title: Scramjet

text: The first successful flight test of a scramjet was performed as a joint effort with NASA, over the Soviet Union in 1991. It was an axisymmetric hydrogen-fueled dual-mode scramjet developed by Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM), Moscow in the late 1970s, but modernized with a FeCrAl alloy on a converted SM-6 missile to achieve initial flight parameters of Mach 6.8, before the scramjet flew at Mach 5.5. The scramjet flight was flown captive-carry atop the SA-5 surface-to-air missile that included an experimental flight support unit known as the "Hypersonic Flying Laboratory" (HFL), "Kholod".


title: Scramjet

text: Then, from 1992 to 1998, an additional six flight tests of the axisymmetric high-speed scramjet-demonstrator were conducted by CIAM together with France and then with NASA.<ref name="NASA/TP-1998-206548"></ref> Maximum flight velocity greater than Mach6.4 was achieved and scramjet operation during 77 seconds was demonstrated. These flight test series also provided insight into autonomous hypersonic flight controls.


title: Scramjet

text: In the 2000s, significant progress was made in the development of hypersonic technology, particularly in the field of scramjet engines.


title: Scramjet

text: The HyShot project demonstrated scramjet combustion on 30 July 2002. The scramjet engine worked effectively and demonstrated supersonic combustion in action. However, the engine was not designed to provide thrust to propel a craft. It was designed more or less as a technology demonstrator.


title: Scramjet

text: A joint British and Australian team from UK defense company Qinetiq and the University of Queensland were the first group to demonstrate a scramjet working in an atmospheric test.


title: Scramjet

text: Hyper-X claimed the first flight of a thrust-producing scramjet-powered vehicle with full aerodynamic maneuvering surfaces in 2004 with the X-43A. The last of the three X-43A scramjet tests achieved Mach9.6 for a brief time.


title: Scramjet

text: On 15 June 2007, the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), in cooperation with the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), announced a successful scramjet flight at Mach10 using rocket engines to boost the test vehicle to hypersonic speeds.


title: Scramjet

text: A series of scramjet ground tests was completed at NASA Langley Arc-Heated Scramjet Test Facility (AHSTF) at simulated Mach8 flight conditions. These experiments were used to support HIFiRE flight 2.


title: Scramjet

text: On 22 May 2009, Woomera hosted the first successful test flight of a hypersonic aircraft in HIFiRE (Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation). The launch was one of ten planned test flights. The series of flights is part of a joint research program between the Defence Science and Technology Organisation and the US Air Force, designated as the HIFiRE. HIFiRE is investigating hypersonics technology and its application to advanced scramjet-powered space launch vehicles; the objective is to support the new Boeing X-51 scramjet demonstrator while also building a strong base of flight test data for quick-reaction space launch development and hypersonic "quick-strike" weapons.


title: Scramjet

text: On 22 and 23 March 2010, Australian and American defense scientists successfully tested a (HIFiRE) hypersonic rocket. It reached an atmospheric velocity of "more than 5,000 kilometres per hour" (Mach4) after taking off from the Woomera Test Range in outback South Australia.


title: Scramjet

text: On 27 May 2010, NASA and the United States Air Force successfully flew the X-51A Waverider for approximately 200 seconds at Mach5, setting a new world record for flight duration at hypersonic airspeed. The Waverider flew autonomously before losing acceleration for an unknown reason and destroying itself as planned. The test was declared a success. The X-51A was carried aboard a B-52, accelerated to Mach4.5 via a solid rocket booster, and then ignited the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne scramjet engine to reach Mach5 at . However, a second flight on 13 June 2011 was ended prematurely when the engine lit briefly on ethylene but failed to transition to its primary JP-7 fuel, failing to reach full power.


title: Scramjet

text: On 16 November 2010, Australian scientists from the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy successfully demonstrated that the high-speed flow in a naturally non-burning scramjet engine can be ignited using a pulsed laser source.


title: Scramjet

text: A further X-51A Waverider test failed on 15 August 2012. The attempt to fly the scramjet for a prolonged period at Mach6 was cut short when, only 15 seconds into the flight, the X-51A craft lost control and broke apart, falling into the Pacific Ocean north-west of Los Angeles. The cause of the failure was blamed on a faulty control fin.


title: Scramjet

text: In May 2013, an uncrewed X-51A Waverider reached 4828 km/h (Mach3.9) during a three-minute flight under scramjet power. The WaveRider was dropped at from a B-52 bomber, and then accelerated to Mach4.8 by a solid rocket booster which then separated before the WaveRider's scramjet engine came into effect.


title: Scramjet

text: On 28 August 2016, the Indian space agency ISRO conducted a successful test of a scramjet engine on a two-stage, solid-fueled rocket. Twin scramjet engines were mounted on the back of the second stage of a two-stage, solid-fueled sounding rocket called Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), which is ISRO's advanced sounding rocket. The twin scramjet engines were ignited during the second stage of the rocket when the ATV achieved a speed of 7350 km/h (Mach6) at an altitude of 20 km. The scramjet engines were fired for a duration of about 5 seconds.


title: Scramjet

text: On 12 June 2019, India successfully conducted the maiden flight test of its indigenously developed uncrewed scramjet demonstration aircraft for hypersonic speed flight from a base from Abdul Kalam Island in the Bay of Bengal at about 11:25 am. The aircraft is called the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle. The trial was carried out by the Defence Research and Development Organisation. The aircraft forms an important component of the country's programme for development of a hypersonic cruise missile system.


title: Scramjet

text: On 27 September 2021, DARPA announced successful flight of its Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept scramjet cruise missile. Another successful test was carried out in mid-March 2022 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Details were kept secret to avoid escalating tension with Russia, only to be revealed by an unnamed Pentagon official in early April.


title: Scramjet

text: Scramjet engines are a type of jet engine, and rely on the combustion of fuel and an oxidizer to produce thrust. Similar to conventional jet engines, scramjet-powered aircraft carry the fuel on board, and obtain the oxidizer by the ingestion of atmospheric oxygen (as compared to rockets, which carry both fuel and an oxidizing agent). This requirement limits scramjets to suborbital atmospheric propulsion, where the oxygen content of the air is sufficient to maintain combustion.


title: Scramjet

text: The scramjet is composed of three basic components: a converging inlet, where incoming air is compressed; a combustor, where gaseous fuel is burned with atmospheric oxygen to produce heat; and a diverging nozzle, where the heated air is accelerated to produce thrust. Unlike a typical jet engine, such as a turbojet or turbofan engine, a scramjet does not use rotating, fan-like components to compress the air; rather, the achievable speed of the aircraft moving through the atmosphere causes the air to compress within the inlet. As such, no moving parts are needed in a scramjet. In comparison, typical turbojet engines require multiple stages of rotating compressor rotors, and multiple rotating turbine stages, all of which add weight, complexity, and a greater number of failure points to the engine.


title: Scramjet

text: Due to the nature of their design, scramjet operation is limited to near-hypersonic velocities. As they lack mechanical compressors, scramjets require the high kinetic energy of a hypersonic flow to compress the incoming air to operational conditions. Thus, a scramjet-powered vehicle must be accelerated to the required velocity (usually about Mach4) by some other means of propulsion, such as turbojet, railgun, or rocket engines. In the flight of the experimental scramjet-powered Boeing X-51A, the test craft was lifted to flight altitude by a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress before being released and accelerated by a detachable rocket to near Mach4.5. In May 2013, another flight achieved an increased speed of Mach5.1.


title: Scramjet

text: While scramjets are conceptually simple, actual implementation is limited by extreme technical challenges. Hypersonic flight within the atmosphere generates immense drag, and temperatures found on the aircraft and within the engine can be much greater than that of the surrounding air. Maintaining combustion in the supersonic flow presents additional challenges, as the fuel must be injected, mixed, ignited, and burned within milliseconds. While scramjet technology has been under development since the 1950s, only very recently have scramjets successfully achieved powered flight.


title: Scramjet

text: Scramjets are designed to operate in the hypersonic flight regime, beyond the reach of turbojet engines, and, along with ramjets, fill the gap between the high efficiency of turbojets and the high speed of rocket engines. Turbomachinery-based engines, while highly efficient at subsonic speeds, become increasingly inefficient at transonic speeds, as the compressor rotors found in turbojet engines require subsonic speeds to operate. While the flow from transonic to low supersonic speeds can be decelerated to these conditions, doing so at supersonic speeds results in a tremendous increase in temperature and a loss in the total pressure of the flow. Around Mach3–4, turbomachinery is no longer useful, and ram-style compression becomes the preferred method.


title: Scramjet

text: Ramjets use high-speed characteristics of air to literally 'ram' air through an inlet diffuser into the combustor. At transonic and supersonic flight speeds, the air upstream of the inlet is not able to move out of the way quickly enough, and is compressed within the diffuser before being diffused into the combustor. Combustion in a ramjet takes place at subsonic velocities, similar to turbojets, but the combustion products are then accelerated through a convergent-divergent nozzle to supersonic speeds. As they have no mechanical means of compression, ramjets cannot start from a standstill, and generally do not achieve sufficient compression until supersonic flight. The lack of intricate turbomachinery allows ramjets to deal with the temperature rise associated with decelerating a supersonic flow to subsonic speeds, but this only goes so far: at near-hypersonic velocities, the temperature rise and inefficiencies discourage decelerating the flow to the magnitude found in ramjet engines.


title: Scramjet

text: Scramjet engines operate on the same principles as ramjets, but do not decelerate the flow to subsonic velocities. Rather, a scramjet combustor is supersonic: the inlet decelerates the flow to a lower Mach number for combustion, after which it is accelerated to an even higher Mach number through the nozzle. By limiting the amount of deceleration, temperatures within the engine are kept at a tolerable level, from both a material and combustive standpoint. Even so, current scramjet technology requires the use of high-energy fuels and active cooling schemes to maintain sustained operation, often using hydrogen and regenerative cooling techniques.


