title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein grew up in the era of racial segregation in the United States and wrote some of his most influential fiction at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He explicitly made the case for using his fiction not only to predict the future but also to educate his readers about the value of racial equality and the importance of racial tolerance. His early novels were very much ahead of their time both in their explicit rejection of racism and in their inclusion of protagonists of color. In the context of science fiction before the 1960s, the mere existence of characters of color was a remarkable novelty, with green occurring more often than brown. For example, his 1948 novel "Space Cadet" explicitly uses aliens as a metaphor for minorities. In his novel "The Star Beast", the "de facto" foreign minister of the Terran government is an undersecretary, a Mr. Kiku, who is from Africa. Heinlein explicitly states his skin is "ebony black" and that Kiku is in an arranged marriage that is happy.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In a number of his stories, Heinlein challenges his readers' possible racial preconceptions by introducing a strong, sympathetic character, only to reveal much later that he or she is of African or other ancestry. In several cases, the covers of the books show characters as being light-skinned when the text states or at least implies that they are dark-skinned or of African ancestry. Heinlein repeatedly denounced racism in his nonfiction works, including numerous examples in "Expanded Universe".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein reveals in "Starship Troopers" that the novel's protagonist and narrator, Johnny Rico, the formerly disaffected scion of a wealthy family, is Filipino, actually named "Juan Rico" and speaks Tagalog in addition to English.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Race was a central theme in some of Heinlein's fiction. The most prominent example is "Farnham's Freehold", which casts a white family into a future in which white people are the slaves of cannibalistic black rulers. In the 1941 novel "Sixth Column" (also known as "The Day After Tomorrow"), a white resistance movement in the United States defends itself against an invasion by an Asian fascist state (the "Pan-Asians") using a "super-science" technology that allows ray weapons to be tuned to specific races. The book is sprinkled with racist slurs against Asian people, and black and Hispanic people are not mentioned at all. The idea for the story was pushed on Heinlein by editor John W. Campbell and the story itself was based on a then-unpublished story by Campbell, and Heinlein wrote later that he had "had to re-slant it to remove racist aspects of the original story line" and that he did not "consider it to be an artistic success". However, the novel prompted a heated debate in the scientific community regarding the plausibility of developing ethnic bioweapons. John Hickman, writing in the "European Journal of American Studies", identifies examples of anti-East Asian racism in some of Heinlein's works, particularly "Sixth Column".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein summed up his attitude toward people of any race in his essay "Our Noble, Essential Decency" thus:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In keeping with his belief in individualism, his work for adults—and sometimes even his work for juveniles—often portrays both the oppressors and the oppressed with considerable ambiguity. Heinlein believed that individualism was incompatible with ignorance. He believed that an appropriate level of adult competence was achieved through a wide-ranging education, whether this occurred in a classroom or not. In his juvenile novels, more than once a character looks with disdain at a student's choice of classwork, saying, "Why didn't you study something useful?" In "Time Enough for Love", Lazarus Long gives a long list of capabilities that anyone should have, concluding, "Specialization is for insects." The ability of the individual to create himself is explored in stories such as "I Will Fear No Evil", "—All You Zombies—", and "By His Bootstraps".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein claimed to have written "Starship Troopers" in response to "calls for the unilateral ending of nuclear testing by the United States". Heinlein suggests in the book that the Bugs are a good example of Communism being something that humans cannot successfully adhere to, since humans are strongly defined individuals, whereas the Bugs, being a collective, can all contribute to the whole without consideration of individual desire.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: For Heinlein, personal liberation included sexual liberation, and free love was a major subject of his writing starting in 1939, with "For Us, the Living". During his early period, Heinlein's writing for younger readers needed to take account of both editorial perceptions of sexuality in his novels, and potential perceptions among the buying public; as critic William H. Patterson has put it, his dilemma was "to sort out what was really objectionable from what was only excessive over-sensitivity to imaginary librarians".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: By his middle period, sexual freedom and the elimination of sexual jealousy became a major theme; for instance, in "Stranger in a Strange Land" (1961), the progressively minded but sexually conservative reporter, Ben Caxton, acts as a dramatic foil for the less parochial characters, Jubal Harshaw and Valentine Michael Smith (Mike). Another of the main characters, Jill, is homophobic, and says that "nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped it's partly her own fault."


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In books written as early as 1956, Heinlein dealt with incest and the sexual nature of children. Many of his books including "Time for the Stars", "Glory Road", "Time Enough for Love", and "The Number of the Beast" dealt explicitly or implicitly with incest, sexual feelings and relations between adults, children, or both. The treatment of these themes include the romantic relationship and eventual marriage of two characters in "The Door into Summer" who met when one was a 30-year-old engineer and the other was an 11-year-old girl, and who eventually married when time-travel rendered the girl an adult while the engineer aged minimally, or the more overt intra-familial incest in "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" and "Farnham's Freehold". Heinlein often posed situations where the nominal purpose of sexual taboos was irrelevant to a particular situation, due to future advances in technology. For example, in "Time Enough for Love" Heinlein describes a brother and sister (Joe and Llita) who were mirror twins, being complementary diploids with entirely disjoint genomes, and thus not at increased risk for unfavorable gene duplication due to consanguinity. In this instance, Llita and Joe were props used to explore the concept of incest, where the usual objection to incest—heightened risk of genetic defect in their children—was not a consideration. Peers such as L. Sprague de Camp and Damon Knight have commented critically on Heinlein's portrayal of incest and pedophilia in a lighthearted and even approving manner. Diane Parkin-Speer suggests that Heinlein's intent seems more to provoke the reader and to question sexual norms than to promote any particular sexual agenda.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In "To Sail Beyond the Sunset", Heinlein has the main character, Maureen, state that the purpose of metaphysics is to ask questions: "Why are we here?" "Where are we going after we die?" (and so on); and that you are not allowed to answer the questions. "Asking" the questions is the point of metaphysics, but "answering" them is not, because once you answer this kind of question, you cross the line into religion. Maureen does not state a reason for this; she simply remarks that such questions are "beautiful" but lack answers. Maureen's son/lover Lazarus Long makes a related remark in "Time Enough for Love". In order for us to answer the "big questions" about the universe, Lazarus states at one point, it would be necessary to stand "outside" the universe.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: During the 1930s and 1940s, Heinlein was deeply interested in Alfred Korzybski's general semantics and attended a number of seminars on the subject. His views on epistemology seem to have flowed from that interest, and his fictional characters continue to express Korzybskian views to the very end of his writing career. Many of his stories, such as "Gulf", "If This Goes On—", and "Stranger in a Strange Land", depend strongly on the premise, related to the well-known Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, that by using a correctly designed language, one can change or improve oneself mentally, or even realize untapped potential (as in the case of Joe in "Gulf"—whose last name may be Greene, Gilead or Briggs).


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: When Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" was published, Heinlein was very favorably impressed, as quoted in "Grumbles ..." and mentioned John Galt—the hero in Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"—as a heroic archetype in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". He was also strongly affected by the religious philosopher P. D. Ouspensky. Freudianism and psychoanalysis were at the height of their influence during the peak of Heinlein's career, and stories such as "Time for the Stars" indulged in psychological theorizing.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: However, he was skeptical about Freudianism, especially after a struggle with an editor who insisted on reading Freudian sexual symbolism into his juvenile novels. Heinlein was fascinated by the social credit movement in the 1930s. This is shown in "Beyond This Horizon" and in his 1938 novel "", which was finally published in 2003, long after his death.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: On that theme, the phrase "pay it forward", though it was already in occasional use as a quotation, was popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his book "Between Planets", published in 1951:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: He referred to this in a number of other stories, although sometimes just saying to pay a debt back by helping others, as in one of his last works, "Job, a Comedy of Justice".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein was a mentor to Ray Bradbury, giving him help and quite possibly passing on the concept, made famous by the publication of a letter from him to Heinlein thanking him. In Bradbury's novel "Dandelion Wine", published in 1957, when the main character Douglas Spaulding is reflecting on his life being saved by Mr. Jonas, the Junkman:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein both preached and practiced this philosophy; now the Heinlein Society, a humanitarian organization founded in his name, does so, attributing the philosophy to its various efforts, including Heinlein for Heroes, the Heinlein Society Scholarship Program, and Heinlein Society blood drives. Author Spider Robinson made repeated reference to the doctrine, attributing it to his spiritual mentor Heinlein.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein is usually identified, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, as one of the three masters of science fiction to arise in the so-called Golden Age of science fiction, associated with John W. Campbell and his magazine "Astounding".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In the 1950s he was a leader in bringing science fiction out of the low-paying and less prestigious "pulp ghetto". Most of his works, including short stories, have been continuously in print in many languages since their initial appearance and are still available as new paperbacks decades after his death.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: He was at the top of his form during, and himself helped to initiate, the trend toward social science fiction, which went along with a general maturing of the genre away from space opera to a more literary approach touching on such adult issues as politics and human sexuality. In reaction to this trend, hard science fiction began to be distinguished as a separate subgenre, but paradoxically Heinlein is also considered a seminal figure in hard science fiction, due to his extensive knowledge of engineering and the careful scientific research demonstrated in his stories. Heinlein himself stated—with obvious pride—that in the days before pocket calculators, he and his wife Virginia once worked for several days on a mathematical equation describing an Earth–Mars rocket orbit, which was then subsumed in a single sentence of the novel "Space Cadet".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein is often credited with bringing serious writing techniques to the genre of science fiction. For example, when writing about fictional worlds, previous authors were often limited by the reader's existing knowledge of a typical "space opera" setting, leading to a relatively low creativity level: The same starships, death rays, and horrifying rubbery aliens becoming ubiquitous. This was necessary unless the author was willing to go into long expositions about the setting of the story, at a time when the word count was at a premium in SF.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: But Heinlein utilized a technique called "indirect exposition", perhaps first introduced by Rudyard Kipling in his own science fiction venture, the Aerial Board of Control stories. Kipling had picked this up during his time in India, using it to avoid bogging down his stories set in India with explanations for his English readers. This technique—mentioning details in a way that lets the reader infer more about the universe than is actually spelled out became a trademark rhetorical technique of both Heinlein and generation of writers influenced by him. Heinlein was significantly influenced by Kipling beyond this, for example quoting him in "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Likewise, Heinlein's name is often associated with the competent hero, a character archetype who, though he or she may have flaws and limitations, is a strong, accomplished person able to overcome any soluble problem set in their path. They tend to feel confident overall, have a broad life experience and set of skills, and not give up when the going gets tough. This style influenced not only the writing style of a generation of authors, but even their personal character. Harlan Ellison once said, "Very early in life when I read Robert Heinlein I got the thread that runs through his stories—the notion of the competent man ... I've always held that as my ideal. I've tried to be a very competent man."


