title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Fears over Chinese military spending and missile capacities had helped drive Australia towards a defence agreement with the United States, as outlined by the 2007 Canberra Defense Blueprint; Sandy Gordon of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute had recommended the sale of uranium to India on the basis of similar considerations, as it appeared that the United States was backing it as a "counter to a rising China." Chinese anger over the Quadrilateral however caused uneasiness within Australia even before the agreements were initiated.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On becoming Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd visited China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, even before visiting Japan, and subsequently organized a meeting between Yang and the Australian foreign minister, Stephen Smith, in which Australia unilaterally announced it would "not be proposing" a second round of dialogue between the four partners. Within Australia, this decision was seen as motivated by the uncertainty of China-United States relations and by the fact that Australia's principal economic partner, China, was not its principal strategic partner. Rudd may furthermore have feared regional escalations in conflict and attempted to diffuse these via an "Asia-Pacific Union."


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Some US strategic thinkers criticized Rudd's decision to leave Quadrilateral; the former Asia director of the United States National Security Council, Mike Green, said that Rudd had withdrawn in an effort to please China, which had exerted substantial diplomatic effort to achieve that aim. A December 2008 cable authored by US ambassador Robert McCallum and published by WikiLeaks reveals that Rudd did not consult the United States before leaving the Quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: US President Obama's efforts in November 2009 to improve US–Indian relations raised alarms in India and Australia both that a deepening military alliance between these powers could lead to regional escalations. According to analyst John Lee, "For realists ... New Delhi has been warily balancing and competing against Beijing from the very moment of India's creation in 1947;" significant tensions between China and India were associated with the disputed Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh, and with Chinese nuclear weapons stationed on the Tibetan Plateau. Rudd's calculation may have been that as a regional economic power, China was too important to contain through a simplistic Quadrilateral Initiative undertaken by US, India, Japan and Australia in 2007, when many regional powers are hedging their alliances in the event of a Japanese and an American decline.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In the years between the cessation and restart of the Quad, Quad members continued to cooperate on a bilateral or trilateral level, sometimes with non-Quad members involved. This was especially the case in joint military exercises: Japan joined for the first time the Australian Kakadu and Nichi Trou Trident naval exercises in respectively 2008 and 2009, Japan and India held for the first time a joint naval exercise in 2012 and Australia and India did the same in 2015, Australia joined the US-Philippines Balikatan exercise for the first time in 2014 and Japan did the same in 2017, Japan joined for the first time the Indian Malabar exercise in 2015, and Japan joined for the first time the Australian-US joint Defence Exercise Talisman Saber in 2015.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Rudd's replacement as Australian prime minister by Julia Gillard in June 2010 was associated with a shift in Australian foreign policy towards a closer relationship to the United States and a distancing from China. "The Australian", which has written extensively on the Quadrilateral and on Australian defence issues, argued after Rudd's replacement that "Australia's national interest is best served by continuing to engage and encourage our long-standing ally, the US, to retain its primacy in the region." Despite Gillard's rapprochement with the US and increased US-Australian military cooperation, Rudd's decision to leave the Quadrilateral remained an object of criticism from Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Australia's decision not to sell uranium to India had weakened the Quad, a move also criticized by the Liberal Party; the Party has however backed Gillard's support for a US military presence near Darwin, overlooking the Timor Sea and the Lombok Strait. With support from the United States, Gillard and the Labor party have since reversed policy and backed the sale of uranium to India, which has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. On 5 September 2014, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott agreed to sell Uranium to India.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The Obama administration's 2011 US "Pivot to Asia" represented a significant shift of resources and priorities in the foreign policy of the United States away from the Middle Eastern/European sphere and the US began to invest heavily in East Asian countries, some of which are in close proximity to the People's Republic of China. The pivot also included taking the lead in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and rejecting the Chinese claims on the islands in the South China Sea. The US policy shift towards East-China was generally seen as a move to oppose the growing influence of China in the region. In July 2013, when Obama named Susan Rice the US National Security Advisor, Rice sought a cooperative relationship with China.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Japan opened a naval base in Djibouti in 2011, its first long term naval base overseas, and part of its growing involvement in the wider Indo-Pacific region. In December 2012, Shinzo Abe had prepared a proposal on strategic framework "", a sort of Quad remake, to be published from an international media organization before his second administration in Japan, and it was published on the next day of his prime minister designate. The Japanese government had worked to clarify the concepts in Prime Minister Abe's proposal of 2012, implemented in diplomatic statements, and prepared the official announcement of "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" in 2016.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In 2012, Xi Jinping became the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, succeeding the leader of China. Since then, tensions between China and each of the four Quad countries have increased. Xi has taken a hard-line on security issues as well as foreign affairs, projecting a more nationalistic and assertive China on the world stage than was the case with China's peaceful rise policy advanced by Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao. Xi's political program calls for a China more united and confident of its own value system and political structure.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Under Xi's leadership, the PRC has resorted to island building in the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands region. According to Reuters, island building in the South China Sea primarily by Vietnam and the Philippines has been going on for decades; while China has come late to the island building game, its efforts have been on an unprecedented scale as it had from 2014 to 2016 constructed more new island surface than all other nations have constructed throughout history and as of 2016 placed military equipment on one of its artificial islands unlike the other claimants. A 2019 article in Voice of America that compared China and Vietnam's island building campaign in the South China Sea similarly noted that the reason why Vietnam in contradistinction to China has been subject to little international criticism and even support was because of the slower speed and widely perceived defensive nature of its island-building project.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In a 2020 opinion column, former Indian general S. K. Chatterji described China's foreign policy as "salami slicing.". Between 2015 and mid-2017, the US has conducted five freedom of navigation naval operations (FONOP) in the region. In July 2016, an arbitration tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ruled against the PRC's maritime claims in "Philippines v. China". The tribunal did not rule on the ownership of the islands or delimit maritime boundaries. Both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) stated that they did not recognize the tribunal and insisted that the matter should be resolved through bilateral negotiations with other claimants.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In the years following the cessation of the Quad, India was not keen to reinstate the grouping, out of fear it would antagonize China. After several years of growing tensions with China on a range of topics, and particularly after the 2017 border standoff, India started to express renewed interest.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In August 2017, Japan invited Australia, India and the US to hold a joint foreign ministers meeting during the ASEAN summit in November.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In November, American president-elect Donald Trump and Prime Minister Abe met and agreed to pursue what Japan calls a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" strategy, originally a concept developed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The agreement was regarded as a response to China's Belt and Road Initiative, and Chinese minister Geng Shuang responded by stating that "such multilateral initiatives should promote cooperation among countries concerned and not be turned into exclusionary frameworks."


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The visit coincided with a meeting by Japanese, Indian, Australian and American officials to continue military cooperation ahead of the ASEAN and East Asia Summits in November 2017. The meeting included discussion of China's increased prominence in the South China Sea, and may have signalled U.S. president Trump's interest in reviving a formal Quadrilateral.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The Quadrilateral met five times in 2017–2019. During the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi in 2018, the navy chiefs of Japan, US, Australia and India came together, one of the first indications of the revival of the Quad's security structure.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In 2019, four ministers met in New York City to discuss reforming the Quad, and then again in Bangkok. The next summer, India, Japan and US invited Australia to the co-ordinated navy exercise at Malabar; the exercises were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his opening statement, on May 24, 2022, remarked the Quad has gained a significant place on the world stage and that it is a “force for good” for the Indo-Pacific region.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In March 2020, the Quad members held a meeting with representatives from New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam to discuss their respective approaches to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The participation of representatives from New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam, the latter being the first country from Southeast Asia/ASEAN to join, was seen as another attempt to expand the importance of the QUAD as well as the growing threat China posed in the region. Instigated by the US, this new grouping of key Indo-Pacific states was referred to as "Quad Plus". A further meeting was held in May 2021 where Brazil and Israel, two countries with no border to the Pacific Ocean, were invited into the Plus format to discuss the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Following the 2020 Malabar naval exercises, American secretary of state and former CIA director Mike Pompeo met with members of the Quad to discuss converting the security arrangement into an "Asian NATO" with "shared security and geopolitical goals". One commentator at the "South China Morning Post" described the concept as "a bulwark against the rise of China", and a Chinese diplomat protested the concept as an attempt to "wind back the clock of history."


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The foreign secretary of Sri Lanka raised concerns in October 2020 about the militarization of the Quad in the Indian Ocean. At the same time, Japan, the US and Canada held a joint naval exercise called "Keen Sword" in October, which was one of several Canadian naval exercises in the Taiwan straits that year, and which was accompanied by diplomatic meetings in Tokyo,


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: though no joint statement was produced from the meeting. With a visit by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to Tokyo, Australia and Japan agreed in principle to a defence pact that will increase military ties.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In 2021, Li Jimming, the Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh, warned Bangladesh not to join the Quad saying any attempt to do so would seriously damage relations with China. The ambassador described the Quad as “a military alliance aimed against China’s resurgence.” Within Bangladesh these comments attracted criticism both from the government and otherwise for infringing on Bangladesh's sovereignty. Following the controversy Li Jimming walked back his statement saying that he was only expressing his personal view on the issue. However the Chinese Foreign Ministry appeared to defend the ambassador with Hua Chunying stating that “We all know what kind of mechanism the Quad is. China opposes certain countries’ efforts to form an exclusive clique, portray China as a challenge, and sow discord between regional countries and China.”


