title: Millwall F.C.

text: On 5 December 2020, Millwall played against Derby County in the first game back at the Den for fans in ten months due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Some of the 2,000 fans present booed the players who took a knee and raised a fist before the game in support of the Black Lives Matter social and political movement. The booing was condemned by The FA, EFL, Kick it Out, and mainstream media. Cabinet minister George Eustice refused to condemn Millwall fans, stating Black Live Matter political movement was against what most British people believed in and fans should be free to express their views. The leader of the Brexit Party Nigel Farage called BLM a Marxist Party who had been "sussed out" by Millwall fans and called for kneeling to stop. In the next game at the Den against QPR on 8 December 2020, Millwall fans applauded as QPR and Millwall players raised aloft an anti-racism banner about inequality in football. The 2,000 Millwall fans also cheered the QPR players who took the knee. No Millwall player kneeled. Before the game, every fan was given a letter from the club saying, "The eyes of the world are on this football club tonight – your club – and they want us to fail. Together as one, we will not let that happen." Some Millwall supporters had said their boos at the Derby game did not have racist intent, but was instead against the politicisation of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK.


title: Millwall F.C.

text: In 1985, the club founded the Millwall Community Trust (MCT), which offers sporting, educational and charitable projects. The Trust is based next door to The Den, in the Lions Centre. Working with local people from the surrounding boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark and the wider Millwall Community. The Trust offers sports and fitness programmes, educational workshops, disability activities and soccer schools. The club helps promote anti-knife and anti-gun crime. In a match against Charlton Athletic in 2009, both teams wore special kits for the match in honour of murdered local teenagers and supporters Jimmy Mizen and Rob Knox. The logos of both clubs' shirt sponsors were replaced by the text, "Street violence ruins lives". The club has also helped raise over £10,000 for the charity Help for Heroes.


title: Millwall F.C.

text: Millwall have been depicted in films several times, specifically highlighting the club's hooliganism firm the Bushwackers and the rivalry with West Ham United. Often glorifying football violence in the beginning, each film typically ends in loss of life, showing the futility of hooliganism.


title: Millwall F.C.

text: The club's ground The Den doubled as The Dragons Lair, home ground of fictional team Harchester United in the television series "Dream Team". It also appeared in episodes of the shows "The Bill" and "Primeval". In literature, books such as ""No One Likes Us, We Don't Care: True Stories from Millwall, Britain's Most Notorious Football Hooligans"" by Andrew Woods focuses on the hooligan element of Millwall. "Sunday Mirror" columnist Michael Calvin spent the 2009–10 season covering Millwall, writing the book "Family: Life, Death and Football". The book looks at the rivalry with West Ham United, the stabbing of a Millwall supporter and the Lions play-off success and promotion to The Championship under Kenny Jackett.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo ( ; / ALA-LC: "", , Kurdish: حەلەب/ Halab) is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents as of 2021, it is Syria's second-largest city and also one of the largest cities in the Levant region.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it may have been inhabited since the sixth millennium BC. Excavations at Tell as-Sawda and Tell al-Ansari, just south of the old city of Aleppo, show that the area was occupied by Amorites by the latter part of the third millennium BC. That is also the time at which Aleppo is first mentioned in cuneiform tablets unearthed in Ebla and Mesopotamia, which speak of it as part of the Amorite state of Yamhad, and note its commercial and military importance. Such a long history is attributed to its strategic location as a trading center between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia.


title: Aleppo

text: For centuries, Aleppo was the largest city in the Syrian region, and the Ottoman Empire's third-largest after Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Cairo. The city's significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, which passed through Central Asia and Mesopotamia. When the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, much trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo lost its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, as well as the important Baghdad Railway connecting it to Mosul. In the 1940s it lost its main access to the sea, by Antakya and İskenderun, also to Turkey. The growth in importance of Damascus in the past few decades further exacerbated the situation. This decline may have helped to preserve the old city of Aleppo, its medieval architecture and traditional heritage. It won the title of the Islamic Capital of Culture 2006, and has had a wave of successful restorations of its historic landmarks. The Battle of Aleppo (2012–2016) occurred in the city during the Syrian Civil War, and many parts of the city suffered massive destruction. Affected parts of the city are currently undergoing reconstruction. An estimated 31,000 people were killed in Aleppo during the conflict.


title: Aleppo

text: Modern-day English-speakers commonly refer to the city as "Aleppo". It was known in antiquity as "Khalpe", "Khalibon", and to the Greeks and Romans as "Beroea" (). During the Crusades, and again during the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon of 1923–1946, the name "Alep" was used. "Aleppo" represents the Italianised version of this.


title: Aleppo

text: The original ancient name, Halab, has survived as the current Arabic name of the city. It is of obscure origin. Some have proposed that "Ḥalab" means "iron" or "copper" in Amorite languages, since the area served as a major source of these metals in antiquity. Another possibility is that "Ḥalab" means 'white', as this is the word for 'white' in Aramaic. This may explain how "Ḥalab" became the Hebrew word for 'milk' or vice versa, as well as offering a possible explanation for the modern-day Arabic nickname of the city, ash-Shahbaa (), which means "the white-colored mixed with black" and allegedly derives from the white marble found at Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: According to a folk etymology related by the twelfth century CE Rabbi Pethahiah of Regensburg and the Berber traveler Ibn Battuta, the name derives from or because Abraham milked his sheep there to feed the poor.


title: Aleppo

text: From the 11th century it was common Rabbinic usage to apply the term "Aram-Zobah" to the area of Aleppo, and many Syrian Jews continue to do so.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the modern city occupies its ancient site. The earliest occupation of the site was around 5000 BC, as shown by excavations in Tallet Alsauda.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, in the Ebla tablets when Aleppo was referred to as Ha-lam (𒄩𒇴). Some historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Aleppo with the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi, although this identification is contested. The main temple of the storm god Hadad was located on the citadel hill in the center of the city, when the city was known as the city of Hadad.


title: Aleppo

text: Naram-Sin of Akkad mentioned his destruction of Ebla and Armanum, in the 23rd century BC. but the identification of Armani in the inscription of Naram-Sim as Armi in the Eblaite tablets is heavily debated, as there was no Akkadian annexation of Ebla or northern Syria.


title: Aleppo

text: In the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Empire period, Aleppo's name appears in its original form as Ḥalab (Ḥalba) for the first time. Aleppo was the capital of the important Amorite dynasty of Yamḥad. The kingdom of Yamḥad (c. 1800–1525 BC), alternatively known as the 'land of Ḥalab,' was one of the most powerful in the Near East during the reign of Yarim-Lim I, who formed an alliance with Hammurabi of Babylonia against Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria.