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: When fellow writers, or fans, wrote Heinlein asking for writing advice, he famously gave out his own list of rules for becoming a successful writer:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein later published an entire article, "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction", which included his rules, and from which the above quote is taken. When he says "anything said above them", he refers to his other guidelines. For example, he describes most stories as fitting into one of a handful of basic categories:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In the article, Heinlein proposes that most stories fit into the either the gadget story or the human interest story, which is itself subdivided into the three latter categories. He also credits L. Ron Hubbard as having identified "The Man-Who-Learned-Better".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein has had a pervasive influence on other science fiction writers. In a 1953 poll of leading science fiction authors, he was cited more frequently as an influence than any other modern writer. Critic James Gifford writes that


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein gave Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle extensive advice on a draft manuscript of "The Mote in God's Eye". He contributed a cover blurb "Possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read." Writer David Gerrold, responsible for creating the tribbles in "Star Trek", also credited Heinlein as the inspiration for his "Dingilliad" series of novels. Gregory Benford refers to his novel "Jupiter Project" as a Heinlein tribute. Similarly, Charles Stross says his Hugo Award-nominated novel "Saturn's Children" is "a space opera and late-period Robert A. Heinlein tribute", referring to Heinlein's "Friday". The theme and plot of Kameron Hurley's novel, "The Light Brigade" clearly echo those of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Even outside the science fiction community, several words and phrases coined or adopted by Heinlein have passed into common English usage:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In 1962, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (then still using his birth name, Tim Zell) founded the Church of All Worlds, a Neopagan religious organization modeled in many ways (including its name) after the treatment of religion in the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land". This spiritual path included several ideas from the book, including non-mainstream family structures, social libertarianism, water-sharing rituals, an acceptance of all religious paths by a single tradition, and the use of several terms such as "grok", "Thou art God", and "Never Thirst". Though Heinlein was neither a member nor a promoter of the Church, there was a frequent exchange of correspondence between Zell and Heinlein, and he was a paid subscriber to their magazine, "Green Egg". This Church still exists as a 501(C)(3) religious organization incorporated in California, with membership worldwide, and it remains an active part of the neopagan community today. Zell-Ravenheart's wife, Morning Glory coined the term polyamory in 1990, another movement that includes Heinlein concepts among its roots.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein was influential in making space exploration seem to the public more like a practical possibility. His stories in publications such as "The Saturday Evening Post" took a matter-of-fact approach to their outer-space setting, rather than the "gee whiz" tone that had previously been common. The documentary-like film "Destination Moon" advocated a Space Race with an unspecified foreign power almost a decade before such an idea became commonplace, and was promoted by an unprecedented publicity campaign in print publications. Many of the astronauts and others working in the U.S. space program grew up on a diet of the Heinlein juveniles, best evidenced by the naming of a crater on Mars after him, and a tribute interspersed by the Apollo 15 astronauts into their radio conversations while on the moon.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein was also a guest commentator (along with fellow SF author Arthur C. Clarke) for Walter Cronkite's coverage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. He remarked to Cronkite during the landing that, "This is the greatest event in human history, up to this time. This is—today is New Year's Day of the Year One."


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein has inspired many transformational figures in business and technology including Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the first mass-produced portable computer, Marc Andreessen, co-author of the first widely-used web browser, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: The Heinlein Society was founded by Virginia Heinlein on behalf of her husband, to "pay forward" the legacy of the writer to future generations of "Heinlein's Children". The foundation has programs to:


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: The Heinlein society also established the Robert A. Heinlein Award in 2003 "for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In his lifetime, Heinlein received four Hugo Awards, for "Double Star", "Starship Troopers", "Stranger in a Strange Land", and "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", and was nominated for four Nebula Awards, for "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", "Friday", "Time Enough for Love", and "Job: A Comedy of Justice". He was also given seven Retro-Hugos: two for best novel: "Beyond This Horizon" and "Farmer in the Sky"; Three for best novella: :"If This Goes On ...", "Waldo", and "The Man Who Sold the Moon"; one for best novelette: "The Roads Must Roll"; and one for best dramatic presentation: "Destination Moon".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein was also nominated for six Hugo Awards for the works "Have Space Suit: Will Travel, Glory Road, Time Enough for Love, Friday, Job: A Comedy of Justice" and "Grumbles from the Grave" as well as six Retro Hugo Awards for "Magic, Inc.", "Requiem", "Coventry", "Blowups Happen", "Goldfish Bowl", and "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag".


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: The Science Fiction Writers of America named Heinlein its first Grand Master in 1974, presented 1975. Officers and past presidents of the Association select a living writer for lifetime achievement (now annually and including fantasy literature).


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Main-belt asteroid 6312 Robheinlein (1990 RH4), discovered on September 14, 1990, by H. E. Holt, at Palomar was named after him.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: There is no lunar feature named explicitly for Heinlein, but in 1994 the International Astronomical Union named Heinlein crater on Mars in his honor.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Heinlein in 1998, its third class of two deceased and two living writers and editors.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In 2001 the United States Naval Academy created the Robert A. Heinlein Chair In Aerospace Engineering.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: Heinlein was the Ghost of Honor at the 2008 World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, Colorado, which held several panels on his works; nearly seventy years earlier, he had been a Guest of Honor at the same convention.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: In 2016, after an intensive online campaign to win a vote for the opening, Heinlein was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians. His bronze bust, created by Kansas City sculptor E. Spencer Schubert, is on permanent display in the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City.


title: Robert A. Heinlein

text: The Libertarian Futurist Society has honored eight of Heinlein's novels and two short stories with their Hall of Fame award. The first two were given during his lifetime for "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strange Land". Five more were awarded posthumously for "Red Planet", "Methuselah's Children", "Time Enough for Love", and the short stories "Requiem" and "Coventry".


title: WordPress

text: WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as "Themes". WordPress was originally created as a blog-publishing system but has evolved to support other web content types including more traditional mailing lists and Internet fora, media galleries, membership sites, learning management systems (LMS) and online stores. One of the most popular content management system solutions in use, WordPress is used by 42.8% of the top 10 million websites .


title: WordPress

text: WordPress was released on May 27, 2003, by its founders, American developer Matt Mullenweg and English developer Mike Little, as a fork of "b2/cafelog". The software is released under the GPLv2 (or later) license.


title: WordPress

text: To function, WordPress has to be installed on a web server, either part of an Internet hosting service like WordPress.com or a computer running the software package WordPress.org in order to serve as a network host in its own right. A local computer may be used for single-user testing and learning purposes.


title: WordPress

text: "WordPress is a factory that makes webpages" is a core analogy designed to clarify the functions of WordPress: it stores content and enables a user to create and publish webpages, requiring nothing beyond a domain and a hosting service.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress has a web template system using a template processor. Its architecture is a front controller, routing all requests for non-static URIs to a single PHP file that parses the URI and identifies the target page. This allows support for more human-readable permalinks.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress users may install and switch among many different themes. Themes allow users to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website without altering the core code or site content. Every WordPress website requires at least one theme to be present. Themes may be directly installed using the WordPress "Appearance" administration tool in the dashboard, or theme folders may be copied directly into the themes directory. WordPress themes are generally classified into two categories: free and premium. Many free themes are listed in the WordPress theme directory (also known as the repository), and premium themes are available for purchase from marketplaces and individual WordPress developers. WordPress users may also create and develop their own custom themes.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress' plugin architecture allows users to extend the features and functionality of a website or blog. , WordPress.org has 59,756 plugins available, each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs. However, this does not include the premium plugins that are available (approximately 1,500+), which may not be listed in the WordPress.org repository. These customizations range from search engine optimization (SEO) to client portals used to display private information to logged-in users, to content management systems, to content displaying features, such as the addition of widgets and navigation bars. Not all available plugins are always abreast with the upgrades, and as a result, they may not function properly or may not function at all. If the plugin developer has not tested the plugin with the last two major versions of WordPress, a warning message will be displayed on the plugin directory, informing users that the plugin may not work properly with the latest WordPress version. Most plugins are available through WordPress themselves, either via downloading them and installing the files manually via FTP or through the WordPress dashboard. However, many third parties offer plugins through their own websites, many of which are paid packages.