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 3 March 2021, The White House, now under president Biden, issued the "Interim National Security Strategic Guidance", and two days later, Australian Prime Minister Morrison announced that the leaders of the Quad would hold their first-ever meeting virtually. Morrison said he had discussed arrangements with US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in recent weeks.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The next week, on 12 March, the first summit meeting was held virtually by US President Biden. Further development of the Quad included the launches of the senior-level Quad Vaccine Experts Group, the Quad Climate Working Group, and the Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: It had been reported before the summit meeting that the four countries are working to develop a plan to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to countries in Asia as part of a broader strategy to counter China's influence,


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The next summit meeting  was to be held in person by the end of 2021. In March 2021, the Quad pledged to respond to the economic and health impacts of COVID-19.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 15 March 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived at the Yokota Air Base in Tokyo.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 16 March, the two US officials participated in a Security Consultative Committee (SCC), the so-called "two-plus-two", with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi. Also, the two US officials have met and talked with Prime Minister Suga.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 19 March, US Defense Secretary Austin arrived at India, and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. The next day, he discussed with Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 13 April, the foreign and defence ministers of Japan and Germany held the first "two-plus-two" dialogue between the two nations, with each expected to affirm security cooperation in an apparent counter to China's increasing assertiveness in its regional waters.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 16 April, in Washington, D.C., US President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Suga met and showcased the alliance between their two countries as well as their shared resolve in dealing with China. The US and Japanese governments have been working to strengthen technology supply chains independent of China during a shortage of semiconductors that's worrying businesses around the world. Both countries are expected in coming days to make deeper commitments to cutting climate-wrecking fossil fuel emissions, in line with Biden's climate summit with 40 world leaders next week.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Suga planned to visit India and the Philippines. With India and the US, he also sought to further solidify the Quad framework. Japan and India would hold a "two-plus-two" foreign and defence ministerial meeting in Tokyo in late April, government sources said.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Since March 2021, member states of the Quad and their leaders have hosted regular “Leaders Summits”, which have been both online and in-person. The summits have aimed to solidify the positions of the Quad and demonstrate the alliances commitment to cooperation.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The first "Quad Leaders Summit" was held virtually on 24 March 2021, hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. Attending leaders included Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 24 September 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted the second Quad Leaders Summit, and the first in-person meeting of the group, at the White House in Washington, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga all participating.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 4 March 2022, the third Quad Leaders Summit was held via video conference, with leaders and representatives of Australia, India, Japan and the United States participating. During the meeting leaders “reaffirm[ed] their commitment to the Indo-Pacific” and “discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 24 May 2022, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida hosted the fourth Quad Leaders Summit and the second in-person meeting in Tokyo, Japan. U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and newly elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, all attended the meeting. The summit concluded with a joint statement from the leaders that vowed their "steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that is inclusive and resilient."


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June 2018, French and British defence ministers announced they would sail warships through the South China Sea to challenge China's military expansion. In a similar move, on 16 September 2020, France, the UK and Germany together submitted a note verbale to the United Nations, which reaffirmed that the integrity of UNCLOS needs to be maintained, stating that China's territorial claims in the South China Sea do not comply with it.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 20 January 2021, Joe Biden became the president of the United States, and two days later, US and Japanese top security officials discussed security issues. Three days after that, the Japanese Foreign Minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council to promote cooperation between Japan and the EU in the Indo-Pacific. On 18 February, during the third ministerial meeting, the United States, Australia, Japan and India agreed to strongly oppose any use of force by China, and vowed to work with ASEAN and Europe to meet their aims.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: While Canada has not published an Indo-Pacific strategy, it started increasing its naval presence in the region in 2020. In June 2020, Canadian frigate HMCS Regina and auxiliary vessel MV Asterix sailed through the Taiwan Strait. In January 2021, HMCS Winnipeg did the same and later joined the navies of the Quad members in the naval exercise Sea Dragon, according to a Canadian official "to demonstrate the strength and durability of our alliances in the Indo-Pacific region". In late March, the Canadian frigate HMCS Calgary passed near the Spratly Islands, which China claims.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The first Quad summit, held in March 2021, explored a partnership with Europe. France, Germany, and the Netherlands have announced their Indo-Pacific visions, and the EU is in the midst of formulating its own.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: According to Brendan Berne, then the Australian ambassador to France, French president Macron said, when they met in late 2017 that "he was aware of the threat situation in the Indo-Pacific and that Australia would not be alone". Six months later, in June 2018, the same month as the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue, France, with 1.6 million of its citizens living and over 90% of its exclusive economic zone located in the Indo-Pacific region, was the first EU member to publish an Indo-Pacific strategy, following increased Chinese assertiveness in the region, and updated it in May 2019. It was also the first EU member to use the geopolitical concept of the Indo-Pacific. Partnerships with all four members of the Quad as well as with ASEAN are a key component of France's Indo-Pacific strategy. As part of this strategic shift, French frigate Vendémiaire sailed through the Taiwan Strait in 2018, possibly the first-ever such passage for the modern French Navy, and was seen as a freedom of navigation patrol, countering China's claim over the Strait.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 9 September 2020, France, India and Australia held their first India-France-Australia Trilateral Dialogue, with their foreign secretaries meeting through videoconference. In December 2020, France also revealed it would join for the first time the joint military drills with Japan and the US in May 2021. On 10 February 2021, the French submarine Emeraude patrolled through the South China Sea, proving its capacity to deploy over long distances and work together with the navies of Australia, the US, and Japan. On 24 February 2021, a second India-France-Australia Trilateral Dialogue meeting was held, to evaluate progress on the actions defined in the first trilateral meeting in September. On 30 March 2021, French Navy’s amphibious assault helicopter carrier Tonnerre and escort frigate Surcouf arrived at the Kochi port in Kerala, India, ahead of a joint naval exercise with the four Quad member countries. The French naval drill exercise called La Perouse was scheduled to take place from 5 to 7 April 2021. "South China Morning Post" reported this as the first instance of naval exercises to involve all four Quad members. In late April, India and France held their separate annual Varuna naval exercise. The two French warships were on a five-month-long deployment in the Indo-Pacific. On 13 April 2021, a third India-France-Australia Trilateral Dialogue meeting took place in New Delhi.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: On 1 September 2020, the German government followed, releasing a policy document in which the country for the first time officially endorsed the concept of the Indo-Pacific, and among others includes actively building partnerships in the region, including on security matters, calling on the EU to do the same. In December 2020, in an online meeting between Japan's and Germany's defence ministers, Japan expressed hopes for Germany to send a warship to the Indo-Pacific region, and join drills with Japan Self-Defense Forces, In March 2021, Germany confirmed that it would send a frigate in August to the South China Sea, making it the first German warship since 2002 to traverse the region. In mid-April 2021, the foreign and defence ministers of Japan and Germany would meet via videoconference to discuss Indo-Pacific security topics.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Mirroring the India-France-Australia Trilateral, an India-Italy-Japan Trilateral was formed in June 2021, aiming to create a rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific region.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In November 2020, the Netherlands published its Indo-Pacific strategy, making it the third EU member to do so, following France and Germany. The policy document calls on the EU to build partnerships in the region and to reject Chinese territorial claims more strongly. As part of this policy shift, the Netherlands would send the frigate HNLMS Evertsen to the Indo-Pacific as part of the British aircraft carrier group in 2021. In April 2021, Dutch prime minister Rutte and Indian prime minister Modi held a videoconference meeting to discuss cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In 2016 the UK moved a satellite in its Skynet military communications system eastward to extend coverage to east Asia and the western Pacific Ocean, and opened a new Australian ground station. At the opening ceremony the British High Commissioner referred to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In December 2020, the UK announced it would dispatch an aircraft carrier strike group to waters near Japan as soon as early 2021, to conduct joint exercises with US military and Japan Self-Defense Forces in May. The strike group would consist of: the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) with an embarked air group (consisting of 24 F-35 aircraft from No. 617 Squadron RAF and Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211, along with 9 Merlin helicopters and a number of Wildcat helicopters); two Type 45 destroyers; two Type 23 frigates; two Royal Fleet Auxiliary logistics vessels; an Astute-class submarine; the American destroyer USS "The Sullivans", and the Dutch frigate HNLMS "Evertsen". Once it set sail, the strike group would also be joined by "at least a frigate" of the Royal Australian Navy, HMNZS Te Kaha and HMNZS Aotearoa from the Royal New Zealand Navy, and a number of vessels from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, before it was reported that it would enter the South China Sea.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: In March 2021, the UK published a policy document titled the "Integrated Review" which confirmed the UK's foreign policy shift towards the Indo-Pacific and included a nine-step plan detailing what this shift entails. The document acknowledged that trade between the UK and China was mutually beneficial, yet it also named China as "the biggest state-based threat to the U.K.’s economic security" and called on middle powers to work together in this new geopolitical context.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: The four Quad members have played a major role in purposefully redefining the "Asia-Pacific" as the "Indo-Pacific", to deepen trans-regional ties between the Indian and Pacific Ocean areas, and to, in their words, deal more effectively with the rise of China, the Middle East and Africa. The term "Indo-Pacific" gained traction in the political lexicon and strategic thinking of not only the Quad members, but as of recently also of ASEAN, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, used mainly with regards to China.


