title: Valery Legasov

text: In August 1986, he presented the report of the Soviet delegation at the special meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. His report was noted for its great detail and relative openness in discussing the extent and consequences of the tragedy, disclosed to Western media some defects in the RBMK reactor design such as the positive void coefficient, as well as problems with operator training. Some details were censored by the Central Committee, including the full extent of the design flaws, the institutional and cultural problems that led to the accident, the full extent of the fallout, as well as the ineffective efforts in dropping liquid nitrogen into the reactor. The report ran to 388 pages and was presented by Legasov to the conference in a 5-hour presentation, which many in the audience found disturbing. Legasov noted that the operators were able to disable the reactor safety systems and stated that improvements to existing RBMK reactors were underway.


title: Valery Legasov

text: The conference was a public relations triumph for the Soviets as it reassured Western governments and scientists that the disaster was being contained and that the Soviets could competently manage nuclear power in the future.


title: Valery Legasov

text: As a result of this work in Vienna, "[he] became very popular, in Europe he was named the person of the year, he entered the top ten scientists in the world. This caused serious jealousy among his colleagues." In public, Legasov supported the official story that operator error caused the accident. In private he campaigned for reactor safety and institutional reorganization. Perhaps in response to this, Legasov received criticism of his leadership and his handling of the containment of the Chernobyl reactor and was ostracized by some of his fellow scientists. Resistance came from the old guard who resisted change and among younger reformers who regarded Legasov as a relic of the previous Era of Stagnation. One senior scientist wrote "Legasov was a clear representative of that scientific mafia whose political leanings instead of scientific leadership led to the Chernobyl accident." In spring 1987, a vote was held by the Kurchatov Institute to their Scientific-Technical Council with Legasov standing at the insistence of his mentor Anatoly Alexandrov. The institute members denied Legasov the position which was perhaps surprising given his seniority and public visibility. He was very disappointed that he was the only member of his Chernobyl team that did not receive the award "hero of socialist labor". His treatment may have been that his independence, his habit of violating the chain of command and his lack of deference to the scientific establishment had irked senior members of the scientific community. Even after Chernobyl, he remained a proponent of nuclear power generation.


title: Valery Legasov

text: Legasov's health had worsened and he often made visits to Moscow Hospital 6 for long term effects of radiation exposure. Around June 1987, he attempted suicide but was saved by his colleagues. Legasov recorded his memoir "The Legasov Testament" using audio tapes where he described his involvement with the Chernobyl liquidation.


title: Valery Legasov

text: He had a lengthy stay in hospital during the fall of 1987, including experiencing acute appendicitis, during which he attempted suicide. During his stay, journalist Ales Adamovich interviewed Legasov and he expressed concerns that a similar nuclear accident could still occur. Legasov had an article on industrial safety entitled "From Today to Tomorrow" published in Pravda on 5 October 1987 but it received little interest. He gave interviews to Novy Mir and Yunost in which he changed his public stance and expressed his concern that cultural failings and Soviet science losing its way had led inevitably to nuclear disaster. After a colleague said his leadership was still needed, he said "No, you don’t understand. I know that it can be difficult; you need to endure, wait it out. And here is a completely different situation – everything inside me is burned..." and on another occasion "I'm now, like the mythical Midas, only he turned everything he took into gold, and as for me – everything turns into air, even worse, into a vacuum. Whatever I touch - everything is ruined: no one needs anything! And there is still so much to do!"


title: Valery Legasov

text: Legasov continued his attempts to introduce reforms in academic chemistry by establishing an interdepartmental council to try to overcome stagnation in the field. This plan was rejected on 26 April 1988, the day before his death. Ustynyuk was called to Legasov's office and found him to be "extremely agitated and low-spirited" following the decision. He felt that the leadership would be split between the council and the USSR Academy of Sciences, saying "This will lead to disaster. I must resign." That afternoon, he briefly visited his daughter. Ustynyuk called Legasov at 22:30 on the same day saying he might still prevail with support from other top scientists that had not been consulted on the decision.


title: Valery Legasov

text: On 27 April 1988, the day after the second anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident and one day before he was due to release the outcomes of the investigation into the causes of the disaster, Legasov hanged himself in the stairwell of his Moscow apartment (though some sources say inside his apartment, others in his office). He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Legasov was 51 years old. By the time of his death, Legasov had been exposed to 150 rem (1.5 Sv) of radiation, which was far above safe levels.


title: Valery Legasov

text: There are several theories concerning Legasov's motivations and state of mind. David R. Marples has suggested the adversity of the Chernobyl disaster on his psychological state was the factor leading to his decision to take his own life and that Legasov had become bitterly disillusioned with the failure of the authorities to confront the design flaws. Legasov's daughter commented "It was not an emotional breakdown, it was a deliberate, thoroughly considered act." Ustynyuk emphasized the role of the harassment of Legasov by other scientific leaders in their resistance to organizational reform. Boris Shcherbina said of him: "Valery was too great, I loved him more than all the people I knew, he gave all of himself to work, to Chernobyl. He burnt out." Journalists Vladimir Stepanovich Gubarev and Yuriy Shcherbak claim that his suicide was a conscious attempt to draw attention to the lack of nuclear safety in the Soviet Union.


title: Valery Legasov

text: As a national hero at the time of his death, Legasov's suicide caused shockwaves in the Soviet nuclear industry. Extracts from his tapes were published in Pravda in May 1988.


title: Valery Legasov

text: Some in the scientific community were still displeased by Legasov and his legacy. A former colleague of Legasov said "There is no need to idealize Legasov ... He is no better or worse than any manager of this rank, and he followed the accepted rules of the game, moving up the career and scientific ladder... he took on too much, especially in recent years. A chemist, he dared to define the topics of physics laboratories and departments. At the same time, he was not always right, he ordered what to do and how to do it. Who would like that? So they voted him down at the elections to the Academic Council. Physicists make up the majority. And you, chemists, are now making him almost a great martyr... And in Chernobyl he screwed up enough - the shelter of the fourth unit turned out to be far from optimal." Legasov's defenders counter this saying "Courage was not forgiven him, since it clearly marked the cowardice and ordinariness of others."


title: Valery Legasov

text: While the initial Soviet investigation put almost all the blame on the operators, later findings by the IAEA found that the reactor design and how the operators were informed of safety information was more significant. However, the operators were found to have deviated from operational procedures, changing test protocols on the fly, as well as having made "ill judged" actions, making human factors a major contributing factor.


title: Valery Legasov

text: On 20 September 1996, Russian president Boris Yeltsin posthumously conferred on Legasov the honorary title of Hero of the Russian Federation, the country's highest honorary title, for the "courage and heroism" shown in his investigation of the disaster.


title: Valery Legasov

text: His wife Margarita wrote a considerable number of articles and books to preserve his legacy. In 2016, a bust and a commemorative plaque were installed on the wall of Valery Legasov's home in Tula.


title: Valery Legasov

text: Legasov is portrayed by Ade Edmondson in the BBC docudrama "Surviving Disaster" (2006), by Adam Curtis in his documentary series "Pandora's Box" (1992), and by Jared Harris in the Sky/HBO miniseries "Chernobyl" (2019).


title: The Boss Baby

text: The Boss Baby is a 2017 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Loosely based on the 2010 picture book of the same name by Marla Frazee, it was directed by Tom McGrath from a screenplay by Michael McCullers, and stars the voices of Alec Baldwin as the title character, along with Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Miles Bakshi, and Tobey Maguire. The first installment in "The Boss Baby" franchise, the plot follows a boy helping his baby brother who is a secret agent in the war for adults' love between babies and puppies.


title: The Boss Baby

text: "The Boss Baby" premiered at the Miami International Film Festival on March 12, 2017, and was released in the United States on March 31. The film received mixed reviews from critics upon release, who praised its animation and voice performances but criticized its plot and humor. It grossed $528 million worldwide against its $125 million budget. The film received Best Animated Feature nominations at the Academy Awards, Annie Awards, and Golden Globes, losing all three awards to "Coco".


title: The Boss Baby

text: A Netflix television series, "", premiered on April 6, 2018, while a sequel film, "", was released in theaters and on Peacock on July 2, 2021. Another Netflix television series, "", premiered on May 19, 2022.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Tim Templeton, an imaginative 7-year-old boy, relishes his parents' attention and is horrified when a new baby brother arrives. Boss Baby, whom he first saw arriving in a taxi, clad in suit and tie, and carrying a briefcase, behaves normally around the adults, crying for attention, food and diapers all day and night. However, Tim, quickly growing jealous, sees Baby behaving and talking like an adult whenever his parents are not looking.