title: Scramjet

text: All scramjet engines have an intake which compresses the incoming air, fuel injectors, a combustion chamber, and a divergent thrust nozzle. Sometimes engines also include a region which acts as a flame holder, although the high stagnation temperatures mean that an area of focused waves may be used, rather than a discrete engine part as seen in turbine engines. Other engines use pyrophoric fuel additives, such as silane, to avoid flameout. An isolator between the inlet and combustion chamber is often included to improve the homogeneity of the flow in the combustor and to extend the operating range of the engine.


title: Scramjet

text: Shockwave imaging by the University of Maryland using Schlieren imaging determined that the fuel mixture controls compression by creating backpressure and shockwaves that slow and compress the air before ignition, much like the shock cone of a Ramjet. The imaging showed that the higher the fuel flow and combustion, the more shockwaves formed ahead of the combustor, which slowed and compressed the air before ignition.


title: Scramjet

text: A scramjet is reminiscent of a ramjet. In a typical ramjet, the supersonic inflow of the engine is decelerated at the inlet to subsonic speeds and then reaccelerated through a nozzle to supersonic speeds to produce thrust. This deceleration, which is produced by a normal shock, creates a total pressure loss which limits the upper operating point of a ramjet engine.


title: Scramjet

text: For a scramjet, the kinetic energy of the freestream air entering the scramjet engine is largely comparable to the energy released by the reaction of the oxygen content of the air with a fuel (e.g. hydrogen). Thus the heat released from combustion at Mach2.5 is around 10% of the total enthalpy of the working fluid. Depending on the fuel, the kinetic energy of the air and the potential combustion heat release will be equal at around Mach8. Thus the design of a scramjet engine is as much about minimizing drag as maximizing thrust.


title: Scramjet

text: This high speed makes the control of the flow within the combustion chamber more difficult. Since the flow is supersonic, no downstream influence propagates within the freestream of the combustion chamber. Throttling of the entrance to the thrust nozzle is not a usable control technique. In effect, a block of gas entering the combustion chamber must mix with fuel and have sufficient time for initiation and reaction, all the while traveling supersonically through the combustion chamber, before the burned gas is expanded through the thrust nozzle. This places stringent requirements on the pressure and temperature of the flow, and requires that the fuel injection and mixing be extremely efficient. Usable dynamic pressures lie in the range , where


title: Scramjet

text: To keep the combustion rate of the fuel constant, the pressure and temperature in the engine must also be constant. This is problematic because the airflow control systems that would facilitate this are not physically possible in a scramjet launch vehicle due to the large speed and altitude range involved, meaning that it must travel at an altitude specific to its speed. Because air density reduces at higher altitudes, a scramjet must climb at a specific rate as it accelerates to maintain a constant air pressure at the intake. This optimal climb/descent profile is called a "constant dynamic pressure path". It is thought that scramjets might be operable up to an altitude of 75 km.


title: Scramjet

text: Fuel injection and management is also potentially complex. One possibility would be that the fuel be pressurized to 100 bar by a turbo pump, heated by the fuselage, sent through the turbine and accelerated to higher speeds than the air by a nozzle. The air and fuel stream are crossed in a comb-like structure, which generates a large interface. Turbulence due to the higher speed of the fuel leads to additional mixing. Complex fuels like kerosene need a long engine to complete combustion.


title: Scramjet

text: The minimum Mach number at which a scramjet can operate is limited by the fact that the compressed flow must be hot enough to burn the fuel, and have pressure high enough that the reaction be finished before the air moves out the back of the engine. Additionally, to be called a scramjet, the compressed flow must still be supersonic after combustion. Here two limits must be observed: First, since when a supersonic flow is compressed it slows down, the level of compression must be low enough (or the initial speed high enough) not to slow the gas below Mach1. If the gas within a scramjet goes below Mach1 the engine will "choke", transitioning to subsonic flow in the combustion chamber. This effect is well known amongst experimenters on scramjets since the waves caused by choking are easily observable. Additionally, the sudden increase in pressure and temperature in the engine can lead to an acceleration of the combustion, leading to the combustion chamber exploding.


title: Scramjet

text: Second, the heating of the gas by combustion causes the speed of sound in the gas to increase (and the Mach number to decrease) even though the gas is still travelling at the same speed. Forcing the speed of air flow in the combustion chamber under Mach1 in this way is called "thermal choking". It is clear that a pure scramjet can operate at Mach numbers of 6–8, but in the lower limit, it depends on the definition of a scramjet. There are engine designs where a ramjet transforms into a scramjet over the Mach3–6 range, known as dual-mode scramjets. In this range however, the engine is still receiving significant thrust from subsonic combustion of the ramjet type.


title: Scramjet

text: The high cost of flight testing and the unavailability of ground facilities have hindered scramjet development. A large amount of the experimental work on scramjets has been undertaken in cryogenic facilities, direct-connect tests, or burners, each of which simulates one aspect of the engine operation. Further, vitiated facilities (with the ability to control air impurities), storage heated facilities, arc facilities and the various types of shock tunnels each have limitations which have prevented perfect simulation of scramjet operation. The HyShot flight test showed the relevance of the 1:1 simulation of conditions in the T4 and HEG shock tunnels, despite having cold models and a short test time. The NASA-CIAM tests provided similar verification for CIAM's C-16 V/K facility and the Hyper-X project is expected to provide similar verification for the Langley AHSTF, CHSTF, and HTT.


title: Scramjet

text: Computational fluid dynamics has only recently reached a position to make reasonable computations in solving scramjet operation problems. Boundary layer modeling, turbulent mixing, two-phase flow, flow separation, and real-gas aerothermodynamics continue to be problems on the cutting edge of CFD. Additionally, the modeling of kinetic-limited combustion with very fast-reacting species such as hydrogen makes severe demands on computing resources.


title: Scramjet

text: Much of scramjet experimentation remains classified. Several groups, including the US Navy with the SCRAM engine between 1968 and 1974, and the Hyper-X program with the X-43A, have claimed successful demonstrations of scramjet technology. Since these results have not been published openly, they remain unverified and a final design method of scramjet engines still does not exist.


title: Scramjet

text: The final application of a scramjet engine is likely to be in conjunction with engines which can operate outside the scramjet's operating range.


title: Scramjet

text: Dual-mode scramjets combine subsonic combustion with supersonic combustion for operation at lower speeds, and rocket-based combined cycle (RBCC) engines supplement a traditional rocket's propulsion with a scramjet, allowing for additional oxidizer to be added to the scramjet flow. RBCCs offer a possibility to extend a scramjet's operating range to higher speeds or lower intake dynamic pressures than would otherwise be possible.


title: Scramjet

text: Unlike a rocket that quickly passes mostly vertically through the atmosphere or a turbojet or ramjet that flies at much lower speeds, a hypersonic airbreathing vehicle optimally flies a "depressed trajectory", staying within the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. Because scramjets have only mediocre thrust-to-weight ratios, acceleration would be limited. Therefore, time in the atmosphere at supersonic speed would be considerable, possibly 15–30 minutes. Similar to a reentering space vehicle, heat insulation would be a formidable task, with protection required for a duration longer than that of a typical space capsule, although less than the Space Shuttle.


title: Scramjet

text: New materials offer good insulation at high temperature, but they often sacrifice themselves in the process. Therefore, studies often plan on "active cooling", where coolant circulating throughout the vehicle skin prevents it from disintegrating. Often the coolant is the fuel itself, in much the same way that modern rockets use their own fuel and oxidizer as coolant for their engines. All cooling systems add weight and complexity to a launch system. The cooling of scramjets in this way may result in greater efficiency, as heat is added to the fuel prior to entry into the engine, but results in increased complexity and weight which ultimately could outweigh any performance gains.


title: Scramjet

text: The performance of a launch system is complex and depends greatly on its weight. Normally craft are designed to maximise range (formula_2), orbital radius (formula_2) or payload mass fraction (formula_4) for a given engine and fuel. This results in tradeoffs between the efficiency of the engine (takeoff fuel weight) and the complexity of the engine (takeoff dry weight), which can be expressed by the following:


title: Scramjet

text: A scramjet increases the mass of the motor formula_9 over a rocket, and decreases the mass of the fuel formula_10. It can be difficult to decide whether this will result in an increased formula_4 (which would be an increased payload delivered to a destination for a constant vehicle takeoff weight). The logic behind efforts driving a scramjet is (for example) that the reduction in fuel decreases the total mass by 30%, while the increased engine weight adds 10% to the vehicle total mass. Unfortunately the uncertainty in the calculation of any mass or efficiency changes in a vehicle is so great that slightly different assumptions for engine efficiency or mass can provide equally good arguments for or against scramjet powered vehicles.


title: Scramjet

text: Additionally, the drag of the new configuration must be considered. The drag of the total configuration can be considered as the sum of the vehicle drag (formula_12) and the engine installation drag (formula_13). The installation drag traditionally results from the pylons and the coupled flow due to the engine jet, and is a function of the throttle setting. Thus it is often written as:


title: Scramjet

text: For an engine strongly integrated into the aerodynamic body, it may be more convenient to think of (formula_13) as the difference in drag from a known base configuration.


title: Scramjet

text: The overall engine efficiency can be represented as a value between 0 and 1 (formula_18), in terms of the specific impulse of the engine:


title: Scramjet

text: Specific impulse is often used as the unit of efficiency for rockets, since in the case of the rocket, there is a direct relation between specific impulse, specific fuel consumption and exhaust velocity. This direct relation is not generally present for airbreathing engines, and so specific impulse is less used in the literature. Note that for an airbreathing engine, both formula_18 and formula_22 are a function of velocity.


title: Scramjet

text: The specific impulse of a rocket engine is independent of velocity, and common values are between 200 and 600 seconds (450s for the space shuttle main engines). The specific impulse of a scramjet varies with velocity, reducing at higher speeds, starting at about 1200s, although values in the literature vary.


