue to follow in the footsteps of Fela Kuti. Some examples of these artists are his sons Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, Franck Biyong & Massak (from Cameroon), London Afrobeat Collective (from London, UK), Segun Damisa & the Afro-beat Crusaders, Shaolin Afronauts (from Adelaide, Australia), Newen Afrobeat (from Santiago, Chile), Lagos to Longbenton (based in Newcastle, UK), Eddy Taylor & the Heartphones (from Cologne, Germany), Bantucrew, the Albinoid Afrobeat Orchestra / Albinoid Sound System (from Strasbourg, France), Underground System / Underground System Afrobeat (from Brooklyn, New York), Abayomy Afrobeat Orquestra, Chicago Afrobeat Orchestra, Warsaw Afrobeat Orchestra, Karl Hector & the Malcouns (from Munich, Germany), Ojibo Afrobeat (from Vilnius, Lithuania), Afrodizz and Dele Sosimi and the ex-Africa '70 members Oghene Kologbo (guitar) with Afrobeat Academy, Nicholas Addo-Nettey (percussion), who is also known as , with Ridimtaksi (both based in Berlin, Germany). Namibian artist EES (Eric Sell) associates Afrobeat with reggae and kwaito. In 2009, the music label Knitting Factory Records (KFR) produced the Broadway musical "Fela!" The story showcased Kuti's "courage and incredible musical mastery" along with the story of his life. The show had 11 Tony nominations, receiving three for Best Costumes, Best Sound and Best Choreography. "Fela!" was on Broadway for 15 months and was produced by notables such as Shawn "Jay-Z " Carter and Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Many celebrities were noted as attending the shows, including Denzel Washington, Madonna, Sting, Spike Lee (who saw it eight times), Kofi Annan, and Michelle Obama. Michelle Williams, former singer of girl group Destiny's Child, was cast as the role of Sandra Izsadore. Fela Kuti's music has been sampled by various hip-hop musicians such as Missy Elliott, J. Cole, and Kanye West, as well as other popular acts such as Beyoncé. The "Festival de Afrobeat Independiente" (FAI) takes place regularly in Buenos Aires, where regional bands as well as renown Afrobeat acts perform.
3170	47114050	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3170	Arithmetic function	In number theory, an arithmetic, arithmetical, or number-theoretic function is generally any function whose domain is the set of positive integers and whose range is a subset of the complex numbers. Hardy & Wright include in their definition the requirement that an arithmetical function "expresses some arithmetical property of "n"". There is a larger class of number-theoretic functions that do not fit this definition, for example, the prime-counting functions. This article provides links to functions of both classes. An example of an arithmetic function is the divisor function whose value at a positive integer "n" is equal to the number of divisors of "n". Arithmetic functions are often extremely irregular (see table), but some of them have series expansions in terms of Ramanujan's sum. Multiplicative and additive functions. An arithmetic function "a" is Two whole numbers "m" and "n" are called coprime if their greatest common divisor is 1, that is, if there is no prime number that divides both of them. Then an arithmetic function "a" is Notation. In this article, formula_1 and formula_2 mean that the sum or product is over all prime numbers: formula_3 and formula_4 Similarly, formula_5 and formula_6 mean that the sum or product is over all prime powers with strictly positive exponent (so is not included): formula_7 The notations formula_8 and formula_9 mean that the sum or product is over all positive divisors of "n", including 1 and "n". For example, if , then formula_10 The notations can be combined: formula_11 and formula_12 mean that the sum or product is over all prime divisors of "n". For example, if "n" = 18, then formula_13 and similarly formula_14 and formula_15 mean that the sum or product is over all prime powers dividing "n". For example, if "n" = 24, then formula_16 Ω("n"), "ω"("n"), "ν""p"("n") – prime power decomposition. The fundamental theorem of arithmetic states that any positive integer "n" can be represented uniquely as a product of powers of primes: formula_17 where "p"1 < "p"2 < ... < "p""k" are primes and the "aj" are positive integers. (1 is given by the empty product.) It is often convenient to write this as an infinite product over all the primes, where all but a finite number have a zero exponent. Define the "p"-adic valuation ν"p"("n") to be the exponent of the highest power of the prime "p" that divides "n". That is, if "p" is one of the "p""i" then "ν""p"("n") = "a""i", otherwise it is zero. Then formula_18 In terms of the above the prime omega functions "ω" and Ω are defined by To avoid repetition, formulas for the functions listed in this article are, whenever possible, given in terms of "n" and the corresponding "p""i", "a""i", "ω", and Ω. Multiplicative functions. "σ""k"("n"), "τ"("n"), "d"("n") – divisor sums. σ"k"("n") is the sum of the "k"th powers of the positive divisors of "n", including 1 and "n", where "k" is a complex number. σ"1("n"), the sum of the (positive) divisors of "n", is usually denoted by σ"("n"). Since a positive number to the zero power is one, σ"0("n") is therefore the number of (positive) divisors of "n"; it is usually denoted by d"("n") or "τ"("n") (for the German "Teiler" = divisors). formula_19 Setting "k" = 0 in the second product gives formula_20 "φ"("n") – Euler totient function. "φ"("n"), the Euler totient function, is the number of positive integers not greater than "n" that are coprime to "n". formula_21 "J""k"("n") – Jordan totient function. "J""k"("n"), the Jordan totient function, is the number of "k"-tuples of positive integers all less than or equal to "n" that form a coprime ("k" + 1)-tuple together with "n". It is a generalization of Euler's totient, . formula_22 "μ"("n") – Möbius function. "μ"("n"), the Möbius function, is important because of the Möbius inversion formula. See "", below. formula_23 This implies that "μ"(1) = 1. (Because Ω(1) = "ω"(1) = 0.) "τ"("n") – Ramanujan tau function. "τ"("n"), the Ramanujan tau function, is defined by its generating function identity: formula_24 Although it is hard to say exactly what "arithmetical property of "n"" it "expresses", ("τ"("n") is (2"π")−12 times the "n"th Fourier coefficient in the "q"-expansion of the modular discriminant function) it is included among the arithmetical functions because it is multiplicative and it occurs in identities involving certain "σ""k"("n") and "r""k"("n") functions (because these are also coefficients in the expansion of modular forms). "c""q"("n") – Ramanujan's sum. "c""q"("n"), Ramanujan's sum, is the sum of the "n"th powers of the primitive "q"th roots of unity: formula_25 Even though it is defined as a sum of complex numbers (irrational for most values of "q"), it is an integer. For a fixed value of "n" it is multiplicative in "q": If "q" and "r" are coprime, then formula_26 "ψ"("n") – Dedekind psi function. The Dedekind psi function, used in the theory of modular functions, is defined by the formula formula_27 Completely multiplicative functions. "λ"("n") – Liouville function. "λ"("n"), the Liouville function, is defined by formula_28 "χ"("n") – characters. All Dirichlet characters "χ"("n") are completely multiplicative. Two characters have special notations: The principal character (mod "n") is denoted by "χ"0("a") (or "χ"1("a")). It is defined as formula_29 The quadratic character (mod "n") is denoted by the Jacobi symbol for odd "n" (it is not defined for even "n"): formula_30 In this formula formula_31 is the Legendre symbol, defined for all integers "a" and all odd primes "p" by formula_32 Following the normal convention for the empty product, formula_33 Additive functions. "ω"("n") – distinct prime divisors. "ω"("n"), defined above as the number of distinct primes dividing "n", is additive (see "Prime omega function"). Completely additive functions. Ω("n") – prime divisors. Ω("n"), defined above as the number of prime factors of "n" counted with multiplicities, is completely additive (see Prime omega function). "ν""p"("n") – "p"-adic valuation of an integer "n". For a fixed prime "p", "ν""p"("n"), defined above as the exponent of the largest power of "p" dividing "n", is completely additive. Logarithmic derivative. formula_34, where formula_35 is the arithmetic derivative. Neither multiplicative nor additive. "π"("x"), Π("x"), "ϑ"("x"), "ψ"("x") – prime-counting functions. These important functions (which are not arithmetic functions) are defined for non-negative real arguments, and are used in the various statements and proofs of the prime number theorem. They are summation functions (see the main section just below) of arithmetic functions which are neither multiplicative nor additive. "π"("x"), the prime-counting function, is the number of primes not exceeding "x". It is the summation function of the characteristic function of the prime numbers. formula_36 A related function counts prime powers with weight 1 for primes, 1/2 for their squares, 1/3 for cubes, etc. It is the summation function of the arithmetic function which takes the value 1/"k" on integers which are the "k"th power of some prime number, and the value 0 on other integers. formula_37 "ϑ"("x") and "ψ"("x"), the Chebyshev functions, are defined as sums of the natural logarithms of the primes not exceeding "x". formula_38 formula_39 The second Chebyshev function "ψ"("x") is the summation function of the von Mangoldt function just below. Λ("n") – von Mangoldt function. Λ("n"), the von Mangoldt function, is 0 unless the argument "n" is a prime power , in which case it is the natural logarithm of the prime "p": formula_40 "p"("n") – partition function. "p"("n"), the partition function, is the number of ways of representing "n" as a sum of positive integers, where two representations with the same summands in a different order are not counted as being different: formula_41 "λ"("n") – Carmichael function. "λ"("n"), the Carmichael function, is the smallest positive number such that formula_42 for all "a" coprime to "n". Equivalently, it is the least common multiple of the orders of the elements of the multiplicative group of integers modulo "n". For powers of odd primes and for 2 and 4, "λ"("n") is equal to the Euler totient function of "n"; for powers of 2 greater than 4 it is equal to one half of the Euler totient function of "n": formula_43 and for general "n" it is the least common multiple of "λ" of each of the prime power factors of "n": formula_44 "h"("n") – class number. "h"("n"), the class number function, is the order of the ideal class group of an algebraic extension of the rationals with discriminant "n". The notation is ambiguous, as there are in general many extensions with the same discriminant. See quadratic field and cyclotomic field for classical examples. "r""k"("n") – sum of "k" squares. "r""k"("n") is the number of ways "n" can be represented as the sum of "k" squares, where representations that differ only in the order of the summands or in the signs of the square roots are counted as different. formula_45 "D"("n") – Arithmetic derivative. Using the Heaviside notation for the derivative, the arithmetic derivative "D"("n") is a function such that Summation functions. Given an arithmetic function "a"("n"), its summation function "A"("x") is defined by formula_48 "A" can be regarded as a function of a real variable. Given a positive integer "m", "A" is constant along open intervals "m" < "x" < "m" + 1, and has a jump discontinuity at each integer for which "a"("m") ≠ 0. Since such functions are often represented by series and integrals, to achieve pointwise convergence it is usual to define the value at the discontinuities as the average of the values to the left and right: formula_49 Individual values of arithmetic functions may fluctuate wildly – as in most of the above examples. Summation functions "smooth out" these fluctuations. In some cases it may be possible to find asymptotic behaviour for the summation function for large "x". A classical example of this phenomenon is given by the divisor summatory function, the summation function of "d"("n"), the number of divisors of "n": formula_50 formula_51 formula_52 An average order of an arithmetic function is some simpler or better-understood function which has the same summation function asymptotically, and hence takes the same values "on average". We say that "g" is an "average order" of "f" if formula_53 as "x" tends to infinity. The example above shows that "d"("n") has the average order log("n"). Dirichlet convolution. Given an arithmetic function "a"("n"), let "F""a"("s"), for complex "s", be the function defined by the corresponding Dirichlet series (where it converges): formula_54 "F""a"("s") is called a generating function of "a"("n"). The simplest such series, corresponding to the constant function "a"("n") = 1 for all "n", is "ζ"("s") the Riemann zeta function. The generating function of the Möbius function is the inverse of the zeta function: formula_55 Consider two arithmetic functions "a" and "b" and their respective generating functions "F""a"("s") and "F""b"("s"). The product "F""a"("s")"F""b"("s") can be computed as follows: formula_56 It is a straightforward exercise to show that if "c"("n") is defined by formula_57 then formula_58 This function "c" is called the Dirichlet convolution of "a" and "b", and is denoted by formula_59. A particularly important case is convolution with the constant function "a"("n") = 1 for all "n", corresponding to multiplying the generating function by the zeta function: formula_60 Multiplying by the inverse of the zeta function gives the Möbius inversion formula: formula_61 If "f" is multiplicative, then so is "g". If "f" is completely multiplicative, then "g" is multiplicative, but may or may not be completely multiplicative. Relations among the functions. There are a great many formulas connecting arithmetical functions with each other and with the functions of analysis, especially powers, roots, and the exponential and log functions. The page divisor sum identities contains many more generalized and related examples of identities involving arithmetic functions. Here are a few examples: formula_62 where "λ" is the Liouville function. formula_63 formula_64 Möbius inversion formula_65 formula_66 Möbius inversion formula_67 formula_68 formula_69 formula_70 Möbius inversion formula_71 formula_72 Möbius inversion formula_73 formula_74 Möbius inversion formula_75 formula_76 where λ is the Liouville function. formula_77 formula_78 Möbius inversion Sums of squares. For all formula_79 (Lagrange's four-square theorem). formula_80 where the Kronecker symbol has the values formula_81 There is a formula for "r"3 in the section on class numbers below. formula_82 where . formula_83 where formula_84 Define the function as formula_85 That is, if "n" is odd, is the sum of the "k"th powers of the divisors of "n", that is, and if "n" is even it is the sum of the "k"th powers of the even divisors of "n" minus the sum of the "k"th powers of the odd divisors of "n". formula_86 Adopt the convention that Ramanujan's if "x" is not an integer. formula_87 Divisor sum convolutions. Here "convolution" does not mean "Dirichlet convolution" but instead refers to the formula for the coefficients of the product of two power series: formula_88 The sequence formula_89 is called the convolution or the Cauchy product of the sequences "a""n" and "b""n". These formulas may be proved analytically (see Eisenstein series) or by elementary methods. formula_90 formula_91 formula_92 formula_93 formula_94 where "τ"("n") is Ramanujan's function. Since "σ""k"("n") (for natural number "k") and "τ"("n") are integers, the above formulas can be used to prove congruences for the functions. See Ramanujan tau function for some examples. Extend the domain of the partition function by setting formula_95 This recurrence can be used to compute "p"("n"). Class number related. Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet discovered formulas that relate the class number "h" of quadratic number fields to the Jacobi symbol. An integer "D" is called a fundamental discriminant if it is the discriminant of a quadratic number field. This is equivalent to "D" ≠ 1 and either a) "D" is squarefree and "D" ≡ 1 (mod 4) or b) "D" ≡ 0 (mod 4), "D"/4 is squarefree, and "D"/4 ≡ 2 or 3 (mod 4). Extend the Jacobi symbol to accept even numbers in the "denominator" by defining the Kronecker symbol: formula_96 Then if "D" < −4 is a fundamental discriminant h(D) & = \frac{1}{D} \sum_{r=1}^r\left(\frac{D}{r}\right)\\ & = \frac{1}{2-\left(\tfrac{D}{2}\right)} \sum_{r=1}^
3172	18779361	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3172	ANSI C	ANSI C, ISO C, and Standard C are successive standards for the C programming language published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Historically, the names referred specifically to the original and best-supported version of the standard (known as C89 or C90). Software developers writing in C are encouraged to conform to the standards, as doing so helps portability between compilers. History and outlook. The first standard for C was published by ANSI. Although this document was subsequently adopted by ISO/IEC and subsequent revisions published by ISO/IEC have been adopted by ANSI, "ANSI C" is still used to refer to the standard. While some software developers use the term ISO C, others are standards-body neutral and use Standard C. Informal specification: K&R C ("C78"). Informal specification in 1978 (Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie book "The C Programming Language"). Standardizing C. In 1983, the American National Standards Institute formed a committee, X3J11, to establish a standard specification of C. In 1985, the first Standard Draft was released, sometimes referred to as "C85". In 1986, another Draft Standard was released, sometimes referred to as "C86". The prerelease Standard C was published in 1988, and sometimes referred to as "C88". C89. The ANSI standard was completed in 1989 and ratified as ANSI X3.159-1989 "Programming Language C." This version of the language is often referred to as "ANSI C". Later on sometimes the label "C89" is used to distinguish it from C90 but using the same labeling method. C90. The same standard as C89 was ratified by ISO/IEC as ISO/IEC 9899:1990, with only formatting changes, which is sometimes referred to as C90. Therefore, the terms "C89" and "C90" refer to a language that is virtually identical. This standard has been withdrawn by both ANSI/INCITS and ISO/IEC. C95. In 1995, the ISO/IEC published an extension, called Amendment 1, for the C standard. Its full name finally was "ISO/IEC 9899:1990/AMD1:1995" or nicknamed "C95". Aside from error correction there were further changes to the language capabilities, such as: In addition to the amendment, two technical corrigenda were published by ISO for C90: Preprocessor test for C95 compatibility. /* C95 compatible source code. / / C89 compatible source code. / C99. In March 2000, ANSI adopted the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard. This standard is commonly referred to as C99. Some notable additions to the previous standard include: Three technical corrigenda were published by ISO for C99: This standard has been withdrawn by both ANSI/INCITS and ISO/IEC in favour of C11. C11. C11 was officially ratified and published on December 8, 2011. Notable features include improved Unicode support, type-generic expressions using the new codice_17 keyword, a cross-platform multi-threading API (codice_18), and atomic types support in both core language and the library (codice_19). One technical corrigendum has been published by ISO for C11: C17. C17 was published in June 2018. Rather than introducing new language features, it only addresses defects in C11. C23. C23 was published in October 2024, and is the current standard for the C programming language. Other related ISO publications. As part of the standardization process, ISO/IEC also publishes technical reports and specifications related to the C language: More technical specifications are in development and pending approval, including the fifth and final part of TS 18661, a software transactional memory specification, and parallel library extensions. Support from major compilers. ANSI C is supported by almost all the widely used compilers. GCC and Clang are two major C compilers popular today, both based on the C11 with updates including changes from later specifications such as C17. Any source code written "only" in standard C and without any hardware dependent assumptions is virtually guaranteed to compile correctly on any platform with a conforming C implementation. Without such precautions, most programs may compile only on a certain platform or with a particular compiler, due, for example, to the use of non-standard libraries, such as GUI libraries, or to the reliance on compiler- or platform-specific attributes such as the exact size of certain data types and byte endianness. Compliance detectability. To mitigate the differences between K&R C and the ANSI C standard, the codice_20 ("standard c") macro can be used to split code into ANSI and K&R sections. #if defined(__STDC__) && __STDC__ extern int getopt(int, char const , const char ); #else extern int getopt(); #endif In the above example, a prototype is used in a function declaration for ANSI compliant implementations, while an obsolescent non-prototype declaration is used otherwise. Those are still ANSI-compliant as of C99. Note how this code checks both definition and evaluation: this is because some implementations may set codice_20 to zero to indicate non-ANSI compliance. Compiler support. List of compilers supporting ANSI C:
3173	48930484	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3173	Alien and Sedition Acts	The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were a set of four United States statutes that sought, on national security grounds, to restrict immigration and limit 1st Amendment protections for freedom of speech. They were endorsed by the Federalist Party of President John Adams as a response to a developing dispute with the French Republic and to related fears of domestic political subversion. The prosecution of journalists under the Sedition Act rallied public support for the opposition Democratic-Republicans, and contributed to their success in the elections of 1800. Under the new administration of Thomas Jefferson, only the Alien Enemies Act, granting the president powers of detention and deportation of foreigners in wartime or in face of a threatened invasion, remained in force. After 1800, the surviving Alien Enemies Act was invoked three times during the course of a declared war: the War of 1812, and the First and Second World Wars. Of these three invocations, the Alien Enemies Act is best known as the legal authority behind the internment of German Americans during both World Wars, as well as internment of Italian Americans and, to a lesser extent, Japanese Americans during World War II. In March 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act as his authority for expediting deportation of foreigners; this invocation is subject to ongoing litigation. History. After the American Revolutionary War concluded, France was unable to provide further loans; Congress could no longer pay its soldiers. In 1793, Congress unilaterally suspended repayment of French loans from the war, and in 1794 signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. France, engaged in the 1792 to 1797 War of the First Coalition, retaliated by having French privateers seize U.S. ships on both the Eastern Seaboard and the Caribbean. President John Adams sent envoys to Paris but was purportedly confronted with a demand by French foreign minister Talleyrand for a bribe as a condition for opening formal negotiations. The publication of in the "Philadelphia Aurora" of Talleyrand's account of what became known as the XYZ Affair initiated the first attempted prosecution under the Sedition Act. Charged with seditious libel against Adams and his Federalist administration, the Aurora's publisher Benjamin Franklin Bache died in advance of his trial. The unresolved dispute with France evolved into the Quasi-War (1798 to 1800) fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States. Believing that French military successes in Europe had been assisted by the broader appeal of French revolutionary ideals, the Adams administration proposed the Alien and Sedition acts as counter to what they presumed would be a French strategy of domestic subversion. Protests occurred across the country, with critics denouncing the Acts as an encroachment of the federal executive upon the powers of Congress and the judiciary, and a violation of the First Amendment the right to free speech, primarily intended to suppress the Democratic-Republican opposition As campaign material for his 1800 United States presidential bid, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, secretly authored a Kentucky resolution, seconded by James Madison in the Virginia legislature, asserting the right of the states to nullify the Acts as unconstitutional. Unless repealed, Jefferson suggested the legislation might drive states "into revolution and blood". Alarmed, the Federalists accused the Democratic-Republicans of shielding the subversive activities of French and French-sympathizing immigrants. The Federalist pamphleteer William Cobbett accused Bache's successor at the "Aurora", William Duane, of orchestrating a conspiracy among United Irish émigrés. Convening in Philadelphia's African Free School, and admitting, together with "all those who have suffered in the cause of freedom", free blacks, the Irish republicans had formed a society dedicated to the proposition (to which each member attested) that "a free form of government, and uncontrouled [sic] opinion on all subjects, [are] the common rights of all the human species". Against the backdrop of the Quasi War and of the Haitian Revolution (then still under the flag of the French Republic), for Cobbett, this was sufficient proof of an intention to organise slave revolts and "thus involve the whole country in rebellion and bloodshed". In protesting the Acts, Duane had argued, in letter to George Washington, for an entirely civic concept of American citizenship, one that might encompass "the Jew, the savage, the Mahometan, the idolator, upon all of whom the sun shines equally". With President John Adams naming Duane as one of the three or four men most responsible for his defeat, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans ticket triumphed in the elections of 1800. Upon assuming the presidency, Jefferson pardoned those still serving sentences under the Sedition Act, and the new Congress repaid their fines. Of the four original acts, by 1802 only the Alien Enemies Act remained. The Acts. Alien Friends Act. The Alien Friends Act (officially "An Act Concerning Aliens") authorized the president to deport any foreigner that was determined to be "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States." Once a foreigner was determined to be dangerous, or was suspected of conspiring against the government, the president had the power to set a reasonable amount of time for departure, and remaining after the time limit could result to up to three years in prison. The law was never directly enforced, but it was often used in conjunction with the Sedition Act to suppress criticism of the Adams administration. Upon enactment, the Alien Friends Act was authorized for two years, and sunset thereafter. Democratic-Republicans opposed the law, with Thomas Jefferson referring to it as "a most detestable thing... worthy of the 8th or 9th century." While the law was not directly enforced, it resulted in the voluntary departure of foreigners who feared that they would be charged under the act. The Adams administration encouraged these departures, and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering would ensure that the ships were granted passage. Though Adams did not delegate the final decision-making power, Secretary Pickering was responsible for overseeing enforcement of the Alien Friends Act. Both Adams and Pickering considered the law too weak to be effective; Pickering expressed his desire for the law to require sureties and authorize detainment prior to deportation. Many French nationals were considered for deportation but were allowed to leave willingly, or Adams declined to take action against them. These figures included: philosopher Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, General Victor Collot, scholar Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, diplomat Victor Marie du Pont. Secretary Pickering also proposed applying the act against the French diplomatic delegation to the United States, but Adams refused. Journalist John Daly Burk agreed to leave under the act informally to avoid being tried for sedition, but he went into hiding in Virginia until the act's expiration. Adams never signed a deportation order. Alien Enemies Act. The Alien Enemies Act (officially "An Act Respecting Alien Enemies") was passed to supplement the Alien Friends Act, granting the government additional powers to regulate the activity of foreigners in times of war or invasion. Under this law, the president could authorize the arrest, relocation, or deportation of any male over the age of 14 who hailed from a foreign enemy country. It also provided some legal protections for those subject to the law. Unlike the other acts, this act was largely unopposed by the Democratic-Republicans. The Alien Enemies Act did not contain a sunset clause and has sustained force and effect, codified as sections 4067 to 4070 of the Revised Statutes (50 U.S.C. 21–24). Naturalization Act. The Naturalization Act increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to 14 years and increased the notice time from three to five years. Although the law was passed under the guise of protecting national security, most historians conclude it was really intended to decrease the number of citizens, and thus voters, who disagreed with the Federalist Party. At the time, the majority of immigrants supported Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans—the political opponents of the Federalists. It did not sunset, but was repealed by the Naturalization Act of 1802. Sedition Act. The Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Sedition Act by a vote of 44 to 41. The legislation made it illegal to print "false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States." The act was used to suppress speech critical of the Adams administration, including the prosecution and conviction of many Jeffersonian newspaper owners who disagreed with the Federalist Party. The Sedition Act did not extend enforcement to speech about the Vice President, as then-incumbent Thomas Jefferson was a political opponent of the Federalist-controlled Congress. The Sedition Act was allowed to expire in 1800, and its enactment is credited with helping Jefferson win the presidential election that year. Prominent prosecutions under the Sedition Act included: The Sedition Act, which was signed into law by Adams on July 14, 1798, had been passed by Federalist-controlled Congress only after multiple amendments including a provision that it sunset in March 1801. Invocations of the Alien Enemies Act. Following the resolution of the Quasi War in 1800, and up until the second administration of President Trump in 2025, the Alien Enemies Act was invoked by the United States executive on three occasions. War of 1812. President James Madison invoked the act against British nationals during the War of 1812, and ordered them to report to local authorities in order to undertake additional duties. World War I. President Woodrow Wilson invoked the act against nationals of the Central Powers during World War I. In 1918, an amendment to the act struck the provision restricting the law to males. World War II. On December 7, 1941, in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the authority of the revised Alien Enemies Act to make presidential proclamations #2525 (Alien Enemies – Japanese), #2526 (Alien Enemies – German), and #2527 (Alien Enemies – Italian), in order to apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove Japanese, German, and Italian foreigners. However, most of the 120,000 persons of Japanese descent incarcerated in U.S. internment camps were U.S. citizens detained solely on the basis of their Japanese ancestry, under the authority of Executive Order 9066 issued by Roosevelt early in 1942. The order was issued on the basis of wartime and national defense statutes unrelated to the Alien Enemies Act, and while deployed primarily against Japanese Americans did lead to the detention of smaller numbers of U.S. citizens of German and Italian descent. Hostilities with Germany and Italy ended in May 1945, and President Harry S. Truman issued presidential proclamation #2655 on July 14. The proclamation gave the attorney general authority regarding enemy aliens within the continental United States, to decide whether they are "dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United States," to order them removed, and to create regulations governing their removal, citing the Alien Enemies Act. On September 8, 1945, Truman issued presidential proclamation #2662, which authorized the secretary of state to remove enemy aliens that had been sent to the United States from Latin American countries. On April 10, 1946, Truman's proclamation #2685 modified previous proclamations, and set a 30-day deadline for removal. In "Ludecke v. Watkins" (1948), the Supreme Court interpreted the time of release under the Alien Enemies Act. German alien Kurt G. W. Lüdecke was detained on December 8, 1941, under Proclamation 2526, and continued to be held after cessation of hostilities. In 1947, Lüdecke petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus to order his release, after the attorney general ordered him deported. The court ruled 5–4 to affirm the district court and appellate decisions to deny the writ of habeas corpus. The Court also concluded that the Alien Enemies Act allowed for detainment beyond the time hostilities ceased until an actual treaty was signed with the hostile nation or government or the until the president determines that hostilities have concluded. President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which conceded that the internment of Japanese Americans had been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership", and authorizing compensation for survivors. Peacetime use against Venezuelans. On September 20, 2024, amid increased numbers of Venezuelan asylum seekers seeking refuge in the United States, then-nominee Donald Trump announced that if elected president for a second term he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act to expedite the removal of foreigners and criminal networks operating in the United States. On October 27, 2024, he again invoked the Alien Enemies Act during a campaign rally held at Madison Square Garden, claiming that he would use it to remove illegal immigrants operating within gangs and criminal networks on "day one" of his presidency. Trump repeated his intentions in his second inaugural address on January 20, 2025, and on March 14, he signed a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act against what he termed an invasion being perpetrated or attempted by the Venezuelan criminal gang, Tren de Aragua. The following day he authorized the deportation of Venezuelan suspected gang members to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador. Trump's executive order was temporarily blocked the same day by Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, following a lawsuit, "J.G.G. v. Trump", seeking to stop the deportations. On April 7, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated Judge Boasberg's temporary restraining order and held that the plaintiffs must bring the lawsuit in Texas, where they are being held, not in Washington, D.C. The court also ruled that the government must provide sufficient notice to the plaintiffs and an opportunity to challenge the deportation. The ruling did not address the constitutionality of the deportation. On April 19, 2025, in a signal that the majority of justices did not trust that the Trump administration was complying with the April 7 ruling, the Supreme Court issued an emergency late-night order in "A.A.R.P. v. Trump," halting the deportation process in the Northern District of Texas. According to court filings, the government intended to fly the Venezuelan detainees out of the country within 24 hours.
3175	13888283	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3175	Antinomy	In philosophy, an antinomy (Ancient Greek: 'against' + 'law') is a real or apparent contradiction between two conclusions, both of which seem justified. It is a term used in logic and epistemology, particularly in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Antinomy is a common form of argument in the dialogues of Plato. Kant credited Zeno of Elea (see Zeno's paradoxes) as the inventor of the antinomic mode of argumentation, which he described as a "skeptical method" of "watching, or rather provoking, a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of deciding in favor of one or the other side, but of investigating whether the object of the controversy is not perhaps a deceptive appearance which each vainly tries to grasp, and in regard to which, even if there were no opposition to overcome, neither can arrive at any result". The antinomic procedure was further developed by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Hegel said that Kant was in error when he limited the antinomies to cosmological ideas, claiming that the world itself contains contradiction. Schopenhauer said that the antitheses in Kant's antinomies were justified, but claimed the theses (cosmological propositions) to be sophisms. There are many examples of antinomy. A self-contradictory phrase such as "There is no absolute truth" can be considered an antinomy because this statement is suggesting in itself to be an absolute truth, and therefore denies itself any truth in its statement. It is not necessarily also a paradox. A paradox, such as "this sentence is false," can also be considered to be an antinomy; in this case, for the sentence to be true, it must be false. Terminology. Antinomies can be found in Plato, in substance though not by this name (cf. Phaedo 102; Rep. 523 ff., Parm. 135 E). Modern usage dates back to a 17th-century legal term, which acquired philosophical significance in Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" (CPR). In the "Transcendental Dialectic," Kant defines an antinomy as a "conflict of laws" (CPR A407/B434). Kant's use of the term was derived from jurisprudence, where it refers to a conflict between laws, and from biblical exegesis, where it refers to conflict between passages of scripture. In modern logic, the term "antinomy" is not used consistently and is sometimes not clearly distinguished from the term paradox. In the German language, however, it is customary to reserve the term "antinomy" for contradictions that can be rigorously proven within the framework of a formal system and which thus indicate an error in the conception of the rules of inference or the axioms of that system (e.g. the antinomies of naive set theory, the best known being Russell's paradox). In contrast, a paradox (Ancient Greek παρά "para" "beside, apart" and δόξα "doxa" "expectation, opinion", παράδοξον "paradoxon" "contrary to expectation, contrary to common opinion") is usually used to describe a well-founded statement that contradicts conventional wisdom, but which does not cause any real logical difficulties. Many scientific insights can appear paradoxical in this harmless sense (e.g., the twin paradox in Einstein's theory of relativity or the so-called paradoxes of material implication in formal logic; see relevance logic). In English, the term "antinomy" is not particularly widespread and its application is mostly limited to Kantian antinomies. In modern logic, a "contradiction" is simply understood as the conjunction of a statement and its negation, i.e. a statement of the form formula_1 (read: "A and not-A"). This broad term is neutral with regard to the question of provability or justifiability, and includes, for example, contradictions that are derived within a proof by contradiction specifically for the purpose of negating one of the assumptions involved in the derivation. Therefore, not all contradiction is philosophically problematic. Separately from this usage, the word "contradiction" is also used in Hegelian dialectics, where it includes social conflict, antagonisms and such. Kant's use. The term acquired a special significance in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), who used it to describe the equally rational but contradictory results of applying to the universe of pure thought the categories or criteria of reason that are proper to the universe of sensible perception or experience (phenomena). Empirical reason cannot here play the role of establishing rational truths because it goes beyond possible experience and is applied to the sphere of that which transcends it. For Kant there are four antinomies, connected with: In each antinomy, a thesis is contradicted by an antithesis. For example: in the first antinomy, Kant proves the thesis that time must have a beginning by showing that if time had no beginning, then an infinity would have elapsed up until the present moment. This is a manifest contradiction because infinity cannot, by definition, be completed by "successive synthesis"—yet just such a finalizing synthesis would be required by the view that time is infinite; so the thesis is proven. Then he proves the antithesis, that time has no beginning, by showing that if time had a beginning, then there must have been "empty time" out of which time arose. This is incoherent (for Kant) for the following reason: Since, necessarily, no time elapses in this pretemporal void, then there could be no alteration, and therefore nothing (including time) would ever come to be: so the antithesis is proven. Reason makes equal claim to each proof, since they are both correct, so the question of the limits of time must be regarded as meaningless. This was part of Kant's critical program of determining limits to science and philosophical inquiry. These contradictions are inherent in reason when it is applied to the world as it is in itself, independently of any perception of it (this has to do with the distinction between phenomena and noumena). Kant's goal in his critical philosophy was to identify what claims are and are not justified, and the antinomies are a particularly illustrative example of his larger project. Marx's use. In the book "Das Kapital, Volume I" in the chapter "The Working Day", Karl Marx claims that capitalist production sustains "the assertion of a right to an unlimited working day, and the assertion of a right to a limited working day, both with equal justification". Author James Furner claims that the thesis and antithesis of this antinomy are not contradictory opposites, but rather "consist in the assertion of rights to states of affairs that are contradictory opposites".
3189	40727880	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3189	Ascending chain condition	In mathematics, the ascending chain condition (ACC) and descending chain condition (DCC) are finiteness properties satisfied by some algebraic structures, most importantly ideals in certain commutative rings. These conditions played an important role in the development of the structure theory of commutative rings in the works of David Hilbert, Emmy Noether, and Emil Artin. The conditions themselves can be stated in an abstract form, so that they make sense for any partially ordered set. This point of view is useful in abstract algebraic dimension theory due to Gabriel and Rentschler. Definition. A partially ordered set (poset) "P" is said to satisfy the ascending chain condition (ACC) if no infinite strictly ascending sequence formula_1 of elements of "P" exists. Equivalently, every weakly ascending sequence formula_2 of elements of "P" eventually stabilizes, meaning that there exists a positive integer "n" such that formula_3 Similarly, "P" is said to satisfy the descending chain condition (DCC) if there is no infinite strictly descending chain of elements of "P". Equivalently, every weakly descending sequence formula_4 of elements of "P" eventually stabilizes. Example. Consider the ring formula_5 of integers. Each ideal of formula_6 consists of all multiples of some number formula_7. For example, the ideal formula_8 consists of all multiples of formula_9. Let formula_10 be the ideal consisting of all multiples of formula_11. The ideal formula_12 is contained inside the ideal formula_13, since every multiple of formula_9 is also a multiple of formula_11. In turn, the ideal formula_13 is contained in the ideal formula_6, since every multiple of formula_11 is a multiple of formula_19. However, at this point there is no larger ideal; we have "topped out" at formula_6. In general, if formula_21 are ideals of formula_6 such that formula_23 is contained in formula_24, formula_24 is contained in formula_26, and so on, then there is some formula_7 for which all formula_28. That is, after some point all the ideals are equal to each other. Therefore, the ideals of formula_6 satisfy the ascending chain condition, where ideals are ordered by set inclusion. Hence formula_6 is a Noetherian ring.
3192	361018	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3192	Adin Steinsaltz	Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (; 11 July 19377 August 2020) was an Israeli Chabad Chasidic rabbi, teacher, philosopher, social critic, author, translator and publisher. His "" was originally published in modern Hebrew, with a running commentary to facilitate learning, and has also been translated into English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Beginning in 1989, Steinsaltz published several tractates in Hebrew and English of the Babylonian (Bavli) Talmud in an English-Hebrew edition. The first volume of a new English-Hebrew edition, the Koren Talmud Bavli, was released in May 2012, and has since been brought to completion. Steinsaltz was a recipient of the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies (1988), the President's Medal (2012), and the Yakir Yerushalayim prize (2017). Steinsaltz died in Jerusalem on 7 August 2020 from acute pneumonia. Biography. Adin Steinsaltz was born in Jerusalem on 11 July 1937 to Avraham Steinsaltz and Leah (née Krokovitz). His father was a great-grandson of the first Slonimer Rebbe, Avrohom Weinberg, and was a student of Hillel Zeitlin. Avraham and Leah Steinsaltz met through Zeitlin. They immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1924. Avraham Steinsaltz, a devoted communist and member of Lehi, went to Spain in 1936 to fight with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Adin was born the following year. Steinsaltz became a baal teshuva during his teenage years and learned from Rabbi Shmuel Elazar Heilprin (Rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Toras Emes Chabad). He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in addition to rabbinical studies at Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim in Lod and with Dov Ber Eliezrov and Shmaryahu Noach Sasonkin. Following graduation, he established several experimental schools after an unsuccessful attempt to start a neo-Hassidic community in the Negev, and, at the age of 24, became Israel's youngest school principal. In 1965, he founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and began his work on the Talmud, including translation into Hebrew, English, Russian, and various other languages. The Steinsaltz editions of the Talmud include translation from the original Aramaic and a comprehensive commentary. Steinsaltz completed his Hebrew edition of the entire Babylonian Talmud in November 2010, at which time Koren Publishers Jerusalem became the publisher of all of his works, including the Talmud. While not without criticism (such as by Jacob Neusner in 1998), the Steinsaltz edition is widely used throughout Israel, the United States, and the world. Steinsaltz's classic work on Kabbalah, "The Thirteen Petalled Rose", was first published in 1980 and now appears in eight languages. In all, Steinsaltz authored some 60 books and hundreds of articles on subjects including Talmud, Jewish mysticism, Jewish philosophy, sociology, historical biography, and philosophy. Many of these works were translated into English by his close friend, Yehuda Hanegbi. His memoir-biography on the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was published by Maggid Books (2014). Continuing his work as a teacher and spiritual mentor, Steinsaltz joined the original faculty of the nondenominational Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 1972, along with David Hartman, Eliezer Schweid, Menachem Froman, Dov Berkovits, and others. He established Yeshivat Makor Chaim alongside Rabbis Menachem Froman and Shimon Gershon Rosenberg in 1984 and Yeshivat Tekoa in 1999. He also served as president of the Shefa Middle and High Schools. He has served as scholar in residence at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His honorary degrees include doctorates from Yeshiva University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Bar Ilan University, Brandeis University, and Florida International University. Steinsaltz was also Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Hesder Tekoa. Being a follower of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Chabad, he went to help Jews in the Soviet Union assisting Chabad's "shluchim" (emissaries) network. In 1995, the chief rabbi of Russia, Adolf Shayevich, gave Steinzaltz the title of "Duchovny Ravin" ("Spiritual Rabbi"), a historic Russian title that indicated that he was the spiritual mentor of Russian Jewry. In this capacity, Steinsaltz travelled to Russia and the Republics once each month from his home in Jerusalem. During his time in the former Soviet Union, he founded the Jewish University, both in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The Jewish University is the first degree-granting institution of Jewish studies in the former Soviet Union. In 1991, on Schneersohn's advice, he changed his family name from Steinsaltz to Even-Israel, 'Stone of Israel' in English. Schneersohn suggested the name Even Melach, 'Salt Stone' in English, as recorded in his meeting with the Rebbe in 1990. Besides Chabad, Steinsaltz was also inspired by the teachings of Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. He was in close contact with the fifth Gerrer Rebbe, Yisrael Alter, and his brother and successor, Simcha Bunim Alter. Steinsaltz took a cautious approach to interfaith dialogue. During a visit of a delegation of Roman Catholic cardinals in Manhattan in January 2004, he said that, "You do not have to raise over-expectations of a meeting, as it doesn't signify in itself a breakthrough; however, the opportunity for cardinals and rabbis to speak face to face is valuable. It's part of a process in which we can talk to each other in a friendly way", and called for "a theological dialogue that asks the tough questions, such as whether Catholicism allows for Jews to enter eternal paradise". Steinsaltz and his wife lived in Jerusalem until his death and had three children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In 2016, Steinsaltz suffered a stroke, leaving him unable to speak. His son, Rabbi Menachem ("Meni") Even-Israel, is the executive director of the Steinsaltz Center, Steinsaltz's umbrella organization located in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Steinsaltz died in Jerusalem on 7 August 2020, from acute pneumonia at the Shaare Tzedek Medical Center. He was hospitalized earlier in the week with a severe lung infection. His wife Sarah survived him, together with three children and eighteen grandchildren. As an author. Steinsaltz was a prolific author and commentator who wrote numerous books on Jewish knowledge, tradition and culture, and produced original commentaries on a huge portion of the Jewish canon: Tanakh (the Jewish bible), the Babylonian Talmud, the Mishna, the Mishneh Torah, Tanya, and Torah Or/Likutei Torah. His published works include: As a speaker. Steinsaltz was invited to speak at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies at Yale University in 1979. Prior to his stroke, he gave evening seminars in Jerusalem, which, according to "Newsweek", usually lasted until 2:00 in the morning and attracted prominent politicians, such as the former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and former Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir. Awards and critical reception. On 21 April 1988, Steinsaltz received the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies. On 9 February 2012, Steinsaltz was honored by Israeli President Shimon Peres with Israel's first President's Prize alongside Zubin Mehta, Uri Slonim, Henry Kissinger, Judy Feld Carr, and the Rashi Foundation.[15] Steinsaltz was presented with this award for his contribution to the study of Talmud, making it more accessible to Jews worldwide. Steinsaltz was also presented with the 2012 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Modern Jewish Thought & Experience by the Jewish Book Council for his commentary, translation, and notes in the Koren Babylonian Talmud. The Modern Jewish Thought & Experience award was awarded on 15 January 2013 in memory of Joy Ungerleider Mayerson by the Dorot Foundation. On 22 May 2017, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat visited Steinsaltz at his home to present him with the Yakir Yerushalayim ("Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem") medal. This medal of achievement was awarded to Steinsaltz for his writing and translating work. On 10 June 2018, Steinsaltz was honored at a Gala Dinner at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem for his pedagogical achievements throughout a lifetime dedicated to Jewish education. A limited-edition version of "The Steinsaltz Humash" was presented to the attendees of this event. Public reception. Academic criticism. Jacob Neusner published an attack on the Reference Guide in 1998, strongly disagreeing with several claims in the Guide. In what was an overall favorable review, Dr. Jeremy Brown notes that the contains some inaccurate scientific information, such as identifying Ursa Major as a star and describing polycythemia vera as a disease causing excessive bleeding from the gums and from ordinary cuts. Aharon Feldman penned a lengthy critical review of the Steinsaltz Talmud contending that the work "is marred by an extraordinary number of inaccuracies stemming primarily from misreadings of the sources; it fails to explain those difficult passages which the reader would expect it to explain; and it confuses him with notes which are often irrelevant, incomprehensible, and contradictory." Feldman says he fears that, "An intelligent student utilizing the Steinsaltz Talmud as his personal instructor might in fact conclude that Talmud in general is not supposed to make sense." Furthermore, writes Feldman, the Steinsaltz Talmud gives off the impression that the Talmud is "intellectually flabby, inconsistent, and often trivial." Haredi reaction and ban. Publication of the Steinsaltz Hebrew translation of the Talmud in the 1960s received endorsements from prominent rabbis including Moshe Feinstein and Ovadia Yosef. However, in 1989, when the English version appeared, Steinsaltz faced a fierce backlash from many leading rabbis in Israel such as Harav Elazar Shach, Harav Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, Harav Eliezer Waldenberg, Harav Nissim Karelitz, Harav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, and Harav Shmuel Wosner, who harshly condemned his work and other publications. Branding him a heretic, Rav Shach was at the forefront of a campaign which banned all his works, believing that his literary and psychological explanations of biblical characters and events rendered them heretical. He also slated his translation of the Talmud, describing it as being written in the style of a secular book causing "any trace of holiness and faith to vanish." Waldenberg wrote that he was shocked to see the way in which Steinsaltz described the Patriarchs and Talmudic sages, writing that the works had the power to "poison the souls" of those who read them. Striking a more conciliatory tone in the controversy, however, were the Gerer Hasidim who praised his works and commended him on his willingness to amend various passages "which could have been misconstrued." After the Jerusalem-based Edah Charedis limited the ban to three books, Steinsaltz publicly apologised for his error and offered to refund anyone who had bought the books. The ban nevertheless caused thousands of schools and individuals to discard the Steinsaltz Talmud, with Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl ordering all copies to be placed in "genizah". This led to more liberal Jewish movements placing adverts in the press asking for the edition to be donated to their institutions instead. For his part, Steinsaltz countered that much of the criticism he faced was rooted in opposition to the Chabad-Lubavitch community with which he was affiliated. Praise. While certain members of the Haredi community may have opposition to Steinsaltz's works, other Jewish leaders, rabbis, and authors have spoken or written about their appreciation for Steinsaltz's unique educational approach. Rabbi John Rosove of Temple Israel of Hollywood featured "Opening The Tanya", "Learning the Tanya", and "Understanding the Tanya" on his list of the top ten recommended Jewish books. These volumes are written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, and include commentary by Steinsaltz. Through reading the Tanya, readers can explore all aspects of the central text of Chabad movement. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, a rosh yeshiva and the CEO of Mechon Hadar Yeshiva, discussed his gratitude for Steinsaltz's Global Day of Jewish Learning and the opportunity created by this online platform for learning and creating a deeper connection to Torah, other Jewish text, and Jews worldwide. Rabbi Pinchas Allouche, who studied under Steinsaltz, notes that Steinsaltz "is a world scholar" who "revolutionized the Jewish landscape" through his commentary, other writings, and educational organizations. In 1988, secular Israeli historian Zeev Katz compared Steinsaltz's importance to that of Rashi and Maimonides, two Jewish scholars of medieval times. In addition, Ilana Kurshan, an American-Israeli author, wrote that Steinsaltz's ability to bring "the historical world of the Talmudic stages to life" created an enjoyable Jewish learning experience for her when she was intensely studying Talmud.
3198	8372814	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3198	A. E. Housman	Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in "literae humaniores" and took employment as a patent examiner in London in 1882. In his spare time he engaged in textual criticism of classical Greek and Latin texts, and his publications as an independent researcher earned him a high academic reputation and appointment as professor of Latin at University College London in 1892. In 1911 he became the Kennedy Professor of Latin at the University of Cambridge. Today he is regarded as one of the foremost classicists of his age and one of the greatest classical scholars of any time. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius, and Lucan are still considered authoritative. In 1896, Housman published "A Shropshire Lad", a cycle of poems marked by the author's pessimism and preoccupation with early death, which gradually acquired a wide readership and appealed particularly to a younger audience during World War I. Another collection, entitled "Last Poems", appeared in 1922. Housman's poetry became popular for musical settings. Following his death, further poems from his notebooks were published by his brother Laurence. Early life. The eldest of seven children, Housman was born at Valley House in Fockbury, a hamlet on the outskirts of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, to Sarah Jane (née Williams, married 17 June 1858 in Woodchester, Gloucester) and Edward Housman (whose family came from Lancaster), and was baptised on 24 April 1859 at Christ Church, in Catshill. His mother died on his twelfth birthday, and his father, a country solicitor, then married an elder cousin, Lucy, in 1873. Two of his siblings became prominent writers, sister Clemence Housman and brother Laurence Housman. Housman was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and later Bromsgrove School, where he revealed his academic promise and won prizes for his poems. In 1877, he won an open scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, and went there to study classics. Although introverted by nature, Housman formed strong friendships with two roommates, Moses John Jackson (1858–1923) and A. W. Pollard. Though Housman obtained a first in classical Moderations in 1879, his dedication to textual analysis led him to neglect the ancient history and philosophy that formed part of the Greats curriculum. Accordingly, he failed his Finals and had to return humiliated in Michaelmas term to resit the exam and at least gain a lower-level pass degree. Though some attribute Housman's unexpected performance in his exams directly to his unrequited feelings for Jackson, most biographers adduce more obvious causes. Housman was indifferent to philosophy and overconfident in his exceptional gifts, and he spent too much time with his friends. He may also have been distracted by news of his father's desperate illness. After Oxford, Jackson went to work as a clerk in the Patent Office in London and he also arranged a job there for Housman. The two shared a flat at 82 Talbot Road, Bayswater, with Jackson's brother Adalbert until 1885, when Housman moved to lodgings of his own, probably after Jackson responded to a declaration of love by telling Housman that he could not reciprocate his feelings. Two years later, Jackson moved to India, placing more distance between himself and Housman. When he returned briefly to England in 1889 to marry, Housman was not invited to the wedding and knew nothing about it until the couple had left the country. Adalbert Jackson died in 1892 and Housman commemorated him in a poem published as "XLII – A.J.J." of "More Poems" (1936). Meanwhile, Housman pursued his classical studies independently, and published scholarly articles on Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. He also completed an edition of Propertius, which however was rejected by both Oxford University Press and Macmillan in 1885, and was destroyed after his death. He gradually acquired such a high reputation that in 1892 he was offered and accepted the professorship of Latin at University College London (UCL). When, during his tenure, an immensely rare Coverdale Bible of 1535 was discovered in the UCL library and presented to the Library Committee, Housman (who had become an atheist while at Oxford) remarked that it would be better to sell it to "buy some really useful books with the proceeds". Later life. Although Housman's early work and his responsibilities as a professor included both Latin and Greek, he began to specialise in Latin poetry. When asked later why he had stopped writing about Greek verse, he responded, "I found that I could not attain to excellence in both." In 1911 he took the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life. Between 1903 and 1930, Housman published his critical edition of Manilius's "Astronomicon" in five volumes. He also edited Juvenal (1905) and Lucan (1926). G. P. Goold, Classics Professor at University College, wrote of his predecessor's accomplishments that "the legacy of Housman's scholarship is a thing of permanent value; and that value consists less in obvious results, the establishment of general propositions about Latin and the removal of scribal mistakes, than in the shining example he provides of a wonderful mind at work … He was and may remain the last great textual critic". In the eyes of Harry Eyres, however, Housman was "famously dry" as a professor, and his influence led to a scholarly style in the study of literature and poetry that was philological and without emotion. Many colleagues were unnerved by Housman's scathing attacks on those he thought guilty of shoddy scholarship. In his paper "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism" (1921) he wrote: "A textual critic engaged upon his business is not at all like Newton investigating the motion of the planets: he is much more like a dog hunting for fleas". He declared many of his contemporary scholars to be stupid, lazy, vain, or all three, saying: "Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders, and brains, not pudding, in your head". His younger colleague, A. S. F. Gow, quoted examples of these attacks, noting that they "were often savage in the extreme". Gow also related how Housman intimidated students, sometimes reducing the women to tears. According to Gow, Housman could never remember the names of female students, maintaining that "had he burdened his memory by the distinction between Miss Jones and Miss Robinson, he might have forgotten that between the second and fourth declension". Among the more notable students at his Cambridge lectures was Enoch Powell, one of whose own Classical emendations was later complimented by Housman. In his private life, Housman enjoyed country walks, gastronomy, air travel and making frequent visits to France, where he read "books which were banned in Britain as pornographic" but he struck A. C. Benson, a fellow don, as being "descended from a long line of maiden aunts". His feelings about his poetry were ambivalent and he certainly treated it as secondary to his scholarship. He did not speak in public about his poems until 1933, when he gave a lecture "The Name and Nature of Poetry", arguing there that poetry should appeal to emotions rather than to the intellect. Housman died, aged 77, in Cambridge. His ashes are buried just outside St Laurence's Church, Ludlow. A cherry tree was planted there in his memory (see "A Shropshire Lad" II) and replaced by the Housman Society in 2003 with a new cherry tree nearby. Poetry. "A Shropshire Lad". During his years in London, Housman completed "A Shropshire Lad", a cycle of 63 poems. After one publisher had turned it down, he helped subsidise its publication in 1896. At first selling slowly, it rapidly became a lasting success. Its appeal to English musicians had helped to make it widely known before World War I, when its themes struck a powerful chord with English readers. The book has been in print continuously since May 1896. The poems are marked by pessimism and preoccupation with death, without religious consolation (Housman had become an atheist while still an undergraduate). Housman wrote many of them while living in Highgate, London, before ever visiting Shropshire, which he presented in an idealised pastoral light as his 'land of lost content'. Housman himself acknowledged that "No doubt I have been unconsciously influenced by the Greeks and Latins, but [the] chief sources of which I am conscious are Shakespeare's songs, the Scottish Border ballads, and Heine". Later collections. Housman began collecting a new set of poems after the First World War. His early work was an influence on many British poets who became famous by their writing about the war, and he wrote several poems as occasional verse to commemorate the war dead. This included his "Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries", honouring the British Expeditionary Force, an elite but small force of professional soldiers sent to Belgium at the start of the war. In the early 1920s, when Moses Jackson was dying in Canada, Housman wanted to assemble his best unpublished poems so that Jackson could read them before his death. These later poems, mostly written before 1910, show a greater variety of subject and form than those in "A Shropshire Lad" but lack its consistency. He published his new collection as "Last Poems" (1922), feeling that his inspiration was exhausted and that he should not publish more in his lifetime. After Housman's death in 1936, his brother, Laurence published further poems in "More Poems" (1936), "A. E .H.: Some Poems, Some Letters and a Personal Memoir by his Brother" (1937), and "Collected Poems" (1939). "A. E. H." includes humorous verse such as a parody of Longfellow's poem "Excelsior". Housman also wrote a parodic , in English, first published in 1883 in "The Bromsgrovian", the magazine of his old school, and frequently reprinted. John Sparrow quoted a letter written late in Housman's life that described the genesis of his poems: Sparrow himself adds, "How difficult it is to achieve a satisfactory analysis may be judged by considering the last poem in "A Shropshire Lad". Of its four stanzas, Housman tells us that two were 'given' him ready made; one was coaxed forth from his subconsciousness an hour or two later; the remaining one took months of conscious composition. No one can tell for certain which was which." "De Amicitia" (Of Friendship). In 1942, Laurence Housman also deposited an essay entitled "A. E. Housman's 'De Amicitia'" in the British Library, with the proviso that it was not to be published for 25 years. The essay discussed A. E. Housman's homosexuality and his love for Moses Jackson. Despite the conservative nature of the times and his own caution in public life, Housman was quite open in his poetry, and especially in "A Shropshire Lad", about his deeper sympathies. Poem XXX of that sequence, for instance, speaks of how "Fear contended with desire": "Others, I am not the first, / Have willed more mischief than they durst". In "More Poems", he buries his love for Moses Jackson in the very act of commemorating it, as his feelings of love are not reciprocated and must be carried unfulfilled to the grave: His poem "Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?", written after the trial of Oscar Wilde, addressed more general attitudes towards homosexuals. In the poem the prisoner is suffering "for the colour of his hair", a natural quality that, in a coded reference to homosexuality, is reviled as "nameless and abominable" (recalling the legal phrase "peccatum illud horribile, inter Christianos non nominandum", "that horrible sin, not to be named amongst Christians"). Musical settings. Housman's poetry, especially "A Shropshire Lad", was set to music by many British, and in particular English, composers in the first half of the 20th century. The national, pastoral and traditional elements of his style resonated with similar trends in English music. In 1904, the cycle "A Shropshire Lad" was set by Arthur Somervell, who in 1898 had begun to develop the concept of the English song-cycle in his version of Tennyson's "Maud". Stephen Banfield believes it was acquaintance with Somervell's cycle that led other composers to set Housman: Ralph Vaughan Williams is likely to have attended the first performance at the Aeolian Hall on 3 February 1905. His well-known cycle of six songs "On Wenlock Edge", for string quartet, tenor and piano, was published in 1909. Between 1909 and 1911, George Butterworth produced settings in two collections, "Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad" and "Bredon Hill and Other Songs". He also wrote the orchestral tone poem "A Shropshire Lad", first performed at Leeds Festival in 1912. Ivor Gurney was another composer who made renowned settings of Housman's poems. Towards the end of World War I, he was working on his cycle "Ludlow and Teme", for voice and string quartet (published in 1919), and went on to compose the eight-song cycle "The Western Playland" in 1921. One more who set Housman songs during this period was John Ireland in the song cycle, "The Land of Lost Content" (192021). Charles Wilfred Orr produced 24 Housman settings in songs and song cycles composed from the 1920s into the 1950s. Even composers not directly associated with the 'pastoral' tradition, such as Arnold Bax, Lennox Berkeley and Arthur Bliss, were attracted to Housman's poetry. Housman's attitude to musical interpretations of his poetry, and indeed to music in general, was either indifference or torment. He told his friend Percy Withers that he knew nothing of music and it meant nothing to him. Withers once played him a record of the Vaughan Williams setting, but realised he had made a mistake when he saw the look of disgust on the poet's face. Nevertheless, by 1976, a catalogue listed 400 musical settings of Housman's poems. As of 2024, Lieder Net Archive records 678 settings of 188 texts. Commemorations. The earliest commemoration of Housman was in the chapel of Trinity College in Cambridge, where there is a memorial brass on the south wall. The Latin inscription was composed by his colleague there, A. S. F. Gow, who was also the author of a biographical and bibliographical sketch published immediately following his death. Translated into English, the memorial reads: From 1947, University College London's academic common room was dedicated to his memory as the Housman Room. Blue plaques followed later elsewhere, the first being on Byron Cottage in Highgate in 1969, recording the fact that "A Shropshire Lad" was written there. More followed, placed on his Worcestershire birthplace, his homes and school in Bromsgrove. The latter were encouraged by the Housman Society, which was founded in the town in 1973. Another initiative was the statue in Bromsgrove High Street, showing the poet striding with walking stick in hand. The work of local sculptor Kenneth Potts, it was unveiled on 22 March 1985. The blue plaques in Worcestershire were set up on the centenary of "A Shropshire Lad" in 1996. In September of the same year, a memorial window lozenge was dedicated at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey The following year saw the première of Tom Stoppard's play "The Invention of Love", whose subject is the relationship between Housman and Moses Jackson. As the 150th anniversary of his birth approached, London University inaugurated its Housman lectures on classical subjects in 2005, initially given every second year then annually after 2011. The anniversary itself in 2009 saw the publication of a new edition of "A Shropshire Lad", including pictures from across Shropshire taken by local photographer Gareth Thomas. Among other events, there were performances of Vaughan Williams's "On Wenlock Edge" and Ivor Gurney's "Ludlow and Teme" at St Laurence's Church in Ludlow. Works. Published lectures. These lectures are listed by date of delivery, with date of first publication given separately if different. Prose collections. "Selected Prose", edited by John Carter, Cambridge University Press, 1961
3201	27015025	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3201	Causes of climate change	The scientific community has been investigating the causes of climate change for decades. After thousands of studies, the scientific consensus is that it is "unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land since pre-industrial times." This consensus is supported by around 200 scientific organizations worldwide. The scientific principle underlying current climate change is the greenhouse effect, which provides that greenhouse gases pass sunlight that heats the earth, but trap some of the resulting heat that radiates from the planet's surface. Large amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane have been released into the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution. Indirect emissions from land use change, emissions of other greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, and increased concentrations of water vapor in the atmosphere, also contribute to climate change. The warming from the greenhouse effect has a logarithmic relationship with the concentration of greenhouse gases. This means that every additional fraction of and the other greenhouse gases "in the atmosphere" has a slightly smaller warming effect than the fractions before it as the "total" concentration increases. However, only around half of emissions continually reside in the atmosphere in the first place, as the other half is quickly absorbed by carbon sinks in the land and oceans. Further, the warming per unit of greenhouse gases is also affected by feedbacks, such as the changes in water vapor concentrations or Earth's albedo (reflectivity). As the warming from increases, carbon sinks absorb a smaller fraction of total emissions, while the "fast" climate change feedbacks amplify greenhouse gas warming. Thus, the effects counteract one another, and the warming from each unit of emitted by humans increases temperature in linear proportion to the total amount of emissions. Further, some fraction of the greenhouse warming has been "masked" by the human-caused emissions of sulfur dioxide, which forms aerosols that have a cooling effect. However, this masking has been receding in the recent years, due to measures to combat acid rain and air pollution caused by sulfates. Factors affecting Earth's climate. A forcing is something that is imposed externally on the climate system. External forcings include natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and variations in the sun's output. Human activities can also impose forcings, for example, through changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Radiative forcing is a measure of how various factors alter the energy balance of planet Earth. A positive radiative forcing will lead towards a warming of the surface and, over time, the climate system. Between the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750, and the year 2005, the increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (chemical formula: ) led to a positive radiative forcing, averaged over the Earth's surface area, of about 1.66 watts per square metre (abbreviated W m−2). Climate feedbacks can either amplify or dampen the response of the climate to a given forcing. There are many feedback mechanisms in the climate system that can either amplify (a positive feedback) or diminish (a negative feedback) the effects of a change in climate forcing. The climate system will vary in response to changes in forcings. The climate system will show internal variability both in the presence and absence of forcings imposed on it. This internal variability is a result of complex interactions between components of the climate system, such as the coupling between the atmosphere and ocean. An example of internal variability is the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Human-caused influences. Factors affecting Earth's climate can be broken down into forcings, feedbacks and internal variations. Four main lines of evidence support the dominant role of human activities in recent climate change: Greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, and thus allow it to pass through the atmosphere to heat the Earth's surface. The Earth radiates it as heat, and greenhouse gases absorb a portion of it. This absorption slows the rate at which heat escapes into space, trapping heat near the Earth's surface and warming it over time. While water vapour and clouds are the biggest contributors to the greenhouse effect, they primarily change as a function of temperature. Therefore, they are considered to be feedbacks that change climate sensitivity. On the other hand, gases such as , tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide are added or removed independently from temperature. Hence, they are considered to be external forcings that change global temperatures. Human activity since the Industrial Revolution (about 1750), mainly extracting and burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in a radiative imbalance. Over the past 150 years human activities have released increasing quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. By 2019, the concentrations of and methane had increased by about 48% and 160%, respectively, since 1750. These levels are higher than they have been at any time during the last 2 million years. Concentrations of methane are far higher than they were over the last 800,000 years. This has led to increases in mean global temperature, or global warming. The likely range of human-induced surface-level air warming by 2010–2019 compared to levels in 1850–1900 is 0.8 °C to 1.3 °C, with a best estimate of 1.07 °C. This is close to the observed overall warming during that time of 0.9 °C to 1.2 °C. Temperature changes during that time were likely only ±0.1 °C due to natural forcings and ±0.2 °C due to variability in the climate. Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 were equivalent to 59 billion tonnes of . Of these emissions, 75% was , 18% was methane, 4% was nitrous oxide, and 2% was fluorinated gases. Carbon dioxide. emissions primarily come from burning fossil fuels to provide energy for transport, manufacturing, heating, and electricity. Additional emissions come from deforestation and industrial processes, which include the released by the chemical reactions for making cement, steel, aluminum, and fertiliser. is absorbed and emitted naturally as part of the carbon cycle, through animal and plant respiration, volcanic eruptions, and ocean-atmosphere exchange. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use (see below), release large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere, causing concentrations in the atmosphere to rise. The high-accuracy measurements of atmospheric concentration, initiated by Charles David Keeling in 1958, constitute the master time series documenting the changing composition of the atmosphere. These data, known as the Keeling Curve, have iconic status in climate change science as evidence of the effect of human activities on the chemical composition of the global atmosphere. Keeling's initial 1958 measurements showed 313 parts per million by volume (ppm). Atmospheric concentrations, commonly written "ppm", are measured in parts-per-million by volume (ppmv). In May 2019, the concentration of in the atmosphere reached 415 ppm. The last time when it reached this level was 2.6–5.3 million years ago. Without human intervention, it would be 280 ppm. In 2022–2024, the concentration of in the atmosphere increased faster than ever before according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as a result of sustained emissions and El Niño conditions. Methane and nitrous oxide. Methane emissions come from livestock, manure, rice cultivation, landfills, wastewater, and coal mining, as well as oil and gas extraction. Nitrous oxide emissions largely come from the microbial decomposition of fertiliser. Methane and to a lesser extent nitrous oxide are also major forcing contributors to the greenhouse effect. The Kyoto Protocol lists these together with hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), which are entirely artificial gases, as contributors to radiative forcing. The chart at right attributes anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to eight main economic sectors, of which the largest contributors are power stations (many of which burn coal or other fossil fuels), industrial processes, transportation fuels (generally fossil fuels), and agricultural by-products (mainly methane from enteric fermentation and nitrous oxide from fertilizer use). Aerosols. Air pollution, in the form of aerosols, affects the climate on a large scale. Aerosols scatter and absorb solar radiation. From 1961 to 1990, a gradual reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface was observed. This phenomenon is popularly known as "global dimming", and is primarily attributed to sulfate aerosols produced by the combustion of fossil fuels with heavy sulfur concentrations like coal and bunker fuel. Smaller contributions come from black carbon, organic carbon from combustion of fossil fuels and biofuels, and from anthropogenic dust. Globally, aerosols have been declining since 1990 due to pollution controls, meaning that they no longer mask greenhouse gas warming as much. Aerosols also have indirect effects on the Earth's energy budget. Sulfate aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei and lead to clouds that have more and smaller cloud droplets. These clouds reflect solar radiation more efficiently than clouds with fewer and larger droplets. They also reduce the growth of raindrops, which makes clouds more reflective to incoming sunlight. Indirect effects of aerosols are the largest uncertainty in radiative forcing. While aerosols typically limit global warming by reflecting sunlight, black carbon in soot that falls on snow or ice can contribute to global warming. Not only does this increase the absorption of sunlight, it also increases melting and sea-level rise. Limiting new black carbon deposits in the Arctic could reduce global warming by 0.2 °C by 2050. Land surface changes. According to Food and Agriculture Organization, around 30% of Earth's land area is largely unusable for humans (glaciers, deserts, etc.), 26% is forests, 10% is shrubland and 34% is agricultural land. Deforestation is the main land use change contributor to global warming, Between 1750 and 2007, about one-third of anthropogenic emissions were from changes in land use - primarily from the decline in forest area and the growth in agricultural land. primarily deforestation. as the destroyed trees release , and are not replaced by new trees, removing that carbon sink. Between 2001 and 2018, 27% of deforestation was from permanent clearing to enable agricultural expansion for crops and livestock. Another 24% has been lost to temporary clearing under the shifting cultivation agricultural systems. 26% was due to logging for wood and derived products, and wildfires have accounted for the remaining 23%. Some forests have not been fully cleared, but were already degraded by these impacts. Restoring these forests also recovers their potential as a carbon sink. Local vegetation cover impacts how much of the sunlight gets reflected back into space (albedo), and how much heat is lost by evaporation. For instance, the change from a dark forest to grassland makes the surface lighter, causing it to reflect more sunlight. Deforestation can also modify the release of chemical compounds that influence clouds, and by changing wind patterns. In tropic and temperate areas the net effect is to produce significant warming, and forest restoration can make local temperatures cooler. At latitudes closer to the poles, there is a cooling effect as forest is replaced by snow-covered (and more reflective) plains. Globally, these increases in surface albedo have been the dominant direct influence on temperature from land use change. Thus, land use change to date is estimated to have a slight cooling effect. Livestock-associated emissions. More than 18% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to livestock and livestock-related activities such as deforestation and increasingly fuel-intensive farming practices. Specific attributions to the livestock sector include: Ripple effects. Carbon sinks. The Earth's surface absorbs as part of the carbon cycle. Despite the contribution of deforestation to greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth's land surface, particularly its forests, remain a significant carbon sink for . Land-surface sink processes, such as carbon fixation in the soil and photosynthesis, remove about 29% of annual global emissions. The ocean also serves as a significant carbon sink via a two-step process. First, dissolves in the surface water. Afterwards, the ocean's overturning circulation distributes it deep into the ocean's interior, where it accumulates over time as part of the carbon cycle. Over the last two decades, the world's oceans have absorbed 20 to 30% of emitted . Thus, around half of human-caused emissions have been absorbed by land plants and by the oceans. This fraction of absorbed emissions is not static. If future emissions decrease, the Earth will be able to absorb up to around 70%. If they increase substantially, it'll still absorb more carbon than now, but the overall fraction will decrease to below 40%. This is because climate change increases droughts and heat waves that eventually inhibit plant growth on land, and soils will release more carbon from dead plants when they are warmer. The rate at which oceans absorb atmospheric carbon will be lowered as they become more acidic and experience changes in thermohaline circulation and phytoplankton distribution. Climate change feedbacks. The response of the climate system to an initial forcing is modified by feedbacks: increased by "self-reinforcing" or "positive" feedbacks and reduced by "balancing" or "negative" feedbacks. The main reinforcing feedbacks are the water-vapour feedback, the ice–albedo feedback, and the net effect of clouds. The primary balancing mechanism is radiative cooling, as Earth's surface gives off more heat to space in response to rising temperature. In addition to temperature feedbacks, there are feedbacks in the carbon cycle, such as the fertilizing effect of on plant growth. Uncertainty over feedbacks, particularly cloud cover, is the major reason why different climate models project different magnitudes of warming for a given amount of emissions. As air warms, it can hold more moisture. Water vapour, as a potent greenhouse gas, holds heat in the atmosphere. If cloud cover increases, more sunlight will be reflected back into space, cooling the planet. If clouds become higher and thinner, they act as an insulator, reflecting heat from below back downwards and warming the planet. Another major feedback is the reduction of snow cover and sea ice in the Arctic, which reduces the reflectivity of the Earth's surface. More of the Sun's energy is now absorbed in these regions, contributing to amplification of Arctic temperature changes. Arctic amplification is also thawing permafrost, which releases methane and into the atmosphere. Climate change can also cause methane releases from wetlands, marine systems, and freshwater systems. Overall, climate feedbacks are expected to become increasingly positive. Natural variability. Already in 2001, the IPCC Third Assessment Report had found that, "The combined change in radiative forcing of the two major natural factors (solar variation and volcanic aerosols) is estimated to be negative for the past two, and possibly the past four, decades." Solar irradiance has been measured directly by satellites, and indirect measurements are available from the early 1600s onwards. Yet, since 1880, there has been no upward trend in the amount of the Sun's energy reaching the Earth, in contrast to the warming of the lower atmosphere (the troposphere). Similarly, volcanic activity has the single largest natural impact (forcing) on temperature, yet it is equivalent to less than 1% of current human-caused CO2 emissions. Volcanic activity as a whole has had negligible impacts on global temperature trends since the Industrial Revolution. Between 1750 and 2007, solar radiation may have at most increased by 0.12 W/m2, compared to 1.6 W/m2 for the net anthropogenic forcing. Consequently, the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability." Further, the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere) would also be warming if the Sun was sending more energy to Earth, but instead, it has been cooling. This is consistent with greenhouse gases preventing heat from leaving the Earth's atmosphere. Explosive volcanic eruptions can release gases, dust and ash that partially block sunlight and reduce temperatures, or they can send water vapor into the atmosphere, which adds to greenhouse gases and increases temperatures. Because both water vapor and volcanic material have low persistence in the atmosphere, even the largest eruptions only have an effect for several years.
3203	46469420	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3203	Achduart	Achduart (Gaelic: Achadh Dhubhaird) is a coastal hamlet in Coigach, Wester Ross in northwestern Scotland, now within the Highland council area. It is situated about 4 km southeast of the village of Achiltibuie, at the end of a minor road. A footpath continues on to the hamlet of Culnacraig, then along the coast past Ben More Coigach to Strathcanaird. Achduart has accommodation facilities for tourists, who come for its proximity to the sea and its seclusion and remoteness. There is a hostel in Acheninver, a short distance to the north, formerly run by the Scottish Youth Hostels Association. The name of Achduart comes from the Gaelic for "the field at the black headland". Achduart was part of the Estate of Coigach, Lochbroom, belonging to the Countess of Cromartie. The dominant geographical feature in the area is Cairn Conmheall, which rises to 541 metres.
3204	49810320	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3204	Achiltibuie	Achiltibuie (; or "Field of the yellow-haired boy") is a long linear village in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, on the Coigach coast of northwestern Scotland, overlooking Badentarbet Bay to the west. Loch Broom and the Summer Isles lie to the south. Located 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Ullapool as the crow flies. Achiltibuie is the central community of a series of townships and communities stretching from Culnacraig, through Badenscallie and Polglass (where the community hall, the primary school and the Piping School Cafe are located), Polbain, and Reiff to Achnahaird. History. The first post office in the village opened on 28 July 1884. Smokehouse. For a time the "Summer Isles Smokehouse" attracted visitors. In 2013 the community had hopes to re-establish the business. Hydroponicum. The Hydroponicum, a facility for growing fresh fruit and vegetables indoors using hydroponics, was built in the village in the 1980s by Robert Irvine, then owner of the Summer Isles Hotel. The Hydroponicum was known for growing exotic fruit such as bananas all year round. It attracted up to 10,000 visitors a year until it was sold in 2007 to a company based in the Isle of Man. New greenhouses have since been built apart from the original hydroponicum buildings, and the new owners continue to grow fruit and vegetables for local businesses and residents. A community buyout attempt in 2011 by the Coigach Community Development Company fell through when the site's sellers pulled out. The building has now been demolished. Some of the former staff of the Hydroponicum run a small-scale activity known as The Achiltibuie Garden, situated nearby. Notable recent achievements. 'Coigach Community Rowing' the crew members of which coastal rowing club are all local, won the World St. Ayles Skiff Rowing Championships in July 2013 and a mixed crew from the club won the Alan Spong Trophy for 1st Mixed crew 4-oar rowing at the Thames Great River Race in September 2013. Coigach Community Rowing hand-built their two St Ayles rowing skiffs, the 'Coigach Lass' and the 'Lily~Rose' and race under the auspices of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association, which is the governing body of St Ayles class coastal rowing around the world. The Brochs of Coigach designed by SBA Architects Ltd were shortlisted in 2011 for the RIAS Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award. They are two unique buildings landscaped into a hillside. They were Regional Finalist of the Civic Trust Awards 2013. In 2015, they were highly commended in the inaugural Scottish Rural Awards. Cultural connections. The Roman epic movie "The Eagle", based on the 1954 novel "The Eagle of the Ninth" by Rosemary Sutcliff, was filmed on location in Achiltibuie for a week in October 2009. The main location was Fox Point, Old Dornie. The Pictish village which was constructed at Fox Point was used on most days of the filming. Other sites included Achnahaird beach where a horse chase was filmed and Loch Lurgainn. The village and its residents featured in "The Wee Mad Road" (2008) by Jack and Barbara Maloney.
3205	44487672	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3205	Adaptive expectations	In economics, adaptive expectations is a hypothesized process by which people form their expectations about what will happen in the future based on what has happened in the past. For example, if people want to create an expectation of the inflation rate in the future, they can refer to past inflation rates to infer some consistencies and could derive a more accurate expectation the more years they consider. One simple version of adaptive expectations is stated in the following equation, where formula_1 is the next year's rate of inflation that is currently expected; formula_2 is this year's rate of inflation that was expected last year; and formula_3 is this year's actual rate of inflation: formula_4 where formula_5 is between 0 and 1. This says that current expectations of future inflation reflect past expectations and an "error-adjustment" term, in which current expectations are raised (or lowered) according to the gap between actual inflation and previous expectations. The error-adjustment term, also called "partial adjustment", allows for variations in inflation rates over the previous years, especially years that have abnormally high or low rates. formula_6 The above term is the "partial adjustment" error term, this term allows for variances that occur between actual values and expected values. The importance of considering the error prevents over and under expecting values of in the above example inflation rates. The adjustment means that the expectation can tend toward the direction of the future expected value that would be closer to the actual value, this allows a prediction to be made and consideration to be added or removed so as to be accurate of the future expectation. This consideration or error term is what allows the predicted value to be adaptable, thus creating an equation that is "adaptive" of the expectation being inferred. The theory of adaptive expectations can be applied to all previous periods so that current inflationary expectations equal: formula_7 where formula_8 equals actual inflation formula_9 years in the past. The adding of a time series portion to the expectation equations accounts for multiple previous years and their respective rates in forecasting like the above example of the future inflation rate. Thus, current expected inflation reflects a weighted average of all past inflation rates, where the weights get smaller and smaller as we move further in to the past. The initial previous year has the highest weighting and the subsequent years take lesser weighting the further back the equation accounts for. When an agent makes a forecasting error (as in incorrectly recording a value or mistyping), the stochastic shock will cause the agent to incorrectly forecast the price expectation level again even if the price level experiences no further shocks, since the previous expectations only ever incorporates part of their errors. The backward nature of expectation formulation and the resultant systematic errors made by agents (see cobweb model) had become unsatisfactory to economists such as John Muth, who was pivotal in the development of an alternative model of how expectations are formed, called rational expectations. The use of rational expectations have largely replaced adaptive expectations in macroeconomic theory since its assumptions rely on an optimal expectations approach which is consistent with economic theory. However, it must be stressed that confronting adaptive expectations and rational expectations aren't necessarily justified by either use, in other words, there are situations in which following the adaptive scheme is a rational response. The first use adaptive expectations hypothesis was to describe agent behavior in "The Purchasing Power of Money" by Irving Fisher (1911), then later used to describe models such as hyperinflation by Philip Cagan (1956). Adaptive expectations were instrumental in the consumption function (1957) and Phillips curve outlined by Milton Friedman. Friedman suggests that workers form adaptive expectations of the inflation rate, the government can easily surprise them through unexpected monetary policy changes. As agents are trapped by the money illusion, they are unable to correctly perceive price and wage dynamics, so based on Friedman's theory, unemployment can always be reduced through monetary expansions. If the government chooses to fix a low unemployment rate the result is an increasing level of inflation for an extended period of time. However, in this framework, it is clear why and how adaptive expectations are problematic. Agents are arbitrarily supposed to ignore sources of information which, otherwise, would affect their expectations. For example, government announcements are such sources. Agents are expected to modify their expectations and break with the former trends when changes in economic policy necessitate it. This is the reason why the theory of adaptive expectations is often regarded as a deviation from the rational tradition of economics.
3209	28481209	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3209	Mexican tetra	The Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus), also known as the blind cave fish, blind cave characin or the blind cave tetra, is a freshwater fish in the Characidae family (tetras and relatives) of the order Characiformes. The type species of its genus, it is native to the Nearctic realm, originating in the lower Rio Grande, and the Neueces and Pecos Rivers in Texas, into the Central Plateau and eastern states of Mexico. Maturing at a total length of about , the Mexican tetra is of typical characin form, albeit with silvery, unremarkable scalation, likely an evolutionary adaptation to its natural environment. By comparison, the species' blind "cave" form has scales which evolved a pale, pinkish-white color, somewhat resembling an albino, as it inhabits pitch-black caverns and subterranean streams and has no need for a colorful appearance (i.e. for attracting mates). Likewise, the blind cave tetra has fully "devolved" (lost) the use of its eyes by living in an environment completely devoid of natural light, with only empty sockets in their place. The blind tetra instead has sensory organs along its body, as well as a heightened nervous system (and senses of smell and touch), and can immediately detect where objects or other animals are located by slight changes in the surrounding water pressure, a process vaguely similar to echolocation—another adaptation known from cave-dwelling, as well as aquatic, species, such as the bats and cetaceans. The Mexican tetra's blind variant has experienced a steady surge in popularity among modern aquarists. "A. mexicanus" is a peaceful, sociable schooling species, like most tetras, that spends most of its time in midlevel waters above the rocky and sandy bottoms of pools, and backwaters of creeks and streams. Coming from an environment somewhere between subtropical climate, it prefers water with 6.5–8 pH, a hardness of up to 30 dGH, and a temperature range of . In the winter, some populations migrate to warmer waters. The species' natural diet consists largely of crustaceans, annelids and arthropods and their larvae, including both aquatic insects, such as water beetles, and those that land on or fall in the water, like flies or arachnids. It will also supplement its diet with algae or aquatic vegetation; in captivity, it is largely omnivorous, often doing well on a variety of foods such as frozen/thawed or live cultured blackworms, bloodworms, brine shrimp, daphnia, and mysis shrimp, among other commercially available fish foods. The Mexican tetra has been treated as a subspecies of "A. fasciatus", though this is not widely accepted. Additionally, the hypogean blind cave form is sometimes recognized as a separate species, "A. jordani", but this directly contradicts the phylogenetic evidence. Blind cave form. "A. mexicanus" is famous for its blind cave form, which is known by such names as blind cave tetra, blind tetra (leading to easy confusion with the Brazilian "Stygichthys typhlops"), blind cave characin and blind cavefish. Depending on the exact population, cave forms can have degenerated sight or have total loss of sight and even their eyes, due to down-regulation of the protein αA-crystallin and consequent lens cell death. Despite losing their eyes, cavefish cells respond to light and show an endogenous circadian rhythm. During the start of development, larvae still exhibit a shadow response which is controlled by the pineal eye. The fish in the Pachón caves have lost their eyes completely whilst the fish from the Micos cave only have limited sight. Cave fish and surface fish are able to produce fertile offspring. These fish can still, however, find their way around by means of their lateral lines, which are highly sensitive to fluctuating water pressure. Blindness in A. "mexicanus" induces a disruption of early neuromast patterning, which further causes asymmetries in cranial bone structure. One such asymmetry is a bend in the dorsal region of their skull, which is propounded to increase water flow to the opposite side of the face, functionally enhancing sensory input and spatial mapping in the dark waters of caves. Scientists suggest that gene cystathionine beta synthase-a mutation restricts blood flow to cavefish eyes during a critical stage of growth so the eyes are covered by skin. Currently, about 30 cave populations are known, dispersed over three geographically distinct areas in a karst region of San Luis Potosí and far southern Tamaulipas, northeastern Mexico. Among the various cave population are at least three with only full cave forms (blind and without pigment), at least eleven with cave, "normal" and intermediate forms, and at least one with both cave and "normal" forms but no intermediates. Studies suggest at least two distinct genetic lineages occur among the blind populations, and the current distribution of populations arose by at least five independent invasions. Furthermore, cave populations have a very recent origin (< 20,000 years) in which blindness or reduced vision evolved convergently after surface ancestors populated several caves independently at different times. This recent origin suggests that the phenotypic changes in cavefish populations, namely eye degeneration, arose as a result of the high fixation of genetic variants present in surface fish populations in a short period of time. The eyed and eyeless forms of "A. mexicanus", being members of the same species, are closely related and can interbreed making this species an excellent model organism for examining convergent and parallel evolution, regressive evolution in cave animals, and the genetic basis of regressive traits. This, combined with the ease of maintaining the species in captivity, has made it the most studied cavefish and likely also the most studied cave organism overall. The blind and colorless cave form of "A. mexicanus" is sometimes recognized as a separate species, "A. jordani", but this leaves the remaining "A. mexicanus" as a paraphyletic species and "A. jordani" as polyphyletic. The Cueva Chica Cave in the southern part of the Sierra del Abra system is the type locality for "A. jordani". Other blind populations were initially also recognized as separate species, including "antrobius" described in 1946 from the Pachón Cave and "hubbsi" described in 1947 from the Los Sabinos Cave (both subsequently merged into "jordani"/"mexicanus"). The most divergent cave population is the one in Los Sabinos. Another cave-adapted population of "Astyanax", varying from blind and depigmented to individuals showing intermediate features, is known from the Granadas Cave, part of the Balsas River drainage in Guerrero, southern Mexico, but it is a part of "A. aeneus" (itself sometimes included in "A. mexicanus"). Evolution research. The surface and cave forms of the Mexican tetra have proven powerful subjects for scientists studying evolution. When the surface-dwelling ancestors of current cave populations entered the subterranean environment, the change in ecological conditions rendered their phenotype—which included many biological functions dependent on the presence of light—subject to natural selection and genetic drift. One of the most striking changes to evolve was the loss of eyes. This is referred to as a "regressive trait" because the surface fish that originally colonized caves possessed eyes. In addition to regressive traits, cave forms evolved "constructive traits". In contrast to regressive traits, the purpose or benefit of constructive traits is generally accepted. Active research focuses on the mechanisms driving the evolution of regressive traits, such as the loss of eyes, in "A. mexicanus". Recent studies have produced evidence that the mechanism may be direct selection, or indirect selection through antagonistic pleiotropy, rather than genetic drift and neutral mutation, the traditionally favored hypothesis for regressive evolution. Pleiotropy is hypothesized to be important in cave fish because there are genes that might be selected for one trait and automatically cause another trait to be selected for it if it is governed by the same gene. As selective pressure on one trait can coordinate change in others, pleiotropy could explain why independent adaptation to the cave environment has been observed in multiple populations of the species. One example is the relationship between taste bud amplification and eye loss controlled by sonic hedgehog expression ("Shh") in cave fish. It has been shown that with an over expression of "Shh" there is an increased number of taste buds and reduced eye development. It is hypothesized that since caves are food and nutrient limited, having an increased amount of taste buds is important and may be under strong selection while at the same time causing evolution of eye loss. The blind form of the Mexican tetra is different from the surface-dwelling form in a number of ways, including having unpigmented skin, having a better olfactory sense by having taste buds all over its head, and by being able to store four times more energy as fat, allowing it to deal with irregular food supplies more effectively. Darwin said of sightless fish: Modern genetics has made clear that the lack of use does not, in itself, necessitate a feature's disappearance. In this context, the positive genetic benefits have to be considered, i.e., what advantages are obtained by cave-dwelling tetras by losing their eyes? Possible explanations include: It is important to note that even if natural selection is positively acting to reduce eye growth drift is still present. Another likely explanation for the loss of its eyes is that of selective neutrality and genetic drift; in the dark environment of the cave, the eyes are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous and thus any genetic factors that might impair the eyes (or their development) can take hold with no consequence on the individual or species. Because there is no selection pressure for sight in this environment, any number of genetic abnormalities that give rise to the damage or loss of eyes could proliferate among the population with no effect on the fitness of the population. Among some creationists, the cave tetra is seen as evidence 'against' evolution. One argument claims this is an instance of "devolution"—showing an evolutionary trend of decreasing complexity. But evolution is a non-directional process, and while increased complexity is a common effect, there is no reason why evolution cannot tend towards simplicity if that makes an organism better suited to its environment. Inhibition of the HSP90 protein has a dramatic effect in the development of the blind tetra. In the aquarium. The blind cave tetras seen in the aquarium trade are all based on stock collected in the Cueva Chica Cave in the southern part of the Sierra del Abra system in 1936. These were sent to an aquarium company in Texas, who soon started to distribute them to aquarists. Since then, these have been selectively bred for their troglomorphic traits. Today large numbers are bred at commercial facilities, especially in Asia. The blind cave tetra is a hardy species. Their lack of sight does not hinder their ability to get food. They prefer subdued lighting with a rocky substrate, like gravel, mimicking their natural environment. They become semi-aggressive as they age, and are by nature schooling fish. Experiments have shown that keeping these fish in bright aquarium set-ups has no effect on the development of the skin flap that forms over their eyes as they grow.
3211	28481209	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3211	Atom probe	The atom probe was introduced at the 14th Field Emission Symposium in 1967 by Erwin Wilhelm Müller and J. A. Panitz. It combined a field ion microscope with a mass spectrometer having a single particle detection capability and, for the first time, an instrument could “... determine the nature of one single atom seen on a metal surface and selected from neighboring atoms at the discretion of the observer”. Atom probes are unlike conventional optical or electron microscopes, in that the magnification effect comes from the magnification provided by a highly curved electric field, rather than by the manipulation of radiation paths. The method is destructive in nature removing ions from a sample surface in order to image and identify them, generating magnifications sufficient to observe individual atoms as they are removed from the sample surface. Through coupling of this magnification method with time of flight mass spectrometry, ions evaporated by application of electric pulses can have their mass-to-charge ratio computed. Through successive evaporation of material, layers of atoms are removed from a specimen, allowing for probing not only of the surface, but also through the material itself. Computer methods are used to rebuild a three-dimensional view of the sample, prior to it being evaporated, providing atomic scale information on the structure of a sample, as well as providing the type atomic species information. The instrument allows the three-dimensional reconstruction of up to billions of atoms from a sharp tip (corresponding to specimen volumes of 10,000-10,000,000 nm3). Overview. Atom probe samples are shaped to implicitly provide a highly curved electric potential to induce the resultant magnification, as opposed to direct use of lensing, such as via magnetic lenses. Furthermore, in normal operation (as opposed to a field ionization modes) the atom probe does not utilize a secondary source to probe the sample. Rather, the sample is evaporated in a controlled manner (field evaporation) and the evaporated ions are impacted onto a detector, which is typically 10 to 100 cm away. The samples are required to have a needle geometry and are produced by similar techniques as TEM sample preparation electropolishing, or focused ion beam methods. Since 2006, commercial systems with laser pulsing have become available and this has expanded applications from metallic only specimens into semiconducting, insulating such as ceramics, and even geological materials. Preparation is done, often by hand, to manufacture a tip radius sufficient to induce a high electric field, with radii on the order of 100 nm. To conduct an atom probe experiment a very sharp needle shaped specimen is placed in an ultra high vacuum chamber. After introduction into the vacuum system, the sample is reduced to cryogenic temperatures (typically 20-100 K) and manipulated such that the needle's point is aimed towards an ion detector. A high voltage is applied to the specimen, and either a laser pulse is applied to the specimen or a voltage pulse (typically 1-2 kV) with pulse repetition rates in the hundreds of kilohertz range is applied to a counter electrode. The application of the pulse to the sample allows for individual atoms at the sample surface to be ejected as an ion from the sample surface at a known time. Typically the pulse amplitude and the high voltage on the specimen are computer controlled to encourage only one atom to ionize at a time, but multiple ionizations are possible. The delay between application of the pulse and detection of the ion(s) at the detector allow for the computation of a mass-to-charge ratio. Whilst the uncertainty in the atomic mass computed by time-of-flight methods in atom probe is sufficiently small to allow for detection of individual isotopes within a material this uncertainty may still, in some cases, confound definitive identification of atomic species. Effects such as superposition of differing ions with multiple electrons removed, or through the presence of complex species formation during evaporation may cause two or more species to have sufficiently close time-of-flights to make definitive identification impossible. History. Field ion microscopy. Field ion microscopy is a modification of field emission microscopy where a stream of tunneling electrons is emitted from the apex of a sharp needle-like "tip" cathode when subjected to a sufficiently high electric field (~3-6 V/nm). The needle is oriented towards a phosphor screen to create a projected image of the work function at the tip apex. The image resolution is limited to (2-2.5 nm), due to quantum mechanical effects and lateral variations in the electron velocity. In field ion microscopy, the tip is cooled by a cryogen and its polarity is reversed. When an "imaging gas" (usually hydrogen or helium) is introduced at low pressures (< 0.1 Pascal) gas ions in the high electric field at the tip apex are "field ionized" and produce a projected image of protruding atoms at the tip apex. The image resolution is determined primarily by the temperature of the tip but even at 78 Kelvin atomic resolution is achieved. 10-cm Atom Probe. The 10-cm Atom Probe, invented in 1973 by J. A. Panitz was a “new and simple atom probe which permits rapid, in depth species identification or the more usual atom-by atom analysis provided by its predecessors ... in an instrument having a volume of less than two liters in which tip movement is unnecessary and the problems of evaporation pulse stability and alignment common to previous designs have been eliminated.” This was accomplished by combining a time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometer with a proximity focussed, dual channel plate detector, an 11.8 cm drift region and a 38° field of view. An FIM image or a desorption image of the atoms removed from the apex of a field emitter tip could be obtained. The 10-cm Atom Probe has been called the "progenitor" of later atom probes including the commercial instruments. Imaging Atom Probe. The Imaging Atom-Probe (IAP) was introduced in 1974 by J. A. Panitz. It incorporated the features of the 10-cm Atom-Probe yet “... departs completely from [previous] atom probe philosophy. Rather than attempt to determine the identity of a surface species producing a preselected ion-image spot, we wish to determine the complete crystallographic distribution of a surface species of preselected mass-to-charge ratio. Now suppose that instead of operating the [detector] continuously, it is turned on for a short time coincidentally with the arrival of a preselected species of interest by applying a "gate pulse" a time T after the evaporation pulse has reached the specimen. If the duration of the gate pulse is shorter than the travel time between adjacent species, only that surface species having the unique travel time T will be detected and its complete crystallographic distribution displayed.” It was patented in 1975 as the Field Desorption Spectrometer. The Imaging Atom-Probe moniker was coined by A. J. Waugh in 1978 and the instrument was described in detail by J. A. Panitz in the same year. Atom Probe Tomography (APT). Modern day atom probe tomography uses a position sensitive detector aka a FIM in a box to deduce the lateral location of atoms. The idea of the APT, inspired by J. A. Panitz's "Field Desorption Spectrometer" patent, was developed by Mike Miller starting in 1983 and culminated with the first prototype in 1986. Various refinements were made to the instrument, including the use of a so-called position-sensitive (PoS) detector by Alfred Cerezo, Terence Godfrey, and George D. W. Smith at Oxford University in 1988. The Tomographic Atom Probe (TAP), developed by researchers at the University of Rouen in France in 1993, introduced a multichannel timing system and multianode array. Both instruments (PoSAP and TAP) were commercialized by Oxford Nanoscience and CAMECA respectively. Since then, there have been many refinements to increase the field of view, mass and position resolution, and data acquisition rate of the instrument. The Local Electrode Atom Probe was first introduced in 2003 by Imago Scientific Instruments. In 2005, the commercialization of the pulsed laser atom probe (PLAP) expanded the avenues of research from highly conductive materials (metals) to poor conductors (semiconductors like silicon) and even insulating materials. AMETEK acquired CAMECA in 2007 and Imago Scientific Instruments (Madison, WI) in 2010, making the company the sole commercial developer of APTs with more than 110 instruments installed around the world in 2019. The first few decades of work with APT focused on metals. However, with the introduction of the laser pulsed atom probe systems applications have expanded to semiconductors, ceramic and geologic materials, with some work on biomaterials. The most advanced study of biological material to date using APT involved analyzing the chemical structure of teeth of the radula of chiton "Chaetopleura apiculata". In this study, the use of APT showed chemical maps of organic fibers in the surrounding nano-crystalline magnetite in the chiton teeth, fibers which were often co-located with sodium or magnesium. This has been furthered to study elephant tusks, dentin and human enamel. Theory. Field evaporation. Field evaporation is an effect that can occur when an atom bonded at the surface of a material is in the presence of a sufficiently high and appropriately directed electric field, where the electric field is the differential of electric potential (voltage) with respect to distance. Once this condition is met, it is sufficient that local bonding at the specimen surface is capable of being overcome by the field, allowing for evaporation of an atom from the surface to which it is otherwise bonded. Ion flight. Whether evaporated from the material itself, or ionised from the gas, the ions that are evaporated are accelerated by electrostatic force, acquiring most of their energy within a few tip-radii of the sample. Subsequently, the accelerative force on any given ion is controlled by the electrostatic equation, where "n" is the ionisation state of the ion, and "e" is the fundamental electric charge. formula_1 This can be equated with the mass of the ion, "m", via Newton's law (F=ma): formula_2 formula_3 Relativistic effects in the ion flight are usually ignored, as realisable ion speeds are only a very small fraction of the speed of light. Assuming that the ion is accelerated during a very short interval, the ion can be assumed to be travelling at constant velocity. As the ion will travel from the tip at voltage V1 to some nominal ground potential, the speed at which the ion is travelling can be estimated by the energy transferred into the ion during (or near) ionisation. Therefore, the ion speed can be computed with the following equation, which relates kinetic energy to energy gain due to the electric field, the negative arising from the loss of electrons forming a net positive charge. formula_4 Where "U" is the ion velocity. Solving for "U", the following relation is found: formula_5 Let's say that for at a certain ionization voltage, a singly charged hydrogen ion acquires a resulting velocity of 1.4x10^6 ms−1 at 10~kV. A singly charged deuterium ion under the sample conditions would have acquired roughly 1.4x10^6/1.41 ms−1. If a detector was placed at a distance of 1 m, the ion flight times would be 1/1.4x10^6 and 1.41/1.4x10^6 s. Thus, the time of the ion arrival can be used to infer the ion type itself, if the evaporation time is known. From the above equation, it can be re-arranged to show that formula_6 given a known flight distance. F, for the ion, and a known flight time, t, formula_7 and thus one can substitute these values to obtain the mass-to-charge for the ion. formula_8 Thus for an ion which traverses a 1 m flight path, across a time of 2000 ns, given an initial accelerating voltage of 5000 V (V in Si units is kg.m^2.s^-3.A^-1) and noting that one amu is 1×10−27 kg, the mass-to-charge ratio (more correctly the mass-to-ionisation value ratio) becomes ~3.86 amu/charge. The number of electrons removed, and thus net positive charge on the ion is not known directly, but can be inferred from the histogram (spectrum) of observed ions. Magnification. The magnification in an atom is due to the projection of ions radially away from the small, sharp tip. Subsequently, in the far-field, the ions will be greatly magnified. This magnification is sufficient to observe field variations due to individual atoms, thus allowing in field ion and field evaporation modes for the imaging of single atoms. The standard projection model for the atom probe is an emitter geometry that is based upon a revolution of a conic section, such as a sphere, hyperboloid or paraboloid. For these tip models, solutions to the field may be approximated or obtained analytically. The magnification for a spherical emitter is inversely proportional to the radius of the tip, given a projection directly onto a spherical screen, the following equation can be obtained geometrically. formula_9 Where rscreen is the radius of the detection screen from the tip centre, and rtip the tip radius. A practical tip to screen distances may range from several centimeters to several meters, with increased detector area required at larger to subtend the same field of view. Practically speaking, the usable magnification will be limited by several effects, such as lateral vibration of the atoms prior to evaporation. Whilst the magnification of both the field ion and atom probe microscopes is extremely high, the exact magnification is dependent upon conditions specific to the examined specimen, so unlike for conventional electron microscopes, there is often little direct control on magnification, and furthermore, obtained images may have strongly variable magnifications due to fluctuations in the shape of the electric field at the surface. Reconstruction. The computational conversion of the ion sequence data, as obtained from a position-sensitive detector to a three-dimensional visualisation of atomic types, is termed "reconstruction". Reconstruction algorithms are typically geometrically based and have several literature formulations. Most models for reconstruction assume that the tip is a spherical object, and use empirical corrections to stereographic projection to convert detector positions back to a 2D surface embedded in 3D space, R3. By sweeping this surface through R3 as a function of the ion sequence input data, such as via ion-ordering, a volume is generated onto which positions the 2D detector positions can be computed and placed three-dimensional space. Typically the sweep takes the simple form of advancement of the surface, such that the surface is expanded in a symmetric manner about its advancement axis, with the advancement rate set by a volume attributed to each ion detected and identified. This causes the final reconstructed volume to assume a rounded-conical shape, similar to a badminton shuttlecock. The detected events thus become a point cloud data with attributed experimentally measured values, such as ion time of flight or experimentally derived quantities, e.g. time of flight or detector data. This form of data manipulation allows for rapid computer visualisation and analysis, with data presented as point cloud data with additional information, such as each ion's mass to charge (as computed from the velocity equation above), voltage or other auxiliary measured quantity or computation therefrom. Data features. The canonical feature of atom probe data, is its high spatial resolution in the direction through the material, which has been attributed to an ordered evaporation sequence. This data can therefore image near atomically sharp buried interfaces with the associated chemical information. The data obtained from the evaporative process is however not without artefacts that form the physical evaporation or ionisation process. A key feature of the evaporation or field ion images is that the data density is highly inhomogeneous, due to the corrugation of the specimen surface at the atomic scale. This corrugation gives rise to strong electric field gradients in the near-tip zone (on the order of an atomic radii or less from the tip), which during ionisation deflects ions away from the electric field normal. The resultant deflection means that in these regions of high curvature, atomic terraces are belied by a strong anisotropy in the detection density. Where this occurs due to a few atoms on a surface is usually referred to as a "pole", as these are coincident with the crystallographic axes of the specimen (FCC, BCC, HCP) etc. Where the edges of an atomic terrace causes deflection, a low density line is formed and is termed a "zone line". These poles and zone-lines, whilst inducing fluctuations in data density in the reconstructed datasets, which can prove problematic during post-analysis, are critical for determining information such as angular magnification, as the crystallographic relationships between features are typically well known. When reconstructing the data, owing to the evaporation of successive layers of material from the sample, the lateral and in-depth reconstruction values are highly anisotropic. Determination of the exact resolution of the instrument is of limited use, as the resolution of the device is set by the physical properties of the material under analysis. Systems. Many designs have been constructed since the method's inception. Initial field ion microscopes, precursors to modern atom probes, were usually glass blown devices developed by individual research laboratories. System layout. At a minimum, an atom probe will consist of several key pieces of equipment. Optionally, an atom probe may also include laser-optical systems for laser beam targeting and pulsing, if using laser-evaporation methods. In-situ reaction systems, heaters, or plasma treatment may also be employed for some studies as well as a pure noble gas introduction for FIM. Performance. Collectable ion volumes were previously limited to several thousand, or tens of thousands of ionic events. Subsequent electronics and instrumentation development has increased the rate of data accumulation, with datasets of hundreds of million atoms (dataset volumes of 107 nm3). Data collection times vary considerably depending upon the experimental conditions and the number of ions collected. Experiments take from a few minutes, to many hours to complete. Applications. Metallurgy. Atom probe has typically been employed in the chemical analysis of alloy systems at the atomic level. This has arisen as a result of voltage pulsed atom probes providing good chemical and sufficient spatial information in these materials. Metal samples from large grained alloys may be simple to fabricate, particularly from wire samples, with hand-electropolishing techniques giving good results. Subsequently, atom probe has been used in the analysis of the chemical composition of a wide range of alloys. Such data is critical in determining the effect of alloy constituents in a bulk material, identification of solid-state reaction features, such as solid phase precipitates. Such information may not be amenable to analysis by other means (e.g. TEM) owing to the difficulty in generating a three-dimensional dataset with composition. Semiconductors. Semi-conductor materials are often analysable in atom probe, however sample preparation may be more difficult, and interpretation of results may be more complex, particularly if the semi-conductor contains phases which evaporate at differing electric field strengths. Applications such as ion implantation may be used to identify the distribution of dopants inside a semi-conducting material, which is increasingly critical in the correct design of modern nanometre scale electronics.
3212	27823944	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3212	Al Capone	Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1925 to 1931. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he was imprisoned at the age of 33. Capone was born in New York City in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager and became a bouncer in organized crime premises such as brothels. In his early twenties, Capone moved to Chicago and became a bodyguard of Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol—the forerunner of the Outfit—and was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone's rise and fall. Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Although Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, his mutually profitable relationships with Mayor William Hale Thompson and the Chicago Police Department meant he seemed safe from law enforcement. Capone apparently reveled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at baseball games. He made donations to various charities and was viewed by many as a "modern-day Robin Hood". The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven people from rival gangs were murdered in broad daylight, damaged the public image of Chicago and Capone, leading influential citizens to demand government action and newspapers to dub Capone "Public Enemy No. 1". Federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone and charged him with twenty-two counts of tax evasion. He was convicted of five counts in 1931. During a highly publicized case, the judge admitted as evidence Capone's admissions of his income and unpaid taxes, made during prior and ultimately abortive negotiations to pay the government taxes he owed. He was convicted and sentenced to eleven years in federal prison. After conviction, he replaced his defense team with experts in tax law, and his grounds for appeal were strengthened by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, although his appeal ultimately failed. Capone showed signs of neurosyphilis early in his sentence and became increasingly debilitated before being released after almost eight years of incarceration. In 1947, he died of cardiac arrest after a stroke. Early life. Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, on January 17, 1899. His parents were Italian immigrants Teresa (; 1867–1952) and Gabriele Capone (1865–1920), both born in Angri, a small municipality outside of Naples in the province of Salerno. His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress. Capone's family had immigrated to the United States in 1893 by ship, first going through the port city of Fiume, Austria-Hungary (modern-day Rijeka, Croatia). The family settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. When Capone was aged 11, he and his family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Capone's parents had eight other children: James Vincenzo Capone, who later changed his name to Richard Hart and became a Prohibition agent in Homer, Nebraska; Raffaele James Capone, also known as Ralph Capone or "Bottles", who took charge of his brother's beverage industry; Salvatore "Frank" Capone; Ermina Capone, who died at the age of one; Ermino "John" Capone; Albert Capone; Matthew Capone and Mafalda Capone. Ralph and Frank worked with Al in his criminal empire. Frank did so until his death on April 1, 1924. Ralph ran Al's bottling companies (both legal and illegal) early on and was also the front man for the Chicago Outfit until he was imprisoned for tax evasion in 1932. Capone showed promise as a student but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. His schooling ended at the age of 14 after he was expelled for hitting a female teacher in the face. Capone worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. From 1916 to 1918, he played semi-professional baseball. Following this, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor. Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin at age 19, on December 30, 1918. She was Irish Catholic and earlier that month had given birth to their son Albert Francis "Sonny" Capone (1918–2004). Albert lost most of his hearing in his left ear as a child. Capone was under the age of 21, and his parents had to consent in writing to the marriage. By all accounts, the two had a happy marriage. Career. New York City. Capone initially became involved with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys. He then joined the Brooklyn Rippers, and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. Capone inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door, and he was slashed with a knife three times on the left side of his face by her brother, Frank Galluccio; the wounds led to the nickname "Scarface", which Capone loathed. The date when this occurred has been reported with inconsistencies. When Capone was photographed, he hid the scarred left side of his face, saying that the injuries were war wounds. He was called "Snorky" by his closest friends, a term for a sharp dresser. Move to Chicago. In 1919, Capone left New York City for Chicago at the invitation of Torrio, who was imported by crime boss James "Big Jim" Colosimo as an enforcer. Capone began in Chicago as a bouncer in a brothel, which is thought to be most likely where he contracted syphilis. Capone was aware of being infected at an early stage and timely use of Salvarsan probably could have cured the infection, but he apparently never sought treatment. In 1923, Capone purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood in Chicago's South Side for . As originally reported in the "Chicago Tribune", hijacker Joe Howard was killed on May 8, 1924, after he tried to interfere with the Capone-Torrio bootlegging business. In a 1936 article highlighting Capone's criminal career, the "Tribune" erroneously reported the date as May 7, 1923. In the early years of the decade, Capone's name began appearing in newspaper sports pages where he was described as a boxing promoter. Torrio took over Colosimo's criminal empire after the latter's murder on May 11, 1920, in which Capone was suspected of being involved. Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that was the biggest in Chicago, with Capone as his right-hand man. Torrio was wary of being drawn into gang wars and tried to negotiate agreements over territory between rival crime groups. The smaller North Side Gang, led by Dean O'Banion, came under pressure from the Genna brothers who were allied with Torrio. O'Banion found that Torrio was unhelpful with the Gennas' encroachment, despite his pretensions to be a settler of disputes. In a fateful step, Torrio arranged the murder of O'Banion at his flower shop on November 10, 1924. This placed Hymie Weiss at the head of the gang, backed by Vincent Drucci and Bugs Moran. Weiss had been a close friend of O'Banion, and the North Siders made it a priority to get revenge on his killers. During Prohibition, Capone was involved with Canadian bootleggers who helped him smuggle liquor into the U.S. When Capone was asked if he knew Rocco Perri, billed as Canada's "King of the Bootleggers", he replied: "Why, I don't even know which street Canada is on." Other sources claim that Capone had certainly visited Canada, where he maintained some hideaways, although the Royal Canadian Mounted Police states that there is no "evidence that he ever set foot on Canadian soil". Boss. An ambush in January 1925 left Capone shaken, but unhurt. Twelve days later, Torrio was returning from a shopping trip when he was shot several times. After recovering, he effectively resigned and handed control over to Capone, aged 26, who became the new boss of an organization that took in illegal breweries and a transportation network that reached to Canada, with political and law-enforcement protection. In turn, he was able to use more violence to increase revenue. Any establishment that refused to purchase liquor from Capone often got blown up, and as many as 100 people were killed in such bombings during the 1920s. Rivals saw Capone as responsible for the proliferation of brothels in the city. Capone often enlisted the help of local members of the black community into his operations; jazz musicians Milt Hinton and Lionel Hampton had uncles who worked for Capone on Chicago's South Side. A fan of jazz as well, Capone once asked clarinetist Johnny Dodds to play a number that Dodds did not know; Capone split a $100 bill in half and told Dodds that he would get the other half when he learned it. Capone also sent two bodyguards to accompany jazz pianist Earl Hines on a road trip. Capone indulged in custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink, and female companionship. He was particularly known for his flamboyant and costly jewelry. His favorite responses to questions about his activities were "I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want" and "All I do is satisfy a public demand". Capone had become a national celebrity and talking point. Capone based himself in Cicero, Illinois, after using bribery and widespread intimidation to take over town council elections, making it difficult for the North Siders to target him. Capone's driver was found tortured and murdered, and there was an attempt on Weiss' life in the Chicago Loop. On September 20, 1926, the North Siders used a ploy outside Capone's headquarters at the Hawthorne Inn aimed at drawing him to the windows. Gunmen in several cars then opened fire with Thompson submachine guns and shotguns at the windows of the first-floor restaurant. Capone was unhurt and called for a truce, but the negotiations fell flat. Three weeks later, on October 11, Weiss was killed outside the North Siders' headquarters at O'Banion's former flower shop. The owner of Hawthorne's restaurant was a friend of Capone's, and he was kidnapped and killed by Moran and Drucci in January 1927. Capone became increasingly security-minded and desirous of getting away from Chicago. As a precaution, he and his entourage would often show up suddenly at one of Chicago's train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on a night train to Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City, Little Rock, or Hot Springs, Arkansas, where they would spend a week in luxury hotel suites under assumed names. In 1928, Capone paid $40,000 to Clarence Busch of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family for a home at 93 Palm Avenue on Palm Island, Florida, between Miami and Miami Beach. Feud with Aiello. In November 1925, Antonio Lombardo, who was Capone's "consigliere", was named head of the Unione Siciliana, a Sicilian-American benevolent society that had been corrupted by gangsters. An infuriated Joe Aiello, who had wanted the position himself, believed Capone was responsible for Lombardo's ascension and resented the non-Sicilian's attempts to manipulate affairs within the Unione. Aiello severed all personal and business ties with Lombardo and entered into a feud with Capone. Aiello allied himself with several of Capone enemies, including Jack Zuta, who ran vice and gambling houses together. Aiello plotted to eliminate both Lombardo and Capone, and starting in the spring of 1927, made several attempts to assassinate Capone. On one occasion, Aiello offered money to the chef of Joseph "Diamond Joe" Esposito's Bella Napoli Café, Capone's favorite restaurant, to put prussic acid in Capone's and Lombardo's soup; reports indicated he offered between $10,000 and $35,000. Instead, the chef exposed the plot to Capone, who responded by dispatching men to destroy Aiello's bakery on West Division Street with machine-gun fire. More than 200 bullets were fired into the bakery on May 28, 1927, wounding Aiello's brother Antonio. During the summer and autumn of 1927, a number of hitmen Aiello hired to kill Capone were themselves slain. Among them were Anthony Russo and Vincent Spicuzza, each of whom had been offered $25,000 by Aiello to kill Capone and Lombardo. Aiello eventually offered a $50,000 bounty to anyone who eliminated Capone. At least ten gunmen tried to collect on the bounty, but ended up dead. Capone's ally Ralph Sheldon attempted to kill both Capone and Lombardo for Aiello's reward, but Capone henchman, Frank Nitti, had an intelligence network that learned of the transaction and had Sheldon shot in front of a West Side hotel, although he survived the incident. In November 1927, Aiello organized machine-gun ambushes across from Lombardo's home and a cigar store frequented by Capone, but those plans were foiled after an anonymous tip led police to raid several addresses and arrest Milwaukee gunman Angelo La Mantio and four other Aiello gunmen. After the police discovered receipts for the apartments in La Mantio's pockets, he confessed that Aiello had hired him to kill Capone and Lombardo, leading the police to arrest Aiello himself and bring him to the South Clark Street police station. Upon learning of the arrest, Capone dispatched nearly two dozen gunmen to stand guard outside the station and await Aiello's release. The men made no attempt to conceal their purpose there, and reporters and photographers rushed to the scene to observe Aiello's expected murder. When released, Aiello was given a police escort out of the station to safety. He later failed to make a court appearance after his attorney claimed he suffered a nervous breakdown. Aiello disappeared with some family members to Trenton, New Jersey, where he continued his campaign against Capone and Lombardo. Political alliances. Chicago politicians had long been associated with questionable methods, and even newspaper circulation "wars", but the need for bootleggers to have protection in city hall introduced a far more serious level of violence and graft. Capone is generally seen as having an appreciable effect in bringing about the victory of Republican mayoral candidate William Hale Thompson, who had campaigned on a platform of not enforcing Prohibition and at one time hinted that he'd reopen illegal saloons. Thompson allegedly accepted a contribution of $250,000 from Capone. Thompson beat Democratic candidate William Emmett Dever in the 1927 mayoral race by a relatively slim margin. On the day of the Pineapple Primary on April 10, 1928, voting booths were targeted by Capone's bomber, James Belcastro, in wards where Thompson's opponents were thought to have support, causing the deaths of at least fifteen people. Belcastro was accused of murdering lawyer Octavius Granady, an African-American, who challenged Thompson's candidate for the Black vote, and was chased through the streets on polling day by cars of gunmen before being shot dead. Four policemen were among those charged along with Belcastro, but all charges were dropped after key witnesses recanted their statements. An indication of the attitude of local law enforcement toward Capone's organization came in 1931 when Belcastro was wounded in a shooting; police suggested to skeptical journalists that Belcastro was an independent operator. A 1929 report by "The New York Times" connected Capone to the 1926 murder of Assistant State Attorney William H. McSwiggin, the 1928 murders of chief investigator Ben Newmark, and former mentor Frankie Yale. Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Capone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, despite being at his Florida home at the time of the massacre. The massacre was an attempt to eliminate Bugs Moran, head of the North Side Gang, and the motivation for the plan may have been the fact that some expensive whisky that was illegally imported from Canada via the Detroit River had been hijacked while it was being transported to Cook County, Illinois. Moran was the last survivor of the North Side gunmen; his succession had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors, Weiss and Vincent Drucci, had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader Dean O'Banion. To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone's men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse and garage at 2122 North Clark Street, which served as Moran's headquarters. On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, Capone's lookouts signaled four gunmen, disguised as police officers, to initiate a "police raid". The "faux" police lined the seven victims along a wall and signaled for accomplices armed with machine guns and shotguns. Moran was not among the victims. Photos of the slain victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's image. Within days, Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on charges of federal Prohibition violations, but he claimed to be too unwell to attend. In an effort to clean up his image, Capone donated to charities and sponsored a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Depression. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre led to public outcry about Thompson's alliance with Capone, and this was a factor in Anton J. Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931. Feud with Aiello ends. Capone was known for ordering other men to do his work for him. In May 1929, one of Capone's bodyguards, Frank Rio, uncovered a plot by three of his men; Albert Anselmi, John Scalise and Joseph Giunta. They had been persuaded by Aiello to depose Capone and take over the Chicago Outfit. Later on, Capone beat the men with a baseball bat and then ordered his bodyguards to shoot them, a scene that was included in the 1987 film "The Untouchables". Deirdre Bair, along with writers and historians such as William Elliot Hazelgrove, have questioned the veracity of the claim. Bair questioned why "three trained killers could sit quietly and let this happen", while Hazelgrove stated that Capone would have been "hard pressed to beat three men to death with a baseball bat" and that he would have instead let an enforcer perform the murders; however, despite claims that the story was first reported by author Walter Noble Burns in his 1931 book "The One-Way Ride: The Red Trail of Chicago Gangland from Prohibition to Jake Lingle", Capone biographers Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz have found versions of the story in press coverage shortly after the crime. Collins and Schwartz suggest that similarities among reported versions of the story indicate a basis in truth and that the Outfit deliberately spread the tale to enhance Capone's fearsome reputation. George Meyer, an associate of Capone's, also claimed to have witnessed both the planning of the murders and the event itself. In 1930, upon learning of Aiello's continued plotting against him, Capone resolved to finally eliminate him. In the weeks before Aiello's death, Capone's men tracked him to Rochester, New York, where he had connections through Buffalo crime family boss Stefano Magaddino, and plotted to kill him there, but Aiello returned to Chicago before the plot could be executed. Aiello, angst-ridden from the constant need to hide out and the killings of several of his men, set up residence in the Chicago apartment of Unione Siciliana treasurer Pasquale "Patsy Presto" Prestogiacomo at 205 N. Kolmar Ave. On October 23, upon exiting Prestogiacomo's building to enter a taxicab, a gunman in a second-floor window across the street started firing at Aiello with a submachine gun. Aiello was said to have been shot at least 13 times before he toppled off the building steps and moved around the corner, attempting to move out of the line of fire. Instead, he moved directly into the range of a second submachine gun positioned on the third floor of another apartment block, and was subsequently gunned down. Federal intervention. In the wake of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Walter A. Strong, publisher of the "Chicago Daily News", asked his friend President Herbert Hoover for federal intervention to stem Chicago's lawlessness. He arranged a secret meeting at the White House, just two weeks after Hoover's inauguration. On March 19, 1929, Strong, joined by Frank Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission, and Laird Bell, made their case to the President. In Hoover's 1952 "Memoir," the former President reported that Strong argued "Chicago was in the hands of the gangsters, that the police and magistrates were completely under their control, …that the Federal government was the only force by which the city's ability to govern itself could be restored. At once I directed that all the Federal agencies concentrate upon Mr. Capone and his allies." That meeting launched a multi-agency attack on Capone. Treasury and Justice Departments developed plans for income tax prosecutions against Chicago gangsters, and a small, elite squad of Prohibition Bureau agents (whose members included Eliot Ness) were deployed against bootleggers. In a city used to corruption, these lawmen were incorruptible. Charles Schwarz, a writer for the "Chicago Daily News", dubbed them Untouchables. To support Federal efforts, Strong secretly used his newspaper's resources to gather and share intelligence on the Capone outfit. Trials. On March 27, 1929, Capone was arrested by FBI agents as he left a Chicago courtroom after testifying to a grand jury that was investigating violations of federal prohibition laws. He was charged with contempt of court for feigning illness to avoid an earlier appearance. On May 16, 1929, Capone was arrested in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for carrying a concealed weapon. On May 17, 1929, Capone was indicted by a grand jury and a trial was held before Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge John E Walsh. Entering a guilty plea by his attorney, Capone was sentenced to a prison term of one year. On August 8, 1929, Capone was transferred to Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary. A week after his release in March 1930, Capone was listed as "Public Enemy #1" on the unofficial Chicago Crime Commission's widely publicized list. In April 1930, Capone was arrested on vagrancy charges when visiting Miami Beach; the governor had ordered sheriffs to run him out of the state. Capone claimed that Miami police had refused him food and water and threatened to arrest his family. He was charged with perjury for making these statements, but was acquitted after a three-day trial in July. In September, a Chicago judge issued a warrant for Capone's arrest on charges of vagrancy and then used the publicity to run against Thompson in the Republican primary. In February 1931, Capone was tried on the contempt of court charge. In court, Judge James Herbert Wilkerson, intervened to reinforce questioning of Capone's doctor by the prosecutor. Wilkerson sentenced Capone to six months, but he remained free while on appeal of the contempt conviction. In February 1930, Capone's organization was linked to the murder of Julius Rosenheim, who served as a police informant in the Chicago Outfit for 20 years. Tax evasion. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt is said to have originated the tactic of charging obviously wealthy crime figures with federal tax evasion on the basis of their luxurious lifestyles. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "United States v. Sullivan" that the approach was legally sound: illegally earned income was subject to income tax. The key to Capone's conviction on tax charges was not his spending, but proving his income, and the most valuable evidence in that regard originated in his offer to pay tax. Ralph, his brother and a gangster in his own right, was tried for tax evasion in 1930. Ralph spent the next 18 months in prison after being convicted in a two-week trial over which Wilkerson presided. Seeking to avoid the same fate, Capone ordered his lawyer to regularize his tax position, and although it was not done, his lawyer made crucial admissions when stating the income that Capone was willing to pay tax on for various years, admitting income of $100,000 for 1928 and 1929, for instance; hence, without any investigation, the government had been given a letter from a lawyer acting for Capone conceding his large taxable income for certain years he had paid no tax on. On March 13, 1931, Capone was charged with income tax evasion for 1924, in a secret grand jury. On June 5, 1931, Capone was indicted by a federal grand jury on 22 counts of income tax evasion from 1925 through 1929; he was released on $50,000 bail. Capone was then indicted on 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act (Prohibition laws). On June 16, 1931, at the Chicago Federal Building in the courtroom of Wilkerson, Capone pleaded guilty to income tax evasion and the 5,000 Volstead Act violations as part of a -year prison sentence plea bargain. On July 30, 1931, Wilkerson refused to honor the plea bargain, and Capone's counsel rescinded the guilty pleas. On the second day of the trial, Wilkerson deemed that the 1930 letter to federal authorities could be admitted into evidence, overruling objections that a lawyer could not confess for his client. Wilkerson later tried Capone only on the income tax evasion charges as he determined they took precedence over the Volstead Act charges. Much was later made of other evidence, such as witnesses and ledgers, but these strongly implied Capone's control rather than stating it. Capone's lawyers, who had relied on the plea bargain Wilkerson refused to honor, therefore had mere hours to prepare for the trial, ran a weak defense focused on claiming that essentially all his income was lost to gambling. This would have been irrelevant regardless, since gambling losses can only be subtracted from gambling winnings, but it was further undercut by Capone's expenses, which were well beyond what his claimed income could support; Wilkerson allowed Capone's spending to be presented at very great length. The government charged Capone with evasion of $215,000 in taxes on a total income of $1,038,654, during the five-year period. Capone was convicted on five counts of income tax evasion on October 17, 1931, and was sentenced a week later to 11 years in federal prison, fined $50,000 plus $7,692 for court costs, and was held liable for $215,000 plus interest due on his back taxes. The contempt of court sentence was served concurrently. New lawyers hired to represent Capone were Washington-based tax experts. They filed a writ of "habeas corpus" based on a Supreme Court ruling that tax evasion was not fraud, which apparently meant that Capone had been convicted on charges relating to years that were actually outside the time limit for prosecution; however, a judge interpreted the law so that the time that Capone had spent in Miami was subtracted from the age of the offences, thereby denying the appeal of both Capone's conviction and sentence. Imprisonment. Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary in May 1932, aged 33. Upon his arrival at Atlanta, Capone was officially diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhea. He was also experiencing withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction, the use of which had perforated his nasal septum. Capone was competent at his prison job of stitching soles on shoes for eight hours a day, but his letters were barely coherent. He was seen as a weak personality, and so out of his depth dealing with bullying at the hands of fellow inmates that his cellmate, seasoned convict Red Rudensky, feared that Capone would have a breakdown. Rudensky was formerly a small-time criminal associated with the Capone gang and found himself becoming a protector for Capone. The conspicuous protection by Rudensky and other prisoners drew accusations from less friendly inmates and fueled suspicion that Capone was receiving special treatment. No solid evidence ever emerged, but it formed part of the rationale for moving Capone to the recently opened Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary off the coast of San Francisco, in August 1934. On June 23, 1936, Capone was stabbed and superficially wounded by fellow Alcatraz inmate James C. Lucas. Due to his good behavior, Capone was permitted to play banjo in the Alcatraz prison band, the Rock Islanders, which gave regular Sunday concerts for other inmates. Capone also transcribed the song "Madonna Mia" creating his own arrangement as a tribute to his wife Mae. At Alcatraz, Capone's decline became increasingly evident, as neurosyphilis progressively eroded his mental faculties; his formal diagnosis of syphilis of the brain was made in February 1938. He spent the last year of his Alcatraz sentence in the hospital section, confused and disoriented. Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California to serve out his sentence for contempt of court. He was paroled on November 16, 1939, after his wife Mae appealed to the court, based on his reduced mental capabilities. Chicago aftermath. The main effect of Capone's conviction was that he ceased to be boss immediately on his imprisonment, but those involved in the jailing of Capone portrayed it as a considerable undermining of the city's organized crime syndicate. Capone's underboss, Frank Nitti, took over as boss of the Outfit after he was released from prison in March 1932, having also been convicted of tax evasion charges. Far from being smashed, the Outfit continued without being troubled by the Chicago police, but at a lower level and without the open violence that had marked Capone's rule. Organized crime in the city had a lower profile once Prohibition was repealed, already wary of attention after seeing Capone's notoriety bring him down, to the extent that there is a lack of consensus among writers about who was actually in control and who was a figurehead "front boss". Prostitution, labor union racketeering, and gambling became moneymakers for organized crime in the city without incurring serious investigation. In the late 1950s, FBI agents discovered an organization led by Capone's former lieutenants reigning supreme over the Chicago underworld. Some historians have speculated that Capone ordered the 1939 murder of Edward J. O'Hare a week before his release, for helping federal prosecutors convict Capone of tax evasion, though there are other theories for O'Hare's death. Illness and death. Due to his failing health, Capone was released from prison on November 16, 1939, and referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of syphilitic paresis. Because of his unsavory reputation, Johns Hopkins refused to treat him, but Baltimore's Union Memorial Hospital did. Capone was grateful for the compassionate care that he received and donated two Japanese weeping cherry trees to Union Memorial Hospital in 1939. After a few weeks of inpatient and outpatient care, on March 20, 1940, a very sickly Capone left Baltimore and travelled to his mansion in Palm Island, Florida. In 1942, after mass production of penicillin was started in the United States, Capone was one of the first American patients treated by the new drug. Though it was too late for him to reverse the damage to his brain, it did slow down the progression of the disease. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist examined him and concluded that Capone had the mentality of a 12-year-old child. He spent the last years of his life at his Palm Island mansion, spending time with his wife and grandchildren. On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve, but contracted bronchopneumonia. He suffered a cardiac arrest on January 22, and on January 25, surrounded by his family in his home, died after his heart failed as a result of apoplexy. His body was transported back to Chicago a week later and a private funeral was held. He was originally buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago. In 1950, Capone's remains, along with those of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Frank, were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. In popular culture. Capone is one of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century and has been the major subject of numerous articles, books, and films. Particularly, from 1925 to 1929, shortly after he moved to Chicago, he enjoyed his status as the most notorious mobster in the country. He cultivated a certain image of himself in the media that made him a subject of fascination.
3214	1461430	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3214	Amplifier figures of merit	In electronics, the figures of merit of an amplifier are numerical measures that characterize its properties and performance. Figures of merit can be given as a list of specifications that include properties such as gain, bandwidth, noise and linearity, among others listed in this article. Figures of merit are important for determining the suitability of a particular amplifier for an intended use. Gain. The gain of an amplifier is the ratio of output to input power or amplitude, and is usually measured in decibels. When measured in decibels it is logarithmically related to the power ratio: "G"(dB)=10 log("Pout" /"Pin"). RF amplifiers are often specified in terms of the maximum "power gain" obtainable, while the voltage gain of audio amplifiers and instrumentation amplifiers will be more often specified. For example, an audio amplifier with a gain given as 20 dB will have a "voltage gain" of ten. The use of voltage gain figure is appropriate when the amplifier's input impedance is much higher than the source impedance, and the load impedance higher than the amplifier's output impedance. If two equivalent amplifiers are being compared, the amplifier with higher gain settings would be more sensitive as it would take less input signal to produce a given amount of power. Bandwidth. The bandwidth of an amplifier is the range of frequencies for which the amplifier gives "satisfactory performance". The definition of "satisfactory performance" may be different for different applications. However, a common and well-accepted metric is the half-power points (i.e. frequency where the power goes down by half its peak value) on the output vs. frequency curve. Therefore, bandwidth can be defined as the difference between the lower and upper half power points. This is therefore also known as the bandwidth. Bandwidths (otherwise called "frequency responses") for other response tolerances are sometimes quoted (, etc.) or "plus or minus 1dB" (roughly the sound level difference people usually can detect). The gain of a good quality full-range audio amplifier will be essentially flat between 20 Hz to about 20 kHz (the range of normal human hearing). In ultra-high-fidelity amplifier design, the amplifier's frequency response should extend considerably beyond this (one or more octaves either side) and might have points < 10 Hz and > . Professional touring amplifiers often have input and/or output filtering to sharply limit frequency response beyond ; too much of the amplifier's potential output power would otherwise be wasted on infrasonic and ultrasonic frequencies, and the danger of AM radio interference would increase. Modern switching amplifiers need steep low pass filtering at the output to get rid of high-frequency switching noise and harmonics. The range of frequency over which the gain is equal to or greater than 70.7% of its maximum gain is termed as bandwidth. Efficiency. Efficiency is a measure of how much of the power source is usefully applied to the amplifier's output. Class A amplifiers are very inefficient, in the range of 10–20% with a max efficiency of 25% for direct coupling of the output. Inductive coupling of the output can raise their efficiency to a maximum of 50%. Drain efficiency is the ratio of output RF power to input DC power when primary input DC power has been fed to the drain of a field-effect transistor. Based on this definition, the drain efficiency cannot exceed 25% for a class A amplifier that is supplied drain bias current through resistors (because RF signal has its zero level at about 50% of the input DC). Manufacturers specify much higher drain efficiencies, and designers are able to obtain higher efficiencies by providing current to the drain of the transistor through an inductor or a transformer winding. In this case the RF zero level is near the DC rail and will swing both above and below the rail during operation. While the voltage level is above the DC rail current is supplied by the inductor. Class B amplifiers have a very high efficiency but are impractical for audio work because of high levels of distortion (See: Crossover distortion). In practical design, the result of a tradeoff is the class AB design. Modern Class AB amplifiers commonly have peak efficiencies between 30 and 55% in audio systems and 50-70% in radio frequency systems with a theoretical maximum of 78.5%. Commercially available Class D switching amplifiers have reported efficiencies as high as 90%. Amplifiers of Class C-F are usually known to be very high-efficiency amplifiers. RCA manufactured an AM broadcast transmitter employing a single class-C low-mu triode with an RF efficiency in the 90% range. More efficient amplifiers run cooler, and often do not need any cooling fans even in multi-kilowatt designs. The reason for this is that the loss of efficiency produces heat as a by-product of the energy lost during the conversion of power. In more efficient amplifiers there is less loss of energy so in turn less heat. In RF linear Power Amplifiers, such as cellular base stations and broadcast transmitters, special design techniques can be used to improve efficiency. Doherty designs, which use a second output stage as a "peak" amplifier, can lift efficiency from the typical 15% up to 30-35% in a narrow bandwidth. Envelope Tracking designs are able to achieve efficiencies of up to 60%, by modulating the supply voltage to the amplifier in line with the envelope of the signal. Linearity. An ideal amplifier would be a totally linear device, but real amplifiers are only linear within limits. When the signal drive to the amplifier is increased, the output also increases until a point is reached where some part of the amplifier becomes saturated and cannot produce any more output; this is called clipping, and results in distortion. In most amplifiers a reduction in gain takes place before hard clipping occurs; the result is a "compression" effect, which (if the amplifier is an audio amplifier) sounds much less unpleasant to the ear. For these amplifiers, the 1 dB compression point is defined as the input power (or output power) where the gain is 1 dB less than the small signal gain. Sometimes this non linearity is deliberately designed in to reduce the audible unpleasantness of hard clipping under overload. Ill effects of non-linearity can be reduced with negative feedback. Linearization is an emergent field, and there are many techniques, such as feed forward, predistortion, postdistortion, in order to avoid the undesired effects of the non-linearities. Noise. This is a measure of how much noise is introduced in the amplification process. Noise is an undesirable but inevitable product of the electronic devices and components; also, much noise results from intentional economies of manufacture and design time. The metric for noise performance of a circuit is noise figure or noise factor. Noise figure is a comparison between the output signal to noise ratio and the thermal noise of the input signal. Output dynamic range. Output dynamic range is the range, usually given in dB, between the smallest and largest useful output levels. The lowest useful level is limited by output noise, while the largest is limited most often by distortion. The ratio of these two is quoted as the amplifier dynamic range. More precisely, if "S" = maximal allowed signal power and "N" = noise power, the dynamic range "DR" is "DR = (S + N ) /N". In many switched mode amplifiers, dynamic range is limited by the minimum output step size. Slew rate. Slew rate is the maximum rate of change of the output, usually quoted in volts per second (or microsecond). Many amplifiers are ultimately slew rate limited (typically by the impedance of a drive current having to overcome capacitive effects at some point in the circuit), which sometimes limits the full power bandwidth to frequencies well below the amplifier's small-signal frequency response. Rise time. The rise time, tr, of an amplifier is the time taken for the output to change from 10% to 90% of its final level when driven by a step input. For a Gaussian response system (or a simple RC roll off), the rise time is approximated by: tr * BW = 0.35, where tr is rise time in seconds and BW is bandwidth in Hz. Settling time and ringing. The time taken for the output to settle to within a certain percentage of the final value (for instance 0.1%) is called the settling time, and is usually specified for oscilloscope vertical amplifiers and high-accuracy measurement systems. Ringing refers to an output variation that cycles above and below an amplifier's final value and leads to a delay in reaching a stable output. Ringing is the result of overshoot caused by an underdamped circuit. Overshoot. In response to a step input, the overshoot is the amount the output exceeds its final, steady-state value. Stability. Stability is an issue in all amplifiers with feedback, whether that feedback is added intentionally or results unintentionally. It is especially an issue when applied over multiple amplifying stages. Stability is a major concern in RF and microwave amplifiers. The degree of an amplifier's stability can be quantified by a so-called stability factor. There are several different stability factors, such as the Stern stability factor and the Linvil stability factor, which specify a condition that must be met for the absolute stability of an amplifier in terms of its two-port parameters.