title: Aleppo

text: Yamḥad was devastated by the Hittites under Mursilis I in the 16th century BC. However, it soon resumed its leading role in the Levant when the Hittite power in the region waned due to internal strife.


title: Aleppo

text: Taking advantage of the power vacuum in the region, Parshatatar, king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni instigated a rebellion that ended the life of Yamhad's last king Ilim-Ilimma I in c. 1525 BC, Subsequently, Parshatatar conquered Aleppo and the city found itself on the frontline in the struggle between the Mitanni, the Hittites and Egypt. Niqmepa of Alalakh who descends from the old Yamhadite kings controlled the city as a vassal to Mitanni and was attacked by Tudhaliya I of the Hittites as a retaliation for his alliance to Mitanni. Later the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I permanently defeated Mitanni, and conquered Aleppo in the 14th century BC. Suppiluliumas installed his son Telepinus as king and a dynasty of Suppiluliumas descendants ruled Aleppo until the Late Bronze Age collapse. However, Talmi-Šarruma, grandson of Suppiluliumas I, who was the king of Aleppo, had fought on the Hittite side, along with king Muwatalli II during the Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptian army led by Ramesses II.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo had cultic importance to the Hittites as the center of worship of the Storm-God. This religious importance continued after the collapse of the Hittite empire at the hands of the Assyrians and Phrygians in the 12th century BC, when Aleppo became part of the Middle Assyrian Empire, whose king renovated the temple of Hadad which was discovered in 2003.


title: Aleppo

text: In 2003, a statue of a king named Taita bearing inscriptions in Luwian was discovered during excavations conducted by German archeologist Kay Kohlmeyer in the Citadel of Aleppo. The new readings of Anatolian hieroglyphic signs proposed by the Hittitologists Elisabeth Rieken and Ilya Yakubovich were conducive to the conclusion that the country ruled by Taita was called Palistin. This country extended in the 11th-10th centuries BCE from the Amouq Valley in the west to Aleppo in the east down to Mehardeh and Shaizar in the south. Due to the similarity between Palistin and Philistines, Hittitologist John David Hawkins (who translated the Aleppo inscriptions) hypothesizes a connection between the Syro-Hittite Palistin and the Philistines, as do archaeologists Benjamin Sass and Kay Kohlmeyer. Gershon Galil suggests that King David halted the Arameans' expansion into the Land of Israel on account of his alliance with the southern Philistine kings, as well as with Toi, king of Ḥamath, who is identified with Tai(ta) II, king of Palistin (the northern Sea Peoples).


title: Aleppo

text: At some point in the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, Aleppo became part of the Aramean state of Bit Agusi (which had its capital at Arpad). Bit Agusi along with Aleppo and the entirety of the Levant was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC and became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III until the late 7th century BC, before passing through the hands of the Neo-Babylonians and the Achamenid Persians. The region remained known as Aramea and Eber Nari throughout these periods.


title: Aleppo

text: Alexander the Great took over the city in 333 BC. Seleucus Nicator established a Hellenic settlement in the site between 301 and 286 BC. He called it "Beroea" (Βέροια), after Beroea in Macedon; it is sometimes spelled as Beroia.


title: Aleppo

text: Northern Syria was the center of gravity of the Hellenistic colonizing activity, and therefore of Hellenistic culture in the Seleucid Empire. As did other Hellenized cities of the Seleucid kingdom, Beroea probably enjoyed a measure of local autonomy, with a local civic assembly or "boulē" composed of free Hellenes.


title: Aleppo

text: Beroea remained under Seleucid rule until 88 BC when Syria was conquered by the Armenian king Tigranes the Great and Beroea became part of the Kingdom of Armenia. After the Roman victory over Tigranes, Syria was handed over to Pompey in 64 BC, at which time they became a Roman province. Rome's presence afforded relative stability in northern Syria for over three centuries. Although the province was administered by a legate from Rome, Rome did not impose its administrative organization on the Greek-speaking ruling class or Aramaic speaking populace.


title: Aleppo

text: The Roman era saw an increase in the population of northern Syria that accelerated under the Byzantines well into the 5th century. In Late Antiquity, Beroea was the second largest Syrian city after Antioch, the capital of Roman Syria and the third largest city in the Roman world. Archaeological evidence indicates a high population density for settlements between Antioch and Beroea right up to the 6th century. This agrarian landscape still holds the remains of large estate houses and churches such as the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites.


title: Aleppo

text: The names of several bishops of the episcopal see of Beroea, which was in the Roman province of Syria Prima, are recorded in extant documents. The first whose name survives is that of Saint Eustathius of Antioch, who, after being bishop of Beroea, was transferred to the important metropolitan see of Antioch shortly before the 325 First Council of Nicaea. His successor in Beroea Cyrus was for his fidelity to the Nicene faith sent into exile by the Roman Emperor Constantius II. After the Council of Seleucia of 359, called by Constantius, Meletius of Antioch was transferred from Sebastea to Beroea but in the following year was promoted to Antioch. His successor in Beroea, Anatolius, was at a council in Antioch in 363. Under the persecuting Emperor Valens, the bishop of Beroea was Theodotus, a friend of Basil the Great. He was succeeded by Acacius of Beroea, who governed the see for over 50 years and was at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the Council of Ephesus in 431. In 438, he was succeeded by Theoctistus, who participated in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and was a signatory of the joint letter that the bishops of the province of Syria Prima sent in 458 to Emperor Leo I the Thracian about the murder of Proterius of Alexandria. In 518, Emperor Justin I exiled the bishop of Beroea Antoninus for rejecting the Council of Chalcedon. The last known bishop of the see is Megas, who was at a synod called by Patriarch Menas of Constantinople in 536. After the Arab conquest, Beroea ceased to be a residential bishopric, and is today listed by the Roman Catholic Church as a titular see.


title: Aleppo

text: Very few physical remains have been found from the Roman and Byzantine periods in the Citadel of Aleppo. The two mosques inside the Citadel are known to have been converted by the Mirdasids during the 11th century from churches originally built by the Byzantines.