title: WordPress

text: Web developers who wish to develop plugins need to learn WordPress' hook system, which consists of over 2,000 hooks (as of Version 5.7 in 2021) divided into two categories: action hooks and filter hooks.


title: WordPress

text: Plugins also represent a development strategy that can transform WordPress into all sorts of software systems and applications, limited only by the imagination and creativity of programmers. These are implemented using custom plugins to create non-website systems, such as headless WordPress applications and Software as a Service (SaaS) products.


title: WordPress

text: Plugins also could be used by hackers targeting the site that use WordPress, as hackers could exploit bugs on WordPress plugins themselves instead of exploiting the bugs on WordPress itself.


title: WordPress

text: Phone apps for WordPress exist for WebOS, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. These applications, designed by Automattic, have options such as adding new blog posts and pages, commenting, moderating comments, replying to comments in addition to the ability to view the stats.


title: WordPress

text: The WordPress Accessibility Team has worked to improve the accessibility for core WordPress as well as support a clear identification of accessible themes. The WordPress Accessibility Team provides continuing educational support about web accessibility and inclusive design. The WordPress Accessibility Coding Standards state that "All new or updated code released in WordPress must conform with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 at level AA."


title: WordPress

text: WordPress also features integrated link management, a search engine–friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign multiple categories to posts; and support for tagging of posts. Automatic filters are also included, providing standardized formatting and styling of text in posts (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes). WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or an article. WordPress posts can be edited in HTML, using the visual editor, or using one of a number of plugins that allow for a variety of customized editing features.


title: WordPress

text: Prior to version 3, WordPress supported one blog per installation, although multiple concurrent copies may be run from different directories if configured to use separate database tables. WordPress Multisites (previously referred to as WordPress Multi-User, WordPress MU, or WPMU) was a fork of WordPress created to allow multiple blogs to exist within one installation but is able to be administered by a centralized maintainer. WordPress MU makes it possible for those with websites to host their own blogging communities, as well as control and moderate all the blogs from a single dashboard. WordPress MU adds eight new data tables for each blog.


title: WordPress

text: "b2/cafelog", more commonly known as "b2" or "catalog", was the precursor to WordPress. b2/cafelog was estimated to have been installed on approximately 2,000 blogs as of May 2003. It was written in PHP for use with MySQL by Michel Valdrighi, who is now a contributing developer to WordPress. Although WordPress is the official successor, another project, b2evolution, is also in active development.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little to create a fork of b2. Christine Selleck Tremoulet, a friend of Mullenweg, suggested the name "WordPress".


title: WordPress

text: In 2004 the licensing terms for the competing Movable Type package were changed by Six Apart, resulting in many of its most influential users migrating to WordPress. By October 2009 the Open Source CMS MarketShare Report concluded that WordPress enjoyed the greatest brand strength of any open-source content management system.


title: WordPress

text: As of May 2021, WordPress is used by 64.8% of all the websites whose content management system is known. This is 41.4% of the top 10 million websites.


title: WordPress

text: Although only the current release is officially supported, security updates are backported "as a courtesy" to all versions as far back as 4.0.


title: WordPress

text: There are also PHP requirements for each WordPress version. This involves both PHP version requirements as well as required PHP extensions plus other optional PHP extensions.


title: WordPress

text: The December 2018 release of WordPress 5.0, "Bebo", is named in homage to the pioneering Cuban jazz musician Bebo Valdés.


title: WordPress

text: It included a new default editor "Gutenberg" – a block-based editor; it allows users to modify their displayed content in a much more user friendly way than prior iterations. Blocks are abstract units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a web page. Past content that was created on WordPress pages is listed under what is referred to as a Classic Block. Prior to Gutenberg, there were several block-based editors available as WordPress plugins, e.g. Elementor. Following the release of Gutenberg, comparisons were made between it and those existing plugins.


title: WordPress

text: The Classic Editor plugin was created as a result of User preferences and helped website developers maintain past plugins only compatible with WordPress 4.9, giving plugin developers time to get their plugins updated & compatible with the 5.0 release. Having the Classic Editor plugin installed restores the "classic" editing experience that WordPress has had up until the WordPress 5.0 release. The Classic Editor plugin will be supported at least until 2022.


title: WordPress

text: As of November 2022, the Classic Editor plugin is active on over 5 million installations of WordPress.


title: WordPress

text: Many security issues have been uncovered in the software, particularly in 2007, 2008, and 2015. According to Secunia, WordPress in April 2009 had seven unpatched security advisories (out of 32 total), with a maximum rating of "Less Critical". Secunia maintains an up-to-date list of WordPress vulnerabilities.


title: WordPress

text: In January 2007, many high-profile search engine optimization (SEO) blogs, as well as many low-profile commercial blogs featuring AdSense, were targeted and attacked with a WordPress exploit. A separate vulnerability on one of the project site's web servers allowed an attacker to introduce exploitable code in the form of a back door to some downloads of WordPress 2.1.1. The 2.1.2 release addressed this issue; an advisory released at the time advised all users to upgrade immediately.


title: WordPress

text: In May 2007, a study revealed that 98% of WordPress blogs being run were exploitable because they were running outdated and unsupported versions of the software. In part to mitigate this problem, WordPress made updating the software a much easier, "one click" automated process in version 2.7 (released in December 2008). However, the filesystem security settings required to enable the update process can be an additional risk.


title: WordPress

text: In a June 2007 interview, Stefan Esser, the founder of the PHP Security Response Team, spoke critically of WordPress' security track record, citing problems with the application's architecture that made it unnecessarily difficult to write code that is secure from SQL injection vulnerabilities, as well as some other problems.


title: WordPress

text: In June 2013, it was found that some of the 50 most downloaded WordPress plugins were vulnerable to common Web attacks such as SQL injection and XSS. A separate inspection of the top 10 e-commerce plugins showed that seven of them were vulnerable.


title: WordPress

text: In an effort to promote better security and to streamline the update experience overall, automatic background updates were introduced in WordPress 3.7.


title: WordPress

text: Individual installations of WordPress can be protected with security plugins that prevent user enumeration, hide resources and thwart probes. Users can also protect their WordPress installations by taking steps such as keeping all WordPress installations, themes, and plugins updated, using only trusted themes and plugins, and editing the site's .htaccess configuration file if supported by the webserver to prevent many types of SQL injection attacks and block unauthorized access to sensitive files. It is especially important to keep WordPress plugins updated because would-be hackers can easily list all the plugins a site uses and then run scans searching for any vulnerabilities against those plugins. If vulnerabilities are found, they may be exploited to allow hackers to, for example, upload their own files (such as a web shell) that collect sensitive information.


title: WordPress

text: Developers can also use tools to analyze potential vulnerabilities, including Jetpack Protect, WPScan, WordPress Auditor, and WordPress Sploit Framework developed by 0pc0deFR. These types of tools research known vulnerabilities, such as CSRF, LFI, RFI, XSS, SQL injection, and user enumeration. However, not all vulnerabilities can be detected by tools, so it is advisable to check the code of plugins, themes and other add-ins from other developers.


title: WordPress

text: In March 2015, it was reported that the Yoast SEO plugin was vulnerable to SQL injection, allowing attackers to potentially execute arbitrary SQL commands. The issue was fixed in version 1.7.4 of the plugin.


title: WordPress

text: In January 2017, security auditors at Sucuri identified a vulnerability in the WordPress REST API that would allow any unauthenticated user to modify any post or page within a site running WordPress 4.7 or greater. The auditors quietly notified WordPress developers, and within six days WordPress released a high-priority patch to version 4.7.2, which addressed the problem.


title: WordPress

text: As of WordPress 6.0, the minimum PHP version requirement is PHP 5.6, which was released on August 28, 2014, and which has been unsupported by the PHP Group and not received any security patches since December 31, 2018. Thus, WordPress recommends using PHP version 7.4 or greater.


title: WordPress

text: In the absence of specific alterations to their default formatting code, WordPress-based websites use the canvas element to detect whether the browser is able to correctly render emoji. Because Tor Browser does not currently discriminate between this legitimate use of the Canvas API and an effort to perform canvas fingerprinting, it warns that the website is attempting to 'extract HTML5 canvas image data. Ongoing efforts seek workarounds to reassure privacy advocates while retaining the ability to check for proper emoji rendering capability.


title: WordPress

text: Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little were co-founders of the project. The core lead developers include Helen Hou-Sandí, Dion Hulse, Mark Jaquith, Matt Mullenweg, Andrew Ozz, and Andrew Nacin.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress is also developed by its community, including "WP tester", a group of volunteers who test each release. They have early access to nightly builds, beta versions, and release candidates. Errors are documented in a special mailing list or the project's Trac tool.


title: WordPress

text: Though largely developed by the community surrounding it, WordPress is closely associated with Automattic, the company founded by Matt Mullenweg.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress Foundation is a non-profit organization that was set up to support the WordPress project. The purpose of the organization is to guarantee open access to WordPress's software projects forever. As part of this, the organization owns and manages WordPress, WordCamp and related trademarks. In January 2010, Matt Mullenweg formed the organization to own and manage the trademarks of WordPress project. Previously from 2006 onwards Automattic acted as a short-term owner of the WordPress trademarks. From the beginning, he intended later to place the WordPress trademarks with the WordPress Foundation, which did not yet exist in 2006 and which eventually took longer to set up than expected.


