title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: Rainier became the Sovereign Prince of Monaco upon the death of Prince Louis II, on 9 May 1949, at the age of 25.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: After ascending the throne, Rainier worked to recoup Monaco's lustre, which had become tarnished through financial neglect and scandal (his mother, Princess Charlotte, took a noted jewel thief known as René the Cane as her lover). Upon ascension, the Prince held with a treasury that was practically empty. Monaco's traditional gambling clientele, largely European aristocrats, found themselves with reduced funds after World War II. Other successful gambling centres had opened to compete with Monaco. To compensate for the loss of income, Rainier decided to promote Monaco as a tax haven, commercial centre, real-estate development opportunity, and international tourist attraction. The early years of his reign saw the overweening involvement of the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, who took control of the Société des Bains de Mer and envisioned Monaco as solely a gambling resort. Prince Rainier regained control of SBM in 1964, effectively ensuring that his vision of Monaco would be implemented.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: During his reign, the Societé Monégasque de Banques et de Métaux Précieux, a bank which held a significant amount of Monaco's capital, was bankrupted by its investments in a media company in 1955, leading to the resignation of Monaco's cabinet. In 1962, Rainier ratified the Principality's new constitution, which significantly reduced the power of the sovereign. He had suspended the previous constitution in 1959, saying that it "has hindered the administrative and political life of the country". The changes ended autocratic rule, placing power with both the Prince and a National Council of eighteen elected members.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: At the time of his death, he was the world's second longest-serving living head of state, just below the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: In the 1940s and 1950s, Rainier had a ten-year relationship with the French film actress Gisèle Pascal, whom he had met while a student at Montpellier University, and the couple lived at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Rainier's sister, Princess Antoinette, wishing her own son to ascend the throne, spread rumors that Pascal was infertile. The rumours combined with a snobbery over Pascal's family origins ultimately ended the relationship.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: Rainier established a postal museum in 1950: the Museum of Stamps and Coins, in Monaco's Fontvieille district by using the collections of the Monegasque princes Albert I and Louis II. The prestigious philatelic collectors organization, Club de Monte-Carlo de l'Élite de la Philatélie, was established in 1999 under his direct patronage. The club is headquartered at the postal museum, and its membership restricted to institutions and one hundred prestigious collectors. Rainier organized exhibitions of rare and exceptional postage stamps and letters with the club's members.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: Throughout his reign, Rainier surveyed all the process of creation of Monaco stamps. He preferred stamps printed in intaglio and the art of engravers Henri Cheffer and Czesław Słania.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: The Prince met Academy Award-winning actress Grace Kelly in 1955, during a photocall at the Palace scheduled to support her trip to the Cannes Film Festival. After a year-long courtship described as containing "a good deal of rational appraisal on both sides," Prince Rainier married Kelly in 1956.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: The union was met with mass attention from the public, and was described as the "wedding of the century" and the "world's most anticipated wedding" by the media. The civil ceremony took place at the Palace on 18 April, with the religious wedding being held on 19 April at the Saint Nicholas Cathedral. Rainier wore a military dress of his own design, based on the uniforms of Napoleon Bonaparte. Presided over by Bishop Gilles Barthe, the marriage was broadcast by MGM Studios, and viewed by over 30 million people across the globe. The couple honeymooned in the Mediterranean on their yacht, "Deo Juvante II".


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: Princess Grace gave birth to their first child, Princess Caroline, on 23 January 1957. Their second child and heir, Prince Albert, was born on 14 March 1958. Their youngest, Princess Stéphanie, was born 1 February 1965, with all children having been delivered at the Palace. He also spoke English with an English accent.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: In 1979, the Prince made his acting debut alongside the Princess in a half-hour independent film, "Rearranged", produced in Monaco. After its premiere in Monaco, Princess Grace showed it to ABC TV executives in New York in 1982, who expressed interest if extra scenes were shot. However, Grace died in a car crash caused by a stroke in 1982, making it impossible to expand the film for American release. After Grace's death, Rainier refused to remarry. He established the Princess Grace Foundation-USA in 1982 in her honor, to support fledging American artists.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: Prince Rainier smoked 60 cigarettes a day. In the last years of his life his health progressively declined. He underwent surgery in late 1999 and 2000, and was hospitalized in November 2002 for a chest infection. He spent three weeks in hospital in January 2004 for what was described as general fatigue. In February 2004, he was hospitalized with a coronary lesion and a damaged blood vessel. In October he was again in hospital with a lung infection. In November of that year, Prince Albert appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" and told Larry King that his father was fine, though he was suffering from bronchitis.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: On 7 March 2005, he was again hospitalized with a lung infection. Rainier was moved to the hospital's intensive care unit on 22 March. One day later, on 23 March, it was announced he was on a ventilator, suffering from renal and heart failure. On 26 March, the palace reported that despite intensive ongoing efforts to improve the prince's health, he was continuing to deteriorate; however, the following day, he was reported to be conscious, his heart and kidney conditions having stabilized. His prognosis remained "very reserved".


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: On 31 March 2005, following consultation with the Crown Council of Monaco, the Palais Princier announced that Rainier's son, Hereditary Prince Albert, would take over the duties of his father as regent since Rainier was no longer able to exercise his princely functions.


title: Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

text: On 1 April 2005, the Palace announced that Rainier's doctors believed his chances of recovery were "slim". On 6 April, Prince Rainier III died at the Cardiothoracic Centre of Monaco at 6:35 am local time at the age of 81. He was succeeded by his only son, who became Prince Albert II. He was buried on 15 April 2005 beside his wife, Princess Grace, at the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate, the traditional burial place of princes and princesses of Monaco, and the place where Prince Rainier and Princess Grace had been married in 1956. Because his death occurred shortly after that of Pope John Paul II, Rainier's death was overshadowed in the media.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian (; ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empire for 27 years. His fiscal reforms and consolidation of the empire generated political stability and a vast Roman building program.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian was the first emperor from an equestrian family and only rose later in his lifetime into the senatorial rank as the first member of his family to do so. Vespasian's renown came from his military success; he was legate of Legio II Augusta during the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 and subjugated Judaea during the Jewish rebellion of 66.


title: Vespasian

text: While Vespasian besieged Jerusalem during the Jewish rebellion, emperor Nero committed suicide and plunged Rome into a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors. After Galba and Otho perished in quick succession, Vitellius became emperor in April 69. The Roman legions of Roman Egypt and Judaea reacted by declaring Vespasian, their commander, the emperor on 1 July 69.


title: Vespasian

text: In his bid for imperial power, Vespasian joined forces with Mucianus, the governor of Syria, and Primus, a general in Pannonia, leaving his son Titus to command the besieging forces at Jerusalem. Primus and Mucianus led the Flavian forces against Vitellius, while Vespasian took control of Egypt. On 20 December 69, Vitellius was defeated, and the following day Vespasian was declared emperor by the Senate.


title: Vespasian

text: Little information survives about the government during Vespasian's ten-year rule. He reformed the financial system of Rome after the campaign against Judaea ended successfully, and initiated several ambitious construction projects, including the building of the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known today as the Roman Colosseum. Through his general Agricola, Vespasian increased imperial expansion in Britain. Vespasian is often credited with restoring political stability to Rome following the chaotic reigns of his predecessors. After he died in 79, he was succeeded by his eldest son Titus, thus becoming the first Roman emperor to be succeeded by his natural son and establishing the Flavian dynasty.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian (born Titus Flavius Vespasianus, pronounced ) was born in a village north-east of Rome called Falacrinae. His family was relatively undistinguished and lacking in pedigree. Vespasian was the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus, a Roman moneylender, debt collector, and tax collector. His mother, Vespasia Polla, also belonged to the equestrian order in society, with her father rising to the rank of prefect of the camp and her brother becoming a Senator.


title: Vespasian

text: He was educated in the countryside, in Cosa, near what is today Ansedonia, Italy, under the guidance of his paternal grandmother, so much so that even when he became emperor, he often returned to the places of his childhood, having left the former villa exactly as it had been.


title: Vespasian

text: Early in his life he was somewhat overshadowed by his older brother, Titus Flavius Sabinus, who had entered public life and pursued the "cursus honorum," holding an important military command in the Danube. Vespasian served in the army as a military tribune in Thrace in 36 AD. He was elected quaestor the following year and then served in Creta et Cyrenaica. He rose through the ranks of Roman public office, being elected aedile on his second attempt in 39 and praetor on his first attempt in 40, taking the opportunity to ingratiate himself with the Emperor Caligula.


title: Vespasian

text: In preparation for a praetorship, Vespasian needed two periods of service in the minor magistracies, one military and the other public. Vespasian served in the military in Thracia for about three years. On his return to Rome in about 30 AD, he obtained a post in the "vigintivirate", the minor magistracies, most probably in one of the posts in charge of street cleaning. His early performance was so unsuccessful that Emperor Caligula reportedly stuffed handfuls of muck down his toga to correct the uncleaned Roman streets, formally his responsibility.


title: Vespasian

text: During the period of the ascendancy of Sejanus, there is no record of Vespasian's significant activity in political events. After completion of a term in the vigintivirate, Vespasian was entitled to stand for election as quaestor; a senatorial office. But his lack of political or family influence meant that Vespasian served as quaestor in one of the provincial posts in Crete, rather than as assistant to important men in Rome.