title: Aleppo

text: The Sasanian Persians led by King Khosrow I pillaged and burned Aleppo in 540, then they invaded and controlled Syria briefly in the early 7th century. Soon after Aleppo was taken by the Muslims under Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah in 637. It later became part of Jund Qinnasrin under the Umayyad Caliphate. In 944, it became the seat of an independent Emirate under the Hamdanid prince Sayf al-Dawla, and enjoyed a period of great prosperity, being home to the great poet al-Mutanabbi and the philosopher and polymath al-Farabi. In 962, the city was sacked by the Byzantine general Nicophorus Phocas. Subsequently, the city and its Emirate became a temporary vassal of the Byzantine Empire. For the next few decades the city was disputed by the Fatimid Caliphate and Byzantine Empire, with the nominally independent Hamdanids in between, eventually falling to the Fatimids in 1017. In 1024, Salih ibn Mirdas launched an attack on the Fatimid Aleppo, and after a few months was invited into the city by its population.


title: Aleppo

text: In late 1077, Seljuk emir Tutush I launched a campaign to capture Aleppo during the reign of Sabiq ibn Mahmud of the Mirdasid dynasty, which lasted until 1080, when his reinforcements were ambushed and routed by a coalition of Arab tribesmen led by Kilabi chief Abu Za'ida at Wadi Butnan. After the death of Sharaf al-Dawla of the Uqaylid dynasty in June 1085, the headman in Aleppo Sharif Hassan ibn Hibat Allah Al-Hutayti promised to surrender the city to Tutush, but then refused and wrote to Sultan Malik-Shah I offering to surrender the city to him, Tutush attacked and occupied the city except for the citadel in May 1086, he stayed until October and left for Damascus due to the advance of Malik-Shah armies, the Sultan himself arrived in December 1086. In 1087, Aq Sunqur al-Hajib became the Seljuk governor of Aleppo under Sultan Malik Shah I.


title: Aleppo

text: The city was besieged by Crusaders led by the King of Jerusalem Baldwin II in 1124–1125, but was not conquered after receiving protection by forces of Aqsunqur al Bursuqi arriving from Mosul in January 1125.


title: Aleppo

text: In 1128, Aleppo became capital of the expanding Zengid dynasty, which ultimately conquered Damascus in 1154. In 1138, Byzantine emperor John II Komnenos led a campaign, which main objective was to capture the city of Aleppo. On 20 April 1138, the Christian army including Crusaders from Antioch and Edessa launched an attack on the city but found it too strongly defended, hence John II moved the army southward to take nearby fortresses. On 9 August 1138, a deadly earthquake ravaged the city and the surrounding area. Although estimates from this time are very unreliable, it is believed that 230,000 people died, making it the sixth deadliest earthquake in recorded history.


title: Aleppo

text: In 1183, Aleppo came under the control of Saladin and then the Ayyubid dynasty. When the Ayyubids were toppled in Egypt by the Mamluks, the Ayyubid emir of Aleppo An-Nasir Yusuf became sultan of the remaining part of the Ayyubid Empire. He ruled Syria from his seat in Aleppo until, on 24 January 1260, the city was taken by the Mongols under Hulagu in alliance with their vassals the Frankish knights of the ruler of Antioch Bohemond VI and his father-in-law the Armenian ruler Hethum I. The city was poorly defended by Turanshah, and as a result the walls fell after six days of siege, and the citadel fell four weeks later. The Muslim population was massacred and many Jews were also killed. The Christian population was spared. Turanshah was shown unusual respect by the Mongols, and was allowed to live because of his age and bravery. The city was then given to the former Emir of Homs, al-Ashraf, and a Mongol garrison was established in the city. Some of the spoils were also given to Hethum I for his assistance in the attack. The Mongol Army then continued on to Damascus, which surrendered, and the Mongols entered the city on 1 March 1260.


title: Aleppo

text: In September 1260, the Egyptian Mamluks negotiated for a treaty with the Franks of Acre which allowed them to pass through Crusader territory unmolested, and engaged the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut on 3 September 1260. The Mamluks won a decisive victory, killing the Mongols' Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa, and five days later they had retaken Damascus. Aleppo was recovered by the Muslims within a month, and a Mamluk governor placed to govern the city. Hulagu sent troops to try to recover Aleppo in December. They were able to massacre a large number of Muslims in retaliation for the death of Kitbuqa, but after a fortnight could make no other progress and had to retreat.


title: Aleppo

text: The Mamluk governor of the city became insubordinate to the central Mamluk authority in Cairo, and in Autumn 1261 the Mamluk leader Baibars sent an army to reclaim the city. In October 1271, the Mongols led by general Samagar took the city again, attacking with 10,000 horsemen from Anatolia, and defeating the Turcoman troops who were defending Aleppo. The Mamluk garrisons fled to Hama, until Baibars came north again with his main army, and the Mongols retreated.


title: Aleppo

text: On 20 October 1280, the Mongols took the city again, pillaging the markets and burning the mosques. The Muslim inhabitants fled for Damascus, where the Mamluk leader Qalawun assembled his forces. When his army advanced following the Second Battle of Homs in October 1281, the Mongols again retreated, back across the Euphrates. In October 1299, Ghazan captured the city, joined by his vassal Armenian King Hethum II, whose forces included some Templars and Hospitallers.


title: Aleppo

text: In 1400, the Mongol-Turkic leader Tamerlane captured the city again from the Mamluks. He massacred many of the inhabitants, ordering the building of a tower of 20,000 skulls outside the city. After the withdrawal of the Mongols, all the Muslim population returned to Aleppo. On the other hand, Christians who left the city during the Mongol invasion, were unable to resettle back in their own quarter in the old town, a fact that led them to establish a new neighbourhood in 1420, built at the northern suburbs of Aleppo outside the city walls, to become known as "al-Jdeydeh" quarter ("new district" ).


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1516 as part of the vast expansion of the Ottoman borders during the reign of Selim I. The city then had around 50,000 inhabitants, or 11,224 households according to an Ottoman census. It was the centre of the Aleppo Eyalet; the rest of what later became Syria was part of either the eyalets of Damascus, Tripoli, Sidon or Raqqa. Following the Ottoman provincial reform of 1864 Aleppo became the centre of the newly constituted Vilayet of Aleppo in 1866.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo's agriculture was well-developed in the Ottoman period. Archaeological excavations revealed water mills in its river basin. Contemporary Chinese source also suggests Aleppo in the Ottoman period had well-developed animal husbandry.


title: Aleppo

text: Moreover, thanks to its strategic geographic location on the trade route between Anatolia and the east, Aleppo rose to high prominence in the Ottoman era, at one point being second only to Constantinople in the empire. By the middle of the 16th century, Aleppo had displaced Damascus as the principal market for goods coming to the Mediterranean region from the east. This is reflected by the fact that the Levant Company of London, a joint-trading company founded in 1581 to monopolize England's trade with the Ottoman Empire, never attempted to settle a factor, or agent, in Damascus, despite having had permission to do so. Aleppo served as the company's headquarters until the late 18th century.