3217	7903804	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3217	Army of Darkness	Army of Darkness is a 1992 American dark fantasy comedy film directed, co-written, and co-edited by Sam Raimi. The film is the third installment in the "Evil Dead" film series and the sequel to "Evil Dead II" (1987). Starring Bruce Campbell and Embeth Davidtz, it follows Ash Williams (Campbell) as he is trapped in the Middle Ages and battles the undead in his quest to return to the present. The film was produced as part of a production deal with Universal Pictures after the financial success of "Darkman" (1990). Filming took place in California in 1991. The makeup and creature effects for the film were handled by two different companies: Tony Gardner and his company Alterian, Inc. were responsible for the makeup effects for Ash and Sheila, while Kurtzman, Nicotero & Berger EFX Group was credited for the remaining special makeup effects characters. Tom Sullivan, who had previously worked on "Within the Woods", "The Evil Dead", and "Evil Dead II", also contributed to the visual effects. "Army of Darkness" had its premiere at the Sitges Film Festival on October 9, 1992, and was released in the United States on February 19, 1993. It grossed $21.5 million total over its $11 million budget and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Raimi's direction, humor, visuals and Campbell's performance, though criticism was aimed at the lighter tone compared to the previous films. Despite not being a box office success in the U.S., it became a success on video release and later garnered a cult following from fans of the series, along with the other two films in the trilogy. The film was dedicated to "The Evil Dead" sales agent and "Evil Dead II" executive producer Irvin Shapiro, who died before the film's production in 1989. Plot. Having been accidentally transported to the Middle Ages, Ash Williams is captured by Lord Arthur's men, who suspect him of being a spy for Duke Henry, with whom Arthur is at war. He is enslaved along with the captured Henry, his shotgun and chainsaw are confiscated, and he is taken to Arthur's castle. Ash is thrown in a pit where he kills a Deadite and regains his weapons from Arthur's Wise Man. After demanding that Henry and his men be set free and killing a Deadite publicly, Ash is celebrated as a hero. He grows attracted to Sheila, the sister of one of Arthur's fallen knights. According to the Wise Man, the only way that Ash can return to his time is through the magical "Necronomicon Ex-Mortis". Ash then starts his search for the "Necronomicon". As he enters a haunted forest, an unseen force pursues Ash into a windmill, and he crashes into a mirror. Small reflections of Ash in the mirror shards come to life and antagonize him, with one becoming a life-sized copy of him, which Ash dismembers and buries. When he arrives at the "Necronomicon"s location, he finds three books instead of one, and has to determine which one is real. Realizing at the last moment that he has forgotten the last word of the phrase that will allow him to remove the book safely "Klaatu barada nikto" he tries to mumble and cough his way through the pronunciation. He grabs the book and begins rushing back. Meanwhile, unknown to Ash, his ruse has failed and his body's copy rises from the dead, uniting other Deadites into the Army of Darkness. Upon his return, Ash demands to be returned to his own time. However, Sheila is abducted by a flying Deadite and later transformed into one by "Evil Ash". Ash becomes determined to lead the outnumbered humans against the Army, and the people reluctantly agree. Using knowledge from textbooks in his 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 and enlisting the help of Duke Henry, Ash successfully leads the soldiers to victory over the Deadites, blows up "Evil Ash", saves Sheila, and brings peace between Arthur and Henry. Using a passage from the "Necronomicon", the Wise Man tells him how to return to the present by giving him a potion after reciting the same phrase as earlier. Back in the present, Ash recounts his story to a fellow employee at the S-Mart department store. As he talks to a female co-worker who is interested in his story, a surviving Deadite, present because Ash once again forgot the last word, attacks the customers. Ash kills it using a Winchester rifle and exclaims, "Hail to the king, baby", before passionately kissing the co-worker. Original ending. For the film's original ending, using a passage from the "Necronomicon", the Wise Man tells Ash to swallow six drops of the potion to return to the present; unfortunately, due to a distraction by falling rocks, Ash miscalculates the amount of potion needed to be able to correctly return to his own time, swallowing seven instead of six. As a result, Ash wakes up in a post-apocalyptic London where human civilization is destroyed, and he screams in dismay at having overslept. Universal Pictures objected to this climax, feeling that it was too negative and depressing in tone; as such, a more positive and optimistic ending was filmed and ultimately incorporated into the theatrical cut. Production. Development. Plans to make a third "Evil Dead" film had been circulating for a number of years, even prior to the production of "Darkman". "Evil Dead II" made enough money internationally that Dino De Laurentiis was willing to finance a sequel. Director and script writer Sam Raimi drew from a variety of sources, including literature with "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" and films like "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad", "Jason and the Argonauts", The Three Stooges, and "Conan the Barbarian". "Evil Dead II", according to Bruce Campbell, "was originally designed to go back into the past to 1300, but we couldn't muster it at the time, so we decided to make an interim version, not knowing if the 1300 story would ever get made". Promotional drawings were created and published in "Variety" during the casting process before the budget was deemed too little for the plot. The working title for the project was "Medieval Dead", before it was later known as "Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness". The title "Army of Darkness" came from an idea by Irvin Shapiro, during the production of "Evil Dead II". Writing. Initially, Raimi invited Scott Spiegel to co-write "Army of Darkness" because he had done a good job on "Evil Dead II", but he was busy on rewrites for the Clint Eastwood film "The Rookie". After the good experience of writing the screenplay for a film called "Easy Wheels", Sam and his brother Ivan decided to co-write the film together. They worked on the script throughout the pre-production and production of "Darkman". After filming "Darkman", they took the script out and worked on it in more detail. Raimi says that Ivan "has a good sense of character" and that he brought more comedy into the script. Campbell remembers, "We all decided, 'Get him out of the cabin.' There were earlier drafts where part three still took place there, but we thought, 'Well, we all know that cabin, it's time to move on.' The three of us decided to keep it in 1300, because it's more interesting". Campbell and Tapert would read the script drafts, give Raimi their notes and he would decide which suggestions to keep and which ones to discard. Pre-production. The initial budget was $8 million; during pre-production, however, it became obvious that this was not going to be enough. "Darkman" was also a financial success and De Laurentiis had a multi-picture deal with Universal and so "Army of Darkness" became one of the films. The studio decided to contribute half of the film's $12 million budget. However, the film's ambitious scope and its extensive effects work forced Campbell, Raimi and producer Robert Tapert to put up $1 million of their collective salaries to shoot a new ending and not film a scene where a possessed woman pushes down some giant pillars. Visual effects supervisor William Mesa showed Raimi storyboards he had from Victor Fleming's film "Joan of Arc" that depicted huge battle scenes and he picked out 25 shots to use in "Army of Darkness". A storyboard artist worked closely with the director in order to blend the shots from the "Joan of Arc" storyboards with the battle scenes in his film. Traci Lords was among the actresses auditioning for the film, saying in 2001, "I didn't get the part but I clicked with Bruce [Campbell]," with whom she would later work as a guest star in the TV series "". Filming. Principal photography took place between soundstage and on-location work. "Army of Darkness" was filmed in Bronson Canyon and Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. The interior shots were filmed on an Introvision stage in Hollywood. Raimi's use of the Introvision process was a tribute to the stop-motion animation work of Ray Harryhausen. Introvision uses front-projected images with live actors instead of the traditional rear projection that Harryhausen and others used. Introvision blended components with more realistic-looking results. To achieve this effect, Raimi used 60-foot-tall Scotchlite front-projection screens, miniatures and background plates. According to the director, the advantage of using this technique was "the incredible amount of interaction between the background, which doesn't exist, and the foreground, which is usually your character". Shooting began in mid-1991, and it lasted for about 100 days. It was a mid-summer shoot and while on location on a huge castle set that was built near Acton, California, on the edge of the Mojave Desert, the cast and crew endured very hot conditions during the day and very cold temperatures at night. Most of the film took place at night and the filmmakers shot most of the film during the summer when the days were longest and the nights were the shortest. It would take an hour and a half to light an area leaving the filmmakers only six hours left to shoot a scene. Money problems forced cinematographer Bill Pope to shoot only for certain hours Monday through Friday because he could not be paid his standard fee. Mesa shot many of the action sequences on the weekend. It was a difficult shoot for Campbell who had to learn elaborate choreography for the battle scenes, which involved him remembering a number system because the actor was often fighting opponents that were not really there. Mesa remembers, "Bruce was cussing and swearing some of the time because you had to work on the number system. Sam would tell us to make it as complicated and hard for Bruce as possible. 'Make him go through torture!' So we'd come up with these shots that were really, really difficult, and sometimes they would take thirty-seven takes". Some scenes, like Evil Ash walking along the graveyard while his skeleton minions come to life, blended stop-motion animation with live-action skeleton puppets that were mechanically rigged, with prosthetics and visual effects. During the filming of a scene in which Campbell flipped a stuntman down a set of stairs, the lower part of his face contacted with a piece of armor, which resulted in him bleeding. Campbell was brought to a local emergency room to have the wound mended by a plastic surgeon, who, upon seeing the number of artificial cuts and slashes on Campbell's face, asked, "Which one is it?" In order to maintain the continuity of the injuries and dirt on Ash's face, the on-set makeup specialist utilized a plastic template that fit over Campbell's face. The filmmakers initially intended to reshoot the shot from "Evil Dead II" in which Ash and the Oldsmobile fall from the sky onto the ground of medieval England, with Campbell later stating that the reason they sought to reshoot it rather than reusing the footage from the previous film was due to "a rights issue". Campbell was initially supposed to jump from a ladder onto the ground, and the Oldsmobile dropped from its suspension on an aircraft cable attached to a crane on a nearby access road. However, the support legs under the crane gave out, causing the car to prematurely crash to the ground and the crane to fall off a cliff into a gravel pit. Campbell noted that, "Ironically, after all the hassle, we wound up using the footage from 1986." Post-production. While Dino De Laurentiis gave Raimi and his crew freedom to shoot the film the way they wanted, Universal took over during post-production. Universal was not happy with Raimi's cut, specifically its ending in which Ash wakes up in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic wasteland, as they felt it was too negative. A more upbeat ending was shot a month later in a lumber store in Malibu, California. (Raimi later noted, "Actually, I kind of like the fact that there are two endings, that in one alternate universe Bruce is screwed, and in another universe he's some cheesy hero".) Two months after principal filming was finished, a round of re-shoots began in Santa Monica and involved Ash in the windmill and the scenes with Bridget Fonda. Raimi needed $3 million to finish his film, but Universal was not willing to give him the money and delayed its release due to a dispute with De Laurentiis over the rights to the Hannibal Lecter character which Universal needed so that they could film a sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs". The matter was finally resolved, but the release date for "Army of Darkness" was pushed back from summer of 1992 to February 1993. For the film's poster, Universal brought Campbell in to take several reference head shots and asked him to strike a sly look on his face. They showed him a rough of the Frank Frazetta-like painting. The actor had a day to approve it or, as he was told, there would be no ad campaign for the film. Raimi ran into further troubles when the Motion Picture Association of America gave it an NC-17 rating for a shot of a female Deadite being killed early on in the film. Universal wanted a PG-13 rating, so Raimi made a few cuts and was still stuck with an R rating. In response, Universal turned the film over to outside film editors who cut the film to 81 minutes and another version running 87 minutes that was eventually released in theaters, still with an R rating. Music. Danny Elfman, who composed the score for "Darkman", wrote the "March of the Dead" theme for "Army of Darkness". After the re-shoots were completed, Joseph LoDuca, who composed the music for "The Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead II", returned to score the film. The composer used his knowledge of synthesizers and was able to present many cues in a mock-up form before he recorded them with the Seattle Symphony. A vinyl release of the score was revealed during the MondoCon in Austin, Texas, on October 3 and 4, 2015 over Mondo Records. Reception. Box office. "Army of Darkness" was released by Universal on February 19, 1993, in 1,387 theaters in the United States, grossing $4.4 million (38.5% of total gross) in its first weekend. On a budget of $11 million, the film earned $11.5 million in the US and $21.5 million worldwide. Critical response. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 68% based on 87 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Some of the evil magic is gone as this trilogy capper dispenses with most of the scares, but Bruce Campbell's hammy charm and Sam Raimi's homage to classic visual effects make for a fun enough adventure." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "The movie isn't as funny or entertaining as "Evil Dead II", however, maybe because the comic approach seems recycled." In her review for "The New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote that "Mr. Campbell's manly, mock-heroic posturing is perfectly in keeping with the director's droll outlook." Desson Howe, in his review for "The Washington Post" praised the film's style: "Bill Pope's cinematography is gymnastic and appropriately frenetic. The visual and make-up effects (from artist-technicians William Mesa, Tony Gardner and others) are incredibly imaginative." However, "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "C+" rating and wrote, "This spoofy cast of thousands looks a little too much like a crew of bland Hollywood extras. By the time "Army of Darkness" turns into a retread of "Jason and the Argonauts", featuring an army of fighting skeletons, the film has fallen into a ditch between parody and spectacle." Accolades. "Army of Darkness" won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film (1994). It was also nominated for Best Make-Up. "Army of Darkness" was nominated for the Grand Prize at Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, and won the Golden Raven at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film in 1993. The film also won the Critics' Award at Fantasporto, and was nominated for the International Fantasy Film Award in the category of Best Film in 1993. It was also nominated for Best Film at Sitges, the Spanish International Film Festival. Other media. Future. In March 2013, shortly before the release of "Evil Dead", a loose continuation of the franchise, Raimi stated that the next "Evil Dead" film will be "Army of Darkness 2". Campbell confirmed that he would star as an older, but not necessarily wiser, Ash. At a WonderCon panel in March, Campbell and Fede Álvarez, director of the 2013 film, stated that their ultimate plan was for Álvarez's "Evil Dead 2" and Raimi's "Army of Darkness 2" to be followed by a seventh film which would merge the narratives of Ash and Mia. Later in October, Campbell once again confirmed in an interview with ComicBook.com that he will be reprising his role as Ash in the sequel. Fede Álvarez posted a status update on his Twitter account that Raimi will direct the sequel. Campbell later commented that the rumor about him returning was false. In July 2014, Campbell stated it was likely the planned sequel would instead be a TV series with him as the star. The ten-episode season of "Ash vs Evil Dead" premiered on Starz on October 31, 2015, with the pilot co-written and directed by Sam Raimi. Due to legal issues with Universal, the events from "Army of Darkness" could not specifically be mentioned in the first season; it was later resolved and the events from that film were mentioned in the second season. In addition to Campbell, the series stars Dana DeLorenzo, Ray Santiago, and Lucy Lawless. The series was later canceled after three seasons, with Campbell officially retiring from the role of Ash in live action. A new "Evil Dead" film, entitled "Evil Dead Rise", written and directed by Lee Cronin and starring Alyssa Sutherland, Lily Sullivan, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, and Mia Challis was theatrically released on April 21, 2023. Comics. "Army of Darkness" had a comic book adaptation and several comic book sequels. The movie adaptation, from publisher Dark Horse Comics, was published before the film's theatrical release. Role-playing game. Eden Studios, Inc. published the "Army of Darkness Roleplaying Game" in 2005. Video games. The 2000 video game ', and its 2003 sequel ', act as sequels to "Army of Darkness", taking place several years after the events of the film. Both games were published by THQ; "Hail to the King" was released for PlayStation, Dreamcast, and Microsoft Windows, and "A Fistful of Boomstick" was released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. In 2011, a tower defense mobile game titled ", developed by Backflip Studios and published by MGM Interactive, was released for iOS and Android. The 2022 video game "—published by Saber Interactive for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S—includes playable characters from "Army of Darkness", including Ash, Lord Arthur, Duke Henry the Red, and Evil Ash. A "Castle Kandar" map, featuring locations from "Army of Darkness", was made available as downloadable content (DLC).
3218	21878292	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3218	RUR-5 ASROC	The RUR-5 ASROC (for "Anti-Submarine Rocket") is an all-weather, all sea-conditions anti-submarine missile. Developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s, it was deployed in the 1960s, updated in the 1990s, and eventually installed on over 200 USN surface ships, specifically cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. The ASROC has been deployed on scores of warships of many other navies, including Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Greece, Pakistan and others. History. ASROC started development as the Rocket Assisted Torpedo (RAT) program by Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the early 1950s to develop a surface warship anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon to counter the new post-World War II submarines which ran quieter, at much higher speed and could attack from much longer range with high speed homing torpedoes. In addition, the goal was to take advantage of modern sonars with a much larger detection range. An extended range torpedo delivered by parachute from the air would allow warships the stand-off capability to attack hostile submarines with very little advance notice to the hostile submarine. The RAT program came in three phases: RAT-A, RAT-B and RAT-C. RAT-A and its follow-on, RAT-B, were compact and economical stand-off weapons for smaller warships, but were determined to be either unreliable or had too short a range. RAT-C was developed as a stand-off ASW weapon that used a nuclear depth charge. This required a range of at least to escape potential damage from the underwater blast. The RAT-C was considerably larger than the previous RAT program rockets to accommodate the extended range needed and was for larger warships. After the failure of both the RAT-A and RAT-B programs, RAT-C was redesigned to use not only a nuclear depth charge but also a homing ASW torpedo. To obtain the accuracy needed, the RAT-C rocket booster had to be redesigned with larger side fins. This program finally combined reliability and accuracy, along with the required stand-off range. Before RAT-C reached operational status in 1960, aboard the large US Navy destroyer leader , its name was changed to ASROC. ASROC was deployed in 1961 and eventually made the majority of USN surface combatants nuclear-capable. Description. The first ASROC system using the MK-112 "Matchbox" launcher was developed in the 1950s and installed in the 1960s. This system was phased out in the 1990s and replaced with the RUM-139 Vertical Launch ASROC, or "VLA". After a surface ship, patrol plane or anti-submarine helicopter detects an enemy submarine by using sonar or other sensors, it could relay the sub's position to an ASROC-equipped ship for attack. The attacking ship would then fire an ASROC missile carrying an acoustic homing torpedo or a W44 nuclear depth bomb onto an unguided ballistic trajectory toward the target. At a pre-determined point on the missile's trajectory, the payload separates from the missile and deploys a parachute to permit splashdown and water entry at a low speed and with minimum detectable noise. Water entry activates the torpedo, which is guided by its own sonar system, and homes in on the target using either active sonar or passive sonar. W44 nuclear depth charge. The W44 nuclear depth charge entered service in 1961, but was never used beyond one or two tests before the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty banning underwater nuclear tests went into effect. A total of 575 weapons were produced. The W44 weighed with a diameter of and length of . Following payload separation, the unguided W44 sank quickly to a predetermined depth where the 10-kiloton warhead detonated. The nuclear-armed ASROC was never used in combat. W44-armed ASROC missiles were retired by 1989, when all types of nuclear depth bombs were removed from deployment. Specific installations. One of the first ASROC installations was on in 1960. The first large group of ships to receive ASROC were 78 s, modified under the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization Mark I program (FRAM I) in the early 1960s. A Mark 112 8-tube ASROC launcher was added along with other major modifications. ASROC reloads were stowed alongside the helicopter hangar and handled by a small crane. The 31 U.S. Navy s were all built with the Mark 16 Mod 7 ASROC Launching Group and MK 4 ASROC Weapons Handling System (AWHS) reload system. These had one standard Mark 112 octuple ASROC launcher, located immediately above a reload system holding an additional 16 assembled rounds (two complete reloads of eight missiles apiece). Thus, each "Spruance"-class destroyer originally carried a maximum total of 24 ASROC. Most other US Navy and allied navy destroyers, destroyer escorts, frigates, and several different classes of cruisers only carried the one ASROC "matchbox" MK 112 launcher with eight ASROC missiles (although later in service, some of those missiles could be replaced by the Harpoon anti-ship missile). The "matchbox" Mk 112 launchers were capable of carrying a mixture of the two types. Reloads were carried in many classes, either on first level of the superstructure immediately abaft the launcher, or in a separate deckhouse just forward or abaft the Mk 112. The MK 16 Launching Group also had configurations that supported RGM-84 Harpoon (onboard destroyer escorts (frigates)) or a variation of the Tartar missile in limited distribution. Ships with the Mk 26 GMLS, and late marks of the Mk 10 GMLS aboard the s, could accommodate ASROC in these power-loaded launchers (the Mk 13 GMLS was not able to fire the weapon, as the launcher rail was too short). Most "Spruance"-class destroyers were later modified to include the Mk 41 VLS, these launchers are capable of carrying a mixture of the RUM-139 VL-ASROC, the Tomahawk TLAM, and other missiles. All of the "Spruance" destroyers carried two separate quad Harpoon launchers. Other US ships with the Mk 41 can also accommodate VL-ASROC. - only on s (after IRE/DELEX modification.) - only on s - only on using a Mk 10 GMLS launcher (depot for 40 missiles, between RIM-2 Terrier / RIM-67A SM-1ER and ASROC)
3221	1294229201	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3221	Ahmed al-Nami	Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Nami (; 7 December 197711 September 2001) was a Saudi terrorist hijacker. He was one of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which was crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, following a passenger revolt, as part of the 11 September attacks. Born in Saudi Arabia, al-Nami had served as a muezzin and was a college student. He left his family in 2000 to complete the Hajj, but later went to Afghanistan bound for an al-Qaeda training camp where he befriended other future hijackers and would soon be chosen to participate in the attacks. He arrived in the United States in May 2001, on a tourist visa, where he would settle in Florida up until the attacks. On 11 September 2001, al-Nami boarded United 93 and assisted in the hijacking of the plane so that it could be flown into the U.S. Capitol. The plane instead crashed into a field in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania during a passenger uprising, due to the passengers receiving information from their families of the three other hijacked planes that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Al-Nami, along with Ahmed al-Haznawi, are suspected to have carried the presumed bomb that was brought aboard Flight 93. Early life and activities. Ahmed al-Nami, like Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, and Mohand al-Shehri, was born in the 'Asir Province in Saudi Arabia. Born to the Quraysh tribe of Saudi Arabia, al-Nami served as a muezzin at the Seqeley mosque after having reportedly become very religious sometime in early 1999. That autumn he left his family home in Abha in the summer of 2000 to complete the Hajj, but never returned – instead travelling to the Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan where he met and befriended Waleed and Wail al-Shehri, two brothers from Khamis Mushayt in the same province, and Saeed al-Ghamdi. The four reportedly pledged themselves to Jihad in the spring of 2000, in a ceremony presided over by Wail al-Shehri – who had dubbed himself "Abu Mossaeb al-Janubi" after one of Muhammad's companions. Dubbed "Abu Hashim", al-Nami was considered "gentle in manner" by his colleagues, and reported that he had a dream in which he rode a mare along with Muhammad, and that the prophet told him to dismount and fight his enemies to liberate his land. During his time at al-Farooq, there is a curious mention under Mushabib al-Hamlan's details that al-Nami had recently had laser eye surgery, an uncited fact that does not reappear. By October he had taken a prospective hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia where they both procured B-1/B-2 tourist/business visas on 28 October – but al-Hamlan then decided not to proceed and is thought to have returned to his family. al-Nami's visa application has since been reviewed, and while he mentioned that al-Hamlan will be travelling with him, he listed his occupation as "student" but failed to provide an address for his school, and listed his intended address in the United States merely as Los Angeles – in the end he never used this visa to enter the United States, and reported his passport (C115007, which showed evidence of travel to Afghanistan) as "lost", and procured a new one from Jeddah (C505363). He used the new passport to acquire a new B-1/B-2 visa in Jeddah on 23 April, again recopying his answers from previously although crossing out the lines regarding al-Hamlan and previous attempts to acquire a visa. He was interviewed by a consular officer, who again approved his application. Records at the time only recorded past failures to procure a visa, so the officer had no way of realising that Nami had successfully received an earlier visa. In mid-November 2000, the 9/11 Commission believed that al-Nami, Wail, and Waleed al-Shehri, all of whom had obtained their U.S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran where they could travel through to Afghanistan without getting their passports stamped. This probably followed their return to Saudi Arabia to get "clean" passports. An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative is thought to have been on the same flight, although this may have been a coincidence. While in the United Arab Emirates, al-Nami purchased traveler's cheques presumed to have been paid for by Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Five other hijackers also passed through the UAE and purchased travellers cheques, including Majed Moqed, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Haznawi, and Wail al-Shehri. 2001. In March 2001, Ahmed al-Nami appeared in an al-Qaeda farewell video showing 13 of the "muscle hijackers" before they left their training centre in Kandahar; while he does not speak, he is seen studying maps and flight manuals. On 23 April, al-Nami was recorded obtaining a new US visa. On 28 May, al-Nami arrived in the United States from Dubai with fellow-hijackers Mohand al-Shehri and Hamza al-Ghamdi. By early June, al-Nami was living in apartment 1504 at the Delray Racquet Club condominiums with Saeed al-Ghamdi in Delray Beach, Florida. He telephoned his family in 'Asir shortly after arriving in the country. In June, he phoned his family for the last time. He was one of 9 hijackers to open a SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June 2001, and on June 29 received either a Florida State Identification Card or Drivers License. He may have been one of three hijackers that listed the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida as their permanent address on drivers' licenses, though other sources claim he listed the Delray condominium. On 28 August, al-Nami and Ahmed al-Haznawi reportedly bothered a Delray Beach resident, Maria Siscar Simpson, to let them through her apartment to retrieve a towel that had fallen off their balcony onto hers. On 5 September, al-Nami and Saeed al-Ghamdi purchased tickets for a September 7 flight to Newark at Mile High Travel on Commercial Boulevard—paying cash for their tickets. Ziad Jarrah and al-Haznawi also purchased tickets for the same flight from Passage Tours. On 7 September, all four Flight 93 hijackers flew from Fort Lauderdale to Newark International Airport aboard Spirit Airlines. Attacks. On 11 September 2001, al-Nami arrived in Newark to board United Airlines Flight 93 along with al-Ghamdi, al-Haznawi, and Jarrah. Some reports suggest al-Haznawi was pulled aside for screening while others claim there is no record of whether any of the four were screened; the lack of CCTV cameras at the time has compounded the problem. al-Nami boarded the plane between 7:39 am and 7:48 am; seated in First Class 3C, next to al-Ghamdi. Due to the flight's routine delay, the pilot and crew were notified of the previous hijackings and were told to be on the alert, though within two minutes Jarrah had stormed the cockpit leaving the pilots dead or injured. At least two of the cellphone calls made by passengers indicate that the hijackers were wearing red bandanas. The calls also indicated that one had tied a box around his torso, and claimed there was a bomb inside. Passengers on the plane heard through phone calls the fates of the other hijacked planes, and organized a brief assault to retake the cockpit. The plane crashed into the Pennsylvanian countryside and all aboard died.
3222	33450425	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3222	Ahmed al-Haznawi	Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi al-Ghamdi (11 October 198011 September 2001) was a Saudi terrorist hijacker. He was one of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which was crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, following a passenger revolt, as part of the September 11 attacks. He left his family to fight in Chechnya in 2000. He was chosen to participate in the 9/11 attacks. He arrived in the United States in June 2001 under the direction of Al-Qaeda for terrorist attacks, on a tourist visa. Once he was in the U.S., he settled in Florida and helped plan out how the attacks would take place. On 11 September 2001, al-Haznawi boarded United Airlines Flight 93 and assisted in the hijacking of the plane so it could be crashed into the United States Capitol. al-Haznawi or Ahmed al-Nami are believed to be one of the apparent hijackers to have carried the bomb. Instead, the plane crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after the passengers on-board started a revolt against al-Haznawi and the other hijackers. Early life. Ahmed al-Haznawi was the son of a Saudi imam from the Al-Bahah Province, a province in the south west of Saudi Arabia. Al-Haznawi grew up in the village of Hazna, where his father was a cleric at the mosque in the central marketplace section of the village. Al-Haznawi belonged to a family that was part of the larger Ghamd tribe, sharing the same tribal affiliation with fellow hijackers Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Ahmed al-Ghamdi. He memorised the Quran, giving him the title "hafiz". This group is noted as being some of the more religiously observant of the hijackers, and they are thought to have met one another some time in 1999. Early activities. 1999–2000. al-Haznawi announced he was leaving his family in 1999 to fight in Chechnya, although his father forbade him from travelling to Chechnya. His father and brother, Abdul Rahman al-Haznawi, reportedly last heard from him in late 2000, after he made references to training in Afghanistan. On 12 November 2000, al-Haznawi applied for and received a two-year U.S. B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. From 27 November 2000, through 27 December that year, al-Haznawi was in Saudi Arabia for Ramadan. It is theorized that during this trip, he may have initially told Saeed and Hamza al-Ghamdi about the operation. Some time late in 2000, al-Haznawi traveled to the United Arab Emirates, where he purchased traveler's cheques presumed to have been paid for by Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Five other hijackers also passed through the UAE and purchased travellers cheques, including Majed Moqed, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Wail al-Shehri, and Ahmed al-Nami. 2001. He was one of four hijackers believed to be staying at a Kandahar guest house in March 2001, where they were seen by Mohammed Jabarah. Jabarah remembered al-Haznawi specifically, saying that he was "very devout and could recite the entire Koran from memory." On 8 June, he arrived in Miami, Florida, with fellow hijacker Wail al-Shehri. He was one of nine hijackers to open a SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit around June 2001. He is believed to have moved in with Ziad Jarrah, who got a new apartment on Bougainvilla Dr. in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, after both men gave the landlord photocopies of their German passports, which he later turned over to the FBI. On 25 June, Jarrah took al-Haznawi to Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale on advice of his landlord. Al-Haznawi was treated by Dr. Christos Tsonas, who gave him antibiotics for a cut on his left calf. While he told staff that he had bumped into a suitcase, the media briefly reported it as a sign of cutaneous anthrax and a possible link to the 2001 anthrax attacks, although FBI later addressed the rumors stating that "[e]xhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been." On 10 July, al-Haznawi obtained a Florida driver's license, later obtaining another copy on 7 September 2001, by filling out a change-of-address form. Five other hijackers also received duplicate Florida licenses in 2001, and others had licenses from different states. Some have speculated that this was to allow multiple persons to use the same identity. Jarrah and al-Haznawi both received their one-way tickets for United Airlines Flight 93, on 5 September. On 7 September all four Flight 93 hijackers flew from Fort Lauderdale to Newark International Airport aboard Spirit Airlines. Attacks. On 11 September 2001, al-Haznawi arrived at Newark International Airport to board United Airlines Flight 93. Although he was selected for additional security by CAPPS and screened, he was able to board the flight without incident, with only his checked bags requiring extra screening for explosives. Due to the flight's delay, the pilot and crew were notified of the previous hijackings that day and were told to be on the alert. Within minutes, Flight 93 was hijacked as well. At least two of the cellphone calls made by passengers indicate that the hijackers were wearing red bandanas. The calls also indicated that one had tied a box around his torso, and claimed there was a bomb inside. Some passengers expressed doubt that the bomb was real. Passengers on the plane heard through phone calls the fates of the other hijacked planes. A passenger uprising soon took place. Three times in a period of five seconds there were shouts of pain or distress from a hijacker outside the cockpit, suggesting that a hijacker was being attacked by the passengers. Hijacker-pilot Ziad Jarrah crashed the plane into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in order to prevent the passengers from gaining control of the plane. The crash killed everyone on board. Aftermath. After the attacks, before the release of the FBI pictures of the hijackers, "Arab News" reported that al-Haznawi's brother Abdul Rahman had told al-Madinah newspaper that a photograph published by local newspapers bore no resemblance to his brother. A videotape titled "The Wills of the New York and Washington Battle Martyrs" was aired on Al Jazeera on April 16, 2002. While the name beneath the speaker read "al-Ghamdi", the image is of al-Haznawi speaking. Officials suggested that the name was merely a reference to his tribal affiliation. The film was thought to have been made in March 2001. In it, he talked about his plans to bring the "bloodied message" to America. In September 2002, a similar tape made by Abdulaziz al-Omari appeared.
3225	45203278	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3225	Athanasius of Alexandria	Athanasius I of Alexandria ( – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, or, among Coptic Christians, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Christian theologian and the 20th patriarch of Alexandria (as Athanasius I). His intermittent episcopacy spanned 45 years ( – 2 May 373), of which over 17 encompassed five exiles, when he was replaced on the order of four different Roman emperors. Athanasius was a Church Father, the chief proponent of Trinitarianism against Arianism, and a noted Egyptian Christian leader of the fourth century. Conflict with Arius and Arianism, as well as with successive Roman emperors, shaped Athanasius' career. In 325, at age 27, Athanasius began his leading role against the Arians as a deacon and assistant to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria during the First Council of Nicaea. Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had convened the council in May–August 325 to address the Arian position that the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, is of a distinct substance from the Father. Three years after that council, Athanasius succeeded his mentor as Patriarch of Alexandria. In addition to the conflict with the Arians (including powerful and influential Arian churchmen led by Eusebius of Nicomedia), he struggled against the Emperors Constantine, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate and Valens. He was known as Athanasius Contra Mundum (Latin for 'Athanasius Against the World'). Nonetheless, within a few years of his death, Gregory of Nazianzus called him the "Pillar of the Church". His writings were well regarded by subsequent Church fathers in the West and the East, who noted their devotion to the Word-become-man, pastoral concern and interest in monasticism. Athanasius is considered one of the four great Eastern Doctors of the Church in the Catholic Church. Some argue that, in his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius was the first person to list the 27 books of the New Testament canon that are in use today. Others argue that Origen of Alexandria was the first to list the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in his Homilies on Joshua (only there is a textual variant as to whether or not he included Revelation). Athanasius is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Church of the East, the Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism. Biography. Athanasius was born to a Christian family in Alexandria, or possibly the nearby Nile Delta town of Damanhur, sometime between 293 and 298. The earlier date is sometimes assigned because of the maturity revealed in his two earliest treatises "Contra Gentes" ("Against the Heathens") and "De Incarnatione" ("On the Incarnation"), which were likely written circa 318 before Arianism had begun to make itself felt, as those writings do not show an awareness of Arianism. However, Cornelius Clifford places his birth no earlier than 296 and no later than 298, based on the fact that Athanasius indicates no first-hand recollection of the Maximian persecution of 303, which he suggests Athanasius would have remembered if he had been ten years old at the time. Secondly, the "Festal Epistles" state that the Arians had accused Athanasius, among other charges, of not having yet attained the canonical age (35) and thus could not have been properly ordained as patriarch of Alexandria in 328. The accusation must have seemed plausible. The Orthodox Church places his year of birth around 297. Education. His parents were wealthy enough to give him a fine secular education. He was, nevertheless, clearly not a member of the Egyptian aristocracy. Some Western scholars consider his command of Greek, in which he wrote most (if not all) of his surviving works, evidence that he may have been a Greek born in Alexandria. Historical evidence, however, indicates that he was fluent in Coptic as well, given the regions of Egypt where he preached. Some surviving copies of his writings are in fact in Coptic, though scholars differ as to whether he wrote them in Coptic originally (which would make him the first patriarch to do so) or whether these were translations of writings originally in Greek. Rufinus relates a story that as Bishop Alexander stood by a window, he watched boys playing on the seashore below, imitating the ritual of Christian baptism. He sent for the children and discovered that one of the boys (Athanasius) had acted as bishop. After questioning Athanasius, Bishop Alexander informed him that the baptisms were genuine, as both the form and matter of the sacrament had been performed through the recitation of the correct words and the administration of water, and that he must not continue to do this as those baptized had not been properly catechized. He invited Athanasius and his playfellows to prepare for clerical careers. Alexandria was the most important trade centre in the empire during Athanasius's boyhood. Intellectually, morally, and politically—it epitomized the ethnically diverse Graeco-Roman world, even more than Rome or Constantinople, Antioch or Marseilles. Its famous catechetical school, while sacrificing none of its famous passion for orthodoxy since the days of Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dionysius and Theognostus, had begun to take on an almost secular character in the comprehensiveness of its interests and had counted influential pagans among its serious auditors. Peter of Alexandria, the 17th archbishop of Alexandria, was martyred in 311 in the closing days of the Great Persecution and may have been one of Athanasius's teachers. His successor as bishop of Alexandria was Alexander of Alexandria. According to Sozomen; "the Bishop Alexander 'invited Athanasius to be his commensal and secretary. He had been well educated, and was versed in grammar and rhetoric, and had already, while still a young man, and before reaching the episcopate, given proof to those who dwelt with him of his wisdom and acumen.(Soz., II, xvii) Athanasius' earliest work, "Against the Heathen – On the Incarnation" (written before 319), bears traces of Origenist Alexandrian thought but in an orthodox way. Athanasius was also familiar with the theories of various philosophical schools and in particular with the developments of neoplatonism. Ultimately, Athanasius would modify the philosophical thought of the School of Alexandria away from the Origenist principles such as the "entirely allegorical interpretation of the text". Still, in later works, Athanasius quotes Homer more than once ("Hist. Ar. 68, Orat. iv. 29"). Athanasius knew Greek and admitted not knowing Hebrew [see, e.g., the 39th Festal Letter of St. Athan]. The Old Testament passages he quotes frequently come from the Septuagint Greek translation. Only rarely did he use other Greek versions (to Aquila once in the "Ecthesis", to other versions once or twice on the Psalms), and his knowledge of the Old Testament was limited to the Septuagint. Bishop (or Patriarch, the highest ecclesial rank in the Centre of the Church, in Alexandria) Alexander ordained Athanasius a deacon in 319. In 325, Athanasius served as Alexander's secretary at the First Council of Nicaea. Already a recognized theologian and ascetic, he was the obvious choice to replace his ageing mentor Alexander as the Pope of Alexandria, despite the opposition of the followers of Arius and Meletius of Lycopolis. At length, in the Council of Nicaea, the term "consubstantial" (homoousion) was adopted, and a formulary of faith embodying it was drawn up by Hosius of Córdoba. From this time to the end of the Arian controversies, the word "consubstantial" continued to be the test of orthodoxy. The formulary of faith drawn up by Hosius is known as the Nicene Creed. However, "he was not the originator of the famous 'homoousion' ( of "homoousios"). The term had been proposed in a non-obvious and illegitimate sense by Paul of Samosata to the Fathers at Antioch, and had been rejected by them as savouring of materialistic conceptions of the Godhead." While still a deacon under Alexander's care (or early in his patriarchate as discussed below) Athanasius may have also become acquainted with some of the solitaries of the Egyptian desert, and in particular Anthony the Great, whose life he is said to have written. Opposition to Arianism. In about 319, when Athanasius was a deacon, a presbyter named Arius came into a direct conflict with Alexander of Alexandria. It appears that Arius reproached Alexander for what he felt were misguided or heretical teachings being taught by the bishop. Arius embraced a subordinationist Christology which taught that Christ was the divine Son (Logos) of God, made, not begotten. Arius had support from a powerful bishop named Eusebius of Nicomedia (not to be confused with Eusebius of Caesarea), illustrating how Arius's subordinationist Christology was shared by other Christians in the empire. Arius was subsequently excommunicated by Alexander, and Arius began to elicit the support of many bishops who agreed with his position. Patriarch. Frances A. M. Forbes writes that when Patriarch Alexander was on his death-bed he called Athanasius, who fled fearing he would be constrained to be made bishop. "When the Bishops of the Church assembled to elect their new Patriarch, the whole Catholic population surrounded the church, holding up their hands to Heaven and crying; "Give us Athanasius!" The Bishops had nothing better. Athanasius was thus elected, as Gregory tells us..." (Pope Gregory I had full access to the Vatican Archives). Alban Butler writes on the subject: "Five months after this great Council, Nicae, St Alexander lying on his deathbed, recommended to his clergy and people the choice of Athanasius for his successor, thrice repeating his name. In consequence of his recommendation, the bishops of all Egypt assembled at Alexandria, and finding the people and clergy unanimous in their choice of Athanasius for patriarch, they confirmed the election about the middle of year 326. He seems, then, to have been about thirty years of age." T. Gilmartin (Professor of History, Maynooth, 1890) writes: "On the death of Alexander, five months after the termination of the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius was unanimously elected to fill the vacant see. He was most unwilling to accept the dignity, for he clearly foresaw the difficulties in which it would involve him. The clergy and people were determined to have him as their bishop, Patriarch of Alexandria, and refused to accept any excuses. He at length consented to accept a responsibility that he sought in vain to escape, and was consecrated in 326, when he was about thirty years of age." Athanasius' episcopate began on 9 May 328 as the Alexandrian Council elected Athanasius to succeed after the death of Alexander. Patriarch Athanasius spent over 17 years in five exiles ordered by four different Roman Emperors, not counting approximately six more incidents in which Athanasius fled Alexandria to escape people seeking to take his life. During his first years as bishop, Athanasius visited the churches of his territory, which at that time included all of Egypt and Libya. He established contacts with the hermits and monks of the desert, including Pachomius, which proved very valuable to him over the years. "During the forty-eight years of his episcopate, his history is told in the history of the controversies in which he was constantly engaged with the Arians, and of the sufferings he had to endure in defence of the Nicene faith. We have seen that when Arius was allowed to return from exile in 328, Athanasius refused to remove the sentence of excommunication." First exile. Athanasius' first problem lay with Meletius of Lycopolis and his followers, who had failed to abide by the First Council of Nicaea. That council also anathematized Arius. Accused of mistreating Arians and Meletians, Athanasius answered those charges at a gathering of bishops at the First Synod of Tyre in 335. There, Eusebius of Nicomedia and other supporters of Arius deposed Athanasius. On 6 November, both sides of the dispute met with Emperor Constantine I in Constantinople. At that meeting, the Arians claimed Athanasius would try to cut off essential Egyptian grain supplies to Constantinople. He was found guilty and sent into exile to Augusta Treverorum in Gaul (now Trier in Germany). When Athanasius reached his destination in exile in 336, Maximin of Trier received him, but not as a disgraced person. Athanasius stayed with him for two years. Constantine died in 337 and was succeeded by his three sons, Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans. Paul I of Constantinople had cautioned Emperor Constans against the Arians, revealing their plots, and he also had been banished and found shelter with Maximin. Second exile. When Emperor Constantine I died, Athanasius was allowed to return to his See of Alexandria. Shortly thereafter, however, Constantius II renewed the order for Athanasius's banishment in 338. "Within a few weeks he set out for Rome to lay his case before the Church at large. He had made his appeal to Pope Julius, who took up his cause with whole-heartedness that never wavered down to the day of that holy pontiff's death. The pope summoned a synod of bishops to meet in Rome. After a careful and detailed examination of the entire case, the primate's innocence was proclaimed to the Christian world." During this time, Gregory of Cappadocia, an Arian bishop, was installed as the patriarch of Alexandria, usurping the absent Athanasius. Athanasius did, however, remain in contact with his people through his annual "Festal Letters", in which he also announced on which date Easter would be celebrated that year. In 339 or 340, nearly one hundred bishops met at Alexandria, declared in favour of Athanasius, and vigorously rejected the criticisms of the Eusebian faction at Tyre. Plus, Pope Julius wrote to the supporters of Arius strongly urging Athanasius's reinstatement, but that effort proved in vain. Julius called a synod in Rome in 340 to address the matter, which proclaimed Athanasius the rightful bishop of Alexandria. Early in 343 Athanasius met with Hosius of Córdoba, and together they set out for Serdica. A full council of the Church was summoned there in deference to the Roman pontiff's wishes. At this great gathering of prelates, leaders of the Church, the case of Athanasius was taken up once more, that is, Athanasius was formally questioned over misdemeanours and even murder, (a bishop in Egypt named Arsenius had turned up missing, and they blamed his death on Athanasius, even supposedly producing Arsenius' severed hand.) The council was convoked for the purpose of inquiring into the charges against Athanasius and other bishops, on account of which they were deposed from their sees by the semi-Arian Synod of Antioch in 341 and went into exile. Eusebian bishops objected to the admission of Athanasius and other deposed bishops to the council, except as accused persons to answer the charges brought against them. Their objections were overridden by the orthodox bishops. The Eusebians, seeing they had no chance of having their views carried, retired to Philippopolis in Thrace where they held an opposition council under the presidency of the Patriarch of Antioch and confirmed the decrees of the Synod of Antioch. Athanasius' innocence was reaffirmed at the Council of Serdica. Two conciliar letters were prepared, one to the clergy and faithful of Alexandria, the other to the bishops of Egypt and Libya, in which the will of the council was made known. Meanwhile, the Eusebians issued an anathema against Athanasius and his supporters. The persecution against the orthodox party broke out with renewed vigour, and Constantius was induced to prepare drastic measures against Athanasius and the priests who were devoted to him. Orders were given that if Athanasius attempted to re-enter his see, he should be put to death. Athanasius, accordingly, withdrew from Serdica to Naissus in Mysia, where he celebrated the Easter festival of the year 344. Hosius presided over the Council of Serdica, as he did for the First Council of Nicaea, which like the 341 synod found Athanasius innocent. He celebrated his last Easter in exile in Aquileia in April 345, received by Bishop Fortunatianus. The Council of Serdica sent an emissary to report their finding to Constantius. Constantius reconsidered his decision, owing to a threatening letter from his brother Constans and the uncertain conditions of affairs on the Persian border, and he accordingly made up his mind to yield. But three separate letters were needed to overcome the natural hesitation of Athanasius. When he finally acquiesced to meet with Constantius, he was accorded a gracious interview by the emperor and sent back to his see in triumph and began ten years of peace. Pope Julius died in April 352 and was succeeded by Liberius. For two years Liberius had been favourable to the cause of Athanasius; but driven at last into exile, he was induced to sign an ambiguous formula, from which the great Nicene text, the "homoousion", had been studiously omitted. In 355 a council was held at Milan, where in spite of the vigorous opposition of a handful of loyal prelates among the Western bishops, a fourth condemnation of Athanasius was announced to the world. With his friends scattered, Hosius in exile, and Pope Liberius denounced as acquiescing in Arian formularies, Athanasius could hardly hope to escape. On the night of 8 February 356, while engaged in services in the Church of St. Thomas, a band of armed men burst in to secure his arrest. It was the beginning of his third exile. Gilmartin writes: "By Constantius' order, the sole ruler of The Roman Empire at the death of his brother Constans, the Council of Arles in 353, was held, which was presided over by Vincent, Bishop of Capua, in the name of Pope Liberius. The fathers terrified of the threats of the Emperor, an avowed Arian, they consented to the condemnation of Athanasius. The Pope refused to accept their decision, and requested the Emperor to hold another Council, in which the charges against Athanasius could be freely investigated. To this Constantius consented, for he felt able to control the Council in Milan." In 355, three hundred bishops assembled in Milan, most from the West and only a few from the East. They met in the Church of Milan. Shortly, the emperor ordered them to a hall in the Imperial Palace, thus ending any free debate. He presented an Arian formula of faith for their acceptance. He threatened any who refused with exile and death. All, with the exception of Dionysius (bishop of Milan), and the two Papal Legates, viz., Eusebius of Vercelli and Lucifer of Cagliari, consented to the Arian Creed and the condemnation of Athanasius. Those who refused were sent into exile. The decrees were forwarded to the pope for approval but were rejected because of the violence to which the bishops were subjected. Third exile. Through the influence of the Eusebian faction at Constantinople, an Arian bishop, George of Cappadocia, was appointed to rule the see of Alexandria in 356. Athanasius, after remaining some days in the neighbourhood of the city, finally withdrew into the desert of Upper Egypt where he remained for a period of six years, living the life of the monks and devoting himself to the composition of a group of writings, such as his "Letter to the Monks" and "Four Orations against the Arians". He also defended his own recent conduct in the "Apology to Constantius" and "Apology for His Flight". Constantius' persistence in his opposition to Athanasius, combined with reports Athanasius received about the persecution of non-Arians by the Arian bishop George of Laodicea, prompted Athanasius to write his more emotional "History of the Arians", in which he described Constantius as a precursor of the Antichrist. Constantius died on 4 November 361 and was succeeded by Julian. The proclamation of the new prince's accession was the signal for a pagan outbreak against the still dominant Arian faction in Alexandria. George, the usurping bishop, was imprisoned and murdered. An obscure presbyter named Pistus was chosen by the Arians to succeed him, when news arrived that filled the orthodox party with hope. An edict had been put forth by Julian permitting the exiled bishops of the "Galileans" to return to their "towns and provinces". Athanasius accordingly returned to Alexandria on 22 February 362. In 362 Athanasius convened a council at Alexandria and presided over it with Eusebius of Vercelli. Athanasius appealed for unity among all those who had faith in Christianity, even if they differed on matters of terminology. This prepared the groundwork for his definition of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. However, the council also was directed against those who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the human soul of Christ, and Christ's divinity. Mild measures were agreed on for those heretic bishops who repented, but severe penance was decreed for the chief leaders of the major heresies. With characteristic energy he set to work to re-establish the somewhat shattered fortunes of the orthodox party and to purge the theological atmosphere of uncertainty. To clear up the misunderstandings that had arisen in the course of the previous years, an attempt was made to determine still further the significance of the Nicene formularies. In the meanwhile, Julian, who seems to have become suddenly jealous of the influence that Athanasius was exercising at Alexandria, addressed an order to Ecdicius, the Prefect of Egypt, peremptorily commanding the expulsion of the restored primate on the ground that he had not been included in the imperial act of clemency. The edict was communicated to the bishop by Pythicodorus Trico, who, though described in the "Chronicon Athanasianum" (XXXV) as a "philosopher", seems to have behaved with brutal insolence. On 23 October the people gathered about the proscribed bishop to protest against the emperor's decree; but Athanasius urged them to submit, consoling them with the promise that his absence would be of short duration. Fourth exile. In 362 Julian, noted for his opposition to Christianity, ordered Athanasius to leave Alexandria once again. Athanasius left for Upper Egypt, remaining there with the Desert Fathers until Julian's death on 26 June 363. Athanasius returned in secret to Alexandria, where he received a document from the new emperor, Jovian, reinstating him once more in his episcopal functions. His first act was to convene a council which reaffirmed the terms of the Nicene Creed. Early in September 363 he set out for Antioch on the Orontes, bearing a synodal letter, in which the pronouncements of this council had been embodied. At Antioch he had an interview with Jovian, who received him graciously and even asked him to prepare an exposition of the orthodox faith. In February 364 Jovian died. Fifth exile. The accession of Emperor Valens gave a fresh lease of life to the Arian party. He issued a decree banishing the bishops who had been deposed by Constantius but who had been permitted by Jovian to return to their sees. The news created the greatest consternation in Alexandria, and the prefect, in order to prevent a serious outbreak, gave public assurance that the very special case of Athanasius would be laid before the emperor. But Athanasius seems to have divined what was preparing in secret against him. He quietly withdrew from Alexandria in October 364 and took up his abode in a country house outside the city. Valens, who seems to have sincerely dreaded the possible consequences of another popular outbreak, within a few weeks issued orders allowing Athanasius to return to his episcopal see. Some early reports state that Athanasius spent this period of exile at his family's ancestral tomb in a Christian cemetery. Final years and death. After returning to Alexandria, Athanasius spent his final years repairing all the damage done during the earlier years of violence, dissent, and exile. He resumed writing and preaching undisturbed, and characteristically re-emphasized the view of the Incarnation which had been defined at Nicaea. On 2 May 373, having consecrated Peter II, one of his presbyters as his successor, Athanasius died peacefully in his own bed, surrounded by his clergy and faithful supporters. Works. Polemical and theological works. Athanasius was not a speculative theologian. As he states in his "First Letters to Serapion", he held on to "the tradition, teaching, and faith proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers." He held that both the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are consubstantial with the Father, which had a great deal of influence in the development of later doctrines regarding the Trinity. Athanasius' "Letter Concerning the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea" ("De Decretis"), is an important historical as well as theological account of the proceedings of that council. Athanasius' apologetics are primarily represented in the two-part work: "Against the Heathen" ("Orations Against the Arians") and "The Incarnation of the Word of God". Completed probably early in his life, before the Arian controversy, they constitute the first classic work of developed Orthodox theology. In the first part, Athanasius attacks several pagan practices and beliefs. The second part presents teachings on the redemption. Also in these books, Athanasius put forward the belief, referencing , that the Son of God, the eternal Word (Logos) through whom God created the world, entered that world in human form to lead men back into the harmony from which they had earlier fallen away. Other examples of Athanasius' polemical writings against his theological opponents include his defence of the divinity of the Holy Spirit "Letters to Serapion" in the 360s and "On the Holy Spirit" against Macedonianism. In a letter to Epictetus of Corinth, Athanasius anticipates future controversies in his defence of the humanity of Christ. In a letter addressed to the monk Dracontius, Athanasius urges him to leave the desert for the more active duties of a bishop. Athanasius also wrote several works of Biblical exegesis, primarily on Old Testament materials. The most important of these is his "Epistle to Marcellinus" (PG 27:12–45) on how to incorporate psalm-saying into one's spiritual practice. Perhaps his most notable letter was his Festal Letter, written to his Church in Alexandria when he was in exile, as he could not be in their presence. This letter clearly shows his stand that accepting Jesus as the Divine Son of God is not optional but necessary: Athanasius was the first patriarch of Alexandria to use Coptic and Greek for didactic homilies. Biographical and ascetic works. His biography of Anthony the Great entitled "Life of Antony" (Βίος καὶ Πολιτεία Πατρὸς Ἀντωνίου, "Vita Antonii") became his most widely read work. Translated into several languages, it became something of a best seller in its day and played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. It depicts Anthony as an illiterate yet holy man who continuously engages in spiritual exercises in the Egyptian desert and struggles against demonic powers. It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West. Misattributed works. There are several other works ascribed to him, although not necessarily generally accepted as being his own. These include the so-called Athanasian Creed (which is today generally seen as being of 5th-century Galician origin), and a complete "Expositions on the Psalms". Eschatology. Based on his understanding of the prophecies of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, Athanasius described Jesus’ Second Coming in the clouds of heaven and pleads with his readers to be ready for that day, at which time Jesus would judge the earth, raise the dead, cast out the wicked, and establish his kingdom. Athanasius also argued that the date of Jesus’ earthly sojourn was divinely foretold beyond refutation by the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel 9. Veneration. Athanasius was originally buried in Alexandria, but his remains were later transferred to the Chiesa di San Zaccaria in Venice, Italy. During Pope Shenouda III's visit to Rome (4–10 May 1973), Pope Paul VI gave the Coptic Patriarch a relic of Athanasius, which he brought back to Egypt on 15 May. The relic is currently preserved under the new Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo. However, the majority of Athanasius's corpse remains in the Venetian church. All major Christian denominations which officially recognize saints venerate Athanasius. Western Christians observe his feast day on 2 May, the anniversary of his death. The Catholic Church considers Athanasius a Doctor of the Church. For Coptic Christians, his feast day is Pashons 7 (now circa 15 May). Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendars remember Athanasius on 18 January. Athanasius is honored on the liturgical calendars of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church on 2 May. Gregory of Nazianzus (330–390, also a Doctor of the Church), said: "When I praise Athanasius, virtue itself is my theme: for I name every virtue as often as I mention him who was possessed of all virtues. He was the true pillar of the Church. His life and conduct were the rule of bishops, and his doctrine the rule of the orthodox faith." Legacy. Historian Cornelius Clifford says in his account: "Athanasius was the greatest champion of Catholic belief on the subject of the Incarnation that the Church has ever known and in his lifetime earned the characteristic title of 'Father of Orthodoxy', by which he has been distinguished ever since." Clifford also says: "His career almost personifies a crisis in the history of Christianity; and he may be said rather to have shaped the events in which he took part than to have been shaped by them." St. John Henry Newman describes him as a "principal instrument, after the Apostles, by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been conveyed and secured to the world". The greater majority of Church leaders and the emperors fell into support for Arianism, so much so that Jerome (340–420) wrote of the period: "The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself Arian". He, Athanasius, even suffered an unjust excommunication from Pope Liberius who was exiled and leant towards compromise, until he was allowed back to the See of Rome. Athanasius stood virtually alone against the world. Athanasius' biography of Anthony is foundational to Christian monasticism. Historical significance and controversies. New Testament canon. It was the custom of the bishops of Alexandria to circulate a letter after Epiphany each year confirming the date of Easter and therefore other moveable feasts. They also took the occasion to discuss other matters. Athanasius wrote forty-five festal letters. Athanasius' "39th Festal Letter", written in 367, is widely regarded as a milestone in the evolution of the canon of New Testament books. Some claim that Athanasius is the first person to identify the same 27 books of the New Testament that are in use today. Up until then, various similar lists of works to be read in churches were in use. Others argue that Origen of Alexandria was the first to list the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in his Homilies on Joshua (only there is a textual variant as to whether or not he included Revelation). Athanasius includes the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah and places the Book of Esther among the "7 books not in the canon but to be read" along with the Wisdom of Solomon, Book of Sirach, Book of Judith, Book of Tobit, the "Didache", and "The Shepherd of Hermas". Athanasius' list is similar to the Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library. The establishment of the canon was not a unilateral decision by a bishop in Alexandria but the result of a process of careful investigation and deliberation, as documented in a codex of the Greek Bible and, twenty-seven years later, in his festal letter. Pope Damasus I, the bishop of Rome in 382, promulgated a list of books which contained a New Testament canon identical to that of Athanasius. A synod in Hippo in 393 repeated Athanasius' and Damasus' New Testament list, and the Council of Carthage (397) repeated Athanasius' and Damasus' complete New Testament list. Scholars debate whether Athanasius' list in 367 formed the basis for later lists. Because Athanasius' canon is the closest canon of any of the Church Fathers to the one used by Protestant churches today, many Protestants point to Athanasius as the Father of the Canon. Supporters. Christian denominations worldwide revere Athanasius as a saint and teacher. They cite his defence of the Christology described in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John and his significant theological works (C. S. Lewis calls "On the Incarnation of the Word of God" a "masterpiece") as evidence of his righteousness. They also emphasize his close relationship with Anthony the Great, the ancient monk who was one of the founders of the Christian monastic movement. The Gospel of St. John, and particularly the first chapter, demonstrates the Divinity of Jesus. This Gospel is the greatest support of Athanasius' stand. The Gospel of St. John's first chapter began to be said at the end of Mass, we believe as a result of Athanasius and his life's stand. The beginning of John's Gospel was much used as an object of special devotion throughout the Middle Ages; the practice of saying it at the altar grew, and eventually Pope Pius V made this practice universal for the Roman Rite in his 1570 edition of the Missal. It became a firm custom with exceptions in using another Gospel in use from 1920. Cyril of Alexandria (370–444) in the first letter says: "Athanasius is one who can be trusted: he would not say anything that is not in accord with sacred scripture." (Ep 1). Critics. Throughout most of his career, Athanasius had many detractors. Classics scholar Timothy Barnes recounts ancient allegations against Athanasius: from defiling an altar, to selling Church grain that had been meant to feed the poor for his own personal gain, and even violence and murder to suppress dissent. According to Sir Isaac Newton, Athanasius lied about the death of Arius, feigned other men's letters and denied his own, murdered the bishop Arsenius, broke a communion cup, overthrew an altar, was made bishop by violence and sedition against the canons of his own church, and was seditious and immoral. Athanasius used "Arian" to describe both followers of Arius and as a derogatory polemical term for Christians who disagreed with his formulation of the Trinity. Athanasius called many of his opponents "Arian", except for Meletius. Scholars now believe that the Arian party was not monolithic but held drastically different theological views that spanned the early Christian theological spectrum. They supported the tenets of Origenist thought and subordinationist theology but had little else in common. Moreover, many labelled "Arian" did not consider themselves followers of Arius. In addition, non-homoousian bishops disagreed with being labeled as followers of Arius, since Arius was merely a presbyter, while they were fully ordained bishops. The old allegations continue to be made against Athanasius, however, many centuries later. For example, Richard E. Rubenstein suggests that Athanasius ascended to the rank of bishop in Alexandria under questionable circumstances because some questioned whether he had reached the minimum age of 30 years, and further that Athanasius employed force when it suited his cause or personal interests. Thus, he argues that a small number of bishops who supported Athanasius held a private consecration to make him bishop.
3226	13286072	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3226	Azores	The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean, about west of Lisbon, about northwest of Morocco, about southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, and the same distance southwest of Cork, Ireland. Its main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, which has become a major service activity in the region. In the 20th century and to some extent into the 21st, they have served as a waypoint for refueling aircraft flying between Europe and North America. The government of the Azores employs a large percentage of the population directly or indirectly in the service and tertiary sectors. The largest city of the Azores is Ponta Delgada. The culture, dialect, cuisine, and traditions of the Azorean islands vary considerably, because these remote islands were settled sporadically over a span of two centuries. There are nine major Azorean islands and an islet cluster, in three main groups. These are Flores and Corvo, to the west; Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial in the centre; and São Miguel, Santa Maria, and the Formigas islets to the east. They extend for more than and lie in a northwest–southeast direction. All of the islands have volcanic origins, although some, such as Santa Maria, have had no recorded activity in the time since the islands were settled several centuries ago. Mount Pico, on the island of Pico, is the highest point in Portugal, at . If measured from their base at the bottom of the ocean to their peaks, the Azores are among the tallest mountains on the planet. The Azores are located at the seismically active Azores triple junction plate boundary where the North American plate, Eurasian plate and Nubian plate meet. The climate of the Azores is very mild for such a northerly location, being influenced by its distance from the continents and by the passing Gulf Stream. Because of the marine influence, temperatures remain mild year-round. Daytime temperatures normally fluctuate between depending on season. Temperatures above or below are unknown in the major population centres. It is also generally wet and cloudy. History. A small number of alleged hypogea (underground structures carved into rocks) have been identified on the islands of Corvo, Santa Maria, and Terceira by Portuguese archaeologist Nuno Ribeiro, who speculated that they might date back 2,000 years, implying a human presence on the islands before the Portuguese. These structures have been used by settlers in the Azores to store grain and the suggestion by Ribeiro that they might be burial sites is unconfirmed. Detailed examination and dating to authenticate the validity of these speculations is lacking; thus it is unclear whether these structures are natural or human-made and whether they predate the 15th century Portuguese colonization of the Azores. According to a 2015 paper published in "Journal of Evolutionary Biology", research based on mouse mitochondrial DNA points to a Scandinavian rather than Portuguese origin of the local mouse population. A 2021 paper published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", using data from lake sediment core sampling, suggests brush-clearing was undertaken and animal husbandry introduced between 700 and 850 A.D. These findings suggest a brief period of Norse settlement, and the 2021 paper further cites climate simulations that suggest the dominant westerly winds in the North Atlantic Ocean were weaker in that period, which would have made it easier for Viking ships to sail to the Azores from Scandinavia. Discovery. In 1427, a captain sailing for Prince Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, may have discovered the Azores, but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashe's 1813 work "A History of the Azores", the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges, who made landfall in the archipelago during a storm on his way to Lisbon. According to Ashe, the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other writers note the discovery of the first islands (São Miguel, Santa Maria and Terceira) by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support such claims. Although it is commonly said that the archipelago received its name from (Portuguese for goshawk, a common bird at the time of discovery) it is unlikely that the bird ever nested or hunted on the islands. There were no large animals on Santa Maria; after its discovery and before settlement began, sheep were let loose on the island to supply future settlers with food. Early settlement. The archipelago was largely settled from mainland Portugal, but settlement did not take place right away. Gonçalo Velho Cabral gathered resources and settlers for the next three years (1433–1436) and sailed to establish colonies, first on Santa Maria and then on São Miguel. Settlers built houses, established villages and cleared bush and rocks to plant crops, grain, grapevines, sugar cane and other plants suitable for local use and for export. They brought domesticated animals, such as chickens, rabbits, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. The settlement of the unoccupied islands started in 1439 with people mainly from the continental provinces of Algarve and Alentejo, in mainland Portugal. São Miguel was first settled in 1449, the settlers – mainly from the Estremadura, Alto Alentejo and Algarve areas of mainland Portugal – under the command of Gonçalo Velho Cabral, who landed at the site of modern-day Povoação. Flemish settlers. The first reference to the island of São Jorge was made in 1439, but the date of discovery is unknown. In 1443, the island was already inhabited, but settlement began only after the arrival of the noble Flemish native Willem van der Haegen. Arriving at Topo, São Jorge, where he lived and died, he became known as Guilherme da Silveira to the islanders. João Vaz Corte-Real received the captaincy of the island in 1483. Velas became a town before the end of the 15th century. By 1490, there were 2,000 Flemings living on the islands of Terceira, Pico, Faial, São Jorge and Flores. Because there was such a large Flemish settlement, the Azores became known as the Flemish Islands or the Isles of Flanders. Prince Henry the Navigator was responsible for this Flemish settlement. His sister, Isabel, was married to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, Flanders, at the time belonging to Burgundy. There was a revolt against Philip's rule, and disease and hunger became rampant. Isabel appealed to Henry to allow some of the unruly Flemings to settle in the Azores. He granted this and supplied them with means of transport and goods. The 1522 earthquake and recovery. In 1522, Vila Franca do Campo, then the capital of São Miguel, was devastated by an earthquake and landslide that killed about 5,000 people, and the capital was moved to Ponta Delgada. The town of Vila Franca do Campo was rebuilt on the original site, and today is a thriving fishing and yachting port. Ponta Delgada received its city status in 1546. From the first settlement, the pioneers applied themselves to agriculture, and by the 15th century Graciosa was exporting wheat, barley, wine and brandy. The goods were sent to Terceira largely because of the proximity of that island. Effects of the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580. Portugal fell into a dynastic crisis following the death of Cardinal-King Henry of Portugal in 1580. Of the various claimants to the crown, the most powerful was King Philip II of Spain, who justified his rights to the Portuguese throne by the fact that his mother was a Portuguese royal princess, his maternal grandfather having been King Manuel I of Portugal. Following his proclamation in Santarém, António, Prior of Crato was acclaimed in the Azores in 1580 (through his envoy António da Costa) but was expelled from the continent by the Spaniards following the Battle of Alcântara. Yet, through the administration of Cipriano de Figueiredo, governor of Terceira (who continued to govern Terceira in the name of ill-fated, former King Sebastian of Portugal), the Azoreans resisted Spanish attempts to conquer the islands (including specifically at the Battle of Salga). In 1583, Philip II of Spain, as King of Portugal, sent his fleet to clear the Azores of a combined multinational force of adventurers, mercenaries, volunteers, and soldiers who were attempting to establish the Azores as a staging post for a rival pretender to the Portuguese throne. Following the success of his fleet at the Battle of Ponta Delgada, captured enemies were hanged from yardarms, as they were considered pirates by Philip II. Opponents receiving the news variously portrayed Philip II as a despot or "Black Legend", the sort of insult widely made against contemporary monarchs engaged in aggressive empire building and the European wars of religion. Figueiredo and Violante do Canto helped organize a resistance on Terceira that influenced some of the response of the other islands, even as internal politics and support for Philip's faction increased on the other islands (including specifically on São Miguel, where the Gonçalvez da Câmara family supported the Spanish claimant). English raids of 1589 and 1598. An English raid of the Azores in 1589 successfully plundered some islands and harbouring ships; eight years later, a second raid failed – the Islands Voyage. Iberian Union. Spain held the Azores under the Iberian Union from 1580 to 1642 (called the "Babylonian captivity" in the Azores). The Azores were the last part of the Portuguese Empire to resist Philip's reign over Portugal (Macau resisted any official recognition), until the defeat of forces loyal to the Prior of Crato with the Conquest of the Azores in 1583. Portuguese control resumed with the end of the Iberian Union in 1640 and the beginning of the Portuguese Restoration War, not by the professional military, who were occupied with warfare on the Portuguese mainland, but by local people attacking a fortified Castilian garrison. Overpopulation and emigration. In the late 16th century, the Azores and Madeira began to face problems of overpopulation. Responding to the consequent economic problems, some people of the Azores began to emigrate to the United States, Canada and Brazil. In 1902, the Dominion Line began operating a Mediterranean passenger service between Boston and Italy via Gibraltar and the Azores, with an established port of call at Sao Miguel. In 1904, the service was taken over by the White Star Line, future owners of the ill-fated "Titanic". Four ships formerly owned by Dominion were renamed and put into service under White Star, named "Canopic", "Romanic", "Cretic" and "Republic", the last of which is best known for its 1909 sinking off the New England coast. "Canopic" and "Romanic" provided regular services to Boston, while "Cretic" and "Republic" operated on the service to both New York and Boston throughout their careers. By the time the service ended in 1921, these four ships had transported an estimated total of 58,000 Azorean Portuguese to the United States. Liberal Wars of 1828–1834. The Portuguese Civil War (1828–1834) had strong repercussions in the Azores. In 1829, in Praia da Vitória, the liberals won over the absolutists, making Terceira Island the main headquarters of the new Portuguese regime and also where the Council of Regency () of Maria II of Portugal was established. Beginning in 1868, Portugal issued its stamps overprinted with "" for use in the islands. Between 1892 and 1906, it also issued separate stamps for the three administrative districts of the time. Arbitrary district divisions 1836–1976. From 1836 to 1976, the archipelago was divided into three districts, equivalent (except in area) to those in the Portuguese mainland. The division was arbitrary and did not follow the natural island groups, rather reflecting the location of each district capital on the three main cities (none of which were on the western group). Modern period. In 1931, the Azores (together with Madeira and Portuguese Guinea) revolted against the Ditadura Nacional and were held briefly by rebel military. In 1943, during World War II, the Portuguese ruler António de Oliveira Salazar leased air and naval bases in the Azores to Great Britain. The occupation of these facilities in October 1943 was codenamed "Operation Alacrity" by the British. This was a key turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, enabling the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Army Air Forces, and the U.S. Navy to provide aerial coverage in the Mid-Atlantic gap. This helped them to protect convoys and to hunt hostile German U-boats. In 1944, the U.S. constructed a small and short-lived air base on the island of Santa Maria. In 1945, a new base was constructed on the island of Terceira, named Lajes Field. This air base is in an area called Lajes, a broad, flat sea terrace that had been a large farm. Lajes Field is a plateau rising out of the sea on the northeast corner of the island. This air base is a joint American and Portuguese venture. Lajes Field continues to support the American and Portuguese Armed Forces. During the Cold War, U.S. Navy P-3 Orion anti-submarine warfare squadrons patrolled the North Atlantic Ocean for Soviet Navy submarines and surface warships. Since its opening, Lajes Field has been used for refuelling American cargo planes bound for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The U.S. Navy keeps a small squadron of its ships at the harbor of Praia da Vitória, southeast of Lajes Field. The airfield also has a small commercial terminal handling scheduled and chartered passenger flights from the other islands in the Azores, Europe, Africa, and North America. Following the Carnation Revolution of 1974, which deposed the Estado Novo dictatorship in Lisbon, Portugal and its territories across the world entered into a period of great political uncertainty. The Azorean Liberation Front attempted to take advantage of this instability immediately after the revolution, hoping to establish an independent Azores, until operations ceased in 1975. In 1976, the Azores became the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), one of the autonomous regions of Portugal, and the subdistricts of the Azores were eliminated. In 2003, the Azores saw international attention when United States President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, and Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso held a summit there days before the commencement of the Iraq War. Geography. The archipelago of the Azores is located in the middle of the northern hemisphere of the Atlantic Ocean and extends along a west-northwest to east-southeast orientation (between 36.5°–40° North latitudes and 24.5°–31.5° West longitudes) in an area approximately wide. The islands of the Azores emerged from what is called the Azores Plateau, a 5.8 million km2 region that is morphologically accented by a depth of . The nine islands that compose the archipelago occupy a surface area of , that includes both the main islands and many islets located in their vicinities. They range in surface area from the largest, São Miguel, at to the smallest, Corvo, at approximately . Each of the islands has its own distinct geomorphological characteristics that make them unique: These islands can be divided into three recognizable groups located on the Azores Plateau: São Jorge, Pico and Faial are also collectively called ('Islands of the Triangle'). Several sub-surface reefs (particularly the Dollabarat on the fringe of the Formigas), banks (specifically the Princess Alice Bank and D. João de Castro Bank), as well as many hydrothermal vents and sea-mounts are monitored by the regional authorities, owing to the complex geotectonic and socioeconomic significance within the economic exclusion zone of the archipelago. Geology. From a geostructural perspective, the Azores are located above an active triple junction between three of the world's major tectonic plates (the North American plate, the Eurasian plate and the African plate), a condition that has translated into the existence of many faults and fractures in this region of the Atlantic. The westernmost islands of the archipelago (Corvo and Flores) are located on the North American plate, while the remaining islands are located within the boundary that divides the Eurasian and African plates. The principal tectonic structures that exist in the region of the Azores are the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Terceira Rift, the Azores Fracture Zone and the Glória Fault. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the main frontier between the North American plate and the African-Eurasian plates that crosses the Azores Plateau between the islands of Flores and Faial from north to south then to the southwest; it is an extensive form crossed by many transform faults running perpendicular to its north–south orientation, that is seismically active and susceptible to volcanism. Mountains. The Azores features a series of prominent peaks, with Montanha do Pico "(also known as "Mount Pico")" standing as the highest at 2,351 meters on Pico Island. Other notable elevations include Pico da Vara on São Miguel Island, Pico da Esperança on São Jorge Island, Cabeço Gordo on Faial Island, and Calderia de Santa Barbara on Terceira Island. Rift and fault geology. The Terceira Rift is a system of fractures that extends from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Glória Fault that represents the main frontier between the Eurasian and African plates. It is defined by a line of submarine volcanoes and island mounts that extend northwest to southeast for about , from the area west of Graciosa until the islets of the Formigas, that includes the islands of Graciosa, Terceira and São Miguel. Its northwest limit connects to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, while the southeast section intersects the Gloria Fault southeast of the island of Santa Maria. The Azores Fracture Zone extends from the Glória Fault and encompasses a relatively inactive area to the south of the islands of the Central and Eastern groups north to the Terceira Rift, along a 45° angle. The Glória Fault, for its part, extends along a linear line from the Azores to the Azores–Gibraltar transform fault. Volcanoes. The islands' volcanism is associated with the rifting along the Azores triple junction; the spread of the crust along the existing faults and fractures has produced many of the active volcanic and seismic events, while supported by buoyant upwelling in the deeper mantle, some associate with an Azores hotspot. Most of the volcanic activity has centered, primarily, along the Terceira Rift. From the beginning of the islands' settlement, around the 15th century, there have been 28 registered volcanic eruptions (15 terrestrial and 13 submarine). The last significant volcanic eruption, the Capelinhos volcano (), occurred off the coast of the island of Faial in 1957; the most recent volcanic activity occurred in the seamounts and submarine volcanoes off the coast of Serreta and in the Pico-São Jorge Channel. The islands have many examples of volcano-built geomorphology including caves and lava tubes (such as the Gruta das Torres, Algar do Carvão, Gruta do Natal, Gruta das Cinco Ribeiras), the coastal lava fields (like the coast of Feteiras, Faial, the Mistério of Prainha or São João on Pico Island) in addition to the inactive cones in central São Miguel Island, the aforementioned Capelinhos on Faial, the volcanic complexes of Terceira or Plinian caldeira of Corvo Island. The islands of the archipelago were formed through volcanic and seismic activity during the Neogene Period; the first embryonic surfaces started to appear in the waters of Santa Maria during the Miocene epoch (from circa 8 million years ago). The sequence of the island formation has been generally characterized as: Santa Maria (8.12 Ma), São Miguel (4.1 Ma), Terceira (3.52 Ma), Graciosa (2.5 Ma), Flores (2.16 Ma), Faial (0.7 Ma), São Jorge (0.55 Ma), Corvo (0.7 Ma) and the youngest, Pico (0.27 Ma). All islands have experienced volcanism during their geological history, with Late Holocene volcanism being recorded from Flores and Faial. Within recorded "human settlement" history the islands of Santa Maria, Graciosa, Flores, and Corvo have not experienced any volcanic eruptions; in addition to active fumaroles and hot-springs, the remaining islands have had sporadic eruptions since the 14th century. Apart from the Capelinhos volcano in 1957–1958, the last recorded instance of "island formation" occurred off the coast of São Miguel, when the island of Sabrina was briefly formed. Earthquakes. Owing to its geodynamic environment, the region has been a center of intense seismic activity, particularly along its tectonic boundaries on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Terceira Rift. Seismic events although frequent, are usually tectonic or vulco-tectonic in nature, but in general are of low to medium intensities, occasionally punctuated by events of magnitude 5 or greater. The most severe earthquake was registered in 1757, near Calheta on the island of São Jorge, which exceeded magnitude 7. In comparison, the 1522 earthquake that was mentioned by historian Gaspar Frutuoso measured 6.8, but its effects were judged to be X ("Extreme") on the Mercalli intensity scale, and was responsible for the destruction of Vila Franca do Campo and landslides that may have killed more than 5,000 of the inhabitants. Biodiversity. The archipelago lies in the Palearctic realm and has a unique biotic community that includes the Macaronesian subtropical laurissilva, with many endemic species of plants and animals. There are at least 6,112 terrestrial species, of which about 411 are endemic. The majority (75%) of these endemics are animals, mostly arthropods and mollusks. New species are found regularly in the Azores (e.g., 30 different new species of land snails were discovered circa 2013). Even though the Azores look very green and sometimes wild, the vegetation has been extremely altered. A great part of it has been wiped out in the past 600 years for its valuable wood (for tools, buildings, boats, fire wood, and so on) and to clear land for agriculture. As a result, it is estimated that more than half of insects on the Graciosa island have disappeared or will become extinct. Many cultivated places (which are traditionally dedicated to pasture or to growing taro, potatoes, maize and other crops) have now been abandoned, especially as a result of emigration. Consequently, some invasive plants have filled these deserted and disturbed lands. Hydrangeas are another potential pest, but their threat is less serious. Notwithstanding the fact that hydrangeas were introduced from America or Asia, some locals consider them a symbol of the archipelago and propagate them along roadsides. "Cryptomeria", the Japanese cedar, is a conifer extensively grown for its timber. The two most common of these alien species are "Pittosporum undulatum" and "Hedychium gardnerianum". Reforestation efforts with native laurissilva vegetation have been accomplished successfully in many parts of the Azores. The Azores has at least three endemic living bird species. The Azores bullfinch, or "Priolo", is restricted to remnant laurisilva forest in the mountains at the eastern end of São Miguel and is classified by BirdLife International as endangered. Monteiro's storm petrel, described to science as recently as 2008, is known to breed in just two locations in the islands but may occur more widely. The Azores chaffinch, formerly considered a subspecies of the common chaffinch, is an abundant and conspicuous resident on all of the islands in the archipelago. An extinct species of owl, the São Miguel scops owl, has recently been described, which probably became extinct after human settlement because of habitat destruction and the introduction of alien species. Five species of flightless rail ("Rallus" spp.) once existed on the islands, as did a flightless quail ("Coturnix" sp.) and another species of bullfinch, the greater Azores bullfinch, but these also went extinct after human colonization. Eleven subspecies of bird are endemic to the islands. The Azores has an endemic bat, the Azores noctule, which has an unusually high frequency of diurnal flight. The islets of the Formigas (the Portuguese word for "ants"), including the area known as the Dollabarat Reef, have a rich environment of maritime species, such as black coral and manta rays, different species of sharks, whales, and sea turtles. Seventeen new marine reserves (with special conservation status) were added to the Azorean Marine Park (which covers around ). On São Miguel there are notable micro-habitats formed by hot springs that host extremophile microorganisms. Climate. The archipelago is spread out at roughly the same latitude as the southern half of mainland Portugal, but its location in the mid-Atlantic Ocean gives it a generally tepid, oceanic, mild to warm subtropical climate, with mild annual oscillations. 'Azores High' anticyclone. The Azores archipelago is located in a transition and confrontation zone between air masses of tropical origin and masses of cooler air of polar origin. The climate of the archipelago is largely determined by variations in the atmospheric pressure field over the North Atlantic. These variations conditioned by the mass of the American Continent and the Atlantic water mass are overlapped by a semi-permanent subtropical Atlantic anticyclone, commonly known as the Azores High. This anticyclone experiences seasonal variations which can affect the archipelago in many ways. In winter, the Azores anticyclone is positioned further south, and allows for a descent of the Polar front, approaching it to the archipelago. In summer, on the other hand, the anticyclone's movement further north, leads to the departure of the polar front and its associated disturbances towards higher latitudes. Far enough away from the mainland coasts, the continental air masses that reach the archipelago are weakened by the maritime influence. The same can not be said for the higher altitudes (e.g. Mount Pico), where upper air masses of a continental origin and with a more direct pathway can reach the surface and present those areas with drier air and more extreme temperatures. At the same time, this free atmosphere circulating air transports aerosols to the archipelago, namely volcanic ash or fine sands from the Sahara desert, which sporadically affect the radiation and air quality. Daily maximum temperatures at low altitudes usually range between . The average annual rainfall generally increases from east to west, ranging from in Santa Maria to in Flores and reaching values above on the highlands of Pico. Köppen classification. Under the Köppen climate classification, the eastern group (São Miguel and Santa Maria) is usually classified as Mediterranean while the central and western group (especially Flores and Corvo) is increasingly more humid subtropical and overall rainier because of the effects of the Gulf Stream. This stream has a large effect over the sea temperature which varies between in February and March, and in August and September, and increases earlier in the western group. Salvador Rivas-Martínez data presents several different bioclimatic zones for the Azores. Seasonal lag is extreme in the low-sun half of the year, with December being milder than April in terms of mean temperatures. During summer the lag is somewhat lower, with August being the warmest month, though September is usually as warm or warmer than July. Temperatures, humidity, and sunshine. Although temperatures as warm as have been recorded on Pico, neither Ponta Delgada nor Angra do Heroísmo, the two largest cities, have ever been warmer than . No snowfall or temperatures below have been recorded at sea level on any of the islands. The coldest weather in winter usually comes from northwesterly air masses originating from Labrador in Canada. However, since those air masses are warmed up as they pass across the warmer Atlantic Ocean, temperatures by day even then exceed . The average relative humidity can range from 80% at the coast to over 90% above . However, higher elevations above the planetary boundary layer can experience extremely low values close to 10%. Summers are especially humid in August and may increase the perceived temperature by a few degrees. Winters are not only very mild but also very humid and contribute substantially to the annual precipitation. Insolation is relatively low, with 35–40% of the total possible value for sunshine, and higher in topographically lower islands such as Graciosa or Santa Maria, inversely proportional to precipitation. This is directly caused by the orographic lift of humid air masses and is especially pronounced in islands marked by high orography. Hurricanes. Despite the northern position that the archipelago occupies, the Azores can be affected by the passage of tropical cyclones, or tropical storms derived from them. This happens with a greater rarity, especially in late summer and autumn. Some can result from anomalies of low latitude systems, while others result from the return to the Atlantic after a route close to or even over the American continent. Though often small and in the process of dissipation, these cyclones result in many of the worst storms the archipelago is subject to. A total of 14 tropical or subtropical cyclones have affected the region in history. Most of them were either extratropical or tropical storms when they affected the region, although several Category 1 hurricanes have reached the Azores. The following storms have impacted the region while at Category 1 strength: Several tropical or subtropical storms have hit the region, including: Storms that were extratropical when they impacted the region include: Economy. In order of importance, the main sectors of employment of the Azores are services, agriculture, fishery, industry and tourism. Agricultural products include São Jorge cheese. As of 2023, GDP in Azores stood at €5.4 billion, with a GDP per capita of €22,346, 88% of Portugal's average and 59% of the EU27 average. Sustainability. The Azores are committed to sustainable tourism and have implemented various policies to preserve their natural, historical, and cultural resources. This approach has led to the designation of approximately 25% of their land area as Protected Areas for conservation and the establishment of vast marine reserves. Key to their sustainability policy is the integration and participation of all societal members, ensuring equal opportunities in various sectors like health, social solidarity, education, culture, and employment. The harmony between people and nature is considered vital for the region's sustainable development, enhancing the quality of life for residents and visitors. The Azores Destination Management Organisation (Açores DMO), established in 2018, plays a crucial role in coordinating these sustainability efforts with public and private sectors, NGOs, and local communities. The policy aims to position the Azores as a leading sustainable tourist destination, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals and gaining certification with the EarthCheck Sustainable Destinations program. All with a focus on continuous improvement, prioritising the involvement of local communities and stakeholders in decision-making, and promoting sustainability across the tourism sector. Transport. Aviation. Each of the nine islands has an airport, although the majority are airfields rather than airports. The full list of airports is: The primary (and busiest) airport of the island group is João Paulo II Airport. The commercial terminals at João Paulo II, Horta, Santa Maria and Flores airports are operated by ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, a public entity that oversees the operations of airports across Portugal. The remaining, except for Lajes Airport, are operated by the Regional Government. Lajes is a military airbase, as well as a commercial airport, and is operated by the Portuguese Armed Forces in conjunction with the United States. Marine transportation. The Azores has had a long history of marine transport to overcome distances and establish inter-community contacts and trade. Consequently, the shipbuilding industry developed in many islands, from small fishing boats to whaling sloops and larger passenger services. Passenger traffic to the main islands (São Miguel, Santa Maria, Terceira and Faial) began in the 17th century, and between the 18th–19th century, the "Pico Yacht" controlled the lucrative summer traffic season. After 1871, the Insulana Shipping Company was the only entity responsible for regular traffic between the islands (except Corvo), Madeira and the United States. Finally, cargo and passenger transportation ceased in the 1970s, and the ships were sold or converted into tuna fishing boats. For the next 20 years, commercial maritime service between the islands ceased (except between Faial-Pico and Lajes das Flores-Vila do Corvo). Transmaçor (Transportes Marítimos Açorianos, Lda.) was founded in 1987. The shipping company operates four to six daily connections between Horta and Madalena throughout the year, using its small fleet of ships, in addition to inter-island connections between Faial, Pico, São Jorge and Terceira during the summer months. New initiatives began in the late 1990s: the catamaran "Iapetos" began services, followed by "Lady of Mann" and "Golfinho Azul" (chartered by Açorline). In 2005, Atlânticoline was established, providing transport services. In 2009, Atlanticoline was involved in a controversial rejection of a 750-passenger, 150-vehicle ship ordered from the Estaleiros de Viana do Castelo (ENVC). The "Atlantida", a 50 million Euro cruiser (as part of a two-ship deal with the other named "Anticiclone") was rejected in 2009 by Atlanticoline for the under-performance of the power-plant. Although it would result in only a five-minute delay between islands, the public company rejected the ship, and the contract was broken over the builder's inability to deliver the required ship on time. While the ship was being shopped to other interested parties (Hugo Chávez once considered purchasing the ferryboat in 2010), no interested buyers appeared, and ENVC decided to cede the "Atlantida" to Atlânticoline as part of the latter's open international competition to charter two ships in 2012. In June 2011, the Regional Government announced that it would purchase 60% of Transmaçor, equivalent to 500,000 Euro of the company's capital. With this transaction the government took control of 88% of the capital of the company. The signed memorandum of understanding concluded negotiations between the various parties involved, under which the liability of Transmaçor (worth a total of 8 million Euro) was divided equally between the government and businessman José E. Almeida, who was previously the holder of a majority stake in the company. Similarly, the Regional Government approved the consolidation of the three individual port authorities (Administração dos Portos do Triângulo e Grupo Ocidental, Administração dos Portos da Terceira e Graciosa and the Administração dos Portos das Ilhas de São Miguel e Santa Maria) and regional Portos dos Açores into one entity that resulted in a 2.2 million Euro cost savings, in addition to a reduction from 11 to three administrators. Demographics. The Azores are divided into 19 municipalities (); each municipality is further divided into "freguesias" (civil administrative parishes), of which there is a total of 156 in all of the Azores. There are six cities () in the Azores: Ponta Delgada, Lagoa and Ribeira Grande on the island of São Miguel; Angra do Heroísmo and Praia da Vitória on the island of Terceira, and Horta on Faial. Three of these, Ponta Delgada, Angra and Horta are considered capital/administrative cities to the regional government: homes to the President (Ponta Delgada), the Judiciary (Angra) and the Regional Assembly (Horta). Angra also serves as the ecclesiastical centre of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Angra, the episcopal see of the Azores. Population. According to the 2019 Census, population in the Azores was 242,796. The Azores were uninhabited when Portuguese navigators arrived in the early 15th century; settlement began in 1439 with migrants from mainland Portugal as well as Spaniards, Sephardic Jews, Moors, Italians, Flemings, and Africans from Guinea, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe. The first Sephardic Jews in the Azores were slaves after their expulsion from Portugal by King Manuel I in 1496. The islands sometimes served as a waypoint for ships carrying African slaves. Emigration. Since the 17th century, many Azoreans have emigrated, mainly to Brazil, Uruguay, the United States and Canada. Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts are the primary destination for Azorean emigrants. From 1921 to 1977, about 250,000 Azoreans immigrated to Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Northern California was the final destination for many of the Massachusetts immigrants who then moved on to the San Joaquin Valley, especially the city of Turlock. In the late 19th century many Azoreans immigrated to the Hawaiian islands. The tuna fishing industry drew a significant number of Azoreans to the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego. During the Great Recession of the early 21st century, Portugal was in a recession from 2011 until 2013, which resulted in high levels of unemployment across the mainland as well as the Azores. The Great Recession led to an increase of emigration from the Azores. Florianópolis and Porto Alegre in the Southern Region of Brazil were founded by Azoreans, who accounted for over half of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina's populations in the late 18th century. As late as 1960, mass immigration currents were registered to Brazil, and many were from the Azores. Politics. Since 1976, the Azores has been an autonomous region integrated within the framework of the Portuguese Republic. It has its own government and autonomous legislature within its own political-administrative statute and organic law. Its governmental organs include: the legislative assembly, a unicameral parliament composed of 52 elected deputies, elected by universal suffrage for a four-year term; the regional government and presidency, with parliamentary legitimacy, composed of a president, a vice-president and seven regional secretaries responsible for day-to-day operations. It is represented in the Council of Ministers by a representative appointed by the president of the Republic, which was created during the revision of the constitution of 2004 (which, among other things, removed the older Portuguese representative that was appointed by the president of the Republic, beholden to the Council of State and coincident with the president). Since becoming a Portuguese autonomous region, the executive branch of the regional authority has been located in Ponta Delgada, the legislative branch in Horta, and the judicial branch in Angra do Heroísmo. The islands of the archipelago do not have independent status in law, except in electoral law and are governed by 19 municipalities that subdivide the islands. In addition, until the administrative reform of the 19th century, the following civil parishes had municipal standing: Topo (today integrated into the municipality of Calheta, São Jorge); Praia (today integrated into municipality of Santa Cruz da Graciosa); São Sebastião (today an integral part of the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo); Capelas (now part of the municipality of Ponta Delgada); and Água de Pau (now a civil parish in the municipality of Lagoa). These civil parishes still retain their titles of "vila" in name only; the populations of Capelas and neighbouring parish still protest the change and promote the restoration of their status. The municipalities are further subdivided into several civil parishes, with the exception of Corvo (the only municipality by law without a civil parish, owing to its size). Azorean politics is dominated by the two largest Portuguese political parties, the Socialist Party and Social Democratic Party, the former holding a majority in the Legislative Assembly. The Democratic and Social Center / People's Party, the Left Bloc, the Unitary Democratic Coalition and the People's Monarchist Party are also represented. , the President of the Azores is Social Democratic Party leader José Manuel Bolieiro. Although the Socialist Party dominates the regional politics, the Social Democratic Party is traditionally popular in city and town council elections. Foreign relations and defence. As an autonomous but integral region of Portugal, foreign affairs and defence are the responsibility of the national government. As is all of Portugal, the Azores are in the European Union and Schengen Area. They are also in the European Union Customs Union and VAT area but levy a lower rate of VAT than applies on the mainland. The Azores, like Madeira and the Canary Islands, are among the European Union's state territories with special status, and are one of its designated "Outermost Regions". The Azores Military Zone is the Portuguese Army's command for ground forces stationed in the archipelago. The Air Force, in turn, maintains a base at Lajes Field, which is also home to the United States Forces Azores, while the Navy tasks the offshore patrol vessel "Figueira da Foz", as well as a range of other patrol vessels, to patrol Portugal's large economic zone around the islands. Culture. Religious societies and festivals. Religious festivals, patron saints, and traditional holidays mark the Azorean calendar. The most important religious events are tied with the festivals associated with the cult of the Holy Spirit, commonly referred to as the festivals of the Holy Spirit (or ), rooted in millenarian dogma and held on all islands from May to September. These festivals are very important to the Azorean people, who are primarily Roman Catholic, and combine religious rituals with processions celebrating the benevolence and egalitarianism of neighbours. These events are centred around or , small buildings that host the meals, adoration and charity of the participants, and used to store the artefacts associated with the events. On Terceira, for example, these impérios have grown into ornate buildings painted and cared for by the local brotherhoods in their respective parishes. The events focus on the members of local parishes, not tourists, but all are welcome, as sharing is one of the main principles of the festivals. Some limited events focus on tourists, including a public event that the city government of Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel holds, which attracts visitors and locals. The Festival of the Lord Holy Christ of the Miracles () in Ponta Delgada is the largest individual religious event in the Azores and takes place on Rogation Sunday. Pilgrims from within the Portuguese diaspora normally travel to Ponta Delgada to participate in an afternoon procession behind the image of Christ along the flower-decorated streets of the city. Although the solemn procession is only held on one day, the events of the Festival of Senhor Santo Cristo occur over a period of a week and involve a ritual of moving the image between the main church and convent nightly, ultimately culminating in the procession, which is televised within the Azores and to the Portuguese diaspora. The Sanjoaninas Festivities in Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira are held in June honoring Saint Anthony, Saint Peter and Saint John the Baptist, in a large religious celebration. The festival of Our Lady of Lourdes (), patron saint of whalers, begins in Lajes on Pico Island on the last Sunday of August and runs through the week—Whalers Week. It is marked by social and cultural events connected to the tradition of whale hunting. The Wine Harvest Festival (), takes place during the first week of September and is a century-old custom of the people of Pico. On Corvo, the people celebrate their patron saint (Our Lady of Miracles) on 15 August every year in addition to the festivals of the Divine Holy Spirit. The (August Sea Festival), takes place every year beginning on 15 August in Praia Formosa on Santa Maria. Also, the (Sea Week), dedicated almost exclusively to water sports, takes place in August in the city of Horta, on Faial. is celebrated in the Azores. Parades and pageants are the heart of the Carnaval festivities. There is lively music, colorful costumes, hand-made masks, and floats. The traditional bullfights in the bullring are ongoing as is the running of bulls in the streets. International visitors. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Graciosa was host to many prominent figures, including Sport. Notable sports teams in the Azores include Santa Clara (Primeira Liga), Lusitânia (Liga Portuguesa de Basquetebol), Fonte do Bastardo (Portuguese Volleyball First Division) and Sporting Clube da Horta (Portuguese Handball Second Division). The Rallye Açores is an international rally race held annually since 1965, which was part of the European Rally Championship and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. The Azores Senior Open was a golf tournament held in 2008 as part of the European Seniors Tour.
3229	7903804	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3229	Outback	The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a number of climatic zones, including tropical and monsoonal climates in northern areas, arid areas in the "red centre" and semi-arid and temperate climates in southerly regions. The total population is estimated at 607,000 people. Geographically, the Outback is unified by a combination of factors, most notably a low human population density, a largely intact natural environment and, in many places, low-intensity land uses, such as pastoralism (livestock grazing) in which production is reliant on the natural environment. The Outback is deeply ingrained in Australian heritage, history and folklore. In Australian art the subject of the Outback has been vogue, particularly in the 1940s. In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, the Queensland Outback was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "natural attraction". History. Aboriginal peoples have lived in the Outback for at least 50,000 years and occupied all Outback regions, including the driest deserts, when Europeans first entered central Australia in the 1800s. Many Aboriginal Australians retain strong physical and cultural links to their traditional country and are legally recognised as the Traditional Owners of large parts of the Outback under Commonwealth Native Title legislation. Early European exploration of inland Australia was sporadic. More focus was on the more accessible and fertile coastal areas. The first party to successfully cross the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney was led by Gregory Blaxland in 1813, 25 years after the colony was established. People, starting with John Oxley in 1817, 1818 and 1821, followed by Charles Sturt from 1829 to 1830, attempted to follow the westward-flowing rivers to find an "inland sea", but these were found to all flow into the Murray River and Darling River, which turn south. From 1858 onwards, the so-called "Afghan" cameleers and their beasts played an instrumental role in opening up the Outback and helping to build infrastructure. Over the period 1858 to 1861, John McDouall Stuart led six expeditions north from Adelaide, South Australia into the Outback, culminating in successfully reaching the north coast of Australia and returning without the loss of any of the party's members' lives. This contrasts with the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition in 1860–61 which was much better funded, but resulted in the deaths of three of the members of the transcontinental party. The Overland Telegraph line was constructed in the 1870s along the route identified by Stuart. In 1865, the surveyor George Goyder, using changes in vegetation patterns, mapped a line in South Australia, north of which he considered rainfall to be too unreliable to support agriculture. Exploration of the Outback continued in the 1950s when Len Beadell explored, surveyed and built many roads in support of the nuclear weapons tests at Emu Field and Maralinga and rocket testing on the Woomera Prohibited Area. Mineral exploration continues as new mineral deposits are identified and developed. 2002 was declared the Year of the Outback. While the early explorers used horses to cross the Outback, the first woman to make the journey riding a horse was Anna Hingley, who rode from Broome to Cairns in 2006. Environment. Global significance. The paucity of industrial land use has led to the Outback being recognised globally as one of the largest remaining intact natural areas on Earth. Global "Human Footprint" and wilderness reviews highlight the importance of Outback Australia as one of the world's large natural areas, along with the Boreal forests and Tundra regions in North America, the Sahara and Gobi deserts and the tropical forests of the Amazon and Congo Basins. The savanna (or grassy woodlands) of northern Australia are the largest, intact savanna regions in the world. In the south, the Great Western Woodlands, which occupy , an area larger than all of England and Wales, are the largest remaining temperate woodland left on Earth. Major ecosystems. Reflecting the wide climatic and geological variation, the Outback contains a wealth of distinctive and ecologically rich ecosystems. Major land types include: Wildlife. The Outback is full of very important well-adapted wildlife, although much of it may not be immediately visible to the casual observer. Many animals, such as red kangaroos and dingoes, hide in bushes to rest and keep cool during the heat of the day. Birdlife is prolific, most often seen at waterholes at dawn and dusk. Huge flocks of budgerigars, cockatoos, corellas and galahs are often sighted. On bare ground or roads during the winter, various species of snakes and lizards bask in the sun, but they are rarely seen during the summer months. Feral animals such as camels thrive in central Australia, brought to Australia by pastoralists and explorers, along with the early Afghan drivers. Feral horses known as 'brumbies' are station horses that have run wild. Feral pigs, foxes, cats, goats and rabbits and other imported animals are also degrading the environment, so time and money is spent eradicating them in an attempt to help protect fragile rangelands. The Outback is home to a diverse set of animal species, such as the kangaroo, emu and dingo. The Dingo Fence was built to restrict movements of dingoes and wild dogs into agricultural areas towards the south east of the continent. The marginally fertile parts are primarily utilised as rangelands and have been traditionally used for sheep or cattle grazing, on cattle stations which are leased from the Federal Government. While small areas of the outback consist of clay soils the majority has exceedingly infertile palaeosols. Riversleigh, in Queensland, is one of Australia's most renowned fossil sites and was recorded as a World Heritage site in 1994. The area contains fossil remains of ancient mammals, birds and reptiles of Oligocene and Miocene age. Industry. Pastoralism. The largest industry across the Outback, in terms of the area occupied, is pastoralism, in which cattle, sheep, and sometimes goats are grazed in mostly intact, natural ecosystems. Widespread use of bore water, obtained from underground aquifers, including the Great Artesian Basin, has enabled livestock to be grazed across vast areas in which no permanent surface water exists naturally. Capitalising on the lack of pasture improvement and absence of fertiliser and pesticide use, many Outback pastoral properties are certified as organic livestock producers. In 2014, , most of which is in Outback Australia, was fully certified as organic farm production, making Australia the largest certified organic production area in the world. Tourism. Tourism is a major industry across the Outback, and commonwealth and state tourism agencies explicitly target Outback Australia as a desirable destination for domestic and international travellers. There is no breakdown of tourism revenues for the "Outback" "per se". However, regional tourism is a major component of national tourism incomes. Tourism Australia explicitly markets nature-based and Indigenous-led experiences to tourists. In the 2015–2016 financial year, 815,000 visitors spent $988 million while on holidays in the Northern Territory alone. There are many popular tourist attractions in the Outback. Some of the well known destinations include Devils Marbles, Kakadu National Park, Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), MacDonnell Ranges and Uluru (Ayers Rock). Mining. Other than agriculture and tourism, the main economic activity in this vast and sparsely settled area is mining. Owing to the almost complete absence of mountain building and glaciation since the Permian (in many areas since the Cambrian) ages, the outback is extremely rich in iron, aluminium, manganese and uranium ores, and also contains major deposits of gold, nickel, copper, lead and zinc ores. Because of its size, the value of grazing and mining is considerable. Major mines and mining areas in the Outback include opals at Coober Pedy, Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs, metals at Broken Hill, Tennant Creek, Olympic Dam and the remote Challenger Mine. Oil and gas are extracted in the Cooper Basin around Moomba. In Western Australia the Argyle diamond mine in the Kimberley was once the world's biggest producer of natural diamonds and contributed approximately one-third of the world's natural supply, but was closed down in 2020 due to financial reasons. The Pilbara region's economy is dominated by mining and petroleum industries. The Pilbara's oil and gas industry is the region's largest export industry, earning $5.0 billion in 2004/05 and accounting for over 96% of the State's production. Most of Australia's iron ore is also mined in the Pilbara and it also has one of the world's major manganese mines. Population. Aboriginal communities in outback regions, such as the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in northern South Australia, have not been displaced as they have been in areas of intensive agriculture and large cities, in coastal areas. The total population of the Outback in Australia declined from 700,000 in 1996 to 690,000 in 2006. The largest decline was in the Outback Northern Territory, while the Kimberley and Pilbara showed population increases during the same period. The sex ratio is 1040 males for 1000 females and 17% of the total population is indigenous. Facilities. The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) started service in 1928 and helps people who live in the outback of Australia. Previously, serious injuries or illnesses often meant death owing to the lack of proper medical facilities and trained personnel. In many outback communities, the number of children is too small for a conventional school to operate. Children are educated at home by the School of the Air. Originally the teachers communicated with the children via radio, but now satellite telecommunication is used instead. Some children attend boarding school, mostly only those in secondary school. Terminology. The term "outback" derives from the adverbial phrase referring to the backyard of a house, and came to be used meiotically in the late 1800s to describe the vast sparsely settled regions of Australia behind the cities and towns. The earliest known use of the term in this context in print was in 1869, when the writer clearly meant the area west of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. Over time, the adverbial use of the phrase was replaced with the present day noun form. It is colloquially said that "the outback" is located "beyond the Black Stump". The location of the black stump may be some hypothetical location or may vary depending on local custom and folklore. It has been suggested that the term comes from the Black Stump Wine Saloon that once stood about out of Coolah, New South Wales on the Gunnedah Road. It is claimed that the saloon, named after the nearby Black Stump Run and Black Stump Creek, was an important staging post for traffic to north-west New South Wales and it became a marker by which people gauged their journeys. "The Never-Never" is a term referring to remoter parts of the Outback. The Outback can also be referred to as "back of beyond" or "back o' Bourke", although these terms are more frequently used when referring to something a long way from anywhere, or a long way away. The well-watered north of the continent is often called the "Top End" and the arid interior "The Red Centre", owing to its vast amounts of red soil and sparse greenery amongst its landscape. Transport. The outback is criss-crossed by historic tracks. Most of the major highways have an excellent bitumen surface and other major roads are usually well-maintained dirt roads. The Stuart Highway runs from north to south through the centre of the continent, roughly paralleled by the Adelaide–Darwin railway. There is a proposal to develop some of the roads running from the south-west to the north-east to create an all-weather road named the Outback Highway, crossing the continent diagonally from Laverton, Western Australia (north of Kalgoorlie, through the Northern Territory to Winton, in Queensland. Air transport is relied on for mail delivery in some areas, owing to sparse settlement and wet-season road closures. Most outback mines have an airstrip and many have a fly-in fly-out workforce. Most outback sheep stations and cattle stations have an airstrip and quite a few have their own light plane. Medical and ambulance services are provided by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
3231	28481209	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3231	Absolute infinite	The absolute infinite ("symbol": Ω), in context often called "absolute", is an extension of the idea of infinity proposed by mathematician Georg Cantor. Cantor linked the absolute infinite with God, and believed that it had various mathematical properties, including the reflection principle: every property of the absolute infinite is also held by some smaller object. Cantor's view. Cantor said: While using the Latin expression "in Deo" (in God), Cantor identifies absolute infinity with God (GA 175–176, 376, 378, 386, 399). According to Cantor, Absolute Infinity is beyond mathematical comprehension and shall be interpreted in terms of negative theology. Cantor also mentioned the idea in his letters to Richard Dedekind (text in square brackets not present in original): The Burali-Forti paradox. The idea that the collection of all ordinal numbers cannot logically exist seems paradoxical to many. This is related to the Burali-Forti's paradox which implies that there can be no greatest ordinal number. All of these problems can be traced back to the idea that, for every property that can be logically defined, there exists a set of all objects that have that property. However, as in Cantor's argument (above), this idea leads to difficulties. More generally, as noted by A. W. Moore, there can be no end to the process of set formation, and thus no such thing as the "totality of all sets", or the "set hierarchy". Any such totality would itself have to be a set, thus lying somewhere within the hierarchy and thus failing to contain every set. A standard solution to this problem is found in Zermelo set theory, which does not allow the unrestricted formation of sets from arbitrary properties. Rather, we may form the set of all objects that have a given property "and lie in some given set" (Zermelo's Axiom of Separation). This allows for the formation of sets based on properties, in a limited sense, while (hopefully) preserving the consistency of the theory. While this solves the logical problem, one could argue that the philosophical problem remains. It seems natural that a set of individuals ought to exist, so long as the individuals exist. Indeed, naive set theory might be said to be based on this notion. Although Zermelo's fix allows a class to describe arbitrary (possibly "large") entities, these predicates of the metalanguage may have no formal existence (i.e., as a set) within the theory. For example, the class of all sets would be a proper class. This is philosophically unsatisfying to some and has motivated additional work in set theory and other methods of formalizing the foundations of mathematics such as New Foundations by Willard Van Orman Quine.
3233	1743869	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3233	Acceptance testing	In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests. In systems engineering, it may involve black-box testing performed on a system (for example: a piece of software, lots of manufactured mechanical parts, or batches of chemical products) prior to its delivery. In software testing, the ISTQB defines "acceptance testing" as: The final test in the QA lifecycle, user acceptance testing, is conducted just before the final release to assess whether the product or application can handle real-world scenarios. By replicating user behavior, it checks if the system satisfies business requirements and rejects changes if certain criteria are not met. Some forms of acceptance testing are, user acceptance testing (UAT), end-user testing, operational acceptance testing (OAT), acceptance test-driven development (ATDD) and field (acceptance) testing. Acceptance criteria are the criteria that a system or component must satisfy in order to be accepted by a user, customer, or other authorized entity. Overview. Testing is a set of activities conducted to facilitate the discovery and/or evaluation of properties of one or more items under test. Each test, known as a test case, exercises a set of predefined test activities, developed to drive the execution of the test item to meet test objectives; including correct implementation, error identification, quality verification, and other valued details. The test environment is usually designed to be identical, or as close as possible, to the anticipated production environment. It includes all facilities, hardware, software, firmware, procedures, and/or documentation intended for or used to perform the testing of software. UAT and OAT test cases are ideally derived in collaboration with business customers, business analysts, testers, and developers. These tests must include both business logic tests as well as operational environment conditions. The business customers (product owners) are the primary stakeholders of these tests. As the test conditions successfully achieve their acceptance criteria, the stakeholders are reassured the development is progressing in the right direction. Process. The acceptance test suite may need to be performed multiple times, as all of the test cases may not be executed within a single test iteration. The acceptance test suite is run using predefined acceptance test procedures to direct the testers on which data to use, the step-by-step processes to follow, and the expected result following execution. The actual results are retained for comparison with the expected results. If the actual results match the expected results for each test case, the test case is said to pass. If the quantity of non-passing test cases does not breach the project's predetermined threshold, the test suite is said to pass. If it does, the system may either be rejected or accepted on conditions previously agreed between the sponsor and the manufacturer. The anticipated result of a successful test execution: The objective is to provide confidence that the developed product meets both the functional and non-functional requirements. The purpose of conducting acceptance testing is that once completed, and provided the acceptance criteria are met, it is expected the sponsors will sign off on the product development/enhancement as satisfying the defined requirements (previously agreed between business and product provider/developer). User acceptance testing. User acceptance testing (UAT) consists of a process of verifying that a solution works for the user. It is not system testing (ensuring software does not crash and meets documented requirements) but rather ensures that the solution will work for the user (i.e. tests that the user accepts the solution); software vendors often refer to this as "Beta testing". This testing should be undertaken by the intended end user, or a subject-matter expert (SME), preferably the owner or client of the solution under test and provide a summary of the findings for confirmation to proceed after trial or review. In software development, UAT as one of the final stages of a project often occurs before a client or customer accepts the new system. Users of the system perform tests in line with what would occur in real-life scenarios. The materials given to the tester must be similar to the materials that the end user will have. Testers should be given real-life scenarios such as the three most common or difficult tasks that the users they represent will undertake. The UAT acts as a final verification of the required business functionality and proper functioning of the system, emulating real-world conditions on behalf of the paying client or a specific large customer. If the software works as required and without issues during normal use, one can reasonably extrapolate the same level of stability in production. User tests, usually performed by clients or by end-users, do not normally focus on identifying simple cosmetic problems such as spelling errors, nor on showstopper defects, such as software crashes; testers and developers identify and fix these issues during earlier unit testing, integration testing, and system testing phases. UAT should be executed against test scenarios. Test scenarios usually differ from System or Functional test cases in that they represent a "player" or "user" journey. The broad nature of the test scenario ensures that the focus is on the journey and not on technical or system-specific details, staying away from "click-by-click" test steps to allow for a variance in users' behavior. Test scenarios can be broken down into logical "days", which are usually where the actor (player/customer/operator) or system (backoffice, front end) changes. In industry, a common UAT is a factory acceptance test (FAT). This test takes place before the installation of the equipment. Most of the time testers not only check that the equipment meets the specification but also that it is fully functional. A FAT usually includes a check of completeness, a verification against contractual requirements, a proof of functionality (either by simulation or a conventional function test), and a final inspection. The results of these tests give clients confidence in how the system will perform in production. There may also be legal or contractual requirements for acceptance of the system. Operational acceptance testing. Operational acceptance testing (OAT) is used to conduct operational readiness (pre-release) of a product, service or system as part of a quality management system. OAT is a common type of non-functional software testing, used mainly in software development and software maintenance projects. This type of testing focuses on the operational readiness of the system to be supported, and/or to become part of the production environment. Acceptance testing in extreme programming. Acceptance testing is a term used in agile software development methodologies, particularly extreme programming, referring to the functional testing of a user story by the software development team during the implementation phase. The customer specifies scenarios to test when a user story has been correctly implemented. A story can have one or many acceptance tests, whatever it takes to ensure the functionality works. Acceptance tests are black-box system tests. Each acceptance test represents some expected result from the system. Customers are responsible for verifying the correctness of the acceptance tests and reviewing test scores to decide which failed tests are of highest priority. Acceptance tests are also used as regression tests prior to a production release. A user story is not considered complete until it has passed its acceptance tests. This means that new acceptance tests must be created for each iteration, or the development team will report zero progress. Types of acceptance testing. Typical types of acceptance testing include the following In contract acceptance testing, a system is tested against acceptance criteria as documented in a contract, before the system is accepted. In regulation acceptance testing, a system is tested to ensure it meets governmental, legal and safety standards. Acceptance testing conducted at the site at which the product is developed and performed by employees of the supplier organization, to determine whether a component or system satisfies the requirements, normally including hardware as well as software. Alpha testing takes place at developers' sites and involves testing of the operational system by internal staff, before it is released to external customers. Beta testing takes place at customers' sites and involves testing by a group of customers who use the system at their own locations and provide feedback, before the system is released to other customers. The latter is often called "field testing". Acceptance criteria. According to the Project Management Institute, acceptance criteria is a "set of conditions that is required to be met before deliverables are accepted." Requirements found in acceptance criteria for a given component of the system are usually very detailed.
3234	14377864	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3234	Archbishopric of Riga	The Archbishopric of Riga (, ) was a Catholic diocese and civil government in Medieval Livonia, subject to the Holy See. It was established in 1186 and ended in 1561. History. The diocese was established in 1186 as the Bishopric of Livonia at Ikšķile; after its seat was moved to Riga, it became the Bishopric of Riga in 1202 and was elevated to an archbishopric in 1255. The archbishops of Riga were also the secular rulers of Riga until 1561 when during the Reformation the territory converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism and all church territories were secularized. The see was restored as a diocese of the Catholic Church in 1918 and raised into an archdiocese in 1923. Bishops and Archbishops of Riga. A new Bishopric of Livonia was established in Latgalia in 1621 during the Inflanty Voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Coinage. The Archbishops of Riga were innovators in the field of minting currency, reviving techniques abandoned since the collapse of Rome. The names of individual archbishops after 1418, as well as the years of their respective reigns, are stamped on Livonian pennies excavated at archaeological sites. In many cases, this is the only biographical data available. No Livonian pennies before 1418 have been found.
3235	45697832	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3235	Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia	Albert Frederick (; ; 7 May 1553 – 27 August 1618) was the Duke of Prussia, from 1568 until his death. He was a son of Albert of Prussia and Anna Marie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second and last Prussian duke of the Ansbach branch of the Hohenzollern family. Duke of Prussia. Albert became Duke of Prussia after paying feudal homage to his cousin, the King of Poland, Sigismund Augustus, on 19 July 1569 in Lublin. The homage was described by the Polish chronicler Jan Kochanowski in his work "Proporzec" ("Standard"). During the 1573 Polish election, Albert Frederick attempted to gain acceptance to the Polish senate but was opposed by the powerful Jan Zamoyski (later Grand Hetman of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland) who feared the influence of Protestants in the Polish legislative body. Albert Frederick initially refused to recognize the election of Stefan Bathory and supported the candidacy of Maximilian of Austria. However, at the Toruń sejm of October 1576 he gave his support to the new monarch. As the great-grandson of the Polish king Casimir IV Jagiellon, and as a Duke in Prussia who was fluent in Polish, Albert Frederick was seriously considered for a time as a possible candidate for the Polish throne. He particularly enjoyed the support of Polish Lutherans. In 1572 he began to exhibit signs of mental disorder. He had twice tried to commit suicide and was prone to violent outbursts and held a great fear of " Turks and Muscovites " overrunning Germany. In early 1578, the regency was taken over by his cousin, George Frederick of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1539–1603). After George Frederick's death in 1603, the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa appointed Joachim Frederick as regent in 1605, and permitted his son, John Sigismund, to succeed him in 1611. The latter became Duke of Prussia after Albert Frederick's death in 1618. Marriage. Albert Frederick was married in 1573 to Marie Eleonore of Cleves, a daughter of Wilhelm, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Archduchess Maria of Austria (1531–1581). Maria was a daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. Issue. Albert Frederick and Marie were parents to seven children: At his death, the duchy passed to his son-in-law John Sigismund, Margrave of Brandenburg, combining the two territories under a single dynasty and forming Brandenburg-Prussia. External links.
3236	85272	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3236	Ansbach	Ansbach ( , ; ) is a city in the German state of Bavaria. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the river Fränkische Rezat, a tributary of the river Main. In 2020, its population was 41,681. Developed in the 8th century as a Benedictine monastery, it became the seat of the Hohenzollern family in 1331. In 1460, the Margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach lived here. The city has a castle known as Margrafen–Schloss, built between 1704 and 1738. It was not badly damaged during the World Wars and hence retains its original historical baroque sheen. Ansbach is now home to a US military base and to the Ansbach University of Applied Sciences. The city has connections via autobahn A6 and highways B13 and B14. Ansbach station is on the Nürnberg–Crailsheim and Treuchtlingen–Würzburg railways and a Station of line S4 of the Nuremberg S-Bahn. Name origin. Ansbach was originally called Onoltesbach (about 790 AD), a term composed of three parts. The individual word elements are "Onold" (the city founder's name), the Suffix "-es" (a possessive ending, like "-'s" in English) and the Old High German expression "pah" or "bach" (for brook). The name of the city has slightly changed throughout the centuries into Onoltespah (837 AD), Onoldesbach (1141 AD), Onoldsbach (1230 AD), Onelspach (1338 AD), Onsbach (1508 AD) and finally Ansbach (1732 AD). It was also formerly known as Anspach. History. According to folklore, towards the end of the 7th century a group of Franconian peasants and their families went up into the wilderness to found a new settlement. Their leader Onold led them to an area called the "Rezattal" (Rezat valley). This is where they founded the "Urhöfe" (meaning the first farms: Knollenhof, Voggenhof and Rabenhof). Gradually more settlers, such as the "Winden-Tribe" came, and the farms grew into a small village. Many villages around Ansbach were founded by the "Winden" during that period (even today, their settlements can easily identified by their names, like Meinhardswinden, Dautenwinden or Brodswinden). A Benedictine monastery was established there around 748 by the Frankish noble St Gumbertus. The adjoining village of Onoltesbach was first noticed as a proper town in 1221. The counts of Öttingen ruled over Ansbach until the Hohenzollern burgrave of Nürnberg took over in 1331. The Hohenzollerns made Ansbach the seat of their dynasty until their acquisition of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1415. After the 1440 death of Frederick I, a cadet branch of the family established itself as the margraves of Ansbach. George the Pious introduced the Protestant Reformation to Ansbach in 1528, leading to Gumbertus Abbey's secularization in 1563. The Markgrafenschloß was built between 1704 and 1738. Its gardens continued to be a notable attraction into the 1800s. In 1791, the last margrave sold his realm to the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1796, the Duke of Zweibrücken, Maximilian Joseph — the future Bavarian king— was exiled to Ansbach the French took Zweibrücken. In Ansbach, Maximilian von Montgelas wrote an elaborate concept for the future political organization of Bavaria, which is known as the Ansbacher Mémoire. Napoleon forced Prussia to cede Ansbach and its principality to Bavaria in the Franco-Prussian treaty of alliance signed at Schönbrunn Palace on 15 December 1805 at the end of the Third Coalition. Ansbach became the capital of the ('Circle of the Rezat'). Bavarian ownership was confirmed by the 1815 Congress of Vienna; Prussia was compensated with the Bavarian Duchy of Berg. In 1837 the became the circle of Middle Franconia. Following the unification of Germany Ansbach had a population of 12,635. Jewish families were resident in Ansbach from at least the end of the 18th century. They set up a Jewish Cemetery in the Ruglaender Strasse, which was vandalised and razed under the Nazi regime in the Kristallnacht. It was repaired in 1946, but it was damaged several times more. A plaque on the wall of the cemetery commemorates these events. The Jewish Congregation built its synagogue at No 3 Rosenbadstrasse, but it too was damaged by the SA, though it was not burnt down for fear of damaging the neighbouring buildings. It serves today as a "Symbolic House of God". A plaque in the entrance serves as a memorial to the synagogue and to Jewish residents who were murdered during the Holocaust. In 1940, at least 500 patients were deported from the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Ansbach ["Ansbach Medical and Nursing Clinic"] to the extermination facilities Sonnenstein and Hartheim which were disguised as psychiatric institutions, as part of the Action T4 euthanasia action. They were gassed there. At the clinic in Ansbach itself, around 50 intellectually disabled children were injected with the drug Luminal and killed that way. A plaque was erected in their memory in 1988 in the local hospital at No. 38 Feuchtwangerstrasse. During World War II, a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp was located here. Also during the Second World War the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht had bases here. The nearby airbase was the home station for the Stab & I/KG53 (Staff & 1st Group of Kampfgeschwader 53) operating 38 Heinkel He 111 bombers. On 1 September 1939 this unit was one of the many that participated in the attack on Poland that started the war. All of its bridges were destroyed during the course of the war. During the Western Allied invasion of Germany in April 1945, the airfield was seized by the United States Third Army, and used by the USAAF 354th Fighter Group which flew P-47 Thunderbolts from the aerodrome (designated ALG R-82) from late April until the German capitulation on 7 May 1945. At the end of the war, 19-year-old student Robert Limpert tried to get the town to surrender to the US Forces without a fight. He was betrayed by Hitler Youth and was hanged from the portal of the City Hall by the city's military commander, Col. ("Oberst") Ernst Meyer. Several memorials to his heroic deed have been erected over the years, despite opposition from some residents — in the Ludwigskirche, in the Gymnasium Carolinum and at No 6 Kronenstrasse. After the Second World War, Ansbach belonged to the American Zone. The American Military authorities established a displaced persons (DP) camp in what used to be a sanatorium in what is today the Strüth quarter. Bachwoche Ansbach has been held in Ansbach since 1947. Since 1970, Ansbach has enlarged its municipal area by incorporating adjacent communities. Ansbach hosts several units of the U.S. armed forces, associated with German units under NATO. There are five separate U.S. installations: Shipton Kaserne, home to 412th Aviation Support Battalion, Katterbach Kaserne, formerly the home of the 1st Infantry Division's 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, also home of 501st M.I. Bn and 501st Avn Bn. which has been replaced by the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade as of 2006, as part of the 1st Infantry Division's return to Fort Riley, Kansas; Bismarck Kaserne, which functions as a satellite post to Katterbach, hosting their Post Theater, barracks, Von Steuben Community Center, Military Police, and other support agencies, Barton Barracks, home to the USAG Ansbach and Bleidorn Barracks, which has a library and housing, and Urlas, which hosts the Post Exchange as well as a housing area opened in 2010. Ansbach was also home to the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division (United States) from 1972 to the early 1990s. On 24 July 2016 a bomb was detonated in a restaurant in the city, killing only the bomber himself and injuring few people. The perpetrator was reported to be a Syrian refugee whose asylum application had been rejected but who had been given exceptional leave to remain until the security situation in Syria returned to a safe condition. Witnesses reported he had tried to enter a nearby music festival but had been turned away, before detonating his device outside a nearby wine bar. Climate. Ansbach has a transitional temperate-continental climate (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"/"Dfb"), with a small diurnal air temperature variation between day and night during winter, and with a moderate annual precipitation. Economy. Around the time of the unification of Germany in 1871, the chief manufactures of Ansbach were woollen, cotton, and half-silk goods; earthenware; tobacco; cutlery; and playing cards. A considerable trade in grain, wool, and flax was also supported. By the onset of the First World War, it also produced machinery, toys, and embroidery. Today there is a large density of plastics industry in the city and rural districts around Ansbach. The city is known for making Peperami pork sausages and jerky. Transport. Ansbach lies on the Treuchtlingen-Würzburg railway. Twin towns – sister cities. Ansbach is twinned with: In popular culture. In the novel "The Schirmer Inheritance" (1953) by Eric Ambler (1909–1998), Sergeant Franz Schirmer of the Ansbach Dragoons is wounded in the battle of Preussisch-Eylau in 1807. He returns to Ansbach to settle but changes his name as he has been posted as a deserter. The bulk of the novel concerns efforts by an American law firm to trace his descendants to claim an inheritance.
3237	7903804	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3237	National Alliance (Italy)	National Alliance (, AN) was a national conservative political party in Italy. It was the successor of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist party founded in 1946 by former followers of Benito Mussolini that had moderated its policies over its last decades and finally distanced itself from its former ideology, a move known as "", during a convention in Fiuggi by dissolving into the new party in 1995. Gianfranco Fini was the leader of AN from its foundation through 2008, after being elected President of the Chamber of Deputies. Fini was succeeded by Ignazio La Russa, who managed the merger of the party with Forza Italia (FI) into The People of Freedom (PdL) in 2009. During AN's last congress, it was decided that a foundation would manage the assets and the political legacy of MSI/AN; as a result, the National Alliance Foundation was established in 2011. A group of former AN members, led by La Russa and Giorgia Meloni, as well as former Christian Democrat Guido Crosetto, left the PdL in 2012 to launch the Brothers of Italy (FdI), while others remained in the PdL and were among the founding members of the re-launched Forza Italia (FI) in 2013. The National Alliance Foundation authorised FdI to use AN's symbol in 2014 and onwards. History. Foundation. National Alliance was launched in 1994 when the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the former neo-fascist party, merged with conservative elements of the former Christian Democracy, which had disbanded in 1994 after two years of scandals and various splits due to political corruption at its highest levels, exposed by the "Mani pulite" investigation, and the Italian Liberal Party, disbanded in the same year. It was officially launched in January 1995. Former MSI members dominated the new party, and the MSI's last leader, Gianfranco Fini, was elected the new party's first leader. The AN logo followed a template very similar to that of the Democratic Party of the Left, incorporating the MSI logo in a small roundel of the AN logo as a means of legally preventing others from using it. The name was suggested by an article on the Italian newspaper "Il Tempo" written in 1992 by Domenico Fisichella, a prominent conservative academic. Starting in the 1990s, the MSI gradually transformed into a mainstream right-wing party, culminating in its 1995 dissolution into AN. Government participation. The party was part of all three House of Freedoms coalition governments led by Silvio Berlusconi. Fini was nominated Deputy Prime Minister after the 2001 Italian general election and was Foreign Minister from November 2004 to May 2006. When Fini visited Israel in late November 2003 in the function of Italian Deputy Prime Minister, he labelled the racial laws issued by the Italian fascism regime in 1938 as "infamous", as also Giorgio Almirante, historic leader of MSI, had done before. He also referred to the Italian Social Republic as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past, and considered fascism part of an era of "absolute evil", something which was hardly acceptable to the few remaining hardliners of the party. As a result, Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who had been at odds with the party on a number of issues for a long time, and some hardliners left the party and formed Social Action. In occasion of the 2006 Italian general election, AN ran within the House of Freedoms, with new allies. The centre-right lost by 24,000 votes in favour of the centre-left coalition The Union. Individually, AN received nearly 5 million votes, amounting to 12.3%. In July 2007, a group of splinters led by Francesco Storace formed The Right, which was officially founded on 10 November. Seven MPs of AN, including Teodoro Buontempo and Daniela Santanchè, joined the new party. The People of Freedom. In November 2007, Silvio Berlusconi announced that Forza Italia would have soon merged or transformed into The People of Freedom (PdL) party. After the sudden fall of the Prodi II Cabinet in January 2008, the break-up of The Union and the subsequent political crisis which led to a fresh general election, Berlusconi hinted that Forza Italia would have probably contested its last election and the new party would have been officially founded only after that election. In an atmosphere of reconciliation with Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi also stated that the new party could see the participation of other parties. Finally, on 8 February, Berlusconi and Fini agreed to form a joint list under the PdL banner, allied with Lega Nord (LN). After the victory of the PdL in the 2008 Italian general election, AN was merged into the PdL in early 2009. During AN's last congress, it was decided that a foundation would manage the assets and the political legacy of MSI/AN; as a result, in 2011 the National Alliance Foundation was established. In 2014 the Foundation, which has been successively led by Franco Pontone, Franco Mugnai and Giuseppe Valentino, gave the Brothers of Italy (FdI), a political party formed by former AN members who had splintered from the PdL and who were led by La Russa and Giorgia Meloni, the authorisation to use AN's symbol. Former AN members have since been active in several parties, but mostly in FdI, however the Foundation continues to have former AN members of all ideological stripes in its ranks, including those who are now members of the new Forza Italia, the new Lega and the most-recently formed Independence. Ideology. National Alliance's political programme emphasised: Distinguishing itself from the MSI, the party distanced itself from Benito Mussolini and fascism, and made efforts to improve relations with Jewish groups. For example, after far-right skinheads celebrated the then-AN politician Gianni Alemanno's election as Mayor of Rome in 2008 by making the Roman salute outside the Palazzo Senatorio, Alemanno visited Rome Synagogue, where he gave a speech praising what he called the universal values of the fight against Nazism. The shift was also present in the rhetoric of the party's leader Fini, who went from declaring himself as "fascist for the 2000s" in 1987 when at the head of the MSI, to describing himself as a conservative at the time of the AN's launch in 1994. With most hardliners leaving the party, it sought to present itself as a respectable conservative party and to join forces with Forza Italia in the European People's Party and eventually in a united party of the centre-right. Historian David Broder has compared the AN to the People's Party in Spain, a post-Francisco Franco party. Although the party approved the market economy and held favourable views on liberalisation and the privatisation of state-owned companies, AN was to the left of Forza Italia on economic issues and sometimes supported statist policies. That is why the party was strong in Rome and Lazio, where most civil servants live. The implosion of the Christian Democrats created space for a more economically interventionist party of the conservative right, and the AN sought closer ties to the former DC factions that joined the Berlusconi-led alliances of the right. As part of this, it also moderated its stances on the European Union and immigration, both of which were conditionally accepted by the party's leadership. Moreover, AN presented itself as a party promoting national cohesion, national identity, and patriotism. Regarding institutional reforms, the party was a long-time supporter of presidentialism and a plurality voting system, and came to support also federalism and to fully accept the alliance with Lega Nord, although the relations with that party were tense at times, especially about issues regarding national unity. Fini, a moderniser who saw Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron as role-models, impressed an ambitious political line to the party, combining the pillars of conservative ideology like security, family values, and patriotism with a more progressive approach in other areas, such as stem cell research and supporting voting rights for legal aliens. Some of these positions were not shared by many members of the party, most of whom staunchly opposed stem cell research and artificial insemination. Factions. National Alliance was a heterogeneous political party and within it members were divided in different factions, some of them very organised: In the party there was also a group named Ethic-Religious Council, whose board members included Gaetano Rebecchini (founder, ex-DC), Riccardo Pedrizzi (president), Franco Tofoni (vice-president), Luigi Gagliardi (secretary-general), Alfredo Mantovano, Antonio Mazzocchi, and Riccardo Migliori. This was not a faction but an official organism within the party and expressed the official position of the party on ethical and religious matters. Sometimes the group criticised Fini for his liberal views on abortion, artificial insemination, and stem-cell research, which led some notable ex-DC members as Publio Fiori to leave the party. Some members of the council, such as Pedrizzi and Mantovano, were described as members of an unofficial Catholic Right faction. Popular support. The party had roughly 10–15% support across Italy, having its strongholds in Central Italy, as well as Southern Italy (Lazio 18.6%, Umbria 15.2%, Marche 14.3%, Abruzzo 14.3%, Apulia 13.2%, Sardinia 12.9%, Tuscany 12.6%, and Campania 12.6% in the 2006 Italian general election), scoring badly in Lombardy (10.2%) and Sicily (10.9%), while competing in the North-East (Friuli-Venezia Giulia 15.5% and Veneto 11.3%). The party had a good showing in the first general election in which it took part, achieving 13.5% of the popular vote in 1994 Italian general election. In the 1996 Italian general election, when Fini tried for the first time to replace Silvio Berlusconi as leader of the centre-right, the party grew its support to 15.7%. From that moment the party suffered an electoral decline but remained the third force of Italian politics. In the 2006 Italian general election, the final election in which the party participated on its own account, AN won 12.3% of the vote, securing 71 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 41 in the Senate. In the 2008 Italian general election, the party had 90 deputies (excluding Fiamma Nirenstein, Alessandro Ruben, and Souad Sbai, whose election was supported both by Forza Italia and National Alliance), and 48 senators, who were elected as part of a joint election list under the banner of The People of Freedom. The electoral results of National Alliance in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1994 are shown in the chart below. The electoral results of National Alliance in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below.
3240	45943478	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3240	Arno	The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber. Source and route. The river originates on Monte Falterona<ref name="LIFE98 NAT/IT/005075"></ref> in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a southward curve. The river turns to the west near Arezzo passing through Florence, Empoli and Pisa, flowing into the Ligurian Sea at Marina di Pisa. With a length of , it is the largest river in the region. It has many tributaries: Sieve at long, Bisenzio at , Ombrone Pistoiese at , and the Era, Elsa, Pesa, and Pescia. The drainage basin amounts to more than and drains the waters of the following subbasins: It crosses Florence, where it passes below the Ponte Vecchio and the Santa Trinita bridge (built by Bartolomeo Ammannati but inspired by Michelangelo). The river flooded this city regularly in historical times, most recently in 1966, with after rainfall of in Badia Agnano and in Florence, in only 24 hours. Before Pisa, the Arno is crossed by the Imperial Canal at La Botte. This water channel passes under the Arno through a tunnel, and serves to drain the former area of the Lago di Bientina, which was once the largest lake in Tuscany before its reclamation. The flow rate of the Arno is irregular. It is sometimes described as having a torrentlike behaviour, because it can easily go from almost dry to near flood in a few days. At the point where the Arno leaves the Apennines, flow measurements can vary between . New dams built upstream of Florence have greatly alleviated the problem in recent years. The flood on November 4, 1966 collapsed the embankment in Florence, killing at least 40 people and damaging or destroying millions of works of art and rare books. New conservation techniques were inspired by the disaster, but even decades later hundreds of works still await restoration. Etymology. From Latin "Arnus" (Pliny, "Natural History" 3.50). The philologist Hans Krahe related this toponym on a paleo-European basis "Ar-n-", derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "er-", "flow, move".. The hydronym is closely akin to another nearby hydronym, for the Reno (river). Ecology. The Arno river has been strongly affected by non-native species: over 90% of fish species and 70% of macroinvertebrate species in the area around Florence are alien species. These include the European catfish, channel catfish, Crucian carp, common bleak, topmouth gudgeon, New Zealand mud snail, and killer shrimp. The mud crab has been found in the river near Pisa. Uses and human impacts. Water from the Arno drainage basin is used for drinking water, irrigation, and firefighting. Citizens in the central part of the drainage basin also identified flood control, support for biodiversity, fisheries, and cultural value as other services that the river provides. There is the risk that flooding will jeopardize these ecosystem services, as 9% of wastewater treatment plants, 10% of landfills or other waste sites, and 4.5% of contaminated sites are at high risk of flooding, which would produce hotspots of pollution.
3244	46503766	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3244	Aveiro, Portugal	Aveiro () is a city and a municipality in Portugal. In 2021, the population was 80,880, in an area of : it is the second most populous city in the Centro Region of Portugal (after Coimbra). Along with the neighbouring city of Ílhavo, Aveiro is part of an urban agglomeration that includes 120,000 inhabitants, making it one of the most important populated regions by density in the North Region, and primary centre of the Intermunicipal Community of Aveiro and Baixo Vouga. Administratively, the president of the municipal government is José Ribau Esteves, elected by coalition between the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Social Centre, who governs the ten civil parishes (). History. The presence of human settlement in the territory of Aveiro extends to the period associated with the great dolmens of pre-history, which exist in most of the region. The Latinised toponym ‘'Averius'’ derived from the Celtic word "aber" (river-mouth, etym.< Brythonic aber < Proto-Celtic adberos, compare Welsh Aberystwyth). For a long period Aveiro was an important economic link in the production of salt and commercial shipping. It was a centre of salt exploration by the Romans and trade centre through the Middle Ages, registered since 26 January 959 (from the testament of Countess Mumadona Dias to the "cenóbio" of Guimarães). During this testament, Mumadona Dias also highlighted the ancient name for Aveiro, this time referring to the monastery's lands in "Alauario et Salinas", literally, "a gathering place or preserve of birds and of great salt". From 11th century onwards, Aveiro became popular with Portuguese royalty. Kingdom of Portugal. Later, King João I, on the advice of his son Pedro, who was the donatary of Aveiro, requested the construction of fortification walls. King D. Duarte conceded in 1435 the privilege of providing an annual duty-free fair, later referred to as the "Feira de Março" ("March Fair"), today still an annual tradition. The Princess St. Joana, daughter of Afonso V lived in Aveiro, entering the convent of Jesus, and lived there until her death on 12 May 1490. During her life her presence brought attention to the town, and favoured it with an elevated level of development for the time. The first charter (foral) was conceded by Manuel I of Portugal on 4 August 1515, as indicated in the "Livro de Leituras Novas de Forais da Estremadura". Its geographic position along the Aveiro River had always helped it to subsist and grow, supported by salt market, fishing and maritime commercial development. By the beginning of the 15th century, there already existed a great wall around the historical centre, intonating the significance of the community and growth of the population. This included the founding of many religious institutions and their supports, which assisted during the 17th and 18th century crises associated with silt in the waterway. In the winter of 1575, a terrible storm closed the entrance to its port, ending a thriving trade in metals and tiles, and creating a reef barrier at the Atlantic Ocean. The walls were subsequently demolished and used to create the docks around the new sand bar. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, the river's instability at the mouth (between the Ria and open ocean) resulted in the closure of the canal, impeding the use of the port of Aveiro, and creating stagnation in the waters of the lagoon. This blow to the economy created a social and economic crisis, and resulted in the decrease in the population and emigration. It was at this time that the Church of the Miserícordia was constructed, during the Philippine Dynastic union. In 1759, King José I elevated the town to the status of city, a few months after condemning the Duke of Aveiro (a title established in 1547 by João III), José Mascarenhas, to death. As a result, Aveiro became known as Nova Bragança: it was later abandoned much later, and returned to Aveiro. In 1774, by request of King José, Pope Clement XIV instituted the Diocese of Aveiro. In the 19th century, the Aveirense were active during the Liberal Wars, and it was José Estêvão Coelho de Magalhães, a parliamentary member who was determinant in resolving the problem of access along the Ria. He also helped with the development of transport, especially the railway line between Lisbon and Porto. It was the opening of the artificial canals, completed in 1808, that allowed Aveiro to expand economically, marking the beginning in the town's growth. The municipality was elevated to the status of town, centered on its principal church, consecrated to the Archangel Michael, today the location of the "Praça da República" (having been demolished in 1835). Geography. Located on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, Aveiro is an industrial city with an important seaport. The seat of the municipality is the city of Aveiro, comprising the five urban parishes with about 73,003 inhabitants. The city of Aveiro is also the capital of the District of Aveiro, and the largest city in the Baixo Vouga intermunicipal community subregion. Aveiro is known as "the Portuguese Venice", due to its system of canals and boats similar to the Italian city of Venice. Climate. Aveiro has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate influenced by its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. The maritime influence causes a narrow temperature range resulting in summers averaging around in daytime temperatures, considerably lower than inland areas on the same parallel on the Iberian Peninsula. As typical of mediterranean climates, summers are dry and winters are wet. A characteristic of the coastal climate is that frosts are very rare and never severe. The hottest temperature recorded was . Temperatures above are only occasional. Demography. Administratively, the municipality is divided into 10 civil parishes (): São Jacinto is located on an eponymous peninsula, between the Atlantic Ocean and Ria de Aveiro. Aveiro had 61,430 eligible voters in 2006. International relations. Aveiro's sister cities are: Economy. Aveiro was known for many years for its production of salt and for the moliço seagrass harvest, which was used as fertilizer before the development of chemicals for that purpose. The boats once used for harvesting now carry tourists on the canals. Salt production has also decreased dramatically with only a few salt ponds still remaining. The region is now known for the preponderance of ceramics industries, a reflection of the regions advancements, resulting in a long productive tradition since the late Roman, early medieval period (reflected in the ceramics kilns). Software development is important too, both at the R&D centre for a large telecom company and at the University of Aveiro (UA) which is attended by 15,000 students on undergraduate and postgraduate programs. UA works with companies in national and European R&D projects. The city of Aveiro has several shopping centers and malls (Pingo Doce Shopping Center, Fórum Aveiro, Glicínias Plaza (Jumbo – Auchan), Aveiro's Shopping Center (Continente & Mediamarkt), Aveiro's Retail Park and the Oita Shopping Center). This city has many traditional commerce stores. The most central one being Forum Aveiro with clothes stores, restaurant zone and book stores. The town's unemployment rate in 2015 was 12.5%; the University of Aveiro is a major employer. Tourism. Tourism is also important for the economy. The old town centre, with its Art Nouveau and Romanesque architecture and "gondolas" (barcos moliceiros once used for collecting moliço seaweed) plying the Ria de Aveiro canals, is referred to as "The Venice of Portugal" in some tourist brochures. Important tourist attractions are the Arte Nova (Art Nouveau) architectural designs and tiles of some buildings that were created in the early 20th century, the Art Nouveau museum, the Aveiro Museum (Museu de Aveiro, formerly the Mosteiro de Jesus convent with exhibits of King Afonso V's daughter, Santa Joana), the 15th century Aveiro Sé or São Domingos cathedral and the Church of Jesus (Igreja de Jesus) with its architecture. The nearby beaches, Costa Nova and Barra, attract many visitors in warm weather; they can be reached by bus from Aveiro. Other sites of interest to tourists include the Carmelite Church and the Misericórdia Church built in the 16th century. Transport. The local economy is fed by a series of transport networks that cross the municipal boundaries. Air. Regional gateways include air service through the Aeródromo de Aveiro/São Jacinto (LPAV) and the Porto de Aveiro (Ílhavo/Aveiro). Rail. Rail service includes service by Alfa Pendular (between Lisbon and Braga; Lisbon and Oporto; Faro and Oporto) and Intercity (between Lisbon and Oporto as well as Lisbon and Guimarães) trains; suburban links through the Urbanos do Porto and, also, the Linha do Vouga, a narrow gauge railway to Águeda and Sernada do Vouga. Road. The primary expressways and inter-regional thoroughfares include: A1 (between Porto and Lisbon); and the A25 (which links Viseu, Guarda and Vilar Formoso). Intercity buses connect Aveiro with Porto and Lisbon several times a day. Water. "Moliceiros" provide access along the Ria for tourist visits, in addition to traditional fishing or recreational purposes, including regattas. Architecture. The architecture of Aveiro is influenced by two phases: the pre-Kingdom era, with a number of historical monuments; and the modernist movements resulting from the expansion of economy during the 19th-20th centuries. The city's primary landmark is the 15th century Monastery of Jesus (), containing the tomb of King Afonso V's daughter, St. Joana (who died in 1490). The presence of this royal personage, beatified in 1693, proved to be of great benefit when she bequeathed her valuable estate to the convent. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the convent housed a school of embroidery, but was transformed into the "Museu de Santa Joana", or simply, the Museum of Aveiro, housing many of these handicrafts. The abundance of 19th-20th century architectural buildings reflects the effects of the boom during that period, including many of the Arte Nova and Art Deco buildings, inspired by modernist trends and Nationalist tendencies of the Estado Novo regime. The best of these is in the university campus, where many of the nationalist architects were involved in construction projects. The Arte Nova architecture was built by wealthy families from Brazil; their buildings included homes and shops. Traditional Portuguese decorations such as tiles were used. The concept did not last for a long time, but its presence is very distinctive in Aveiro; it is one of only 20 cities in the world that are included in the Réseau Art Nouveau Network, listing cities in Europe that are known for this architectural style. There are several attractions in the city of Aveiro, including cathedrals, canals and the beaches, including the "Ílhavo ceramica de Vista Alegre" and the beaches of Barra, Costa Nova do Prado, and Gafanha da Nazaré. Culture. Aveiro is known in Portugal for its traditional sweets, "Ovos Moles de Aveiro" (PGI), "trouxas de ovos", both made from eggs. "Raivas" are also typical biscuits of Aveiro. The municipal holiday is 12 May, the day of Joanna, Princess of Portugal (1452–1490). Education. The University of Aveiro was created in 1973 and attracts thousands of students to the city. It is ranked as the 354th best university in the world in the "Times" World University Rankings, and the 2nd best in Portugal. The university has about 430 professors (with PhD degrees), 11,000 undergraduate students, and 1,300 post-graduate students. Sport. Sport Clube Beira-Mar is an association football club. Founded in 1922, it has a sports academy with various youth levels in sports including basketball and futsal. The club used to play at Estádio Municipal de Aveiro, designed by Portuguese architect Tomás Taveira for Euro 2004, where it held two group matches. The other long-established club in the city, Os Galitos, was founded in 1904 and houses a wide variety of sports. Its rowers have represented Portugal in international tournaments including the Olympic Games.