title: Scramjet

text: Where formula_2 is the range, and the calculation can be expressed in the form of the Breguet range formula:


title: Scramjet

text: A scramjet cannot produce efficient thrust unless boosted to high speed, around Mach5, although depending on the design it could act as a ramjet at low speeds. A horizontal take-off aircraft would need conventional turbofan, turbojet, or rocket engines to take off, sufficiently large to move a heavy craft. Also needed would be fuel for those engines, plus all engine-associated mounting structure and control systems. Turbofan and turbojet engines are heavy and cannot easily exceed about Mach2–3, so another propulsion method would be needed to reach scramjet operating speed. That could be ramjets or rockets. Those would also need their own separate fuel supply, structure, and systems. Many proposals instead call for a first stage of droppable solid rocket boosters, which greatly simplifies the design.


title: Scramjet

text: Unlike jet or rocket propulsion systems facilities which can be tested on the ground, testing scramjet designs uses extremely expensive hypersonic test chambers or expensive launch vehicles, both of which lead to high instrumentation costs. Tests using launched test vehicles very typically end with destruction of the test item and instrumentation.


title: Scramjet

text: An advantage of a hypersonic airbreathing (typically scramjet) vehicle like the X-30 is avoiding or at least reducing the need for carrying oxidizer. For example, the Space Shuttle external tank held 616,432.2 kg of liquid oxygen (LOX) and 103,000 kg of liquid hydrogen (LH) while having an empty weight of 30,000 kg. The orbiter gross weight was 109,000 kg with a maximum payload of about 25,000 kg and to get the assembly off the launch pad the shuttle used two very powerful solid rocket boosters with a weight of 590,000 kg each. If the oxygen could be eliminated, the vehicle could be lighter at liftoff and possibly carry more payload.


title: Scramjet

text: On the other hand, scramjets spend more time in the atmosphere and require more hydrogen fuel to deal with aerodynamic drag. Whereas liquid oxygen is quite a dense fluid (1141 kg/m), liquid hydrogen has much lower density (70.85 kg/m) and takes up more volume. This means that the vehicle using this fuel becomes much bigger and gives more drag. Other fuels have more comparable density, such as RP-1 (810 kg/m) JP-7 (density at 15 °C 779–806 kg/m) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) (793.00 kg/m).


title: Scramjet

text: One issue is that scramjet engines are predicted to have exceptionally poor thrust-to-weight ratio of around 2, when installed in a launch vehicle. A rocket has the advantage that its engines have "very" high thrust-weight ratios (~100:1), while the tank to hold the liquid oxygen approaches a volume ratio of ~100:1 also. Thus a rocket can achieve a very high mass fraction, which improves performance. By way of contrast the projected thrust/weight ratio of scramjet engines of about 2 mean a much larger percentage of the takeoff mass is engine (ignoring that this fraction increases anyway by a factor of about four due to the lack of onboard oxidiser). In addition the vehicle's lower thrust does not necessarily avoid the need for the expensive, bulky, and failure-prone high performance turbopumps found in conventional liquid-fuelled rocket engines, since most scramjet designs seem to be incapable of orbital speeds in airbreathing mode, and hence extra rocket engines are needed.


title: Scramjet

text: Scramjets might be able to accelerate from approximately Mach5–7 to around somewhere between half of orbital speed and orbital speed (X-30 research suggested that Mach17 might be the limit compared to an orbital speed of Mach25, and other studies put the upper speed limit for a pure scramjet engine between Mach10 and 25, depending on the assumptions made). Generally, another propulsion system (very typically, a rocket is proposed) is expected to be needed for the final acceleration into orbit. Since the delta-V is moderate and the payload fraction of scramjets high, lower performance rockets such as solids, hypergolics, or simple liquid fueled boosters might be acceptable.


title: Scramjet

text: Theoretical projections place the top speed of a scramjet between and . For comparison, the orbital speed at low Earth orbit is .


title: Scramjet

text: The scramjet's heat-resistant underside potentially doubles as its reentry system if a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle using non-ablative, non-active cooling is visualised. If an ablative shielding is used on the engine it will probably not be usable after ascent to orbit. If active cooling is used with the fuel as coolant, the loss of all fuel during the burn to orbit will also mean the loss of all cooling for the thermal protection system.


title: Scramjet

text: Reducing the amount of fuel and oxidizer does not necessarily improve costs as rocket propellants are comparatively very cheap. Indeed, the unit cost of the vehicle can be expected to end up far higher, since aerospace hardware cost is about two orders of magnitude higher than liquid oxygen, fuel and tankage, and scramjet hardware seems to be much heavier than rockets for any given payload. Still, if scramjets enable reusable vehicles, this could theoretically be a cost benefit. Whether equipment subject to the extreme conditions of a scramjet can be reused sufficiently many times is unclear; all flown scramjet tests only survive for short periods and have never been designed to survive a flight to date.


title: Scramjet

text: The eventual cost of such a vehicle is the subject of intense debate since even the best estimates disagree whether a scramjet vehicle would be advantageous. It is likely that a scramjet vehicle would need to lift more load than a rocket of equal takeoff weight to be equally as cost efficient (if the scramjet is a non-reusable vehicle).


title: Scramjet

text: Space launch vehicles may or may not benefit from having a scramjet stage. A scramjet stage of a launch vehicle theoretically provides a specific impulse of 1000 to 4000s whereas a rocket provides less than 450s while in the atmosphere. A scramjet's specific impulse decreases rapidly with speed, however, and the vehicle would suffer from a relatively low lift to drag ratio.


title: Scramjet

text: The installed thrust to weight ratio of scramjets compares very unfavorably with the 50–100 of a typical rocket engine. This is compensated for in scramjets partly because the weight of the vehicle would be carried by aerodynamic lift rather than pure rocket power (giving reduced 'gravity losses'), but scramjets would take much longer to get to orbit due to lower thrust which greatly offsets the advantage. The takeoff weight of a scramjet vehicle is significantly reduced over that of a rocket, due to the lack of onboard oxidiser, but increased by the structural requirements of the larger and heavier engines.


title: Scramjet

text: An aircraft using this type of jet engine could dramatically reduce the time it takes to travel from one place to another, potentially putting any place on Earth within a 90-minute flight. However, there are questions about whether such a vehicle could carry enough fuel to make useful length trips. In addition, some countries ban or penalize airliners and other civil aircraft that create sonic booms. (For example, in the United States, FAA regulations prohibit supersonic flights over land, by civil aircraft.


title: Scramjet

text: Scramjet vehicle has been proposed for a single stage to tether vehicle, where a Mach12 spinning orbital tether would pick up a payload from a vehicle at around 100 km and carry it to orbit.


title: Shoresy

text: Shoresy is a Canadian television comedy series created by and starring Jared Keeso that premiered on Crave on May 13, 2022. A spinoff of "Letterkenny", the series focuses on the titular character of Shoresy (Keeso) as he moves to Sudbury to take a role with a struggling Triple A-level ice hockey team, the Sudbury Bulldogs.


title: Shoresy

text: After losing 20 straight games and running dead last in the four-team Triple A-level Northern Ontario Senior Hockey Organization (NOSHO), the Sudbury Bulldogs are faced with being completely shut down. Veteran player Shore ("Shoresy") in an attempt to save the team makes a bet with team general manager Nat that the team will never lose again if he's given a chance to take control. With the help of new coach Sanguinet, a roster of new players, and the dissolution of the team on the line, Shoresy sets out to prove that the Bulldogs can play as a team, get bums in seats, and make a name for themselves.


title: Shoresy

text: Shoresy is played by Jared Keeso, but within "Letterkenny" he is only seen in contexts that obscured his face as Keeso simultaneously plays the leading role of Wayne. Justin Stockman of Bell Media explained the decision to proceed with a Shoresy spinoff by noting that he is one of the most popular characters in "Letterkenny" merchandising, and acknowledging the creative potential involved in building on the story of a character about whom very little is known in the original show.


title: Shoresy

text: Production on the series launched in November 2021 in Sudbury. Production locations have included the Sudbury Arena.


title: Shoresy

text: During the tenth-season "Letterkenny" episode "VidVok", Tanis explains to Wayne that she managed to get Shore a position on the Sudbury Bulldogs and will be moving soon, setting up the "Shoresy" series. The show's first teaser trailer was released in February 2022.


title: Shoresy

text: Like "Letterkenny", the show has received praise for its efforts to include fully rounded and nuanced portrayals of its First Nations characters, which was accomplished in part by including actress Kaniehtiio Horn, who plays Tanis in the original "Letterkenny", as a producer tasked in part with ensuring that the indigenous characters were written and portrayed realistically. The series has also received positive notice for inverting the stereotypical gender dynamics in hockey by placing women in power positions as the team's manager, her two assistants and the sports journalist who covers the team for the "Sudbury Star", noting that in "Letterkenny" "Part of the secret ... is that although the men seem to be the focal point of the story and the women seem to be objectified in endless slo-mo walk-ups, the men are all trapped in different stages of arrested development and the women are truly in charge."


title: Shoresy

text: In advance of the series premiere, John Doyle of "The Globe and Mail" praised the show, writing that "In the spirit of "Letterkenny", the humour is funny, mad, droll, childish and spiky. Full of salty Canadian vernacular, it soars. There are more visual jokes than you might find in the average episode of "Letterkenny", but the flavour is the familiar tone of boldly irreverent, and it is sometimes slashing satire with more puns than you can count. In an expected but delightful way, "Shoresy" is "Letterkenny" refreshed. Who knew that a series which opened some years ago with the line, 'A coupla hockey players came up the lane way the other day,' could eventually unleash this great spinoff."


title: Shoresy

text: Daniel Fienberg of "The Hollywood Reporter" described the series as essentially an updated version of the 1977 film "Slap Shot", praising it both for humanizing Shoresy and for placing women and First Nations characters in positions of strength.


title: Shoresy

text: Michael Hollett of "NEXT Magazine" wrote that "Shoresy" is "a fastpaced show with a more linear narrative and explicit plot than "Letterkenny"", and praised it for lacking the stiffness and awkwardness that often plagues television series about hockey.