title: The Boss Baby

text: One day, Baby holds a staff meeting with other toddlers and infants, under the guise of a neighborhood play date. Tim attempts to record them on a cassette tape, but he is spotted and chased by Baby and his cronies. The parents see this as the children playing in the yard. When Baby destroys Tim's stuffed lamb, the latter attempts to slingshot him out a window, but his parents stop him and he accidentally slingshots the tape into the street, on which a car smashes it. Tim is grounded until he learns to get along with Baby.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Later, Baby makes Tim suck a special pacifier that allows them to see Baby Corp, where babies come from. Most babies go to families, but those unresponsive to tickling are sent to management, where they are given a special baby formula that allows them to think and behave as adults while remaining young forever. Baby also explains he's on a special mission to discover why the world's love of babies is being threatened lately by love of puppies, and came to the Templetons as Tim's parents work for Puppy Co. Once his mission is done, he will leave. However, the boys overhear Baby's boss threatening to fire him, should he fail. As that would mean Baby would have to stay with the Templetons and grow up, Tim and Baby agree to work together to prevent this from happening.


title: The Boss Baby

text: On Take Your Kid to Work Day, the parents take Tim and Baby with them to Puppy Co., where the boys sneak away to investigate. They are captured by Francis Francis, CEO of Puppy Co, who reveals he was previously the Boss of Baby Corp, but started to slowly grow up because he was partially intolerant to the formula. He was fired and forced to live with a hillbilly family, but saved his magic pacifier. He steals Baby's formula, intending to use it to make a "Forever Puppy" incapable of aging or dying, which will take all love from babies and give him his revenge on BabyCorp.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Francis whisks Tim's parents away to a conference in Las Vegas, and leaves his brother Eugene to watch the children in the guise of a female nanny. Without the formula, Baby starts to periodically revert to normal infant behavior. The boys, with help from the neighborhood toddlers, escape Eugene and head to Las Vegas, where they find Francis ready to send a rocket of Forever Puppies out into the world. Tim's parents suspect something is wrong when they hear their children, but are locked up underneath the rocket to be burned. Tim and Baby fight Francis on a raised walkway, pretending to be pirates; they knock him into the vat of augmented formula, where he turns back into a baby and is taken home by Eugene. Tim saves his parents, but Baby goes completely infantile and is stranded on the rocket, which is about to launch. Tim sings him a lullaby, and Baby jumps to him and is revived by the formula.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Baby is taken back to Baby Corp and promoted to CEO. Some Baby Corp employees enter Tim's house, where they remove evidence of Baby, and make his parents forget about him while they are sleeping. One of them asks Tim if he would like to forget too, but he declines. Baby and Tim miss each other terribly, and Tim finally invites Baby back, saying if there is only love enough for one of them, Baby can have it all. Realizing that love is something that grows, instead of being split, Baby returns, this time as a normal infant boy named Theodore "Ted" Templeton.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Years later, an adult Tim and Ted tell the story to Tim's eldest daughter, who is apprehensive about the arrival of her new baby sister. After the adults leave, the newborn little girl reveals she is a Boss Baby, too, surprising the elder daughter.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Upon reading the original book on which the film is based McGrath felt a connection to it, as he had an older brother and felt like "the boss baby of the family". In keeping with that theme he stated, in an interview with Den of Geek, that "My personal goal with this was to watch this movie with my brother, and to see how it affected him!", which resulted in McGrath's brother being moved to tears by the completed film.


title: The Boss Baby

text: The look of the film was inspired by design techniques popularized in the 1960s, as well as animated films from both the 1950s and 1960s. This was due to McGrath's belief that contemporary animated films focused too much on realism. To help his staff McGrath would play the opening scene of "Lady and the Tramp" (1955) for new hires specifically noting that the film "should be easy on the eyes and really lead your eye to what’s important in the shot.


title: The Boss Baby

text: In September 2014, Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey joined the cast of the film, with further casting news announced in June 2016, including Steve Buscemi replacing Spacey.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Miles Bakshi, son of the DreamWorks Animation's producer Gina Shay and grandson of the film director Ralph Bakshi, best known for directing the 1972 American adult animated comedy film "Fritz the Cat", provided the voice of 7-year old Tim. Having been often present at DreamWorks, McGrath initially asked Bakshi only to provide a temporary voice for Tim to see if the character "worked". The producers listened to 30 to 40 children to choose the scratch voice. McGrath explained their decision: "No one sounded as authentic as Miles did. A lot of child actors are great, but they are over-articulate for their age. Miles was just natural and charming. He had a little slur to his voice at the time and it was very endearing." Three years later, Miles was told that he got the part. Bakshi was 10 when he began recording the voice. During the long process, his voice started to change and "by the end it got pretty tough", according to Bakshi, who was 14 when the film was released. He had to get his voice "very soft, but when I got that perfect tone it was great."


title: The Boss Baby

text: The film was scored by Hans Zimmer, who had previously collaborated with McGrath on the "Madagascar" trilogy (2005–2012) and "Megamind" (2010), along with Steve Mazzaro, Jacob Collier, and various artists. The film's soundtrack was released on Back Lot Music & iTunes. "Blackbird" by The Beatles is used as part of the plot at various points throughout the film. During the end credits, Missi Hale recorded a cover of the Burt Bacharach song "What the World Needs Now Is Love" (first performed by Jackie DeShannon). "My House" by Flo Rida is also used in the trailer for the film.


title: The Boss Baby

text: "The Boss Baby" was initially scheduled for release on March 18, 2016, but was later pushed back to March 31, 2017. The film premiered at the Miami Film Festival on March 12, 2017, and was released in the United States on March 31, 2017, by 20th Century Fox. The film was later released in Japan on March 21, 2018 by DreamWorks Animation's sister company Universal Pictures. The Japanese release is accompanied by the DreamWorks animated short "Bird Karma".


title: The Boss Baby

text: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released "The Boss Baby" for digital download on July 4, 2017, and on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and Ultra HD Blu-ray on July 25. Physical copies contain a short film, "The Boss Baby and Tim's Treasure Hunt Through Time". From November 2017 to May 2019, the film is available on Netflix, the film is expected to return to the streaming platform after 4 years on May 22, 2023.


title: The Boss Baby

text: "The Boss Baby" grossed $175 million in the United States and Canada and $353 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $528 million.


title: The Boss Baby

text: The film was released with "Ghost in the Shell" and "The Zookeeper's Wife" on March 31, 2017. "The Boss Baby" grossed $15.5 million on its first day, including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews. The film debuted grossing $49 million from 3,773 theaters. Its second weekend earnings dropped by 47% to $26.3 million, and followed by another $15.9 million the third weekend. "The Boss Baby" completed its theatrical run in the United States and Canada on November 2, 2017.


title: The Boss Baby

text: "The Boss Baby" has an approval rating of based on professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of . Its critical consensus reads, ""The Boss Baby"s talented cast, glimmers of wit, and flashes of visual inventiveness can't make up for a thin premise and a disappointing willingness to settle for doody jokes." Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned "The Boss Baby" a score of 50 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Boss Baby

text: Neil Genzlinger of "The New York Times" praised Baldwin and the adult humor, saying: "The contrast between the helpless-infant stage of life and corporate-speak is funny but fairly high-concept for a kiddie movie, and the plot grows denser as it goes along and the baby and Tim reluctantly join forces to stop a conspiracy by which puppies would corner all the love in the world."


title: The Boss Baby

text: In 2021, interest in the original film was renewed when a philosophical symposium dedicated to the film was announced. While widely believed to be a prank at first, organizers Jaime McCaffrey and Tore Levander insisted this was not that case. Responding to the early criticism, McCaffrey stated to The A. V. Club that “Its messaging, the way that it tries to convey ideas, you almost can’t discern what the position of the movie is. And all the artistic decisions in the movie seem to be conflict with each other in such a way that as a viewer you are like ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel and therefore I must analyze.’”


title: The Boss Baby

text: The first conference was done virtually and featured speakers from Northeastern University, Middlesex University, the University of York, Cambridge University, and a medical doctor from the University of California Riverside. JP Karliak, the TV show's voice actor, and Brandon Sawyer, writer and executive producer of "", both spoke at the event. The "Second First Annual" conference is being planned and is to be hosted in January of 2023.


title: The Boss Baby

text: On May 25, 2017, Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation announced a sequel, which was released on July 2, 2021, with Alec Baldwin reprising his role. On May 17, 2019, it was announced that Tom McGrath will return as director and Jeff Hermann, who produced "Bilby", "Bird Karma", and "Marooned", will produce the sequel. Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro returned to write the music for the film.