3246	49965408	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3246	Anthony the Great	Anthony the Great ( – 17 January 356) was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony, such as , by various epithets: , , , , , and . For his importance among the Desert Fathers and to all later Christian monasticism, he is also known as the . His feast day is celebrated on 17 January among the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches and on Tobi 22 in the Coptic calendar. The biography of Anthony's life by Athanasius of Alexandria helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. He is often erroneously considered the first Christian monk, but as his biography and other sources make clear, there were many ascetics before him. Anthony was, however, among the first known to go into the wilderness (about AD 270), which seems to have contributed to his renown. Accounts of Anthony enduring supernatural temptation during his sojourn in the Eastern Desert of Egypt inspired the depiction of his temptations in visual art and literature. Anthony is invoked against infectious diseases, particularly skin diseases. In the past, many such afflictions, including ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles, were referred to as "Saint Anthony's fire". "Life of Anthony". Most of what is known about Anthony comes from the "Life of Anthony". Written in Greek by Athanasius of Alexandria, it depicts Anthony as an illiterate and holy man who, through his existence in a primordial landscape, has an absolute connection to the divine truth, which is always in harmony with that of Athanasius as the biographer. A continuation of the genre of secular Greek biography, it became his most widely read work. Sometime before 374 it was translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch. The Latin translation helped the "Life" become one of the best-known works of literature in the Christian world, a status it would hold through the Middle Ages. Translated into several languages, it became something of a "best seller" in its day and played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West, and helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. Many stories are also told about Anthony in the "Sayings of the Desert Fathers". Anthony probably spoke only his native language, Coptic, but his sayings were spread in a Greek translation. He himself dictated letters in Coptic, seven of which are extant. Life. Early years. Anthony was born in Koma in Lower Egypt to wealthy landowner parents. When he was about 20 years old, his parents died and left him with the care of his unmarried sister. Shortly thereafter, he decided to follow the gospel exhortation in Matthew 19: 21, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven." Anthony gave away some of his family's lands to his neighbors, sold the remaining property, and donated the funds to the poor. He then left to live an ascetic life, placing his sister with a group of Christian virgins. Hermit. For the next fifteen years, Anthony remained in the area, spending the first years as the disciple of another local hermit. There are various legends that he worked as a swineherd during this period. According to the "Temptation of Saint Anthony" (1878) by Félicien Rops: Anthony maintained a very strict ascetic diet. He ate only bread, salt and water and never meat or wine. He ate at most only once a day and sometimes fasted through two or four days. According to Athanasius, the devil fought Anthony by afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of women, which he overcame by the power of prayer, providing a theme for Christian art. After that, he moved to one of the tombs near his native village. There it was that the "Life" records those strange conflicts with demons in the shape of wild beasts, who inflicted blows upon him, and sometimes left him nearly dead. After fifteen years of this life, at the age of thirty-five, Anthony determined to withdraw from the habitations of men and retire in absolute solitude. He went into the desert to a mountain by the Nile called Pispir (now Der-el-Memun), opposite Arsinoë. There he lived strictly enclosed in an old abandoned Roman fort for some 20 years. Food was thrown to him over the wall. He was at times visited by pilgrims, whom he refused to see; but gradually a number of would-be disciples established themselves in caves and in huts around the mountain. Thus, a colony of ascetics was formed, who begged Anthony to come forth and be their guide in the spiritual life. Eventually, he yielded to their importunities and, about the year 305, emerged from his retreat. To the surprise of all, he appeared to be not emaciated, but healthy in mind and body.For five or six years he devoted himself to the instruction and organization of the great body of monks that had grown up around him; but then he once again withdrew into the inner desert that lay between the Nile and the Red Sea, near the shore of which he fixed his abode on a mountain (Mount Colzim) where still stands the monastery that bears his name, Der Mar Antonios. Here he spent the last forty-five years of his life, in a seclusion, not so strict as Pispir, for he freely saw those who came to visit him, and he used to cross the desert to Pispir with considerable frequency. Amid the Diocletian Persecutions, around 311 Anthony went to Alexandria and was conspicuous visiting those who were imprisoned. Father of Monks. Anthony was not the first ascetic or hermit, but he may properly be called the "Father of Monasticism" in Christianity, as he organized his disciples into a community and later, following the spread of Athanasius's hagiography, was the inspiration for similar communities throughout Egypt and elsewhere. Macarius the Great was a disciple of Anthony. Visitors traveled great distances to see the celebrated holy man. Anthony is said to have spoken to those of a spiritual disposition, leaving the task of addressing the more worldly visitors to Macarius. Macarius later founded a monastic community in the Scetic desert. The fame of Anthony spread and reached Emperor Constantine, who wrote to him requesting his prayers. The brethren were pleased with the Emperor's letter, but Anthony was not overawed and wrote back exhorting the Emperor and his sons not to esteem this world but remember the next. The stories of the meeting of Anthony and Paul of Thebes, the raven who brought them bread, Anthony being sent to fetch the cloak given him by "Athanasius the bishop" to bury Paul's body in, and Paul's death before he returned, are among the familiar legends of the "Life". However, belief in the existence of Paul seems to have existed quite independently of the "Life". In 338, he left the desert temporarily to visit Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius. Final days. When Anthony sensed his death approaching, he commanded his disciples to give his staff to Macarius of Egypt, and to give one sheepskin cloak to Athanasius of Alexandria and the other sheepskin cloak to Serapion of Thmuis, his disciple. Anthony was interred, according to his instructions, in a grave next to his cell. Temptation. Accounts of Anthony enduring preternatural temptation during his sojourn in the Eastern Desert of Egypt inspired the often-repeated subject of the temptation of St. Anthony in Western art and literature. Anthony is said to have faced a series of preternatural temptations during his pilgrimage to the desert. The first to report on the temptation was his contemporary Athanasius of Alexandria. It is possible these events, like the paintings, are full of rich metaphor or in the case of the animals of the desert, perhaps a vision or dream. Emphasis on these stories, however, did not really begin until the Middle Ages when the psychology of the individual became of greater interest. Some of the stories included in Anthony's biography are perpetuated now mostly in paintings, where they give an opportunity for artists to depict their more lurid or bizarre interpretations. Many artists, including Martin Schongauer, Hieronymus Bosch, Joos van Craesbeeck, Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, Matthias Grünewald, Jacob van Swanenburg, and Salvador Dalí, have depicted these incidents from the life of Anthony; in prose, the tale was retold and embellished by Gustave Flaubert in "The Temptation of Saint Anthony". The satyr and the centaur. Anthony was on a journey in the desert to find Paul of Thebes, who according to his dream was a better Hermit than he. Anthony had been under the impression that he was the first person to ever dwell in the desert; however, due to the dream, Anthony was called into the desert to find his "better", Paul. On his way there, he ran into two creatures in the forms of a centaur and a satyr. Although chroniclers sometimes postulated that they might have been living beings, Western theology considers them to have been demons. While traveling through the desert, Anthony first found the centaur, a "creature of mingled shape, half horse half-man", whom he asked about directions. The creature tried to speak in an unintelligible language, but ultimately pointed with his hand the way desired, and then ran away and vanished from sight. It was interpreted as a demon trying to terrify him, or alternately a creature engendered by the desert. Anthony found next the satyr, "a manikin with hooked snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goats's feet." This creature was peaceful and offered him fruits, and when Anthony asked who he was, the satyr replied, "I'm a mortal being and one of those inhabitants of the desert whom the Gentiles, deluded by various forms of error, worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi. I am sent to represent my tribe. We pray you in our behalf to entreat the favor of your Lord and ours, who, we have learnt, came once to save the world, and 'whose sound has gone forth into all the earth.'" Upon hearing this, Anthony was overjoyed and rejoiced over the glory of Christ. He condemned the city of Alexandria for worshipping monsters instead of God while beasts like the satyr spoke about Christ. Silver and gold. Another time Anthony was travelling and found a plate of silver coins in his path. Since he was in the middle of the desert, where it didn't make any sense for anyone to be there, he declared that the silver was a temptation from the devil. Immediately after Anthony's declaration, the silver vanished. Soon, after walking some more in that desert, he found a pile of gold coins that was also a temptation from the devil. Anthony cast the gold into a fire, and the gold coins immediately disappeared just like the silver ones. After these two events, he had a vision where the whole world was covered with snares and traps. Anthony prayed saying, "Oh good Lord, who may escape from these snares?” He was responded to by a voice that said, "Humility shall escape them without more." Demons in the cave. Being an ascetic, Anthony went out to live in the tombs away from the village. There were so many demons in the cave though, that Anthony's servant had to carry him out because they had beaten him to death. When the hermits were gathered to Anthony's corpse to mourn his death, Anthony was revived. He demanded that his servants take him back to that cave where the demons had beaten him. When he got there he called out to the demons, and they came back as wild beasts to rip him to shreds. Suddenly a bright light flashed, and the demons ran away. Anthony knew that the light must have come from God, and he asked God where he was before when the demons attacked him. God replied, "I was here but I would see and abide to see thy battle, and because thou hast mainly fought and well maintained thy battle, I shall make thy name to be spread through all the world." Veneration. Anthony had been secretly buried on the mountaintop where he had chosen to live. His remains were reportedly discovered in 361 and transferred to Alexandria. Some time later, they were taken from Alexandria to Constantinople, so that they might escape the destruction being perpetrated by invading Saracens. In the eleventh century, the Byzantine emperor gave them to the French Count Jocelin. Jocelin had them transferred to La-Motte-Saint-Didier, later renamed. There, Jocelin undertook to build a church to house the remains, but died before the church was even started. The building was finally erected in 1297 and became a centre of veneration and pilgrimage, known as Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye. Anthony is credited with assisting in a number of miraculous healings, primarily from ergotism, which became known as "St. Anthony's Fire". Two local noblemen credited his assistance in their recovery from the disease. They then founded the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony in honor of him, who specialized in nursing the victims of skin diseases. He is venerated especially by the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit for his close association with Paul of Thebes, after whom they take their name. In the "Life of St. Paul the First Hermit", by Jerome, it is recorded that it was Anthony who found Paul towards the end of Paul's life and without whom it is doubtful Paul would be known. Veneration of Anthony in the East is more restrained. There are comparatively few icons and paintings of him. He is, however, regarded as the "first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks", and there are monastic communities of the Maronite, Chaldean, and Orthodox churches which state that they follow his monastic rule. During the Middle Ages, Anthony, along with Quirinus of Neuss, Cornelius and Hubertus, was venerated as one of the Four Holy Marshals in the Rhineland. Anthony is remembered in the Anglican Communion with a Lesser Festival on 17 January. Though Anthony himself did not organize or create a monastery, a community grew around him based on his example of living an ascetic and isolated life. Athanasius' biography helped propagate Anthony's ideals. Athanasius writes, "For monks, the life of Anthony is a sufficient example of asceticism. His story influenced the conversion of Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom. The main centre of veneration of this saint in the Canary Islands (Spain) is located in the town of La Matanza de Acentejo, on the island of Tenerife. The "sanctuary of San Antonio Abad" is one of the oldest temples in the Canary Islands, founded shortly after the completion of the conquest of the archipelago. Coptic literature. Examples of purely Coptic literature are the works of Anthony and Pachomius, who spoke only Coptic, and the sermons and preaching of Shenouda the Archmandrite, who chose to write only in Coptic. The earliest original writings in the Coptic language were the letters of Anthony. During the 3rd and 4th centuries, many ecclesiastics and monks wrote in Coptic.
3250	9755426	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3250	Amblypoda	Amblypoda was a taxonomic hypothesis uniting a group of extinct, herbivorous mammals. They were considered a suborder of the primitive ungulate mammals and have since been shown to represent a polyphyletic group. Characteristics. The Amblypoda take their name from their short and stumpy feet, which were furnished with five toes each and supported massive pillar-like limbs. The brain cavity was extremely small and insignificant in comparison to the bodily mass, which was equal to that of the largest rhinoceroses. These animals were descendants of the small ancestral ungulates that retained all the primitive characteristics of the latter, accompanied by a huge increase in body size. The Amblypoda were confined to the Paleocene and Eocene periods and occurred in North America, Asia (especially Mongolia) and Europe. The cheek teeth were short-crowned (brachyodont), with the tubercles more-or-less completely fused into transverse ridges, or cross-crests (lophodont type), and the total number of teeth was in one case the typical 44, but in another was fewer. The vertebra of the neck unite on nearly flat surfaces, the humerus had lost the foramen, or perforation, at the lower end, and the third trochanter to the femur may have also been wanting. In the forelimb, the upper and lower series of carpal (finger) bones scarcely alternated, but in the hind foot, the astragalus overlapped the cuboid, while the fibula, which was quite distinct from the tibia (as was the radius from the ulna in the forelimb), articulated with both astragalus and calcaneum. Types of amblypods. The most generalized type was "Coryphodon", representing the family Coryphodontidae, from the lower Eocene of Europe and North America, in which there were 44 teeth and no horn-like excrescences on the long skull, while the femur had a third trochanter. The canines were somewhat elongated and were followed by a short gap in each jaw, and the cheek-teeth were adapted for succulent food. The length of the body reached about six feet in some cases. In the middle Eocene formations of North America occurred the more specialized "Uintatherium" (or "Dinoceras"), typifying the family Uintatheriidae. Uintatheres were huge creatures with long narrow skulls, of which the elongated facial portion carried three pairs of bony horn-cores, probably covered with short horns in life, the hind-pair having been much the largest. The dental formula was i. 0/3, c. 1/1, p. 3/3·4, m. 3/3, the upper canines having been long sabre-like weapons, protected by a descending flange on each side of the lower front jaw. In the basal Eocene of North America, the Amblypoda were represented by extremely primitive, five-toed, small ungulates such as "Periptychus" and "Pantolambda", each of these typifying a family. The full typical series of 44 teeth was developed in each, but whereas in the Periptychidae, the upper molars were bunodont and tritubercular, in the Pantolambdidae, they had assumed a selenodont structure. Creodont characters were displayed in the skeleton. Current taxonomy of animals once classified in Amblypoda. Few authorities recognize Amblypoda in modern classifications. The following mammals were once considered part of this group:
3251	27199084	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3251	Amblygonite	Amblygonite () is a fluorophosphate mineral, , composed of lithium, sodium, aluminium, phosphate, fluoride and hydroxide. The mineral occurs in pegmatite deposits and is easily mistaken for albite and other feldspars. Its density, cleavage and flame test for lithium are diagnostic. Amblygonite forms a series with montebrasite, the low fluorine endmember. Geologic occurrence is in granite pegmatites, high-temperature tin veins, and greisens. Amblygonite occurs with spodumene, apatite, lepidolite, tourmaline, and other lithium-bearing minerals in pegmatite veins. It contains about 10% lithium, and has been utilized as a source of lithium. The chief commercial sources have historically been the deposits of California and France. History. The mineral was first discovered in Saxony by August Breithaupt in 1817, and named by him from the Greek "amblus", blunt, and "gonia", angle, because of the obtuse angle between the cleavages. Later it was found at Montebras, Creuse, France, and at Hebron in Maine; and because of slight differences in optical character and chemical composition the names montebrasite and hebronite have been applied to the mineral from these localities.The term amblygonite has been used interchangeably in mining, whether this mineral or montebrasite was extracted. In fact, montebrasite is much more common than amblygonite, which is a rare mineral. It has been discovered in considerable quantity at Pala in San Diego county, California; Caceres, Spain; and the Black Hills of South Dakota. A blue form of amblygonite-montebrasite has been described from Rwanda. The largest documented single crystal of amblygonite measured 7.62 × 2.44 × 1.83 m and weighed about 102 tons. Gemology. Transparent amblygonite has been faceted and used as a gemstone. As a gemstone set into jewelry it is vulnerable to breakage and abrasion from general wear, as its hardness and toughness are poor. The main sources for gem material are Brazil and the United States. Australia, France, Germany, Namibia, and Norway, and Spain have also produced gem quality amblygonite.
3252	829949	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3252	Amygdalin	Amygdalin (from Ancient Greek: "" 'almond') is a naturally occurring chemical compound found in many plants, most notably in the seeds (kernels, pips or stones) of apricots, bitter almonds, apples, peaches, cherries and plums, and in the roots of manioc. Amygdalin is classified as a cyanogenic glycoside, because each amygdalin molecule includes a nitrile group, which can be released as the toxic cyanide anion by the action of a beta-glucosidase. Eating amygdalin will cause it to release cyanide in the human body, and may lead to cyanide poisoning. Since the early 1950s, both amygdalin and a chemical derivative named laetrile have been promoted as alternative cancer treatments, often under the misnomer vitamin B17 (neither amygdalin nor laetrile is a vitamin). Scientific study has found them to not only be clinically ineffective in treating cancer, but also potentially toxic or lethal when taken by mouth due to cyanide poisoning. The promotion of laetrile to treat cancer has been described in the medical literature as a canonical example of quackery and as "the slickest, most sophisticated, and certainly the most remunerative cancer quack promotion in medical history". It has also been described as traditional Chinese medicine. Sources. Amygdalin is contained in "Rosaceae" plants stone fruit kernels, such as almonds, apricot (14 g/kg), red cherry (3.9 g/kg), black cherry (2.7 g/kg), peach (6.8 g/kg), and plum (4–17.5 g/kg depending on variety), and also in the seeds of the apple (3 g/kg). In one study, bitter almond amygdalin concentrations ranged from 33 to 54 g/kg depending on variety; semibitter varieties averaged 1 g/kg and sweet varieties averaged 0.063 g/kg with significant variability based on variety and growing region. Chemistry. Amygdalin is a cyanogenic glycoside derived from the aromatic amino acid phenylalanine. Amygdalin and prunasin are common among plants of the family Rosaceae, particularly the genus "Prunus", Poaceae (grasses), Fabaceae (legumes), and in other food plants, including flaxseed and manioc. Within these plants, amygdalin and the enzymes necessary to hydrolyze it are stored in separate locations, and only mix as a result of tissue damage. This provides a natural defense system. Benzaldehyde released from amygdalin provides a bitter flavor. Because of a difference in a recessive gene called "Sweet kernel [Sk]", much less amygdalin is present in nonbitter (or sweet) almond than bitter almond. For one method of isolating amygdalin, the stones are removed from the fruit and cracked to obtain the kernels, which are dried in the sun or in ovens. The kernels are boiled in ethanol; on evaporation of the solution and the addition of diethyl ether, amygdalin is precipitated as minute white crystals. Natural amygdalin has the ("R")-configuration at the chiral phenyl center. Under mild basic conditions, this stereogenic center isomerizes; the ("S")-epimer is called neoamygdalin. Although the synthesized version of amygdalin is the ("R")-epimer, the stereogenic center attached to the nitrile and phenyl groups easily epimerizes if the manufacturer does not store the compound correctly. Amygdalin is hydrolyzed by intestinal β-glucosidase (emulsin) and amygdalin beta-glucosidase (amygdalase) to give gentiobiose and -mandelonitrile. Gentiobiose is further hydrolyzed to give glucose, whereas mandelonitrile (the cyanohydrin of benzaldehyde) decomposes to give benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide in sufficient quantities (allowable daily intake: ~0.6 mg) causes cyanide poisoning which has a fatal oral dose range of 0.6–1.5 mg/kg of body weight. Laetrile. Laetrile (patented 1961) is a simpler semisynthetic derivative of amygdalin. Laetrile is synthesized from amygdalin by hydrolysis. The usual preferred commercial source is from apricot kernels ("Prunus armeniaca"). The name is derived from the separate words "laevorotatory" and "mandelonitrile". Laevorotatory describes the stereochemistry of the molecule, while mandelonitrile refers to the portion of the molecule from which cyanide is released by decomposition. A 500 mg laetrile tablet may contain between 2.5 and 25 mg of hydrogen cyanide. Like amygdalin, laetrile is hydrolyzed in the duodenum (alkaline) and in the intestine (enzymatically) to -glucuronic acid and -mandelonitrile; the latter hydrolyzes to benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, that in sufficient quantities causes cyanide poisoning. Claims for laetrile were based on three different hypotheses: The first hypothesis proposed that cancerous cells contained copious beta-glucosidases, which release HCN from laetrile via hydrolysis. Normal cells were reportedly unaffected, because they contained low concentrations of beta-glucosidases and high concentrations of rhodanese, which converts HCN to the less toxic thiocyanate. Later, however, it was shown that both cancerous and normal cells contain only trace amounts of beta-glucosidases and similar amounts of rhodanese. The second proposed that, after ingestion, amygdalin was hydrolyzed to mandelonitrile, transported intact to the liver and converted to a beta-glucuronide complex, which was then carried to the cancerous cells, hydrolyzed by beta-glucuronidases to release mandelonitrile and then HCN. Mandelonitrile, however, dissociates to benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, and cannot be stabilized by glycosylation. Finally, the third asserted that laetrile is the discovered vitamin B-17, and further suggests that cancer is a result of "B-17 deficiency". It postulated that regular dietary administration of this form of laetrile would, therefore, actually prevent all incidences of cancer. There is no evidence supporting this conjecture in the form of a physiologic process, nutritional requirement, or identification of any deficiency syndrome. The term "vitamin B-17" is not recognized by Committee on Nomenclature of the American Institute of Nutrition Vitamins. Ernst T. Krebs (not to be confused with Hans Adolf Krebs, the discoverer of the citric acid cycle) branded laetrile as a vitamin in order to have it classified as a nutritional supplement rather than as a pharmaceutical. History of laetrile. Early usage. Amygdalin was first isolated in 1830 from bitter almond seeds ("Prunus dulcis") by Pierre-Jean Robiquet and Antoine Boutron-Charlard. Liebig and Wöhler found three hydrolysis products of amygdalin: sugar, benzaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide. Later research showed that sulfuric acid hydrolyzes it into -glucose, benzaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide; while hydrochloric acid gives mandelic acid, -glucose, and ammonia. In 1845 amygdalin was used as a cancer treatment in Russia, and in the 1920s in the United States, but it was considered too poisonous. In the 1950s, a purportedly non-toxic, synthetic form was patented for use as a meat preservative, and later marketed as laetrile for cancer treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibited the interstate shipment of amygdalin and laetrile in 1977. Thereafter, 27 U.S. states legalized the use of amygdalin within those states. Subsequent results. In a 1977 controlled, blinded trial, laetrile showed no more activity than placebo. Subsequently, laetrile was tested on 14 tumor systems without evidence of effectiveness. The Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) concluded that "laetrile showed no beneficial effects." Mistakes in an earlier MSKCC press release were highlighted by a group of laetrile proponents led by Ralph Moss, former public affairs official of MSKCC who had been fired following his appearance at a press conference accusing the hospital of covering up the benefits of laetrile. These mistakes were considered scientifically inconsequential, but Nicholas Wade in "Science" stated that "even the appearance of a departure from strict objectivity is unfortunate." The results from these studies were published all together. A 2015 systematic review from the Cochrane Collaboration found: The authors also recommended, on ethical and scientific grounds, that no further clinical research into laetrile or amygdalin be conducted. Subsequent research has confirmed the evidence of harm and lack of benefit. Given the lack of evidence, laetrile has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the European Commission. The U.S. National Institutes of Health evaluated the evidence separately and concluded that clinical trials of amygdalin showed little or no effect against cancer. For example, a 1982 trial by the Mayo Clinic of 175 patients found that tumor size had increased in all but one patient. The authors reported that "the hazards of amygdalin therapy were evidenced in several patients by symptoms of cyanide toxicity or by blood cyanide levels approaching the lethal range." The study concluded "Patients exposed to this agent should be instructed about the danger of cyanide poisoning, and their blood cyanide levels should be carefully monitored. Amygdalin (Laetrile) is a toxic drug that is not effective as a cancer treatment". Additionally, "No controlled clinical trials (trials that compare groups of patients who receive the new treatment to groups who do not) of laetrile have been reported." The side effects of laetrile treatment are the symptoms of cyanide poisoning. These symptoms include: nausea and vomiting, headache, dizziness, cherry red skin color, liver damage, abnormally low blood pressure, droopy upper eyelid, trouble walking due to damaged nerves, fever, mental confusion, coma, and death. The European Food Safety Agency's Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain has studied the potential toxicity of the amygdalin in apricot kernels. The Panel reported, "If consumers follow the recommendations of websites that promote consumption of apricot kernels, their exposure to cyanide will greatly exceed" the dose expected to be toxic. The Panel also reported that acute cyanide toxicity had occurred in adults who had consumed 20 or more kernels and that in children "five or more kernels appear to be toxic". Advocacy and legality of laetrile. Advocates for laetrile assert that there is a conspiracy between the US Food and Drug Administration, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical community, including the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society, to exploit the American people, and especially cancer patients. Advocates of the use of laetrile have also changed the rationale for its use, first as a treatment of cancer, then as a vitamin, then as part of a "holistic" nutritional regimen, or as treatment for cancer pain, among others, none of which have any significant evidence supporting its use. Despite the lack of evidence for its use, laetrile developed a significant following due to its wide promotion as a "pain-free" treatment of cancer as an alternative to surgery and chemotherapy that have significant side effects. The use of laetrile led to a number of deaths. The FDA and AMA crackdown, begun in the 1970s, effectively escalated prices on the black market, played into the conspiracy narrative and enabled unscrupulous profiteers to foster multimillion-dollar smuggling empires. Some American cancer patients have traveled to Mexico for treatment with the substance, for example at the Oasis of Hope Hospital in Tijuana. The actor Steve McQueen died in Mexico following surgery to remove a stomach tumor, having previously undergone extended treatment for pleural mesothelioma (a cancer associated with asbestos exposure) under the care of William D. Kelley, a de-licensed dentist and orthodontist who claimed to have devised a cancer treatment involving pancreatic enzymes, 50 daily vitamins and minerals, frequent body shampoos, enemas, and a specific diet as well as laetrile. Laetrile advocates in the United States include Dean Burk, a former chief chemist of the National Cancer Institute cytochemistry laboratory, and national arm wrestling champion Jason Vale, who falsely claimed that his kidney and pancreatic cancers were cured by eating apricot seeds. Vale was convicted in 2004 for, among other things, fraudulently marketing laetrile as a cancer cure. The court also found that Vale had made at least $500,000 from his fraudulent sales of laetrile. In New Zealand, laetrile was among the purported treatments for cancer promoted by Milan Brych, who was later convicted of medical fraud. In the 1970s, court cases in several states challenged the FDA's authority to restrict access to what they claimed are potentially lifesaving drugs. More than twenty states passed laws making the use of laetrile legal. After the unanimous Supreme Court ruling in "United States v. Rutherford" which established that interstate transport of the compound was illegal, usage fell off dramatically. The US Food and Drug Administration continues to seek jail sentences for vendors marketing laetrile for cancer treatment, calling it a "highly toxic product that has not shown any effect on treating cancer."
3253	1300928395	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3253	Amok syndrome	Amok syndrome is an aggressive dissociative behavioral pattern derived from the Malay world, modern Malaysia, which led to the English phrase "running amok". The word derives from the Malay word , traditionally meaning "rushing in a frenzy" or "attacking furiously". Amok syndrome presents as an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects following a period of brooding, which has traditionally been regarded as occurring especially in Malay culture but is now increasingly viewed as psychopathological behavior. The syndrome of "Amok" is found in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM-IV TR). In the DSM-V, Amok syndrome is no longer considered a culture-bound syndrome, since the category of culture-bound syndrome has been removed. Malay word. The term "amok" originated from the Malay word "meng-âmuk", which when roughly defined means "to make a furious and desperate charge". In turn, the word was derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian word "hamuk", "attack". According to Malaysian and Indonesian cultures, amok is rooted in a deep spiritual belief. Malaysians traditionally believe that amok is caused by the "hantu belian", which is an evil tiger spirit that enters one's body and causes the heinous act. As a result of the belief, those in Malay culture tolerate amok and deal with the after-effects with no ill will towards the assailant. Although commonly used in a colloquial and less violent sense, the phrase is particularly associated with a specific sociopathic culture-bound syndrome in the cultures of Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. In a typical case of "running amok", an individual, almost always male, having shown no previous sign of anger or any inclination to violence, will acquire a weapon, traditionally a sword or dagger, but possibly any of a variety of weapons, and in a sudden frenzy, will attempt to kill or seriously injure anyone he encounters and himself. Amok typically takes place in a well-populated or crowded area. Amok episodes of this kind normally end with the attacker being killed by bystanders or committing suicide, eliciting theories that amok may be a form of intentional suicide in cultures where suicide is heavily stigmatized. Those who do not commit suicide and are not killed typically lose consciousness, and upon regaining consciousness, claim amnesia. An early Western account of the practice appears in the journals of British explorer Captain James Cook, who purportedly encountered amok firsthand in 1770 during a voyage around the world. Cook writes of individuals behaving in a reckless, violent manner, without apparent cause and "indiscriminately killing and maiming villagers and animals in a frenzied attack." A widely accepted explanation links amok with male honour. Amok by women and children is virtually unknown. Running amok would thus be both a way of escaping the world, since perpetrators were normally killed or committed suicide, and re-establishing one's reputation as a man to be feared and respected. Contemporary psychiatric syndrome. In 1849, Amok was officially classified as a psychiatric condition based on numerous reports and case studies that showed the majority of individuals who committed amok were, in some sense, mentally ill. "Running amok," is used to refer to the behavior of someone who, in the grip of strong emotion, obtains a weapon and begins attacking people. For about twenty years, this type of behavior has been described as a culture-bound syndrome. As of the DSM-V, the culture-bound syndrome category has been removed, meaning that this particular condition is no longer categorized as such. Culture-bound syndromes are seen as those conditions that only occur in certain societies whereas standard psychiatric diagnoses are not seen that way regardless if there is some sort of cultural limitation. Recent research has revealed that Amok syndrome is not culture-specific but a syndrome that could happen anywhere around the world because anyone could experience an episode of Amok. Throughout history, mass murders in the United States such as the Columbine High School massacre and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have shared recognizable characteristics with traditional presentations of Amok syndrome. Amok syndrome would, in turn, be more prevalent in other societies and not only in Malay cultures. In fact, there are other societies like Polynesia, such as "cafard," and Puerto Rico, "mal de pelea," that have similar syndromes with different terms. Forms. Though the DSM-IV does not differentiate between them, observers historically described two forms of amok: beramok and amok. Beramok, considered to be more common, was associated with personal loss and preceded by a period of depression and brooding. Amok, the rarer form, was believed to stem from rage, perceived insult or a vendetta against a person. Historical and cross-cultural comparisons. Early travelers in Asia sometimes describe a kind of military amok, in which soldiers apparently facing inevitable defeat suddenly burst into a frenzy of violence which so startled their enemies that it either delivered victory or at least ensured what the soldier in that culture considered an honourable death, for a similar case occurred at the Battle of Margarana on 1946 in Bali, where this refers to "puputan", a Balinese term referring to a mass suicide ritual carried out during war rather than surrender to the enemy. Tomé Pires in his Suma Oriental, observed the custom of the Javanese people in 1513:There are among the nations no men who are "amocos" like those in the Javanese nation. "Amocos" means men who are determined to die (to run amuck). Some of them do it when they are drunk, and these are the common people; but the noblemen are much in the habit of challenging each other to duels, and they kill each other over their quarrels; and this is the custom of the country. Some of them kill themselves on horseback, and some of them on foot, according to what they have decided.Duarte Barbosa in 1514 recorded the Javanese people in Malacca:They have very good arms and fight valiantly. There are some of them who if they fall ill of any severe illness, vow to God that if they remain in health they will of their own accord seek another more honourable death for his service, and as soon as they get well they take a dagger in their hands and go out into the streets and kill as many persons as they meet, both men, women and children, in such wise that they go like mad dogs, killing until they are killed. These are called "amuco". And as soon as they see them begin this work, they cry out saying, "amuco", "amuco", in order that people may take care of themselves, and they kill them with dagger and spear thrusts. Many of these Javans live in this city with wives and children and property. This form of amok appears to resemble the Scandinavian "Berserker", "mal de pelea" (Puerto Rico), and iich'aa (Navaho). The Zulu battle trance is another example of the tendency of certain groups to work themselves up into a killing frenzy. In contemporary Indonesia, the term "amok" ("amuk") generally refers not to individual violence, but to frenzied violence by mobs. Indonesians now commonly use the term 'gelap mata' (literally 'darkened eyes') to refer to individual amok. Laurens van der Post experienced the phenomenon in the East Indies and wrote in 1955: In the Philippines, "amok" also means unreasoning murderous rage by an individual. In 1876, the Spanish governor-general of the Philippines José Malcampo coined the term "juramentado" for the behavior (from "juramentar" – "to take an oath"), surviving into modern Philippine languages as "huramentado". It has historically been linked with the Moro people of Mindanao, particularly in the Sulu Archipelago, in connection with societal and cultural pressures. A similar term to "gelap mata" in the Philippines is called "pagdilim ng paningin," which translates literally to "darkening of vision". The term is commonly used to refer to a situation where a person is consumed by anger. According to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" Eleventh Edition, some notable cases have occurred among the Rajputs. In 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amok at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell. In popular culture. The Malaysian mythology surrounding "hantu belian" possessing humans and killing at random is a crucial plot point in "The Night Tiger" by Yangsze Choo. In John Brunner's novel "Stand on Zanzibar" amok became the typical event due to the overpopulation. One of the characters describes the possible mechanism of such behavior. Indonesia's descent into chaos following the 1965 coup attempt is the background for the third part of Christopher Koch's novel "The Year of Living Dangerously", entitled 'Patet Manjura: Amok.' In music, German band Ledernacken released their first single "Amok!" based on the syndrome in 1983, which peaked at number 29 in US's Billboard Dance Chart in March 1984.
3255	445772	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3255	Apostles' Creed	The Apostles' Creed (Latin: "Symbolum Apostolorum" or "Symbolum Apostolicum"), sometimes titled the Apostolic Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles, is a Christian creed or "symbol of faith". "Its title is first found c.390 (Ep. 42.5 of Ambrose). ... Th[e present] form seems to have had a Hispano-Gallic origin ...". The creed most likely originated as a development of the Old Roman Symbol: the old Latin creed of the 4th century. It has been used in the Latin liturgical rites since the 8th century and, by extension, in the various modern branches of Western Christianity, including the modern liturgy and catechesis of the Catholicism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, Moravianism and Congregationalism. It is shorter than the full Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed adopted in 381, but it is still explicitly trinitarian in structure, with sections affirming belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It does not address some Christological issues defined in the Nicene Creed. It thus says nothing explicitly about the divinity of either Jesus or the Holy Spirit. For this reason, it was held to predate the Nicene Creed in medieval Latin tradition. The expression "Apostles' Creed" is first mentioned in a letter from the Synod of Milan dated AD 390, referring to a belief at the time that each of the Twelve Apostles contributed an article to the twelve articles of the creed. History. The ecclesiastical use of Latin for —in the sense of "a distinctive mark of Christians", from the sense of Greek σύμβολον, —first occurs around the middle of the 3rd century, in the correspondence of St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian, the latter in particular speaking of the trinitarian formula as the "Symbol of the Trinity", and recognizing it as an integral part of the rite of baptism. The term appears for the first time in a letter, probably written by Ambrose, from a Council in Milan to Pope Siricius in about AD 390: "Let them give credit to the Symbol of the Apostles, which the Roman Church has always kept and preserved undefiled". Ambrose's term is here referring to the Old Roman Creed, the immediate predecessor of what is now known as the Apostles' Creed. The narrative of this creed having been jointly created by the Apostles, with each of the twelve contributing one of twelve articles, was already current at that time. The Old Roman Creed had evolved from simpler texts based on Matthew 28:19, part of the Great Commission, and it has been argued that this earlier text was already in written form by the late 2nd century (c. 180). The earliest known formula is found within written between 150 and 180. This formula states: "[I believe] in the Father almighty, – and in Jesus Christ, our Savior; – and in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in the holy Church, and in the remission of sins." As can be seen, it lacks the Christological part of the Old Roman Creed. While the individual statements of belief that are included in the Apostles' Creed – even those not found in the Old Roman Symbol – are found in various writings by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Novatian, Marcellus, Rufinus, Ambrose, Augustine, Nicetas, and Eusebius Gallus, the earliest appearance of what we know as the Apostles' Creed was in the () of St. Pirminius (Migne, "Patrologia Latina" 89, 1029 ff.), written between 710 and 714. Bettenson and Maunder state that it is first from (, excerpt), c. 750. The text of what is now known as the Apostles' Creed was most likely developed in southern Gaul around the midpoint of the 5th century. A creed that is virtually identical to the current one is recorded by Faustus of Riez. It is possible that Faustus had the identical text, as the original text written by Faustus cannot be reconstructed with certainty. A version that is identical to the current one with the single exception of in place of is recorded in the late 5th century. However, the Old Roman Creed remained the standard liturgical text of the Roman Church throughout the 4th to 7th centuries. It was replaced by the "Gallic" version of the Apostles' Creed only in the later 8th century, under Charlemagne, who imposed it throughout his dominions. The phrase ('he descended into hell') is not found in the Nicene Creed. It echoes Ephesians 4:9, "" (). This phrase first appeared in one of the two versions of Rufinus (d. 411), the Creed of Aquileia, and then did not appear again in any version of the creed until AD 650. Similarly, the references to the communion of saints is found neither in the Old Roman Symbol nor in the Nicene Creed. The reference to God as "creator of heaven and earth" likewise is not in the Nicene Creed of 325, but it is present in the extended version of the Nicene Creed (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) of 381. The Eastern Orthodox Church does not use the Apostles' Creed, not because of an objection to any of its articles, but because of its omissions necessary for the definition of Nicene Christianity. The Orthodox delegates at the Council of Florence (1431–1449) explicitly challenged the western tradition that attributed the Apostles' Creed to the Twelve Apostles. This tradition was also shown to be historically untenable by Lorenzo Valla. The Roman Church does not state that text dates back to the Apostles themselves, the Roman catechism instead explaining that "the Apostles' Creed is so called because it is rightly considered to be a faithful summary of the apostles' faith." Text. The following gives the original Latin text, with the traditional division into twelve articles, alongside an English translation. Underlined passages are those not present in the Old Roman Symbol as recorded by Tyrannius Rufinus. There is also a received Greek text, which alongside the Latin is found in the , erroneously ascribed to Pope Gregory the Great. It was first edited by Archbishop Ussher in 1647, based on a manuscript preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The Latin text agrees with the "Creed of Pirminius" edited by Charles Abel Heurtley (, 1900, p. 71). Four other Greek translations with slight variations were discovered by Carl Paul Caspari, and published in 1879 (, vol. 3, pp. 11 sqq.). The tradition of assigning each article to one of the apostles specifically can be traced to the 6th century. In Western sacral art, refers to the figurative representation of the twelve apostles each alongside one of the articles. This artistic tradition extends from the high medieval to the Baroque period. The precise division of the text and the sequence of attribution to the apostles has never been entirely fixed. For example, Pelbartus Ladislaus of Temesvár, writing in the late 15th century, divides article 5 in two but combines articles 11 and 12 into one, with the following attributions: Liturgical use in Western Christianity. The Apostles' Creed is used in its direct form or in interrogative forms by Western Christian communities in several of their liturgical rites, in particular those of baptism and the Eucharist. Rite of baptism. The Apostles' Creed, whose present form is similar to the baptismal creed used in Rome in the third and fourth centuries, actually developed from questions addressed to those seeking baptism. The Catholic Church still today uses an interrogative form of it in the Rite of Baptism (for both children and adults). In the official English translation (ICEL, 1974) the minister of baptism asks: To each question, the catechumen, or, in the case of an infant, the parents and sponsor(s) (godparent(s)) in his or her place, answers "I do." Then the celebrant says: And all respond: Amen. The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand uses the Apostles' Creed in its baptism rite in spite of the reservations of some of its members regarding the phrase "born of the virgin Mary". The Episcopal Church in the United States of America uses the Apostles' Creed as part of a Baptismal Covenant for those who are to receive the Rite of Baptism. The Apostles' Creed is recited by candidates, sponsors and congregation, each section of the Creed being an answer to the celebrant's question, "Do you believe in God the Father (God the Son, God the Holy Spirit)?" It is also used in an interrogative form at the Easter Vigil in The Renewal of Baptismal Vows. The Church of England likewise asks the candidates, sponsors and congregation to recite the Apostles' Creed in answer to similar interrogations, in which it avoids using the word "God" of the Son and the Holy Spirit, asking instead: "Do you believe and trust in his Son Jesus Christ?", and "Do you believe and trust in the Holy Spirit?" Moreover, "where there are strong pastoral reasons", it allows use of an alternative formula in which the interrogations, while speaking of "God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit", are more elaborate but are not based on the Apostles' Creed, and the response in each case is: "I believe and trust in him." The "Book of Common Prayer" may also be used, which in its rite of baptism has the minister recite the Apostles' Creed in interrogative form. Asking the godparents or, in the case "of such as are of Riper Years", the candidate: "Dost thou believe in God the Father ..." The response is: "All this I believe." Lutherans following the "Lutheran Service Book" (Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church–Canada), like Catholics and Anglicans, use the Apostles' Creed during the Sacrament of Baptism: Following each question, the candidate answers: "Yes, I believe". If the candidates are unable to answer for themselves, the sponsors are to answer the questions. For ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Lutherans who use the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book, the Apostles' Creed appears during the Sacrament of Holy Baptism Rite on p. 229 of the hardcover pew edition. The United Methodist Church in the United States uses the Apostles' Creed as part of their baptismal rites in the form of an interrogatory addressed to the candidate(s) for baptism and the whole congregation as a way of professing the faith within the context of the Church's sacramental act. For infants, it is the professing of the faith by the parents, sponsors, and congregation on behalf of the candidate(s); for confirmands, it is the professing of the faith before and among the congregation. For the congregation, it is a reaffirmation of their professed faith. Eucharistic rite. Since the 2002 edition, the Apostles' Creed is included in the Roman Missal as an alternative, with the indication, "Instead of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, especially during Lent and Easter time, the baptismal Symbol of the Roman Church, known as the Apostles' Creed, may be used." Previously the Nicene Creed was the only profession of faith that the Missal gave for use at Mass, except in Masses for children; but in some countries use of the Apostles' Creed was already permitted. Canonical hours. The Apostles' Creed is used in Anglican services of Matins and Evening Prayer (Evensong). It is invoked after the recitation or singing of the Canticles, and is the only part of the services in which the congregation traditionally turns to face the altar, if they are seated transversely in the quire. The Episcopal Church (United States) uses the Apostles' Creed in Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. Before the 1955 simplification of the rubrics of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius XII, the Apostles' Creed was recited at the beginning of matins and prime, at the end of compline, and in some "preces" (a series of versicles and responses preceded by, eleison ("Lord, have mercy") and the Our Father) of prime and compline on certain days during Advent and Lent. Indulgence. Recitation of the "Apostles' Creed" or the "Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed" is required to obtain a partial indulgence. Liturgical English translations. Ecumenical (interdenominational) versions. International Consultation on English Texts. The International Consultation on English Texts (ICET), a first inter-church ecumenical group that undertook the writing of texts for use by English-speaking Christians in common, published "Prayers We Have in Common" (Fortress Press, 1970, 1971, 1975). Its version of the Apostles' Creed was adopted by several churches. English Language Liturgical Consultation. The English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), a successor body to the International Consultation on English Texts (ICET), published in 1988 a revised translation of the Apostles' Creed. It avoided the word "his" in relation to God and spoke of Jesus Christ as "God's only Son" instead of "his only Son". In the fourth line, it replaced the personal pronoun "he" with the relative "who", and changed the punctuation, so as no longer to present the Creed as a series of separate statements. In the same line it removed the words "the power of". It explained its rationale for making these changes and for preserving other controverted expressions in the 1988 publication "Praying Together", with which it presented its new version: Catholic Church. The initial (1970) English official translation of the Roman Missal of the Roman Catholic Church adopted the ICET version, as did catechetical texts such as the "Catechism of the Catholic Church". In 2008, the Catholic Church published a new English translation of the texts of the Mass of the Roman Rite, the use of which came into force at the end of 2011. It included the following translation of the Apostles' Creed: Church of England. In the Church of England there are currently two authorized forms of the creed: that of the "Book of Common Prayer" (1662) and that of "Common Worship" (2000). Book of Common Prayer, 1662 <poem> I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The holy Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body, And the Life everlasting. Amen. </poem> Common Worship <poem> I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. </poem> Lutheran Church. In Luther's preface to his 'Small Catechism' which makes up part of the Book of Concord that contains the symbolical documents of the Lutheran Church, it is suggested to commit the Creed, along with the Decalogue and Lord's Prayer to memory. "Evangelical Lutheran Worship". The publication "Evangelical Lutheran Worship" published by Augsburg Fortress, is the primary worship resource for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. It presents the official ELCA version, footnoting the phrase "he descended to the dead" to indicate an alternative reading: "or 'he descended into hell', another translation of this text in widespread use". The text is as follows: Church of Denmark. The Church of Denmark started using the phrase, from the baptismal vows "We renounce the devil and all his doings and all his beings" as the beginning of this creed, before the line "We believe in God etc." This is mostly due to the influence of the Danish pastor Grundtvig. See "". United Methodist Church. The United Methodists in the USA commonly incorporate the Apostles' Creed into their worship services. The version which is most often used is located at No. 881 in the "United Methodist Hymnal", one of their most popular hymnals and one with a heritage to brothers John Wesley and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism. It is notable for omitting the line "he descended into hell", but is otherwise very similar to the Book of Common Prayer version. The 1989 Hymnal has both the traditional version and the 1988 ecumenical version, which includes "he descended to the dead". The Apostles' Creed as found in "The Methodist Hymnal" of 1939 also omits the line "he descended..." "The Methodist Hymnal" of 1966 has the same version of the creed, but with a note at the bottom of the page stating, "Traditional use of this creed includes these words: 'He descended into hell. However, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the United States in 1784, John Wesley sent the new American Church a Sunday Service which included the phrase "he descended into hell" in the text of the Apostles' Creed. The "United Methodist Hymnal" of 1989 also contains (at #882) what it terms the "Ecumenical Version" of this creed which is the ecumenically accepted modern translation of the International Committee on English Texts (1975) as amended by the subsequent successor body, the English Language Liturgical Consultation (1987). This form of the Apostles' Creed can be found incorporated into the Eucharistic and Baptismal Liturgies in the Hymnal and in "The United Methodist Book of Worship", and hence it is growing in popularity and use. The word "catholic" is intentionally left lowercase in the sense that the word "catholic" applies to the universal and ecumenical Christian church. Musical settings. Musical settings of the Symbolum Apostolorum as a motet are rare. English composer Robert Wylkynson (d. ca. 1515) composed a thirteen-voice canon, , included in the Eton Choirbook, which features the text of the Creed. The French composer Le Brung published one Latin setting in 1540, and the Spanish composer Fernando de las Infantas published two in 1578. Martin Luther wrote the hymn (translated into English as "We all believe in one God") in 1524 as a paraphrase of the Apostles' Creed. In 1957, William P. Latham wrote "Credo (Metrical Version of the Apostle’s Creed)" in an SATB arrangement suitable for boys' and men's voices. In 1979 John Michael Talbot, a Third Order Franciscan, composed and recorded "Creed" on his album, "The Lord's Supper". In 1986 Graham Kendrick published the popular "We believe in God the Father", closely based on the Apostles' Creed. The song "Creed" on Petra's 1990 album "Beyond Belief" is loosely based on the Apostles' Creed. GIA Publications published a hymn text in 1991 directly based on the Apostles' Creed, called "I Believe in God Almighty". It has been sung to hymn tunes from Wales, the Netherlands, and Ireland. Rich Mullins and Beaker also composed a musical setting titled "Creed", released on Mullins' 1993 album "A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band". Notably, Mullins' version replaces "one holy catholic church" with "one holy church". Integrity Music under the Hosanna! Music series, produced a live worship acoustic album in 1993, "Be Magnified", which featured Randy Rothwell as worship leader, had an upbeat enthusiastic hymn called "The Apostle’s Creed", written by Randy Rothwell Burbank. Newsboys released "We Believe" in 2013 on their album "Restart". It was nominated for a Billboard Music Award for Top Christian Song. In 2014 Hillsong released a version of the Apostles' Creed under the title "This I Believe (The Creed)" on their album "No Other Name". Keith & Kristyn Getty released an expression of the Apostles' Creed under the title "We Believe (Apostle's Creed)" on their 2016 album "Facing a Task Unfinished".
3259	37569883	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3259	Amicable numbers	In mathematics, the amicable numbers are two different natural numbers related in such a way that the sum of the proper divisors of each is equal to the other number. That is, "s"("a")="b" and "s"("b")="a", where "s"("n")=σ("n") − "n" is equal to the sum of positive divisors of "n" except "n" itself (see also divisor function). The smallest pair of amicable numbers is (220, 284). They are amicable because the proper divisors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which the sum is 284; and the proper divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71 and 142, of which the sum is 220. The first ten amicable pairs are: (220, 284), (1184, 1210), (2620, 2924), (5020, 5564), (6232, 6368), (10744, 10856), (12285, 14595), (17296, 18416), (63020, 76084), and (66928, 66992) . It is unknown if there are infinitely many pairs of amicable numbers. A pair of amicable numbers constitutes an aliquot sequence of period 2. A related concept is that of a perfect number, which is a number that equals the sum of "its own" proper divisors, in other words a number which forms an aliquot sequence of period 1. Numbers that are members of an aliquot sequence with period greater than 2 are known as sociable numbers. History. Amicable numbers were known to the Pythagoreans, who credited them with many mystical properties. A general formula by which some of these numbers could be derived was invented circa 850 by the Iraqi mathematician Thābit ibn Qurra (826–901). Other Arab mathematicians who studied amicable numbers are al-Majriti (died 1007), al-Baghdadi (980–1037), and al-Fārisī (1260–1320). The Iranian mathematician Muhammad Baqir Yazdi (16th century) discovered the pair (9363584, 9437056), though this has often been attributed to Descartes. Much of the work of Eastern mathematicians in this area has been forgotten. Thābit ibn Qurra's formula was rediscovered by Fermat (1601–1665) and Descartes (1596–1650), to whom it is sometimes ascribed, and extended by Euler (1707–1783). It was extended further by Borho in 1972. Fermat and Descartes also rediscovered pairs of amicable numbers known to Arab mathematicians. Euler also discovered dozens of new pairs. The second smallest pair, (1184, 1210), was discovered in 1867 by 16-year-old B. Nicolò I. Paganini (not to be confused with the composer and violinist), having been overlooked by earlier mathematicians. There are over 1 billion known amicable pairs. Rules for generation. While these rules do generate some pairs of amicable numbers, many other pairs are known, so these rules are by no means comprehensive. In particular, the two rules below produce only even amicable pairs, so they are of no interest for the open problem of finding amicable pairs coprime to 210 = 2·3·5·7, while over 1000 pairs coprime to 30 = 2·3·5 are known [García, Pedersen & te Riele (2003), Sándor & Crstici (2004)]. Thābit ibn Qurrah theorem. The Thābit ibn Qurrah theorem is a method for discovering amicable numbers invented in the 9th century by the Arab mathematician Thābit ibn Qurrah. It states that if formula_1 where is an integer and are prime numbers, then and are a pair of amicable numbers. This formula gives the pairs for , for , and for , but no other such pairs are known. Numbers of the form are known as Thabit numbers. In order for Ibn Qurrah's formula to produce an amicable pair, two consecutive Thabit numbers must be prime; this severely restricts the possible values of . To establish the theorem, Thâbit ibn Qurra proved nine lemmas divided into two groups. The first three lemmas deal with the determination of the aliquot parts of a natural integer. The second group of lemmas deals more specifically with the formation of perfect, abundant and deficient numbers. Euler's rule. "Euler's rule" is a generalization of the Thâbit ibn Qurra theorem. It states that if formula_2 where are integers and are prime numbers, then and are a pair of amicable numbers. Thābit ibn Qurra's theorem corresponds to the case . Euler's rule creates additional amicable pairs for with no others being known. Euler (1747 & 1750) overall found 58 new pairs increasing the number of pairs that were then known to 61. Regular pairs. Let (, ) be a pair of amicable numbers with , and write and where is the greatest common divisor of and . If and are both coprime to and square free then the pair (, ) is said to be regular ; otherwise, it is called irregular or exotic. If (, ) is regular and and have and prime factors respectively, then is said to be of type . For example, with , the greatest common divisor is and so and . Therefore, is regular of type . Twin amicable pairs. An amicable pair is twin if there are no integers between and belonging to any other amicable pair . Other results. In every known case, the numbers of a pair are either both even or both odd. It is not known whether an even-odd pair of amicable numbers exists, but if it does, the even number must either be a square number or twice one, and the odd number must be a square number. However, amicable numbers where the two members have different smallest prime factors do exist: there are seven such pairs known. Also, every known pair shares at least one common prime factor. It is not known whether a pair of coprime amicable numbers exists, though if any does, the product of the two must be greater than 1065. Also, a pair of co-prime amicable numbers cannot be generated by Thabit's formula (above), nor by any similar formula. In 1955 Paul Erdős showed that the density of amicable numbers, relative to the positive integers, was 0. In 1968 Martin Gardner noted that most even amicable pairs have sums divisible by 9, and that a rule for characterizing the exceptions was obtained. According to the sum of amicable pairs conjecture, as the number of the numbers approaches infinity, the percentage of the sums of the amicable pairs divisible by ten approaches 100% . Although all amicable pairs up to 10,000 are even pairs, the proportion of odd amicable pairs increases steadily towards higher numbers, and presumably there are more of them than of the even amicable pairs (sequence in ). There are amicable pairs where the sum of one number from the first pair and one number from the second pair equals the sum of the remaining two numbers, e.g. 67212 = 220 + 66992 = 284 + 66928 where (220, 284) and (66928, 66992) are two amicable pairs (sequence in ). Gaussian integer amicable pairs exist, e.g. s(8008+3960i) = 4232-8280i and s(4232-8280i) = 8008+3960i. Generalizations. Amicable tuples. Amicable numbers formula_3 satisfy formula_4 and formula_5 which can be written together as formula_6. This can be generalized to larger tuples, say formula_7, where we require formula_8 For example, (1980, 2016, 2556) is an amicable triple , and (3270960, 3361680, 3461040, 3834000) is an amicable quadruple . Amicable multisets are defined analogously and generalizes this a bit further . Sociable numbers. Sociable numbers are the numbers in cyclic lists of numbers (with a length greater than 2) where each number is the sum of the proper divisors of the preceding number. For example, formula_9 are sociable numbers of order 4. Searching for sociable numbers. The aliquot sequence can be represented as a directed graph, formula_10, for a given integer formula_11, where formula_12 denotes the sum of the proper divisors of formula_13. Cycles in formula_10 represent sociable numbers within the interval formula_15. Two special cases are loops that represent perfect numbers and cycles of length two that represent amicable pairs.
3262	10938973	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3262	Agar	Agar ( or ), or agar-agar, is a jelly-like substance consisting of polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae, primarily from "ogonori" and "tengusa". As found in nature, agar is a mixture of two components, the linear polysaccharide agarose and a heterogeneous mixture of smaller molecules called agaropectin. It forms the supporting structure in the cell walls of certain species of algae and is released on boiling. These algae are known as agarophytes, belonging to the Rhodophyta (red algae) phylum. The processing of food-grade agar removes the agaropectin, and the commercial product is essentially pure agarose. Agar has been used as an ingredient in desserts throughout Asia and also as a solid substrate to contain culture media for microbiological work. Agar can be used as a laxative; an appetite suppressant; a vegan substitute for gelatin; a thickener for soups; in fruit preserves, ice cream, and other desserts; as a clarifying agent in brewing; and for sizing paper and fabrics. Etymology. The word "agar" comes from agar-agar, the Malay name for red algae ("Gigartina", "Eucheuma", "Gracilaria") from which the jelly is produced. It is also known as Kanten () (from the phrase kan-zarashi tokoroten () or "cold-exposed agar"), Japanese isinglass, China grass, Ceylon moss or Jaffna moss. "Gracilaria edulis" or its synonym "G. lichenoides" is specifically referred to as agal-agal or Ceylon agar. History. Macroalgae have been used widely as food by coastal cultures, especially in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, "Gracilaria", known as "gulaman" (also "guraman", "gar-garao", or "gulaman dagat", among other names) in Tagalog, have been harvested and used as food for centuries, eaten both fresh or sun-dried and turned into jellies. The earliest historical attestation is from the "Vocabulario de la lengua tagala" (1754) by the Jesuit priests Juan de Noceda and Pedro de Sanlucar, where "golaman" or "gulaman" was defined as "una yerva, de que se haze conserva a modo de Halea, naze en la mar" ("a herb, from which a jam-like preserve is made, grows in the sea"), with an additional entry for "guinolaman" to refer to food made with the jelly. Carrageenan, derived from gusô ("Eucheuma" spp.), which also congeals into a gel-like texture is also used similarly among the Visayan peoples and have been recorded in the even earlier "Diccionario De La Lengua Bisaya, Hiligueina y Haraia de la isla de Panay y Sugbu y para las demas islas" (c.1637) of the Augustinian missionary . In the book, Méntrida describes gusô as being cooked until it melts, and then allowed to congeal into a sour dish. In Ambon Island in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, agar is extracted from "Graciliaria" and eaten as a type of pickle or a sauce. Jelly seaweeds were also favoured and foraged by Malay communities living on the coasts of the Riau Archipelago and Singapore in Southeast Asia for centuries. 19th century records indicate that dried "Graciliaria" were one of the bulk exports of British Malaya to China. Poultices made from agar were also used for swollen knee joints and sores in Johore and Singapore. The application of agar as a food additive in Japan is alleged to have been discovered in 1658 by Mino Tarōzaemon (), an innkeeper in current Fushimi-ku, Kyoto who, according to legend, was said to have discarded surplus seaweed soup (Tokoroten) and noticed that it gelled later after a winter night's freezing. It should be noted, however, that agar solidifies at room temperature and does not need to be frozen. Agar was first subjected to chemical analysis in 1859 by the French chemist Anselme Payen, who had obtained agar from the marine algae "Gelidium corneum". Beginning in the late 19th century, agar began to be used as a solid medium for growing various microbes. Agar was first described for use in microbiology in 1882 by the German microbiologist Walther Hesse, an assistant working in Robert Koch's laboratory, on the suggestion of his wife Fanny Hesse. Agar quickly supplanted gelatin as the base of microbiological media, due to its higher melting temperature, allowing microbes to be grown at higher temperatures without the media liquefying. With its newfound use in microbiology, agar production quickly increased. This production centered on Japan, which produced most of the world's agar until World War II. However, with the outbreak of World War II, many nations were forced to establish domestic agar industries in order to continue microbiological research. Around the time of World War II, approximately 2,500 tons of agar were produced annually. By the mid-1970s, production worldwide had increased dramatically to approximately 10,000 tons each year. Since then, production of agar has fluctuated due to unstable and sometimes over-utilized seaweed populations. Chemical composition. Agar consists of a mixture of two polysaccharides: agarose and agaropectin, with agarose making up about 70% of the mixture, while agaropectin makes about 30% of it. Agarose is a linear polymer, made up of repeating units of agarobiose, a disaccharide made up of D-galactose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactopyranose. Agaropectin is a heterogeneous mixture of smaller molecules that occur in lesser amounts, and is made up of alternating units of D-galactose and L-galactose heavily modified with acidic side-groups, such as sulfate, glucuronate, and pyruvate. Physical properties. Agar exhibits a phenomenon known as hysteresis whereby, when mixed with water, it solidifies and forms a gel below about , which is called the gel point, and melts above , which is the melting point. Hysteresis is the property of having a difference between the gel point and melting point temperatures. This property lends a suitable balance between easy melting and good gel stability at relatively high temperatures. Since many scientific applications require incubation at temperatures close to human body temperature (37 °C), agar is more appropriate than other solidifying agents that melt at this temperature, such as gelatin. Uses. Culinary. Agar-agar is a natural vegetable gelatin counterpart. It is white and semi-translucent when sold in packages as washed and dried strips or in powdered form. It can be used to make jellies, puddings, and custards. When making jelly, it is boiled in water until the solids dissolve. Sweetener, flavoring, coloring, fruits and or vegetables are then added, and the liquid is poured into molds to be served as desserts and vegetable aspics or incorporated with other desserts such as a layer of jelly in a cake. Agar-agar is approximately 80% dietary fiber, so it can serve as an intestinal regulator. Its bulking quality has been behind fad diets in Asia, for example the "kanten" (the Japanese word for agar-agar) diet. Once ingested, "kanten" triples in size and absorbs water. This results in the consumers feeling fuller. Asian culinary. One use of agar in Japanese cuisine is in "anmitsu", a dessert made of small cubes of agar jelly and served in a bowl with various fruits or other ingredients. It is also the main ingredient in "mizu yōkan", another popular Japanese food. In Philippine cuisine, it is used to make the jelly bars in the various gulaman refreshments like "sago't gulaman", "samalamig", or desserts such as "buko pandan", "agar flan", "halo-halo", "fruit cocktail jelly", and the black and red "gulaman" used in various fruit salads. In Vietnamese cuisine, jellies made of flavored layers of agar-agar, called "thạch", are a popular dessert, and are often made in ornate molds for special occasions. In Indian cuisine, agar is used for making desserts. In Burmese cuisine, a sweet jelly known as "kyauk kyaw" is made from agar. Agar jelly is widely used in Taiwanese bubble tea. Other culinary. It can be used as addition to (or as a replacement for) pectin in jelly, jam, or marmalade, as a substitute to gelatin for its superior gelling properties, and as a strengthening ingredient in souffles and custards. Another use of agar-agar is in a Russian dish "ptich'ye moloko" (bird's milk), a rich jellified custard (or soft meringue) used as a cake filling or chocolate-glazed as individual sweets. Agar-agar may also be used as the gelling agent in gel clarification, a culinary technique used to clarify stocks, sauces, and other liquids. Mexico has traditional candies made out of Agar gelatin, most of them in colorful, half-circle shapes that resemble a melon or watermelon fruit slice, and commonly covered with sugar. They are known in Spanish as "Dulce de Agar" (Agar sweets) Agar-agar is an allowed nonorganic/nonsynthetic additive used as a thickener, gelling agent, texturizer, moisturizer, emulsifier, flavor enhancer, and absorbent in certified organic foods. Microbiology. Agar plate. An agar plate or Petri dish is used to provide a growth medium using a mix of agar and other nutrients in which microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, can be cultured and observed under the microscope. Agar is indigestible for many organisms so that microbial growth does not affect the gel used and it remains stable. Agar is typically sold commercially as a powder that can be mixed with water and prepared similarly to gelatin before use as a growth medium. Nutrients are typically added to meet the nutritional needs of the microbes organism, the formulations of which may be "undefined" where the precise composition is unknown, or "defined" where the exact chemical composition is known. Agar is often dispensed using a sterile media dispenser. Different algae produce various types of agar. Each agar has unique properties that suit different purposes. Because of the agarose component, the agar solidifies. When heated, agarose has the potential to melt and then solidify. Because of this property, they are referred to as "physical gels". In contrast, polyacrylamide polymerization is an irreversible process, and the resulting products are known as chemical gels. There are a variety of different types of agar that support the growth of different microorganisms. A nutrient agar may be permissive, allowing for the cultivation of any non-fastidious microorganisms; a commonly used nutrient agar for bacteria is the Luria Bertani (LB) agar which contains lysogeny broth, a nutrient-rich medium used for bacterial growth. Additionally, 2216 Marine Broth (MB) agar, with high salt content, is optimized for growing heterotrophic marine bacteria like those of the Vibrio genus, while Terrific Broth (TB) agar is used to non-selectively culture high yields of the bacterium "E. coli". More generally, enriched media is an agar variety that is infused with the necessary nutrients required by fastidious organisms to grow. Despite the large diversity of agar mediums, yeast extract is a common ingredient across all varieties as it is a macronutrient that provides a nitrogen source for all bacterial cell types. Other fastidious organisms may require the addition of different biological fluids such as horse or sheep blood, serum, egg yolk, and so on. Agar plates can also be selective, and can be used to promote the growth of bacteria of interest while inhibiting others. A variety of chemicals may be added to create an environment favourable for specific types of bacteria or bacteria with certain properties, but not conducive for growth of others. For example, antibiotics may be added in cloning experiments whereby bacteria with antibiotic-resistant plasmid are selected. In addition to antibiotic treated agar, other selective and indicator agar plates include TCBS agar and MacConkey agar. Thiosulfate citrate bile salts sucrose (TCBS) agar is used to differentiate Vibrio species based on their sucrose metabolism, since only some will metabolize the sucrose in the plate and change its pH. Indicator dyes included in the gel will display a visual change of the pH by changing the gel color from green to yellow. MacConkey agar contains bile salts and crystal violet to selectively grow gram-negative bacteria and differentiate between species using pH-indicator dyes that demonstrate lactose metabolism properties. Motility assays. As a gel, an agar or agarose medium is porous and therefore can be used to measure microorganism motility and mobility. The gel's porosity is directly related to the concentration of agarose in the medium, so various levels of effective viscosity (from the cell's "point of view") can be selected, depending on the experimental objectives. A common identification assay involves culturing a sample of the organism deep within a block of nutrient agar. Cells will attempt to grow within the gel structure. Motile species will be able to migrate, albeit slowly, throughout the gel, and infiltration rates can then be visualized, whereas non-motile species will show growth only along the now-empty path introduced by the invasive initial sample deposition. Another setup commonly used for measuring chemotaxis and chemokinesis utilizes the under-agarose cell migration assay, whereby a layer of agarose gel is placed between a cell population and a chemoattractant. As a concentration gradient develops from the diffusion of the chemoattractant into the gel, various cell populations requiring different stimulation levels to migrate can then be visualized over time using microphotography as they tunnel upward through the gel against gravity along the gradient. Plant biology. Research grade agar is used extensively in plant biology as it is optionally supplemented with a nutrient and/or vitamin mixture that allows for seedling germination in Petri dishes under sterile conditions (given that the seeds are sterilized as well). Nutrient and/or vitamin supplementation for "Arabidopsis thaliana" is standard across most experimental conditions. Murashige & Skoog (MS) nutrient mix and Gamborg's B5 vitamin mix in general are used. A 1.0% agar/0.44% MS+vitamin dH2O solution is suitable for growth media between normal growth temps. When using agar, within any growth medium, it is important to know that the solidification of the agar is pH-dependent. The optimal range for solidification is between 5.4 and 5.7. Usually, the application of potassium hydroxide is needed to increase the pH to this range. A general guideline is about 600 μl 0.1M KOH per 250 ml GM. This entire mixture can be sterilized using the liquid cycle of an autoclave. This medium nicely lends itself to the application of specific concentrations of phytohormones etc. to induce specific growth patterns in that one can easily prepare a solution containing the desired amount of hormone, add it to the known volume of GM, and autoclave to both sterilize and evaporate off any solvent that may have been used to dissolve the often-polar hormones. This hormone/GM solution can be spread across the surface of Petri dishes sown with germinated and/or etiolated seedlings. Experiments with the moss "Physcomitrella patens", however, have shown that choice of the gelling agent – agar or Gelrite – does influence phytohormone sensitivity of the plant cell culture. Other uses. Agar is used: Gelidium agar is used primarily for bacteriological plates. Gracilaria agar is used mainly in food applications. In 2016, AMAM, a Japanese company, developed a prototype for Agar-based commercial packaging system called Agar Plasticity, intended as a replacement for oil-based plastic packaging.
3263	27823944	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3263	Acid rain	Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid rain has a pH level lower than this and ranges from 4–5 on average. The more acidic the acid rain is, the lower its pH is. Acid rain can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. Acid rain has been shown to have adverse impacts on forests, freshwaters, soils, microbes, insects and aquatic life-forms. In ecosystems, persistent acid rain reduces tree bark durability, leaving flora more susceptible to environmental stressors such as drought, heat/cold and pest infestation. Acid rain is also capable of detrimenting soil composition by stripping it of nutrients such as calcium and magnesium which play a role in plant growth and maintaining healthy soil. In terms of human infrastructure, acid rain also causes paint to peel, corrosion of steel structures such as bridges, and weathering of stone buildings and statues as well as having impacts on human health. Some governments, including those in Europe and North America, have made efforts since the 1970s to reduce the release of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere through air pollution regulations. These efforts have had positive results due to the widespread research on acid rain starting in the 1960s and the publicized information on its harmful effects. The main source of sulfur and nitrogen compounds that result in acid rain are anthropogenic, but nitrogen oxides can also be produced naturally by lightning strikes and sulfur dioxide is produced by volcanic eruptions. Definition. "Acid rain" is rain with a pH less than 5. "Clean" or unpolluted rain has a pH greater than 5 but still less than pH = 7 owing to the acidity caused by carbon dioxide acid according to the following reactions: A variety of natural and human-made sources contribute to the acidity. For example nitric acid produced by electric discharge in the atmosphere such as lightning. The usual anthropogenic sources are sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. They react with water (as does carbon dioxide) to give solutions with pH < 5. Occasional pH readings in rain and fog water of well below 2.4 have been reported in industrialized areas. History. Acid rain was first systematically studied in Europe in the 1960s, in the United States and Canada in 1970s, and in India in the late 1980s. In Europe. The corrosive effect of polluted, acidic city air on limestone and marble was noted in the 17th century by John Evelyn, who remarked upon the poor condition of the Arundel marbles. Since the Industrial Revolution, emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere have increased. In 1852, Robert Angus Smith was the first to show the relationship between acid rain and atmospheric pollution in Manchester, England. Smith coined the term "acid rain" in 1872. In the late 1960s, scientists began widely observing and studying the phenomenon. At first, the main focus in this research lay on local effects of acid rain. Waldemar Christofer Brøgger was the first to acknowledge long-distance transportation of pollutants crossing borders from the United Kingdom to Norway – a problem systematically studied by Brynjulf Ottar in the 1970s. Ottar's work was strongly influenced by Swedish soil scientist Svante Odén, who had drawn widespread attention to Europe's acid rain problem in popular newspapers and wrote a landmark paper on the subject in 1968. In the United States. The earliest report about acid rain in the United States came from chemical evidence gathered from Hubbard Brook Valley; public awareness of acid rain in the US increased in the 1970s after "The New York Times" reported on these findings. In 1972, a group of scientists, including Gene Likens, discovered the rain that was deposited at White Mountains of New Hampshire was acidic. The pH of the sample was measured to be 4.03 at Hubbard Brook. The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study followed up with a series of research studies that analyzed the environmental effects of acid rain. The alumina from soils neutralized acid rain that mixed with stream water at Hubbard Brook. The result of this research indicated that the chemical reaction between acid rain and aluminium leads to an increasing rate of soil weathering. Experimental research examined the effects of increased acidity in streams on ecological species. In 1980, scientists modified the acidity of Norris Brook, New Hampshire, and observed the change in species' behaviors. There was a decrease in species diversity, an increase in community dominants, and a reduction in the food web complexity. In 1980, the US Congress passed an Acid Deposition Act. This Act established an 18-year assessment and research program under the direction of the National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP). NAPAP enlarged a network of monitoring sites to determine how acidic precipitation was, seeking to determine long-term trends, and established a network for dry deposition. Using a statistically based sampling design, NAPAP quantified the effects of acid rain on a regional basis by targeting research and surveys to identify and quantify the impact of acid precipitation on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. NAPAP also assessed the effects of acid rain on historical buildings, monuments, and building materials. It also funded extensive studies on atmospheric processes and potential control programs. From the start, policy advocates from all sides attempted to influence NAPAP activities to support their particular policy advocacy efforts, or to disparage those of their opponents. For the US Government's scientific enterprise, a significant impact of NAPAP were lessons learned in the assessment process and in environmental research management to a relatively large group of scientists, program managers, and the public. In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences was looking into research about the controversial issues regarding acid rain. President Ronald Reagan dismissed the issues of acid rain until his personal visit to Canada and confirmed that the Canadian border suffered from the drifting pollution from smokestacks originating in the US Midwest. Reagan honored the agreement to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's enforcement of anti-pollution regulation. In 1982, Reagan commissioned William Nierenberg to serve on the National Science Board. Nierenberg selected scientists including Gene Likens to serve on a panel to draft a report on acid rain. In 1983, the panel of scientists came up with a draft report, which concluded that acid rain is a real problem and solutions should be sought. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reviewed the draft report and sent Fred Singer's suggestions of the report, which cast doubt on the cause of acid rain. The panelists revealed rejections against Singer's positions and submitted the report to Nierenberg in April. In May 1983, the House of Representatives voted against legislation controlling sulfur emissions. There was a debate about whether Nierenberg delayed the release of the report. Nierenberg denied the saying about his suppression of the report and stated that it was withheld after the House's vote because it was not ready to be published. In 1991, the US National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) provided its first assessment of acid rain in the United States. It reported that 5% of New England Lakes were acidic, with sulfates being the most common problem. They noted that 2% of the lakes could no longer support Brook Trout, and 6% of the lakes were unsuitable for the survival of many minnow species. Subsequent "Reports to Congress" have documented chemical changes in soil and freshwater ecosystems, nitrogen saturation, soil nutrient decreases, episodic acidification, regional haze, and damage to historical monuments. Meanwhile, in 1990, the US Congress passed a series of amendments to the Clean Air Act. Title IV of these amendments established a cap and trade system designed to control emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Both these emissions proved to cause a significant problem for U.S. citizens and their access to healthy, clean air. Title IV called for a total reduction of about 10 million tons of SO2 emissions from power plants, close to a 50% reduction. It was implemented in two phases. Phase I began in 1995 and limited sulfur dioxide emissions from 110 of the largest power plants to 8.7 million tons of sulfur dioxide. One power plant in New England (Merrimack) was in Phase I. Four other plants (Newington, Mount Tom, Brayton Point, and Salem Harbor) were added under other program provisions. Phase II began in 2000 and affects most of the power plants in the country. During the 1990s, research continued. On March 10, 2005, the EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). This rule provides states with a solution to the problem of power plant pollution that drifts from one state to another. CAIR will permanently cap emissions of SO2 and NOx in the eastern United States. When fully implemented, CAIR will reduce SO2 emissions in 28 eastern states and the District of Columbia by over 70% and NOx emissions by over 60% from 2003 levels. Overall, the program's cap and trade program has been successful in achieving its goals. Since the 1990s, SO2 emissions have dropped 40%, and according to the Pacific Research Institute, acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976. Conventional regulation was used in the European Union, which saw a decrease of over 70% in SO2 emissions during the same period. In 2007, total SO2 emissions were 8.9 million tons, achieving the program's long-term goal ahead of the 2010 statutory deadline. In 2007 the EPA estimated that by 2010, the overall costs of complying with the program for businesses and consumers would be $1 billion to $2 billion a year, only one-fourth of what was initially predicted. Forbes says: "In 2010, by which time the cap and trade system had been augmented by the George W. Bush administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule, SO2 emissions had fallen to 5.1 million tons." The term citizen science can be traced back as far as January 1989 to a campaign by the Audubon Society to measure acid rain. Scientist Muki Haklay cites in a policy report for the Wilson Center entitled 'Citizen Science and Policy: A European Perspective' a first use of the term 'citizen science' by R. Kerson in the magazine MIT Technology Review from January 1989. Quoting from the Wilson Center report: "The new form of engagement in science received the name "citizen science". The first recorded example of using the term is from 1989, describing how 225 volunteers across the US collected rain samples to assist the Audubon Society in an acid-rain awareness-raising campaign. The volunteers collected samples, checked for acidity, and reported to the organization. The information was then used to demonstrate the full extent of the phenomenon." In Canada. Canadian Harold Harvey was among the first to research a "dead" lake. In 1971, he and R. J. Beamish published a report, "Acidification of the La Cloche Mountain Lakes", documenting the gradual deterioration of fish stocks in 60 lakes in Killarney Park in Ontario, which they had been studying systematically since 1966. In the 1970s and 80s, acid rain was a major topic of research at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Researchers added sulfuric acid to whole lakes in controlled ecosystem experiments to simulate the effects of acid rain. Because its remote conditions allowed for whole-ecosystem experiments, research at the ELA showed that the effect of acid rain on fish populations started at concentrations much lower than those observed in laboratory experiments. In the context of a food web, fish populations crashed earlier than when acid rain had direct toxic effects to the fish because the acidity led to crashes in prey populations (e.g. mysids). As experimental acid inputs were reduced, fish populations and lake ecosystems recovered at least partially, although invertebrate populations have still not completely returned to the baseline conditions. This research showed both that acidification was linked to declining fish populations and that the effects could be reversed if sulfuric acid emissions decreased, and influenced policy in Canada and the United States. In 1985, seven Canadian provinces (all except British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan) and the federal government signed the Eastern Canada Acid Rain Program. The provinces agreed to limit their combined sulfur dioxide emissions to 2.3 million tonnes by 1994. The Canada-US Air Quality Agreement was signed in 1991. In 1998, all federal, provincial, and territorial Ministers of Energy and Environment signed The Canada-Wide Acid Rain Strategy for Post-2000, which was designed to protect lakes that are more sensitive than those protected by earlier policies. In India. Acid rain was first reported in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1974. Acid rain has been a reported cause of decrease in soil pH, especially in the areas of northeast, coastal regions of Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Bihar, and West Bengal. The spread of acid rain over India was first studied by a team of researchers in 1989. Increased risk might be posed by the expected rise in total sulphur emissions from 4,400 kilotonnes (kt) in 1990 to 6,500 kt in 2000, 10,900 kt in 2010 and 18,500 in 2020. Damage to Taj Mahal is a popular example of acid rain's corrosive effect in India. Emissions of chemicals leading to acidification. The most important gas which leads to acidification is sulfur dioxide. Emissions of nitrogen oxides which are oxidized to form nitric acid are of increasing importance due to stricter controls on emissions of sulfur compounds. 70 Tg(S) per year in the form of SO2 comes from fossil fuel combustion and industry, 2.8 Tg(S) from wildfires, and 7–8 Tg(S) per year from volcanoes. Natural phenomena. The principal natural phenomena that contribute acid-producing gases to the atmosphere are emissions from volcanoes. Thus, for example, fumaroles from the Laguna Caliente crater of Poás Volcano create extremely high amounts of acid rain and fog, with acidity as high as a pH of 2, clearing an area of any vegetation and frequently causing irritation to the eyes and lungs of inhabitants in nearby settlements. Acid-producing gasses are also created by biological processes that occur on the land, in wetlands, and in the oceans. The major biological source of sulfur compounds is dimethyl sulfide. Nitric acid in rainwater is an important source of fixed nitrogen for plant life, and is also produced by electrical activity in the atmosphere such as lightning. Acidic deposits have been detected in glacial ice thousands of years old in remote parts of the globe. Human activity. The principal cause of acid rain is sulfur and nitrogen compounds from human sources, such as electricity generation, animal agriculture, factories, and motor vehicles. These also include power plants, which use electric power generators that account for a quarter of nitrogen oxides and two-thirds of sulfur dioxide within the atmosphere. Industrial acid rain is a substantial problem in China and Russia and areas downwind from them. These areas all burn sulfur-containing coal to generate heat and electricity. The problem of acid rain has not only increased with population and industrial growth, but has become more widespread. The use of tall smokestacks to reduce local pollution has contributed to the spread of acid rain by releasing gases into regional atmospheric circulation; dispersal from these taller stacks causes pollutants to be carried farther, causing widespread ecological damage. Often deposition occurs a considerable distance downwind of the emissions, with mountainous regions tending to receive the greatest deposition (because of their higher rainfall). An example of this effect is the low pH of rain which falls in Scandinavia. Regarding low pH and pH imbalances in correlation to acid rain, low levels, or those under the pH value of 7, are considered acidic. Acid rain falls at a pH value of roughly 4, making it harmful to consume for humans. When these low pH levels fall in specific regions, they not only affect the environment but also human health. With acidic pH levels in humans comes hair loss, low urinary pH, severe mineral imbalances, constipation, and many cases of chronic disorders like Fibromyalgia and Basal Carcinoma. Chemical process. Combustion of fuels and smelting of some ores produce sulfur dioxide and nitric oxides. They are converted into sulfuric acid and nitric acid. In the gas phase sulfur dioxide is oxidized to sulfuric acid: Nitrogen dioxide reacts with hydroxyl radicals to form nitric acid: NO2 + OH· → HNO3 The detailed mechanisms depend on the presence water and traces of iron and manganese. A number of oxidants are capable of these reactions aside from O2, these include ozone, hydrogen peroxide, and oxygen. Acid deposition. Wet deposition. Wet deposition of acids occurs when any form of precipitation (rain, snow, and so on) removes acids from the atmosphere and delivers it to the Earth's surface. This can result from the deposition of acids produced in the raindrops (see aqueous phase chemistry above) or by the precipitation removing the acids either in clouds or below clouds. Wet removal of both gases and aerosols are both of importance for wet deposition. Dry deposition. Acid deposition also occurs via dry deposition in the absence of precipitation. This can be responsible for as much as 20 to 60% of total acid deposition. This occurs when particles and gases stick to the ground, plants or other surfaces. Adverse effects. Acid rain has been shown to have adverse impacts on forests, freshwaters and soils, killing insect and aquatic life-forms as well as causing damage to buildings and having impacts on human health. Surface waters and aquatic animals. Sulfuric acid and nitric acid have multiple impacts on aquatic ecosystems, including acidification, increased nitrogen and aluminum content, and alteration of biogeochemical processes. Both the lower pH and higher aluminium concentrations in surface water that occur as a result of acid rain can cause damage to fish and other aquatic animals. At pH lower than 5 most fish eggs will not hatch and lower pH can kill adult fish. As lakes and rivers become more acidic, biodiversity is reduced. Acid rain has eliminated insect life and some fish species, including the brook trout in some lakes, streams, and creeks in geographically sensitive areas, such as the Adirondack Mountains of the United States. However, the extent to which acid rain contributes directly or indirectly via runoff from the catchment to lake and river acidity (i.e., depending on characteristics of the surrounding watershed) is variable. The United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) website states: "Of the lakes and streams surveyed, acid rain caused acidity in 75% of the acidic lakes and about 50% of the acidic streams". Lakes hosted by silicate basement rocks are more acidic than lakes within limestone or other basement rocks with a carbonate composition (i.e. marble) due to buffering effects by carbonate minerals, even with the same amount of acid rain. Soils. Soil biology and chemistry can be seriously damaged by acid rain. Some microbes are unable to tolerate changes to low pH and are killed. The enzymes of these microbes are denatured (changed in shape so they no longer function) by the acid. The hydronium ions of acid rain also mobilize toxins, such as aluminium, and leach away essential nutrients and minerals such as magnesium. 2 H+ (aq) + Mg2+ (clay) 2 H+ (clay) + Mg2+ (aq) Soil chemistry can be dramatically changed when base cations, such as calcium and magnesium, are leached by acid rain, thereby affecting sensitive species, such as sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Soil acidification Impacts of acidic water and soil acidification on plants could be minor or in most cases major. Most minor cases which do not result in fatality of plant life can be attributed to the plants being less susceptible to acidic conditions and/or the acid rain being less potent. However, even in minor cases, the plant will eventually die due to the acidic water lowering the plant's natural pH. Acidic water enters the plant and causes important plant minerals to dissolve and get carried away; which ultimately causes the plant to die of lack of minerals for nutrition. In major cases, which are more extreme, the same process of damage occurs as in minor cases, which is removal of essential minerals, but at a much quicker rate. Likewise, acid rain that falls on soil and on plant leaves causes drying of the waxy leaf cuticle, which ultimately causes rapid water loss from the plant to the outside atmosphere and eventually results in death of the plant. Soil acidification can lead to a decline in soil microbes as a result of a change in pH, which would have an adverse effect on plants due to their dependence on soil microbes to access nutrients. To see if a plant is being affected by soil acidification, one can closely observe the plant leaves. If the leaves are green and look healthy, the soil pH is normal and acceptable for plant life. But if the plant leaves have yellowing between the veins on their leaves, that means the plant is suffering from acidification and is unhealthy. Moreover, a plant suffering from soil acidification cannot photosynthesize; the acid-water-induced process of drying out of the plant can destroy chloroplast organelles. Without being able to photosynthesize, a plant cannot create nutrients for its own survival or oxygen for the survival of aerobic organisms, which affects most species on Earth and ultimately ends the purpose of the plant's existence. Forests and other vegetation. Adverse effects may be indirectly related to acid rain, like the acid's effects on soil (see above) or high concentration of gaseous precursors to acid rain. High altitude forests are especially vulnerable as they are often surrounded by clouds and fog which are more acidic than rain. Plants are capable of adapting to acid rain. On Jinyun Mountain, Chongqing, plant species were seen adapting to new environmental conditions. The affects on the species ranged from being beneficial to detrimental. With natural rainfall or mild acid rainfall, the biochemical and physiological characteristics of plant seedlings were enhanced. However, once the pH decreases below the threshold of 3.5, the acid rain can no longer be beneficial and begins to have negative affects. Acid rain can negatively impact photosynthesis in plant leaves, when leaves are exposed to a lower pH, photosynthesis is impacted due to the decline in chlorophyll. Acid rain also has the ability to cause deformation to leaves at a cellular level, examples include; tissue scaring and changes to the stomatal, epidermis and mesophyll cells. Additional impacts of acid rain includes a decline in cuticle thickness present on the leaf surface. Because acid rain damages leaves, this directly impacts a plants ability to have a strong canopy cover, a decline in canopy cover can lead plants to be more vulnerable to diseases. Dead or dying trees often appear in areas impacted by acid rain. Acid rain causes aluminum to leach from the soil, posing risks to both plant and animal life. Furthermore, it strips the soil of critical minerals and nutrients necessary for tree growth. At higher altitudes, acidic fog and clouds can deplete nutrients from tree foliage, leading to discolored or dead leaves and needles. This depletion compromises the trees' ability to absorb sunlight, weakening them and diminishing their capacity to endure cold conditions. Other plants can also be damaged by acid rain, but the effect on food crops is minimized by the application of lime and fertilizers to replace lost nutrients. In cultivated areas, limestone may also be added to increase the ability of the soil to keep the pH stable, but this tactic is largely unusable in the case of wilderness lands. When calcium is leached from the needles of red spruce, these trees become less cold tolerant and exhibit winter injury and even death. Acid rain may also affect crop productivity by necrosis or changes to soil nutrients, which ultimately prevent plants from reaching maturity. Ocean acidification. Acid rain has a much less harmful effect on oceans on a global scale, but it creates an amplified impact in the shallower waters of coastal waters. Acid rain can cause the ocean's pH to fall, known as ocean acidification, making it more difficult for different coastal species to create their exoskeletons that they need to survive. These coastal species link together as part of the ocean's food chain, and without them being a source for other marine life to feed off of, more marine life will die. Coral's limestone skeleton is particularly sensitive to pH decreases, because the calcium carbonate, a core component of the limestone skeleton, dissolves in acidic (low pH) solutions. In addition to acidification, excess nitrogen inputs from the atmosphere promote increased growth of phytoplankton and other marine plants, which, in turn, may cause more frequent harmful algal blooms and eutrophication (the creation of oxygen-depleted "dead zones") in some parts of the ocean. Human health effects. Acid rain can negatively impact human health, especially when people breathe in particles released from acid rain. The effects of acid rain on human health are complex and may be seen in several ways, such as respiratory issues for long-term exposure and indirect exposure through contaminated food and water sources. Nitrogen Dioxide Effects. Exposure to air pollutants associated with acid rain, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), may have a negative impact on respiratory health. Water-soluble nitrogen dioxide accumulates in the tiny airways, where it is transformed into nitric and nitrous acids. Pneumonia caused by nitric acids directly damages the epithelial cells lining the airways, resulting in pulmonary edema. Exposure to nitrogen dioxide also reduces the immune response by inhibiting the generation of inflammatory cytokines by alveolar macrophages in response to bacterial infection. In animal studies, the pollutant further reduces respiratory immunity by decreasing mucociliary clearance in the lower respiratory tract, which results in a reduced ability to remove respiratory infections. Sulfur Trioxide Effects. The effects of sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid are similar because they both produce sulfuric acid when they come into touch with the wet surfaces of your skin or respiratory system. The amount of SO3 breath through the mouth is larger than the amount of SO3 breath through the nose. When humans breathe in sulfur trioxide, small droplets of sulfuric acid will form inside the body and enter the respiratory tract to the lungs depending on the particle size. The effects of SO3 on the respiratory system lead to breathing difficulty in people who have asthma symptoms. Sulfur trioxide also causes very corrosive and irritation on the skin, eye, and gastrointestinal tracts when there is direct exposure to a specific concentration or long-term exposure. Consuming concentrated sulfuric acid has been known to burn the mouth and throat, erode a hole in the stomach, burns when it comes into contact with skin, make your eyes weep if it gets into them, and mortality. Nitrogen Dioxides. A 25 parts per million (ppm) maximum for nitric oxide in working air has been set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for an 8-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek. Additionally, OSHA has established a 5-ppm nitrogen dioxide exposure limit for 15 minutes in the workplace. Sulfur Trioxide. The not-to-exceed limits in the air, water, soil, or food that are recommended by regulations are often based on levels that affect animals before being modified to assist in safeguarding people. Depending on whether they employ different animal studies, have different exposure lengths (e.g., an 8-hour workday versus a 24-hour day), or for other reasons, these not-to-exceed values can vary between federal bodies. The amount of sulfur dioxide that can be emitted into the atmosphere is capped by the EPA. This reduces the quantity of sulfur dioxide in the air that turns into sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid concentrations in workroom air are restricted by OSHA to 1 mg/m3. Moreover, NIOSH advises a time-weighted average limit of 1 mg/m3. Other adverse effects. Acid rain can damage buildings, historic monuments, and statues, especially those made of rocks, such as limestone and marble, that contain large amounts of calcium carbonate. Acids in the rain react with the calcium compounds in the stones to create gypsum, which then flakes off. CaCO3 (s) + H2SO4 (aq) CaSO4 (s) + CO2 (g) + H2O (l) The effects of this are commonly seen on old gravestones, where acid rain can cause the inscriptions to become completely illegible. Acid rain also increases the corrosion rate of metals, in particular iron, steel, copper and bronze. Affected areas. Places significantly impacted by acid rain around the globe include most of eastern Europe from Poland northward into Scandinavia, the eastern third of the United States, and southeastern Canada. Other affected areas include the southeastern coast of China and Taiwan. Prevention methods. Technical solutions. Many coal-firing power stations use flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) to remove sulfur-containing gases from their stack gases. For a typical coal-fired power station, FGD will remove 95% or more of the SO2 in the flue gases. An example of FGD is the wet scrubber which is commonly used. A wet scrubber is basically a reaction tower equipped with a fan that extracts hot smoke stack gases from a power plant into the tower. Lime or limestone in slurry form is also injected into the tower to mix with the stack gases and combine with the sulfur dioxide present. The calcium carbonate of the limestone produces pH-neutral calcium sulfate that is physically removed from the scrubber. That is, the scrubber turns sulfur pollution into industrial sulfates. In some areas the sulfates are sold to chemical companies as gypsum when the purity of calcium sulfate is high. In others, they are placed in landfill. The effects of acid rain can last for generations, as the effects of pH level change can stimulate the continued leaching of undesirable chemicals into otherwise pristine water sources, killing off vulnerable insect and fish species and blocking efforts to restore native life. Fluidized bed combustion also reduces the amount of sulfur emitted by power production. Vehicle emissions control reduces emissions of nitrogen oxides from motor vehicles. International treaties. International treaties on the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants have been agreed upon by western countries for some time now. Beginning in 1979, European countries convened in order to ratify general principles discussed during the UNECE Convention. The purpose was to combat Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. The 1985 Helsinki Protocol on the Reduction of Sulfur Emissions under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution furthered the results of the convention. Results of the treaty have already come to fruition, as evidenced by an approximate 40 percent drop in particulate matter in North America. The effectiveness of the Convention in combatting acid rain has inspired further acts of international commitment to prevent the proliferation of particulate matter. Canada and the US signed the Air Quality Agreement in 1991. Most European countries and Canada signed the treaties. Activity of the Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention remained dormant after 1999, when 27 countries convened to further reduce the effects of acid rain. In 2000, foreign cooperation to prevent acid rain was sparked in Asia for the first time. Ten diplomats from countries ranging throughout the continent convened to discuss ways to prevent acid rain. Following these discussions, the Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET) was established in 2001 as an intergovernmental initiative to provide science-based inputs for decision makers and promote international cooperation on acid deposition in East Asia. In 2023, the EANET member countries include Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam. Emissions trading. In this regulatory scheme, every current polluting facility is given or may purchase on an open market an emissions allowance for each unit of a designated pollutant it emits. Operators can then install pollution control equipment, and sell portions of their emissions allowances they no longer need for their own operations, thereby recovering some of the capital cost of their investment in such equipment. The intention is to give operators economic incentives to install pollution controls. The first emissions trading market was established in the United States by enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. The overall goal of the Acid Rain Program established by the Act is to achieve significant environmental and public health benefits through reductions in emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), the primary causes of acid rain. To achieve this goal at the lowest cost to society, the program employs both regulatory and market based approaches for controlling air pollution.
3266	46758690	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3266	Acephali	In church history, the term (from Ancient Greek: ', "headless", singular ' from ', "without", and ', "head") has been applied to several sects that supposedly had no leader. E. Cobham Brewer wrote, in "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable", that acephalites, "properly means men without a head." Jean Cooper wrote, in "Dictionary of Christianity", that it characterizes "various schismatical Christian bodies". Among them were Nestorians who rejected the Council of Ephesus’ condemnation of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, which deposed Nestorius and declared him a heretic. Fifth-century "acephali". Those who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Council of Chalcedon were originally called Haesitantes; the "" developed from among them, and, according to Blunt, the earlier name – Haesitantes – seems to have been used for only a short time. With the apparent purpose of bringing the Orthodox and heretics into unity, Patriarch Peter III of Alexandria and Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople had elaborated a new creed in which they expressly condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches, a presbyter and archimandrite, but at the same time rejected the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. This ambiguous formula, though approved by Byzantine Emperor Zeno and imposed in his "Henoticon", could only satisfy the indifferent. The term applied to a 5th-century faction among the Eutychians, who seceded from Peter, a Miaphysite, in 482, after Peter signed the "Henoticon" and was recognised by Zeno as the legitimate patriarch of Alexandria, by which they were "deprived of their head". They remained "without king or bishop" until they were reconciled with Coptic Orthodox Pope Mark II of Alexandria (799–819). The condemnation of Eutyches irritated the rigid Monophysites; the equivocal attitude taken towards the Council of Chalcedon appeared to them insufficient, and many of them, especially the monks, deserted Peter, preferring to be without a head, rather than remain in communion with him. Later, they joined the adherents of the non-Chalcedonian Patriarch Severus of Antioch. They were, according to "Oxford English Dictionary Online", a "group of extreme Monophysites" and "were absorbed by the Jacobites". Liberatus of Carthage wrote, in ', that those at the Council of Ephesus who followed neither Patriarch Cyril I of Alexandria nor Patriarch John I of Antioch were called '. Esaianites were one of the sects into which the Alexandrian "" separated at the end of the 5th century. They were the followers of Esaias, a deacon of Palestine, who claimed to have been consecrated to the episcopal office by the Bishop Eusebius. His opponents averred that after the bishop's death, his hands had been laid upon the head of Esaias by some of his friends. ' were a sect of ' who followed Chalcedonian Patriarch Paul of Alexandria, who was deposed by a synod at Gaza, in 541, for his uncanonical consecration by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and who, after his deposition, sided with the Miaphysites. Barsanians, later called Semidalites, were a sect of "" at the end of the 5th century. They had no succession of priests, and professed to keep up the celebration of a valid Eucharist by placing a few crumbs of some of the bread which had been consecrated by Dioscorus into a vessel of meal, and then using as fully consecrated the bread baked from it. The Barsanuphians separated from the "Acephali" in the late 6th century and developed their own episcopal hierarchy. Other "acephali". According to Brewer, acephalites were also certain bishops exempt from the jurisdiction and discipline of their patriarch. Cooper explains that they are "priests rejecting episcopal authority or bishops that of their metropolitans." Blunt described "" as those clergy who were ordained with a sinecure benefice and who generally obtained their orders by paying for them, that is, by simony. The Council of Pavia, in 853, legislated its canons 18 and 23 against them, from which it appears, according to Blunt, that they were mostly chaplains to noblemen, that they produced much scandal in the Church, and that they disseminated many errors. clergy without title or benefice. According to Brewer, acephalites were also a sect of Levellers during the reign of Henry I of England who acknowledged no leader. They were, according to "Oxford English Dictionary Online", "a group of free socagers having no feudal superior except the king." This usage is now considered obsolete.
3269	31541467	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3269	Anthony, King of Saxony	Anthony of Saxony (; 27 December 1755 – 6 June 1836) was a King of Saxony from the House of Wettin. He became known as "Anton der Gütige" ("Anthony the Kind"). He was the fifth but third surviving son of Frederick Christian, Elector of Saxony and his wife Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria. Early life. With few chances to take part in the politics of the Electorate of Saxony or receive any land from his older brother Frederick Augustus III, Anton lived under the shadows. No Elector of Saxony after Johann Georg I gave appanages to his younger sons. During the first years of the reign of his older brother as Elector, Anthony was the third in line, preceded only by his older brother Charles. The death of Charles (8 September 1781) made him the next in line to the Electorate as Electoral Prince (de: "Kurprinz"); this was because all the pregnancies of the Electress Amalie, except for one daughter, ended in a stillbirth. His aunt, the Dauphine of France, had wanted to engage her daughter Marie Zéphyrine of France to Anthony; Marie Zéphyrine died in 1755 abandoning plans. Another French candidate was Marie Zéphyrine's sister Marie Clothilde (later Queen of Sardinia) but again nothing happened. In Turin on 29 September 1781 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on 24 October 1781 (in person), Anthony married firstly with the Princess Maria Carolina of Savoy, daughter of the King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonietta of Spain. Caroline died after only one year of marriage, on 28 December 1782 having succumbed to smallpox. They had no children. In Florence on 8 September 1787 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on 18 October 1787 (in person), Anthony entered his second marriage, to the Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria (Maria Theresia Josephe Charlotte Johanna), daughter of the Grand Duke Leopold I of Tuscany, later Emperor Leopold II. Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" was originally intended to be performed in honor of his bride for a visit to Prague on 14 October 1787, as she traveled between Vienna and Dresden for the in-person ceremony, and librettos were printed with mention of the names of both Anton and the archduchess. The premiere could not be arranged in time, however, so the opera "The Marriage of Figaro" was substituted on the express orders of the bride's uncle, the Emperor Joseph II. The choice of "The Marriage of Figaro" was considered improper for a new bride by many observers, and the archduchess left the opera theater early without seeing the entire work performed. Mozart complained bitterly of the intrigues surrounding this incident in a letter to his friend Gottfried von Jacquin that was written in stages between 15 October and 25 October 1787. Anthony was present in Prague in September 1791 for the first performance of Mozart's opera "La clemenza di Tito", which was written as part of the coronation ceremonies of his father-in-law, the Emperor Leopold II, as King of Bohemia. The couple had four children, but none survived to the age of two: Electress Amalie gave birth for last time in 1799 to another stillborn child. After this, it became apparent that Anthony would succeed to the Electorate of Saxony, which was raised to kingdom in 1806. King of Saxony. Anthony succeeded his brother Frederick August I as King of Saxony upon the latter's death, on 5 May 1827. The 71-year-old new king was completely inexperienced in government, and hence had no intention of initiating profound changes in foreign or domestic policy. Prussian diplomats discussed granting the Prussian Rhineland (predominantly Catholic) to Anthony (a Catholic) in exchange for Lutheran Saxony in 1827, but nothing came of these talks. After the July Revolution of 1830 in France, disturbances in Saxony began in autumn. These were directed primarily against the old Constitution. Therefore, on 13 September the cabinet dismissed Count Detlev von Einsiedel, followed by Bernhard von Lindenau. Because the people wished to have a younger regent, Anthony agreed to appoint his nephew Frederick Augustus Prince Co-Regent (de: "Prinz-Mitregenten"). As another consequence of the disturbances, a new constitution was adopted in 1831 and came into effect on 4 September of that year. With it Saxony became a Constitutional monarchy and obtained a bi-cameral legislature and a responsible ministry, which replaced the old feudal estates. The constitution was more conservative than other constitutions existing at this time in the German Union. Nevertheless, it remained in force in Saxony until 1918. The king kept his exclusive sovereignty but was bound by the Government Business to cooperate with the Ministers and the decisions of both Chambers of the Estates (de: "Kammern der Ständeversammlung") meeting. The entry of Saxony into the "Zollverein" in 1833 let trade, industry and traffic blossom farther. Without surviving male issue, Anthony was succeeded as king by his nephew, Frederick Augustus II.
3270	28481209	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3270	Albert III, Duke of Saxony	Albert III () (27 January 144312 September 1500) was a Duke of Saxony. He was nicknamed Albert the Bold or Albert the Courageous and founded the "Albertine line" of the House of Wettin. Biography. Albert was born in Grimma as the third and youngest son (but fifth child in order of birth) of Frederick II the Gentle, Elector of Saxony, and Margarete of Austria, sister of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor. Later, he was a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. After escaping from the hands of Kunz von Kaufungen, who had abducted him together with his brother Ernest, he spent some time at the court of the emperor Frederick III in Vienna. In Eger (Cheb) on 11 November 1464 Albert married Zdenka (Sidonie), daughter of George of Podebrady, King of Bohemia; but failed to obtain the Bohemian Crown on the death of George in 1471. After the death of his father in 1464, Albert and Ernest ruled their lands together, but in 1485 a division was made by the Treaty of Leipzig, and Albert received the Meissen, together with some adjoining districts, and founded the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin. Regarded as a capable soldier by the emperor, Albert (in 1475) took a prominent part in the campaign against Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and in 1487 led an expedition against Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, which failed owing to lack of support on the part of the emperor. From 1477 a new conflict arose with king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary who started to invade the Austrian Habsburg lands. The conflict is known as the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–1488). The Kaiser did not succeed in persuading the German electors and other imperial estates to provide military assistance. In the spring of 1483 Frederick fled Vienna to the safe city of Wiener Neustadt, in 1485 Corvinus was able to conquer Vienna and had himself called “ Archduke of Austria ” (Dux Austriae). In August 1487, the Hungarians succeeded in taking Wiener Neustadt, the new imperial residence in eastern Lower Austria. Friedrich first had to flee to Graz and temporarily flee to Linz in Upper Austria. After the imperial war against Hungary had been decided at the Nuremberg Diet in 1487, Duke Albert was appointed as the supreme commander of the entire imperial army. He was supposed to oppose Matthias' famous standing professional army, the Black Army of Hungary. After the Hungarian occupation of Vienna, Albrecht's task was to reconquer the lost Austrian territories. However, this failed due to the poor equipment of his army, so he had to wage a difficult defensive war under adverse circumstances. Duke Albrecht knew that no decisive help was to be expected from the Reich in the near future, but that the situation in the hereditary lands would deteriorate visibly. On 17 November 1487, Duke Albrecht informed Emperor Frederick that, under the ongoing military situation in his hereditary lands, a compromise with the King of Hungary would be the only rational solution. The war came to an end with an armistice in 1488, although the Habsburgs rankled with the peace. At the beginning of December, Matthias Corvinus met with Albrecht of Saxony in Markersdorf an der Pielach, a little later an armistice was reached in St. Pölten on 6 December, which was extended several times until the death of the Hungarian king. In 1488 he was appointed Governor of the Netherlands (until 1493) and marched with the imperial forces to free the Roman king Maximilian from his imprisonment at Bruges, and when, in 1489, the King returned to Germany, Albert was left as his representative to prosecute the war against the rebels. He was successful in restoring the authority of Maximilian in Holland, Flanders, and Brabant, but failed to obtain any repayment of the large sums of money which he had spent in these campaigns. His services were rewarded in 1498 when Maximilian bestowed upon him the title of Hereditary Governor ("potestat") of Friesland, but he had to make good his claim by force of arms. He had to a great extent succeeded, and was paying a visit to Saxony, when he was recalled by news of a fresh rising. The duke recaptured Groningen, but soon afterwards he died at Emden. He was buried at Meissen. Albert, who was a man of great strength and considerable skill in feats of arms, delighted in tournaments and knightly exercises. His loyalty to the emperor Frederick, and the expenses incurred in this connection, aroused some irritation among his subjects, but his rule was a period of prosperity in Saxony. Family and children. With his wife Sidonie, Albrecht had nine children:
3273	7903804	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3273	Arlo Guthrie	Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Guthrie's best-known work is his debut piece, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a satirical talking blues song of about 18 minutes that has since become a Thanksgiving anthem. His only top-40 hit is a cover of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans". His song "Massachusetts" was named the official folk song of the state, in which he has lived most of his adult life. Guthrie has also made several acting appearances. He is the father of four children, who have also had careers as musicians. Early life and education. Guthrie was born in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, the son of the folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie and dancer Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. He is the fifth, and oldest surviving, of Woody Guthrie's eight children; two older half-sisters died of Huntington's disease (of which Woody also died in 1967), an older half-brother died in a train accident, another half-sister died in a car accident, and a fourth sister died in childhood. His sister is the record producer Nora Guthrie. His mother was a professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company and founder of what is now the Huntington's Disease Society of America. Arlo's father was from a Baptist family of English and Scottish descent; and his mother was Jewish, the daughter of immigrants from Ukraine. His maternal grandmother was Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt, and country/western singer Jack Guthrie, who died when Arlo was an infant, was Arlo's cousin once removed. Guthrie received religious training for his bar mitzvah from Rabbi Meir Kahane, who formed the Jewish Defense League. "Rabbi Kahane was a really nice, patient teacher," Guthrie later recalled, "but shortly after he started giving me my lessons, he started going haywire. Maybe I was responsible." Guthrie converted to Catholicism in 1977, before embracing interfaith beliefs later in his life. "I firmly believe that different religious traditions can reside in one person, or one nation or even one world," Guthrie said in 2015. In 2020, following his retirement, Guthrie expressed a philosophical affinity for gospel music, noting: "Gospel music to me is the biggest genre of protest music. If this world ain't doing it for you, and your hopes are in the next one you can't get more protest than that." Guthrie attended Woodward School in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, from first through eighth grades. In 1965, he graduated from Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He spent the summer of 1965 in London, eventually meeting Karl Dallas, who connected Guthrie with London's folk rock scene and became a lifelong friend of his. He briefly attended Rocky Mountain College, in Billings, Montana. He received an honorary doctorate from Siena College in 1981 and from Westfield State College in 2008. As a singer, songwriter, and lifelong political activist, Guthrie carries on the legacy of his father. He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award on September 26, 1992. Career. "Alice's Restaurant". On November 26, 1965, while in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, during Thanksgiving break from his brief stint in college, 18-year-old Guthrie and his friend, Richard Robbins, were arrested for illegally dumping on private property what Guthrie described as "a half-ton of garbage" from the home of his friends, teachers Ray and Alice Brock, after he discovered that the local landfill was closed for the holiday. Guthrie and Robbins appeared in court, pled guilty to the charges, were levied a nominal fine and picked up the garbage that weekend. This littering charge served as the basis for Guthrie's most famous work, "Alice's Restaurant", a talking blues song that runs 18 minutes and 34 seconds in its original recorded version. In 1997, Guthrie jokingly pointed out that this was also the exact length of one of the infamous gaps in President Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes, and that Nixon owned a copy of the record. The "Alice" in the song is Alice Brock, who had been a librarian at Arlo's boarding school in the town before opening her restaurant. She later opened an art studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The song lampoons the Vietnam War draft. However, Guthrie has stated in multiple interviews that the song is more an "anti-stupidity" song than an anti-war song, adding that it is based on a true incident. In the song, Guthrie is called up for a draft examination and rejected as unfit for military service as a result of a criminal record consisting solely of one conviction for the aforementioned littering. Alice and her restaurant are the subjects of the refrain, but are generally mentioned only incidentally in the story (early drafts of the song explained that the restaurant was a place to hide from the police). Though her presence is implied at certain points in the story, Alice herself is described explicitly in the tale only briefly when she bails Guthrie and a friend out of jail. On the DVD commentary for the 1969 movie, Guthrie stated that the events presented in the song all actually happened. Others, such as the arresting officer, William Obanhein, disputed some of the song's details, but generally verified the truth of the overall story. "Alice's Restaurant" was the song that earned Guthrie his first recording contract, after counterculture radio host Bob Fass began playing a tape recording of one of Guthrie's live performances of the song repeatedly one night in 1967. A performance at the Newport Folk Festival on July 17, 1967, was also very well received. Soon afterward, Guthrie recorded the song in front of a studio audience in New York City and released it as side one of the album, "Alice's Restaurant". By the end of the decade, Guthrie had gone from playing coffee houses and small venues to playing massive and prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Woodstock Festival. For a short period after its release in October 1967, "Alice's Restaurant" was heavily played on U.S. college and counterculture radio stations. It became a symbol of the late 1960s, and for many it defined an attitude and lifestyle that were lived out across the country in the ensuing years. Its leisurely finger-picking acoustic guitar and rambling lyrics were widely memorized and played by irreverent youth. Many radio stations in the United States have a Thanksgiving Day tradition of playing "Alice's Restaurant". A 1969 film, directed and co-written by Arthur Penn, was based on the true story told in the song, but with the addition of a large number of fictional scenes. This film, also called "Alice's Restaurant", featured Guthrie and several other figures in the song portraying themselves. The part of his father Woody Guthrie, who had died in 1967, was played by actor Joseph Boley; Alice, who made a cameo appearance as an extra, was also recast, with actress Pat Quinn in the title role. Guthrie, Brock and Robbins have all spoken out about their dissatisfaction with the film and the way they were portrayed. Despite its popularity, the song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" was not always featured on the setlist of any given Guthrie performance. Since putting it back into his setlist in 1984, he has performed the song every ten years, stating in a 2014 interview that the Vietnam War had ended by the 1970s and that everyone who was attending his concerts had likely already heard the song anyway. So, after a brief period in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he replaced the monologue with a fictional one involving "multicolored rainbow roaches", he decided to do it only on special occasions from that point forward. Musical career and critical reception. The "Alice's Restaurant" song was one of a few very long songs to become popular just when albums began replacing hit singles as young people's main music listening. But in 1972 Guthrie had a highly successful single as well: Steve Goodman's song "City of New Orleans", a wistful paean to long-distance passenger rail travel. Guthrie's first trip on that train was in December 2005 (when his family joined other musicians on a train trip across the country to raise money for musicians financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, in the South of the United States). Other songs that achieved minor popularity without reaching the record charts included "Coming into Los Angeles", which was played at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and a live version of "The Motorcycle Song" (one of the songs on the B-side of the "Alice's Restaurant" album). A cover of the folk song "Gypsy Davy" was a hit on the easy listening charts. In the fall of 1975 during a benefit concert in Massachusetts, Guthrie performed with his band, Shenandoah, in public for the first time. They continued to tour and record throughout the 1970s until the early 1990s. Although the band received good reviews, it never gained the popularity that Guthrie did while playing solo. Shenandoah consisted of (after 1976) David Grover, Steve Ide, Carol Ide, Terry A La Berry and Dan Velika and is not to be confused with the country music group Shenandoah. The Ides, along with Terry a la Berry, reunited with Guthrie for a 2018 tour. In 1991, Guthrie's backing band was known as Xavier, an assembly of college-aged musicians led by his son Abe, designed to emulate the sound of Guthrie's studio recordings as closely as possible. Guthrie performed a concert almost every Thanksgiving weekend at Carnegie Hall from the late 1960s until 2019; he had planned to end the tradition even before his career-ending stroke. Guthrie's 1976 album "Amigo" received a five-star (highest rating) from "Rolling Stone", and may be his best-received work. Aside from the song "Massachusetts", it also includes "Victor Jara", a poignant tribute to the slain Chilean folk singer with lyrics by poet Adrian Mitchell. However, that album, like Guthrie's earlier Warner Bros. Records albums, is rarely heard today, even though each contains strong folk and folk rock music accompanied by widely regarded musicians such as Ry Cooder. A number of musicians from a variety of genres have joined Guthrie onstage, including Pete Seeger, David Bromberg, Cyril Neville, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Judy Collins, John Prine, Wesley Gray, Josh Ritter, and others. A video from a concert with Seeger at Wolf Trap in 1993 has been a staple of YouTube, with Guthrie's story-telling showcased in a performance of "Can't Help Falling in Love". In 2020, Guthrie collaborated with Jim Wilson on a cover of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More". On October 23, 2020, Guthrie announced via Facebook that he had "reached the difficult decision that touring and stage shows are no longer possible," due to a series of strokes that had impaired his ability to walk and perform. All of his scheduled tour appearances for 2020 were cancelled, and Guthrie said he will not accept any new bookings offered. His final performance at Carnegie Hall was on November 29, 2019. His final live touring concert was on March 7, 2020, at The Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee. He had attempted to record some private concerts in the summer of 2020 but concluded his playing was no longer up to his standards. Guthrie rescinded his retirement announcement and stated that he would begin touring again in April 2023, albeit with his appearances reduced to locations in the Northeast within driving distance of his Massachusetts home, spaced at least one week apart to allow him to return home between shows. Due to the inhibitions caused by the stroke, the "What's Left of Me" tour was mostly conversations with Bob Santelli and archival video "with maybe some music included," but he embarked on the comeback tour in an effort to rehabilitate from his stroke more quickly. Guthrie expressed no interest in further tours after "What's Left of Me" ended, conceding he was no longer interested nor physically able to "live in a tour bus." Acting. Though Guthrie is best known for being a musician, singer, and composer, throughout the years he has also appeared as an actor in films and on television. The film "Alice's Restaurant" (1969) is his best known role, but he has had small parts in several films and even co-starred in a television drama, "Byrds of Paradise". Guthrie has had minor roles in several movies and television series. Usually, he has appeared as himself, often performing music and/or being interviewed about the 1960s, folk music and various social causes. His television appearances have included a broad range of programs from "The Muppet Show" (1979) to "Politically Incorrect" (1998). A rare dramatic film part was in the 1992 movie "Roadside Prophets". Guthrie's memorable appearance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival was documented in the Michael Wadleigh film "Woodstock". Guthrie also made a pilot for a TV variety show called "The Arlo Guthrie Show" in February 1987. The hour-long program included story telling and musical performances and was filmed in Austin, Texas. It was broadcast nationally on PBS. Special guests were Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, David Bromberg and Jerry Jeff Walker. Political activism. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Guthrie had taken what seemed a left-leaning approach to American politics, influenced by his father. In his often lengthy comments during concerts, his expressed positions were consistently anti-war, anti-Nixon, pro-drugs and in favor of making nuclear power illegal. However, he apparently did not perceive himself as the major youth culture spokesperson he had been regarded as by the media, as evidenced by the lyrics in his 1979 song "Prologue": "I can remember all of your smiles during the demonstrations ... and together we sang our victory songs though we were worlds apart." A 1969 rewrite of "Alice's Restaurant" pokes fun at former President Lyndon Johnson and his staff. In 1984, he was the featured celebrity in George McGovern's presidential campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Guthrie's home state of Massachusetts, performing at rallies and receptions. Guthrie identified as a registered Republican in 2008. He endorsed Texas Congressman Ron Paul for the 2008 Republican Party nomination, and said, "I love this guy. Dr. Paul is the only candidate I know of who would have signed the Constitution of the United States had he been there. I'm with him, because he seems to be the only candidate who actually believes it has as much relevance today as it did a couple of hundred years ago. I look forward to the day when we can work out the differences we have with the same revolutionary vision and enthusiasm that is our American legacy." He told "The New York Times Magazine" that he (had become) a Republican because, "We had enough good Democrats. We needed a few more good Republicans. We needed a loyal opposition." Commenting on the 2016 election, Guthrie identified himself as an independent, and said he was "equally suspicious of Democrats as I am of Republicans". He declined to endorse a candidate, noting that he personally liked Bernie Sanders despite disagreeing with parts of Sanders' platform. While he thought it "wonderful" that Donald Trump was not relying on campaign donations, he did not believe that it necessarily meant that Trump had the best interests of the country in mind. In 2018, Guthrie contacted publication "Urban Milwaukee" to clarify his political stance. He stated "I am not a Republican", and expressed deep disagreement with the Trump administration's views, especially its policies on immigration and treatment of detained immigrants by ICE. Guthrie further clarified, "I left the party years ago and do not identify myself with either party these days. I strongly urge my fellow Americans to stop the current trend of guilt by association, and look beyond the party names and affiliations, and work for candidates whose policies are more closely aligned with their own, whatever they may be. ... I don't pretend to be right all the time, and sometimes I've gone so far as to change my mind from time to time." Guthrie expressed support for the George Floyd protests in June 2020, stating that it would be good if politicians "embraced it rather than resist the evolving nature of what it means to be an American". In 2023, Guthrie stated that though he still maintained his personal convictions on particular issues, he had grown to become largely apolitical. He expressed irritation at having his past political views be brought up in later interviews and commented that the collapse of the groups and institutions that his parents' generation had embraced in favor of an overly individualist culture was "disheartening", but a natural progression of society. Legacy. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, he often sings songs of protest against social injustice. He collaborated with poet Adrian Mitchell to tell the story of Chilean folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in song. He regularly performed with folk musician Pete Seeger, one of his father's longtime partners. Ramblin' Jack Elliott, who had lived for two years in the Guthries' home before Arlo left for boarding school, had absorbed Woody's style perhaps better than anyone; Arlo has been said to have credited Elliott for passing it along to him. In 1991, Guthrie bought the church that had served as Alice and Ray Brock's former home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and converted it to the Guthrie Center, an interfaith meeting place that serves people of all religions. The center provides weekly free lunches in the community and support for families living with HIV/AIDS, as well as other life-threatening illnesses. It also hosts a summertime concert series and Guthrie does six or seven fund raising shows there every year. There are several annual events such as the Walk-A-Thon to Cure Huntington's Disease and a "Thanksgiving Dinner That Can't Be Beat" for families, friends, doctors and scientists who live and work with Huntington's disease. One of the title characters in the comic strip "Arlo and Janis" is named after Guthrie. Cartoonist Jimmy Johnson noted he was inspired by a friend who resembled Guthrie to name one of his characters Arlo. English commentator Arlo White was named after Guthrie. Guthrie was the subject of a 2012 unauthorized biography, "Arlo Guthrie: The Warner Reprise Years", by Hank Reineke, for which Guthrie refused to cooperate. After finding Reineke's work to be "better than (he) imagined it" and feeling it had suffered from Guthrie's non-participation in it, he agreed to assist Reineke in the sequel, "Rising Son: The Life and Music of Arlo Guthrie", which was released in 2023. Guthrie has expressed no interest in writing any memoir or tell-all. Personal life. Guthrie owns a home in Washington, Massachusetts, where he and Jackie Hyde, who was his wife for 43 years, were longtime residents. Jackie died on October 14, 2012, shortly after being diagnosed with liver cancer. On October 23, 2021, Guthrie announced that he was engaged to Marti Ladd, with whom he had been in a relationship since shortly after Jackie's death in 2012. The couple married December 8, 2021. It is the second marriage for each of them. Guthrie had met Ladd 20 years earlier when he went to Woodstock, New York with his wife Jackie to do a film. They stayed at The Wild Rose Inn, where Ladd was the owner/operator. In September 2016, Ladd sold the Inn and moved in with Guthrie. He and Marti now split time between Washington, Massachusetts in the summer and Micco, Florida in the winter. Guthrie's son Abe Guthrie and his daughters Annie Guthrie, Sarah Lee Guthrie, and Cathy Guthrie are also musicians. Abe Guthrie was formerly in the folk-rock band Xavier and has toured with his father. Annie Guthrie writes songs, performs, and takes care of family touring details. Sarah Lee performed and recorded with her then-husband Johnny Irion from 2000 until their 2014 breakup. Cathy plays ukulele in Folk Uke, a group she formed with Amy Nelson, a daughter of Willie Nelson. Cathy and Sarah Lee also perform as the "Guthrie Girls", a country music duo. On October 23, 2020, Guthrie announced he was retiring from touring and stage shows, citing health issues, including a stroke on Thanksgiving Day 2019 which required brief hospitalization and physical therapy. On his official website and in social media, he posted, "A folksinger's shelf life may be a lot longer than a dancer or an athlete, but at some point, unless you're incredibly fortunate or just plain whacko (either one or both) it's time to hang up the 'Gone Fishing' sign. Going from town to town and doing stage shows, remaining on the road is no longer an option." In a November 2023 interview, Guthrie conceded that he was having difficulty adjusting to retirement and not being able to perform the way he had his entire life.
3275	12416903	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3275	Book of Alma	The Book of Alma: The Son of Alma (), usually referred to as the Book of Alma, is one of the books that make up the Book of Mormon. The title refers to Alma the Younger, a prophet and "chief judge" of the Nephites. Alma is the longest book in the Book of Mormon and consists of sixty-three chapters, taking up almost a third of the volume. Narrative. The Book of Alma is the longest of all the books of the Book of Mormon, consisting of 63 chapters. The book records the first 39 years of what the Nephites termed "the reign of the judges", a period in which the Nephite nation adopted a constitutional theocratic government in which the judicial and executive branches of the government were combined.
3277	1461430	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3277	Antioxidant	Antioxidants are compounds that inhibit oxidation, a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals. Autoxidation leads to degradation of organic compounds, including living matter. Antioxidants are frequently added to industrial products, such as polymers, fuels, and lubricants, to extend their usable lifetimes. Foods are also treated with antioxidants to prevent spoilage, in particular the rancidification of oils and fats. In cells, antioxidants such as glutathione, mycothiol, or bacillithiol, and enzyme systems like superoxide dismutase, inhibit damage from oxidative stress. Known dietary antioxidants are vitamins A, C, and E, but the term has also been applied to various compounds that exhibit antioxidant properties in vitro, having little evidence for antioxidant properties in vivo. Dietary supplements marketed as antioxidants have not been shown to maintain health or prevent disease in humans. History. As part of their adaptation from marine life, terrestrial plants began producing non-marine antioxidants such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C), polyphenols, and tocopherols. The evolution of angiosperm plants between 50 and 200 million years ago resulted in the development of many antioxidant pigments – particularly during the Jurassic period – as chemical defences against reactive oxygen species that are byproducts of photosynthesis. Originally, the term antioxidant specifically referred to a chemical that prevented the consumption of oxygen. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, extensive study concentrated on the use of antioxidants in important industrial processes, such as the prevention of metal corrosion, the vulcanization of rubber, and the polymerization of fuels in the fouling of internal combustion engines. Early research on the role of antioxidants in biology focused on their use in preventing the oxidation of unsaturated fats, which is the cause of rancidity. Antioxidant activity could be measured simply by placing the fat in a closed container with oxygen and measuring the rate of oxygen consumption. However, it was the identification of vitamins C and E as antioxidants that revolutionized the field and led to the realization of the importance of antioxidants in the biochemistry of living organisms. The possible mechanisms of action of antioxidants were first explored when it was recognized that a substance with anti-oxidative activity is likely to be one that is itself readily oxidized. Research into how vitamin E prevents the process of lipid peroxidation led to the identification of antioxidants as reducing agents that prevent oxidative reactions, often by scavenging reactive oxygen species before they can damage cells. Uses. Food preservatives. Antioxidants are added to food to prevent deterioration. Exposure to oxygen and sunlight are the two main factors in the oxidation of food, so food is preserved by keeping in the dark and sealing it in containers or even coating it in wax, as with cucumbers. However, as oxygen is also important for plant respiration, storing plant materials in anaerobic conditions produces unpleasant flavors and unappealing colors. Consequently, packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables contains an ≈8% oxygen atmosphere. Antioxidants are an especially important class of preservatives as, unlike bacterial or fungal spoilage, oxidation reactions still occur relatively rapidly in frozen or refrigerated food. These preservatives include natural antioxidants such as ascorbic acid (AA, E300) and tocopherols (E306), as well as synthetic antioxidants such as propyl gallate (PG, E310), tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA, E320) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT, E321). Unsaturated fats can be highly susceptible to oxidation, causing rancidification. Oxidized lipids are often discolored and can impart unpleasant tastes and flavors. Thus, these foods are rarely preserved by drying; instead, they are preserved by smoking, salting, or fermenting. Even less fatty foods such as fruits are sprayed with sulfurous antioxidants prior to air drying. Metals catalyse oxidation. Some fatty foods such as olive oil are partially protected from oxidation by their natural content of antioxidants. Fatty foods are sensitive to photooxidation, which forms hydroperoxides by oxidizing unsaturated fatty acids and ester. Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation can cause direct photooxidation and decompose peroxides and carbonyl molecules. These molecules undergo free radical chain reactions, but antioxidants inhibit them by preventing the oxidation processes. Pharmaceutical excipients. Some pharmaceutical products require protection from oxidation. A number of antioxidants can be used as excipients. Sequestrants such as disodium EDTA can also be used to prevent metal-catalyzed oxidation. Cosmetics preservatives. Antioxidant stabilizers are also added to fat-based cosmetics such as lipstick and moisturizers to prevent rancidity. Antioxidants in cosmetic products prevent oxidation of active ingredients and lipid content. For example, phenolic antioxidants such as stilbenes, flavonoids, and hydroxycinnamic acid strongly absorb UV radiation due to the presence of chromophores. They reduce oxidative stress from sun exposure by absorbing UV light. Industrial uses. Antioxidants may be added to industrial products, such as stabilizers in fuels and additives in lubricants, to prevent oxidation and polymerization that leads to the formation of engine-fouling residues. Antioxidant polymer stabilizers are widely used to prevent the degradation of polymers, such as rubbers, plastics and adhesives, that causes a loss of strength and flexibility in these materials. Polymers containing double bonds in their main chains, such as natural rubber and polybutadiene, are especially susceptible to oxidation and ozonolysis. They can be protected by antiozonants. Oxidation can be accelerated by UV radiation in natural sunlight to cause photo-oxidation. Various specialised light stabilisers, such as HALS may be added to plastics to prevent this. Antioxidants for polymer materials are: Use as pharmaceutical. Probucol was originally designed as an antioxidant polymer stabilizer for rubber tires. It was later found to reduce LDL-C levels independently of the LDL receptor and became a prescription drug. Its approval predated statins by a decade. Environmental and health hazards. Synthetic phenolic antioxidants (SPAs) and aminic antioxidants have potential human and environmental health hazards. SPAs are common in indoor dust, small air particles, sediment, sewage, river water and wastewater. They are synthesized from phenolic compounds and include 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol (BHT), 2,6-di-tert-butyl-p-benzoquinone (BHT-Q), 2,4-di-tert-butyl-phenol (DBP) and 3-"tert"-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole (BHA). BHT can cause hepatotoxicity and damage to the endocrine system and may increase the carcinogenicity of 1,1-dimethylhydrazine exposure. BHT-Q can cause DNA damage and mismatches through the cleavage process, generating superoxide radicals. DBP is toxic to marine life if exposed long-term. Phenolic antioxidants have low biodegradability, but they do not have severe toxicity toward aquatic organisms at low concentrations. Another type of antioxidant, diphenylamine (DPA), is commonly used in the production of commercial, industrial lubricants and rubber products and it also acts as a supplement for automotive engine oils. Oxidative challenge in biology. The vast majority of complex life on Earth requires oxygen for its metabolism, but this same oxygen is a highly reactive element that can damage living organisms. Organisms contain chemicals and enzymes that minimize this oxidative damage without interfering with the beneficial effect of oxygen. In general, antioxidant systems either prevent these reactive species from being formed, or remove them, thus minimizing their damage. Reactive oxygen species can have useful cellular functions, such as redox signaling. Thus, ideally, antioxidant systems do not remove oxidants entirely, but maintain them at some optimum concentration. Reactive oxygen species produced in cells include hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hypochlorous acid (HClO), and free radicals such as the hydroxyl radical (·OH), and the superoxide anion (O2−). The hydroxyl radical is particularly unstable and will react rapidly and non-specifically with most biological molecules. This species is produced from hydrogen peroxide in metal-catalyzed redox reactions such as the Fenton reaction. These oxidants can damage cells by starting chemical chain reactions such as lipid peroxidation, or by oxidizing DNA or proteins. Damage to DNA can cause mutations and possibly cancer, if not reversed by DNA repair mechanisms, while damage to proteins causes enzyme inhibition, denaturation, and protein degradation. The use of oxygen as part of the process for generating metabolic energy produces reactive oxygen species. In this process, the superoxide anion is produced as a by-product of several steps in the electron transport chain. Particularly important is the reduction of coenzyme Q in complex III, since a highly reactive free radical is formed as an intermediate (Q·−). This unstable intermediate can lead to electron "leakage", when electrons jump directly to oxygen and form the superoxide anion, instead of moving through the normal series of well-controlled reactions of the electron transport chain. Peroxide is also produced from the oxidation of reduced flavoproteins, such as complex I. However, although these enzymes can produce oxidants, the relative importance of the electron transfer chain to other processes that generate peroxide is unclear. In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, reactive oxygen species are also produced during photosynthesis, particularly under conditions of high light intensity. This effect is partly offset by the involvement of carotenoids in photoinhibition, and in algae and cyanobacteria, by large amount of iodide and selenium, which involves these antioxidants reacting with over-reduced forms of the photosynthetic reaction centres to prevent the production of reactive oxygen species. Examples of bioactive antioxidant compounds. Physiological antioxidants are classified into two broad divisions, depending on whether they are soluble in water (hydrophilic) or in lipids (lipophilic). In general, water-soluble antioxidants react with oxidants in the cell cytosol and the blood plasma, while lipid-soluble antioxidants protect cell membranes from lipid peroxidation. These compounds may be synthesized in the body or obtained from the diet. The different antioxidants are present at a wide range of concentrations in body fluids and tissues, with some such as glutathione or ubiquinone mostly present within cells, while others such as uric acid are more systemically distributed (see table below). Some antioxidants are only found in a few organisms, and can be pathogens or virulence factors. The interactions between these different antioxidants may be synergistic and interdependent. The action of one antioxidant may therefore depend on the proper function of other members of the antioxidant system. The amount of protection provided by any one antioxidant will also depend on its concentration, its reactivity towards the particular reactive oxygen species being considered, and the status of the antioxidants with which it interacts. Some compounds contribute to antioxidant defense by chelating transition metals and preventing them from catalyzing the production of free radicals in the cell. The ability to sequester iron for iron-binding proteins, such as transferrin and ferritin, is one such function. Selenium and zinc are commonly referred to as "antioxidant minerals", but these chemical elements have no antioxidant action themselves, but rather are required for the activity of antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione reductase and superoxide dismutase. (See also selenium in biology and zinc in biology.) Uric acid. Uric acid has the highest concentration of any blood antioxidant and provides over half of the total antioxidant capacity of human serum. Uric acid's antioxidant activities are also complex, given that it does not react with some oxidants, such as superoxide, but does act against peroxynitrite, peroxides, and hypochlorous acid. Concerns over elevated UA's contribution to gout must be considered one of many risk factors. By itself, UA-related risk of gout at high levels (415–530 μmol/L) is only 0.5% per year with an increase to 4.5% per year at UA supersaturation levels (535+ μmol/L). Many of these aforementioned studies determined UA's antioxidant actions within normal physiological levels, and some found antioxidant activity at levels as high as 285 μmol/L. Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid or vitamin C, an oxidation-reduction (redox) catalyst found in both animals and plants, can reduce, and thereby neutralize, reactive oxygen species such as hydrogen peroxide. In addition to its direct antioxidant effects, ascorbic acid is also a substrate for the redox enzyme ascorbate peroxidase, a function that is used in stress resistance in plants. Ascorbic acid is present at high levels in all parts of plants and can reach concentrations of 20 millimolar in chloroplasts. Glutathione. Glutathione has antioxidant properties since the thiol group in its cysteine moiety is a reducing agent and can be reversibly oxidized and reduced. In cells, glutathione is maintained in the reduced form by the enzyme glutathione reductase and in turn reduces other metabolites and enzyme systems, such as ascorbate in the glutathione-ascorbate cycle, glutathione peroxidases and glutaredoxins, as well as reacting directly with oxidants. Due to its high concentration and its central role in maintaining the cell's redox state, glutathione is one of the most important cellular antioxidants. In some organisms glutathione is replaced by other thiols, such as by mycothiol in the Actinomycetes, bacillithiol in some gram-positive bacteria, or by trypanothione in the Kinetoplastids. Vitamin E. Vitamin E is the collective name for a set of eight related tocopherols and tocotrienols, which are fat-soluble vitamins with antioxidant properties. Of these, α-tocopherol has been most studied as it has the highest bioavailability, with the body preferentially absorbing and metabolising this form. It has been claimed that the α-tocopherol form is the most important lipid-soluble antioxidant, and that it protects membranes from oxidation by reacting with lipid radicals produced in the lipid peroxidation chain reaction. This removes the free radical intermediates and prevents the propagation reaction from continuing. This reaction produces oxidised α-tocopheroxyl radicals that can be recycled back to the active reduced form through reduction by other antioxidants, such as ascorbate, retinol or ubiquinol. This is in line with findings showing that α-tocopherol, but not water-soluble antioxidants, efficiently protects glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4)-deficient cells from cell death. GPx4 is the only known enzyme that efficiently reduces lipid-hydroperoxides within biological membranes. However the roles and importance of the various forms of vitamin E are at present unclear, and it has even been suggested that the most important function of α-tocopherol is as a signaling molecule, with this molecule having no significant role in antioxidant metabolism. The functions of the other forms of vitamin E are even less well understood, although γ-tocopherol is a nucleophile that may react with electrophilic mutagens, and tocotrienols may be important in protecting neurons from damage. Pro-oxidant activities. Antioxidants that are reducing agents can also act as pro-oxidants. For example, vitamin C has antioxidant activity when it reduces oxidizing substances such as hydrogen peroxide; however, it will also reduce metal ions such as iron and copper that generate free radicals through the Fenton reaction. While ascorbic acid is effective antioxidant, it can also oxidatively change the flavor and color of food. With the presence of transition metals, there are low concentrations of ascorbic acid that can act as a radical scavenger in the Fenton reaction. 2 Fe3+ + Ascorbate → 2 Fe2+ + Dehydroascorbate 2 Fe2+ + 2 H2O2 → 2 Fe3+ + 2 OH· + 2 OH− The relative importance of the antioxidant and pro-oxidant activities of antioxidants is an area of current research, but vitamin C, which exerts its effects as a vitamin by oxidizing polypeptides, appears to have a mostly antioxidant action in the human body. Enzyme systems. As with the chemical antioxidants, cells are protected against oxidative stress by an interacting network of antioxidant enzymes. Here, the superoxide released by processes such as oxidative phosphorylation is first converted to hydrogen peroxide and then further reduced to give water. This detoxification pathway is the result of multiple enzymes, with superoxide dismutases catalysing the first step and then catalases and various peroxidases removing hydrogen peroxide. As with antioxidant metabolites, the contributions of these enzymes to antioxidant defenses can be hard to separate from one another, but the generation of transgenic mice lacking just one antioxidant enzyme can be informative. Superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxiredoxins. Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are a class of closely related enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of the superoxide anion into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. SOD enzymes are present in almost all aerobic cells and in extracellular fluids. Superoxide dismutase enzymes contain metal ion cofactors that, depending on the isozyme, can be copper, zinc, manganese or iron. In humans, the copper/zinc SOD is present in the cytosol, while manganese SOD is present in the mitochondrion. There also exists a third form of SOD in extracellular fluids, which contains copper and zinc in its active sites. The mitochondrial isozyme seems to be the most biologically important of these three, since mice lacking this enzyme die soon after birth. In contrast, the mice lacking copper/zinc SOD (Sod1) are viable but have numerous pathologies and a reduced lifespan (see article on superoxide), while mice without the extracellular SOD have minimal defects (sensitive to hyperoxia). In plants, SOD isozymes are present in the cytosol and mitochondria, with an iron SOD found in chloroplasts that is absent from vertebrates and yeast. Catalases are enzymes that catalyse the conversion of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen, using either an iron or manganese cofactor. This protein is localized to peroxisomes in most eukaryotic cells. Catalase is an unusual enzyme since, although hydrogen peroxide is its only substrate, it follows a ping-pong mechanism. Here, its cofactor is oxidised by one molecule of hydrogen peroxide and then regenerated by transferring the bound oxygen to a second molecule of substrate. Despite its apparent importance in hydrogen peroxide removal, humans with genetic deficiency of catalase — "acatalasemia" — or mice genetically engineered to lack catalase completely, experience few ill effects. Peroxiredoxins are peroxidases that catalyze the reduction of hydrogen peroxide, organic hydroperoxides, as well as peroxynitrite. They are divided into three classes: typical 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins; atypical 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins; and 1-cysteine peroxiredoxins. These enzymes share the same basic catalytic mechanism, in which a redox-active cysteine (the peroxidatic cysteine) in the active site is oxidized to a sulfenic acid by the peroxide substrate. Over-oxidation of this cysteine residue in peroxiredoxins inactivates these enzymes, but this can be reversed by the action of sulfiredoxin. Peroxiredoxins seem to be important in antioxidant metabolism, as mice lacking peroxiredoxin 1 or 2 have shortened lifespans and develop hemolytic anaemia, while plants use peroxiredoxins to remove hydrogen peroxide generated in chloroplasts. Thioredoxin and glutathione systems. The thioredoxin system contains the protein thioredoxin and its companion thioredoxin reductase. Proteins related to thioredoxin are present in all sequenced organisms. Plants, such as "Arabidopsis thaliana," have a particularly great diversity of isoforms. The active site of thioredoxin consists of two neighboring cysteines, as part of a highly conserved CXXC motif, that can cycle between an active dithiol form (reduced) and an oxidized disulfide form. In its active state, thioredoxin acts as an efficient reducing agent, scavenging reactive oxygen species and maintaining other proteins in their reduced state. After being oxidized, the active thioredoxin is regenerated by the action of thioredoxin reductase, using NADPH as an electron donor. The glutathione system includes glutathione, glutathione reductase, glutathione peroxidases, and glutathione "S"-transferases. This system is found in animals, plants and microorganisms. Glutathione peroxidase is an enzyme containing four selenium-cofactors that catalyzes the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide and organic hydroperoxides. There are at least four different glutathione peroxidase isozymes in animals. Glutathione peroxidase 1 is the most abundant and is a very efficient scavenger of hydrogen peroxide, while glutathione peroxidase 4 is most active with lipid hydroperoxides. Surprisingly, glutathione peroxidase 1 is dispensable, as mice lacking this enzyme have normal lifespans, but they are hypersensitive to induced oxidative stress. In addition, the glutathione "S"-transferases show high activity with lipid peroxides. These enzymes are at particularly high levels in the liver and also serve in detoxification metabolism. Health research. Relation to diet. The dietary antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E are essential and required in specific daily amounts to prevent diseases. Polyphenols, which have antioxidant properties in vitro due to their free hydroxy groups, are extensively metabolized by catechol-O-methyltransferase which methylates free hydroxyl groups, and thereby prevents them from acting as antioxidants in vivo. Interactions. Common pharmaceuticals (and supplements) with antioxidant properties may interfere with the efficacy of certain anticancer medication and radiation therapy. Pharmaceuticals and supplements that have antioxidant properties suppress the formation of free radicals by inhibiting oxidation processes. Radiation therapy induces oxidative stress that damages essential components of cancer cells, such as proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids that comprise cell membranes. Adverse effects. Relatively strong reducing acids can have antinutrient effects by binding to dietary minerals such as iron and zinc in the gastrointestinal tract and preventing them from being absorbed. Examples are oxalic acid, tannins and phytic acid, which are high in plant-based diets. Calcium and iron deficiencies are not uncommon in diets in developing countries where less meat is eaten and there is high consumption of phytic acid from beans and unleavened whole grain bread. However, germination, soaking, or microbial fermentation are all household strategies that reduce the phytate and polyphenol content of unrefined cereal. Increases in Fe, Zn and Ca absorption have been reported in adults fed dephytinized cereals compared with cereals containing their native phytate. High doses of some antioxidants may have harmful long-term effects. The "Beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial" (CARET) study of lung cancer patients found that smokers given supplements containing beta-carotene and vitamin A had increased rates of lung cancer. Subsequent studies confirmed these adverse effects. These harmful effects may also be seen in non-smokers, as one meta-analysis including data from approximately 230,000 patients showed that β-carotene, vitamin A or vitamin E supplementation is associated with increased mortality, but saw no significant effect from vitamin C. No health risk was seen when all the randomized controlled studies were examined together, but an increase in mortality was detected when only high-quality and low-bias risk trials were examined separately. As the majority of these low-bias trials dealt with either elderly people, or people with disease, these results may not apply to the general population. This meta-analysis was later repeated and extended by the same authors, confirming the previous results. These two publications are consistent with some previous meta-analyses that also suggested that vitamin E supplementation increased mortality, and that antioxidant supplements increased the risk of colon cancer. Beta-carotene may also increase lung cancer. Overall, the large number of clinical trials carried out on antioxidant supplements suggest that either these products have no effect on health, or that they cause a small increase in mortality in elderly or vulnerable populations. Exercise and muscle soreness. A 2017 review showed that taking antioxidant dietary supplements before or after exercise is unlikely to produce a noticeable reduction in muscle soreness after a person exercises. Levels in food. Antioxidant vitamins are found in vegetables, fruits, eggs, legumes and nuts. Vitamins A, C, and E can be destroyed by long-term storage or prolonged cooking. The effects of cooking and food processing are complex, as these processes can also increase the bioavailability of antioxidants, such as some carotenoids in vegetables. Processed food contains fewer antioxidant vitamins than fresh and uncooked foods, as preparation exposes food to heat and oxygen. Other antioxidants are not obtained from the diet, but instead are made in the body. For example, ubiquinol (coenzyme Q) is poorly absorbed from the gut and is made through the mevalonate pathway. Another example is glutathione, which is made from amino acids. As any glutathione in the gut is broken down to free cysteine, glycine and glutamic acid before being absorbed, even large oral intake has little effect on the concentration of glutathione in the body. Although large amounts of sulfur-containing amino acids such as acetylcysteine can increase glutathione, no evidence exists that eating high levels of these glutathione precursors is beneficial for healthy adults. Measurement and invalidation of ORAC. Measurement of polyphenol and carotenoid content in food is not a straightforward process, as antioxidants collectively are a diverse group of compounds with different reactivities to various reactive oxygen species. In food science analyses in vitro, the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) was once an industry standard for estimating antioxidant strength of whole foods, juices and food additives, mainly from the presence of polyphenols. Earlier measurements and ratings by the United States Department of Agriculture were withdrawn in 2012 as biologically irrelevant to human health, referring to an absence of physiological evidence for polyphenols having antioxidant properties "in vivo". Consequently, the ORAC method, derived only from "in vitro" experiments, is no longer considered relevant to human diets or biology, as of 2010. Alternative in vitro measurements of antioxidant content in foods – also based on the presence of polyphenols – include the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent, and the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity assay.