title: Vespasian

text: Next he needed to gain a praetorship, carrying the "Imperium", but non-patricians and the less well-connected had to serve in at least one intermediary post as an "aedile" or tribune. Vespasian failed at his first attempt to gain an aedileship but was successful in his second attempt, becoming an aedile in 38. Despite his lack of significant family connections or success in office, he achieved praetorship in either 39 or 40, at the youngest age permitted (30), during a period of political upheaval in the organisation of elections. His long-standing relationship with freed-woman Antonia Caenis, confidential secretary to Antonia Minor (the Emperor's grandmother) and part of the circle of courtiers and servants around the Emperor, may have contributed to his success.


title: Vespasian

text: Upon the accession of Claudius as emperor in 41, Vespasian was appointed legate of Legio II "Augusta", stationed in Germania, thanks to the influence of the Imperial freedman Narcissus. In 43, Vespasian and the II "Augusta" participated in the Roman invasion of Britain, and he distinguished himself under the overall command of Aulus Plautius. After participating in crucial early battles on the rivers Medway and Thames, he was sent to reduce the south west, penetrating through the modern counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall with the probable objectives of securing the south coast ports and harbours along with the tin mines of Cornwall and the silver and lead mines of Somerset.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian marched from Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester) to subdue the hostile Durotriges and Dumnonii tribes, and captured twenty "oppida" (towns, or more probably hill forts, including Hod Hill and Maiden Castle in Dorset). He also invaded Vectis (now the Isle of Wight), finally setting up a fortress and legionary headquarters at Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter). During this time he injured himself and had not fully recovered until he went to Egypt. These successes earned him triumphal regalia ("ornamenta triumphalia") on his return to Rome.


title: Vespasian

text: His success as the legate of a legion earned him a consulship in 51, after which he retired from public life, having incurred the enmity of Claudius' wife, Agrippina, who was the most powerful and influential figure in her husband's reign. He came out of retirement in 63 when he was sent as governor to Africa Province. According to Tacitus (ii.97), his rule was "infamous and odious" but according to Suetonius ("Vesp." 4), he was "upright and, highly honourable". On one occasion, Suetonius writes, Vespasian was pelted with turnips.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian used his time in North Africa wisely. Usually, governorships were seen by ex-consuls as opportunities to extort huge amounts of money to regain the wealth they had spent on their previous political campaigns. Corruption was so rife that it was almost expected that a governor would come back from these appointments with his pockets full. However, Vespasian used his time in North Africa making friends instead of money, something that would be far more valuable in the years to come. During his time in North Africa, he found himself in financial difficulties and was forced to mortgage his estates to his brother. To revive his fortunes he turned to the mule trade and gained the nickname "mulio" (muleteer).


title: Vespasian

text: Returning from Africa, Vespasian toured Greece in Nero's retinue, but lost Imperial favor after paying insufficient attention (some sources suggest he fell asleep) during one of the Emperor's recitals on the lyre, and found himself in the political wilderness.


title: Vespasian

text: In 66 AD, Vespasian was appointed to suppress the Jewish revolt underway in Judea. The fighting there had killed the previous governor and routed Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, when he tried to restore order. Two legions, with eight cavalry squadrons and ten auxiliary cohorts, were therefore dispatched under the command of Vespasian while his elder son, Titus, arrived from Alexandria with another.


title: Vespasian

text: During this time he became the patron of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish resistance leader captured at the Siege of Yodfat, who would later write his people's history in Greek. Ultimately, thousands of Jews were killed and the Romans destroyed many towns in re-establishing control over Judea; they also took Jerusalem in 70. Vespasian is remembered by Josephus (writing as a Roman citizen), in his "Antiquities of the Jews", as a fair and humane official, in contrast with the notorious Herod Agrippa II whom Josephus goes to great lengths to demonize.


title: Vespasian

text: While under the emperor's patronage, Josephus wrote that after the Roman Legio X Fretensis, accompanied by Vespasian, destroyed Jericho on 21 June 68, Vespasian took a group of Jews who could not swim (possibly Essenes from Qumran), fettered them, and threw them into the Dead Sea to test the sea's legendary buoyancy. Indeed, the captives bobbed up to the surface after being thrown in the water from the boats.


title: Vespasian

text: Josephus (as well as Tacitus), reporting on the conclusion of the Jewish war, reported a prophecy that around the time when Jerusalem and the Second Temple would be taken, a man from their own nation, "viz." the Messiah, would become governor "of the habitable earth". Josephus interpreted the prophecy to denote Vespasian and his appointment as emperor in Judea.


title: Vespasian

text: After the death of Nero in 68, Rome saw a succession of short-lived emperors and a year of civil wars. Galba was murdered by supporters of Otho, who was defeated by Vitellius. Otho's supporters, looking for another candidate to support, settled on Vespasian. According to Suetonius, a prophecy ubiquitous in the Eastern provinces claimed that from Judaea would come the future rulers of the world. Vespasian eventually believed that this prophecy applied to him, and found a number of omens and oracles that reinforced this belief.


title: Vespasian

text: Although Vespasian and Titus resolved to challenge for the Principate in February 69, they made no move until later in the year. Throughout the early months of 69, Vespasian convened frequently with the Eastern generals. Gaius Licinius Mucianus was a notable ally. Governor of Syria and commander of three legions, Mucianus also held political connections to many of the most powerful Roman military commanders from Illyricum to Britannia by virtue of his service to the famous Neronian general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. In May 69, Mucianus formally implored Vespasian to challenge Vitellius. His appeal was followed by Vespasian's official proclamation as Emperor in early July. Under instructions from the prefect Tiberius Alexander, the legions at Alexandria took an oath of loyalty to Vespasian on 1 July. They were swiftly followed by Vespasian's Judaean legions on 3 July and thereafter by Mucianus' Syrian legions on 15 July.


title: Vespasian

text: Nevertheless, Vitellius, the occupant of the throne, had Rome's best troops on his side – the veteran legions of Gaul and the Rhineland. But the feeling in Vespasian's favour quickly gathered strength, and the armies of Moesia, Pannonia, and Illyricum soon declared for him, and made him the "de facto" master of half of the Roman world.


title: Vespasian

text: While Vespasian himself was in Egypt securing its grain supply, his troops entered Italy from the northeast under the leadership of Marcus Antonius Primus. They defeated Vitellius' army (which had awaited him in Mevania) at Bedriacum (or Betriacum), sacked Cremona and advanced on Rome. Vitellius hastily arranged a peace with Antonius, but the Emperor's Praetorian Guard forced him to retain his seat. After furious fighting, Antonius' army entered Rome. In the resulting confusion, the Capitol was destroyed by fire and Vespasian's brother Sabinus was killed by a mob.


title: Vespasian

text: At Alexandria, on receiving the tidings of his rival's defeat and death, the new emperor at once forwarded supplies of urgently-needed grain to Rome, along with an edict assuring he would reverse the laws of Nero, especially those relating to treason. While in Egypt, he visited the Temple of Serapis where he reportedly experienced a vision. Later, he was confronted by two labourers, who were convinced that he possessed a divine power that could work miracles.


title: Vespasian

text: The "praefectus Aegypti" was Tiberius Julius Alexander, who had been governor since Nero's reign. He proclaimed Vespasian emperor at Alexandria on 1 July 69 AD.


title: Vespasian

text: The prefect was himself of Hellenized Jewish descent and related to Philo of Alexandria. The importance of the Egyptian grain harvest () to Rome helped Vespasian assert control over the whole empire.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian was the first emperor (and pharaoh) since Augustus to appear in Egypt. At the hippodrome of Alexandria he was hailed as pharaoh; recalling the welcome of Alexander the Great at the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon of the Siwa Oasis, Vespasian was proclaimed the son of the creator-deity Amun (Zeus-Ammon), in the style of the ancient pharaohs, and an incarnation of Serapis in the manner of the Ptolemies.


title: Vespasian

text: As Pharaonic precedent demanded, Vespasian demonstrated his divine election by the traditional methods of spitting on and trampling a blind and crippled man, thereby miraculously healing him. (This Egyptian tradition of healing is related to the healing the man blind from birth, one of the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth.)


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian was declared emperor by the Senate while he was in Egypt on 21 December 69; the Egyptians had declared him emperor in the summer. In the short-term, administration of the empire was given to Mucianus who was aided by Vespasian's son, Domitian. Mucianus started off Vespasian's rule with tax reform that was to restore the empire's finances. After Vespasian arrived in Rome in mid-70, Mucianus continued to press Vespasian to collect as many taxes as possible.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian and Mucianus renewed old taxes and instituted new ones, increased the tribute of the provinces, and kept a watchful eye upon the treasury officials. The Latin proverb "Pecunia non olet" ("Money does not stink") may have been created when he had introduced a urine tax on public toilets.


title: Vespasian

text: Before Vespasian, this tax was imposed by Emperor Nero under the name of "vectigal urinae" in the 1st century AD. However, the tax was removed after a while; it was re-enacted by Vespasian around 70 AD in order to fill the treasury. Vespasian's policy was not well received by his son. Writing about Vespasian in their history books, Dio Cassius and Suetonius mentioned "When [Vespasian's] son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax upon urine, he applied to his nose a piece of the money he received in the first instalment, and asked him if it stunk. And he replying no, 'And yet,' said he, 'it is derived from urine". Since then, this phrase "Money does not stink" has been used to whitewash dubious or illegal origin of money.