title: The Boss Baby

text: On December 12, 2017, both Netflix and DreamWorks Animation announced the release of the TV series based on the film. "" was released in 2018.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 O.S. (May 14, 1607 N.S.), and was considered permanent after a brief abandonment in 1610. It followed several failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke, established in 1585 on Roanoke Island, later part of North Carolina. Jamestown served as the colonial capital from 1616 until 1699.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Despite the dispatch of more settlers and supplies, including the 1608 arrival of eight Polish and German colonists and the first two European women, more than 80 percent of the colonists died in 1609–10, mostly from starvation and disease. In mid-1610, the survivors abandoned Jamestown, though they returned after meeting a resupply convoy in the James River.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In August 1619, the first recorded slaves from Africa to British North America arrived in what is now Old Point Comfort near the Jamestown colony, on a British privateer ship flying a Dutch flag. The approximately 20 Africans from present-day Angola had been removed by the British crew from the Portuguese slave ship "São João Bautista". They most likely worked in the tobacco fields as slaves under a system of race-based indentured servitude. One of their number included Angela, who was purchased by William Peirce. The modern conception of slavery in the colonial United States was formalized in 1640 (the John Punch hearing) and was fully entrenched in Virginia by 1660.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The London Company's second settlement in Bermuda claims to be the site of the oldest "town" in the English New World, as St. George's, Bermuda, was officially established in 1612 as New London, whereas James Fort in Virginia was not converted into James Towne until 1619, and further did not survive to the present day.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In 1676, Jamestown was deliberately burned during Bacon's Rebellion, though it was quickly rebuilt. In 1699, the colonial capital was moved to what is today Williamsburg, Virginia; Jamestown ceased to exist as a settlement, and remains today only as an archaeological site, Jamestown Rediscovery.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Today, Jamestown is one of three locations composing the Historic Triangle of Colonial Virginia, along with Williamsburg and Yorktown, with two primary heritage sites. is the archaeological site on Jamestown Island and is a cooperative effort by Jamestown National Historic Site (part of Colonial National Historical Park) and Preservation Virginia. Jamestown Settlement, a living history interpretive site, is operated by the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation, a state agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In May 2022, BBC News reported that Jamestown is threatened by climate change.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Spain, Portugal, and France moved quickly to establish a presence in the New World, while other European countries moved more slowly. The English did not attempt to found colonies until many decades after the explorations of John Cabot, and early efforts were failures—most notably the Roanoke Colony which vanished about 1590.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Late in 1606, English colonists set sail with a charter from the London Company to establish a colony in the New World. The fleet consisted of the ships "Susan Constant", "Discovery", and "Godspeed", all under the leadership of Captain Christopher Newport. They made a particularly long voyage of four months, including a stop in the Canary Islands, in Spain, and subsequently Puerto Rico, and finally departed for the American mainland on April 10, 1607.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The expedition made landfall on April 26, 1607, at a place which they named Cape Henry. Under orders to select a more secure location, they set about exploring what is now Hampton Roads and an outlet to the Chesapeake Bay which they named the James River in honor of King James I of England. Captain Edward Maria Wingfield was elected president of the governing council on April 25, 1607. On May 14, he selected a piece of land on a large peninsula some inland from the Atlantic Ocean as a prime location for a fortified settlement. The river channel was a defensible strategic point due to a curve in the river, and it was close to the land, making it navigable and offering enough land for piers or wharves to be built in the future. Perhaps the most favorable fact about the location was that it was uninhabited because the leaders of the nearby indigenous nations considered the site too poor and remote for agriculture. The island was swampy and isolated, and it offered limited space, was plagued by mosquitoes, and afforded only brackish tidal river water unsuitable for drinking.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The Jamestown settlers arrived in Virginia during a severe drought, according to a research study conducted by the Jamestown Archaeological Assessment (JAA) team in the 1990s. The JAA analyzed information from a study conducted in 1985 by David Stahle and others, who obtained drawings of 800-year-old bald cypress trees along the Nottoway and Blackwater rivers. The lifespan of these trees is up to 1,000 years and their rings offer a good indication of an area's annual amount of rainfall. The borings revealed that the worst drought in 700 years occurred between 1606 and 1612. This severe drought affected the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan tribe's ability to produce food and obtain a safe supply of water.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The settlers also arrived too late in the year to get crops planted. Many in the group were either gentlemen or their manservants, both equally unaccustomed to the hard labor demanded by the harsh task of carving out a viable colony. One of these was Robert Hunt, a former vicar of Reculver, England, who celebrated the first known Anglican Eucharist in the territory of the future United States on June 21, 1607.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Two-thirds of the settlers died before ships arrived in 1608 with supplies and German and Polish craftsmen, who helped to establish the first manufactories in the colony. As a result, glassware became the foremost American products to be exported to Europe at the time. Clapboard had already been sent back to England beginning with the first returning ship.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The delivery of supplies in 1608 on the First and Second Supply missions of Captain Newport had also added to the number of hungry settlers. It seemed certain at that time that the colony at Jamestown would meet the same fate as earlier English attempts to settle in North America, specifically the Roanoke Colony (Lost Colony) and the Popham Colony, unless there was a major relief effort. The Germans who arrived with the Second Supply and a few others defected to the Powhatans, with weapons and equipment. The Germans even planned to join a rumored Spanish attack on the colony and urged the Powhatans to join it. The Spanish were driven off by the timely arrival in July 1609 of Captain Samuel Argall in "Mary and John", a larger ship than the Spanish reconnaissance ship "La Asunción de Cristo". Argall's voyage also prevented the Spanish from gaining knowledge of the weakness of the colony. Don Pedro de Zúñiga, the Spanish ambassador to England, was desperately seeking this (in addition to spies) in order to get Philip III of Spain to authorise an attack on the colony.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The investors of the Virginia Company of London expected to reap rewards from their speculative investments. With the Second Supply, they expressed their frustrations and made demands upon the leaders of Jamestown in written form. They specifically demanded that the colonists send commodities sufficient to pay the cost of the voyage, a lump of gold, assurance that they had found the South Sea, and one member of the lost Roanoke Colony. It fell to the third president of the Council Captain John Smith to deliver a bold and much-needed wake-up call in response to the investors in London, demanding practical laborers and craftsmen who could help make the colony more self-sufficient.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: After Smith was forced to return to England due to an explosion which gave him deep burn wounds during a trading expedition, the colony was led by George Percy, who proved incompetent in negotiating with the native tribes. There are indications that those in London comprehended and embraced Smith's message. The Third Supply mission of 1609 was to be by far the largest and best equipped. They also had a new purpose-built flagship, "Sea Venture", constructed, and placed in the most experienced of hands, Christopher Newport.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: On June 2, 1609, "Sea Venture" set sail from Plymouth, England as the flagship of a seven-ship fleet (towing two additional pinnaces) destined for Jamestown, Virginia, as part of the Third Supply, carrying 214 settlers. On July 24, the fleet ran into a strong storm, likely a hurricane, and the ships were separated. Although some of the ships did make it to Jamestown, the leaders, and most of the supplies, had been aboard "Sea Venture", which fought the storm for three days before the Admiral of the Company, Sir George Somers, deliberately drove it onto the reefs of Bermuda to prevent its foundering. This allowed all aboard to be landed safely.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The survivors (including Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates, Captain Christopher Newport, Sylvester Jordain, Stephen Hopkins, later of "Mayflower", and secretary William Strachey) were stranded on Bermuda for approximately nine months. During that time, they built two new ships, the pinnaces "Deliverance" and "Patience". The original plan was to build only one vessel, "Deliverance", but it soon became evident that it would not be large enough to carry the settlers and all of the food (salted pork) that was being sourced on the islands.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: While the Third Supply was stranded in Bermuda, the colony at Jamestown was in even worse shape. In the "Starving Time" of 1609–1610, the Jamestown settlers faced rampant starvation for want of additional provisions. During this time, lack of food drove people to eat snakes and even boil the leather from shoes for sustenance. Only 60 of the original 214 settlers at Jamestown survived. There is scientific evidence that the settlers at Jamestown had turned to cannibalism during the starving time.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The ships from Bermuda arrived in Jamestown on May 23, 1610. Many of the surviving colonists were near death, and Jamestown was judged to be unviable. Everyone was boarded onto "Deliverance" and "Patience", which set sail for England. However, on June 10, 1610, the timely arrival of another relief fleet, bearing Governor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (who would eventually give his name to the colony of Delaware), which met the two ships as they descended the James River, granted Jamestown a reprieve. The Colonists called this "The Day of Providence". The fleet brought not only supplies, but also additional settlers. All the settlers returned to the colony, though there was still a critical shortage of food.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Relations between the colonists and the Powhatans quickly deteriorated after De La Warr's arrival, eventually leading to conflict. The Anglo-Powhatan War lasted until Samuel Argall captured Wahunsenacawh's daughter Matoaka, better known by her nickname Pocahontas, after which the chief accepted a treaty of peace.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Due to the aristocratic backgrounds of many of the new colonists, a historic drought and the communal nature of their work load, progress through the first few years was inconsistent at best. By 1613, six years after Jamestown's founding, the organizers and shareholders of the Virginia Company were desperate to increase the efficiency and profitability of the struggling colony. Without stockholder consent the Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, assigned plots to its "ancient planters" and smaller plots to the settlement's later arrivals. Measurable economic progress was made, and the settlers began expanding their planting to land belonging to local native tribes. That this turnaround coincided with the end of a drought that had begun the year before the English settlers' arrival probably indicates multiple factors were involved besides the colonists' ineptitude.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Among the colonists who survived the Third Supply was John Rolfe, who carried with him a cache of untested new tobacco seeds from Bermuda, which had grown wild there after being planted by shipwrecked Spaniards years before. In 1614, Rolfe began to successfully harvest tobacco. Prosperous and wealthy, he married Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, bringing several years of peace between the English and natives. However, at the end of a public relations trip to England, Pocahontas became sick and died on March 21, 1617. The following year, her father also died. Powhatan's brother, a fierce warrior named Opechancanough, became head of the Powhatan Confederacy. As the English continued to appropriate more land for tobacco farming, relations with the natives worsened.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Due to the high cost of the trans-Atlantic voyage at this time, many English settlers came to Jamestown as indentured servants: in exchange for the passage, room, board, and the promise of land or money, these immigrants would agree to work for three to seven years. Immigrants from continental Europe, mainly Germans, were usually redemptioners—they purchased some portion of their voyage on credit and, upon arrival, borrowed or entered into a work contract to pay the remainder of their voyage costs.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In 1619, the first representative assembly in America, the General Assembly, convened in the Jamestown Church, "to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia" which would provide "just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting." Initially, only men of English origin were permitted to vote. On June 30, 1619, in what was the first recorded strike in Colonial America, the Polish artisans protested and refused to work if not allowed to vote ("No Vote, No Work"). On July 21, 1619, the court granted the Poles equal voting rights. Afterwards, the labor strike (the first "in [North] American history") was ended and the artisans resumed their work. Individual land ownership was also instituted, and the colony was divided into four large "boroughs" or "incorporations" called "citties" by the colonists. Jamestown was located in James Cittie.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Of the first documented African slaves to arrive in English North America, on the frigate "White Lion" in August 1619, were an African man and woman, later named Antoney and Isabella. Their baby, named William Tucker, would become the first documented African child baptized in British North America. Listed in the 1624 census in Virginia, they became the first African family recorded in Jamestown. Another of the early enslaved Africans to be purchased at the settlement was Angela, who worked for Captain William Peirce.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: After several years of strained coexistence, Chief Opechancanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all. On the morning of March 22, 1622, they attacked outlying plantations and communities up and down the James River in what became known as the Indian massacre of 1622. More than 300 settlers were killed in the attack, about a third of the colony's English-speaking population. Sir Thomas Dale's development at Henricus, which was to feature a college to educate the natives, and Wolstenholme Towne at Martin's Hundred, were both essentially wiped out. Jamestown was spared only through a timely warning by a Virginia Indian employee. There was not enough time to spread the word to the outposts.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In 1624, King James revoked the Virginia Company's charter, and Virginia became a royal colony. Despite the setbacks, the colony continued to grow. Ten years later, in 1634, by order of King Charles I, the colony was divided into the original eight shires of Virginia (or counties), in a fashion similar to that practiced in England. Jamestown was now located in James City Shire, soon renamed the "County of James City", better known in modern times as James City County, Virginia, the nation's oldest county.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Another large-scale "Indian attack" occurred in 1644. In 1646, Opechancanough was captured and while in custody an English guard shot him in the back—against orders—and killed him. Subsequently, the Powhatan Confederacy began to decline. Opechancanough's successor signed the first peace treaties between the Powhatan Indians and the English. The treaties required the Powhatan to pay yearly tribute payment to the English and confined them to reservations.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: A generation later, during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, Jamestown was burned, eventually to be rebuilt. During its recovery, the Virginia legislature met first at Governor William Berkeley's nearby Green Spring Plantation, and later at Middle Plantation, which had been started in 1632 as a fortified community inland on the Virginia Peninsula, about distant.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: When the statehouse burned again in 1698, this time accidentally, the legislature again temporarily relocated to Middle Plantation, and was able to meet in the new facilities of the College of William and Mary, which had been established after receiving a royal charter in 1693. Rather than rebuilding at Jamestown again, the capital of the colony was moved permanently to Middle Plantation in 1699. The town was soon renamed Williamsburg, to honor the reigning monarch, King William III. A new Capitol building and "Governor's Palace" were erected there in the following years.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Due to the movement of the capital to Williamsburg, the old town of Jamestown began to slowly disappear from view. Those who lived in the general area attended services at Jamestown's church until the 1750s, when it was abandoned. By the mid-18th century, the land was heavily cultivated, primarily by the Travis and Ambler families.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: During the American Revolutionary War, although the Battle of Green Spring was fought nearby at the site of former Governor Berkeley's plantation, Jamestown was apparently inconsequential.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: During the American Civil War, in 1861, Confederate William Allen, who owned the Jamestown Island, occupied Jamestown with troops he raised at his own expense with the intention of blockading the James River and Richmond from the Union Navy. He was soon joined by Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, who directed the building of batteries and conducted ordnance and armor tests for the first Confederate ironclad warship, CSS "Virginia", which was under construction at the Gosport Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth in late 1861 and early 1862. Jamestown had a peak force of 1,200 men.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: During the Peninsula Campaign, which began later that spring, Union forces under General George B. McClellan moved up the Peninsula from Fort Monroe in an attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Union forces captured Yorktown in April 1862, and the Battle of Williamsburg was fought the following month. With these developments, Jamestown and the lower James River were abandoned by the Confederates. Some of the forces from Jamestown, and the crew of "Virginia", relocated to Drewry's Bluff, a fortified and strategic position high above the river about below Richmond. There, they successfully blocked the Union Navy from reaching the Confederate capital.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Once in Federal hands, Jamestown became a meeting place for runaway slaves, who burned the Ambler house, an eighteenth-century plantation house, which along with the old church was one of the few remaining signs of old Jamestown. When Allen sent men to assess the damage in late 1862, they were killed by the former slaves. Following the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, the oath of allegiance was administered to former Confederate soldiers at Jamestown.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In the years after the Civil War, Jamestown became quiet and peaceful once again. In 1892, Jamestown was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Barney. The following year, the Barneys donated 22½ acres of land, including the ruined church tower, to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now known as Preservation Virginia).