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: According to the American think tank Center for a New American Security, CNAS, the United States pursued a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in an effort to adapt to an increasingly economically powerful China in the Asia-Pacific, where great power rivalry, massive military investment, social inequality, and contemporary territorial disputes have all made war in Asia "plausible." According to the CNAS, establishing a series of alliances among nations recognized as democratic by the United States furthers its own interests: "It is precisely because of the rise of Chinese power and the longer term trend towards multipolarity in the international system that values can and should serve as a tool of American statecraft today."


title: Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

text: Prominent U.S. politicians from both Democratic and Republican parties have advocated a more aggressive diplomacy in Asia. During the 2008 US presidential campaign, President Obama called for a new worldwide concert of democracies to counter the influence of Russia and China in the UN Security Council; key officials of Obama's administration were involved in the Princeton Project, whose final report called for the construction of a new "concert of democracies". Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Director at the State Department, Anne-Marie Slaughter, authored the Princeton Project’s final report, which "called for reconstituting the quadrilateral military partnership among the United States, Japan, Australia and India". John McCain also called for a "league of democracies", and Rudy Giuliani for incorporating Asia's militarily capable democracies into NATO. The development of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue took place in the context of Chinese military modernization, geared towards contingency in Taiwan Strait but also towards "force projection capabilities". Some US officials view Chinese assertiveness in South China Sea as demonstrated by the naval confrontation between the USNS "Impeccable" and Chinese naval vessels near Hainan Island.


title: South by Southwest

text: South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987 and has continued to grow in both scope and size every year. In 2017, the conference lasted for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days. There was no in-person event in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas; both years, there was a smaller online event instead.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW is run by the company SXSW, LLC, which organizes conferences, trade shows, festivals, and other events. In addition to SXSW, the company runs the conference SXSW Edu and the upcoming SXSW Sydney festival, and co-runs North by Northeast in Toronto. It has previously run or co-run the events North by Northwest (1995-2001), West by Southwest (2006-2010), SXSW Eco (2011-2016), SXSW V2V (2013-2015), and the me Convention (2017-2019). In addition, a large number of other events, past and present, sometimes collectively referred to as "four-letter festivals", have been inspired by SXSW.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Music is the largest music festival of its kind in the world, with more than 2,000 acts as of 2014. SXSW Music offers artist-provided music and video samples of featured artists at each festival via their official YouTube channel.


title: South by Southwest

text: The music event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987, the first year of the conference, to over 161,000 attendees in 2018. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events have grown every year, bringing over 32,000 registrants to Austin in March 2013.


title: South by Southwest

text: Bands must cover their own expenses for travel and lodging at the event. All performers are offered a cash payment or a wristband package that allows access to all music events.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Film Conference spans five days of conference panels and sessions, and welcomes filmmakers of all levels. Programming consists of keynote speakers, panels, workshops, mentor sessions and more, with expert filmmakers and industry leaders.


title: South by Southwest

text: In 2015, the SXSW Film Conference programmed over 250 sessions with 735 speakers. Past speakers include Jon Favreau, Mark Duplass, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Gosling, Nicolas Cage, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Tilda Swinton, Amy Schumer, Sally Field, Joss Whedon, Christine Vachon, RZA, Matthew McConaughey, Danny Boyle, Seth MacFarlane, Catherine Hardwicke, Richard Linklater, David Gordon Green, Harmony Korine, Henry Rollins, Sarah Green and Robert Rodriguez.


title: South by Southwest

text: Although the film festival often highlights independently produced films and emerging directing talent with unique visions, the festival has long served studios as a starting point for their comedies, using enthusiastic fans as a barometer of how they might play in wide release.


title: South by Southwest

text: The SXSW Film Festival runs nine days, simultaneously with the SXSW Film Conference, and celebrates raw innovation and emerging talent both behind and in front of the camera. Festival programming categories include: Special Events, Headliners, Narrative Spotlight, Documentary Spotlight, Narrative Competition, Documentary Competition, Visions, Midnighters, 24 Beats Per Second, SXGlobal, Episodic, Festival Favorites, and Short Film Programs. The SXSW Film Awards, which occur on the last day of the Film Conference, honor films selected by the Feature and Short Film Juries.


title: South by Southwest

text: In 2015, the SXSW Film Festival programmed 150 feature films and 106 short films, selected from 7,361 submissions. Past notable world premieres include "Furious 7", "Neighbors", "Chef", "21 Jump Street", "The Cabin in the Woods", "Dance of the Dead", "Bridesmaids" and "Insidious", and the TV series "Girls", "Silicon Valley" and "Penny Dreadful".


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Interactive is focused on emerging technology. The festival includes a trade show, speakers, parties, and a startup accelerator.


title: South by Southwest

text: In July 1986, the organizers of the New York City music festival New Music Seminar contacted Roland Swenson, a staffer at the alternative weekly "The Austin Chronicle", to talk about organizing an extension of that festival into Austin. They thereafter announced they were going to hold a "New Music Seminar Southwest". The plans did not materialize, however, so Swenson decided to instead co-organize a local music festival, with the help of two other people at the "Chronicle": editor and co-founder Louis Black, and publisher Nick Barbaro. Louis Meyers, a booking agent and musician, was also brought on board. Black came up with the name, as a play on the name of the Alfred Hitchcock film "North by Northwest". (While Southwest by South is an actual point on a compass, South by Southwest is not.)


title: South by Southwest

text: The event was first held in March 1987. The organizers considered it a regional event and expected around 150 attendees to show up, but over 700 came, and according to Black "it was national almost immediately." Meyers left Austin and the festival in the early 1990s, but Black, Barbaro and Swenson remained the festival's key organizers as of 2010.


title: South by Southwest

text: Singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked was the keynote speaker at the 1992 South by Southwest. She caused controversy by delivering a speech, written by her then-husband Bart Bull, criticizing white musicians for stealing music from African American artists; and then later during the same conference when she tried to kick the band Two Nice Girls off of a benefit concert, a move that some called anti-gay, due to Two Nice Girls' overtly lesbian image.


title: South by Southwest

text: In 1994, SXSW added a component for film and other media, named the "SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference". Johnny Cash was the keynote speaker.


title: South by Southwest

text: That year, the three brothers of the band Hanson were brought to SXSW by their father in order to perform impromptu auditions for music executives, in the hopes of getting industry attention. Among the people who heard them was A&R executive Christopher Sabec, who became their manager, and would soon afterward get them signed to Mercury Records.


title: South by Southwest

text: In 1995, the SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference was split into two separate events, "SXSW Film" and "SXSW Multimedia". In 1999, SXSW Multimedia was renamed "SXSW Interactive".


title: South by Southwest

text: Singer-songwriter John Mayer's performance at the 2000 SXSW Music festival led to his signing soon thereafter with Aware Records, his first record label.


title: South by Southwest

text: A performance by the band The Polyphonic Spree at the 2002 SXSW Music festival helped bring them to national attention before they had signed with a major label.


title: South by Southwest

text: At the 2002 SXSW Film Festival, the film "Manito" won the jury award for narrative feature, while the documentary "Spellbound" won the jury award for documentary feature.


title: South by Southwest

text: British singer James Blunt was discovered by producer Linda Perry while playing a small show at the 2004 SXSW Music festival, and was signed to Perry's Custard Records soon thereafter, where he would go on to release all three of his subsequent albums.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2005 SXSW Film is considered by some to be the origin of the mumblecore film genre. A number of films now classified as mumblecore, including "The Puffy Chair", "Kissing on the Mouth", "Four Eyed Monsters" and "Mutual Appreciation", were screened, and Eric Masunaga, a musician and the sound editor on "Mutual Appreciation", is credited with coining the term "mumblecore" at a bar while at the festival.


title: South by Southwest

text: The film "Hooligans" won both the Feature Film Jury Award and the Feature Film Audience Award for narrative feature, while "The Puffy Chair" won the Feature Film Audience Award in the "Emerging Visions" category. The documentary film "Cowboy del Amor" won the SXSW Competition Award and the Audience Award.


title: South by Southwest

text: A secret concert at the 2006 SXSW Music by the band The Flaming Lips was called one of the "Top 10 Music-Festival Moments" of all time by "Time" magazine in 2010.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2006 SXSW Interactive featured a keynote panel of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.


title: South by Southwest

text: The social media platform Twitter notably gained a good deal of early traction and buzz at the 2007 SXSW Interactive, though it did not launch at SXSW 2007 as is sometimes reported.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2008 SXSW Interactive got media attention due to a keynote interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by technology journalist Sarah Lacy that was considered by some observers to be a "train wreck" due to an audience perception that Lacy was asking uninteresting questions, as well as mocking or terse answers in response from Zuckerberg.


title: South by Southwest

text: In 2008, a comedy element was added to SXSW; it was held for one night. (By 2012, comedy performances occurred on all nights of the festival.)


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2009 festival was held March 13–22. The Interactive section of SXSW in particular drew larger attendance levels; the influx strained the networks of providers such as AT&T (primarily due to heavy iPhone usage). Also new was the founding of an international organization for those not attending, dubbed NotAtSXSW. Coordinating through Twitter and other online tools, notatsxsw events were held in London, New York, Wisconsin, Portland, Oregon and Miami.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2009 SXSW Interactive saw the launch of the Foursquare application, which was called "the breakout mobile app" of the event by the "Mashable" blog.


title: South by Southwest

text: 2009 also saw the first Indian classical music artists perform at SXSW: Canadians Cassius Khan and Amika Kushwaha.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2009 SXSW Film screened 250 films, including 54 world premieres. The event was notable for having the United States premiere of the film "The Hurt Locker", which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2010. The winners of the feature jury awards were, for documentary feature, "45365", and for narrative feature, "Made in China".