title: Aleppo

text: As a result of the economic development, many European states had opened consulates in Aleppo during the 16th and the 17th centuries, such as the consulate of the Republic of Venice in 1548, the consulate of France in 1562, the consulate of England in 1583 and the consulate of the Netherlands in 1613. The Armenian community of Aleppo also rose to prominence in this period as they moved into the city to take up trade and developed the new quarter of Judayda.


title: Aleppo

text: However, the prosperity Aleppo experienced in the 16th and 17th century started to fade as silk production in Iran went into decline with the fall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722. By mid-century, caravans were no longer bringing silk from Iran to Aleppo, and local Syrian production was insufficient for Europe's demand. European merchants left Aleppo and the city went into an economic decline that was not reversed until the mid-19th century when locally produced cotton and tobacco became the principal commodities of interest to the Europeans. According to Halil İnalcık, "Aleppo ... underwent its worst catastrophe with the wholesale destruction of its villages by Bedouin raiding in the later years of the century, creating a long-running famine which by 1798 killed half of its inhabitants."


title: Aleppo

text: The economy of Aleppo was badly hit by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. This, in addition to political instability that followed the implementation of significant reforms in 1841 by the central government, contributed to Aleppo's decline and the rise of Damascus as a serious economic and political competitor with Aleppo. The city nevertheless continued to play an important economic role and shifted its commercial focus from long-distance caravan trade to more regional trade in wool and agricultural products. This period also saw the immigration of numerous "Levantine" (European-origin) families who dominated international trade. Aleppo's mixed commercial tribunal ("ticaret mahkamesi"), one of the first in the Ottoman Empire, was set up around 1855.


title: Aleppo

text: Reference is made to the city in 1606 in William Shakespeare's "Macbeth". The witches torment the captain of the ship the "Tiger", which was headed to Aleppo from England and endured a 567-day voyage before returning unsuccessfully to port. Reference is also made to the city in Shakespeare's "Othello" when Othello speaks his final words (ACT V, ii, 349f.): "Set you down this/And say besides that in Aleppo once,/Where a malignant and a turbanned Turk/Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,/I took by th' throat the circumcised dog/And smote him—thus!" (Arden Shakespeare Edition, 2004). The English naval chaplain Henry Teonge describes in his diary a visit he paid to the city in 1675, when there was a colony of Western European merchants living there.


title: Aleppo

text: The city remained Ottoman until the empire's collapse, but was occasionally riven with internal feuds as well as attacks of cholera from 1823. Around 20–25 percent of the population died of plague in 1827. In 1850, a Muslim mob attacked Christian neighbourhoods, tens of Christians were killed and several churches looted. Though this event has been portrayed as driven by pure sectarian principles, Bruce Masters argues that such analysis of this period of violence is too shallow and neglects the tensions that existed among the population due to the commercial favor afforded to certain Christian minorities by the Tanzimat Reforms during this time which played a large role in creating antagonism between previously cooperative groups of Muslim and Christians in the eastern quarters of the city. Janissary rebels installed their own government when the Ottoman governor fled. The Ottomans took over the city weeks later killing some 5,000. By 1901, the city's population was around 110,000.


title: Aleppo

text: In October 1918, Aleppo was captured by Prince Feisal's Sherifial Forces and the 5th Cavalry Division of the Allied forces from the Ottoman Empire during the World War I. At the end of war, the Treaty of Sèvres made most of the Province of Aleppo part of the newly established nation of Syria, while Cilicia was promised by France to become an Armenian state. However, Kemal Atatürk annexed most of the Province of Aleppo as well as Cilicia to Turkey in his War of Independence. The Arab residents in the province (as well as the Kurds) supported the Turks in this war against the French, including the leader of the Hananu Revolt, Ibrahim Hananu, who directly coordinated with Atatürk and received weaponry from him. The outcome, however, was disastrous for Aleppo, because as per the Treaty of Lausanne, most of the Province of Aleppo was made part of Turkey with the exception of Aleppo and Alexandretta; thus, Aleppo was cut from its northern satellites and from the Anatolian cities beyond on which Aleppo depended heavily in commerce. Moreover, the Sykes-Picot division of the Near East separated Aleppo from most of Mesopotamia, which also harmed the economy of Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: The State of Aleppo was declared by French General Henri Gouraud in September 1920 as part of a French plan to make Syria easier to administer by dividing it into several smaller states. France became more concerned about the idea of a united Syria after the Battle of Maysaloun.


title: Aleppo

text: By separating Aleppo from Damascus, Gouraud wanted to capitalize on a traditional state of competition between the two cities and turn it into political division. The people in Aleppo were unhappy with the fact that Damascus was chosen as capital for the new nation of Syria. Gouraud sensed this sentiment and tried to address it by making Aleppo the capital of a large and wealthier state with which it would have been hard for Damascus to compete. The State of Aleppo as drawn by France contained most of the fertile area of Syria: the fertile countryside of Aleppo in addition to the entire fertile basin of river Euphrates. The state also had access to sea via the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta. On the other hand, Damascus, which is basically an oasis on the fringes of the Syrian Desert, had neither enough fertile land nor access to sea. Basically, Gouraud wanted to satisfy Aleppo by giving it control over most of the agricultural and mineral wealth of Syria so that it would never want to unite with Damascus again.


title: Aleppo

text: The limited economic resources of the Syrian states made the option of completely independent states undesirable for France, because it threatened an opposite result: the states collapsing and being forced back into unity. This was why France proposed the idea of a Syrian federation that was realized in 1923. Initially, Gouraud envisioned the federation as encompassing all the states, even Lebanon. In the end however, only three states participated: Aleppo, Damascus, and the Alawite State. The capital of the federation was Aleppo at first, but it was relocated to Damascus. The president of the federation was Subhi Barakat, an Antioch-born politician from Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: The federation ended in December 1924, when France merged Aleppo and Damascus into a single Syrian State and separated the Alawite State again. This action came after the federation decided to merge the three federated states into one and to take steps encouraging Syria's financial independence, steps which France viewed as too much.