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: By this time, erosion from the river had eaten away the island's western shore. Visitors began to conclude that the site of James Fort lay completely underwater. With federal assistance, a sea wall was constructed in 1900 to protect the area from further erosion. The archaeological remains of the original 1607 fort, which had been protected by the sea wall, were not discovered until 1996.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In 1932, George Craghead Gregory of Richmond was credited with discovering the foundation of the first brick statehouse (capitol) building, circa 1646, at Jamestown on the land owned by Preservation Virginia. Around 1936, Gregory, who was active with the Virginia Historical Society, founded the Jamestowne Society for descendants of stockholders in the Virginia Company of London and the descendants of those who owned land or who had domiciles in Jamestown or on Jamestown Island prior to 1700.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Colonial National Monument was authorized by the U.S. Congress on July 3, 1930 and established on December 30, 1930. In 1934, the National Park Service obtained the remaining portion of Jamestown Island which had been under private ownership by the Vermillion family. The National Park Service partnered with Preservation Virginia to preserve the area and present it to visitors in an educational manner. On June 5, 1936, the national monument was re-designated a national historical park, and became known as Colonial National Historical Park.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: From 1936 J.C. "Pinky" Harrington worked on the NPS's excavations at Jamestown. In 1954 John L. Cotter took charge of field projects at Jamestown, conducted with the site's 350th anniversary (1957) in mind. Cotter worked with Edward B. Jelks and Harrington to survey the area's colonial sites. In 1957 Cotter and J. Paul Hudson co-authored "New Discoveries at Jamestown". Cotter contributed, along with Jelks, Georg Neumann, and Johnny Hack, to the 1958 report "Archaeological Excavations at Jamestown".


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In the present time, as part of the Colonial National Historical Park, the Jamestown Island area is home to two heritage tourism sites related to the original fort and town. Nearby, the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry service provides a link across the navigable portion of the James River for vehicles and affords passengers a view of Jamestown Island from the river.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: , located at the original site of Jamestown, is administered by Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service. The central 22½ acres of land, where the archaeological remains of the original James Fort were found, are owned by Preservation Virginia (formerly known as the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities); the remaining are held by the National Park Service and is part of the Colonial National Historical Park.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The site gained renewed importance when in 1996 the Jamestown Rediscovery project began excavations in search of the original James Fort site, originally in preparation for the quadricentennial of Jamestown's founding. The primary goal of the archaeological campaign was to locate archaeological remains of "the first years of settlement at Jamestown, especially of the earliest fortified town; <nowiki>[and the]</nowiki> subsequent growth and development of the town".