title: Bougainvillea

text: Bougainvillea ( , ) is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees belonging to the four o' clock family, Nyctaginaceae. It is native to eastern South America, found from Brazil, west to Peru, and south to southern Argentina. Different authors accept from 4 to 22 species in the genus. The inflorescence consists of large colourful sepal-like bracts which surround three simple waxy flowers, gaining popularity for the plant as an ornamental.


title: Bougainvillea

text: The species grow tall, scrambling over other plants with their spiky thorns. They are evergreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is a dry season. The leaves are alternate, simple ovate-acuminate, 4–13 cm long and 2–6 cm broad. The actual flower of the plant is small and generally white, but each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts with the bright colours associated with the plant, including pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow. "Bougainvillea glabra" is sometimes called "paper flower" because its bracts are thin and papery. The fruit is a narrow five-lobed achene.


title: Bougainvillea

text: The first European to describe these plants was Philibert Commerçon, a botanist accompanying French Navy admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his voyage of circumnavigation of the Earth, and first published by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789. It is possible that the first European to observe these plants was Jeanne Baret, Commerçon's lover and assistant, who was an expert in botany. Because she was not allowed on ship as a woman, she disguised herself as a man in order to make the journey (and thus became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe).


title: Bougainvillea

text: Twenty years after Commerçon's description, it was first published as 'Buginvillæa' in Genera Plantarum by A. L. de Jussieu in 1789. The genus was subsequently spelled in several ways until it was finally established as ""Bougainvillea"" in the Index Kewensis in the 1930s. Originally, "B. spectabilis" and "B. glabra" were undifferentiated until the mid-1980s when botanists classified them as distinct species. In the early 19th century, these two species were the first to be introduced into Europe, and soon, nurseries in France and Britain sold these varieties in Australia and throughout their former colonies. Meanwhile, Kew Gardens distributed plants it had propagated to British colonies throughout the world. Soon thereafter, a crimson specimen in Cartagena, Colombia was added to the genus descriptions. Originally thought to be a distinct species, it was named "B. buttiana" in honour of the European who first encountered it. However, later studies classified it as a natural hybrid of a variety of "B. glabra" and possibly "B. peruviana" - a "local pink bougainvillea" from Peru. Natural hybrids were soon found to be common occurrences all over the world. For instance, around the 1930s, when the three species were grown together, many hybrid crosses were produced almost spontaneously in East Africa, India, the Canary Islands, Australia, North America, and the Philippines.


title: Bougainvillea

text: Bougainvillea are popular ornamental plants in most areas with warm climates, such as Florida, South Carolina, California, and across the Mediterranean Basin.


title: Bougainvillea

text: Although it is frost-sensitive and hardy in USDA Hardiness Zones 9b and 10, bougainvillea can be used as a houseplant or hanging basket in cooler climates. In the landscape, it makes an excellent hot season plant, and its drought tolerance makes it ideal for warm climates year-round. Its high salt tolerance makes it a natural choice for colour in coastal regions. It can be pruned into a standard, but is also grown along fence lines, on walls, in containers and hanging baskets, and as a hedge or an accent plant. Its long arching thorny branches bear heart-shaped leaves and masses of papery bracts in white, pink, orange, purple, and burgundy. Many cultivars, including double-flowered and variegated, are available.


title: Bougainvillea

text: Many of today's bougainvillea are the result of interbreeding among only three out of the eighteen South American species recognised by botanists. Currently, there are over 300 varieties of bougainvillea around the world. Because many of the hybrids have been crossed over several generations, it is difficult to identify their respective origins. Natural mutations seem to occur spontaneously throughout the world; wherever large numbers of plants are being produced, bud-sports will occur. This had led to multiple names for the same cultivar (or variety) and has added to the confusion over the names of bougainvillea cultivars.


title: Bougainvillea

text: The growth rate of bougainvillea varies from slow to rapid, depending on the variety. They tend to flower all year round in equatorial regions. Elsewhere, they are seasonal, with bloom cycles typically four to six weeks. Bougainvillea grow best in dry soil, in very bright full sun and with frequent fertilisation; but they require little water once established, and in fact will not flourish if over-watered. They can be easily propagated via tip cuttings.


title: Bougainvillea

text: "Bougainvillea" is also a very attractive genus for Bonsai enthusiasts, due to their ease of training and their radiant flowering during the spring. They can be kept as indoor houseplants in temperate regions and kept small by bonsai techniques.


title: Bougainvillea

text: "B." × "buttiana" is a garden hybrid of "B. glabra" and "B. peruviana". It has produced numerous garden-worthy cultivars.


title: Bougainvillea

text: The cultivars 'San Diego Red' and 'Mary Palmer's Enchantment' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


title: Bougainvillea

text: Bougainvillea are relatively pest-free plants, but they may be susceptible to worms, snails and aphids. The larvae of some Lepidoptera species also use them as food plants, for example the giant leopard moth ("Hypercompe scribonia").


title: Bougainvillea

text: Various species of "Bougainvillea" are the official flowers of Guam (where it is known as the "Puti Tai Nobiu"); Lienchiang and Pingtung Counties in Taiwan; Ipoh, Malaysia; the cities of Tagbilaran, Philippines; Camarillo, California; Laguna Niguel, California; San Clemente, California; the cities of Shenzhen, Huizhou, Zhuhai, and Jiangmen in Guangdong Province, China; Xiamen, Fujian and Naha, Okinawa. Is also the national flower in Grenada.


title: Bougainvillea

text: Native to South America, bougainvillea carry several names in the different regions where they are present. Apart from Rioplatense Spanish "santa-rita", Colombian Spanish "veranera", Peruvian Spanish "papelillo", it may be variously named "primavera", "três-marias", "sempre-lustrosa", "santa-rita", "ceboleiro", "roseiro", "roseta", "riso", "pataguinha", "pau-de-roseira" and "flor-de-papel" in Brazilian Portuguese. Nevertheless, in Portuguese and in Spanish are the most common names accepted by people of the regions where these languages are spoken but it is an introduced plant.


title: Bougainvillea

text: As of 2010, "Bougainvillea" is generally placed in the "Bougainvilleeae" subtribe (containing 3 genera) of the "Nyctaginaceae" tribe with "Pisonieae" being a sister subtribe (containing 4 genera):


title: Clove

text: Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, such as toothpaste, soaps, or cosmetics. Cloves are available throughout the year owing to different harvest seasons across various countries.


title: Clove

text: The word "clove", first used in English in the 15th century, derives via Middle English "clow of gilofer", Anglo-French "clowes de gilofre" and Old French "clou de girofle", from the Latin word "clavus" "nail". The related English word "gillyflower", originally meaning "clove", derives via said Old French "girofle" and Latin "caryophyllon", from the Greek "karyophyllon" "clove", literally "nut leaf".


title: Clove

text: The clove tree is an evergreen that grows up to tall, with large leaves and crimson flowers grouped in terminal clusters. The flower buds initially have a pale hue, gradually turn green, then transition to a bright red when ready for harvest. Cloves are harvested at long, and consist of a long calyx that terminates in four spreading sepals, and four unopened petals that form a small central ball.


title: Clove

text: Cloves are used in the cuisine of Asian, African, Mediterranean, and the Near and Middle East countries, lending flavor to meats (such as baked ham), curries, and marinades, as well as fruit (such as apples, pears, and rhubarb). Cloves may be used to give aromatic and flavor qualities to hot beverages, often combined with other ingredients such as lemon and sugar. They are a common element in spice blends, including pumpkin pie spice and speculaas spices.


title: Clove

text: In Mexican cuisine, cloves are best known as "clavos de olor", and often accompany cumin and cinnamon. They are also used in Peruvian cuisine, in a wide variety of dishes such as "carapulcra" and "arroz con leche".


title: Clove

text: A major component of clove taste is imparted by the chemical eugenol, and the quantity of the spice required is typically small. It pairs well with cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, red wine, basil, onion, citrus peel, star anise, and peppercorns.


title: Clove

text: The spice is used in a type of cigarette called "kretek" in Indonesia. Clove cigarettes were smoked throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Clove cigarettes are currently classified in the United States as cigars, the result of a ban of flavored cigarettes in September 2009.


title: Clove

text: Clove essential oil may be used to inhibit mold growth on various types of foods. In addition to these non-culinary uses of clove, it can be used to protect wood in a system for cultural heritage conservation, and showed the efficacy of clove essential oil to be higher than a boron based wood preservative. Cloves can be used to make a fragrant pomander when combined with an orange. When given as a gift in Victorian England, such a pomander indicated warmth of feeling.


title: Clove

text: Use of clove for any medicinal purpose has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, and its use may cause adverse effects if taken orally by people with liver disease, blood clotting and immune system disorders, or food allergies.


title: Clove

text: Cloves are used in traditional medicine as the essential oil, which is used as an anodyne (analgesic) mainly for dental emergencies and other disorders. There is evidence that clove oil containing eugenol is effective for toothache pain and other types of pain, and one review reported efficacy of eugenol combined with zinc oxide as an analgesic for alveolar osteitis. Clove essential oil may prevent the growth of Enterococcus faecalis bacteria which is often present in a root canal treatment failure.


title: Clove

text: Studies to determine its effectiveness for fever reduction, as a mosquito repellent, and to prevent premature ejaculation have been inconclusive. It remains unproven whether blood sugar levels are reduced by cloves or clove oil. The essential oil may be used in aromatherapy.


title: Clove

text: "Clove stalks" are slender stems of the inflorescence axis that show opposite decussate branching. Externally, they are brownish, rough, and irregularly wrinkled longitudinally with short fracture and dry, woody texture. "Mother cloves (anthophylli)" are the ripe fruits of cloves that are ovoid, brown berries, unilocular and one-seeded.


title: Clove

text: "Blown cloves" are expanded flowers from which both corollae and stamens have been detached. "Exhausted cloves" have most or all the oil removed by distillation. They yield no oil and are darker in color.


title: Clove

text: Until the colonial era, cloves only grew on a few islands in the Moluccas (historically called the Spice Islands), including Bacan, Makian, Moti, Ternate, and Tidore. One clove tree named "Afo" that experts believe is the oldest in the world on Ternate may be 350–400 years old.