title: Aleppo

text: When the Syrian Revolt erupted in southern Syria in 1925, the French held in Aleppo State new elections that were supposed to lead to the breaking of the union with Damascus and restore the independence of Aleppo State. The French were driven to believe by pro-French Aleppine politicians that the people in Aleppo were supportive of such a scheme. After the new council was elected, however, it surprisingly voted to keep the union with Damascus. Syrian nationalists had waged a massive anti-secession public campaign that vigorously mobilized the people against the secession plan, thus leaving the pro-French politicians no choice but to support the union. The result was a big embarrassment for France, which wanted the secession of Aleppo to be a punitive measure against Damascus, which had participated in the Syrian Revolt, however, the result was respected. This was the last time that independence was proposed for Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: Bad economic situation of the city after the separation of the northern countryside was exacerbated further in 1939 when Alexandretta was annexed to Turkey as Hatay State, thus depriving Aleppo of its main port of Iskenderun and leaving it in total isolation within Syria.<ref name="doi_10.1093/ia/iix118"></ref>


title: Aleppo

text: The increasing disagreements between Aleppo and Damascus led eventually to the split of the National Block into two factions: the National Party, established in Damascus in 1946, and the People's Party, established in Aleppo in 1948 by Rushdi al-Kikhya, Nazim Qudsi and Mustafa Bey Barmada. An underlying cause of the disagreement, in addition to the union with Iraq, was Aleppo's intention to relocate the capital from Damascus. The issue of the capital became an open debate matter in 1950 when the Popular Party presented a constitution draft that called Damascus a "temporary capital."


title: Aleppo

text: The first coup d'état in modern Syrian history was carried out in March 1949 by an army officer from Aleppo, Hussni Zaim. However, lured by the absolute power he enjoyed as a dictator, Zaim soon developed a pro-Egyptian, pro-Western orientation and abandoned the cause of union with Iraq. This incited a second coup only four months after his. The second coup, led by Sami Hinnawi (also officer from Aleppo), empowered the Popular Party and actively sought to realize the union with Iraq. The news of an imminent union with Iraq incited a third coup the same year: in December 1949, Adib Shishakly led a coup preempting a union with Iraq that was about to be declared.


title: Aleppo

text: Soon after Shishakly's domination ended in 1954, a union with Egypt under Gamal Abdul Nasser was implemented in 1958. The union, however, collapsed three and a half years later when a junta of young Damascene officers carried out a separatist coup. Aleppo resisted the separatist coup, but eventually it had no choice but to recognize the new government.


title: Aleppo

text: In March 1963 a coalition of Baathists, Nasserists, and Socialists launched a new coup whose declared objective was to restore the union with Egypt. However, the new government only restored the flag of the union. Soon thereafter disagreement between the Baathists and the Nasserists over the restoration of the union became a crisis, and the Baathists ousted the Nasserists from power. The Nasserists, most of whom were from the Aleppine middle class, responded with an insurgency in Aleppo in July 1963.


title: Aleppo

text: Again, the Ba'ath government tried to absorb the dissent of the Syrian middle class (whose center of political activism was Aleppo) by putting to the front Amin al-Hafiz, a Baathist military officer from Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: President Hafez al-Assad, who came to power in 1970, relied on support from the business class in Damascus. This gave Damascus further advantage over Aleppo, and hence Damascus came to dominate the Syrian economy. The strict centralization of the Syrian state, the intentional direction of resources towards Damascus, and the hegemony Damascus enjoys over the Syrian economy made it increasingly hard for Aleppo to compete. Despite this, Aleppo remained a nationally important economic and cultural center.


title: Aleppo

text: On 16 June 1979 thirty-two military cadets were massacred by anti-government Islamist rebel group Muslim Brotherhood. In the subsequent violence around fifty people were killed. On 10 July a further twenty-two Syrian soldiers were killed. Both terrorist attacks were part of the Islamist uprising in Syria. In 1980, events escalated into the a large-scale military operation in Aleppo, where Syrian government responded with military and security forces, sending in tens of thousands of troops backed by tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters. Several hundred rebels were killed in and around city and eight thousand were arrested. By February 1981, the Islamist uprising in the city of Aleppo was suppressed.


title: Aleppo

text: Since the late 1990s, Aleppo has become one of the fastest growing cities in the Levant and the Middle East. The opening of the industrial city of Shaykh Najjar and the influx of new investments and flow of the new industries after 2004 also contributed to the development of the city. In 2006, Aleppo was named by the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) as the capital of Islamic culture.


title: Aleppo

text: On 12 August 2011, some months after protests had begun elsewhere in Syria, anti-government protests were held in several districts of Aleppo, including the city's Sakhour district. During this demonstration, which included tens of thousands of protesters, security forces shot and killed at least twelve people. Two months later, a pro-government demonstration was held in Saadallah Al-Jabiri Square, in the heart of the city. According to the "New York Times", the 11 October 2011 rally in support of Bashar al-Assad was attended by large crowds, while state and local media claimed more than 1.5 million attended and stated that it was one of the largest rallies ever held in Syria.


title: Aleppo

text: In early 2012, rebels began bombing Aleppo after the spread of anti-government protests. On 10 February 2012, suicide car bombs exploded outside two security compounds — the Military Intelligence Directorate's local headquarters, and a Syrian Internal Security Forces barracks — reportedly killing 28 (four civilians, thirteen military personnel and eleven security personnel) and wounding 235. On 18 March 2012, another car bomb blast in a residential neighbourhood reportedly killed two security personnel and one female civilian, and wounded 30 residents.


title: Aleppo

text: In late July 2012, the conflict reached Aleppo in earnest when rebels in the city’s surrounding countryside mounted their first offensive there, apparently trying to capitalise on momentum gained during the Damascus assault. Then, some of the civil war's "most devastating bombing and fiercest fighting" took place in Aleppo, often in residential areas. In the summer, autumn and winter of 2012 house-to-house fighting between armed opposition and government forces continued, and by the spring 2013 the Syrian Army had entrenched itself in the western part of Aleppo (government loyalist forces were operating from a military base in the southern part of the city) and the Free Syrian Army in the eastern part with a no man's land between them. One estimate of casualties by an international humanitarian organization is that by this time 13,500 had been killed in the fighting — 1,500 under 5 years of age — and that another 23,000 had been injured. Local police stations in the city, used as bases of government forces and hated and feared by residents, were a focus of much of the conflict.


title: Aleppo

text: As a result of the severe battle, many sections in Al-Madina Souq (part of the Old City of Aleppo World Heritage Site), including parts of the Great Mosque of Aleppo and other medieval buildings in the ancient city, were destroyed and ruined or burnt in late summer 2012 as the armed groups of the Syrian Arab Army and the Free Syrian Army fought for control of the city. By March 2013, a majority of Aleppo’s factory owners transferred their goods to Turkey with the full knowledge and facilitation of the Turkish government.