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Today, visitors to can view the site of the original 1607 James Fort, the 17th-century church tower and the site of the 17th-century town, as well as tour an archaeological museum called the Archaearium and view many of the close to two million artifacts found by Jamestown Rediscovery. They also may participate in living history ranger tours and Archaeological tours given by the Jamestown Rediscovery staff. Visitors can also often observe archaeologists from the Jamestown Rediscovery Project at work, as archaeological work at the site continues. , the archaeological work and studies are ongoing. In addition to their newsletter and website, new discoveries are frequently reported in the local newspaper, the "Virginia Gazette" based in nearby Williamsburg, and by other news media, often worldwide.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Jamestown Settlement is a living-history park and museum located from the original location of the colony and adjacent to Jamestown Island. Initially created for the celebration of the 350th anniversary in 1957, Jamestown Settlement is operated by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, and largely sponsored by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The museum complex features a reconstruction of a Powhatan village, the James Fort as it was –1614, and seagoing replicas of the three ships that brought the first settlers, "Susan Constant", "Godspeed", "Discovery".


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: With the national independence of the United States established by the end of the 18th century, Jamestown came to be looked at as a starting point. Its founding in 1607 has been regularly commemorated, with the most notable events being held every fifty years.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The bicentennial of Jamestown on May 13–14, 1807, was called the Grand National Jubilee. Over 3,000 people attended the event, many arriving on vessels which anchored in the river off the island.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: May 13 was the opening day of the festival, which began with a procession which marched to the graveyard of the old church, where the attending bishop delivered the prayer. The procession then moved to the Travis mansion, where the celebrants dined and danced in the mansion that evening. Also during the festivities, students of the College of William and Mary gave orations. An old barn on the island was used as a temporary theater, where a company of players from Norfolk performed. Attending were many dignitaries, politicians, and historians. The celebration concluded on May 14 with a dinner and toast at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In 1857, the Jamestown society organized a celebration marking the 250th anniversary of Jamestown's founding. According to the Richmond "Enquirer", the site for the celebration was on on the spot where some of the colonists' houses were originally built. However, it is also speculated that the celebration was moved further east on the island closer to the Travis grave site, in order to avoid damaging Major William Allen's corn fields.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The attendance was estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 people. Sixteen large steam ships anchored offshore in the James River and were gaily decorated with streamers. Former US President John Tyler of nearby Sherwood Forest Plantation gave a 2½ hour speech, and there were military displays, a grand ball and fireworks.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The 100th anniversary of the Surrender at Yorktown in 1781 had generated a new interest in the historical significance of the colonial sites of the Peninsula. Williamsburg, a sleepy but populated town of shops and homes, was still celebrating Civil War events. However, as the new century dawned, thoughts turned to the upcoming 300th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now known as Preservation Virginia) started the movement in 1900 by calling for a celebration honoring the establishment of the first permanent English colony in the New World at Jamestown to be held on the 300th anniversary in 1907.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: As a celebration was planned, virtually no one thought that the actual isolated and long-abandoned original site of Jamestown would be suitable for a major event because Jamestown Island had no facilities for large crowds. The original fort housing the Jamestown settlers was believed to have been long ago swallowed by the James River. The general area in James City County near Jamestown was also considered unsuitable, as it was not very accessible in the day of rail travel before automobiles were common.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: As the tricentennial of the 1607 Founding of the Jamestown neared, around 1904, despite an assumption in some quarters that Richmond would be a logical location, leaders in Norfolk began a campaign to have a celebration held there. The decision was made to locate the international exposition on a mile-long frontage at Sewell's Point near the mouth of Hampton Roads. This was about downstream from Jamestown in a rural section of Norfolk County. It was a site which could become accessible by both long-distance passenger railroads and local streetcar service, with considerable frontage on the harbor of Hampton Roads. This latter feature proved ideal for the naval delegations which came from points all around the world.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The Jamestown Exposition of 1907 was one of the many world's fairs and expositions that were popular in the early part of the 20th century. Held from April 26, 1907 to December 1, 1907, attendees included US President Theodore Roosevelt, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, the Prince of Sweden, Mark Twain, Henry H. Rogers, and dozens of other dignitaries and famous persons. A major naval review featuring the United States' Great White Fleet was a key feature. U.S. Military officials and leaders were impressed by the location, and the Exposition site later formed the first portion of the large U.S. Naval Station Norfolk in 1918 during World War I.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: With America's increased access to automobiles, and with improved roads and transportation, it was feasible for the 350th anniversary celebration to be held at Jamestown itself in 1957. Although erosion had cut off the land bridge between Jamestown Island and the mainland, the isthmus was restored and new access provided by the completion of the National Park Service's Colonial Parkway which led to Williamsburg and Yorktown, the other two portions of Colonial Virginia's Historic Triangle. There were also improvements of state highways. The north landing for the popular Jamestown Ferry and a portion of State Route 31 were relocated.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Major projects such were developed by non-profit, state and federal agencies. Jamestown Festival Park was established by the Commonwealth of Virginia adjacent to the entrance to Jamestown Island. Full-sized replicas of the three ships that brought the colonists, "Susan Constant", "Godspeed", and "Discovery" were constructed at a shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia and placed on display at a new dock at Jamestown, where the largest, "Susan Constant", could be boarded by visitors. On Jamestown Island, the reconstructed Jamestown Glasshouse, the Memorial Cross and the visitors center were completed and dedicated. A loop road was built around the island.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Special events included army and navy reviews, air force fly-overs, ship and aircraft christenings and even an outdoor drama at Cape Henry, site of the first landing of the settlers. This celebration continued from April 1 to November 30 with over a million participants, including dignitaries and politicians such as the British Ambassador and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon. The highlight for many of the nearly 25,000 at the Festival Park on October 16, 1957 was the visit and speech of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her consort, Prince Philip. Queen Elizabeth II loaned a copy of the Magna Carta for the exhibition. It was her first visit to the United States since assuming the throne.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: The 1957 Jamestown Festival was so successful that tourists still kept coming long after the official event was completed. Jamestown became a permanent attraction of the Historic Triangle, and has been visited by families, school groups, tours, and thousands of other people continuously ever since.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: Early in the 21st century, new accommodations, transportation facilities and attractions were planned in preparation for the quadricentennial of the founding of Jamestown. Numerous events were promoted under the banner of America's 400th Anniversary and promoted by the Jamestown 2007 Commission. The commemoration included 18 months of statewide, national and international festivities and events, which began in April 2006 with a tour of the new replica "Godspeed".


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In January 2007, the Virginia General Assembly held a session at Jamestown. On May 4, 2007, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip attended a ceremony commemorating the 400th anniversary of the settlement's arrivals, reprising the honor they paid in 1957.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In addition to the Virginia State Quarter, Jamestown was also the subject of two United States commemorative coins celebrating the 400th anniversary of its settlement. A silver dollar and a gold five dollar coin were issued in 2007.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

text: In 2019 Jamestown, in cooperation with Williamsburg, held a commemoration that marked the 400th anniversary of three landmark events in American history: the first meeting of the General Assembly, the arrival of the first Africans to English North America, and the first Thanksgiving.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The House of Hohenzollern (, , , , ) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family came from the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the late 11th century and took their name from Hohenzollern Castle. The first ancestors of the Hohenzollerns were mentioned in 1061.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The Hohenzollern family split into two branches, the Catholic Swabian branch and the Protestant Franconian branch, which ruled the Burgraviate of Nuremberg and later became the Brandenburg-Prussian branch. The Swabian branch ruled the principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen until 1849, and also ruled Romania from 1866 to 1947. Members of the Franconian branch became Margrave of Brandenburg in 1415 and Duke of Prussia in 1525.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were ruled in personal union after 1618 and were called Brandenburg-Prussia. From there, the Kingdom of Prussia was created in 1701, eventually leading to the unification of Germany and the creation of the German Empire in 1871, with the Hohenzollerns as hereditary German Emperors and Kings of Prussia.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 led to the German Revolution. The Hohenzollerns were overthrown and the Weimar Republic was established, thus bringing an end to the German monarchy and Prussian monarchy. Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is the current head of the formerly royal Prussian line, while Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern is the head of the formerly princely Swabian line.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Zollern, from 1218 Hohenzollern, was a county of the Holy Roman Empire. Later its capital was Hechingen.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The Hohenzollerns named their estates after Hohenzollern Castle in the Swabian Alps. The Hohenzollern Castle lies on an 855 meters high mountain called Hohenzollern. It still belongs to the family today.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The dynasty was first mentioned in 1061. According to the medieval chronicler Berthold of Reichenau, Burkhard I, Count of Zollern ("de Zolorin") was born before 1025 and died in 1061.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1095, Count Adalbert of Zollern founded the Benedictine monastery of Alpirsbach, situated in the Black Forest.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: As loyal vassals of the Swabian Hohenstaufen dynasty, they were able to significantly enlarge their territory. Count Frederick III (c. 1139 – c. 1200) accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa against Henry the Lion in 1180, and through his marriage was granted the Burgraviate of Nuremberg by Emperor Henry VI in 1192. In about 1185, he married Sophia of Raabs, the daughter of Conrad II, Burgrave of Nuremberg. After the death of Conrad II who left no male heirs, Frederick III was granted Nuremberg as Burgrave Frederick I.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1218, the burgraviate passed to Frederick's elder son Conrad I, he thereby became the ancestor of the Franconian Hohenzollern branch, which acquired the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1415.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The senior Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Conrad I, Burgrave of Nuremberg (1186–1261).