title: Clove

text: Cloves were first traded by the Austronesian peoples in the Austronesian maritime trade network (which began at around 1500 BC, later becoming the Maritime Silk Road and part of the Spice Trade). The first notable example of modern clove farming developed on the east coast of Madagascar, and is cultivated in three separate ways, a monoculture, agricultural parklands, and agroforestry systems.


title: Clove

text: Archaeologist Giorgio Buccellati found cloves in Terqa, Syria, in a burned-down house which was dated to 1720 BC. This was the first evidence of cloves being used in the west before Roman times. The discovery was first reported in 1978. They reached Rome by the first century AD.


title: Clove

text: Another archeological find of a clove is represented by two examples found at a trading port in Sri Lanka, dated to around 900–1100 AD. From Chinese records during the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279 AD), cloves were primarily exported from the Moluccas by ships originating from the Austronesian polities of Java, Srivijaya, Champa, and Butuan.


title: Clove

text: Cloves were also present in records in China, Sri Lanka, Southern India, Persia, and Oman by around the third century to second century BC. These mentions of "cloves" reported in China, South Asia, and the Middle East come from before the establishment of Southeast Asian maritime trade. But all of these are misidentifications that referred to other plants (like cassia buds, cinnamon, or nutmeg); or are imports from Maritime Southeast Asia mistakenly identified as being natively produced in these regions.


title: Clove

text: During the colonial era, cloves were traded like oil, with an enforced limit on exportation. As the Dutch East India Company consolidated its control of the spice trade in the 17th century, they sought to gain a monopoly in cloves as they had in nutmeg. However, "unlike nutmeg and mace, which were limited to the minute Bandas, clove trees grew all over the Moluccas, and the trade in cloves was beyond the limited policing powers of the corporation." Tourists are told that seedlings from this very tree were stolen by a Frenchman named Pierre Poivre in 1770, transferred to the Isle de France (Mauritius), and then later to Zanzibar, which was once the world's largest producer of cloves.


title: Clove

text: Current leaders in clove production are Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, and Comoros. Indonesia is the largest clove producer, but only export a small portion of the cloves they produce, which amounts to around 10-15% of the country's clove production. They oftentimes have to import cloves from Madagascar to meet their needs.


title: Clove

text: Eugenol comprises 72–90% of the essential oil extracted from cloves, and is the compound most responsible for clove aroma. Complete extraction occurs at 80 minutes in pressurized water at . Ultrasound-assisted and microwave-assisted extraction methods provide more rapid extraction rates with lower energy costs.


title: Clove

text: Other phytochemicals of clove oil include acetyl eugenol, beta-caryophyllene, vanillin, crategolic acid, tannins, such as bicornin, gallotannic acid, methyl salicylate, the flavonoids eugenin, kaempferol, rhamnetin, and eugenitin, triterpenoids such as oleanolic acid, stigmasterol, and campesterol and several sesquiterpenes. Although eugenol has not been classified for its potential toxicity, it was shown to be toxic to test organisms in concentrations of 50, 75, and 100 mg per liter.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: He was the son of King Gorm the Old and of Thyra Dannebod. Harald ruled as king of Denmark from c. 958 – c. 986. Harald introduced Christianity to Denmark and consolidated his rule over most of Jutland and Zealand. Harald's rule as king of Norway following the assassination of King Harald Greycloak of Norway was more tenuous, most likely lasting for no more than a few years in the 970s. Some sources say his son Sweyn Forkbeard forcibly deposed him from his Danish throne before his death.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: Harald's name is written as runic "haraltr : kunukʀ" (ᚼᛅᚱᛅᛚᛏᚱ ᛬ ᚴᚢᚾᚢᚴᛦ) in the Jelling stone inscription. In normalized Old Norse, this would correspond to "Haraldr konungr", i.e. "Harald king". The Latinized name as given in the medieval Danish chronicles is "Haraldus Gormonis filius" (Harald, Gorm's son).


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: The given name "Haraldr" (also "Haralldr") is the equivalent of Old English "Hereweald", Old High German "Heriwald", from "hari" "army" and "wald-" "rule".


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: Harald's name is also inscribed on the so-called Curmsun disc, rediscovered in 2014 (but part of a Viking hoard previously discovered in 1841 in the crypt of the Groß-Weckow village church in Pomerania, close to the Viking Age stronghold of Jomsborg), as "+ARALD CVRMSVN + REX AD TANER + SCON + JVMN + CIV ALDIN", i.e. "Harald Gormson, king of Danes, Scania, Jumne, [in] ".


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: The first documented appearance of Harald's nickname "Bluetooth" (as "blatan"; Old Norse "*blátǫnn") is in the "Chronicon Roskildense" (written ca. 1140), alongside the alternative nickname "Clac Harald". "Clac Harald" appears to be a conflation of Harald Bluetooth with the legendary or semi-legendary Harald Klak, son of Halfdan. The byname is given as "Blachtent" and explicitly glossed as "bluish or black tooth" ("dens lividus vel niger") in a chronicle of the late 12th century, "Wilhelmi abbatis regum Danorum genealogia". The traditional explanation is that Harald must have had a conspicuous bad tooth that appeared "blue" (i.e. "black", as "blár" "blue" meant "blue-black", or "dark-coloured").


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: Another explanation, proposed by (1997), is that he was called "blue thane" (or "dark thane") in England (with Anglo-Saxon "thegn" corrupted to "tan" when the name came back into Old Norse).


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: During his reign, Harald oversaw the reconstruction of the Jelling runic stones, and numerous other public works. The most famous is fortifying the fortress of Aros (nowadays Aarhus) which was situated in a central position in his kingdom in the year 979. Some believe these projects were a way for him to consolidate economic and military control of his country and the main city. Ring forts were built in five strategic locations with Aarhus perfectly in the middle: Trelleborg on Zealand, Borrering in eastern Zealand (the inner construction of this fort is still yet to be established), Nonnebakken on Funen, Fyrkat in Himmerland (northern Jutland) and Aggersborg near Limfjord. All five fortresses had similar designs: ""perfectly circular with gates opening to the four corners of the earth, and a courtyard divided into four areas which held large houses set in a square pattern."" A sixth "Trelleborg" of similar design, located at Borgeby, in Scania, has been dated to about 1000 and may have been built by King Harald and a second fort named Trelleborg is located near the modern town of Trelleborg in Scania in present-day Sweden, but is of older date and thus pre-dates the reign of Harald Bluetooth.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: He constructed the oldest known bridge in southern Scandinavia, the wide and long Ravning Bridge at Ravning meadows.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: While quiet prevailed throughout the interior, he turned his energies to foreign enterprises. He came to the help of Richard the Fearless of Normandy in 945 and 963, while his son conquered Samland, and after the assassination of King Harald Greycloak of Norway, managed to force the people of that country into temporary subjugation to himself.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: The Norse sagas present Harald in a rather negative light. He was forced twice to submit to the renegade Swedish prince Styrbjörn the Strong of the Jomsvikings- first by giving Styrbjörn a fleet and his daughter Thyra, the second time by giving up himself as hostage, along with yet another fleet. When Styrbjörn brought this fleet to Uppsala to claim the throne of Sweden, Harald broke his oath and fled with his Danes to avoid facing the Swedish army at the Battle of Fýrisvellir.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: In the wake of Otto I's death, Harald attacked Saxony in 973. Otto II counter-attacked Harald in 974, conquering Haithabu, Dannevirke and possibly large parts of Jutland. Harald regained some of the seized territory in 983 when Otto II was defeated by the Saracens.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: As a consequence of Harald's army having lost to the Germans at the Danevirke in 974, he no longer had control of Norway, and Germans settled back into the border area between Scandinavia and Germany. They were driven out of Denmark in 983 by an alliance of Obodrite soldiers and troops loyal to Harald, but soon after, Harald was killed fighting off a rebellion led by his son Sweyn. He is believed to have died in 986, although several accounts claim 985 as his year of death. According to Adam of Bremen he died in Jumne/Jomsborg from his wounds. His body was brought back to the Trinity Church in Roskilde where he was buried.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: The Curmsun Disc, found in Groß-Weckow, Pomerania, (after 1945 Wiejkowo) is inscribed with "ARALD CVRMSVN" (Harald Gormson), calling him, in abbreviated Latin, "king of Danes, Scania, Jomsborg, town of Aldinburg". Based on this, Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn has proposed that Harald is buried at the church there, close to Jomsborg, in what is now Poland.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: From 1835 to 1977, it was wrongly believed that Harald ordered the death of the Haraldskær Woman, a bog body previously thought to be Gunnhild, Mother of Kings until radiocarbon dating proved otherwise.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: The Hiddensee treasure, a large trove of gold objects, was found in 1873 on the German island of Hiddensee in the Baltic Sea. It is believed that these objects belonged to Harald's family.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: King Harald Bluetooth's conversion to Christianity is a contested bit of history, not least because medieval writers such as Widukind of Corvey and Adam of Bremen give conflicting accounts of how it came about.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: Widukind of Corvey, writing during the lives of King Harald and Otto I (ruled 962 – 973), claims that Harald was converted by a "cleric by the name of Poppa" who, when asked by Harald to prove his faith in Christ, carried a "great weight" of iron heated by a fire without being burned. According to 12th-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in his work "Gesta Danorum", Poppo performed his miracle for Harald's son Sweyn Forkbeard after Sweyn had second thoughts about his own baptism. Harald himself converted to Catholicism after a peace agreement with the Holy Roman Emperor (either Otto I or II).


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: Adam of Bremen, writing 100 years after King Harald's death in "History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen", finished in 1076, describes Harald being forcibly converted by Otto I, after a defeat in battle. However, Widukind does not mention such an event in his contemporary "Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres" or "Deeds of the Saxons". Some 250 years after the event, the "Heimskringla" relates that Harald was converted with Earl Haakon, by Otto II (ruled 973 – 983).