3292	32452	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3292	Brass	Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. In use since prehistoric times, it is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other within the same crystal structure. Brass is similar to bronze, a copper alloy that contains tin instead of zinc. Both bronze and brass may include small proportions of a range of other elements including arsenic, lead, phosphorus, aluminium, manganese and silicon. Historically, the distinction between the two alloys has been less consistent and clear, and increasingly museums use the more general term "copper alloy". Brass has long been a popular material for its bright gold-like appearance and is still used for drawer pulls and doorknobs. It has also been widely used to make sculpture and utensils because of its low melting point, high workability (both with hand tools and with modern turning and milling machines), durability, and electrical and thermal conductivity. Brasses with higher copper content are softer and more golden in colour; conversely those with less copper and thus more zinc are harder and more silvery in colour. Brass is still commonly used in applications where corrosion resistance and low friction are required, such as locks, hinges, gears, bearings, ammunition casings, zippers, plumbing, hose couplings, valves, SCUBA regulators, and electrical plugs and sockets. It is used extensively for musical instruments such as horns and bells. The composition of brass makes it a favorable substitute for copper in costume jewelry and fashion jewelry, as it exhibits greater resistance to corrosion. Brass is not as hard as bronze and so is not suitable for most weapons and tools. Nor is it suitable for marine uses, because the zinc reacts with minerals in salt water, leaving porous copper behind; marine brass, with added tin, avoids this, as does bronze. Brass is often used in situations in which it is important that sparks not be struck, such as in fittings and tools used near flammable or explosive materials. Properties. Brass is more malleable than bronze or zinc. The relatively low melting point of brass (, depending on composition) and its flow characteristics make it a relatively easy material to cast. By varying the proportions of copper and zinc, the properties of the brass can be changed, allowing hard and soft brasses. The density of brass is . Today, almost 90% of all brass alloys are recycled. Because brass is not ferromagnetic, ferrous scrap can be separated from it by passing the scrap near a powerful magnet. Brass scrap is melted and recast into billets that are extruded into the desired form and size. The general softness of brass means that it can often be machined without the use of cutting fluid, though there are exceptions to this. Aluminium makes brass stronger and more corrosion-resistant. Aluminium also causes a highly beneficial hard layer of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) to be formed on the surface that is thin, transparent, and self-healing. Tin has a similar effect and finds its use especially in seawater applications (naval brasses). Combinations of iron, aluminium, silicon, and manganese make brass wear- and tear-resistant. The addition of as little as 1% iron to a brass alloy will result in an alloy with a noticeable magnetic attraction. Brass will corrode in the presence of moisture, chlorides, acetates, ammonia, and certain acids. This often happens when the copper reacts with sulfur to form a brown and eventually black surface layer of copper sulfide which, if regularly exposed to slightly acidic water such as urban rainwater, can then oxidize in air to form a patina of green-blue copper carbonate. Depending on how the patina layer was formed, it may protect the underlying brass from further damage. Although copper and zinc have a large difference in electrical potential, the resulting brass alloy does not experience internalized galvanic corrosion because of the absence of a corrosive environment within the mixture. However, if brass is placed in contact with a more noble metal such as silver or gold in such an environment, the brass will corrode galvanically; conversely, if brass is in contact with a less noble metal such as zinc or iron, the less noble metal will corrode and the brass will be protected. Lead content. To enhance the machinability of brass, lead is often added in concentrations of about 2%. Since lead has a lower melting point than the other constituents of the brass, it tends to migrate towards the grain boundaries in the form of globules as it cools from casting. The pattern the globules form on the surface of the brass increases the available lead surface area which, in turn, affects the degree of leaching. In addition, cutting operations can smear the lead globules over the surface. These effects can lead to significant lead leaching from brasses of comparatively low lead content. In October 1999, the California State Attorney General sued 13 key manufacturers and distributors over lead content. In laboratory tests, state researchers found the average brass key, new or old, exceeded the California Proposition 65 limits by an average factor of 19, assuming handling twice a day. In April 2001 manufacturers agreed to reduce lead content to 1.5%, or face a requirement to warn consumers about lead content. Keys plated with other metals are not affected by the settlement, and may continue to use brass alloys with a higher percentage of lead content. Also in California, lead-free materials must be used for "each component that comes into contact with the wetted surface of pipes and pipe fittings, plumbing fittings and fixtures". On 1 January 2010, the maximum amount of lead in "lead-free brass" in California was reduced from 4% to 0.25% lead. Corrosion-resistant brass for harsh environments. Dezincification-resistant (DZR or DR) brasses, sometimes referred to as CR (corrosion resistant) brasses, are used where there is a large corrosion risk and where normal brasses do not meet the requirements. Applications with high water temperatures, chlorides present or deviating water qualities (soft water) play a role. DZR-brass is used in water boiler systems. This brass alloy must be produced with great care, with special attention placed on a balanced composition and proper production temperatures and parameters to avoid long-term failures. An example of DZR brass is the C352 brass, with about 30% zinc, 61–63% copper, 1.7–2.8% lead, and 0.02–0.15% arsenic. The lead and arsenic significantly suppress the zinc loss. "Red brasses", a family of alloys with high copper proportion and generally less than 15% zinc, are more resistant to zinc loss. One of the metals called "red brass" is 85% copper, 5% tin, 5% lead, and 5% zinc. Copper alloy C23000, which is also known as "red brass", contains 84–86% copper, 0.05% each iron and lead, with the balance being zinc. Another such material is gunmetal, from the family of red brasses. Gunmetal alloys contain roughly 88% copper, 8–10% tin, and 2–4% zinc. Lead can be added for ease of machining or for bearing alloys. "Naval brass", for use in seawater, contains 40% zinc but also 1% tin. The tin addition suppresses zinc-leaching. The NSF International requires brasses with more than 15% zinc, used in piping and plumbing fittings, to be dezincification-resistant. Use in musical instruments. The high malleability and workability, relatively good resistance to corrosion, and traditionally attributed acoustic properties of brass, have made it the usual metal of choice for construction of musical instruments whose acoustic resonators consist of long, relatively narrow tubing, often folded or coiled for compactness; silver and its alloys, and even gold, have been used for the same reasons, but brass is the most economical choice. Collectively known as brass instruments, or simply 'the brass', these include the trombone, tuba, trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, baritone horn, euphonium, tenor horn, and French horn, and many other "horns", many in variously sized families, such as the saxhorns. Other wind instruments may be constructed of brass or other metals, and indeed most modern student-model flutes and piccolos are made of some variety of brass, usually a cupronickel alloy similar to nickel silver (also known as German silver). Clarinets, especially low clarinets such as the contrabass and subcontrabass, are sometimes made of metal because of limited supplies of the dense, fine-grained tropical hardwoods traditionally preferred for smaller woodwinds. For the same reason, some low clarinets, bassoons and contrabassoons feature a hybrid construction, with long, straight sections of wood, and curved joints, neck, and/or bell of metal. The use of metal also avoids the risks of exposing wooden instruments to changes in temperature or humidity, which can cause sudden cracking. Even though the saxophones and sarrusophones are classified as woodwind instruments, they are normally made of brass for similar reasons, and because their wide, conical bores and thin-walled bodies are more easily and efficiently made by forming sheet metal than by machining wood. The keywork of most modern woodwinds, including wooden-bodied instruments, is also usually made of an alloy such as nickel silver. Such alloys are stiffer and more durable than the brass used to construct the instrument bodies, but still workable with simple hand tools—a boon to quick repairs. The mouthpieces of both brass instruments and, less commonly, woodwind instruments are often made of brass among other metals as well. Next to the brass instruments, the most notable use of brass in music is in various percussion instruments, most notably cymbals, gongs, and orchestral (tubular) bells (large "church" bells are normally made of bronze). Small handbells and "jingle bells" are also commonly made of brass. The harmonica is a free reed aerophone, also often made from brass. In organ pipes of the reed family, brass strips (called tongues) are used as the reeds, which beat against the shallot (or beat "through" the shallot in the case of a "free" reed). Although not part of the brass section, snare drums are also sometimes made of brass. Some parts on electric guitars are also made from brass, especially inertia blocks on tremolo systems for its tonal properties, and for string nuts and saddles for both tonal properties and its low friction. Germicidal and antimicrobial applications. The bactericidal properties of brass have been observed for centuries, particularly in marine environments where it prevents biofouling. Depending upon the type and concentration of pathogens and the medium they are in, brass kills these microorganisms within a few minutes to hours of contact. A large number of independent studies confirm this antimicrobial effect, even against antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as MRSA and VRSA. The mechanisms of antimicrobial action by copper and its alloys, including brass, are a subject of intense and ongoing investigation. Season cracking. Brass is susceptible to stress corrosion cracking, especially from ammonia or substances containing or releasing ammonia. The problem is sometimes known as season cracking after it was first discovered in brass cartridges used for rifle ammunition during the 1920s in the British Indian Army. The problem was caused by high residual stresses from cold forming of the cases during manufacture, together with chemical attack from traces of ammonia in the atmosphere. The cartridges were stored in stables and the ammonia concentration rose during the hot summer months, thus initiating brittle cracks. The problem was resolved by annealing the cases, and storing the cartridges elsewhere. Types. Other phases than α, β and γ are ε, a hexagonal intermetallic CuZn3, and η, a solid solution of copper in zinc. History. Although forms of brass have been in use since prehistory, its true nature as a copper-zinc alloy was not understood until the post-medieval period because the zinc vapor which reacted with copper to make brass was not recognized as a metal. The King James Bible makes many references to "brass" to translate "nechosheth" (bronze or copper) from Hebrew to English. The earliest brasses may have been natural alloys made by smelting zinc-rich copper ores. By the Roman period brass was being deliberately produced from metallic copper and zinc minerals using the cementation process, the product of which was calamine brass, and variations on this method continued until the mid-19th century. It was eventually replaced by speltering, the direct alloying of copper and zinc metal which was introduced to Europe in the 16th century. Brass has sometimes historically been referred to as "yellow copper". Early copper-zinc alloys. In West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean early copper-zinc alloys are now known in small numbers from a number of 3rd millennium BC sites in the Aegean, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kalmykia, Turkmenistan and Georgia and from 2nd millennium BC sites in western India, Uzbekistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq and Canaan. Isolated examples of copper-zinc alloys are known in China from the 1st century AD, long after bronze was widely used. The hilt of Sirohi swords (16-19th century CE) were made up of brass in India. The compositions of these early "brass" objects are highly variable and most have zinc contents of between 5% and 15% wt which is lower than in brass produced by cementation. These may be "natural alloys" manufactured by smelting zinc rich copper ores in redox conditions. Many have similar tin contents to contemporary bronze artefacts and it is possible that some copper-zinc alloys were accidental and perhaps not even distinguished from copper. However the large number of copper-zinc alloys now known suggests that at least some were deliberately manufactured and many have zinc contents of more than 12% wt which would have resulted in a distinctive golden colour. By the 8th–7th century BC Assyrian cuneiform tablets mention the exploitation of the "copper of the mountains" and this may refer to "natural" brass. "Oreikhalkon" (mountain copper), the Ancient Greek translation of this term, was later adapted to the Latin "aurichalcum" meaning "golden copper" which became the standard term for brass. In the 4th century BC Plato knew "orichalkos" as rare and nearly as valuable as gold and Pliny describes how "aurichalcum" had come from Cypriot ore deposits which had been exhausted by the 1st century AD. X-ray fluorescence analysis of 39 orichalcum ingots recovered from a 2,600-year-old shipwreck off Sicily found them to be an alloy made with 75–80% copper, 15–20% zinc and small percentages of nickel, lead and iron. Roman world. During the later part of first millennium BC the use of brass spread across a wide geographical area from Britain and Spain in the west to Iran, and India in the east. This seems to have been encouraged by exports and influence from the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean where deliberate production of brass from metallic copper and zinc ores had been introduced. The 4th century BC writer Theopompus, quoted by Strabo, describes how heating earth from Andeira in Turkey produced "droplets of false silver", probably metallic zinc, which could be used to turn copper into oreichalkos. In the 1st century BC the Greek Dioscorides seems to have recognized a link between zinc minerals and brass describing how Cadmia (zinc oxide) was found on the walls of furnaces used to heat either zinc ore or copper and explaining that it can then be used to make brass. By the first century BC brass was available in sufficient supply to use as coinage in Phrygia and Bithynia, and after the Augustan currency reform of 23 BC it was also used to make Roman "dupondii" and "sestertii". The uniform use of brass for coinage and military equipment across the Roman world may indicate a degree of state involvement in the industry, and brass even seems to have been deliberately boycotted by Jewish communities in Palestine because of its association with Roman authority. Brass was produced by the cementation process where copper and zinc ore are heated together until zinc vapor is produced which reacts with the copper. There is good archaeological evidence for this process and crucibles used to produce brass by cementation have been found on Roman period sites including Xanten and Nidda in Germany, Lyon in France and at a number of sites in Britain. They vary in size from tiny acorn sized to large amphorae like vessels but all have elevated levels of zinc on the interior and are lidded. They show no signs of slag or metal prills suggesting that zinc minerals were heated to produce zinc vapor which reacted with metallic copper in a solid state reaction. The fabric of these crucibles is porous, probably designed to prevent a buildup of pressure, and many have small holes in the lids which may be designed to release pressure or to add additional zinc minerals near the end of the process. Dioscorides mentioned that zinc minerals were used for both the working and finishing of brass, perhaps suggesting secondary additions. Brass made during the early Roman period seems to have varied between 20% and 28% wt zinc. The high content of zinc in coinage and brass objects declined after the first century AD and it has been suggested that this reflects zinc loss during recycling and thus an interruption in the production of new brass. However it is now thought this was probably a deliberate change in composition and overall the use of brass increases over this period making up around 40% of all copper alloys used in the Roman world by the 4th century AD. Medieval period. Little is known about the production of brass during the centuries immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Disruption in the trade of tin for bronze from Western Europe may have contributed to the increasing popularity of brass in the east and by the 6th–7th centuries AD over 90% of copper alloy artefacts from Egypt were made of brass. However other alloys such as low tin bronze were also used and they vary depending on local cultural attitudes, the purpose of the metal and access to zinc, especially between the Islamic and Byzantine world. Conversely the use of true brass seems to have declined in Western Europe during this period in favor of gunmetals and other mixed alloys but by about 1000 brass artefacts are found in Scandinavian graves in Scotland, brass was being used in the manufacture of coins in Northumbria and there is archaeological and historical evidence for the production of calamine brass in Germany and the Low Countries, areas rich in calamine ore. These places would remain important centres of brass making throughout the Middle Ages period, especially Dinant. Brass objects are still collectively known as "dinanderie" in French. The baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège in modern Belgium (before 1117) is an outstanding masterpiece of Romanesque brass casting, though also often described as bronze. The metal of the early 12th-century Gloucester Candlestick is unusual even by medieval standards in being a mixture of copper, zinc, tin, lead, nickel, iron, antimony and arsenic with an unusually large amount of silver, ranging from 22.5% in the base to 5.76% in the pan below the candle. The proportions of this mixture may suggest that the candlestick was made from a hoard of old coins, probably Late Roman. Latten is a term for medieval alloys of uncertain and often variable composition often covering decorative borders and similar objects cut from sheet metal, whether of brass or bronze. Especially in Tibetan art, analysis of some objects shows very different compositions from different ends of a large piece. Aquamaniles were typically made in brass in both the European and Islamic worlds. The cementation process continued to be used but literary sources from both Europe and the Islamic world seem to describe variants of a higher temperature liquid process which took place in open-topped crucibles. Islamic cementation seems to have used zinc oxide known as "tutiya" or tutty rather than zinc ores for brass-making, resulting in a metal with lower iron impurities. A number of Islamic writers and the 13th century Italian Marco Polo describe how this was obtained by sublimation from zinc ores and condensed onto clay or iron bars, archaeological examples of which have been identified at Kush in Iran. It could then be used for brass making or medicinal purposes. In 10th century Yemen al-Hamdani described how spreading al-iglimiya, probably zinc oxide, onto the surface of molten copper produced tutiya vapor which then reacted with the metal. The 13th century Iranian writer al-Kashani describes a more complex process whereby "tutiya" was mixed with raisins and gently roasted before being added to the surface of the molten metal. A temporary lid was added at this point presumably to minimize the escape of zinc vapor. In Europe a similar liquid process in open-topped crucibles took place which was probably less efficient than the Roman process and the use of the term tutty by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century suggests influence from Islamic technology. The 12th century German monk Theophilus described how preheated crucibles were one sixth filled with powdered calamine and charcoal then topped up with copper and charcoal before being melted, stirred then filled again. The final product was cast, then again melted with calamine. It has been suggested that this second melting may have taken place at a lower temperature to allow more zinc to be absorbed. Albertus Magnus noted that the "power" of both calamine and tutty could evaporate and described how the addition of powdered glass could create a film to bind it to the metal. German brass making crucibles are known from Dortmund dating to the 10th century AD and from Soest and Schwerte in Westphalia dating to around the 13th century confirm Theophilus' account, as they are open-topped, although ceramic discs from Soest may have served as loose lids which may have been used to reduce zinc evaporation, and have slag on the interior resulting from a liquid process. Africa. Some of the most famous objects in African art are the lost wax castings of West Africa, mostly from what is now Nigeria, produced first by the Kingdom of Ife and then the Benin Empire. Though normally described as "bronzes", the Benin Bronzes, now mostly in the British Museum and other Western collections, and the large portrait heads such as the Bronze Head from Ife of "heavily leaded zinc-brass" and the Bronze Head of Queen Idia, both also British Museum, are better described as brass, though of variable compositions. Work in brass or bronze continued to be important in Benin art and other West African traditions such as Akan goldweights, where the metal was regarded as a more valuable material than in Europe. Renaissance and post-medieval Europe. The Renaissance saw important changes to both the theory and practice of brassmaking in Europe. By the 15th century there is evidence for the renewed use of lidded cementation crucibles at Zwickau in Germany. These large crucibles were capable of producing c.20 kg of brass. There are traces of slag and pieces of metal on the interior. Their irregular composition suggests that this was a lower temperature, not entirely liquid, process. The crucible lids had small holes which were blocked with clay plugs near the end of the process presumably to maximize zinc absorption in the final stages. Triangular crucibles were then used to melt the brass for casting. 16th-century technical writers such as Biringuccio, Ercker and Agricola described a variety of cementation brass making techniques and came closer to understanding the true nature of the process noting that copper became heavier as it changed to brass and that it became more golden as additional calamine was added. Zinc metal was also becoming more commonplace. By 1513 metallic zinc ingots from India and China were arriving in London and pellets of zinc condensed in furnace flues at the Rammelsberg in Germany were exploited for cementation brass making from around 1550. Eventually it was discovered that metallic zinc could be alloyed with copper to make brass, a process known as speltering, and by 1657 the German chemist Johann Glauber had recognized that calamine was "nothing else but unmeltable zinc" and that zinc was a "half ripe metal". However some earlier high zinc, low iron brasses such as the 1530 Wightman brass memorial plaque from England may have been made by alloying copper with "zinc" and include traces of cadmium similar to those found in some zinc ingots from China. However, the cementation process was not abandoned, and as late as the early 19th century there are descriptions of solid-state cementation in a domed furnace at around 900–950 °C and lasting up to 10 hours. The European brass industry continued to flourish into the post medieval period buoyed by innovations such as the 16th century introduction of water powered hammers for the production of wares such as pots. By 1559 the Germany city of Aachen alone was capable of producing 300,000 cwt of brass per year. After several false starts during the 16th and 17th centuries the brass industry was also established in England taking advantage of abundant supplies of cheap copper smelted in the new coal fired reverberatory furnace. In 1723 Bristol brass maker Nehemiah Champion patented the use of granulated copper, produced by pouring molten metal into cold water. This increased the surface area of the copper helping it react and zinc contents of up to 33% wt were reported using this new technique. In 1738 Nehemiah's son William Champion patented a technique for the first industrial scale distillation of metallic zinc known as "distillation per descencum" or "the English process". This local zinc was used in speltering and allowed greater control over the zinc content of brass and the production of high-zinc copper alloys which would have been difficult or impossible to produce using cementation, for use in expensive objects such as scientific instruments, clocks, brass buttons and costume jewelry. However Champion continued to use the cheaper calamine cementation method to produce lower-zinc brass and the archaeological remains of bee-hive shaped cementation furnaces have been identified at his works at Warmley. By the mid-to-late 18th century developments in cheaper zinc distillation such as John-Jaques Dony's horizontal furnaces in Belgium and the reduction of tariffs on zinc as well as demand for corrosion-resistant high zinc alloys increased the popularity of speltering and as a result cementation was largely abandoned by the mid-19th century.
3295	38254518	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3295	Bonn	Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. Bonn served as the capital of West Germany from 1949 until 1990 and was the seat of government for reunified Germany until 1999, when the government relocated to Berlin. The city holds historical significance as the birthplace of Germany's current constitution, the Basic Law. Founded in the 1st century BC as a settlement of the Ubii and later part of the Roman province Germania Inferior, Bonn is among Germany's oldest cities. It was the capital city of the Electorate of Cologne from 1597 to 1794 and served as the residence of the Archbishops and Prince-electors of Cologne. The period during which Bonn was the capital of West Germany is often referred to by historians as the "Bonn Republic". Following the German reunification, a political compromise known as the Berlin-Bonn Act ensured that the German federal government retained a significant presence in Bonn. As of 2019, approximately one-third of all ministerial jobs remain in the city. Bonn is considered an unofficial secondary capital of Germany and is the location of the secondary seats of the president, the chancellor, and the Bundesrat. Bonn is also the location of the primary seats of six federal ministries and twenty federal authorities. The city's title as Federal City () underscores its political importance. The global headquarters of Deutsche Post DHL and Deutsche Telekom, both DAX-listed corporations, are in Bonn. The city is home to the University of Bonn and a total of 20 United Nations institutions, the highest number in all of Germany. These institutions include the headquarters for Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the UN Volunteers programme. Birthplace of composer Ludwig van Beethoven, a center of Rhenish carnival, and its geography by the Middle Rhine make it an important tourist destination. Geography. Topography. Situated in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, Germany's largest metropolitan area with over 11 million inhabitants, Bonn lies within the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on the border with Rhineland-Palatinate. Spanning an area of more on both sides of the river Rhine, almost three-quarters of the city lies on the river's left bank. To the south and to the west, Bonn borders the Eifel region which encompasses the Rhineland Nature Park. To the north, Bonn borders the Cologne Lowland. Natural borders are constituted by the river Sieg to the north-east and by the Siebengebirge (also known as the Seven Hills) to the east. The largest extension of the city in north–south dimensions is and in west–east dimensions. The city borders have a total length of . The geographical centre of Bonn is the Bundeskanzlerplatz "(Chancellor Square)" in Bonn-Gronau. Administration. The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is divided into five governmental districts (), and Bonn is part of the governmental district of Cologne (). Within this governmental district, the city of Bonn is an urban district in its own right. The urban district of Bonn is then again divided into four administrative municipal districts (). These are Bonn, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Bonn-Beuel and Bonn-Hardtberg. In 1969, the independent towns of Bad Godesberg and Beuel as well as several villages were incorporated into Bonn, resulting in a city more than twice as large as before. Climate. Bonn has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"; Trewartha: "Dobk"). In the south of the Cologne lowland in the Rhine valley, Bonn is in one of Germany's warmest regions. The Bonn weather station has recorded the following extreme values: History. Chronology. In 1989, Bonn celebrated its 2,000th anniversary. The city was commemorating the construction of the first fortified Roman camp on the Rhine in 12 BCE, after the Roman governor Agrippa had already settled the Ubii there in 38 BCE. However, people had lived in the area of today’s city much earlier. Evidence of this includes the 14,000-year-old Double grave of Oberkassel as well as a trench and wooden palisades found on the Venusberg, dating back to around 4080 BCE. In the years before the birth of Christ, Roman presence in Bonna was modest, but this changed after the Roman defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. In the following decades, a legion was stationed there, which built the Legionary Fortress Bonn in the northern part of present-day Bonn. Around the camp, and to the south along what is now Adenauerallee, traders and craftsmen settled in a vicus. With the end of the Roman Empire, Bonn declined during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. During the Viking raids in the Rhineland, Bonn was burned twice in 882, and in 883, the recently rebuilt town was again attacked, burned, and looted by the Normans. In the Frankish Empire, and finally in the 9th and 10th centuries, a religious center developed around the Bonn Minster (the Villa Basilika), and a market settlement emerged in the area of today’s market square. The year 1243 is considered the year in which Bonn was granted full city rights. The outcome of the Battle of Worringen in 1288 was of great importance for the further development of the city. The Cologne prince-electors made Bonn—along with Brühl and Poppelsdorf—one of their residences, and eventually their residence city. The magnificent palaces built by the prince-electors in the 17th and 18th centuries gave the city its baroque splendor. This era ended with the occupation by French troops on October 8, 1794. This was followed by nearly two decades of occupation by the troops of Napoleon. Taxes in the form of food, clothing, and accommodations, as well as the loss of the electoral state administration, led to poverty among the population and a decline in the number of inhabitants by around 20%. The French introduced a civil code (Code civil) and a municipal constitution in Bonn. Even under French occupation, medium and large industrial companies, particularly in the textile sector, were established in Bonn. The French also pursued a thorough secularization: properties of the ecclesiastical electorate, especially the electoral buildings, were taken into state ownership. The areas on the right bank of the Rhine that are now part of Bonn (Vilich) came into the possession of the Prince of Nassau-Usingen; Oberkassel belonged to the Duchy of Berg, a French satellite state. By the Treaty of Lunéville of February 9, 1801, the Rhine near Bonn was designated as the French eastern border. Bonn became the seat of a sub-prefecture in the newly formed Rhin-et-Moselle Department. After the defeats of the French army in the Russian campaign of 1812 and the Battle of Leipzig, the French evacuated Bonn in January 1814. Following the decisions of the Congress of Vienna, Bonn became part of Prussia in 1815. In the following decades, the city was shaped by the newly founded University of Bonn, established by the Prussian government on October 18, 1818. The founder and namesake was King Frederick William III of Prussia. A university had existed in Bonn at the end of the 18th century but was closed during the French occupation in 1794. The Prussian foundation was not a continuation of that earlier institution, but part of a program that also included the University of Berlin and the University of Breslau. The term Rheinische in the name of the Bonn university was meant to mark it as a "sister" institution to the Berlin and Breslau universities. Over the next 100 years, Bonn became the preferred place of study for the Hohenzollern princes. It was nicknamed the "Princes' University," as both the then-Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William, his son Wilhelm, and Wilhelm's four sons studied there. Other sons of noble families also favored studying at this university in the 19th century. Before the founding of the Bonn university, Cologne had been its main rival. The "enlightened tradition" of Bonn, compared to the "holy Cologne," likely made it more suitable for a confessionally neutral university. Practical reasons also favored Bonn: the old electoral palace and the Poppelsdorf Palace were already available as suitable buildings. From 1815 onward, professors, students, civil servants, and officers arrived in Bonn, including many Protestants from the Prussian provinces, which was unusual for the predominantly Catholic Rhineland. Prussia also made Bonn a garrison town. As a result, Bonn became popular as a retirement location for military officers. Tourism also grew after German unification in 1871, fueled by the Romanticism on the Rhine of the time. After the First World War, the city was initially occupied by Canadian, then British, and finally (until 1926) by French troops. More than 1,000 Bonn residents, mostly of Jewish descent, were murdered during the Nazi era (Holocaust). About 8,000 people were forced to leave their hometown, were arrested, or imprisoned in concentration camps. When American troops entered Bonn on March 9, 1945, ending World War II for the city, 30% of the buildings were destroyed. Of these, 70% were slightly to severely damaged, and 30% were completely destroyed residential buildings. More than 4,000 Bonn residents had died in bombings. On May 28, 1945, Bonn became part of the British occupation zone, and from 1949 to 1955, it formed the Enclave of Bonn. After the Second World War, the city experienced rapid reconstruction and expansion, especially after the decision to make Bonn the provisional capital of the new Federal Republic of Germany instead of Frankfurt am Main on November 29, 1949 (see Capital of Germany#The capital debate). As a result of the law implementing the Bundestag resolution of June 20, 1991, to complete German unification (Berlin/Bonn Act)—which involved the relocation of the parliament, parts of the government, many diplomatic missions, lobbyists, and the privatization of the German Federal Post Office—the city underwent another transformation around the turn of the millennium. The remaining ministries, newly established federal agencies, headquarters of major German companies, international organizations, and institutions of science and research administration are now the drivers of this structural change, which has so far been considered successful and continues to this day. On October 30, 2014, under the patronage and active participation of Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Unity Tree Monument for German Unity was planted. Municipal Mergers The city of Bonn was enlarged several times through municipal mergers. Around 1900, Bonn grew significantly. As a result, on June 1, 1904, the towns of Poppelsdorf, Endenich, Kessenich, and Dottendorf—which had already merged physically with Bonn—were incorporated. Through the law on the municipal reorganization of the Bonn area ("Bonn Act") of August 1, 1969, the city’s population roughly doubled, and the Sieg District was merged with the Bonn District to form the Rhein-Sieg District. The formerly independent cities of Bad Godesberg and Beuel and the municipality of Duisdorf became independent boroughs of Bonn. The borough of Beuel, on the right bank of the Rhine, was also assigned the villages of Holzlar, Hoholz, and the Oberkassel administrative area, which had previously belonged to the Sieg District. Bonn itself was expanded with the villages of Ippendorf, Röttgen, Ückesdorf, Lessenich/Meßdorf, and Buschdorf from the former Bonn District, while Lengsdorf and Duisdorf, along with some new housing developments, formed the borough of Hardtberg. The city of Bad Godesberg had already incorporated several villages earlier. As early as 1899, Plittersdorf and Rüngsdorf had joined Godesberg, and in 1904, Friesdorf was added, effectively merging Bad Godesberg with Bonn. In 1915, Bad Godesberg expanded southwest out of the valley, leading to the incorporation of Muffendorf. On July 1, 1935, Lannesdorf and Mehlem became districts of Bad Godesberg. Politics and government. Mayor. The current mayor of Bonn is Katja Dörner of Alliance 90/The Greens since 2020. She defeated incumbent mayor Ashok-Alexander Sridharan in the most recent mayoral election, which was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September. The results were as follows: ! rowspan=2 colspan=2\| Candidate ! rowspan=2\| Party ! colspan=2\| First round ! colspan=2\| Second round ! Votes ! Votes ! colspan=3\| Valid votes ! 140,595 ! 99.1 ! 120,642 ! 99.5 ! colspan=3\| Invalid votes ! 1,219 ! 0.9 ! 627 ! 0.5 ! colspan=3\| Total ! 141,814 ! 100.0 ! 121,269 ! 100.0 ! colspan=3\| Electorate/voter turnout ! 249,091 ! 56.9 ! 249,098 ! 48.7 City council. The Bonn city council governs the city alongside the mayor. It used to be based in the Rococo-style ' (old city hall), built in 1737, located adjacent to Bonn's central market square. However, due to the enlargement of Bonn in 1969 through the incorporation of Beuel and Bad Godesberg, it moved into the larger Stadthaus facilities further north. This was necessary for the city council to accommodate an increased number of representatives. The mayor of Bonn still sits in the ', which is also used for representative and official purposes. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows: ! colspan=2\| Party ! Votes ! +/- ! Seats ! colspan=2\| Valid votes ! 141,100 ! 99.3 ! ! colspan=2\| Invalid votes ! 1,052 ! 0.7 ! ! colspan=2\| Total ! 142,152 ! 100.0 ! 66 ! 20 ! colspan=2\| Electorate/voter turnout ! 249,091 ! 57.1 ! 0.3 ! State government. Four delegates represent the Federal city of Bonn in the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The last election took place in May 2022. The current delegates are Guido Déus (CDU), Christos Katzidis (CDU), Joachim Stamp (FDP), Tim Achtermeyer (Greens) and Dr. Julia Höller (Greens) Federal government. Bonn's constituency is called "" (096). In the German federal election 2017, Ulrich Kelber (SPD) was elected a member of German Federal parliament, the Bundestag by direct mandate. It is his fifth term. Katja Dörner representing Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff for FDP were elected as well. Kelber resigned in 2019 because he was appointed Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. As Dörner was elected Lord Mayor of Bonn in September 2020, she resigned as a member of parliament after her entry into office. Culture. Beethoven's birthplace is located in Bonngasse near the market place. Next to the market place is the Old City Hall, built in 1737 in Rococo style, under the rule of Clemens August of Bavaria. It is used for receptions of guests of the city, and as an office for the mayor. Nearby is the "Kurfürstliches Schloss", built as a residence for the prince-elector and now the main building of the University of Bonn. The "Poppelsdorfer Allee" is an avenue flanked by chestnut trees which had the first horsecar of the city. It connects the "Kurfürstliches Schloss" with the "Poppelsdorfer Schloss", a palace that was built as a resort for the prince-electors in the first half of the 18th century, and whose grounds are now a botanical garden (the Botanischer Garten Bonn). This axis is interrupted by a railway line and Bonn Hauptbahnhof, a building erected in 1883/84. The Beethoven Monument stands on the Münsterplatz, which is flanked by the Bonn Minster, one of Germany's oldest churches. The three highest structures in the city are the WDR radio mast in Bonn-Venusberg (), the headquarters of the Deutsche Post called "Post Tower" () and the former building for the German members of parliament "Langer Eugen" () now the location of the UN Campus. Museums. Just as Bonn's other four major museums, the "Haus der Geschichte" or Museum of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, is located on the so-called "Museumsmeile" ("Museum Mile")"." The Haus der Geschichte is one of the foremost German museums of contemporary German history, with branches in Berlin and Leipzig. In its permanent exhibition, the Haus der Geschichte presents German history from 1945 until the present, also shedding light on Bonn's own role as former capital of West Germany. Numerous temporary exhibitions emphasize different features, such as Nazism or important personalities in German history. The "Kunstmuseum Bonn" or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its permanent collection. The latter is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German art. German artists on display include Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Anselm Kiefer, Blinky Palermo and Wolf Vostell. The museum owns one of the largest collections of artwork by Expressionist painter August Macke. His work is also on display in the August-Macke-Haus, located in Macke's former home where he lived from 1911 to 1914. The "Bundeskunsthalle" (full name: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland or Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany), focuses on the crossroads of culture, arts, and science. To date, it attracted more than 17 million visitors. One of its main objectives is to show the cultural heritage outside of Germany or Europe. Next to its changing exhibitions, the Bundeskunsthalle regularly hosts concerts, discussion panels, congresses, and lectures. The "Museum Koenig" is Bonn's natural history museum. Affiliated with the University of Bonn, it is also a zoological research institution housing the "Leibniz-Institut für Biodiversität der Tiere". Politically interesting, it is on the premises of the Museum Koenig where the Parlamentarischer Rat first met. The "Deutsches Museum Bonn", affiliated with one of the world's foremost science museums, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, is an interactive science museum focusing on post-war German scientists, engineers, and inventions. Other museums include the Beethoven House, birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn (Rhinish Regional Museum Bonn), the Bonn Women's Museum, the Rheinisches Malermuseum and the Arithmeum. Nature. There are several parks, leisure and protected areas in and around Bonn. The "" is Bonn's most important leisure park, with its role being comparable to what Central Park is for New York City. It lies on the banks of the Rhine and is the city's biggest park intra muros. The Rhine promenade and the "Alter Zoll" (Old Toll Station) are in direct neighbourhood of the city centre and are popular amongst both residents and visitors. The "Arboretum Park Härle" is an arboretum with specimens dating to back to 1870. The "Botanischer Garten" (Botanical Garden) is affiliated with the university. The natural reserve of "Kottenforst" is a large area of protected woods on the hills west of the city centre. It is about in area and part of the Rhineland Nature Park (). In the very south of the city, on the border with Wachtberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, there is an extinct volcano, the Rodderberg, featuring a popular area for hikes. Also south of the city, there is the Siebengebirge which is part of the lower half of the Middle Rhine region. The nearby upper half of the Middle Rhine from Bingen to Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and important German vineyards. Transportation. Air traffic. Named after Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany, Cologne Bonn Airport is situated north-east from the city centre of Bonn. With around 10.3 million passengers passing through it in 2015, it is the seventh-largest passenger airport in Germany and the third-largest in terms of cargo operations. By traffic units, which combines cargo and passengers, the airport is in fifth position in Germany. As of March 2015, Cologne Bonn Airport had services to 115 passenger destinations in 35 countries. The airport is one of Germany's few 24-hour airports, and is a hub for Eurowings and cargo operators FedEx Express and UPS Airlines. The federal motorway ("Autobahn") A59 connects the airport with the city. Long distance and regional trains to and from the airport stop at Cologne/Bonn Airport station. Another major airport within a one-hour drive by car is Düsseldorf International Airport. Rail and bus system. Bonn's central railway station, Bonn Hauptbahnhof is the city's main public transportation hub. It lies just outside the old town and near the central university buildings. It is served by regional (S-Bahn and Regionalbahn) and long-distance (IC and ICE) trains. Daily, more than 67,000 people travel via Bonn Hauptbahnhof. In late 2016, around 80 long distance and more than 165 regional trains departed to or from Bonn every day. Another long-distance station, (Siegburg/Bonn), is located in the nearby town of Siegburg and serves as Bonn's station on the high-speed rail line between Cologne and Frankfurt, offering faster connections to Southern Germany. It can be reached by Stadtbahn line 66 (approx. 25 minutes from central Bonn). Bonn has a Stadtbahn light rail and a tram system. The Bonn Stadtbahn has 4 regular lines that connect the main north–south axis (centre to Bad Godesberg) and quarters east of the Rhine (Beuel and Oberkassel), as well as many nearby towns like Brühl, Wesseling, Sankt Augustin, Siegburg, Königswinter, and Bad Honnef. All lines serve the Central Station and two lines continue to Cologne, where they connect to the Cologne Stadtbahn. The Bonn tram system consists of two lines that connect closer quarters in the south, north and east of Bonn to the Central Station. While the Stadtbahn mostly has its own right-of-way, the tram often operates on general road lanes. A few sections of track are used by both systems. These urban rail lines are supplemented by a bus system of roughly 30 regular lines, especially since some parts of the city like Hardtberg and most of Bad Godesberg completely lack a Stadtbahn/Tram connection. Several lines offer night services, especially during the weekends. Bonn is part of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg ("Rhine-Sieg Transport Association") which is the public transport association covering the area of the Cologne/Bonn Region. Road network. Four Autobahns run through or are adjacent to Bonn: the A59 (right bank of the Rhine, connecting Bonn with Düsseldorf and Duisburg), the A555 (left bank of the Rhine, connecting Bonn with Cologne), the A562 (connecting the right with the left bank of the Rhine south of Bonn), and the A565 (connecting the A59 and the A555 with the A61 to the southwest). Three Bundesstraßen, which have a general speed limit in contrast to the Autobahn, connect Bonn to its immediate surroundings (Bundesstraßen B9, B42 and B56). With Bonn being divided into two parts by the Rhine, three bridges are crucial for inner-city road traffic: the Konrad-Adenauer-Brücke (A562) in the South, the Friedrich-Ebert-Brücke (A565) in the North, and the Kennedybrücke (B56) in the centre. In addition, regular ferries operate between Bonn-Mehlem and Königswinter, Bonn-Bad Godesberg and Königswinter-Niederdollendorf, and Bonn-Graurheindorf and Niederkassel-Mondorf. Port. Located in the northern sub-district of Graurheindorf, the inland harbour of Bonn is used for container traffic as well as oversea transport. The annual turnover amounts to around . Regular passenger transport occurs to Cologne and Düsseldorf. Economy. The head offices of Deutsche Telekom, its subsidiary Telekom Deutschland, Deutsche Post, German Academic Exchange Service, and SolarWorld are in Bonn. The third largest employer in the city of Bonn is the University of Bonn (including the university clinics) and Stadtwerke Bonn also follows as a major employer. On the other hand, there are several traditional, nationally known private companies in Bonn such as luxury food producers Verpoorten and Kessko, the Klais organ manufacture and the Bonn flag factory. The largest confectionery manufacturer in Europe, Haribo, has its founding headquarters (founded in 1920) and a production site in Bonn. Since April 2018, the head office of the company is located in the Rhineland-Palatinate municipality of Grafschaft. Other companies of supraregional importance are Weck Glaswerke (production site), Fairtrade, Eaton Industries (formerly Klöckner & Moeller), IVG Immobilien, Kautex Textron, SolarWorld, Vapiano and the SER Group. Education. The Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Universität Bonn (University of Bonn) is one of the largest universities in Germany. It is also the location of the German research institute Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) offices and of the German Academic Exchange Service ("Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst" – DAAD). Demographics. , Bonn had a population of 327,913. About 70% of the population was entirely of German origin, while about 100,000 people, equating to roughly 30%, were at least partly of non-German origin. The city is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Germany and the 18th most populous city in the country. Bonn's population is predicted to surpass the populations of Wuppertal and Bochum before the year 2030. The following list shows the largest groups of origin of minorities with "migration background" in Bonn . Sports. Bonn is home of the Telekom Baskets Bonn, the only basketball club in Germany that owns its arena, the Telekom Dome. The club is the reigning champion of the 2022–23 Basketball Champions League. The city also has a semi-professional football team Bonner SC which was formed in 1965 through the merger of "Bonner FV" and "Tura Bonn". The Bonn Gamecocks American football team play at the 12,000-capacity Stadion Pennenfeld. The successful German Baseball team Bonn Capitals are also found in the city of Bonn. The headquarters of the International Paralympic Committee has been located in Bonn since 1999. International relations. Since 1983, the City of Bonn has established friendship relations with the City of Tel Aviv, Israel, and since 1988 Bonn, in former times the residence of the Princes Electors of Cologne, and Potsdam, Germany, the formerly most important residential city of the Prussian rulers, have established a city-to-city partnership. Central Bonn is surrounded by a number of traditional towns and villages which were independent up to several decades ago. As many of those communities had already established their own contacts and partnerships before the regional and local reorganisation in 1969, the Federal City of Bonn now has a dense network of city district partnerships with European partner towns. The city district of Bonn is a partner of the English university city of Oxford, England, UK (since 1947), of Budafok, District XXII of Budapest, Hungary (since 1991) and of Opole, Poland (officially since 1997; contacts were established 1954). The district of Bad Godesberg has established partnerships with Saint-Cloud in France, Frascati in Italy, Windsor and Maidenhead in England, UK and Kortrijk in Belgium; a friendship agreement has been signed with the town of Yalova, Turkey. The district of Beuel on the right bank of the Rhine and the city district of Hardtberg foster partnerships with towns in France: Mirecourt and Villemomble. Moreover, the city of Bonn has developed a concept of international co-operation and maintains sustainability oriented project partnerships in addition to traditional city twinning, among others with Minsk in Belarus, Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, Bukhara in Uzbekistan, Chengdu in China and La Paz in Bolivia. Twin towns – sister cities. Bonn is twinned with: Bonn city district is twinned with: For twin towns of other city districts, see Bad Godesberg, Beuel and Hardtberg.
3332	194203	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3332	Ballroom dance	Ballroom dance is a set of European partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world, mostly because of its performance and entertainment aspects. Ballroom dancing is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television. "Ballroom dance" may refer, at its widest definition, to almost any recreational dance with a partner. However, with the emergence of dance competition (now known as Dancesport), two principal schools have emerged and the term is used more narrowly to refer to the dances recognized by those schools. The International School, originally developed in England and now regulated by the World Dance Council (WDC) and the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF), is most prevalent in Europe. It encompasses two categories, Standard and Latin, each of which consist of five dances—International Waltz, International Tango, International Viennese Waltz, International Slow Foxtrot, and International Quickstep in the Standard category and International Samba, International Cha Cha, International Rumba, International Paso Doble, and International Jive in the Latin category. A "Standard" or "Latin" competition encompasses all five dances in the respective category, and a "Ten Dance" competition encompasses all ten dances. The two styles, while differing in technique, rhythm, and costumes, exemplify core elements of ballroom dancing such as control and cohesiveness. The American School, also called North American School, is most prevalent in the United States and Canada, where it is regulated by USA Dance and Canada Dancesport (CDS) -- the respective national member bodies of the WDSF. It also consists of two categories analogous to the Standard and Latin categories of the International School, respectively called Smooth and Rhythm. The Smooth category consists of only four dances—American Waltz, American Tango, American Foxtrot, and American Viennese Waltz, omitting American Peabody (the American School equivalent to Quickstep) -- while the dances selected for competition in the Rhythm category are American Cha Cha, American Rumba, American East Coast Swing (the American School equivalent to International Jive), American Bolero, and American Mambo. A "Smooth" or "Rhythm" competition encompasses the dances in the respective category, and a "Nine Dance" competition encompassing all nine of these dances is analogous to the "Ten Dance" competition of the International School. USA Dance additionally recognizes American Peabody, American Merengue, American Paso Doble, American Samba, American West Coast Swing, American Polka, and American Hustle as ballroom dances in which sanctioned competition may take place. Note that dances of the two schools that bear the same name may differ considerably in permitted patterns (figures), technique, and styling. Exhibitions and social situations that feature ballroom dancing also may include additional partner dances such as Lindy Hop, Night Club Two Step, Night Club Swing, Bachata, Country Two Step, and regional (local or national) favorites that normally are not regarded as part of the ballroom family, and a number of historical dances also may be danced in ballrooms or salons. Additionally, some sources regard Sequence Dancing, in pairs or other formations, to be a style of ballroom dance. Definitions and history. The term 'ballroom dancing' is derived from the word "ball" which in turn originates from the Latin word "ballare" which means 'to dance' (a ball-room being a large room specially designed for such dances). In times past, ballroom dancing was social dancing for the privileged, leaving folk dancing for the lower classes. These boundaries have since become blurred. The definition of ballroom dance also depends on the era: balls have featured popular dances of the day such as the Minuet, Quadrille, Polonaise, Polka, Mazurka, and others, which are now considered to be historical dances. Early modern period. The first authoritative knowledge of the earliest ballroom dances was recorded toward the end of the 16th century, when Jehan Tabourot, under the pen name "Thoinot-Arbeau", published in 1588 his "Orchésographie", a study of late 16th-century French renaissance social dance. Among the dances described were the solemn basse danse, the livelier branle, pavane, and the galliarde which Shakespeare called the "cinq pace" as it was made of five steps. In 1650, the Minuet, originally a peasant dance of Poitou, was introduced into Paris and set to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and danced by the King Louis XIV in public. The Minuet dominated the ballroom from that time until the close of the 18th century. Toward the later half of the 17th century, Louis XIV founded his 'Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse', where specific rules for the execution of every dance and the "five positions" of the feet were formulated for the first time by members of the Académie. Eventually, the first definite cleavage between ballet and ballroom came when professional dancers appeared in the ballets, and the ballets left the Court and went to the stage. Ballet technique such as the turned out positions of the feet, however, lingered for over two centuries and past the end of the Victoria era. 19th century. The waltz with its modern hold took root in England in about 1812; in 1819 Carl Maria von Weber wrote "Invitation to the Dance", which marked the adoption of the waltz form into the sphere of absolute music. The dance was initially met with tremendous opposition due to the semblance of impropriety associated with the closed hold, though the stance gradually softened. In the 1840s several new dances made their appearance in the ballroom, including the polka, mazurka, and the Schottische. In the meantime a strong tendency emerged to drop all 'decorative' steps such as "entrechats" and "ronds de jambes" that had found a place in the Quadrilles and other dances. Early 20th century. Modern ballroom dance has its roots early in the 20th century, when several different things happened more or less at the same time. The first was a movement away from the sequence dances towards dances where the couples moved independently. This had been pre-figured by the waltz, which had already made this transition. The second was a wave of popular music, such as jazz. Since dance is to a large extent tied to music, this led to a burst of newly invented dances. There were many dance crazes in the period 1910–1930. The third event was a concerted effort to transform some of the dance crazes into dances which could be taught to a wider dance public in the U.S. and Europe. Here Vernon and Irene Castle were important, and so was a generation of English dancers in the 1920s, including Josephine Bradley and Victor Silvester. These professionals analysed, codified, published, and taught a number of standard dances. It was essential, if popular dance was to flourish, for dancers to have some basic movements they could confidently perform with any partner they might meet. Here the huge Arthur Murray organisation in America, and the dance societies in England, such as the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, were highly influential. Finally, much of this happened during and after a period of World War, and the effect of such a conflict in dissolving older social customs was considerable. Later, in the 1930s, the on-screen dance pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers influenced all forms of dance in the U.S. and elsewhere. Although both actors had separate careers, their filmed dance sequences together, which included portrayals of the Castles, have reached iconic status. Much of Astaire and Rogers' work portrayed social dancing, although the performances were highly choreographed (often by Astaire or Hermes Pan) and meticulously staged and rehearsed. Competitive dancing. Competitions, sometimes referred to as dancesport, range from world championships, regulated by the World Dance Council (WDC), to less advanced dancers at various proficiency levels. Most competitions are divided into professional and amateur, though in the USA pro-am competitions typically accompany professional competitions. The International Olympic Committee now recognizes competitive ballroom dance. It has recognized another body, the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF), as the sole representative body for dancesport in the Olympic Games. Ballroom dance competitions are regulated by each country in its own way. There are about 30 countries which compete regularly in international competitions. There are another 20 or so countries which have membership of the WDC and/or the WDSF, but whose dancers rarely appear in international competitions. In Britain there is the British Dance Council, which grants national and regional championship titles, such as the British Ballroom Championships, the British Sequence Championships and the United Kingdom Championships. In the United States, the member branches of the WDC (National Dance Council of America) and the WDSF (USA Dance) both grant national and regional championship titles. Ballroom dancing competitions in the former USSR also included the Soviet Ballroom dances, or "Soviet Programme". Australian New Vogue is danced both competitively and socially. In competition, there are 15 recognized New Vogue dances, which are performed by the competitors in sequence. These dance forms are not recognized internationally, neither are the US variations such as American Smooth, and Rhythm. Such variations in dance and competition methods are attempts to meets perceived needs in the local market-place. Internationally, the Blackpool Dance Festival, hosted annually at Blackpool, England is considered the most prestigious event a dancesport competitor can attend. Formation dance is another style of competitive dance recognized by the WDSF. In this style, multiple dancers (usually in couples and typically up to 16 dancers at one time) compete on the same team, moving in and out of various formations while dancing. The Blackpool Dance Festival also holds an annual event for competitive formation dancing. Elements of competition. In competitive ballroom, dancers are judged by diverse criteria such as poise, the hold or frame, posture, musicality and expression, timing, body alignment and shape, floor craft, foot and leg action, and presentation. Judging in a performance-oriented sport is inevitably subjective in nature, and controversy and complaints by competitors over judging placements are not uncommon. The scorekeepers—called scrutineers—will tally the total number recalls accumulated by each couple through each round until the finals when the Skating system is used to place each couple by ordinals, typically 1–6, though the number of couples in the final may vary. Sometimes, up to 8 couples may be present on the floor during the finals. Competitors dance at different levels based on their ability and experience. The levels are split into two categories, syllabus and open. The syllabus levels are newcomer/pre-bronze, bronze, silver, and gold—with gold the highest syllabus level and newcomer the lowest. In these levels, moves are restricted to those written in a syllabus, and illegal moves can lead to disqualification. Each level, bronze, silver, and gold, has different moves on their syllabus, increasing in difficulty. There are three levels in the open category; novice, pre-champ, and champ in increasing order of skill. At those levels, dancers no longer have restrictions on their moves, so complex routines are more common. Medal evaluations. Medal evaluations for amateurs enable dancers' individual abilities to be recognized according to conventional standards. In medal evaluations, which are run by bodies such as the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) and the United Kingdom Alliance (UKA), each dancer performs two or more dances in a certain genre in front of a judge. Genres such as Modern Ballroom or Latin are the most popular. Societies such as the ISTD and UKA also offer medal tests on other dance styles (such as Country & Western, Rock 'n Roll or Tap). In some North American examinations, levels include Newcomer, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Novice, Pre-championship, and Championship; each level may be further subdivided into either two or four separate sections. Collegiate ballroom. There is a part of the ballroom world dedicated to college students. These chapters are typically clubs or teams that have an interest in ballroom dancing. Teams hold fundraisers, social events, and ballroom dance lessons. Ballroom dance teams' goals are to have fun and learn to dance well. There is a strong focus on finding a compatible dance partner and bonding with teammates. There is also a competitive side to collegiate ballroom - collegiate teams often hold competitions and invite other teams to participate. These competitions are often run with many of the same rules are regular amateur competitions as outlined above, but are usually organized entirely by collegiate teams. Examples include the MIT Open Ballroom Dance Competition, Big Apple Dancesport Challenge, Purdue Ballroom Classic, Cardinal Classic, Berkeley Classic, Helluva Dance Competition and Harvard Invitational. Dances. "Ballroom dance" refers most often to the ten dances of Standard and Latin, though the term is also often used interchangeably with the five International Ballroom dances. Sequence dancing, which is danced predominantly in the United Kingdom, and its development New Vogue in Australia and New Zealand, are also sometimes included as a type of Ballroom dancing. In the United States and Canada, the American Style (American Smooth and American Rhythm) also exists. The dance technique used for both International and American styles is similar, but International Ballroom allows only closed dance positions, whereas American Smooth allows closed, open and separated dance movements. In addition, different sets of dance figures are usually taught for the two styles. International Latin and American Rhythm have different styling, and have different dance figures in their respective syllabi. Other dances sometimes placed under the umbrella "ballroom dance" include nightclub dances such as Lindy Hop, West Coast swing, nightclub two step, hustle, salsa, and merengue. The categorization of dances as "ballroom dances" has always been fluid, with new dances or folk dances being added to or removed from the ballroom repertoire from time to time, so no list of subcategories or dances is any more than a description of current practices. There are other dances historically accepted as ballroom dances, and are revived via the vintage dance movement. In Europe, Latin Swing dances include Argentine tango, mambo, Lindy Hop, swing boogie (sometimes also known as nostalgic boogie), and discofox. One example of this is the subcategory of cajun dances that originated in Acadiana, with branches reaching both coasts of the United States. Standard/Smooth dances are normally danced to Western music (often from the mid-twentieth century), and couples dance counter-clockwise around a rectangular floor following the line of dance. In competitions, competitors are costumed as would be appropriate for a white tie affair, with full gowns for the ladies and bow tie and tail coats for the men; though in American Smooth it is now conventional for the men to abandon the tailsuit in favor of shorter tuxedos, vests, and other creative outfits. Latin/Rhythm dances are commonly danced to contemporary Latin American music and (in case of jive) Western music. With the exception of a few traveling dances like samba and pasodoble, couples do not follow the line of dance but perform their routines more or less in one spot. In competitions, the women are often dressed in short-skirted Latin outfits while the men are outfitted in tight-fitting shirts and pants, the goal being to emphasize the dancers' leg action and body movements. Competitive dances. Standard/Smooth. Waltz. Waltz began as a country folk dance in Austria and Bavaria in the 17th century. In the early 19th century it was introduced in England. It was the first dance where a man held a woman close to his body. When performing the dance, the upper body is kept to the left throughout all figures, the follower's body leans to the right side of the leader while the head is extended left to follow the elbow. Figures with rotation have little rise. The start of the rise begins slowly from the first count, peaks on the 2nd count and lowers slowly on the 3rd. Sway is also used on the second step to make the step longer and also to slow down the momentum by bringing the feet together. Waltz is performed for both International Standard and American Smooth. Viennese Waltz. Viennese waltz originated in Provence area in France in 1559 and is recognized as the oldest of all ballroom dances. It was introduced in England as German waltz in 1812 and became popular throughout the 19th century by the music of Josef and Johann Strauss. It is often referred to as the classic “old-school” ballroom. Viennese Waltz music is quite fast. Slight shaping of the body moves towards the inside of the turn and shaping forward and up to lengthen the opposite side from direction. Reverse turn is used to travel down long side and is overturned. While natural turn is used to travel short side and is underturned to go around the corners. Viennese waltz is performed for both International Standard and American Smooth. Tango. Tango originated in Buenos Aires in the late 19th century. Modern Argentine tango is danced in both open and closed embraces which focuses on the lead and follow moving in harmony of the tango's passionate charging music. The tango's technique is like walking to the music while keeping feet grounded and allowing ankles and knees to brush against one another during each step taken. Tango is a flat-footed dance and unlike the other dances, has no rise and fall. Body weight is kept over the toes and the connection is held between the dancers in the hips. Ballroom tango, however, is a dance with a far more open frame, often utilising strong and staccato movements. Ballroom tango, rather than Argentine tango, is performed in international competition. Foxtrot. The foxtrot is an American dance, believed to be of African-American origin. It was named by a vaudeville performer Harry Fox in 1914. Fox was rapidly trotting step to ragtime music. The dance therefore was originally named as the “Fox’s trot”. The foxtrot can be danced at slow, medium, or fast tempos depending on the speed of the jazz or big band music. The partners are facing one another and frame rotates from one side to another, changing direction after a measure. The dance is generally danced flat, with not much rise and fall. The walking steps are taken as slow for the two beats per steps and quick for one beat per step. Foxtrot is performed for both International Standard and American Smooth. Quickstep. The quickstep is an English dance and was invented in the 1920s as a combination of faster tempo of foxtrot and the Charleston. It is a fast moving dance, so men are allowed to close their feet and the couples move in short syncopated steps. Quickstep includes the walks, runs, chasses, and turns of the original foxtrot dance, with some other fast figures such as locks, hops, run, quick step, jump and skips. Quick step is performed as an International Standard dance. Latin/Rhythm. Pasodoble. The pasodoble originated from Spain and its dramatic bullfights. The dance is mostly performed only in competitions and rarely socially because of its many choreographic rules. The lead plays the role of the matador while the follow takes the role of the matador's cape, the bull, or even the matador. The chasse cape refers to the lead using the follow to turn them as if they are the cape, and the appel is when the lead stomps their foot to get the bull's attention. Pasodoble is performed as an International Latin dance. Spanish bolero. The Spanish bolero was developed in the late 18th century out of the "seguidilla", and its popularization is attributed to court dancers such as Sebastián Cerezo. It became one of the most popular ballroom dances of the 19th century and saw many classical adaptations. However, by the 20th century it had become old-fashioned. A Cuban music genre of the same name, bolero, which became popular in the early 20th century, is unrelated to the Spanish dance. Cuban bolero. Although Cuban bolero was born as a form of "trova", traditional singer/songwriter tradition from eastern Cuba, with no associated dance, it soon became a ballroom favorite in Cuba and all of Latin America. The dance most commonly represents the couple falling in love. Modern bolero is seen as a combination of many dances: like a slow salsa with contra-body movement of tango, patterns of rhumba, and rise and fall technique and personality of waltz and foxtrot. Bolero can be danced in a closed hold or singly and then coming back together. It is performed as an American Rhythm dance. Samba. Samba is the national dance of Brazil. The rhythm of samba and its name originated from the language and culture of West African slaves. In 1905, samba became known to other countries during an exhibition in Paris. In the 1940s, samba was introduced in America through Carmen Miranda. The international version of Ballroom Samba has been based on an early version of Brazilian Samba called Maxixe, but has since developed away and differs strongly from Brazilian Ballroom Samba, which is called Samba de Gafieira. International Ballroom Samba is danced with a slight bounce which is created through the bending and straightening the knee. It is performed as an International Latin dance, although most of its modern development has occurred outside Latin America. Rumba. Rumba came to the United States from Cuba in the 1920s and became a popular cabaret dance during prohibition. Rumba is a ballroom adaptation of son cubano and bolero (the Cuban genre) and, despite its name, it rarely included elements of Cuban rumba. It includes Cuban motions through knee-strengthening, figure-eight hip rotation, and swiveling foot action. An important characteristic of rumba is the powerful and direct lead achieved through the ball of the foot. Rumba is performed for both International Latin and American Rhythm. Mambo. Mambo was developed as an offshoot of danzón, the national dance of Cuba, in the late 1930s by Orestes López and his brother Cachao, of Arcaño y sus Maravillas. They conceived a new form of danzón influenced by son cubano, with a faster, improvised final section, which allowed dancers to more freely express themselves, given that danzón had traditionally a very rigid structure. In the 1940s, Dámaso Pérez Prado transformed the mambo from the charanga into the big band format, and took it to Mexico and the United States, where it became a "dance craze". Cha Cha. Cha Cha (sometimes wrongly called Cha Cha Cha based on a "street version" of the dance with shifted timing) was developed by Enrique Jorrín in the early 1950s, as a slower alternative to Mambo—and, in fact, was originally called Triple Mambo. The Cha Cha is a flirtatious dance with many hip rotations and partners synchronising their movements. The dance includes bending and straightening of the knee giving it a touch of Cuban motion. Cha-cha is performed for both International Latin and American Rhythm. East Coast Swing. Swing in 1927 was originally named the Lindy Hop named by Shorty George Snowden. There have been 40 different versions documented over the years; most common is the East Coast swing which is performed in the American Smooth (or American Rhythm) only in the U.S. or Canada. The East Coast swing was established by Arthur Murray and others only shortly after World War II. Swing music is very lively and upbeat and can be danced to jazz or big band music. The swing dancing style has much bounce and energy. Swing also includes many spins and underarm turns. East Coast swing is performed as an American Rhythm dance. Jive. The jive is part of the swing dance group and is a very lively variation of the jitterbug. Jive originated from African American clubs in the early 1940s. During World War II, American soldiers introduced the jive in England where it was adapted to today's competitive jive. In jive, the man leads the dance while the woman encourages the man to ask her to dance. It is danced to big band music, and some technique is taken from salsa, swing and tango. Jive is performed as an International Latin dance. Dance style classification. International Style competition dances. According to World Dance Council. Standard. Waltz: 28 bars per minute, time, also known as "Slow Waltz" or "English Waltz" depending on locality Tango: 31 bars per minute, time Viennese Waltz: 58 bars per minute, time. On the European continent, the Viennese waltz is known simply as "waltz", while the waltz is recognized as "English waltz" or "Slow Waltz". Foxtrot: 28 bars per minute, time Quickstep: 50 bars per minute, time Latin. Cha-cha-cha: 29 bars per minute, time Samba: 49 bars per minute, time Rumba: 24 bars per minute, time Paso Doble: 60 bars per minute, time Jive: 41 bars per minute, time American Style competition dances. Smooth. Waltz: 29–30 bars per minute. 30–32 bars per minute for Bronze Tango: 60 bars per minute 30–32 bars per minute for Bronze Foxtrot: 30 bars per minute 32–34 bars per minute for Bronze Viennese Waltz: 53–54 bars per minute 54 bars per minute for Bronze Rhythm. Cha Cha: 30 bars per minute Rumba: 30–32 bars per minute 32–36 bars per minute for Bronze East Coast Swing: 36 bars per minute 34–36 bars per minute for Bronze Bolero: 24 bars per minute 24–26 bars per minute for Bronze Mambo: 47 bars per minute 48–51 bars per minute for Bronze Others. Historical/Vintage Ballroom dance: Waltz – Polka – Schottische – Tango – One-Step – Foxtrot – Peabody Other dances occasionally categorized as ballroom: Nightclub Nightclub Two-step – Hustle – Modern Jive / LeRoc / Ceroc – and the whole swing variety: West Coast Swing / East Coast Swing/ Lindy Hop (always included in the "Rhythm-Swing" category) / Carolina Shag / Collegiate Shag / Balboa / Blues – Fusion Latin nightclub Salsa – Cumbia – Mambo – Merengue – Porro – Cha cha – Bachata African nightclub Kizomba – Semba – Coladeira - Funana - Zouk Brazilian Dances Forró – Pagode – Samba de Gafieira – Lambada - Zouk-Lambada Country/Western C/W Polka – C/W Cha-cha – C/W Two-step – C/W Waltz Cajun dances Cajun One Step or Cajun Jig – Cajun Two Step – Zydeco – Cajun Waltz – Cajun Jitterbug Musette dances Java – musette-waltz – musette-tango – musette-paso-doble Other Argentine tango – New Vogue
3333	8264159	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3333	The Birth of a Nation	The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play "". Griffith co-wrote the screenplay with Frank E. Woods and produced the film with Harry Aitken. "The Birth of a Nation" is a landmark of film history, lauded for its technical virtuosity. It was the first non-serial American 12-reel film ever made. Its plot, part fiction and part history, chronicles the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and the relationship of two families in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras over the course of several years—the pro-Union (Northern) Stonemans and the pro-Confederacy (Southern) Camerons. It was originally shown in two parts separated by an intermission, and it was the first American-made film to have a musical score for an orchestra. It helped to pioneer closeups and fadeouts, and it includes a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras made to look like thousands. It came with a 13-page "Souvenir Program". It was the first motion picture to be screened inside the White House, viewed there by President Woodrow Wilson, his family, and members of his cabinet. The film was controversial even before its release and it has remained so since; it has been called "the most controversial film ever made in the United States", as well as "the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood history". The film has been denounced for its racist depiction of African Americans. The film portrays its black characters (many of whom are played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive toward white women. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist hate group, is portrayed as a heroic force that protects white women and maintains white supremacy. Popular among white audiences nationwide upon its release, the film's success was both a consequence of and a contributor to racial segregation throughout the U.S. In response to the film's depictions of black people and Civil War history, African Americans across the U.S. organized and protested. In Boston and other localities, black leaders and the NAACP spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to have it banned on the basis that it inflamed racial tensions and could incite violence. It was also denied release in the state of Ohio and the cities of Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Minneapolis. Griffith's indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce "Intolerance" the following year. In spite of its divisiveness, "The Birth of a Nation" was a massive commercial success across the nation—grossing far more than any previous motion picture—and it profoundly influenced both the film industry and American culture. Adjusted for inflation, the film remains one of the highest-grossing films ever made. It has been acknowledged as an inspiration for , which took place only a few months after its release. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Plot. Part 1: Civil War of United States. Phil, the elder son of the Stonemans (a Northern family), falls in love with Margaret Cameron (the daughter of a Southern family), during a visit to the Cameron estate in South Carolina. There, Margaret's brother Ben idolizes a picture of Elsie Stoneman, Phil's sister. When the Civil War arrives, the young men of both families enlist in their respective armies. The younger Stoneman and two of the Cameron brothers die in combat. Meanwhile, a black militia attacks the Cameron home and is routed by Confederate soldiers who save the Cameron women. Leading the final charge at the Siege of Petersburg, Ben Cameron earns the nickname of "the Little Colonel", but is also wounded and captured. He is then taken to a Union military hospital in Washington, D.C. During his stay at the hospital, he learns that he will be hanged. Working there as a nurse is Elsie Stoneman, whose picture he has been carrying. Elsie takes Cameron's mother who traveled there to tend her son and to see Abraham Lincoln. Mrs. Cameron persuades him to pardon Ben. After Lincoln's assassination, his conciliatory postwar policy expires with him. Elsie's father and other Radical Republicans are determined to punish the South. Part 2: Reconstruction. Stoneman and his protégé Silas Lynch, a psychopathic mulatto, head to South Carolina to observe the implementation of Reconstruction policies. During the election, in which Lynch is elected lieutenant governor, black people stuff the ballot boxes while many white people are denied the vote. The newly elected members of the South Carolina legislature are mostly black. Ben fights back by forming the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, Elsie breaks up with him. While going alone into the woods to fetch water, Flora Cameron is followed by Gus, a freedman who is now a captain. Gus says that he desires to marry Flora. She rejects him, but he insists. Frightened, she flees into the forest, pursued by Gus. Trapped on a precipice, Flora threatens to jump if he comes any closer. When he does, she leaps to her death. While looking for Flora, Ben sees her jump. He holds her as she dies and carries her body to the Cameron home. Gus then hides in a saloon, which Jeff the blacksmith enters. A brawl ensues and Gus shoots Jeff then flees. In response, the Klan hunts down Gus, tries him, finds him guilty, lynches him and delivers his corpse to Silas Lynch's house. After discovering Gus's murder, Lynch orders a crackdown on the Klan. He also secures the passing of legislation allowing mixed-race marriages. Dr. Cameron is arrested for possessing Ben's Klan regalia, now considered a capital crime. He is rescued by Phil Stoneman and some of his black servants. Together with Margaret Cameron, they flee. When their wagon breaks down, they make their way through the woods to a small hut that is home to two former Union soldiers who agree to hide them. Congressman Stoneman, Elsie's father, leaves to avoid being connected with Lynch's crackdown. Elsie, learning of Dr. Cameron's arrest, visits Lynch to plead for his release. Lynch, who lusts after Elsie, tries to force her to marry him, which causes her to faint. Stoneman returns, causing Elsie to be placed in another room. Stoneman is initially happy when Lynch says that he wants to marry a white woman, but he is then angered when Lynch says that he wishes to marry Elsie. She breaks a window and cries out for help, getting the attention of undercover Klansman spies. The Klan gathered together, with Ben leading them, ride in to gain control of the town. When news about Elsie reaches Ben, he and others go to her rescue. Lynch is captured while his militia attacks the hut where the Camerons are hiding. However, the Klansmen, with Ben at their head, save them. The next election day, black men find a line of mounted and armed Klansmen outside their homes and are intimidated into not voting. Margaret Cameron marries Phil Stoneman and Elsie Stoneman marries Ben Cameron. Production. 1911 version. In 1911, the Kinemacolor Company of America produced a lost film in Kinemacolor titled "The Clansman". It was filmed in the southern United States and directed by William F. Haddock. According to different sources, the ten-reel film was either completed by January 1912 or left uncompleted with a little more than a reel of footage. There are several speculated reasons why the film production failed including unresolved legal issues regarding the rights to the story, financial issues, problems with the Kinemacolor process, and poor direction. Frank E. Woods, the film's scriptwriter, showed his work to Griffith, who was inspired to create his own film adaptation of the novel, titled "The Birth of a Nation". Inspiration. Many of the fictional characters in the film are based on real historical figures. Abolitionist U.S. Representative Austin Stoneman is based on the Reconstruction-era Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. Ben Cameron is modeled after Leroy McAfee. Silas Lynch was modeled after Alonzo J. Ransier and Richard Howell Gleaves. Development. After the failure of the Kinemacolor project, in which Dixon was willing to invest his own money, he began visiting other studios to see if they were interested. In late 1913, Dixon met the film producer Harry Aitken, who was interested in making a film out of "The Clansman". Through Aitken, Dixon met Griffith. Like Dixon, Griffith was a Southerner, a fact that Dixon points out; Griffith's father served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army and, like Dixon, viewed Reconstruction negatively. Griffith believed that a passage from "The Clansman" where Klansmen ride "to the rescue of persecuted white Southerners" could be adapted into a great cinematic sequence. Griffith first announced his intent to adapt Dixon's play to Gish and Walthall after filming "Home, Sweet Home" in 1914. "Birth of a Nation" "follows "The Clansman" [the play] nearly scene by scene." While some sources also credit "The Leopard's Spots" as source material, Russell Merritt attributes this to "the original 1915 playbills and program for "Birth" which, eager to flaunt the film's literary pedigree, cited both "The Clansman" and "The Leopard's Spots" as sources." According to Karen Crowe, "[t]here is not a single event, word, character, or circumstance taken from "The Leopard's Spots"... Any likenesses between the film and "The Leopard's Spots" occur because some similar scenes, circumstances, and characters appear in both books." Griffith agreed to pay Thomas Dixon $10,000 (equivalent to $ in ) for the rights to his play "The Clansman". Since he ran out of money and could afford only $2,500 of the original option, Griffith offered Dixon 25 percent interest in the picture. Dixon reluctantly agreed, and the unprecedented success of the film made him rich. As of 2007, Dixon's proceeds were the largest sum any author had received for a motion picture story and amounted to several million dollars. The American historian John Hope Franklin suggested that many aspects of the script for "The Birth of a Nation" appeared to reflect Dixon's concerns more than Griffith's, as Dixon had an obsession in his novels of describing in loving detail the lynchings of black men which did not reflect Griffith's interests. Filming. Griffith began filming on July 4, 1914 and was finished by October 1914. Some filming took place in Big Bear Lake, California. Griffith took over the Hollywood studio of Kinemacolor. West Point engineers provided technical advice on the American Civil War battle scenes providing Griffith with the artillery used in the film. Much of the filming was done on the Griffith Ranch in San Fernando Valley, with the Petersburg scenes being shot at what is today Forest Lawn Memorial Park and other scenes being shot in Whittier and Ojai Valley. The film's war scenes were influenced by Robert Underwood Johnson's book "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War", "Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War", "The Soldier in Our Civil War", and Mathew Brady's photography. Many of the African Americans in the film were portrayed by white actors in blackface. Griffith initially claimed this was deliberate, stating "on careful weighing of every detail concerned, the decision was to have no black blood among the principals; it was only in the legislative scene that Negroes were used, and then only as 'extra people'." However black extras who had been housed in segregated quarters, including Griffith's acquaintance and frequent collaborator Madame Sul-Te-Wan, can be seen in many other shots of the film. Griffith's budget started at US$40,000 (equivalent to $ in ) but rose to over $100,000 (equivalent to $ in ). By the time he finished filming, Griffith had shot approximately 150,000 feet of footage (approximately 36 hours of film), which he edited down to 13,000 feet (just over 3 hours). The film was edited after early screenings in reaction to audience reception, and existing prints of the film are missing footage from the standard version of the film. Evidence exists that the film originally included scenes of white slave traders seizing blacks from West Africa and detaining them aboard a slave ship, Southern congressmen in the House of Representatives, Northerners reacting to the results of the 1860 presidential election, the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, a Union League meeting, depictions of martial law in South Carolina, and a battle sequence. In addition, several scenes were cut at the insistence of New York Mayor John Purroy Mitchel due to their highly racist content before its release in New York City including a female abolitionist activist recoiling from the body odor of a black boy, black men seizing white women on the streets of Piedmont, and deportations of blacks with the title "Lincoln's Solution". It was also long rumored, including by Griffith's biographer Seymour Stern, that the original film included a rape scene between Gus and Flora before her suicide, but in 1974 the cinematographer Karl Brown denied that such a scene had been filmed. Score. Although "The Birth of a Nation" is commonly regarded as a landmark for its dramatic and visual innovations, its use of music was arguably no less revolutionary. Though film was still silent at the time, it was common practice to distribute musical cue sheets, or less commonly, full scores (usually for organ or piano accompaniment) along with each print of a film. For "The Birth of a Nation", composer Joseph Carl Breil created a three-hour-long musical score that combined all three types of music in use at the time: adaptations of existing works by classical composers, new arrangements of well-known melodies, and original composed music. Though it had been specifically composed for the film, Breil's score was not used for the February 8, 1915, Los Angeles première of the film at Clune's Auditorium; rather, a score compiled by Carli Elinor was performed in its stead, and this score was used exclusively in West Coast showings. Breil's score was not used until the film debuted in New York at the Liberty Theatre, but it was the score featured in all showings save those on the West Coast. Outside of original compositions, Breil adapted classical music for use in the film, including passages from "Der Freischütz" by Carl Maria von Weber, "Leichte Kavallerie" by Franz von Suppé, Symphony No. 6 by Ludwig van Beethoven, and "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner, the latter used as a leitmotif during the ride of the KKK. Breil also arranged several traditional and popular tunes that would have been recognizable to audiences at the time, including many Southern melodies; among these songs were "Maryland, My Maryland", "Dixie", "Old Folks at Home," "The Star-Spangled Banner," "America the Beautiful," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Auld Lang Syne," and "Where Did You Get That Hat?" DJ Spooky has called Breil's score, with its mix of Dixieland songs, classical music and "vernacular heartland music...an early, pivotal accomplishment in remix culture." He has also cited Breil's use of music by Wagner as influential on subsequent Hollywood films, including "Star Wars" (1977) and "Apocalypse Now" (1979). In his original compositions for the film, Breil wrote numerous leitmotifs to accompany the appearance of specific characters. The principal love theme that was created for the romance between Elsie Stoneman and Ben Cameron was published as "The Perfect Song" and is regarded as the first marketed "theme song" from a film; it was later used as the theme song for the popular radio and television sitcom "Amos 'n' Andy". Release. Theatrical run. The first public showing of the film, then called "The Clansman", was on January 1 and 2, 1915, at the Loring Opera House in Riverside, California. The second night, it was sold out and people were turned away. It was shown on February 8, 1915, to an audience of 3,000 people at Clune's Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles and ran there for seven months. At the New York premiere, Dixon spoke on stage when the interlude started halfway through the film, reminding the audience that the dramatic version of "The Clansman" appeared in that venue nine years previously. "Mr. Dixon also observed that he would have allowed none but the son of a Confederate soldier to direct the film version of "The Clansman"." An estimated 3 million people watched the film across 6,266 showings in New York City by January 1916. The film's backers understood that the film needed a massive publicity campaign if they were to cover the immense cost of producing it. A major part of this campaign was the release of the film in a roadshow theatrical release. This allowed Griffith to charge premium prices for tickets, sell souvenirs, and build excitement around the film before giving it a wide release. For several months, Griffith's team traveled to various cities to show the film for one or two nights before moving on. This strategy was immensely successful. Change of title. Dixon had seen a screening of the film for an invited audience in New York in early 1915, when the title was still "The Clansmen". Struck by the power of the film, he told Griffith that "The Clansmen" was not an appropriate title, and suggested that it be changed to "The Birth of a Nation". The title was changed before the March 2 New York opening. However, the title was used in the press as early as January 2, 1915, while it was still referred to as "The Clansman" in October. Special screenings. White House showing. "The Birth of a Nation" was the first movie shown in the White House, in the East Room, on February 18, 1915. An earlier movie, the Italian "Cabiria" (1914), was shown on the lawn. It was attended by President Woodrow Wilson, members of his family, and members of his Cabinet. Both Dixon and Griffith were present. As put by Dixon, not an impartial source, "it repeated the triumph of the first showing." There is dispute about Wilson's attitude toward the movie. A newspaper reported that he "received many letters protesting against his alleged action in Indorsing the pictures ", including a letter from Massachusetts Congressman Thomas Chandler Thacher. The showing of the movie had caused "several near-riots". When former Assistant Attorney General William H. Lewis and A. Walters, a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, called at the White House "to add their protests", President Wilson's private secretary Joseph Patrick Tumulty showed them a letter he had written to Thacher on Wilson's behalf. According to the letter, Wilson had been "entirely unaware of the character of the play [movie] before it was presented and has at no time expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old acquaintance." Dixon, in his autobiography, quotes Wilson as saying, when Dixon proposed showing the movie at the White House, that "I am pleased to be able to do this little thing for you, because a long time ago you took a day out of your busy life to do something for me." What Dixon had done for Wilson was to suggest him for an honorary degree, which Wilson received, from Dixon's "alma mater", Wake Forest College. Dixon had been a fellow graduate student in history with Wilson at Johns Hopkins University and in 1913 dedicated his historical novel about Lincoln, "The Southerner", to "our first Southern-born president since Lincoln, my friend and collegemate Woodrow Wilson". The evidence that Wilson knew "the character of the play" in advance of seeing it is circumstantial but very strong: "Given Dixon's career and the notoriety attached to the play "The Clansman", it is not unreasonable to assume that Wilson must have had some idea of at least the general tenor of the film." The movie was based on a best-selling novel and was preceded by a stage version (play) which was received with protests in several cities—in some cities it was prohibited—and received a great deal of news coverage. Wilson issued no protest when "The Washington Evening Star", at that time Washington, D.C.'s newspaper of record, reported in advance of the showing, in language suggesting a press release from Dixon and Griffiths, that Dixon was "a schoolmate of President Wilson and is an intimate friend" and that Wilson's interest in it "is due to the great lesson of peace it teaches." Wilson, and only Wilson, is quoted by name in the movie for his observations on American history and the title of Wilson's book ("History of the American People") is mentioned as well. The three title cards with quotations from Wilson's book read (ellipses and underscore in the original): "Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile and use the negroes... In the villages the negroes were the office holders, men who knew none of the uses of authority, except its insolences." "... The policy of the congressional leaders wrought…a veritable overthrow of civilization in the South... in their determination to 'put the white South under the heel of the black South.'" "The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation... until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the southern country." In the same book, Wilson has harsh words about the abyss between the original goals of the Klan and that into which it evolved. Dixon has been accused of misquoting Wilson. In 1937, a popular magazine reported that Wilson said of the film, "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." Wilson over the years had several times used the metaphor of illuminating history as if by lightning and he may well have said it at the time. The accuracy of his saying it was "terribly true" is disputed by historians; there is no contemporary documentation of the remark. Vachel Lindsay, a popular poet of the time, is known to have referred to the film as "art by lightning flash." Showing in the Raleigh Hotel ballroom. The next day, February 19, 1915, Griffith and Dixon held a showing of the film in the Raleigh Hotel ballroom, which they had hired for the occasion. Early that morning, Dixon called on a North Carolina friend, Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy. Daniels set up a meeting that morning for Dixon with Edward Douglass White, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Initially Justice White was not interested in seeing the film, but when Dixon told him it was the "true story" of Reconstruction and the Klan's role in "saving the South", White, recalling his youth in Louisiana, jumped to attention and said: "I was a member of the Klan, sir". With White agreeing to see the film, the rest of the Supreme Court followed. In addition to the entire Supreme Court, in the audience were "many members of Congress and members of the diplomatic corps", the Secretary of the Navy, 38 members of the Senate, and about 50 members of the House of Representatives. The audience of 600 "cheered and applauded throughout." Consequences. In Griffith's words, the showings to the president and the entire Supreme Court conferred an "honor" upon "Birth of a Nation". Dixon and Griffith used this commercially. The following day, Griffith and Dixon transported the film to New York City for review by the National Board of Censorship. They presented the film as "endorsed" by the President and the cream of Washington society. The Board approved the film by 15 to 8. A warrant to close the theater in which the movie was to open was dismissed after a long-distance call to the White House confirmed that the film had been shown there. Justice White was very angry when advertising for the film stated that he approved it, and he threatened to denounce it publicly. Dixon, a racist and white supremacist, clearly was rattled and upset by criticism by African Americans that the movie encouraged hatred against them, and he wanted the endorsement of as many powerful men as possible to offset such criticism. Dixon always vehemently denied having anti-black prejudices—despite the way his books promoted white supremacy—and stated: "My books are hard reading for a Negro, and yet the Negroes, in denouncing them, are unwittingly denouncing one of their greatest friends". In a letter sent on May 1, 1915, to Joseph P. Tumulty, Wilson's secretary, Dixon wrote: "The real purpose of my film was to revolutionize Northern sentiments by a presentation of history that would transform every man in the audience into a good Democrat... Every man who comes out of the theater is a Southern partisan for life!" In a letter to President Wilson sent on September 5, 1915, Dixon boasted: "This play is transforming the entire population of the North and the West into sympathetic Southern voters. There will never be an issue of your segregation policy". Dixon was alluding to the fact that Wilson, upon becoming president in 1913, had allowed cabinet members to impose segregation on federal workplaces in Washington, D.C. by reducing the number of black employees through demotion or dismissal. New opening titles on re-release. One famous part of the film was added by Griffith only on the second run of the film and is missing from most online versions of the film (presumably taken from first run prints). These are the second and third of three opening title cards that defend the film. The added titles read: A PLEA FOR THE ART OF THE MOTION PICTURE: We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word—that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare ...and: If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain. Various film historians have expressed a range of views about these titles. To Nicholas Andrew Miller, this shows that "Griffith's greatest achievement in "The Birth of a Nation" was that he brought the cinema's capacity for spectacle... under the rein of an outdated, but comfortably literary form of historical narrative. Griffith's models... are not the pioneers of film spectacle... but the giants of literary narrative". On the other hand, S. Kittrell Rushing complains about Griffith's "didactic" title-cards, while Stanley Corkin complains that Griffith "masks his idea of fact in the rhetoric of high art and free expression" and creates a film that "erodes the very ideal" of liberty that he asserts. Social impact. KKK support. Studies have linked the film to greater support for the KKK. Glorifying the Klan to approving white audiences, the film became a national cultural phenomenon: merchandisers made Ku Klux hats and kitchen aprons, and ushers dressed in white Klan robes for openings. In New York there were Klan-themed balls and, in Chicago that Halloween, thousands of college students dressed in robes for a massive Klan-themed party. Anti-black violence. When the film was released, riots broke out in Philadelphia and other major cities in the United States. The film's inflammatory nature was a catalyst for gangs of white people to attack black people. On April 24, 1916, the "Chicago American" reported that a white man murdered a black teenager in Lafayette, Indiana, after seeing the film, although there has been some controversy as to whether the murderer had actually seen "The Birth of a Nation". The mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was the first of twelve mayors to ban the film in 1915 out of concern that it would promote racial prejudice, after meeting with a delegation of black citizens. The NAACP set up a precedent-setting national boycott of the film, likely seen as the most successful effort. Additionally, they organized a mass demonstration when the film was screened in Boston, and it was banned in three states and several cities. In 2021, a Harvard University research paper found that the film was shown in 606 counties in the United States and that "[o]n average, lynchings in a county rose fivefold in the month after [the film] arrived." A 2023 study in the American Economic Review found that roadshow screenings of the film were associated with a sharp spike in lynchings and race riots between 1915 and 1920. Contemporary reception. Critical response. "The New York Times" called the film "melodramatic" and "inflammatory" in a brief review adding that: "A great deal might be said concerning the spirit revealed in Mr. Dixon's review of the unhappy chapter of Reconstruction and concerning the sorry service rendered by its plucking at old wounds." "Variety" praised Griffith's direction, claiming he "set such a pace it will take a long time before one will come along that can top it in point of production, acting, photography and direction. Every bit of the film was laid, played and made in America. One may find some flaws in the general running of the picture, but they are so small and insignificant that the bigness and greatness of the entire film production itself completely crowds out any little defects that might be singled out." Burns Mantle in the "New York Daily News" noted "an element of excitement that swept a sophisticated audience like a prairie fire in a high wind", while the "New York Tribune" said it was a "spectacular drama" with "thrills piled upon thrills". "The New Republic", however, called it "aggressively vicious and defamatory" and a "spiritual assassination. It degrades the censors that passed it and the white race that endures it". Box office. The box office gross of "The Birth of a Nation" is not known and has been the subject of exaggeration. When the film opened, the tickets were sold at premium prices. The film played at the Liberty Theater at Times Square in New York City for 44 weeks with tickets priced at $2.20 (). By the end of 1917, Epoch reported to its shareholders cumulative receipts of $4.8 million, and Griffith's own records put Epoch's worldwide earnings from the film at $5.2 million as of 1919, although the distributor's share of the revenue at this time was much lower than the exhibition gross. In the biggest cities, Epoch negotiated with individual theater owners for a percentage of the box office; elsewhere, the producer sold all rights in a particular state to a single distributor (an arrangement known as "state's rights" distribution). The film historian Richard Schickel says that under the state's rights contracts, Epoch typically received about 10% of the box office gross—which theater owners often underreported—and concludes that ""Birth" certainly generated more than $60 million in box-office business in its first run". The film was the highest-grossing film until it was overtaken by "Gone with the Wind" (1939), another film about the Civil War and Reconstruction era. By 1940 "Time" magazine estimated the film's cumulative gross rental (the distributor's earnings) at approximately $15 million. For years "Variety" had the gross rental listed as $50 million, but in 1977 repudiated the claim and revised its estimate down to $5 million. It is not known for sure how much the film has earned in total, but producer Harry Aitken put its estimated earnings at $15–18 million in a letter to a prospective investor in a proposed sound version. It is likely the film earned over $20 million for its backers and generated $50–100 million in box office receipts. In a 2015 "Time" article, Richard Corliss estimated the film had earned the equivalent of $1.8 billion adjusted for inflation, a milestone that at the time had only been surpassed by "Titanic" (1997) and "Avatar" (2009) in nominal earnings. Criticism. Like Dixon's novels and play, "Birth of a Nation" received considerable criticism, both before and after its premiere. Dixon, who believed the film to be entirely truthful and historically accurate, attributed this to "Sectionalists", i.e. non-Southerners who in Dixon's opinion were hostile to the "truth" about the South. It was to counter these "sinister forces" and the "dangerous... menace" that Dixon and Griffith sought "the backing" of President Wilson and the Supreme Court. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protested at premieres of the film in numerous cities. According to the historian David Copeland, "by the time of the movie's March 3 [1915] premiere in New York City, its subject matter had embroiled the film in charges of racism, protests, and calls for censorship, which began after the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP requested the city's film board ban the movie. Since film boards were composed almost entirely of whites, few review boards initially banned Griffith's picture". The NAACP also conducted a public education campaign, publishing articles protesting the film's fabrications and inaccuracies, organizing petitions against it, and conducting education on the facts of the war and Reconstruction. Because of the lack of success in NAACP's actions to ban the film, on April 17, 1915, NAACP secretary Mary Childs Nerney wrote to NAACP Executive Committee member George Packard: "I am utterly disgusted with the situation in regard to "The Birth of a Nation" ... kindly remember that we have put six weeks of constant effort of this thing and have gotten nowhere." W. E. B. Du Bois's biographer David Levering Lewis opined that "... "The Birth of a Nation" and the NAACP helped make each other", in that the NAACP campaign in one sense served as advertising for the film, but that it also "... mobilized thousands of black and white men and women in large cities across the country... who had been unaware of the existence of the [NAACP] or indifferent to it." Jane Addams, an American social worker and social reformer, and the founder of Hull House, voiced her reaction to the film in an interview published by the "New York Post" on March 13, 1915, just ten days after the film was released. She stated that "One of the most unfortunate things about this film is that it appeals to race prejudice upon the basis of conditions of half a century ago, which have nothing to do with the facts we have to consider to-day. Even then it does not tell the whole truth. It is claimed that the play is historical: but history is easy to misuse." In New York, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise told the press after seeing "The Birth of a Nation" that the film was "an indescribable foul and loathsome libel on a race of human beings". In Boston, Booker T. Washington wrote a newspaper column asking readers to boycott the film, while the civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter organized demonstrations against the film, which he predicted was going to worsen race relations. On Saturday, April 10, and again on April 17, Trotter and a group of other blacks tried to buy tickets for the show's premiere at the Tremont Theater and were refused. They stormed the box office in protest, 260 police on standby rushed in, and a general melee ensued. Trotter and ten others were arrested. The following day a huge demonstration was staged at Faneuil Hall. In Washington D.C, the Reverend Francis James Grimké published a pamphlet entitled "Fighting a Vicious Film" that challenged the historical accuracy of "The Birth of a Nation" on a scene-by-scene basis. Both Griffith and Dixon in letters to the press dismissed African-American protests against "The Birth of a Nation". In a letter to "The New York Globe", Griffith wrote that his film was "an influence against the intermarriage of blacks and whites". Dixon likewise called the NAACP "the Negro Intermarriage Society" and said it was against "The Birth of a Nation" "for one reason only—because it opposes the marriage of blacks to whites". Griffith—indignant at the film's negative critical reception—wrote letters to newspapers and published a pamphlet in which he accused his critics of censoring unpopular opinions. When Sherwin Lewis of "The New York Globe" wrote a piece that expressed criticism of the film's distorted portrayal of history and said that it was not worthy of constitutional protection because its purpose was to make a few "dirty dollars", Griffith responded that "the public should not be afraid to accept the truth, even though it might not like it". He also added that the man who wrote the editorial was "damaging my reputation as a producer" and "a liar and a coward". Audience reaction. "The Birth of a Nation" was very popular, despite the film's controversy; it was unlike anything that American audiences had ever seen before. The "Los Angeles Times" called it "the greatest picture ever made and the greatest drama ever filmed". Mary Pickford said: "Birth of a Nation" was the first picture that really made people take the motion picture industry seriously". The producers had 15 "detectives" at the Liberty Theater in New York City "to prevent disorder on the part of those who resent the 'reconstruction period' episodes depicted." The Reverend Charles Henry Parkhurst argued that the film was not racist, saying that it "was exactly true to history" by depicting freedmen as they were and, therefore, it was a "compliment to the black man" by showing how far black people had "advanced" since Reconstruction. Critic Dolly Dalrymple wrote that, "when I saw it, it was far from silent... incessant murmurs of approval, roars of laughter, gasps of anxiety, and outbursts of applause greeted every new picture on the screen". One man viewing the film was so moved by the scene where Flora Cameron flees Gus to avoid being raped that he took out his handgun and began firing at the screen in an effort to help her. Katharine DuPre Lumpkin recalled watching the film as an 18-year-old in 1915 in her 1947 autobiography "The Making of a Southerner": "Here was the black figure—and the fear of the white girl—though the scene blanked out just in time. Here were the sinister men the South scorned and the noble men the South revered. And through it all the Klan rode. All around me people sighed and shivered, and now and then shouted or wept, in their intensity." Sequel and spin-offs. D. W. Griffith made a film in 1916, called "Intolerance", partly in response to the criticism that "The Birth of a Nation" received. Griffith made clear within numerous interviews that the film's title and main themes were chosen in response to those who he felt had been intolerant to "The Birth of a Nation". A sequel called "The Fall of a Nation" was released in 1916, depicting the invasion of the United States by a German-led confederation of European monarchies and criticizing pacifism in the context of the First World War. It was the first feature-length sequel in film history. The film was directed by Thomas Dixon Jr., who adapted it from his novel of the same name. Despite its success in the foreign market, the film was not a success among American audiences, and is now a lost film. In 1918, an American silent drama film directed by John W. Noble called "The Birth of a Race" was released as a direct response to "The Birth of a Nation". The film was an ambitious project by producer Emmett Jay Scott to challenge Griffith's film and tell another side of the story, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1920, African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux released "Within Our Gates", a response to "The Birth of a Nation". "Within Our Gates" depicts the hardships faced by African Americans during the era of Jim Crow laws. Griffith's film was remixed in 2004 as "Rebirth of a Nation" by DJ Spooky. Quentin Tarantino has said that he made his film "Django Unchained" (2012) to counter the falsehoods of "The Birth of a Nation". Influence. In November 1915, William Joseph Simmons revived the Klan in Atlanta, Georgia, holding a cross burning at Stone Mountain. The historian John Hope Franklin observed that, had it not been for "The Birth of a Nation", the Klan might not have been reborn. Modern reception. Critical response. Released in 1915, "The Birth of a Nation" has been considered as innovative among its contemporaries in the early days of film. According to the film historian Kevin Brownlow, the film was "astounding in its time" and initiated "so many advances in film-making technique that it was rendered obsolete within a few years". The content of the work, however, has received widespread criticism for its blatant racism. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: Certainly "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) presents a challenge for modern audiences. Unaccustomed to silent films and uninterested in film history, they find it quaint and not to their taste. Those evolved enough to understand what they are looking at find the early and wartime scenes brilliant, but cringe during the postwar and Reconstruction scenes, which are racist in the ham-handed way of an old minstrel show or a vile comic pamphlet. Despite its controversial story, the film has been praised by film critics, with Ebert mentioning its use as a historical tool: ""The Birth of a Nation" is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil." According to a 2002 article in the "Los Angeles Times", the film facilitated the refounding of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. History.com states that "There is no doubt that "Birth of a Nation" played no small part in winning wide public acceptance" for the KKK, and that throughout the film "African Americans are portrayed as brutish, lazy, morally degenerate, and dangerous." David Duke used the film to recruit Klansmen in the 1970s. In 2013, the American critic Richard Brody wrote "The Birth of a Nation" was: ... a seminal commercial spectacle but also a decisively original work of art—in effect, the founding work of cinematic realism, albeit a work that was developed to pass lies off as reality. It's tempting to think of the film's influence as evidence of the inherent corruption of realism as a cinematic mode—but it's even more revealing to acknowledge the disjunction between its beauty, on the one hand, and, on the other, its injustice and falsehood. The movie's fabricated events shouldn't lead any viewer to deny the historical facts of slavery and Reconstruction. But they also shouldn't lead to a denial of the peculiar, disturbingly exalted beauty of "Birth of a Nation", even in its depiction of immoral actions and its realization of blatant propaganda. The worst thing about "The Birth of a Nation" is how good it is. The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love. And it's that very conflict that renders the film all the more despicable, the experience of the film more of a torment—together with the acknowledgment that Griffith, whose short films for Biograph were already among the treasures of world cinema, yoked his mighty talent to the cause of hatred (which, still worse, he sincerely depicted as virtuous). Brody also argued that Griffith unintentionally undercut his own thesis in the film, citing the scene before the Civil War when the Cameron family offers up lavish hospitality to the Stoneman family who travel past mile after mile of slaves working the cotton fields of South Carolina to reach the Cameron home. Brody maintained that a modern audience can see that the wealth of the Camerons comes from the slaves, forced to do back-breaking work picking the cotton. Likewise, Brody argued that the scene where people in South Carolina celebrate the Confederate victory at the Battle of Bull Run by dancing around the "eerie flare of a bonfire" implies "a dance of death", foreshadowing the destruction of Sherman's March that was to come. In the same way, Brody wrote that the scene where the Klan dumps Gus's body off at the doorstep of Lynch is meant to have the audience cheering, but modern audiences find the scene "obscene and horrifying". Finally, Brody argued that the end of the film, where the Klan prevents defenseless African Americans from exercising their right to vote by pointing guns at them, today seems "unjust and cruel". In an article for "The Atlantic", film critic Ty Burr deemed "The Birth of a Nation" the most influential film in history while criticizing its portrayal of black men as savage. Richard Corliss of "Time" wrote that Griffith "established in the hundreds of one- and two-reelers he directed a cinematic textbook, a fully formed visual language, for the generations that followed. More than anyone else—more than all others combined—he invented the film art. He brought it to fruition in "The Birth of a Nation"." Corliss praised the film's "brilliant storytelling technique" and noted that ""The Birth of a Nation" is nearly as antiwar as it is antiblack. The Civil War scenes, which consume only 30 minutes of the extravaganza, emphasize not the national glory but the human cost of combat. ... Griffith may have been a racist politically, but his refusal to find uplift in the South's war against the Union—and, implicitly, in any war at all—reveals him as a cinematic humanist." Accolades. In 1992, the U.S. Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The American Film Institute ranked it #44 within the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list in 1998. Historical portrayal. The film remains controversial due to its interpretation of American history. University of Houston historian Steven Mintz summarizes its message as follows: "Reconstruction was an unmitigated disaster, African-Americans could never be integrated into white society as equals, and the violent actions of the Ku Klux Klan were justified to reestablish honest government". The South is portrayed as a victim. The first overt mentioning of the war is the scene in which Abraham Lincoln signs the call for the first 75,000 volunteers. However, the first aggression in the Civil War, made when the Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in 1861, is not mentioned in the film. The film suggested that the Ku Klux Klan restored order to the postwar South, which was depicted as endangered by abolitionists, freedmen, and carpetbagging Republican politicians from the North. This is similar to the Dunning School of historiography which was current in academe at the time. The film is slightly less extreme than the books upon which it is based, in which Dixon misrepresented Reconstruction as a nightmarish time when black men ran amok, storming into weddings to rape white women with impunity. The film portrayed President Abraham Lincoln as a friend of the South and refers to him as "the Great Heart". The two romances depicted in the film, Phil Stoneman with Margaret Cameron and Ben Cameron with Elsie Stoneman, reflect Griffith's retelling of history. The couples are used as a metaphor, representing the film's broader message of the need for the reconciliation of the North and South to defend white supremacy. Among both couples, there is an attraction that forms before the war, stemming from the friendship between their families. With the war, however, both families are split apart, and their losses culminate in the end of the war with the defense of white supremacy. One of the intertitles clearly sums up the message of unity: "The former enemies of North and South are united again in defense of their Aryan birthright." The film further reinforced the popular belief held by whites, especially in the South, of Reconstruction as a disaster. In his 1929 book "The Tragic Era: The Revolution After Lincoln", Claude Bowers treated "The Birth of a Nation" as a factually accurate account of Reconstruction. In "The Tragic Era", Bowers presented every black politician in the South as corrupt, portrayed Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens as a vicious "race traitor" intent upon making blacks the equal of whites, and praised the Klan for "saving civilization" in the South. Bowers wrote about black empowerment that the worst sort of "scum" from the North like Stevens "inflamed the Negro's egoism and soon the lustful assaults began. Rape was the foul daughter of Reconstruction!" Academic assessment. Historian E. Merton Coulter treated "The Birth of a Nation" as historically correct and painted a vivid picture of "black beasts" running amok, encouraged by alcohol-sodden, corrupt and vengeful black Republican politicians. Veteran film reviewer Roger Ebert wrote: ... stung by criticisms that the second half of his masterpiece was racist in its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan and its brutal images of blacks, Griffith tried to make amends in "Intolerance" (1916), which criticized prejudice. And in "Broken Blossoms" he told perhaps the first interracial love story in the movies—even though, to be sure, it's an idealized love with no touching. Despite some similarities between the Congressman Stoneman character and Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, Rep. Stevens did not have the family members described and did not move to South Carolina during Reconstruction. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1868. However, Stevens's biracial housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton Smith, was considered his common-law wife, and was generously provided for in his will. In the film, Abraham Lincoln is portrayed in a positive light due to his belief in conciliatory postwar policies toward Southern whites. The president's views are opposite those of Austin Stoneman, a character presented in a negative light, who acts as an antagonist. The assassination of Lincoln marks the transition from war to Reconstruction, each of which periods has one of the two "acts" of the film. In including the assassination, the film also establishes to the audience that the plot of the movie has historical basis. Franklin wrote the film's depiction of Reconstruction as a hellish time when black freedmen ran amok, raping and killing whites with impunity until the Klan stepped in is not supported by the facts. Instead, most freed slaves continued to work for their former masters in Reconstruction for the want of a better alternative and, though relations between freedmen and their former masters were not friendly, very few freedmen sought revenge against the people who had enslaved them. The depictions of mass Klan paramilitary actions did not have historical equivalents. However, there were incidents in 1871 where Klan groups traveled from other areas in fairly large numbers to aid localities in disarming local companies of the all-black portion of the state militia, and the organized Klan continued activities as small groups of "night riders". The civil rights movement of the 1960s inspired a new generation of historians, such as scholar Eric Foner, who led a reassessment of Reconstruction. Building on W. E. B. DuBois' work, but also adding new sources, they focused on achievements of the African American and white Republican coalitions, such as establishment of universal public education and charitable institutions in the South and extension of voting rights to black men. In response, the Southern-dominated Democratic Party and its affiliated white militias used extensive terrorism, intimidation and even assassinations to suppress African-American leaders and voters in the 1870s and thereby to regain power in the South. Legacy. Film innovations. In his review of "The Birth of a Nation" in "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", Jonathan Kline writes that "with countless artistic innovations, Griffith essentially created contemporary film language... virtually every film is beholden to ["The Birth of a Nation"] in one way, shape or form. Griffith introduced the use of dramatic close-ups, tracking shots, and other expressive camera movements; parallel action sequences, crosscutting, and other editing techniques". He added that "the fact that "The Birth of a Nation" remains respected and studied to this day—despite its subject matter—reveals its lasting importance." Griffith helped to pioneer such camera techniques as close-ups, fade-outs, and a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras made to look like thousands. "The Birth of a Nation" also contained many new artistic techniques, such as color tinting for dramatic purposes, and featuring its own musical score written for an orchestra. Home media and restorations. For many years, "The Birth of a Nation" was poorly represented in home media and restorations. This stemmed from several factors, one of which was the fact that Griffith and others had frequently reworked the film, leaving no definitive version. According to the silent film website "Brenton Film", many home media releases of the film consisted of "poor quality DVDs with different edits, scores, [and] running speeds," which were "usually in "definitely unoriginal" black and white." One of the earliest high-quality home versions was film preservationist David Shepard's 1992 transfer of a 16mm print for VHS and LaserDisc release via Image Entertainment. A short documentary, "The Making of The Birth of a Nation", newly produced and narrated by Shepard, was also included. Both were released on DVD by Image in 1998 and the United Kingdom's Eureka Entertainment in 2000. In the UK, Photoplay Productions restored the Museum of Modern Art's 35mm print that was the source of Shepard's 16 mm print, though they also augmented it with extra material from the British Film Institute. It was also given a full orchestral recording of the original Breil score. Though broadcast on Channel 4 television and screened in theaters many times, Photoplay's 1993 version was never released on home video. Shepard's transfer and documentary were reissued in the US by Kino Video in 2002, this time in a 2-DVD set with added extras on the second disc. These included several Civil War shorts also directed by D. W. Griffith. In 2011, Kino prepared an HD transfer of a 35 mm negative from the Paul Killiam Collection. They added some material from the Library of Congress and gave it a new compilation score. This version was released on Blu-ray by Kino in the US, Eureka in the UK (as part of their "Masters of Cinema" collection) and Divisa Home Video in Spain. In 2015, the year of the film's centenary, Photoplay Productions' Patrick Stanbury, in conjunction with the British Film Institute, carried out the first full restoration. It mostly used new 4K scans of the LoC's original camera negative, along with other early generation material. It, too, was given the original Breil score and featured the film's original tinting for the first time since its 1915 release. The restoration was released on a 2-Blu-ray set in the UK and US by the BFI and Twilight Time, alongside a host of extras, including many other newly restored Civil War-related films from the period. In popular culture. I've reclaimed this title and re-purposed it as a tool to challenge racism and white supremacy in America, to inspire a riotous disposition toward any and all injustice in this country (and abroad) and to promote the kind of honest confrontation that will galvanize our society toward healing and sustained systemic change. References. Informational notes Citations Bibliography Further reading
3335	196446	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3335	Baltic Sea	The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North and Central European Plain regions. It is the world's largest brackish water basin. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. It is a shelf sea and marginal sea of the Atlantic with limited water exchange between the two, making it an inland sea. The Baltic Sea drains through the Danish straits into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, Great Belt and Little Belt. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia (divided into the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea), the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdańsk. The "Baltic Proper" is bordered on its northern edge, at latitude 60°N, by Åland and the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga, and in the west by the Swedish part of the southern Scandinavian Peninsula. The Baltic Sea is connected by artificial waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea–Baltic Canal and to the German Bight of the North Sea via the Kiel Canal. Definitions. Administration. The Helsinki Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area includes the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat, without calling Kattegat a part of the Baltic Sea, "For the purposes of this Convention the 'Baltic Sea Area' shall be the Baltic Sea and the Entrance to the Baltic Sea, bounded by the parallel of the Skaw in the Skagerrak at 57°44.43'N." Traffic history. Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea, in tandem: in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør; in the Great Belt at Nyborg; and in the Little Belt at its narrowest part then Fredericia, after that stronghold was built. The narrowest part of Little Belt is the "Middelfart Sund" near Middelfart. Oceanography. Geographers widely agree that the preferred physical border between the Baltic and North Seas is the Langelandsbælt (the southern part of the Great Belt strait near Langeland) and the Drogden-Sill strait. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö; it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the "Drogden Tunnel". By this definition, the Danish straits is part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg and the Bay of Kiel are parts of the Baltic Sea. Another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden, and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. It is also the border between the shallow southern Øresund (with a typical depth of 5–10 meters only) and notably deeper water. Hydrography and biology. Drogden Sill (depth of ) sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill (depth of ), and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of heavy salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm and Gotland. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology. The remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen, and in species. Thus, statistically, the more of the entrance that is included in its definition, the healthier the Baltic appears; conversely, the more narrowly it is defined, the more endangered its biology appears. Etymology and nomenclature. Tacitus called it the Suebic Sea, Latin: after the Germanic people of the Suebi, and Ptolemy "Sarmatian Ocean" after the Sarmatians, but the first to name it the "Baltic Sea" () was the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen. It might be connected to the Germanic word "belt", a name used for two of the Danish straits, the Belts, while others claim it to be directly derived from the source of the Germanic word, Latin "belt". Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt ("Balticus, eo quod in modum baltei longo tractu per Scithicas regiones tendatur usque in Greciam"). He might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the "Natural History" of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named "Baltia" (or "Balcia") with reference to accounts of Pytheas and Xenophon. It is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia ("the royal") in "On the Ocean" by Pytheas. "Baltia" also might be derived from "belt", and therein mean "near belt of sea, strait". Others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root "bʰel" meaning "white, fair", which may echo the naming of seas after colours relating to the cardinal points (as per Black Sea and Red Sea). This 'bʰel' root and basic meaning were retained in Lithuanian (as ), Latvian (as ) and Slavic (as ). On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian. Another explanation is that, while derived from the aforementioned root, the name of the sea is related to names for various forms of water and related substances in several European languages, that might have been originally associated with colors found in swamps (compare Proto-Slavic "bolto" "swamp"). Yet another explanation is that the name originally meant "enclosed sea, bay" as opposed to open sea. In the Middle Ages the sea was known by a variety of names. The name Baltic Sea became dominant after 1600. Usage of "Baltic" and similar terms to denote the region east of the sea started only in the 19th century. Name in other languages. The Baltic Sea was known in ancient Latin language sources as or even . Older native names in languages that used to be spoken on the shores of the sea or near it usually indicate the geographical location of the sea (in Germanic languages), or its size in relation to smaller gulfs (in Old Latvian), or tribes associated with it (in Old Russian the sea was known as the Varanghian Sea). In modern languages, it is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages: History. Classical world. At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the or "Mare Sarmaticum". Tacitus in his AD 98 "Agricola" and "Germania" described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea where the ice broke apart and chunks floated about. The Suebi eventually migrated southwest to temporarily reside in the Rhineland area of modern Germany, where their name survives in the historic region known as Swabia. Jordanes called it the "Germanic Sea" in his work, the "Getica". Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, Norse (Scandinavian) merchants built a trade empire all around the Baltic. Later, the Norse fought for control of the Baltic against Wendish tribes dwelling on the southern shore. The Norse also used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually to the Black Sea and southern Russia. This Norse-dominated period is referred to as the Viking Age. Since the Viking Age, the Scandinavians have referred to the Baltic Sea as "Austmarr" ("Eastern Sea"). "Eastern Sea", appears in the "Heimskringla" and "Eystra salt" appears in "Sörla þáttr". Saxo Grammaticus recorded in "Gesta Danorum" an older name, "Gandvik", "-vik" being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of "Gesta Danorum", is likely to be a misspelling. In addition to fish the sea also provides amber, especially from its southern shores within today's borders of Poland, Russia and Lithuania. First mentions of amber deposits on the South Coast of the Baltic Sea date back to the 12th century. The bordering countries have also traditionally exported lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp and furs by ship across the Baltic. Sweden had from early medieval times exported iron and silver mined there, while Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. Thus, the Baltic Sea has long been crossed by much merchant shipping. The lands on the Baltic's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted to Christianity. This finally happened during the Northern Crusades: Finland in the twelfth century by Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early thirteenth century by Danes and Germans (Livonian Brothers of the Sword). The Teutonic Order gained control over parts of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they set up their monastic state. Lithuania was the last European state to convert to Christianity. An arena of conflict. In the period between the 8th and 14th centuries, there was much piracy in the Baltic from the coasts of Pomerania and Prussia, and the Victual Brothers held Gotland. Starting in the 11th century, the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic were settled by migrants mainly from Germany, a movement called the "Ostsiedlung" ("east settling"). Other settlers were from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Scotland. The Polabian Slavs were gradually assimilated by the Germans. Denmark gradually gained control over most of the Baltic coast, until she lost much of her possessions after being defeated in the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved. In the 13th to 16th centuries, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe was the Hanseatic League, a federation of merchant cities around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden fought wars for "Dominium maris baltici" ("Lordship over the Baltic Sea"). Eventually, it was Sweden that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden, the sea was then referred to as "Mare Nostrum Balticum" ("Our Baltic Sea"). The goal of Swedish warfare during the 17th century was to make the Baltic Sea an all-Swedish sea ("Ett Svenskt innanhav"), something that was accomplished except the part between Riga in Latvia and Stettin in Pomerania. However, the Dutch dominated the Baltic trade in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War brought Russia to the eastern coast. Russia became and remained a dominating power in the Baltic. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg, at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax, and hemp. During the Crimean War, a joint British and French fleet attacked the Russian fortresses in the Baltic; the case is also known as the Åland War. They bombarded Sveaborg, which guards Helsinki; and Kronstadt, which guards Saint Petersburg; and they destroyed Bomarsund in Åland. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern coast became German. World War I was partly fought in the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland was granted access to the Baltic Sea at the expense of Germany by the Polish Corridor and enlarged the port of Gdynia in rivalry with the port of the Free City of Danzig. After the Nazis' rise to power, Germany reclaimed the Memelland and after the outbreak of the Eastern Front (World War II) occupied the Baltic states. In 1945, the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for retreating soldiers and refugees on torpedoed troop transports. The sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" remains the worst maritime disaster in history, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over five thousand airplane wrecks, sunken warships, and other material, mainly from World War II, on the bottom of the sea. Since World War II. Since the end of World War II, various nations, including the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States have disposed of chemical weapons in the Baltic Sea, raising concerns of environmental contamination. Today, fishermen occasionally find some of these materials: the most recent available report from the Helsinki Commission notes that four small scale catches of chemical munitions representing approximately of material were reported in 2005. This is a reduction from the 25 incidents representing of material in 2003. Until now, the U.S. Government refuses to disclose the exact coordinates of the wreck sites. Deteriorating bottles leak mustard gas and other substances, thus slowly poisoning a substantial part of the Baltic Sea. After 1945, the German population was expelled from all areas east of the Oder-Neisse line, making room for new Polish and Russian settlement. Poland gained most of the southern shore. The Soviet Union gained another access to the Baltic with the Kaliningrad Oblast, that had been part of German-settled East Prussia. The Baltic states on the eastern shore were annexed by the Soviet Union. The Baltic then separated opposing military blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Neutral Sweden developed incident weapons to defend its territorial waters after the Swedish submarine incidents. This border status restricted trade and travel. It ended only after the collapse of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively, making the Baltic Sea almost entirely surrounded by the alliance's members, leading some commentators to label the sea a "NATO lake". However, the legal status of the sea has not changed and it is still open to all nations. Such an arrangement has also existed for the European Union (EU) since May 2004 following the accession of the Baltic states and Poland. The remaining non-NATO and non-EU shore areas are Russian: the Saint Petersburg area and the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave. The Baltic Sea today is of significant economic and security importance due to its dense network of submarine cables, energy pipelines, ports and offshore energy platforms. In recent years, there have been a number of incidents of sabotage in the Baltic Sea, resulting in damage to critical infrastructures. The most notable incidents include the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage in 2022, where a series of underwater explosions destroyed both Nord Stream 1 and 2. In 2023, there was another incident involving the Balticconnector gas pipeline and a nearby data cable, which were damaged by the Hong Kong-flagged container ship NewNew Polar Bear. Other significant incidents include the recent damage to several undersea communication cables. The most recent incident of relevance was the rupture of the Estlink 2 cable in late 2024. It is suspected that the oil tanker Eagle S, believed to be part of a Russian shadow fleet, is responsible. These events followed a series of responses from both NATO and the EU. In response, NATO Baltic Sea states have increased their naval presence in the Baltic Sea, and the NATO operation was established. Simultaneously, the EU has implemented a series of measures designed to enhance the protection of critical maritime infrastructure. The EU has also underscored the commitment to strengthening cooperation with NATO. Storms and storm floods. Winter storms begin arriving in the region during October. These have caused numerous shipwrecks, and contributed to the extreme difficulties of rescuing passengers of the ferry MS "Estonia" en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, in September 1994, which claimed the lives of 852 people. Older, wood-based shipwrecks such as the "Vasa" tend to remain well-preserved, as the Baltic's cold and brackish water does not suit the shipworm. Storm surge floods are generally taken to occur when the water level is more than one metre above normal. In Warnemünde about 110 floods occurred from 1950 to 2000, an average of just over two per year. Historic flood events were the All Saints' Flood of 1304 and other floods in the years 1320, 1449, 1625, 1694, 1784 and 1825. Little is known of their extent. From 1872, there exist regular and reliable records of water levels in the Baltic Sea. The highest was the flood of 1872 when the water was an average of above sea level at Warnemünde and a maximum of above sea level in Warnemünde. In the last very heavy floods the average water levels reached above sea level in 1904, in 1913, in January 1954, on 2–4 November 1995 and on 21 February 2002. Geography. Geophysical data. An arm of the North Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic Sea is enclosed by Sweden and Denmark to the west, Finland to the northeast, and the Baltic countries to the southeast. It is about long, an average of wide, and an average of deep. The maximum depth is which is on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about and the volume is about . The periphery amounts to about of coastline. The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish inland seas by area, and occupies a basin (a "Zungenbecken") formed by glacial erosion during the last few ice ages. Extent. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Baltic Sea as follows: Bordered by the coasts of Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, it extends north-eastward of the following limits: "In the Little Belt." A line joining Falshöft () and Vejsnæs Nakke (Ærø: ). "In the Great Belt." A line joining Gulstav (South extreme of Langeland Island) and Kappel Kirke () on Island of Lolland. "In the Guldborg Sound." A line joining Flinthorne-Rev and Skjelby (). *"In the Sound." A line joining Stevns Lighthouse () and Falsterbo Point (). Subdivisions. The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia, of which the northernmost part is the Bay of Bothnia or Bothnian Bay. The more rounded southern basin of the gulf is called Bothnian Sea and immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland. The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with Saint Petersburg. The Gulf of Riga lies between the Latvian capital city of Riga and the Estonian island of Saaremaa. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea or Baltic proper. The Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm, and the shallower Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. In the south, the Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel Peninsula on the Polish coast and west of the Sambia Peninsula in Kaliningrad Oblast. The Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom/Uznam and Wolin, east of Rügen. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The three Danish straits, the Great Belt, the Little Belt and The Sound ("Öresund"/"Øresund"), connect the Baltic Sea with the Kattegat and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea. Temperature and ice. The water temperature of the Baltic Sea varies significantly depending on exact location, season and depth. At the Bornholm Basin, which is located directly east of the island of the same name, the surface temperature typically falls to during the peak of the winter and rises to during the peak of the summer, with an annual average of around . A similar pattern can be seen in the Gotland Basin, which is located between the island of Gotland and Latvia. In the deep of these basins the temperature variations are smaller. At the bottom of the Bornholm Basin, deeper than , the temperature typically is , and at the bottom of the Gotland Basin, at depths greater than , the temperature typically is . Generally, offshore locations, lower latitudes and islands maintain maritime climates, but adjacent to the water continental climates are common, especially on the Gulf of Finland. In the northern tributaries the climates transition from moderate continental to subarctic on the northernmost coastlines. On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered at the annual maximum for about 45% of its surface area. The ice-covered area during such a typical winter includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the archipelago west of Estonia, the Stockholm archipelago, and the Archipelago Sea southwest of Finland. The remainder of the Baltic does not freeze during a normal winter, except sheltered bays and shallow lagoons such as the Curonian Lagoon. The ice reaches its maximum extent in February or March; typical ice thickness in the northernmost areas in the Bothnian Bay, the northern basin of the Gulf of Bothnia, is about for landfast sea ice. The thickness decreases farther south. Freezing begins in the northern extremities of the Gulf of Bothnia typically in the middle of November, reaching the open waters of the Bothnian Bay in early January. The Bothnian Sea, the basin south of Kvarken, freezes on average in late February. The Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga freeze typically in late January. In 2011, the Gulf of Finland was completely frozen on 15 February. The ice extent depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate, or severe. In severe winters ice can form around southern Sweden and even in the Danish straits. According to the 18th-century natural historian William Derham, during the severe winters of 1703 and 1708, the ice cover reached as far as the Danish straits. Frequently, parts of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland are frozen, in addition to coastal fringes in more southerly locations such as the Gulf of Riga. This description meant that the whole of the Baltic Sea was covered with ice. Since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely 20 times, most recently in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since 1720. The ice then covered . During the winter of 2010–11, which was quite severe compared to those of the last decades, the maximum ice cover was , which was reached on 25 February 2011. The ice then extended from the north down to the northern tip of Gotland, with small ice-free areas on either side, and the east coast of the Baltic Sea was covered by an ice sheet about wide all the way to Gdańsk. This was brought about by a stagnant high-pressure area that lingered over central and northern Scandinavia from around 10 to 24 February. After this, strong southern winds pushed the ice further into the north, and much of the waters north of Gotland were again free of ice, which had then packed against the shores of southern Finland. The effects of the aforementioned high-pressure area did not reach the southern parts of the Baltic Sea, and thus the entire sea did not freeze over. However, floating ice was additionally observed near Świnoujście harbor in January 2010. In recent years before 2011, the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea were frozen with solid ice near the Baltic coast and dense floating ice far from it. In 2008, almost no ice formed except for a short period in March. During winter, fast ice, which is attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering ports unusable without the services of icebreakers. Level ice, ice sludge, pancake ice, and rafter ice form in the more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the Arctic, with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to . Offshore of the landfast ice, the ice remains very dynamic all year, and it is relatively easily moved around by winds and therefore forms pack ice, made up of large piles and ridges pushed against the landfast ice and shores. In spring, the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia normally thaw in late April, with some ice ridges persisting until May in the eastern extremities of the Gulf of Finland. In the northernmost reaches of the Bothnian Bay, ice usually stays until late May; by early June it is practically always gone. However, in the famine year of 1867 remnants of ice were observed as late as 17 July near Uddskär. Even as far south as Øresund, remnants of ice have been observed in May on several occasions; near Taarbaek on 15 May 1942 and near Copenhagen on 11 May 1771. Drift ice was also observed on 11 May 1799. The ice cover is the main habitat for two large mammals, the grey seal ("Halichoerus grypus") and the Baltic ringed seal ("Pusa hispida botnica"), both of which feed underneath the ice and breed on its surface. Of these two seals, only the Baltic ringed seal suffers when there is not adequate ice in the Baltic Sea, as it feeds its young only while on ice. The grey seal is adapted to reproducing also with no ice in the sea. The sea ice also harbors several species of algae that live in the bottom and inside unfrozen brine pockets in the ice. Due to the often fluctuating winter temperatures between above and below freezing, the saltwater ice of the Baltic Sea can be treacherous and hazardous to walk on, in particular in comparison to the more stable fresh water-ice sheets in the interior lakes. Hydrography. The Baltic Sea flows out through the Danish straits; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges per year into the North Sea. Due to the difference in salinity, by salinity permeation principle, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in per year. It mixes very slowly with the upper waters, resulting in a salinity gradient from top to bottom, with most of the saltwater remaining below deep. The general circulation is anti-clockwise: northwards along its eastern boundary, and south along with the western one . The difference between the outflow and the inflow comes entirely from fresh water. More than 250 streams drain a basin of about , contributing a volume of per year to the Baltic. They include the major rivers of north Europe, such as the Oder, the Vistula, the Neman, the Daugava and the Neva. Additional fresh water comes from the difference of precipitation less evaporation, which is positive. An important source of salty water is infrequent inflows (also known as major Baltic inflows or MBIs) of North Sea water into the Baltic. Such inflows, important to the Baltic ecosystem because of the oxygen they transport into the Baltic deeps, happen on average once per year, but large pulses that can replace the anoxic deep water in the Gotland Deep occur about once in ten years. Previously, it was believed that the frequency of MBIs had declined since 1980, but recent studies have challenged this view and no longer display a clear change in the frequency or intensity of saline inflows. Instead, a decadal variability in the intensities of MBIs is observed with a main period of approximately 30 years. The water level is generally far more dependent on the regional wind situation than on tidal effects. However, tidal currents occur in narrow passages in the western parts of the Baltic Sea. Tides can reach in the Gulf of Finland. The significant wave height is generally much lower than that of the North Sea. Quite violent, sudden storms sweep the surface ten or more times a year, due to large transient temperature differences and a long reach of the wind. Seasonal winds also cause small changes in sea level, of the order of . According to the media, during a storm in January 2017, an extreme wave above has been measured and significant wave height of around has been measured by the FMI. A numerical study has shown the presence of events with significant wave heights. Those extreme waves events can play an important role in the coastal zone on erosion and sea dynamics. Salinity. The Baltic Sea is the world's largest brackish sea. Only two other brackish waters are larger according to some measurements: The Black Sea is larger in both surface area and water volume, but most of it is located outside the continental shelf (only a small fraction is inland). The Caspian Sea is larger in water volume, but—despite its name—it is a lake rather than a sea. The Baltic Sea's salinity is much lower than that of ocean water (which averages 3.5%), as a result of abundant freshwater runoff from the surrounding land (rivers, streams and alike), combined with the shallowness of the sea itself; runoff contributes roughly one-fortieth its total volume per year, as the volume of the basin is about and yearly runoff is about . The open surface waters of the Baltic Sea "proper" generally have a salinity of 0.3 to 0.9%, which is border-line freshwater. The flow of freshwater into the sea from approximately two hundred rivers and the introduction of salt from the southwest builds up a gradient of salinity in the Baltic Sea. The highest surface salinities, generally 0.7–0.9%, are in the southwestern most part of the Baltic, in the Arkona and Bornholm basins (the former located roughly between southeast Zealand and Bornholm, and the latter directly east of Bornholm). It gradually falls further east and north, reaching the lowest in the Bothnian Bay at around 0.3%. Drinking the surface water of the Baltic as a means of survival would actually hydrate the body instead of dehydrating, as is the case with ocean water. As saltwater is denser than freshwater, the bottom of the Baltic Sea is saltier than the surface. This creates a vertical stratification of the water column, a halocline, that represents a barrier to the exchange of oxygen and nutrients, and fosters completely separate maritime environments. The difference between the bottom and surface salinities varies depending on location. Overall it follows the same southwest to east and north pattern as the surface. At the bottom of the Arkona Basin (equaling depths greater than ) and Bornholm Basin (depths greater than ) it is typically 1.4–1.8%. Further east and north the salinity at the bottom is consistently lower, being the lowest in Bothnian Bay (depths greater than ) where it is slightly below 0.4%, or only marginally higher than the surface in the same region. In contrast, the salinity of the Danish straits, which connect the Baltic Sea and Kattegat, tends to be significantly higher, but with major variations from year to year. For example, the surface and bottom salinity in the Great Belt is typically around 2.0% and 2.8% respectively, which is only somewhat below that of the Kattegat. The water surplus caused by the continuous inflow of rivers and streams to the Baltic Sea means that there generally is a flow of brackish water out through the Danish straits to the Kattegat (and eventually the Atlantic). Significant flows in the opposite direction, salt water from the Kattegat through the Danish straits to the Baltic Sea, are less regular and are known as major Baltic inflows (MBIs). Major tributaries. The rating of mean discharges differs from the ranking of hydrological lengths (from the most distant source to the sea) and the rating of the nominal lengths. Göta älv, a tributary of the Kattegat, is not listed, as due to the northward upper low-salinity-flow in the sea, its water hardly reaches the Baltic proper: Coastal countries. Countries that border the sea: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden. Countries lands in the outer drainage basin: Belarus, Czech Republic, Norway, Slovakia, Ukraine. The Baltic Sea drainage basin is roughly four times the surface area of the sea itself. About 48% of the region is forested, with Sweden and Finland containing the majority of the forest, especially around the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. About 20% of the land is used for agriculture and pasture, mainly in Poland and around the edge of the Baltic Proper, in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. About 17% of the basin is unused open land with another 8% of wetlands. Most of the latter are in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. The rest of the land is heavily populated. About 85 million people live in the Baltic drainage basin, 15 million within of the coast and 29 million within of the coast. Around 22 million live in population centers of over 250,000. 90% of these are concentrated in the band around the coast. Of the nations containing all or part of the basin, Poland includes 45% of the 85 million, Russia 12%, Sweden 10% and the others less than 6% each. Cities. The biggest coastal cities (by population): Other important ports: Geology. The Baltic Sea somewhat resembles a riverbed, with two tributaries, the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia. Geological surveys show that before the Pleistocene, instead of the Baltic Sea, there was a wide plain around a great river that paleontologists call the Eridanos. Several Pleistocene glacial episodes scooped out the river bed into the sea basin. By the time of the last, or Eemian Stage (MIS 5e), the Eemian Sea was in place. Sometimes the Baltic Sea is considered a very large estuary, with freshwater outflow from numerous rivers. From that time the waters underwent a geologic history summarized under the names listed below. Many of the stages are named after marine animals (e.g. the Littorina mollusk) that are clear markers of changing water temperatures and salinity. The factors that determined the sea's characteristics were the submergence or emergence of the region due to the weight of ice and subsequent isostatic readjustment, and the connecting channels it found to the North Sea-Atlantic, either through the straits of Denmark or at what are now the large lakes of Sweden, and the White Sea-Arctic Sea. There are a number of named and dated stages in the evolution of the Baltic Sea: The land is still emerging isostatically from its depressed state, which was caused by the weight of ice during the last glaciation. The phenomenon is known as post-glacial rebound. Consequently, the surface area and the depth of the sea are diminishing. The uplift is about eight millimeters per year on the Finnish coast of the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia. In the area, the former seabed is only gently sloping, leading to large areas of land being reclaimed in what are, geologically speaking, relatively short periods (decades and centuries). Biology. Fauna and flora. The fauna of the Baltic Sea is a mixture of marine and freshwater species. Among marine fishes are Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, European hake, European plaice, European flounder, shorthorn sculpin and turbot, and examples of freshwater species include European perch, northern pike, whitefish and common roach. Freshwater species may occur at outflows of rivers or streams in all coastal sections of the Baltic Sea. Otherwise, marine species dominate in most sections of the Baltic, at least as far north as Gävle, where less than one-tenth are freshwater species. Further north the pattern is inverted. In the Bothnian Bay, roughly two-thirds of the species are freshwater. In the far north of this bay, saltwater species are almost entirely absent. For example, the common starfish and shore crab, two species that are very widespread along European coasts, are both unable to cope with the significantly lower salinity. Their range limit is west of Bornholm, meaning that they are absent from the vast majority of the Baltic Sea. Some marine species, like the Atlantic cod and European flounder, can survive at relatively low salinities but need higher salinities to breed, which therefore occurs in deeper parts of the Baltic Sea. The common blue mussel is the dominating animal species, and makes up more than 90% of the total animal biomass in the sea. There is a decrease in species richness from the Danish belts to the Gulf of Bothnia. The decreasing salinity along this path causes restrictions in both physiology and habitats. At more than 600 species of invertebrates, fish, aquatic mammals, aquatic birds and macrophytes, the Arkona Basin (roughly between southeast Zealand and Bornholm) is far richer than other more eastern and northern basins in the Baltic Sea, which all have less than 400 species from these groups, with the exception of the Gulf of Finland with more than 750 species. However, even the most diverse sections of the Baltic Sea have far fewer species than the almost-full saltwater Kattegat, which is home to more than 1600 species from these groups. The lack of tides has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic. Since the Baltic Sea is so young there are only two or three known endemic species: the brown alga "Fucus radicans" and the flounder "Platichthys solemdali". Both appear to have evolved in the Baltic basin and were only recognized as species in 2005 and 2018 respectively, having formerly been confused with more widespread relatives. The tiny Copenhagen cockle ("Parvicardium hauniense"), a rare mussel, is sometimes considered endemic, but has now been recorded in the Mediterranean. However, some consider non-Baltic records to be misidentifications of juvenile lagoon cockles ("Cerastoderma glaucum"). Several widespread marine species have distinctive subpopulations in the Baltic Sea adapted to the low salinity, such as the Baltic Sea forms of the Atlantic herring and lumpsucker, which are smaller than the widespread forms in the North Atlantic. A peculiar feature of the fauna is that it contains a number of glacial relict species, isolated populations of arctic species which have remained in the Baltic Sea since the last glaciation, such as the large isopod "Saduria entomon", the Baltic subspecies of ringed seal, and the fourhorn sculpin. Some of these relicts are derived from glacial lakes, such as "Monoporeia affinis", which is a main element in the benthic fauna of the low-salinity Bothnian Bay. Cetaceans in the Baltic Sea are monitored by the countries bordering the sea and data compiled by various intergovernmental bodies, such as ASCOBANS. A critically endangered population of harbor porpoise inhabit the Baltic proper, whereas the species is abundant in the outer Baltic (Western Baltic and Danish straits) and occasionally oceanic and out-of-range species such as minke whales, bottlenose dolphins, beluga whales, orcas, and beaked whales visit the waters. In recent years, very small, but with increasing rates, fin whales and humpback whales migrate into Baltic sea including mother and calf pair. Now extinct Atlantic grey whales (remains found from Gräsö along Bothnian Sea/southern Bothnian Gulf and Ystad) and eastern population of North Atlantic right whales that is facing functional extinction once migrated into Baltic Sea. Other notable megafauna include the basking sharks. Environmental status. Satellite images taken in July 2010 revealed a massive algal bloom covering in the Baltic Sea. The area of the bloom extended from Germany and Poland to Finland. Researchers of the phenomenon have indicated that algal blooms have occurred every summer for decades. Fertilizer runoff from surrounding agricultural land has exacerbated the problem and led to increased eutrophication. Approximately of the Baltic's seafloor (a quarter of its total area) is a variable dead zone. The more saline (and therefore denser) water remains on the bottom, isolating it from surface waters and the atmosphere. This leads to decreased oxygen concentrations within the zone. It is mainly bacteria that grow in it, digesting organic material and releasing hydrogen sulfide. Because of this large anaerobic zone, the seafloor ecology differs from that of the neighboring Atlantic. Plans to artificially oxygenate areas of the Baltic that have experienced eutrophication have been proposed by the University of Gothenburg and Inocean AB. The proposal intends to use wind-driven pumps to pump oxygen-rich surface water to a depth of around 130 m. After World War II, Germany had to be disarmed and large quantities of ammunition stockpiles were disposed directly into the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Environmental experts and marine biologists warn that these ammunition dumps pose an environmental threat with potentially life-threatening consequences to the health and safety of humans on the coastlines of these seas. Future change. Climate change, and pollution from agriculture and forestry, impose such strong effects on the ecosystems of the Baltic sea, that there is a concern the sea will turn from a carbon sink to a source of CO2 and methane. Modelling climate change and the impact of well characterised factors such as post-glacial rebound before the year 2050, is complicated by the unique properties of the Baltic Sea area compared to say the adjacent North Sea and controversy as to the relative contributions of socio-economic factors such as land use to any warming component. These include its current brackish water, the southern subbasin tendency to have a vertical stratification of the halocline, and the northern subbasin seasonal sea ice cover. High confidence future projections include: air temperature warming, more heavy precipitation episodes, less snow with less perifrost and glacial ice mass in northern catchment areas, more mild winters, raised mean water temperature with more marine heatwaves, intensified seasonal thermoclines without change in the thermohaline circulation, and sea level rise. There are many more projections but these have lower confidence. Economy. Construction of the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark (completed 1997) and the Øresund Bridge-Tunnel (completed 1999), linking Denmark with Sweden, provided a highway and railroad connection between Sweden and the Danish mainland (the Jutland Peninsula, precisely the Zealand). The undersea tunnel of the Øresund Bridge-Tunnel provides for navigation of large ships into and out of the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is the main trade route for the export of Russian petroleum. Countries neighboring the Baltic Sea have expressed concerns about this since a major oil leak in a seagoing tanker would be especially disastrous for the Baltic given the slow exchange of water in the ecosystem. The tourism industry surrounding the Baltic Sea is naturally concerned about oil pollution. Much shipbuilding is carried out in the shipyards around the Baltic Sea. The largest shipyards are at Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Szczecin, Poland; Kiel, Germany; Karlskrona and Malmö, Sweden; Rauma, Turku, and Helsinki, Finland; Riga, Ventspils, and Liepāja, Latvia; Klaipėda, Lithuania; and Saint Petersburg, Russia. Construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link between Denmark and Germany is due to finish in 2029. It will be a three-bore tunnel carrying four motorway lanes and two rail tracks. Through the development of offshore wind power the Baltic Sea is expected to become a major source of energy for countries in the region. According to the Marienborg Declaration, signed in 2022, all EU Baltic Sea states have announced their intentions to have 19.6 gigawatts of offshore wind in operation by 2030. Ferries. There are several cargo and passenger ferries that operate on the Baltic Sea, such as Tourism. Piers Resort towns Critical Maritime Infrastructure (CMI). Critical maritime infrastructure (CMI) includes pipelines, ports, undersea cables and energy installations. Following a series of incidents between 2022 and 2025, critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea has drawn growing political attention. In September 2022, both Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II were damaged by explosives close to Bornholm in Denmark. In October 2023, the Bal-ticconnector gas pipeline was damaged by the anchor of the Chinese container vessel New New Polar Bear. In November 2024, telecoms cables were damaged, another case of suspected sabotage from a Chinese bulk carrier, departing from a Russian port. In December 2024, a ship called Estlink 2, which is registered in the Cook Islands, is thought to be part of a Russian shadow fleet. It is suspected that this ship damaged internet cables. These incidents have led to responses from NATO, the European Union and national governments. NATO has increased its air and naval presence, as well as agreed to establish the Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure within NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM), among other cooperation efforts. The EU has updated its Maritime Security Strategy, launched an action plan and a coordi-nation group for infrastructure protection, while national governments have strengthened surveil-lance, legal tools, and seabed defence capabilities. Aside from technical standards, political decisions influence what is deemed as "critical" infrastructure. Critical maritime infrastructure is deemed as critical since economies in today's society are dependent on this infrastructure. Therefore, they require an extra layer of protection, whether by security policies or military protection. Hybrid warfare. In the current geopolitical climate, CMI is facing challenges posed by hybrid warfare threats. Hybrid threats in the Baltic Sea are often associated with Russian actions and operate below the official threshold of war, which poses a political challenge. The challenge posed by hybrid threats is that they operate in a grey area between peace and violence . For example, the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage demonstrated this problem by exploitation of legal ambiguities, the complexity of attribution, and the disruption of alliance cohesion. The incident highlights the vulnerability of criti-cal infrastructure and the absence of coherent political responses. Responding to hybrid threats requires sustained and coordinated efforts between civilian and military actors. However, the maritime domain presents unique difficulties, including jurisdictional overlaps, fragmented responsibilities, and the challenge of adapting land-based security frameworks to the sea. Hybrid tactics, such as uncrewed aerial vehicle (drone) surveillance, covert sabotage, and information manipulation, aim not only to damage infrastructure but also to undermine public trust and create strategic instability in the region. Geopolitical Dimensions of Critical Maritime Infrastructure. The Baltic Sea region in the post-Cold War era has for a long time been regarded as an area with little geopolitical tensions. With the Soviet presence in the south, the American influence through the NATO members Denmark and Germany and the neutral states Sweden and Finland, an equilibrium existed, often referred to as the "Nordic balance". This balance also prolonged after the steady integration of the region into western institutions. However, in recent years this geopolitical reality has increasingly been challenged by the neo-imperial ambitions of Russia, manifesting itself in aggression against Ukraine. This development reached its peak with the full-scale invasion of the sovereign country in 2022. Also in the Baltic Sea has Russia pursued a strategy of regional dominance, designating the regional sea as a zone of strategic influence in its naval doctrine published in 2022. Yet, such a positioning in itself was significantly complicated by the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. Against this geopolitical background, it becomes clear, why many of the recent infrastructure projects in the Baltic Sea were subject to big political debates. Projects such as the Balticconnector, which links the Finnish and Estonian gas markets and has been described by the European Commission as an expression of European solidarity, whilst the Gas Interconnection Poland–Lithuania (GIPL) which connects the Polish and Lithuanian gas networks, and the development of multiple LNG terminals, have all played a significant role in reducing European reliance on Russian energy supplies. These initiatives form part of broader efforts to enhance regional integration and bring the Baltic Sea states into closer alignment with the European Union. In contrast, the Nord Stream pipelines, particularly Nord Stream 2, became a source of political controversy. Critics argued that the project would increase European dependence on Russian gas, bypass transit countries such as Ukraine and Poland, and undermine EU energy solidarity by strengthening Russia’s leverage over countries like Germany. Nord Stream 2 experienced prolonged delays and was ultimately suspended following the imposition of international sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In addition to political and economic controversies, the Nord Stream pipelines also became the subject of security-related concerns regarding their potential strategic implications in the Baltic Sea region. Prior to the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, security experts and several Eastern European states had raised concerns that such infrastructure could be exploited by Russia for intelligence gathering and military purposes in the Baltic Sea. These concerns gained renewed attention following the sabotage incident, which highlighted challenges in the legal and regulatory frameworks governing the protection of critical infrastructure. The difficulty in conclusively attributing the attack also drew attention to the limitations of existing mechanisms for responding to hybrid threats in the maritime domain. Helsinki Convention. 1974 Convention. For the first time ever, all the sources of pollution around an entire sea were made subject to a single convention, signed in 1974 by the then seven Baltic coastal states. The 1974 Convention entered into force on 3 May 1980. 1992 Convention. In the light of political changes and developments in international environmental and maritime law, a new convention was signed in 1992 by all the states bordering on the Baltic Sea, and the European Community. After ratification, the Convention entered into force on 17 January 2000. The Convention covers the whole of the Baltic Sea area, including inland waters and the water of the sea itself, as well as the seabed. Measures are also taken in the whole catchment area of the Baltic Sea to reduce land-based pollution. The convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, 1992, entered into force on 17 January 2000. The governing body of the convention is the Helsinki Commission, also known as HELCOM, or Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission. The present contracting parties are Denmark, Estonia, the European Community, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden. The ratification instruments were deposited by the European Community, Germany, Latvia and Sweden in 1994, by Estonia and Finland in 1995, by Denmark in 1996, by Lithuania in 1997, and by Poland and Russia in November 1999. Coordination in the Baltic Sea region. European Union. The European Union (EU) is one core framework shaping regional security coordination in the Baltic Sea region. The EU has recognised this area as one of thirteen designated zones for territorial cooperation. Following the accession of the Baltic States in 2004, the Baltic Sea is now considered an EU internal sea. The following initiatives form the basis of the EU's engagement in Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) and Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA) in the Baltic Sea: NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is the primary provider of a collective defense system. Following the accession of Finland in 2023 and Sweden in 2024, the majority of the states bordering the Baltic Sea have become members of NATO, simplifying the organisational geography of the region. The following NATO initiatives and bodies are particularly relevant for the Baltic Sea region: Nordic Defence Cooperation. The Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) is a military alliance comprising the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. It was established in 2009. The objectives of this cooperation structure include improving the national defense of each country, identifying shared strategic interests, and promoting the development of coordinated, effective responses. The strategy paper 'Vision 2025' outlines plans to enhance collaboration with the Baltic states and transatlantic allies. Council of the Baltic Sea States. The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) is an intergovernmental political organisation that focuses on regional cooperation. It was established in 1992. CBSS comprises ten European states and the European Union. The organisation serves as a forum for political dialogue in the region and follows three main objectives: Regional Identity, Safe & Secure Region, and Sustainable & Prosperous Region. CBSS holds annual regional and international meetings.