title: Aleppo

text: A stalemate that had been in place for four years ended in July 2016, when Syrian Army troops closed the last supply line of the rebels into Aleppo with the support of Russian airstrikes. In response, rebel forces launched unsuccessful counter-offensives in September and October that failed to break the siege; in November, government forces embarked on a decisive campaign. The rebels agreed to evacuate from their remaining areas in December 2016. Syrian government victory with Russian aerial bombardment was widely seen as a potential turning point in Syria's civil war.


title: Aleppo

text: On 22 December, the evacuation was completed with the Syrian Army declaring it had taken complete control of the city. Red Cross later confirmed that the evacuation of all civilians and rebels was complete.


title: Aleppo

text: When the battle ended, 500,000 refugees and internally displaced persons returned to Aleppo, and Syrian state media said that hundreds of factories returned to production as electricity supply greatly increased. Many parts of the city that were affected are undergoing reconstruction. On 15 April 2017, a convoy of buses carrying evacuees was attacked by a suicide bomber in Aleppo, killing more than 126 people, including at least 80 children. Syrian state media reported that the Aleppo shopping festival took place on 17 November 2017 to promote industry in the city. A YPG commander stated in February 2018 that Kurdish fighters had shifted to Afrin to help repel the Turkish assault. As a result, he said the pro-Syrian government forces had regained control of the districts previously controlled by them. In February 2020, government forces achieved a major breakthrough when they captured the last remaining rebel-held areas in Aleppo's western periphery, thus decisively ending the clashes that began with the Battle of Aleppo over eight years prior.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo lies about inland from the Mediterranean Sea, on a plateau above sea level, east of the Syrian-Turkish border checkpoint of Bab al-Hawa. The city is surrounded by farmlands from the north and the west, widely cultivated with olive and pistachio trees. To the east, Aleppo approaches the dry areas of the Syrian Desert.


title: Aleppo

text: The city was founded a few kilometres south of the location of the current old city, on the right bank of Queiq River which arises from the Aintab plateau in the north and runs through Aleppo southward to the fertile country of Qinnasrin. The old city of Aleppo lies on the left bank of the Queiq. It was surrounded by a circle of eight hills surrounding a prominent central hill on which the castle (originally a temple dating to the 2nd millennium BC) was erected. The radius of the circle is about . The hills are Tell as-Sawda, Tell ʕāysha, Tell as-Sett, Tell al-Yāsmīn (Al-ʕaqaba), Tell al-Ansāri (Yārūqiyya), ʕan at-Tall, al-Jallūm, Baḥsīta. The old city was enclosed within an ancient wall that was last rebuilt by the Mamluks. The wall has since disappeared. It had nine gates and was surrounded by a broad deep ditch.


title: Aleppo

text: Occupying an area of more than , Aleppo is one of the fastest-growing cities in the Middle East. According to the new major plan of the city adopted in 2001, it is envisaged to increase the total area of Aleppo up to by the end of 2015.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo has a cool steppe climate (Köppen: BSk). The mountain series that run along the Mediterranean coast, namely the Alawiyin Mountains and the Nur Mountains, largely block the effects of the Mediterranean on climate (rain shadow effect). The average high and low temperature throughout the year is . The average precipitation is . More than 80% of precipitation occurs between October and March. It snows once or twice every winter. Average humidity is 55.7%.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is characterized with mixed architectural styles, having been ruled by, among others, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuqs, Mamluks and Ottomans.


title: Aleppo

text: Various types of 13th and 14th centuries constructions, such as caravanserais, caeserias, Quranic schools, hammams and religious buildings are found in the old city. The quarters of al-Jdayde district are home to numerous 16th and 17th-century houses of the Aleppine bourgeoisie, featuring stone engravings. Baroque architecture of the 19th and early 20th centuries is common in al-Azizyah district, including the Villa Rose. The new Shahbaa district is a mixture of several styles, such as Neo-classic, Norman, Oriental and even Chinese architecture.


title: Aleppo

text: Since the old city is characterized with its large mansions, narrow alleys and covered souqs, the modern city's architecture has replenished the town with wide roads and large squares such as the Saadallah Al-Jabiri Square, the Liberty Square, the President's Square and Sabaa Bahrat Square


title: Aleppo

text: There is a relatively clear division between old and new Aleppo. The older portions of the city, with an approximate area of are contained within a wall, in circuit with nine gates. The huge medieval castle in the city — known as the Citadel of Aleppo — occupies the center of the ancient part, in the shape of an acropolis.


title: Aleppo

text: Being subjected to constant invasions and political instability, the inhabitants of the city were forced to build cell-like quarters and districts that were socially and economically independent. Each district was characterized by the religious and ethnic characteristics of its inhabitants.


title: Aleppo

text: The mainly white-stoned old town was built within the historical walls of the city, pierced by the nine historical gates, while the newer quarters of the old city were first built by the Christians during the early 15th century in the northern suburbs of the ancient city, after the Mongol withdrawal from Aleppo. The new quarter known as al-Jdayde is one of the finest examples of a cell-like quarter in Aleppo. After Tamerlane invaded Aleppo in 1400 and destroyed it, the Christians migrated out of the city walls and established their own cell in 1420, at the northwestern suburbs of the city, thus founding the quarters of al-Jdayde. The inhabitants of the new quarters were mainly brokers who facilitated trade between foreign traders and local merchants. As a result of the economic development, many other quarters were established outside the walls of the ancient city during the 15th and 16th centuries.


title: Aleppo

text: Thus, the Old City of Aleppo — composed of the ancient city within the walls and the old cell-like quarters outside the walls — has an approximate area of housing more than 120,000 residents.


title: Aleppo

text: According to the Aleppine historian Sheikh "Kamel Al-Ghazzi" (1853–1933), the population of Aleppo was around 400,000 before the disastrous earthquake of 1822. Followed by cholera and plague attacks in 1823 and 1827 respectively, the population of the city declined to 110,000 by the end of the 19th century. In 1901, the total population of Aleppo was 108,143 of which Muslims were 76,329 (70.58%), Christians — mostly Catholics — 24,508 (22.66%) and Jews 7,306 (6.76%).