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: A cleric named Poppa, perhaps the same one, also appears in Adam of Bremen's history, but in connection with Eric of Sweden, who had supposedly conquered Denmark (the fact that Eric conquered Denmark during the realm of Sweyn Forkbeard is explained by Saxo as a punishment of Sweyn's apostasy). The story of this otherwise unknown Poppo or Poppa's miracle and baptism of Harald is also depicted on the gilded altar piece in the Church of Tamdrup in Denmark (see image at top of this article). The altar itself dates to about 1200. Adam of Bremen's claim regarding Otto I and Harald appears to have been inspired by an attempt to manufacture a historical reason for the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen to claim jurisdiction over Denmark (and thus the rest of Scandinavia); in the 1070s, the Danish king was in Rome asking for Denmark to have its own arch-bishop, and Adam's account of Harald's supposed conversion (and baptism of both him and his "little son" Sweyn, with Otto serving as Sweyn's godfather) is followed by the unambiguous claim that "At that time Denmark on this side of the sea, which is called Jutland by the inhabitants, was divided into three dioceses and subjected to the bishopric of Hamburg."


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: As noted above, Harald's father, Gorm the Old, had died in 958, and had been buried in a mound with many goods, after the pagan practice. The mound itself was from c. 500 BCE, but Harald had it built higher over his father's grave, and added a second mound to the south. Mound-building was a newly revived custom in the 10th century, perceivably as an "appeal to old traditions in the face of Christian customs spreading from Denmark's southern neighbors, the Germans."


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: After his conversion, around the 960s, Harald had his father's body reburied in the church next to the now empty mound.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: He had the Jelling stones erected to honour his parents. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" considers the runic inscriptions as the best-known in Denmark. The biography of Harald Bluetooth is summed up by this runic inscription from the Jelling stones:


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: Harald undoubtedly professed Christianity at that time and contributed to its growth, but with limited success in Denmark and Norway.


title: Harald Bluetooth

text: The Bluetooth wireless specification design was named after the king in 1997, based on an analogy that the technology would unite devices the way Harald Bluetooth united the tribes of Denmark into a single kingdom. The Bluetooth logoconsists of a Younger Futhark bind rune for his initials, H (ᚼ) and B (ᛒ).


title: Azim Premji

text: Azim Hashim Premji (born 24 July 1945) is an Indian businessman, investor, engineer, and philanthropist, who was the chairman of Wipro Limited. Premji remains a non-executive member of the board and founder chairman. He is informally known as the Czar of the Indian IT Industry. He was responsible for guiding Wipro through four decades of diversification and growth, to finally emerge as one of the global leaders in the software industry. In 2010, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by "Asiaweek". He has twice been listed among the 100 most influential people by "Time" magazine, once in 2004 and more recently in 2011. For years, he has been regularly listed one among "The 500 Most Influential Muslims". He also serves as the Chancellor of Azim Premji University, Bangalore. Permji is awarded Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civillian award, by the Government of India.


title: Azim Premji

text: He is one of the richest people in India with an estimated net worth of US$32.8 billion according to "Bloomberg Billionaires Index". In 2013, he agreed to give away at least half of his wealth by signing the Giving Pledge. Premji started with a $2.2 billion donation to the Azim Premji Foundation, focused on education in India. He topped the "EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List" for 2020. In 2019, he dropped from the 2nd position in the Forbes India Rich list to 17th position after giving away a huge amount to charity.


title: Azim Premji

text: Premji was born in Bombay, India in a Gujarati Muslim family. His father was a noted businessman and was known as "Rice King of Burma". Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, invited his father Muhammed Hashim Premji to come to Pakistan, he turned down the request and chose to remain in India.


title: Azim Premji

text: Premji has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from Stanford University. He is married to Yasmeen Premji. The couple have two children, Rishad and Tariq. Rishad Premji is currently the chief strategy officer of IT business, Wipro.


title: Azim Premji

text: In 1945, Muhammed Hashim Premji incorporated Western Indian Vegetable Products Ltd, based at Amalner, a small town in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra. It used to manufacture cooking oil under the brand name Sunflower Vanaspati, and a laundry soap called 787, a byproduct of oil manufacture. In 1966, on the news of his father's death, the then 21-year-old Azim Premji returned home from Stanford University, where he was studying engineering, to take charge of Wipro. The company, which was called Western Indian Vegetable Products at the time, dealt in hydrogenated oil manufacturing but Azim Premji later diversified the company to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products, and hydraulic cylinders. In the 1980s, the young entrepreneur, recognising the importance of the emerging IT field, took advantage of the vacuum left behind by the expulsion of IBM from India, changed the company name to "Wipro" and entered the high-technology sector by manufacturing minicomputers in technological collaboration with an American company Sentinel Computer Corporation. Thereafter, Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software.


title: Azim Premji

text: Premji has said that being rich "did not thrill" him. He became the first Indian to sign up for the Giving Pledge, a campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, to encourage the wealthiest people to make a commitment to give most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He is the third non-American after Richard Branson and David Sainsbury to join this club.


title: Azim Premji

text: In April 2013 he said that he has already given more than 25 per cent of his personal wealth to charity.


title: Azim Premji

text: In July 2015, he gave away an additional 18% of his stake in Wipro, taking his total contribution so far to 39%.


title: Azim Premji

text: The first Indian to sign the Giving Pledge, his lifetime giving now stands at US$21 billion. In April 2019, Azim Premji became the top Indian philanthropist.


title: Azim Premji

text: Azim Premji topped the list of "India's most generous" released by Hurun India and EdelGive on 10 November 2020. He donated ₹79.04 billion in financial year 2019–20 which is a 17-fold jump from the ₹4.53 billion donated in FY19. Education is the primary cause for his donations. He retained his position in FY21 by donating ₹9,713 crore (US$1.33 billion).


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Swinging, sometimes called wife-swapping, husband-swapping, or partner-swapping, is a sexual activity in which both singles and partners in a committed relationship sexually engage with others for recreational purposes. Swinging is a form of non-monogamy and is an open relationship. People may choose a swinging lifestyle for a variety of reasons. Practitioners cite an increased quality and quantity of sex. Some people may engage in swinging to add variety into their otherwise conventional sex-lives or due to their curiosity. Some couples see swinging as a healthy outlet and means to strengthen their relationship.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: The phenomenon of swinging, or its wider discussion and practice, is regarded by some as arising from the freer attitudes to sexual activity after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the invention and availability of the contraceptive pill, and the emergence of treatments for many of the sexually transmitted diseases that were known at that time. The adoption of safe sex practices became more common in the late 1980s. It is also a recurring theme in pornography.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: The swingers community sometimes refers to itself as "the lifestyle", or as "the alternative lifestyle".


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: John Stossel produced an investigative news report into the swinging lifestyle. Stossel's report in 2005 cited Terry Gould's research, which concluded that "couples swing in order to not cheat on their partners". When Stossel asked swinging couples whether they worry their spouse will "find they like someone else better," one male replied, "People in the swinging community swing for a reason. They don't swing to go out and find a new wife;" a woman asserted, "It makes women more confident – that they are the ones in charge." Stossel interviewed 12 marriage counselors. According to Stossel, "not one of them said don't do it," though some said "getting sexual thrills outside of marriage can threaten a marriage". Swingers whom Stossel interviewed said "their marriages are stronger because they don't have affairs and they don't lie to each other."


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Swinging can take place in a number of contexts, ranging from spontaneous sexual activity involving partner swapping or adding a third or more participants at an informal gathering of friends to planned regular social meetings to "hooking up" with like-minded people at a sex club (also known as a swinger club, not to be confused with a strip club). Different clubs offer varied facilities and atmospheres, and often hold "theme" nights.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Swinging is also known to take place in semi-public venues such as hotels, resorts, or cruise ships, or often in private homes. Furthermore, many websites that cater to swinging couples now exist, some boasting hundreds of thousands of members.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: In 2018, a study of the prevalence of non-monogamous practices in the United States estimated that 2.35% of Americans currently self-identify as swingers and 4.76% had identified as swingers at some point in their lifetime.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Research on swinging has been conducted in the United States since the late 1960s. One 2000 study, based on an Internet questionnaire addressed to visitors of swinger-related sites, found swingers reported happiness is higher in their relationships than the norm-reported-happiness.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: 60% said that swinging improved their relationship; 1.7% said swinging made their relationship less happy. Approximately 50% of those who rated their relationship "very happy" before becoming swingers maintained their relationship had become happier. 90% of those with less happy relationships said swinging improved them. Almost 70% of swingers claimed no problem with jealousy; approximately 25% admitted "I have difficulty controlling jealousy when swinging" as "somewhat true", while 6% said this was "yes, very much" true. Swingers rate themselves happier ("very happy": 59% of swingers compared to 32% of non-swingers) and their lives more "exciting" (76% of swingers compared to 54% of non-swingers) than non-swingers, by significantly large margins. There was no significant difference between responses of men and women, although more males (70%) than females completed the survey. This study, which only polled self-identified swingers, is of limited use to a broader application to the rest of society (external validity) owing to self-selected sampling.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Some believe sexual attraction is part of human nature and should be openly enjoyed by a committed or married couple. Some swingers cite divorce-data in the US, claiming the lack of quality of sex and spousal infidelity are significant factors in divorce. One study showed 37% of husbands and 29% of wives admit at least one extramarital affair (Reinisch, 1990), and divorce-rates for first marriages approached 60%.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Swingers are exposed to the same types of risks as people who engage in casual sex, with the main concerns being the risk of pregnancy or contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Some swingers engage in unprotected sex, a practice known as barebacking, while others follow safe sex practices and will not engage with others who do not also practice safe sex. In most swingers' clubs, condoms are freely available and sometimes the club may require their use. Swingers may reduce the risk of STI by exchanging STI test results and serosorting. Proponents of swinging argue that safe sex is accepted within the swinging community and the risk of sexual disease is the same for them as for the general population – and that some populations of sexually non-monogamous people have clearly lower rates of STIs than the general population. Opponents are also concerned about the risk of pregnancy and STIs such as HIV, arguing that even protected sex is risky given that some STIs may be spread regardless of the use of condoms, such as Herpes and HPV. In a 1992 study, an overall 7% of swingers had quit swinging because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It was also stated that 62% of swingers changed their sex practices, by becoming more selective with partners or by practicing safe sex.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: A Dutch study that compared the medical records of self-reported swingers to that of the general population found that STI prevalence was highest in young people, homosexual men, and swingers. However, this study has been criticized as not being representative of swinger populations as a whole: its data was formulated solely on patients receiving treatment at an STI clinic. In addition, according to the conclusions of the report, the STI rates of swingers were in fact nearly identical to those of non-swinging straight couples, and concluded that the safest demographic for STI infection were female prostitutes. According to the Dutch study, "the combined rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea were just over 10% among straight people, 14% among gay men, just under 5% in female prostitutes, and 10.4% among swingers."