title: WordPress

text: On December 14, 2021, Matt Mullenweg announced the WordPress Photo Directory at the State of the Word 2021 event. It is an open-source image directory for open images maintained by the WordPress project. The image directory aims to provide an open alternative to closed image banks, such as Unsplash, Pixbaby, and Adobe Stock, whose licensing terms have become restrictive in recent years. Use in WordPress themes, for example, is restricted. In January 2022, the project began to gather volunteers, and in February, its own developer website was launched, where team representatives were next selected.


title: WordPress

text: WordCamps are casual, locally organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. The first such event was WordCamp 2006 in August 2006 in San Francisco, which lasted one day and had over 500 attendees. The first WordCamp outside San Francisco was held in Beijing in September 2007. Since then, there have been over 1,022 WordCamps in over 75 cities in 65 countries around the world. WordCamp San Francisco 2014 was the last official annual conference of WordPress developers and users taking place in San Francisco, having now been replaced with WordCamp US. First ran in 2013 as WordCamp Europe, regional WordCamps in other geographical regions are held with the aim of connecting people who aren't already active in their local communities and inspire attendees to start user communities in their hometowns. In 2019, the Nordic region had its own WordCamp Nordic. The first WordCamp Asia was to be held in 2020, but cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: WordPress

text: WordPress' primary support website is WordPress.org. This support website hosts both WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress and a living repository for WordPress information and documentation,


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Sharlto Copley (born 27 November 1973) is a South African actor. His acting credits include roles in the Academy Award-nominated science fiction film "District 9", the 2010 adaptation of "The A-Team", the science fiction film "Elysium", the science fiction horror film "Europa Report" and the dark fantasy adventure film "Maleficent". He also played the title character in the science fiction film "Chappie", Jimmy in "Hardcore Henry", and starred in two seasons as Christian Walker of the TV series "Powers". Copley is married to fellow South African actress and supermodel Tanit Phoenix.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Sharlto Copley was born in Johannesburg and educated at St. Andrew's Preparatory School in Grahamstown and Redhill School in Morningside, Johannesburg. His father is Dr. Bruce Copley, a former university professor. His brother, Donovan, is the lead singer of the Cape Town band Hot Water.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Shortly after leaving high school, Copley met Neill Blomkamp, who is younger than him. Copley allowed Blomkamp to use computers at his production company to help the company pitch various projects and allow Blomkamp to pursue his passion and talent for 3D animation and design.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: In Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp's "District 9" (2009), Copley played the lead role of Wikus van der Merwe, an Afrikaner bureaucrat assigned to move a race of extraterrestrial creatures stranded on Earth. In the film, the aliens, popularly and derogatorily referred to as "prawns", must be moved from District 9, a military-guarded slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, to an internment camp outside the city. Copley improvised all of his dialogue. At the 2009 IGN Summer Movie awards, Copley won Favorite Hero and Best Performance.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: In 2010 Copley produced, wrote, and directed an insert for the South African Film and Television Awards called "Wikus and Charlize", featuring fellow South African star Charlize Theron. The clip features Copley as Wikus attempting to track down Charlize Theron in Hollywood to help him present the Award for Best Afrikaans Pop album.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Copley then starred alongside Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in the feature film adaptation of "The A-Team", which was produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott. Copley used a Southern American dialect for his portrayal of A-Team member H. M. Murdock, and employed other dialects, including Scottish, English, Australian and his native South African, as part of the character's rapid-fire style. Dwight Schultz, who played Murdock in the original TV series, praised Copley's performance and said Copley was the only actor he knew of who was "true to his character."


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Copley guest-co-hosted "WWE Raw" on 7 June 2010, along with his "A-Team" co-stars Cooper and Jackson.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: In 2013, Copley played fictional astronaut James Corrigan in "Europa Report", the story of a crew of international astronauts sent on a private mission to Jupiter's fourth moon. The same year, Copley portrayed the villain Agent Kruger in "Elysium", a science fiction film written and directed by Blomkamp, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Copley played villain Adrian Pryce in Spike Lee's "Oldboy", a remake of the 2003 South Korean film of the same name. He also starred opposite Angelina Jolie in the 2014 Disney film "Maleficent" and played King Stefan, Princess Aurora's father. He also provided the voice, reference work, and interaction with the cast as Chappie, the titular character of the 2015 film "Chappie", also directed by Neill Blomkamp.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: In 2015, Copley was announced to star as Christian Walker in the superhero TV series "Powers". He later provided the voiceover for the e-tron GT concept promotional video by Audi Sport GmbH.


title: Sharlto Copley

text: In March 2018, Copley starred in the crime comedy film "Gringo" as Mitch Rusk. Copley portrayed the titular character of a biographical film about Ted Kaczynski titled "Ted K".


title: Sharlto Copley

text: Copley has been in a relationship with actress and supermodel Tanit Phoenix since January 2012. They wed on 15 February 2016, in Cape Town, South Africa. The couple have a daughter together.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: The 2026 Winter Olympics, officially the XXV Olympic Winter Games () and also known as Milano Cortina 2026 ( or ), is an upcoming international multi-sport event scheduled to take place from 6 to 22 February 2026 in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo beat another joint bid from Swedish cities Stockholm–Åre by 47–34 votes to be elected host cities at the 134th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 June 2019.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: This will be the fourth Olympic Games hosted in Italy, the second for Cortina d'Ampezzo (previously hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics), and the first hosted in Milan. It will be the first Olympic Games featuring multiple host cities in an official form and will be the first Winter Olympics since Sarajevo 1984 at which the opening and closing ceremonies will be held in different places. It will mark the 20th anniversary of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the most recent Olympics in Italy, and the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, the first Olympics held in Italy. It will be also the last of the two consecutive Olympics to be held in Europe with France hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo were elected as the host cities on 24 June 2019 at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland. The three Italian IOC members, Franco Carraro, Ivo Ferriani and Giovanni Malagò, and two Swedish IOC members, Gunilla Lindberg and Stefan Holm, were ineligible to vote in this host city election under the rules of the Olympic Charter.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: On 18 June 2021, the International Olympic Committee issued a proposal for a new winter sport, ski mountaineering, for the 2026 Winter Olympics. The proposal was approved during the IOC's session in Tokyo on 20 July.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: On 24 June, 2022,the IOC announced the final version of the program for this edition. Present in the last two editions of the Games, the mixed team event of alpine skiing was dropped from the program. This removal was done for logistical reasons, as men and women will be competing at different resorts that are very far apart. The IOC together with the FIS decided to provisionally place the combined event in both sexes in the same sport, given the low technical level and the high number of accidents during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. However, along with the three ski mountaineering events, five new events have been added to the Olympic program in four sports that were already on the program. In this way, a total of 114 events in eight sports were confirmed.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: The official emblem for the games was decided through a global online vote that opened on 6 March 2021. The two candidate emblems were unveiled at the Sanremo Music Festival 2021 by former Italian Olympic gold medallists Federica Pellegrini and Alberto Tomba and are nicknamed "Dado" and "Futura". They were both designed by Landor Associates. It is reportedly the first time that the emblem of an Olympic Games was decided by the public.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: The vote closed on 25 March 2021, with the winning emblem, the "Futura" emblem, announced on 30 March 2021.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: The official anthem of the 2026 Winter Olympics and the 2026 Winter Paralympics was announced in March 2022.


title: 2026 Winter Olympics

text: In the United States, these Games will once again be broadcast by NBCUniversal properties, as part of its US$7.75 billion contract to air the Olympics through 2032. The 2026 edition of the Super Bowl—championship game of the National Football League (NFL) and historically the most-watched television broadcast in the United States annually—is tentatively scheduled to be broadcast during the Winter Olympics for a second consecutive time following the Super Bowl LVI in 2022 (and the third time that NBC has held the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics on the same year after Super Bowl LII in 2018) airing during the 2022 Winter Olympics. On 18 March 2021, the NFL renewed its rights to its U.S. broadcast partners through 2033, awarding NBC the Super Bowl during the Winter Olympic years of 2026, 2030, and 2034 (if it still has the Olympic Rights then). Holding rights to the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics will prevent competition for viewership and advertising sales, and also allow NBC to create synergies and complementary advertising packages for the events. While there is an established practice of airing premieres or special episodes of entertainment programs after the Super Bowl to take advantage of its large audience, NBC may decide to air its Day 3 programming daytime in the morning prior to the Super Bowl and its primetime block after the game, as in 2022.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Portsmouth and the towns of Havant, Waterlooville, Eastleigh, Fareham and Gosport.


title: Southampton

text: A major port, and close to the New Forest, it lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water, at the confluence of the River Test and Itchen, with the River Hamble joining to the south.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton was the departure point for the and home to 500 of the people who perished on board. The Spitfire was built in the city and Southampton has a strong association with the "Mayflower", being the departure point before the vessel was forced to return to Plymouth. In the past century, the city was one of Europe's main ports for ocean liners and more recently, Southampton is known as the home port of some of the largest cruise ships in the world. The Cunard Line maintains a regular transatlantic service to New York from the city. Southampton is also one of the largest retail destinations in the South of England.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton was heavily bombed during the Second World War during what was known as the Southampton Blitz. It was one of the major embarkation points for D-Day. It was also where troops left England for the Battle of Agincourt and was itself victim of a number of raids from French pirates in the Middle Ages, leading to the construction of the fortified town walls, many of which still stand today. Jane Austen also lived in Southampton for a number of years. In 1964, the town of Southampton acquired city status, becoming the City of Southampton.