3336	17678816	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3336	Brackish water	Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak". Certain human activities can produce brackish water, in particular civil engineering projects such as dikes and the flooding of coastal marshland to produce brackish water pools for freshwater prawn farming. Brackish water is also the primary waste product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it can be damaging to the environment (see article on shrimp farms). Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand (‰), which is a specific gravity of between 1.0004 and 1.0226. Thus, "brackish" covers a range of salinity regimes and is not considered a precisely defined condition. It is characteristic of many brackish surface waters that their salinity can vary considerably over space or time. Water with a salt concentration greater than 30‰ is considered saline. Brackish water habitats. Estuaries. Brackish water condition commonly occurs when fresh water meets seawater. In fact, the most extensive brackish water habitats worldwide are estuaries, where a river meets the sea. The River Thames flowing through London is a classic river estuary. The town of Teddington a few miles west of London marks the boundary between the tidal and non-tidal parts of the Thames, although it is still considered a freshwater river about as far east as Battersea insofar as the average salinity is very low and the fish fauna consists predominantly of freshwater species such as roach, dace, carp, perch, and pike. The Thames Estuary becomes brackish between Battersea and Gravesend, and the diversity of freshwater fish species present is smaller, primarily roach and dace; euryhaline marine species such as flounder, European seabass, mullet, and smelt become much more common. Further east, the salinity increases and the freshwater fish species are completely replaced by euryhaline marine ones, until the river reaches Gravesend, at which point conditions become fully marine and the fish fauna resembles that of the adjacent North Sea and includes both euryhaline and stenohaline marine species. A similar pattern of replacement can be observed with the aquatic plants and invertebrates living in the river. This type of ecological succession from freshwater to marine ecosystem is typical of river estuaries. River estuaries form important staging points during the migration of anadromous and catadromous fish species, such as salmon, shad and eels, giving them time to form social groups and to adjust to the changes in salinity. Salmon are anadromous, meaning they live in the sea but ascend rivers to spawn; eels are catadromous, living in rivers and streams, but returning to the sea to breed. Besides the species that migrate through estuaries, there are many other fish that use them as "nursery grounds" for spawning or as places young fish can feed and grow before moving elsewhere. Herring and plaice are two commercially important species that use the Thames Estuary for this purpose. Estuaries are also commonly used as fishing grounds and as places for fish farming or ranching. For example, Atlantic salmon farms are often located in estuaries, although this has caused controversy, because in doing so, fish farmers expose migrating wild fish to large numbers of external parasites such as sea lice that escape from the pens the farmed fish are kept in. Mangroves. Another important brackish water habitat is the mangrove swamp or mangal. Many, though not all, mangrove swamps fringe estuaries and lagoons where the salinity changes with each tide. Among the most specialised residents of mangrove forests are mudskippers, fish that forage for food on land, and archerfish, perch-like fish that "spit" at insects and other small animals living in the trees, knocking them into the water where they can be eaten. Like estuaries, mangrove swamps are extremely important breeding grounds for many fish, with species such as snappers, halfbeaks, and tarpon spawning or maturing among them. Besides fish, numerous other animals use mangroves, including such species as the saltwater crocodile, American crocodile, proboscis monkey, diamondback terrapin, and the crab-eating frog, "Fejervarya cancrivora" (formerly "Rana cancrivora"). Mangroves represent important nesting sites for numerous birds groups such as herons, storks, spoonbills, ibises, kingfishers, shorebirds and seabirds. Although often plagued with mosquitoes and other insects that make them unpleasant for humans, mangrove swamps are very important buffer zones between land and sea, and are a natural defense against hurricane and tsunami damage in particular. The Sundarbans and Bhitarkanika Mangroves are two of the large mangrove forests in the world, both on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Brackish seas and lakes. Some seas and lakes are brackish. The Baltic Sea is a brackish sea adjoining the North Sea. Originally the Eridanos river system prior to the Pleistocene, since then it has been flooded by the North Sea but still receives so much freshwater from the adjacent lands that the water is brackish. As seawater is denser, the water in the Baltic is stratified, with seawater at the bottom and freshwater at the top. Limited mixing occurs because of the lack of tides and storms, with the result that the fish fauna at the surface is freshwater in composition while that lower down is more marine. Cod are an example of a species only found in deep water in the Baltic, while pike are confined to the less saline surface waters. The Caspian Sea is the world's largest lake and contains brackish water with a salinity about one-third that of normal seawater. The Caspian is famous for its peculiar animal fauna, including one of the few non-marine seals (the Caspian seal) and the great sturgeons, a major source of caviar. Hudson Bay is a brackish marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, it remains brackish due its limited connections to the open ocean, very high levels freshwater surface runoff input from the large Hudson Bay drainage basin, and low rate of evaporation due to being completely covered in ice for over half the year. In the Black Sea the surface water is brackish with an average salinity of about 17–18 parts per thousand compared to 30 to 40 for the oceans. The deep, anoxic water of the Black Sea originates from warm, salty water of the Mediterranean. Lake Texoma, a reservoir on the border between the U.S. states of Texas and Oklahoma, is a rare example of a brackish lake that is neither part of an endorheic basin nor a direct arm of the ocean, though its salinity is considerably lower than that of the other bodies of water mentioned here. The reservoir was created by the damming of the Red River of the South, which (along with several of its tributaries) receives large amounts of salt from natural seepage from buried deposits in the upstream region. The salinity is high enough that striped bass, a fish normally found only in salt water, has self-sustaining populations in the lake. Human uses. Brackish water is used by humans in many different sectors. It is commonly used as cooling water for power generation and in a variety of ways in the mining, oil, and gas industries. Once desalinated it can also be used for agriculture, livestock, and municipal uses. Brackish water can be treated using reverse osmosis, electrodialysis, and other filtration processes.
3338	32647130	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3338	The Bronx	The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County to its north; to its south and west, the New York City borough of Manhattan is across the Harlem River; and to its south and east is the borough of Queens, across the East River. The Bronx, the only New York City borough not primarily located on an island, has a land area of and a population of 1,472,654 at the 2020 census. It has the fourth-largest area, fourth-highest population, and third-highest population density of the boroughs. The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, and a flatter eastern section. East and west street names are divided by Jerome Avenue. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. Bronx County was separated from New York County (modern-day Manhattan) in 1914. About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center. The Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden is thousands of years old and is New York City's largest remaining tract of the original forest that once covered the city. These open spaces are primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north and east from Manhattan. The Bronx is also home to Yankee Stadium of Major League Baseball. The word "Bronx" originated with Swedish-born (or Faroese-born) Jonas Bronck, who established the first European settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639. European settlers displaced the native Lenape after 1643. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Bronx received many immigrant and migrant groups as it was transformed into an urban community, first from European countries particularly Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe, and later from the Caribbean region (particularly Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Haiti, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic), and immigrants from West Africa (particularly from Ghana and Nigeria), African American migrants from the Southern United States, Panamanians, Hondurans, and South Asians. The Bronx contains the poorest congressional district in the United States, New York's 15th. The borough also features upper- and middle-income neighborhoods, such as Riverdale, Fieldston, Spuyten Duyvil, Schuylerville, Pelham Bay, Pelham Gardens, Morris Park, and Country Club. Parts of the Bronx saw a steep decline in population, livable housing, and quality of life starting from the mid-to-late 1960s, continuing throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, ultimately culminating in a wave of arson in the late 1970s, a period when hip hop music evolved. The South Bronx, in particular, experienced severe urban decay. The borough began experiencing new population growth starting in the late 1990s and continuing to the present day. Etymology and naming. Early names. The Bronx was called "" by the native Siwanoy band of Lenape (also known historically as "the Delawares"), while other Native Americans knew the Bronx as "Keskeskeck". It was divided by the Aquahung River (now known in English as the Bronx River). The Bronx was named after Jonas Bronck (), a European settler whose precise origins are disputed. Documents indicate he was a Swedish-born immigrant from Komstad, Norra Ljunga parish in Småland, Sweden, who arrived in New Netherland during the spring of 1639. Bronck became the first recorded European settler in the present-day Bronx and built a farm named "Emmaus" close to what today is the corner of Willis Avenue and 132nd Street in Mott Haven. He leased land from the Dutch West India Company on the neck of the mainland immediately north of the Dutch settlement of New Haarlem (on Manhattan Island), and bought additional tracts from the local tribes. He eventually accumulated between the Harlem River and the Aquahung, which became known as "Bronck's River" or "the Bronx [River]". Dutch and English settlers referred to the area as "Bronck's Land". The American poet William Bronk was a descendant of Pieter Bronck, probably Jonas Bronck's nephew or cousin, as there was an age difference of 16 years. Much work on the Swedish claim has been undertaken by Brian G. Andersson, former Commissioner of New York City's Department of Records, who helped organize a 375th Anniversary celebration in Bronck's hometown in 2014. Use of definite article. The Bronx is referred to with the definite article as "the Bronx" or "The Bronx", both legally and colloquially. The "County of the Bronx" also takes "the" immediately before "Bronx" in formal references, like the coextensive "Borough of the Bronx". The United States Postal Service uses "Bronx, NY" for mailing addresses. The region was apparently named after the Bronx River and first appeared in the "Annexed District of The Bronx", created in 1874 out of part of Westchester County. It was continued in the "Borough of The Bronx", created in 1898, which included a larger annexation from Westchester County in 1895. The use of the definite article is attributed to the style of referring to rivers. A time-worn story purportedly explaining the use of the definite article in the borough's name says it stems from the phrase "visiting the Broncks", referring to the settler's family. The capitalization of the borough's name is sometimes disputed. Generally, the definite article is lowercase in place names ("the Bronx") except in some official references. The definite article is capitalized ("The Bronx") at the beginning of a sentence or in any other situation when a normally lowercase word would be capitalized. However, some people and groups refer to the borough with a capital letter at all times, such as Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan, The Bronx County Historical Society, and the Bronx-based organization Great and Glorious Grand Army of The Bronx, arguing the definite article is part of the proper name. In particular, the Great and Glorious Grand Army of The Bronx is leading efforts to make the city refer to the borough with an uppercase definite article in all uses, comparing the lowercase article in the Bronx's name to "not capitalizing the 's' in 'Staten Island. History. European colonization of the Bronx began in 1639. The Bronx was originally part of Westchester County, but it was ceded to New York County in two major parts (West Bronx, 1874 and East Bronx, 1895) before it became Bronx County. Originally, the area was part of the Lenape's Lenapehoking territory inhabited by Siwanoy of the Wappinger Confederacy. Over time, European colonists converted the borough into farmlands. Before 1914. The Bronx's development is directly connected to its strategic location between New England and New York (Manhattan). Control over the bridges across the Harlem River plagued the period of British colonial rule. The King's Bridge, built in 1693 where Broadway reached the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, was a possession of Frederick Philipse, lord of Philipse Manor. Local farmers on both sides of the creek resented the tolls, and in 1759, Jacobus Dyckman and Benjamin Palmer led them in building a free bridge across the Harlem River. After the American Revolutionary War, the King's Bridge toll was abolished. The territory now contained within Bronx County was originally part of Westchester County, one of the 12 original counties of the English Province of New York. The present Bronx County was contained in the town of Westchester and parts of the towns in Yonkers, Eastchester, and Pelham. In 1846, a new town was created by division of Westchester, called West Farms. The town of Morrisania was created, in turn, from West Farms in 1855. In 1873, the town of Kingsbridge was established within the former borders of the town of Yonkers, roughly corresponding to the modern Bronx neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and Woodlawn Heights, and included Woodlawn Cemetery. Among the famous people who settled in the Bronx during the 19th and early 20th centuries were author Willa Cather, tobacco merchant Pierre Lorillard, and inventor Jordan L. Mott, who established Mott Haven to house the workers at his iron works. The consolidation of the Bronx into New York City proceeded in two stages. In 1873, the state legislature annexed Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania to New York, effective in 1874; the three towns were soon abolished in the process. The whole territory east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895, three years before New York's consolidation with Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. This included the Town of Westchester (which had voted against consolidation in 1894) and parts of Eastchester and Pelham. The maritime community of City Island voted to join the city in 1896. Following these two annexations, the Bronx's territory had moved from Westchester County into New York County, which already included Manhattan and the rest of pre-1874 New York City. On January 1, 1898, the consolidated City of New York was born, including the Bronx as one of the five distinct boroughs. However, it remained part of New York County until Bronx County was created in 1914. On April 19, 1912, those parts of New York County which had been annexed from Westchester County in previous decades were newly constituted as Bronx County, the 62nd and last county to be created by the state, effective in 1914. Bronx County's courts opened for business on January 2, 1914 (the same day that John P. Mitchel started work as Mayor of New York City). Marble Hill, Manhattan, was now connected to the Bronx by filling in the former waterway, but it is not part of the borough or county. After 1914. The history of the Bronx during the 20th century may be divided into four periods: a boom period during 1900–1929, with a population growth by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression and post World War II years saw a slowing of growth leading into an eventual decline. The mid to late century were hard times, as the Bronx changed during 1950–1985 from a predominantly moderate-income to a predominantly lower-income area with high rates of violent crime and poverty in some areas. The Bronx has experienced an economic and developmental resurgence starting in the late 1980s that continues into today. New York City expands. The Bronx was a mostly rural area for many generations, with small farms supplying the city markets. In the late 19th century, however, it grew into a railroad suburb. Faster transportation enabled rapid population growth in the late 19th century, involving the move from horse-drawn street cars to elevated railways and the subway system, which linked to Manhattan in 1904. The South Bronx was a manufacturing center for many years and was noted as a center of piano manufacturing in the early part of the 20th century. In 1919, the Bronx was the site of 63 piano factories employing more than 5,000 workers. At the end of World War I, the Bronx hosted the rather small 1918 World's Fair at 177th Street and DeVoe Avenue. The Bronx underwent rapid urban growth after World War I. Extensions of the New York City Subway contributed to the increase in population as thousands of immigrants came to the Bronx, resulting in a major boom in residential construction. Among these groups, many Irish Americans, Italian Americans, and especially Jewish Americans settled here. In addition, French, German, Polish, and other immigrants moved into the borough. As evidence of the change in population, by 1937, 592,185 Jews lived in the Bronx (43.9% of the borough's population), while only 54,000 Jews lived in the borough in 2011. Many synagogues still stand in the Bronx, but most have been converted to other uses. Change. Bootleggers and gangs were active in the Bronx during Prohibition (1920–1933). Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish gangs smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey, and the oldest sections of the borough became poverty-stricken. Police Commissioner Richard Enright said that speakeasies provided a place for "the vicious elements, bootleggers, gamblers and their friends in all walks of life" to cooperate and to "evade the law, escape punishment for their crimes, [and] to deter the police from doing their duty". Between 1930 and 1960, moderate and upper income Bronxites (predominantly non-Hispanic Whites) began to relocate from the borough's southwestern neighborhoods. This migration has left a mostly poor African American and Hispanic (largely Puerto Rican) population in the West Bronx. One significant factor that shifted the racial and economic demographics was the construction of Co-op City, built to house middle-class residents in family-sized apartments. The high-rise complex played a significant role in draining middle-class residents from older tenement buildings in the borough's southern and western fringes. Most predominantly non-Hispanic White communities today are in the eastern and northwestern sections of the borough. From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, the quality of life changed for some Bronx residents. Historians and social scientists have suggested many factors, including the theory that Robert Moses' Cross Bronx Expressway destroyed existing residential neighborhoods and created instant slums, as put forward in Robert Caro's biography "The Power Broker". Another factor in the Bronx's decline may have been the development of high-rise housing projects, particularly in the South Bronx. Yet another factor may have been a reduction in the real estate listings and property-related financial services offered in some areas of the Bronx, such as mortgage loans or insurance policies—a process known as redlining. Others have suggested a "planned shrinkage" of municipal services, such as fire-fighting. There was also much debate as to whether rent control laws had made it less profitable (or more costly) for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings. In the 1970s, parts of the Bronx were plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was predominantly in the poorest communities, such as the South Bronx. One explanation of this event was that landlords decided to burn their low property-value buildings and take the insurance money, as it was easier for them to get insurance money than to try to refurbish a dilapidated building or sell a building in a severely distressed area. The Bronx became identified with a high rate of poverty and unemployment, which was mainly a persistent problem in the South Bronx. There were cases where tenants set fire to the building they lived in so they could qualify for emergency relocations by city social service agencies to better residences, sometimes being relocated to other parts of the city. Out of 289 census tracts in the Bronx borough, 7 tracts lost more than 97% of their buildings to arson and abandonment between 1970 and 1980; another 44 tracts had more than 50% of their buildings meet the same fate. By the early 1980s, the Bronx was considered the most blighted urban area in the country, particularly the South Bronx which experienced a loss of 60% of the population and 40% of housing units. However, starting in the 1990s, many of the burned-out and run-down tenements were replaced by new housing units. In May 1984, New York Supreme Court justice Peter J. McQuillan ruled that Marble Hill, Manhattan, was simultaneously part of the Borough of Manhattan (not the Borough of the Bronx) and part of Bronx County (not New York County) and the matter was definitively settled later that year when the New York Legislature overwhelmingly passed legislation declaring the neighborhood part of both New York County and the Borough of Manhattan and made this clarification retroactive to 1938, as reflected on the official maps of the city. Revitalization. Since the late 1980s, significant development has occurred in the Bronx, first stimulated by the city's "Ten-Year Housing Plan" and community members working to rebuild the social, economic and environmental infrastructure by creating affordable housing. Groups affiliated with churches in the South Bronx erected the Nehemiah Homes with about 1,000 units. The grass roots organization Nos Quedamos' endeavor known as Melrose Commons began to rebuild areas in the South Bronx. The IRT White Plains Road Line () began to show an increase in riders. Chains such as Marshalls, Staples, and Target opened stores in the Bronx. More bank branches opened in the Bronx as a whole (rising from 106 in 1997 to 149 in 2007), although not primarily in poor or minority neighborhoods, while the Bronx still has fewer branches per person than other boroughs. In 1997, the Bronx was designated an "All America City" by the National Civic League, acknowledging its comeback from the decline of the mid-century. In 2006, "The New York Times" reported that "construction cranes have become the borough's new visual metaphor, replacing the window decals of the 1980s in which pictures of potted plants and drawn curtains were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings." The borough has experienced substantial new building construction since 2002. Between 2002 and June 2007, 33,687 new units of housing were built or were under way and $4.8 billion has been invested in new housing. In the first six months of 2007 alone total investment in new residential development was $965 million and 5,187 residential units were scheduled to be completed. Much of the new development is springing up in formerly vacant lots across the South Bronx. In addition there came a revitalization of the existing housing market in areas such as Hunts Point, the Lower Concourse, and the neighborhoods surrounding the Third Avenue Bridge as people buy apartments and renovate them. Several boutique and chain hotels opened in the 2010s in the South Bronx. New developments are underway. The Bronx General Post Office on the corner of the Grand Concourse and East 149th Street is being converted into a market place, boutiques, restaurants and office space with a USPS concession. The Kingsbridge Armory, often cited as the largest armory in the world, is currently slated for redevelopment. Under consideration for future development is the construction of a platform over the New York City Subway's Concourse Yard adjacent to Lehman College. The construction permitted approximately of development and cost . Despite significant investment compared to the post war period, many exacerbated social problems remain including high rates of violent crime, substance abuse, overcrowding, and substandard housing conditions. The Bronx has the highest rate of poverty in New York City, and the greater South Bronx is the poorest area. Geography. Location and physical features. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Bronx County has a total area of , of which is land and (27%) is water. The Bronx is New York City's northernmost borough, New York State's southernmost mainland county and the only part of New York City that is almost entirely on the North American mainland, unlike the other four boroughs that are either islands or located on islands. The bedrock of the West Bronx is primarily "Fordham gneiss", a high-grade heavily banded metamorphic rock containing significant amounts of pink feldspar. Marble Hill – politically part of Manhattan but now physically attached to the Bronx – is so-called because of the formation of Inwood marble there as well as in Inwood, Manhattan, and parts of the Bronx and Westchester County. The Hudson River separates the Bronx on the west from Alpine, Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs in Bergen County, New Jersey; the Harlem River separates it from the island of Manhattan to the southwest; the East River separates it from Queens to the southeast; and to the east, Long Island Sound separates it from Nassau County in western Long Island. Directly north of the Bronx are (from west to east) the adjoining Westchester County communities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham Manor and New Rochelle. There is also a short southern land boundary with Marble Hill in the Borough of Manhattan, over the filled-in former course of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek; Marble Hill's postal ZIP code, telephonic area codes and fire service, however, are shared with the Bronx and not Manhattan. The Bronx River flows south from Westchester County through the borough, emptying into the East River; it is the only entirely freshwater river in New York City. It separates the West Bronx from the schist of the East Bronx. A smaller river, the Hutchinson River (named after the religious leader Anne Hutchinson, killed along its banks in 1641), passes through the East Bronx and empties into Eastchester Bay. The Bronx also includes several small islands in the East River and Long Island Sound, such as City Island and Hart Island. Rikers Island in the East River, home to the large jail complex for the entire city, is also part of the Bronx. The Bronx's highest elevation at is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School. The opposite (southeastern) side of the Bronx has four large low peninsulas or "necks" of low-lying land that jut into the waters of the East River and were once salt marsh: Hunt's Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck and Throggs Neck. Further up the coastline, Rodman's Neck lies between Pelham Bay Park in the northeast and City Island. The Bronx's irregular shoreline extends for . Parks and open space. Although Bronx County was the third most densely populated county in the United States in 2022 (after Manhattan and Brooklyn), of the Bronx—about one fifth of the Bronx's area, and one quarter of its land area—is given over to parkland. The vision of a system of major Bronx parks connected by park-like thoroughfares is usually attributed to John Mullaly. Woodlawn Cemetery, located on and one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, sits on the western bank of the Bronx River near Yonkers. It opened in 1863, in what was then the town of Yonkers, at the time a rural area. Since the first burial in 1865, more than 300,000 people have been interred there. The borough's northern side includes the largest park in New York City—Pelham Bay Park, which includes Orchard Beach—and the third-largest, Van Cortlandt Park, which is west of Woodlawn Cemetery and borders Yonkers. Also in the northern Bronx, Wave Hill, the former estate of George W. Perkins—known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts—overlooks the New Jersey Palisades from a promontory on the Hudson in Riverdale. Nearer the borough's center, and along the Bronx River, is Bronx Park; its northern end houses the New York Botanical Gardens, which preserve the last patch of the original hemlock forest that once covered the county, and its southern end the Bronx Zoo, the largest urban zoological gardens in the United States. In 1904 the Chestnut Blight pathogen ("Cryphonectria parasitica") was found for the first time outside of Asia, at the Bronx Zoo. Over the next 40 years it spread throughout eastern North America and killed back essentially every American Chestnut ("Castanea dentata"), causing ecological and economic devastation. Just south of Van Cortlandt Park is the Jerome Park Reservoir, surrounded by of stone walls and bordering several small parks in the Bedford Park neighborhood; the reservoir was built in the 1890s on the site of the former Jerome Park Racetrack. Further south is Crotona Park, home to a lake, 28 species of trees, and a large swimming pool. The land for these parks, and many others, was bought by New York City in 1888, while land was still open and inexpensive, in anticipation of future needs and future pressures for development. Some of the acquired land was set aside for the Grand Concourse and Pelham Parkway, the first of a series of boulevards and parkways (thoroughfares lined with trees, vegetation and greenery). Later projects included the Bronx River Parkway, which developed a road while restoring the riverbank and reducing pollution, Mosholu Parkway and the Henry Hudson Parkway. In 2006, a five-year, $220-million program of capital improvements and natural restoration in 70 Bronx parks was begun (financed by water and sewer revenues) as part of an agreement that allowed a water filtration plant under Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park. One major focus is on opening more of the Bronx River's banks and restoring them to a natural state. Adjacent counties. The Bronx adjoins: Divisions of the Bronx. Regional divisions. There are two primary systems for dividing the Bronx into regions, which do not necessarily agree with one another. One system is based on the Bronx River, while the other strictly separates South Bronx from the rest of the borough. The Bronx River divides the borough nearly in half, putting the earlier-settled, more urban, and hillier sections in the western lobe and the newer, more suburban coastal sections in the eastern lobe. It is an accurate reflection on the Bronx's history considering that the towns that existed in the area prior to annexation to the City of New York generally did not straddle the Bronx River. In addition, what is today the Bronx was annexed to New York City in two stages: areas west of the Bronx River were annexed in 1874 while areas to the east of the river were annexed in 1895. Under this system, the Bronx can be further divided into the following regions: A second system divides the borough first and foremost into the following sections: Neighborhoods. The number, locations, and boundaries of the Bronx's neighborhoods (many of them sitting on the sites of 19th-century villages) have become unclear with time and successive waves of newcomers. Even city officials do not necessarily agree. In a 2006 article for "The New York Times", Manny Fernandez described the disagreement: According to a Department of City Planning map of the city's neighborhoods, the Bronx has 49. The map publisher Hagstrom identifies 69. The borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., says 61. The Mayor's Community Assistance Unit, in a listing of the borough's community boards, names 68. Major neighborhoods of the Bronx include the following. East Bronx. East of the Bronx River, the borough is relatively flat and includes four large low peninsulas, or 'necks,' of low-lying land which jut into the waters of the East River and were once saltmarsh: Hunts Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck (Castle Hill Point) and Throgs Neck. The East Bronx has older tenement buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multifamily homes, as well as single family homes. It includes New York City's largest park: Pelham Bay Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. Neighborhoods include: Clason's Point, Harding Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Parkchester "(Community District 9)"; Throggs Neck, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Edgewater Park, Co-op City "(Community District 10)"; Westchester Square, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park "(Community District 11)"; Williamsbridge, Eastchester, Baychester, Edenwald and Wakefield "(Community District 12)". City Island and Hart Island. City Island is east of Pelham Bay Park in Long Island Sound and is known for its seafood restaurants and private waterfront homes. City Island's single shopping street, City Island Avenue, is reminiscent of a small New England town. It is connected to Rodman's Neck on the mainland by the City Island Bridge. East of City Island is Hart Island, which is uninhabited and not open to the public. It once served as a prison and now houses New York City's potter's field for unclaimed bodies. West Bronx. The western parts of the Bronx are hillier and are dominated by a series of parallel ridges, running south to north. The West Bronx has older apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, multifamily homes in its lower income areas as well as larger single family homes in more affluent areas such as Riverdale and Fieldston. It includes New York City's third-largest park: Van Cortlandt Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. The Grand Concourse, a wide boulevard, runs through it, north to south. Northwestern Bronx. Neighborhoods include: Fordham-Bedford, Bedford Park, Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights "(Community District 7)", Kingsbridge, Riverdale "(Community District 8)", and Woodlawn Heights "(Community District 12)". South Bronx. Like other neighborhoods in New York City, the South Bronx has no official boundaries. The name has been used to represent poverty in the Bronx and is applied to progressively more northern places so that by the 2000s, Fordham Road was often used as a northern limit. The Bronx River more consistently forms an eastern boundary. The South Bronx has many high-density apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multi-unit homes. The South Bronx is home to the Bronx County Courthouse, Borough Hall, and other government buildings, as well as Yankee Stadium. The Cross Bronx Expressway bisects it, east to west. The South Bronx has some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, as well as very high crime areas. Neighborhoods include: The Hub (a retail district at Third Avenue and East 149th Street), Port Morris, Mott Haven "(Community District 1)", Melrose "(Community District 1 & Community District 3)", Morrisania, East Morrisania [also known as Crotona Park East] "(Community District 3)", Hunts Point, Longwood "(Community District 2)", Highbridge, Concourse "(Community District 4)", West Farms, Belmont, East Tremont "(Community District 6)", Tremont, Morris Heights "(Community District 5)", University Heights. "(Community District 5 & Community District 7)". Demographics. Race, ethnicity, language, and immigration. 2018 estimates. The borough's most populous racial group, White, declined from 99.3% in 1920 to 14.9% in 2018. The Bronx has 532,487 housing units, with a median value of $371,800, and with an owner-occupancy rate of 19.7%, the lowest of the five boroughs. There are 495,356 households, with 2.85 persons per household. 59.3% of residents speak a language besides English at home, the highest rate of the five boroughs. In the Bronx, the population is 7.2% under 5, 17.6% 6–18, 62.4% 19–64, and 12.8% over 65. 52.9% of the population is female. 35.3% of residents are foreign born. The per capita income is $19,721, while the median household income is $36,593, both being the lowest of the five boroughs. 27.9% of residents live below the poverty line, the highest of the five boroughs. 2010 census. According to the 2010 Census, 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race); 30.1% non-Hispanic Black or African American, 10.9% of the population was non-Hispanic White, 3.4% non-Hispanic Asian, 1.2% of two or more races (non-Hispanic), and 0.6% from some other race (non-Hispanic). As of 2010, 46.29% (584,463) of Bronx residents aged five and older spoke Spanish at home, while 44.02% (555,767) spoke English, 2.48% (31,361) African languages, 0.91% (11,455) French, 0.90% (11,355) Italian, 0.87% (10,946) various Indic languages, 0.70% (8,836) other Indo-European languages, and Chinese was spoken at home by 0.50% (6,610) of the population over the age of five. In total, 55.98% (706,783) of the Bronx's population age five and older spoke a language at home other than English. A Garifuna-speaking community from Honduras and Guatemala also makes the Bronx its home. 2009 community survey. The Bronx is the only New York City borough with a Hispanic majority, many of whom are Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. According to the 2009 American Community Survey, Black Americans were the second largest racial/ethnic group in the Bronx. Black people of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented over one-third (35.4%) of the Bronx's population. Black people of non-Hispanic origin made up 30.8% of the population. Over 495,200 Black people resided in the borough, of whom 87% were non-Hispanic. Over 61,000 people identified themselves as Sub-Saharan African in the survey, making up 4.4% of the population. Multiracial Americans are also a sizable minority in the Bronx. People of multiracial heritage number over 41,800 individuals and represent 3.0% of the population. People of mixed African American and European American heritage number over 6,850 members and form 0.5% of the population. People of mixed Native American and European heritage number over 2,450 members and form 0.2% of the population. People of mixed Asian and European heritage number over 880 members and form 0.1% of the population. People of mixed African American and Native American heritage number over 1,220 members and form 0.1% of the population. Out of all five boroughs, the Bronx has the lowest number and proportion of white residents. As of 2009, White Americans of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented over one-fifth (22.9%) of the Bronx's population, or 320,640 people. Non-Hispanic White people accounted for one-eighth of the population (12.1%, or 168,570 12.1%). This is in contrast to a century ago, when almost all Bronx residents were white (99.3% in 1920). That share fell to about one-third by 1980 (34.4%). As of 2009, White Americans of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented one-fifth (22.9%) of the Bronx's population, but counting non-Hispanic White people the proportion was under one-eighth (12.1%). The majority of the non-Hispanic European American population is of Italian and Irish descent. People of Italian descent numbered over 55,000 individuals and made up 3.9% of the population. People of Irish descent numbered over 43,500 individuals and made up 3.1% of the population. German Americans and Polish Americans made up 1.4% and 0.8% of the population respectively. The Bronx has the largest Albanian community in the United States. As of 2018, non-Hispanic White people account for about one in seven residents (14.9% in 2018). Older estimates. The census of 1930 counted only 1.0% (12,930) of the Bronx's population as Negro (while making no distinct counts of Hispanic or Spanish-surname residents). Population and housing. As of the 2010 census, there were 1,385,108 people living in the Bronx, a 3.9% increase since 2000. As of the 2000 United States census, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough. The population density was . There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of . Census estimates place total population of Bronx county at 1,392,002 as of 2012. There were 463,212 households, out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37. The age distribution of the population in the Bronx were as follows: 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.0 males. Individual and household income. The 1999 median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median family income was $30,682. Men had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for women. The per capita income for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over. More than half of the neighborhoods in the Bronx are high poverty or extreme poverty areas. From 2015 census data, the median income for a household was (in 2015 dollars) $34,299. Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2015 dollars): $18,456 with persons in poverty at 30.3%. Per the 2016 Census data, the median income for a household was $35,302. Per capita income was cited at $18,896. Culture and institutions. Sports. The Bronx is the home of the New York Yankees—nicknamed "the Bronx Bombers"—of Major League Baseball. The Yankees have won 27 World Series titles, more than any other team, and their roster has featured players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle. When the team's original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, it was the largest baseball park. The field also hosted college football games, and was the home of two National Football League teams, the New York Yankees (1926–1929) and the New York Giants (1956–1973). In 2008, the park was replaced with the current Yankee Stadium. The Bronx additionally hosts the only Major League Soccer team in the five boroughs, the New York City FC, which also plays in Yankee Stadium. Part of the New York City Marathon travels through the Bronx, including the notoriously difficult Mile 20. From 1889 to 1904, the borough used to have a horse racing facility, the Morris Park Racecourse. In its later years, the course was used for motor racing: a new land speed record was reached on the track. College teams in the Bronx include the Fordham Rams and the Lehman Lightning. Music. The Bronx has had a long association with music. In the early 20th century, it was a center for the evolution of Latin jazz. The Bronx Opera was established in 1967. In the 1970s, The Bronx was strongly associated with the development of hip hop music. One of the genre's pioneers, DJ Kool Herc, held parties in the community room of an apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where he experimented with turntablist techniques such as mixing and scratching of funk records, as well as rapping during extended instrumentals. Other significant Bronx DJs from this period include Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. In addition, The Bronx was important for drill culture by raising rappers such as Kay Flock, Sha EK and many others. Off-Off-Broadway. The Bronx is home to several Off-Off-Broadway theaters, many staging new works by immigrant playwrights from Latin America and Africa. The Pregones Theater, which produces Latin American work, opened a new 130-seat theater in 2005 on Walton Avenue in the South Bronx. Some artists from elsewhere in New York City have begun to converge on the area, and housing prices have nearly quadrupled in the area since 2002. However, rising prices directly correlate to a housing shortage across the city and the entire metro area. Arts. The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, founded in 1998 by Arthur Aviles and Charles Rice-Gonzalez, provides dance, theatre and art workshops, festivals and performances focusing on contemporary and modern art in relation to race, gender and sexuality. It is home to the Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, a contemporary dance company, and the Bronx Dance Coalition. The academy was formerly in the American Bank Note Company Building before relocating to a venue on the grounds of St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The Bronx Museum of the Arts, founded in 1971, exhibits 20th century and contemporary art through its central museum space and of galleries. Many of its exhibitions are on themes of special interest to the Bronx. Its permanent collection features more than 800 works of art, primarily by artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, and mixed media. The museum was temporarily closed in 2006 while it underwent an expansion designed by the architectural firm Arquitectonica that would double the museum's size to . The Bronx has also become home to a peculiar poetic tribute in the form of the "Heinrich Heine Memorial", better known as the Lorelei Fountain. After Heine's German birthplace of Düsseldorf had rejected, allegedly for antisemitic motives, a centennial monument to the radical German-Jewish poet (1797–1856), his incensed German-American admirers, including Carl Schurz, started a movement to place one instead in Midtown Manhattan, at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. However, this intention was thwarted by a combination of ethnic antagonism, aesthetic controversy and political struggles over the institutional control of public art. In 1899, the memorial by Ernst Gustav Herter was placed in Joyce Kilmer Park, near the Yankee Stadium. In 1999, it was moved to 161st Street and the Concourse. Maritime heritage. The peninsular borough's maritime heritage is acknowledged in several ways. The City Island Historical Society and Nautical Museum occupies a former public school designed by the New York City school system's turn-of-the-last-century master architect C. B. J. Snyder. The state's Maritime College in Fort Schuyler (on the southeastern shore) houses the Maritime Industry Museum. In addition, the Harlem River is reemerging as "Scullers' Row" due in large part to the efforts of the Bronx River Restoration Project, a joint public-private endeavor of the city's parks department. Canoeing and kayaking on the borough's namesake river have been promoted by the Bronx River Alliance. The river is also straddled by the New York Botanical Gardens, its neighbor, the Bronx Zoo, and a little further south, on the west shore, Bronx River Art Center. Community celebrations. "Bronx Week", traditionally held in May, began as a one-day celebration. Begun by Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan and supported by then borough president Robert Abrams, the original one-day program was based on the "Bronx Borough Day" festival which took place in the 1920s. The following year, at the height of the decade's civil unrest, the festival was extended to a one-week event. In the 1980s the key event, the "Bronx Ball", was launched. The week includes the Bronx Week Parade as well as inductions into the "Bronx Walk of Fame". Various Bronx neighborhoods conduct their own community celebrations. The Arthur Avenue "Little Italy" neighborhood conducts an annual Autumn Ferragosto Festival that celebrates Italian culture. Hunts Point hosts an annual "Fish Parade and Summer Festival" at the start of summer. Edgewater Park hosts an annual "Ragamuffin" children's walk in November. There are several events to honor the borough's veterans. Albanian Independence Day is also observed. There are also parades to celebrate Dominican, Italian, and Irish heritage. Press and broadcasting. The Bronx is home to several local newspapers and radio and television studios. Newspapers. The Bronx has several local newspapers, including The Bronx Daily, "The Bronx News", "Parkchester News", "City News", "The Norwood News", "The Riverdale Press", "Riverdale Review", "The Bronx Times Reporter", and "Co-op City Times". Four non-profit news outlets, "Norwood News", "Mount Hope Monitor", "Mott Haven Herald" and "The Hunts Point Express" serve the borough's poorer communities. The editor and co-publisher of "The Riverdale Press", Bernard Stein, won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for his editorials about Bronx and New York City issues in 1998. (Stein graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1959.) The Bronx once had its own daily newspaper, "The Bronx Home News", which started publishing on January 20, 1907, and merged into the "New York Post" in 1948. It became a special section of the "Post", sold only in the Bronx, and eventually disappeared from view. Radio and television. One of New York City's major non-commercial radio broadcasters is WFUV, a National Public Radio-affiliated 50,000-watt station broadcasting from Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. The radio station's antenna was relocated to the top of an apartment building owned by Montefiore Medical Center, which expanded the reach of the station's signal. The City of New York has an official television station run by NYC Media and broadcasting from Bronx Community College, and Cablevision operates News 12 The Bronx, both of which feature programming based in the Bronx. Co-op City was the first area in the Bronx, and the first in New York beyond Manhattan, to have its own cable television provider. The local public-access television station BronxNet originates from Herbert H. Lehman College, the borough's only four year CUNY school, and provides government-access television (GATV) public affairs programming in addition to programming produced by Bronx residents. Economy. Shopping malls and markets in the Bronx include: Shopping districts. Prominent shopping areas in the Bronx include Fordham Road, Bay Plaza in Co-op City, The Hub, the Riverdale/Kingsbridge shopping center, and Bruckner Boulevard. Shops are also concentrated on streets aligned underneath elevated railroad lines, including Westchester Avenue, White Plains Road, Jerome Avenue, Southern Boulevard, and Broadway. The Bronx Terminal Market contains several big-box stores, which opened in 2009 south of Yankee Stadium. The Bronx has three primary shopping centers: The Hub, Gateway Center and Southern Boulevard. The Hub–Third Avenue Business Improvement District (B.I.D.), in The Hub, is the retail heart of the South Bronx, where four roads converge: East 149th Street, Willis, Melrose and Third Avenues. It is primarily inside the neighborhood of Melrose but also lines the northern border of Mott Haven. The Hub has been called "the Broadway of the Bronx", being likened to the real Broadway in Manhattan and the northwestern Bronx. It is the site of both maximum traffic and architectural density. In configuration, it resembles a miniature Times Square, a spatial "bow-tie" created by the geometry of the street. The Hub is part of Bronx Community Board 1. The Bronx Terminal Market, in the West Bronx, formerly known as Gateway Center, is a shopping center that encompasses less than one million square feet of retail space, built on a site that formerly held a wholesale fruit and vegetable market also named Bronx Terminal Market as well as the former Bronx House of Detention, south of Yankee Stadium. The $500 million shopping center, which was completed in 2009, saw the construction of new buildings and two smaller buildings, one new and the other a renovation of an existing building that was part of the original market. The two main buildings are linked by a six-level garage for 2,600 cars. The center's design has earned it a LEED "Silver" designation. Government and politics. Local government. Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong" mayor–council system has governed the Bronx. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in the Bronx. The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision. Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Until March 1, 2009, the Borough President of the Bronx was Adolfo Carrión Jr., elected as a Democrat in 2001 and 2005 before retiring early to direct the White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy. His successor, Democratic New York State Assembly member Rubén Díaz, Jr. — after winning a special election on April 21, 2009, by a vote of 86.3% (29,420) on the "Bronx Unity" line to 13.3% (4,646) for the Republican district leader Anthony Ribustello on the "People First" line, — became Borough President on May 1, 2009. In 2021, Rubén Díaz's Democratic successor, Vanessa Gibson was elected (to begin serving in 2022) with 79.9% of the vote against 13.4% for Janell King (Republican) and 6.5% for Sammy Ravelo (Conservative). All of the Bronx's currently elected public officials have first won the nomination of the Democratic Party (in addition to any other endorsements). Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in the Bronx include environmental issues, the cost of housing, and annexation of parkland for new Yankee Stadium. Since its separation from New York County on January 1, 1914, the Bronx, has had, like each of the other 61 counties of New York State, its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. Darcel D. Clark has been the Bronx County District Attorney since 2016. Her predecessor was Robert T. Johnson, the District Attorney from 1989 to 2015. He was the first African-American District Attorney in New York State. The Bronx also has twelve Community Boards, appointed bodies that advise on land use and municipal facilities and services for local residents, businesses and institutions. Politics. After becoming a separate county in 1914, the Bronx has supported only two Republican presidential candidates. It voted heavily for the winning Republican Warren G. Harding in 1920, but much more narrowly on a split vote for his victorious Republican successor Calvin Coolidge in 1924 (Coolidge 79,562; John W. Davis, Dem., 72,834; Robert La Follette, 62,202 equally divided between the Progressive and Socialist lines). Since then, the Bronx has always supported the Democratic Party's nominee for president, starting with a vote of 2–1 for the unsuccessful Al Smith in 1928, followed by four 2–1 votes for the successful Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Both had been Governors of New York, but Republican former Gov. Thomas E. Dewey won only 28% of the Bronx's vote in 1948 against 55% for Pres. Harry Truman, the winning Democrat, and 17% for Henry A. Wallace of the Progressives. It was only 32 years earlier, by contrast, that another Republican former Governor who narrowly lost the Presidency, Charles Evans Hughes, had won 42.6% of the Bronx's 1916 vote against Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's 49.8% and Socialist candidate Allan Benson's 7.3%.) Donald Trump improved on the Republican Party's performance from a historic low of 8% in 2012 to 27% in 2024 over the course of his three runs for president, the highest for Republicans since 1984. Federal Representatives. As of 2025, four Democrats represented the Bronx in the United States House of Representatives: Elections for Mayor of New York. The Bronx has often shown striking differences from other boroughs in elections for Mayor. The only Republican to carry the Bronx since 1914 was Fiorello La Guardia in 1933, 1937, and 1941 (and in the latter two elections, only because his 30% to 32% vote on the American Labor Party line was added to 22% to 23% as a Republican). The Bronx was thus the only borough not carried by the successful Republican re-election campaigns of Mayors Rudy Giuliani in 1997 and Michael Bloomberg in 2005. The anti-war Socialist campaign of Morris Hillquit in the 1917 mayoral election won over 31% of the Bronx's vote, putting him second and well ahead of the 20% won by the incumbent pro-war Fusion Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, who came in second (ahead of Hillquit) everywhere else and outpolled Hillquit citywide by 23.2% to 21.7%. Education. Education in the Bronx is provided by a large number of public and private institutions, many of which draw students who live beyond the Bronx. The New York City Department of Education manages the borough's public noncharter schools. In 2000, public schools enrolled nearly 280,000 of the Bronx's residents over three years old (out of 333,100 enrolled in all pre-college schools). There are also several public charter schools. Private schools range from elite independent schools to religiously affiliated schools run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Jewish organizations. A small portion of land between Pelham and Pelham Bay Park, with 35 houses, is a part of the Bronx, but is cut off from the rest of the borough due to the county boundaries; the New York City government pays for the residents' children to go to Pelham Union Free School District schools, including Pelham Memorial High School, since that is more cost effective than sending school buses to take the students to New York City schools. This arrangement has been in place since 1948. Educational attainment. In 2000, according to the United States census, out of the nearly 800,000 people in the Bronx who were then at least 25 years old, 62.3% had graduated from high school and 14.6% held a bachelor's or higher college degree. These percentages were lower than those for New York's other boroughs, which ranged from 68.8% (Brooklyn) to 82.6% (Staten Island) for high school graduates over 24, and from 21.8% (Brooklyn) to 49.4% (Manhattan) for college graduates. (The respective state and national percentages were "[NY]" 79.1% & 27.4% and "[US]" 80.4% & 24.4%.) High schools. In the 2000 Census, 79,240 of the nearly 95,000 Bronx residents enrolled in high school attended public schools. Many public high schools are in the borough including the elite Bronx High School of Science, Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, DeWitt Clinton High School, High School for Violin and Dance, Bronx Leadership Academy 2, Bronx International High School, the School for Excellence, the Morris Academy for Collaborative Study, Wings Academy for young adults, The Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, Validus Preparatory Academy, The Eagle Academy For Young Men, Bronx Expeditionary Learning High School, Bronx Academy of Letters, Herbert H. Lehman High School and High School of American Studies. The Bronx is also home to three of New York City's most prestigious private, secular schools: Fieldston, Horace Mann, and Riverdale Country School. High schools linked to the Catholic Church include: St. Raymond Academy for Girls, All Hallows High School, Fordham Preparatory School, Monsignor Scanlan High School, St. Raymond High School for Boys, Cardinal Hayes High School, Cardinal Spellman High School, The Academy of Mount Saint Ursula, Aquinas High School, Preston High School, St. Catharine Academy, Mount Saint Michael Academy, and St. Barnabas High School. The SAR Academy and SAR High School are Modern Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva coeducational day schools in Riverdale, with roots in Manhattan's Lower East Side. In the 1990s, New York City began closing the large, public high schools in the Bronx and replacing them with small high schools. Among the reasons cited for the changes were poor graduation rates and concerns about safety. Schools that have been closed or reduced in size include John F. Kennedy, James Monroe, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, Evander Childs, Christopher Columbus, Morris, Walton, and South Bronx High Schools. Colleges and universities. In 2000, 49,442 (57.5%) of the 86,014 Bronx residents seeking college, graduate or professional degrees attended public institutions. Several colleges and universities are in the Bronx. Fordham University was founded as St. John's College in 1841 by the Diocese of New York as the first Catholic institution of higher education in the northeast. It is now officially an independent institution, but strongly embraces its Jesuit heritage. The Bronx campus, known as Rose Hill, is the main campus of the university, and is among the largest within the city (other Fordham campuses are in Manhattan and Westchester County). Three campuses of the City University of New York are in the Bronx: Hostos Community College, Bronx Community College (occupying the former University Heights Campus of New York University) and Herbert H. Lehman College (formerly the uptown campus of Hunter College), which offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees. The College of Mount Saint Vincent is a Catholic liberal arts college in Riverdale under the direction of the Sisters of Charity of New York. Founded in 1847 as a school for girls, the academy became a degree-granting college in 1911 and began admitting men in 1974. The school serves 1,600 students. Its campus is also home to the Academy for Jewish Religion, a transdenominational rabbinical and cantorial school. Manhattan University is a Catholic college in Riverdale which offers undergraduate programs in the arts, business, education, engineering, and science. It also offers graduate programs in education and engineering. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, part of the Montefiore Medical Center, is in Morris Park. The coeducational and non-sectarian Mercy University—with its main campus in Dobbs Ferry—has a Bronx campus near Westchester Square. The State University of New York Maritime College in Fort Schuyler (Throggs Neck)—at the far southeastern tip of the Bronx—is the national leader in maritime education and houses the Maritime Industry Museum. (Directly across Long Island Sound is Kings Point, Long Island, home of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and the American Merchant Marine Museum.) As of 2017, graduates from the university earned an average annual salary of $144,000, the highest of any university graduates in the United States. In addition, the private, proprietary Monroe College, focused on preparation for business and the professions, started in the Bronx in 1933 and now has a campus in New Rochelle (Westchester County) as well the Bronx's Fordham neighborhood. Transportation. Roads and streets. Surface streets. The Bronx street grid is irregular. Like the northernmost part of upper Manhattan, the West Bronx's hilly terrain leaves a relatively free-style street grid. Much of the West Bronx's street numbering carries over from upper Manhattan, but does not match it exactly; East 132nd Street is the lowest numbered street in the Bronx. This dates from the mid-19th century when the southwestern area of Westchester County west of the Bronx River, was incorporated into New York City and known as the Northside. The East Bronx is considerably flatter, and the street layout tends to be more regular. Only the Wakefield neighborhood picks up the street numbering, albeit at a misalignment due to Tremont Avenue's layout. At the same diagonal latitude, West 262nd Street in Riverdale matches East 237th Street in Wakefield. Three major north–south thoroughfares run between Manhattan and the Bronx: Third Avenue, Park Avenue, and Broadway. Other major north–south roads include the Grand Concourse, Jerome Avenue, Sedgwick Avenue, Webster Avenue, and White Plains Road. Major east-west thoroughfares include Mosholu Parkway, Gun Hill Road, Fordham Road, Pelham Parkway, and Tremont Avenue. Most east–west streets are prefixed with either "East" or "West", to indicate on which side of Jerome Avenue they lie (continuing the similar system in Manhattan, which uses Fifth Avenue as the dividing line). The historic Boston Post Road, part of the long pre-revolutionary road connecting Boston with other northeastern cities, runs east–west in some places, and sometimes northeast–southwest. Mosholu and Pelham Parkways, with Bronx Park between them, Van Cortlandt Park to the west and Pelham Bay Park to the east, are also linked by bridle paths. As of the 2000 Census, approximately 61.6% of all Bronx households do not have access to a car. Citywide, the percentage of autoless households is 55%. Highways. Several major limited access highways traverse the Bronx. These include: Bridges and tunnels. Thirteen bridges and three tunnels connect the Bronx to Manhattan, and three bridges connect the Bronx to Queens. These are, from west to east: "To Manhattan:" the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Broadway Bridge, the University Heights Bridge, the Washington Bridge, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge, the High Bridge, the Concourse Tunnel, the Macombs Dam Bridge, the 145th Street Bridge, the 149th Street Tunnel, the Madison Avenue Bridge, the Park Avenue Bridge, the Lexington Avenue Tunnel, the Third Avenue Bridge (southbound traffic only), and the Willis Avenue Bridge (northbound traffic only). "To both Manhattan and Queens:" the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, formerly known as the Triborough Bridge. "To Queens:" the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge. Mass transit. The Bronx is served by seven New York City Subway services along six physical lines, with 70 stations in the Bronx: There are also many MTA Regional Bus Operations bus routes in the Bronx. This includes local and express routes as well as Bee-Line Bus System routes. Two Metro-North Railroad commuter rail lines (the Harlem Line and the Hudson Line) serve 11 stations in the Bronx. (Marble Hill, between the Spuyten Duyvil and University Heights stations, is actually in the only part of Manhattan connected to the mainland.) In addition, some trains serving the New Haven Line stop at Fordham Plaza. As part of Penn Station Access, the 2018 MTA budget funded construction of four new stops along the New Haven Line to serve Hunts Point, Parkchester, Morris Park, and Co-op City. In 2018, NYC Ferry's Soundview line opened, connecting the Soundview landing in Clason Point Park to three East River locations in Manhattan. On December 28, 2021; the Throgs Neck Ferry landing at Ferry Point Park in Throgs Neck was opened providing an additional stop on the Soundview line. The ferry is operated by Hornblower Cruises. In popular culture. Film and television. Mid-20th century. Mid-20th century movies set in the Bronx portrayed densely settled, working-class, urban culture. "From This Day Forward" (1946), set in Highbridge, occasionally delved into Bronx life. The most notable examinations of working class Bronx life were Paddy Chayefsky's Academy Award-winning "Marty" and his 1956 film "The Catered Affair." Other films that portrayed life in the Bronx are: the 1993 Robert De Niro/Chazz Palminteri film, "A Bronx Tale", Spike Lee's 1999 movie "Summer of Sam", which focused on an Italian-American Bronx community in the 1970s, 1994's "I Like It Like That" which takes place in the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of the South Bronx, and "Doughboys", the story of two Italian-American brothers in danger of losing their bakery thanks to one brother's gambling debts. The Bronx's gritty urban life had worked its way into the movies even earlier, with depictions of the "Bronx cheer", a loud flatulent-like sound of disapproval, allegedly first made by New York Yankees fans. The sound can be heard, for example, on the Spike Jones and His City Slickers recording of "Der Fuehrer's Face" (from the 1942 Disney animated film of the same name), repeatedly lambasting Adolf Hitler with: "We'll Heil! (Bronx cheer) Heil! (Bronx cheer) Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!" Symbolism. Starting in the 1970s, the Bronx often symbolized violence, decay, and urban ruin. The wave of arson in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s inspired the observation that "The Bronx is burning": in 1974 it was the title of both an editorial in "The New York Times" and a BBC documentary film. The line entered the pop-consciousness with Game Two of the 1977 World Series, when a fire broke out near Yankee Stadium as the team was playing the Los Angeles Dodgers. As the fire was captured on live television, announcer Howard Cosell is wrongly remembered to have said something like, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen: the Bronx is burning". Historians of New York City often point to Cosell's remark as an acknowledgement of both the city and the borough's decline. A feature-length documentary film by Edwin Pagán called "Bronx Burning" chronicled what led up to the many arson-for-insurance fraud fires of the 1970s in the borough. Bronx gang life was depicted in the 1974 novel "The Wanderers" by Bronx native Richard Price and the 1979 movie of the same name. They are set in the heart of the Bronx, showing apartment life and the then-landmark Krums ice cream parlor. In the 1979 film "The Warriors", the eponymous gang go to a meeting in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and have to fight their way out of the borough and get back to Coney Island in Brooklyn. "A Bronx Tale" (1993) depicts gang activities in the Belmont "Little Italy" section of the Bronx. The 2005 video game adaptation features levels called Pelham, Tremont, and "Gunhill" (a play off the name Gun Hill Road). This theme lends itself to the title of "The Bronx Is Burning", an eight-part ESPN TV mini-series (2007) about the New York Yankees' drive to winning baseball's 1977 World Series. The TV series emphasizes the team's boisterous nature, led by manager Billy Martin, catcher Thurman Munson and outfielder Reggie Jackson, as well as the malaise of the Bronx and New York City in general during that time, such as the blackout, the city's serious financial woes and near bankruptcy, the arson for insurance payments, and the election of Ed Koch as mayor. The 1981 film "Fort Apache, The Bronx" is another film that used the Bronx's gritty image for its storyline. The movie's title is from the nickname for the 41st Police Precinct in the South Bronx which was nicknamed "Fort Apache". Also from 1981 is the horror film "Wolfen" making use of the rubble of the Bronx as a home for werewolf type creatures. "Knights of the South Bronx", a true story of a teacher who worked with disadvantaged children, is another film also set in the Bronx released in 2005. The Bronx was the setting for the 1983 film "Fuga dal Bronx", also known as "Bronx Warriors 2" and "Escape 2000", an Italian B-movie best known for its appearance on the television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000". The plot revolves around a sinister construction corporation's plans to depopulate, destroy and redevelop the Bronx, and a band of rebels who are out to expose the corporation's murderous ways and save their homes. The film is memorable for its almost incessant use of the phrase, "Leave the Bronx!" Many of the movie's scenes were filmed in Queens, substituting as the Bronx. "Rumble in the Bronx", filmed in Vancouver, was a 1995 Jackie Chan kung-fu film, another which popularized the Bronx to international audiences. "Last Bronx", a 1996 Sega game played on the bad reputation of the Bronx to lend its name to an alternate version of post-Japanese bubble Tokyo, where crime and gang warfare is rampant. The 2016 Netflix series "The Get Down" is based on the development of hip hop in 1977 in the South Bronx. Literature. Books. The Bronx has been featured significantly in fiction literature. All of the characters in Herman Wouk's (1948) live in the Bronx, and about half of the action is set there. Kate Simon's "Bronx Primitive: Portraits of a Childhood" (1982) is directly autobiographical, a warm account of a Polish-Jewish girl in an immigrant family growing up before World War II, and living near Arthur Avenue and Tremont Avenue. In Jacob M. Appel's short story, "The Grand Concourse" (2007), a woman who grew up in the iconic Lewis Morris Building returns to the Morrisania neighborhood with her adult daughter. Similarly, in Avery Corman's book "The Old Neighborhood" (1980), an upper-middle class white protagonist returns to his birth neighborhood (Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse), and learns that even though the folks are poor, Hispanic and African-American, they are good people. By contrast, Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" (1987) portrays a wealthy, white protagonist, Sherman McCoy, getting lost off the Bruckner Expressway in the South Bronx and having an altercation with locals. A substantial piece of the last part of the book is set in the resulting riotous trial at the Bronx County Courthouse. However, times change, and in 2007, "The New York Times" reported that "the Bronx neighborhoods near the site of Sherman's accident are now dotted with townhouses and apartments." In the same article, the Reverend Al Sharpton (whose fictional analogue in the novel is "Reverend Bacon") asserts that "twenty years later, the cynicism of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" is as out of style as Tom Wolfe's wardrobe." Don DeLillo's "Underworld" (1997) is also set in the Bronx and offers a perspective on the area from the 1950s onward. Poetry. In poetry, the Bronx has been immortalized by one of the world's shortest couplets: <poem style="margin-left: 2em;">The Bronx? No Thonx Ogden Nash, "The New Yorker", 1931</poem> Nash repented 33 years after his calumny, penning the following poem to the dean of faculty at Bronx Community College in 1964: <poem style="margin-left: 2em;"> I wrote those lines, "The Bronx? No thonx"; I shudder to confess them. Now I'm an older, wiser man I cry, "The Bronx? God bless them!"</poem> In 2016, W. R. Rodriguez published "Bronx Trilogy"—consisting of "the shoe shine parlor poems et al.", "concrete pastures of the beautiful bronx", and "from the banks of brook avenue". The trilogy celebrates Bronx people, places, and events. DeWitt Clinton High School, St. Mary's Park, and Brook Avenue are a few of the schools, parks, and streets Rodriguez uses as subjects for his poems. Nash's couplet "The Bronx? No Thonx" and his subsequent blessing are mentioned in "Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough", edited by Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger and published in 2000. The book, which includes the work of Yiddish poets, offers a selection from Allen Ginsberg's "Kaddish", as his Aunt Elanor and his mother, Naomi, lived near Woodlawn Cemetery. Also featured is Ruth Lisa Schecther's poem, "Bronx", which is described as a celebration of the borough's landmarks. There is a selection of works from poets such as Sandra María Esteves, Milton Kessler, Joan Murray, W. R. Rodriguez, Myra Shapiro, Gayl Teller, and Terence Wynch. "Bronx Migrations" by Michelle M. Tokarczyk is a collection that spans five decades of Tokarczyk's life in the Bronx, from her exodus in 1962 to her return in search of her childhood tenement. Bronx Memoir Project. "" is a published anthology by the Bronx Council on the Arts and brought forth through a series of workshops meant to empower Bronx residents and shed the stigma on the Bronx's burning past. The Bronx Memoir Project was created as an ongoing collaboration between the Bronx Council on the Arts and other cultural institutions, including the Bronx Documentary Center, the Bronx Library Center, the (Edgar Allan) Poe Park Visitor Center, Mindbuilders, and other institutions and funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The goal was to develop and refine memoir fragments written by people of all walks of life that share a common bond residing within the Bronx. Theater. Clifford Odets's play "Awake and Sing!" is set in 1933 in the Bronx. The play, first produced at the Belasco Theater in 1935, concerns a poor family living in small quarters, the struggles of the controlling parents and the aspirations of their children. René Marqués' "The Oxcart" (1959) concerns a rural Puerto Rican family who immigrate to the Bronx for a better life. "A Bronx Tale" is an autobiographical one-man show written and performed by Chazz Palminteri. It is a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx. It premiered in Los Angeles in the 1980s and then played on Off-Broadway. After a film version involving Palminteri and Robert De Niro, Palminteri performed his one-man show on Broadway and on tour in 2007.
3340	98915	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3340	BearShare	BearShare was a peer-to-peer-file-sharing-application originally created by Free Peers, Inc. for Microsoft Windows and also a rebranded version of iMesh by MusicLab, LLC, tightly integrated with their music subscription service. History. The principal operators of Free Peers, Inc. were Vincent Falco and Louis Tatta. Bearshare was launched on December 4, 2000, as a Gnutella-based peer-to-peer file sharing application with innovative features that eventually grew to include IRC, a free library of software and media called BearShare Featured Artists, online help pages and a support forum integrated as dedicated web browser windows in the application; as well as a media player and a library window to organize the user's media collection. Following the June 27, 2005 United States Supreme Court decision on the "MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd." case the BearShare Community support forums were abruptly closed during negotiations to settle an impending lawsuit with the RIAA. The webmaster and forum administrator immediately created a new site called Technutopia and the same support staff continue to support the gnutella versions from there. A few months later the unused Community window was removed from BearShare 5.1. On May 4, 2006, Free Peers agreed to transfer all their BearShare-related assets to MusicLab, LLC (an iMesh subsidiary) and use the $30 million raised from that sale to settle with the RIAA. On August 17, 2006, MusicLab released a reskinned and updated version of iMesh named BearSharev6 which connected to its proprietary iMesh network instead of gnutella. BearShareV6 and its successors offer paid music downloads in the PlaysForSure DRM controlled WMA format as well as free content in various formats, chiefly MP3. Like BearShare they also include a media player and embedded online and social networking features but with a Web 2.0 style, somewhat similar to MySpace or Facebook. Free content provided by users is automatically verified using acoustic fingerprinting as non-infringing before it can be shared. Video files more than 50 Mb in size and 15 minutes in length cannot be shared, ensuring television shows and feature-length movies cannot be distributed over the network. Only a limited set of music and video file types can be shared, thus excluding everything else like executable files, documents and compressed archives. In August 2006, MusicLab released a variant of the original BearShare gnutella servant, called BearFlix, which was altered to limit sharing, searches and downloads to images and videos. Shared videos were limited in length and duration, similar to limits in BearShareV6. The first release was version 1.2.1. Its version numbers appear to start from 1.1.2.1 in the user interface but it presents itself on the gnutella network as versions 6.1.2.1 to 6.2.2.530. This version has since been discontinued by MusicLab and no longer available on their websites; however, it remains in wide usage. On October 27, 2008, responding to uncertainty around the future of PlaysForSure, MusicLab added iPod support in BearShareV7. As of June 12, 2016, BearShare is no longer available to download. The official page with a message announcing its discontinuation remained active until March 2017. Popular versions. Three variants of the original BearShare gnutella servant were distributed by Free Peers: Free, Lite, and Pro. The Free-version had higher performance limits than the Lite version but contained some adware. The Pro version had higher limits than both the Free and Lite versions but cost US$24. Version numbers in this series ranged from 1.0 to 5.2.5.9. Though lacking MusicLab's support a wide spread of BearShare versions from 4.7 to 5.2.5.6 remain the second most popular servant on gnutella, alongside LimeWire. Old-School fans of the gnutella versions tend to favour the last of the beta versions, 5.1.0 beta25, because it has no adware, is hard-coded for performance levels roughly between Pro and regular (ad-supported) versions and has the unique ability to switch between leaf and ultrapeer mode on demand, a feature deemed necessary for effective testing. No other gnutella servant has enjoyed this capability. The most recent MusicLab version, V10, was available by free download from their support website and "Pro" features could be unlocked with a six or twelve-month subscription. Access to premium content required a $9.95 monthly subscription. Customers in Canada and the U.S.A. could opt for a $14.95 monthly "BearShare ToGo" subscription which allowed downloads of premium music to portable music players.
3343	15049395	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3343	Belgium	Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the south, and the North Sea to the west. Belgium covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.8 million; its population density of ranks 22nd in the world and sixth in Europe. The capital and largest metropolitan region is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven. Belgium is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a complex federal system structured on regional and linguistic grounds. The country is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region in the middle. Belgium is also home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking French Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population; a small German-speaking Community, comprising around one percent of the population, exists in the East Cantons. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Belgium is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy. It is one of the six founding members of the European Union, with its capital of Brussels serving as the "de facto" capital of the EU, hosting the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, and one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Brussels also hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations, such as NATO. In antiquity, present-day Belgium was dominated by the Belgae before being annexed into the Roman Empire in the mid first century BC. During the Middle Ages, Belgium's central location kept it relatively prosperous and connected both commercially and politically to its larger neighbours; it was part of the Carolingian Empire, the succeeding Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently the Burgundian Netherlands. Following rule by Habsburg Spain (1556–1714), the Austrian Habsburgs (1714–1794), and Revolutionary France (1794–1815), most of modern-day Belgium was incorporated into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Centuries of being contested and controlled by various European powers earned Belgium the moniker "the Battlefield of Europe", a reputation reinforced in the 20th century by both world wars. An independent Belgium was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution. In the 19th century it was one of the earliest participants of the Industrial Revolution, and the first country in continental Europe to become industrialised. By the early 20th century, it possessed several colonies, notably the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi, which gained independence between 1960 and 1962. The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speakers and French-speakers, fueled by differences in political culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This has resulted in several far-reaching state reforms, including the transition from a unitary to federal structure between 1970 and 1993. Tensions persist amid ongoing reforms; the country faces a strong separatist sentiment among the Flemish, controversial language laws, and a fragmented political landscape that resulted in a record 589 days without a government formation following the 2010 federal election. History. Antiquity. According to Julius Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico", the Belgae inhabited the northernmost part of Gaul, a region extending from the Seine and Marne rivers to the Rhine. This area was larger than present-day Belgium and included parts of modern France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. Caesar noted that the Belgae were the bravest among the Gauls due to their distance from the civilization and refinement of the Roman Province, minimal contact with merchants importing luxury goods, and their continual warfare with the neighboring Germanic tribes across the Rhine. Within this broad region, Caesar referred to a specific area as "Belgium," which was politically dominant and located in what is now northern France. Modern Belgium, along with neighboring regions of the Netherlands and Germany, corresponds to the territories of the northernmost Belgae tribes, including the Morini, Menapii, Nervii, Germani Cisrhenani, and Aduatuci. Julius Caesar described these tribes as particularly warlike and economically undeveloped, noting their kinship with the Germanic tribes east of the Rhine. Additionally, the area around Arlon in southern Belgium was part of the territory of the powerful Treveri tribe, whose lands extended into present-day Luxembourg and adjacent regions of France and Germany. Following Caesar's conquests, Gallia Belgica became the Latin name for a large Roman province encompassing most of Northern Gaul, including the lands of the Belgae and Treveri. Subsequently, areas closer to the lower Rhine frontier, such as the eastern part of modern Belgium, were incorporated into the frontier province of Germania Inferior. As the central government of the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of Romanized populations and Germanic-speaking Franks, who came to dominate the military and political spheres. Middle Ages. During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who initially established a kingdom ruling over the Romanized population in what is now northern France, and then conquered the other Frankish kingdoms. During the 8th century, the empire of the Franks came to be ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, whose centre of power included the area which is now eastern Belgium. Over the centuries, it was divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Most of modern Belgium was in the Middle Kingdom, later known as Lotharingia, but the coastal county of Flanders, west of the Scheldt, became the northernmost part of West Francia, the predecessor of France. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia came under the lasting control of the eastern kingdom, which became the Holy Roman Empire. The lordships and bishoprics along the "March" (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. For example, the county of Flanders expanded over the Scheldt into the empire, and during several periods was ruled by the same lords as the county of Hainaut. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the cloth industry and commerce boomed especially in the County of Flanders and it became one of the richest areas in Europe. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. Famously, Flemish militias scored a surprise victory at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against a strong force of mounted knights in 1302, but France soon regained control of the rebellious province. Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands. In the 15th century, the Duke of Burgundy in France took control of Flanders, and from there proceeded to unite much of what is now the Benelux, the so-called Burgundian Netherlands. "Burgundy" and "Flanders" were the first two common names used for the Burgundian Netherlands which was the predecessor of the Austrian Netherlands, the predecessor of modern Belgium. The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation. Born in Belgium, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V was heir of the Burgundians, but also of the royal families of Austria, Castile and Aragon. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 he gave the Seventeen Provinces more legitimacy as a stable entity, rather than just a temporary personal union. He also increased the influence of these Netherlands over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which continued to exist as a large semi-independent enclave. Spanish and Austrian Netherlands. The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) was triggered by the Spanish government's policy towards Protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. The rebellious northern United Provinces ("Belgica Foederata" in Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") eventually separated from the Southern Netherlands ("Belgica Regia", the "Royal Netherlands"). The southern part continued to be ruled successively by the Spanish (Spanish Netherlands) and the Austrian House of Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands) and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of several more protracted conflicts during much of the 17th and 18th centuries involving France, including the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), and part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). French Revolution and United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Following the , the Low Countriesincluding territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liègewere annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region. After the dissolution of the First French Empire and the abdication of Napoleon following his defeat on the battlefield of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15 created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. This buffer state, located between the major European powers, united the former territories of the Dutch Republic, the Austrian Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, under King William I of Orange. Independent Belgium. In 1830, the Belgian Revolution led to the re-separation of the Southern Provinces from the Netherlands and to the establishment of a Catholic and bourgeois, officially French-speaking and neutral, independent Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 1831, now celebrated as Belgium's National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a "laicist" constitution based on the Napoleonic code. Although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 (with plural voting until 1919) and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. French was originally the official language used by the nobility and the bourgeoisie, especially after the rejection of the Dutch monarchy. French progressively lost its dominance as Dutch began to recover its status. This recognition became official in 1898, and in 1967, the parliament accepted a Dutch version of the Constitution. The Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded control of the Congo Free State to King Leopold II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. Many Congolese were killed by Leopold's agents for failing to meet production quotas for ivory and rubber. In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo's population was half what it was in 1879. Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority. German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and the Holocaust. From September 1944 to February 1945 the Allies liberated Belgium. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951 in favour of his son, Prince Baudouin, since many Belgians thought he had collaborated with Germany during the war. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed with its independence two years later. Belgium joined NATO as a founding member and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and of the European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community, established in 1957. The latter has now become the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament. In the early 1990s, Belgium saw several large corruption scandals notably surrounding Marc Dutroux, Andre Cools, the Dioxin Affair, Agusta Scandal and the murder of Karel van Noppen. Geography. Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg (), and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is . Before 2018, its total area was believed to be . However, when the country's statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be larger in surface area than previously thought. Its land area alone is 30,494 square kilometers. It lies between latitudes 49°30' and 51°30' N, and longitudes 2°33' and 6°24' E. Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine. The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and the northeastern sandy plain of the Campine ("Kempen"). The thickly forested hills and plateaus of the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small gorges. Extending westward into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the country's highest point at . The climate is maritime temperate with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: "Cfb"), like most of northwest Europe. The average temperature is lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average precipitation per month varies between for February and April, to for July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are about 1 °C and nearly 10 millimeters above last century's normal values, respectively. Climate change in Belgium has caused temperatures rises and more frequent and intense heatwaves, increases in winter rainfall and decreases in snowfall. By 2100, sea levels along the Belgian coast are projected to rise by 60 to 90 cm with a maximum potential increase of up to 200 cm in the worst-case scenario. The costs of climate change are estimated to amount to €9.5 billion a year in 2050 (2% of Belgian GDP), mainly due to extreme heat, drought and flooding, while economics gains due to milder winters amount to approximately €3 billion a year (0.65% of GDP). In 2023, Belgium emitted 106.82 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (around 0.2% of the global total emissions), equivalent to 9.12 tonnes per person. The country has committed to net zero by 2050. Phytogeographically, Belgium is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Belgium belongs to the terrestrial ecoregions of Atlantic mixed forests and Western European broadleaf forests. Belgium had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 1.36/10, ranking it 163rd globally out of 172 countries. In Belgium forest cover is around 23% of the total land area, equivalent to 689,300 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, up from 677,400 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 251,200 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 438,200 hectares (ha). For the year 2015, 47% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 53% private ownership and 0% with ownership listed as other or unknown. Provinces. The territory of Belgium is divided into three Regions, two of which, the Flemish Region and Walloon Region, are in turn subdivided into provinces; the third Region, the Brussels-Capital Region, is neither a province nor a part of a province. Politics and government. Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is made up of 50 senators appointed by the parliaments of the communities and regions and 10 co-opted senators. Prior to 2014, most of the Senate's members were directly elected. The Chamber's 150 representatives are elected under a proportional voting system from 11 electoral districts. Belgium has compulsory voting and thus maintains one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world. The King (currently Philippe) is the head of state, though with limited prerogatives. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. The Council of Ministers is composed of no more than fifteen members. With the possible exception of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers is composed of an equal number of Dutch-speaking members and French-speaking members. The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the courts of appeal one level below. Political culture. Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power rests on representation of the main cultural communities. Since about 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties have split into distinct components that mainly represent the political and linguistic interests of these communities. The major parties in each community, though close to the political center, belong to three main groups: Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Social Democrats. Further notable parties came into being well after the middle of last century, mainly to represent linguistic, nationalist, or environmental interests, and recently smaller ones of some specific liberal nature. A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was broken in 1999 after the first dioxin crisis, a major food contamination scandal. A "rainbow coalition" emerged from six parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens. Later, a "purple coalition" of Liberals and Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats in the 2003 election. The government led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007 achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labor-market reform, scheduled nuclear phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on euthanasia were reduced. In 2003, Belgium became one of the first countries in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia. Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This was a coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats. On that day, a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the King. On 2008 Leterme offered the resignation of the cabinet to the King, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made. In December 2008, Leterme once more offered his resignation after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008. After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the King after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation. The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in. The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA. However, the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia. In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders, the far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia, the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party, the N-VA, remained the largest party in parliament. In July 2019, Prime Minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on the federal government 16 months after the elections. Communities and regions. Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation. While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict. Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels: The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters. The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully. Locus of policy jurisdiction. The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants. Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.). Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies. In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world. Foreign relations. Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. The headquarters of NATO and of several of the institutions of the European Union are located in Belgium. Armed forces. The Belgian Armed Forces had 23,200 active personnel in 2023, including 8,500 in the Land Component, 1,400 in the Naval Component, 4,900 in the Air Component, 1,450 in the Medical Component, and 6,950 in joint service, in addition to 5,900 reserve personnel. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense. The Belgian military consists of volunteers (conscription was abolished in 1995), and citizens of other EU states, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, or Lichtenstein are also able to join. Belgium has troops deployed in several African countries as part of UN or EU missions, in Iraq for the war against the Islamic State, and in eastern Europe for the NATO presence there. The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux. According to the 2024 Global Peace Index, Belgium is the 16th most peaceful country in the world. Economy. Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs. The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union. Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850. After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area. By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe). Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km2. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km2 and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9. From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016. Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%. There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium. Science and technology. Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists. Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave his name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927. Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994. Belgium was ranked 24th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024. Demographics. As of 1 January 2024, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,763,650. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2024, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2024, the Flemish Region (Flanders) had a population of 6,821,770 (58.0% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (545,000), Ghent (270,000), and Bruges (120,000). The Walloon Region (Wallonia) had a population of 3,692,283 (31.4% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Charleroi (204,000), Liège (196,000), and Namur (114,000). The Brussels-Capital Region (Brussels) had a population of 1,249,597 (10.6% of Belgium), existing of 19 municipalities, its most populous cities being the City of Brussels (197,000), Schaerbeek (130,000), and Anderlecht (127,000). In 2023 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.38 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1; it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with an average age of 41.6 years. Migration. , nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU, and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State. At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million "new Belgians". Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984, more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Italian Belgians and Moroccan Belgians. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people. Statbel released figures of the Belgian population in relation to the origin of people in Belgium. According to the data, as of 1 January 2021, 67.3% of the Belgian population was of ethnic Belgian origin, and 32.7% were of foreign origin or nationality, with 20.3% of those of a foreign nationality or ethnic group originating from neighbouring countries. The study also found that 74.5% of the Brussels-Capital Region were of non-Belgian origin, of which 13.8% originated from neighbouring countries. Languages. Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well. As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons. The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community. Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French. Religion. The Constitution of Belgium provides for freedom of religion, and the government respects this right in practice. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism. Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture. According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens believe in God, 31% in some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% do not believe in any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians. In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country. A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border. A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000. Health. The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44. Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities. For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia). Education. Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education is organized separately by each community. The Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities. Mirroring the structure of the 19th-century Belgian political landscape, characterized by the Liberal and the Catholic parties, the educational system is segregated into secular and religious schools. The secular branch of schooling is controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly Catholic branch education, is organized by religious authorities, which are also subsidized and supervised by the communities. Culture. Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy. Fine arts. Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially rich. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as Peter Breughel's landscape paintings and Lambert Lombard's representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early 17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined thereafter. During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s, while the sculptor Panamarenko remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. Multidisciplinary artists Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye and the painter Luc Tuymans are other internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene. Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style. The vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary popular music in Belgium is also of repute. Jazz musicians Django Reinhardt and Toots Thielemans and singer Jacques Brel have achieved global fame. Nowadays, singer Stromae has been a musical revelation in Europe and beyond, having great success. In rock/pop music, Telex, Front 242, K's Choice, Hooverphonic, Zap Mama, Soulwax and dEUS are well known. In the heavy metal scene, bands like Machiavel, Channel Zero and Enthroned have a worldwide fan-base. Belgium has produced several well-known authors, including the poets Emile Verhaeren, Guido Gezelle, Robert Goffin and novelists Hendrik Conscience, Stijn Streuvels, Georges Simenon, Suzanne Lilar, Hugo Claus and Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé is the best known of Franco-Belgian comics, but many other major authors, including Peyo ("The Smurfs"), André Franquin ("Gaston Lagaffe"), Dupa ("Cubitus"), Morris ("Lucky Luke"), Greg ("Achille Talon"), Lambil ("Les Tuniques Bleues"), Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Additionally, famous crime author Agatha Christie created the character Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, who has served as a protagonist in a number of her acclaimed mystery novels. Belgian cinema has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to life on-screen. Belgian directors include André Delvaux, Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; well-known actors include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jan Decleir and Marie Gillain; and successful films include "Bullhead, Man Bites Dog" and "The Alzheimer Affair". Belgium is also home to a number of successful fashion designers . Folklore. Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life; the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, ommegangs, ducasses, kermesses, and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. The three-day Carnival of Binche, near Mons, with its famous Gilles (men dressed in high, plumed hats and bright costumes) is held just before Lent (the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter). Together with the 'Processional Giants and Dragons' of Ath, Brussels, Dendermonde, Mechelen and Mons, it is recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Other examples are the three-day Carnival of Aalst in February or March; the still very religious processions of the Holy Blood taking place in Bruges in May, the Virga Jesse procession held every seven years in Hasselt, the annual procession of Hanswijk in Mechelen, the 15 August festivities in Liège, and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the 1960s, the Gentse Feesten (a music and theatre festival organized in Ghent around Belgian National Day, on 21 July) have become a modern tradition. Several of these festivals include sporting competitions, such as cycling, and many fall under the category of kermesses. A major non-official holiday (which is however not an official public holiday) is Saint Nicholas Day (Dutch: "Sinterklaas", French: "la Saint-Nicolas"), a festivity for children, and in Liège, for students. It takes place each year on 6 December and is a sort of early Christmas. On the evening of 5 December, before going to bed, children put their shoes by the hearth with water or wine and a carrot for Saint Nicholas' horse or donkey. According to tradition, Saint Nicholas comes at night and travels down the chimney. He then takes the food and water or wine, leaves presents, goes back up, feeds his horse or donkey, and continues on his course. He also knows whether children have been good or bad. This holiday is especially loved by children in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dutch immigrants imported the tradition into the United States, where Saint Nicholas is now known as Santa Claus. Cuisine. Belgium is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and French fries. The national dishes are steak and fries, and mussels with fries. Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most influential restaurant guides, such as the Michelin Guide. One of the many beers with the high prestige is that of the Trappist monks. Technically, it is an ale and traditionally each abbey's beer is served in its own glass (the forms, heights and widths are different). There are only eleven breweries (six of them are Belgian) that are allowed to brew Trappist beer. Although Belgian gastronomy is connected to French cuisine, some recipes were reputedly invented there, such as French fries (despite the name, although their exact place of origin is uncertain), Flemish Carbonade (a beef stew with beer, mustard and bay laurel), speculaas (or "speculoos" in French, a sort of cinnamon and ginger-flavoured shortcrust biscuit), Brussels waffles (and their variant, Liège waffles), waterzooi (a broth made with chicken or fish, cream and vegetables), endive with bechamel sauce, Brussels sprouts, Belgian pralines (Belgium has some of the most renowned chocolate houses), "charcuterie" (deli meats) and "Paling in 't groen" (river eels in a sauce of green herbs). Brands of Belgian chocolate and pralines, like Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are famous, as well as independent producers such as Burie and Del Rey in Antwerp and Mary's in Brussels. Belgium produces over 1100 varieties of beer. The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has repeatedly been rated the world's best beer. The biggest brewer in the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven. Sports. Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. The (ADEPS) is responsible for recognising the various French-speaking sports federations and also runs three sports centres in the Brussels-Capital Region. Its Dutch-speaking counterpart is (formerly called BLOSO). Association football is the most popular sport in both parts of Belgium; also very popular are cycling, tennis, swimming, judo and basketball. The Belgium national football team has been among the best on the FIFA World Rankings ever since November 2015, when it reached the top spot for the first time. Since the 1990s, the team has been the world's number one for the most years in history, only behind the records of Brazil and Spain. The team's golden generations with the world class players in the squad, namely Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jan Ceulemans achieved the bronze medals at World Cup 2018, and silver medals at Euro 1980. Belgium hosted the Euro 1972, and co-hosted the Euro 2000 with the Netherlands. Belgians hold the most Tour de France victories of any country except France. They also have the most victories on the UCI Road World Championships. With five victories in the Tour de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time. Philippe Gilbert and Remco Evenepoel were the 2012 and 2022 world champions, respectively. Other well-known Belgian cyclists are Tom Boonen, Wout van Aert and Lotte Kopecky. Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin both were Player of the Year in the Women's Tennis Association as they were ranked the number one female tennis player. The Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World Championship Belgian Grand Prix. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in, motocross with the riders Joël Robert, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobé, Eric Geboers and Stefan Everts, among others. Sporting events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition, the Belgian Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The 1920 Summer Olympics were held in Antwerp. The 1977 European Basketball Championship was held in Liège and Ostend.
3352	1296558128	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3352	Blues	Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery, with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music. Etymology. The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman's one-act farce "Blue Devils" (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States, the term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase 'blue law', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau's book "Walden", he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten, then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Lyrics. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of a single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over the next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as "Dallas Blues" (1912) and "Saint Louis Blues" (1914). According to W.C. Handy, the "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below the savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver, "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather... the blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and the techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing a ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927: Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom's "It's Tight Like That" (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being "tight" with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues. The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played a part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua, the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James, included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. Form. The blues form is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith, use of the twelve-bar blues spread across the music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include "How Long Blues", "Trouble in Mind", and Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway". There are also 16-bar blues, such as Ray Charles's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as the 9-bar progression in "Sitting on Top of the World", by Walter Vinson. The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a time signature. The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to the degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround, marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as a break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord a note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale. For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord. In melody, blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third, fifth and seventh of the associated major scale. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove. Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music. The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as ""dow", da "dow", da "dow", da" or ""dump", da "dump", da "dump", da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. History. Origin. Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" was published in 1912; W.C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues" followed in the same year. The first recording by an African-American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of the low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton, who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey, who remembered first hearing the blues in the same year in Missouri; and W.C. Handy, who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum, who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi, and Newton County, Georgia, between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed "proto-blues" by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum for research purposes at the beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert. Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon, who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress. Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax. In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to the huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts. A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas. All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar. The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of the blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863, between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post-emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and Black Americans in rural areas into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots. Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on the blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people, and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people, but not as much of the Mandinka people. Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa. That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, from his "African Suite for Piano", written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes. The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of the American South sometimes referred to as a "jitterbug" or a "one-string" in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as the Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof, Fula and Mandinka). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon. Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also was closely related to ragtime, which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as the 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define the blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural South, notably the Mississippi Delta. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as "songsters" rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. "Blues" became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts, which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. Pre-war blues. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand; and "The Memphis Blues", by W.C. Handy. Handy was a formally trained musician, composer, and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the "Saint Louis Blues". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African-American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African-American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by the Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation, Okeh Records, and Paramount Records, began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, and Blind Blake became more popular in the African-American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues. The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House. Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in the southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver, Tampa Red, "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee, was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Performers such as Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Kansas Joe McCoy, Casey Bill Weldon, and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandolin. Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. Urban blues. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them "the big three"—Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Lucille Bogan. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey, sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had a recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled "race records" to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered the emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals, torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel, rhythm and blues, and eventually rock and roll." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr. An important label of this era was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records. Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole. Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio (Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines, who "linked the propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The "territory bands" operating out of Kansas City, the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann, and the Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" and "Jumpin' at the Woodside" and boisterous "blues shouting" by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and "Sent for You Yesterday". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from the boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner, based in Kansas City, Missouri, influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker, who is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. 1950s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in a movement known as the Great Migration. The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration, which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term "race record", initially used by the music industry for African-American music, was replaced by the term "rhythm and blues". This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by "Billboard" magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle, which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music, became a component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and St. Louis. Electric blues used electric guitars, double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar), drums, and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier. Chicago became a center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues, because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. The saxophonist J. T. Brown played in bands led by Elmore James and by J. B. Lenoir, but the saxophone was used as a backing instrument for rhythmic support more than as a lead instrument. Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) and Sonny Terry are well known harmonica (called "harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene. Other harp players such as Big Walter Horton were also influential. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were known for their deep, "gravelly" voices. The bassist and prolific songwriter and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (both penned for Muddy Waters), and "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Back Door Man" for Howlin' Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels. Smaller blues labels of this era included Vee-Jay Records and J.O.B. Records. During the early 1950s, the dominating Chicago labels were challenged by Sam Phillips' Sun Records company in Memphis, which recorded B. B. King and Howlin' Wolf before he moved to Chicago in 1960. After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock 'n' roll. In the 1950s, blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music. While popular musicians like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, both recording for Chess, were influenced by the Chicago blues, their enthusiastic playing styles departed from the melancholy aspects of blues. Chicago blues also influenced Louisiana's zydeco music, with Clifton Chenier using blues accents. Zydeco musicians used electric solo guitar and cajun arrangements of blues standards. In England, electric blues took root there during a much acclaimed Muddy Waters tour in 1958. Waters, unsuspecting of his audience's tendency towards skiffle, an acoustic, softer brand of blues, turned up his amp and started to play his Chicago brand of electric blues. Although the audience was largely jolted by the performance, the performance influenced local musicians such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies to emulate this louder style, inspiring the British Invasion of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. In the late 1950s, a new blues style emerged on Chicago's West Side pioneered by Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, and Otis Rush on Cobra Records. The "West Side sound" had strong rhythmic support from a rhythm guitar, bass guitar, and drums and as perfected by Guy, Freddie King, Magic Slim, and Luther Allison, was dominated by amplified electric lead guitar. Expressive guitar solos were a key feature of this music. Other blues artists, such as John Lee Hooker, had influences not directly related to the Chicago style. John Lee Hooker's blues is more "personal", based on Hooker's deep rough voice accompanied by a single electric guitar. Though not directly influenced by boogie-woogie, his "groovy" style is sometimes called "guitar boogie". His first hit, "Boogie Chillen", reached number 1 on the R&B charts in 1949. By the late 1950s, the swamp blues genre developed near Baton Rouge, with performers such as Lightnin' Slim, Slim Harpo, Sam Myers and Jerry McCain around the producer J. D. "Jay" Miller and the Excello label. Strongly influenced by Jimmy Reed, swamp blues has a slower pace and a simpler use of the harmonica than the Chicago blues style performers such as Little Walter or Muddy Waters. Songs from this genre include "Scratch my Back," "She's Tough," and "I'm a King Bee". Alan Lomax's recordings of Mississippi Fred McDowell would eventually bring him wider attention on both the blues and folk circuit, with McDowell's droning style influencing North Mississippi hill country blues musicians. 1960s and 1970s. By the beginning of the 1960s, genres influenced by African American music such as rock and roll and soul were part of mainstream popular music. White performers such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles had brought African-American music to new audiences, within the U.S. and abroad. However, the blues wave that brought artists such as Muddy Waters to the foreground had stopped. Bluesmen such as Big Bill Broonzy and Willie Dixon started looking for new markets in Europe. Dick Waterman and the blues festivals he organized in Europe played a major role in propagating blues music abroad. In the UK, bands emulated U.S. blues legends, and UK blues rock-based bands had an influential role throughout the 1960s. Blues performers such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York–born Taj Mahal. John Lee Hooker blended his blues style with rock elements and playing with younger white musicians, creating a musical style that can be heard on the 1971 album "Endless Boogie". B. B. King's singing and virtuoso guitar technique earned him the eponymous title "king of the blues". King introduced a sophisticated style of guitar soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that influenced many later electric blues guitarists. In contrast to the Chicago style, King's band used strong brass support from a saxophone, trumpet, and trombone, instead of using slide guitar or harp. Tennessee-born Bobby "Blue" Bland, like B. B. King, also straddled the blues and R&B genres. During this period, Freddie King and Albert King often played with rock and soul musicians (Eric Clapton and Booker T & the MGs) and had a major influence on those styles of music. The music of the civil rights movement and Free Speech Movement in the U.S. prompted a resurgence of interest in American roots music and early African-American music. As well, festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival brought traditional blues to a new audience, which helped to revive interest in prewar acoustic blues and performers such as Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and Reverend Gary Davis. Many compilations of classic prewar blues were republished by the Yazoo Records. J. B. Lenoir from the Chicago blues movement in the 1950s recorded several LPs using acoustic guitar, sometimes accompanied by Willie Dixon on the acoustic bass or drums. His songs, originally distributed only in Europe, commented on political issues such as racism or Vietnam War issues, which was unusual for this period. His album "Alabama Blues" contained a song with the following lyric: White audiences' interest in the blues during the 1960s increased due to the Chicago-based Paul Butterfield Blues Band, featuring guitarist Michael Bloomfield and singer/songwriter Nick Gravenites, and the British blues movement. The style of British blues developed in the UK, when musicians such as Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, the Rolling Stones, Animals, the Yardbirds, Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, Chicken Shack, early Jethro Tull, Cream, and the Irish musician Rory Gallagher performed classic blues songs from the Delta or Chicago blues traditions. In 1963, Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones, was the first to write a book on the social history of the blues in "Blues People: The Negro Music in White America". The British and blues musicians of the early 1960s inspired a number of American blues rock performers, including Canned Heat, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, the J. Geils Band, Ry Cooder, and the Allman Brothers Band. One blues rock performer, Jimi Hendrix, was a rarity in his field at the time: a Black man who played psychedelic rock. Hendrix was a skilled guitarist, and a pioneer in the innovative use of distortion and audio feedback in his music. Through these artists and others, blues music influenced the development of rock music. Later in the 1960s, British singer Jo Ann Kelly started her recording career. In the US, from the 1970s, female singers Bonnie Raitt and Phoebe Snow performed blues. In the early 1970s, the Texas rock-blues style emerged, which used guitars in both solo and rhythm roles. In contrast with the West Side blues, the Texas style is strongly influenced by the British rock-blues movement. Major artists of the Texas style are Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds (led by harmonica player and singer-songwriter Kim Wilson), and ZZ Top. These artists all began their musical careers in the 1970s but they did not achieve international success until the next decade. 1980s to the present. Since the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of interest in the blues among a certain part of the African-American population, particularly around Jackson, Mississippi, and other deep South regions. Often termed "soul blues" or "Southern soul", the music at the heart of this movement was given new life by the unexpected success of two particular recordings on the Jackson-based Malaco label: Z. Z. Hill's "Down Home Blues" (1982) and Little Milton's "The Blues is Alright" (1984). Contemporary African-American performers who work in this style of the blues include Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle, Sir Charles Jones, Bettye LaVette, Marvin Sease, Peggy Scott-Adams, Clarence Carter, Charles Bradley, Trudy Lynn, Roy C, Barbara Carr, Willie Clayton, and Shirley Brown, among others. During the 1980s, blues also continued in both traditional and new forms. In 1986, the album "Strong Persuader" announced Robert Cray as a major blues artist. The first Stevie Ray Vaughan recording "Texas Flood" was released in 1983, and the Texas-based guitarist exploded onto the international stage. John Lee Hooker's popularity was revived with the album "The Healer" in 1989. Eric Clapton, known for his performances with the Blues Breakers and Cream, made a comeback in the 1990s with his album "Unplugged", in which he played some standard blues numbers on acoustic guitar. However, beginning in the 1990s, digital multi-track recording and other technological advances and new marketing strategies, including video clip production, increased costs, challenging the spontaneity and improvisation that are an important component of blues music. In the 1980s and 1990s, blues publications such as "Living Blues" and "Blues Revue" were launched, major cities began forming blues societies, outdoor blues festivals became more common, and Tedeschi Trucks Band and Gov't Mule released blues rock albums. Female blues singers such as Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Sue Foley, and Shannon Curfman also recorded albums. In the 1990s, the largely ignored hill country blues gained minor recognition in both blues and alternative rock music circles with northern Mississippi artists R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Blues performers explored a range of musical genres, for example, from the broad array of nominees of the yearly Blues Music Awards (previously named W.C. Handy Awards) or of the Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary and Traditional Blues Album. The "Billboard" Blues Album chart provides an overview of current blues hits. Contemporary blues music is nurtured by several blues labels such as Alligator Records, Ruf Records, Severn Records, Chess Records (MCA), Delmark Records, NorthernBlues Music, Fat Possum Records, and Vanguard Records (Artemis Records). Some labels are famous for rediscovering and remastering blues rarities, including Arhoolie Records, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (heir of Folkways Records), and Yazoo Records (Shanachie Records). Musical impact. Blues musical styles, forms (12-bar blues), melodies, and the blues scale have influenced many other genres of music, such as rock and roll, jazz, and popular music. Prominent jazz, folk, or rock performers, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Bob Dylan, have performed significant blues recordings. The blues scale is often used in popular songs like Harold Arlen's "Blues in the Night", blues ballads like "Since I Fell for You" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love", and even in orchestral works such as George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Concerto in F". Gershwin's second "Prelude" for solo piano is an interesting example of a classical blues, maintaining the form with academic strictness. The blues scale is ubiquitous in modern popular music and informs many modal frames, especially the ladder of thirds used in rock music (for example, in "A Hard Day's Night"). Blues forms are used in the theme to the televised "Batman", teen idol Fabian Forte's hit, "Turn Me Loose", country music star Jimmie Rodgers' music, and guitarist/vocalist Tracy Chapman's hit "Give Me One Reason". Early country bluesmen such as Skip James, Charley Patton, and Georgia Tom Dorsey played country and urban blues and had influences from spiritual singing. Dorsey helped to popularize Gospel music. Gospel music developed in the 1930s, with the Golden Gate Quartet. In the 1950s, soul music by Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and James Brown used gospel and blues music elements. In the 1960s and 1970s, gospel and blues were merged in soul blues music. Funk music of the 1970s was influenced by soul; funk can be seen as an antecedent of hip-hop and contemporary R&B. R&B music can be traced back to spirituals and blues. Musically, spirituals were a descendant of New England choral traditions, and in particular of Isaac Watts's hymns, mixed with African rhythms and call-and-response forms. Spirituals or religious chants in the African-American community are much better documented than the "low-down" blues. Spiritual singing developed because African-American communities could gather for mass or worship gatherings, which were called camp meetings. Edward P. Comentale has noted how the blues was often used as a medium for art or self-expression, stating: "As heard from Delta shacks to Chicago tenements to Harlem cabarets, the blues proved—despite its pained origins—a remarkably flexible medium and a new arena for the shaping of identity and community." Before World War II, the boundaries between blues and jazz were less clear. Usually, jazz had harmonic structures stemming from brass bands, whereas blues had blues forms such as the 12-bar blues. However, the jump blues of the 1940s mixed both styles. After WWII, blues had a substantial influence on jazz. Bebop classics, such as Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time", used the blues form with the pentatonic scale and blue notes. Bebop marked a major shift in the role of jazz, from a popular style of music for dancing to a "high-art", less accessible, cerebral "musician's music". The audience for both blues and jazz split, and the border between blues and jazz became more defined. The blues' 12-bar structure and the blues scale was a major influence on rock and roll music. Rock and roll has been called "blues with a backbeat"; Carl Perkins called rockabilly "blues with a country beat". Rockabillies were also said to be 12-bar blues played with a bluegrass beat. "Hound Dog", with its unmodified 12-bar structure (in both harmony and lyrics) and a melody centered on flatted third of the tonic (and flatted seventh of the subdominant), is a blues song transformed into a rock and roll song. Jerry Lee Lewis's style of rock and roll was heavily influenced by the blues and its derivative boogie-woogie. His style of music was not exactly rockabilly but it has been often called real rock and roll (this is a label he shares with several African-American rock and roll performers). Many early rock and roll songs are based on blues: "That's All Right Mama", "Johnny B. Goode", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", "Shake, Rattle, and Roll", and "Long Tall Sally". The early African-American rock musicians retained the sexual themes and innuendos of blues music: "Got a gal named Sue, knows just what to do" ("Tutti Frutti", Little Richard) or "See the girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long" ("What'd I Say", Ray Charles). The 12-bar blues structure can be found even in novelty pop songs, such as Bob Dylan's "Obviously Five Believers" and Esther and Abi Ofarim's "Cinderella Rockefella". Early country music was infused with the blues. Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, and Hank Williams have all described themselves as blues singers and their music has a blues feel that is different, at first glance at least, from the later country-pop of artists like Eddy Arnold. Yet, if one looks back further, Arnold also started out singing bluesy songs like 'I'll Hold You in My Heart'. A lot of the 1970s-era "outlaw" country music by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings also borrowed from the blues. When Jerry Lee Lewis returned to country music after the decline of 1950s style rock and roll, he sang with a blues feel and often included blues standards on his albums. In popular culture. Like many other genres, blues has been called the "devil's music" or "music of the devil", even of inciting violence and other poor behavior. In the early 20th century, the blues was considered disreputable, especially as white audiences began listening to the blues during the 1920s. The close association with the devil was actually a well-known characteristic of blues lyrics and culture between the 1920s and 1960s. The devil's connection to the blues has faded from popular memory since then for a number of reasons, other than in the narrow sense of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads. A study of the devil's role in the blues was published in 2017, called "Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil & The Blues Tradition". During the blues revival of the 1960s and 1970s, acoustic blues artist Taj Mahal and Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins wrote and performed music that figured prominently in the critically acclaimed film "Sounder" (1972). The film earned Mahal a Grammy nomination for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a BAFTA nomination. Almost 30 years later, Mahal wrote blues for, and performed a banjo composition, claw-hammer style, in the 2001 movie release "Songcatcher", which focused on the story of the preservation of the roots music of Appalachia. Perhaps the most visible example of the blues style of music in the late 20th century came in 1980, when Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi released the film "The Blues Brothers". The film drew many of the biggest living influencers of the rhythm and blues genre together, such as Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker. The band formed also began a successful tour under the Blues Brothers marquee. 1998 brought a sequel, "Blues Brothers 2000" that, while not holding as great a critical and financial success, featured a much larger number of blues artists, such as B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Musselwhite, Blues Traveler, Jimmie Vaughan, and Jeff Baxter. In 2003, Martin Scorsese made significant efforts to promote the blues to a larger audience. He asked several famous directors, such as Clint Eastwood and Wim Wenders, to participate in a series of documentary films for PBS called "The Blues". He also participated in the rendition of compilations of major blues artists in a series of high-quality CDs. Blues guitarist and vocalist Keb' Mo' performed his blues rendition of "America, the Beautiful" in 2006 to close out the final season of the television series "The West Wing". The blues was highlighted in season 2012, episode 1 of "In Performance at the White House", entitled "Red, White and Blues". Hosted by Barack and Michelle Obama, the show featured performances by B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr., Jeff Beck, Derek Trucks, Keb Mo, and others. The 2025 vampire horror film "Sinners" explores the blues genre through a supernatural narrative placed in the 1930s Mississippi Delta.