title: Vespasian

text: In early 70 Vespasian was still in Egypt, the source of Rome's grain supply, and had not yet left for Rome. According to Tacitus, his trip was delayed due to bad weather. Modern historians theorize that Vespasian had been and was continuing to consolidate support from the Egyptians before departing. Stories of a divine Vespasian healing people circulated in Egypt. During this period, protests erupted in Alexandria over his new tax policies and grain shipments were held up. Vespasian eventually restored order and grain shipments to Rome resumed.


title: Vespasian

text: In addition to the uprising in Egypt, unrest and civil war continued in the rest of the empire in 70. Judea had been rebelling since 66. Vespasian's son, Titus, finally subdued the rebellion with the capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70. According to Eusebius, Vespasian then ordered all descendants of the royal line of David to be hunted down, causing the Jews to be persecuted from province to province. Several modern historians have suggested that Vespasian, already having been told by Josephus that he was prophesied to become emperor whilst in Judaea, was probably reacting to other widely known Messianic prophecies circulating at the time, to suppress any rival claimants arising from that dynasty. Titus attended the consecration of a new Apis bull at Memphis in 70, and Vespasian's reign saw imperial patronage given to Egyptian temples: at the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert as well as Esna, Kom Ombo, Medinet Habu, Silsila in the Nile Valley. By contrast, the Jewish temple at Leontopolis was sacked in 73.


title: Vespasian

text: In January 70, an uprising occurred in Gaul and Germany, known as the second Batavian Rebellion. This rebellion was headed by Gaius Julius Civilis and Julius Sabinus. Sabinus, claiming he was descended from Julius Caesar, declared himself Emperor of Gaul. The rebellion defeated and absorbed two Roman legions before it was suppressed by Vespasian's son-in-law, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, by the end of 70.


title: Vespasian

text: In mid-70, Vespasian first went to Rome, dating his tribunician years from 1 July 69. Vespasian immediately embarked on a series of efforts to stay in power and prevent future revolts. He offered gifts to many in the military and much of the public. Soldiers loyal to Vitellius were dismissed or punished. Vespasian also restructured the Senatorial and Equestrian orders, removing his enemies and adding his allies. Regional autonomy of Greek provinces was repealed. Additionally, Vespasian made significant attempts to control public perception of his rule.


title: Vespasian

text: We know from Suetonius that the "unexpected and still quite new emperor was lacking "auctoritas" [] and a certain "maiestas" []". Many modern historians note the increased amount of propaganda that appeared during Vespasian's reign. A component of the propaganda was the theology of victory, which legitimized the right to rule through successful conquest. This revolved around Vespasian's victory in Judea. Stories of a supernatural emperor who was destined to rule circulated in the empire. Nearly one-third of all coins minted in Rome under Vespasian celebrated military victory or peace. The word "vindex" was removed from coins so as not to remind the public of rebellious Vindex. Construction projects bore inscriptions praising Vespasian and condemning previous emperors. A temple of peace


title: Vespasian

text: was constructed in the forum as well. Vespasian approved histories written under his reign, ensuring biases against him were removed.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian also gave financial rewards to writers. The ancient historians who lived through the period such as Tacitus, Suetonius and Josephus speak suspiciously well of Vespasian while condemning the emperors who came before him. Tacitus admits that his status was elevated by Vespasian, Josephus identifies Vespasian as a patron and saviour. Meanwhile, Pliny the Elder dedicated his "Natural Histories" to Vespasian's son, Titus.


title: Vespasian

text: Those who spoke against Vespasian were punished. A number of Stoic philosophers were accused of corrupting students with inappropriate teachings and were expelled from Rome. Helvidius Priscus, a pro-Republic philosopher, was executed for his teachings. Numerous other philosophers and writers had their works seized, destroyed and denounced for being deemed too critical of Vespasian's reign, some even posthumously.


title: Vespasian

text: Between 71 and 79, much of Vespasian's reign is a mystery. Historians report that Vespasian ordered the construction of several buildings in Rome. Additionally, he survived several conspiracies against him. Vespasian helped rebuild Rome after the civil war. He added the temple of Peace and the temple to the Deified Claudius. In 75, he erected a colossal statue of Apollo, begun under Nero, and he dedicated a stage of the theatre of Marcellus. He also began construction of the Colosseum, using funds from the spoils of the Jewish Temple after the Siege of Jerusalem. Suetonius claims that Vespasian was met with "constant conspiracies" against him. Only one conspiracy is known specifically, though. In 78 or 79, Eprius Marcellus and Aulus Caecina Alienus attempted to kill Vespasian. Why these men turned against Vespasian is not known.


title: Vespasian

text: Agricola was appointed to the command of the "Legio XX Valeria Victrix", stationed in Britain, in place of Marcus Roscius Coelius, who had stirred up a mutiny against the governor, Marcus Vettius Bolanus. Britain had revolted during the year of civil war, and Bolanus was a mild governor. Agricola reimposed discipline on the legion and helped to consolidate Roman rule. In 71, Bolanus was replaced by a more aggressive governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, and Agricola was able to display his talents as a commander in campaigns against the Brigantes in northern England.


title: Vespasian

text: In his ninth consulship Vespasian had a slight illness in Campania and, returning at once to Rome, he left for Aquae Cutiliae and the country around Reate, where he spent every summer; however, his illness worsened and he developed severe diarrhea.


title: Vespasian

text: With the feeling of death overwhelming him on his deathbed, he incited: "Vae, puto deus fio." ("Dear me, I think I'm becoming a god"). Then, according to Suetonius' "The Twelve Caesars":


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian was known for his wit and his amiable manner alongside his commanding personality and military prowess. He could be liberal to impoverished Senators and equestrians and to cities and towns desolated by natural calamity. He was especially generous to men of letters and rhetors, several of whom he pensioned with salaries of as much as 1,000 gold pieces a year. Quintilian is said to have been the first public teacher who enjoyed this imperial favor. Pliny the Elder's work, the "Natural History", was written during Vespasian's reign, and dedicated to Vespasian's son Titus.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian distrusted philosophers in general. It was the talk of philosophers, who liked to glorify the Republic, that provoked Vespasian into reviving the obsolete penal laws against this profession as a precautionary measure. Only one, Helvidius Priscus, was put to death after he had repeatedly affronted the Emperor by studied insults which Vespasian had initially tried to ignore. The philosopher Demetrius was banished to an island and when Vespasian heard Demetrius was still criticizing him, he sent the exiled philosopher the message: "You are doing everything to force me to kill you, but I do not slay a barking dog."


title: Vespasian

text: According to Suetonius, Vespasian "bore the frank language of his friends, the quips of pleaders, and the impudence of the philosophers with the greatest patience". He was also noted for his benefactions to the people. Much money was spent on public works and the restoration and beautification of Rome: the Temple of Peace (also known as the Forum of Vespasian), new public baths and the great show piece, the Colosseum.


title: Vespasian

text: Vespasian debased the denarius during his reign, reducing the silver purity from 93.5% to 90% – the silver weight dropping from 2.97 grams to 2.87 grams.


title: Vespasian

text: In modern Romance languages, urinals are named after him (for example, "vespasiano" in Italian, and "vespasienne" in French), probably in reference to a tax he placed on urine collection (useful due to its ammoniac content; see Pay toilet).


title: Vespasian

text: His paternal grandfather, Titus Flavius Petro, became the first to distinguish himself, rising to the rank of centurion and fighting at Pharsalus for Pompey in 48 BC. Subsequently, he became a debt collector. Petro's son, Titus Flavius Sabinus, worked as a customs official in the province of Asia and became a moneylender on a small scale among the Helvetii. He earned a reputation as a scrupulous and honest "tax-farmer". Sabinus married up in status, to Vespasia Polla, whose father had risen to the rank of prefect of the camp and whose brother became a Senator.


title: Vespasian

text: Sabinus and Vespasia had three children, the eldest of whom, a girl, died in infancy. The elder boy, Titus Flavius Sabinus, entered public life and pursued the "cursus honorum". Vespasian on the other hand, seemed far less likely to be successful, initially not wishing to pursue high public office. He followed in his brother's footsteps when driven to it by his mother's taunting.


title: Vespasian

text: During this period he married Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of Flavius Liberalis from Ferentium and formerly the mistress of Statilius Capella, a Roman equestrian from Sabratha in Africa. They had two sons, Titus Flavius Vespasianus (born 39) and Titus Flavius Domitianus (born 51), and a daughter, Domitilla (born c. 45). His wife Domitilla and his daughter Domitilla both died before Vespasian became Emperor in 69. After the death of his wife, Vespasian's long-standing mistress, Antonia Caenis, became his wife in all but formal status, a relationship that continued until she died in 75.


title: London School of Economics

text: The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and established its first degree courses under the auspices of the university in 1901. LSE began awarding its degrees in its own name in 2008, prior to which it awarded degrees of the University of London. It became a university in its own right within the University of London in 2022.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE is located in the London Borough of Camden and Westminster, Central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn. The area is historically known as Clare Market. LSE has more than 11,000 students, just under seventy percent of whom come from outside the UK, and 3,300 staff. It had an income of £391.1 million in 2020/21, of which £32.8 million was from research grants.<ref name="LSE Financial Statement 20/21"></ref> One hundred and fifty-five nationalities are represented amongst the LSE's student body and the school had the second highest percentage of international students (70%) of the 800 institutions in the 2015–16 Times Higher Education World University Ranking. Despite its name, the school is organised into 25 academic departments and institutes which conduct teaching and research across a range of pure and applied social sciences.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE is a member of the Russell Group, Association of Commonwealth Universities, European University Association and is often considered a part of the "Golden Triangle" of top universities in South East England. The LSE also forms part of "CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences", a network of eight European universities focused on research in the social sciences. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the school had the highest proportion of world-leading research among research submitted of any British non-specialist university.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE alumni and faculty include 55 past or present heads of state or government and 18 Nobel laureates. As of 2017, 27% (or 13 out of 49) of all Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economics have been awarded or jointly awarded to LSE alumni, current staff, or former staff, who consequently comprise 16% (13 out of 79) of all Nobel Memorial Prize laureates. LSE alumni and faculty have also won 3 Nobel Peace Prizes and 2 Nobel Prizes in Literature. Out of all European universities, LSE has educated the most billionaires (11) according to a 2014 global census of US dollar billionaires.