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo's large Christian population swelled with the influx of Armenian and Assyrian Christian refugees during the early 20th-century and after the Armenian and Assyrian genocides of 1915. After the arrival of the first groups of Armenian refugees (1915–1922) the population of Aleppo in 1922 counted 156,748 of which Muslims were 97,600 (62.26%), native Christians — mostly Catholics — 22,117 (14.11%), Jews 6,580 (4.20%), Europeans 2,652 (1.70%), Armenian refugees 20,007 (12.76%) and others 7,792 (4.97%). However, even though a large majority of the Armenians arrived during the period, the city has had an Armenian community since at least the 1100s, when a considerable number of Armenian families and merchants from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia settled in the city. The oldest Armenian church in the city is from 1491 as well, which indicates that they have been here long before.


title: Aleppo

text: The second period of Armenian flow towards Aleppo marked with the withdrawal of the French troops from Cilicia in 1923. After the arrival of more than 40,000 Armenian refugees between 1923 and 1925, the population of the city reached up to 210,000 by the end of 1925, where Armenians formed more than 25% of it.


title: Aleppo

text: According to the historical data presented by "Al-Ghazzi", the vast majority of the Aleppine Christians were Catholics until the latter days of the Ottoman rule. The growth of the Oriental Orthodox Christians is related with the arrival of the Assyrian survivors from Cilicia and Southern Turkey, while on the other hand, large numbers of Eastern Orthodox Christians from the Sanjak of Alexandretta arrived in Aleppo, after the annexation of the Sanjak in 1939 in favour of Turkey.


title: Aleppo

text: In 1944, Aleppo's population was around 325,000, with 112,110 (34.5%) Christians among which Armenians have counted 60,200. Armenians formed more than half of the Christian community in Aleppo until 1947, when many groups of them left for Soviet Armenia within the frames of the "Armenian Repatriation Process (1946–1967)".


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo was the most populous city in Syria, with a population of 2,132,100 as indicated in the latest official census in 2004 by the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Its subdistrict ("nahiya") consisted of 23 localities with a collective population of 2,181,061 in 2004. According to the official estimate announced by the Aleppo City Council, the population of the city was 2,301,570 by the end of 2005. As a result of the Syrian Civil War, however, the city eastern half's population under the control of the opposition had plummeted to an estimated 40,000 by 2015.


title: Aleppo

text: More than 80% of Aleppo's inhabitants are Sunni Muslims. They are mainly Syrian Arabs, followed by Kurds and Turkmens. Other Muslim groups include small numbers of ethnic Circassians, Chechens, Albanians, Bosniaks, Greeks and Bulgarians.


title: Aleppo

text: Until the beginning of the Battle of Aleppo in 2012; within the context of the Syrian Civil War, the city contained one of the largest Christian communities in the Middle East. There were many Oriental Orthodox Christian congregations, mainly Armenians and Assyrians (locally known as Syriacs). Historically, the city was the main centre of French Catholic missionaries in Syria.


title: Aleppo

text: The Christian population of Aleppo was slightly more than 250,000 before the civil war, representing about 12% of the total population of the city. However, as a consequence of the Syrian Civil War, the Christian population of the city decreased to less than 100,000 as of the beginning of 2017, of whom around 30% are ethnic Armenians.


title: Aleppo

text: A significant number of the Assyrians in Aleppo speak Aramaic, hailing from the city of Urfa in Turkey. The large community of Oriental Orthodox Christians belongs to the Armenian Apostolic and Syriac Orthodox churches. However, there is a significant presence of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Antioch as well.


title: Aleppo

text: There is also a large number Eastern Catholic Christians in the city, including Melkite Greeks, Maronites, Chaldeans, Syrian Catholics and the followers of the Latin rite. Evangelical Christians of different denominations are a minority in the city.


title: Aleppo

text: Several districts of the city have a Christian and Armenian majority, such as the old Christian quarter of al-Jdayde. Around 50 churches operate in the city operated by the above-mentioned congregations. However, according to the Deputy Chairman of the commission for UNESCO of the Russian Federation Alexander Dzasokhov, around 20 churches suffered great destruction during the battles in Aleppo, with the most notable being the National Evangelical Church, as well as the surrounding historic churches of al-Jdayde district. On 25 December 2016, following the government victory, Christmas was publicly celebrated in Aleppo for the first time in four years.


title: Aleppo

text: The city was home to a significant Jewish population from ancient times. The Great Synagogue, built in the 5th century, housed the Aleppo Codex. The Jews of Aleppo were known for their religious commitment, Rabbinic leadership, and their liturgy, consisting of Pizmonim and Baqashot. After the Spanish Inquisition, the city of Aleppo received many Sephardic Jewish immigrants, who eventually joined with the native Aleppo Jewish community. Peaceful relations existed between the Jews and surrounding population. In the early 20th century, the town's Jews lived mainly in Al-Jamiliyah, Bab Al-Faraj and the neighbourhoods around the Great Synagogue. Unrest in Palestine in the years preceding the establishment of Israel in 1948 resulted in growing hostility towards Jews living in Arab countries, culminating in the Jewish exodus from Arab lands. In December 1947, after the UN decided the partition of Palestine, an Arab mob attacked the Jewish quarter. Homes, schools and shops were badly damaged. Soon after, many of the town's remaining 6,000 Jews emigrated. In 1968, there were an estimated 700 Jews still remaining in Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: The houses and other properties of the Jewish families which were not sold after the migration, remain uninhabited under the protection of the Syrian Government. Most of these properties are in Al-Jamiliyah and Bab Al-Faraj areas, and the neighbourhoods around the Central Synagogue of Aleppo. In 1992, the Syrian government lifted the travel ban on its 4,500 Jewish citizens. Most traveled to the United States, where a sizable number of Syrian Jews currently live in Brooklyn, New York. The last Jews of Aleppo, the Halabi family, were evacuated from the city in October 2016 by the Free Syrian Army and now live in Israel.


title: Aleppo

text: The Jews from Aleppo referred to their city as "Aram Tzova" (ארם צובא) after the ancient Aramean city of Aram-Zobah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.


title: Aleppo

text: The Arabic dialect of Aleppo is a type of Syrian Arabic, which is of the North Levantine Arabic variety. Much of its vocabulary is derived from the Syriac language. The Kurdish language is the second most spoken language in the city, after Arabic. Kurds in Aleppo speak the Northern Kurdish (also known as Kurmanji). Syrian Turkmen population of Aleppo speak the Kilis and Antep dialect of the Turkish language. Most Armenians speak the Western form of the Armenian language. Syriac language is rarely spoken by the Syriac community during daily life, but commonly used as the liturgical language of the Syriac Church. The members of the small Greco-Syrian community in Aleppo speak Arabic, but the Koine Greek dialect of the Greek language is used during church service by the Orthodox and Catholic Greek churches of Antioch. English and French are also spoken.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is considered one of the main centres of Arabic traditional and classic music with the Aleppine "Muwashshahs", "Qudud Halabiya" and "Maqams" (religious, secular and folk poetic-musical genres). In December 2021, the Qudud Halabiya was included into the UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list as Intangible cultural heritage.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppines in general are fond of Arab classical music, the "Tarab", and it is not a surprise that many artists from Aleppo are considered pioneers among the Arabs in classic and traditional music. The most prominent figures in this field are Sabri Mdallal, Sabah Fakhri, Shadi Jamil, Abed Azrie and Nour Mhanna. Many iconic artists of the Arab music like Sayed Darwish and Mohammed Abdel Wahab were visiting Aleppo to recognize the legacy of Aleppine art and learn from its cultural heritage.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is also known for its knowledgeable and cultivated listeners, known as "sammi'a" or "connoisseur listeners". Aleppine musicians often claim that no major Arab artist achieved fame without first earning the approval of the Aleppine "sammi'a".