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Pregnancy is regarded as a possible undesirable consequence of engaging in swinging sexual activities. While this is also the same for monogamous sex, the risk of a woman being impregnated by a man other than her spouse or long-term partner adds a second layer of concern.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Proper use of a condom with an effective birth control method can minimize the risk of pregnancy and transmission of STIs while swinging. Other solutions include a tubal ligation (female sterilization), vasectomy (male sterilization), or having a group entirely made of menopausal women.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Couples in the lifestyle who wish to start families or have additional children are highly recommended to cease participation in swinging for at least several months prior to an intended pregnancy. This helps to ensure correct paternity for the future.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: According to Terry Gould's "The Lifestyle: A look at the erotic rites of swingers", swinging began among American Air Force pilots and their wives during World War II before pilots left for overseas duty. The mortality rate of pilots was so high, as Gould reports, that a close bond arose between pilot families that implied that pilot husbands would care for all the wives as their own – emotionally and sexually – if the husbands were lost. The realities of the demographics and basing of US Army Air Force (USAAF) pilots and crew suggest that this arrangement did not evolve during WWII, instead evolving later. US military personnel in WWII were not accompanied by their families (and many, especially in the USAAF, were single) – the giant military bases where families live while accompanying a deployed soldier, sailor, aviator, or Marine are mostly Cold War creations. Though the origins of swinging are contested, it is assumed American swinging was practiced in some American military communities in the 1950s. By the time the Korean War ended, swinging had spread from the military to the suburbs. The media dubbed the phenomenon wife-swapping.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Later in the 1960s in the heyday of the "Free Love" movement, the activities associated with swinging became more widespread in a variety of social classes and age levels. In the 1970s, sometimes referred to as "The Swinging '70s", swinging activities became more prevalent, but were still considered "alternative" or "fringe" because of their association with non-mainstream groups such as communes.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: Swinging activities had another surge in interest and participation in the late 1990s due to the rise of the Internet, and again during the 2010s with smartphone applications such as Tinder and Feeld.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: In 2002, swingers’ rights were added to the mission of the [American] National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: A 'key party' is a form of swinger party, in which male partners place their car or house keys into a common bowl or bag on arriving. At the end of the evening the female partners randomly select keys from the bowl and leave with that key's owner.


title: Swinging (sexual practice)

text: According to economic studies on swinging, the information and communications technology revolution, together with improvements in medicine, has been effective in reducing some of the costs of swinging and hence in increasing the number of swingers.


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Shah Pahlavi (; ; originally Reza Khan (); 15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was an Iranian military officer, politician (who served as minister of war and prime minister), and first shah of the House of Pahlavi of the Imperial State of Iran and father of the last shah of Iran. He reigned from 15 December 1925 until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on 16 September 1941. Reza Shah introduced many social, economic, and political reforms during his reign, ultimately laying the foundation of the modern Iranian state. Therefore, he is regarded as the founder of modern Iran.


title: Reza Shah

text: At the age of 14 he joined the Iranian Cossack Brigade, and also served in the army. In 1911, he was promoted to first lieutenant, by 1912 he was elevated to the rank of captain and by 1915 he became a colonel. In February 1921, as leader of the entire Cossack Brigade based in Qazvin, he marched towards Tehran and seized the capital. He forced the dissolution of the government and installed Zia ol Din Tabatabaee as the new prime minister. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was commander-in-chief of the army and the minister of war.


title: Reza Shah

text: Two years after the coup, Seyyed Zia appointed Reza Pahlavi as Iran's prime minister, backed by the compliant national assembly of Iran. In 1925, Reza Pahlavi was appointed as the legal monarch of Iran by the decision of Iran's constituent assembly. The assembly deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and amended Iran's 1906 constitution to allow selection of Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran. He founded the Pahlavi dynasty that lasted until overthrown in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution.


title: Reza Shah

text: In the spring of 1950, he was posthumously named as Reza Shah the Great () by Iran's National Consultative Assembly.


title: Reza Shah

text: His legacy remains controversial to this day. His defenders assert that he was an essential reunification modernization force for Iran (whose international prominence had sharply declined during Qajar rule), while his detractors assert that his reign was often despotic, with his failure to modernize Iran's large peasant population eventually sowing the seeds for the Iranian Revolution nearly four decades later, which ended 2,500 years of Persian monarchy. Moreover, his insistence on ethnic nationalism and cultural unitarism, along with forced detribalization and sedentarization, resulted in the suppression of several ethnic and social groups. Although he himself was of Iranian Mazanderani descent, his government carried out an extensive policy of Persianization trying to create a single, united and largely homogeneous nation, similar to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's policy of Turkification in Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Shah Pahlavi was born in the town of Alasht in Savadkuh County, Mazandaran Province, in 1878, to son of Major Abbas-Ali Khan and wife Noush-Afarin. His mother was a Georgian Muslim immigrant from Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), whose family had emigrated to Qajar Iran when it was forced to cede all of its territories in the Caucasus following the Russo-Persian Wars several decades prior to Reza Shah's birth. His father was a Mazanderani, commissioned in the 7th Savadkuh Regiment, and served in the Siege of Herat in 1856. Abbas-Ali died suddenly on 26 November 1878, when Reza was barely 8 months old. Upon his father's death, Reza and his mother moved to her brother's house in Tehran. She remarried in 1879 and left Reza to the care of his uncle. In 1882, his uncle in turn sent Reza to a family friend, Amir Tuman Kazim Khan, an officer in the Persian Cossack Brigade, in whose home he had a room of his own and a chance to study with Kazim Khan's children with the tutors who came to the house. When Reza was sixteen years old, he joined the Persian Cossack Brigade. In 1903, when he was 25 years old, he is reported to have been guard and servant to the Dutch consul general Fridolin Marinus Knobel.


title: Reza Shah

text: He also served in the Imperial Army. His initial career started as a private under Qajar Prince Abdol-Hossein Farman Farma's command. Farman Farma noted that Reza had potential and sent him to military school where he gained the rank of gunnery sergeant. In 1911, he gave a good account of himself in later campaigns and was promoted to First Lieutenant. His proficiency in handling machine guns elevated him to the rank equivalent to captain in 1912. By 1915, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. His record of military service eventually led him to a commission as a brigadier general in the Persian Cossack Brigade. He was the last commanding officer of the Brigade, and the only Iranian commander in its history, succeeding to this position the Russian colonel Vsevolod Starosselsky, whom Reza Shah had helped, in 1918, take over the brigade.


title: Reza Shah

text: In November 1919, he chose the last name Pahlavi for himself, which later became the name of the dynasty he founded.


title: Reza Shah

text: In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Persia had become a battleground. In 1917, Britain used Iran as the springboard for the launching of an expedition into Russia as part of their intervention in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. The Soviet Union responded by annexing portions of northern Persia, creating the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic. The Soviets extracted ever more humiliating concessions from the Qajar government, whose ministers Ahmad Shah was often unable to control. By 1920, the government had lost virtually all power outside its capital: British and Soviet forces exercised control over most of the Iranian mainland.


title: Reza Shah

text: In late 1920, the Soviets in Rasht prepared to march on Tehran with "a guerrilla force of 1,500 Jangalis, Kurds, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis", reinforced by the Soviet Red Army. This, along with various other unrest in the country, created "an acute political crisis in the capital."


title: Reza Shah

text: On 14 January 1921, the commander of the British Forces in Iran, General Edmund "Tiny" Ironside, promoted Reza Khan, who had been leading the Tabriz battalion, to lead the entire brigade. About a month later, under British direction, Reza Khan led his 3,000-4,000 strong detachment of the Cossack Brigade, based in Niyarak, Qazvin, and Hamadan, to Tehran and seized the capital. He forced the dissolution of the previous government and demanded that Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee be appointed Prime Minister. Reza Khan's first role in the new government was as commander of the Iranian Army, which he combined with the post of Minister of War. He took the title Sardar Sepah (), or Commander-in-Chief of the Army, by which he was known until he became Shah. While Reza Khan and his Cossack brigade secured Tehran, the Persian envoy in Moscow negotiated a treaty with the Bolsheviks for the removal of Soviet troops from Persia. Article IV of the Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship allowed the Soviets to invade and occupy Persia, should they believe foreign troops were using it as a staging area for an invasion of Soviet territory. As Soviets interpreted the treaty, they could invade if events in Persia should prove threatening to Soviet national security. This treaty would cause enormous tension between the two nations until the Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran.


title: Reza Shah

text: The coup d'état of 1921 was partially assisted by the British government, which wished to halt the Bolsheviks' penetration of Iran, particularly because of the threat it posed to the British possessions in India. It is thought that the British provided "ammunition, supplies and pay" for Reza's troops. On 8 June 1932, a British Embassy report states that the British were interested in helping Reza Shah create a centralizing power. General Ironside gave a situation report to the British War Office saying that a capable Persian officer was in command of the Cossacks and this "would solve many difficulties and enable us to depart in peace and honour".