3354	47587808	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3354	Berlin	Berlin ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the highest population within its city limits of any city in the European Union. The city is also one of the states of Germany, being the third smallest state in the country by area. Berlin is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and Brandenburg's capital Potsdam is nearby. The urban area of Berlin has a population of over 4.6 million and is therefore the most populous urban area in Germany. The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr region, as well as the fifth-biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union. Berlin was built along the banks of the Spree river, which flows into the Havel in the western borough of Spandau. The city includes lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs, the largest of which is Müggelsee. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks and gardens, rivers, canals, and lakes. First documented in the 13th century and at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin was designated the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417–1701), Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), German Empire (1871–1918), Weimar Republic (1919–1933), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). Berlin served as a scientific, artistic, and philosophical hub during the Age of Enlightenment, Neoclassicism, and the German revolutions of 1848–1849. During the "Gründerzeit", an industrialization-induced economic boom triggered a rapid population increase in Berlin. 1920s Berlin was the third-largest city in the world by population. After World War II and following Berlin's occupation, the city was split into West Berlin and East Berlin, divided by the Berlin Wall. East Berlin was declared the capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany. Due to its geographic location and history, Berlin has been called "the heart of Europe". Berlin is a global city of culture, politics, media and science. Its economy is based on high tech and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, startup companies, research facilities, and media corporations. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a complex public transportation network. Tourism in Berlin makes the city a popular global destination. Significant industries include information technology, the healthcare industry, biomedical engineering, biotechnology, the automotive industry, and electronics. Berlin is home to several universities, such as the Humboldt University of Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, the Berlin University of the Arts and the Free University of Berlin. The Berlin Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe. Babelsberg Studio is the world's first large-scale movie studio complex, and there are many films set in Berlin. Berlin is home to three World Heritage Sites: Museum Island, the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin, and the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates. Other landmarks include the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag building, Potsdamer Platz, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the Berlin Wall Memorial. Berlin has numerous museums, galleries, and libraries. History. Etymology. Berlin lies in northeastern Germany, in an area formerly settled by Slavs which thus exhibits many (Germanised) Slavic-derived placenames until today (see below). The word "Berlin" also has its roots in the language of the West Slavs, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem ("swamp"). Of Berlin's twelve boroughs, five bear a Slavic-derived name—Pankow, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick and Spandau; furthermore, across the city's 96 neighbourhoods, there are 22 which bear a Slavic-rooted name—Altglienicke, Alt-Treptow, Britz, Buch, Buckow, Gatow, Karow, Kladow, Köpenick, Lankwitz, Lübars, Malchow, Marzahn, Pankow, Prenzlauer Berg, Rudow, Schmöckwitz, Spandau, Stadtrandsiedlung Malchow, Steglitz, Tegel and Zehlendorf. Prehistory of Berlin. The area of what is now Berlin has been settled for millennia. A deer mask, dated to 9,000 BC, is attributed to the Maglemosian culture. Around 2,000 BC dense human settlements along the Spree and Havel rivers gave rise to the Lusatian culture. Starting around 500 BC Germanic tribes settled in a number of villages in the higher situated areas of today's Berlin. After the Semnones left around 200 AD, the Burgundians followed. In the 7th century Slavic tribes, the later known Hevelli and Sprevane, reached the region. 12th century to 16th century. In the 12th century the region came under German rule as part of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, founded by Albert the Bear in 1157. Early evidence of middle age settlements in the area of today's Berlin are remnants of a house foundation dated 1270 to 1290, found in excavations in Berlin Mitte. The first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209. 1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the staple right on the two important trade routes, one was known as "Via Imperii", and the other trade route reached from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307 the two towns formed an alliance with a common external policy, their internal administrations still being separated. In 1326 the territory of Berlin was raided by pagan Lithuanians during the Raid on Brandenburg. Members of the Hohenzollern family ruled in Berlin until 1918, first as electors of Brandenburg, then as kings of Prussia, and eventually as German emperors. In 1443, Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new royal palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln. The protests of the town citizens against the building culminated in 1448, in the "Berlin Indignation" (). Officially, the Berlin-Cölln palace became permanent residence of the Brandenburg electors of the Hohenzollerns from 1486, when John Cicero came to power. Berlin-Cölln, however, had to give up its status as a free Hanseatic League city. In 1539, the electors and the city officially became Lutheran. 17th to 19th centuries. The Thirty Years' War between 1618 and 1648 devastated Berlin. One third of its houses were damaged or destroyed, and the city lost half of its population. Frederick William, known as the "Great Elector", who had succeeded his father George William as ruler in 1640, initiated a policy of promoting immigration and religious tolerance. With the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Frederick William offered asylum to the French Huguenots. By 1700, approximately 30 percent of Berlin's residents were French, because of the Huguenot immigration. Many other immigrants came from Bohemia, Poland, and Salzburg. Since 1618, the Margraviate of Brandenburg had been in personal union with the Duchy of Prussia. In 1701, the dual state formed the Kingdom of Prussia, as Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, crowned himself as king Frederick I in Prussia. Berlin became the capital of the new Kingdom, replacing Königsberg. This was a successful attempt to centralise the capital in the very far-flung state, and it was the first time the city began to grow. In 1709, Berlin merged with the four cities of Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Friedrichstadt and Dorotheenstadt under the name Berlin, "Haupt- und Residenzstadt Berlin". In 1740, Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great (1740–1786), came to power. Under the rule of Frederick II, Berlin became a center of the Enlightenment, but also, was briefly occupied during the Seven Years' War by the Russian army. Following France's victory in the War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte marched into Berlin in 1806, but granted self-government to the city. In 1815, the city became part of the new Province of Brandenburg. The Industrial Revolution transformed Berlin during the 19th century; the city's economy and population expanded dramatically, and it became the main railway hub and economic center of Germany. Additional suburbs soon developed and increased the area and population of Berlin. In 1861, neighboring suburbs including Wedding, Moabit and several others were incorporated into Berlin. In 1871, Berlin became capital of the newly founded German Empire. In 1881, it became a city district separate from Brandenburg. 20th to 21st centuries. In the early 20th century, Berlin had become a fertile ground for the German Expressionist movement. In fields such as architecture, painting and cinema new forms of artistic styles were invented. At the end of World War I in 1918, a republic was proclaimed by Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act incorporated dozens of suburban cities, villages, and estates around Berlin into an expanded city. The act increased the area of Berlin from . The population almost doubled, and Berlin had a population of around four million. During the Weimar era, Berlin underwent political unrest due to economic uncertainties but also became a renowned center of the Roaring Twenties. The metropolis experienced its heyday as a major world capital and was known for its leadership roles in science, technology, arts, the humanities, city planning, film, higher education, government, and industries. Albert Einstein rose to public prominence during his years in Berlin, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. Hitler was inspired by the architecture he had experienced in Vienna, and he wished for a German Empire with a capital city that had a monumental ensemble. The National Socialist regime embarked on monumental construction projects in Berlin as a way to express their power and authority through architecture. Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer developed architectural concepts for the conversion of the city into World Capital Germania; these were never implemented. NSDAP rule diminished Berlin's Jewish community from 160,000 (one-third of all Jews in the country) to about 80,000 due to emigration between 1933 and 1939. After Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's Jews were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Starting in early 1943, many were deported to ghettos like Łódź, and to concentration and extermination camps such as Auschwitz. Berlin hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics for which the Olympic stadium was built. During World War II, Berlin was the location of multiple Nazi prisons, forced labour camps, 17 subcamps of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for men and women, including teenagers, of various nationalities, including Polish, Jewish, French, Belgian, Czechoslovak, Russian, Ukrainian, Romani, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Spanish, Luxembourgish, German, Austrian, Italian, Yugoslavian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, a camp for Sinti and Romani people (see "Romani Holocaust"), and the Stalag III-D prisoner-of-war camp for Allied POWs of various nationalities. During World War II, large parts of Berlin were destroyed during Allied air raids and the 1945 Battle of Berlin. The Allies dropped 67,607 tons of bombs on the city, destroying 6,427 acres of the built-up area. Around 125,000 civilians were killed. After the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to Allied-occupied Germany the sectors of the Allies of World War II (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) formed West Berlin, while the Soviet Union formed East Berlin. All four Allies of World War II shared administrative responsibilities for Berlin. However, in 1948, when the Western Allies extended the currency reform in the Western zones of Germany to the three western sectors of Berlin, the Soviet Union imposed the Berlin Blockade on the access routes to and from West Berlin, which lay entirely inside Soviet-controlled territory. The Berlin airlift, conducted by the three western Allies, overcame this blockade by supplying food and other supplies to the city from June 1948 to May 1949. In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in West Germany and eventually included all of the American, British and French zones, excluding those three countries' zones in Berlin, while the Marxist–Leninist German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in East Germany. West Berlin officially remained an occupied city, but it politically was aligned with the Federal Republic of Germany despite West Berlin's geographic isolation. Airline service to West Berlin was granted only to American, British and French airlines. The founding of the two German states increased Cold War tensions. West Berlin was surrounded by East German territory, and East Germany proclaimed the Eastern part as its capital, a move the western powers did not recognize. East Berlin included most of the city's historic center. The West German government established itself in Bonn. In 1961, East Germany began to build the Berlin Wall around West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie. West Berlin was now de facto a part of West Germany with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was de facto a part of East Germany. John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech on 26 June 1963, in front of the Schöneberg city hall, located in the city's western part, underlining the US support for West Berlin. Berlin was completely divided. Although it was possible for Westerners to pass to the other side through strictly controlled checkpoints, for most Easterners, travel to West Berlin or West Germany was prohibited by the government of East Germany. In 1971, a Four-Power Agreement guaranteed access to and from West Berlin by car or train through East Germany. In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and pressure from the East German population, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November and was subsequently mostly demolished. Today, the East Side Gallery preserves a large portion of the wall. On 3 October 1990, the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin again became a reunified city. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city experienced significant urban development and still impacts urban planning decisions. Walter Momper, the mayor of West Berlin, became the first mayor of the reunified city in the interim. City-wide elections in December 1990 resulted in the first "all Berlin" mayor being elected to take office in January 1991, with the separate offices of mayors in East and West Berlin expiring by that time, and Eberhard Diepgen (a former mayor of West Berlin) became the first elected mayor of a reunited Berlin. On 18 June 1994, soldiers from the United States, France and Britain marched in a parade which was part of the ceremonies to mark the withdrawal of allied occupation troops allowing a reunified Berlin (the last Russian troops departed on 31 August, while the final departure of Western Allies forces was on 8 September 1994). On 20 June 1991, the Bundestag (German Parliament) voted to move the seat of the German capital from Bonn to Berlin, which was completed in 1999, during the chancellorship of Gerhard Schröder. Berlin's 2001 administrative reform merged several boroughs, reducing their number from 23 to 12. In 2006, the FIFA World Cup Final was held in Berlin. Construction of the "Berlin Wall Trail" (Berliner Mauerweg) began in 2002 and was completed in 2006. In a 2016 terrorist attack linked to ISIL, a truck was deliberately driven into a Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, leaving 13 people dead and 55 others injured. In 2018, more than 200,000 protestors took to the streets in Berlin with demonstrations of solidarity against racism, in response to the emergence of far-right politics in Germany. Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) opened in 2020, nine years later than planned, with Terminal 1 coming into service at the end of October, and flights to and from Tegel Airport ending in November. Due to the fall in passenger numbers resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, plans were announced to close BER's Terminal 5, the former Schönefeld Airport, beginning in March 2021. The connecting link of U-Bahn line U5 from Alexanderplatz to Hauptbahnhof, along with the new stations Rotes Rathaus and Unter den Linden, opened on 4 December 2020, the Museumsinsel U-Bahn station opened in 2021, which completed all new works on the U5. A partial opening by the end of 2020 of the Humboldt Forum museum, housed in the reconstructed Berlin Palace, was postponed until March 2021. On 16 September 2022, the opening of the eastern wing, the last section of the Humboldt Forum museum, meant the Humboldt Forum museum was finally completed. It became Germany's currently most expensive cultural project. Berlin-Brandenburg fusion attempt. The legal basis for a combined state of Berlin and Brandenburg is different from other state fusion proposals. Normally, Article 29 of the Basic Law stipulates that a state fusion requires a federal law. However, a clause added to the Basic Law in 1994, Article 118a, allows Berlin and Brandenburg to unify without federal approval, requiring a referendum and a ratification by both state parliaments. In 1996, there was an unsuccessful attempt of unifying the states of Berlin and Brandenburg. Both share a common history, dialect and culture and in 2020, there are over 225,000 residents of Brandenburg that commute to Berlin. The fusion had the near-unanimous support by a broad coalition of both state governments, political parties, media, business associations, trade unions and churches. Though Berlin voted in favor by a small margin, largely based on support in former West Berlin, Brandenburg voters disapproved of the fusion by a large margin. It failed largely due to Brandenburg voters not wanting to take on Berlin's large and growing public debt and fearing losing identity and influence to the capital. Geography. Topography. Berlin is in northeastern Germany, in an area of low-lying marshy woodlands with a mainly flat topography, part of the vast Northern European Plain which stretches all the way from northern France to western Russia. The "Berliner Urstromtal" (an ice age glacial valley), between the low Barnim Plateau to the north and the Teltow plateau to the south, was formed by meltwater flowing from ice sheets at the end of the last Weichselian glaciation. The Spree follows this valley now. In Spandau, a borough in the west of Berlin, the Spree empties into the river Havel, which flows from north to south through western Berlin. The course of the Havel is more like a chain of lakes, the largest being the Tegeler See and the Großer Wannsee. A series of lakes also feeds into the upper Spree, which flows through the Großer Müggelsee in eastern Berlin. Substantial parts of present-day Berlin extend onto the low plateaus on both sides of the Spree Valley. Large parts of the boroughs Reinickendorf and Pankow lie on the Barnim Plateau, while most of the boroughs of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, and Neukölln lie on the Teltow Plateau. The borough of Spandau lies partly within the Berlin Glacial Valley and partly on the Nauen Plain, which stretches to the west of Berlin. Since 2015, the Arkenberge hills in Pankow at elevation, have been the highest point in Berlin. Through the disposal of construction debris they surpassed Teufelsberg (), which itself was made up of rubble from the ruins of the Second World War. The Müggelberge at elevation is the highest natural point and the lowest is the Spektesee in Spandau, at elevation. Climate. Berlin has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb") bordering on a humid continental climate ("Dfb"). This type of climate features mild to very warm summer temperatures and cold, though not very severe, winters. Annual precipitation is modest. Frosts are common in winter, and there are larger temperature differences between seasons than typical for many oceanic climates. Summers are warm and sometimes humid with average high temperatures of and lows of . Winters are cold with average high temperatures of and lows of . Spring and autumn are generally chilly to mild. Berlin's built-up area creates a microclimate, with heat stored by the city's buildings and pavement. Temperatures can be higher in the city than in the surrounding areas. Annual precipitation is with moderate rainfall throughout the year. Snowfall mainly occurs from December through March. The hottest month in Berlin was July 1757, with a mean temperature of and the coldest was January 1709, with a mean temperature of . The wettest month on record was July 1907, with of rainfall, whereas the driest were October 1866, November 1902, October 1908 and September 1928, all with of rainfall. Cityscape and architecture. Cityscape. Berlin's history has left the city with a polycentric metropolitan area and an eclectic mix of architecture. The city's appearance today has been predominantly shaped by German history during the 20th century. 17% of Berlin's buildings are Gründerzeit or earlier and nearly 25% are of the 1920s and 1930s, when Berlin played a part in the origin of modern architecture. Devastated by the bombing of Berlin in World War II many of the buildings that had survived in both East and West were demolished during the postwar period. After the reunification, many important heritage structures have been reconstructed, including the "Forum Fridericianum" along with, the Berlin State Opera, Charlottenburg Palace, Gendarmenmarkt, Alte Kommandantur, as well as the City Palace. The tallest buildings in Berlin are spread across the urban area, with clusters at Potsdamer Platz, City West, and Alexanderplatz. Over one-third of the city's area consists of green and open-space, with the Großer Tiergarten, one of the largest and most popular parks in Berlin, located in the centre of the city. Architecture. The Fernsehturm (TV tower) at Alexanderplatz in Mitte is among the tallest structures in the European Union at . Built in 1969, it is visible throughout most of the central districts of Berlin. The city can be viewed from its observation floor. Starting here, the Karl-Marx-Allee heads east, an avenue lined by monumental residential buildings, designed in the Socialist Classicism style. Adjacent to this area is the Rotes Rathaus (City Hall), with its distinctive red-brick architecture. In front of it is the Neptunbrunnen, a fountain featuring a mythological group of Tritons, personifications of the four main Prussian rivers, and Neptune on top of it. Nearby is the Nikolaiviertel, the reconstructed oldest settlement area in the city. The Brandenburg Gate is an iconic landmark of Berlin and Germany; it stands as a symbol of eventful European history and of unity and peace. The Reichstag building is the traditional seat of the German Parliament. It was remodeled by British architect Norman Foster in the 1990s and features a glass dome over the session area, which allows free public access to the parliamentary proceedings and magnificent views of the city. The East Side Gallery is an open-air exhibition of art painted directly on the last existing portions of the Berlin Wall. It is the largest remaining evidence of the city's historical division. The Gendarmenmarkt is a neoclassical square in Berlin, the name of which derives from the headquarters of the famous Gens d'armes regiment located here in the 18th century. Two similarly designed cathedrals border it, the Französischer Dom with its observation platform and the Deutscher Dom. The Konzerthaus (Concert Hall), home of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, stands between the two cathedrals. The Museum Island in the River Spree houses five museums built from 1830 to 1930 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Restoration and construction of a main entrance to all museums (James Simon Gallery), as well as reconstruction of the Berlin Palace (Stadtschloss) were completed. Also on the island and next to the Lustgarten and palace is Berlin Cathedral, emperor William II's ambitious attempt to create a Protestant counterpart to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A large crypt houses the remains of some of the earlier Prussian royal family. St. Hedwig's Cathedral is Berlin's Roman Catholic cathedral. Unter den Linden is a tree-lined east–west avenue from the Brandenburg Gate to the Berlin Palace, and was once Berlin's premier promenade. Many Classical buildings line the street, and part of Humboldt University is there. Friedrichstraße was Berlin's legendary street during the Golden Twenties. It combines 20th-century traditions with the modern architecture of today's Berlin. Potsdamer Platz is an entire quarter built from scratch after the Wall came down. To the west of Potsdamer Platz is the Kulturforum, which houses the Gemäldegalerie, and is flanked by the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Berliner Philharmonie. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a Holocaust memorial, is to the north. The area around Hackescher Markt is home to fashionable culture, with countless clothing outlets, clubs, bars, and galleries. This includes the Hackesche Höfe, a conglomeration of buildings around several courtyards, reconstructed around 1996. The nearby New Synagogue is the center of Jewish culture. The Straße des 17. Juni, connecting the Brandenburg Gate and Ernst-Reuter-Platz, serves as the central east–west axis. Its name commemorates the uprisings in East Berlin of 17 June 1953. Approximately halfway from the Brandenburg Gate is the Großer Stern, a circular traffic island on which the Siegessäule (Victory Column) is situated. This monument, built to commemorate Prussia's victories, was relocated in 1938–39 from its previous position in front of the Reichstag. The Kurfürstendamm is home to some of Berlin's luxurious stores with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at its eastern end on Breitscheidplatz. The church was destroyed in the Second World War and left in ruins. Nearby on Tauentzienstraße is KaDeWe, claimed to be continental Europe's largest department store. The Rathaus Schöneberg, where John F. Kennedy made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner!" speech, is in Tempelhof-Schöneberg. West of the center, Bellevue Palace is the residence of the German President. Charlottenburg Palace, which was burnt out in the Second World War, is the largest historical palace in Berlin. The Funkturm Berlin is a lattice radio tower in the fairground area, built between 1924 and 1926. It is the only observation tower which stands on insulators and has a restaurant and an observation deck above ground, which is reachable by a windowed elevator. The Oberbaumbrücke over the Spree river is Berlin's most iconic bridge, connecting the now-combined boroughs of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. It carries vehicles, pedestrians, and the U1 Berlin U-Bahn line. The bridge was completed in a brick gothic style in 1896, replacing the former wooden bridge with an upper deck for the U-Bahn. The center portion was demolished in 1945 to stop the Red Army from crossing. After the war, the repaired bridge served as a checkpoint and border crossing between the Soviet and American sectors, and later between East and West Berlin. In the mid-1950s, it was closed to vehicles, and after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, pedestrian traffic was heavily restricted. Following German reunification, the center portion was reconstructed with a steel frame, and U-Bahn service resumed in 1995. Demographics. At the end of 2023 the city-state of Berlin had 3.66 million registered inhabitants, in an area of . Berlin is the most populous city proper in the European Union. In 2021, the urban area of Berlin had a population of over 4.6 million inhabitants. , the functional urban area was home to about 5.2 million people. The entire Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has a population of more than 6 million in an area of . In 2014, the city-state Berlin had 37,368 live births (+6.6%), a record number since 1991. The number of deaths was 32,314. Almost 2 million households were counted in the city, of which 54 percent were inhabited by a single person. More than 337,000 families with children under the age of 18 lived in Berlin. In 2014, the German capital registered a migration surplus of approximately 40,000 people. Nationalities. National and international migration into the city has a long history. In 1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France, the city responded with the Edict of Potsdam, which guaranteed religious freedom and tax-free status to French Huguenot refugees for ten years. The Greater Berlin Act in 1920 incorporated many suburbs and surrounding cities of Berlin. It formed most of the territory that comprises modern Berlin and increased the population from 1.9 million to 4 million. Active immigration and asylum politics in West Berlin triggered waves of immigration in the 1960s and 1970s. Berlin is home to at least 180,000 Turkish and Turkish German residents, making it the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey. In the 1990s the "Aussiedlergesetze" enabled immigration to Germany of some residents from the former Soviet Union. Today ethnic Germans from countries of the former Soviet Union make up the largest portion of the Russian-speaking community. The last decade experienced an influx from various Western countries and some African regions. A portion of the African immigrants have settled in the Afrikanisches Viertel. Young Germans, EU-Europeans and Israelis have also settled in the city. In December 2019 there were 777,345 registered residents of foreign nationality and another 542,975 German citizens with a "migration background" "(Migrationshintergrund, MH)", meaning they or one of their parents immigrated to Germany after 1955. Foreign residents of Berlin originate from about 190 countries. 48 percent of the residents under the age of 15 have a migration background in 2017. Berlin in 2009 was estimated to have 100,000 to 250,000 unregistered inhabitants. Boroughs of Berlin with a significant number of migrants or foreign born population are Mitte, Neukölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. The number of Arabic speakers in Berlin could be higher than 150,000. There are at least 40,000 Berliners with Syrian citizenship, third only behind Turkish and Polish citizens. The 2015 refugee crisis made Berlin Europe's capital of Arab culture. Berlin is among the cities in Germany that have received the biggest amount of refugees after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of November 2022, an estimated 85,000 Ukrainian refugees were registered in Berlin, making Berlin the most popular destination of Ukrainian refugees in Germany. Berlin has a vibrant expatriate community involving, among others, precarious immigrants, seasonal workers, and refugees. Therefore, Berlin sustains a broad variety of English-based speakers. Speaking a particular type of English does attract prestige and cultural capital in Berlin. Languages. German is the official and predominant spoken language in Berlin. It is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. German is one of 24 languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission. Berlinerisch or Berlinisch is not a dialect linguistically. It is spoken in Berlin and the surrounding metropolitan area. It originates from a Brandenburgish variant. The dialect is now seen more like a sociolect, largely through increased immigration and trends among the educated population to speak standard German in everyday life. The most commonly spoken foreign languages in Berlin are Turkish, Polish, English, Persian, Arabic, Italian, Bulgarian, Russian, Romanian, Kurdish, Serbo-Croatian, French, Spanish and Vietnamese. Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, and Serbo-Croatian are heard more often in the western part due to the large Middle Eastern and former-Yugoslavian communities. Polish, English, Russian, and Vietnamese have more native speakers in East Berlin. Religion. On the report of the 2011 census, approximately 37 percent of the population reported being members of a legally-recognized church or religious organization. The rest either did not belong to such an organization, or there was no information available about them. The largest religious denomination recorded in 2010 was the Protestant regional church body—the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO)—a united church. EKBO is a member of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) and of the Union of Protestant Churches in the EKD (UEK). According to the EKBO, their membership accounted for 18.7 percent of the local population, while the Roman Catholic Church had 9.1 percent of residents registered as its members. About 2.7% of the population identify with other Christian denominations (mostly Eastern Orthodox, but also various Protestants). According to the Berlin residents register, in 2018 14.9 percent were members of the Evangelical Church, and 8.5 percent were members of the Catholic Church. The government keeps a register of members of these churches for tax purposes, because it collects church tax on behalf of the churches. It does not keep records of members of other religious organizations which may collect their own church tax, in this way. In 2009, approximately 249,000 Muslims were reported by the Office of Statistics to be members of mosques and Islamic religious organizations in Berlin, while in 2016, the newspaper "Der Tagesspiegel" estimated that about 350,000 Muslims observed Ramadan in Berlin. In 2019, about 437,000 registered residents, 11.6% of the total, reported having a migration background from one of the Member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Between 1992 and 2011 the Muslim population almost doubled. About 0.9% of Berliners belong to other religions. Of the estimated population of 30,000–45,000 Jewish residents, approximately 12,000 are registered members of religious organizations. Berlin is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Berlin and EKBO's elected chairperson is titled the bishop of EKBO. Furthermore, Berlin is the seat of many Orthodox cathedrals, such as the Cathedral of St. Boris the Baptist, one of the two seats of the Bulgarian Orthodox Diocese of Western and Central Europe, and the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral of the Diocese of Berlin (Patriarchate of Moscow). The faithful of the different religions and denominations maintain many places of worship in Berlin. The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church has eight parishes of different sizes in Berlin. There are 36 Baptist congregations (within Union of Evangelical Free Church Congregations in Germany), 29 New Apostolic Churches, 15 United Methodist churches, eight Free Evangelical Congregations, four Churches of Christ, Scientist (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 11th), six congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an Old Catholic church, and an Anglican church in Berlin. Berlin has more than 80 mosques, ten synagogues, and two Buddhist as well as four Hindu temples. Government and politics. German federal city state. Since the German reunification on 3 October 1990, Berlin has been one of the three city-states of Germany among the present 16 federal states of Germany. The Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin ("House of Representatives") functions as the city and state parliament, which has 141 seats. Berlin's executive body is the Senate of Berlin ("Senat von Berlin"). The Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin ("Regierender Bürgermeister"), and up to ten senators holding ministerial positions, two of them holding the title of "Mayor" ("Bürgermeister") as deputy to the Governing Mayor. The total annual budget of Berlin in 2015 exceeded €24.5 ($30.0) billion including a budget surplus of €205 ($240) million. The German Federal city state of Berlin owns extensive assets, including administrative and government buildings, real estate companies, as well as stakes in the Olympic Stadium, swimming pools, housing companies, and numerous public enterprises and subsidiary companies. The federal state of Berlin runs a real estate portal to advertise commercial spaces or land suitable for redevelopment. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and The Left (Die Linke) took control of the city government after the 2001 state election and won another term in the 2006 state election. From the 2016 state election until the 2023 state election, there was a coalition between the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and the Left Party. Since April 2023, the government has been formed by a coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. The Governing Mayor is simultaneously Lord Mayor of the City of Berlin ("Oberbürgermeister der Stadt") and Minister President of the State of Berlin ("Ministerpräsident des Bundeslandes"). The office of the Governing Mayor is in the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall). Since 2023, this office has been held by Kai Wegner of the Christian Democrats. He is the first conservative mayor in Berlin in more than two decades. Boroughs. Berlin is subdivided into 12 boroughs or districts ("Bezirke"). Each borough has several subdistricts or neighborhoods ("Ortsteile"), which have roots in much older municipalities that predate the formation of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920. These subdistricts became urbanized and incorporated into the city later on. Many residents strongly identify with their neighborhoods, colloquially called "Kiez". At present, Berlin consists of 96 subdistricts, which are commonly made up of several smaller residential areas or quarters. Each borough is governed by a borough council ("Bezirksamt") consisting of five councilors ("Bezirksstadträte") including the borough's mayor ("Bezirksbürgermeister"). The council is elected by the borough assembly ("Bezirksverordnetenversammlung"). However, the individual boroughs are not independent municipalities, but subordinate to the Senate of Berlin. The borough's mayors make up the council of mayors ("Rat der Bürgermeister"), which is led by the city's Governing Mayor and advises the Senate. The neighborhoods have no local government bodies. City partnerships. Berlin to this day maintains official partnerships with 17 cities. Town twinning between West Berlin and other cities began with its sister city Los Angeles, California, in 1967. East Berlin's partnerships were canceled at the time of German reunification. Capital city. Berlin is the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The President of Germany, whose functions are mainly ceremonial under the German constitution, has their official residence in Bellevue Palace. Berlin is the seat of the German Chancellor (Prime Minister), housed in the Chancellery building, the "Bundeskanzleramt". Facing the Chancellery is the Bundestag, the German Parliament, housed in the renovated Reichstag building since the government's relocation to Berlin in 1998. The Bundesrat ("federal council", performing the function of an upper house) is the representation of the 16 constituent states ("Länder") of Germany and has its seat at the former Prussian House of Lords. The total annual federal budget managed by the German government exceeded €310 ($375) billion in 2013. The relocation of the federal government and Bundestag to Berlin was mostly completed in 1999. However, some ministries, as well as some minor departments, stayed in the federal city Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. Discussions about moving the remaining ministries and departments to Berlin continue. The Federal Foreign Office and the ministries and departments of Defense, Justice and Consumer Protection, Finance, Interior, Economic Affairs and Energy, Labor and Social Affairs, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Food and Agriculture, Economic Cooperation and Development, Health, Transport and Digital Infrastructure and Education and Research are based in the capital. Embassies. Berlin hosts in total 158 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many think tanks, trade unions, nonprofit organizations, lobbying groups, and professional associations. Frequent official visits and diplomatic consultations among governmental representatives and national leaders are common in contemporary Berlin. Economy. In 2018, the GDP of Berlin totaled €147 billion, an increase of 3.1% over the previous year. Berlin's economy is dominated by the service sector, with around 84% of all companies doing business in services. In 2015, the total labor force in Berlin was 1.85 million. The unemployment rate reached a 24-year low in November 2015 and stood at 10.0%. From 2012 to 2015 Berlin, as a German state, had the highest annual employment growth rate. Around 130,000 jobs were added in this period. In 2025, about 330,000 people in Berlin received unemployment payments. Important economic sectors in Berlin include life sciences, transportation, information and communication technologies, media and music, advertising and design, biotechnology, environmental services, construction, e-commerce, retail, hotel business, and medical engineering. Research and development have economic significance for the city. Several major corporations like Volkswagen, Pfizer, and SAP operate innovation laboratories in the city. The Science and Business Park in Adlershof is the largest technology park in Germany measured by revenue. Within the eurozone, Berlin has become a center for business relocation and international investments. Companies. Many German and international companies have business or service centers in the city. For several years Berlin has been recognized as a major center of business founders. In 2015, Berlin generated the most venture capital for young startup companies in Europe. Among the 10 largest employers in Berlin are the City-State of Berlin, , largest railway company in the world, the hospital providers Charité and Vivantes, the Federal Government of Germany, the local public transport provider BVG, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom. Siemens, a Global 500 and DAX-listed company is partly headquartered in Berlin. Other DAX-listed companies headquartered in Berlin are the property company Deutsche Wohnen and the online food delivery service Delivery Hero. The national railway operator , Europe's largest digital publisher Axel Springer as well as the MDAX-listed firms Zalando and HelloFresh and also have their main headquarters in the city. Among the largest international corporations who have their German or European headquarters in Berlin are Bombardier Transportation, Securing Energy for Europe, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Sony and TotalEnergies. As of 2023, Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe, is headquartered in Berlin. The Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken has its headquarters in Berlin, managing around 1.200 trillion euros. The three largest banks in the capital are Deutsche Kreditbank, Landesbank Berlin and Berlin Hyp. Mercedes-Benz Group manufactures cars, and BMW builds motorcycles in Berlin. In 2022, American electric car manufacturer Tesla opened its first European Gigafactory outside the city borders in Grünheide (Mark), Brandenburg. The Pharmaceuticals division of Bayer and Berlin Chemie are major pharmaceutical companies in the city. Tourism and conventions. Berlin had 788 hotels with 134,399 beds in 2014. The city recorded 28.7 million overnight hotel stays and 11.9 million hotel guests in 2014. Tourism figures have more than doubled within the last ten years and Berlin has become the third-most-visited city destination in Europe. Some of the most visited places in Berlin include: Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, the Berlin wall, Alexanderplatz, Museumsinsel, Fernsehturm, the East-Side Gallery, Schloss-Charlottenburg, Zoologischer Garten, Siegessäule, Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, Mauerpark, Botanical Garden, Französischer Dom, Deutscher Dom and Holocaust-Mahnmal. The largest visitor groups are from Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United States. According to figures from the International Congress and Convention Association in 2015, Berlin became the leading organizer of conferences globally, hosting 195 international meetings. Some of these congress events take place on venues such as CityCube Berlin or the Berlin Congress Center (bcc). The Messe Berlin (also known as Berlin ExpoCenter City) is the main convention organizing company in the city. Its main exhibition area covers more than . Several large-scale trade fairs like the consumer electronics trade fair IFA, where the first practical audio tape recorder and the first completely electronic television system were first introduced to the public, the ILA Berlin Air Show, the Berlin Fashion Week (including the "Premium Berlin" and the "Panorama Berlin"), the Green Week, the "Fruit Logistica", the transport fair InnoTrans, the tourism fair ITB and the adult entertainment and erotic fair Venus are held annually in the city, attracting a significant number of business visitors. Creative industries. The creative arts and entertainment business is an important part of Berlin's economy. The sector comprises music, film, advertising, architecture, art, design, fashion, performing arts, publishing, R&D, software, TV, radio, and video games. In 2014, around 30,500 creative companies operated in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region, predominantly SMEs. Generating a revenue of 15.6 billion Euro and 6% of all private economic sales, the culture industry grew from 2009 to 2014 at an average rate of 5.5% per year. Berlin is an important European and German film industry hub. It is home to more than 1,000 film and television production companies, 270 movie theaters, and around 300 national and international co-productions are filmed in the region every year. The historic Babelsberg Studios and the production company UFA are adjacent to Berlin in Potsdam. The city is also home of the German Film Academy (Deutsche Filmakademie), founded in 2003, and the European Film Academy, founded in 1988. Media. Berlin is home to many magazine, newspaper, book, and scientific/academic publishers and their associated service industries. In addition, around 20 news agencies, more than 90 regional daily newspapers and their websites, as well as the Berlin offices of more than 22 national publications such as , and Die Zeit reinforce the capital's position as Germany's epicenter for influential debate. Therefore, many international journalists, bloggers, and writers live and work in the city. Berlin is the central location to several international and regional television and radio stations. The public broadcaster RBB has its headquarters in Berlin as well as the commercial broadcasters MTV Europe and Welt. German international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has its TV production unit in Berlin, and most national German broadcasters have a studio in the city, including ZDF and RTL. Berlin has Germany's largest number of daily newspapers, with numerous local broadsheets ("Berliner Morgenpost", "Berliner Zeitung", "Der Tagesspiegel"), and three major tabloids, as well as national dailies of varying sizes, each with a different political affiliation, such as "Die Welt", "Neues Deutschland", and "Die Tageszeitung". "The Berliner", a monthly magazine, is Berlin's English-language periodical and La Gazette de Berlin a French-language newspaper. Berlin is also the headquarter of major German-language publishing houses like Walter de Gruyter, Springer, the Ullstein Verlagsgruppe (publishing group), Suhrkamp, and Cornelsen are all based in Berlin. Each of which publishes books, periodicals, and multimedia products. Quality of life. According to Mercer, Berlin ranked number 19 in the Quality of Living City Ranking in 2024. Also in 2024, according to "Monocle", Berlin occupied the position of the 17th-most-livable city in the world. Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Berlin number 21 of all global cities for "livability". In 2019 Berlin was also number 8 on the Global Power City Index. In the same year Berlin was honored for having the best future prospects of all cities in Germany. Transport. Roads. Berlin's transport infrastructure provides a diverse range of urban mobility. A total of 979 bridges cross 197 km (122 miles) the inner-city waterways. Berlin roads total 5,422 km (3,369 miles) of which 77 km (48 miles) are motorways (known as Autobahn). In 2013 only 1.344 million motor vehicles were registered in the city. With 377 cars per 1000 residents in 2013 (570/1000 in Germany), Berlin as a Western global city has one of the lowest numbers of cars per capita. Cycling. Berlin is well known for its highly developed bicycle lane system. It is estimated that Berlin has 710 bicycles per 1,000 residents. Around 500,000 daily bike riders accounted for 13 percent of total traffic in 2010. Cyclists in Berlin have access to 620 km of bicycle paths including approximately 150 km of mandatory bicycle paths, 190 km of off-road bicycle routes, 60 km of bicycle lanes on roads, 70 km of shared bus lanes which are also open to cyclists, 100 km of combined pedestrian/bike paths and 50 km of marked bicycle lanes on roadside pavements or sidewalks. Riders are allowed to carry their bicycles on Regionalbahn (RE), S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains, on trams, and on night buses if a bike ticket is purchased. Taxicabs. Taxicabs in Berlin are yellow or beige. In 2024, around 8,000 taxicabs were in service. Like in most of Europe, app-based sharing cab services are available but limited. Rail. Long-distance rail lines directly connect Berlin with all of the major cities of Germany. the regional rail lines of the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg provide access to Brandenburg and to the Baltic Sea. The Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin Central Station) is the largest grade-separated railway station in Europe. The Deutsche Bahn runs the high speed Intercity-Express (ICE) to domestic destinations, including Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt am Main. Water transport. The Spree and the Havel rivers cross Berlin. There are no frequent passenger connections to and from Berlin by water. Berlin's largest harbour, the Westhafen, is located in the district of Moabit. It is a transhipment and storage site for inland shipping with a growing importance. Intercity buses. There is an increasing quantity of intercity bus services. Berlin city has more than 10 stations that run buses to destinations throughout Berlin. Destinations in Germany and Europe are connected via the intercity bus exchange "Zentraler Omnibusbahnhof Berlin". Urban public transport. The "Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe" (BVG) and the German State-owned Deutsche Bahn (DB) manage several extensive urban public transport systems. Public transport in Berlin has a long and complicated history because of the 20th-century division of the city, where movement between the two halves was not served. Since 1989, the transport network has been developed extensively. However, it still contains early 20th century traits, such as the U1. Airports. Berlin is served by one commercial international airport: Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), located just outside Berlin's south-eastern border, in the state of Brandenburg. It began construction in 2006, with the intention of replacing Airport (TXL) and Airport (SXF) as the single commercial airport of Berlin. Previously set to open in 2012, after extensive delays and cost overruns, it opened for commercial operations in October 2020. The planned initial capacity of around 27 million passengers per year is to be further developed to bring the terminal capacity to approximately 55 million per year by 2040. Before the opening of the BER in Brandenburg, Berlin was served by Tegel Airport and Schönefeld Airport. Tegel Airport was within the city limits, and Schönefeld Airport was located at the same site as BER. Both airports together handled 29.5 million passengers in 2015. In 2014, 67 airlines served 163 destinations in 50 countries from Berlin. Airport was a focus city for Lufthansa and Eurowings while Schönefeld served as an important destination for airlines like , easyJet and Ryanair. Until 2008, Berlin was also served by the smaller Tempelhof Airport, which functioned as a city airport, with a convenient location near the city center, allowing for quick transit times between the central business district and the airport. The airport grounds have since been turned into a city park. Rohrpost. From 1865 to 1976, Berlin operated an expansive pneumatic postal network, reaching a maximum length of 400 kilometers (roughly 250 miles) by 1940. The system was divided into two distinct networks after 1949. The West Berlin system remained in public use until 1963, and continued to be utilized for government correspondence until 1972. Conversely, the East Berlin system, which incorporated the —the central hub of the operation—remained functional until 1976. Energy. Berlin's two largest energy provider for private households are the Swedish firm Vattenfall and the Berlin-based company GASAG. Both offer electric power and natural gas supply. Some of the city's electric energy is imported from nearby power plants in southern Brandenburg. the five largest power plants measured by capacity are the Heizkraftwerk Reuter West, the Heizkraftwerk Lichterfelde, the Heizkraftwerk Mitte, the Heizkraftwerk Wilmersdorf, and the Heizkraftwerk Charlottenburg. All of these power stations generate electricity and useful heat at the same time to facilitate buffering during load peaks. In 1993 the power grid connections in the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region were renewed. In most of the inner districts of Berlin power lines are underground cables; only a 380 kV and a 110 kV line, which run from Reuter substation to the urban Autobahn, use overhead lines. The Berlin 380-kV electric line is the backbone of the city's energy grid. Health. Berlin has a long history of discoveries in medicine and innovations in medical technology. The modern history of medicine has been significantly influenced by scientists from Berlin. Rudolf Virchow was the founder of cellular pathology, while Robert Koch developed vaccines for anthrax, cholera, and tuberculosis. For his life's work Koch is seen as one of the founders of modern medicine. The Charité complex (Universitätsklinik Charité) is the largest university hospital in Europe, tracing back its origins to the year 1710. More than half of all German Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine, including Emil von Behring, Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich, have worked at the Charité. The Charité is spread over four campuses and comprises around 3,000 beds, 15,500 staff, 8,000 students, and more than 60 operating theaters, and it has a turnover of two billion euros annually. Telecommunication. Since 2017, the digital television standard in Berlin and Germany is DVB-T2. This system transmits compressed digital audio, digital video and other data in an MPEG transport stream. Berlin has installed several hundred free public Wireless LAN sites across the capital since 2016. The wireless networks are concentrated mostly in central districts; 650 hotspots (325 indoor and 325 outdoor access points) are installed. The UMTS (3G) and LTE (4G) networks of the three major cellular operators Vodafone, Telekom Deutschland and O2 enable the use of mobile broadband applications citywide. Education and research. , Berlin had 878 schools, teaching 340,658 students in 13,727 classes and 56,787 trainees in businesses and elsewhere. The city has a 6-year primary education program. After completing primary school, students continue to the (a comprehensive school) or (college preparatory school). Berlin has a special bilingual school program in the , in which children are taught the curriculum in German and a foreign language, starting in primary school and continuing in high school. The Französisches Gymnasium Berlin, which was founded in 1689 to teach the children of Huguenot refugees, offers (German/French) instruction. The John F. Kennedy School, a bilingual German–American public school in Zehlendorf, is particularly popular with children of diplomats and the English-speaking expatriate community. 82 teach Latin and 8 teach Classical Greek. Higher education. The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region is one of the most prolific centers of higher education and research in Germany and Europe. Historically, 67 Nobel Prize winners are affiliated with the Berlin-based universities. The city has four public research universities and more than 30 private, professional, and technical colleges "(Hochschulen)", offering a wide range of disciplines. A record number of 175,651 students were enrolled in the winter term of 2015/16. Among them around 18% have an international background. The three largest universities combined have approximately 103,000 enrolled students. There are the Freie Universität Berlin "(Free University of Berlin, FU Berlin)" with about 33,000 students, the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin "(HU Berlin)" with 35,000 students, and Technische Universität Berlin "(TU Berlin)" with 35,000 students. The Charité Medical School has around 8,000 students. The FU, the HU, the TU, and the Charité make up the Berlin University Alliance, which has received funding from the Excellence Strategy program of the German government. The Universität der Künste "(UdK)" has about 4,000 students and ESMT Berlin is only one of four business schools in Germany with triple accreditation. The Hertie School, a private public policy school located in Mitte, has more than 900 students and doctoral students. The Berlin School of Economics and Law has an enrollment of about 11,000 students, the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Technology of about 12,000 students, and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics) of about 14,000 students. Research. The city has a high density of internationally renowned research institutions, such as the Fraunhofer Society, the DLR Institute for Planetary Research, the Leibniz Association, the Helmholtz Association, and the Max Planck Society, which are independent of, or only loosely connected to its universities. In 2012, around 65,000 professional scientists were working in research and development in the city. Berlin is one of the knowledge and innovation communities (KIC) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). The KIC is based at the Center for Entrepreneurship at TU Berlin and has a focus in the development of IT industries. It partners with major multinational companies such as Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, and SAP. One of Europe's successful research, business and technology clusters is based at WISTA in Berlin-Adlershof, with more than 1,000 affiliated firms, university departments and scientific institutions. In addition to the university-affiliated libraries, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is a major research library. Its two main locations are on Potsdamer Straße and on Unter den Linden. There are also 86 public libraries in the city. ResearchGate, a global social networking site for scientists, is based in Berlin. Culture. Berlin is known for its numerous cultural institutions, many of which enjoy international reputation. The diversity and vivacity of the metropolis led to a trendsetting atmosphere. An innovative music, dance and art scene has developed in the 21st century. Young people, international artists and entrepreneurs continued to settle in the city and made Berlin a popular entertainment center in the world. The expanding cultural performance of the city was underscored by the relocation of the Universal Music Group who decided to move their headquarters to the banks of the River Spree. In 2005, Berlin was named "City of Design" by UNESCO and has been part of the Creative Cities Network ever since. Many German and International films were shot in Berlin, including "M", "One, Two, Three", "Cabaret", "Christiane F.", "Possession", "Octopussy", "Wings of Desire", "Run Lola Run", "The Bourne Trilogy", "Good Bye, Lenin!", "The Lives of Others", "Inglourious Basterds", "Hanna", "Unknown" and "Bridge of Spies". Galleries and museums. Berlin is home to 138 museums and more than 400 art galleries. The ensemble on the Museum Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is in the northern part of the Spree Island between the Spree and the Kupfergraben. As early as 1841 it was designated a "district dedicated to art and antiquities" by a royal decree. Subsequently, the Altes Museum was built in the Lustgarten. The Neues Museum, which displays the bust of Queen Nefertiti, Alte Nationalgalerie, Pergamon Museum, and Bode Museum were built there. Apart from the Museum Island, there are many additional museums in the city. The Gemäldegalerie (Painting Gallery) focuses on the paintings of the "old masters" from the 13th to the 18th centuries, while the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) specializes in 20th-century European painting. The Hamburger Bahnhof, in Moabit, exhibits a major collection of modern and contemporary art. The expanded Deutsches Historisches Museum reopened in the Zeughaus with an overview of German history spanning more than a millennium. The Bauhaus Archive is a museum of 20th-century design from the famous Bauhaus school. Museum Berggruen houses the collection of noted 20th century collector Heinz Berggruen, and features an extensive assortment of works by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, and Giacometti, among others. The Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (Museum of Prints and Drawings) is part of the Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) and the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz in the Tiergarten district of Berlin's Mitte district. It is the largest museum of the graphic arts in Germany and at the same time one of the four most important collections of its kind in the world. The collection includes Friedrich Gilly's design for the monument to Frederick II of Prussia. The Jewish Museum has a standing exhibition on two millennia of German-Jewish history. The German Museum of Technology in Kreuzberg has a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The "Museum für Naturkunde" (Berlin's natural history museum) exhibits natural history near Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It has the largest mounted dinosaur in the world (a "Giraffatitan" skeleton). A well-preserved specimen of "Tyrannosaurus rex" and the early bird "Archaeopteryx" are at display as well. In Dahlem, there are several museums of world art and culture, such as the Museum of Asian Art, the Ethnological Museum, the Museum of European Cultures, as well as the Allied Museum. The Brücke Museum features one of the largest collection of works by artist of the early 20th-century expressionist movement. In Lichtenberg, on the grounds of the former East German Ministry for State Security, is the Stasi Museum. The site of Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most renowned crossing points of the Berlin Wall, is still preserved. A private museum venture exhibits a comprehensive documentation of detailed plans and strategies devised by people who tried to flee from the East. The Beate Uhse Erotic Museum claimed to be the largest erotic museum in the world until it closed in 2014. The cityscape of Berlin displays large quantities of urban street art. It has become a significant part of the city's cultural heritage and has its roots in the graffiti scene of Kreuzberg of the 1980s. The Berlin Wall itself has become one of the largest open-air canvasses in the world. The leftover stretch along the Spree river in Friedrichshain remains as the East Side Gallery. Berlin today is consistently rated as an important world city for street art culture. Berlin has galleries which are quite rich in contemporary art. Located in Mitte, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, KOW, Sprüth Magers; Kreuzberg there are a few galleries as well such as Blain Southern, Esther Schipper, Future Gallery, König Gallerie. Nightlife and festivals. Berlin's nightlife has been celebrated as one of the most diverse and vibrant of its kind. In the 1970s and 80s, the SO36 in Kreuzberg was a center for punk music and culture. The "SOUND" and the "Dschungel" gained notoriety. Throughout the 1990s, people in their 20s from all over the world, particularly those in Western and Central Europe, made Berlin's club scene a premier nightlife venue. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many historic buildings in Mitte, the former city center of East Berlin, were illegally occupied and re-built by young squatters and became a fertile ground for underground and counterculture gatherings. The central boroughs are home to many nightclubs, including the Tresor and the Berghain. The KitKatClub and several other locations are known for their sexually uninhibited parties. Clubs are not required to close at a fixed time during the weekends, and many parties last well into the morning or even all weekend, including near Alexanderplatz. Several venues have become a popular stage for the Neo-Burlesque scene. Berlin has a long history of gay culture, and is an important birthplace of the LGBT rights movement. Same-sex bars and dance halls operated freely as early as the 1880s, and the first gay magazine, "Der Eigene", started in 1896. By the 1920s, gays and lesbians had an unprecedented visibility. Today, in addition to a positive atmosphere in the wider club scene, the city again has a huge number of queer clubs and festivals. The most famous and largest are Berlin Pride, the Christopher Street Day, the Lesbian and Gay City Festival in Berlin-Schöneberg, the Kreuzberg Pride. The annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) with around 500,000 admissions is considered to be the largest publicly attended film festival in the world. The Karneval der Kulturen ("Carnival of Cultures"), a multi-ethnic street parade, is celebrated every Pentecost weekend. Berlin is also well known for the cultural festival Berliner Festspiele, which includes the jazz festival JazzFest Berlin, and Young Euro Classic, the largest international festival of youth orchestras in the world. Several technology and media art festivals and conferences are held in the city, including Transmediale and Chaos Communication Congress. The annual Berlin Festival focuses on indie rock, electronic music and synthpop and is part of the International Berlin Music Week. Every year Berlin hosts one of the largest New Year's Eve celebrations in the world, attended by well over a million people. The focal point is the Brandenburg Gate, where midnight fireworks are centered, but various private fireworks displays take place throughout the entire city. Partygoers in Germany often toast the New Year with a glass of sparkling wine. Performing arts. Berlin is home to 44 theaters and stages. The Deutsches Theater in Mitte was built in 1849–50 and has operated almost continuously since then. The Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz was built in 1913–14, though the company had been founded in 1890. The Berliner Ensemble, famous for performing the works of Bertolt Brecht, was established in 1949. The Schaubühne was founded in 1962 and moved to the building of the former Universum Cinema on Kurfürstendamm in 1981. With a seating capacity of 1,895 and a stage floor of , the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin Mitte is the largest show palace in Europe. For Berlin's independent dance and theatre scene, venues such as the Sophiensäle in Mitte and the three houses of the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in Kreuzberg are important. Most productions there are also accessible to an English-speaking audience. Some of the dance and theatre groups that also work internationally (Gob Squad, Rimini Protokoll) are based there, as well as festivals such as the international festival Dance in August. Berlin has three major opera houses: the Deutsche Oper, the Berlin State Opera, and the Komische Oper. The Berlin State Opera on Unter den Linden opened in 1742 and is the oldest of the three. Its musical director is Daniel Barenboim. The Komische Oper has traditionally specialized in operettas and is also at Unter den Linden. The Deutsche Oper opened in 1912 in Charlottenburg. The city's main venue for musical theater performances are the Theater am Potsdamer Platz and Theater des Westens (built in 1895). Contemporary dance can be seen at the "Radialsystem V". The Tempodrom is host to concerts and circus-inspired entertainment. It also houses a multi-sensory spa experience. The Admiralspalast in Mitte has a vibrant program of variety and music events. There are seven symphony orchestras in Berlin. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world; it is housed in the Berliner Philharmonie near Potsdamer Platz on a street named for the orchestra's longest-serving conductor, Herbert von Karajan. Simon Rattle was its principal conductor from 1999 to 2018, a position now held by Kirill Petrenko. The Konzerthausorchester Berlin was founded in 1952 as the orchestra for East Berlin. Christoph Eschenbach is its principal conductor. The Haus der Kulturen der Welt presents exhibitions dealing with intercultural issues and stages world music and conferences. The "Kookaburra" and the "Quatsch Comedy Club" are known for satire and comedy shows. In 2018, the "New York Times" described Berlin as "arguably the world capital of underground electronic music". Cuisine. The cuisine and culinary offerings of Berlin vary greatly. 23 restaurants in Berlin have been awarded one or more Michelin stars in the Michelin Guide of 2021, which ranks the city at the top for the number of restaurants having this distinction in Germany. Berlin is well known for its offerings of vegetarian and vegan cuisine and is home to an innovative entrepreneurial food scene promoting cosmopolitan flavors, local and sustainable ingredients, pop-up street food markets, supper clubs, as well as food festivals, such as Berlin Food Week. Many local foods originated from north German culinary traditions and include rustic and hearty dishes with pork, goose, fish, peas, beans, cucumbers, or potatoes. Typical Berliner fare include popular street food like the "Currywurst" (which gained popularity with postwar construction workers rebuilding the city), "Buletten" and the "Berliner" donut, known in Berlin as (). German bakeries offering a variety of breads and pastries are widespread. One of Europe's largest delicatessen markets is found at the KaDeWe, and among the world's largest chocolate stores is "Rausch". Berlin is also home to a diverse gastronomy scene reflecting the immigrant history of the city. Turkish and Arab immigrants brought their culinary traditions to the city, such as the lahmajoun and falafel, which have become common fast food staples. The modern fast-food version of the doner kebab sandwich which evolved in Berlin in the 1970s, has since become a favorite dish in Germany and elsewhere in the world. Asian cuisine like Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Korean, and Japanese restaurants, as well as Spanish tapas bars, Italian, and Greek cuisine, can be found in many parts of the city. Recreation. Zoologischer Garten Berlin, the older of two zoos in the city, was founded in 1844. It is the most visited zoo in Europe and presents the most diverse range of species in the world. It was the home of the captive-born celebrity polar bear Knut. The city's other zoo, Tierpark Friedrichsfelde, was founded in 1955. Berlin's Botanischer Garten includes the Botanic Museum Berlin. With an area of and around 22,000 different plant species, it is one of the largest and most diverse collections of botanical life in the world. Other gardens in the city include the Britzer Garten, and the Gärten der Welt (Gardens of the World) in Marzahn. The Tiergarten park in Mitte, with landscape design by Peter Joseph Lenné, is one of Berlin's largest and most popular parks. In Kreuzberg, the Viktoriapark provides a viewing point over the southern part of inner-city Berlin. Treptower Park, beside the Spree in Treptow, features a large Soviet War Memorial. The Volkspark in Friedrichshain, which opened in 1848, is the oldest park in the city, with monuments, a summer outdoor cinema and several sports areas. Tempelhofer Feld, the site of the former city airport, is the world's largest inner-city open space. Potsdam is on the southwestern periphery of Berlin. The city was a residence of the Prussian kings and the German Kaiser, until 1918. The area around Potsdam in particular Sanssouci is known for a series of interconnected lakes and cultural landmarks. The Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin are the largest World Heritage Site in Germany. Berlin is also well known for its numerous cafés, street musicians, beach bars along the Spree River, flea markets, boutique shops and pop-up stores, which are a source for recreation and leisure. Sports. Berlin has established a high-profile as a host city of major international sporting events. The city hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics and was the host city for the 2006 FIFA World Cup final. The World Athletics Championships was held at Olympiastadion in 2009 and 2025. The city hosted the Euroleague Final Four basketball competition in 2009 and 2016, and was one of the hosts of FIBA EuroBasket 2015. In 2015 Berlin was the venue for the UEFA Champions League Final. The city bid to host the 2000 Summer Olympics but lost to Sydney. Berlin hosted the 2023 Special Olympics World Summer Games. This is the first time Germany has ever hosted the Special Olympics World Games. The annual Berlin Marathona course that holds the most top-10 world record runsand the ISTAF are well-established athletic events in the city. The Mellowpark in Köpenick is one of the biggest skate and BMX parks in Europe. A fan fest at Brandenburg Gate, which attracts several hundreds of thousands of spectators, has become popular during international football competitions, such as the UEFA European Championship. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who is often hailed as the "father of modern gymnastics", invented the horizontal bar, parallel bars, rings, and the vault around 1811 in Berlin. Jahn's Turners movement, first realized at Volkspark Hasenheide, was the origin of modern sports clubs. In 2013, around 600,000 Berliners were registered in one of the more than 2,300 sport and fitness clubs. The city of Berlin operates more than 60 public indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Berlin is the largest Olympic training center in Germany, with around 500 top athletes (15% of all German top athletes) being based there. Forty-seven elite athletes participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Berliners would achieve seven gold, twelve silver, and three bronze medals. Several professional clubs representing the most important spectator team sports in Germany are based in Berlin. The oldest and most popular first-division team based in Berlin is the football club Hertha BSC. The team represented Berlin as a founding member of the Bundesliga in 1963. Other professional team sport clubs include:
3355	45699184	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3355	Benjamin Lee Whorf	Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. Whorf saw this idea, named after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, as having implications similar to those of Einstein's principle of physical relativity. However, the concept originated from 19th-century philosophy and thinkers like Wilhelm von Humboldt and Wilhelm Wundt. Whorf initially pursued chemical engineering but developed an interest in linguistics, particularly Biblical Hebrew and indigenous Mesoamerican languages. His groundbreaking work on the Nahuatl language earned him recognition, and he received a grant to study it further in Mexico. He presented influential papers on Nahuatl upon his return. Whorf later studied linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while working as a fire prevention engineer. During his time at Yale, Whorf worked on describing the Hopi language and made notable claims about its perception of time. He also conducted research on the Uto-Aztecan languages, publishing influential papers. In 1938, he substituted for Sapir, teaching a seminar on American Indian linguistics. Whorf's contributions extended beyond linguistic relativity; he wrote a grammar sketch of Hopi, studied Nahuatl dialects, proposed a deciphering of Maya hieroglyphic writing, and contributed to Uto-Aztecan reconstruction. After Whorf's premature death from cancer in 1941, his colleagues curated his manuscripts and promoted his ideas regarding language, culture, and cognition. However, in the 1960s, his views fell out of favor due to criticisms claiming his ideas were untestable and poorly formulated. In recent decades, interest in Whorf's work has resurged, with scholars reevaluating his ideas and engaging in a more in-depth understanding of his theories. The field of linguistic relativity remains an active area of research in psycholinguistics and linguistic anthropology, generating ongoing debates between relativism and universalism, as well as in the study of raciolinguistics. Whorf's contributions to linguistics, such as the allophone and the cryptotype, have been widely accepted. Biography. Early life. The son of Harry Church Whorf and Sarah Edna Lee Whorf, Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf was born on April 24, 1897, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. His father was an artist, intellectual, and designer – first working as a commercial artist and later as a dramatist. Whorf had two younger brothers, John and Richard, who both went on to become notable artists. John became an internationally renowned painter and illustrator; Richard was an actor in films such as "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and later an Emmy-nominated television director of such shows as "The Beverly Hillbillies". Whorf was the intellectual of the three and started conducting chemical experiments with his father's photographic equipment at a young age. He was also an avid reader, interested in botany, astrology, and Middle American prehistory. He read William H. Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" several times. At the age of 17, he began keeping a copious diary in which he recorded his thoughts and dreams. Career in fire prevention. In 1918, Whorf graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his academic performance was of average quality, with a degree in chemical engineering. In 1920, he married Celia Inez Peckham; they had three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee. Around the same time he began work as a fire prevention engineer (an inspector) for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He was particularly good at the job and was highly commended by his employers. His job required him to travel to production facilities throughout New England to be inspected. One anecdote describes him arriving at a chemical plant and being denied access by the director, who would not allow anyone to see the production procedure, which was a trade secret. Having been told what the plant produced, Whorf wrote a chemical formula on a piece of paper, saying to the director: "I think this is what you're doing". The surprised director asked Whorf how he knew about the secret procedure, and he simply answered: "You couldn't do it in any other way." Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior. Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones. Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums". Early interest in religion and language. Whorf was a spiritual man throughout his lifetime, although what religion he followed has been the subject of debate. As a young man, he produced a manuscript titled "Why I have discarded evolution", causing some scholars to describe him as a devout Methodist, who was impressed with fundamentalism, and perhaps supportive of creationism. However, throughout his life Whorf's main religious interest was Theosophy, a nonsectarian organization based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that promotes the view of the world as an interconnected whole and the unity and brotherhood of humankind "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". Some scholars have argued that the conflict between spiritual and scientific inclinations has been a driving force in Whorf's intellectual development, particularly in the attraction by ideas of linguistic relativity. Whorf said that "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical people seem the most capable of becoming excited about ideas—new ideas." Around 1924, Whorf first became interested in linguistics. Originally, he analyzed Biblical texts, seeking to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Inspired by the esoteric work "La langue hebraïque restituée" by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, he began a semantic and grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Whorf's early manuscripts on Hebrew and Maya have been described as exhibiting a considerable degree of mysticism, as he sought to uncover esoteric meanings of glyphs and letters. Early studies in Mesoamerican linguistics. Whorf studied Biblical linguistics mainly at the Watkinson Library (now Hartford Public Library). This library had an extensive collection of materials about Native American linguistics and folklore, originally collected by James Hammond Trumbull. It was at the Watkinson library that Whorf became friends with a young boy, John B. Carroll, who later went on to study psychology under B. F. Skinner, and who in 1956 edited and published a selection of Whorf's essays as "Language, Thought and Reality" . The collection rekindled Whorf's interest in Mesoamerican antiquity. He began studying the Nahuatl language in 1925, and later, beginning in 1928, he studied the collections of Maya hieroglyphic texts. Quickly becoming conversant with the materials, he began a scholarly dialog with Mesoamericanists such as Alfred Tozzer, the Maya archaeologist at Harvard University, and Herbert Spinden of the Brooklyn Museum. In 1928, he first presented a paper at the International Congress of Americanists in which he presented his translation of a Nahuatl document held at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He also began to study the comparative linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which Edward Sapir had recently demonstrated to be a linguistic family. In addition to Nahuatl, Whorf studied the Piman and Tepecano languages, while in close correspondence with linguist J. Alden Mason. Field studies in Mexico. Because of the promise shown by his work on Uto-Aztecan, Tozzer and Spinden advised Whorf to apply for a grant with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to support his research. Whorf considered using the money to travel to Mexico to procure Aztec manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City, where Professor Robert H. Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs. At Yale. Although Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology up to this point, he had already made a name for himself in Mesoamerican linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminaries as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of "volksgeist", or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' "The Meaning of Meaning", from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and of Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science, he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics. Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. In 1936, Whorf was appointed honorary research fellow in anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics. Final years. In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer, he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply affected by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece. In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the "MIT Technology Review" titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, "Theosophist", published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces, he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the science, in contrast suggesting that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described across languages could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world; these phenomena risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked. Posthumous reception and legacy. At Whorf's death, his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published studies of Indigenous languages and cultures of the American South West in which Whorf found correspondences between cultural patterns and linguistic ones. The term, even though technically a misnomer, went on to become the most widely known label for Whorf's ideas. According to John A. Lucy, "Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists". Universalism and anti-Whorfianism. Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954, psychologists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other. Hence, has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, it failed to test Whorf's ideas from the outset. Focusing on color terminology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of Zuni color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception. In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity. Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as Noam Chomsky began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal universalist terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles. Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree. Throughout the 1980s, most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics". With the advent of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics in the late 1980s, some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified. By the 1960s, analytical philosophers also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as Max Black and Donald Davidson published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity". According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible. Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view, the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes. Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms – attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations. argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to Lakoff, Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which racism and jingoism were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone Lakoff argues, Whorf can be considered to be "[n]ot just a pioneer in linguistics, but a pioneer as a human being". Today, many followers of universalist schools of thought continue to oppose the idea of linguistic relativity, seeing it as unsound or even ridiculous. For example, Steven Pinker argues in his book "The Language Instinct" that thought exists prior to language and independently of it, a view also espoused by philosophers of language such as Jerry Fodor, John Locke and Plato. In this interpretation, language is inconsequential to human thought because humans do not think in "natural" language, i.e. any language used for communication. Rather, we think in a meta-language that precedes natural language, which Pinker following Fodor calls "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position", declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Scholars of a more "relativist" bent such as John A. Lucy and Stephen C. Levinson have criticized Pinker for misrepresenting Whorf's views and arguing against strawmen. Corroboration of Whorf's claims. The idea that Whorf defended a kind of "linguistic relativity" stems from his article "Language, Mind and Reality" published during the Second World War, where Whorf criticized American scientists, especially some physicists who were searching for a substance where there are only substantive words such as "energy" and searching for an expenditure of energy where there are only transitive verbs such as "transform", thus trying to disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which helps us predict how much mass must be consumed to produce how much energy. Whorf claimed in this article that this "Aryan Western Logic" coming from "Western Languages" was stopping scientists to accept the theory and spend efforts on its applications, such as the creation of the atomic bomb, which could be decisive for the United States to win or lose the war against the Germans. This is a period when some national socialists in Germany were trying to develop an Aryan Physics, free from counterintuitive findings by Jewish physicists such as Albert Einstein. Studies on the construction of experience through meaning have been increasing since the 1990s, and a series of experimental results have corroborated Whorf's claims, when understood as he presented them, especially in cultural psychology and linguistic anthropology. One of the earliest linguistic descriptions directing positive attention towards Whorf's claims that grammatical categories construed meaning was George Lakoff's "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things", in which he argued that Whorf had been on the right track when he claimed that a contrast in grammatical categories is a resource for a contrast in experiencial meaning, thus that the way we usually represent our experience (including through grammatical categories) impacts the way our senses are organised as experience. In 1992 psychologist John A. Lucy published two books on the topic: the first one analyzed the intellectual genealogy of the hypothesis, arguing that previous studies had failed to appreciate the subtleties of Whorf's thinking; they had been unable to formulate a research agenda that would actually test Whorf's claims. Lucy proposed a new research design so that the hypothesis of linguistic relativity could be tested empirically, and to avoid the pitfalls of earlier studies which Lucy claimed had tended to presuppose the universality of the categories they were studying. His second book was an empirical study of the relation between grammatical categories and cognition in the Yucatec Maya language of Mexico. In 1996 Penny Lee's reappraisal of Whorf's writings was published, reinstating Whorf as a serious and capable thinker. Lee argued that previous explorations of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis had largely ignored Whorf's actual writings, and consequently asked questions very unlike those Whorf had asked. Also in that year a volume, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity" edited by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson gathered a range of researchers working in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology to bring renewed attention to the issue of how Whorf's theories could be updated, and a subsequent review of the new direction of the linguistic relativity paradigm cemented the development. Since then considerable empirical research into linguistic relativity has been carried out, especially at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics with scholarship motivating two edited volumes of linguistic relativity studies, and in American Institutions by scholars such as Lera Boroditsky and Dedre Gentner. In turn universalist scholars frequently dismiss Whorf's claims as "dull" or "boring", as well as positive findings of influence of grammatical categories on thought or behavior, which are often subtle rather than spectacular. Despite the fact that scientists were trying to find substances and loss of energy in the transformation of mass into energy and that Whorf was correct in his critique against such lines of research, these researchers do not mention the context in which Whorf wrote his critique of scientists and claim that Whorf's supposed "linguistic relativity" had promised more spectacular findings than it was able to provide. Whorf's views have been compared to those of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and the late Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of whom considered language to have important bearing on thought and reasoning. His hypotheses have also been compared to the views of psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, whose social constructivism considers the cognitive development of children to be mediated by the social use of language. Vygotsky shared Whorf's interest in gestalt psychology, and he also read Sapir's works. Others have seen similarities between Whorf's work and the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, who read Whorf and whose approach to textual meaning was similarly holistic and relativistic. Whorf's ideas have also been interpreted as a radical critique of positivist science. Work. Linguistic relativity. Whorf is best known as the main proponent of what he called the principle of linguistic relativity, but which is often known as "the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", named for him and Edward Sapir. Whorf never stated the principle in the form of a hypothesis, and the idea that linguistic categories influence perception and cognition was shared by many other scholars before him. But because Whorf, in his articles, gave specific examples of how he saw the grammatical categories of specific languages related to conceptual and behavioral patterns, he pointed towards an empirical research program that has been taken up by subsequent scholars, and which is often called "Sapir–Whorf studies". Sources of influence on Whorf's thinking. Whorf and Sapir both drew explicitly on Albert Einstein's principle of general relativity; hence linguistic relativity refers to the concept of grammatical and semantic categories of a specific language providing a frame of reference as a medium through which observations are made. Following an original observation by Boas, Sapir demonstrated that speakers of a given language perceive sounds that are acoustically different as the same, if the sound comes from the underlying phoneme and does not contribute to changes in semantic meaning. Furthermore, speakers of languages are attentive to sounds, particularly if the same two sounds come from different phonemes. Such differentiation is an example of how various observational frames of reference leads to different patterns of attention and perception. Whorf was also influenced by gestalt psychology, believing that languages require their speakers to describe the same events as different gestalt constructions, which he called "isolates from experience". An example is how the action of cleaning a gun is different in English and Shawnee: English focuses on the instrumental relation between two objects and the purpose of the action (removing dirt); whereas the Shawnee language focuses on the movement—using an arm to create a dry space in a hole. The event described is the same, but the attention in terms of figure and ground are different. Degree of influence of language on thought. If read superficially, some of Whorf's statements lend themselves to the interpretation that he supported linguistic determinism. For example, in an often-quoted passage Whorf writes: The statements about the obligatory nature of the terms of language have been taken to suggest that Whorf meant that language completely determined the scope of possible conceptualizations. However, neo-Whorfians argue that here Whorf is writing about the terms in which we speak of the world, not the terms in which we think of it. Whorf noted that to communicate thoughts and experiences with members of a speech community speakers must use the linguistic categories of their shared language, which requires moulding experiences into the shape of language to speak them—a process called "thinking for speaking". This interpretation is supported by Whorf's subsequent statement that "No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality, but is constrained by certain modes of interpretation even when he thinks himself most free". Similarly, the statement that observers are led to different pictures of the universe has been understood as an argument that different conceptualizations are not comparable, making translation between different conceptual and linguistic systems impossible. Neo-Whorfians argue this to be a misreading since throughout his work one of his main points was that such systems could be "calibrated" and thereby be made commensurable, but only when we become aware of the differences in conceptual schemes through linguistic analysis. Hopi time. Whorf's study of Hopi time has been the most widely discussed and criticized example of linguistic relativity. In his analysis he argues that there is a relation between how the Hopi people conceptualize time, how they speak of temporal relations, and the grammar of the Hopi language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for the existence of linguistic relativity was based on what he saw as a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that the Hopi language, in contrast to English and other SAE languages, does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct countable instances, like "three days" or "five years", but rather as a single process. Because of this difference, the language lacks nouns that refer to units of time. He proposed that the Hopi view of time was fundamental in all aspects of their culture and furthermore explained certain patterns of behavior. In his 1939 memorial essay to Sapir he wrote that "... the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call 'time', or to past, present, or future..." Linguist Ekkehart Malotki challenged Whorf's analyses of Hopi temporal expressions and concepts with numerous examples how the Hopi language refers to time. Malotki argues that in the Hopi language the system of tenses consists of future and non-future and that the single difference between the three-tense system of European languages and the Hopi system, is that the latter combines past and present to form a single category. Critics of Whorf frequently refer to Malotki's data, which would appear to contradict Whorf's statements on Hopi, in order to refute his concept of linguistic relativity; while other scholars have defended the analysis of Hopi, arguing that Whorf's claim was not that Hopi lacked words or categories to describe temporality, but that the Hopi concept of time is altogether different from that of English speakers. Whorf described the Hopi categories of tense, noting that time is not divided into past, present and future, as is common in European languages, but rather a single tense refers to both present and past while another refers to events that have not yet happened and may or may not happen in the future. He also described a large array of stems that he called "tensors" which describes aspects of temporality, but without referring to countable units of time as in English and most European languages. Contributions to linguistic theory. Whorf's distinction between "overt" (phenotypical) and "covert" (cryptotypical) grammatical categories has become widely influential in linguistics and anthropology. British linguist Michael Halliday wrote about Whorf's notion of the "cryptotype", and the conception of "how grammar models reality", that it would "eventually turn out to be among the major contributions of twentieth century linguistics". Furthermore, Whorf introduced the concept of allophones, which are positional phonetic variants of a single superordinate phoneme; in doing so he placed a cornerstone in consolidating early phoneme theory. The term was popularized by G. L. Trager and Bernard Bloch in a 1941 paper on English phonology and went on to become part of standard usage within the American structuralist tradition. Whorf considered allophones to be another example of linguistic relativity. The principle of allophony describes how acoustically different sounds can be treated as reflections of a single phoneme in a language. This sometimes makes the different sound appear similar to native speakers of the language, even to the point that they are unable to distinguish them auditorily without special training. Whorf wrote that: "[allophones] are also relativistic. Objectively, acoustically, and physiologically the allophones of [a] phoneme may be extremely unlike, hence the impossibility of determining what is what. You always have to keep the observer in the picture. What linguistic pattern makes like is like, and what it makes unlike is unlike".(Whorf, 1940) Central to Whorf's inquiries was the approach later described as metalinguistics by G. L. Trager, who in 1950 published four of Whorf's essays as "Four articles on Metalinguistics". Whorf was crucially interested in the ways in which speakers come to be aware of the language that they use, and become able to describe and analyze language using language itself to do so. Whorf saw that the ability to arrive at progressively more accurate descriptions of the world hinged partly on the ability to construct a metalanguage to describe how language affects experience, and thus to have the ability to calibrate different conceptual schemes. Whorf's endeavors have since been taken up in the development of the study of metalinguistics and metalinguistic awareness, first by Michael Silverstein who published a radical and influential rereading of Whorf in 1979 and subsequently in the field of linguistic anthropology. Studies of Uto-Aztecan languages. Whorf conducted important work on the Uto-Aztecan languages, which Sapir had conclusively demonstrated as a valid language family in 1915. Working first on Nahuatl, Tepecano, and Tohono O'odham, he had established familiarity with the language group before he met Sapir in 1928. During Whorf's time at Yale, he published several articles on Uto-Aztecan linguistics, such as "Notes on the Tübatulabal language". In 1935 he published "The Comparative Linguistics of Uto-Aztecan", and a review of Kroeber's survey of Uto-Aztecan linguistics. Whorf's work served to further cement the foundations of comparative Uto-Aztecan studies. The first Native American language Whorf studied was the Uto-Aztecan language Nahuatl, which he first studied from colonial grammars and documents; later, it became the subject of his first field work experience in 1930. Based on his studies of Classical Nahuatl, Whorf argued that Nahuatl was an oligosynthetic language, a typological category that he invented. In Mexico working with native speakers, he studied the dialects of Milpa Alta and Tepoztlán. His grammar sketch of the Milpa Alta dialect of Nahuatl was not published during his lifetime, but it was published posthumously by Harry Hoijer and became quite influential and used as the basic description of "Modern Nahuatl" by many scholars. The description of the dialect is quite condensed and in some places difficult to understand because of Whorf's propensity of inventing his own unique terminology for grammatical concepts, but the work has generally been considered to be technically advanced. He also produced an analysis of the prosody of these dialects which he related to the history of the glottal stop and vowel length in Nahuan languages. This work was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen in 1993, who also considered it a valuable description of the two endangered dialects, and the only one of its kind to include detailed phonetic analysis of supra-segmental phenomena. In Uto-Aztecan linguistics, one of Whorf's achievements was to determine the reason the Nahuatl language has the phoneme , not found in the other languages of the family. The existence of in Nahuatl had puzzled previous linguists and caused Sapir to reconstruct a phoneme for proto-Uto-Aztecan based only on evidence from Aztecan. In a 1937 paper published in the journal "American Anthropologist", Whorf argued that the phoneme resulted from some of the Nahuan or Aztecan languages having undergone a sound change from the original * to in the position before *. This sound law is known as "Whorf's law", considered valid although a more detailed understanding of the precise conditions under which it took place has since been developed. Also in 1937, Whorf and his friend G. L. Trager published a paper in which they elaborated on the Azteco-Tanoan language family, proposed originally by Sapir as a family comprising the Uto-Aztecan and the Kiowa-Tanoan languages—(the Tewa and Kiowa languages). Maya epigraphy. In a series of published and unpublished studies in the 1930s, Whorf argued that Mayan writing was to some extent phonetic. While his work on deciphering the Maya script gained some support from Alfred Tozzer at Harvard, the main authority on Ancient Maya culture at the time, J. E. S. Thompson, strongly rejected Whorf's ideas, saying that Mayan writing lacked a phonetic component and is therefore impossible to decipher based on a linguistic analysis. Whorf argued that it was exactly the reluctance to apply linguistic analysis of Maya languages that had held the decipherment back. Whorf sought for cues to phonetic values within the elements of the specific signs, never realizing that the system was logo-syllabic. Although Whorf's approach to understanding the Maya script is now known to have been misguided, his central claim that the script was phonetic and should be deciphered as such was vindicated by Yuri Knorozov's syllabic decipherment of Mayan writing in the 1950s.
3356	28371143	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3356	Bill Clinton	William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat. Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton graduated from Georgetown University in 1968, and later from Yale Law School, where he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association. Clinton was elected president in the 1992 election, defeating the incumbent Republican president George H. W. Bush, and the independent businessman Ross Perot. He became the first president to be born in the Baby Boomer generation and the youngest to serve two full terms. Clinton presided over the second longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act but failed to pass his plan for national health care reform. Starting in the mid-1990s, he began an ideological evolution as he became much more conservative in his domestic policy, advocating for and signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and financial deregulation measures. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, eventually signing the Dayton Peace agreement. He also called for the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe and many former Warsaw Pact members joined NATO during his presidency. Clinton's foreign policy in the Middle East saw him sign the Iraq Liberation Act which gave aid to groups against Saddam Hussein. He also participated in the Oslo I Accord and Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and assisted the Northern Ireland peace process. Clinton won re-election in the 1996 election, defeating Republican nominee Bob Dole and returning Reform Party nominee Ross Perot. In his second term, Clinton made use of permanent normal trade. Many of his second term accomplishments were overshadowed by the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, when it was revealed in early 1998 that he had been engaging in an eighteen-month-long sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. This scandal escalated throughout the year, culminating in December when Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson. The two impeachment articles that the House passed were centered around perjury and Clinton using the powers of the presidency to commit obstruction of justice. In January 1999, Clinton's impeachment trial began in the Senate, where he was acquitted two months later on both charges. During the last three years of Clinton's presidency, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus—the first and only such surplus since 1969. Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president. His presidency ranks among the middle to upper tier in historical rankings of U.S. presidents. His personal conduct and misconduct allegations have made him the subject of substantial scrutiny. Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the Clinton Foundation to address international causes such as the prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. In 2009, he was named the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton founded the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has remained active in Democratic Party politics, campaigning for his wife's 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Following Jimmy Carter's death in December 2024, he is the earliest-serving living former U.S. president and the only living president to have served in the 20th century. Early life and career. Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. He is the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley). His parents married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved bigamous, as Blythe was still married to his fourth wife. Virginia traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after Bill was born, leaving him in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the southern United States was racially segregated, Clinton's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950. Although he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned 15 that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward him. Clinton has described his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his family. The physical abuse only ceased after a then-14-year-old Bill challenged his stepfather to "stand and face" him, though the verbal abuse continued. Bill would eventually forgive Roger Sr. for his abusive actions near the latter's death. In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and the segregated Hot Springs High School, where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician. Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. While in high school, Clinton performed for two years in a jazz trio, The 3 Kings, with Randy Goodrum, who became a successful professional pianist. In 1961, Clinton became a member of the Hot Springs Chapter of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but felt that his musical skills would never match the skills of the best musicians, so pursued politics instead. Clinton began an interest in law at Hot Springs High when he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient Roman senator Catiline in a mock trial in his Latin class. After a vigorous defense that made use of his "budding rhetorical and political skills", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck it "made him realize that someday he would study law". Clinton has identified two influential moments in his life, both occurring in 1963, that contributed to his decision to become a public figure. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy. The other was watching Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on TV, which impressed him so much that he later memorized it. College and law school years. Georgetown University. With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in foreign service in 1968. Georgetown was the only university where Clinton applied. In 1964 and 1965, Clinton won elections for class president. From 1964 to 1967, he was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright. While in college, he became a brother of service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity. Oxford. Upon graduating from Georgetown in 1968, Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he initially read for a B.Phil. in philosophy, politics, and economics but transferred to a B.Litt. in politics and, ultimately, a B.Phil. in politics. Clinton did not expect to return for the second year because of the draft and so he switched programs; this type of activity was common among other Rhodes Scholars from his cohort. He was offered to study at Yale Law School, so he left early to return to the United States and did not receive a degree from Oxford. Clinton befriended fellow American Rhodes Scholar Frank Aller during his time at Oxford. In 1969, Aller received a draft letter that mandated deployment to the Vietnam War. Aller's 1971 suicide had an influential impact on Clinton. British writer and feminist Sara Maitland said of Clinton, "I remember Bill and Frank Aller taking me to a pub in Walton Street in the summer term of 1969 and talking to me about the Vietnam War. I knew nothing about it, and when Frank began to describe the napalming of civilians I began to cry. Bill said that feeling bad wasn't good enough. That was the first time I encountered the idea that liberal sensitivities weren't enough and you had to do something about such things". Clinton was a member of the Oxford University Basketball Club and also played for Oxford University's rugby union team. While Clinton was president in 1994, he received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree and a fellowship from the University of Oxford, specifically for being "a doughty and tireless champion of the cause of world peace", having "a powerful collaborator in his wife", and for winning "general applause for his achievement of resolving the gridlock that prevented an agreed budget". Vietnam War opposition and draft controversy. During the Vietnam War, Clinton received educational draft deferments while he was in England in 1968 and 1969. While at Oxford, he participated in Vietnam War protests and organized a Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event in October 1969. He was planning to attend law school in the U.S. and knew he might lose his deferment. Clinton tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the National Guard and the Air Force officer candidate school, and he then made arrangements to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas. He subsequently decided not to join the ROTC, saying in a letter to the officer in charge of the program that he opposed the war, but did not think it was honorable to use ROTC, National Guard, or Reserve service to avoid serving in Vietnam. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way "to maintain my political viability within the system". Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers1 to 310 would be drafted before him, making it unlikely he would be called up. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.) Colonel Eugene Holmes, the Army officer involved with Clinton's ROTC application, issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign stating that he suspected Clinton attempted to manipulate the situation to avoid the draft. During the 1992 campaign, it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the Navy Reserve, which would have prevented him from being deployed to Vietnam. This effort was unsuccessful and Clinton said in 1992 that he had been unaware of it until then. Although legal, Clinton's actions with respect to the draft and deciding whether to serve in the military were criticized during his first presidential campaign by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans, some of whom charged that he had used Fulbright's influence to avoid military service. Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position. Law school. After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973. In 1971, he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham, in the Yale Law Library; she was a class year ahead of him. They began dating and were soon inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton postponed his summer plans to be a coordinator for the George McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election to move in with her in California. The couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. Clinton eventually moved to Texas with Rodham in 1972 to take a job leading McGovern's effort there. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas Ann Richards, and then unknown television director and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Failed congressional campaign and tenure as Attorney General of Arkansas. After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, he ran for the House of Representatives. Running in the conservative 3rd district against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the Watergate scandal. Hammerschmidt, who had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972, defeated Clinton by only a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. In 1976, Clinton ran for Arkansas attorney general. Defeating the secretary of state and the deputy attorney general in the Democratic primary, Clinton was elected with no opposition in the general election, as no Republican had run for the office. Governor of Arkansas (1979–1981, 1983–1992). In 1978, Clinton entered the Arkansas gubernatorial primary. At just 31 years old, he was one of the youngest gubernatorial candidates in the state's history. Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. Clinton was only 32 years old when he took office, the youngest governor in the country at the time and the second youngest governor in the history of Arkansas. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor". He worked on educational reform and directed the maintenance of Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose, of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat by Republican challenger Frank D. White in the general election that year. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history. After leaving office in January 1981, Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. In 1982, he was elected governor a second time and kept the office for ten years. Effective with the 1986 election, Arkansas had changed its gubernatorial term of office from two to four years. During his term, he helped transform Arkansas's economy and improved the state's educational system. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats, a group of Democrats who advocated welfare reform, smaller government, and other policies not supported by liberals. Formally organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrats argued that in light of President Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984, the Democratic Party needed to adopt a more centrist political stance in order to succeed at the national level. Clinton delivered the Democratic response to Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas. In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority of his gubernatorial administration. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee was chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary, who was also an attorney as well as the chair of the Legal Services Corporation. The committee transformed Arkansas's education system. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special legislative session—the longest in Arkansas history. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), Jonesboro businessmen Woody Freeman (1984), and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990). Also in the 1980s, the Clintons' personal and business affairs included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater controversy investigation, which later dogged his presidential administration. After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas. According to some sources, Clinton was a death penalty opponent in his early years, but he eventually switched positions. However he might have felt previously, by 1992, Clinton was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent". During Clinton's final term as governor, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been reinstated in 1976). As governor, he oversaw the first four executions carried out by the state of Arkansas since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1976: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. To draw attention to his stance on capital punishment, Clinton flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign in 1992, in order to affirm in person that the controversial execution of Ricky Ray Rector would go forward as scheduled. Scandals and allegations. During his time as governor in the 1980s, Arkansas was the center of a drug smuggling operation through Mena Airport. CIA agent Barry Seal allegedly imported three to five billion dollars worth of cocaine through the airport, and the operation was linked to the Iran–Contra affair. Clinton was accused of knowing about this operation, although nothing could be proven against him. Journalist Sam Smith tied him to various questionable business dealings. Clinton was also accused by Gennifer Flowers to have used cocaine as governor and his half-brother Roger was sentenced to prison in 1985 for possession and smuggling of cocaine, but was later pardoned by his brother after serving his sentence. During his time in Arkansas, there were also other scandals such as the Whitewater controversy involving the Clintons' real estate dealings, and Bill Clinton was accused of serious sexual misconduct in Arkansas, including allegations of using the Arkansas State Police to gain access to women (Troopergate affair). The killing of Don Henry and Kevin Ives in 1987 started various conspiracy theories that accused Clinton and the Arkansas state authorities of covering up the crime. 1988 Democratic presidential primaries. In 1987, the media speculated that Clinton would enter the presidential race. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary for governor, initially favored—but ultimately vetoed—by the First Lady). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but his speech, which was 33 minutes long and twice the length it was expected to be, was criticized for being too long. Clinton presented himself both as a moderate and as a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, and he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991. Presidential campaigns. 1992 presidential candidacy. In the first primary contest, the Iowa Caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports surfaced that Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls. Following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on "60 Minutes" to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish. Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South. With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California. During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one". Clinton was still the governor of Arkansas while campaigning for U.S. president, and he returned to his home state to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to both Arkansas state law and federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in an article for "The New York Times" as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations. Bush's approval ratings were around 80 percent during the Gulf War, and he was described as unbeatable. When Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower federal deficits, he reneged on his , which hurt his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40 percent. Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention—with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform—many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as Governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton. Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning". On March 26, 1992, during a Democratic fund raiser of the presidential campaign, Robert Rafsky confronted then Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and asked what he was going to do about AIDS, to which Clinton replied, "I feel your pain". The televised exchange led to AIDS becoming an issue in the 1992 presidential election. On April 4, then candidate Clinton met with members of ACT UP and other leading AIDS advocates to discuss his AIDS agenda and agreed to make a major AIDS policy speech, to have people with HIV speak to the Democratic Convention, and to sign onto the AIDS United Action five point plan. Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (370 electoral votes) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (168 electoral votes) and billionaire populist Ross Perot (zero electoral votes), who ran as an independent on a platform that focused on domestic issues. Bush's steep decline in public approval was a significant part of Clinton's success. Clinton's victory in the election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress, the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 96th United States Congress during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. According to Seymour Martin Lipset, the 1992 election had several unique characteristics. Voters felt that economic conditions were worse than they actually were, which harmed Bush. A rare event was the presence of a strong third-party candidate. Liberals launched a backlash against 12 years of a conservative White House. The chief factor was Clinton's uniting his party, and winning over a number of heterogeneous groups. 1996 presidential candidacy. Leading up to the 1996 presidential election, Clinton's chances of being re-elected initially seemed slim, partially due to his growing untrust among the general public due to the Whitewater controversy and the lopsided defeat of national Democrats in the 1994 elections. His approval rating got as low as 40 percent in early 1995, which led to several high-profile Democrats suggesting he drop out of the race. However, in mid-1995, as a result of a rebounding economy and the growing unpopularity of congressional Republicans, public opinion of Clinton up-ticked and early 1996 polls found he had a lead of up to 20 points over his likely Republican opponent Bob Dole. Unlike Bush in the 1992 election, Clinton's incumbency greatly benefited him in the general election, as most Americans felt the country was going in the right direction. Along with Dole, Clinton once again faced Ross Perot, who was nominated by the Reform Party, but he garnered significantly less support than he did in the 1992 election. In the month leading up the election, pundits were predicting a big win for Clinton, as his approval rating saw a high of 60 percent and pollsters finding he was favored with voters in over 30 states. On election day, Clinton won 379 electoral votes, securing reelection and defeating Dole, who received 159 electoral votes. Clinton garnered 49.2 percent of the popular vote to Dole's 40.7 percent and Perot's 8.4 percent. With his victory, he became the first Democrat to win two consecutive presidential elections since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Presidency (1993–2001). Clinton's "third way" of moderate liberalism built up the nation's fiscal health and put the nation on a firm footing abroad amid globalization and the development of anti-American terrorist organizations. During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, most of which were enacted into law or implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance. His policy of fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits on budgetary matters. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30) for each of the years a surplus was recorded, the U.S. Treasury reported a gross debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, $5.526 trillion in 1998, $5.656 trillion in 1999, and $5.674 trillion in 2000. Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000. At the end of his presidency, the Clintons moved to 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, in order to quell political worries about his wife's residency for election as a U.S. senator from New York. First term (1993–1997). After his presidential transition, Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd president of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton was physically exhausted at the time, and had an inexperienced staff. His high levels of public support dropped in the first few weeks, as he made a series of mistakes. His first choice for attorney general had not paid her taxes on babysitters and was forced to withdraw. The second appointee also withdrew for the same reason. Clinton had repeatedly promised to encourage gays in the military service, despite what he knew to be the strong opposition of the military leadership. He tried anyway, and was publicly opposed by the top generals, and forced by Congress to a compromise position of "Don't ask, don't tell" whereby homosexuals could serve if and only if they kept it secret. He devised a $16-billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. His popularity at the 100 day mark of his term was the lowest of any president at that point. Public opinion did support one liberal program, and Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and was popular with the public. Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in "Roe v. Wade"—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton said abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent. On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to close a budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates. President Clinton's attorney general Janet Reno authorized the FBI's use of armored vehicles to deploy tear gas into the buildings of the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas, in hopes of ending a 51 day siege. During the operation on April 19, 1993, the buildings caught fire and 75 of the residents died, including 24 children. The raid had originally been planned by the Bush administration; Clinton had played no role. In August, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints. On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The failure of the bill was the first major legislative defeat of the Clinton administration. On November 30, 1993, Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks on people who purchase firearms in the United States. The law also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers. In December of the same year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in "The American Spectator." In the affair later known as "Troopergate", the officers alleged that they had arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named "Paula", a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism", and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives". That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual orientation a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent congressional Republicans and Democrats, including senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argued that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual orientation as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces. On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes in favor and 200 votes opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent opposed). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the president. On July 29, 1994, the Clinton administration launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov. The site was followed with three more versions, with the final version being launched on July 21, 2000. The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011—Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public." The Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons." It also included a subsection of assault weapons ban for a ten-year period. After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress to the Republicans in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years. A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995 White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. The President focused on his administration's accomplishments and efforts related to the epidemic, including an accelerated drug-approval process. He also condemned homophobia and discrimination against people with HIV. Clinton announced three new initiatives: creating a special working group to coordinate AIDS research throughout the federal government; convening public health experts to develop an action plan that integrates HIV prevention with substance abuse prevention; and launching a new effort by the Department of Justice to ensure that health care facilities provide equal access to people with HIV and AIDS. 1996 would mark the first year since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that the number of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses would decline, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even later reporting a significant 47% decline in the number of AIDS-related deaths in 1997 compared to the previous year. Credit for this decline would be given to the growing effectiveness of new drug therapy which was promoted by the Clinton Administration's Department of Health and Human Services, such as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). On September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman; the legislation allowed individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages that were performed in other states. Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said Clinton's signing DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election". In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was intended to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress". Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, "the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected." Clinton himself said DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that"; others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism". Despite this, it has been noted that other than a brief written response to a Reader's Digest that questioned whether he agreed with it, Clinton had made no documented reference to the issue of gay marriage until May 1996. In a July 2, 2011, editorial "The New York Times" opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments." Ultimately, in "United States v. Windsor", the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013. Despite DOMA, Clinton was the first president to select openly gay persons for administrative positions, and he is generally credited as being the first president to publicly champion gay rights. During his presidency, Clinton issued two substantially controversial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the Human Rights Campaign. Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009 and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA. The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. Despite the evidence, the Chinese government denied all accusations. As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000. In November 1996, Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines, which was a bridge bomb planted by al-Qaeda and was masterminded by Osama bin Laden. During Clinton's presidency, the attempt remained top secret, and it remains classified when Reuters reported having spoken with eight retired secret service agents about the incident. Second term (1997–2001). In the January 1997, State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide health coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act. Bill Clinton negotiated the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, Clinton announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999, he signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933. Investigations. In November 1993, David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while Governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured Hale to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair. Investigations by Robert B. Fiske and Ken Starr found insufficient to evidence to prosecute the Clintons. The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files. On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office. This caused the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee issued a report which accused the Clinton administration of having obstructed their efforts to investigate the affair. Special counsel Robert Fiske said that Hillary Clinton was involved in the firing and gave "factually false" testimony to the GAO, congress, and the independent counsel. However Fiske said there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Impeachment and acquittal. After a House inquiry, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives. The House voted 228–206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury and voted 221–212 to impeach him for obstruction of justice. Clinton was only the second U.S. president (the first being Andrew Johnson) to be impeached. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998. While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during "Jones v. Clinton," Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition. The Senate later acquitted Clinton of both charges. The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote of 55 not guilty/45 guilty on the perjury charge and 50 not guilty/50 guilty on the obstruction of justice charge. Both votes fell short of the constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty. On January 19, 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the "Jones" case. On October 1, the U.S. Supreme Court suspended Clinton from practicing law in the high court, citing fallout from the Lewinsky scandal, but rather than appealing the decision he resigned from the bar entirely. Pardons and commutations. Clinton issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. Controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate the pardon of Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey. The investigation found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. Clinton also pardoned four defendants in the Whitewater Scandal, Chris Wade, Susan McDougal, Stephen Smith, and Robert W. Palmer, all of whom had ties to Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. Former Clinton HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was also among Clinton's pardons. Campaign finance controversies. In February 1997 it was discovered upon documents being released by the Clinton Administration that 938 people had stayed at the White House and that 821 of them had made donations to the Democratic Party and got the opportunity to stay in the Lincoln bedroom as a result of the donations. Some donors included Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, and Judy Collins. Top donors also got golf games and morning jogs with Clinton as a result of the contributions. Janet Reno was called on to investigate the matter by Trent Lott, but she refused. In 1996, it was found that several Chinese foreigners made contributions to Clinton's reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee with the backing of the People's Republic of China. Some of them also attempted to donate to Clinton's defense fund. This violated United States law forbidding non-American citizens from making campaign contributions. Clinton and Al Gore also allegedly met with the foreign donors. A Republican investigation led by Fred Thompson found that Clinton was targeted by the Chinese government. However, Democratic senators Joe Lieberman and John Glenn said that the evidence showed that China only targeted congressional elections and not presidential elections. Military and foreign affairs. Somalia. American troops had first entered Somalia during the Bush administration in response to a humanitarian crisis and civil war. Though initially involved to assist humanitarian efforts, the Clinton administration shifted the objectives set out in the mission and began pursuing a policy of attempting to neutralize Somali warlords. In 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and resulted in one being taken prisoner. Television news programs depicted the supporters of warlord Mohammed Aidid desecrating the corpses of troops. The backlash resulting from the incident prompted in a drop in support for American intervention in the country and coincided with a more cautious use of troops throughout the rest of the Clinton administration. Following a subsequent national security policy review, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground. Rwanda. In April 1994, genocide broke out in Rwanda. Intelligence reports indicate that Clinton was aware a "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" was underway, long before the administration publicly used the word "genocide". Fearing a reprisal of the events in Somalia the previous year, Clinton chose not to intervene. Clinton has called his failure to intervene one of his main foreign policy failings, saying "I don't think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down. And I regret it." Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1993 and 1994, Clinton pressured Western European leaders to adopt a strong military policy against Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War. This strategy faced staunch opposition from the United Nations, NATO allies, and congressional Republicans, leading Clinton to adopt a more diplomatic approach. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on UN safe zones and pressure them into a peace accord that would end the Bosnian war. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement. Irish peace talks. In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to Northern Ireland, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during the Troubles, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of Belfast. Despite unionist criticism, Clinton used his visit as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict, playing a key role in the peace talks that produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Iran. Clinton sought to continue the Bush administration's policy of limiting Iranian influence in the Middle East, which he laid out in the dual containment strategy. In 1994, Clinton declared that Iran was a "state sponsor of terrorism" and a "rogue state", marking the first time that an American president used that term. Subsequent executive orders heavily sanctioned Iran's oil industry and banned almost all trade between U.S. companies and the Iranian government. In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8million (equivalent to $ million in ) in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice after the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser. Iraq. In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Although, there was no evidence for that claim. Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors." American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000. Osama bin Laden. Capturing Osama bin Laden was an objective of the U.S. government during the Clinton presidency (and continued to be until bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden, and that U.S. authorities rejected each offer, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim". In response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, all of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. The factory was destroyed by the attack, resulting in the death of one employee and the wounding of 11 other people. After the destruction of the factory, there was a medicine shortage in Sudan due to the plant providing 50 percent of Sudan's medicine, and the destruction of the plant led to a shortage of chloroquine, a drug which is used to treat malaria. U.S. officials later acknowledged that there was no evidence the plant was acknowledging manufacturing or storing nerve gas. The attack provoked criticism of Clinton from journalists and academics including Christopher Hitchens, Seymour Hersh, Max Taylor, and others. Kosovo. In the midst of a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled genocide) of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced its soldiers all survived combat, though two died in an Apache helicopter crash. Journalists in the popular press criticized genocide statements by the Clinton administration as false and greatly exaggerated. Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long conflict in Kosovo had been approximately 1,800, with critics asserting that little or no evidence existed of genocide. In a post-war inquiry, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted "the patterns of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24." In 2001, the UN-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide (the intent to destroy a people) did not take place, but recognized "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" with the intention being the forceful departure of the Albanian population. The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war. He died in 2006, before the completion of the trial. China. Clinton aimed to increase trade with China, minimizing import tariffs and offering the country most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. Clinton initially conditioned extension of this status on human rights reforms, but ultimately decided to extend the status despite a lack of reform in the specified areas, including free emigration, treatment of prisoners in terms of international human rights, and observation of human rights specified by UN resolutions, among others. Relations were damaged briefly by the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was accidental. On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the United States–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. In encouraging Congress to approve the agreement and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Clinton stated that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests, saying that "economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways." Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Clinton attempted to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Secret negotiations mediated by Clinton between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat led to a historic declaration of peace in September 1993, called the Oslo Accords, which were signed at the White House on September 13. The agreement led to the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, however, this did not end the conflict. He brought Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David for the 2000 Camp David Summit, which lasted 14 days in July. Following another attempt in December 2000 at Bolling Air Force Base, in which the president offered the Clinton Parameters, the situation broke down completely after the end of the Taba Summit and with the start of the Second Intifada. Judicial appointments. Clinton appointed two justices to the Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Stephen Breyer in 1994. Both justices went on to serve until the 2020s, leaving a lasting judicial legacy for President Clinton. Clinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts. In his eight years in office, 11.6% of Clinton's court of appeals nominees and 17.4% of his district court nominees were black; 32.8% of his court of appeals nominees and 28.5% of his district court nominees were women. Public opinion. Throughout Clinton's first term, his job approval rating fluctuated in the 40s and 50s. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point. According to a CBS News/"New York Times" poll, Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. Clinton's average Gallup poll approval rating for his last quarter in office was 61 percent, the highest final quarter rating any president has received for fifty years. Forty-seven percent of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters. As he was leaving office, a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll revealed that 45 percent of Americans said they would miss him; 55 percent thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life"; 68 percent thought he would be remembered more for his "involvement in personal scandal" than for "his accomplishments"; and 58 percent answered "No" to the question "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?" The same percentage said he would be remembered as either "outstanding" or "above average" as a president, while 22 percent said he would be remembered as "below average" or "poor". ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, "You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics—and he's done a heck of a good job." During his first term, roughly 7 in 10 Americans believed that the media unfairly covered Clinton's character flaws, according to polling. A year after he left office, a Gallup poll found that 51 percent of respondents said they approved of the overall job Clinton did as president. In May 2006, a CNN poll comparing Clinton's job performance with that of his successor, George W. Bush, found that a strong majority of respondents said Clinton outperformed Bush in six different areas questioned. A June 2006 poll by Gallup found that 61 percent of Americans said they approved of the job Clinton did as president, a 10-point increase from the 2002 poll. Gallup polls in 2007 and 2011 showed that Clinton was regarded by 13 percent of Americans as the greatest president in U.S. history. In 2010, 69 percent of respondents in a Gallup survey said they approved of the job Clinton did as president, including 47 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents. His sudden spike in popularity during this time was attributed to Americans comparing him to then-incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama, who had low approval ratings. In 2014, 18 percent of respondents in a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll of American voters regarded Clinton as the best president since World War II, making him the third most popular among postwar presidents, behind John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. The same poll showed that just 3 percent of American voters regarded Clinton as the worst president since World War II. A 2015 poll by "The Washington Post" asked 162 scholars of the American Political Science Association to rank all the U.S. presidents in order of greatness. According to their findings, Clinton ranked eighth overall, with a rating of 70 percent. Public image. Clinton was the first baby boomer president. Authors Martin Walker and Bob Woodward stated that Clinton's innovative use of sound bite-ready dialogue, personal charisma, and public perception-oriented campaigning were a major factor in his high public approval ratings. When Clinton played the saxophone on "The Arsenio Hall Show", he was described by some religious conservatives as "the MTV president". Opponents sometimes referred to him as "Slick Willie", a nickname which was first applied to him in 1980 by "Pine Bluff Commercial" journalist Paul Greenberg; Greenberg believed that Clinton was abandoning the progressive policies of previous Arkansas governors such as Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. The claim "Slick Willie" would last throughout his presidency. His folksy manner led him to be nicknamed Bubba starting from the 1992 presidential election. Since 2000, he has frequently been referred to as "The Big Dog" or "Big Dog". His prominent role in campaigning for Obama during the 2012 presidential election and his widely publicized speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he officially nominated Obama and criticized Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Republican policies in detail, earned him the nickname "Explainer-in-Chief". Clinton drew strong support from the African American community and insisted that the improvement of race relations would be a major theme of his presidency. In 1998, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called Clinton "the first black president", saying, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas". Morrison noted that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, and she compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that, she said, black people typically endure. Many viewed this comparison as unfair and disparaging both to Clinton and to the African-American community. Sexual assault and misconduct allegations. Several women have publicly accused Clinton of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault. Additionally, some commentators have characterized Clinton's sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky as predatory or non-consensual, despite the fact that Lewinsky called the relationship consensual at the time. These allegations have been revisited and lent more credence in 2018, in light of the #MeToo movement, with many commentators and Democratic leaders now saying Clinton should have been compelled to resign after the Lewinsky affair. In 1994, Paula Jones initiated a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton, claiming he had made unwanted advances towards her in 1991; Clinton denied the allegations. In April 1998, the case was initially dismissed by Judge Susan Webber Wright on the grounds that it lacked legal merit. Jones appealed Webber Wright's ruling, and her suit gained traction following Clinton's admission to having an affair with Monica Lewinsky in August 1998. In 1998, lawyers for Paula Jones released court documents that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. Robert S. Bennett, Clinton's main lawyer for the case, called the filing "a pack of lies" and "an organized campaign to smear the President of the United States" funded by Clinton's political enemies. In October 1998, Clinton's attorneys tentatively offered $700,000 to settle the case, which was then the $800,000 which Jones' lawyers sought. Clinton later agreed to an out-of-court settlement and paid Jones $850,000. Bennett said the president made the settlement only so he could end the lawsuit for good and move on with his life. During the deposition for the Jones lawsuit, which was held at the White House, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky—a denial that became the basis for an impeachment charge of perjury. In 1998, Kathleen Willey alleged that Clinton had groped her in a hallway in 1993. An independent counsel determined Willey gave "false information" to the FBI, inconsistent with sworn testimony related to the Jones allegation. On March 19, 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by Clinton in the Oval Office. An attempt by Kenneth Starr to prosecute Steele for making false statements and obstructing justice ended in a mistrial and Starr declined to seek a retrial after Steele sought an investigation against the former independent counsel for prosecutorial misconduct. Also in 1998, Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton had raped her in the spring of 1978, although she said she did not remember the exact date. To support her charge, Broaddrick notes that she told multiple witnesses in 1978 she had been raped by Clinton, something these witnesses also state in interviews to the press. Broaddrick had earlier filed an affidavit denying any "unwelcome sexual advances" and later repeated the denial in a sworn deposition. In a 1998 NBC interview wherein she detailed the alleged rape, Broaddrick said she had denied (under oath) being raped only to avoid testifying about the ordeal publicly. The Lewinsky scandal has had an enduring impact on Clinton's legacy, beyond his impeachment in 1998. In the wake of the #MeToo movement (which shed light on the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace), various commentators and Democratic political leaders, as well as Lewinsky herself, have revisited their view that the Lewinsky affair was consensual, and instead characterized it as an abuse of power or harassment, in light of the power differential between a president and a 22-year-old intern. In 2018, Clinton was asked in several interviews about whether he should have resigned, and he said he had made the right decision in not resigning. During the 2018 congressional elections, "The New York Times" alleged that having no Democratic candidate for office asking Clinton to campaign with them was a change that attributed to the revised understanding of the Lewinsky scandal. However, former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile previously urged Clinton in November 2017 to campaign during the 2018 midterm elections, in spite of New York U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand's recent criticism of the Lewinsky scandal. Alleged affairs. Clinton admitted to having extramarital affairs with singer Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. Actress Elizabeth Gracen, Miss Arkansas winner Sally Perdue, and Dolly Kyle Browning all claimed that they had affairs with Clinton during his time as Governor of Arkansas. Browning later sued Clinton, Bruce Lindsey, Robert S. Bennett, and Jane Mayer, alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to attempt to block her from publishing a book loosely based on her relationship with Clinton and tried to defame him. However, Browning's lawsuit was dismissed. Post-presidency (2001–present). Activities until 2008 campaign. In 2002, Clinton warned that pre-emptive military action against Iraq would have unwelcome consequences, and later claimed to have opposed the Iraq War from the start (though some dispute this). In 2005, Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its handling of emissions control, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, was dedicated in 2004. Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, "My Life", in 2004. Clinton's official White House portrait, commissioned by the White House Historical Association, was unveiled in June 2004. It was painted by Simmie Knox. In 2007, he released "", which also became a "New York Times" Best Seller and garnered positive reviews. In the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. After Hurricane Katrina, Clinton joined with fellow former president George H. W. Bush to establish the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund in January 2005, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in October of that year. As part of the tsunami effort, these two ex-presidents appeared in a Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show, and traveled to the affected areas. They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in April 2007. Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. This foundation includes the Clinton Foundation HIV and AIDS Initiative (CHAI), which strives to combat that disease, and has worked with the Australian government toward that end. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), begun by the Clinton Foundation in 2005, attempts to address world problems such as global public health, poverty alleviation and religious and ethnic conflict. In 2005, Clinton announced through his foundation an agreement with manufacturers to stop selling sugary drinks in schools. Clinton's foundation joined with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group in 2006 to improve cooperation among those cities, and he met with foreign leaders to promote this initiative. The foundation has received donations from many governments all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East. In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh announced deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30 percent in developing nations. Clinton also spoke in favor of California Proposition 87 on alternative energy, which was voted down. 2008 presidential election. During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Clinton vigorously advocated on behalf of his wife, Hillary. Through speaking engagements and fundraisers, he was able to raise $10 million toward her campaign. Some worried that as an ex-president, he was too active on the trail, too negative to Clinton rival Barack Obama, and alienating his supporters at home and abroad. Many were especially critical of him following his remarks in the South Carolina primary, which Obama won. Later in the 2008 primaries, there was some infighting between Bill and Hillary's staffs, especially in Pennsylvania. Considering Bill's remarks, many thought he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. Such remarks led to apprehension that the party would be split to the detriment of Obama's election. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying all his experience as president assures him that Obama is "ready to lead". After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt. After the 2008 election. In 2009, Clinton travelled to North Korea on behalf of two American journalists imprisoned there. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country from China. Jimmy Carter had made a similar visit in 1994. After Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim issued a pardon. Since then, Clinton has been assigned many other diplomatic missions. He was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 following a series of hurricanes which caused $1 billion in damages. Clinton organized a conference with the Inter-American Development Bank, where a new industrial park was discussed in an effort to "build back better". In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Funds began pouring into Haiti, which led to funding becoming available for Caracol Industrial Park in a part of the country unaffected by the earthquake. While Hillary Clinton was in South Korea, she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the U.S. State Department, ensuring that the new industrial park would have a key tenant. In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR, Ireland's first environmental foundation. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Clinton gave a widely praised speech nominating Barack Obama. 2016 presidential election and after. During the 2016 presidential election, Clinton again encouraged voters to support Hillary, and made appearances speaking on the campaign trail. In a series of tweets, then-president-elect Donald Trump criticized his ability to get people out to vote. Clinton served as a member of the electoral college for the state of New York. He voted for the Democratic ticket consisting of his wife Hillary and her running-mate Tim Kaine. On September 7, 2017, Clinton partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities. In 2020, Clinton again served as a member of the United States Electoral College from New York, casting his vote for the successful Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Clinton was one of the first public figures to endorse Biden's re-election campaign in 2024, with him appearing in interviews and fundraisers with various politicians and national figures. He was also one of the most notable politicians to defend Biden after his critically maligned first presidential debate on June 27, with him stating that "bad debate nights happen" and continued to press support for him despite increasing demand from the public and Democratic party requesting for him to drop out. After Biden withdrew his candidacy and vice president Harris replaced him on the ticket, both Bill and Hillary Clinton endorsed her and praised Biden for his work in public service. Clinton later gave a critically acclaimed speech at the 2024 DNC, where he emphasized the Democratic Party's record on job creation and Harris' career achievements as a prosecutor, senator, and vice president. He later stumped for Harris at various battleground states, where he met with supporters in small towns and at campaign stops. At a stop in Michigan, Clinton caused a backlash by criticizing Arab and Muslim Americans hesitant to support Harris due to her pro-Israeli position, stating Israel had been "forced" to kill civilians during its war in Gaza. His comments led the Institute for Middle East Understanding to state, "Bill Clinton’s racist and ahistorical remarks were meant to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land. The Harris campaign is doing itself no favors attaching itself to that kind of hateful rhetoric". He expanded on his comments in an interview with CNN shortly after, stating that he was trying to appeal to both sides of the issue and highlighted his work with Arafat and Rabin in the Oslo Occords, although his response still received sharp condemnation from Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian-Americans. After Harris lost the general election to Trump, Clinton's remarks were brought up by critics and pundits, who stated that they were the reason why Harris lost support among Arab-American voters and why she fared poorly in the Muslim-populated cities of Dearborn and Hamtramck when compared to previous Democratic candidates. Critics also questioned his relevance to the modern Democratic Party, with pundits stating that his centrist policies and promotion of candidates who align with his views no longer work with a party that has tried to rebrand itself after losing support amongst progressive and populist supporters. After the election, he and Hillary released a statement congratulating president-elect Trump and vice president-elect JD Vance, while stating that Harris and her running-mate Tim Walz ran a "positive, forward-looking campaign to be proud of". Clinton's second volume of memoirs, "Citizen: My Life After the White House", was published in November 2024. Wealth. The Clintons incurred several million dollars in legal bills during his presidency, which were paid off four years after he left office. Bill and Hillary Clinton have each earned millions of dollars from book publishing. In 2016, "Forbes" reported Bill and Hillary Clinton made about $240million in the 15years from January 2001, to December 2015, (mostly from paid speeches, business consulting and book-writing). Also in 2016, CNN reported the Clintons combined to receive more than $153million in paid speeches from 2001 until spring 2015. In May 2015, "The Hill" reported that Bill and Hillary Clinton have made more than $25million in speaking fees since the start of 2014, and that Hillary Clinton also made $5million or more from her book, "Hard Choices", during the same time period. In July 2014, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that at the end of 2012, the Clintons were worth between $5million and $25.5million, and that in 2012 (the last year they were required to disclose the information) the Clintons made between $16 and $17million, mostly from speaking fees earned by the former president. Clinton earned more than $104million from paid speeches between 2001 and 2012. In June 2014, ABC News and "The Washington Post" reported that Bill Clinton has made more than $100million giving paid speeches since leaving public office, and in 2008, "The New York Times" reported that the Clintons' income tax returns show they made $109million in the eight years from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, including almost $92million from his speaking and book-writing. Bill Clinton has given dozens of paid speeches each year since leaving office in 2001, mostly to corporations and philanthropic groups in North America and Europe; he often earned $100,000 to $300,000 per speech. Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin paid Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow. Hillary Clinton said she and Bill came out of the White House financially "broke" and in debt, especially due to large legal fees incurred during their years in the White House. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education". She added, "Bill has worked really hard ... we had to pay off all our debts ... he had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes; and then pay off the debts, and get us houses, and take care of family members". Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. According to Jeffrey Epstein's attorney Gerald B. Lefcourt, Epstein was "part of the original group that conceived of the Clinton Global Initiative". In 2002, a spokesperson for Clinton described Epstein as "both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist" who "provided 'insights and generosity'". While Clinton was president, Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times between 1993 and 1995; logs show that Clinton was not at the White House for some of the visits. Clinton's office released a statement in 2019 saying that Clinton "knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. [...] He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade." In 1995 the "Palm Beach Post" reported that Clinton had attended a fundraising dinner for the Democratic National Committee hosted by Ron Perelman at his Palm Beach home for 14 invited guests. The guests included Epstein, singer Jimmy Buffett, actor Don Johnson, Deandra Douglas (wife of actor Michael Douglas), and others, and each guest donated $100,000. Unverified reports alleged that Clinton flew to Little St. James Island, Epstein's Caribbean island, on Epstein's private jet between January 2001 and 2003. Virginia Roberts, later known as Virginia Giuffre, said in a lawsuit against Prince Andrew, which was settled in 2017, that Clinton had traveled to Little St. James in 2002. A Freedom of Information Act request for United States Secret Service records of visits Clinton may have made to Little St. James produced no such evidence. Epstein's flight logs do not report Clinton flying near the U.S. Virgin Islands. In July 2019, a Clinton spokesperson issued a statement saying Clinton never visited the island. When he was asked by a journalist about his ties with Epstein in a rally in Laredo, Texas in November 2022, Clinton said "I think the evidence is clear." He wrote in his 2024 memoir "Citizen" that he had found Epstein "odd" but was not aware of his criminal activities, and that he had been out of contact with him by the time Epstein was first arrested in 2005. He also wrote that he had never visited Epstein's island or traveled on Epstein's plane without his Secret Service detail. Personal life. At the age of 10, he was baptized at Park Place Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When he became president in 1993, he became a member of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. with his wife, a Methodist. On October 11, 1975, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he married Hillary Rodham, whom he met while studying at Yale University. They had Chelsea Clinton, their only child, on February 27, 1980. He is the maternal grandfather to Chelsea's three children. Health. In September 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery. In March 2005, he again underwent surgery, this time for a partially collapsed lung. On February 11, 2010, he was rushed to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital in Manhattan after complaining of chest pains, and he had two coronary stents implanted in his heart. After this procedure, Clinton adopted a plant-based whole foods (vegan) diet, which had been recommended by doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn. He has since incorporated fish and lean animal flesh at the suggestion of Mark Hyman, a proponent of the pseudoscientific ethos of functional medicine. As a result, he is no longer strictly on a plant-based diet. In October 2021, Clinton was treated for sepsis at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. In December 2022, Clinton tested positive for COVID-19. In December 2024, Clinton was hospitalized after developing fever at the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C. Accolades. Several colleges and universities have awarded Clinton honorary degrees. He is an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, although he did not complete his studies there. Schools have been named for Clinton, and statues have been built of him. He was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 2001. The Clinton Presidential Center was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2001. The Republic of Kosovo, in gratitude for his help during the Kosovo War, renamed a major street in the capital city of Pristina as Bill Clinton Boulevard and added a Clinton statue. In 2011, Haitian president Michel Martelly awarded Clinton with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Cross "for his various initiatives in Haiti and especially his high contribution to the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of January 12, 2010". Clinton was selected as "Time" "Man of the Year" in 1992, and again in 1998, along with Ken Starr. From a poll conducted of the American people in December 1999, Clinton was among eighteen included in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In 2001, Clinton received the NAACP President's Award. He has also been honored with a J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, a TED Prize, and was named as an Honorary GLAAD Media Award recipient for his work as an advocate for the LGBT community. Clinton, along with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren, received the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for "Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf". The audiobook edition of his autobiography, "My Life", read by Clinton himself, won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, as well as the Audie Award as the Audiobook of the Year. Clinton has two more Grammy nominations for his audiobooks: "" in 2007 and "Back to Work" in 2012. President Obama awarded Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013.
3358	49608656	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3358	Black-letter law	In common law legal systems, black-letter law refers to well-established legal rules that are no longer subject to reasonable dispute. Black-letter law can be contrasted with legal theory or unsettled legal issues. History and etymology. In an 1831 case in the U.S. Supreme Court, "Jackson ex dem. Bradstreet v. Huntington", the phrase "black letter" was used: "It is seldom that a case in our time savours so much of the black letter; but the course of decisions in New York renders it unavoidable...". The phrase "black-letter law" was used in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court case "Naglee v. Ingersoll," 7 Pa. 185 (1847). The phrase does not apparently come directly from association with "Black's Law Dictionary", which was first published in 1891. It may refer to the practice of setting law books and citing legal precedents in blackletter type, a tradition that survived long after the switch to Roman and italic text for other printed works. It may also be linked to the Black Book of the Admiralty published in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that collates at least 1,000 years of European-based laws of the sea and an authority for the High Court of Admiralty Court and maritime cases in the early modern period. The phrase refers to a distillation of the common law into general and accepted legal principles. This can be seen in the quote above from the Supreme Court where the court is noting that while the black-letter law is clear, New York precedent deviates from the general principles. In common law, the informal notion of black-letter law includes the basic principles of law generally accepted by the courts and/or embodied in the statutes of a particular jurisdiction. The letter of the law is its actual implementation, thereby demonstrating that black-letter laws are those statutes, rules, acts, laws, provisions, etc. that are or have been written down, codified, or indicated somewhere in legal texts throughout history of specific state law. This is often the case for many precedents that have been set in the common law. An example of such a state within the common law jurisdiction, and using the black letter legal doctrine is Canada. Canadian law is based on British law and black-letter law is the principles of law accepted by the majority of judges in most provinces and territories. Sometimes it is referred to as "hornbook law" meaning treatise or textbook, often relied upon as authoritative, competent, and generally accepted in the field of Canadian law. In lawyer lingo, hornbook law or black-letter law is a fundamental and well-accepted legal principle that does not require any further explanation, since a hornbook is a primer of basics. Law is the rule which establish that a principle, provision, references, inference, observation, etc. may not require further explanation or clarification when the very nature of them shows that they are basic and elementary. Similar phrases. The phrase is nearly synonymous with the phrase "hornbook law". There are a number of venerable legal sources that distill the common law on various subjects known as restatement of the Law. The specific titles will be "The Restatement (First) of Contracts" or "The Restatement of Agency", etc. Each of these volumes is divided into sections that begin with a text in boldface that summarizes a basic rule on an aspect of the law of contracts, agency, etc. This "restatement" is followed by commentary and examples that expand on the principle stated. Another synonymous term, usually used in the United Kingdom, is "trite law". Examples. Examples of black-letter law include that the formation of a contract requires consideration, or that the registration of a trademark requires established use in the course of trade.
3359	209266	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3359	Blue law	Blue laws (also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws, and Sunday closing laws) are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world. The laws were adopted originally for religious reasons, specifically to promote the observance of the Christian day of worship. Since then, they have come to serve secular purposes as well. Blue laws commonly ban certain business and recreational activities on Sundays, and impose restrictions on the retail sale of hard goods and consumables, particularly alcoholic beverages. The laws also place limitations on a range of other endeavors—including travel, fashions, hunting, professional sports, stage performances, movie showings, and gambling. While less prevalent today, blue laws continue to be enforced in parts of the United States and Canada as well as in European countries, such as Austria, Germany, Norway, and Poland, where most stores are required to close on Sundays. In the United States, the Supreme Court has upheld blue laws as constitutional despite their religious origins if supported by secular justifications. This has resulted to the provision of a day of rest for the general population. Meanwhile, various state courts have struck down the laws as either unenforceable or in violation of their states' constitutions. In response, state legislators have re-enacted certain Sunday laws to satisfy the rulings while allowing some of the other statutes to remain on the books with no intention to enforce them. History. The Roman Emperor Constantine promulgated the first known law regarding prohibition of Sunday labour for apparent religion-associated reasons in A.D. 321: The earliest laws in North America addressing Sunday activities and public behavior were enacted in the Jamestown Colony in 1619 by the first General Assembly of Virginia. Among the 70 laws passed by the assembly was a mandate requiring attendance by all colonists at both morning and afternoon worship services on Sundays. The laws adopted that year also included provisions addressing idleness, gambling, drunkenness, and excessive apparel. Similar laws aimed at keeping the Sabbath holy and regulating morals were soon adopted throughout the colonies. The first known example of the phrase "blue laws" in print was in the March 3, 1755, edition of the "New-York Mercury", in which the writer imagines a future newspaper praising the revival of "our [Connecticut's] old Blue Laws". In his 1781 book "General History of Connecticut", the Reverend Samuel Peters (1735–1826) used the phrase to describe numerous laws adopted by 17th-century Puritans that prohibited various activities on Sunday, recreational as well as commercial. Beyond that, Peters' book is regarded as an unreliable account of the laws and probably was written to satirize their puritanical nature. While the historical roots of Sunday trade laws in the United States are generally known, the origin of the term "blue laws" remains a mystery. According to a "Time" magazine editorial in 1961, the year the Supreme Court heard four cases on the issue, the color blue came to be associated with colonial laws in opposition to the red emblem of British royalty. Other explanations have been offered. One of the most widely circulated is that early blue laws adopted in Connecticut were printed on blue paper. However, no copies have been found that would support this claim and it is not deemed credible. A more plausible explanation, one that is gaining general acceptance, is that the laws adopted by Puritans were aimed at enforcing morality and thus were "blue-nosed", though the term "blue" may have been used in the vernacular of the times as a synonym for puritanism itself, in effect, overly strict. As Protestant moral reformers organized the Sabbath reform in 19th-century America, calls for the enactment and enforcement of stricter Sunday laws developed. Numerous Americans were arrested for working, keeping an open shop, drinking alcohol, traveling, and engaging in recreational activities on Sundays. Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley write that throughout their existence, organizations advocating first-day Sabbatarianism, such as the Lord's Day Alliance in North America and the Lord's Day Observance Society in the British Isles, were supported by labor unions in lobbying "to prevent secular and commercial interests from hampering freedom of worship and from exploiting workers". In Canada, the "Ligue du Dimanche", a Roman Catholic Sunday league, supported the "Lord's Day Act" in 1923 and promoted first-day Sabbatarian legislation. Beginning in the 1840s, workers, Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, freethinkers, and other groups began to organize opposition. Throughout the century, Sunday laws fueled churchstate controversy, and as an issue that contributed to the emergence of modern American minority-rights politics. On the other hand, the more recent "Dies Domini", written by Pope John Paul II in 1998, advocates Sunday legislation in that it protects civil servants and workers; the North Dakota Catholic Conference in 2011 likewise maintained that blue laws, in accordance with the "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church", "ensure that, for reasons of economic productivity, citizens are not denied time for rest and divine worship". Similarly, Chief Justice Earl Warren, while recognizing the partial religious origin of blue laws, acknowledged the "secular purpose they served by providing a benefit to workers at the same time that they enhanced labor productivity". Laws by jurisdiction. Europe. Germany. The ("shop closing law") on Sundays and public holidays have been in effect since 1956. Denmark. In Denmark the closing laws restricting retail trade on Sundays were effectively abolished on October 1, 2012. Retail trade is only restricted on public holidays (New Year's Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Day of Prayer, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, Whit Monday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day) and on Constitution Day, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve (on New Year's Eve from 3 pm only). On these days almost all shops will remain closed. Exempt are bakeries, DIYs, garden centres, gas stations and smaller supermarkets. England and Wales. Before 1994. Prior to 1994, trading laws forbade sale of certain products on a Sunday; the distinction between those that could and could not be sold was increasingly seen as arbitrary, and the laws were inadequately enforced and widely flouted. For example, some supermarkets would treat the relatively modest fines arising as a business cost and open nonetheless. Since 1994. The Sunday Trading Act 1994 relaxed restrictions on Sunday trading. This produced vocal opposition from bodies such as the Keep Sunday Special campaign, and the Lord's Day Observance Society: on religious grounds, on the grounds that it would increase consumerism, and that it would reduce shop assistants' weekend leisure time. The legislation permits large shops (those with a relevant floor area in excess of 280 square metres; 3000 sq. ft.) to open for up to six hours on Sunday. Small shops, those with an area of below 280 square metres (3000 sq. ft.), are free to set their own Sunday trading times. Some large shops, such as off-licences, service stations and garages, are exempt from the restrictions. Some very large shops (e.g. department stores) open for longer than six hours on a Sunday by allowing customers in to browse 30 minutes prior to allowing them to make a purchase, since the six-hour restriction only applies to time during which the shop may make sales. Christmas Day and Easter Sunday are non-trading days. This applies even to garden centres, which earlier had been trading over Easter, but not to small shops (those with an area of below 280 square metres; 3000 sq. ft.). Netherlands. Prior to 1996, shops were generally closed on Sundays. A new law () regarding opening times changed that and leaves that decision mostly up to local municipalities. This law was changed several times since. The "Zondagswet" (“”), a law on Sabbath desecration, is mainly to ensure that church services remain undisturbed on Sundays and Christian holidays. It forbids public festivities on a Sunday before 13:00, as well as making noise that carries farther than , but activities that are unlikely to disturb church services are exempt. Northern Ireland. Prior to 2008, no football was permitted to be played on Sundays by clubs affiliated to the Irish Football Association in Northern Ireland. Shops with a floor area of over may only open from 1 to 6pm on Sundays. In Belfast, public playgrounds were closed on Sundays until 1965. Swings in public parks were tied up and padlocked to prevent their use. Similar laws formerly applied to cinemas, pubs and parks. Poland. Since 2007, blue laws were enacted and resulted in stores closing on the 13 state holidays in Poland – these are both religious and secular days of rest. In 2014, an initiative by the Law and Justice party failed to pass the reading in the Sejm to ban trading on Sundays and state holidays. However, since 2018, the ruling government and the President of Poland has signed a law that restricts store trading from March 1, 2018, to the first and last Sunday of the month, Palm Sunday, the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays, as well as trading until 14.00 for Easter Saturday and Christmas Eve. In 2019, the restriction was extended, and trading was permitted solely on the last Sunday of the month, as well as Palm Sunday, the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays, as well as trading until 14.00 for Easter Saturday and Christmas Eve. From 2020, stores may only be open on seven Sundays in the year: Palm Sunday, the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays, the last Sunday of January, April, June and August as well as trading until 14.00 for Easter Saturday and Christmas Eve. As a result of restrictions in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2nd Advent Sunday was later added as a shopping day. North America. Canada. The "Lord's Day Act", which since 1906 had prohibited business transactions from taking place on Sundays, was declared unconstitutional in the 1985 case "R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd." Calgary police officers witnessed several transactions at the Big M Drug Mart, all of which occurred on a Sunday. Big M was charged with a violation of the "Lord's Day Act". A provincial court ruled that the "Lord's Day Act" was unconstitutional, but the Crown proceeded to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In a unanimous 6–0 decision, the "Lord's Day Act" was ruled an infringement of the freedom of conscience and religion defined in section 2(a) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A Toronto referendum in 1950 allowed only team sports to be played professionally on Sunday. Theatre performances, movie screenings, and horse racing were not permitted until the 1960s. The Supreme Court later concluded, in "R. v. Edwards Books and Art Ltd." [1986] (2 S.C.R. 713), that Ontario's "Retail Business Holiday Act", which required some Sunday closings, did not violate the Charter because it did not have a religious purpose. Nonetheless, as of today, virtually all provincial Sunday closing laws have ceased to exist. Some were struck down by provincial courts, but most were simply abrogated, often due to competitive reasons where out-of-province or foreign merchants were open. United States. In the United States, judges have defended blue laws "in terms of their secular benefit to workers", holding that "the laws were essential to social well-being". In 1896, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field, opined with regard to Sunday blue laws: Many states prohibit selling alcohol for on and off-premises sales in one form or another on Sundays at some restricted time, under the idea that people should be in church on Sunday morning, or at least not drinking. Many blue laws in the United States restrict the purchase of particular items on Sundays. Some of these laws restrict the ability to buy cars, groceries, office supplies, and housewares among other things. Though most of these laws have been relaxed or repealed in most states, they are still enforced in some other states. In Texas, for example, blue laws prohibited selling housewares such as pots, pans, and washing machines on Sunday until 1985. In Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, car dealerships continue to operate under blue-law prohibitions in which an automobile may not be purchased or traded on a Sunday. Maryland permits Sunday automobile sales only in the counties of Charles, Prince George's, Montgomery, and Howard; similarly, Michigan restricts Sunday sales to only those counties with a population of less than 130,000. Texas and Utah prohibit car dealerships from operating over consecutive weekend days. In some cases, these laws were created or retained with the support of those whom they affected, to allow them a day off each week without fear of their competitors still being open. Blue laws may also prohibit retail activity on days other than Sunday. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine, for example, blue laws prohibit most retail stores, including grocery stores, from opening on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Research regarding the effect of the repeal of blue laws has been conducted, with Professor Elesha Coffman of Baylor University writing: Court cases. Beginning in the mid-19th century, religious and ethno-cultural minorities arrested for violating state and local blue laws appealed their convictions to state supreme courts. In "Specht v. Commonwealth" (Pa. 1848), for example, German Seventh Day Baptists in Pennsylvania employed attorney Thaddeus Stevens to challenge the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's Sunday law. As in cases in other states, litigants pointed to the provisions of state constitutions protecting religious liberty and maintained that Sunday laws were a blatant violation. Though typically unsuccessful (most state supreme courts upheld the constitutionality of Sunday laws), these constitutional challenges helped set a pattern by which subsequent minorities would seek to protect religious freedom and minority rights. The Supreme Court of the United States held in its landmark case, "McGowan v. Maryland" (1961), that Maryland's blue laws violated neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It approved the state's blue law restricting commercial activities on Sunday, noting that while such laws originated to encourage attendance at Christian churches, the contemporary Maryland laws were intended to serve "to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens" on a secular basis and to promote the secular values of "health, safety, recreation, and general well-being" through a common day of rest. That this day coincides with Christian Sabbath is not a bar to the state's secular goals; it neither reduces its effectiveness for secular purposes nor prevents adherents of other religions from observing their own holy days. "McGowan" was but one of four Sunday closing cases decided together by the Court in May 1961. In "Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Mass., Inc.", the Court ruled against a Kosher deli that closed on Saturday but was open on Sunday. The other two cases were "Braunfeld v. Brown", and "Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley". Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that "the State seeks to set one day apart from all others as a day of rest, repose, recreation and tranquility--a day which all members of the family and community have the opportunity to spend and enjoy together, a day on which there exists relative quiet and disassociation from the everyday intensity of commercial activities, a day on which people may visit friends and relatives who are not available during working days". In March 2006, Texas judges upheld the state blue law that requires car dealerships to close either Saturday or Sunday each weekend. Oceania. Cook Islands and Niue. Blue laws also exist in the Polynesian islands of Cook Islands and Niue. In the Cook Islands, these were the first written legislation, enacted by the London Missionary Society in 1827, with the consent of the "ariki" (chiefs). Laws in Niue ban certain activities on Sunday, reflecting the country's history of observing the Christian Sabbath tradition. Tonga. In the Kingdom of Tonga, the Vavaʻu Code (1839) was a form of blue law inspired by the teachings of Methodist missionaries. With the inauguration of the Tongan Constitution on June 4, 1875, the sixth clause stipulates: "The Sabbath Day shall be kept holy in Tonga and no person shall practise his trade or profession or conduct any commercial undertaking on the Sabbath Day except according to law; and any agreement made or witnessed on that day shall be null and void and of no legal effect."
3363	27823944	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3363	Beer	Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the grain to sugars, which dissolve in water to form wort. Fermentation of the wort by yeast produces ethanol and carbonation in the beer. Beer is one of the oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic drinks in the world, and one of the most popular of all drinks. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilising agent. Other flavouring agents, such as gruit, herbs, or fruits, may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, natural carbonation is often replaced with forced carbonation. Beer is distributed in bottles and cans, and is commonly available on draught in pubs and bars. The brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. The strength of modern beer is usually around 4% to 6% alcohol by volume (ABV). Some of the earliest writings mention the production and distribution of beer: the Code of Hammurabi (1750 BC) included laws regulating it, while "The Hymn to Ninkasi", a prayer to the Mesopotamian goddess of beer, contains a recipe for it. Beer forms part of the culture of many nations and is associated with social traditions such as beer festivals, as well as activities like pub games. Etymology. In early forms of English and in the Scandinavian languages, the usual word for beer was the word whose Modern English form is "ale". The modern word "beer" comes into present-day English from Old English , itself from Common Germanic, it is found throughout the West Germanic and North Germanic dialects (modern Dutch and German , Old Norse ). The earlier etymology of the word is debated: the three main theories are that the word originates in Proto-Germanic (putatively from Proto-Indo-European ), meaning "brewer's yeast, beer dregs"; that it is related to the word "barley", or that it was somehow borrowed from Latin "to drink". Christine Fell, in "Leeds Studies in English" (1975), suggests that the Old English/Norse word "bēor" did not originally denote ale or beer, but a strong, sweet drink rather like mead or cider. Whatever the case, the meaning of "bēor" expanded to cover the meaning of "ale". When hopped ale from Europe was imported into Britain in the late Middle Ages, it was described as "beer" to differentiate it from the British unhopped ale, later acquiring a broader meaning. History. Prehistory. Beer is one of the world's oldest prepared alcoholic drinks. The earliest archaeological evidence of fermentation consists of 13,000 year-old residues of a beer with the consistency of gruel, used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting, at the Raqefet Cave in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in northern Israel. There is evidence that beer was produced at Göbekli Tepe during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (around 8500 BC to 5500 BC). The earliest clear chemical evidence of beer produced from barley dates to about 3500–3100 BC, from the site of Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. Early civilisations. Beer is recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt, and archaeologists speculate that beer was instrumental in the formation of civilizations. Approximately 5000 years ago, workers in the city of Uruk (modern day Iraq) were paid by their employers with volumes of beer. During the building of the Egyptian pyramids, each worker got a daily ration of four to five litres of beer, which served as both nutrition and refreshment and was crucial to the pyramids' construction. Some of the earliest Sumerian writings contain references to beer; examples include a prayer to the goddess Ninkasi, known as "The Hymn to Ninkasi", which served as both a prayer and a method of remembering the recipe for beer in a culture with few literate people, and the ancient advice ("Fill your belly. Day and night make merry") to Gilgamesh, recorded in the "Epic of Gilgamesh" by the alewife Siduri, may, at least in part, have referred to the consumption of beer. The Ebla tablets, discovered in 1974 in Ebla, Syria, show that beer was produced in the city in 2500 BC. A fermented drink using rice and fruit was made in China around 7000 BC. Unlike sake, mould was not used to saccharify the rice (amylolytic fermentation); the rice was probably prepared for fermentation by chewing or malting. During the Vedic period in Ancient India, there are records of the consumption of the beer-like "sura". Xenophon noted that during his travels, beer was being produced in Armenia. Medieval. Beer was spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes as far back as 3000 BC, and it was mainly brewed on a domestic scale. The product that the early Europeans drank might not be recognised as beer by most people today. Alongside the basic starch source, the early European beers may have contained fruits, honey, numerous types of plants, spices, and other substances such as narcotic herbs. This mixture was called gruit, where if some were improperly heated could cause hallucinations. The mixture of gruit was different from every brewer. What they did not contain was hops, as that was a later addition, first mentioned in Europe around 822 by a Carolingian Abbot and again in 1067 by abbess Hildegard of Bingen. In 1516, William IV, Duke of Bavaria adopted the "Reinheitsgebot" (purity law), perhaps the oldest food-quality regulation still in use in the 21st century, according to which the only allowed ingredients of beer are water, hops, and barley-malt. Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution was made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century AD, beer was also being produced and sold by European monasteries. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal to industrial manufacture, while domestic production ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century. Modern. In 1912, brown bottles began to be used by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States. This innovation has since been accepted worldwide as it prevents light rays from degrading the quality and stability of beer. The brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers, ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. As of 2006, more than of beer are sold per year, producing global revenues of US$294.5 billion. In 2010, China's beer consumption hit , or nearly twice that of the United States, but only 5 per cent sold were premium beers, compared with 50 per cent in France and Germany. Beer is the most widely consumed of all alcoholic drinks. A widely publicised study in 2018 suggested that sudden decreases in barley production due to extreme drought and heat could in the future cause substantial volatility in the availability and price of beer. Brewing. Process. The process of making beer is brewing. It converts the grain into a sugary liquid called wort and then ferments this into beer using yeast. The first step, mixing malted barley with hot water in a mash tun, is "mashing". The starches are converted to sugars, and the sweet wort is drained off. The grains are washed to extract as much fermentable liquid from the grains as possible. The sweet wort is put into a kettle, or "copper", and boiled. Hops are added as a source of bitterness, flavour, and aroma. The longer the hops are boiled, the more bitterness they contribute, but the less hop flavour and aroma remain. The wort is cooled and the yeast is added. The wort is then fermented, often for a week or longer. The yeast settles, leaving the beer clear. During fermentation, most of the carbon dioxide is allowed to escape through a trap. The carbonation is often increased either by transferring the beer to a pressure vessel and introducing pressurised carbon dioxide or by transferring it before the fermentation is finished so that carbon dioxide pressure builds up inside the container. Ingredients. The basic ingredients of beer are water; a starch source, usually malted barley; a brewer's yeast to produce the fermentation; and a flavouring such as hops. A mixture of starch sources may be used, with a secondary carbohydrate source, such as maize (corn), rice, wheat, or sugar, often termed an adjunct, especially when used alongside malted barley. Less widely used starch sources include millet, sorghum, and cassava root in Africa; potato in Brazil; and agave in Mexico. Water is the main ingredient, accounting for 93% of beer's weight. The level of dissolved bicarbonate influences beer's finished taste. Due to the mineral properties of each region's water, specific areas were originally the sole producers of certain types of beer, each identifiable by regional characteristics. Dublin's hard water is well-suited to making stout, such as Guinness, while the Plzeň Region's soft water is ideal for brewing Pilsner, such as Pilsner Urquell. The waters of Burton in England contain gypsum, which benefits making pale ale to such a degree that brewers of pale ale add gypsum in a process known as Burtonisation. The starch source provides the fermentable material and determines the strength and flavour of the beer. The most common starch source used in beer is malted grain. Grain is malted by soaking it in water, allowing it to begin germination, and then drying the partially germinated grain in a kiln. Malting produces enzymes that convert starches into fermentable sugars. Different roasting times and temperatures produce different colours of malt from the same grain. Darker malts produce darker beers. Nearly all beers use barley malt for most of the starch, as its fibrous hull remains attached to the grain during threshing. After malting, barley is milled, which finally removes the hull, breaking it into large pieces. These pieces remain with the grain during the mash and act as a filter bed during lautering, when sweet wort is separated from insoluble grain material. Other grains, including wheat, rice, oats, and rye, and less frequently, corn and sorghum may be used. Some brewers have produced gluten-free beer, made with sorghum, for those who cannot consume gluten-containing grains like wheat, barley, and rye. Flavouring beer is the sole commercial use of hops. The flower of the hop vine acts as a flavouring and preservative agent in nearly all beer made today. The flowers themselves are often called "hops". The first historical mention of the use of hops in beer dates from 822 AD in monastery rules written by Adalard of Corbie, though widespread cultivation of hops for use in beer began in the thirteenth century. Before then, beer was flavoured with other plants such as grains of paradise or 'alehoof'. Combinations of aromatic herbs, berries, and even wormwood were combined into aflavouring mixture known as gruit. Some beers today, such as Fraoch' by the Scottish Heather Ales company use plants other than hops for flavouring. and Cervoise Lancelot by the French Brasserie-Lancelot company, Hops contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt; the bitterness of beers is measured on the International Bitterness Units scale. Hops further contribute floral, citrus, and herbal aromas and flavours. They have an antibiotic effect that favours the activity of brewer's yeast over less desirable microorganisms, and aids in "head retention", the length of time that a foamy head created by carbonation will last. The acidity of hops is a preservative. Yeast is the microorganism responsible for fermenting beer. It metabolises the sugars, producing ethanol and carbon dioxide, and thereby turns wort into beer. In addition, yeast influences the character and flavour. The dominant types of beer yeast are top-fermenting "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" and bottom-fermenting "Saccharomyces pastorianus". "Brettanomyces" ferments lambics, and "Torulaspora delbrueckii" ferments Bavarian weissbier. Before the role of yeast in fermentation was understood, fermentation involved wild or airborne yeasts. A few styles, such as lambics, rely on this method today, but most modern fermentation adds pure yeast cultures. Some brewers add clarifying agents or finings to beer, which typically precipitate (collect as a solid) out along with protein solids, and are found only in trace amounts in the finished product. This process makes the beer appear bright and clean, rather than the cloudy appearance of ethnic and older styles such as wheat beers. Clarifying agents include isinglass, from the swimbladders of fish; Irish moss, a seaweed; kappa carrageenan, from the seaweed "Kappaphycus cottonii"; Polyclar (artificial); and gelatin. Beer marked "suitable for vegans" is clarified either with seaweed or with artificial agents. Industry. In the 21st century, larger breweries have repeatedly absorbed smaller breweries. In 2002, South African Breweries bought the North American Miller Brewing Company to found SABMiller, becoming the second-largest brewery after North American Anheuser-Busch. In 2004, the Belgian Interbrew was the third-largest brewery by volume, and the Brazilian AmBev was the fifth-largest. They merged into InBev, becoming the largest brewery. In 2007, SABMiller surpassed InBev and Anheuser-Busch when it acquired Royal Grolsch, the brewer of Dutch brand Grolsch. In 2008, when InBev (the second-largest) bought Anheuser-Busch (the third-largest), the new Anheuser-Busch InBev company became again the largest brewer in the world. , according to the market research firm Technavio, AB InBev was the largest brewing company in the world, with Heineken second, CR Snow third, Carlsberg fourth, and Molson Coors fifth. A "microbrewery", or "craft brewery", produces a limited amount of beer. The maximum amount of beer a brewery can produce and still be classed as a 'microbrewery' varies by region and by authority; in the US, it is a year. A "brewpub" is a type of microbrewery that incorporates a pub or other drinking establishment. The highest density of breweries in the world, most of them microbreweries, exists in Franconia, Germany, especially in the district of Upper Franconia, which has about 200 breweries. The Benedictine Weihenstephan brewery in Bavaria, Germany, can trace its roots to the year 768, as a document from that year refers to a hop garden in the area paying a tithe to the monastery. It claims to be the oldest working brewery in the world. Varieties. Top-fermented beers. Top-fermented beers are most commonly produced with "Saccharomyces cerevisiae", a top-fermenting yeast which clumps and rises to the surface, typically between . At these temperatures, yeast produces significant amounts of esters and other secondary flavour and aroma products, and the result is often a beer with slightly "fruity" compounds resembling apple, pear, pineapple, banana, plum, or prune, among others. After the introduction of hops into England from Flanders in the 15th century, "ale" came to mean an unhopped fermented brew, while "beer" meant a brew with an infusion of hops. The term 'real ale' was coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1973 for "beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide". It is applied to both bottle conditioned and cask conditioned beers. As for the types of top-fermented beers, pale ale predominantly uses pale malt. It is one of the world's major beer styles and includes India pale ale (IPA). Mild ale has a predominantly malty palate. It is usually dark, with an abv of 3% to 3.6%. Wheat beer is brewed with a large proportion of wheat although it often also contains a significant proportion of malted barley. Wheat beers are usually top-fermented. Stout is a dark beer made using roasted barley, and typically brewed with slow fermenting yeast. There are a number of variations including dry stout (such as Guinness), sweet stout, and Imperial (or Russian) stout. Stout was originally the strongest variety of porter, a dark brown beer popular with the street and river porters of eighteenth century London. Bottom-fermented beers. Lager is cool-fermented beer. Pale lagers are the most commonly drunk beers in the world. Many are of the "pilsner" type. The name "lager" comes from the German "lagern" for "to store", as brewers in Bavaria stored beer in cool cellars during the warm summer months, allowing the beers to continue to ferment, and to clear any sediment. Lager yeast is a cool bottom-fermenting yeast ("Saccharomyces pastorianus"). Lager typically undergoes primary fermentation at , and then a long secondary fermentation at (the lagering phase). During the secondary stage, the lager clears and mellows. The cooler conditions inhibit the natural production of esters and other byproducts, resulting in a "cleaner"-tasting beer. With improved modern yeast strains, most lager breweries use only short periods of cold storage, typically no more than 2 weeks. Some traditional lagers are still stored for several months. Lambic. Lambic, a beer of Belgium, is naturally fermented using wild yeasts, rather than cultivated. Many of these are not strains of brewer's yeast ("Saccharomyces cerevisiae") and may have significant differences in aroma and sourness. Yeast varieties such as "Brettanomyces bruxellensis" and "Brettanomyces lambicus" are common in lambics. In addition, other organisms such as "Lactobacillus" bacteria produce acids which contribute to the sourness. Non-barley beers. Around the world, many traditional and ancient starch-based drinks are classed as beer. In Africa, there are ethnic beers made from sorghum or millet, such as Oshikundu in Namibia and Tella in Ethiopia. Kyrgyzstan also has a beer made from millet; it is a low alcohol, somewhat porridge-like drink called "Bozo". Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet and Sikkim also use millet in Chhaang, a popular semi-fermented rice/millet drink in the eastern Himalayas. The Andes in South America has Chicha, made from germinated maize (corn); while the indigenous peoples in Brazil have Cauim, a traditional drink made since pre-Columbian times by chewing manioc so that an enzyme (amylase) present in human saliva can break down the starch into fermentable sugars; this is similar to Masato in Peru. Beers made from bread, among the earliest forms of the drink, are Sahti in Finland, Kvass in Russia and Ukraine, and Bouza in Sudan. 4000 years ago fermented bread was used in Mesopotamia. Food waste activists got inspired by these ancient recipes and use leftover bread to replace a third of the malted barley that would otherwise be used for brewing their craft ale. Measurement. Beer is measured and assessed by colour, by strength and by bitterness. The strength of modern beer is usually around 4% to 6%, measured as alcohol by volume (ABV). The perceived bitterness is measured by the International Bitterness Units scale (IBU), defined in co-operation between the American Society of Brewing Chemists and the European Brewery Convention. The international scale was a development of the European Bitterness Units scale, often abbreviated as EBU, and the bitterness values should be identical. Colour. Beer colour is determined by the malt. The most common colour is a pale amber produced from using pale malts. "Pale lager" and "pale ale" are terms used for beers made from malt dried and roasted with the fuel coke. Coke was first used for roasting malt in 1642, but it was not until around 1703 that the term "pale ale" was used. In terms of sales volume, most of today's beer is based on the pale lager brewed in 1842 in the city of Plzeň in the present-day Czech Republic. The modern pale lager is light in colour due to use of coke for kilning, which gives off heat with little smoke. Dark beers are usually brewed from a pale malt or lager malt base with a small proportion of darker malt added to achieve the desired shade. Other colourants—such as caramel—are also widely used to darken beers. Very dark beers, such as stout, use dark or patent malts that have been roasted longer. Some have roasted unmalted barley. Strength. Beer ranges from less than 3% alcohol by volume (abv) to around 14% abv, though this strength can be increased to around 20% by re-pitching with champagne yeast, and to 55% ABV by the freeze-distilling process. The alcohol content of beer varies by local practice or beer style. The pale lagers that most consumers are familiar with fall in the range of 4–6%, with a typical ABVof 5%. The customary strength of British ales is quite low, with many session beers being around 4% abv. In Belgium, some beers, such as table beer are of such low alcohol content (1%–4%) that they are served instead of soft drinks in some schools. The weakest beers are described as 'alcohol-free', typically containing 0.05% ABV; this compares to low alcohol beers which may contain 1.2% ABV or less, and conventional beers which average 4.4% ABV. The strength of beers has climbed during the later years of the 20th century. Vetter 33, a 10.5% ABV (33 degrees Plato, hence Vetter "33") doppelbock, was listed in the 1994 "Guinness Book of World Records" as the strongest beer at that time, though Samichlaus, by the Swiss brewer Hürlimann, had also been listed by the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the strongest at 14% ABV. Since then, some brewers have used champagne yeasts to increase the alcohol content of their beers. Samuel Adams reached 20% ABV with "Millennium", and then surpassed that amount to 25.6% ABV with Utopias. The strongest beer brewed in Britain was Baz's Super Brew by Parish Brewery, a 23% ABVbeer. In September 2011, the Scottish brewery BrewDog produced Ghost Deer, which, at 28%, they claim to be the world's strongest beer produced by fermentation alone. The product claimed to be the strongest beer made is Schorschbräu's 2011 "Schorschbock 57" with 57,5% ABV. It was preceded by "The End of History", a 55% Belgian ale, made by BrewDog in 2010. The same company had previously made "Sink The Bismarck!", a 41% ABV IPA, and "Tactical Nuclear Penguin", a 32% ABV Imperial stout. Each of these beers are made using the eisbock method of fractional freezing, in which a strong ale is partially frozen and the ice is repeatedly removed, until the desired strength is reached, a process that may class the product as spirits rather than beer. The German brewery Schorschbräu's "Schorschbock", a 31% ABV eisbock, and Hair of the Dog's "Dave", a 29% abv barley wine made in 1994, used the same fractional freezing method. A 60% ABV blend of beer with whiskey was jokingly claimed as the strongest beer by a Dutch brewery in July 2010. Serving. Draught. Draught (also spelt "draft") beer from a pressurised keg using a lever-style dispenser and a spout is the most common method of dispensing in bars around the world. A metal keg is pressurised with carbon dioxide (CO2) gas which drives the beer to the dispensing tap or faucet. Some beers may be served with a nitrogen/carbon dioxide mixture. Nitrogen produces fine bubbles, resulting in a dense head and a creamy mouthfeel. In the 1980s, Guinness introduced the beer widget, a nitrogen-pressurised ball inside a can which creates a moderately dense, tight head. This approximates the effect of serving from a keg, at least for a British-style beer which does not have a specially large head. Cask-conditioned ales (or cask ales) are unfiltered and unpasteurised beers. These beers are termed "real ale" by the CAMRA organisation. When a cask arrives in a pub, it is placed horizontally on a "stillage" frame, designed to hold it steady and at the right angle, and then allowed to cool to cellar temperature (typically between ), before being tapped and vented—a tap is driven through a rubber bung at the bottom of one end, and a hard spile is used to open a hole in the uppermost side of the cask. The act of stillaging and then venting a beer in this manner typically disturbs all the sediment, so it must be left for a suitable period of hours to days to "drop" (clear) again, as well as to fully condition the beer. At this point the beer is ready to sell, either being pulled through a beer line with a hand pump, or simply being "gravity-fed" directly into the glass. Draught beer's environmental impact can be 68% lower than bottled beer due to packaging differences. A life cycle study of one beer brand, including grain production, brewing, bottling, distribution and waste management, shows that the CO2 emissions from a 6-pack of micro-brew beer is about 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds). The loss of natural habitat potential from the 6-pack of micro-brew beer is estimated to be 2.5 square metres (26 square feet). Downstream emissions from distribution, retail, storage and disposal of waste can be over 45% of a bottled micro-brew beer's CO2 emissions. Where legal, the use of a refillable jug, reusable bottle or other reusable containers to transport draught beer from a store or a bar, rather than buying pre-bottled beer, can reduce the environmental impact of beer consumption. Packaging. Most beers are cleared of yeast by filtering when packaged in bottles and cans. However, bottle conditioned beers retain some yeast—either by being unfiltered, or by being filtered and then reseeded with fresh yeast. Many beers are sold in cans, though there is considerable variation in the proportion between different countries. In Sweden in 2001, 63.9% of beer was sold in cans. People either drink from the can or pour the beer into a glass. A technology developed by Crown Holdings for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is the 'full aperture' can, so named because the entire lid is removed during the opening process, turning the can into a drinking cup. Cans protect the beer from light (thereby preventing spoilage) and have a seal less prone to leaking over time than bottles. Cans were initially viewed as a technological breakthrough for maintaining the quality of a beer, then became commonly associated with less expensive, mass-produced beers, even though the quality of storage in cans is much like bottles. Plastic (PET) bottles are used by some breweries. Temperature. The temperature of a beer has an influence on a drinker's experience; warmer temperatures reveal the range of flavours in a beer but cooler temperatures are more refreshing. Most drinkers prefer pale lager to be served chilled, a low- or medium-strength pale ale to be served cool, while a strong barley wine or imperial stout to be served at room temperature. Beer writer Michael Jackson proposed a five-level scale for serving temperatures: well chilled () for "light" beers (pale lagers); chilled () for Berliner Weisse and other wheat beers; lightly chilled () for all dark lagers, altbier and German wheat beers; cellar temperature () for regular British ale, stout and most Belgian specialities; and room temperature () for strong dark ales (especially trappist beer) and barley wine. Drinking chilled beer began with the development of artificial refrigeration and by the 1870s, was spread in those countries that concentrated on brewing pale lager. Chilling beer makes it more refreshing, though below 15.5 °C (60 °F) the chilling starts to reduce taste awareness and reduces it significantly below . Beer served unchilled—either cool or at room temperature—reveal more of their flavours. Cask Marque, a non-profit UK beer organisation, has set a temperature standard range of 12°–14 °C (53°–57 °F) for cask ales to be served. Vessels. Beer is consumed out of a variety of vessels, such as a glass, a beer stein, a mug, a pewter tankard, a beer bottle or a can; or at music festivals and some bars and nightclubs, from a plastic cup. The shape of the glass from which beer is consumed can influence the perception of the beer and can define and accent the character of the style. Breweries offer branded glassware intended only for their own beers as a marketing promotion, as this increases sales of their product. The pouring process has an influence on a beer's presentation. The rate of flow from the tap or other serving vessel, tilt of the glass, and position of the pour (in the centre or down the side) into the glass all influence the result, such as the size and longevity of the head, lacing (the pattern left by the head as it moves down the glass as the beer is drunk), and the release of carbonation. A beer tower or portable beer tap is sometimes used in bars and restaurants to allow a group of customers to serve themselves. The device consists of a tall container with a cooling mechanism and a beer tap at its base. Chemistry. Beer contains the phenolic acids 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, syringic acid, "p"-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, and sinapic acid. Alkaline hydrolysis experiments show that most of the phenolic acids are present as bound forms and only a small portion can be detected as free compounds. Hops, and beer made with it, contain 8-prenylnaringenin which is a potent phytoestrogen. Hop also contains myrcene, humulene, xanthohumol, isoxanthohumol, myrcenol, linalool, tannins, and resin. The alcohol 2M2B is a component of hops brewing. Barley, in the form of malt, brings the condensed tannins prodelphinidins B3, B9 and C2 into beer. Tryptophol, tyrosol, and phenylethanol are aromatic higher alcohols (congeners) produced by yeast during the brewing process. as secondary products of alcoholic fermentation Nutrition. Beers vary in their nutritional content. The ingredients used to make beer, including the yeast, provide a rich source of nutrients; therefore beer may contain nutrients including magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, biotin, chromium and B vitamins. Beer is sometimes referred to as "liquid bread", though beer is not a meal in itself. Health effects. A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis found that moderate ethanol consumption brought no mortality benefit compared with lifetime abstention from ethanol consumption. Some studies have concluded that drinking small quantities of alcohol (less than one drink in women and two in men, per day) is associated with a "decreased" risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and early death. Some of these studies combined former ethanol drinkers and lifelong abstainers into a single group of nondrinkers, which hides the health benefits of lifelong abstention from ethanol. The long-term health effects of continuous, moderate or heavy alcohol consumption include the risk of developing alcoholism and alcoholic liver disease. Alcoholism, also known as "alcohol use disorder", is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in problems. It was previously divided into two types: alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. In a medical context, alcoholism is said to exist when two or more of the following conditions are present: a person drinks large amounts over a long time period, has difficulty cutting down, acquiring and drinking alcohol takes up a great deal of time, alcohol is strongly desired, usage results in not fulfilling responsibilities, usage results in social problems, usage results in health problems, usage results in risky situations, withdrawal occurs when stopping, and alcohol tolerance has occurred with use. Alcoholism reduces a person's life expectancy by around ten years and alcohol use is the third leading cause of early death in the United States. No professional medical association recommends that people who are nondrinkers should start drinking alcoholic beverages. In the United States, a total of 88,000 deaths per year (5.9% of all deaths) are believed to be due to alcohol. Overeating and lack of muscle tone is the main cause of a beer belly, rather than beer consumption, though a 2004 study found a link between binge drinking and a beer belly. Several diet books quote beer as having an undesirably high glycemic index of 110, the same as maltose; however, the maltose in beer undergoes metabolism by yeast during fermentation so that beer consists mostly of water, hop oils and only trace amounts of sugars, including maltose. The multi-step process of beer production is effective at removing pesticide residues from grain. At each step (e.g. mashing or malting) pesticide levels are typically reduced by 50-90%, varying with the particular process and pesticide's chemical properties. A 2013 study found that the flavour of beer alone could provoke dopamine activity in the brain of the male participants, who wanted to drink more as a result. The 49 men in the study were subject to positron emission tomography scans, while a computer-controlled device sprayed minute amounts of beer, water and a sports drink onto their tongues. Compared with the taste of the sports drink, the taste of beer significantly increased the participants desire to drink. Test results indicated that the flavour of the beer triggered a dopamine release, even though alcohol content in the spray was insufficient for the purpose of becoming intoxicated. Society and culture. Some of the earliest writings mention the production and distribution of beer: the 1750 BC Babylonian Code of Hammurabi included laws regulating it, while "The Hymn to Ninkasi", a 1800 BC prayer to the Mesopotamian goddess of beer, a recipe for it. In many societies, beer is the most popular alcoholic drink. Various social traditions and activities are associated with beer drinking, such as playing cards, darts, or other pub games; attending beer festivals; engaging in zythology (the study of beer); visiting a series of pubs in one evening; visiting breweries; beer-oriented tourism; or rating beer. Drinking games, such as beer pong, accompany the drinking of beer. Even having a "shower beer" has developed a following. A relatively new profession is that of the beer sommelier, who informs restaurant patrons about beers and food pairings. Some breweries have developed beers to pair with food. Wine writer Malcolm Gluck disputed the need to pair beer with food, while beer writers Roger Protz and Melissa Cole contested that claim. Beer is considered to be a social lubricant, and is consumed in countries all over the world. There are breweries in Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, and in some African countries. Sales of beer are four times those of wine, which is the second most popular alcoholic drink.