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2010 music festival, which took place March 12–21, was dedicated to Alex Chilton, who died shortly before he was to perform with Big Star. A tribute concert was performed in his honor on March 20, 2010.


title: South by Southwest

text: At the 2010 festival, nearly 2,000 bands were officially scheduled to perform, and festival reps estimated that over 13,000 industry representatives attended. Though traditionally the Austin Music Awards kick off the festival, that year organizers slated it as the closing act. Local musician Bob Schneider earned 6 awards, including Song of the Year, Singer of the Year, and Band of the Year (with Lonelyland.) The 2010 festival was also notable for appearances by the surviving members of the band Moby Grape.


title: South by Southwest

text: At the 2010 Film festival, Magnolia Pictures bought the film rights to the science-fiction film "Monsters" on the night it screened, in what was the first-ever "overnight acquisition" at SXSW. Journalist Meredith Melnick of "Time" magazine called this purchase a turning point for SXSW, leading to a greater interest among film studio executives in attending the festival in person. That year also saw the premiere of the indie favorite "Tiny Furniture", which won the award for Best Narrative Feature.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2010 Interactive festival had an estimated 12–13,000 paying attendees, which represented a 40% jump over the previous year. This was the first year in which the interactive festival's attendance surpassed the music festival's. The keynote presentation was an interview of then-Twitter CEO Evan Williams by Umair Haque, an interview that many in the audience found disappointingly superficial. Also during the interactive festival, the first-ever (and so far only) "Hive Awards For the Unsung Heroes of the Internet" were held.


title: South by Southwest

text: The keynote presenter for SXSW Interactive was Seth Priebatsch, founder and CEO of the mobile-gaming platform SCVNGR. The 2011 Interactive festival was by far the largest it had ever been, with an estimated 20,000 attendees.


title: South by Southwest

text: Also in attendance at SXSW was boxing legend Mike Tyson, promoting his new iPhone game with RockLive at the Screenburn Arcade.


title: South by Southwest

text: At least two films screened at the SXSW Film festival gained distribution deals: the documentary "Undefeated" (which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature) and the thriller "The Divide". As a result, film critic Christopher Kelly wrote that in 2011, SXSW Film went from being "a well-regarded but fundamentally regional event" to having "joined the big leagues of film festivals around the world." That festival was also notable for having the premiere of the film "Bridesmaids".


title: South by Southwest

text: The March 15 screening of the Foo Fighters documentary "Back and Forth" was followed by a surprise live performance by the band itself, with a setlist that included the entirety of the then-upcoming album "Wasting Light".


title: South by Southwest

text: The standout technology of the 2012 SXSW Interactive was generally stated to be "social discovery" mobile apps, which let users locate other nearby users. Social discovery apps that had a presence at SXSW included Highlight, Glancee, Sonar and Kismet.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Film saw the premiere of two major Hollywood films: "The Cabin in the Woods" and "21 Jump Street". Two films obtained distribution deals: "Girls Against Boys" and "The Tall Man". Another film, "Gimme the Loot", which won the SXSW Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize, got a distribution deal a week after the festival. "Bay of All Saints" received the Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary.


title: South by Southwest

text: 2012 was also the first year the music portion was expanded to Tuesday. The musical festival included rappers such as Talib Kweli and Lil' Wayne, along with surprise appearances by Big Sean and Kanye West; indie bands that appeared included MENEW and The Shins. Bruce Springsteen was the keynote speaker for the music festival.


title: South by Southwest

text: The big-budget films "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" and "Evil Dead" premiered at the 2013 SXSW Film, and "Spring Breakers" had its U.S. premiere. The film "Short Term 12" won the grand jury award for Best Narrative Feature. The films "Awful Nice", "Cheap Thrills", and "Haunter" received distribution deals, and "Drinking Buddies" obtained a distribution deal several days later.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2013 SXSW Interactive saw another huge jump in registration, now with 30,621 paying attendees. This was over three times the number that had attended in 2008 (9,000), just five years previously. The keynote talk for the 2013 SXSW Interactive was given by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The "Screenburn" and "Arcade" components were renamed to "SXSW Gaming" and "SXSW Gaming Expo", respectively. The Interactive conference had an increased corporate presence, featuring major participation by Samsung, 3M, Target, American Airlines, Adobe Systems and AT&T, among others. According to CNN, CBS and CNET called Grumpy Cat the undisputed "biggest star" of SXSW Interactive over Musk, Al Gore and Neil Gaiman.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Film had premieres of the big-budget films "Neighbors", "Veronica Mars" and "Chef", and "Cesar Chavez" had its North American premiere. A clip for the big-budget film "Godzilla" was also screened. The films "Space Station 76" and "Exists" got distribution deals at the festival, while "Fort Tilden" (which won the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize) and "Open Windows" got distribution deals shortly afterward.


title: South by Southwest

text: A new section, "Episodic" (on television programming), was introduced to SXSW Film. Television series that previewed at the festival include "Silicon Valley" and "". The talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" was taped for a week at the festival; it joined the talk show "", which began taping at SXSW in 2013.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Interactive featured a keynote speech by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, via streaming video, about privacy rights. The festival also featured a talk from another famous leaker, Julian Assange, also speaking remotely. Besides privacy issues, another major focus of the Interactive festival was wearable technology, including devices for augmented reality, activity tracking, identity authentication, charging cell phones and others. "Computerworld" magazine called the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality gaming headset, the "sleeper hit" of the festival, although it was displayed not at the Interactive but at the Film portion, as part of a "Game of Thrones" exhibit. The SXSW Gaming section introduced its SXSW Gaming Awards to recognize achievement in video and other types of gaming, which has continued through future SXSW festivals.


title: South by Southwest

text: The keynote presenter and headline act this year for Stubb's was Lady Gaga. To promote her upcoming album, "Food", Kelis cooked and served barbecue-style food from a food truck to festival attendees.


title: South by Southwest

text: On March 13, 2014, a drunk driver, Rashad Charjuan Owens, drove his car into a crowd of festival attendees while trying to evade a traffic stop. Two people were killed immediately, another two died later from their injuries and another 21 were injured but survived. Owens was convicted of capital murder charges after a November 2015 trial in which eyewitnesses testified that about "a chaotic and harrowing scene" on the night, as hundreds of people ran and screamed as the car sped through crowds of people. Owens was given an automatic sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.


title: South by Southwest

text: On March 15, 2014, rapper Tyler, the Creator was arrested on misdemeanor charges of "inciting to riot" after yelling to fans to push their way past security guards at a sold-out show the previous day. In February 2016, the riot charges were dropped against Tyler, The Creator pursuant to a plea agreement with prosecutors (under which the rapper pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of disorderly conduct and paid a $100 fine, with the case to be dismissed if he stays out of trouble for three months).


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW Film screened 145 feature films, an all-time high for the festival. The big-budget films "Furious 7" (which was a last-minute addition to the lineup), "Get Hard", "Spy", a rough cut of "Trainwreck", "Moonwalkers" and "The Final Girls" had their world premieres, as did the documentaries "Danny Says", "" and "". "Ex Machina" had its North American premiere. "6 Years", "Manson Family Vacation" and "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine" all got distribution deals at the festival.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2015 festival hosted the swearing-in ceremony of Michelle K. Lee as the new head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker administered the oath of office to Lee at the festival on Friday, March 13.


title: South by Southwest

text: Various sources called Meerkat, an iOS app that had launched two weeks earlier that lets users livestream video via Twitter, the breakout technology of SXSW Interactive. Another product that got significant buzz was a prototype of the roadable aircraft AeroMobil.


title: South by Southwest

text: On March 11, President Barack Obama gave a speech at SXSW Interactive in which he called on the technology industry to help solve many of America's problems, such as upgrading outdated networks, helping balance security and privacy, and the FBI–Apple encryption dispute.


title: South by Southwest

text: Films that premiered at SXSW Film include "Everybody Wants Some!!", "Keanu", "Sausage Party", "Pee-wee's Big Holiday" and "Don't Think Twice".


title: South by Southwest

text: On the night of March 20, gunshots rang out on 6th Street causing mass hysteria and panic. No injuries were reported and a man from Memphis was arrested with discharging a firearm and disturbing the peace.


title: South by Southwest

text: Films that premiered at SXSW Film include "Song to Song", "Baby Driver", "Atomic Blonde", "Gemini", "The Ballad of Lefty Brown". "Spettacolo" and "The Disaster Artist". Television series that previewed include "The Son", "Dear White People" and "American Gods". To promote the Hulu original series "The Handmaid's Tale", dozens of actresses silently walked the streets of downtown Austin costumed in red "handmaid" dresses. To promote the third season of the AMC original series "Better Call Saul" (a spin-off prequel of "Breaking Bad"), a pop-up "Los Pollos Hermanos" restaurant, representing the fictional fast food chain featured in both series, appeared in downtown Austin.


title: South by Southwest

text: Guest speakers included former mayor of Newark, NJ and current Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), political activist and commentator Van Jones and former Vice President Joe Biden, who spoke about his cancer research initiative. Nile Rodgers gave the keynote address for the music portion of the festival, while filmmakers Gareth Edwards and Lee Daniels gave the keynote presentations for the film portion.


title: South by Southwest

text: Major companies and brands which exhibited at SXSW (many with standalone "brand activation" pavilions) included IBM, Intel, Panasonic, Nintendo, GE, Giorgio Armani, Mazda and National Geographic.


title: South by Southwest

text: Major performers during the music component of the festival included Garth Brooks, Lana Del Rey, Lil Yachty, The Roots, The Avett Brothers, Willie Nelson, Solange Knowles, Rae Sremmurd, Cardiel, Migos, and The Chainsmokers, among others.