title: London School of Economics

text: The London School of Economics was founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, initially funded by a bequest of £20,000 from the estate of Henry Hunt Hutchinson. Hutchinson, a lawyer and member of the Fabian Society, left the money in trust, to be put "towards advancing its [The Fabian Society's] objects in any way they [the trustees] deem advisable". The five trustees were Sidney Webb, Edward Pease, Constance Hutchinson, W. S. de Mattos and William Clark.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs, Louis Flood and George Bernard Shaw. The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895 and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi, in the City of Westminster.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school joined the federal University of London in 1900, and was recognised as a Faculty of Economics of the university. The University of London degrees of BSc (Econ) and DSc (Econ) were established in 1901, the first university degrees dedicated to the social sciences. Expanding rapidly over the following years, the school moved initially to the nearby 10 Adelphi Terrace, then to Clare Market and Houghton Street. The foundation stone of the Old Building, on Houghton Street, was laid by King George V in 1920; the building was opened in 1922.


title: London School of Economics

text: The 1930s economic debate between LSE and the University of Cambridge is well known in academic circles. Rivalry between academic opinion at LSE and Cambridge goes back to the school's roots when LSE's Edwin Cannan (1861–1935), Professor of Economics, and Cambridge's Professor of Political Economy, Alfred Marshall (1842–1924), the leading economist of the day, argued about the bedrock matter of economics and whether the subject should be considered as an organic whole. (Marshall disapproved of LSE's separate listing of pure theory and its insistence on economic history.)


title: London School of Economics

text: The dispute also concerned the question of the economist's role, and whether this should be as a detached expert or a practical adviser. Despite the traditional view that the LSE and Cambridge were fierce rivals through the 1920s and 30s, they worked together in the 1920s on the London and Cambridge Economic Service. However, the 1930s brought a return to disputes as economists at the two universities argued over how best to address the economic problems caused by the Great Depression.


title: London School of Economics

text: The main figures in this debate were John Maynard Keynes from Cambridge and the LSE's Friedrich Hayek. The LSE economist Lionel Robbins was also heavily involved. Starting off as a disagreement over whether demand management or deflation was the better solution to the economic problems of the time, it eventually embraced much wider concepts of economics and macroeconomics. Keynes put forward the theories now known as Keynesian economics, involving the active participation of the state and public sector, while Hayek and Robbins followed the Austrian School, which emphasised free trade and opposed state involvement.


title: London School of Economics

text: During World War II, the school decamped from London to the University of Cambridge, occupying buildings belonging to Peterhouse.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school's arms, including its motto and beaver mascot, were adopted in February 1922, on the recommendation of a committee of twelve, including eight students, which was established to research the matter. The Latin motto, , is taken from Virgil's Georgics. Its English translation is "to Know the Causes of Things" and it was suggested by Professor Edwin Cannan. The beaver mascot was selected for its associations with "foresight, constructiveness and industrious behaviour".


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE continues to have a wide impact within British society, through its relationships and influence in politics, business and law. "The Guardian" described such influence in 2005 when it stated:


title: London School of Economics

text: Once again the political clout of the school, which seems to be closely wired into parliament, Whitehall and the Bank of England, is being felt by ministers... The strength of LSE is that it is close to the political process: Mervyn King, was a former LSE professor. The former chairman of the House of Commons education committee, Barry Sheerman, sits on its board of governors, along with Labour peer Lord (Frank) Judd. Also on the board are Tory MPs Virginia Bottomley and Richard Shepherd, as well as Lord Saatchi and Lady Howe.


title: London School of Economics

text: Commenting in 2001 on the rising status of the LSE, the British magazine "The Economist" stated that "two decades ago the LSE was still the poor relation of the University of London's other colleges. Now... it regularly follows Oxford and Cambridge in league tables of research output and teaching quality and is at least as well-known abroad as Oxbridge". According to the magazine, the school "owes its success to the single-minded, American-style exploitation of its brand name and political connections by the recent directors, particularly Mr Giddens and his predecessor, John Ashworth" and raises money from foreign students' high fees, which are attracted by academic stars such as Richard Sennett.


title: London School of Economics

text: As of 2006, the school was active in opposing British government proposals to introduce compulsory ID cards, researching into the associated costs of the scheme, and shifting public and government opinion on the issue. The institution is also popular with politicians and MPs to launch new policy, legislation and manifesto pledges, prominently with the launch of the Liberal Democrats Manifesto Conference under Nick Clegg on 12 January 2008.


title: London School of Economics

text: In the early 2010s, its academics have been at the forefront of both national and international government consultations, reviews and policy, including representation on the UK Airports Commission, Independent Police Commission, Migration Advisory Committee, UN Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, London Finance Commission, HS2 Limited, the UK government's Infrastructure Commission and advising on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics


title: London School of Economics

text: Craig Calhoun took up the post of director in September 2012. Its previous director, Judith Rees, is also chair of the school's Grantham Institute on Climate Change, an adviser to the World Bank as well as sitting on the UN Secretary General's advisory board on water and sanitation and the International Scientific Advisory Council (ISAC). She is also a former convenor of the department of geography and environment and served as deputy director from 1998 to 2004.


title: London School of Economics

text: In February 2016, Calhoun announced his intention to step down at the end of the academic year, in order to become president of the Berggruen Institute. In September 2016, Bank of England Deputy Governor Dame Nemat (Minouche) Shafik was announced to replace Professor Julia Black as the school's director. Shafik began to lead the LSE in September 2017.


title: London School of Economics

text: Following the passage of the University of London Act 2018, the LSE (along with other member institutions of the University of London) announced in early 2019 that they would seek university status in their own right while remaining part of the federal university. Approval of university title was received from the Office for Students in May 2022 and updated Articles of Association formally constituting the school as a university were approved by LSE council 5 July 2022.


title: London School of Economics

text: In February 2011, LSE had to face the consequences of matriculating one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons while accepting a £1.5m donation to the university from his family. LSE director Howard Davies resigned over allegations about the institution's links to the Libyan regime. The LSE announced in a statement that it had accepted his resignation with "great regret" and that it had set up an external inquiry into the school's relationship with the Libyan regime and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, to be conducted by the former lord chief justice Harry Woolf.


title: London School of Economics

text: In 2013, the LSE was featured in a BBC "Panorama" documentary on North Korea, filmed inside the repressive regime by undercover journalists attached to a trip by the LSE's Grimshaw Club, a student society of the international relations department. The trip had been sanctioned by high-level North Korean officials. The trip caused international media attention as a BBC journalist was posing as a part of LSE. There was debate as to whether this put the students' lives in jeopardy in the repressive regime if a reporter had been exposed. The North Korean government made hostile threats towards the students and LSE after the publicity, which forced an apology from the BBC.


title: London School of Economics

text: In August 2015, it was revealed that the university was paid approximately £40,000 for a "glowing report" for Camila Batmanghelidjh's charity, Kids Company. The study was used by Batmanghelidjh to prove that the charity provided good value for money and was well managed. The university did not disclose that the study was funded by the charity.


title: London School of Economics

text: In the summer of 2017, dozens of campus cleaners contracted via Noonan Services went on weekly strikes, protesting outside key buildings and causing significant disruption during end-of-year examinations. The dispute organised by the UVW union was originally over unfair dismissals of cleaners, but had escalated into a broad demand for decent employment rights matching those of LSE's in-house employees. Owen Jones did not cross the picket line after arriving for a debate on grammar schools with Peter Hitchens. It was announced in June 2018 that some 200 outsourced workers at the LSE would be offered in-house contracts.


title: London School of Economics

text: A sculpture by Mark Wallinger, "The World Turned Upside Down", which features a globe resting on its north pole, was installed in Sheffield Street on the LSE campus on 26 March 2019. The artwork attracted controversy for showing the island of Taiwan as a sovereign entity rather than as part of Greater China, Lhasa being denoted as a full capital, and depicting boundaries between India and China as recognised internationally. The sculpture also did not recognise the State of Palestine as a separate country from Israel.


title: London School of Economics

text: After protests and reactions from both sides, the school made the decision to alter the work of art over the objections of the Taiwanese students. The university decided later that year that it would retain the original design which chromatically displayed the PRC and Taiwan as different entities consistent with the status quo, but with the addition of an asterisk beside the name of Taiwan and a corresponding placard that clarified the institution's position regarding the controversy.


title: London School of Economics

text: Since 1902, LSE has been based at Clare Market and Houghton Street in Westminster. It is surrounded by a number of important institutions including the Royal Courts of Justice, all four Inns of Courts, Royal College of Surgeons, Sir John Soane's Museum, and the West End is immediately across Kingsway from campus, which also borders the City of London and is within walking distance to Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament.