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The family supported the Hohenstaufen and Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire during the 12th to 15th centuries, being rewarded with several territorial grants. Beginning in the 16th century, this branch of the family became Protestant and decided on expansion through marriage and the purchase of surrounding lands.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In the first phase, the family gradually added to their lands, at first with many small acquisitions in the Franconian region of Germany:


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In the second phase, the family expanded their lands further with large acquisitions in the Brandenburg and Prussian regions of Germany and present-day Poland:


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: These acquisitions eventually transformed the Franconian Hohenzollerns from a minor German princely family into one of the most important dynasties in Europe.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: From 8 January 1701 the title of Elector of Brandenburg was attached to the title of King "in" Prussia and, from 13 September 1772, to that of King "of" Prussia.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: After John III/I's death on 11 June 1420, the margraviates of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach were briefly reunited under Frederick VI/I/I. He ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Ansbach after 1398. From 1420, he became Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. From 1411 Frederick VI became governor of Brandenburg and later Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I. Upon his death on 21 September 1440, his territories were divided among his sons:


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1427 Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg sold Nuremberg Castle and his rights as burgrave to the Imperial City of Nuremberg. The territories of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach remained possessions of the family, once parts of the Burgraviate of Nuremberg.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: On 2 December 1791, Christian II Frederick sold the sovereignty of his principalities to King Frederick William II of Prussia.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: On 2 December 1791, Charles Alexander sold the sovereignty of his principalities to King Frederick William II of Prussia.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1411, Frederick VI, Burgrave of the small but wealthy Nuremberg, was appointed governor of Brandenburg in order to restore order and stability. At the Council of Constance in 1415, King Sigismund elevated Frederick to the rank of Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I. According to the Iron Kingdom, the most comprehensive book about the History of Prussia written by historian Christopher Clark, in 1417, Elector Frederick purchased Brandenburg from its then-sovereign, Emperor Sigismund, for 400,000 Hungarian guilders.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The short-lived Margraviate of Brandenburg-Küstrin was set up as a secundogeniture of the House of Hohenzollern.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Although recognized as a branch of the dynasty since 1688, the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Schwedt remained subordinate to the electors, and was never an independent principality.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1525, the Duchy of Prussia was established as a fief of the King of Poland. Albert of Prussia was the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and the first Duke of Prussia. He belonged to the Ansbach branch of the dynasty. The Duchy of Prussia adopted Protestantism as the official state religion.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1701, the title of King in Prussia was granted, without the Duchy of Prussia being elevated to a Kingdom within Poland but recognized as a kingdom by the Holy Roman Emperor, theoretically the highest sovereign in the West. From 1701 onwards the titles of Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title of King in Prussia. The Duke of Prussia adopted the title of king as Frederick I, establishing his status as a monarch whose royal territory lay outside the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, with the assent of Emperor Leopold I: Frederick could not be "King of Prussia" because part of Prussia's lands were under the suzerainty of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. In Brandenburg and the other Hohenzollern domains within the borders of the empire, he was legally still an elector under the ultimate overlordship of the emperor. By this time, however, the emperor's authority had become purely nominal over the other German prices outside the immediate hereditary lands of the emperor. Brandenburg was still legally part of the empire and ruled in personal union with Prussia, though the two states came to be treated as one "de facto." The king was officially "Margrave of Brandenburg" within the Empire until the Empire's dissolution in 1806. In the age of absolutism, most monarchs were obsessed with the desire to emulate Louis XIV of France with his luxurious palace at Versailles.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Frederick William's successor, Frederick the Great gained Silesia in the Silesian Wars so that Prussia emerged as a great power. The king was strongly influenced by French culture and civilization and preferred the French language.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In the 1772 First Partition of Poland, the Prussian king Frederick the Great annexed neighboring Royal Prussia, i.e., the Polish voivodeships of Pomerania (Gdańsk Pomerania or Pomerelia), Malbork, Chełmno and the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, thereby connecting his Prussian and Farther Pomeranian lands and cutting the rest of Poland from the Baltic coast. The territory of Warmia was incorporated into the lands of former Ducal Prussia, which, by administrative deed of 31 January 1772 were named "East Prussia". The former Polish Pomerelian lands beyond the Vistula River together with Malbork and Chełmno Land formed the Province of West Prussia with its capital at Marienwerder (Kwidzyn) in 1773. The Polish Partition Sejm ratified the cession on 30 September 1772, whereafter Frederick officially went on to call himself King "of" Prussia. From 1772 onwards the titles of Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title King of Prussia.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia became a constituent member of the German Empire, and the King of Prussia gained the additional title of German Emperor.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1871, the German Empire was proclaimed. With the accession of William I to the newly established imperial German throne, the titles of King of Prussia, Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title of German Emperor.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Prussia's Minister President Otto von Bismarck convinced William that German Emperor instead of Emperor of Germany would be appropriate. He became "primus inter pares" among other German sovereigns.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: William II intended to develop a German navy capable of challenging Britain's Royal Navy. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 set off the chain of events that led to World War I. As a result of the war, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires ceased to exist.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1918, the German empire was abolished and replaced by the Weimar Republic. After the outbreak of the German revolution in 1918, both Emperor William II and Crown Prince William signed the document of abdication.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The official religion of the state was "bi-confessional". John Sigismund's most significant action was his conversion from Lutheranism to Calvinism, after he had earlier equalized the rights of Catholics and Protestants in the Duchy of Prussia under pressure from the King of Poland. He was probably won over to Calvinism during a visit to Heidelberg in 1606, but it was not until 25 December 1613 that he publicly took communion according to the Calvinist rite. The vast majority of his subjects in Brandenburg, including his wife Anna of Prussia, remained deeply Lutheran, however. After the Elector and his Calvinist court officials drew up plans for mass conversion of the population to the new faith in February 1614, as provided for by the rule of "Cuius regio, eius religio" within the Holy Roman Empire, there were serious protests, with his wife backing the Lutherans. This was doubly important as Anna brought with her the duchy of Prussia into the Brandenburg line of the house and the nascent Brandenburg-Prussian state. Resistance was so strong that in 1615, John Sigismund backed down and relinquished all attempts at forcible conversion. Instead, he allowed his subjects to be either Lutheran or Calvinist according to the dictates of their own consciences. Henceforward, Brandenburg-Prussia would be a bi-confessional state, with the ruling Hohenzollern house staying Calvinist.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: This situation persisted until Frederick William III of Prussia. Frederick William was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of churches. The merging of the Lutheran and Calvinist (Reformed) confessions to form the United Church of Prussia was highly controversial. Angry responses included a large and well-organized opposition. The crown's aggressive efforts to restructure religion were unprecedented in Prussian history. In a series of proclamations over several years, the "Church of the Prussian Union" was formed, bringing together the majority group of Lutherans and the minority group of Reformed Protestants. The main effect was that the government of Prussia had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognized as the leading bishop.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In June 1926, a referendum on expropriating the formerly ruling princes of Germany without compensation failed and as a consequence, the financial situation of the Hohenzollern family improved considerably. A settlement between the state and the family made Cecilienhof property of the state but granted a right of residence to Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. The family also kept the ownership of Monbijou Palace in Berlin, Oleśnica Castle in Silesia, Rheinsberg Palace, Schwedt Palace and other property until 1945.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Since the abolition of the German monarchy, no Hohenzollern claims to imperial or royal prerogatives are recognized by Germany's Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany of 1949, which guarantees a republic.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The communist government of the Soviet occupation zone expropriated all landowners and industrialists; the House of Hohenzollern lost almost all of its fortune, retaining a few company shares and Hohenzollern Castle in West Germany. The Polish government appropriated the Silesian property and the Dutch government seized Huis Doorn, the Emperor's seat in exile.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: After German reunification, however, the family was legally able to reclaim their portable property, namely art collections and parts of the interior of their former palaces. Negotiations on the return of or compensation for these assets are not yet completed.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The Berlin Palace, home of the German monarchs, was rebuilt in 2020. The Berlin Palace and the Humboldt Forum are located in the middle of Berlin.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The head of the house is the titular King of Prussia and German Emperor. He also bears a historical claim to the title of Prince of Orange. Members of this line style themselves princes of Prussia.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, the current head of the royal Prussian House of Hohenzollern, was married to Princess Sophie of Isenburg on 27 August 2011. On 20 January 2013, she gave birth to twin sons, Carl Friedrich Franz Alexander and Louis Ferdinand Christian Albrecht, in Bremen. Carl Friedrich, the elder of the two, is the heir apparent.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The cadet Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Frederick IV, Count of Zollern. The family ruled three territories with seats at, respectively, Hechingen, Sigmaringen and Haigerloch. The counts were elevated to princes in 1623. The Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns is Roman Catholic.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Affected by economic problems and internal feuds, the Hohenzollern counts from the 14th century onwards came under pressure by their neighbors, the Counts of Württemberg and the cities of the Swabian League, whose troops besieged and finally destroyed Hohenzollern Castle in 1423. Nevertheless, the Hohenzollerns retained their estates, backed by their Brandenburg cousins and the Imperial House of Habsburg. In 1535, Count Charles I of Hohenzollern (1512–1576) received the counties of Sigmaringen and Veringen as Imperial fiefs.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1576, when Charles I, Count of Hohenzollern died, his county was divided to form the three Swabian branches. Eitel Frederick IV took Hohenzollern with the title of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Karl II took Sigmaringen and Veringen, and Christopher got Haigerloch. Christopher's family died out in 1634.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1695, the remaining two Swabian branches entered into an agreement with the Margrave of Brandenburg, which provided that if both branches became extinct, the principalities should fall to Brandenburg. Because of the Revolutions of 1848, Constantine, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen abdicated their thrones in December 1849. The principalities were ruled by the Kings of Prussia from December 1849 onwards, with the Hechingen and Sigmaringen branches obtaining official treatment as cadets of the Prussian royal family.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The Hohenzollern-Hechingen branch became extinct in 1869. A descendant of this branch was Countess Sophie Chotek, morganatic wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Lotharingen.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1204, the County of Hohenzollern was established out of the fusion of the County of Zollern and the Burgraviate of Nuremberg. The Swabian branch inherited the county of Zollern and, being descended from Frederick I of Nuremberg, were all named "Friedrich" down through the 11th generation. Each one's numeral is counted from the first Friedrich to rule his branch's appanage.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The most senior of these in the 12th century, Count Frederick VIII (d. 1333), had two sons, the elder of whom became Frederick IX (d. 1379), first Count of Hohenzollern, and fathered Friedrich X who left no sons when he died in 1412.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: But the younger son of Friedrich VIII, called "Friedrich of Strassburg", uniquely, took no numeral of his own, retaining the old title "Count of Zollern" and pre-deceased his brother in 1364/65. Prince Wilhelm Karl zu Isenburg's 1957 genealogical series, "Europäische Stammtafeln", says Friedrich of Strassburg shared, rather, in the rule of Zollern with his elder brother until his premature death.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: It appears, but is not stated, that Strassburg's son became the recognized co-ruler of his cousin Friedrich X (as compensation for having received no appanage and/or because of incapacity on the part of Friedrich X) and, as such, assumed (or is, historically, attributed) the designation Frederick XI although he actually pre-deceased Friedrich X, dying in 1401.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Friedrich XI, however, left two sons who jointly succeeded their cousin-once-removed, being Count Frederick XII (d. childless 1443) and Count Eitel Friedrich I (d. 1439), the latter becoming the ancestor of all subsequent branches of the Princes of Hohenzollern.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In the 12th century, a son of Frederick I secured the county of Hohenberg. The county remained in the possession of the family until 1486.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The influence of the Swabian line was weakened by several partitions of its lands. In the 16th century, the situation changed completely when Eitel Frederick II, a friend and adviser of the emperor Maximilian I, received the district of Haigerloch. His grandson Charles I was granted the counties of Sigmaringen and Vehringen by Charles V.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The County of Hohenzollern-Hechingen was established in 1576 with allodial rights. It included the original County of Zollern, with the Hohenzollern Castle and the monastery at Stetten.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In December 1849, the ruling princes of both Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen abdicated their thrones, and their principalities were incorporated as the Prussian province of Hohenzollern. The Hechingen branch became extinct in dynastic line with Konstantin's death in 1869.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Between 1634 and 1681, the county was temporarily integrated into the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Upon the death of Francis Christopher Anton in 1767, the Haigerloch territory was incorporated into the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The County of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was established in 1576 with allodial rights and a seat at Sigmaringen Castle.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In December 1849, sovereignty over the principality was yielded to the Franconian branch of the family and incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia, which accorded status as cadets of the Prussian Royal Family to the Swabian Hohenzollerns. The last ruling Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Karl Anton, would later serve as Minister President of Prussia between 1858 and 1862.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The family continued to use the title of Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. After the Hechingen branch became extinct in 1869, the Sigmaringen branch adopted title of "Prince of Hohenzollern".