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Khan spent the rest of 1921 securing Iran's interior, responding to a number of revolts that erupted against the new government. Among the greatest threats to the new administration were the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, which had been established in Gilan, and the Kurds of Khorasan.


title: Reza Shah

text: From the beginning of the appointment of Reza Khan as the minister of war, there was ever increasing tension with Zia ol Din Tabatabaee, who was prime minister at the time. Zia ol Din Tabatabaee wrongly calculated that when Reza Khan was appointed as the minister of war, he would relinquish his post as the head of the Persian Cossack Brigade, and that Reza Khan would wear civilian clothing instead of the military attire. This erroneous calculation by Zia ol Din Tabatabaee backfired and instead it was apparent to people who observed Reza Khan, including members of parliament, that he (and not Zia ol Din Tabatabaee) was the one who wielded power.


title: Reza Shah

text: By 1923, Reza Khan had largely succeeded in securing Iran's interior from any remaining domestic and foreign threats. Upon his return to the capital he was appointed Prime Minister, which prompted Ahmad Shah to leave Iran for Europe, where he would remain (at first voluntarily, and later in exile) until his death. It induced the Parliament to grant Reza Khan dictatorial powers, who in turn assumed the symbolic and honorific styles of "Janab-i-Ashraf" (His Serene Highness) and "Hazrat-i-Ashraf" on 28 October 1923. He quickly established a political cabinet in Tehran to help organize his plans for modernization and reform.


title: Reza Shah

text: By October 1925, he succeeded in pressuring the Majlis to depose and formally exile Ahmad Shah, and instate him as the next Shah of Iran. Initially, he had planned to declare the country a republic, as his contemporary Atatürk had done in Turkey, but abandoned the idea in the face of British and clerical opposition.


title: Reza Shah

text: The Majlis, convening as a constituent assembly, declared him the Shah (King) of Iran on 12 December 1925, pursuant to the Persian Constitution of 1906. Three days later, on 15 December, he took his imperial oath and thus became the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Shah's coronation took place much later, on 25 April 1926. It was at that time that his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was proclaimed crown prince.


title: Reza Shah

text: While the Shah left behind no major thesis, or speeches giving an overarching policy, his reforms indicated a striving for an Iran which—according to scholar Ervand Abrahamian—would be "free of clerical influence, nomadic uprisings, and ethnic differences", on the one hand, and on the other hand would contain "European-style educational institutions, Westernized women active outside the home, and modern economic structures with state factories, communication networks, investment banks, and department stores."


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza is said to have avoided political participation and consultation with politicians or political personalities, instead embracing the slogan "every country has its own ruling system and ours is a one man system." He is also said to have preferred punishment to reward in dealing with subordinates or citizens.


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Shah's reign has been said to have consisted of "two distinct periods". From 1925 to 1933, figures such as Abdolhossein Teymourtash, Nosrat ol Dowleh Firouz, and Ali-Akbar Davar and many other western-educated Iranians emerged to implement modernist plans, such as the construction of railways, a modern judiciary and educational system, and the imposition of changes in traditional attire, and traditional and religious customs and mores. In the second half of his reign (1933–41), which the Shah described as "one-man rule", strong personalities like Davar and Teymourtash were removed, and secularist and Western policies and plans initiated earlier were implemented.


title: Reza Shah

text: During Reza Shah's sixteen years of rule, major developments, such as large road construction projects and the Trans-Iranian Railway were built, modern education was introduced and the University of Tehran, the first Iranian university, was established. The government sponsored European education for many Iranian students The number of modern industrial plants increased 17-fold under Reza Shah (excluding oil installations), and the number of miles of highway increased from 2,000 to 14,000.


title: Reza Shah

text: Along with the modernization of the nation, Reza Shah was the ruler during the time of the Women's Awakening (1936–1941). This movement sought the elimination of the chador from Iranian working society. Supporters held that the veil impeded physical exercise and the ability of women to enter society and contribute to the progress of the nation. This move met opposition from the Mullahs from the religious establishment. The unveiling issue and the Women's Awakening are linked to the Marriage Law of 1931 and the Second Congress of Eastern Women in Tehran in 1932.


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Shah was the first Iranian Monarch in 1400 years who paid respect to the Jews by praying in the synagogue when visiting the Jewish community of Isfahan; an act that boosted the self-esteem of the Iranian Jews and made Reza Shah their second most respected Iranian leader after Cyrus the Great. Reza Shah's reforms opened new occupations to Jews and allowed them to leave the ghetto. This point of view, however, may be refuted by the claims that the anti-Jewish incidents of September 1922 in parts of Tehran was a plot by Reza Khan.


title: Reza Shah

text: He forbade photographing aspects of Iran he considered backwards such as camels, and he banned clerical dress and chadors in favor of Western dress.


title: Reza Shah

text: Parliamentary elections during the Shah's reign were not democratic. The general practice was to "draw up, with the help of the police chief, a list of parliamentary candidates for the interior minister. The interior minister then passed the same names onto the provincial governor-general. ... [who] handed down the list to the supervisory electoral councils that were packed by the Interior Ministry to oversee the ballots. Parliament ceased to be a meaningful institution, and instead became a decorative garb covering the nakedness of military rule."


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Shah discredited and eliminated a number of his ministers. His minister of Imperial Court, Abdolhossein Teymourtash, was accused and convicted of corruption, bribery, misuse of foreign currency regulations, and plans to overthrow the Shah. He was removed as the minister of court in 1932 and died under suspicious circumstances while in prison in September 1933. The minister of finance, Prince Firouz Nosrat-ed-Dowleh III, who played an important role in the first three years of his reign, was convicted on similar charges in May 1930, and also died in prison, in January 1938. Ali-Akbar Davar, his minister of justice, was suspected of similar charges and committed suicide in February 1937. The elimination of these ministers "deprived" Iran "of her most dynamic figures ... and the burden of government fell heavily on Reza Shah" according to historian Cyrus Ghani.


title: Reza Shah

text: In the Western world, Persia (or its cognates) was historically the common name for Iran. In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates and League of Nations to use the term Iran ("Land of the Aryans"), the endonym of the country, used by its native people, in formal correspondence. Since then, in the Western World, the use of the word "Iran" has become more common. This also changed the usage of the names for the Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from Persian to Iranian. In 1959, the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi's son and successor, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably, nonetheless use of "Iran" continued to subplant "Persia", especially in the West. Though the predominant and official language of the country was the Persian language, many did not consider themselves ethnic Persians, whereas "Iranians" made for a much more neutral and unifying reference too all the ethnic groups of Iran, further, "Persia" (locally known as Pars) was geographically confusing at times as it was also the name of one of Iran's significant cultural provinces. Although (internally) the country had been referred to as Iran throughout much of its history since the Sasanian Empire, many countries including the English-speaking world knew the country as Persia, largely a legacy of the Ancient Greeks name for the Achaemenid Empire.


title: Reza Shah

text: Support for the Shah came principally from three sources. The central "pillar" was the military, where the shah had begun his career. The annual defense budget of Iran "increased more than fivefold from 1926 to 1941." Officers were paid more than other salaried employees. The new modern and expanded state bureaucracy of Iran was another source of support. Its ten civilian ministries employed 90,000 full-time government workers. Patronage controlled by the Shah's royal court served as the third "pillar". This was financed by the Shah's considerable personal wealth which had been built up by forced sales and confiscations of estates, making him "the richest man in Iran". On his abdication Reza Shah "left to his heir a bank account of some three million pounds sterling and estates totaling over 3 million acres."


title: Reza Shah

text: Opposition to the Shah came not so much from the landed upper class as from "the tribes, the clergy, and the young generation of the new intelligentsia. The tribes bore the brunt of the new order."


title: Reza Shah

text: As his reign became more secure, Reza Shah clashed with Iran's clergy and devout Muslims on many issues. In March 1928, he violated the sanctuary of Qom's Fatima Masumeh Shrine to beat a cleric who had angrily admonished Reza Shah's wife for temporarily exposing her face a day earlier while on pilgrimage to Qom. In December of that year he instituted a law requiring everyone (except Shia jurisconsults who had passed a special qualifying examination) to wear Western clothes. This angered devout Muslims because it included a hat with a brim which prevented the devout from touching their foreheads on the ground during salat as required by Islamic law. The Shah also encouraged women to discard hijab. He announced that female teachers could no longer come to school with head coverings. One of his daughters reviewed a girls' athletic event with an uncovered head.


title: Reza Shah

text: The devout were also angered by policies that allowed mixing of the sexes. Women were allowed to study in the colleges of law and medicine, and in 1934 a law set heavy fines for cinemas, restaurant, and hotels that did not open their doors to both sexes. Doctors were permitted to dissect human bodies. He restricted public mourning observances to one day and required mosques to use chairs instead of the traditional sitting on the floors of mosques.


title: Reza Shah

text: By the mid-1930s, Reza Shah's rule had caused intense dissatisfaction of the Shia clergy throughout Iran. In 1935, a rebellion erupted in the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad. Responding to a cleric who denounced the Shah's "heretical" innovations, corruption and heavy consumer taxes, many bazaaris and villagers took refuge in the shrine, chanting slogans such as "The Shah is a new Yezid." For four full days local police and army refused to violate the shrine. The standoff was ended when troops from Iranian Azerbaijan arrived and broke into the shrine, killing dozens and injuring hundreds, and marking a final rupture between the clergy and the Shah. Some of the Mashed clergy even left their jobs, such as the Keeper of the Keys of the shrine Hassan Mazloumi, later named Barjesteh, who stated he did not want to listen to the orders of a dog.


title: Reza Shah

text: The Shah intensified his controversial changes following the incident with the "Kashf-e hijab" decree, banning the chador and ordering all citizens – rich and poor – to bring their wives to public functions without head coverings.


title: Reza Shah

text: Reza Shah initiated change in foreign affairs as well. He worked to balance British influence with other foreigners and generally to diminish foreign influence in Iran.


title: Reza Shah

text: One of the first acts of the new government after the 1921 entrance into Tehran was to tear up the treaty with the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks condemned the aggressive foreign policy of Imperial Russia, promised never to interfere in Persia's internal affairs, but reserved the right to occupy it temporarily in the event another power used Persia for an attack on Soviet Russia.


title: Reza Shah

text: In 1934 he made an official state visit to Turkey and met Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. During their meeting Reza Shah spoke in Azerbaijani, and Atatürk in Turkish.