title: London School of Economics

text: In 1920, King George V laid the foundation of the Old Building. The campus now occupies an almost continuous group of around 30 buildings between Kingsway and Aldwych. Alongside teaching and academic space, the institution owns 11 student halls of residence across London, a West End theatre (the Peacock), early years centre, NHS medical centre and extensive sports ground in Berrylands, south London. LSE operates the George IV public house and the students' union operates the Three Tuns bar. The school's campus is noted for its numerous public art installations, which include Richard Wilson's "Square the Block", Michael Brown's "Blue Rain", Christopher Le Brun's "Desert Window", and Turner Prize-winner Mark Wallinger's "The World Turned Upside Down".


title: London School of Economics

text: Since the early 2000s, the campus has undergone an extensive refurbishment project and a major fund-raising "Campaign for LSE" raised over £100 million in what was one of the largest university fund-raising exercises outside North America. This process began with the £35 million renovation of the British Library of Political and Economic Science by Foster and Partners.


title: London School of Economics

text: In 2003, LSE purchased the former Public Trustee building at 24 Kingsway and engaged Sir Nicholas Grimshaw to redesign it into an ultra-modern educational facility at a total cost of over £45 million – increasing the size of the campus by . The New Academic Building opened for teaching in October 2008, with an official opening by Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on 5 November 2008. In November 2009 the school purchased the adjacent Sardinia House to house three academic departments and the nearby Old White Horse public house, before acquiring the freehold of the grade-II listed Land Registry Building at 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields in October 2010, which was reopened in March 2013 by The Princess Royal as the new home for the Department of Economics, International Growth Centre and its associated economic research centres. In 2015, LSE brought its ownership of buildings on Lincoln's Inn Fields to six, with the purchase of 5 Lincoln's Inn Fields on the north side of the square, which has since been converted into faculty accommodation.


title: London School of Economics

text: The first new campus building for more than 40 years, the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, named after the Singaporean statistician and philanthropist, opened in January 2014 following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions. The building provides accommodation for the LSE Students' Union, LSE accommodation office and LSE careers service as well as a bar, events space, gymnasium, rooftop terrace, learning café, dance studio, and media centre. Designed by architectural practice O’Donnell and Tuomey, the building achieved a BREEAM 'Outstanding' rating for environmental sustainability, won multiple awards including the RIBA National Award and London Building of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize.


title: London School of Economics

text: The Centre Building, situated opposite the British Library of Political and Economic Science, opened in June 2019. Designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners following a RIBA competition, the 13-storey building includes 14 seminar rooms seating between 20 and 60, 234 study spaces, a 200-seater auditorium, as well as three lecture theatres. The building hosts the School of Public Policy, the Departments of Government and International Relations, the European Institute, and the International Inequalities Institute. It includes publicly accessible roof terraces and a renovated square at the centre of campus. The building design was recognised with RIBA's London Award and National Award in 2021.


title: London School of Economics

text: The Marshall Building, located at 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, opened in January 2022. Designed by Grafton Architects and named after British investor Paul Marshall, the building houses the Departments of Management, Accounting, and Finance, sports facilities, and the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship. The site was previously home to the Francis Crick Institute's laboratories, which LSE purchased in 2013.


title: London School of Economics

text: On 15 November 2017, LSE announced that it acquired the Nuffield Building at 35 Lincoln's Inn Fields from the Royal College of Surgeons and plans to redevelop the site to host the Firoz Lalji Global Hub, the departments of Mathematics, Statistics and Methodology, the Data Science Institute, and conference and executive education facilities. The new building will be designed by David Chipperfield Architects.


title: London School of Economics

text: In 2021, LSE claimed to be the first UK university to be independently verified as carbon-neutral, which it achieved by funding rainforest trees to offset emissions through the Finnish organisation (Oy) Compensate. However, LSE omitted some of its emissions in its calculation and thus did not offset all of them. While it measured and offset emissions from heating, electricity, and faculty air travel, the school left out other travel-related emissions, as well as emissions from construction and on-campus food. LSE plans to offset the remaining emissions (scope 1 through 3) by 2050.


title: London School of Economics

text: Although LSE is a constituent college of the federal University of London, it is in many ways comparable with free-standing, self-governing and independently funded universities, and it awards its own degrees.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE is incorporated under the Companies Act as a company limited by guarantee and is an exempt charity within the meaning of Schedule Two of the Charities Act 1993. The principal governance bodies of the LSE are: the LSE Council; the Court of Governors; the academic board; and the director and director's management team.


title: London School of Economics

text: The LSE Council is responsible for strategy and its members are company directors of the school. It has specific responsibilities in relation to areas including: the monitoring of institutional performance; finance and financial sustainability; audit arrangements; estate strategy; human resource and employment policy; health and safety; "educational character and mission", and student experience. The council is supported in carrying out its role by a number of committees that report directly to it.


title: London School of Economics

text: The Court of Governors deals with certain constitutional matters and has pre-decision discussions on key policy issues and the involvement of individual governors in the school's activities. The court has the following formal powers: the appointment of members of court, its subcommittees and of the council; election of the chair and vice chairs of the court and council and honorary fellows of the school; the amendment of the memorandum and articles of association; and the appointment of external auditors.


title: London School of Economics

text: The academic board is LSE's principal academic body, and considers all major issues of general policy affecting the academic life of the school and its development. It is chaired by the director, with staff and student membership, and is supported by its own structure of committees. The vice chair of the academic board serves as a non-director member of the council and makes a termly report to the council.


title: London School of Economics

text: The director is the head of LSE and its chief executive officer, responsible for executive management and leadership on academic issues. The director reports to and is accountable to the council. The director is also the accountable officer for the purposes of the Higher Education Funding Council for England Financial Memorandum. The LSE's current director is Dame Nemat Shafik, who replaced interim director, Professor Julia Black, on 1 September 2017.


title: London School of Economics

text: The director is supported by a deputy director and provost who oversees the heads of academic departments and institutes, three pro-directors each with designated portfolios (teaching and learning, research and planning and resources) and the school secretary who acts as company secretary.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE's research and teaching is organised into a network of independent academic departments established by the LSE Council, the school's governing body, on the advice of the academic board, the school's senior academic authority. There are currently 27 academic departments or institutes.


title: London School of Economics

text: The LSE group has an endowment (as of 31 July 2016) of £119M and had a total income for 2015–16 (excluding donations and endowments) of £311M (£293M in 2014–15) with expenditure of £307M (2014–15 £302M). Key sources of income included £177M from tuition fees and education contacts (2014–15 £167M), £25M from funding council grants (2014–15 £22M), £32M from research grants (2014–15 – £27M) and £5.3M from investment income (2014–15 £4.7M).


title: London School of Economics

text: The Times Higher Education Pay Survey 2017 revealed that, among larger, non-specialist institutions, LSE professors and academics were the highest paid in the UK, with average incomes of £103,886 and £65,177 respectively.


title: London School of Economics

text: The London School of Economics (LSE) is aiming to increase the size of its endowment fund to more than £1bn, which would make it one of the best resourced institutions in the UK and the world. The effort was initiated in 2016 by Lord Myners, then chairman of the LSE's Council and Court of Governors. The plan includes working with wealthy alumni of LSE to make large contributions, increasing the annual budget surplus, and launching a new, widescale alumni donor campaign. The plan to grow LSE's endowment to more than £1bn has been continued by Lord Myners' successors at the LSE. The LSE has stated that currently "limited endowment funding constrains our ability to offer 'needs blind' admission to students".


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE continues to adopt a three-term structure and has not moved to semesters. Michaelmas Term runs from October to mid-December, Lent Term from mid-January to late March and Summer Term from late April to mid-June. Certain departments operate reading weeks in early November and mid-February.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school's historic coat of arms is used on official documentation including degree certificates and transcripts and includes the motto – "rerum cognoscere causas", a line taken from Virgil's "Georgics" meaning "to know the causes of things", together with the school's mascot – a beaver. Both these symbols, adopted in February 1922, continue to be held in high regard to this day with the beaver chosen because of its representation as "a hard working and industrious yet sociable animal", attributes that the founders hoped LSE students to both possess and aspire to. The school's weekly newspaper is still entitled "The Beaver", Rosebery residence hall's bar is called the Tipsy Beaver and LSE sports teams are known as the Beavers. The institution has two sets of colours – brand and academic – red being the brand colour used on signage, publications and in buildings across campus and purple, black and gold for academic purposes including presentation ceremonies and graduation dress.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE's present 'red block' logo was adopted as part of a rebrand in the early 2000s, before which the school's coat of arms was used exclusively to represent the institution. As a trademarked brand, it is carefully protected but can be produced in various forms to reflect different requirements. In its full form it contains the full name of the institution to the right of the block with a further small empty red square at the end, but it is adapted for each academic department or professional service division to provide a cohesive brand across the institution.


title: London School of Economics

text: The LSE received 20,000 applications for 1,600 undergraduate places in 2017, or 12.5 applicants per place. All undergraduate applications, including international applications, are made through UCAS. LSE had the 15th highest average entry qualification for undergraduates of any UK university in 2018–19, with new students averaging 168 UCAS points, equivalent to A*A*A* or ABBB in A-level grades. The university gave offers of admission to 37.0% of its applicants in 2015, the 3rd lowest amongst the Russell Group.