title: Southampton

text: Some notable employers in the city include the University of Southampton, Ordnance Survey, BBC South, Associated British Ports and Carnival UK.


title: Southampton

text: The unitary authority area of Southampton had a population of 253,651 at the 2011 census, making it one of the most populous cities in southern England. Southampton forms part of the larger South Hampshire conurbation.


title: Southampton

text: Archaeological finds suggest that the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age. Following the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 and the conquering of the local Britons in AD 70 the fortress settlement of "Clausentum" was established. It was an important trading port and defensive outpost of Winchester, at the site of modern Bitterne Manor. "Clausentum" was defended by a wall and two ditches and is thought to have contained a bath house. "Clausentum" was not abandoned until around 410.


title: Southampton

text: The Anglo-Saxons formed a new, larger, settlement across the Itchen centred on what is now the St Mary's area of the city. The settlement was known as "Hamwic", which evolved into "Hamtun" and then "Hampton". Archaeological excavations of this site have uncovered one of the best collections of Saxon artefacts in Europe. It is from this town that the county of Hampshire gets its name.


title: Southampton

text: Viking raids from 840 onwards contributed to the decline of Hamwic in the 9th century, and by the 10th century a fortified settlement, which became medieval Southampton, had been established.


title: Southampton

text: Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, Southampton became the major port of transit between the then capital of England, Winchester, and Normandy. Southampton Castle was built in the 12th century and surviving remains of 12th-century merchants' houses such as "King John's House" and "Canute's Palace" are evidence of the wealth that existed in the town at this time. By the 13th century Southampton had become a leading port, particularly involved in the import of French wine in exchange for English cloth and wool.


title: Southampton

text: The Franciscan friary in Southampton was founded circa 1233. The friars constructed a water supply system in 1290, which carried water from Conduit Head (remnants of which survive near Hill Lane, Shirley) some to the site of the friary inside the town walls. Further remains can be observed at Conduit House on Commercial Road.


title: Southampton

text: Between 1327 and 1330, the King and Council received a petition from the people of Southampton. The community of Southampton claimed that Robert Batail of Winchelsea and other men of the Cinque Ports came to Southampton under the pretence that they were a part of Thomas of Lancaster's rebellion against Edward II. The community thought that they were in conspiracy with Hugh le Despenser the Younger. The petition states that, the supposed rebels in the Despenser War 'came to Southampton harbour, and burnt their ships, and their goods, chattels and merchandise which was in them, and carried off other goods, chattels and merchandise of theirs found there, and took some of the ships with them, to a loss to them of £8000 and more.' For their petition to the King somewhere after 1321 and before 1327 earned some of the people of Southampton a prison sentence at Portchester Castle, possibly for insinuating the king's advisor Hugh le Despenser the Younger acted in conspiracy with the Cinque Port men to damage Southampton, a flourishing port in the fourteenth century. When King Edward III came to the throne, this petition was given to the king and his mother, Queen Isabella, who was in charge of the town, and the country at this stage likely organised the writ of trespass that took any guilt away from the community at Southampton.


title: Southampton

text: The town was sacked in 1338 by French, Genoese and Monegasque ships (under Charles Grimaldi, who used the plunder to help found the principality of Monaco). On visiting Southampton in 1339, Edward III ordered that walls be built to "close the town". The extensive rebuilding — part of the walls dates from 1175 — culminated in the completion of the western walls in 1380. Roughly half of the walls, 13 of the original towers, and six gates survive.


title: Southampton

text: Prior to King Henry's departure for the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the ringleaders of the "Southampton Plot"—Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham, and Sir Thomas Grey of Heton—were accused of high treason and tried at what is now the Red Lion public house in the High Street. They were found guilty and summarily executed outside the Bargate.


title: Southampton

text: The city walls include God's House Tower, built in 1417, the first purpose-built artillery fortification in England. Over the years it has been used as home to the city's gunner, the Town Gaol and even as storage for the Southampton Harbour Board. Until September 2011, it housed the Museum of Archaeology. The walls were completed in the 15th century, but later development of several new fortifications along Southampton Water and the Solent by Henry VIII meant that Southampton was no longer dependent upon its fortifications.


title: Southampton

text: During the Middle Ages, shipbuilding had become an important industry for the town. Henry V's famous warship "Grace Dieu" was built in Southampton and launched in 1418.


title: Southampton

text: On the other hand, many of the medieval buildings once situated within the town walls are now in ruins or have disappeared altogether. From successive incarnations of the motte and bailey castle, only a section of the bailey wall remains today, lying just off Castle Way.


title: Southampton

text: In 1447 Henry VI granted Southampton a charter which made it a county of itself, separate for most purposes from the county of Hampshire. The town was granted its own sheriff, which it retains to this day.


title: Southampton

text: The port was the point of departure for the Pilgrim Fathers aboard "Mayflower" in 1620. In 1642, during the English Civil War, a Parliamentary garrison moved into Southampton. The Royalists advanced as far as Redbridge in March 1644 but were prevented from taking the town.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton became a spa town in 1740. It had also become a popular site for sea bathing by the 1760s, despite the lack of a good quality beach. Innovative buildings specifically for this purpose were built at West Quay, with baths that were filled and emptied by the flow of the tide. Southampton engineer Walter Taylor's 18th-century mechanisation of the block-making process was a significant step in the Industrial Revolution. The port was used for military embarkation, including during 18th-century wars with the French.


title: Southampton

text: The town experienced major expansion during the Victorian era. The Southampton Docks company had been formed in 1835. In October 1838 the foundation stone of the docks was laid and the first dock opened in 1842. The structural and economic development of docks continued for the next few decades. The railway link to London was fully opened in May 1840. Southampton subsequently became known as "The Gateway to the Empire".


title: Southampton

text: In his 1854 book "The Cruise of the Steam Yacht North Star" John Choules described Southampton thus: "I hardly know a town that can show a more beautiful Main Street than Southampton, except it be Oxford. The High Street opens from the quay, and under various names it winds in a gently sweeping line for one mile and a half, and is of very handsome width. The variety of style and color of material in the buildings affords an exhibition of outline, light and colour, that I think is seldom equalled. The shops are very elegant, and the streets are kept exceedingly clean."


title: Southampton

text: From 1904 to 2004, the Thornycroft shipbuilding yard was a major employer in Southampton, building and repairing ships used in the two World Wars. In 1912, the sailed from Southampton. 497 men (four in five of the crew on board the vessel) were Sotonians, with about a third of those who perished in the tragedy hailing from the city. Today, visitors can see the Titanic Engineers Memorial in East Park, built in 1914, dedicated to the ship's engineers who lost their lives on board. Nearby is another memorial, commemorating the ship's musicians.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton subsequently became the home port for the transatlantic passenger services operated by Cunard with their Blue Riband liner and her running mate . In 1938, Southampton docks also became home to the flying boats of Imperial Airways. Southampton Container Terminals first opened in 1968 and has continued to expand.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton was designated No. 1 Military Embarkation port during World War I and became a major centre for treating the returning wounded and POWs. It was also central to the preparations for the Invasion of Europe during World War II in 1944.


title: Southampton

text: The Supermarine Spitfire was designed and developed in Southampton, evolving from the Schneider trophy-winning seaplanes of the 1920s and 1930s. Its designer, R J Mitchell, lived in the Portswood area of Southampton, and his house is today marked with a blue plaque. Heavy bombing of the Woolston factory in September 1940 destroyed it as well as homes in the vicinity, killing civilians and workers. World War II hit Southampton particularly hard because of its strategic importance as a major commercial port and industrial area. Prior to the Invasion of Europe, components for a Mulberry harbour were built here. After D-Day, Southampton docks handled military cargo to help keep the Allied forces supplied, making it a key target of Luftwaffe bombing raids until late 1944. Southampton docks was featured in the television show 24: Live Another Day in Day 9: 9:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.


title: Southampton

text: Some 630 people lost their lives as a result of the air raids on Southampton and nearly 2,000 more were injured, not to mention the thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed. Pockets of Georgian architecture survived the war, but much of the city was levelled. There has been extensive redevelopment since World War II. Increasing traffic congestion in the 1920s led to partial demolition of medieval walls around the Bargate in 1932 and 1938. However, a large portion of those walls remain.


title: Southampton

text: A Royal Charter in 1952 upgraded University College at Highfield to the University of Southampton. In 1964 Southampton acquired city status, becoming the City of Southampton, and because of the Local Government Act 1972 was turned into a non-metropolitan district within the Hampshire county in 1973.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton City Council took over most of the functions of Hampshire County Council within the city in April 1997 (including education and social services, but not the fire service), and thus became a unitary authority.


title: Southampton

text: In the 2010s several developments to the inner-city of Southampton were completed. In 2016 the south section of West Quay, or West Quay South, originally known as West Quay Watermark, was opened to the public. Its public plaza has been used for several annual events, such as an ice skating rink during the winter season, and a public broadcast of the Wimbledon tennis championship. Two new buildings, the John Hansard Gallery with City Eye and a secondary site for the University of Southampton's Nuffield Theatre, in addition to several flats, were built in the "cultural quarter" adjacent to Guildhall Square in 2017.