title: South by Southwest

text: En route to SXSW 2017, Italian post-punk band Soviet Soviet, traveling on the Visa Waiver Program, was denied entry to the United States, detained overnight and deported after an immigration officer at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport claimed they were planning on conducting a paid performance, which would have required a work visa. The band presented a letter from their American record label stating that both their performances at KEXP (which was what had brought the band to Seattle) and at SXSW were for promotional purposes only, but this failed to convince officials at the airport. There was a "Contrabanned" showcase on March 17, featuring various artists and musicians (residents of the U.S. and Canada) who are natives of, or have family connections to, countries affected by the 2017 U.S. travel ban.


title: South by Southwest

text: Uber and Lyft were not available to attendees because they had pulled out of Austin in May 2016 as a result of a city ordinance mandating fingerprint-based background checks for drivers of any ridesharing company. However, other services such as (locally based) RideAustin, Fasten and Fare, were available, although in high demand. Uber and Lyft resumed service in Austin in May 2017.


title: South by Southwest

text: Finalists of the 2018 SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event included Cambridge Cancer Genomics and Bluefield Technologies. Two winners of the event were Austin-based: GrubTubs (in the Hyper-Connected Communities category) and ICON 3D (in the Social and Culture category).


title: South by Southwest

text: Guest speakers included politicians Bernie Sanders, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sadiq Khan; journalists Christiane Amanpour and Ta-Nehisi Coates; filmmakers Barry Jenkins, Darren Aronofsky and Steven Spielberg; and others including Elon Musk and David Banner. Actor and comedian Bill Murray appeared at several unofficial functions during SXSW.


title: South by Southwest

text: Major performers during SXSW Music included Tinashe, Rae Sremmurd, Rita Coolidge, Salt-N-Pepa and Khalid. There was an apparent increased emphasis on locally based performers, international acts and relative unknowns.


title: South by Southwest

text: New games announced during the 2018 SXSW Gaming Expo included "Sonic Mania Plus". At the SXSW Gaming Awards (held March 17), the award for Game of the Year went to "."


title: South by Southwest

text: Films that premiered at the 2018 South By Southwest Film Festival include "A Quiet Place," "Blockers", "Ready Player One" and the documentary feature and winner of a Special Jury Prize, "Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable". Films that had their U.S. premiere include "Final Portrait" and "Who We Are Now". The film "Thunder Road" won the grand jury prize. TV series that previewed include "Barry", "Krypton", "The Last O.G." and "Cloak & Dagger". To promote the second season of the HBO series "Westworld", a recreation of the show's fictional Western "town" of Sweetwater was built on two acres of open land just outside Austin. Fans took shuttles to the site, which was dressed in the Old West style, with over 60 actors playing the parts of the android "hosts".


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW 2018 coincided with a string of bombings in Austin, which had begun on March 2 and ended on March 21, when the presumed perpetrator, Mark Anthony Conditt, blew himself up after being discovered by police. Two of the bombings occurred during SXSW. On March 17, Live Nation Music, a company organizing events for SXSW, received a bomb threat via email. Police searched the area mentioned in the email and found nothing of concern, but planned performances by The Roots and Ludacris, among others, were canceled. Police arrested 26-year-old Trevor Weldon Ingram the next day; Ingram was charged with making a terroristic threat, a third-degree felony, in connection with the email.


title: South by Southwest

text: Films entered at SXSW Film included "Us", "The Beach Bum", "Long Shot", "Booksmart" and "The Highwaymen". TV series that previewed included FX’s "What We Do in the Shadows", Hulu’s "Shrill" and OWN’s "David Makes Man".


title: South by Southwest

text: Major performers for SXSW Music included Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (their first-ever appearance at SXSW).


title: South by Southwest

text: Winners of the 2019 SXSW Pitch event, in which emerging startups pitch to potential investors, included Derq, Pathway and ENZO Tyres. The “Best In Show" winner was Nebula Genomics; the “Best Bootstrap" award went to TwentyTables and the “Best Speed Pitch” went to Xplosion Tech.


title: South by Southwest

text: Some of the first forums of the 2020 presidential race took place at SXSW, with Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang all making appearances at the festival (though some had not yet announced their candidacy at the time). Other scheduled guest speakers included politicians Mazie Hirono and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; musicians David Byrne and Wyclef Jean; actors and comedians Aidy Bryant, Kathy Griffin, Ethan Hawke, Trevor Noah and Zoe Saldana; businesspeople Tim Ferriss, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Guy Kawasaki; and others including Priscilla Chan, Neil Gaiman, Valerie Jarrett, Michael Mignano, Bill Nye, Dawn Ostroff, Robert Rodriguez and Maria Shriver.


title: South by Southwest

text: To promote the final season of "Game of Thrones", HBO organized a blood drive with the American Red Cross titled "Bleed for the Throne" which included actors in costumes similar to those on the series.


title: South by Southwest

text: To promote the Amazon Prime original limited series "Good Omens", a brand activation experience called "Garden of Earthly Delights" was installed in downtown Austin.


title: South by Southwest

text: South by Southwest 2020 was scheduled to run from March 13 to 22, but was officially canceled on March 6 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas, the result of an order by the city of Austin. The city's Mayor Steve Adler announced the cancellation of the 2020 SXSW and also declared a local disaster area.


title: South by Southwest

text: In the month prior to the conference, SXSW organizers had resisted calls to cancel the conference. On February 28, a spokesperson said:


title: South by Southwest

text: However, in the run up to the conference, numerous companies and organizations canceled their SXSW attendance, including Twitter, Facebook, Vevo, Intel, Mashable, Universal Music Group, Amazon, "Entertainment Weekly", TikTok, SAP, Netflix, Apple, Indeed, WarnerMedia, "The Washington Post", and IBM. Additionally, many individual attendees, headliners and speakers had decided not to attend, including keynote speaker Tim Ferriss and artists such as the Beastie Boys, Ozzy Osbourne and Trent Reznor.


title: South by Southwest

text: An online petition called for SXSW 2020 to be canceled due to health concerns; by the time of the cancellation, it exceeded 50,000 signatures.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW organizers said that they were "devastated" by the cancellation, stating that, The show must go on' is in our DNA." They wrote that they were attempting to reschedule the event, and were at the same time working to create an online SXSW for 2020.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW co-founder Nick Barbaro said the organization did not have cancellation insurance relating to a disease pandemic or triggered by the city declaring a “local state of disaster.”


title: South by Southwest

text: Various unofficial SXSW events, as well as “alternative” SXSW events, did occur, in an attempt to help local workers and businesses who would be hurt most by the cancellation. The Austin Community Foundation also launched a "Stand with Austin Fund" for donations to "individuals and small businesses most negatively impacted by the cancellation of SXSW and least able to recover on their own."


title: South by Southwest

text: On March 13, 2020, festival organizers announced that they would proceed with juried and special awards, with judges viewing submissions online. On March 24, the winners of the 2020 SXSW Gaming Awards were announced on the SXSW website, and the honorees recorded acceptance messages for the SXSW YouTube channel and website. "" was awarded Video Game of the Year.


title: South by Southwest

text: On April 2, SXSW announced a joint venture with Amazon Prime Video to launch a film festival collection. Filmmakers scheduled to screen films at SXSW were given the option to have their films play exclusively, and for free, on Prime Video in the U.S. for a 10-day "virtual film festival".


title: South by Southwest

text: In May, SXSW organizers announced "SXSW Sessions Online," a weekly series of online discussions to run through June, with some of the previously announced guest speakers; each video session was streamed online with Q&A portions made available initially to those originally registered for the festival. All sessions were posted afterwards on the SXSW YouTube channel.


title: South by Southwest

text: Films and miniseries that premiered at SXSW include "", "Hysterical", "Jakob's Wife", "Violet", "Dear Mr. Brody", "Here Before", "The Fallout", "The Lost Sons", "Introducing, Selma Blair", "Lily Topples the World", "Not Going Quietly", "", "Fruits of Labor" and "United States vs. Reality Winner".


title: South by Southwest

text: Featured speakers included Samantha Bee, Richard Branson, Chiquis Rivera, Tim Ellis, Laurieann Gibson, Taraji P. Henson, Rana el Kaliouby, Matthew McConaughey, Adriene Mishler, and Alexi Pappas. Keynote addresses were given by Stacey Abrams, Pete Buttigieg and Willie Nelson.


title: South by Southwest

text: Organizers of SXSW planned for a hybrid event (in-person with online viewing and participation options); all registered in-person participants and attendees were required to provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, or a recent negative COVID-19 test, as a condition of receiving their badge. All on-site SXSW staff and volunteers also needed proof of vaccination. Masks were required in several critical indoor spaces (including areas for registration and exhibitions), physical distancing strongly recommended whenever possible, and hand sanitizing stations provided throughout the conference and exhibition venues. The Austin Convention Center, along with other event venues, upgraded air filtration and increased the cleaning and sanitizing frequency of high touch surfaces, including using UV light technology. The event overall was slightly smaller than in previous (in-person) years with the core downtown area not quite as crowded (and therefore easier and faster to get around) and a smaller number of musical artists and overall content; significantly fewer major celebrities (especially musical acts) appeared than in previous years, although the film component seemed to celebrate a strong comeback after two years of virtual festivals.


title: South by Southwest

text: Films that premiered at SXSW Film include "Everything Everywhere All at Once", "The Lost City", "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent", "", "I Love My Dad", "Master of Light" (winner of the documentary competition), and "What We Leave Behind" (winner of the Louis Black "Lone Star" and Fandor New Voices Awards). TV series that previewed include "WeCrashed" (Apple TV+), the third season of FX's "Atlanta", "Halo" (Paramount+) and "The Last Movie Stars" (CNN+).