title: London School of Economics

text: Postgraduate students at the LSE are required to have a first or upper second Class UK honours degree, or its foreign equivalent, for master's degrees, while direct entry to the MPhil/PhD programme requires a UK taught master's with merit, or foreign equivalent. Admission to the diploma requires a UK degree or equivalent plus relevant experience. The intake to applications ratio for postgraduate degree programmes is very competitive; the MSc Financial Mathematics had a ratio of just over 4% in 2016.


title: London School of Economics

text: 31.6% of LSE's undergraduates are privately educated, the ninth highest proportion amongst mainstream British universities. In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 33:18:50 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female-to-male ratio of 52:47.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE is the only university in the United Kingdom dedicated solely to the study and research of social sciences. LSE awards a range of academic degrees spanning bachelors, masters and PhDs. The post-nominals awarded are the degree abbreviations used commonly among British universities.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school offers over 140 MSc programmes, 5 MPA programmes, an LLM, 30 BSc programmes, an LLB, 4 BA programmes (including International History and Geography), and 35 PhD programmes. Subjects pioneered in Britain by LSE include accountancy and sociology, and the school also employed Britain's first full-time lecturer in economic history. Courses are split across more than thirty research centres and nineteen departments, plus a Language Centre. Lastly, in partnership with the federal University of London, LSE oversees 9 BSc programmes as the lead institution which designs the curriculum. Students who chose to study online experience the same unique academic experience as on-campus, they are considered a part of LSE community and they have a variety of options to interact with their university, such as the LSE general course. Since programmes are all within the social sciences, they closely resemble each other, and undergraduate students usually take at least one course module in a subject outside of their degree for their first and second years of study, promoting a broader education in the social sciences. At undergraduate level, some departments have as few as 90 students across the three years of study. Since September 2010, it has been compulsory for first year undergraduates to participate in LSE 100: Understanding the Causes of Things alongside normal studies.


title: London School of Economics

text: From 1902, following its absorption into the University of London, until 2007, all degrees were awarded by the federal university in common with all other colleges of the university. This system was changed in 2007 to enable some colleges to award their own degrees. LSE was granted the power to begin awarding its own degrees from July 2008. All students entering from the 2007–08 academic year onwards received an LSE degree, while students who started before this date were issued University of London degrees. In conjunction with NYU Stern and HEC Paris, LSE also offers the TRIUM Executive MBA. This was globally ranked third among executive MBAs by the "Financial Times" in 2016.


title: London School of Economics

text: In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, LSE had the joint highest percentage of world-leading research among research submitted of any institution that entered more than one unit of assessment and was ranked third by cumulative grade point average with a score of 3.35, beating both Oxford and Cambridge. It was ranked 23rd in the country for research power by Research Fortnight based on its REF2014 results, and 28th in research power by the Times Higher Education. This followed the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 where the school was placed second equal nationally on GPA, first for fraction of world-leading (4*) research and fourth for fraction of world-leading or internationally excellent (3* and 4*) research in LSE's analysis of the results, fourth equal for GPA and 29th for research power in Times Higher Education's analysis, and 27th in research power by Research Fortnight's analysis.


title: London School of Economics

text: According to analysis of the REF 2014 subject results by Times Higher Education, the school is the UK's top research university in terms of GPA of research submitted in business and management; area studies; and communication, cultural and media studies, library and information management, and second in law; politics and international studies; economics and econometrics; and social work and social policy.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school houses a number of notable centres including the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, the Centre for Macroeconomics, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE Health and Social Care, the Financial Markets Group (founded by former Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King), the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (chaired by Lord Stern), LSE Cities, the UK Department for International Development funded International Growth Centre and one of the six the UK government-backed 'What Works Centres' – the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. The Greater London Group was influential research centre within LSE from the late 1950s on, before being subsumed into the LSE London research group.


title: London School of Economics

text: In late 2014, LSE hired Erik Berglöf, former chief economist and special advisor to the EBRD to establish a new Institute of Global Affairs with seven regional research centres focusing on Africa, East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia and the United States. It is joined by the LSE IDEAS think tank, which in a global survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 was jointly ranked as world's second-best university think tank for the third year running alongside the LSE Public Policy Group, after Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.


title: London School of Economics

text: In February 2015, Angelina Jolie and William Hague launched the UK's first academic Centre on Women, Peace and Security, based at the school. The centre aims to contribute to global women's rights issues, including the prosecution of war rape and women's engagement in politics, through academic research, a post-graduate teaching program, public engagement, and collaboration with international organisations. Furthermore, in May 2016 it was announced that Jolie-Pitt and Hague would join Jane Connors and Madeleine Rees as visiting professors in practice from September 2016.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE has academic partnerships in teaching and research with six universities – with Columbia University in New York City and University of California, Berkeley, in Asia with Peking University in Beijing and the National University of Singapore, in Africa with the University of Cape Town and Europe with Sciences Po in Paris.


title: London School of Economics

text: Together they offer a range of double or joint degree programmes including an MA in International and World History (with Columbia) and an MSc in international affairs with Peking University, with graduates earning degrees from both institutions. The school also offers joint degrees for specific departments with various other universities including Fudan University in Shanghai, USC in Los Angeles and a Global Studies programme which is offered with a consortium of four European universities – Leipzig, Vienna, Roskilde and Wroclaw. It offers the TRIUM Global Executive MBA programme jointly with Stern School of Business of New York University and HEC School of Management, Paris. It is divided into six modules held in five international business locations over a 16-month period. LSE also offers a Dual Master of Public Administration (MPA) with Global Public Policy Network schools such as Sciences Po Paris, the Hertie School of Governance and National University of Singapore, and a duel MPA-Master of Global Affairs (MGA) degree with the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school also runs exchange programmes with a number of international business schools through the Global Master's in Management programme and an undergraduate student exchange programme with the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science. LSE is the only UK member school in the CEMS Alliance, and the LSE Global Master's in Management is the only programme in the UK to offer the CEMS Master's in International Management (CEMS MIM) as a double degree option, allowing students to study at one of 34 CEMS partner universities. It also participates in Key Action 1 of the European Union-wide Erasmus+ programme, encouraging staff and student mobility for teaching, although not the other Key Actions in the programme.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, the G5, the Global Alliance in Management Education, the Russell Group and Universities UK, and is sometimes considered part of the 'Golden Triangle' of universities in south-east England, along with the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London, and King's College London.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE’s European Institute offers a Double Degree in European and International Public Policy and Politics with Bocconi University in Milan.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE's main library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, is located in the Lionel Robbins Building, which reopened in 2001 following a two-year renovation by Foster and Partners. Founded in 1896, it is the world's largest library dedicated to social sciences and the United Kingdom's national social sciences library. Its collections are recognised for their national and international significance and hold 'Designation' status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). The library welcomes 1.8 million visits per year by students, staff, and the public and contains over 4 million print volumes, 60,000 online journals, and 29,000 electronic books. The Digital Library contains digitised material from LSE Library collections and also born-digital material that has been collected and preserved in digital formats.


title: London School of Economics

text: The Women's Library, Britain's main library and archive on women and the women's movement, is located in a purpose-built facility with a reading room and exhibition space in the Lionel Robbins Building. The library relocated from London Metropolitan University in 2014.


title: London School of Economics

text: The Shaw Library, housed in the Founders' Room in the Old Building, contains the school's collection of fiction and general readings. It functions as a general-purpose reading and common room and hosts lunchtime music concerts, press launches, and the Fabian Window, which was unveiled by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2006.


title: London School of Economics

text: Several subject-specific libraries exist at LSE, including the Seligman Library for Anthropology, the Himmelweit Library for Social Psychology, the Leverhulme Library for Statistics, the Robert McKenzie Library for Sociology, the Michael Wise Library for Geography, and the Gender Institute Library. Additionally, LSE staff and some students are permitted to access and borrow items from Senate House Library, the SOAS Library, and select institutions through the SCONUL Access scheme.


title: London School of Economics

text: The original LSE Summer School was established in 1989 and has since expanded to offer over 70 three-week courses in accounting, finance, economics, English language, international relations, government, law and management each July and August. It is advertised as the largest and one of the most well-established university Summer Schools of its kind in Europe.


title: London School of Economics

text: In recent years, the school has expanded its summer schools both abroad and into executive education with the LSE-PKU Summer School in Beijing (run with Peking University), the LSE-UCT July School in Cape Town (run with the University of Cape Town) and the Executive Summer School at its London campus. In 2011, it also launched a Methods Summer Programme. Together these courses welcome over 5,000 participants from over 130 countries and some of the top colleges and universities around the world, as well as professionals from several multinational institutions. Participants are housed in LSE halls of residence or their overseas equivalents, and the Summer School provides a full social programme including guest lectures and receptions.


title: London School of Economics

text: Public lectures hosted by LSE Events office, are open to students, alumni and the general public. As well as leading academics and commentators, speakers frequently include prominent national and international figures such as ambassadors, CEOs, Members of Parliament, and heads of state. A number of these are broadcast live around the world via the school's website. LSE organises over 200 public events every year.


title: London School of Economics

text: Recent prominent speakers have included Kofi Annan, Ben Bernanke, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Noam Chomsky, Bill Clinton, Philip Craven, Niall Ferguson, Vicente Fox, Milton Friedman, Muammar Gaddafi, Julia Gillard, Alan Greenspan, Tenzin Gyatso, Lee Hsien Loong, Boris Johnson, David Harvey, Jean Tirole, Angelina Jolie, Paul Krugman, Dmitri Medvedev, Mario Monti, George Osborne, Robert Peston, Sebastián Piñera, Kevin Rudd, Jeffrey Sachs, Gerhard Schroeder, Carlos D. Mesa, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Aung San Suu Kyi, Amartya Sen, George Soros and Rowan Williams. Previously, the school has hosted figures including Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher.