title: Southampton

text: After the establishment of Hampshire County Council, following the passage of the 1888 Local Government Act, Southampton became a county borough within the county of Hampshire, which meant that the Corporation in Southampton had the combined powers of a lower-tier (borough) and an upper-tier (county) council within the city boundaries, while the new county council was responsible for upper-tier functions outside the city of Southampton. The ancient shire county, along with its associated assizes, was known as the "County of Southampton" or "Southamptonshire". This was officially changed to "Hampshire" in 1959, although the county had been commonly known as Hampshire (and previously Hantescire – the origin of the abbreviation "Hants.") for centuries. In the reorganisation of English and Welsh local government that took effect on 1 April 1974, Southampton lost its county borough when it became a non-metropolitan district (i.e. with lower-tier local government functions only) within a modified non-metropolitan county of Hampshire (Bournemouth and Christchurch were transferred to the neighbouring non-metropolitan county of Dorset). From this date, Hampshire County Council became responsible for all upper-tier functions within its boundaries, including Southampton, until local government was once again reorganised in the late 1990s.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton as a port and city has had a long history of administrative independence of the surrounding County; as far back as the reign of King John the town and its port were removed from the writ of the King's Sheriff in Hampshire and the rights of custom and toll were granted by the King to the burgesses of Southampton over the port of Southampton and the Port of Portsmouth; this tax farm was granted for an annual fee of £200 in the charter dated at Orival on 29 June 1199. The definition of the port of Southampton was apparently broader than today and embraced all of the area between Lymington and Langstone. The corporation had resident representatives in Newport, Lymington and Portsmouth. By a charter of Henry VI, granted on 9 March 1446/7 (25+26 Hen. VI, m. 52), the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses of the towns and ports of Southampton and Portsmouth became a County incorporate and separate from Hampshire. The status of the town was changed by a later charter of Charles I by at once the formal separation from Portsmouth and the recognition of Southampton as a county. The formal title of the town became "The Town and County of the Town of Southampton". These charters and Royal Grants, of which there were many, also set out the governance and regulation of the town and port which remained the "constitution" of the town until the local government organisation of the later Victorian period when the Local Government Act 1888 set up County Councils and County Borough Councils across England and Wales, including Southampton County Borough Council. Under this regime, "The Town and County of the Town of Southampton" became a county borough with responsibility for all aspects of local government. On 24 February 1964 Elizabeth II, by Letters Patent, granted the County Borough of Southampton the title of "City", so creating "The City and County of the City of Southampton". This did not, however, affect its composition or powers.


title: Southampton

text: The city has undergone many changes to its governance over the centuries and once again became administratively independent from Hampshire County as it was made into a unitary authority in a local government reorganisation on 1 April 1997, a result of the 1992 Local Government Act. The district remains part of the Hampshire ceremonial county.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton City Council consists of 48 councillors, 3 for each of the 16 wards. Council elections are held in early May for one third of the seats (one councillor for each ward), elected for a four-year term, so there are elections three years out of four. The Labour Party has held overall control since 2022; after the 2022 council elections the composition of the council is:


title: Southampton

text: There are three members of Parliament for the city: Royston Smith (Conservative) for Southampton Itchen, the constituency covering the east of the city; Dr Alan Whitehead (Labour) for Southampton Test, which covers the west of the city; and Caroline Nokes (Conservative) for Romsey and Southampton North, which includes a northern portion of the city.


title: Southampton

text: The current Mayor of Southampton is Councillor Jaqui Rayment, who was formerly the 584th sheriff. Her predecessor was Alex Houghton.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton is one of 16 cities and towns in England and Wales to have a ceremonial sheriff who acts as a deputy for the Mayor. Traditionally the Sheriff serves for one year after which they will become the Mayor of Southampton.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton's submission of an application for Lord Mayor status, as part of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours Competition 2022, was successful. Once the Letters Patent are published (expected later in 2022} the current Mayor (Councillor Jaqui Rayment) will become the first Lord Mayor of Southampton.


title: Southampton

text: The town crier from 2004 until his death in 2014 was John Melody, who acted as master of ceremonies in the city and who possessed a cry of 104 decibels.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton City Council has developed twinning links with Le Havre in France (since 1973), Rems-Murr-Kreis in Germany (since 1991), Trieste in Italy (since 2002), Hampton, Virginia, in the US, Qingdao in China (since 1998), Busan in South Korea (since 1978), and Miami, Florida, also in the US (since 14 June 2019).


title: Southampton

text: The geography of Southampton is influenced by the sea and rivers. The city lies at the northern tip of the Southampton Water, a deep water estuary, which is a ria formed at the end of the last Ice Age. Here, the rivers Test and Itchen converge. The Test — which has a salt marsh that makes it ideal for salmon fishing — runs along the western edge of the city, while the Itchen splits Southampton in two—east and west. The city centre is located between the two rivers.


title: Southampton

text: Town Quay is the original public quay, and dates from the 13th century. Today's Eastern Docks were created in the 1830s by land reclamation of the mud flats between the Itchen and Test estuaries. The Western Docks date from the 1930s when the Southern Railway Company commissioned a major land reclamation and dredging programme. Most of the material used for reclamation came from dredging of Southampton Water, to ensure that the port can continue to handle large ships.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton Water has the benefit of a double high tide, with two high tide peaks, making the movement of large ships easier. This is not caused as popularly supposed by the presence of the Isle of Wight, but is a function of the shape and depth of the English Channel. In this area the general water flow is distorted by more local conditions reaching across to France.


title: Southampton

text: The River Test runs along the western border of the city, separating it from the New Forest. There are bridges over the Test from Southampton, including the road and rail bridges at Redbridge in the south and the M27 motorway to the north. The River Itchen runs through the middle of the city and is bridged in several places. The northernmost bridge, and the first to be built, is at Mansbridge, where the A27 road crosses the Itchen. The original bridge is closed to road traffic, but is still standing and open to pedestrians and cyclists. The river is bridged again at Swaythling, where Woodmill Bridge separates the tidal and non tidal sections of the river. Further south is Cobden Bridge which is notable as it was opened as a free bridge (it was originally named the Cobden Free Bridge), and was never a toll bridge. Downstream of the Cobden Bridge is the Northam Railway Bridge, then the Northam Road Bridge, which was the first major pre-stressed concrete bridge to be constructed in the United Kingdom. The southernmost, and newest, bridge on the Itchen is the Itchen Bridge, which is a toll bridge.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton is divided into council wards, suburbs, constituencies, ecclesiastical parishes, and other less formal areas. It has a number of parks and green spaces, the largest being the 148-hectare Southampton Common, parts of which are used to host the annual summer festivals, circuses and fun fairs. The Common includes Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre on the former site of Southampton Zoo, a paddling pool and several lakes and ponds.


title: Southampton

text: Council estates are in the Weston, Thornhill and Townhill Park districts. The city is ranked 96th most deprived out of all 354 Local Authorities in England.


title: Southampton

text: In 2006–2007, 1,267 residential dwellings were built in the city — the highest number for 15 years. Over 94 per cent of these were flats.


title: Southampton

text: There are 16 Electoral Wards in Southampton, each consisting of longer-established neighbourhoods (see below).


title: Southampton

text: Settlements outside the city are sometimes considered suburbs of Southampton, including Chartwell Green, Chilworth, Nursling, Rownhams, Totton, Eastleigh and West End. The villages of Marchwood, Ashurst and Hedge End may be considered exurbs of Southampton.


title: Southampton

text: As with the rest of the UK, Southampton experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"). Its southerly, low-lying and sheltered location ensures it is among the warmer, sunnier cities in the UK. It has held the record for the highest temperature in the UK for June at since 1976.


title: Southampton

text: The centre of Southampton is located above a large hot water aquifer that provides geothermal power to some of the city's buildings. This energy is processed at a plant in the West Quay region in Southampton city centre, the only geothermal power station in the UK. The plant provides electricity for the Port of Southampton and hot water to the Southampton District Energy Scheme used by many buildings including the Westquay shopping centre. In a 2006 survey of carbon emissions in major UK cities conducted by British Gas, Southampton was ranked as being one of the lowest carbon-emitting cities in the United Kingdom.


title: Southampton

text: At the 2011 Census, the Southampton built-up area (which is a little larger than the area controlled by the City Council) had a population of 253,651. There were 127,630 males and 126,021 females. The 30–44 age range is the most populous, with 51,989 people falling in this age range. Next largest is the 45–59 range with 42,317 people and then 20–24 years with 30,290. The ethnic mix is 86.4% white, 8.1% were Asian or British Asian, 2.0% black, 1.1% other ethnic groups, and 2.3% were multi-ethnic.


title: Southampton

text: Between 1996 and 2004, the population of the city increased by 4.9 per cent — the tenth-biggest increase in England. In 2005 the Government Statistics stated that Southampton was the third most densely populated city in the country after London and Portsmouth, respectively. The average age of a Sotonian was 37.6 years in 2016, ranking Southampton as one of the twenty most youthful cities in the UK.


title: Southampton

text: In the 2001 census Southampton and Portsmouth were recorded as being parts of separate urban areas; however by the time of the 2011 census they had merged apolitically to become the sixth-largest built-up area in England with a population of 855,569. This built-up area is part of the metropolitan area known as South Hampshire, which is also sometimes referred to as "Solent City", particularly in the media when discussing development issues and local governance organisational changes. With a population of over 1.5 million this makes the region one of the United Kingdom's most populous metropolitan areas.