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1866, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was chosen prince of Romania, becoming King Carol I of Romania in 1881.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Charles's elder brother, Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, was offered the Spanish throne in 1870 after a revolt exiled Isabella II in 1868. Although encouraged by Bismarck to accept, Leopold declined in the face of French opposition. Nonetheless, Bismarck altered and then published the Ems telegram to create a "casus belli": France declared war, but Bismarck's Germany won the Franco-Prussian War.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The head of the Sigmaringen branch (the only extant line of the Swabian branch of the dynasty) is Karl Friedrich, styled "His Highness" The Prince of Hohenzollern. His official seat is Sigmaringen Castle.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The Principality of Romania was established in 1862, after the Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia had been united in 1859 under Alexandru Ioan Cuza as Prince of Romania in a personal union. He was deposed in 1866 by the Romanian parliament.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was invited to become reigning Prince of Romania in 1866. In 1881 he became Carol I, King of Romania. Carol I had an only daughter who died young, so the younger son of his brother Leopold, Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, would succeed his uncle as King of Romania in 1914, and his descendants, having converted to the Orthodox Church, continued to reign there until the end of the monarchy in 1947.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In 1947, the King Michael I abdicated and the country was proclaimed a People's Republic. Michael did not press his claim to the defunct Romanian throne, but he was welcomed back to the country after half a century in exile as a private citizen, with substantial former royal properties being placed at his disposal. However, his dynastic claim was not recognized by post-Communist Romanians.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: On 10 May 2011, King Michael I severed the dynastic ties between the Romanian Royal Family and the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: After that the branch of the Hohenzollerns was dynastically represented only by the last king Michael, and his daughters. Having no sons, he declared that his dynastic heir, instead of being a male member of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen princely family to which he formerly belonged patrilineally and in accordance with the last Romanian monarchical constitution, should be his eldest daughter Margareta.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: The royal house remains popular in Romania and in 2014 Prime Minister Victor Ponta promised a referendum on whether or not to reinstate the monarchy if he were re-elected.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In mid-2019, it was revealed that Prince Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, Head of the House of Hohenzollern had filed claims for permanent right of residency for his family in Cecilienhof, or one of two other Hohenzollern palaces in Potsdam, as well as return of the family library, 266 paintings, an imperial crown and sceptre, and the letters of Empress Augusta Victoria.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: Central to the argument was that Monbijou Palace, which had been permanently given to the family following the fall of the Kaiser, was demolished by the East German government in 1959. Lawyers for the German state argued that the involvement of members of the family in National Socialism had voided any such rights.


title: House of Hohenzollern

text: In June 2019, a claim made by Prince Georg Friedrich that Rheinfels Castle be returned to the Hohenzollern family was dismissed by a court. In 1924, the ruined Castle had been given by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate to the town of St Goar, under the provision it was not sold. In 1998, the town leased the ruins to a nearby hotel. His case made the claim that this constituted a breach of the bequest.


title: State (polity)

text: A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, although other definitions are not uncommon. Absence of a state does not preclude the existence of a society, such as stateless societies like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy that "do not have either purely or even primarily political institutions or roles". The level of governance of a state, government being considered to form the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states, is used to determine whether it has failed.


title: State (polity)

text: In a federal union, the term "state" is sometimes used to refer to the federated polities that make up the federation. (Other terms that are used in such federal systems may include “province”, “region” or other terms.)


title: State (polity)

text: Most of the human population has existed within a state system for millennia; however, for most of prehistory people lived in stateless societies. The earliest forms of states arose about 5,500 years ago as governments gained state capacity in conjunction with rapid growth of cities, invention of writing and codification of new forms of religion. Over time, a variety of forms of states developed, which used many different justifications for their existence (such as divine right, the theory of the social contract, etc.). Today, the modern nation state is the predominant form of state to which people are subject.


title: State (polity)

text: The word "state" and its cognates in some other European languages ("stato" in Italian, "estado" in Spanish and Portuguese, "état" in French, "Staat" in German) ultimately derive from the Latin word "status", meaning "condition, circumstances". Latin "status" derives from "stare", "to stand," or remain or be permanent, thus providing the sacred or magical connotation of the political entity.


title: State (polity)

text: The English noun "state" in the generic sense "condition, circumstances" predates the political sense. It was introduced to Middle English c. 1200 both from Old French and directly from Latin.


title: State (polity)

text: With the revival of the Roman law in 14th-century Europe, the term came to refer to the legal standing of persons (such as the various "estates of the realm" – noble, common, and clerical), and in particular the special status of the king. The highest estates, generally those with the most wealth and social rank, were those that held power. The word also had associations with Roman ideas (dating back to Cicero) about the ""status rei publicae"", the "condition of public matters". In time, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society and the apparatus of its enforcement.