title: London School of Economics

text: There are also a number of annual lecture series hosted by various departments. These include but are not limited to the Malinowski Memorial Lectures hosted by the department of anthropology, the Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures and the Ralph Miliband programme.


title: London School of Economics

text: In 2018, the university launched LSE Press in partnership with Ubiquity Press. This is intended to publish open-access journals and books in the social sciences. The first journal to be published by the press was the "Journal of Illicit Economies and Development", edited by John Collins, executive director of LSE's International Drug Policy Unit. The press is managed through the LSE Library.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE is ranked third in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2022, fifth in the Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide 2022, and fifth in The Guardian University Guide 2021.


title: London School of Economics

text: The "QS World University Rankings" for 2023 rankings saw the LSE placed 56th among the world's universities. The 2023 "Times Higher Education World University Rankings" ranked LSE 37th globally. On the other hand, "Academic Ranking of World Universities" for 2022 ranked LSE in the 151–200 range. While the 2022 "U.S. News & World Report" "Best Global Universities 2022" ranked LSE's social science and economics programs highly, overall, it ranked LSE 230th globally.


title: London School of Economics

text: In terms of specific subject areas, the "QS World University Rankings by Subject 2020" ranks the LSE second in the world in economics & social sciences and management and 20th for arts and humanities, while for individual subjects it is ranked second for geography, third for communication and media studies, social policy and administration, and sociology, in the top ten for accounting and finance, anthropology, business and management studies, development studies, economics and econometrics, history, law and legal studies, philosophy, and politics, and in the top 50 for psychology, and statistics and operational research. Times Higher Education's subject rankings for 2021 place LSE 7th for business and economics, 8th for social sciences, 10th for law, 17th equal for psychology, 21st for arts and humanities, and in the 251–300 range for physical sciences. "U.S. News & World Report" ranked LSE 7th globally for economics, 34th for social sciences, 57th for arts and humanities, 141st equal for psychiatry/psychology, and 212th equal for public, environmental and occupational health.


title: London School of Economics

text: According to data released by the Department for Education in 2018, LSE was rated as the best university for boosting graduate earnings, with male graduates seeing a 47.2% increase in earnings and female graduates seeing a 38.2% increase in earnings compared to the average graduate.


title: London School of Economics

text: According to Wealth-X and UBS's "Billionaire Census" in 2014, LSE ranked 10th in the list of 20 schools that have produced the most billionaire alumni. The LSE was the only UK university to make the list.


title: London School of Economics

text: In the 2020 National Student Survey LSE came 64th out of 154 for overall student satisfaction. The LSE had scored well below its benchmark on this measure in previous years, coming 145th out of 148 in 2017. The increase in student satisfaction in 2020 led to a climb of 14 places to fifth in the 2021 Guardian ranking.


title: London School of Economics

text: In the 2015–16 academic year there were 10,833 full-time students and around 700 part-time students at the university. Of these, approximately 7,500 came from outside the United Kingdom (approximately 70% of the total student body), making LSE a highly international school with over 160 countries represented. LSE had more countries represented by students than the UN. 32% of LSE's students come from Asia, 10% from North America, 2% each from South America and Africa. Combined over 100 languages are spoken at LSE. Over half of LSE's students are postgraduates, and there is approximately an equal split between genders with 51% male and 49% female students. Alumni total over 160,000, covering over 190 countries with more than 80 active alumni groups.


title: London School of Economics

text: The LSE Students' Union (LSESU) is affiliated to the National Union of Students and is responsible for campaigning and lobbying the school on behalf of students as well providing student support and the organisation and undertaking of entertainment events and student societies. It is often regarded as the most politically active in Britain – a reputation it has held since the well documented LSE student riots in 1966–67 and 1968–69, which made international headlines. In 2015, the school was awarded the top spot for student nightlife by "The Guardian" newspaper due in part to its central location and provision of over 200 societies, 40 sports clubs, a Raising and Giving (RAG) branch and a thriving media group. In 2013, the union moved into a purpose-built new building – the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre on the Aldwych campus.


title: London School of Economics

text: A weekly student newspaper "The Beaver", is published each Tuesday during term time and is amongst the oldest student newspapers in the country. It sits alongside a radio station, "Pulse!" which has existed since 1999 and a television station "LooSE Television" since 2005. The "Clare Market Review" one of Britain's oldest student publications was revived in 2008. Over £150,000 is raised for charity each year through the RAG (Raising and Giving), the fundraising arm of the Students' Union, which was started in 1980 by then Student Union Entertainments Officer and former New Zealand MP Tim Barnett.


title: London School of Economics

text: Sporting activity is coordinated by the LSE Athletics Union, which is a constituent of British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS).


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE owns or operates 10 halls of residence in and around central London and there are also two halls owned by urbanest and five intercollegiate halls (shared with other constituent colleges of the University of London) within a 3-mile radius of the school, for a total of over 4,000 places. Most residences take both undergraduates and postgraduates, although Carr-Saunders Hall and Passfield Hall are undergraduate only, and Butler's Wharf Residence, Grosvenor House and Lillian Knowles House are reserved for postgraduates. Sidney Webb House, managed by Unite Students, takes postgraduates and continuing students. There are also flats available on Anson and Carleton roads, which are reserved for students with children.


title: London School of Economics

text: The school guarantees accommodation for all first-year undergraduate students and many of the school's larger postgraduate population are also catered for, with some specific residences available for postgraduate living. Whilst none of the residences are located at the Aldwych campus, the closest, Grosvenor House is within a five-minute walk from the school in Covent Garden, whilst the farthest residences (Nutford and Butler's Wharf) are approximately forty-five minutes by Tube or Bus.


title: London School of Economics

text: Each residence accommodates a mixture of students both home and international, male and female, and, usually, undergraduate and postgraduate. New undergraduate students (including General Course students) occupy approximately 55% of all spaces, with postgraduates taking approximately 40% and continuing students about 5% of places.


title: London School of Economics

text: The largest LSE student residence, Bankside House, a refurbished early 1950s office block and former headquarters of the Central Electricity Generating Board, opened to students in 1996 and is fully catered, accommodating 617 students across eight floors overlooking the River Thames. It is located behind the Tate Modern art gallery on the south bank of the river. The second-largest residence, the High Holborn Residence in High Holborn, was opened in 1995 and is approximately 10 minutes walk from the main campus. It is self-catering, accommodating 447 students in flats of four our five bedrooms with shared facilities.


title: London School of Economics

text: LSE has a long list of notable alumni and staff, spanning the fields of scholarship provided by the school. The school has over 50 fellows of the British Academy on its staff, while other notable former staff members include Brian Barry, Maurice Cranston, Anthony Giddens, Harold Laski, Ralph Miliband, Michael Oakeshott, A. W. Philips, Karl Popper, Lionel Robbins, Susan Strange, Bob Ward and Charles Webster. Mervyn King, the former Governor of the Bank of England, is also a former professor of economics.


title: London School of Economics

text: Of the current 9 members of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee the following 5 have affiliation to the LSE: Jonathan Haskel (alumni), Michael Saunders (alumni), Gertjan Vlieghe (alumni), Silvana Tenereyro (current professor of economics) and Governor Andrew Bailey (former Research Officer).


title: London School of Economics

text: In the political arena notable alumni and staff include 53 past or present heads of state, 20 members of the current British House of Commons and 46 members of the current House of Lords. Former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee taught at the school from 1912 to 1923. In recent British politics, former LSE students include Virginia Bottomley, Yvette Cooper, Edwina Currie, Frank Dobson, Margaret Hodge, Robert Kilroy-Silk, former UK Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and former UK Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson. Internationally, the current and first female president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Brazilian defence minister Celso Amorim, Costa Rican President Óscar Arias, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, architect of the Indian Constitution and eminent economist B. R. Ambedkar, President of India K. R. Narayanan, President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Tsai Ing-wen, Italian prime minister and president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, French Foreign Minister and president of the Constitutional Council Roland Dumas as well as Singapore's deputy prime minister and chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Tharman Shanmugaratnam all studied at LSE. A notable number of LSE students have also played a role in the Barack Obama administration, including Pete Rouse, Peter R. Orszag, Mona Sutphen, Paul Volcker and Jason Furman. Physician Vanessa Kerry and American journalist Susan Rasky are also alumnae of the LSE. Notable American Monica Lewinsky pursued her MSc in Social Psychology at the LSE.


title: London School of Economics

text: Business people who studied at LSE include the CEO of AirAsia Tony Fernandes, former CEO of General Motors Daniel Akerson, director of Louis Vuitton Delphine Arnault, founder of easyJet Stelios Haji-Ioannou, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch Michael S. Jeffries, Greek business magnate Spiros Latsis, American banker David Rockefeller, CEO of Newsmax Media Christopher Ruddy, founder of advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi Maurice Saatchi, hedge fund managers George Soros and Michael Platt and Andreas Utermann, former CEO of Allianz Global Investors.


title: London School of Economics

text: A survey by employment specialists Emolument.com found that it on average took LSE graduates 11.6 years in the workforce to begin earning base salaries in excess of £500,000; the shortest timespan of any university in the United Kingdom.