3364	1299519139	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3364	Bit	The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as either , but other representations such as "true"/"false", "yes"/"no", "on"/"off", or "+"/"−" are also widely used. The relation between these values and the physical states of the underlying storage or device is a matter of convention, and different assignments may be used even within the same device or program. It may be physically implemented with a two-state device. A contiguous group of binary digits is commonly called a "bit string", a bit vector, or a single-dimensional (or multi-dimensional) "bit array". A group of eight bits is called one "byte", but historically the size of the byte is not strictly defined. Frequently, half, full, double and quadruple words consist of a number of bytes which is a low power of two. A string of four bits is usually a "nibble". In information theory, one bit is the information entropy of a random binary variable that is 0 or 1 with equal probability, or the information that is gained when the value of such a variable becomes known. As a unit of information, the bit is also known as a "shannon", named after Claude E. Shannon. As a measure of the length of a digital string that is encoded as symbols over a 0-1 (binary) alphabet, the bit has been called a binit, but this usage is now rare. In data compression, the goal is to find a shorter representation for a string, so that it requires fewer bits when stored or transmitted; the string would be compressed into the shorter representation before doing so, and then decompressed into its original form when read from storage or received. The field of algorithmic information theory is devoted to the study of the irreducible information content of a string (i.e., its shortest-possible representation length, in bits), under the assumption that the receiver has minimal "a priori" knowledge of the method used to compress the string. In error detection and correction, the goal is to add redundant data to a string, to enable the detection or correction of errors during storage or transmission; the redundant data would be computed before doing so, and stored or transmitted, and then checked or corrected when the data is read or received. The symbol for the binary digit is either "bit", per the IEC 80000-13:2008 standard, or the lowercase character "b", per the IEEE 1541-2002 standard. Use of the latter may create confusion with the capital "B" which is the international standard symbol for the byte. History. Ralph Hartley suggested the use of a logarithmic measure of information in 1928. Claude E. Shannon first used the word "bit" in his seminal 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". He attributed its origin to John W. Tukey, who had written a Bell Labs memo on 9 January 1947 in which he contracted "binary information digit" to simply "bit". Physical representation. A bit can be stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in either of two possible distinct states. These may be the two stable states of a flip-flop, two positions of an electrical switch, two distinct voltage or current levels allowed by a circuit, two distinct levels of light intensity, two directions of magnetization or polarization, the orientation of reversible double stranded DNA, etc. Perhaps the earliest example of a binary storage device was the punched card invented by Basile Bouchon and Jean-Baptiste Falcon (1732), developed by Joseph Marie Jacquard (1804), and later adopted by Semyon Korsakov, Charles Babbage, Herman Hollerith, and early computer manufacturers like IBM. A variant of that idea was the perforated paper tape. In all those systems, the medium (card or tape) conceptually carried an array of hole positions; each position could be either punched through or not, thus carrying one bit of information. The encoding of text by bits was also used in Morse code (1844) and early digital communications machines such as teletypes (1870). The first electrical devices for discrete logic (such as elevator and traffic light control circuits, telephone switches, and Konrad Zuse's computer) represented bits as the states of electrical relays which could be either "open" or "closed". These relays functioned as mechanical switches, physically toggling between states to represent binary data, forming the fundamental building blocks of early computing and control systems. When relays were replaced by vacuum tubes, starting in the 1940s, computer builders experimented with a variety of storage methods, such as pressure pulses traveling down a mercury delay line, charges stored on the inside surface of a cathode-ray tube, or opaque spots printed on glass discs by photolithographic techniques. In the 1950s and 1960s, these methods were largely supplanted by magnetic storage devices such as magnetic-core memory, magnetic tapes, drums, and disks, where a bit was represented by the polarity of magnetization of a certain area of a ferromagnetic film, or by a change in polarity from one direction to the other. The same principle was later used in the magnetic bubble memory developed in the 1980s, and is still found in various magnetic strip items such as metro tickets and some credit cards. In modern semiconductor memory, such as dynamic random-access memory or a solid-state drive, the two values of a bit are represented by two levels of electric charge stored in a capacitor or a floating-gate MOSFET. In certain types of programmable logic arrays and read-only memory, a bit may be represented by the presence or absence of a conducting path at a certain point of a circuit. In optical discs, a bit is encoded as the presence or absence of a microscopic pit on a reflective surface. In one-dimensional bar codes and two-dimensional QR codes, bits are encoded as lines or squares which may be either black or white. In modern digital computing, bits are transformed in Boolean logic gates. Transmission and processing. Bits are transmitted one at a time in serial transmission. By contrast, multiple bits are transmitted simultaneously in a parallel transmission. A serial computer processes information in either a bit-serial or a byte-serial fashion. From the standpoint of data communications, a byte-serial transmission is an 8-way parallel transmission with binary signalling. In programming languages such as C, a bitwise operation operates on binary strings as though they are vectors of bits, rather than interpreting them as binary numbers. Data transfer rates are usually measured in decimal SI multiples. For example, a channel capacity may be specified as 8 kbit/s = 1 kB/s. Storage. File sizes are often measured in (binary) IEC multiples of bytes, for example 1 KiB = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits. Confusion may arise in cases where (for historic reasons) filesizes are specified with binary multipliers using the ambiguous prefixes K, M, and G rather than the IEC standard prefixes Ki, Mi, and Gi. Mass storage devices are usually measured in decimal SI multiples, for example 1 TB = formula_1 bytes. Confusingly, the storage capacity of a directly addressable memory device, such as a DRAM chip, or an assemblage of such chips on a memory module, is specified as a binary multiple—using the ambiguous prefix G rather than the IEC recommended Gi prefix. For example, a DRAM chip that is specified (and advertised) as having "1 GB" of capacity has formula_2 bytes of capacity. As at 2022, the difference between the popular understanding of a memory system with "8 GB" of capacity, and the SI-correct meaning of "8 GB" was still causing difficulty to software designers. Unit and symbol. The bit is not defined in the International System of Units (SI). However, the International Electrotechnical Commission issued standard IEC 60027, which specifies that the symbol for binary digit should be 'bit', and this should be used in all multiples, such as 'kbit', for kilobit. However, the lower-case letter 'b' is widely used as well and was recommended by the IEEE 1541 Standard (2002). In contrast, the upper case letter 'B' is the standard and customary symbol for byte. Multiple bits. Multiple bits may be expressed and represented in several ways. For convenience of representing commonly reoccurring groups of bits in information technology, several units of information have traditionally been used. The most common is the unit byte, coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956, which historically was used to represent the group of bits used to encode a single character of text (until UTF-8 multibyte encoding took over) in a computer and for this reason it was used as the basic addressable element in many computer architectures. By 1993, the trend in hardware design had converged on the 8-bit byte. However, because of the ambiguity of relying on the underlying hardware design, the unit octet was defined to explicitly denote a sequence of eight bits. Computers usually manipulate bits in groups of a fixed size, conventionally named "words". Like the byte, the number of bits in a word also varies with the hardware design, and is typically between 8 and 80 bits, or even more in some specialized computers. In the early 21st century, retail personal or server computers have a word size of 32 or 64 bits. The International System of Units defines a series of decimal prefixes for multiples of standardized units which are commonly also used with the bit and the byte. The prefixes kilo (103) through yotta (1024) increment by multiples of one thousand, and the corresponding units are the kilobit (kbit) through the yottabit (Ybit).
3365	10531370	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3365	Byte	The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit definition, network protocol documents such as the Internet Protocol () refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet. Those bits in an octet are usually counted with numbering from 0 to 7 or 7 to 0 depending on the bit endianness. The size of the byte has historically been hardware-dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. Sizes from 1 to 48 bits have been used. The six-bit character code was an often-used implementation in early encoding systems, and computers using six-bit and nine-bit bytes were common in the 1960s. These systems often had memory words of 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, or 60 bits, corresponding to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10 six-bit bytes, and persisted, in legacy systems, into the twenty-first century. In this era, bit groupings in the instruction stream were often referred to as "syllables" or "slab", before the term "byte" became common. The modern "de facto" standard of eight bits, as documented in ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993, is a convenient power of two permitting the binary-encoded values 0 through 255 for one byte, as 2 to the power of 8 is 256. The international standard IEC 80000-13 codified this common meaning. Many types of applications use information representable in eight or fewer bits and processor designers commonly optimize for this usage. The popularity of major commercial computing architectures has aided in the ubiquitous acceptance of the 8-bit byte. Modern architectures typically use 32- or 64-bit words, built of four or eight bytes, respectively. The unit symbol for the byte was designated as the upper-case letter B by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Internationally, the unit "octet" explicitly defines a sequence of eight bits, eliminating the potential ambiguity of the term "byte". The symbol for octet, 'o', also conveniently eliminates the ambiguity in the symbol 'B' between byte and bel. Etymology and history. The term "byte" was coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer, which had addressing to the bit and variable field length (VFL) instructions with a byte size encoded in the instruction. It is a deliberate respelling of "bite" to avoid accidental mutation to "bit". Another origin of "byte" for bit groups smaller than a computer's word size, and in particular groups of four bits, is on record by Louis G. Dooley, who claimed he coined the term while working with Jules Schwartz and Dick Beeler on an air defense system called SAGE at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1956 or 1957, which was jointly developed by Rand, MIT, and IBM. Later on, Schwartz's language JOVIAL actually used the term, but the author recalled vaguely that it was derived from AN/FSQ-31. Early computers used a variety of four-bit binary-coded decimal (BCD) representations and the six-bit codes for printable graphic patterns common in the U.S. Army (FIELDATA) and Navy. These representations included alphanumeric characters and special graphical symbols. These sets were expanded in 1963 to seven bits of coding, called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) as the Federal Information Processing Standard, which replaced the incompatible teleprinter codes in use by different branches of the U.S. government and universities during the 1960s. ASCII included the distinction of upper- and lowercase alphabets and a set of control characters to facilitate the transmission of written language as well as printing device functions, such as page advance and line feed, and the physical or logical control of data flow over the transmission media. During the early 1960s, while also active in ASCII standardization, IBM simultaneously introduced in its product line of System/360 the eight-bit Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC), an expansion of their six-bit binary-coded decimal (BCDIC) representations used in earlier card punches. The prominence of the System/360 led to the ubiquitous adoption of the eight-bit storage size, while in detail the EBCDIC and ASCII encoding schemes are different. In the early 1960s, AT&T introduced digital telephony on long-distance trunk lines. These used the eight-bit μ-law encoding. This large investment promised to reduce transmission costs for eight-bit data. In Volume 1 of "The Art of Computer Programming" (first published in 1968), Donald Knuth uses "byte" in his hypothetical MIX computer to denote a unit which "contains an "unspecified" amount of information ... capable of holding at least 64 distinct values ... "at most" 100 distinct values. On a binary computer a byte must therefore be composed of six bits". He notes that "Since 1975 or so, the word "byte" has come to mean a sequence of precisely eight binary digits...When we speak of bytes in connection with MIX we shall confine ourselves to the former sense of the word, harking back to the days when bytes were not yet standardized." The development of eight-bit microprocessors in the 1970s popularized this storage size. Microprocessors such as the Intel 8080, the direct predecessor of the 8086, could also perform a small number of operations on the four-bit pairs in a byte, such as the decimal-add-adjust (DAA) instruction. A four-bit quantity is often called a nibble, also "nybble", which is conveniently represented by a single hexadecimal digit. The term "octet" unambiguously specifies a size of eight bits. It is used extensively in protocol definitions. Historically, the term "octad" or "octade" was used to denote eight bits as well at least in Western Europe; however, this usage is no longer common. The exact origin of the term is unclear, but it can be found in British, Dutch, and German sources of the 1960s and 1970s, and throughout the documentation of Philips mainframe computers. Unit symbol. The unit symbol for the byte is specified in IEC 80000-13, IEEE 1541 and the Metric Interchange Format as the upper-case character B. In the International System of Quantities (ISQ), B is also the symbol of the "bel", a unit of logarithmic power ratio named after Alexander Graham Bell, creating a conflict with the IEC specification. However, little danger of confusion exists, because the bel is a rarely used unit. It is used primarily in its decadic fraction, the decibel (dB), for signal strength and sound pressure level measurements, while a unit for one-tenth of a byte, the decibyte, and other fractions, are only used in derived units, such as transmission rates. The lowercase letter o for octet is defined as the symbol for octet in IEC 80000-13 and is commonly used in languages such as French and Romanian, and is also combined with metric prefixes for multiples, for example ko and Mo. Multiple-byte units. More than one system exists to define unit multiples based on the byte. Some systems are based on powers of 10, following the International System of Units (SI), which defines for example the prefix "kilo" as 1000 (103); other systems are based on powers of two. Nomenclature for these systems has led to confusion. Systems based on powers of 10 use standard SI prefixes ("kilo", "mega", "giga", ...) and their corresponding symbols (k, M, G, ...). Systems based on powers of 2, however, might use binary prefixes ("kibi", "mebi", "gibi", ...) and their corresponding symbols (Ki, Mi, Gi, ...) or they might use the prefixes K, M, and G, creating ambiguity when the prefixes M or G are used. While the difference between the decimal and binary interpretations is relatively small for the kilobyte (about 2% smaller than the kibibyte), the systems deviate increasingly as units grow larger (the relative deviation grows by 2.4% for each three orders of magnitude). For example, a power-of-10-based terabyte is about 9% smaller than power-of-2-based tebibyte. Units based on powers of 10. Definition of prefixes using powers of 10—in which 1 "kilobyte" (symbol kB) is defined to equal 1,000 bytes—is recommended by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The IEC standard defines eight such multiples, up to 1 yottabyte (YB), equal to 10008 bytes. The additional prefixes "ronna-" for 10009 and "quetta-" for 100010 were adopted by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in 2022. This definition is most commonly used for data-rate units in computer networks, internal bus, hard drive and flash media transfer speeds, and for the capacities of most storage media, particularly hard drives, flash-based storage, and DVDs. Operating systems that use this definition include macOS, iOS, Ubuntu, and Debian. It is also consistent with the other uses of the SI prefixes in computing, such as CPU clock speeds or measures of performance. The IBM System 360 and the related disk and tape systems set the byte at 8 bits and documented capacities in decimal units. The early 8-, 5.25- and 3.5-inch floppies gave capacities in multiples of 1024, using "KB" rather than the more accurate "KiB". The later, larger, 8-, 5.25- and 3.5-inch floppies gave capacities in a hybrid notation, i.e., multiples of 1024,000, using and Early 5.25-inch disks used decimal even though they used 128-byte and 256-byte sectors. Hard disks used mostly 256-byte and then 512-byte before 4096-byte blocks became standard. RAM was always sold in powers of 2. Units based on powers of 2. A system of units based on powers of 2 in which 1 kibibyte (KiB) is equal to 1,024 (i.e., 210) bytes is defined by international standard IEC 80000-13 and is supported by national and international standards bodies (BIPM, IEC, NIST). The IEC standard defines eight such multiples, up to 1 yobibyte (YiB), equal to 10248 bytes. The natural binary counterparts to "ronna-" and "quetta-" were given in a consultation paper of the International Committee for Weights and Measures' Consultative Committee for Units (CCU) as "robi-" (Ri, 10249) and "quebi-" (Qi, 102410), but have not yet been adopted by the IEC or ISO. An alternative system of nomenclature for the same units (referred to here as the "customary convention"), in which 1 "kilobyte" (KB) is equal to 1,024 bytes, 1 "megabyte" (MB) is equal to 10242 bytes and 1 "gigabyte" (GB) is equal to 10243 bytes is mentioned by a 1990s JEDEC standard. Only the first three multiples (up to GB) are mentioned by the JEDEC standard, which makes no mention of TB and larger. While confusing and incorrect, the customary convention is used by the Microsoft Windows operating system and random-access memory capacity, such as main memory and CPU cache size, and in marketing and billing by telecommunication companies, such as Vodafone, AT&T, Orange and Telstra. For storage capacity, the customary convention was used by macOS and iOS through Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and iOS 10, after which they switched to units based on powers of 10. Parochial units. Various computer vendors have coined terms for data of various sizes, sometimes with different sizes for the same term even within a single vendor. These terms include "double word", "half word", "long word", "quad word", "slab", "superword" and "syllable". There are also informal terms. e.g., "half byte" and "nybble" for 4 bits, "octal K" for . History of the conflicting definitions. Contemporary computer memory has a binary architecture making a definition of memory units based on powers of 2 most practical. The use of the metric prefix "kilo" for binary multiples arose as a convenience, because is approximately . This definition was popular in early decades of personal computing, with products like the Tandon 5-inch DD floppy format (holding bytes) being advertised as "360 KB", following the -byte convention. It was not universal, however. The Shugart SA-400 5-inch floppy disk held 109,375 bytes unformatted, and was advertised as "110 Kbyte", using the 1000 convention. Likewise, the 8-inch DEC RX01 floppy (1975) held bytes formatted, and was advertised as "256k". Some devices were advertised using a "mixture" of the two definitions: most notably, floppy disks advertised as "1.44 MB" have an actual capacity of , the equivalent of 1.47 MB or 1.41 MiB. In 1995, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's (IUPAC) Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols attempted to resolve this ambiguity by proposing a set of binary prefixes for the powers of 1024, including kibi (kilobinary), mebi (megabinary), and gibi (gigabinary). In December 1998, the IEC addressed such multiple usages and definitions by adopting the IUPAC's proposed prefixes (kibi, mebi, gibi, etc.) to unambiguously denote powers of 1024. Thus one kibibyte (1 KiB) is 10241 bytes = 1024 bytes, one mebibyte (1 MiB) is 10242 bytes = bytes, and so on. In 1999, Donald Knuth suggested calling the kibibyte a "large kilobyte" ("KKB"). Modern standard definitions. The IEC adopted the IUPAC proposal and published the standard in January 1999. The IEC prefixes are part of the International System of Quantities. The IEC further specified that the kilobyte should only be used to refer to bytes. Lawsuits over definition. Lawsuits arising from alleged consumer confusion over the binary and decimal definitions of multiples of the byte have generally ended in favor of the manufacturers, with courts holding that the legal definition of gigabyte or GB is 1 GB = (109) bytes (the decimal definition), rather than the binary definition (230, i.e., ). Specifically, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that "the U.S. Congress has deemed the decimal definition of gigabyte to be the 'preferred' one for the purposes of 'U.S. trade and commerce' [...] The California Legislature has likewise adopted the decimal system for all 'transactions in this state. Earlier lawsuits had ended in settlement with no court ruling on the question, such as a lawsuit against drive manufacturer Western Digital. Western Digital settled the challenge and added explicit disclaimers to products that the usable capacity may differ from the advertised capacity. Seagate was sued on similar grounds and also settled. Common uses. Many programming languages define the data type "byte". The C and C++ programming languages define "byte" as an "addressable unit of data storage large enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment" (clause 3.6 of the C standard). The C standard requires that the integral data type "unsigned char" must hold at least 256 different values, and is represented by at least eight bits (clause 5.2.4.2.1). Various implementations of C and C++ reserve 8, 9, 16, 32, or 36 bits for the storage of a byte. In addition, the C and C++ standards require that there be no gaps between two bytes. This means every bit in memory is part of a byte. Java's primitive data type "byte" is defined as eight bits. It is a signed data type, holding values from −128 to 127. .NET programming languages, such as C#, define "byte" as an unsigned type, and the "sbyte" as a signed data type, holding values from 0 to 255, and −128 to 127, respectively. In data transmission systems, the byte is used as a contiguous sequence of bits in a serial data stream, representing the smallest distinguished unit of data. For asynchronous communication a full transmission unit usually additionally includes a start bit, 1 or 2 stop bits, and possibly a parity bit, and thus its size may vary from seven to twelve bits for five to eight bits of actual data. For synchronous communication the error checking usually uses bytes at the end of a frame. Notes.
3370	49540568	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3370	Boron nitride	Boron nitride is a thermally and chemically resistant refractory compound of boron and nitrogen with the chemical formula BN. It exists in various crystalline forms that are isoelectronic to a similarly structured carbon lattice. The hexagonal form corresponding to graphite is the most stable and soft among BN polymorphs, and is therefore used as a lubricant and an additive to cosmetic products. The cubic (zincblende aka sphalerite structure) variety analogous to diamond is called c-BN; it is softer than diamond, but its thermal and chemical stability is superior. The rare wurtzite BN modification is similar to lonsdaleite but slightly softer than the cubic form. Because of excellent thermal and chemical stability, boron nitride ceramics are used in high-temperature equipment and metal casting. Boron nitride has potential use in nanotechnology. History. Boron nitride was discovered by chemistry teacher of the Liverpool Institute in 1842 via reduction of boric acid with charcoal in the presence of potassium cyanide. Boron Nitride is now used to make nanotubes, and used for mechanical insulation, and other nanomaterials used in the industry and occasionally pharmaceutical purposes, as well as recent development in electronics. Structure. Boron nitride exists in multiple forms that differ in the arrangement of the boron and nitrogen atoms, giving rise to varying bulk properties of the material. Amorphous form (a-BN). The amorphous form of boron nitride (a-BN) is non-crystalline, lacking any long-distance regularity in the arrangement of its atoms. It is analogous to amorphous carbon. All other forms of boron nitride are crystalline. Hexagonal form (h-BN). The most stable crystalline form is the hexagonal one, also called h-BN, α-BN, g-BN, graphitic boron nitride and "white graphene". Hexagonal boron nitride (point group = D3h; space group = P63/mmc) has a layered structure similar to graphite. Within each layer, boron and nitrogen atoms are bound by strong covalent bonds, whereas the layers are held together by weak van der Waals forces. The interlayer "registry" of these sheets differs, however, from the pattern seen for graphite, because the atoms are eclipsed, with boron atoms lying over and above nitrogen atoms. This registry reflects the local polarity of the B–N bonds, as well as interlayer N-donor/B-acceptor characteristics. Likewise, many metastable forms consisting of differently stacked polytypes exist. Therefore, h-BN and graphite are very close neighbors, and the material can accommodate carbon as a substituent element to form BNCs. BC6N hybrids have been synthesized, where carbon substitutes for some B and N atoms. Hexagonal boron nitride monolayer is analogous to graphene, having a honeycomb lattice structure of nearly the same dimensions. Unlike graphene, which is black and an electrical conductor, h-BN monolayer is white and an insulator. It has been proposed for use as an atomic flat insulating substrate or a tunneling dielectric barrier in 2D electronics. . Studies into the optical properties of h-BN at the few- and mono-layer level have been conducted using specialized techniques like deep ultraviolet (DUV) hyperspectral imaging due to its very wide bandgap. Research at low temperatures revealed that monolayer h-BN exhibits photoluminescence consistent with a direct bandgap semiconductor, with emission observed around 6.1 eV. In contrast to observations in other 2D materials like TMDs, the photoluminescence intensity remains remarkably high in few-layer h-BN, which has been attributed to a high radiative efficiency despite the indirect bandgap nature of bulk h-BN. Complementary AFM investigations, particularly in tapping and Kelvin probe modes, have provided nanoscale insight into surface morphology and potential distribution across mono- and few-layer regions. These AFM-based techniques not only assist in confirming flake thickness and uniformity but also support optoelectronic analyses by correlating topographical and electrical variations with luminescence behavior. Functionalization and Heterostructures. Modifications of hexagonal boron nitride have led to novel materials like hBNCF, a vertical heterostructure involving graphene and h-BN functionalized with fluorine. This material, synthesized from h-BN via graphitization and fluorination, was found to exhibit room-temperature ferromagnetism. Crucially, Magnetic Force Microscopy (MFM), a specialized mode of AFM, was employed to investigate the magnetic properties at the nanoscale. These MFM studies confirmed the ferromagnetic nature of the hBNCF powder. Furthermore, the MFM analysis provided evidence that the observed magnetism was intrinsic to the hBNCF structure, helping to exclude extrinsic metallic magnetic impurities as the origin. The material was also characterized as a wide band gap semiconductor (~3.89 eV) with potential applications as an MRI contrast agent. Cubic form (c-BN). Cubic boron nitride has a crystal structure analogous to that of diamond. Consistent with diamond being less stable than graphite, the cubic form is less stable than the hexagonal form, but the conversion rate between the two is negligible at room temperature, as it is for diamond. The cubic form has the sphalerite crystal structure (space group = F3m), the same as that of diamond (with ordered B and N atoms), and is also called β-BN or c-BN. Wurtzite form (w-BN). The wurtzite form of boron nitride (w-BN; point group = C6v; space group = P63mc) has the same structure as lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal polymorph of carbon. As in the cubic form, the boron and nitrogen atoms are grouped into tetrahedra. In the wurtzite form, the boron and nitrogen atoms are grouped into 6-membered rings. In the cubic form all rings are in the chair configuration, whereas in w-BN the rings between 'layers' are in boat configuration. Earlier optimistic reports predicted that the wurtzite form was very strong, and was estimated by a simulation as potentially having a strength 18% stronger than that of diamond. Since only small amounts of the mineral exist in nature, this has not yet been experimentally verified. Its hardness is 46 GPa, slightly harder than commercial borides but softer than the cubic form of boron nitride. Properties. Physical. The partly ionic structure of BN layers in h-BN reduces covalency and electrical conductivity, whereas the interlayer interaction increases resulting in higher hardness of h-BN relative to graphite. The reduced electron-delocalization in hexagonal-BN is also indicated by its absence of color and a large band gap. Very different bonding – strong covalent within the basal planes (planes where boron and nitrogen atoms are covalently bonded) and weak between them – causes high anisotropy of most properties of h-BN. For example, the hardness, electrical and thermal conductivity are much higher within the planes than perpendicular to them. On the contrary, the properties of c-BN and w-BN are more homogeneous and isotropic. Those materials are extremely hard, with the hardness of bulk c-BN being slightly smaller and w-BN even higher than that of diamond. Polycrystalline c-BN with grain sizes on the order of 10 nm is also reported to have Vickers hardness comparable or higher than diamond. Because of much better stability to heat and transition metals, c-BN surpasses diamond in mechanical applications, such as machining steel. The thermal conductivity of BN is among the highest of all electric insulators (see table). Boron nitride can be doped p-type with beryllium and n-type with boron, sulfur, silicon or if co-doped with carbon and nitrogen. Both hexagonal and cubic BN are wide-gap semiconductors with a band-gap energy corresponding to the UV region. If voltage is applied to h-BN or c-BN, then it emits UV light in the range 215–250 nm and therefore can potentially be used as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or lasers. Little is known on melting behavior of boron nitride. It degrades at 2973 °C, but melts at elevated pressure. Thermal stability. Hexagonal and cubic BN (and probably w-BN) show remarkable chemical and thermal stabilities. For example, h-BN is stable to decomposition at temperatures up to 1000 °C in air, 1400 °C in vacuum, and 2800 °C in an inert atmosphere. The reactivity of h-BN and c-BN is relatively similar, and the data for c-BN are summarized in the table below. Thermal stability of c-BN can be summarized as follows: Chemical stability. Boron nitride is not attacked by the usual acids, but it is soluble in alkaline molten salts and nitrides, such as LiOH, KOH, NaOH-, , , , , or , which are therefore used to etch BN. Thermal conductivity. The theoretical thermal conductivity of hexagonal boron nitride nanoribbons (BNNRs) can approach 1700–2000 W/(m⋅K), which has the same order of magnitude as the experimental measured value for graphene, and can be comparable to the theoretical calculations for graphene nanoribbons. Moreover, the thermal transport in the BNNRs is anisotropic. The thermal conductivity of zigzag-edged BNNRs is about 20% larger than that of armchair-edged nanoribbons at room temperature. Mechanical properties. BN nanosheets consist of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). They are stable up to 800 °C in air. The structure of monolayer BN is similar to that of graphene, which has exceptional strength, a high-temperature lubricant, and a substrate in electronic devices. The anisotropy of Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio depends on the system size. h-BN also exhibits strongly anisotropic strength and toughness, and maintains these over a range of vacancy defects, showing that the anisotropy is independent to the defect type. Natural occurrence. In 2009, cubic form (c-BN) was reported in Tibet, and the name qingsongite proposed. The substance was found in dispersed micron-sized inclusions in chromium-rich rocks. In 2013, the International Mineralogical Association affirmed the mineral and the name. Synthesis. Preparation and reactivity of hexagonal BN. Hexagonal boron nitride is obtained by the treating boron trioxide () or boric acid () with ammonia () or urea () in an inert atmosphere: ("T" = 900 °C) ("T" = 900 °C) ("T" > 1000 °C) ("T" > 1500 °C) The resulting disordered (amorphous) material contains 92–95% BN and 5–8% . The remaining can be evaporated in a second step at temperatures in order to achieve BN concentration >98%. Such annealing also crystallizes BN, the size of the crystallites increasing with the annealing temperature. h-BN parts can be fabricated inexpensively by hot-pressing with subsequent machining. The parts are made from boron nitride powders adding boron oxide for better compressibility. Thin films of boron nitride can be obtained by chemical vapor deposition from borazine. ZYP Coatings also has developed boron nitride coatings that may be painted on a surface. Combustion of boron powder in nitrogen plasma at 5500 °C yields ultrafine boron nitride used for lubricants and toners. Boron nitride reacts with iodine fluoride to give in low yield. Boron nitride reacts with nitrides of lithium, alkaline earth metals and lanthanides to form nitridoborates. For example: Intercalation of hexagonal BN. Various species intercalate into hexagonal BN, such as intercalate or alkali metals. Preparation of cubic BN. c-BN is prepared analogously to the preparation of synthetic diamond from graphite. Direct conversion of hexagonal boron nitride to the cubic form has been observed at pressures between 5 and 18 GPa and temperatures between 1730 and 3230 °C, that is similar parameters as for direct graphite-diamond conversion. The addition of a small amount of boron oxide can lower the required pressure to 4–7 GPa and temperature to 1500 °C. As in diamond synthesis, to further reduce the conversion pressures and temperatures, a catalyst is added, such as lithium, potassium, or magnesium, their nitrides, their fluoronitrides, water with ammonium compounds, or hydrazine. Other industrial synthesis methods, again borrowed from diamond growth, use crystal growth in a temperature gradient, or explosive shock wave. The shock wave method is used to produce material called heterodiamond, a superhard compound of boron, carbon, and nitrogen. Low-pressure deposition of thin films of cubic boron nitride is possible. As in diamond growth, the major problem is to suppress the growth of hexagonal phases (h-BN or graphite, respectively). Whereas in diamond growth this is achieved by adding hydrogen gas, boron trifluoride is used for c-BN. Ion beam deposition, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, pulsed laser deposition, reactive sputtering, and other physical vapor deposition methods are used as well. Preparation of wurtzite BN. Wurtzite BN can be obtained via static high-pressure or dynamic shock methods. The limits of its stability are not well defined. Both c-BN and w-BN are formed by compressing h-BN, but formation of w-BN occurs at much lower temperatures close to 1700 °C. Production statistics. Whereas the production and consumption figures for the raw materials used for BN synthesis, namely boric acid and boron trioxide, are well known (see boron), the corresponding numbers for the boron nitride are not listed in statistical reports. An estimate for the 1999 world production is 300 to 350 metric tons. The major producers and consumers of BN are located in the United States, Japan, China and Germany. In 2000, prices varied from about $75–120/kg for standard industrial-quality h-BN and were about up to $200–400/kg for high purity BN grades. Applications. Hexagonal BN. Hexagonal BN (h-BN) is the most widely used polymorph. It is a good lubricant at both low and high temperatures (up to 900 °C, even in an oxidizing atmosphere). h-BN lubricant is particularly useful when the electrical conductivity or chemical reactivity of graphite (alternative lubricant) would be problematic. In internal combustion engines, where graphite could be oxidized and turn into carbon sludge, h-BN with its superior thermal stability can be added to engine lubricants. As with all nano-particle suspensions, Brownian-motion settlement is a problem. Settlement can clog engine oil filters, which limits solid lubricant applications in a combustion engine to automotive racing, where engine re-building is common. Since carbon has appreciable solubility in certain alloys (such as steels), which may lead to degradation of properties, BN is often superior for high temperature and/or high pressure applications. Another advantage of h-BN over graphite is that its lubricity does not require water or gas molecules trapped between the layers. Therefore, h-BN lubricants can be used in vacuum, such as space applications. The lubricating properties of fine-grained h-BN are used in cosmetics, paints, dental cements, and pencil leads. Hexagonal BN was first used in cosmetics around 1940 in Japan. Because of its high price, h-BN was abandoned for this application. Its use was revitalized in the late 1990s with the optimization h-BN production processes, and currently h-BN is used by nearly all leading producers of cosmetic products for foundations, make-up, eye shadows, blushers, kohl pencils, lipsticks and other skincare products. Because of its excellent thermal and chemical stability, boron nitride ceramics and coatings are used high-temperature equipment. h-BN can be included in ceramics, alloys, resins, plastics, rubbers, and other materials, giving them self-lubricating properties. Such materials are suitable for construction of e.g. bearings and in steelmaking. Many quantum devices use multilayer h-BN as a substrate material. It can also be used as a dielectric in resistive random access memories. Hexagonal BN is used in xerographic process and laser printers as a charge leakage barrier layer of the photo drum. In the automotive industry, h-BN mixed with a binder (boron oxide) is used for sealing oxygen sensors, which provide feedback for adjusting fuel flow. The binder utilizes the unique temperature stability and insulating properties of h-BN. Parts can be made by hot pressing from four commercial grades of h-BN. Grade HBN contains a boron oxide binder; it is usable up to 550–850 °C in oxidizing atmosphere and up to 1600 °C in vacuum, but due to the boron oxide content is sensitive to water. Grade HBR uses a calcium borate binder and is usable at 1600 °C. Grades HBC and HBT contain no binder and can be used up to 3000 °C. Boron nitride nanosheets (h-BN) can be deposited by catalytic decomposition of borazine at a temperature ~1100 °C in a chemical vapor deposition setup, over areas up to about 10 cm2. Owing to their hexagonal atomic structure, small lattice mismatch with graphene (~2%), and high uniformity they are used as substrates for graphene-based devices. BN nanosheets are also excellent proton conductors. Their high proton transport rate, combined with the high electrical resistance, may lead to applications in fuel cells and water electrolysis. h-BN has been used since the mid-2000s as a bullet and bore lubricant in precision target rifle applications as an alternative to molybdenum disulfide coating, commonly referred to as "moly". It is claimed to increase effective barrel life, increase intervals between bore cleaning and decrease the deviation in point of impact between clean bore first shots and subsequent shots. h-BN is used as a release agent in molten metal and glass applications. For example, ZYP Coatings developed and currently produces a line of paintable h-BN coatings that are used by manufacturers of molten aluminium, non-ferrous metal, and glass. Because h-BN is nonwetting and lubricious to these molten materials, the coated surface (i.e. mold or crucible) does not stick to the material. Exfoliated h-BN shows the ability to improved mechanical and thermal properties of polypropylene. One process used Resonant Acoustic Mixing to coat polypropylene with the h-BN. Then the h-BN was exfoliated by running the material through a high-pressure homogenizer, effectively creating nanosheets. This melt process also caused the h-BN to have a more uniform distribution through the polypropylene. Improvements were especially noted in oxidative thermal stability, enhanced oxidative induction time and reduct carbonyl index values. Cubic BN. Cubic boron nitride (CBN or c-BN) is widely used as an abrasive. Its usefulness arises from its insolubility in iron, nickel, and related alloys at high temperatures, whereas diamond is soluble in these metals. Polycrystalline c-BN (PCBN) abrasives are therefore used for machining steel, whereas diamond abrasives are preferred for aluminum alloys, ceramics, and stone. When in contact with oxygen at high temperatures, BN forms a passivation layer of boron oxide. Boron nitride binds well with metals due to formation of interlayers of metal borides or nitrides. Materials with cubic boron nitride crystals are often used in the tool bits of cutting tools. For grinding applications, softer binders such as resin, porous ceramics and soft metals are used. Ceramic binders can be used as well. Commercial products are known under names "Borazon" (by Hyperion Materials & Technologies), and "Elbor" or "Cubonite" (by Russian vendors). Contrary to diamond, large c-BN pellets can be produced in a simple process (called sintering) of annealing c-BN powders in nitrogen flow at temperatures slightly below the BN decomposition temperature. This ability of c-BN and h-BN powders to fuse allows cheap production of large BN parts. Similar to diamond, the combination in c-BN of highest thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity is ideal for heat spreaders. As cubic boron nitride consists of light atoms and is very robust chemically and mechanically, it is one of the popular materials for X-ray membranes: low mass results in small X-ray absorption, and good mechanical properties allow usage of thin membranes, further reducing the absorption. Amorphous BN. Layers of amorphous boron nitride (a-BN) are used in some semiconductor devices, e.g. MOSFETs. They can be prepared by chemical decomposition of trichloroborazine with caesium, or by thermal chemical vapor deposition methods. Thermal CVD can be also used for deposition of h-BN layers, or at high temperatures, c-BN. Other forms of boron nitride. Atomically thin boron nitride. Hexagonal boron nitride can be exfoliated to mono or few atomic layer sheets. Due to its analogous structure to that of graphene, atomically thin boron nitride is sometimes called "white graphene". Mechanical properties. Atomically thin boron nitride is one of the strongest electrically insulating materials. Monolayer boron nitride has an average Young's modulus of 0.865TPa and fracture strength of 70.5GPa, and in contrast to graphene, whose strength decreases dramatically with increased thickness, few-layer boron nitride sheets have a strength similar to that of monolayer boron nitride. Thermal conductivity. Atomically thin boron nitride has one of the highest thermal conductivity coefficients (751 W/mK at room temperature) among semiconductors and electrical insulators, and its thermal conductivity increases with reduced thickness due to less intra-layer coupling. Thermal stability. The air stability of graphene shows a clear thickness dependence: monolayer graphene is reactive to oxygen at 250 °C, strongly doped at 300 °C, and etched at 450 °C; in contrast, bulk graphite is not oxidized until 800 °C. Atomically thin boron nitride has much better oxidation resistance than graphene. Monolayer boron nitride is not oxidized till 700 °C and can sustain up to 850 °C in air; bilayer and trilayer boron nitride nanosheets have slightly higher oxidation starting temperatures. The excellent thermal stability, high impermeability to gas and liquid, and electrical insulation make atomically thin boron nitride potential coating materials for preventing surface oxidation and corrosion of metals and other two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as black phosphorus. Better surface adsorption. Atomically thin boron nitride has been found to have better surface adsorption capabilities than bulk hexagonal boron nitride. According to theoretical and experimental studies, atomically thin boron nitride as an adsorbent experiences conformational changes upon surface adsorption of molecules, increasing adsorption energy and efficiency. The synergic effect of the atomic thickness, high flexibility, stronger surface adsorption capability, electrical insulation, impermeability, high thermal and chemical stability of BN nanosheets can increase the Raman sensitivity by up to two orders, and in the meantime attain long-term stability and reusability not readily achievable by other materials. Dielectric properties. Atomically thin hexagonal boron nitride is an excellent dielectric substrate for graphene, molybdenum disulfide (), and many other 2D material-based electronic and photonic devices. As shown by electric force microscopy (EFM) studies, the electric field screening in atomically thin boron nitride shows a weak dependence on thickness, which is in line with the smooth decay of electric field inside few-layer boron nitride revealed by the first-principles calculations. Raman characteristics. Raman spectroscopy has been a useful tool to study a variety of 2D materials, and the Raman signature of high-quality atomically thin boron nitride was first reported by Gorbachev et al. in 2011. and Li et al. However, the two reported Raman results of monolayer boron nitride did not agree with each other. Cai et al., therefore, conducted systematic experimental and theoretical studies to reveal the intrinsic Raman spectrum of atomically thin boron nitride. It reveals that atomically thin boron nitride without interaction with a substrate has a G band frequency similar to that of bulk hexagonal boron nitride, but strain induced by the substrate can cause Raman shifts. Nevertheless, the Raman intensity of G band of atomically thin boron nitride can be used to estimate layer thickness and sample quality. Boron nitride nanomesh. Boron nitride nanomesh is a nanostructured two-dimensional material. It consists of a single BN layer, which forms by self-assembly a highly regular mesh after high-temperature exposure of a clean rhodium or ruthenium surface to borazine under ultra-high vacuum. The nanomesh looks like an assembly of hexagonal pores. The distance between two pore centers is 3.2 nm and the pore diameter is ~2 nm. Other terms for this material are boronitrene or white graphene. The boron nitride nanomesh is air-stable and compatible with some liquids. up to temperatures of 800 °C. Boron nitride nanotubes. Boron nitride tubules were first made in 1989 by Shore and Dolan This work was patented in 1989 and published in 1989 thesis (Dolan) and then 1993 Science. The 1989 work was also the first preparation of amorphous BN by B-trichloroborazine and cesium metal. Boron nitride nanotubes were predicted in 1994 and experimentally discovered in 1995. They can be imagined as a rolled up sheet of h-boron nitride. Structurally, it is a close analog of the carbon nanotube, namely a long cylinder with diameter of several to hundred nanometers and length of many micrometers, except carbon atoms are alternately substituted by nitrogen and boron atoms. However, the properties of BN nanotubes are very different: whereas carbon nanotubes can be metallic or semiconducting depending on the rolling direction and radius, a BN nanotube is an electrical insulator with a bandgap of ~5.5 eV, basically independent of tube chirality and morphology. In addition, a layered BN structure is much more thermally and chemically stable than a graphitic carbon structure. Boron nitride aerogel. Boron nitride aerogel is an aerogel made of highly porous BN. It typically consists of a mixture of deformed BN nanotubes and nanosheets. It can have a density as low as 0.6 mg/cm3 and a specific surface area as high as 1050 m2/g, and therefore has potential applications as an absorbent, catalyst support and gas storage medium. BN aerogels are highly hydrophobic and can absorb up to 160 times their weight in oil. They are resistant to oxidation in air at temperatures up to 1200 °C, and hence can be reused after the absorbed oil is burned out by flame. BN aerogels can be prepared by template-assisted chemical vapor deposition using borazine as the feed gas. Composites containing BN. Addition of boron nitride to silicon nitride ceramics improves the thermal shock resistance of the resulting material. For the same purpose, BN is added also to silicon nitride-alumina and titanium nitride-alumina ceramics. Other materials being reinforced with BN include alumina and zirconia, borosilicate glasses, glass ceramics, enamels, and composite ceramics with titanium boride-boron nitride, titanium boride-aluminium nitride-boron nitride, and silicon carbide-boron nitride composition. Zirconia Stabilized Boron Nitride (ZSBN) is produced by adding zirconia to BN, enhancing its thermal shock resistance and mechanical strength through a sintering process. It offers better performance characteristics including Superior corrosion and erosion resistance over a wide temperature range. Its unique combination of thermal conductivity, lubricity, mechanical strength, and stability makes it suitable for various applications including cutting tools and wear-resistant coatings, thermal and electrical insulation, aerospace and defense, and high-temperature components. Pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN). Pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN), also known as Chemical vapour-deposited Boron Nitride(CVD-BN), is a high-purity ceramic material characterized by exceptional chemical resistance and mechanical strength at high temperatures. Pyrolytic boron nitride is typically prepared through the thermal decomposition of boron trichloride and ammonia vapors on graphite substrates at 1900 °C. Pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN) generally has a hexagonal structure similar to hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), though it can exhibit stacking faults or deviations from the ideal lattice. Pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN) shows some remarkable attributes, including exceptional chemical inertness, high dielectric strength, excellent thermal shock resistance, non-wettability, non-toxicity, oxidation resistance, and minimal outgassing. Due to a highly ordered planar texture similar to pyrolytic graphite (PG), it exhibits anisotropic properties such as lower dielectric constant vertical to the crystal plane and higher bending strength along the crystal plane. PBN material has been widely manufactured as crucibles of compound semiconductor crystals, output windows and dielectric rods of traveling-wave tubes, high-temperature jigs and insulator. Health issues. Boron nitride (along with , NbN, and BNC) is generally considered to be non-toxic and does not exhibit chemical activity in biological systems. Due to its excellent safety profile and lubricious properties, boron nitride finds widespread use in various applications, including cosmetics and food processing equipment.
3371	20318	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3371	Bach (disambiguation)	Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a German composer of the Baroque period. Bach may also refer to:
3374	11308236	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3374	Blood on the Tracks	Blood on the Tracks is the fifteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 20, 1975, by Columbia Records. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records. Dylan began recording the album at an A & R studio in New York City in September 1974. In December, shortly before Columbia was due to release the album, Dylan abruptly re-recorded much of the material in Sound 80 studio in Minneapolis. The final album contains five tracks recorded in New York and five from Minneapolis. The songs have been linked to tensions in Dylan's personal life, including his estrangement from his then-wife Sara. One of their children, Jakob Dylan, described the songs as "my parents talking". Dylan denied that the songs were autobiographical. Although "Blood on the Tracks" initially received mixed reviews from critics, it has retrospectively been acclaimed as one of Dylan's best albums by both critics and fans and various publications have since listed it as one of the greatest albums of all time. It was a commercial success, peaking at No. 1 on the "Billboard" 200 and No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart, with the single "Tangled Up in Blue" peaking at No. 31 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It remains one of Dylan's best-selling studio releases, with a double-platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for at least two million copies sold in the United States. In 2015, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. "Blood on the Tracks" was voted number 7 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book "All Time Top 1000 Albums" (2000). In 2003, the album was ranked number 16 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, rising to number 9 in the 2020 revision of the list. In 2004, it was placed at number 5 on "Pitchfork"'s list of the "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s". A high-definition 5.1 surround sound edition of the album was released on SACD by Columbia in 2003. Background and recording. At the conclusion of his 1974 tour with the Band, Dylan began a relationship with a Columbia Records employee, Ellen Bernstein, which Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin has described as the beginning of the end of Dylan's marriage to his wife Sara. In spring 1974, Dylan was in New York for several weeks while he attended art classes with the painter Norman Raeben. Dylan subsequently gave Raeben credit in interviews for transforming his understanding of time, and during the summer of 1974 Dylan began to write a series of songs in a series of three small notebooks which used his new knowledge: Dylan subsequently spent time with Bernstein on his farm in Minnesota and there he completed the 17 songs from which "Blood on the Tracks" was formed—songs which Heylin has described as "perhaps the finest collection of love songs of the twentieth century, songs filled with the full spectrum of emotions a marriage on the rocks can engender". Before recording the songs that would constitute "Blood on the Tracks", Dylan previewed them for a number of friends in the music world, including David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Tim Drummond and Peter Rowan. Nash recalled that Stills disliked Dylan's private performance of his new songs; immediately after Dylan left the room, Stills remarked to Nash, "He's a good songwriter ... but he's no musician." Initially, Dylan considered recording "Blood on the Tracks" with an electric backing group, and contacted Mike Bloomfield who had played lead guitar on Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" album. When the two met, Dylan ran through the songs he was planning to record, but he played them too quickly for Bloomfield to learn. Bloomfield later recalled the experience: "They all began to sound the same to me; they were all in the same key; they were all long. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. He was sort of pissed off that I didn't pick it up." In the end, Dylan rejected the idea of recording the album with a band, and instead substituted stripped-down acoustic arrangements for all of his songs. On August 2, 1974, Dylan signed a contract with Columbia Records. After releasing his two previous albums, "Planet Waves" and "Before the Flood", on Asylum Records, Dylan decided his new album would benefit from the commercial muscle of the record label that had made him famous, and his new contract gave him increased control over his own masters. Dylan commenced recording at A & R Recording Studios in New York City on September 16, 1974. Bernstein has stated "the theme of returning ran through the sessions", so "it made a lot of sense to do it at A&R". A & R Studios was the former Columbia Records "Studio A", where Dylan had recorded six albums in the 1960s. The musicians quickly realized that Dylan was taking a "spontaneous" approach to recording. The producer, Phil Ramone, later said that Dylan transitioned from one song to another as if they were part of a medley. Ramone noted: "Sometimes he will have several bars, and in the next version, he will change his mind about how many bars there should be in between a verse. Or eliminate a verse. Or add a chorus when you don't expect." Eric Weissberg and his band, Deliverance, originally recruited as session men, were rejected after one day of recording because they could not keep up with Dylan's pace. Dylan retained bassist Tony Brown from the band, and soon added organist Paul Griffin (who had also worked on "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde") and steel guitarist Buddy Cage. After ten days and four sessions with the current lineup, Dylan had finished recording and mixing, and, by November, had cut a test pressing of the album. Columbia began to prepare to release the album before Christmas. Dylan played the test pressing for his brother, David Zimmerman, who persuaded Dylan the album would not sell because the overall sound was too stark. Robert Christgau also heard the early version of the album and called it "a sellout to the memory of Dylan's pre-electric period". At his brother's urging, Dylan agreed to re-record five of the album's songs in Sound 80 in Minneapolis, with backing musicians recruited by David. The new takes were accomplished in two days at the end of December 1974. "Blood on the Tracks" was released into stores on January 20, 1975. The version on the original test pressing was given a limited release in 2019 for Record Store Day. Outtakes. The five New York acetate recordings that were replaced on the official album have been officially released on varied reissues archival releases, but only in 2019 did an official release of the original test pressing get released, as a limited-edition vinyl-only Record Store Day release. The acetate version of "You're a Big Girl Now" was released on 1985's "Biograph". New York takes of "Tangled Up in Blue", "Idiot Wind", and "If You See Her, Say Hello" were released on "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1–3", but these were not the versions on the original test pressing. That collection also includes "Call Letter Blues", an outtake/early version of "Meet Me in the Morning" with alternate lyrics. "Up to Me", another outtake from these sessions, was also released on 1985's "Biograph". An alternate take of the song "Shelter from the Storm" is featured in the original soundtrack album for "Jerry Maguire" (1996). An alternate take of "Meet Me in the Morning" was released on the B-side of the Record Store Day 2012 release of "Duquesne Whistle". The acetate versions of "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", "If You See Her, Say Hello", "Idiot Wind", and "Tangled Up in Blue" were not released officially until 2018, when they were released, alongside 70 previously unreleased recordings, on the 6-disc deluxe edition of "", volume 14 of Dylan's ongoing archival "Bootleg Series". Despite featuring multiple versions of nearly every song from the sessions, the actual mix found on the test pressing is not in the box set, and was only made available on the aforementioned 2019 reissue. Artwork and packaging. The front cover shows Bob Dylan in a portrait in profile looking to the left. To the left of this is a burgundy color strip with the artist's name and album title, both in white and underlined. While the cover image looks like a painting, it is a heavily edited photograph by Paul Till (who is credited accordingly). Till explained that the picture was taken with a telephoto lens at a concert in the Maple Leaf Gardens, in Toronto on January 10, 1974. When developing the photo he solarized it, then handcolored it using watercolors. The backcover shows, depending on the edition, one of two lithographs by David Oppenheim. The main difference is between a version issued with and one issued without liner notes. The liner notes were written by Pete Hamill, then removed by Columbia Records for later 1975 pressings – which is when the lithograph was switched out – and then reinstated after Hamill was awarded a Grammy for his comments. There exist later issues of both versions of the back cover. Autobiographical interpretation. The songs that constitute "Blood on the Tracks" have been described by many Dylan critics as stemming from his personal turmoil at the time, particularly his estrangement from his then-wife Sara Dylan. One of Bob and Sara Dylan's children, Jakob Dylan, has said, "When I'm listening to "Blood On The Tracks", that's about my parents." Dylan has denied this autobiographical interpretation, stating in a 1985 interview with Bill Flanagan, "A lot of people thought that album pertained to me. It didn't pertain to me ... I'm not going to make an album and lean on a marriage relationship." Informed of the album's popularity, Dylan told Mary Travers in a radio interview in April 1975: "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean ... people enjoying that type of pain, you know?" Addressing whether the album described his own personal pain, Dylan replied that he did not write "confessional songs". However, on the live "At Budokan" album, Dylan seems to acknowledge the autobiographical nature of the song "Simple Twist of Fate" by introducing it as "Here's a simple love story. Happened to me." In a 1978 interview, he responded to an observation that the album was confessional and that "Tangled Up in Blue" drew on his relationship with Sara by saying, "There might be some little part of me which is confessing something which I've experienced and I know, but is not definitely the total me confessing anything." According to "Rolling Stone", in Dylan's lyric notebook, the working title of "Simple Twist of Fate" was "4th Street Affair"; Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived at 161 W. 4th St. The narrator of the song memorializes an affair of ten years ago instead of singing about Dylan's marriage. In "Hot Press", writing about the three known lyric notebooks for the songs, Anne Margaret Daniel noted that "Simple Twist of Fate" was first entitled "Snowbound", and set in part, like "Tangled Up in Blue", in a New York City apartment. In his 2004 memoir, "Chronicles, Vol. 1", Dylan stated that the songs have nothing to do with his personal life, and that they were inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov. Critical reception and legacy. Released in early 1975, "Blood on the Tracks" initially received mixed reviews from critics. "Rolling Stone" published two assessments. The first, by Jonathan Cott, called it "Dylan's magnificent new album". The second reviewer, Jon Landau, wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." In "NME", Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes", while "Crawdaddy" magazine's Jim Cusimano found the instrumentation incompetent. An influential review of the album was written by Dylan critic Michael Gray for the magazine "Let It Rock". Gray argued that it transformed the cultural perception of Dylan, and that he was no longer defined as "the major artist of the sixties. Instead, Dylan has legitimized his claim to a creative prowess as vital now as then—a power not bounded by the one decade he so affected." This view was amplified by Clinton Heylin, who wrote: "Ten years after he turned the rock & roll brand of pop into rock ... [Dylan] renewed its legitimacy as a form capable of containing the work of a mature artist." In "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau wrote that although the lyrics occasionally evoke romantic naiveté and bitterness, "Blood on the Tracks" is altogether Dylan's "most mature and assured record". Since its initial reception, "Blood on the Tracks" has been viewed by critics as one of Dylan's best albums. In Salon.com, Wyman wrote: ""Blood on the Tracks" is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." Bell, in his critical biography of Dylan, wrote that "Blood on the Tracks" was proof that "Dylan had won the argument over his refusal to argue about politics. In this, he began to seem prescient." Bell concluded the album "might well count as one of the best things Dylan ever did". Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape". A result of the acclaim surrounding the album has been that when critics have praised one of Dylan's subsequent albums, they have often described it as "his best since "Blood on the Tracks"". According to music journalist Rob Sheffield, "Blood on the Tracks" became a benchmark album for Dylan in the years that followed because it was "such a stunning comeback". The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Hip hop group Public Enemy reference it in their 2007 Dylan tribute song "Long and Whining Road": "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back / You bet there's blood on them Bomb Squad tracks". A film adaptation of the album is currently in pre-production, under the direction of Luca Guadagnino. Personnel. For personnel details, see Heylin, 1996 and Björner, 2014. Track numbers refer to CD and digital releases of the album. Technical. MInvolved in the Minneapolis recording sessions NYInvolved in the New York recording sessions Cover albums. In 2002, Mary Lee's Corvette released an album covering "Blood on the Tracks" in its entirety. In 2022, singer/songwriter Ryan Adams also released an album covering each song on the album track-by-track.
3375	10260252	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3375	Love and Theft (Bob Dylan album)	"Love and Theft" is the thirty-first studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 11, 2001, by Columbia Records. It featured backing by his touring band of the time, with keyboardist Augie Meyers added for the sessions. It peaked at No. 5 on the "Billboard" 200, and has been certified Gold by the RIAA. The album's highest chart positions worldwide were in Norway and Sweden, where it peaked at No. 1, giving Dylan his first No. 1 album in Norway since "Infidels", and his first No. 1 album ever in Sweden. A limited edition release included a separate disc with two bonus tracks recorded in the early 1960s, and two years later, on September 16, 2003, this album was remixed into 5.1 surround sound and became one of 15 Dylan titles reissued and remastered for SACD playback. Background and recording. "Love and Theft" was the first album Dylan recorded with his Never Ending Tour road band. This is a trend that would continue with his subsequent eight studio albums. Guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell recalls Dylan showing him the chord changes for the new song "Po' Boy" shortly after the band had recorded Dylan's Oscar-winning original and non-album song "Things Have Changed" in 1999: "They were relatively sophisticated changes for a Bob Dylan song [...] That was the first inkling of what the material might be like—taking elements from the jazz era and adding a folk sensibility to it". David Kemper, Dylan's drummer at the time, described in an interview how the sound of "Love and Theft" arose from lessons the band had absorbed from Dylan: "I didn't realise we were actually headed somewhere. I wasn't smart enough to realise: you are in the School of Bob. But when we went in to record "Love And Theft", I realised then, because the influences were really so old on that record. It comes from really early Americana, way back at the turn of the century, and the 1920s. And not everybody in the band was familiar with that style of playing. And I know that the songs that he would bring in would be these amazing examples of early Americana. Nobody that I know, knows as much about American music as Bob Dylan. He has spent so much time trying to understand, and collecting these songs—it was like a never stopping resource. He was always coming up with these songs or artists that I had never heard of. And then when we went in and recorded "Love And Theft" it was like, oh my God, he's been teaching us this music—not literally these songs, but these styles. And as a band, we're familiar with every one of these. That's why we could cut a song a day [...] and the album was done". As Kemper indicated, the twelve songs on "Love and Theft" were recorded in just 12 days in May 2001 at Clinton Recording in Midtown Manhattan. The recording sessions were notable for their spontaneity. According to engineer Chris Shaw, "What surprised me was how quickly [Dylan] would abandon an arrangement when he was working. He'd say, 'What's the tempo? Let's do it in F and drop the tempo down and do it like a Western swing tune, and I want the drummer to play brushes, not drums.' And suddenly the song was completely different. Nothing was set in stone until he found that key, tempo and style that fit that vocal and that lyric". For his part, Dylan had been interested in working with Chris Shaw when he heard Shaw had gotten his start on Public Enemy's early records. Dylan praised Shaw's work as an engineer during a press conference in Rome to promote "Love and Theft" in 2001: After complaining that previous producers had botched the recording of his vocals, he was asked if he felt it was difficult to record his voice in the studio. Dylan referenced Shaw when he responded, "I don't think so […] On this particular record we had a young guy who understood how to do it." Dylan would subsequently employ Shaw to engineer and mix his albums "Modern Times" (2006) and "Rough and Rowdy Ways" (2020) as well as various non-album tracks. Content. The album continued Dylan's artistic comeback following 1997's "Time Out of Mind" and was given an even more enthusiastic reception. The title of the album was apparently inspired by historian Eric Lott's book "Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class," which was published in 1993. ""Love and Theft" becomes his "Fables of the Reconstruction", to borrow an R.E.M. album title", writes Greg Kot in the "Chicago Tribune" (published September 11, 2001), "the myths, mysteries and folklore of the South as a backdrop for one of the finest roots rock albums ever made". The opening track, "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum", includes many references to parades in Mardi Gras in New Orleans, where participants are masked, and "determined to go all the way" of the parade route, in spite of being intoxicated. "It rolls in like a storm, drums galloping over the horizon into ear shot, guitar riffs slicing with terse dexterity while a tale about a pair of vagabonds unfolds," writes Kot. "It ends in death, and sets the stage for an album populated by rogues, con men, outcasts, gamblers, gunfighters and desperados, many of them with nothing to lose, some of them out of their minds, all of them quintessentially American. Offered the song by Dylan, Sheryl Crow later recorded an up-tempo cover of "Mississippi" for her "The Globe Sessions", released in 1998, before Dylan revisited it for "Love and Theft". Subsequently, the Dixie Chicks made it a mainstay of their Top of the World, Vote for Change, and Accidents & Accusations Tours. As music critic Tim Riley notes, "[Dylan's] singing [on "Love and Theft" ] shifts artfully between humble and ironic...'I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound,' he sings in 'Floater,' which is either hilarious or horrifying, and probably a little of both". ""Love and Theft" is, as the title implies, a kind of homage," writes Kot, "[and] never more so than on 'High Water (for Charley Patton),' in which Dylan draws a sweeping portrait of the South's racial history, with the unsung blues singer as a symbol of the region's cultural richness and ingrained social cruelties. Rumbling drums and moaning backing vocals suggest that things are going from bad to worse. 'It's tough out there,' Dylan rasps. 'High water everywhere.' Death and dementia shadow the album, tempered by tenderness and wicked gallows humor". "'Po' Boy', scored for guitar with lounge chord jazz patterns, 'almost sounds as if it could have been recorded around 1920", says Riley. "He leaves you dangling at the end of each bridge, lets the band punctuate the trail of words he's squeezed into his lines, which gives it a reluctant soft-shoe charm". The album closes with "Sugar Baby", a lengthy, dirge-like ballad, noted for its evocative, apocalyptic imagery and sparse production drenched in echo. Praising it as "a finale to be proud of", Riley notes that "Sugar Baby" is "built on a disarmingly simple riff that turns foreboding". In a "Rolling Stone" interview with Mikal Gilmore, Dylan himself summarized the album's themes as dealing with "business, politics and war, and maybe love interest on the side". Release and promotion. Although no singles were released from the album, Dylan appeared in a 30-second commercial featuring the song "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" that appeared online on August 28, 2001, and on network television beginning on September 3, 2001. The spot, directed by Kinka Usher, shows Dylan in a tense poker game with magician Ricky Jay, actress Francine York and "Dharma & Greg" writer Eddie Gorodetsky. The poker setting was Dylan's idea and, according to Usher, he only made one request of the director: "He said, `You know, I just don't want it to be corporate'. And I assured him that I wasn't going to do that, I was going to shoot it like a little film. I know he's very happy with it". Dylan also consented to what, for him, was an unusual number of interviews with press to promote the album. On July 23, 2001, he participated in a press conference at the Hotel de la Ville in Rome with reporters from Austria, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. He was also interviewed by Edna Gundersen for "USA Today", Robert Hilburn for the "Los Angeles Times" and Mikal Gilmore for "Rolling Stone". All of these interviews appeared shortly before or shortly after the album's release on September 11, 2001. Packaging. The album's cover features a black-and-white photograph of Dylan, sporting a then-new pencil-thin mustache, which was taken in the studio by Kevin Mazur. The back cover features a black-and-white portrait of Dylan taken by photographer David Gahr. Mazur also took the album's inside cover photo of Dylan and the "Love and Theft" band (including organist Augie Meyers). The album's art direction is credited to Geoff Gans. Reception and legacy. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. It was nominated for Album of the Year and the track "Honest with Me" was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. In a glowing review for his "Consumer Guide" column published by "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau wrote: "If "Time Out of Mind" was his death album—it wasn't, but you know how people talk—this is his immortality album". Later, when "The Village Voice" conducted its annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll, "Love and Theft" topped the list, the third Dylan album to accomplish this. It also topped "Rolling Stone"s list. "Q" listed "Love and Theft" as one of the best 50 albums of 2001. "Kludge" ranked it at number eight on their list of best albums of 2001. In 2003, the album was ranked number 467 on "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, climbing to number 385 in the 2012 update and dropping to number 411 in the 2020 update of the list. "Newsweek" magazine pronounced it the second best album of its decade. In 2009, "Glide Magazine" ranked it as the No. 1 Album of the Decade. "Entertainment Weekly" put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "The predictably unpredictable rock poet greeted the new millennium with a folksy, bluesy instant classic". In a 2020 list of "Bob Dylan's 10 greatest albums" in "Far Out" magazine, "Love and Theft" was ranked seventh. An article accompanying the list characterized the album as one in which "Dylan turns into a historian and showcases the music which moves him. It is another rootsy affair and one which feels capable of stirring up the ghosts of music past all on its own". A 2020 article at the "Ultimate Classic Rock" website also placed "Love and Theft" seventh in the Dylan pantheon, noting that it "plays like an attic-sweeping of songs and themes Dylan and others left behind over the years" and that it evokes "long-gone musical spirits from the other turn of the century". Finally, "Glide Magazine" likewise placed "Love and Theft" seventh in a comprehensive list ranking all of Dylan's albums, writing that "Dylan here pulls readers through a bevy of American song traditions" and that "each song recaptures and renews a sub-genre that influenced Dylan's career". Ian O'Riordan, in a 2021 article in the "Irish Times", ranked the album sixth out of the 39, praising David Kemper's drumming and citing "Lonesome Day Blues" as his favourite track. Johnny Cash, in a 2001 interview with "The New York Times", named it as Dylan's best album. Critic Jake Cole, in a 2021 "Spectrum Culture" article celebrating the album's 20th anniversary, referred to it as Dylan's most eclectic work "from the storming rock of 'Lonesome Day Blues' to the gorgeous slow-dance lounge number 'Moonlight', which points straight at Dylan's later Great American Songbook phase of the 2010s. In that sense, "Love and Theft"' might be the closest that Dylan ever came to capturing the spirit of his lauded Rolling Thunder Revue tour in the studio. If that roadshow was conceived as a way to rummage through folk tradition and feeding it into some kind of interpretive revivalism, this album codifies that approach into a freewheeling tour of blues, jazz, country and folk, all of it wrangled into a form of rock so rustic that even roots rock sounds modern compared to it". Allegations of plagiarism. "Love and Theft" generated controversy when some similarities between the album's lyrics and Japanese writer Junichi Saga's book "Confessions of a Yakuza" were pointed out. Translated to English by John Bester, the book is a biography of one of the last traditional yakuza bosses in Japan. In the article published in the "Journal", a line from "Floater" ("I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound") was traced to a line in the book, which said "I'm not as cool or forgiving as I might have sounded." Another line from "Floater" is "My old man, he's like some feudal lord". One line in the book's first chapter is, "My old man would sit there like a feudal lord." However, when informed of this, author Saga's reaction was one of having been honored rather than abused from Dylan's use of lines from his work. Similarly, in defense of Dylan, Robert Christgau wrote: "All pop music is love and theft, and in 40 years of records whose sources have inspired volumes of scholastic exegesis, Dylan has never embraced that truth so warmly."
3376	8260261	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3376	The Beverly Hillbillies	The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: "Petticoat Junction" and its spin-off "Green Acres", which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of "The Beverly Hillbillies". "The Beverly Hillbillies" ranked among the top 20 most-watched programs on television for eight of its nine seasons, ranking as the No.1 series of the year during its first two seasons, with 16 episodes that still remain among the 100 most-watched television episodes in American history. It accumulated seven Emmy nominations during its run. It remains in syndicated reruns, and its ongoing popularity spawned a 1993 film adaptation by 20th Century Fox. Premise. The series starts with Jed Clampett, a poor, widowed hillbilly who lives with his daughter and mother-in-law near an oil-rich swamp in Silver Dollar City in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The opening sequence shows Jed discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit, although the first episode shows the oil being discovered by a surveyor for the OK Oil Company. The company pays Jed many millions of dollars for the right to drill on his land. Jed's cousin Pearl Bodine prods him to move to California now that he is wealthy and pressures him into taking her son Jethro along. The family moves into a mansion in upscale Beverly Hills, California, next door to Jed's banker, Milburn Drysdale, and his wife, Margaret, who is appalled by the hillbilly Clampetts. The Clampetts bring an unsophisticated, simple, moral lifestyle to the wealthy and sometimes superficial community. Double entendres and cultural misconceptions are the core of the sitcom's humor. Plots often involve Drysdale's outlandish efforts to keep the Clampetts' money in his bank and his wife's efforts to rid the neighborhood of "those hillbillies". The family's periodic attempts to return to the mountains are often the result of Granny feeling slighted by the "city folk". Characters. Three of the main charactersJed, Granny and Elly Mayappear in all 274 episodes. Jethro (272 episodes) is not in the last two episodes of the series, having gone into hiding to avoid an anticipated marriage proposal. Jed Clampett. Good-natured patriarch Jed Clampett (portrayed by Buddy Ebsen) has little formal education and is naive about the world outside the rural area where he lived but has a great deal of wisdom and common sense. His forebears are revealed in series 1, episode 25, to have come to America before the "Mayflower" arrived. However, he later denies this to avoid offending Mrs. Drysdale. He is the widower of Granny's daughter, Rose Ellen (Buddy Ebsen was only 5 years younger than Irene Ryan). He is the son of Luke Clampett and his wife and has a sister called Myrtle. In episode 13, it is revealed that Jed's grandfather was 98 when he married Jed's grandmother, who was 18. He is usually the straight man to Granny's and Jethro's antics. His catchphrase is, "Welllllll, doggies!" Granny (Daisy Moses). Daisy May Moses (portrayed by Irene Ryan in all 274 episodes), called "Granny" by all, is Jed's mother-in-law, so is often called "Granny Clampett" in spite of her last name and despite the fact that in the pilot episode Milburn Drysdale refers to her as Jed's mother. She is a descendant of the Moses clan, who feuded with another family, the Bodkins, and drove them out of Napoleon, Tennessee. In Season 9, Episode 23, Granny states that she is "from Limestone, Tennessee". Granny has an abrasive personality and is quick to anger but is often overruled by Jed. She is a devout Confederate and fancies herself a Baptist Christian ("dunked, not sprinkled"). A self-styled "M.D." ("mountain doctor"), Granny uses her "white lightning" brew as a form of anesthesia when performing painful treatments such as leeching or tooth pulling. She often refers to the concoction as "rheumatize medicine". Like the other Clampetts, she is known to take things literally, having thought Mrs. Drysdale had turned herself into a bird using black magic (astrology) and mistook an escaped kangaroo for a giant jackrabbit (but failed to convince anyone of its existence). Paul Henning discarded the idea of making Granny Jed's mother, which would have changed the show's dynamics, making Granny the matriarch and Jed her subordinate. Elly May Clampett. Elly May (portrayed by Donna Douglas in all 274 episodes), the only child of Jed and Rose Ellen Clampett, is a mountain beauty with the body of a pin-up girl and the soul of a tomboy. In an early episode, Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. She can throw a fastball and "wrassle" most men to a fall, and she can be tender with her friends, animals, and family. She says once that animals can be better companions than people, but as she grows older, she allows that "fellas kin be more fun than critters." In addition to the family dog, Duke (an old Bloodhound), a number of pets live on the Clampett estate thanks to Elly May's love of animals. She is a terrible cook and family members cringe whenever she takes over the kitchen. Elly May is easily in her 20s, but Granny usually promotes her age as "14" since an unmarried mountain woman as old as Elly May is considered an old maid. In the 1981 reunion TV movie, Elly May is the head of a zoo. Jethro Bodine. Jethro (portrayed by Max Baer Jr. in 272 episodes) is the dim-witted son of Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine (in a customary practice, he addresses Jedhis once-removed elder cousinas "Uncle Jed", just as his second cousin, Elly May, addresses Jethro's mother as "Aunt Pearl"). Pearl's mother and Jed's father were siblings. Jethro drives the Clampett family to their new home in California and stays on with them to further his education. In the first season, he is in the fifth grade, having spent three years in the fourth grade and two years in the first grade. The others boast of Jethro's "sixth-grade education". Jethro often speaks enthusiastically of his abilities in "cipherin'" (1 and 1 is 2, 2 and 2 is 4), and "gazintas" (4 gazinta 8 2 times, 3 gazinta 12 4 times), and he is ignorant about nearly every aspect of modern California life. In one episode, he attends a local secretarial school and is so disruptive that he is given a diploma at the end of the day to keep him from returning. In real life, Max Baer Jr. has a bachelor's degree in business administration, minoring in philosophy, from Santa Clara University. Many story lines involve Jethro's endless career search. He considers becoming a brain surgeon, a fry cook, a millwright, a street car conductor, a spy, a telephone lineman, a soda jerk, a chauffeur, a USAF general, a sculptor, a restaurant owner, a psychiatrist, a bookkeeper for Milburn Drysdale's bank, a talent agent for "cousin" Bessie and "Cousin Roy" (see below), and a Hollywood producer. More often than not, his goal is merely to meet pretty girls. Miss Hathaway has a crush on him, but he is oblivious to this. Of all the Clampett clan, he is the most eager to embrace city life. Jethro has a huge appetite—in one episode, he eats a jetliner's entire supply of steaks, in another he tries to set himself up as a Hollywood agent for cousin "Bessie" the chimpanzee—with a fee of 10,000 bananas for Bessie and 1,000 for him. When "Cousin Roy" (Roy Clark) comes from "the hills" to Beverly Hills to become a country music star, Jethro refuses to be his agent when Roy becomes a success. Jethro does not appear in the third- or second-to-last episodes, but Baer remains billed in the title credits. As of 2025, Baer is the only surviving main cast member. Milburn Drysdale. Milburn Drysdale (portrayed by Raymond Bailey in 247 episodes) is the Clampetts' banker, confidant, and next-door neighbor. He is obsessed with money and to keep the Clampetts' $96,000,000 (in 1969; ) in his Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, Mr. Drysdale will go to great lengths to cater to their wishes. He often forces others, especially his long-suffering secretary, to help fulfill their outlandish requests. He is a descendant of the Bodkins family from Tennessee. It is revealed in the first season that Granny's clan, the Moses family, feuded with the Bodkins family and drove them from Napoleon, Tennessee. A recurring comedic scene shows Drysdale angrily answering his phone only to find Jed on the other end of the line, at which point Drysdale's demeanor instantly changes to one of good humor and accommodation. Jane Hathaway. Jane Hathaway (portrayed by Nancy Kulp in 246 episodes), whom the Clampetts address as "Miss Jane", is Drysdale's loyal, well-educated, efficient secretary at the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. She is genuinely fond of the family and tries to shield them from her boss's greed. Miss Hathaway frequently has to "rescue" Drysdale from his schemes, receiving little or no thanks for her efforts. The Clampetts consider her family; even Granny, the one most averse to living in California, likes her. Jane has a crush on Jethro for most of the series' run. In 1999, "TV Guide" ranked Jane Hathaway number 38 on its list titled "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time". Appearing from Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. The following characters from "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres" have made guest appearances in this show starting in season 7 and listed in order of appearance: Theme music. The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", was written by producer and writer Paul Henning and originally performed by bluegrass artists Foggy Mountain Boys, led by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. The song is sung by Jerry Scoggins (backed by Flatt and Scruggs) over the opening and end credits of each episode. Flatt and Scruggs subsequently cut their own version of the theme (with Flatt singing) for Columbia Records; released as a single, it reached number 44 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 pop music chart and number one on the "Billboard" Hot Country chart (the lone country chart-topper for the duo). As was customary in the early 1960s, the show's advertising sponsors were woven into bumpers involving the cast. To this end, the show sometimes included extra verses of the theme song about Winston cigarettes and Kellogg's cereals. Perry Botkin composed many songs for "The Beverly Hillbillies". Botkin's upbeat tune from "Murder by Contract", played during scenes of sunny LA, signaled scenes at the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills. The six main cast members participated on a 1963 Columbia soundtrack album, which featured original song numbers in character. Additionally, Ebsen, Ryan, and Douglas each made a few solo recordings following the show's success, including Ryan's 1966 novelty single, "Granny's Miniskirt". The series generally features no country music beyond the bluegrass banjo theme song, although country star Roy Clark and the team of Flatt and Scruggs occasionally play on the program. Pop singer Pat Boone appears in one episode as himself, under the premise that he hails from the same area of the country as the Clampetts, although Boone is a native of Jacksonville, Florida. The 1989 film "UHF" featured a "Weird Al" Yankovic parody music video, "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", combining "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" and English rock band Dire Straits' 1985 hit song "Money for Nothing". Reception. "The Beverly Hillbillies" received generally poor reviews from contemporary critics. "The New York Times" called the show "strained and unfunny"; "Variety" called it "painful to sit through". Gilbert Seldes wrote in "TV Guide", "The whole notion on which "The Beverly Hillbillies" is founded is an encouragement to ignorance... But it "is" funny. What can I do?" CBS executives William Paley and Frank Stanton also disliked the show but did not interfere with the decisions of network head James T. Aubrey, whose preference for "hick-coms" such as "Hillbillies" made CBS the dominant Big Three television network. Regardless of the poor reviews, the show shot to the top of the Nielsen ratings shortly after its premiere and stayed there for several seasons. During its first two seasons, it was the number-one program in the US; during its second season, it earned some of the highest ratings ever recorded for a half-hour sitcom. The season-two episode "The Giant Jackrabbit" also became the most-watched telecast up to the time of its airing and remains the most-watched half-hour episode of a sitcom, as well. The series enjoyed excellent ratings throughout its run, although it had fallen out of the top 20 most-watched shows during its final season. In 1997, the season-three episode "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood" was ranked number 62 on ""TV Guide"s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time". Film professor Janet Staiger wrote that "the problem for these reviewers [who disliked the show] was that the show confronted the cultural elite's notions of quality entertainment". Media scholar Robert Thompson of Syracuse University described "Hillbillies" as "the clash of folk art and greedy consumerism". Cancellation. The show was canceled in the spring of 1971 after 274 episodes. The CBS network, prompted by pressure from advertisers seeking a more sophisticated urban audience, decided to refocus its schedule on new urban-themed shows and, to make room for them, the two remaining series of CBS's rural-themed comedies were canceled. This action came to be known as "the Rural purge". Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney on "Green Acres", famously remarked, "It was the year CBS cancelled everything with a tree—including Lassie." Reunions. 1981 CBS film. In 1981, "Return of the Beverly Hillbillies" television film, written and produced by series creator Henning, was aired on the CBS network. Irene Ryan had died in 1973, and Raymond Bailey had died in 1980. The script acknowledged Granny's passing, but featured Imogene Coca as Granny's mother. Max Baer decided against reprising the role that both started and stymied his career, so the character of Jethro Bodine was given to another actor, Ray Young. The film's plot had Jed back in his old homestead in Bugtussle, having divided his massive fortune among Elly May and Jethro, both of whom stayed on the West Coast. Jane Hathaway had become a Department of Energy agent and was seeking Granny's "White Lightnin'" recipe to combat the energy crisis. Since Granny had gone on to "her re-ward", it was up to Granny's centenarian "Maw" (Imogene Coca) to divulge the secret brew's ingredients. Subplots included Jethro playing an egocentric, starlet-starved Hollywood producer, Jane and her boss (Werner Klemperer) having a romance, and Elly May owning a large petting zoo. The four main characters finally got together by the end of the story. Though filmed only a decade after the series finale, viewer consensus found the movie lacked the series' original spirit. Hampered by the deaths of Ryan and Bailey, and Baer's absence, only three of the six original cast members reprised their roles. A further complication was that the "Clampett mansion" (the Chartwell Mansion, designed by Sumner Spaulding) had become too expensive for location shooting. Henning admitted embarrassment after the finished product aired, blaming his inability to rewrite the script due to the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike. 1993 special. In 1993, Ebsen, Douglas, and Baer reunited onscreen for the only time in the CBS-TV retrospective television special, "The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies" hosted by Mac Davis and written by Al Bendix, Tino Insana, and Mike Rowe while Dakin Matthews served as the field interviewer. This special was ranked as the fourth-most watched television program of the week—a major surprise given the mediocre rating for the 1981 television film. It was a rare tribute from the "Tiffany network", which owed much of its success in the 1960s to the series, but has often seemed embarrassed by it in hindsight, often downplaying the show in retrospective television specials on the network's history and rarely inviting cast members to participate in such all-star broadcasts. "The Legend of The Beverly Hillbillies" special ignored several plot twists of the television film, notably that Jethro was now not a film director but a leading Los Angeles physician. Critter-loving Elly May was still in California with her animals. Jed was back home in the Hills where he declined interviews until now. He also mentioned how he got richer in the hills where he purchased some land and spends some of his days whittling. Nancy Kulp had died in 1991 and was little referred to beyond the multitude of film clips that dotted the special. When asked if he bears no grudge against Drysdale, Jed states "I never bear no grudge against any man. The way I see it, I lost some money, but Mr. Drysdale lost his freedom. I don't think I'm bad off at all." Jed then tells his interviewer that he goes into town to ring up Elly May and that Jethro brings his children around often. He then takes the man interviewing with him to meet some friends unaware that he struck oil again. The scene closes with Jed dancing to the theme song with Jerry Scoggins while Earl Scruggs and Roy Clark (who is substituting for the late Lester Flatt) playing the music. The special was released on VHS tape by CBS/Fox Video in 1995 and as a bonus feature on the Official Third Season DVD Set in 2009. Controversy. In 1974, CBS made a reportedly large cash payment settlement to employee Hamilton Morgen after Morgen sued the network. Morgen claimed CBS appropriated his submitted ideas and script for a show called "Country Cousins" to form "The Beverly Hillbillies". Syndication. "The Beverly Hillbillies" is still televised daily around the world in syndication. In the United States, the show has been broadcast on MeTV, Circle, Classic Reruns TV, GAC Family and Laff and was previously on TBS Superstation, Nick at Nite, TV Land, Hallmark Channel, and Superstation WGN. A limited number of episodes from the earlier portions of the series run have turned up in the public domain and as such are seen occasionally on many smaller networks such as Retro TV and MyFamily TV. MeTV airs "The Beverly Hillbillies" Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. and 6:30 am, on Sundays at 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. and weeknights at 9 p.m. (all Eastern/Pacific Time) The show is distributed by CBS Media Ventures, the syndication arm of CBS Television Studios and the CBS network. It was previously distributed by CBS Enterprises, Viacom Enterprises, Paramount Domestic Television, and CBS Paramount Domestic Television (all through corporate changes involving TV distribution rights to the early CBS library). The repeats of the show that debuted on CBS Daytime on September 5–9, 1966, as "Mornin' Beverly Hillbillies" through September 10, 1971, and on September 13–17, 1971, as "The Beverly Hillbillies" lasted up to winter 1971–72. It aired at 11:00–11:30 am. Eastern/10:00-10:30 am. Central through September 3, 1971, then moved to 10:30–11:00 am. Eastern/9:30–10:00 am. Central for the last season on CBS Daytime. Home media and legal status. Fifty-five episodes of the series are in the public domain (all 36 season-one episodes and 19 season-two episodes), because Orion Television, successor to Filmways, neglected to renew their copyrights. As a result, these episodes have been released on home video and DVD on many low-budget labels and shown on low-power television stations and low-budget networks in prints. In many video prints of the public domain episodes, the original theme music has been replaced by generic music due to copyright issues. Before his death, Paul Henning, whose estate now holds the original film elements to the public domain episodes, authorized MPI Home Video to release the best of the first two seasons on DVD, the first "ultimate collection" of which was released in the fall of 2005. These collections include the original, uncut versions of the first season's episodes, complete with their original theme music and opening sponsor plugs. Volume 1 has, among its bonus features, the alternate, unaired version of the pilot film, "The Hillbillies Of Beverly Hills" (the version of the episode that sold the series to CBS), and the "cast commercials" (cast members pitching the products of the show's sponsors) originally shown at the end of each episode. The alternate version is also the version seen on Amazon Prime Video. With the exception of the public domain episodes, the copyrights to the series were renewed by Orion Television. However, any new compilation of "Hillbillies" material will be copyrighted by either MPI Media Group or CBS, depending on the content of the material used. For many years, 20th Century Fox, through a joint venture with CBS called CBS/Fox Video, released select episodes of "Hillbillies" on videocassette. After Viacom merged with CBS in 1999, Paramount home entertainment (the video division of Paramount Pictures, which was acquired by Viacom in 1994) took over the video rights. In 2006, Paramount announced plans to release the copyrighted episodes in boxed sets through CBS DVD later that year. The show's second season (consisting of the public domain episodes from that season) was released on DVD in Region 1 on October 7, 2008, as "...The Official Second Season". The third season was released on February 17, 2009. Both seasons are available to be purchased together from major online retailers. On October 1, 2013, season four was released on DVD as a Walmart exclusive. It was released as a full retail release on April 15, 2014. On April 26, 2016, CBS/Paramount released the complete first season on DVD. The fifth season was released on October 2, 2018. Spin-offs and associated merchandise. Theatrical adaptation. A three-act stage play based on the pilot was written by David Rogers in 1968. Comics. Dell Comics adapted the series into a comic book series in 1962. The art work was provided by Henry Scarpelli. The comic ran for 18 issues, ending in August 1967. Board & Card Games. "Standard Toykraft" released a board game based on the show called "The Beverly Hillbillies Game". In the same year, Milton Bradley released a card game called "Set Back: The Beverly Hillbillies Card Game"in 1963. Trading Cards. A set of trading cards based around the show were released by Toppsin 1963 and Eclipsein 1993. Feature film. In 1993, a film version of "The Beverly Hillbillies" was released starring Jim Varney as Jed Clampett and featuring Buddy Ebsen in a cameo as Barnaby Jones, the lead character in his long-running post-"Hillbillies" television series. Computer game. Based on "The Beverly Hillbillies" movie, a PC computer adventure game for operating system MS-DOS was developed by Synergistic Software, Inc. and published in 1993 by Capstone Software.
3378	12530063	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3378	Beryllium	Beryllium is a chemical element; it has symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, hard, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form minerals. Gemstones high in beryllium include beryl (aquamarine, emerald, red beryl) and chrysoberyl. It is a relatively rare element in the universe, usually occurring as a product of the spallation of larger atomic nuclei that have collided with cosmic rays. Within the cores of stars, beryllium is depleted as it is fused into heavier elements. Beryllium constitutes about 0.0004 percent by mass of Earth's crust. The world's annual beryllium production of 220 tons is usually manufactured by extraction from the mineral beryl, a difficult process because beryllium bonds strongly to oxygen. In structural applications, the combination of high flexural rigidity, thermal stability, thermal conductivity and low density (1.85 times that of water) make beryllium a desirable aerospace material for aircraft components, missiles, spacecraft, and satellites. Because of its low density and atomic mass, beryllium is relatively transparent to X-rays and other forms of ionizing radiation; therefore, it is the most common window material for X-ray equipment and components of particle detectors. When added as an alloying element to aluminium, copper (notably the alloy beryllium copper), iron, or nickel, beryllium improves many physical properties. For example, tools and components made of beryllium copper alloys are strong and hard and do not create sparks when they strike a steel surface. In air, the surface of beryllium oxidizes readily at room temperature to form a passivation layer 1–10 nm thick that protects it from further oxidation and corrosion. The metal oxidizes in bulk (beyond the passivation layer) when heated above , and burns brilliantly when heated to about . The commercial use of beryllium requires the use of appropriate dust control equipment and industrial controls at all times because of the toxicity of inhaled beryllium-containing dusts that can cause a chronic life-threatening allergic disease, berylliosis, in some people. Berylliosis is typically manifested by chronic pulmonary fibrosis and, in severe cases, right sided heart failure and death. Characteristics. Physical properties. Beryllium is a steel gray and hard metal that is brittle at room temperature and has a close-packed hexagonal crystal structure. It has exceptional stiffness (Young's modulus 287 GPa) and a melting point of 1287 °C. The modulus of elasticity of beryllium is approximately 35% greater than that of steel. The combination of this modulus and a relatively low density results in an unusually fast sound conduction speed in beryllium – about 12.9 km/s at ambient conditions. Among all metals, beryllium dissipates the most heat per unit weight, with both high specific heat () and thermal conductivity (). Beryllium's conductivity and relatively low coefficient of linear thermal expansion (11.4 × 10−6 K−1), make it uniquely stable under extreme temperature differences. Nuclear properties. Naturally occurring beryllium, save for slight contamination by the radioisotopes created by cosmic rays, is isotopically pure beryllium-9, which has a nuclear spin of −. The inelastic scattering cross section of beryllium increases with relation to neutron energy, allowing for significant slowing of higher-energy neutrons. Therefore, it works as a neutron reflector and neutron moderator; the exact strength of neutron slowing strongly depends on the purity and size of the crystallites in the material. The single primordial beryllium isotope 9Be also undergoes a (n,2n) neutron reaction with neutron energies over about 1.9 MeV, to produce 8Be, which almost immediately breaks into two alpha particles. Thus, for high-energy neutrons, beryllium is a neutron multiplier, releasing more neutrons than it absorbs. This nuclear reaction is: + n → 2 + 2 n Neutrons are liberated when beryllium nuclei are struck by energetic alpha particles producing the nuclear reaction + → + n where is an alpha particle and is a carbon-12 nucleus. Beryllium also releases neutrons under bombardment by gamma rays. Thus, natural beryllium bombarded either by alphas or gammas from a suitable radioisotope is a key component of most radioisotope-powered nuclear reaction neutron sources for the laboratory production of free neutrons. Small amounts of tritium are liberated when nuclei absorb low energy neutrons in the three-step nuclear reaction + n → + , → + β−, + n → + has a half-life of only 0.8 seconds, β− is an electron, and has a high neutron absorption cross section. Tritium is a radioisotope of concern in nuclear reactor waste streams. Optical properties. As a metal, beryllium is transparent or translucent to most wavelengths of X-rays and gamma rays, making it useful for the output windows of X-ray tubes and other such apparatus. Isotopes and nucleosynthesis. Both stable and unstable isotopes of beryllium are created in stars, but the radioisotopes do not last long. It is believed that the beryllium in the universe was created in the interstellar medium when cosmic rays induced fission in heavier elements found in interstellar gas and dust, a process called cosmic ray spallation. Natural beryllium is solely made up of the stable isotope beryllium-9. Beryllium is the only monoisotopic element with an even atomic number. About one billionth () of the primordial atoms created in the Big Bang nucleosynthesis were 7Be. This is a consequence of the low density of matter when the temperature of the universe cooled enough for small nuclei to be stable. Creating such nuclei requires nuclear collisions that are rare at low density. Although 7Be is unstable and decays by electron capture into 7Li with a half-life of 53 days, in the early universe this decay channel was unavailable due to atoms being fully ionized. The conversion of 7Be to Li was only complete near the time of recombination. The isotope 7Be (half-life 53 days) is also a cosmogenic nuclide, and also shows an atmospheric abundance inversely proportional to solar activity. The 2s electrons of beryllium may contribute to chemical bonding. Therefore, when 7Be decays by L-electron capture, it does so by taking electrons from its atomic orbitals that may be participating in bonding. This makes its decay rate dependent to a measurable degree upon its chemical surroundings – a rare occurrence in nuclear decay. 8Be is unstable but has a ground state resonance with an important role in the triple-alpha process in helium-fueled stars. As first proposed by British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle based solely on astrophysical analysis, the energy levels of 8Be and 12C allow carbon nucleosynthesis by increasing the contact time for two of the three alpha particles in the carbon production process. The main carbon-producing reaction in the universe is formula_1 where 4He is an alpha particle. Radioactive cosmogenic 10Be is produced in the atmosphere of the Earth by the cosmic ray spallation of oxygen. Then the 10Be accumulates at the soil surface, where its relatively long half-life (1.36 million years) permits a long residence time before decaying to boron-10. Thus, 10Be and its daughter products are used to examine natural soil erosion, soil formation and the development of lateritic soils, and as a proxy for measurement of the variations in solar activity and the age of ice cores. The production of 10Be is inversely related to solar activity, because increased solar wind during periods of high solar activity decreases the flux of galactic cosmic rays that reach the Earth. Nuclear explosions also form 10Be by the reaction of fast neutrons with 13C in the carbon dioxide in air. This is one of the indicators of past activity at nuclear weapon test sites. The exotic isotopes 11Be and 14Be are known to exhibit a nuclear halo. This feature can be understood as the nuclei of 11Be and 14Be have, respectively, 1 and 4 neutrons orbiting substantially outside the expected nuclear radius. Occurrence. Beryllium is found in over 100 minerals, but most are uncommon to rare. The more common beryllium-containing minerals include: bertrandite (), beryl (), chrysoberyl () and phenakite (). Precious forms of beryl are aquamarine, red beryl and emerald. The green color in gem-quality forms of beryl comes from varying amounts of chromium (about 2% for emerald). The two main ores of beryllium, beryl and bertrandite, are found in Argentina, Brazil, India, Madagascar, Russia and the United States. Total world reserves of beryllium ore are greater than 400,000 tonnes. The Sun has a concentration of 0.1 parts per billion (ppb) of beryllium. Beryllium has a concentration of 2 to 6 parts per million (ppm) in the Earth's crust and is the 47th most abundant element. It is most concentrated (6 ppm) in the soils. Trace amounts of 9Be are found in the Earth's atmosphere. The concentration of beryllium in sea water is 0.2–0.6 parts per trillion. In stream water, however, beryllium is more abundant, with a concentration of 0.1 ppb. Extraction. The extraction of beryllium from its compounds is a difficult process due to its high affinity for oxygen at elevated temperatures, and its ability to reduce water when its oxide film is removed. Currently the United States, China and Kazakhstan are the only three countries involved in the industrial-scale extraction of beryllium. Kazakhstan produces beryllium from a concentrate stockpiled before the breakup of the Soviet Union around 1991. This resource had become nearly depleted by mid-2010s. Production of beryllium in Russia was halted in 1997, and is planned to be resumed in the 2020s. Beryllium is most commonly extracted from the mineral beryl, which is either sintered using an extraction agent or melted into a soluble mixture. The sintering process involves mixing beryl with sodium fluorosilicate and soda at to form sodium fluoroberyllate, aluminium oxide and silicon dioxide. Beryllium hydroxide is precipitated from a solution of sodium fluoroberyllate and sodium hydroxide in water. The extraction of beryllium using the melt method involves grinding beryl into a powder and heating it to . The melt is quickly cooled with water and then reheated in concentrated sulfuric acid, mostly yielding beryllium sulfate and aluminium sulfate. Aqueous ammonia is then used to remove the aluminium and sulfur, leaving beryllium hydroxide. Beryllium hydroxide created using either the sinter or melt method is then converted into beryllium fluoride or beryllium chloride. To form the fluoride, aqueous ammonium hydrogen fluoride is added to beryllium hydroxide to yield a precipitate of ammonium tetrafluoroberyllate, which is heated to to form beryllium fluoride. Heating the fluoride to with magnesium forms finely divided beryllium, and additional heating to creates the compact metal. Heating beryllium hydroxide forms beryllium oxide, which becomes beryllium chloride when combined with carbon and chlorine. Electrolysis of molten beryllium chloride is then used to obtain the metal. Chemical properties. A beryllium atom has the electronic configuration [He] 2s2. The predominant oxidation state of beryllium is +2; the beryllium atom has lost both of its valence electrons. Beryllium's chemical behavior is largely a result of its small atomic and ionic radii. It thus has very high ionization potentials and does not form divalent cations. Instead it forms two covalent bonds with a tendency to polymerize, as in solid . Its chemistry has similarities to that of aluminium, an example of a diagonal relationship. In the other direction, beryllium is attracted to electron density, generating intermolecular forces similar to hydrogen bonding. At room temperature, the surface of beryllium forms a 1−10 nm-thick oxide passivation layer that prevents further reactions with air, except for gradual thickening of the oxide up to about 25 nm. When heated above about 500 °C, oxidation into the bulk metal progresses along grain boundaries. Once the metal is ignited in air by heating above the oxide melting point around 2500 °C, beryllium burns brilliantly, forming a mixture of beryllium oxide and beryllium nitride. Beryllium dissolves readily in non-oxidizing acids, such as HCl and diluted , but not in nitric acid or water as this forms the oxide. This behavior is similar to that of aluminium. Beryllium also dissolves and reacts with alkali solutions. Binary compounds of beryllium(II) are polymeric in the solid state. has a silica-like structure with corner-shared tetrahedra. and have chain structures with edge-shared tetrahedra. Beryllium oxide, BeO, is a white refractory solid which has a wurtzite crystal structure and a thermal conductivity as high as some metals. BeO is amphoteric. Beryllium sulfide, selenide and telluride are known, all having the zincblende structure. Beryllium nitride, , is a high-melting-point compound which is readily hydrolyzed. Beryllium azide, is known and beryllium phosphide, has a similar structure to . A number of beryllium borides are known, such as , , , , and . Beryllium carbide, , is a refractory brick-red compound that reacts with water to give methane. Beryllium silicides have been identified in the form of variously sized nanoclusters, formed through a spontaneous reaction between pure beryllium and silicon. The halides (X = F, Cl, Br, and I) have a linear monomeric molecular structure in the gas phase. Lower oxidation states complexes of beryllium are exceedingly rare. For example, a stable complex with a Be-Be bond, which formally features beryllium in the +1 oxidation state, has been described. Beryllium in the 0 oxidation state is also known in a complex with a Mg-Be bond. Aqueous solutions. Solutions of beryllium salts, such as beryllium sulfate and beryllium nitrate, are acidic because of hydrolysis of the ion. The concentration of the first hydrolysis product, , is less than 1% of the beryllium concentration. The most stable hydrolysis product is the trimeric ion . Beryllium hydroxide, , is insoluble in water at pH 5 or more. Consequently, beryllium compounds are generally insoluble at biological pH. Because of this, inhalation of beryllium metal dust leads to the development of the fatal condition of berylliosis. dissolves in strongly alkaline solutions. Beryllium(II) forms few complexes with monodentate ligands because the water molecules in the aquo-ion, are bound very strongly to the beryllium ion. Notable exceptions are the series of water-soluble complexes with the fluoride ion: Beryllium(II) forms many complexes with bidentate ligands containing oxygen-donor atoms. The species is notable for having a 3-coordinate oxide ion at its center. Basic beryllium acetate, , has an oxide ion surrounded by a tetrahedron of beryllium atoms. With organic ligands, such as the malonate ion, the acid deprotonates when forming the complex. The donor atoms are two oxygens. The formation of a complex is in competition with the metal ion-hydrolysis reaction and mixed complexes with both the anion and the hydroxide ion are also formed. For example, derivatives of the cyclic trimer are known, with a bidentate ligand replacing one or more pairs of water molecules. Aliphatic hydroxycarboxylic acids such as glycolic acid form rather weak monodentate complexes in solution, in which the hydroxyl group remains intact. In the solid state, the hydroxyl group may deprotonate: a hexamer, , was isolated long ago. Aromatic hydroxy ligands (i.e. phenols) form relatively strong complexes. For example, log K1 and log K2 values of 12.2 and 9.3 have been reported for complexes with tiron. Beryllium has generally a rather poor affinity for ammine ligands. There are many early reports of complexes with amino acids, but unfortunately they are not reliable as the concomitant hydrolysis reactions were not understood at the time of publication. Values for log β of ca. 6 to 7 have been reported. The degree of formation is small because of competition with hydrolysis reactions. Organic chemistry. Organometallic beryllium compounds are known to be highly reactive. Examples of known organoberyllium compounds are dineopentylberyllium, beryllocene (), diallylberyllium (by exchange reaction of diethyl beryllium with triallyl boron), bis(1,3-trimethylsilylallyl)beryllium, Be(mes)2, and (beryllium(I) complex) diberyllocene. Ligands can also be aryls and alkynyls. History. The mineral beryl, which contains beryllium, has been used at least since the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. In the first century CE, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder mentioned in his encyclopedia "Natural History" that beryl and emerald ("smaragdus") were similar. The Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis, written in the third or fourth century CE, contains notes on how to prepare artificial emerald and beryl. Early analyses of emeralds and beryls by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Torbern Olof Bergman, Franz Karl Achard, and always yielded similar elements, leading to the mistaken conclusion that both substances are aluminium silicates. Mineralogist René Just Haüy discovered that both crystals are geometrically identical, and he asked chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin for a chemical analysis. In a 1798 paper read before the Institut de France, Vauquelin reported that he found a new "earth" by dissolving aluminium hydroxide from emerald and beryl in an additional alkali. The editors of the journal "Annales de chimie et de physique" named the new earth "glucine" for the sweet taste of some of its compounds. The name "beryllium" was first used by Friedrich Wöhler in 1828. Both beryllium and glucinum were used concurrently until 1949, when the IUPAC adopted beryllium as the standard name of the element. Friedrich Wöhler and Antoine Bussy independently isolated beryllium in 1828 by the chemical reaction of metallic potassium with beryllium chloride, as follows: Using an alcohol lamp, Wöhler heated alternating layers of beryllium chloride and potassium in a wired-shut platinum crucible. The above reaction immediately took place and caused the crucible to become white hot. Upon cooling and washing the resulting gray-black powder, he saw that it was made of fine particles with a dark metallic luster. The highly reactive potassium had been produced by the electrolysis of its compounds. He did not succeed to melt the beryllium particles. The direct electrolysis of a molten mixture of beryllium fluoride and sodium fluoride by Paul Lebeau in 1898 resulted in the first pure (99.5 to 99.8%) samples of beryllium. However, industrial production started only after the First World War. The original industrial involvement included subsidiaries and scientists related to the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio, and Siemens & Halske AG in Berlin. In the US, the process was ruled by Hugh S. Cooper, director of The Kemet Laboratories Company. In Germany, the first commercially successful process for producing beryllium was developed in 1921 by Alfred Stock and Hans Goldschmidt. A sample of beryllium was bombarded with alpha rays from the decay of radium in a 1932 experiment by James Chadwick that uncovered the existence of the neutron. This same method is used in one class of radioisotope-based laboratory neutron sources that produce 30 neutrons for every million α particles. Beryllium production saw a rapid increase during World War II due to the rising demand for hard beryllium-copper alloys and phosphors for fluorescent lights. Most early fluorescent lamps used zinc orthosilicate with varying content of beryllium to emit greenish light. Small additions of magnesium tungstate improved the blue part of the spectrum to yield an acceptable white light. Halophosphate-based phosphors replaced beryllium-based phosphors after beryllium was found to be toxic. Electrolysis of a mixture of beryllium fluoride and sodium fluoride was used to isolate beryllium during the 19th century. The metal's high melting point makes this process more energy-consuming than corresponding processes used for the alkali metals. Early in the 20th century, the production of beryllium by the thermal decomposition of beryllium iodide was investigated following the success of a similar process for the production of zirconium, but this process proved to be uneconomical for volume production. Pure beryllium metal did not become readily available until 1957, even though it had been used as an alloying metal to harden and toughen copper much earlier. Beryllium could be produced by reducing beryllium compounds such as beryllium chloride with metallic potassium or sodium. Currently, most beryllium is produced by reducing beryllium fluoride with magnesium. The price on the American market for vacuum-cast beryllium ingots was about $338 per pound ($745 per kilogram) in 2001. Between 1998 and 2008, the world's production of beryllium had decreased from 343 to about 200 tonnes. It then increased to 230 metric tons by 2018, of which 170 tonnes came from the United States. Etymology. Beryllium was named for the semiprecious mineral beryl, from which it was first isolated. Martin Klaproth, having independently determined that beryl and emerald share an element, preferred the name "beryllina" due to the fact that yttria also formed sweet salts. Although Humphry Davy failed to isolate it, he proposed the name "glucium" for the new metal, derived from the name "glucina" for the earth it was found in; altered forms of this name, "glucinium" or "glucinum" (symbol Gl) continued to be used into the 20th century. Applications. Radiation windows. Because of its low atomic number and very low absorption for X-rays, the oldest and still one of the most important applications of beryllium is in radiation windows for X-ray tubes. Extreme demands are placed on purity and cleanliness of beryllium to avoid artifacts in the X-ray images. Beryllium is used in X-ray windows because it is transparent to X-rays, allowing for clearer and more efficient imaging. Thin beryllium foils are used as radiation windows for X-ray detectors, and their extremely low absorption minimizes the heating effects caused by high-intensity, low energy X-rays typical of synchrotron radiation. Vacuum-tight windows and beam-tubes for radiation experiments on synchrotrons are manufactured exclusively from beryllium. In scientific setups for various X-ray emission studies (e.g., energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) the sample holder is usually made of beryllium because its emitted X-rays have much lower energies (≈100 eV) than X-rays from most studied materials. Low atomic number also makes beryllium relatively transparent to energetic particles. Therefore, it is used to build the beam pipe around the collision region in particle physics setups, such as all four main detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb), the Tevatron and at SLAC. The low density of beryllium allows collision products to reach the surrounding detectors without significant interaction, its stiffness allows a powerful vacuum to be produced within the pipe to minimize interaction with gases, its thermal stability allows it to function correctly at temperatures of only a few degrees above absolute zero, and its diamagnetic nature keeps it from interfering with the complex multipole magnet systems used to steer and focus the particle beams. Mechanical applications. Because of its stiffness, light weight and dimensional stability over a wide temperature range, beryllium metal is used for lightweight structural components in the defense and aerospace industries in high-speed aircraft, guided missiles, spacecraft, and satellites, including the James Webb Space Telescope. Several liquid-fuel rockets have used rocket nozzles made of pure beryllium. The high elastic stiffness of beryllium has led to its extensive use in precision instrumentation, e.g. in inertial guidance systems and in the support mechanisms for optical systems. Beryllium powder was itself studied as a rocket fuel, but this use has never materialized. A small number of extreme high-end bicycle frames have been built with beryllium. From 1998 to 2000, the McLaren Formula One team used Mercedes-Benz engines with beryllium-aluminium alloy pistons. The use of beryllium engine components was banned following a protest by Scuderia Ferrari. An earlier major application of beryllium was in brakes for military airplanes because of its hardness, high melting point, and exceptional ability to dissipate heat. Environmental considerations have led to substitution by other materials. Alloys. Mixing about 2.0% beryllium into copper forms an alloy called beryllium copper that is six times stronger than copper alone. Beryllium alloys are used in many applications because of their combination of elasticity, high electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, high strength and hardness, nonmagnetic properties, as well as good corrosion and fatigue resistance. These applications include non-sparking tools that are used near flammable gases (beryllium nickel), springs, membranes (beryllium nickel and beryllium iron) used in surgical instruments, and high temperature devices. As little as 50 parts per million of beryllium alloyed with liquid magnesium leads to a significant increase in oxidation resistance and decrease in flammability. Beryllium-copper alloys were also applied as a hardening agent in "Jason pistols", which were used to strip the paint from the hulls of ships. Beryllium–copper alloys are also widely used in modern aerospace and defense applications, particularly in high-performance electrical connectors, battery safety fuses, and microswitches that require a balance of conductivity, corrosion resistance, and fatigue strength. A metal matrix composite material combining beryllium with aluminium developed under the trade name AlBeMet for the high performance aerospace industry has low weight but four times the stiffness of aluminum alone. Mirrors. Large-area beryllium mirrors, frequently with a honeycomb support structure, are used, for example, in meteorological satellites where low weight and long-term dimensional stability are critical. Smaller beryllium mirrors are used in optical guidance systems and in fire-control systems, e.g. in the German-made Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks. In these systems, very rapid movement of the mirror is required, which again dictates low mass and high rigidity. Usually the beryllium mirror is coated with hard electroless nickel plating which can be more easily polished to a finer optical finish than beryllium. In some applications, the beryllium blank is polished without any coating. This is particularly applicable to cryogenic operation where thermal expansion mismatch can cause the coating to buckle. The James Webb Space Telescope has 18 hexagonal beryllium sections for its mirrors, each plated with a thin layer of gold. Because JWST will face a temperature of 33 K, the mirror is made of gold-plated beryllium, which is capable of handling extreme cold better than glass. Beryllium contracts and deforms less than glass and remains more uniform in such temperatures. For the same reason, the optics of the Spitzer Space Telescope are entirely built of beryllium metal. Magnetic applications. Beryllium is non-magnetic. Therefore, tools fabricated out of beryllium-based materials are used by naval or military explosive ordnance disposal teams for work on or near naval mines, since these mines commonly have magnetic fuzes. They are also found in maintenance and construction materials near magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines because of the high magnetic fields generated. Nuclear applications. High purity beryllium can be used in nuclear reactors as a moderator, reflector, or as cladding on fuel elements. Thin plates or foils of beryllium are sometimes used in nuclear weapon designs as the very outer layer of the plutonium pits in the primary stages of thermonuclear bombs, placed to surround the fissile material. These layers of beryllium are good "pushers" for the implosion of the plutonium-239, and they are good neutron reflectors, just as in beryllium-moderated nuclear reactors. Beryllium is commonly used in some neutron sources in laboratory devices in which relatively few neutrons are needed (rather than having to use a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator-powered neutron generator). For this purpose, a target of beryllium-9 is bombarded with energetic alpha particles from a radioisotope such as polonium-210, radium-226, plutonium-238, or americium-241. In the nuclear reaction that occurs, a beryllium nucleus is transmuted into carbon-12, and one free neutron is emitted, traveling in about the same direction as the alpha particle was heading. Such alpha decay-driven beryllium neutron sources, named "urchin" neutron initiators, were used in some early atomic bombs. Neutron sources in which beryllium is bombarded with gamma rays from a gamma decay radioisotope are also used to produce laboratory neutrons. Beryllium is used in fuel fabrication for CANDU reactors. The fuel elements have small appendages that are resistance brazed to the fuel cladding using an induction brazing process with Be as the braze filler material. Bearing pads are brazed in place to prevent contact between the fuel bundle and the pressure tube containing it, and inter-element spacer pads are brazed on to prevent element to element contact. Beryllium is used at the Joint European Torus nuclear-fusion research laboratory, and it will be used in the more advanced ITER to condition the components which face the plasma. Beryllium has been proposed as a cladding material for nuclear fuel rods, because of its good combination of mechanical, chemical, and nuclear properties. Beryllium fluoride is one of the constituent salts of the eutectic salt mixture FLiBe, which is used as a solvent, moderator and coolant in many hypothetical molten salt reactor designs, including the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). Acoustics. The low weight and high rigidity of beryllium make it useful as a material for high-frequency speaker drivers. Because beryllium is expensive (many times more than titanium), hard to shape due to its brittleness, and toxic if mishandled, beryllium tweeters are limited to high-end home, pro audio, and public address applications. Some high-fidelity products have been fraudulently claimed to be made of the material. Some high-end phonograph cartridges used beryllium cantilevers to improve tracking by reducing mass. Beryllium was used for cantilevers in high-performance phonograph cartridge styli, where its extreme stiffness and low density allowed for tracking weights to be reduced to 1 gram while still tracking high frequency passages with minimal distortion. In sound amplification systems, the speed at which sound travels directly affects the resonant frequency of the amplifier, thereby influencing the range of audible high-frequency sounds. Beryllium stands out due to its exceptionally high speed of sound propagation compared to other metals. This unique property allows beryllium to achieve higher resonant frequencies, making it an ideal material for use as a diaphragm in high-quality loudspeakers. Electronic. Beryllium is a p-type dopant in III-V compound semiconductors. It is widely used in materials such as GaAs, AlGaAs, InGaAs and InAlAs grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Cross-rolled beryllium sheet is an excellent structural support for printed circuit boards in surface-mount technology. In critical electronic applications, beryllium is both a structural support and heat sink. The application also requires a coefficient of thermal expansion that is well matched to the alumina and polyimide-glass substrates. The beryllium-beryllium oxide composite "E-Materials" have been specially designed for these electronic applications and have the additional advantage that the thermal expansion coefficient can be tailored to match diverse substrate materials. Beryllium oxide is useful for many applications that require the combined properties of an electrical insulator and an excellent heat conductor, with high strength and hardness and a very high melting point. Beryllium oxide is frequently used as an insulator base plate in high-power transistors in radio frequency transmitters for telecommunications. Beryllium oxide is being studied for use in increasing the thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide nuclear fuel pellets. Beryllium compounds were used in fluorescent lighting tubes, but this use was discontinued because of the disease berylliosis which developed in the workers who were making the tubes. Medical applications. Beryllium is a component of several dental alloys. In addition to standard X-ray equipment mentioned in , in medical imaging equipment, such as CT scanners and mammography machines, beryllium's strength and light weight enhance durability and performance. Beryllium is used in analytical equipment for blood, HIV, and other diseases. Beryllium alloys are used in surgical instruments, optical mirrors, and laser systems for medical treatments. Toxicity and safety. Biological effects. Approximately 35 micrograms of beryllium is found in the average human body, an amount not considered harmful. Beryllium is chemically similar to magnesium and therefore can displace it from enzymes, which causes them to malfunction. Because Be2+ is a highly charged and small ion, it can easily get into many tissues and cells, where it specifically targets cell nuclei, inhibiting many enzymes, including those used for synthesizing DNA. Its toxicity is exacerbated by the fact that the body has no means to control beryllium levels, and once inside the body, beryllium cannot be removed. Inhalation. Chronic beryllium disease (CBD), or berylliosis, is a pulmonary and systemic granulomatous disease caused by inhalation of dust or fumes contaminated with beryllium; either large amounts over a short time or small amounts over a long time can lead to this ailment. Symptoms of the disease can take up to five years to develop; about a third of patients with it die and the survivors are left disabled. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) lists beryllium and beryllium compounds as Category 1 carcinogens. Occupational exposure. In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has designated a permissible exposure limit (PEL) for beryllium and beryllium compounds of 0.2 μg/m3 as an 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA) and 2.0 μg/m3 as a short-term exposure limit over a sampling period of 15 minutes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a recommended exposure limit (REL) upper-bound threshold of 0.5 μg/m3. The IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) value is 4 mg/m3. The toxicity of beryllium is on par with other toxic metalloids/metals, such as arsenic and mercury. Exposure to beryllium in the workplace can lead to a sensitized immune response, and over time development of berylliosis. NIOSH in the United States researches these effects in collaboration with a major manufacturer of beryllium products. NIOSH also conducts genetic research on sensitization and CBD, independently of this collaboration. Acute beryllium disease in the form of chemical pneumonitis was first reported in Europe in 1933 and in the United States in 1943. A survey found that about 5% of workers in plants manufacturing fluorescent lamps in 1949 in the United States had beryllium-related lung diseases. Chronic berylliosis resembles sarcoidosis in many respects, and the differential diagnosis is often difficult. It killed some early workers in nuclear weapons design, such as Herbert L. Anderson. Beryllium may be found in coal slag. When the slag is formulated into an abrasive agent for blasting paint and rust from hard surfaces, the beryllium can become airborne and become a source of exposure. Although the use of beryllium compounds in fluorescent lighting tubes was discontinued in 1949, potential for exposure to beryllium exists in the nuclear and aerospace industries, in the refining of beryllium metal and the melting of beryllium-containing alloys, in the manufacturing of electronic devices, and in the handling of other beryllium-containing material. Detection. Early researchers undertook the highly hazardous practice of identifying beryllium and its various compounds from its sweet taste. A modern test for beryllium in air and on surfaces has been developed and published as an international voluntary consensus standard, ASTM D7202. The procedure uses dilute ammonium bifluoride for dissolution and fluorescence detection with beryllium bound to sulfonated hydroxybenzoquinoline, allowing up to 100 times more sensitive detection than the recommended limit for beryllium concentration in the workplace. Fluorescence increases with increasing beryllium concentration. The new procedure has been successfully tested on a variety of surfaces and is effective for the dissolution and detection of refractory beryllium oxide and siliceous beryllium in minute concentrations (ASTM D7458). The NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods contains methods for measuring occupational exposures to beryllium.