title: South by Southwest

text: At the SXSW Gaming Awards (held March 12), the award for Game of the Year went to "" (Square Enix); it also took home awards for Excellence in Narrative and Excellence in Original Score.


title: South by Southwest

text: Major performers for SXSW Music included Ashanti, Dolly Parton (her first time at SXSW; the appearance was to promote "Run, Rose, Run," her new album (and companion novel written in collaboration with James Patterson)), Shawn Mendes, Beck (who was also a keynote speaker) and Oleksandra "Sasha" Zaritska, the frontperson of Ukrainian band KAZKA, who planned to make their U.S. debut at SXSW, but the other two members were drafted into military service due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zaritska performed as part of a special "Austin Stands With Ukraine" musical showcase.


title: South by Southwest

text: Winners of the 2022 SXSW Pitch event, in which emerging startups pitch to potential investors, included Syrup Tech, Anthill and Sonavi Labs. The “Best In Show" winner was Hilos, the “Best Bootstrap" award went to Kiro Action and the “Best One-Minute Speed Pitch” went to Unpacking.


title: South by Southwest

text: Major organizations and brands which exhibited at SXSW (many with standalone "brand activation" pavilions) included Porsche, the University of Arizona, Amazon Prime Video (including a promotion for Lizzo's reality competition series, "Watch Out for the Big Grrrls"), Peacock, Paramount+, and several galleries devoted to NFTs, including the Doodles project, co-created by artist Evan Keast.


title: South by Southwest

text: To promote its new "Halo" series (based on the video game franchise), Paramount+ deployed a swarm of 400 purple-lighted drones in the nighttime skies above Austin, spelling out a scannable QR code as well as “#HaloTheSeries Streams Mar 24” and the Paramount+ logo.


title: South by Southwest

text: Keynote speakers included Grammy Award–winning artists Lizzo and Beck; author Neal Stephenson and producer/director Celine Tricart.


title: South by Southwest

text: A new spinoff event, SXSW Sydney, is scheduled to be held for the first time from October 15 to 22, 2023 in Sydney, Australia.


title: South by Southwest

text: SXSW is the highest revenue-producing event outside of athletic and other events associated with The University of Texas at Austin for the Austin economy, with an estimated economic impact of $190.3 million in 2012 increasing to $218 million in 2013, $315 million in 2014, $317 million in 2015, and $325 million in 2016. (In comparison, Super Bowl LI brought a $347 million economic impact to the Houston economy and the 2017 Final Four brought a $324 million economic impact to the economy of Phoenix, Arizona.)


title: South by Southwest

text: Additionally, demand for hotel rooms in the Austin area continued to outstrip supply, pushing average nightly room rates up to an all-time high of $350 in 2016, a 60 percent increase over the average room rate seen during 2011's edition of SXSW. The average SXSW registrant also stayed in Austin longer in 2016, spending an average of 5.2 nights, up from 4.9 nights in 2015.


title: South by Southwest

text: The 2014 drunk-driving incident prompted discussion about whether the festival had grown too large and raucous. The organizers of the festival—SXSW Holdings LLC and SXSW Holdings Inc.—were sued by families of the four victims.


title: South by Southwest

text: In May 2014, partially motivated by the 2014 crash, Austin's Urban Transportation Commission announced that it was seeking to enhance safety at the festival, with an initial focus on implementing transportation measures to resolve issues linked to the festival. The Austin Music Commission also met to discuss music venues and sound problems linked to the festival. The city voted to limit the number of special events which would be approved to 114, a 32 percent decrease from the number of approved events during the 2014 festival.


title: South by Southwest

text: In 2013, NPR writer Andrea Swensson wrote that she had decided to stop attending the festival, writing, "I can't help but feel that it has strayed far away from its original premise as a grassroots gathering place for new, undiscovered talent and increasingly feels like a big ol' Times Square billboard-sized commercial."


title: South by Southwest

text: In October 2015, SXSW cancelled two video game panels ("#SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community" and "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment In Games") scheduled for the 2016 festival due to threats of violence made to the festival hosting the sessions. In response to the cancellations, BuzzFeed and Vox Media made statements saying they would pull out of the festival if the two panels weren't reinstated. Organizers then apologized for the cancellations. In lieu of a panel, South by Southwest hosted a daylong "online harassment summit" on March 12, 2016.


title: South by Southwest

text: In addition to the three main South by Southwest festivals, the company runs other conferences: SXSW EDU, a conference on educational innovation, held in Austin, and the upcoming SXSW Sydney, to be held in October 2023 in Sydney, Australia.


title: South by Southwest

text: The creators of South by Southwest co-created two similar festivals in 1995: North by Northwest (NXNW) in Portland, Oregon (co-founded by the "Willamette Week"), and North by Northeast (NXNE) in Toronto (co-founded by "Now"). North by Northwest ended in 2001, and was replaced by MusicfestNW (MFNW), an event run entirely by the "Willamette Week".


title: South by Southwest

text: From 2006 to 2010, organizers ran West by Southwest (WXSW) in Tucson, Arizona, a music festival which occurred directly before South by Southwest and mostly featured bands that were also booked for SXSW.


title: South by Southwest

text: Festivals inspired by South by Southwest have been collectively nicknamed "four-letter festivals". "Metro Silicon Valley", which founded C2SV, wrote in 2013 that such festivals were important revenue sources for the alternative weekly newspapers that founded them.


title: South by Southwest

text: On October 3, 2016, a one-day festival, called "South by South Lawn" (SXSL), was held at the White House; it was a collaboration between SXSW, US President Barack Obama, and the American Film Institute.


title: XQc

text: Félix Lengyel (; born November 12, 1995), better known as xQc or xQcOW, is a Canadian Twitch streamer, internet personality, and former professional "Overwatch" player.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel began his esports career in 2016, while also regularly streaming. Most notably, he played for the Dallas Fuel in the Overwatch League inaugural season, before being released midway through the season due to repeated controversy and suspensions, as well as for Team Canada in the Overwatch World Cup from 2017 to 2019.


title: XQc

text: After leaving competitive "Overwatch", Lengyel focused on a full-time streaming career on Twitch, while being a content creator for organizations such as Sentinels and Luminosity Gaming. Although he has been temporarily banned multiple times on the platform, he was the most watched streamer on Twitch in both 2020 and 2021.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel was streaming on Twitch when he was 19 years old, playing "League of Legends" (LoL), and streamed under the alias xQcLoL. The online alias of xQc came from the last letter of his first name, x, and the abbreviation of his home province Quebec, QC. With the release of Blizzard Entertainments video game "Overwatch" (OW) in 2016, Lengyel transitioned to mostly playing Blizzard's title; becoming so synonymous with the game, he changed his alias to xQcOW.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel began his "Overwatch" esports career competing in small online tournaments as a tank player for teams such as DatZit Gaming. In October 2016, he was picked up by the multi-game esports organization Denial Esports. After a few months, Denial disbanded, and the former members of the team operated as an independent roster under the moniker Yikes, which was later changed to Arc 6. The team competed in Season Zero of Overwatch Contenders, which is when his competitive drive increased to an unhealthy level. "I did not care about sleeping or eating well, keeping up with friends or family," he said. "I would only turn my phone on before going to bed. If I performed poorly I would put everything aside and play ranked until I felt better about my play." Lengyel also played for Team Canada in their 2017 Overwatch World Cup campaign. He and the team reached the finals of the tournament, before being defeated by defending champions, South Korea. Despite losing the finals, Lengyel was named the event's most valuable player.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel was signed to the Dallas Fuel of the Overwatch League (OWL) in October 2017, ahead of the league's inaugural season. Prior to the start of the season, he received two suspensions on his personal "Overwatch" account from Blizzard. The first was a 72-hour suspension in November, after he misused the game's reporting system, and the second was a seven-day suspension in December after he threw games on stream. Lengyel's OWL debut came in the Fuel's first match of the season, on January 10, 2018, in a 1–2 loss to the Seoul Dynasty. Following team's third match of the season, a 0–4 loss to the Houston Outlaws on January 18, Lengyel made homophobic remarks on his personal Twitch stream towards Outlaws player Austin "Muma" Wilmot, who is openly gay. Lengyel apologized to Muma on Twitter later that day, stating that he did not mean to say anything with "malicious intent" and spoke "too fast." The Fuel responded to the incident by benching Lengyel in the following match, on January 19. That same day, the Overwatch League fined him $2,000 and suspended him for four matches. The Fuel then extended that suspension through February 10.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel's first match back from his suspension was on February 23, in 3–1 win over the Los Angeles Gladiators. However, his return did not last long, as he was fined $4,000 and suspended by the league for another four matches on March 10, after he used an emote in a "racially disparaging manner" during an Overwatch League stream and on his personal social media, as well as used "disparaging language" against Overwatch League broadcasters and players on his social media and personal stream. The following day, Lengyel was released from the team. In an interview with "The Washington Post", Lengyel said that there were no racial undertones intended when he used the emote, and while he "did not feel like [he] did a mistake at all," he did regret using it because of how it was misconstrued. He went on to say that he enjoyed playing "Overwatch" professionally, but he was unsure if it was the career path he wanted continue to take.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel joined several "Overwatch" teams throughout the following years, including Overwatch Contenders teams GOATS and Gladiators Legion, as well as competed for Team Canada in the 2018 and 2019 Overwatch World Cups.