title: Southampton

text: In 2016–17, 169,700 residents of Southampton aged 16–64 were in employment, representing a rate of 71.4% – lower than the national rate of 74.4%. 6,600 were unemployed, representing 5% of the economically active population.


title: Southampton

text: In 2016–17, 24.8% of the city's resident population aged 16–64 were classed as economically inactive, higher than the national rate of 21.8%, although for over 40% of this group the reason was that they were students.


title: Southampton

text: Just over a quarter of the jobs available in the city are in the health and education sector. A further 19 per cent are property and other business and the third-largest sector is wholesale and retail, which accounts for 16.2 per cent. Between 1995 and 2004, the number of jobs in Southampton has increased by 18.5 per cent.


title: Southampton

text: In January 2007, the average annual salary in the city was £22,267. This was £1,700 lower than the national average and £3,800 less than the average for the South East.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton has always been a port, and the docks have long been a major employer in the city. In particular, it is a port for cruise ships; its heyday was the first half of the 20th century, and in particular the inter-war years, when it handled almost half the passenger traffic of the UK. Today it remains home to luxury cruise ships, as well as being the largest freight port on the Channel coast and fourth-largest UK port by tonnage, with several container terminals. Unlike some other ports, such as Liverpool, London, and Bristol, where industry and docks have largely moved out of the city centres leaving room for redevelopment, Southampton retains much of its inner-city industry. Despite the still-active and expanding docklands to the west of the city centre, further enhanced with the opening of a fourth cruise terminal in 2009, parts of the eastern docks have been redeveloped; the Ocean Village development, which included a local marina and small entertainment complex, is a good example. Southampton is home to the headquarters of both the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport in addition to cruise operator Carnival UK.


title: Southampton

text: During the 20th century, a more diverse range of industry also came to the city, including aircraft and car manufacturing, cables, electrical engineering products, and petrochemicals. These developed alongside the city's older industries of the docks, grain milling and tobacco processing. Later changes saw the loss of Pirelli General cables and Joseph Rank’s Solent Flour Mills.


title: Southampton

text: University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is one of the city's largest employers. It provides local hospital services to 500,000 people in the Southampton area and specialist regional services to more than 3 million people across the South of England. The Trust owns and manages Southampton General Hospital, the Princess Anne Hospital and a palliative care service at Countess Mountbatten House, part of the Moorgreen Hospital site in the village of West End, just outside the city.


title: Southampton

text: Other major employers in the city include Ordnance Survey, the UK's national mapping agency, whose headquarters is located in a new building on the outskirts of the city, opened in February 2011. The Lloyd's Register Group has announced plans to move its London marine operations to a specially developed site at the University of Southampton.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton's largest retail centre, and 27th-largest in the UK, is the Westquay Shopping Centre, which opened in September 2000 and hosts major high street stores including John Lewis and Marks and Spencer. The centre was Phase Two of the West Quay development of the former Pirelli undersea cables factory; the first phase of this was the West Quay Retail Park, while the third phase, Watermark Westquay, was put on hold due to the recession. Work resumed in 2015, with plans for this third stage including shops, housing, an hotel and a public piazza alongside the Town Walls on Western Esplanade. Southampton has also been granted a licence for a large casino. A further part of the redevelopment of the West Quay site resulted in a new store, opened on 12 February 2009, for Swedish home products retailer IKEA. Marlands is a smaller shopping centre, built in the 1990s on the site of the former bus station and located close to the northern side of Westquay. In October 2014, the city council approved a follow-up from the Westquay park, WestQuay Watermark. Construction by Sir Robert McAlpine commenced in January 2015. Opened in 2016–2017, it has been renamed Westquay South.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton currently has three major city centre regeneration schemes under way. Construction on the £132m Bargate Quarter scheme, which is being built on the site of the former Bargate Centre, started in February 2022 and will provide over 500 new homes, new retail and hospitality venues and a new linear park running alongside the medieval town walls which is hoped to be completed by late 2024. A £200m redevelopment scheme opposite Southampton Central Railway Station is also planned and will replace the former Toys R Us store which is situated off Western Esplanade. The Maritime Gateway scheme will have a new pedestrian-led public area with 600 new homes and new commercial space. Located close to the waterfront, Leisure World is Southampton’s largest redevelopment project covering and replacing the original Leisure World development which first opened in 1997. The £280m scheme will deliver 650 new homes, two hotels, a cinema, casino and catering outlets, with the first phase expected to complete by 2024/25.


title: Southampton

text: PwC’s Good Growth for Cities 2020 index places Southampton in the top three cities in England in terms of growth. This strength has enabled the city to establish a reputation as a place to do business and has attracted nationally and internationally significant businesses. Prior to the pandemic, Southampton’s economy was valued at £8.3 billion GVA and in 2021 £7.84 billion. In 2022 GVA is forecast to recover to £8.2 billion. GVA growth was 10.6% in 2021 as the economy rebounded and growth returned. In 2022 GVA growth is forecast to be just over 5%.


title: Southampton

text: The city is home to the longest surviving stretch of medieval walls in England, as well as a number of museums such as Tudor House Museum, reopened on 30 July 2011 after undergoing extensive restoration and improvement; Southampton Maritime Museum; God's House Tower, an archaeology museum about the city's heritage and located in one of the tower walls; the Medieval Merchant's House; and Solent Sky, which focuses on aviation. The SeaCity Museum is located in the west wing of the civic centre, formerly occupied by Hampshire Constabulary and the Magistrates' Court, and focuses on Southampton's trading history and on the "Titanic". The museum received half a million pounds from the National Lottery in addition to interest from numerous private investors and is budgeted at £28 million.


title: Southampton

text: The annual Southampton Boat Show is held in September each year, with over 600 exhibitors present. It runs for just over a week at Mayflower Park on the city's waterfront, where it has been held since 1968. The Boat Show itself is the climax of Sea City, which runs from April to September each year to celebrate Southampton's links with the sea.


title: Southampton

text: The largest theatre in the city is the 2,300-capacity Mayflower Theatre (formerly known as the Gaumont), which, as the largest theatre in Southern England outside London, has hosted West End shows such as "Les Misérables", "The Rocky Horror Show" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", as well as regular visits from Welsh National Opera and English National Ballet. There is also the Nuffield Theatre based at the University of Southampton's Highfield campus, which is the city's primary producing theatre. It was awarded The Stage Award for Best Regional Theatre in 2015. It also hosts touring companies and local performing societies (such as Southampton Operatic Society, the Maskers and the University Players).


title: Southampton

text: There are many innovative art galleries in the city. The Southampton City Art Gallery at the Civic Centre is one of the best known and as well as a nationally important Designated Collection, houses several permanent and travelling exhibitions. The Solent Showcase at Southampton Solent University, the John Hansard Gallery at Southampton University as well as smaller galleries including the Art House in Above Bar Street provide a different view. The city's Bargate contains an art gallery run by the arts organisation "a space" who also run the Art Vaults project. This uses several of Southampton's medieval vaults, halls and cellars as venues for contemporary art installations.


title: Southampton

text: In the heart of Southampton’s city centre, you will find the Cultural Quarter, which has developed over recent years to become a rich and bustling arts space complete with a fusion of galleries, museums, theatres restaurants, bars, and cafés. The Cultural Quarter is home to the Southampton O2 Guildhall, MAST (Mayflower Studies), the John Hansard Gallery (Studio 144) and City Eye, the much-anticipated new arts centre for Southampton. It is also home to Southampton Art Gallery which first opened its doors in 1939 and offers the opportunity to enjoy national and international quality exhibitions ranging from painting, sculpture, and drawing, to photography and film, as well as permanent collection and displays. The gallery has a unique partnership with the National Gallery in London which in 2021 celebrated an exhibition “Creating a National Collection: The Partnership Between Southampton City Art Gallery and the National Gallery.”


title: Southampton

text: The Cultural Quarter’s Guildhall Square often plays host to events and promotions such as Southampton Pride, Chinese New Year festivities, Seaside in the Square, Oktoberfest, Music in the City, Re:claim Street festival, the Southampton Slamma Skateboarding festival and it is also a start and finish area for the ABP Southampton Marathon, as well as it being the Southampton Remembrance Parade start and finish point.


title: Southampton

text: In October 2021, Southampton was longlisted for the UK City of Culture 2025. The final bid, submitted on 2 February 2022 was marked by lighting The Bargate red with #MakeItSO projected across it. The city’s bid includes plans to celebrate Southampton’s people and places, its rich heritage and diversity, the world-class sports and venues, the parks and green spaces and food and drink. On 19 March 2022 it was announced that Southampton had made the short-list of four, alongside Bradford, County Durham, and Wrexham County Borough. In May 2022, it lost its bid, with the winner announced to be Bradford.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton has two large live music venues, the Mayflower Theatre (formerly the Gaumont Theatre) and the Guildhall. The Guildhall has seen concerts from a wide range of popular artists including Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Delirious?, Manic Street Preachers, The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs, Amy Winehouse, Bob Dylan, Suede, Arctic Monkeys and Oasis. It also hosts classical concerts presented by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, City of Southampton Orchestra, Southampton Concert Orchestra, Southampton Philharmonic Choir Southampton Choral Society, and the City of Southampton (Albion) Band.