3382	35498457	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3382	Britney Spears	Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Dubbed the "Princess of Pop", she is known for reviving teen pop and her influence on pop music and culture in the 21st century. Spears has sold 150 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Spears began her professional career in 1992 as a cast member of "The All-New Mickey Mouse Club" and signed with Jive Records five years later. Her first two studio albums, "...Baby One More Time" (1999) and "Oops!... I Did It Again" (2000), are among the best-selling albums of all time. She adopted a more mature and provocative style for her albums "Britney" (2001) and "In the Zone" (2003). Spears was the executive producer of her fifth studio album, "Blackout" (2007), often referred to as her best work. She returned to the top of the U.S. "Billboard" 200 chart with the albums "Circus" (2008) and "Femme Fatale" (2011), and began a concert residency, (2013–2017), to promote her next two albums, "Britney Jean" (2013) and "Glory" (2016). Spears' catalog of high-charting singles includes "...Baby One More Time", "Oops!... I Did It Again", "I'm a Slave 4 U", "Toxic", "Gimme More", "Womanizer", "3", "Hold It Against Me", and "Scream & Shout". Spears' life, including her high-profile relationships and personal struggles during the 2000s, received widespread media coverage. In 2008, she suffered a mental breakdown and was involuntarily placed in a conservatorship. In 2019, her legal battle over her conservatorship led to the establishment of the #FreeBritney movement and a release of Samantha Stark's documentary "Framing Britney Spears" (2021). The conservatorship was terminated in 2021, following her public testimony in which she accused her management team and family of abuse. Spears' 2023 memoir, "The Woman in Me", reached number one on "The New York Times" Best Seller list in its first week of release. Her other ventures include starring in the film "Crossroads" (2002) and launching numerous products, with her 2005 fragrance Fantasy with Elizabeth Arden, Inc. generating over $1.5 billion in sales. In the United States, Spears is the fourth best-selling female album artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, as well as the best-selling female album artist of the 2000s. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, 15 Guinness World Records, six MTV Video Music Awards, seven "Billboard" Music Awards (including the Millennium Award), the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. "Billboard" ranked her sixth on their list of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century. "...Baby One More Time" was named the greatest debut single of all time by "Rolling Stone" in 2020. "Forbes" listed Spears as the world's highest-paid female musician in 2001 and 2012. By 2012, she had topped Yahoo!'s list of most searched celebrities seven times in twelve years. "Time" named Spears one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021, placing first in the reader poll. Life and career. 1981–1997: Early life, family, and career beginnings. Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, the second child of James "Jamie" Parnell Spears and Lynne Irene Bridges. Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Portell, was English and born in London, and one of Spears' maternal great-grandfathers was Maltese. Her siblings are Bryan James Spears and Jamie Lynn Spears. Born in the Bible Belt, where socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a particularly strong religious influence, she was baptized as a Southern Baptist and sang in a church choir as a child. As an adult, she has studied Kabbalist teachings. On August 5, 2021, Spears announced that she had converted to Catholicism. Her mother, sister, and nieces Maddie Aldridge and Ivey Joan Watson, are also Catholic. However, on September 5, 2022, after Spears' ex-husband, Kevin Federline, and youngest son did an interview defending her father's actions during her conservatorship, she stated: "I don't believe in God anymore because of the way my children and my family have treated me. There is nothing to believe in anymore. I'm an atheist y'all". At age three, Spears began attending dance lessons in her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana, and was selected to perform as a solo artist at the annual recital. Aged five she made her local stage debut, singing "What Child Is This?" at her kindergarten graduation. During her childhood, she also had gymnastics and voice lessons and won many state-level competitions and children's talent shows. In gymnastics, Spears attended Béla Károlyi's training camp. She said of her ambition as a child, "I was in my own world, ... I found out what I'm supposed to do at an early age". When Spears was eight, she and her mother Lynne traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to audition for the 1990s revival of "The Mickey Mouse Club". Casting director Matt Casella rejected her as too young, but introduced her to Nancy Carson, a New York City talent agent. Carson was impressed with Spears' singing and suggested enrolling her at the Professional Performing Arts School. Spears was hired for her first professional role as the understudy for the lead role of Tina Denmark in the off-Broadway musical "Ruthless!" She also appeared as a contestant on the popular television show "Star Search" and was cast in a number of commercials. In December 1992, she was cast in "The All-New Mickey Mouse Club". Other fellow cast members included Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, and JC Chasez. After the show was canceled in 1994, she returned to Mississippi and enrolled at McComb's Parklane Academy. Although she made friends with most of her classmates, she compared the school to "the opening scene in "Clueless" with all the cliques. ... I was so bored. I was the point guard on the basketball team. I had my boyfriend, and I went to homecoming and Christmas formal. But I wanted more." In June 1997, Spears was in talks with manager Lou Pearlman to join the female pop group Innosense. Lynne asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided that he wanted to pitch her to record labels, for which she needed a professional demo made. He sent Spears an unused song of Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded her vocals in a studio. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met with executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three of the labels rejected her, saying that audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany." Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster said about Spears' audition that "it's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal ... For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'—is extremely important. And Britney had that." Spears sang Houston's "I Have Nothing" (1992) for the executives, and was subsequently signed to the label. They assigned her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month; he reportedly shaped her voice from "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney". After hearing the recorded material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears had originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow music, but younger; more adult contemporary". She felt secure with her label's appointment of producers, since "It made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me." She flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from March to April 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz Pop, and Rami Yacoub, among others. 1998–2000: "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again". After returning to the U.S., Spears toured shopping malls as part of her L'Oreal Hair Zone Mall Tour, to promote her upcoming debut album. Her show was a four-song set and she was accompanied by two back-up dancers. Her first concert tour followed, as an opening act for NSYNC. Her debut album, "...Baby One More Time", was released on January 12, 1999. It debuted at number one on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 and was certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America after a month. Worldwide, the album topped the charts in fifteen countries and sold over 10 million copies in a year. It became the biggest-selling album ever by a teenage artist. "...Baby One More Time" was released as the lead single from the album on September 29, 1998. Originally, Jive Records wanted the associated music video to be animated; however, Spears rejected this idea, and suggested the final concept of a Catholic schoolgirl. The single peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, topping the chart for two consecutive weeks in January–February 1999. It sold more than 10 million copies, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. "...Baby One More Time" later received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The title track also topped the singles chart for two weeks in the United Kingdom, and became the fastest-selling single ever by a female artist, shipping over 460,000 copies. It would later become the 25th-most successful song of all time in British chart history. Spears is the youngest female artist to have a million seller in the UK. The album's third single, "(You Drive Me) Crazy", became a top-ten hit worldwide and further propelled the success of the "...Baby One More Time" album. The album has sold 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. It is the best-selling debut album by any artist. On June 28, 1999, Spears began her first headlining ...Baby One More Time Tour in North America, which was positively received by critics. It also generated some controversy due to her racy outfits. An extension of the tour, titled (You Drive Me) Crazy Tour, followed in March 2000. Spears premiered songs from her upcoming second album during the show. "Oops!... I Did It Again", Spears' second studio album, was released in May 2000. It debuted at number one in the US, selling 1.3 million copies, breaking the Nielsen SoundScan record for the highest debut sales by any solo artist. It has sold over 20 million copies worldwide to date, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" said that "the great thing about "Oops!" – under the cheese surface, Britney's demand for satisfaction is complex, fierce and downright scary, making her a true child of rock & roll tradition." The album's lead single, "Oops!... I Did It Again", peaked at the top of the charts in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and many other European nations, while the second single, "Lucky", peaked at number one in Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. The album as well as the title track received Grammy nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, respectively. The same year, Spears embarked on the Oops!... I Did It Again Tour, which grossed $40.5 million ($ in ); she also released her first book, "Britney Spears' Heart to Heart", co-written with her mother. On September 7, 2000, Spears performed at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Halfway through the performance, she ripped off her black suit to reveal a sequined flesh-colored bodysuit, followed by heavy dance routine. It is noted by critics as the moment that Spears showed signs of becoming a more provocative performer. Amidst media speculation, Spears confirmed she was dating NSYNC member Justin Timberlake. Spears and Timberlake both graduated from high school via distance learning from the University of Nebraska High School. She also bought a home in Destin, Florida. In her 2023 memoir, Spears revealed that she had an abortion in late 2000 while dating Timberlake after he said they were not prepared for parenthood. Spears called the abortion "one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life." 2001–2002: "Britney" and "Crossroads". In January 2001, Spears hosted the 28th Annual American Music Awards, starred at Rock in Rio alongside NSYNC, and performed as a special guest in the Super Bowl XXXV halftime show headlined by Aerosmith and NSYNC. In February 2001, she signed a $7–8 million promotional deal with Pepsi, and released another book co-written with her mother, "A Mother's Gift". Her third studio album, "Britney", was released in November 2001, with a funkier sound inspired by hip hop artists such as Jay-Z and the Neptunes. "Britney" debuted at number one in the "Billboard" 200 and reached top five positions in Australia, the United Kingdom, and mainland Europe, and has sold 10 million copies worldwide. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called "Britney" "the record where she strives to deepen her persona, making it more adult while still recognizably Britney. ... It does sound like the work of a star who has now found and refined her voice, resulting in her best record yet." It was nominated for the Grammy awards for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Overprotected", and in 2007 it was named one of the best albums of the preceding 25 years by "Entertainment Weekly". The lead single, "I'm a Slave 4 U", became a top-ten hit in several countries. Spears' performance of the single at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards featured a caged tiger (wrangled by Bhagavan Antle) and a large albino python draped over her shoulders. It was harshly received by animal rights organization PETA, who claimed the animals were mistreated and scrapped plans for an anti-fur billboard that was to feature Spears. Jocelyn Vena of MTV News summarized Spears' performance at the ceremony, saying, "draping herself in a white python and slithering around a steamy garden setting – surrounded by dancers in zebra and tiger outfits – Spears created one of the most striking visuals in the 27-year history of the show." To support the album, Spears began the Dream Within a Dream Tour. The show was critically praised for its technical innovations, the "pièce de résistance" being a water screen that pumped two tons of water into the stage. The tour grossed $53.3 million ($ in )), becoming the second highest-grossing tour of 2002 by a female artist, behind Cher's . Her career success was highlighted by "Forbes" in 2002, as Spears was ranked the world's most powerful celebrity. Spears also landed her first starring role in "Crossroads", released in February 2002. Although the film was largely panned, critics praised Spears' acting. The film was a box office success, grossing over $61.1 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. In June 2002, Spears opened her first restaurant, Nyla, in New York City, but terminated her relationship in November due to mismanagement and "management's failure to keep her fully apprised". In July 2002, Spears announced she would take a six-month break from her career; however, she went back into the studio in November to record her new album. Spears' relationship with Justin Timberlake ended after three years. In November 2002, Timberlake released the song "Cry Me a River". Its music video featured a Spears look-alike and fueled the rumors that she had been engaging in an affair, fueled by further rumors of possible relationships involving Timberlake's choreographer Wade Robson and Limp Bizkit's frontman Fred Durst. Spears had initially denied the allegations of a possible affair involving Durst, despite the two being spotted together on multiple occasions; even claiming the two had a friendly connection. In 2023, she admitted to engaging in an affair with Robson. As a response, Spears wrote the ballad "Everytime" with her backing vocalist and friend Annet Artani. 2003–2005: "In the Zone" and first two marriages. In August 2003, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with Christina Aguilera, performing "Like a Virgin". Halfway through they were joined by Madonna, whom they both kissed. The incident was highly publicized. In 2008, MTV listed the performance as the number-one opening moment in the history of MTV Video Music Awards, while "Blender" cited it as one of the 25 sexiest music moments on television history. Spears released her fourth studio album, "In the Zone", in November 2003. She assumed more creative control by writing and co-producing most of the material. "Vibe" called it "a supremely confident dance record that also illustrates Spears' development as a songwriter". NPR named it one of the most important recordings of the decade, writing that "the decade's history of impeccably crafted pop is written on her body of work". "In the Zone" sold over 609,000 copies during its first week of availability in the United States, debuting at the top of the charts, making Spears the first female artist in the SoundScan era to have her first four studio albums to debut at number one. It also debuted at the top of the charts in France and the top ten in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The album produced four singles: "Me Against the Music", a collaboration with Madonna; "Toxic"—which won Spears her first Grammy for Best Dance Recording; "Everytime", and "Outrageous". In January 2004, Spears married her childhood friend at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The marriage was annulled 55 hours later, following a petition to the court that stated that Spears "lacked understanding of her actions". In March 2004, Spears embarked on the Onyx Hotel Tour in support of "In the Zone". The tour was canceled in June 2004, when she fell and injured her left knee during the music video shoot for "Outrageous". She underwent arthroscopic surgery and wore a thigh brace for six weeks, followed by eight to twelve weeks of rehabilitation. That year, Spears became involved in the Kabbalah Centre through her friendship with Madonna. In July 2004, Spears became engaged to dancer Kevin Federline, whom she had met three months earlier. The romance was the subject of intense media attention, since Federline had recently broken up with actress Shar Jackson, who was still pregnant with their second child at the time. The stages of their relationship were chronicled in Spears' first reality show "", which premiered on May 17, 2005, on UPN. Spears later referred to the show in a 2013 interview as "probably the worst thing I've done in my career". They held a wedding ceremony on September 18, 2004, but were not legally married until three weeks later on October 6 due to a delay finalizing the couple's prenuptial agreement. Shortly after, she released her first perfume, Curious, with Elizabeth Arden, which broke the company's first-week gross for a perfume. In October 2004, Spears took a career break to start a family. ', her first greatest hits compilation album, was released in November 2004. Spears' cover version of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" was released as the lead single from the album, reaching the top of the charts in Finland, Ireland, Italy, and Norway. The second single, "Do Somethin'", was a top ten hit in Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries of mainland Europe. In August 2005, Spears released "Someday (I Will Understand)", which was dedicated to her first child, a son named Sean Preston, who was born the following month. In November 2005, she released her first remix compilation, ', which consists of 11 remixes. 2006–2007: Personal struggles and "Blackout". In February 2006, pictures surfaced of Spears driving with her son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat. Child advocates were horrified by the photos of her holding the wheel with one hand and Sean with the other. Spears attributed the situation to a frightening encounter with paparazzi, and that it was a mistake on her part. The following month, she guest-starred on the "Will & Grace" episode "Buy, Buy Baby" as closeted lesbian Amber-Louise. She announced she no longer studied Kabbalah in May 2006, explaining, "my baby is my religion". Spears posed nude for the August 2006 cover of "Harper's Bazaar"; the photograph was compared to Demi Moore's August 1991 "Vanity Fair" cover. In September 2006, she gave birth to her second son, Jayden James. In November 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline, citing irreconcilable differences. Their divorce was finalized in July 2007, when the two reached a global settlement and agreed to share joint custody of their sons. Spears' maternal aunt Sandra Bridges Covington, with whom she had been very close, died of ovarian cancer in January 2007. In February, Spears stayed in a drug rehabilitation facility in Antigua for less than a day. The following night, she shaved her head with electric clippers at a hair salon in Tarzana, Los Angeles. She admitted herself to other treatment facilities during the following weeks. In May 2007, she produced a series of promotional concerts at House of Blues venues, titled The M+M's Tour. In October 2007, Spears lost physical custody of her sons to Federline. The reasons of the court ruling were not revealed to the public. Spears was also sued by Louis Vuitton over her 2005 music video "Do Somethin'" for upholstering her Hummer interior in counterfeit Louis Vuitton cherry blossom fabric, which resulted in the video being banned on European TV stations. In October 2007, Spears released her fifth studio album, "Blackout". The album debuted atop the charts in Canada and Ireland, at number two in the U.S. "Billboard" 200, France, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and the top ten in Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and many European nations. In the United States, it was Spears' first album not to debut at number one, although, she did become the only female artist to have her first five studio albums debut at the two top slots of the chart. The album received positive reviews from critics and had sold 3.1 million copies worldwide by the end of 2008. "Blackout" won Album of the Year at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards and was listed as the fifth Best Pop Album of the Decade by "The Times". Spears performed the lead single, "Gimme More", at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance was widely panned by critics. Despite the criticism, the single enjoyed worldwide success, peaking at number one in Canada and within the top ten in almost every country it charted. The second single, "Piece of Me", reached the top of the charts in Ireland and reached the top five in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The third single, "Break the Ice", was released the following year, and respectively reached numbers seven and nine in Ireland and Canada. In December 2007, Spears began a relationship with paparazzo Adnan Ghalib. 2008–2010: Conservatorship and "Circus". In January 2008, Spears refused to relinquish custody of her sons to Federline's representatives. She was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after police that had arrived at her house noted she appeared to be under the influence of an unidentified substance. Her visitation rights were later suspended at an emergency court hearing, and Federline was given sole custody of their sons. She was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and put on 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold under California state law. She entered a conservatorship led by her father, Jamie Spears, and attorney Andrew Wallet, granting them complete control of her affairs. She was released five days later. The following month, Spears guest-starred on the "How I Met Your Mother" episode "Ten Sessions" as receptionist Abby. She received positive reviews for her performance, as well as bringing the series its highest ratings ever. In July 2008, Spears regained some visitation rights after coming to an agreement with Federline and his counsel. In September 2008, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with a pre-taped comedy sketch with Jonah Hill and an introduction speech. She won Best Female Video, Best Pop Video, and Video of the Year for "Piece of Me". A 60-minute introspective documentary, "", was produced to chronicle Spears' return to the recording industry. Directed by Phil Griffin, "For the Record" was shot in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and New York City during the third quarter of 2008. The documentary was broadcast on MTV to 5.6 million viewers for the two airings on the premiere night. It was the highest rating in its Sunday night timeslot and in the network's history. In December 2008, Spears' sixth studio album, "Circus", was released. It received positive reviews from critics and debuted at number one in Canada, Czech Republic, and the United States, and within the top ten in many European nations. In the United States, Spears became the youngest female artist to have five albums debut at number one, earning a place in "Guinness World Records". She also became the only act in the SoundScan era to have four albums debut with 500,000 or more copies sold. The album was one of the fastest-selling albums of the year, and has sold 4 million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Womanizer", became Spears' first chart-topper on the "Billboard" Hot 100 since "...Baby One More Time". The single also topped the charts in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, and Sweden. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. In January 2009, Spears and Jamie obtained a restraining order against her former manager Sam Lutfi, ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, and attorney Jon Eardley, who were accused of conspiring to gain control of Spears' affairs. Spears began The Circus Starring Britney Spears tour that March. With a gross of U.S. $131.8 million ($ in ), it became the fifth highest-grossing tour of the year. In November 2009, Spears released her second greatest hits album, "The Singles Collection". The album's lead and only single, "3", became her third number-one single in the U.S. In May 2010, Spears' representatives confirmed she was dating her agent, Jason Trawick, and that they had decided to end their professional relationship to focus on their personal relationship. Spears designed a limited edition clothing line for Candie's, which was released in stores in July 2010. In September 2010, she made a cameo appearance on a Spears-themed tribute episode of the television series "Glee", titled "Britney/Brittany"; the episode drew the highest Nielsen ratingup to that point in the series's runin the 18–49 demographic. 2011–2012: "Femme Fatale" and "The X Factor". In March 2011, Spears released her seventh studio album, "Femme Fatale". The album peaked at number one in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and within the top ten on nearly every other chart. Its peak in the United States tied Spears with Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson for the third-most number ones among women. "Femme Fatale" has been certified platinum by the RIAA and as of February 2014, it had sold 2.4 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Hold It Against Me", debuted atop the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Spears' fourth number-one single on the chart and making her the second artist in history to have two consecutive singles debut at number one, after Mariah Carey. The second single, "Till the World Ends", peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in May, while the third single, "I Wanna Go", reached number seven in August. "Femme Fatale" became Spears' first album in which three of its songs reached the top ten of the chart. The fourth and final single "Criminal" was released in September 2011. The music video sparked controversy when British politicians criticized Spears for using replica guns while filming the video in a London area that had been badly affected by the 2011 England riots. Spears' management briefly responded, stating, "The video is a fantasy story featuring Britney's boyfriend, Jason Trawick, which literally plays out the lyrics of a song written three years before the riots ever happened." In April 2011, Spears appeared in a remix of Rihanna's song "S&M". It reached number one in the US later that month, giving Spears her fifth number one on the chart. On "Billboard"s 2011 Year-End list, Spears was ranked number fourteen on the Artists of the Year, thirty-two on "Billboard" 200 artists, and ten on "Billboard" Hot 100 artists. Spears co-wrote "Whiplash", a song from the album "When the Sun Goes Down" (2011) by Selena Gomez & the Scene. In June 2011, Spears embarked on her Femme Fatale Tour. The first ten dates of the tour grossed $6.2 million ($ in ), peaking at number 55 on "Pollstar"s Top 100 North American Tours list for the half-way point of the year. The tour ended on December 10, 2011, in Puerto Rico, after 79 performances. A DVD of the tour was released in November 2011. In August 2011, Spears received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. The next month, she released her second remix album, "". In December 2011, Spears became engaged to Trawick. Trawick was legally granted a role as co-conservator, alongside Jamie, in April 2012. In May, Spears replaced Nicole Scherzinger as a judge for the second season of the American version of "The X Factor", joining Simon Cowell, L.A. Reid, and fellow new judge Demi Lovato, who replaced Paula Abdul. With a reported salary of $15 million ($ in ), she became the highest-paid judge on a singing competition series in television history. However, Katy Perry broke her record in 2018 after Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of "American Idol". Spears mentored the Teens category; her final contestant, Carly Rose Sonenclar, was named the runner-up of the season. After Spears decided not to return, Paulina Rubio was hired as her permanent replacement for the show's third and final season. That year, Spears was featured as a guest vocalist on will.i.am's "Scream & Shout", released as the third single from his fourth studio album, "#willpower" (2013). The song later became Spears' sixth number-one single on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Scream & Shout" was among the best-selling songs of 2012 and 2013 with denoting sales of over 8.1 million worldwide, the accompanying music video was the third most-viewed video in 2013 on Vevo despite the video being released in 2012. In December 2012, "Forbes" named her music's top-earning woman of 2012, with estimated earnings of $58 million ($ in ). 2013–2015: "Britney Jean" and Britney: Piece of Me. Spears began work on her eighth studio album, "Britney Jean", in December 2012, and enlisted will.i.am as its executive producer in May 2013. In January 2013, Spears and Jason Trawick ended their engagement. Trawick was also removed as Spears' co-conservator, restoring her father as the sole conservator. Following the breakup, she began dating David Lucado in March; the couple split in August 2014. During the production of "Britney Jean", Spears recorded the song "Ooh La La" for the soundtrack of "The Smurfs 2", which was released in June 2013. On September 17, 2013, she appeared on "Good Morning America" to announce her two-year concert residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, titled . It began on December 27, 2013, and included a total of 100 shows throughout 2014 and 2015. During the same appearance, Spears announced that "Britney Jean" would be released on December 3, 2013, in the United States. It was released through RCA Records due to the disbandment of Jive Records in 2011, which had formed the joint RCA/Jive Label Group (initially known as BMG Label Group) between 2007 and 2011. "Britney Jean" became Spears' final project under her original recording contract with Jive, which had guaranteed the release of eight studio albums. The record received a low amount of promotion and had little commercial impact, reportedly due to time conflicts involving preparations for Britney: Piece of Me. Upon its release, the record debuted at number four on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 107,000 copies, becoming her lowest-peaking and lowest-selling album in the United States. "Britney Jean" debuted at number 34 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 12,959 copies in its first week. In doing so, it became Spears' lowest-charting and lowest-selling album in the country. "Work Bitch" was released as the lead single from "Britney Jean" in September 2013. It debuted and peaked at number 12 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 marking Spears' 31st entry on the chart and the fifth highest debut of her career on the chart, and her seventh in the top 20. It also marked Spears' 19th top 20 entry and overall her 23rd top 40 single. The song marked Spears' highest sales debut since her 2011 number-one single "Hold It Against Me". "Work Bitch" debuted and peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart. The song also peaked within the top ten of the charts in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, and Spain. The second single, "Perfume", premiered in November 2013. It debuted and peaked at number 76 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100. In October 2013, she was featured as a guest vocalist on the song "SMS (Bangerz)" by Miley Cyrus, from the latter's fourth studio album, "Bangerz" (2013). On January 8, 2014, Spears won Favorite Pop Artist at the 40th People's Choice Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. In August 2014, Spears confirmed she had renewed her contract with RCA and that she was writing and recording new music for her next album. Spears announced via Twitter in August 2014 that she would be releasing an intimate apparel line called "The Intimate Britney Spears". It was available to be purchased beginning on September 9, 2014, in the United States and Canada through Spears' Intimate Collection website. It was later available on September 25 for purchase in Europe. The company now ships to over 200 countries including Australia and New Zealand. On September 25, 2014, Spears confirmed on "Good Morning Britain" that she extended her contract to perform her Britney: Piece of Me concert residency at Planet Hollywood Las Vegas for two additional years. Spears began dating television producer Charlie Ebersol in October 2014. The pair were split in June 2015. On May 14, 2015, Spears released a single, "Pretty Girls", with Iggy Azalea. It reached number 29 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and charted moderately in international territories. Spears and Azalea performed the track live at the 2015 "Billboard" Music Awards from The AXIS, the home of Spears' residency, to positive critical response. "Entertainment Weekly" praised the performance, noting "Spears gave one of her most energetic televised performances in years." On June 16, 2015, Giorgio Moroder released the album "Déjà Vu", which featured Spears on "Tom's Diner". The song was released as the fourth single from the album on October 9, 2015. In an interview, Moroder praised Spears' vocals and said she "sounds so good that you would hardly recognize her". At the 2015 Teen Choice Awards, Spears received the Candie's Style Icon Award, her ninth Teen Choice Award. In November 2015, Spears guest-starred as a fictionalized version of herself on the CW series "Jane the Virgin". On the show, she danced to "Toxic" with Gina Rodriguez's character. 2016–2018: "Glory", continued residency, and the Piece of Me Tour. In November 2015, Spears confirmed via social media that she had begun recording her ninth studio album. On March 1, 2016, "V" announced that Spears would appear on the cover of its 100th issue, dated March 8, 2016, in addition to revealing three different covers shot by photographer Mario Testino for the milestone publication. The "V" editor-in-chief, Stephen Gan, said Spears was selected because of her status as an icon in the industry, and asked: "Who in our world did not grow up listening to her music?" In May 2016, Spears launched a casual role-play gaming application, "". The app, created by Glu Mobile, was made available through both iOS and Google Play. On May 22, 2016, Spears performed a medley of her past singles at the 2016 "Billboard" Music Awards. In addition to opening the show, Spears was honored with the "Billboard" Millennium Award. On July 15, 2016, Spears released the lead single, "Make Me", from her ninth studio album, featuring guest vocals from American rapper G-Eazy. The album, "Glory", was formally released on August 26, 2016. On August 16, 2016, MTV and Spears announced that she would perform at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance marked Spears' first time returning to the VMA stage after her widely panned performance of "Gimme More" at the 2007 show nine years earlier. Along with "Make Me", Spears and G-Eazy also performed the latter's hit song "Me, Myself & I". Spears appeared on the cover of "Marie Claire" UK for the October 2016 issue. In the publication, Spears revealed that she had suffered from crippling anxiety in the past, and that motherhood played a major role in helping her overcome it. "My boys don't care if everything isn't perfect. They don't judge me", Spears said in the issue. In November 2016, during an interview with Las Vegas Blog, Spears confirmed she had already begun work on her next album, stating: "I'm not sure what I want the next album to sound like. ... I just know that I'm excited to get into the studio again and actually have already been back recording." In the same month, she released a remix version of "Slumber Party" as the second single from "Glory", featuring Tinashe. She began dating "Slumber Party"'s music video co-star Sam Asghari after the two met on set. In January 2017, Spears received four wins out of four nominations at the 43rd People's Choice Awards, including Favorite Pop Artist, Female Artist, Social Media Celebrity, as well as Comedic Collaboration for a skit with Ellen DeGeneres for "The Ellen DeGeneres Show". In March 2017, Spears announced that her residency concert would be performed abroad as a world tour, , with dates in select Asian cities. In April 2017, the Israeli Labor Party announced that it would reschedule its July primary election to avoid conflict with Spears' sold-out Tel Aviv concert, citing traffic, and security concerns. Spears' manager Larry Rudolph also announced the residency would not be extended following her contract expiration with Caesars Entertainment at the end of 2017. On April 29, 2017, Spears became the first recipient of the Icon Award at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards. On November 4, 2017, Spears attended the grand opening of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation Britney Spears Campus in Las Vegas. Later that month, "Forbes" announced that Spears was the 8th highest earning female musician, earning $34 million in 2017. On December 31, 2017, Spears performed the final show of Britney: Piece of Me. The final performance reportedly brought in $1.172 million, setting a new box office record for a single show in Las Vegas, and breaking the record previously held by Jennifer Lopez. Performances of "Toxic" and "Work Bitch" were recorded on earlier dates and aired on ABC's "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" to a record audience of 25.6 million. In January 2018, Spears released her 24th perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Sunset Fantasy, and announced the Piece of Me Tour which took place in July 2018 in North America and Europe. Tickets were sold out within minutes for major cities, and additional dates were added to meet the demand. Pitbull was the supporting act for the European leg. The tour ranked at 86 and 30 on "Pollstar"s 2018 Year-End Top 100 Tours chart both in North America and worldwide, respectively. In total, the tour grossed $54.3 million with 260,531 tickets sold and was the sixth highest-grossing female tour of 2018, and was the United Kingdom's second best-selling female tour of 2018. On March 20, 2018, Spears was announced as part of a campaign for French luxury fashion house Kenzo. The company said it aimed to shake up the 'jungle' world of fashion with Spears' 'La Collection Memento No. 2' campaign. On April 12, 2018, Spears was honored with the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community". On April 27, 2018, Epic Rights announced a new partnership with Spears to debut her own fashion line in 2019, which would include clothing, fitness apparel, accessories, and electronics. In July 2018, Spears released her first unisex fragrance, Prerogative. On October 18, 2018, Spears announced her second Las Vegas residency show, Britney: Domination, which was set to launch at Park MGM's Park Theatre on February 13, 2019. Spears was slated to make $507,000 ($ in ) per show, which would have made her the highest paid act on the Las Vegas Strip. On October 21, 2018, Spears performed at the Formula One Grand Prix in Austin, the final performance of her Piece of Me Tour. 2019–2021: Conservatorship dispute, #FreeBritney, and abuse allegations. On January 4, 2019, Spears announced an indefinite hiatus and the cancellation of her Las Vegas residency after her father, Jamie, suffered a near-fatal colon rupture. In March 2019, Andrew Wallet resigned as co-conservator of her estate after 11 years. Spears entered a psychiatric facility amidst stress from her father's illness that same month. The following month, a fan podcast, "Britney's Gram", released a voicemail message from a source who claimed to be a former member of Spears' legal team. They alleged that Jamie had canceled the residency due to Spears' refusal to take her medication, that he had been holding her in the facility against her will since January 2019 after she violated a no-driving rule, and that her conservatorship was supposed to have ended in 2009. The allegations gave rise to a movement to terminate the conservatorship, #FreeBritney, which received support from celebrities including singers Cher, Paris Hilton, and Miley Cyrus, and the nonprofit organization American Civil Liberties Union. On April 22, 2019, fans protested outside the West Hollywood City Hall and demanded Spears' release. Spears said "all [was] well" two days later and left the facility later that month. In a May 2019 hearing, Judge Brenda Penny ordered a professional evaluation of the conservatorship. In September, Spears' ex-husband Federline obtained a restraining order against Britney's father, Jamie, following an alleged physical altercation between Jamie and one of her sons. Spears' longtime care manager, Jodi Montgomery, temporarily replaced Jamie as her conservator that same month, which also saw a hearing where no decisions about the arrangement were reached. An interactive pop-up museum dedicated to Spears, dubbed "The Zone", opened in Los Angeles in February 2020, though it was later suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She released "Glory"s Japanese-exclusive bonus track, "Mood Ring" as a single, and debuted a new cover of the album to streaming and digital platforms worldwide in May 2020. In August, Jamie called the #FreeBritney movement "a joke" and its organizers "conspiracy theorists". On August 17, 2020, Spears' court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, submitted a court filing that documented Spears' desire to have her conservatorship altered to reflect her wishes as well as lifestyle, to instate Montgomery as her permanent conservator, and to replace Jamie with a fiduciary as conservator of her estate. Four days later, Penny extended the established arrangement until February 2021. In November 2020, Penny approved Bessemer Trust as co-conservator of Spears' estate alongside Jamie. The following month, Spears released a new deluxe edition of "Glory", which includes "Mood Ring" and new songs "Swimming in the Stars" and "Matches". A documentary about Spears' career and conservatorship, "Framing Britney Spears", premiered on FX in February 2021. Spears later revealed that she had seen parts of the documentary, stating that she felt humiliated by the perception of her that was presented and that she "cried for two weeks" following the initial broadcast. The following month, Ingham petitioned to permanently replace Jamie with Montgomery as Spears' conservator, citing a 2014 order that determined that she did not have the capacity to consent to any medical treatment. In June 2021, shortly before Spears was set to speak to the court, "The New York Times" obtained confidential court documents stating that Spears had pushed for years to end her conservatorship. Spears spoke to the court on June 23, calling the conservatorship "abusive". She said she had lied by "telling the whole world I'm OK and I'm happy", and that she was traumatized and angry. The court statement received widespread media coverage and generated over 1 million shares on Twitter, over 500,000 messages using the tag #FreeBritney, and more than 150,000 messages with a new hashtag referencing the court appearance, #BritneySpeaks. On July 1, Bessemer Trust asked to withdraw from the conservatorship, saying that they had been misled and had entered into the arrangement on the understanding that the conservatorship was voluntary. The same day, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey Jr. called on federal agencies to increase oversight of the country's conservatorship systems. Five days later, Spears' manager Larry Rudolph resigned, citing her "intention to officially retire" and on that same day, it was reported that Ingham planned to file documents to the court asking to be dismissed. In a July 14 hearing, Penny approved the resignations of Bessemer Trust and Ingham. The court also approved of Spears' request to hire Mathew Rosengart as her attorney. Rosengart informed the court that he would be working to terminate the conservatorship. Later that day, Spears publicly endorsed the #FreeBritney movement for the first time, using the hashtag in a caption on an Instagram post. She mentioned feeling "blessed" after earning "real representation", referring to Penny's decision to allow her to choose her own counsel. On July 26, Rosengart petitioned to replace Jamie with Jason Rubin, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) at Certified Strategies Inc. in Woodland Hills, California. On August 12, Jamie agreed to step down as conservator at some future date, with his lawyers stating that he wanted "an orderly transition to a new conservator". On September 7, Jamie petitioned to end the conservatorship. Five days later, Spears announced her engagement to her longtime boyfriend, Sam Asghari, through an Instagram post. After Penny replaced Jamie with accountant John Zabel as conservator on a temporary basis at the end of the month, she terminated conservatorship that November. 2022–present: Third marriage, "The Woman in Me", and retirement from singing. In April 2022, she announced her pregnancy with Asghari's child, which ended in a miscarriage the following month. The couple married on June 9 at her home in Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles. None of Spears' immediate family (including her parents, sister, and brother) were invited; her two sons did not attend. Spears' ex-husband, Jason Alexander, attempted to crash the wedding by breaking into her home, armed with a knife, but was arrested. A three-year restraining order was subsequently enacted. On August 26, Spears and English musician Elton John released the duet "Hold Me Closer", a remake of John's 1972 single "Tiny Dancer". It was Spears' first musical release since the termination of her conservatorship. "Hold Me Closer" debuted at number six on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming her 14th top-ten single and her highest-charting song in the chart since "Scream & Shout" (2012). It debuted at number three on the UK Singles Chart, earning Spears her 24th top-ten. Since the termination of her conservatorship, Spears' personal life, social media presence, and overall well-being have been subject to renewed media interest and fan speculation, giving rise to conspiracy theories. On January 24, 2023, deputies from the Ventura County Sheriff's Office performed a welfare check at Spears' residence after receiving several calls from fans who were concerned after she deleted her Instagram account. A spokesperson for the Sheriff's Department stated that Spears "was safe and in no danger". Spears addressed the incident on her Twitter account, asking fans to respect her privacy. Spears and the rapper will.i.am released their single, "Mind Your Business", on July 21, 2023. On August 16, it was announced Spears and Asghari separated after 14 months of marriage. On May 1, 2024, they reached a divorce settlement. The following day, the judge signed off on the settlement and the couple were divorced on December 2, 2024. In September 2023, an additional welfare check was initiated when Spears posted an Instagram video of herself dancing with knives. Her security team assured the attending officer that there was no immediate threat to her safety, and the officer departed. Spears also clarified that the knives were not real. After signing a $15 million book deal in February 2022 in one of the largest deals ever made, she published her first memoir, "The Woman in Me," in October 2023. It details her rise to fame, public media events, her conservatorship, and her newfound freedom. In the United States, it sold 1.1 million copies, while worldwide it sold 2.4 million copies in print sales during its first week of release. In January 2024, reports circulated that Charli XCX and Julia Michaels had been asked to write songs for Spears, and "Rolling Stone" reported that "management and A&R are trying to get her excited for the music". Spears denied the reports, saying she would never return to the music industry. However, she also said that she had written more than 20 songs for other artists in the previous two years. In May 2024, Charli XCX confirmed in an interview that she was indeed asked to write for Spears, for which she traveled to Malibu, but that she did not know if Spears was a part of the process explaining that "the team were present... But she didn't record it. She obviously didn't." Artistry. Influences. Spears has cited Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston as major influences, her "three favorite artists" as a child, whom she would "sing along to ... day and night in [her] living room"; Houston's "I Have Nothing" was the song she auditioned to that landed her record deal with Jive Records. Spears also named Mariah Carey as "one of the main reasons I started singing". Throughout her career, Spears has drawn frequent comparisons to Madonna and Jackson in particular, in terms of vocals, choreography, and stage presence. According to Spears: "I know when I was younger, I looked up to people ... like, you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major inspirations for me. But I also had my own identity and I knew who I was." In the 2002 book "Madonnastyle" by Carol Clerk, she is quoted saying: "I have been a huge fan of Madonna since I was a little girl. She's the person that I've really looked up to. I would really, really like to be a legend like Madonna." Spears cited "That's the Way Love Goes" as the inspiration for her song "Touch of My Hand" from her album "In the Zone", saying "I like to compare it to 'That's the Way Love Goes,' kind of a Janet Jackson thing." She also said her song "Just Luv Me" from her "Glory" album also reminded her of "That's the Way Love Goes". After meeting Spears face to face, Janet Jackson stated: "she said to me, 'I'm such a big fan; I really admire you.' That's so flattering. Everyone gets inspiration from some place. And it's awesome to see someone else coming up who's dancing and singing, and seeing how all these kids relate to her. A lot of people put it down, but what she does is a positive thing." Madonna said of Spears in the documentary "": "I admire her talent as an artist ... There are aspects about her that I recognize in myself when I first started out in my career". Spears has also named Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Otis Redding, Shania Twain, Brandy, Beyoncé, Natalie Imbruglia, Cher, and Prince as inspirations, and younger artists such as Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande. Musical style. Spears is described as a pop artist and generally explores the genre in the form of Following her debut, she was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s. Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" wrote: "Spears carries on the classic archetype of the rock & roll teen queen, the dungaree doll, the angel baby who just has to make a scene." In a review of "...Baby One More Time", Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described her music as a "blend of infectious, rap-inflected dance-pop and smooth balladry". "Oops!... I Did It Again" saw Spears working with several R&B producers to create "a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga". Her third studio album, "Britney", derived from the teen pop niche "[r]hythmically and melodically", but was described as "sharper, tougher than what came before", incorporating genres such as R&B, disco, and funk. Spears has explored and heavily incorporated the genres of electropop and dance music in her records, as well as influences of urban and hip hop, which are most present on "In the Zone" and "Blackout". "In the Zone" also experiments with Euro trance, reggae, and Middle Eastern music. "Femme Fatale" and "Britney Jean" were also heavily influenced by electronic music genres. Spears' ninth studio album, "Glory", is more eclectic and experimental than her previous released work. She commented that it "took a lot of time ... it's really different ... there are like two or three songs that go in the direction of more urban that I've wanted to do for a long time now, and I just haven't really done that." "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again" address themes such as love and relationships from a teenager's point of view. Following the massive commercial success of her first two studio albums, Spears' team and producers wanted to maintain the formula that took her to the top of the charts. Spears, however, was no longer satisfied with the sound and themes covered on her records. She co-wrote five songs and choose each track's producer on her third studio album, "Britney", which lyrics address the subjects of reaching adulthood, sexuality, and self-discovery. Sex, dancing, freedom, and love continued to be Spears' music main subjects on her subsequent albums. Her fifth studio effort, "Blackout", also addresses issues such as fame and media scrutiny, including on the song "Piece of Me". Spears' music has also been noted for some catchphrases. The opening in her debut single "...Baby One More Time", "Oh, baby baby" is considered to be one of her signature lines and has been parodied in the media by various artists such as Nicole Scherzinger and Ariana Grande. It has been used in variating forms throughout her music, such as simply, "baby" and "oh baby", as well as the "Blackout" track, "Ooh Ooh Baby". On the initial development of "...Baby One More Time", Barry Weiss noted Spears' inception of the catchphrase from her strange ad-libbing during the recording of the song. He commented further, "We thought it was really weird at first. It was strange. It was not the way Max wrote it. But it worked! We thought it could be a really good opening salvo for her." The opening line in "Gimme More", "It's Britney, bitch" has become another signature phrase. An early review of "Blackout" suggested the phrase was "simply laughable". Amy Roberts of "Bustle" called it "an indelible cultural turning point, transforming a frenetic, floundering moment in the superstar's career to one of strength and empowerment". Voice. Spears is a soprano. Other sources state that she possesses a contralto vocal range. Prior to her breakthrough success, she is described as having sung "much deeper than her highly recognizable trademark voice of today", with Eric Foster White, who worked with Spears on her debut album, "...Baby One More Time", was said to have shaped her vocals "over the course of a month" upon being signed to Jive Records "to where it is today—distinctively, unmistakably Britney". Rami Yacoub, who co-produced Spears' debut album with lyricist Max Martin, commented, "I know from Denniz Pop and Max's previous productions, when we do songs, there's kind of a nasal thing. With N' Sync and the Backstreet Boys, we had to push for that mid-nasal voice. When Britney did that, she got this kind of raspy, sexy voice." Guy Blackman of "The Age" wrote that "[t]he thing about Spears, though, is that her biggest songs, no matter how committee-created or impossibly polished, have always been convincing because of her delivery, her commitment and her presence. ... Spears expresses perfectly the conflicting urges of adolescence, the tension between chastity and sexual experience, between hedonism and responsibility, between confidence and vulnerability." Producer William Orbit, who worked with Spears on her album "Britney Jean", stated regarding her vocals: "[Britney] didn't get so big just because [she] put on great shows; [she] got to be that way because [her voice is] unique: you hear two words and you know who is singing". Spears has also been criticized for her reliance on Auto-Tune and her vocals being "over-processed" on records. Erlewine criticized Spears' singing abilities in a review of her "Blackout" album, stating: "Never the greatest vocalist, her thin squawk could be dismissed early in her career as an adolescent learning the ropes, but nearly a decade later her singing hasn't gotten any better, even if the studio tools to masquerade her weaknesses have." Joan Anderman of "The Boston Globe" remarked that "Spears sounds robotic, nearly inhuman, on her records, so processed is her voice by digital pitch-shifters and synthesizers." Kayla Upadhyaya of "The Michigan Daily" has provided a different point of view, stating: "Auto-tuned and over-processed vocals define [Spears]'s voice as an artist, and in her music, auto-tune isn't so much a gimmick as it is an instrument used to highlight, contort and make a statement." Adam Markovitz of "Entertainment Weekly" opines that "Spears is no technical singer, that's for sure. But backed by Martin and Dr. Luke's wall of sound, her vocals melt into a mix of babytalk coo and coital panting that is, in its own overprocessed way, just as iconic and propulsive as Michael Jackson's yips or Eminem's snarls." Stage performances and videos. Spears is known for her stage performances, particularly the elaborate dance routines which incorporate "belly-dancing and tempered erotic moves" that are credited with influencing "dance-heavy acts" such as Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls. "Rolling Stone" readers voted Spears their second-favorite dancing musician. Spears is described as being much more shy than her stage persona suggests. She said that performing is "a boost to [her] confidence. It's like an alter-ego type thing. Something clicks and I go and turn into this different person. I think it's kind of a gift to be able to do that." Her 2000, 2001, and 2003 MTV Video Music Awards performances were lauded, while her 2007 presentation was widely panned by critics, as she "teetered through her dance steps and mouthed only occasional words". "Billboard" called her 2016 "comeback" performance at the show "an effective, but not entirely glorious, bid to regain pop superstardom". After her knee injuries and personal problems, Spears' "showmanship" and dance abilities came under criticism. Serge F. Kovaleski of "The New York Times" watched her in 2016 and stated: "Once a fluid, natural dancer, Ms. Spears can appear stiff, even robotic, today, relying on flailing arms and flashy sets." "Las Vegas Sun"s Robin Leach seemed more impressed over Spears' efforts on the concert by saying that she delivered a "flawless performance" on the residency's opening night. It has been widely reported that Spears lip-syncs during live performances, which often prompts criticism from music critics and concert goers. Some, however, claimed that, although she "got plenty of digital support", she "doesn't merely lip-sync" during her live shows. In 2016, Sabrina Weiss of Refinery29 referred to her lip-syncing as a "well-known fact that's not even taboo anymore." Noting on the prevalence of lip-syncing, the "Los Angeles Daily News" opined: "In the context of a Britney Spears concert, does it really matter? ... you [just] go for the somewhat-ridiculous spectacle of it all". Spears herself has commented on the topic, arguing: "Because I'm dancing so much, I do have a little bit of playback, but there's a mixture of my voice and the playback. ... It really pisses me off because I'm busting my ass out there and singing at the same time and nobody ever gives me credit for it". In 2012, VH1 ranked Spears as the fourth Greatest Woman of the Video Era, while "Billboard" ranked her as the eight Greatest Music Video Artist of All Time in 2020, explaining: "The storylines, the dancing, the "outfits". Right from the start, the pop princess established the lengths of her creativity with some of the most memorable videos of the last three decades." She has been retroactively noted as the pioneer for her early career videography. She conceptualized the "iconic Catholic schoolgirl and cheerleader motif" in the "...Baby One More Time" video, rejecting the animation video idea. She also made the "Oops!... I Did It Again" video "dance-centric rather than space-centric as her producers suggested". She also used her dancer's intuition to help select the beats for each track. Public image. Upon launching her music career with "...Baby One More Time", Spears was labeled a teen idol, and "Rolling Stone" described her as "the latest model of a classic product: the unneurotic pop star who performs her duties with vaudevillian pluck and spokesmodel charm." The April 1999 cover of "Rolling Stone" pictured a 17-year-old Spears reclining on a bed, wearing an exposed bra and hot pants while cradling a Teletubby in one arm. The American Family Association (AFA) decried the image as "a disturbing mix of childhood innocence and adult sexuality" and called on "God-loving Americans to boycott stores selling Britney's albums". Spears addressed the outcry, commenting: "What's the big deal? I have strong morals. ... I'd do it again. I thought the pictures were fine. And I was tired of being compared to Debbie Gibson and all of this bubblegum pop all the time." Shortly before this, Spears had announced publicly she would remain abstinent until marriage. An early criticism of Spears dismissed her as "the product of a Swedish songwriting factory that had no real hand in either her music or her persona". "Vox" editor Constance Grady wrote this was perpetuated from the fact that Spears debuted in the late 1990s, when music was dominated by rockism, that prizes "so-called authenticity and grittiness of rock above all else". Spears' "slick, breezy pop was an affront to rockist sensibilities, and claiming that Spears was fake was an easy way to dismiss her." Ron Levy for "Rolling Stone" noted that "I have to tell you, if the record company could have created more than one Britney Spears, they would have done it, and they tried!" "Billboard" opined that, by the time Spears released her second album, "Oops!... I Did It Again", "There was a shift occurring in both the music and her public image: She was sharper, sexier and singing about more grown-up fare, setting the stage for 2001's "Britney", which shed her innocent skin and ushered her into adulthood." "Britney"s lead single, "I'm a Slave 4 U", and its music video were also credited for distancing her from her previous "wholesome bubblegum star" image. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic remarked, "If 2001's "Britney" was a transitional album, capturing Spears at the point when she wasn't a girl and not yet a woman, its 2003 follow-up, "In the Zone", is where she has finally completed that journey and turned into Britney, the Adult Woman." Erlewine likened Spears to fellow singer Christina Aguilera, explaining that both equated "maturity with transparent sexuality and the pounding sounds of nightclubs". Brittany Spanos of "LA Weekly" stated that Spears "set the bar for the 'adulthood' transition teen pop stars often struggle with". Spears' erratic behavior and personal problems during 2006–2008 were highly publicized and affected both her career and public image. Erlewine writes that "each new disaster [was] stripping away any residual sexiness in her public image". In a 2008 article, "Rolling Stone"s Vanessa Grigoriadis described her much-publicized personal issues as "the most public downfall of any star in history". Spears later received favorable media attention; "Billboard" wrote that her appearance at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards "was a picture of professionalism and poise" after her "disastrous" performance the previous year, while "Business Insider" ran an article on how she had "lost control of her life ... and then made an incredible career comeback". In 2017, Spears said: "I think I had to give myself more breaks through my career and take responsibility for my mental health. ... I wrote back then, that I was lost and didn't know what to do with myself. I was trying to please everyone around me because that's who I am deep inside. There are moments where I look back and think: 'What the hell was I thinking?'" In September 2002, Spears was placed at number eight on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists list. She was placed at number one on "FHM"s 100 Sexiest Women in the World list in 2004, and, in December 2012, "Complex" ranked her 12th on its 100 Hottest Female Singers of All Time list. Remarking upon her perceived image as a sex symbol, Spears stated: "When I'm on stage, that's my time to do my thing and go there and be that and it's fun. It's exhilarating just to be something that you're not. And people tend to believe it." In 2003, "People" cited her as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People. Spears is recognized as a gay icon and received the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community". She addressed the "unwavering loyalty" and "lack of judgment" of her LGBTQ fans in "Billboard"s Love Letters to the LGBTQ Community. She said: "Your stories are what inspire me, bring me joy, and make me and my sons strive to be better people." Manuel Betancourt of "Vice" wrote about the "queer adoration", especially of gay men, on Spears, and said that "Where other gay icons exude self-possession, Spears' fragile resilience has made her an even more fascinating role model, closer to Judy Garland than to Lady Gaga ... she's a glittering mirror ball, a fractured reflection of those men on the dance floor back onto themselves." "HuffPost"s Ben Appel attributed Spears' status as a gay icon to her "oh-so-innocent/not that innocent" Monroe-like sensuality, her sweet, almost saccharine nature, her beyond basic but addictive pop songs, her dance moves, her phoenix-out-of-the-fire comeback from a series of mental health crises, and her unmistakable tenderness. "Britney is camp. She is a fashion plate. A doll. Britney is a drag queen." Since her early years in the public eye, Spears has been a tabloid fixture and a paparazzi target. According to "Vanity Fair", photos of Spears sold for a combined value of $100 million in 2007. Harvey Levin, the founder of "TMZ", said in an interview, "Britney is gold. She is crack to our readers. Her life is a complete train-wreck, and I thank God for her every day." Steve Huey of AllMusic remarked that "among female singers of [Spears'] era ... her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez." 'Britney Spears' was Yahoo!'s most popular search term between 2005 and 2008, and has been in a total of seven different years. Spears was named as Most Searched Person in the "Guinness World Records" book edition 2007 and 2009. She was later named as the most searched person of the decade 2000–2009. As a public figure, Spears "has never been known to her fans as a politically active, committed—or even aware—entertainer." In a 2003 interview with Tucker Carlson, she commented on President George W. Bush and the Iraq War, saying that "we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes ... and be faithful in what happens". Michael Moore included the footage of Spears' answer in his "anti-Bush" documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11", which, according to "The Washington Times"s James Frazier, presented her "as an example of a naive American blindly trusting a dishonest commander in chief" and fueled the "urban legend" of a "conservative" Spears. Frazier also said that "the few positions she has taken can hardly be considered conservative", such as supporting same-sex marriage. In 2016, Spears posted pictures of a meeting with Hillary Clinton on social media. She described Clinton as "an inspiration and [a] beautiful voice for women around the world". In December 2017, Spears publicly showed support for the DREAM Act in the wake of the announcement that Donald Trump would end the DACA policy, which previously granted undocumented immigrants who came to the country as minors a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation. She posted a photo of herself on social media wearing a black T-shirt that reads "We Are All Dreamers" in white letters. The caption read, "Tell Congress to pass the #DreamAct". On September 15, 2021, Spears was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 by "Time." A few days before the editors's list was released, Spears was put at the top of the readers voting list of which personalities should be included on the annual "Time" 100 list. Deemed an icon of 2021, editors highlighted the impact of her fight against her conservatorship as well as of the #FreeBritney movement. In October 2021, Spears thanked her fans and the #FreeBritney movement for "freeing me from my conservatorship". Britney Spears was also named most famous celebrity from Louisiana according to a study done by Baton Rouge. Legacy. Referred to as the "Princess of Pop", Spears was credited as one of the "driving force[s] behind the return of teen pop in the late 1990s". "Rolling Stone"s Stacy Lambe explained that she "help[ed] to usher in a new era for the genre that had gone dormant in the decade that followed New Kids on the Block. ... Spears would lead an army of pop stars ... built on slick Max Martin productions, plenty of sexual innuendo and dance-heavy performances. [She became] one of the most successful artists of all time—and a cautionary tale for a generation, whether they paid attention or not." In a 2021 article for "Time", Maura Johnston opined that "Spears' legacy as a pop artist is complex, made up of dazzling musical heights and music-business-borne lows". Johnston also commented: "While Spears' catalog is part of the canon that defines the first 20 years of this millennium, one hopes that her public struggles, and the strength she's shown while enduring them, will lead to her cementing her true legacy: Reshaping the machine that turns those songs into cultural touchstones." "Glamour" contributor Christopher Rosa described her as "one of pop music's defining voices. ... When she emerged onto the scene in 1998 with "...Baby One More Time", the world hadn't seen a performer like her. Not since Madonna had a female artist affected the genre so profoundly." "Billboard"s Robert Kelly observed that Spears' "sexy and coy" vocals on her debut single "...Baby One More Time" "kicked off a new era of pop vocal stylings that would influence countless artists to come". In 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked the song at number one on a list of the 100 Greatest Debut Singles of All Time and Rob Sheffield described it as "One of those pop manifestos that announces a new sound, a new era, a new century. But most of all, a new star ... With "...Baby One More Time", [Spears] changed the sound of pop forever: It's Britney, bitch. Nothing was ever the same." Spears was at the forefront of the female teen pop explosion starting in 1999 and extending through the 2000s, leading the pack of Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore. All of these performers had been developing material in 1998, but the market changed dramatically in December 1998 when Spears' single and video were charting highly. RCA Records quickly signed Aguilera and released her debut single to capitalize on Spears' success, producing her debut hit single "Genie in a Bottle". Simpson consciously modeled her persona as more mature than Spears; her "I Wanna Love You Forever" charted in September 1999, and her album "Sweet Kisses" followed shortly after. Moore's first single, "Candy", hit the airwaves a month before Simpson's single, but it did not perform as well on the charts; Moore was often seen as less accomplished than Spears and the others, coming in fourth of the "pop princesses". Fueling media stories about their competition for first place, Spears and Aguilera traded barbs but also compliments through the 2000s. Alim Kheraj of "Dazed" called Spears "one of pop's most important pioneers". After eighteen years as a performer, "Billboard" described her as having "earned her title as one of pop's reigning queens. Since her early days as a Mouseketeer, [Spears] has pushed the boundaries of 21st century sounds, paving the way for a generation of artists to shamelessly embrace glossy pop and redefine how one can accrue consistent success in the music industry." "Entertainment Weekly"s Adam Markovitz described Spears as "an American institution, as deeply sacred and messed up as pro wrestling or the filibuster." In 2012, she was ranked as the fourth VH1's 50 Greatest Women of the Video Era show list. VH1 also cited her among its choices on the 100 Greatest Women in Music in 2012 and the 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons in 2003. In 2020, "Billboard" ranked her eight on its 100 Greatest Music Video Artists of all-time list. She was later ranked at number six on the magazine's 2024 Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century list and number 14 on its 2025 "Top 100 Women Artists of the 21st Century" list. Spears and her work have influenced various artists including Katy Perry, Meghan Trainor, Demi Lovato, Kelly Key, Kristinia DeBarge, Little Boots, Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Marina Diamandis, the Weeknd, Tegan and Sara, Pixie Lott, Grimes, Selena Gomez, Hailee Steinfeld, Pabllo Vittar, Tinashe, Victoria Justice, Cassie, Leah Wellbaum of Slothrust, the Saturdays, Normani, Miley Cyrus, Cheryl, Lana Del Rey, Ava Max, Sam Smith, and Rina Sawayama. During the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga said that Spears "taught us all how to be fearless, and the industry wouldn't be the same without her." Gaga has also cited Spears as an influence, calling her "the most provocative performer of my time". Before Spears joined "The X Factor", Simon Cowell explained that he is "fascinated by [Britney]. The fact that she's one of the most talked about – not just pop stars – but people in the world today, means that you've got this star power. ... She's still hot, she's still having hit records and she's still controversial, there's a reason for that." Marina Diamandis named Spears as the main influence behind her album "Electra Heart". Lana Del Rey said that the music video for "Toxic" inspires her. Porcelain Black describes her music as a "love child" of Spears and Marilyn Manson. Rita Ora's 2019 music video for "Only Want You" was inspired by Spears' "Everytime" music video, and said in a stories from Instagram, "Hey @britneyspears this was for you because I love you so. Pay homage to the ones who inspire! #icon." Spears has been credited with redefining Las Vegas residencies as a retirement place for musicians. Her debut concert residency was described as "the natural evolution of Celine Dion's powerhourse Vegas residency, a still-charting star of another generation redefining the role of Strip headliner." "Forbes" named Spears the sixth-highest-earning female musician of 2015." She is credited with influencing and paving the way for other artists's residencies such as Jennifer Lopez's , Bruno Mars's Bruno Mars at Park MGM, and Backstreet Boys' . The arrival of Spears "saw the pop promoters finally tap into the younger crowd arriving in town for a good time". Spears' much-publicized personal problems and her subsequent career comeback have inspired some artists. Gwyneth Paltrow's character in the 2010 film "Country Strong" was inspired by Spears' treatment by the media. According to film director Shana Fest, "that's where this movie came from. I mean, I was seeing what was happening in the media to Britney Spears. I think it's tragic how we treat people who give us so much, and we love to see them knocked down to build them back up again, to knock them down again." Nicki Minaj has cited Spears' comeback after her much-publicized personal issues as an inspiration. Spears' hounding by paparazzi and personal problems also inspired Barry Manilow's album "15 Minutes". Manilow said: "She couldn't have a life without them pulling up next to her car and following her and driving her crazy to the point where, that was around the time she shaved off her hair. ... We all looked at it in horror ... So it seemed like a thing to be writing an album about." Bebo Norman wrote a song about Spears, called "Britney", which was inspired by "culture's make-or-break treatment of celebrities". Along with Alicia Silverstone, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell, Spears has been credited with introducing the navel piercing to mainstream culture. Achievements. Spears' awards and accolades include a Grammy Award; 15 Guinness World Records; six MTV Video Music Awards, including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award; seven "Billboard" Music Awards, including the Millennium Award; the inaugural Radio Disney Icon Award; the GLAAD Media Award's Vanguard Award; and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Spears is listed by the "Guinness World Records" as having the "Best-selling album by a teenage solo artist" for her debut studio album, "...Baby One More Time", which sold over 13 million copies in the United States. Melissa Ruggieri of the "Richmond Times-Dispatch" reported: "She's also marked for being the best-selling teenage artist. Before she turned 20 in 2001, Spears had sold over 37 million albums worldwide". , according to the "Evening Standard", Spears has sold over 150 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She also sold more than 70 million records in United States, including 36.9 million digital singles and 33.6 million digital albums. Spears is further recognized as the best-selling female albums artist of the 2000s in the United States, as well as the fifth overall. In December 2009, "Billboard" ranked Spears the 8th Artist of the 2000s decade in the United States. She is one of the few artists in history to have had a number-one single and a number-one studio album in the US during each of the three decades of her career. With "3" in 2009 and "Hold It Against Me" in 2011, she became the second artist after Mariah Carey in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one with two or more songs. In 2016, Spears ranked at number twenty on "Billboard"s Greatest Of All Time Top Dance Club Artists list. Other ventures. Product and endorsements. In 2000, Spears released a limited edition of sunglasses titled Shades of Britney. In 2001, she signed a deal with shoe company Skechers, and a $7–8 million promotional deal with Pepsi, their biggest entertainment deal at the time. Aside from numerous commercials with the latter during that year, she also appeared in a 2004 Pepsi television commercial in the theme of "Gladiators" with singers Beyoncé, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. On June 19, 2002, she released her first multi-platform video game, "Britney's Dance Beat", which received positive reviews. In March 2009, Spears was announced as the new face of clothing brand Candie's. Dari Marder, chief marketing officer for the brand, said: "Everybody loves a comeback and nobody's doing it better than Britney. She's just poised for even greater success." In 2010, Spears designed a limited edition line for the brand, which was released in stores in July 2010. In 2011, she teamed up with Sony, Make Up For Ever, and Plenty of Fish to release her music video for "Hold It Against Me", earning her $500,000 for the product placement. Spears also teamed up with Hasbro in 2012 to release an exclusive version of "Twister Dance", which includes a remix of "Till the World Ends". She was also featured on a commercial, which was directed by Ray Kay, to promote the game. Spears was also featured on the commercial of "Twister Dance Rave", and the game included a Twister remix of "Circus". In March 2018, it was revealed that Spears would be the face of Kenzo, a contemporary French luxury clothing house. Spears' range of commercial deals and products also includes beauty care products and perfumes. She released her first perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Curious in 2004, which broke the company's first-week gross for a perfume. By 2009, she had released seven more perfumes including Fantasy. In 2010, Spears released her eighth fragrance, Radiance. In 2011, Radiance was reissued as a new perfume titled Cosmic Radiance. Worldwide, Spears sold over one million bottles in the first five years, with gross receipts of $1.5 billion. In 2016, Spears contacted Glu Mobile to create her own role-playing game, "". The app officially launched in May 2016 and is compatible with iOS and Android. On June 17, 2016, Spears announced the release of her twentieth fragrance, Private Show. , Spears has released 24 fragrances through Elizabeth Arden. Philanthropy. Spears founded The Britney Spears Foundation, a charitable entity set up to help children in need. The philosophy behind the Foundation was that music and entertainment has a healing quality that can benefit children. The Foundation also supported the annual Britney Spears Camp for the Performing Arts, where campers had the opportunity to explore and develop their talents. In April 2002, through the efforts of Spears and The Britney Spears Foundation, a grant of $1 million was made to the Twin Towers Fund to support the children of uniformed service heroes affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including New York City Fire Department and its Emergency Medical Services Command, the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York State Office of court Administration and other government offices. However, it was reported in 2008 that the Foundation had a deficit of $200,000 ($ in ). After Spears went through conservatorship, her father and lawyer Andrew Wallet zeroed out the effort, leading to its closure in 2011. On October 30, 2001, Spears, alongside Bono and other popular recording artists under the name "Artists Against AIDS Worldwide", released an album consisting of multiple versions of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", intending to benefit AIDS programs in Africa and other impoverished regions. In 2005, Spears donated $350,000 to Music Rising for Hurricane Katrina victims. Spears has also helped several charities during her career, including Madonna's Kabbalah-based Spirituality for Kids, cancer charity Gilda's Club Worldwide, Promises Foundation, and United Way, with the latter two focused on giving families from various disadvantaged situations new hope and stable foundations for the future. On October 24, 2015, Spears donated $120,000 to the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation. In addition, $1 of each ticket sale for her Las Vegas residency, Britney: Piece of Me, was donated to the nonprofit organization. Spears also fundraised for the charity through social media, in addition to selling limited edition merchandise, with all proceeds going to the NCCF. On October 27, 2016, Spears partnered with Zappos and XCYCLE to host the "Britney Spears Piece of Me Charity Ride" in Boca Park, Las Vegas to raise additional money toward her goal of $1 million for the NCCF, with $450,000 having already been raised from Spears' ticket sales and merchandise. Participants were entered for a chance to win a spin class with Spears herself. The event ultimately went on to raise $553,130. The fundraising ultimately led to the development of the NCCF Britney Spears Campus in Las Vegas, which saw its grand opening on November 4, 2017. Spears also regularly participates in Spirit Day to combat bullying of LGBTQ youth and bullying. In March 2020, Spears was participating in the #DoYourPartChallenge, which entails helping people with anything they might need during the COVID-19 pandemic. She told fans to send her messages on Instagram if they need supportive words during the coronavirus pandemic, with Spears picking three fans. In February 2024, Spears partnered with New York City dessert shop Glace, to create the "Britney Brûlée" dessert, with a portion of the proceeds from its sales being donated to The Trevor Project.
3383	43263260	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3383	Brazil	Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is also the world's fifth-largest country by area and the seventh-largest by population, with over 212 million people. The country is a federation composed of 26 states and a Federal District, which hosts the capital, Brasília. Its most populous city is São Paulo, followed by Rio de Janeiro. Brazil has the most Portuguese speakers in the world and is the only country in the Americas where Portuguese is an official language. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of . Covering roughly half of South America's land area, it borders all other countries and territories on the continent except Ecuador and Chile. Brazil encompasses a wide range of tropical and subtropical landscapes, as well as wetlands, savannas, plateaus, and low mountains. It contains most of the Amazon basin, including the world’s largest river system and most extensive virgin tropical forest. Brazil has diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats. The country ranks first among 17 megadiverse countries, with its natural heritage being the subject of significant global interest, as environmental degradation (through processes such as deforestation) directly affect global issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Brazil was inhabited by various indigenous peoples prior to the landing of Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. It was claimed and settled by Portugal, which imported enslaved Africans to work on plantations. Brazil remained a colony until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of a united kingdom with Portugal after the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro. Prince Pedro of Braganza declared the country's independence in 1822, establishing the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Brazil's first constitution in 1824 established a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress, and enshrined principles such as freedom of religion and the press, but retained slavery, which was gradually abolished throughout the 19th century until its final abolition in 1888. Brazil became a presidential republic following a military coup d'état in 1889. An armed revolution in 1930 put an end to the First Republic and brought Getúlio Vargas to power. While initially committing to democratic governance, Vargas assumed dictatorial powers following a self-coup in 1937, marking the beginning of the Estado Novo. Democracy was restored after Vargas' ousting in 1945. An authoritarian military dictatorship emerged in 1964 with support from the United States and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, enacted in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. Brazil is a regional and middle power and rising global power. It is an emerging, upper-middle income economy and newly industrialized country, with one of the 10 largest economies in the world in both nominal and PPP terms, the largest economy in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest share of wealth in South America. With a complex and highly diversified economy, Brazil is one of the world's major or primary exporters of various agricultural goods, mineral resources, and manufactured products. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, G4, Mercosur, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries; it is also an observer state of the Arab League and a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Etymology. The word "Brazil" probably comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called "pau-brasil", with the word "brasil" commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from "brasa" ('ember') and the suffix "-il" (from "-iculum" or "-ilium"). It has alternatively been suggested that this is a folk etymology for a word for the plant related to an Arabic or Asian word for a red plant. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods. The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" ("Terra da Santa Cruz"), but European sailors and merchants commonly called it the "Land of Brazil" ("Terra do Brasil") because of the brazilwood trade. Popular usage eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, Brazil is called "Pindorama", meaning "land of the palm trees". History. Pre-Cabraline era. Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais, and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to over 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from AD 400 to 1400, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of present day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people, mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The population comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g., the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês, and Arawaks). The Tupi people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs. These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war. While heredity had some weight, leadership was a status more won over time than assigned in succession ceremonies and conventions. Slavery among the indigenous groups had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations. Portuguese colonization. Following the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral. The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several ethnic societies, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family and fought among themselves. Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous captaincies. However, the decentralized and unorganized captaincy system proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America. In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other. By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export, while slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa in the slave market of Western Africa (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import, to cope with sugarcane plantations, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar. Brazil received more than 2.8 million slaves from Africa between the years 1500 and 1800. By the end of the 17th century, sugar exports began to decline and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a gold rush which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world. This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers. Portuguese expeditions known as "bandeiras" gradually expanded Brazil's original colonial frontiers in South America to its approximately current borders. In this era, other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union. The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares, and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Gerais Conspiracy. Elevation to kingdom. In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent John, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil's ports to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the conquest of French Guiana. With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent John return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state. However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of the court to Lisbon (see Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto, John VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil. Independent empire. Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony. The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to side with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822. A month later, Prince Pedro was proclaimed the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the founding of the Empire of Brazil. The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in the Cisplatina province. The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824; Portugal officially recognized Brazilian independence on 29 August 1825. On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberals and conservatives, including an attempt of republican secession and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I departed for Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown after abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (Dom Pedro II). As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the General Assembly. In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará, the Malê Revolt in Salvador, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the provinces' dissatisfaction with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state. This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841. During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1850, as a result of the British Aberdeen Act and the Eusébio de Queirós Law, but only in May 1888, after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished with the approval of the Golden Law. The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues pertaining Brazil's neighboring countries in the Southern Cone. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in the independence of Uruguay, Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II: the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history. Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government, on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of the Imperial Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites, the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup. A few days later, the national flag was replaced with a new design that included the national motto "Ordem e Progresso", influenced by positivism. 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday. Early republic. The early republican government was a military dictatorship, with the army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power. Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930. In this first republican period, Brazil maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries, only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918), followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations; Internally, from the crisis of "Encilhamento" and the Navy Revolts, a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian and military. Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the Revolution of 1930. Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed down Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with his own supporters. In the 1930s, three attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power failed. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by São Paulo's oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a "putsch" attempt by local fascists in May 1938. The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which Congress transferred more power to the executive branch. The 1937 "coup d'état" resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election and formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era. During this period, government brutality and censorship of the press increased. During World War II, Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country suffered retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic, and, therefore, entered the war on the allied side. In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign. With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas' position became untenable, and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy reinstated by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier. Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950. Several brief interim governments followed Vargas' suicide. Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory stance towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises. The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably, but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960. Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office. His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military dictatorship. Military dictatorship. The new regime was intended to be transitory, but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968. Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society, inside and outside the country through "Operation Condor". Like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as the "economic miracle", the Brazilian military dictatorship reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s. Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas. The inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure made a redemocratization policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva. With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s. Contemporary era. Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime. Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, who was subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992. Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso as Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso devised a highly successful Plano Real that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy. Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998. The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability. However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil in the middle of the first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010 and again in 2014 by narrow margins. Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016, halfway into her second term, and replaced by her vice-president Michel Temer, who assumed full presidential powers after Rousseff's impeachment was accepted on 31 August. Large street protests for and against her took place during the impeachment process. The charges against her were fueled by political and economic crises along with evidence of involvement with politicians from all the primary political parties. In 2017, the Supreme Court requested the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers of President Michel Temer's cabinet who were allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal. President Temer himself was also accused of corruption. In the fiercely disputed 2018 elections, the controversial conservative candidate Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party (PSL) was elected president, winning in the second round against Fernando Haddad, of the Workers Party (PT), with the support of 55.13% of the valid votes. In the early 2020s, Brazil became one of the hardest hit countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, receiving the second-highest death toll worldwide after the United States. In May 2021, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that he would run for a third term in the 2022 Brazilian general election against Bolsonaro. In October 2022, Lula was in first place in the first round, with 48.43% of the support from the electorate, and received 50.90% of the votes in the second round. On 8 January 2023, a week after Lula's inauguration, a mob of Bolsonaro's supporters attacked Brazil's federal government buildings in the capital, Brasília, after several weeks of unrest. Geography. Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior, sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile. The Brazilian territory also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, and the islands of Trindade and Martim Vaz. Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse. Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W. Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of , including of water. Brazil is also the longest country in the world, spanning 4,395 km (2,731 mi) from North to South, and the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands. Climate. The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical. According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil. In Brazil, forest cover is around 59% of the total land area, equivalent to 496,619,600 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 588,898,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 485,396,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 11,223,600 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest, 44% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity) and around 30% of the forest area was found within protected areas. For 2015, 56% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership and 44% private ownership. Many regions have starkly different microclimates. An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls. Temperatures average , with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons. Over central Brazil, rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate. This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude. In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme. South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year. The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding ; winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas. The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than of rain, most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought. Brazil's 1877–78 "Grande Seca" (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history, caused approximately half a million deaths. A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915. In 2024, for the first time, "a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast". It is the strongest drought in Brazil since the beginning of measurement in the 1950s, covering almost 60% of the country's territory. The drought is linked to deforestation and climate change. Climate change in Brazil is causing higher temperatures and longer-lasting heatwaves, changing precipitation patterns, more intense wildfires and heightened fire risk. Brazil's hydropower, agriculture and urban water supplies will be affected. Brazil's rainforests, and the Amazon, are particularly at risk to climate change. At worst, large areas of the Amazon River basin could turn into savannah, with severe consequences for global climate and local livelihoods. Extreme weather events like droughts and flash floods are causing annual losses of around R$13 billion (US$2.6 billion), equivalent to 0.1% of the country's 2022 GDP. Climate impacts could exacerbate poverty. Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions per person are higher than the global average, and Brazil is among the top 10 highest emitting countries. Greenhouse gas emissions by Brazil are over 4% of the annual world total. In 2024 Brazil revised its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), setting a goal to cut greenhouse emissions by 59% to 67% compared to 2005 levels by 2035. It has an indicative target of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 if the country receives 10 billion dollars per year. Topography and hydrography. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between and in elevation. The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country. The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills. The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to . These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar. In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at , and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean. Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic. Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's largest in terms of water volume), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers. Biodiversity and conservation. The wildlife of Brazil comprises all naturally occurring animals, plants, and fungi in the South American country. Home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest, which accounts for approximately one-tenth of all species in the world, Brazil is considered to have the greatest biodiversity of any country on the planet, containing over 70% of all animal and plant species catalogued. Brazil has the most known species of plants (55,000), freshwater fish (3,000) and mammals (over 689). It also ranks third on the list of countries with the most bird species (1,832) and second with the most reptile species (744). The number of fungal species is unknown but is large. Brazil is second only to Indonesia as the country with the most endemic species. Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world, with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado sustaining the greatest biodiversity. In the south, the Araucaria moist forests grow under temperate conditions. The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates. Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rainforests. More than one-fifth of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has been completely destroyed, and more than 70 mammals are endangered. The threat of extinction comes from several sources, including deforestation and poaching. Extinction is even more problematic in the Atlantic Forest, where nearly 93% of the forest has been cleared. Of the 202 endangered animals in Brazil, 171 are in the Atlantic Forest. The Amazon rainforest has been under direct threat of deforestation since the 1970s because of rapid economic and demographic expansion. Extensive legal and illegal logging destroy forests the size of a small country per year, and with it a diverse series of species through habitat destruction and habitat fragmentation. Since 1970, over of the Amazon rainforest have been cleared by logging. In 2017, preserved native vegetation occupied 61% of the Brazilian territory. Agriculture occupied only 8% of the national territory and pastures 19.7%. For comparison, in 2019, although 43% of the entire European continent has forests, only 3% of the total forest area in Europe is of native forest. Brazil has a strong interest in conservation, as its agriculture sector directly depends on its forests. Government and politics. The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system. The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term, with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The president appoints the Ministers of State, who form the cabinet and assist in government. Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. In 2021, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index categorized Brazil as a "flawed democracy", ranking 46th in the report, and Freedom House classified it as a free country at "Freedom in the World" report. According to the Regimes of the World classification Brazil was an electoral democracy in year 2024. The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities. The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles: sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution. The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres. All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected. For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, with proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70. The country has around 30 registered political parties. Twenty political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly. Law. Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases. Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams. The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules. , there have been 124 amendments. The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution. Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (), which act in a similar way to constitutions. Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms. Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments. There are also specialized military, labor and electoral courts. Military. The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment. The country was considered the 11th largest military power on the planet in 2025. It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation) and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually. The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 crewed aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel. Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel, the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks. The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are designated as auxiliary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor. Brazil's navy once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two dreadnoughts, sparking a naval arms race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast. , it is the only navy in Latin America that operates a helicopter carrier, NAM "Atlântico" and one of twelve navies in the world to operate or have one under construction. Foreign policy. Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations. According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy. Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power. Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries. Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations. An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries. Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels. Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year. In addition, Brazil already managed a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million). The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India. The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting". Law enforcement and crime. In Brazil, the Constitution establishes six different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Federal, District and State Penal Police (included by the Constitutional Amendment No. 104, of 2019), Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities, the last two are subordinate to state governments and the Penal Police can be subordinated to the federal or state/district government. All police forces are overseen by the executive branch of the federal or state government. The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country. The country has high levels of violent crime, such as gun violence and homicides. In 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated an intentional homicide rate of 21.1 per 100,000 inhabitants. The number considered acceptable by the World Health Organization (WHO) is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2024, Brazil recorded 38,772 homicides, down from 40,768 in 2023, and from a record 63,880 in 2017. Homicide rates vary regionally. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2023 was 6.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, in Amapá it was 57.4 per 100,000 inhabitants. The national homicide rate for 2024 was 17.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest in over a decade. Brazil also has high levels of incarceration. It had the third largest prison population in the world of approximately 909,067 prisoners in 2024, which put it only behind the United States (1,808,100) and China (1,690,000). The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations. Human rights. Same-sex couples in Brazil have held nationwide marriage rights since May 2013. Political subdivisions. Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5,571 municipalities. States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in other federal states such as the United States. Criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country. Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the federal and state government. Each has an elected mayor and legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called "comarca". Brazil's constitution also provides for the creation of federal territories, which are administrative divisions directly controlled by the federal government. However, there are currently no federal territories in the country, as the 1988 Constitution abolished the last three: Amapá and Roraima (which gained statehood) and Fernando de Noronha, which became a state district of Pernambuco. Economy. Brazil is a developing country with an upper-middle income mixed market economy that is rich in natural resources. It has the largest national economy in Latin America, the tenth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and the eighth largest by PPP. After rapid growth in preceding decades, Brazil entered a recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests; in 2024, the economy began showing consistent significant growth. Brazil has a labor force of roughly 100 million, which is the world's fifth largest. Its foreign exchange reserves are the tenth-highest in the world. The B3 in São Paulo is the largest stock exchange of Latin America by market capitalization. Roughly one-fifth of Brazilians live in poverty: about 3.8% of the total population lives at $3.00 a day, while about 23% live at $8.30 a day. Brazil's economy suffers from endemic corruption and high income inequality. The Brazilian real is the national currency. Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry and a wide range of services. The large service sector accounts for about 72.7% of total GDP, followed by the industrial sector (20.7%), while the agriculture sector is by far the smallest, making up 6.6% of total GDP. Brazil is one of the largest producers of various agricultural commodities, and also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country. It has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and is the world's largest producer of sugarcane, soy, coffee and oranges; is one of the top fve producers of maize, cotton, lemon, tobacco, pineapple, banana, beans, coconut, watermelon and papaya; and is one of the top 10 world producers of cocoa, cashew, mango, rice, tomato, sorghum, tangerine, avocado, persimmon, and guava, among others. Regarding livestock, it is one of the five largest producers of chicken meat, beef, pork and cow's milk in the world. In the mining sector, Brazil is among the largest producers of iron ore, copper, gold, bauxite, manganese, tin, niobium, and nickel. In terms of precious stones, Brazil is the world's largest producer of amethyst, topaz, agate and one of the main producers of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine, garnet and opal. The country is a major exporter of soy, iron ore, pulp (cellulose), maize, beef, chicken meat, soybean meal, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, orange juice, footwear, airplanes, cars, vehicle parts, gold, ethanol and semi-finished iron, among other products. Brazil is the world's 24th-largest exporter and 26th-largest importer . China is its largest trading partner, accounting for 32% of the total trade. Other large trading partners include the United States, Argentina, the Netherlands and Canada. Its automotive industry is the eighth-largest in the world. In the food industry, Brazil was the second-largest exporter of processed foods in the world in 2019. The country was the second-largest producer of pulp in the world and the eighth-largest producer of paper in 2016. In the footwear industry, Brazil was the fourth-largest producer in 2019. It was also the ninth-largest producer of steel in the world. In 2018, the chemical industry of Brazil was the eighth-largest in the world. Although it was among the five largest world producers in 2013, Brazil's textile industry is very little integrated into world trade. The tertiary sector (trade and services) represented 75.8% of the country's GDP in 2018, according to the IBGE. The service sector was responsible for 60% of GDP and trade for 13%. It covers commerce, transport, education, social and health services, research and development, sports activities, etc. Micro and small businesses represent 30% of the country's GDP. In the commercial sector they represent 53% of the GDP within the activities of the sector. Tourism. Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economies of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico. Revenues from international tourists reached billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis. Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and billion in receipts were reached in 2011. In the list of world tourist destinations, in 2018, Brazil was the 48th most visited country, with 6.6 million tourists (and revenues of 5.9 billion dollars). Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo. In terms of the 2024 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 26th place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States. Domestic tourism is a key market segment for the tourism industry in Brazil. In 2005, 51 million Brazilian nationals made ten times more trips than foreign tourists and spent five times more money than their international counterparts. The main destination states in 2023 were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul. The main source of tourists for the entire country is São Paulo state. In terms of tourism revenues, the top earners by state were São Paulo and Bahia. For 2005, the three main trip purposes were visiting friends and family (53.1%), sun and beach (40.8%), and cultural tourism (12.5%). Science and technology. Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies. Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the National Institute for Space Research. The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites. The country develops submarines and aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere to integrate a team building the well-known International Space Station (ISS). The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves. Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% of its electricity from hydroelectricity) and the country's first nuclear submarine is expected to be launched in 2029. Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC. According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009–2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology. Brazil was ranked 50th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, up from 66th in 2019. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont, Evaristo Conrado Engelberg, Manuel Dias de Abreu, Andreas Pavel and Nélio José Nicolai. Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of "Pi Meson"), Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil), José Leite Lopes (the only Brazilian physicist holder of the "UNESCO Science Prize"), Artur Avila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal) and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin). Energy. Brazil is the world's eleventh-largest energy consumer. Much of its energy comes from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation, and the country has other large plants such as Belo Monte and Tucuruí. The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005. At the end of 2021 Brazil was the 2nd country in the world in terms of installed hydroelectric power (109.4 GW) and biomass (15.8 GW), the 7th country in the world in terms of installed wind power (21.1 GW) and the 14th country in the world in terms of installed solar power (13.0 GW)—on track to also become one of the top 10 in the world in solar energy. At the end of 2024, Brazil was the 4th largest producer of wind energy in the world (107.8 TWh), behind only China, the United States and Germany, and the 5th largest producer of solar energy in the world (74.7 TWh). The main characteristic of the Brazilian energy matrix is that it is much more renewable than that of the world. While in 2019, the world matrix was only 14% made up of renewable energy, Brazil's was at 45%. Petroleum and oil products made up 34.3% of the matrix; sugar cane derivatives, 18%; hydraulic energy, 12.4%; natural gas, 12.2%; firewood and charcoal, 8.8%; varied renewable energies, 7%; mineral coal, 5.3%; nuclear, 1.4%, and other non-renewable energies, 0.6%. In the electric energy matrix, the difference between Brazil and the world is even greater: while the world only had 25% of renewable electric energy in 2019, Brazil had 83%. The Brazilian electric matrix was composed of: hydraulic energy, 64.9%; biomass, 8.4%; wind energy, 8.6%; solar energy, 1%; natural gas, 9.3%; oil products, 2%; nuclear, 2.5%; coal and derivatives, 3.3%. Brazil has the largest electricity sector in Latin America. Its capacity at the end of 2021 was 181,532 MW. The Brazilian government has embarked on a program over the decades to reduce dependence on imported oil, which previously accounted for more than 70% of the country's oil needs. Brazil became self-sufficient in oil in 2006–2007. In 2021, the country closed the year as the 7th oil producer in the world, with an average of close to three million barrels per day, becoming an exporter of the product. Transportation. Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled in 2019. The total of paved roads increased from in 1967 to in 2018. Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The country's total railway track length was in 2015, as compared with in 1970, making it the ninth largest network in the world. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Network Corporation (RFFSA), which was privatized in 2007. The São Paulo Metro began operating on 14 September 1974 as the first underground transit system in Brazil. There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second-largest number in the world, after the United States. São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 43 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country. For freight transport, waterways are of importance. The industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway ( in length, with a minimum depth of ). The country also has of waterways. Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important. Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced; container ships take 36.3 hours on average. Demographics. According to the latest official projection, Brazil's estimated population was 210,862,983 on July 1, 2022—an adjustment of 3.9% from the initial figure of 203 million reported by the 2022 census. The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million (), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1 and 83.75% of the population defined as urban. The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeast (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeast (53.5 million inhabitants), while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants. The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478. From 1880 to 1930, four million Europeans arrived. Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years and to 72.6 years in 2007. It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050 thus completing the demographic transition. In 2022, the illiteracy rate was roughly 7%, a significant decline from 11.48% in 2008. By comparison, in 1940, more than half the population (54%) was illiterate. Race and ethnicity. According to the 2022 Brazilian census, 45.3% of the population (92.1 million) described themselves as Pardo (meaning brown or multiracial), 43.5% (88.2 million) as White, 10.2% (20.7 million) as Black, 0.6% (1.2 million) as Indigenous and 0.4% (850,000) as East Asian (officially called "yellow" or "amarela"). Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country: From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, English, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, African, Armenian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arab origin. Brazil has the second-largest Jewish community in both Latin America after Argentina making up 0.06% of its population. Outside of the Arab world, Brazil also has the largest population of Arab ancestry in the world, with 15–20 million people. According to Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil is home to a Lebanese diaspora of 7 million to 10 million, surpassing the population of Lebanese individuals residing in Lebanon. Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism often overlap. The brown population (officially called "pardo" in Portuguese) is a broad category that includes "caboclos" (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), "mulatos" (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and "cafuzos" (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives). Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba and also in northern Maranhão, southern Minas Gerais and eastern Rio de Janeiro. People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions. In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world. Religion. Christianity is the country's predominant faith, with Catholicism being its largest denomination. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population. According to the 2022 demographic census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 56.75% of the population followed Catholicism; 26.85% Protestantism; 1.84% Kardecist spiritism; 5.06% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 9.28% had no religion. Religious diversity in Brazil developed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities. Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century, and the Protestant community had grown to include over 22% of the population by 2010—partly due to a mixture of American missionary and government influence. The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition. In recent decades, Protestantism, particularly in forms of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics had dropped significantly during the 2010s. As they have spread throughout Brazil, many have even been deeply involved in Brazilian and international politics, and Evangelical Protestant influence has been implicated in the 2022 Brazilian coup plot. Since 2022, Evangelicals and Catholics have begun reconsidering religion as a political factor. After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, having exceeded 8% of the population according to the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country. Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively. In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. Health. The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System ("Sistema Único de Saúde" – SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government, being the largest system of this type in the world. On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role. Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2021, Brazil had 2.1 doctors and 2.5 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants. Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health issues in Brazil. In 2023, infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (197.3 deaths per 100,000 births) were still high. The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country. The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000. Education. The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education. According to the IBGE, the literacy rate was 93.4% in 2019, meaning that 11.3 million (6.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country, with some states such as Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina reaching around 97% of literacy rate; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population. Illiteracy is higher in the Northeast, where 13.87% of the population is illiterate, while the South, has 3.3% of its population illiterate. Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts. The University of São Paulo is often considered the best in Brazil and Latin America. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian; most are public. Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students. Language. The official language of Brazil is Portuguese (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors. Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only. As a result, the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English. The 2002 sign language law requires government authorities and public agencies to accept and provide information in "Língua Brasileira dos Sinais" or "LIBRAS", the Brazilian Sign Language, while a 2005 presidential edict extends this to require teaching of the language as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people. Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered creole language with Tupi lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil), Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese. There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language. Talian is officially a historic heritage of Rio Grande do Sul, and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities. Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in Santa Teresa and Vila Velha, in the state of Espírito Santo. Urbanization. According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte—all in the Southeastern Region—with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina. Culture. The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, due to its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire. Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. Brazilian culture was also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions. Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries. The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion. Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century) to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s. Architecture. The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time, when Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil. It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries. In the 19th century, during the time of the Empire of Brazil, the country followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then, in the 20th century, especially in Brasília, Brazil experimented with modernist architecture. The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century, when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture, which included churches and civic architecture, including houses and forts, in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During the 19th century, Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil, such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage. In the 1950s modernist architecture was introduced when Brasília was built as a new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style. Music. The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European, Native Indigenous, and African elements. Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with an influence of Viennese classicism. The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments. Popular music since the late eighteenth century, samba was considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list. Samba-reggae, Maracatu, Frevo and Afoxê are four music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals. Capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music. Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil. Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri, argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle. Choro is a popular musical instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. The style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint. Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. The phrase "bossa nova" means literally 'new trend'. A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s. Some international Brazilian music artists are, for example: Carmen Miranda, Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Sérgio Mendes, Eumir Deodato, Sepultura, and Olodum. Literature. Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pero Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers. Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism—novelists such as Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels "O Guarani", "Iracema" and "Ubirajara". Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide. Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Modern Art Week in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature, while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets such as João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects such as Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira. Brazil's most significant literary award is the Camões Prize, which it shares with the rest of the Portuguese-speaking world. As of 2016, Brazil has eleven recipients of the prize. Brazil also holds its own literary academy, the Brazilian Academy of Letters, a non-profit cultural organization aimed at perpetuating the care of the national language and literature. Cinema. The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as "Rio the Magnificent" were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city. The films "Limite" (1931) and "Ganga Bruta" (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time. The 1941 unfinished film "It's All True" was divided into four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo. During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo César Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Glauber Rocha's films "Black God, White Devil" (1964) and "Entranced Earth" (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history. Rocha won the Prix de la mise en scène at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival for "Antonio das Mortes" and the 1977 Special Jury Prize for Best Short Film for "Di". During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as "O Quatrilho" (Fábio Barreto, 1995), "O Que É Isso, Companheiro?" (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and "Central do Brasil" (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film "City of God", directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival. The film "I'm Still Here", directed by Walter Salles, was nominated for Best Actress (Torres) and Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards, and won Best International Feature Film, becoming the first-ever Brazilian produced film to win an Academy Award. The film "The Secret Agent" had its world premiere at the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2025, where it won the Best Actor prize for Wagner Moura, the Best Director prize for Mendonça and the FIPRESCI Prize. It received further widespread critical acclaim. Visual arts. Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century, influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art. The French Artistic Mission arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists such as Jean-Baptiste Debret. Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Modern Art Week broke with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manoel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Júnior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Candido Portinari (modernism). Theatre. The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion, when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, dramatists on the scene of European derivation were for court or private performances. During the 19th century, the playwrights Antônio Gonçalves Dias and Luís Carlos Martins Pena were known for their performance. There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas such as "Il Guarany". At the end of the 19th century, orchestrated dramaturgias were accompanied with songs of famous artists such as the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga. Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies. In 1940, Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the "Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia", renewed the Brazilian theater. From the 1960s, it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna. Cuisine. Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences. Some of the most well known Brazilian foods are the feijoada, considered the country's national dish; and churrasco, a kind of barbecue which is often served in rodízio style. Other regional foods include beijú, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine). The national beverage is coffee; cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha. A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg. Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants. Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); and empada (pastry), little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm. Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and Romeu e Julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé de moleque. Local common fruits such as açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream. Media. The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent John. The , the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808. The largest newspapers nowadays are , "O Globo", and "O Estado de S. Paulo". Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Epitácio Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of the "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro". Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand. Since then, television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. By the mid-1960s, Brazilian universities had installed mainframe computers from IBM and Burroughs Large Systems. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Brazilian government restricted foreign imports to protect the local manufacturing of computers. In the 1980s, Brazil produced half of the computers sold in the country. By 2009, the mobile phone and Internet use in Brazil was the fifth largest in the world. In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries. Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional. Sports. The most popular sport in Brazil is football. The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times. Volleyball, basketball, auto racing and martial arts also has large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times. The country has also produced significant achievements in other sports such as sailing, swimming, tennis, surfing, skateboarding, MMA, gymnastics, boxing, judo, athletics and table tennis. Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football, futsal (indoor football) and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira, Vale tudo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, such as the 1950 FIFA World Cup, and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup, 2019 Copa América and 2021 Copa América . The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil. São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007. On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles. External links. "Government"
3385	35995251	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3385	Black Forest	The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is the source of the Danube and Neckar rivers. Its highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of above sea level. Roughly oblong in shape, with a length of and breadth of up to , it has an area of about . Historically, the area was known for forestry and the mining of ore deposits, but tourism has now become the primary industry, accounting for around 300,000 jobs. There are several ruined military fortifications dating back to the 17th century. History. In ancient times, the Black Forest was known as , after the Celtic deity Abnoba. In Roman times (Late antiquity), it was given the name ("Marcynian Forest", from the Germanic word "marka", "border"). The Black Forest probably represented the border area of the Marcomanni ("border people") who were settled east of the Roman . They, in turn, were part of the Germanic tribe of Suebi, who subsequently gave their name to the historic state of Swabia. With the exception of Roman settlements on the perimeter (e.g. the baths in Badenweiler, and mines near Badenweiler and Sulzburg) and the construction of the Roman road of Kinzigtalstraße, the colonization of the Black Forest was not carried out by the Romans but by the Alemanni. They settled and first colonized the valleys, crossing the old settlement boundary, the so-called "red sandstone border", for example, from the region of Baar. Soon afterwards, increasingly higher areas and adjacent forests were colonized, so that by the end of the 10th century, the first settlements could be found in the red (bunter) sandstone region. These include, for example, Rötenbach, which was first mentioned in 819. Some of the uprisings (including the Bundschuh movement) that preceded the 16th century German Peasants' War, originated in the Black Forest. Further peasant unrest, in the shape of the saltpetre uprisings, took place over the next two centuries in Hotzenwald. Remnants of military fortifications dating from the 17th and 18th centuries can be found in the Black Forest, especially on the mountain passes. Examples include the multiple baroque fieldworks of Margrave Louis William of Baden-Baden or individual defensive positions such as the Alexanderschanze (Alexander's Redoubt), the Röschenschanze and the Schwedenschanze (Swedish Redoubt). Originally, the Black Forest was a mixed forest of deciduous trees and firs. At the higher elevations spruce also grew. In the middle of the 19th century, the Black Forest was almost completely deforested by intensive forestry and was subsequently replanted, mostly with spruce monocultures. In 1990, extensive damage to the forest was caused by a series of windstorms. On 26 December 1999, Cyclone Lothar raged across the Black Forest and caused even greater damage, especially to the spruce monocultures. As had happened following the 1990 storms, large quantities of fallen logs were kept in provisional wet-storage areas for years. The effects of the storm are demonstrated by the Lothar Path, a forest educational and adventure trail at the nature centre in Ruhestein on a highland timber forest of about 10 hectares that was destroyed by a hurricane. Several areas of storm damage, both large and small, were left to nature and have developed today into a natural mixed forest again. Geography. The Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain (which, from a natural region perspective, also includes the low chain of foothills); in the east it transitions to the Gäu, Baar and hill country west of the Klettgau. From north to south, the Black Forest extends for over , attaining a width of up to in the south and in the north. The Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands, and much of it is densely wooded, a fragment of the Hercynian Forest of antiquity. Administratively, the Black Forest belongs completely to the state of Baden-Württemberg and comprises the cities of Freiburg, Pforzheim and Baden-Baden as well as the following districts ("Kreise"). In the north: Enz, Rastatt and Calw; in the middle: Freudenstadt, Ortenaukreis and Rottweil; in the south: Emmendingen, Schwarzwald-Baar, Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Lörrach and Waldshut. Natural regions. The natural regions of the Black Forest are separated by various features. Geomorphologically, the main division is between the gentle eastern slopes with their mostly rounded hills and broad plateaux (so-called Danubian relief, especially prominent in the north and east on the Bunter Sandstone) and the deeply incised, steeply falling terrain in the west that drops into the Upper Rhine Graben; the so-called Valley Black Forest ("") with its Rhenanian relief. It is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height (of up to 1000 metres) are found. The valleys are often narrow and ravine-like. The summits are rounded, and there are remnants of plateaux and -like landforms. Geologically the clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The exposed basement in the west, predominantly made up of metamorphic rocks and granites, was, despite its rugged topography, easier to settle and appears much more open and inviting today with its varied meadow valleys. The most common way of dividing the regions of the Black Forest is, however, from north to south. Until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley. Later the Black Forest was divided into the heavily forested Northern Black Forest, the lower, central section, predominantly used for agriculture in the valleys, was the Central Black Forest and the much higher Southern Black Forest with its distinctive highland economy and ice age glacial relief. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South and southern Central Black Forest. The boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Central Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz and Kinzig tributary of the Gutach. A pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. Based on that, the Central Black Forest is bounded by the Kinzig in the north and the line from Dreisam to Gutach in the south, corresponding to the Bonndorf Graben zone and the course of the present day B 31. In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed a modified tripartite division, which combined natural and cultural regional approaches and was widely used. His Central Black Forest is bounded in the north by the watershed between the Acher and Rench and subsequently between the Murg and Kinzig or Forbach and Kinzig, in the south by the Bonndorf Graben zone, which restricts the Black Forest in the east as does the Freudenstadt Graben further north by its transition into the Northern Black Forest. Work of the Institute of Applied Geography. The Handbook of the Natural Region Divisions of Germany published by the Federal Office of Regional Geography ("") since the early 1950s names the Black Forest as one of six tertiary-level major landscape regions within the secondary-level region of the South German Scarplands and, at the same time, one of nine new major landscape unit groups. It is divided into six so-called major units (level 4 landscapes). This division was refined and modified in several successor publications (1:200,000 individual map sheets) up to 1967, each covering individual sections of the map. The mountain range was also divided into three regions. The northern boundary of the Central Black Forest in this classification runs south of the Rench Valley and the Kniebis to near Freudenstadt. Its southern boundary varied with each edition. In 1998, the Baden-Württemberg State Department for Environmental Protection (today the Baden-Württemberg State Department for the Environment, Survey and Nature Conservation) published a reworked Natural Region Division of Baden-Württemberg. It is restricted to the level of the natural regional major units and has been used since for the state's administration of nature conservation: The Black Forest Foothills ("", 150) geomorphologically form plateaux on the north and northeast periphery of the mountain range that descend to the Kraichgau in the north and the Heckengäu landscapes in the east. They are incised by valleys, especially those of the Nagold river system, into individual interfluves; a narrow northwestern finger extends to beyond the Enz near Neuenbürg and also borders the middle reaches of the Alb to the west as far as a point immediately above Ettlingen. To the southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest Grinden and Enz Hills (, 151), along the upper reaches of the Enz and Murg, forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. The west of the Northern Black Forest is formed by the Northern Black Forest Valleys (, 152) with the middle reaches of the Murg around Gernsbach, the middle course of the Oos to Baden-Baden, the middle reaches of the Bühlot above Bühls and the upper reaches of the Rench around Oppenau. Their exit valleys from the mountain range are all oriented towards the northwest. The Central Black Forest (153) is mainly restricted to the catchment area of the River Kinzig above Offenburg as well as the Schutter and the low hills north of the Elz. The Southeastern Black Forest (, 154) consists mainly of the catchment areas of the upper reaches of the Danube headstreams, the Brigach and Breg as well as the left side valleys of the Wutach north of Neustadt – and thus draining from the northeast of the Southern Black Forest. To the south and west it is adjoined by the High Black Forest (, 155) with the highest summits in the whole range around the Feldberg and the Belchen. Its eastern part, the Southern Black Forest Plateau, is oriented towards the Danube, but drained over the Wutach and the Alb into the Rhine. The southern crest of the Black Forest in the west is deeply incised by the Rhine into numerous ridges. Immediately right of the Wiese above Lörrach rises the relatively small Bunter Sandstone-Rotliegendes table of the Weintenau Uplands () in the extreme southwest of the Black Forest; morphologically, geologically and climatically it is separate from the other parts of the Southern Black Forest and, in this classification, is also counted as part of the High Black Forest. Mountains. At the Feldberg in the Southern Black Forest is the range's highest summit. Also in the same area are the Herzogenhorn (1,415 m) and the Belchen (1,414 m). In general the mountains of the Southern or High Black Forest are higher than those in the Northern Black Forest. The highest Black Forest peak north of the Freiburg–Höllental–Neustadt line is the Kandel (1,241.4 m). Like the highest point of the Northern Black Forest, the Hornisgrinde (1,163 m), or the Southern Black Forest lookout mountains, the Schauinsland (1,284.4 m) and Blauen (1,164.7 m) it lies near the western rim of the range. Rivers and lakes. Rivers in the Black Forest include the Danube (which originates in the Black Forest as the confluence of the Brigach and Breg rivers), the Enz, the Kinzig, the Murg, the Nagold, the Neckar, the Rench, and the Wiese. The Black Forest occupies part of the continental divide between the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin (drained by the Rhine) and the Black Sea drainage basin (drained by the Danube). The longest Black Forest rivers are (length includes stretches outside the Black Forest): Important lakes of natural, glacial origin in the Black Forest include the Titisee, the Mummelsee and the Feldsee. Especially in the Northern Black Forest are a number of other, smaller tarns. Numerous reservoirs like the – formerly natural but much smaller – Schluchsee with the other lakes of the "Schluchseewerk", the Schwarzenbach Reservoir, the Kleine Kinzig Reservoir or the Nagold Reservoir are used for electricity generation, flood protection or drinking water supply. Geology. The Black Forest consists of a cover of sandstone on top of a core of gneiss and granite. Formerly it shared tectonic evolution with the nearby Vosges Mountains. Later during the Middle Eocene a rifting period affected the area and caused formation of the Upper Rhine Plain. During the last glacial period of the Würm glaciation, the Black Forest was covered by glaciers; several tarns (or lakes) such as the Mummelsee are remains of this period. Basement. The geological foundation of the Black Forest is formed by the crystalline bedrock of the Variscan basement. This is covered in the east and northeast by Bunter Sandstone slabs, the so-called platforms. On the western edge a descending, step-fault-like, foothill zone borders the Upper Rhine Graben consisting of rocks of the Triassic and Jurassic periods. The dominant rocks of the basement are gneiss (ortho- and paragneisses, in the south also migmatites and diatexites, for example on the Schauinsland and Kandel). These gneisses were penetrated by a number of granitic bodies during the Carboniferous period. Among the bigger ones are the Triberg Granite and the Forbach Granite, the youngest is the Bärhalde Granite. In the south lies the zone of Badenweiler-Lenzkirch, in which Palaeozoic rocks have been preserved (volcanite and sedimentary rocks), which are interpreted as the intercalated remains of a microcontinental collision. Still further in the southeast (around Todtmoos) is a range of exotic inclusions: gabbro from Ehrsberg, serpentinites and pyroxenites near Todtmoos, norite near Horbach), which are possibly the remnants of an accretionary wedge from a continental collision. Also noteworthy are the basins in the Rotliegend, for example the Schramberg or the Baden-Baden Basin with thick quartz-porphyry and tuff plates (exposed, for example, on the rock massif of Battert near Baden-Baden). Thick rock, covered by bunter, also occurs in the north of the Dinkelberg block (several hundred metres thick in the Basel geothermal borehole). Even further to the southeast, under the Jura, lies the North Swiss Permocarboniferous Basin. Uplift of the mountains. Since the downfaulting of the Upper Rhine Graben during the Eocene epoch, the two shoulders on either side have been uplifted: the Black Forest to the east and the Vosges to the west. In the centre lies the Kaiserstuhl volcano, which dates to the Miocene. In the times that followed, the Mesozoic platform on the uplands was largely eroded, apart from remains of Bunter Sandstone and Rotliegend Group, but it has survived within the graben itself. During the Pliocene a pronounced but uneven bulge especially affected the southern Black Forest, including the Feldberg. As a result, the upper surface of the basement in the northern part of the forest around the Hornisgrinde is considerably lower. In the central Black Forest, the tectonic syncline of the Kinzig and Murg emerged. Geomorphologist Walther Penck regarded the Black Forest as an uplifted geologic dome and modeled his theory of piedmonttreppen (piedmont benchlands) on it. Platform. Above the crystalline basement of the Northern Black Forest and the adjacent parts of the Central Black Forest, the bunter sandstone platforms rise in prominent steps. The most resistant surface strata on the stepped terrain of the uplands and the heights around the upper reaches of the Enz, which have been heavily eroded by the tributaries of the Murg, is the silicified main conglomerate (Middle Bunter). To the east and north are the nappes of the Upper Bunter (platten sandstones and red clays). South of the Kinzig the Bunter Sandstone zone narrows to a fringe in the east of the mountain range. Ice age and topography. It is considered proven that the Black Forest was heavily glaciated during the peak periods of at least the Riss and Würm glaciations (up to about 10,000 years ago). This glacial geomorphology characterizes almost all of the High Black Forest as well as the main ridge of the Northern Black Forest. Apart from that, it is only discernible from a large number of cirques mainly facing northeast. Especially in this direction snow accumulated on the shaded and leeward slopes of the summit plateau to form short cirque glaciers that made the sides of these funnel-shaped depressions. There are still tarns in some of these old cirques, partly a result of the anthropogenic elevation of the low-side lip of the cirque, such as the Mummelsee, Wildsee, Schurmsee, Glaswaldsee, Buhlbachsee, Nonnenmattweiher, and Feldsee. The Titisee formed as glacial lake behind a glacial moraine. Culture. The Black Forest is mainly rural, with many scattered villages and a few large towns. Tradition and custom are celebrated in many places in the form of annual festivities. The main dialect spoken in the Black Forest area is Alemannic. The forest is best known for its typical farmhouses with their sweeping half-hipped roofs, its Black Forest gâteaus, Black Forest ham, Black Forest gnomes, Kirschwasser and the cuckoo clock. Traditional costume. Traditional costume or Tracht is still sometimes worn today, usually at festive occasions. The appearance of such costume varies from region to region, sometimes markedly. One of the best-known Black Forest costumes is that of the villages of Kirnbach, Reichenbach and Gutach im Kinzigtal with the characteristic "Bollenhut" headdress. Unmarried women wear the hats with red bobbles or "Bollen"; married women wear black. Engaged women sometimes wear a bridal crown ("Schäppel") before and on the day of their wedding, whose largest examples from the town of St. Georgen weigh up to 5 kilograms. Art. Its rural beauty as well as the sense of tradition of its inhabitants attracted many artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works made the Black Forest famous the world over. Notable were Hans Thoma from Bernau and his fellow student, Rudolf Epp, who was sponsored by the Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick I. Both artists painted motifs from the Black Forest throughout their lives. Artist J. Metzler from Düsseldorf travelled through the Black Forest to paint his landscapes. The works of the Gutach artist colony around Wilhelm Hasemann were widely admired, their landscape and genre motifs capturing the character of the Black Forest. Like local author Heinrich Hansjakob, they were part of a Baden folk costume movement. Crafts. In the field of handicrafts, wood carving produces folk art like the Longinus crosses along with sculptors like Matthias Faller. Wood carving is a traditional cottage industry in the region, and carved ornaments now are produced in substantial numbers as souvenirs for tourists. Cuckoo clocks are a popular example. Glassblowing is another notable craft of the Black Forest region. At the beginning of the 15th century, the art of glassmaking took hold in the Bavarian-Bohemian border mountains, especially since the necessary raw materials such as quartz and wood were abundant here. With the permission of the manor, glassblowers operated simple glass production facilities as "wandering huts" ("Wanderhütten"), the locations of which were relocated when the local resources were available. They needed huge amounts of firewood and wood for potash. In the second half of the 18th century, the huts had to close due to a shortage of wood and sales difficulties. Only after 1800, when the demand for luxury glass increased enormously, when a few decades of regulated forestry had ensured the regrowth of the raw material wood and when the forest-destroying potash extraction had become unnecessary due to the new glass flux soda, some glass huts ("Glashütten") revived. Some glassblowing factories still testify to this today, for example in Höllental, near Todtnau and in Wolfach. Cuisine. Black Forest ham originated from this region, as did the Black Forest gâteau, which is also known as "Black Forest Cherry Cake" or "Black Forest Cake" and is made with chocolate cake, cream, sour cherries and Kirsch. The Black Forest variety of "Flammekueche" is a Baden specialty made with ham, cheese and cream. "Pfannkuchen", a crêpe or crêpe-like ("" or "Palatschinken") pastry, is also common. The Black Forest is known for its long tradition in gourmet cuisine. No fewer than 17 Michelin starred restaurants are located in the region, among them two restaurants with three stars (Restaurants Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube in Baiersbronn) as well as the only restaurant in Germany that has been awarded a Michelin star every year since 1966. At "Schwarzwald Hotel Adler" in Häusern, three generations of chefs from the same family have defended the award from the first year the Michelin Guide selected restaurants in Germany until today. "Fasnet". The German holiday of Fastnacht, or "Fasnet", as it is known in the Black Forest region, occurs in the time leading up to Lent. On "Fasnetmendig", or the Monday before Ash Wednesday, crowds of people line the streets, wearing wooden, mostly hand-carved masks. One prominent style of mask is called the Black Forest Style, originating from the Black Forest Region. Cego. The Black Forest is home to an unusual tarot card game called Cego, that is part of the region's cultural heritage. After the defeat of Further Austria in 1805, much of its territory was allocated to the Grand Duchy of Baden. During the ensuing Napoleonic Wars, soldiers from Baden deployed with Napoleon's troops to Spain where, among other things, they learned a new card game, Ombre. They took this back to Baden and adapted it to be played with Tarot cards which were then in common use in southern Germany. Cego soon developed into the national game of Baden and Hohenzollern, and these are the only regions of Germany where tarot cards are still used for playing games. The game has grown organically, and there are many regional variations, but in recent years the establishment of a Cego Black Forest Championship has led to official tournament rules being defined. In addition, regular courses and local tournaments are held and it is a permanent feature of Alemannic Week, held annually in the Black Forest at the end of September. Nature. Conservation areas. There are two nature parks and one national park named after the Black Forest that cover the region: the Southern Black Forest Nature Park, the Central/North Black Forest and the Black Forest National Park. The difference between a nature park and a national park is that a nature park's aim is to strive for environmentally sustainable land use, to preserve the countryside as a cultural landscape, to market local produce more effectively, to make the area more suitable for sustainable tourism and to practice environmental education. A national park's aims are to protect the country's natural heritage, to practice environmental education, to serve purposes of scientific environmental observation and to prevent the area from being commercially exploited. The Southern Black Forest Nature Park ("Naturpark Südschwarzwald") was founded in 1999. It comprises 394,000 ha and is therefore Germany's largest nature park (as of 2020). It encloses the southern part of the Central Black Forest, the Southern Black Forest and adjacent areas. The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park ("Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord") was founded in 2000. It covers 375,000 ha and is thus the second-largest in Germany (as of 2020). It begins in the southern part of the Central Black Forest, bordering on the Southern Black Forest Nature Park and covers the rest of the Black Forest to the north. The Black Forest National Park, established in 2014, is the first national park in Baden-Württemberg. It lies completely within the Central/North Black Forest Nature Park between the cities of Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden and covers an area of 10,062 ha. Its motto is "Natur Natur sein lassen" (let nature be nature). Fauna. In addition to the characteristic range of fauna found in Central European forests, the following less common animals may be observed in the Black Forest: Climate. The mountain range has lower temperatures and higher rainfall than its surrounding countryside. The highlands of the Black Forest are characterized by regular rainfall throughout the year. However, temperatures do not fall evenly with increasing elevation, nor does the rainfall increase uniformly. Rather, the precipitation rises quickly even in the lower regions and is disproportionately heavy on the rainier western side of the mountains. The wettest areas are the highlands around the Hornisgrinde in the north and around the Belchen and Feldberg in the south, where annual rainfall reaches 1,800–2,100 mm. Moisture-laden Atlantic westerlies dump about as much rain in the Northern Black Forest, despite its lower elevation, than in the higher area of the Southern Black Forest. There, the Vosges act as a rain shield in the face of the prevailing winds. On the exposed east side of the Central Black Forest, it is much drier; the annual rainfall there is about 750 L/m2. The higher elevations of the Black Forest are characterized by relatively small annual fluctuations and steamed extreme values. This is the result of the frequent light winds and greater cloud cover in summer. During the winter months, frequent high pressure means that the summits are often bathed in sunshine, while the valleys disappear under a thick blanket of fog as a result of pockets of cold air (temperature inversion). Tourism and transport. The main industry of the Black Forest is tourism. Black Forest Tourism ("Schwarzwald Tourismus") assesses that there are around 140,000 direct full-time jobs in the tourist sector and around 34.8 million tourist overnight stays in 2009. In spring, summer and autumn an extensive network of hiking trails and mountain bike routes enable different groups of people to use the natural region. In winter, it is the various types of winter sport that come to the fore. There are facilities for both downhill and Nordic skiing in many places. Tourist attractions. The most heavily frequented tourist destinations and resorts in the Black Forest are the Titisee and the Schluchsee. Both lakes offer opportunities for water sports like diving and windsurfing. The Mummelsee is a recreational lake and a starting point for a number of hiking trails including the Kunstpfad am Mummelsee ("sculpture trail at the Mummelsee"). The Murg valley, the Kinzig valley, the Triberg Waterfalls and the Open Air Museum at Vogtsbauernhof are also popular. Lookout mountains include the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel and the Schauinsland in the Southern Black Forest; and the Hornisgrinde, the Schliffkopf, the Hohloh, the Merkur and the Teufelsmühle in the Northern Black Forest. The height differences in the mountains are used in many places for hang gliding and paragliding. One often visited town is Baden-Baden with its thermal baths and festival hall. Other thermal baths are found in the spa resorts of Badenweiler, Bad Herrenalb, Bad Wildbad, Bad Krozingen, Bad Liebenzell and Bad Bellingen. From the beginning of the 19th century, the desire for spa and bathing resorts arose in all of Central Europe because of the increasing economic potential, increasing mobility and the use of advertising. The Neo-renaissance style Friedrichsbad and the Palais Thermal are examples for spas built in this era. Other tourist destinations are the old imperial town of Gengenbach, the former county towns of Wolfach, Schiltach and Haslach im Kinzigtal and the flower and wine village of Sasbachwalden at the foot of the Hornisgrinde. Picturesque old towns may be visited in Altensteig, Dornstetten, Freiburg im Breisgau, Gernsbach, Villingen and Zell am Harmersbach. Baiersbronn is a centre of gastronomic excellence, Freudenstadt is built around the largest market place in Germany. Gersbach's floral displays have won awards as the German Golden Village of 2004 and the European Golden Village of 2007. Noted for their fine interiors are the former monastery of St. Blasien as well as the abbeys of Sankt Trudpert, St. Peter and St. Märgen. Alpirsbach Abbey and the ruined Hirsau Abbey were built of red sandstone in the Hirsau style. Another idyllic rural edifice is Wittichen Abbey near Schenkenzell. There are well known winter sports areas around the Feldberg, near Todtnau with its FIS downhill ski run of "Fahler Loch" and in Hinterzarten, a centre and talent forge for German ski jumpers. In the Northern Black Forest, the winter-sports areas are concentrated along the Black Forest High Road and on the ridge between the Murg and Enz rivers around Kaltenbronn. Hiking trails. The Black Forest has a great number of very varied trails; some of pan-regional significance. The European long-distance path E1 crosses the Black Forest following the routes of some of the local long-distance paths. Their framework is a network of long-distance paths with main routes and side branches, many of which were laid out in the early 20th century by the Black Forest Club ("Schwarzwaldverein"). The best known of these is the challenging West Way ("Westweg") with its many steep inclines. After 1950, circular walks were constructed to meet the changing demand, initially from the relatively dense railway network and, later, mainly from locally established hiking car parks. Currently, special, more experience-oriented themed paths are being laid out, such as the Dornstetten Barefoot Park ("Barfußpark Dornstetten"), the Park of All Senses ("Park mit allen Sinnen") in Gutach (Black Forest Railway), as well as those designed to bring the walker more directly in contact with nature (e.g. the "Schluchtensteig"). Roads and wide forest tracks are thus less often used than hitherto. There are numerous shorter paths suitable for day walks, as well as mountain biking and cross-country skiing trails. The total network of tracks amounts to around , and is maintained and overseen by volunteers of the Black Forest Club (figures from Bremke, 1999, p. 9), which is the second largest German hiking association. As of 2021, the club counts 65,000 members. Museums in the Black Forest. Culture and crafts. The Black Forest Open Air Museum at the Vogtsbauernhof farm in Gutach has original Black Forest houses offering insights into farming life of the 16th and 17th centuries. The buildings were dismantled at their original sites, the individual pieces numbered and then re-erected to exactly the same plan in the museum. The open-air museum shows the life of 16th and 17th century farmers in the region featuring the "Vogtsbauernhof" which dates back to 1612. The German Clock Museum in Furtwangen gives a comprehensive cross-section of the history of the watchmaking and clockmaking industries. From this early precision engineering a formerly important phonographic industry developed in the 20th century; the history of leisure electronics is presented in the German Phono Museum in St. Georgen. The Schüttesäge Museum in Schiltach has information and living history demonstrations covering the themes of lumbering and timber rafting in the Kinzig valley as well as tanning. The Black Forest Costume Museum in Haslach im Kinzigtal offers an overview of the traditional costume of the whole of the Black Forest and its peripheral regions. Also located in Haslach: the Hansjakob Museum and the Hansjakob Archive with numerous works of the writer, priest, politician, historian and chronicler, Heinrich Hansjakob. Nature and science. The MiMa Mineralogy and Mathematics Museum in Oberwolfach houses minerals and mining exhibits from the whole of the Black Forest and links them to mathematical explanations. Infrastructure. Road transport. Several tourist routes run through the Black Forest. Well known holiday routes are the Black Forest High Road (B 500) and the German Clock Road. Thanks to its winding country roads, the Black Forest is a popular destination for motorcyclists. This arm of tourism is controversial due to the high number of accidents and the wide-ranging noise pollution and has been restricted through the introduction of speed limits and by placing certain roads out of bounds. For example, since 1984, motorcyclists have been banned from using the mountain-racing route on the Schauinsland during summer weekends. Railway transport. The whole of the Black Forest was once linked by railway. In the eastern part of the Northern Black Forest by the Enz Valley Railway from Pforzheim to Bad Wildbad, by the Nagold Valley Railway from Pforzheim via Calw and Nagold to Horb am Neckar, by the Württemberg Black Forest Railway from Stuttgart to Calw and the Gäu Railway from Stuttgart to Freudenstadt or its present-day section from Eutingen to Freudenstadt. Many railway lines run from the Rhine Plain up the valleys into the Black Forest: the Alb Valley Railway runs from Karlsruhe to Bad Herrenalb, the Murg Valley Railway from Rastatt to Freudenstadt, the Acher Valley Railway from Achern to Ottenhöfen im Schwarzwald and the Rench Valley Railway from Appenweier to Bad Griesbach. The Baden Black Forest Railway has linked Offenburg with Konstanz on Lake Constance since 1873, running via Hausach, Triberg, St. Georgen, Villingen and Donaueschingen. In Hausach the Kinzig Valley Railway branches off to Freudenstadt, in Denzlingen the Elz Valley Railway peels off towards Elzach, the Höllental Railway runs from Freiburg im Breisgau through the Höllental valley to Donaueschingen, the Münstertal Railway from Bad Krozingen to Münstertal, the Kander Valley Railway from Haltingen near Basel through the Kander valley to Kandern and the Wiesen Valley Railway from Basel to Zell im Wiesental. The Three Lakes Railway branches off at the Titisee from the Höllental Railway and runs to the Windgfällweiher and the Schluchsee. The Wutach Valley Railway runs along the border between Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland, linking Waldshut-Tiengen with Immendingen on the Black Forest Railway. Most of these routes are still busy today, whilst some are popular heritage lines. Administration. Since January 2006, the Black Forest Tourist organisation, "Schwarzwald Tourismus", whose head office is in Freiburg, has been responsible for the administration of tourism in the 320 municipalities of the region. Hitherto there had been four separate tourist associations. Points of interest. There are many historic towns in the Black Forest. Popular tourist destinations include Baden-Baden, Freiburg, Calw (the birth town of Hermann Hesse), Gengenbach, Staufen, Schiltach, Haslach and Altensteig. Other popular destinations include such mountains as the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel, and the Schauinsland; the Titisee and Schluchsee lakes; the All Saints Waterfalls; the Triberg Waterfalls, not the highest, but the most famous waterfalls in Germany; and the gorge of the River Wutach. For drivers, the main route through the region is the fast A 5 (E35) motorway, but a variety of signposted scenic routes such as the Schwarzwaldhochstraße (, Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt), Schwarzwald Tälerstraße (, the Murg and Kinzig valleys) or Badische Weinstraße (Baden Wine Street, , a wine route from Baden-Baden to Weil am Rhein) offers calmer driving along high roads. The last is a picturesque trip starting in the south of the Black Forest going north and includes numerous old wineries and tiny villages. Another, more specialized route is the German Clock Route, a circular route that traces the horological history of the region. Due to the rich mining history dating from medieval times (the Black Forest was one of the most important mining regions of Europe ) there are many mines re-opened to the public. Such mines may be visited in the Kinzig valley, the Suggental, the Muenster valley, and around Todtmoos. The Black Forest was visited on several occasions by Count Otto von Bismarck during his years as Prussian and later German chancellor (1862–1890). Allegedly, he was especially interested in the Triberg Waterfalls. There is now a monument in Triberg dedicated to Bismarck, who apparently enjoyed the tranquility of the region as an escape from his day-to-day political duties in Berlin. The Black Forest featured in the philosophical development of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger wrote and edited some of his philosophical works in a small hut in the Black Forest, and would receive visitors there for walks, including his former pupil Hannah Arendt. This hut features explicitly in his essay "Building, Dwelling, Thinking". His walks in the Black Forest are supposed to have inspired the title of his collection of essays "Holzwege", translated as "Off The Beaten Track". Economy and craftsmanship. Mining. Mining developed in the Black Forest due to its ore deposits, which were often lode-shaped. The formation of these deposits (Schauinsland Pit: zinc, lead, about 700–1000 g silver/ton of lead; baryte, fluorite, less lead and zinc in the Kinzig valley; BiCoNi ores near Wittichen, uranium discovered in the Krunkelbach valley near Menzenschwand but never officially mined) often used to be linked to the intrusion of Carboniferous granite in the para- and orthogneisses. More recent research has revealed that most of these lode fillings are much younger (Triassic to Tertiary). Economic deposits of other minerals included: fluorite in the Northern Black Forest near Pforzheim, baryte in the central region near Freudenstadt, fluorite along with lead and silver near Wildschapbach, baryte and fluorite in the Rankach valley and near Ohlsbach, in the Southern Black Forest near Todtnau, Wieden and Urberg. Small liquid magmatic deposits of nickel-magnetite gravel in norite were mined or prospected in the Hotzenwald forest near Horbach and Todtmoos. Strata-bound deposits include iron ores in the Dogger layer of the foothill zone and uranium near Müllenbach/Baden-Baden. Stone coal is only found near Berghaupten and Diersburg, but was always only of local importance. Chronology: Stone Age mining of haematite (as red pigment) near Sulzburg. By the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. iron ore was being mined by the Celts in the Northern Black Forest (for example in Neuenbürg). Especially in the Middle Black Forest, but also in the south (for example in the Münster valley) ore mining was already probably taking place in Roman times (mining of silver and lead ore; evidence of this at Sulzburg and possibly Badenweiler). Until the High Middle Ages the High Black Forest was practically unsettled. In the course of inland colonisation in the Late High Middle Ages even the highlands were cultivated by settlers from the abbeys (St. Peter's, St. Märgen's). In the Late High Middle Ages (from about 1100) mining experienced another boom, especially around Todtnau, in the Münster and Suggen valleys and, later, on the Schauinsland too. It is believed that around 800–1,000 miners lived and worked in the Münster valley until the end of the Middle Ages. After the Plague, which afflicted the valley in 1516, the German Peasants' War (1524–26) and the Thirty Years' War, mining in the region declined until just a few pits remained. An important mining area was the Kinzig valley and its side valleys. The small mining settlement of Wittichen near Schenkenzell in the upper Kinzig valley had many pits from which miners dug baryte, cobalt and silver of many kinds. A circular, geological footpath runs today past the old pits and tips. Another boom began in the early 18th century after the loss of the Alsace to France. It lasted until the 19th century. Many pits from this period may be visited today as show mines; for example the Teufelsgrund Pit (Münstertal), the Finstergrund Pit near Wieden, the Hoffnungsstollen ("Hope Gallery") at Todtmoos, the mine in the Schauinsland, the formerly especially silver-rich Wenzel Pit in Oberwolfach and Gr. Segen Gottes ("God's Great Blessing") in Haslach-Schnellingen. Non-ferrous metal mining in the Black Forest continued until the middle of the 20th century near Wildschapbach and on the Schauinsland (to 1954); fluorite and baryte are still mined today at the Clara Pit in the Rankach valley in Oberwolfach. Iron ores of the Dogger formation was worked until the 1970s near Ringsheim and was smelted in Kehl. Compared with the Harz and Ore Mountains the quantities of silver extracted in the Black Forest were rather modest and reached only about ten percent of that produced in the other silver-mining regions. There are many show mines in the Black Forest. These include: the Frischglück Pit near Neuenbürg, the Hella Glück Pit near Neubulach, the Silbergründle Pit near Seebach, the Himmlich Heer Pit near Hallwangen, the Heilige Drei Könige Pit near Freudenstadt, the Segen Gottes Pit near Haslach, the Wenzel Pit near Oberwolfach, the Caroline Pit near Sexau, the Suggental Silver Mine near Waldkirch, the Schauinsland Pit near Freiburg, the Teufelsgrund Pit near Münstertal, the Finstergrund Pit near Wieden and the Hoffnungsstollen Pit near Todtmoos. Forestry. For several centuries logs from the Black Forest were rafted down the Enz, Kinzig, Murg, Nagold and Rhine rivers for use in the shipping industry, as construction timber and for other purposes. This branch of industry boomed in the 18th century and led to large-scale clearances. As most of the long, straight pine logs were transported downriver for shipbuilding in the Netherlands, they were referred to as "Dutchmen". The logs were used in the Netherlands, above all, as piles for house construction in the sandy and wet ground. Even today in Amsterdam large numbers of historic building are built on these posts and the reforestation of the Black Forest with spruce monocultures testifies to the destruction of the original mixed forest. With the expansion of the railway and road network as alternative transportation, rafting largely came to an end in the late 19th century. Today, loggers harvest fir trees—especially very tall and branchless ones—mainly to ship to Japan. The global advertising impact of Expo 2000 fuelled a resurgence of timber exports. The importance of the timber resources of the Black Forest has also increased sharply recently due to the increasing demand for wood pellets for heating. Glass-making, charcoal-burning and potash-mining. The timber resources of the Black Forest provided the basis for other sectors of the economy that have now largely disappeared. Charcoal burners ("Köhler") built their wood piles ("Meiler") in the woods and produced charcoal, which, like the products of the potash boilers—further processed "inter alia" for the glassmaking industry. The Black Forest supplied raw materials and energy for the manufacture of forest glass. This is evidenced today by a number of glassblowing houses e.g. in the Hoellental in Todtnau and Wolfach and the Forest Glass Centre in Gersbach (Schopfheim), which is open to visitors. Precision-engineering, clock and jewellery manufacture. In the relatively inaccessible Black Forest valleys, industrialization did not arrive until late in the day. In winter, many farmers made wooden cuckoo clocks to supplement their income. This developed in the 19th century into the precision engineering and watch industry, which boomed with the arrival of the railway in many of the Black Forest valleys. The initial disadvantage of their remote location, which led to the development of precision-engineered wooden handicrafts, became a competitive advantage because of their access to raw materials: timber from the forest and metal from the mines. As part of a structural support programme the Baden State Government founded the first clockmaking school in 1850 in Furtwangen to ensure that small artisans were given good training and thus better sales opportunities. Due to the increasing demand for mechanical devices, large companies such as Junghans and Kienzle became established. In the 20th century, the production of consumer electronics was developed by companies such as SABA, Dual and Becker. In the 1970s, the industry declined due to Far Eastern competition. Nevertheless, the Black Forest remains a centre for the metalworking industry and is home to many high-tech companies. Since the start of industrialisation there have been numerous firms in Pforzheim that manufacture jewellery and work with precious metals and stones. There is also a goldsmith's school in Pforzheim. Hydropower. Due to the large amounts of precipitation and elevation changes the Black Forest has significant hydropower potential. This was used until the 19th century especially for operating numerous mills, including sawmills and hammer mills and was one of the local factors in the industrialization of some Black Forest valleys. Since the 20th century, the Black Forest has seen the large-scale generation of electrical power using run-of-the-river power plants and pumped storage power stations. From 1914 to 1926, the Rudolf Fettweis Company was established in the Murg valley in the Northern Black Forest with the construction of the Schwarzenbach Dam. In 1932, the Schluchsee reservoir, with its new dam, became the upper basin of a pumped-storage power plant. In 2013 the association of the Southern Black Forest's "Schluchseewerk" owned five power plants with 14 storage tanks. At the Hornberg Basin topographical conditions allow an average head of water of 625 m to drive the turbines before it flows into the Wehra Reservoir. In the 21st century, in the wake of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, numerous smaller run-of-the-river power stations were re-opened or newly constructed.
3386	82432	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3386	Black Sea	The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe. The Black Sea, not including the Sea of Azov, covers , has a maximum depth of , and a volume of . Most of its coasts ascend rapidly. These rises are the Pontic Mountains to the south, bar the southwest-facing peninsulas, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Crimean Mountains to the mid-north. In the west, the coast is generally small floodplains below foothills such as the Strandzha; Cape Emine, a dwindling of the east end of the Balkan Mountains; and the Dobruja Plateau considerably farther north. The longest east–west extent is about . Important cities along the coast include (clockwise from the Bosporus) Burgas, Varna, Constanța, Odesa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, Sochi, Poti, Batumi, Trabzon and Samsun. The Black Sea has a positive water balance, with an annual net outflow of per year through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles into the Aegean Sea. While the net flow of water through the Bosporus and Dardanelles (known collectively as the Turkish Straits) is out of the Black Sea, water generally flows in both directions simultaneously: Denser, more saline water from the Aegean flows into the Black Sea underneath the less dense, fresher water that flows out of the Black Sea. This creates a significant and permanent layer of deep water that does not drain or mix and is therefore anoxic. This anoxic layer is responsible for the preservation of ancient shipwrecks which have been found in the Black Sea, which ultimately drains into the Mediterranean Sea, via the Turkish Straits and the Aegean Sea. The Bosporus strait connects it to the small Sea of Marmara which in turn is connected to the Aegean Sea via the strait of the Dardanelles. To the north, the Black Sea is connected to the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait. The water level has varied significantly over geological time. Due to these variations in the water level in the basin, the surrounding shelf and associated aprons have sometimes been dry land. At certain critical water levels, connections with surrounding water bodies can become established. It is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the World Ocean. During geological periods when this hydrological link was not present, the Black Sea was an endorheic basin, operating independently of the global ocean system (similar to the Caspian Sea today). Currently, the Black Sea water level is relatively high; thus, water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea, the first of its kind discovered. Name. Modern names. Current names of the sea are usually equivalents of the English name "Black Sea", including these given in the countries bordering the sea: Such names have not yet been shown conclusively to predate the 13thcentury. In Greece, the historical name "Euxine Sea", which holds a different literal meaning (see below), is still widely used: The Black Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms – the others being the Red Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. Historical names and etymology. The earliest known name of the Black Sea is the Sea of Zalpa, so called by both the Hattians and their conquerors, the Hittites. The Hattic city of Zalpa was "situated probably at or near the estuary of the Marrassantiya River, the modern Kızıl Irmak, on the Black Sea coast." The principal Greek name "Póntos Áxeinos" is generally accepted to be a rendering of the Iranian word ("dark colored"). Ancient Greek voyagers adopted the name as , identified with the Greek word (inhospitable). The name (Inhospitable Sea), first attested in Pindar (), was considered an ill omen and was euphemized to its opposite, (Hospitable Sea), also first attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation in Greek, although in mythological contexts the "true" name remained favored. Strabo's "Geographica" (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often simply called "the Sea" ( ). He thought that the sea was called the "Inhospitable Sea" by the inhabitants of the Pontus region of the southern shoreline before Greek colonization due to its difficult navigation and hostile barbarian natives (7.3.6), and that the name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians colonized the region, bringing it into the Greek world. Popular supposition derives "Black Sea" from the dark color of the water or climatic conditions. Some scholars understand the name to be derived from a system of color symbolism representing the cardinal directions, with black or dark for north, red for south, white for west, and green or light blue for east. Hence, "Black Sea" meant "Northern Sea". According to this scheme, the name could only have originated with a people living between the northern (black) and southern (red) seas: this points to the Achaemenids (550–330 BC). This interpretation has been labeled as folk etymology and may reflect a primitive historical understanding of the "P/Bla" phoneme originally associated with the name. In the Greater Bundahishn, a Middle Persian Zoroastrian scripture, the Black Sea is called . In the tenth-century Persian geography book , the Black Sea is called "Georgian Sea" (). "The Georgian Chronicles" use the name (Sea of Speri) after the Kartvelian tribe of Speris or Saspers. Other modern names such as and (both meaning Black Sea) originated during the 13th century. A 1570 map from Abraham Ortelius's labels the sea (Great Sea), compare Latin . English writers of the 18th century often used "Euxine Sea" ( or ). During the Ottoman Empire, it was called either (Perso-Arabic) or (Ottoman Turkish), both meaning "Black Sea". Geography. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows: The area surrounding the Black Sea is commonly referred to as the "Black Sea Region". Its northern part lies within the "Chernozem belt" (black soil belt) which goes from eastern Croatia (Slavonia), along the Danube (northern Serbia, northern Bulgaria (Danubian Plain) and southern Romania (Wallachian Plain) to northeast Ukraine and further across the Central Black Earth Region and southern Russia into Siberia. The littoral zone of the Black Sea is often referred to as the Pontic littoral or Pontic zone. The largest bays of the Black Sea are Karkinit Bay in Ukraine; the Gulf of Burgas in Bulgaria; Dnieprovska Gulf and Dniestrovsky Liman, both in Ukraine; and Sinop Bay and Samsun Bay, both in Turkey. Drainage basin. The largest rivers flowing into the Black Sea are: These rivers and their tributaries comprise a Black Sea drainage basin that covers wholly or partially 24 countries: Unrecognized states: Islands. Some islands in the Black Sea belong to Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine: Climate. Short-term climatic variation in the Black Sea region is significantly influenced by the operation of the North Atlantic oscillation, the climatic mechanisms resulting from the interaction between the north Atlantic and mid-latitude air masses. While the exact mechanisms causing the North Atlantic Oscillation remain unclear, it is thought the climate conditions established in western Europe mediate the heat and precipitation fluxes reaching Central Europe and Eurasia, regulating the formation of winter cyclones, which are largely responsible for regional precipitation inputs and influence Mediterranean sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The relative strength of these systems also limits the amount of cold air arriving from northern regions during winter. Other influencing factors include the regional topography, as depressions and storm systems arriving from the Mediterranean are funneled through the low land around the Bosporus, with the Pontic and Caucasus mountain ranges acting as waveguides, limiting the speed and paths of cyclones passing through the region. Geology and bathymetry. The Black Sea is divided into two depositional basins—the Western Black Sea and Eastern Black Sea—separated by the Mid-Black Sea High, which includes the Andrusov Ridge, Tetyaev High, and Archangelsky High, extending south from the Crimean Peninsula. The basin includes two distinct relict back-arc basins which were initiated by the splitting of an Albian volcanic arc and the subduction of both the Paleo- and Neo-Tethys oceans, but the timings of these events remain uncertain. Arc volcanism and extension occurred as the Neo-Tethys Ocean subducted under the southern margin of Laurasia during the Mesozoic. Uplift and compressional deformation took place as the Neotethys continued to close. Seismic surveys indicate that rifting began in the Western Black Sea in the Barremian and Aptian followed by the formation of oceanic crust 20million years later in the Santonian. Since its initiation, compressional tectonic environments led to subsidence in the basin, interspersed with extensional phases resulting in large-scale volcanism and numerous orogenies, causing the uplift of the Greater Caucasus, Pontides, southern Crimean Peninsula and Balkanides mountain ranges. During the Messinian salinity crisis in the neighboring Mediterranean Sea, water levels fell but without drying up the sea. The collision between the Eurasian and African plates and the westward escape of the Anatolian block along the North Anatolian and East Anatolian faults dictates the current tectonic regime, which features enhanced subsidence in the Black Sea basin and significant volcanic activity in the Anatolian region. These geological mechanisms, in the long term, have caused the periodic isolations of the Black Sea from the rest of the global ocean system. The large shelf to the north of the basin is up to wide and features a shallow apron with gradients between 1:40 and 1:1000. The southern edge around Turkey and the eastern edge around Georgia, however, are typified by a narrow shelf that rarely exceeds in width and a steep apron that is typically 1:40 gradient with numerous submarine canyons and channel extensions. The Euxine abyssal plain in the center of the Black Sea reaches a maximum depth of just south of Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula. Chronostratigraphy. The Paleo-Euxinian is described by the accumulation of eolian silt deposits (related to the Riss glaciation) and the lowering of sea levels (MIS 6, 8 and 10). The Karangat marine transgression occurred during the Eemian Interglacial (MIS 5e). This may have been the highest sea levels reached in the late Pleistocene. Based on this some scholars have suggested that the Crimean Peninsula was isolated from the mainland by a shallow strait during the Eemian Interglacial. The Neoeuxinian transgression began with an inflow of waters from the Caspian Sea. Neoeuxinian deposits are found in the Black Sea below water depth in three layers. The upper layers correspond with the peak of the Khvalinian transgression, on the shelf shallow-water sands and coquina mixed with silty sands and brackish-water fauna, and inside the Black Sea Depression hydrotroilite silts. The middle layers on the shelf are sands with brackish-water mollusc shells. Of continental origin, the lower level on the shelf is mostly alluvial sands with pebbles, mixed with less common lacustrine silts and freshwater mollusc shells. Inside the Black Sea Depression they are terrigenous non-carbonate silts, and at the foot of the continental slope turbidite sediments. Hydrology. The Black Sea is the world's largest body of water with a meromictic basin. The deep waters do not mix with the upper layers of water that receive oxygen from the atmosphere. As a result, over 90% of the deeper Black Sea volume is anoxic water. The Black Sea's circulation patterns are primarily controlled by basin topography and fluvial inputs, which result in a strongly stratified vertical structure. Because of the extreme stratification, it is classified as a salt wedge estuary. Inflow from the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporus and Dardanelles has a higher salinity and density than the outflow, creating the classic estuarine circulation. This means that the inflow of dense water from the Mediterranean occurs at the bottom of the basin while the outflow of fresher Black Sea surface-water into the Sea of Marmara occurs near the surface. According to Gregg (2002), the outflow is or around , and the inflow is or around . The following water budget can be estimated: The southern sill of the Bosporus is located at below present sea level (deepest spot of the shallowest cross-section in the Bosporus, located in front of Dolmabahçe Palace) and has a wet section of around . Inflow and outflow current speeds are averaged around , but much higher speeds are found locally, inducing significant turbulence and vertical shear. This allows for turbulent mixing of the two layers. Surface water leaves the Black Sea with a salinity of 17 practical salinity units (PSU) and reaches the Mediterranean with a salinity of 34 PSU. Likewise, an inflow of the Mediterranean with salinity 38.5 PSU experiences a decrease to about 34 PSU. Mean surface circulation is cyclonic; waters around the perimeter of the Black Sea circulate in a basin-wide shelfbreak gyre known as the Rim Current. The Rim Current has a maximum velocity of about . Within this feature, two smaller cyclonic gyres operate, occupying the eastern and western sectors of the basin. The Eastern and Western Gyres are well-organized systems in the winter but dissipate into a series of interconnected eddies in the summer and autumn. Mesoscale activity in the peripheral flow becomes more pronounced during these warmer seasons and is subject to interannual variability. Outside of the Rim Current, numerous quasi-permanent coastal eddies are formed as a result of upwelling around the coastal apron and "wind curl" mechanisms. The intra-annual strength of these features is controlled by seasonal atmospheric and fluvial variations. During the spring, the Batumi eddy forms in the southeastern corner of the sea. Beneath the surface waters—from about —there exists a halocline that stops at the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL). This layer is composed of cool, salty surface waters, which are the result of localized atmospheric cooling and decreased fluvial input during the winter months. It is the remnant of the winter surface mixed layer. The base of the CIL is marked by a major pycnocline at about , and this density disparity is the major mechanism for isolation of the deep water. Below the pycnocline is the Deep Water mass, where salinity increases to 22.3 PSU and temperatures rise to around . The hydrochemical environment shifts from oxygenated to anoxic, as bacterial decomposition of sunken biomass utilizes all of the free oxygen. Weak geothermal heating and long residence time create a very thick convective bottom layer. The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river, announced on 1 August 2010, was made by scientists at the University of Leeds and is the first of its kind to be identified. The undersea river stems from salty water spilling through the Bosporus Strait from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content. Hydrochemistry. Because of the anoxic water at depth, organic matter, including anthropogenic artifacts such as boat hulls, are well preserved. During periods of high surface productivity, short-lived algal blooms form organic rich layers known as sapropels. Scientists have reported an annual phytoplankton bloom that can be seen in many NASA images of the region. As a result of these characteristics the Black Sea has gained interest from the field of marine archaeology, as ancient shipwrecks in excellent states of preservation have been discovered, such as the Byzantine wreck Sinop D, located in the anoxic layer off the coast of Sinop, Turkey. Modelling shows that, in the event of an asteroid impact on the Black Sea, the release of hydrogen sulfide clouds would pose a threat to health—and perhaps even life—for people living on the Black Sea coast. There have been isolated reports of flares on the Black Sea occurring during thunderstorms, possibly caused by lightning igniting combustible gas seeping up from the sea depths. Ecology. Marine. The Black Sea supports an active and dynamic marine ecosystem, dominated by species suited to the brackish, nutrient-rich, conditions. As with all marine food webs, the Black Sea features a range of trophic groups, with autotrophic algae, including diatoms and dinoflagellates, acting as primary producers. The fluvial systems draining Eurasia and central Europe introduce large volumes of sediment and dissolved nutrients into the Black Sea, but the distribution of these nutrients is controlled by the degree of physiochemical stratification, which is, in turn, dictated by seasonal physiographic development. During winter, strong winds promote convective overturning and upwelling of nutrients, while high summer temperatures result in marked vertical stratification and a warm, shallow mixed layer. Day length and insolation intensity also control the extent of the photic zone. Subsurface productivity is limited by nutrient availability, as the anoxic bottom waters act as a sink for reduced nitrate, in the form of ammonia. The benthic zone also plays an important role in Black Sea nutrient cycling, as chemosynthetic organisms and anoxic geochemical pathways recycle nutrients which can be upwelled to the photic zone, enhancing productivity. In total, the Black Sea's biodiversity contains around one-third of the Mediterranean's and is experiencing natural and artificial invasions or "Mediterranizations". Phytoplankton. The main phytoplankton groups present in the Black Sea are dinoflagellates, diatoms, coccolithophores and cyanobacteria. Generally, the annual cycle of phytoplankton development comprises significant diatom and dinoflagellate-dominated spring production, followed by a weaker mixed assemblage of community development below the seasonal thermocline during summer months, and surface-intensified autumn production. This pattern of productivity is augmented by an "Emiliania huxleyi" bloom during the late spring and summer months. Annual dinoflagellate distribution is defined by an extended bloom period in subsurface waters during the late spring and summer. In November, subsurface plankton production is combined with surface production, due to vertical mixing of water masses and nutrients such as nitrite. The major bloom-forming dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea is "Gymnodinium" sp. Estimates of dinoflagellate diversity in the Black Sea range from 193 to 267 species. This level of species richness is relatively low in comparison to the Mediterranean Sea, which is attributable to the brackish conditions, low water transparency and presence of anoxic bottom waters. It is also possible that the low winter temperatures below of the Black Sea prevent thermophilous species from becoming established. The relatively high organic matter content of Black Sea surface water favors the development of heterotrophic (an organism that uses organic carbon for growth) and mixotrophic dinoflagellates species (able to exploit different trophic pathways), relative to autotrophs. Despite its unique hydrographic setting, there are no confirmed endemic dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea. The Black Sea is populated by many species of the marine diatom, which commonly exist as colonies of unicellular, non-motile auto- and heterotrophic algae. The life-cycle of most diatoms can be described as 'boom and bust' and the Black Sea is no exception, with diatom blooms occurring in surface waters throughout the year, most reliably during March. In simple terms, the phase of rapid population growth in diatoms is caused by the in-wash of silicon-bearing terrestrial sediments, and when the supply of silicon is exhausted, the diatoms begin to sink out of the photic zone and produce resting cysts. Additional factors such as predation by zooplankton and ammonium-based regenerated production also have a role to play in the annual diatom cycle. Typically, blooms during spring and blooms during the autumn. Coccolithophores are a type of motile, autotrophic phytoplankton that produce CaCO3 plates, known as coccoliths, as part of their life cycle. In the Black Sea, the main period of coccolithophore growth occurs after the bulk of the dinoflagellate growth has taken place. In May, the dinoflagellates move below the seasonal thermocline into deeper waters, where more nutrients are available. This permits coccolithophores to utilize the nutrients in the upper waters, and by the end of May, with favorable light and temperature conditions, growth rates reach their highest. The major bloom-forming species is , which is also responsible for the release of dimethyl sulfide into the atmosphere. Overall, coccolithophore diversity is low in the Black Sea, and although recent sediments are dominated by and , Holocene sediments have been shown to also contain Helicopondosphaera and Discolithina species. Cyanobacteria are a phylum of picoplanktonic (plankton ranging in size from 0.2 to 2.0 μm) bacteria that obtain their energy via photosynthesis, and are present throughout the world's oceans. They exhibit a range of morphologies, including filamentous colonies and biofilms. In the Black Sea, several species are present, and as an example, "Synechococcus" spp. can be found throughout the photic zone, although concentration decreases with increasing depth. Other factors which exert an influence on distribution include nutrient availability, predation, and salinity. The Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea is part of the zebra mussel's native range. The mussel has been accidentally introduced around the world and become an invasive species where it has been introduced. The common carp's native range extends to the Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea. Like the zebra mussel, the common carp is an invasive species when introduced to other habitats. Another native fish that is also found in the Caspian Sea. It preys upon zebra mussels. Like the mussels and common carp, it has become invasive when introduced to other environments, like the Great Lakes in North America. Marine mammals present within the basin include two species of dolphin (common and bottlenose) and the harbour porpoise, although all of these are endangered due to pressures and impacts by human activities. All three species have been classified as distinct subspecies from those in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and are endemic to the Black and Azov seas, and are more active during nights in the Turkish Straits. However, construction of the Crimean Bridge has caused increases in nutrients and planktons in the waters, attracting large numbers of fish and more than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins. However, others claim that construction may cause devastating damages to the ecosystem, including dolphins. Mediterranean monk seals, now a vulnerable species, were historically abundant in the Black Sea, and are regarded to have become extinct from the basin in 1997. Monk seals were present at Snake Island, near the Danube Delta, until the 1950s, and several locations such as the and Doğankent were the last of the seals' hauling-out sites post-1990. Very few animals still thrive in the Sea of Marmara. Ongoing Mediterranizations may or may not boost cetacean diversity in the Turkish Straits and hence in the Black and Azov basins. Various species of pinnipeds, sea otter, and beluga whale were introduced into the Black Sea by mankind and later escaped either by accidental or purported causes. Of these, grey seals and beluga whales have been recorded with successful, long-term occurrences. Great white sharks are known to reach into the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait and basking sharks into the Dardanelles, although it is unclear whether or not these sharks may reach into the Black and Azov basins. Ecological effects of pollution. Since the 1960s, rapid industrial expansion along the Black Sea coastline and the construction of a major dam on the Danube have significantly increased annual variability in the N:P:Si ratio in the basin. Coastal areas, accordingly, have seen an increase in the frequency of monospecific phytoplankton blooms, with diatom-bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 2.5 and non-diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 6. The non-diatoms, such as the prymnesiophytes (coccolithophore), sp., and the Euglenophyte , can out-compete diatom species because of the limited availability of silicon, a necessary constituent of diatom frustules. As a consequence of these blooms, benthic macrophyte populations were deprived of light, while anoxia caused mass mortality in marine animals. Overfishing during the 1970s further compounded the decline in macrophytes, while the invasive ctenophore "Mnemiopsis" reduced the biomass of copepods and other zooplankton in the late 1980s. Additionally, an alien species—the warty comb jelly ()—established itself in the basin, exploding from a few individuals to an estimated biomass of one billion metric tons. The change in species composition in Black Sea waters also has consequences for hydrochemistry, as calcium-producing coccolithophores influence salinity and pH, although these ramifications have yet to be fully quantified. In central Black Sea waters, silicon levels also reduced significantly, due to a decrease in the flux of silicon associated with advection across isopycnal surfaces. This phenomenon demonstrates the potential for localized alterations in Black Sea nutrient-input to have basin-wide effects. Pollution-reduction and regulation efforts led to a partial recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem during the 1990s, and an EU monitoring exercise, 'EROS21', revealed decreased nitrogen and phosphorus values relative to the 1989 peak. Recently, scientists have noted signs of ecological recovery, in part due to the construction of new sewage-treatment plants in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in connection with those countries' membership of the European Union. populations have been checked with the arrival of another alien species that feeds on them. History. Mediterranean connection during the Holocene. The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is deep, and the Bosporus is as shallow as . By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than lower than they are now. There is evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after. In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess freshwater flowing over the Bosporus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. There are also catastrophic scenarios, such as the "Black Sea deluge hypothesis" put forward by William Ryan, Walter Pitman and Petko Dimitrov. Deluge hypothesis. The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when "The New York Times" published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal. While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating, and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths. Archaeology. The Black Sea was sailed by Hittites, Carians, Colchians, Armenians, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians, Genoese, Georgians, Bulgarians, Tatars and Ottomans. The concentration of historical powers, combined with the preservative qualities of the deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea, has attracted increased interest from marine archaeologists who have begun to discover a large number of ancient ships and organic remains in a high state of preservation. Recorded history. The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the Balkans to the west, the Eurasian steppes to the north, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the south, and Greece to the southwest. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis (in present-day Georgia), marked for the ancient Greeks the edge of the known world. The Pontic–Caspian steppe to the north of the Black Sea is seen by several researchers as the pre-historic original homeland () of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with colonies scattered along the Black Sea's southern coast, attracting traders and colonists due to the grain grown in the Black Sea hinterland. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea, and a lucrative trade network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding polis, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own "Black Sea Greek" culture, known today as Pontic. The coastal communities of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the Greek world for centuries, and the realms of Mithridates of Pontus, Rome and Constantinople spanned the Black Sea to include Crimean territories. The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of the Republic of Genoa losing control of the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. The Black Sea became a trade route of slaves between Crimea and Ottoman Anatolia via the Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe. Imperial Russia became a significant Black Sea power in the late-18th century, occupying the littoral of Novorossiya in 1764 and of Crimea in 1783. Ottoman restrictions on Black Sea navigation were challenged by the Black Sea Fleet (founded in 1783) of the Imperial Russian Navy, and the Ottomans relaxed export controls after the outbreak in 1789 of the French Revolution. Modern history. The Crimean War, fought between 1853 and 1856, saw naval engagements between the French and British allies and the forces of Nicholas I of Russia. On 2 March 1855, after the death of Nicholas I, Alexander II became Tsar. On 15 January 1856, the new tsar took Russia out of the war on the very unfavorable terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), which included the loss of a naval fleet on the Black Sea, and the provision that the Black Sea was to be a demilitarized zone similar to a contemporaneous region of the Baltic Sea. World Wars. The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I (1914–1918) and saw both naval and land battles between 1941 and 1945 during World War II. For example, Sevastopol was obliterated by the Nazis, who even brought Schwerer Gustav to the Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942). The Soviet naval base was one of the strongest fortifications in the world. Its site, on a deeply eroded, bare limestone promontory at the southwestern tip of the Crimea, made an approach by land forces exceedingly difficult. The high-level cliffs overlooking Severnaya Bay protected the anchorage, making an amphibious landing just as dangerous. The Soviet Navy had built upon these natural defenses by modernizing the port and installing heavy coastal batteries consisting of 180mm and 305mm re-purposed battleship guns which were capable of firing inland as well as out to sea. The artillery emplacements were protected by reinforced concrete fortifications and 9.8-inch thick armored turrets. 21st century. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Snake Island was a source of contention. On 24 February 2022, two Russian navy warships attacked and captured Snake Island. It was subsequently bombarded heavily by Ukraine. On 30 June 2022, Ukraine announced that it had driven Russian forces off the island. On 14 April 2022, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian missiles. As early as 29 April 2022 submarines of the Black Sea Fleet were used by Russia to bombard Ukrainian cities with Kalibr SLCMs. The Kalibr missile was so successful that on 10 March 2023 Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced plans to broaden the type of ship which carried it, to include the corvette Steregushchiy and the nuclear-powered cruiser Admiral Nakhimov. On the morning of 14 March 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet intercepted and damaged an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, causing the latter to crash into the Black Sea. At 13:20 on 5 May 2023 a Russian Su-35 fighter jet intercepted and threatened the safety of a Polish L-140 Turbolet on a . The incident, which occurred east of Romanian airspace, As of January 2025, neither Ukraine nor Russia control the Black Sea, making it contested, claims Estonian Navy Commander Ivo Värk. "The entire Black Sea can currently be seen as a contested maritime area where both sides have some room for action,". This room is greater near the coasts, where both sides benefit from air defense systems, sea mines, and various land-based weaponry. Ships only move out for specific operations to prevent excessive risks. He also noted that both parties operate gas drilling platforms equipped with surveillance devices to monitor the situation, but that those platforms often change hands. Economy and politics. The Black Sea plays an integral part in the connection between Asia and Europe. In addition to sea ports and fishing, key activities include hydrocarbons exploration for oil and natural gas, and tourism. According to NATO, the Black Sea is a strategic corridor that provides smuggling channels for moving legal and illegal goods including drugs, radioactive materials, and counterfeit goods that can be used to finance terrorism. Navigation. According to an International Transport Workers' Federation 2013 study, there were at least 30 operating merchant seaports in the Black Sea (including at least 12 in Ukraine). There were also around 2,400 commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea. Fishing. The Turkish commercial fishing fleet catches around 300,000 tons of anchovies per year. The fishery is carried out mainly in winter, and the highest portion of the stock is caught in November and December. Hydrocarbon exploration. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union started offshore drilling for petroleum in the sea's western portion (adjoining Ukraine's coast). Independent Ukraine continued and intensified that effort within its exclusive economic zone, inviting major international oil companies for exploration. Discovery of the new, massive oilfields in the area stimulated an influx of foreign investments. It also provoked a short-term peaceful territorial dispute with Romania which was resolved in 2011 by an international court redefining the exclusive economic zones between the two countries. The Black Sea contains oil and natural gas resources but exploration in the sea is incomplete. , 20 wells are in place. Throughout much of its existence, the Black Sea has had significant oil and gas-forming potential because of significant inflows of sediment and nutrient-rich waters. However, this varies geographically. For example, prospects are poorer off the coast of Bulgaria because of the large influx of sediment from the Danube which obscured sunlight and diluted organic-rich sediments. Many of the discoveries to date have taken place offshore of Romania in the Western Black Sea and only a few discoveries have been made in the Eastern Black Sea. During the Eocene, the Paratethys Sea was partially isolated and sea levels fell. During this time sand shed off the rising Balkanide, Pontide and Caucasus mountains trapped organic material in the Maykop Suite of rocks through the Oligocene and early Miocene. Natural gas appears in rocks deposited in the Miocene and Pliocene by the paleo-Dnieper and paleo-Dniester rivers, or in deep-water Oligocene-age rocks. Serious exploration began in 1999 with two deep-water wells, Limanköy-1 and Limanköy-2, drilled in Turkish waters. Next, the HPX (Hopa)-1 deepwater well targeted late Miocene sandstone units in Achara-Trialeti fold belt (also known as the Gurian fold belt) along the Georgia-Turkey maritime border. Although geologists inferred that these rocks might have hydrocarbons that migrated from the Maykop Suite, the well was unsuccessful. No more drilling happened for five years after the HPX-1 well. In 2010, Sinop-1 targeted carbonate reservoirs potentially charged from the nearby Maykop Suite on the Andrusov Ridge, but the well-struck only Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Yassihöyük-1 encountered similar problems. Other Turkish wells, Sürmene-1 and Sile-1 drilled in the Eastern Black Sea in 2011 and 2015 respectively tested four-way closures above Cretaceous volcanoes, with no results in either case. A different Turkish well, Kastamonu-1 drilled in 2011 did successfully find thermogenic gas in Pliocene and Miocene shale-cored anticlines in the Western Black Sea. A year later in 2012, Romania drilled Domino-1 which struck gas prompting the drilling of other wells in the Neptun Deep. In 2016, the Bulgarian well Polshkov-1 targeted Maykop Suite sandstones in the Polshkov High and Russia is in the process of drilling Jurassic carbonates on the Shatsky Ridge as of 2018. In August 2020, Turkey found of natural gas in the biggest ever discovery in the Black Sea, and hoped to begin production in the Sakarya Gas Field by 2023. The sector is near where Romania has also found gas reserves. Tourism. In the years following the end of the Cold War, the popularity of the Black Sea as a tourist destination steadily increased. Tourism at Black Sea resorts became one of the region's growth industries. The following is a list of notable Black Sea resort towns: Modern military use. The 1936 Montreux Convention provides for free passage of civilian ships between the international waters of the Black and the Mediterranean seas. However, a single country (Turkey) has complete control over the straits connecting the two seas. Military ships are categorized separately from civilian vessels and can pass through the straits only if the ship belongs to a Black Sea country. Other military ships have the right to pass through the straits if they are not in a war against Turkey and if they stay in the Black Sea basin for a limited time. The 1982 amendments to the Montreux Convention allow Turkey to close the straits at its discretion in both war and peacetime. The Montreux Convention governs the passage of vessels between the Black, Mediterranean, and Aegean seas and the presence of military vessels belonging to non-littoral states in the Black Sea waters. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has its official primary headquarters and facilities in the city of Sevastopol (Sevastopol Naval Base). The Soviet hospital ship was sunk on 7 November 1941 by German aircraft while evacuating civilians and wounded soldiers from Crimea. It has been estimated that approximately 5,000 to 7,000 people were killed during the sinking, making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history. There were only eight survivors. In December 2018, the Kerch Strait incident occurred, in which the Russian navy and coast guard took control of three Ukrainian vessels as the ships were trying to transit from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov. In April 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk in the western Black Sea by sea-skimming Neptune missiles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces while the Russians claimed that an onboard fire had caused munitions to explode and damage the ship extensively. She was the largest ship to be lost in naval combat in Europe since World War II. In late 2023, Russia announced plans to build a naval base on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia.

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