title: XQc

text: After his release from Dallas Fuel in 2018, Lengyel focused mainly on his streaming career. In February 2019, esports organization Sentinels signed him as a content creator, and by May 2019, Lengyel became one of the most successful variety streamers on Twitch. According to Lengyel, he received a three-day ban from Twitch on July 30, 2019, for streaming a "sexually suggestive" video that briefly showed a penis; the ban came despite a Twitch employee permitting the video. However, a day later, he was unbanned. In December 2019, he was Twitch's most watched streamer, logging nearly eight million hours watched — over two million more hours than the second-most viewed channel of the month. On the year as a whole, he was the sixth-most watched streamer, with nearly 54million hours of watch time; over 14% of his watch time came from December alone.


title: XQc

text: Lengyel received another three-day ban on February 29, 2020, after he showed nudity in "Strip 4: Classmate Study", an adult-themed game based on Connect Four. By default, all nudity in the game is censored, but he entered a code into the game that uncensored it, and the female character in the game had her breasts exposed. Twitch upheld the ban after he appealed. Following, the game was at the top of Steam "new and trending" list. Towards the end of March 2020, Lengyel started playing chess on stream, and in April, chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura began mentoring Lengyel. Twitch and Chess.com partnered to create the first edition of PogChamps, a chess tournament that occurred from June 5 to 19. Lengyel played in the tournament. In one of the matches, Lengyel faced Cr1TiKaL; Cr1TiKaL defeated him in just six moves. The match became the most-watched video on Chess.com's YouTube channel by May 2021, amassing over ten million views. Lengyel ultimately lost to Ludwig Ahgren in the consolation bracket semifinals. Lengyel received a 24-hour Twitch ban in the middle of PogChamps, on June 12, after he accidentally opened a video of two gorillas having sex that was submitted by one of his viewers. On August 27, 2020, Sentinels parted ways with Lengyel, after he requested to be released. He found a new organization on October 1, signing with Luminosity Gaming. On November 18, 2020, Lengyel was banned for seven days after he and his team stream sniped an opposing team in "Fall Guys" during a Twitch Rivals event, marking his fourth suspension from Twitch. He also received a six-month ban from Twitch Rivals and was forced to forfeit his prize winnings from the event. Despite his three bans in 2020, Lengyel had the highest watch hours at over 174million hours — nearly 50million more than the second-highest channel.


title: XQc

text: Midway through 2021, Lengyel led all streamers Twitch in terms of viewership, with 163million hours watched, which was nearly double the second-largest channel. In June 2021, Lengyel moved back to Canada, stating that he was swatted multiple times, a problem that many Twitch streamers have had to deal with, and "was genuinely scared [he] was going to die." His earnings from the platform was leaked in October 2021, along with all of the top streamers on Twitch. The leak revealed that he was the highest-paid individual streamer, earning over $8million since 2019. Although accuracy of the leak has been questioned, Lengyel confirmed that his reported numbers were correct. With 274million hours watched in 2021, he was once again the most-watched streamer on Twitch. He also had a peak viewership of 173,000viewers, although it was well below the channel with the highest peak, which had 2.5million viewers.


title: XQc

text: In early April 2022, Lengyel took part in the r/Place social experiment, an online canvas in which registered Reddit users could edit by changing the color of a single pixel. After he had targeted a "My Little Pony" art piece, he said that he received more death threats in one hour than he had in his previous six years of streaming combined. Lengyel broke his Twitch viewership record during the event, peaking at over 293,000 viewers. He broke that record later that month while streaming a beta build of "Overwatch 2", with a peak of over 312,000 viewers.


title: Damascus steel

text: Damascus steel was the forged steel of the blades of swords smithed in the Near East from ingots of Wootz steel either imported from Southern India or made in production centres in Sri Lanka, or Khorasan, Iran. These swords are characterized by distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water, sometimes in a "ladder" or "rose" pattern. Such blades were reputed to be tough, resistant to shattering, and capable of being honed to a sharp, resilient edge.


title: Damascus steel

text: Wootz (Indian), Pulad (Persian), Fuladh (Arabic), Bulat (Russian) and Bintie (Chinese) are all names for historical ultra-high carbon crucible steel typified by carbide segregation. "Wootz" is an erroneous transliteration of "utsa" or "fountain" in Sanskrit, however since 1794 it has been the primary word used to refer to historical hypereutectoid crucible steel.


title: Damascus steel

text: The origin of the name "Damascus Steel" is contentious: the Islamic scholars al-Kindi (full name Abu Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, circa 800 CE – 873 CE) and al-Biruni (full name Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni, circa 973 CE – 1048 CE) both wrote about swords and steel made for swords, based on their surface appearance, geographical location of production or forging, or the name of the smith, and each mentions "damascene" or "damascus" swords to some extent.


title: Damascus steel

text: Drawing from al-Kindi and al-Biruni, there are three potential sources for the term "Damascus" in the context of steel:


title: Damascus steel

text: The most common explanation is that steel is named after Damascus, the capital city of Syria and one of the largest cities in the ancient Levant. It may either refer to swords made or sold in Damascus directly, or it may just refer to the aspect of the typical patterns, by comparison with Damask fabrics (also named for Damascus), or it may indeed stem from the root word of "damas".


title: Damascus steel

text: Identification of crucible "Damascus" steel based on metallurgical structures is difficult, as crucible steel cannot be reliably distinguished from other types of steel by just one criterion, so the following distinguishing characteristics of crucible steel must be taken into consideration:


title: Damascus steel

text: The reputation and history of Damascus steel has given rise to many legends, such as the ability to cut through a rifle barrel or to cut a hair falling across the blade, though the accuracy of these legends is not reflected by the extant examples of patterned crucible steel swords which are often tempered in such a way as to retain a bend after being flexed past their elastic limit. A research team in Germany published a report in 2006 revealing nanowires and carbon nanotubes in a blade forged from Damascus steel, although John Verhoeven of Iowa State University in Ames, suggests the research team which reported nanowires in crucible steel was seeing cementite, which can itself exist as rods, so there might not be any carbon nanotubes in the rod-like structure. Although many types of modern steel outperform ancient Damascus alloys, chemical reactions in the production process made the blades extraordinary for their time, as Damascus steel was superplastic and very hard at the same time. During the smelting process to obtain Wootz steel ingots, woody biomass and leaves are known to have been used as carburizing additives along with certain specific types of iron rich in microalloying elements. These ingots would then be further forged and worked into Damascus steel blades. Research now shows that carbon nanotubes can be derived from plant fibers, suggesting how the nanotubes were formed in the steel. Some experts expect to discover such nanotubes in more relics as they are analyzed more closely. Wootz was also mentioned to have been made out of a co-fusion process using "shaburqan " (hard steel, likely white cast iron) and "narmahan" (soft steel) by Biruni, both of which were forms of either high and low carbon bloomery iron, or low carbon bloom with cast iron. In such a crucible recipe, no added plant material is necessary to provide the required carbon content, and as such any nanowires of cementite or carbon nanotubes would not have been the result of plant fibres.


title: Damascus steel

text: Damascus blades were first manufactured in the Near East from ingots of wootz steel that were imported from Southern India (present day Tamil Nadu and Kerala). The Arabs introduced the wootz steel to Damascus, where a weapons industry thrived. From the 3rd century to the 17th century, steel ingots were being shipped to the Middle East from South India. There was also domestic production of crucible steel outside of India, including Merv (Turkmenistan) and Chāhak, Iran.


title: Damascus steel

text: Many claim that modern attempts to duplicate the metal have not been entirely successful due to differences in raw materials and manufacturing techniques. However, several individuals in modern times have successfully produced pattern forming hypereutectoid crucible steel with visible carbide banding on the surface, consistent with original Damascus Steel.


title: Damascus steel

text: Production of these patterned swords gradually declined, ceasing by around 1900, with the last account being from 1903 in Sri Lanka documented by Coomaraswamy. Some gunsmiths during the 18th and 19th century used the term "damascus steel" to describe their pattern-welded gun barrels, but they did not use crucible steel. Several modern theories have ventured to explain this decline, including the breakdown of trade routes to supply the needed metals, the lack of trace impurities in the metals, the possible loss of knowledge on the crafting techniques through secrecy and lack of transmission, suppression of the industry in India by the British Raj, or a combination of all the above.


title: Damascus steel

text: In addition to being made into blades in India (particularly Golconda) and Sri Lanka, wootz / ukku was imported as ingots to various production centers, including Khorasan, and Isfahan, where the steel was used to produce blades, as well as across the Middle East. Al Kindi states that crucible steel was also made in Khorasan known as Muharrar, in addition to steel that was imported. In Damascus, where many of these swords were sold, there is no evidence of local production of crucible steel, though there is evidence of imported steel being forged into swords in Damascus. Due to the distance of trade for this steel, a sufficiently lengthy disruption of the trade routes could have ended the production of Damascus steel and eventually led to the loss of the technique. In addition, the need for key trace impurities of carbide formers such as tungsten, vanadium or manganese within the materials needed for the production of the steel may be absent if this material was acquired from different production regions or smelted from ores lacking these key trace elements. The technique for controlled thermal cycling after the initial forging at a specific temperature could also have been lost, thereby preventing the final damask pattern in the steel from occurring. The disruption of mining and steel manufacture by the British Raj in the form of production taxes and export bans may have also contributed to a loss of knowledge of key ore sources or key techniques.


title: Damascus steel

text: The discovery of carbon nanotubes in the Damascus steel's composition supports the hypothesis that wootz production was halted due to a loss of ore sources or technical knowledge, since the precipitation of carbon nanotubes probably resulted from a specific process that may be difficult to replicate should the production technique or raw materials used be significantly altered. The claim that carbon nanowires were found has not been confirmed by further studies, and there is contention among academics including John Verhoeven about whether the nanowires observed are actually stretched rafts or rods formed out of cementite spheroids.