title: State (polity)

text: The early 16th-century works of Machiavelli (especially "The Prince") played a central role in popularizing the use of the word "state" in something similar to its modern sense. The contrasting of church and state still dates to the 16th century. The North American colonies were called "states" as early as the 1630s. The expression ("I am the State") attributed to Louis XIV, although probably apocryphal, is recorded in the late 18th century.


title: State (polity)

text: There is no academic consensus on the definition of the state. The term "state" refers to a set of different, but interrelated and often overlapping, theories about a certain range of political phenomena. According to Walter Scheidel, mainstream definitions of the state have the following in common: "centralized institutions that impose rules, and back them up by force, over a territorially circumscribed population; a distinction between the rulers and the ruled; and an element of autonomy, stability, and differentiation. These distinguish the state from less stable forms of organization, such as the exercise of chiefly power."


title: State (polity)

text: The most commonly used definition is by Max Weber who describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory. Weber writes that the state "is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."


title: State (polity)

text: Charles Tilly defines states as "coercion-wielding organisations that are distinct from households and kinship groups and exercise clear priority in some respects over all other organizations within substantial territories." Tilly includes city-states, theocracies and empires in his definition along with nation-states, but excludes tribes, lineages, firms and churches. According to Tilly, states can be seen in the archaeological record as of 6000 BC; in Europe they appeared around 990, but became particularly prominent after 1490. Tilly defines a state's "essential minimal activities" as:


title: State (polity)

text: Modern academic definitions of the state frequently include the criteria that a state has to be recognized as such by the international community.


title: State (polity)

text: Liberal thought provides another possible teleology of the state. According to John Locke, the goal of the state or commonwealth is "the preservation of property" (Second Treatise on Government), with 'property' in Locke's work referring not only to personal possessions but also to one's life and liberty. On this account, the state provides the basis for social cohesion and productivity, creating incentives for wealth-creation by providing guarantees of protection for one's life, liberty and personal property. Provision of public goods is considered by some such as Adam Smith as a central function of the state, since these goods would otherwise be underprovided. Tilly has challenged narratives of the state as being the result of a societal contract or provision of services in a free market – he characterizes the state more akin as a protection racket in the vein of organized crime.


title: State (polity)

text: While economic and political philosophers have contested the monopolistic tendency of states, Robert Nozick argues that the use of force naturally tends towards monopoly.


title: State (polity)

text: Another commonly accepted definition of the state is the one given at the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States in 1933. It provides that "[t]he state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." And that "[t]he federal state shall constitute a sole person in the eyes of international law."


title: State (polity)

text: Confounding the definition problem is that "state" and "government" are often used as synonyms in common conversation and even some academic discourse. According to this definition schema, the states are nonphysical persons of international law, governments are organizations of people. The relationship between a government and its state is one of representation and authorized agency.


title: State (polity)

text: Charles Tilly distinguished between empires, theocracies, city-states and nation-states. According to Michael Mann, the four persistent types of state activities are:


title: State (polity)

text: According to Michael Hechter and William Brustein, the modern state was differentiated from "leagues of independent cities, empires, federations held together by loose central control, and theocratic federations" by four characteristics:


title: State (polity)

text: States may be classified by political philosophers as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Other states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where ultimate sovereignty lies in another state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union. A federated state is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. (Compare confederacies or confederations such as Switzerland.) Such states differ from sovereign states in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign powers to a federal government.


title: State (polity)

text: One can commonly and sometimes readily (but not necessarily usefully) classify states according to their apparent make-up or focus. The concept of the nation-state, theoretically or ideally co-terminous with a "nation", became very popular by the 20th century in Europe, but occurred rarely elsewhere or at other times. In contrast, some states have sought to make a virtue of their multi-ethnic or multinational character (Habsburg Austria-Hungary, for example, or the Soviet Union), and have emphasised unifying characteristics such as autocracy, monarchical legitimacy, or ideology. Other states, often fascist or authoritarian ones, promoted state-sanctioned notions of racial superiority. Other states may bring ideas of commonality and inclusiveness to the fore: note the "res publica" of ancient Rome and the "Rzeczpospolita" of Poland-Lithuania which finds echoes in the modern-day republic. The concept of temple states centred on religious shrines occurs in some discussions of the ancient world. Relatively small city-states, once a relatively common and often successful form of polity, have become rarer and comparatively less prominent in modern times. Modern-day independent city-states include Vatican City, Monaco, and Singapore. Other city-states survive as federated states, like the present day German city-states, or as otherwise autonomous entities with limited sovereignty, like Hong Kong, Gibraltar and Ceuta. To some extent, urban secession, the creation of a new city-state (sovereign or federated), continues to be discussed in the early 21st century in cities such as London.


title: State (polity)

text: A state can be distinguished from a government. The state is the organization while the government is the particular group of people, the administrative bureaucracy that controls the state apparatus at a given time. That is, governments are the means through which state power is employed. States are served by a continuous succession of different governments. States are immaterial and nonphysical social objects, whereas governments are groups of people with certain coercive powers.


title: State (polity)

text: Each successive government is composed of a specialized and privileged body of individuals, who monopolize political decision-making, and are separated by status and organization from the population as a whole.


title: State (polity)

text: States can also be distinguished from the concept of a "nation", where "nation" refers to a cultural-political community of people. A nation-state refers to a situation where a single ethnicity is associated with a specific state.


title: State (polity)

text: In the classical thought, the state was identified with both political society and civil society as a form of political community, while the modern thought distinguished the nation state as a political society from civil society as a form of economic society.


title: State (polity)

text: Antonio Gramsci believed that civil society is the primary locus of political activity because it is where all forms of "identity formation, ideological struggle, the activities of intellectuals, and the construction of hegemony take place." and that civil society was the nexus connecting the economic and political sphere. Arising out of the collective actions of civil society is what Gramsci calls "political society", which Gramsci differentiates from the notion of the state as a polity. He stated that politics was not a "one-way process of political management" but, rather, that the activities of civil organizations conditioned the activities of political parties and state institutions, and were conditioned by them in turn. Louis Althusser argued that civil organizations such as church, schools, and the family are part of an "ideological state apparatus" which complements the "repressive state apparatus" (such as police and military) in reproducing social relations.


title: State (polity)

text: Jürgen Habermas spoke of a public sphere that was distinct from both the economic and political sphere.


title: State (polity)

text: Given the role that many social groups have in the development of public policy and the extensive connections between state bureaucracies and other institutions, it has become increasingly difficult to identify the boundaries of the state. Privatization, nationalization, and the creation of new regulatory bodies also change the boundaries of the state in relation to society. Often the nature of quasi-autonomous organizations is unclear, generating debate among political scientists on whether they are part of the state or civil society. Some political scientists thus prefer to speak of policy networks and decentralized governance in modern societies rather than of state bureaucracies and direct state control over policy.


title: State (polity)

text: The earliest forms of the state emerged whenever it became possible to centralize power in a durable way. Agriculture and a settled population have been attributed as necessary conditions to form states. Certain types of agriculture are more conducive to state formation, such as grain (wheat, barley, millet), because they are suited to concentrated production, taxation, and storage. Agriculture and writing are almost everywhere associated with this process: agriculture because it allowed for the emergence of a social class of people who did not have to spend most of their time providing for their own subsistence, and writing (or an equivalent of writing, like Inca quipus) because it made possible the centralization of vital information. Bureaucratization made expansion over large territories possible.


title: State (polity)

text: The first known states were created in the Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes. It is only in relatively modern times that states have almost completely displaced alternative "stateless" forms of political organization of societies all over the planet. Roving bands of hunter-gatherers and even fairly sizable and complex tribal societies based on herding or agriculture have existed without any full-time specialized state organization, and these "stateless" forms of political organization have in fact prevailed for all of the prehistory and much of human history and civilization.


title: State (polity)

text: The primary competing organizational forms to the state were religious organizations (such as the Church), and city republics.


title: State (polity)

text: Since the late 19th century, virtually the entirety of the world's inhabitable land has been parcelled up into areas with more or less definite borders claimed by various states. Earlier, quite large land areas had been either unclaimed or uninhabited, or inhabited by nomadic peoples who were not organised as states. However, even within present-day states there are vast areas of wilderness, like the Amazon rainforest, which are uninhabited or inhabited solely or mostly by indigenous people (and some of them remain uncontacted). Also, there are so-called "failed states" which do not hold de facto control over all of their claimed territory or where this control is challenged. Currently the international community comprises around 200 sovereign states, the vast majority of which are represented in the United Nations.


title: State (polity)

text: For most of human history, people have lived in stateless societies, characterized by a lack of concentrated authority, and the absence of large inequalities in economic and political power.


title: State (polity)

text: During the Neolithic period, human societies underwent major cultural and economic changes, including the development of agriculture, the formation of sedentary societies and fixed settlements, increasing population densities, and the use of pottery and more complex tools.