title: Southampton

text: The city also has several smaller music venues, including the Brook, Engine Rooms, The 1865, The Joiners and Turner Sims, as well as smaller "club circuit" venues like Hampton's and Lennon's, and a number of public houses including the Platform tavern, the Dolphin, the Blue Keys and many others. The Joiners has played host to such acts as Oasis, Radiohead, Green Day, Suede, PJ Harvey, the Manic Street Preachers, Coldplay, the Verve, the Libertines and Franz Ferdinand, while Hampton's and Lennon's have hosted early appearances by Kate Nash, Scouting for Girls and Band of Skulls.


title: Southampton

text: The city is home or birthplace to a number of contemporary musicians such as popstar Craig David, Coldplay drummer Will Champion, Alt-J singer Joe Newman, singer-songwriter Aqualung, former Holloways singer Rob Skipper, 1980s popstar Howard Jones as well as Grammy Award-winning popstar Foxes. Several active rock and metal bands were formed in Southampton, including Band of Skulls, Bury Tomorrow, Creeper and The Delays. Southampton had a prominent UK Garage scene, championed by the duo Artful Dodger who formed in the city in the late 1990s, as well as the UKG, grime and bassline producer, Royal-T, part of the TQD group formed with DJ Q and Flava D. Notable bands who are now defunct include Thomas Tantrum (disbanded 2011), Kids Can't Fly (disbanded 2014) and Heart in Hand (disbanded 2015).


title: Southampton

text: Local media include the "Southern Daily Echo" newspaper based in Redbridge and "BBC South", which has its regional headquarters in the city centre opposite the civic centre. From there the BBC broadcasts "South Today", the local television news bulletin and BBC Radio Solent. The local ITV franchise is Meridian, which has its headquarters in Whiteley, around from the city. Until December 2004, the station's studios were located in the Northam area of the city on land reclaimed from the River Itchen. That's Solent is a local television channel that began broadcasting in November 2014, which will be based in and serve Southampton and Portsmouth.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton also has four community FM radio stations, the Queens Award-winning Unity 101 Community Radio broadcasting full-time on 101.1 FM since 2006 to the Asian and ethnic communities, and Voice FM located in St Mary's, which has been broadcasting full-time on 103.9 FM since September 2011, playing a wide range of music from Rock to Dance music and Top 40. A third station, Awaaz FM, broadcasts on DAB digital to South Hampshire and on FM to Southampton. Awaaz FM is the biggest ethnic community radio in Hampshire. It caters for the Asian and ethnic community. The fourth community station is Fiesta FM and broadcasts on 95 FM. Fiesta FM is the only fully licensed Latin and Hispanic community radio station in the UK.


title: Southampton

text: As of November 2017, the most popular commercial radio station is the adult contemporary regional radio station Wave 105 (11.6% listening share in its total survey area) followed by the hit music station Capital South (7%) a networked station from London with local breakfast and drive shows. Other stations include Heart South and Nation Radio South Coast (2.2%). In addition, Southampton University has a radio station called SURGE, broadcasting on AM band as well as through the web.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton is home to Southampton Football Club—nicknamed "The Saints"; the club plays in the Premier League at St Mary's Stadium, having relocated in 2001 from their 103-year-old former stadium, "The Dell". They reached the top flight of English football (First Division) for the first time in 1966, staying there for eight years. They lifted the FA Cup with a shock victory over Manchester United in 1976, returned to the top flight two years later, and stayed there for 27 years (becoming founder members of the Premier League in 1992) before they were relegated in 2005. The club was promoted back to the Premier League in 2012 following a brief spell in the third tier and severe financial difficulties. In 2015, "The Saints" finished 7th in the Premier League, their highest league finish in 30 years, after a remarkable season under new manager Ronald Koeman. Their highest league position came in 1984 when they were runners-up in the old First Division. They were also runners-up in the 1979 Football League Cup final and 2003 FA Cup final. Notable former managers include Ted Bates, Lawrie McMenemy, Chris Nicholl, Ian Branfoot and Gordon Strachan. There is a strong rivalry with Portsmouth F.C. ("South Coast derby") which is located only about away.


title: Southampton

text: The two local Sunday Leagues in the Southampton area are the City of Southampton Sunday Football League and the Southampton and District Sunday Football League.


title: Southampton

text: Hampshire County Cricket Club play close to the city, at the Rose Bowl in West End, after previously playing at the County Cricket Ground and the Antelope Ground, both near the city centre. There is also the Southampton Evening Cricket League.


title: Southampton

text: The city also has a semi-professional basketball club, the Solent Kestrels. Founded in 1998 the team currently plays at the Solent Sports Complex, on the Solent University campus. They currently play in the NBL Division 1.


title: Southampton

text: The city hockey club, Southampton Hockey Club, founded in 1938, is now one of the largest and highly regarded clubs in Hampshire, fielding 7 senior men's and 5 senior women's teams on a weekly basis along with boys' and girls' teams from 6 upwards.


title: Southampton

text: The city is also well provided for in amateur men's and women's rugby with a number of teams in and around the city, the oldest of which is Trojans RFC, which was promoted to London South West 2 division in 2008/9. A notable former player is Anthony Allen, who played with Leicester Tigers as a centre. Tottonians are also in London South West division 2 and Southampton RFC are in Hampshire division 1 in 2009/10, alongside Millbrook RFC and Eastleigh RFC. Many of the sides run mini and midi teams from under sevens up to under sixteens for both boys and girls.


title: Southampton

text: The city provides for yachting and water sports, with a number of marinas. From 1977 to 2001 the Whitbread Around the World Yacht Race, now the Volvo Ocean Race, was based in Southampton's Ocean Village marina.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton Sports Centre is the focal point for the public's sporting and outdoor activities and includes an alpine centre with a dry ski slope, a theme park, and an athletics centre which is used by professional athletes Along with 11 other leisure venues which were formerly operated by the council leisure services, the operating rights have been sold to Park Wood Leisure.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton was named "fittest city in the UK" in 2006 by "Men's Fitness" magazine. The results were based on the incidence of heart disease, the amount of junk food and alcohol consumed, and the level of gym membership. In 2007, it had slipped one place behind London, but was still ranked first when it came to the parks and green spaces available for exercise and the amount of television watched by Sotonians was the lowest in the country. Thousands enter and run the Southampton Marathon in April every year. Speedway and racing took place at Banister Court Stadium in the pre-war era. It returned in the 1940s after WW2 and the Saints operated until the stadium closed down at the end of 1963. A training track operated in the 1950s in the Hamble area. Greyhound racing was also held at the stadium from 1928 to 1963.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton is also home to two American football teams, the Solent Thrashers, who play at the Test Park Sports Ground, and the Southampton Stags, who play at the Wide Lane Sports Facility in Eastleigh.


title: Southampton

text: The world's oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, which was first used in 1299.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton's police service is provided by Hampshire Constabulary. The main base of the Southampton operation is a new, eight-storey purpose-built building which cost £30 million to construct. The building, located on Southern Road, opened in 2011 and is near to Southampton Central railway station. Previously, the central Southampton operation was located within the west wing of the Civic Centre; however, the ageing facilities and the plans of constructing a new museum in the old police station and magistrates court necessitated the move. There are additional police stations at Portswood and Banister Park as well as a British Transport Police station at Southampton Central railway station. In the year ending June 2019, the crime rate in Southampton was higher than the average crime rate across similar areas.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton's fire cover is provided by Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service. There are three fire stations within the city boundaries at St Mary's, Hightown and Redbridge.


title: Southampton

text: The ambulance service is provided by South Central Ambulance Service, who respond from stations in Nursling and Hightown, both on the outskirts of the city.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton has two universities, namely the University of Southampton and Solent University. Together, they have a student population of 40,000. Though students numbers had increased in the 80s, 90s, and up to 2011, they began to reduce due to changes in immigration rules and dropped further after 2016 due to Brexit. Of these, 2,880 are from EU, and the rest are from UK, Asia and Africa.


title: Southampton

text: The University of Southampton, which was founded in 1862 and received its Royal Charter as a university in 1952, has over 22,000 students. The university is ranked in the top 100 research universities in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2010. In 2010, the THES - QS World University Rankings positioned the University of Southampton in the top 80 universities in the world. The university considers itself one of the top 5 research universities in the UK. The university has a global reputation for research into engineering sciences, oceanography, chemistry, cancer sciences, sound and vibration research, computer science and electronics and optoelectronics. It is also home to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS), the focus of Natural Environment Research Council-funded marine research.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton Solent University has 17,000 students and its strengths are in the training, design, consultancy, research and other services undertaken for business and industry. It is also host to the Warsash Maritime Academy, which provides training and certification for the international shipping and off-shore oil industries.


title: Southampton

text: In addition to state school sixth forms at St Anne's and Bitterne Park School and an independent sixth form at King Edward's, there are two sixth-form colleges: Itchen College and Richard Taunton Sixth Form College, and a further education college, Southampton City College. A number of Southampton pupils travel outside the city, for example to Barton Peveril College.


title: Southampton

text: There are also independent schools, including The Gregg School, St Anne's Catholic School and King Edward VI School. Former independent schools included St Mary's Independent School and The Atherley School.


title: Southampton

text: Southampton is a major UK port which has good transport links with the rest of the country. The M27 motorway, linking places along the south coast of England, runs just to the north of the city. The M3 motorway links the city to London and also, via a link to the A34 (part of the European route E05) at Winchester, with the Midlands and North. The M271 motorway is a spur of the M27, linking it with the Western Docks and city centre.