title: Damascus steel

text: Recreating Damascus steel has been attempted by archaeologists using experimental archaeology. Many have attempted to discover or reverse-engineer the process by which it was made.


title: Damascus steel

text: Since the well-known technique of pattern welding—the forge-welding of a blade from several differing pieces—produced surface patterns similar to those found on Damascus blades, some modern blacksmiths were erroneously led to believe that the original Damascus blades were made using this technique. However today, the difference between wootz steel and pattern welding is fully documented and well understood. Pattern-welded steel has been referred to as "Damascus steel" since 1973 when Bladesmith William F. Moran unveiled his "Damascus knives" at the Knifemakers' Guild Show.


title: Damascus steel

text: This "Modern Damascus" is made from several types of steel and iron slices welded together to form a billet, and currently, the term "Damascus" (although technically incorrect) is widely accepted to describe modern pattern-welded steel blades in the trade. The patterns vary depending on how the smith works the billet. The billet is drawn out and folded until the desired number of layers are formed. To attain a Master Smith rating with the American Bladesmith Society that Moran founded, the smith must forge a Damascus blade with a minimum of 300 layers.


title: Damascus steel

text: J. D. Verhoeven and A. H. Pendray published an article on their attempts to reproduce the elemental, structural, and visual characteristics of Damascus steel. They started with a cake of steel that matched the properties of the original wootz steel from India, which also matched a number of original Damascus swords that Verhoeven and Pendray had access to. The wootz was in a soft, annealed state, with a grain structure and beads of pure iron carbide in cementite spheroids, which resulted from its hypereutectoid state. Verhoeven and Pendray had already determined that the grains on the surface of the steel were grains of iron carbide—their goal was to reproduce the iron carbide patterns they saw in the Damascus blades from the grains in the wootz.


title: Damascus steel

text: Although such material could be worked at low temperatures to produce the striated Damascene pattern of intermixed ferrite/pearlite and cementite spheroid bands in a manner identical to pattern-welded Damascus steel, any heat treatment sufficient to dissolve the carbides was thought to permanently destroy the pattern. However, Verhoeven and Pendray discovered that in samples of true Damascus steel, the Damascene pattern could be recovered by thermally cycling and thermally manipulating the steel at a moderate temperature. They found that certain carbide forming elements, one of which was vanadium, did not disperse until the steel reached higher temperatures than those needed to dissolve the carbides. Therefore, a high heat treatment could remove the visual evidence of patterning associated with carbides but did not remove the underlying patterning of the carbide forming elements; a subsequent lower-temperature heat treatment, at a temperature at which the carbides were again stable, could recover the structure by the binding of carbon by those elements and causing the segregation of cementite spheroids to those locations. Thermal cycling after forging allows for the aggregation of carbon onto these carbide formers, as carbon migrates much more rapidly than the carbide formers. Progressive thermal cycling leads to the coarsening of the cementite spheroids via Ostwald ripening.


title: Damascus steel

text: In Russia, chronicles record the use of a material known as bulat steel to make highly valued weapons, including swords, knives, and axes. Tsar Michael of Russia reportedly had a bulat helmet made for him in 1621. The exact origin or the manufacturing process of the bulat is unknown, but it was likely imported to Russia via Persia and Turkestan, and it was similar and possibly the same as Damascus steel. Pavel Petrovich Anosov made several attempts to reproduce the process in the mid-19th century. Wadsworth and Sherby also researched the reproduction of bulat steel and published their results in 1980.


title: Damascus steel

text: A team of researchers based at the Technical University of Dresden that used x-rays and electron microscopy to examine Damascus steel discovered the presence of cementite nanowires and carbon nanotubes. Peter Paufler, a member of the Dresden team, says that these nanostructures are a result of the forging process.


title: Damascus steel

text: Prior to the early 20th century, all shotgun barrels were forged by heating narrow strips of iron and steel and shaping them around a mandrel. This process was referred to as "laminating" or "Damascus". These types of barrels earned a reputation for weakness and were never meant to be used with modern smokeless powder, or any kind of moderately powerful explosive. Because of the resemblance to Damascus steel, higher-end barrels were made by Belgian and British gun makers. These barrels are proof marked and meant to be used with light pressure loads. Current gun manufacturers make slide assemblies and small parts such as triggers and safeties for Colt M1911 pistols from powdered Swedish steel resulting in a swirling two-toned effect; these parts are often referred to as "Stainless Damascus".


title: Damascus steel

text: The blade that Beowulf used to kill Grendel's mother in the story "Beowulf" was described in some Modern English translations as "damascened".


title: Damascus steel

text: The exceptionally strong fictional Valyrian steel mentioned in George R. R. Martin's book series "A Song of Ice and Fire", as well as its television adaptation "Game of Thrones", appears to have been inspired by Damascus steel, but with a magic twist. Just like Damascus/Wootz steel, Valyrian steel also seems to be a lost art from an ancient civilization. Unlike Damascus steel, however, Valyrian steel blades require no maintenance and cannot be damaged through normal combat.


title: Damascus steel

text: In and "", iridescent blue and red Damascus steel weapon camouflage is available for players who have unlocked all other camouflages for every base weapon in the game.


title: Celsius

text: The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The degree Celsius (symbol: °C) can refer to a specific temperature on the Celsius scale or a unit to indicate a difference or range between two temperatures. It is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744), who developed a similar temperature scale in 1742. Before being renamed in 1948 to honour Anders Celsius, the unit was called "centigrade", from the Latin "centum", which means 100, and "gradus", which means steps. Most major countries use this scale; the other major scale, Fahrenheit, is still used in the United States, some island territories, and Liberia. The Kelvin scale is of use in the sciences, with representing absolute zero.


title: Celsius

text: Since 1743 the Celsius scale has been based on 0 °C for the freezing point of water and 100 °C for the boiling point of water at 1 atm pressure. Prior to 1743 the values were reversed (i.e. the boiling point was 0 degrees and the freezing point was 100 degrees). The 1743 scale reversal was proposed by Jean-Pierre Christin.


title: Celsius

text: By international agreement, between 1954 and 2019 the unit and the Celsius scale were defined by absolute zero and the triple point of water. After 2007, it was clarified that this definition referred to Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW), a precisely defined water standard. This definition also precisely related the Celsius scale to the scale of the kelvin, the SI base unit of thermodynamic temperature with symbol K. Absolute zero, the lowest temperature possible, is defined as being exactly 0 K and −273.15 °C. Until 19 May 2019, the temperature of the triple point of water was defined as exactly .


title: Celsius

text: On 20 May 2019, the kelvin was redefined so that its value is now determined by the definition of the Boltzmann constant rather than being defined by the triple point of VSMOW. This means that the triple point is now a measured value, not a defined value. The newly-defined exact value of the Boltzmann constant was selected so that the measured value of the VSMOW triple point is exactly the same as the older defined value to within the limits of accuracy of contemporary metrology. The temperature in degree Celsius is now defined as the temperature in kelvins subtracted by 273.15, meaning that a temperature difference of one degree Celsius and that of one kelvin are exactly the same, and that the degree Celsius remains exactly equal to the kelvin (i.e., 0 °C remains exactly 273.15 K).


title: Celsius

text: In 1742, Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744) created a temperature scale that was the reverse of the scale now known as "Celsius": 0 represented the boiling point of water, while 100 represented the freezing point of water. In his paper "Observations of two persistent degrees on a thermometer", he recounted his experiments showing that the melting point of ice is essentially unaffected by pressure. He also determined with remarkable precision how the boiling point of water varied as a function of atmospheric pressure. He proposed that the zero point of his temperature scale, being the boiling point, would be calibrated at the mean barometric pressure at mean sea level. This pressure is known as one standard atmosphere. The BIPM's 10th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 1954 defined one standard atmosphere to equal precisely 1,013,250 dynes per square centimeter (101.325 kPa).


title: Celsius

text: In 1743, the Lyonnais physicist Jean-Pierre Christin, permanent secretary of the Academy of Lyon, inverted the Celsius scale so that 0 represented the freezing point of water and 100 represented the boiling point of water. Some credit Christin for independently inventing the reverse of Celsius' original scale, while others believe Christin merely reversed Celsius' scale. On 19 May 1743 he published the design of a mercury thermometer, the "Thermometer of Lyon" built by the craftsman Pierre Casati that used this scale.


title: Celsius

text: In 1744, coincident with the death of Anders Celsius, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) reversed Celsius's scale. His custom-made "linnaeus-thermometer", for use in his greenhouses, was made by Daniel Ekström, Sweden's leading maker of scientific instruments at the time, whose workshop was located in the basement of the Stockholm observatory. As often happened in this age before modern communications, numerous physicists, scientists, and instrument makers are credited with having independently developed this same scale; among them were Pehr Elvius, the secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (which had an instrument workshop) and with whom Linnaeus had been corresponding; , the instrument maker; and Mårten Strömer (1707–1770) who had studied astronomy under Anders Celsius.


title: Celsius

text: The first known Swedish document reporting temperatures in this modern "forward" Celsius scale is the paper "Hortus Upsaliensis" dated 16 December 1745 that Linnaeus wrote to a student of his, Samuel Nauclér. In it, Linnaeus recounted the temperatures inside the orangery at the University of Uppsala Botanical Garden:


title: Celsius

text: Since the 19th century, the scientific and thermometry communities worldwide have used the phrase "centigrade scale" and temperatures were often reported simply as "degrees" or, when greater specificity was desired, as "degrees centigrade", with the symbol °C.