title: London School of Economics

text: Convicted British terrorist, Omar Saeed Sheikh, studied statistics at LSE, but did not graduate. He served five years in an Indian prison for kidnapping British tourists in 1994. In 2002, he was arrested and convicted in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl. "The Guardian" reported that Sheikh came into contact with radical Islamists at the LSE.


title: London School of Economics

text: As of 2019, 18 Nobel Prizes in economics, peace and literature are officially recognised as having been awarded to LSE alumni and staff.


title: London School of Economics

text: The LSE has been mentioned and formed the basis of setting for numerous works of fiction and in popular culture.


title: London School of Economics

text: The first notable mention of the LSE was in literature was in the epilogue to Bernard Shaw's 1912 play ''Pygmalion', Eliza Dolittle is sent to the LSE.


title: London School of Economics

text: In around a dozen other novels, the LSE was mentioned as short-hand for a character being witty and clever but outside the establishment. This is best exhibited by Ian Fleming's CV of James Bond that included the detail that his father, Andrew, is an LSE graduate. These occurrences have continued into contemporary fiction: Lenny is the young 'hip' LSE graduate and criminologist in Jake Arnott's tour of the London underworld in "The Long Firm." Robert Harris' "Enigma" includes Baxter, a code breaker with leftist views, who has been an LSE lecturer before the war and "My Revolutions" by Hari Kunzru traces the career of Chris Carver aka Michael Frame who travels from LSE student radical to terrorist and on to middle England.


title: London School of Economics

text: Former LSE alumnus Hilary Mantel in "The Experience of Love" never mentions LSE by name but Houghton Street, the corridors of the LSE Old Building and Wright's Bar are immediately recognisable references to the campus of the school. A.S. Byatt's "The Children's Book" returns to LSE's Fabian roots with a plot inspired in part by the life of children's writer E. Nesbitt and Fabian Hubert Bland, and characters that choose LSE over older educational establishments (namely Oxford and Cambridge).


title: London School of Economics

text: On the small screen, the popular 1980s British sitcom Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister make a regular references to the LSE with Minister Jim Hacker (later Prime Minister) and Sir Mark Spencer (special advisor to the Prime Minister) regularly being subtly ridiculed for having attended the LSE. A slightly earlier fictional LSE graduate appears in season three episode six of the US series, "Mad Men". The popular American series "The West Wing" following the Democratic administration of Josiah (Jed) Barltet makes several references to Josiah Bartlet being an alumnus of the LSE. Other fictional LSE alumnus are present in "Spooks", at least one episode of "The Professionals" and "The Blacklist" series.


title: London School of Economics

text: In movies and motion pictures, in the 2014 action spy thriller "", the young Jack Ryan, based on a Tom Clancy character, proves his academic credentials by walking out of the Old Building as he graduates from the London School of Economics before injuring his spine being shot down in Afghanistan. The LSE is acknowledged in The Social Network naming the institution along with Oxford and Cambridge Universities in a reference to the rapid growth Facebook enjoyed both within and outside the United States in its early years.


title: Air conditioning

text: Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as "comfort cooling") and in some cases also strictly controlling the humidity of internal air. Air conditioning can be achieved using a mechanical 'air conditioner' or alternatively a variety of other methods, including passive cooling or ventilative cooling. Air conditioning is a member of a family of systems and techniques that provide heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). Heat pumps are similar in many ways to air conditioners, but use a reversing valve to allow them to both heat and also cool an enclosed space.


title: Air conditioning

text: Air conditioners, which typically use vapor-compression refrigeration, range in size from small units used within vehicles or single rooms to massive units that can cool large buildings. Air source heat pumps, which can be used for heating as well as cooling, are becoming increasingly common in cooler climates.


title: Air conditioning

text: According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), as of 2018, 1.6 billion air conditioning units were installed, which accounted for an estimated 20% of electricity usage in buildings globally with the number expected to grow to 5.6 billion by 2050. The United Nations called for the technology to be made more sustainable to mitigate climate change and for the use of alternatives, like passive cooling, evaporative cooling, selective shading, windcatchers, and better thermal insulation. CFC and HCFC refrigerants such as R-12 and R-22, respectively, used within air conditioners have caused damage to the ozone layer, and HFC refrigerants such as R-410a and R-404a, which were designed to replace CFCs and HCFCs, are instead exacerbating climate change. Both issues happen due to the venting of refrigerant to the atmosphere, such as during repairs. HFO refrigerants, used in some if not most new equipment, solve both issues with an ozone damage potential (ODP) of zero and a much lower global warming potential (GWP) in the single or double digits vs. the three or four digits of HFCs.


title: Air conditioning

text: Air conditioning dates back to prehistory. Ancient Egyptian buildings used a wide variety of passive air-conditioning techniques. These became widespread from the Iberian Peninsula through North Africa, the Middle East, and Northern India.


title: Air conditioning

text: Passive techniques remained widespread until the 20th century, when they fell out of fashion, replaced by powered A/C. Using information from engineering studies of traditional buildings, passive techniques are being revived and modified for 21st-century architectural designs.


title: Air conditioning

text: Air conditioners allow the building's indoor environment to remain relatively constant largely independent of changes in external weather conditions and internal heat loads. They also allow deep plan buildings to be created and have allowed people to live comfortably in hotter parts of the world.


title: Air conditioning

text: In 1558, Giambattista della Porta described a method of chilling ice to temperatures far below its freezing point by mixing it with potassium nitrate (then called "nitre") in his popular science book "Natural Magic". In 1620, Cornelis Drebbel demonstrated "Turning Summer into Winter" for James I of England, chilling part of the Great Hall of Westminster Abbey with an apparatus of troughs and vats. Drebbel's contemporary Francis Bacon, like della Porta a believer in science communication, may not have been present at the demonstration, but in a book published later the same year, he described it as "experiment of artificial freezing" and said that "Nitre (or rather its spirit) is very cold, and hence nitre or salt when added to snow or ice intensifies the cold of the latter, the nitre by adding to its own cold, but the salt by supplying activity to the cold of the snow."


title: Air conditioning

text: In 1758, Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley, a chemistry professor at University of Cambridge, conducted an experiment to explore the principle of evaporation as a means to rapidly cool an object. Franklin and Hadley confirmed that the evaporation of highly volatile liquids (such as alcohol and ether) could be used to drive down the temperature of an object past the freezing point of water. They conducted their experiment with the bulb of a mercury-in-glass thermometer as their object and with a bellows used to speed up the evaporation. They lowered the temperature of the thermometer bulb down to while the ambient temperature was . Franklin noted that soon after they passed the freezing point of water , a thin film of ice formed on the surface of the thermometer's bulb and that the ice mass was about thick when they stopped the experiment upon reaching . Franklin concluded: "From this experiment one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day."


title: Air conditioning

text: The 19th century included a number of developments in compression technology. In 1820, English scientist and inventor Michael Faraday discovered that compressing and liquefying ammonia could chill air when the liquefied ammonia was allowed to evaporate. In 1842, Florida physician John Gorrie used compressor technology to create ice, which he used to cool air for his patients in his hospital in Apalachicola, Florida. He hoped to eventually use his ice-making machine to regulate the temperature of buildings and envisioned centralized air conditioning that could cool entire cities. Gorrie was granted a patent in 1851, but following the death of his main backer he was not able to realise his invention. In 1851, James Harrison created the first mechanical ice-making machine in Geelong, Australia, and was granted a patent for an ether vapor-compression refrigeration system in 1855 that produced three tons of ice per day. In 1860, Harrison established a second ice company and later entered the debate over how to compete against the American advantage of ice-refrigerated beef sales to the United Kingdom.


title: Air conditioning

text: Electricity made development of effective units possible. In 1901, American inventor Willis H. Carrier built what is considered the first modern electrical air conditioning unit. In 1902, he installed his first air-conditioning system, in the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company in Brooklyn, New York; his invention controlled both the temperature and humidity which helped maintain consistent paper dimensions and ink alignment at the printing plant. Later, together with six other employees, Carrier formed The Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America, a business that in 2020 employed 53,000 people and was valued at $18.6 billion.


title: Air conditioning

text: In 1906, Stuart W. Cramer of Charlotte, North Carolina was exploring ways to add moisture to the air in his textile mill. Cramer coined the term "air conditioning", using it in a patent claim he filed that year as analogous to "water conditioning", then a well-known process for making textiles easier to process. He combined moisture with ventilation to "condition" and change the air in the factories, controlling the humidity so necessary in textile plants. Willis Carrier adopted the term and incorporated it into the name of his company.


title: Air conditioning

text: Domestic air conditioning soon took off. In 1914, the first domestic air conditioning was installed in Minneapolis in the home of Charles Gilbert Gates. It is however possible that the huge device (c. 7 x 6 x 20 ft) was never used, as the house remained uninhabited (Gates had already died in October 1913).


title: Air conditioning

text: In 1931, H.H. Schultz and J.Q. Sherman developed what would become the most common type of individual room air conditioner: one designed to sit on a window ledge. The units went on sale in 1932 at a considerable price (the equivalent of $120,000 to $600,000 in 2015 dollars.) A year later the first air conditioning systems for cars were offered for sale. Chrysler Motors introduced the first practical semi-portable air conditioning unit in 1935, and Packard became the first automobile manufacturer to offer an air conditioning unit in its cars in 1939.


title: Air conditioning

text: Innovations in the latter half of the 20th century allowed for much more ubiquitous air conditioner use. In 1945, Robert Sherman of Lynn, Massachusetts invented a portable, in-window air conditioner that cooled, heated, humidified, dehumidified, and filtered the air.