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo hosts many music shows and festivals every year at the citadel amphitheatre, such as the "Syrian Song Festival", the "Silk Road Festival" and "Khan al-Harir Festival".


title: Aleppo

text: Al-Adeyat Archaeological Society founded in 1924 in Aleppo, is a cultural and social organization to preserve the tangible and intangible heritage of Aleppo and Syria in general. The society has branches in other governorates as well.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is surrounded by olive, nut and fruit orchards, and its cuisine is the product of its fertile land and location along the Silk Road. The International Academy of Gastronomy in France awarded Aleppo its culinary prize in 2007. The city has a wide selection of different types of dishes, such as kebab, kibbeh, dolma, hummus, ful halabi, za'atar halabi, etc. Ful halabi is a typical Aleppine breakfast meal: fava bean soup with a splash of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and Aleppo's red peppers. The za'atar of Aleppo (thyme) is a kind of oregano which is popular in the regional cuisines.


title: Aleppo

text: The kibbeh is one of the favourite foods of the locals, and the Aleppines have created more than 17 types of kibbeh dishes, which is considered a form of art for them. These include "kibbeh" prepared with sumac ("kәbbe sәmmāʔiyye"), yogurt ("kәbbe labaniyye"), quince ("kәbbe safarjaliyye"), lemon juice ("kәbbe ḥāmḍa"), pomegranate sauce and cherry sauce. Other varieties include the "disk" "kibbeh" ("kәbbe ʔrāṣ"), the "plate" "kibbeh" ("kәbbe bәṣfīḥa" or "kәbbe bṣēniyye") and the raw "kibbeh" ("kәbbe nayye"). Kebab Halabi – influenced by Armenian and Turkish tastes – has around 26 variants including: "kebab" prepared with cherry ("kebab karaz"), eggplant ("kebab banjan"), chili pepper with parsley and pine nut ("kebab khashkhash"), truffle ("kebab kamayeh"), tomato paste ("kebab hindi"), cheese and mushroom ("kebab ma'juʔa"), etc. The favourite drink is Arak, which is usually consumed along with meze, Aleppine kebabs and kibbehs. Al-Shark beer – a product of Aleppo – is also among the favourite drinks. Local wines and brandies are consumed as well.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is the origin of different types of sweets and pastries. The Aleppine sweets, such as mabrumeh, siwar es-sett, balloriyyeh, etc., are characterized by containing high rates of ghee butter and sugar. Other sweets include mamuniyeh, shuaibiyyat, mushabbak, zilebiyeh, ghazel al-banat etc. Most pastries contain the renowned Aleppine pistachios and other types of nuts.


title: Aleppo

text: Until the break-up of the Battle of Aleppo in July 2012, the city was known for its vibrant nightlife. Several night-clubs, bars and cabarets that were operating at the centre of the city as well as at the northern suburbs. The historic quarter of al-Jdayde was known for its pubs and boutique hotels, situated within ancient oriental mansions, providing special treats from the Aleppine flavour and cuisine, along with local music.


title: Aleppo

text: Club d'Alep opened in 1945, is a unique social club known for bridge games and other nightlife activities, located in a 19th-century mansion in the Aziziyah district of central Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: The Aleppo Public Park opened in 1949, is one of the largest planted parks in Syria, located near in the Aziziyah district, where Queiq River breaks through the green park.


title: Aleppo

text: The "Blue Lagoon" water park – heavily damaged during the battles – was one of the favourite places among the locals, as it was the first water park in Syria. Aleppo's Shahba Mall – one of the largest shopping centres in Syria – was also among the most visited locations for the locals. It has received major damages during the civil war.


title: Aleppo

text: The city's strategic trading position attracted settlers of all races and beliefs who wished to take advantage of the commercial roads that met in Aleppo from as far as China and Mesopotamia to the east, Europe to the west, and the Fertile Crescent and Egypt to the south. The largest covered souq-market in the world is in Aleppo, with an approximate length of .


title: Aleppo

text: "Al-Madina Souq", as it is locally known, is an active trade centre for imported luxury goods, such as raw silk from Iran, spices and dyes from India, and coffee from Damascus. Souq al-Madina is also home to local products such as wool, agricultural products and soap. Most of the souqs date back to the 14th century and are named after various professions and crafts, hence the wool souq, the copper souq, and so on. Aside from trading, the souq accommodated the traders and their goods in "khans" (caravanserais) and scattered in the souq. Other types of small market-places were called "caeserias" (ﻗﻴﺴﺎﺭﻳﺎﺕ). Caeserias are smaller than khans in their sizes and functioned as workshops for craftsmen. Most of the khans took their names after their location in the souq and function, and are characterized by their façades, entrances and fortified wooden doors.


title: Aleppo

text: The old part of the city is surrounded with , thick walls, pierced by the nine historical gates (many of them are well-preserved) of the old town. These are, clockwise from the north-east of the citadel:


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo was home to 177 hammams during the medieval period until the Mongol invasion, when many of the prominent structures of the city were destroyed. Before the civil war, 18 hammams were operating in the old city, including:


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo's western suburbs are home to a group of historical sites and villages which are commonly known as the "Dead Cities". Around 700 abandoned settlements in the northwestern parts of Syria before the 5th century, contain remains of Christian Byzantine architecture. Many hundreds of those settlements are in Mount Simeon (Jabal Semaan) and Jabal Halaqa regions at the western suburbs of Aleppo, within the range of Limestone Massif. Dead Cities were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, under the name of "Ancient Villages of Northern Syria".


title: Aleppo

text: The most notable "Dead cities" and archaeological sites in Mount Simeon and Mount Kurd near Aleppo include: Kalota Castle and churches northwest of Aleppo, Kharab Shams Byzantine basilica of the 4th century, the half-ruined Roman basilica in Fafertin village dating back to 372 AD, the old Byzantine settlement of Surqanya village at the northwest of Aleppo, the 4th-century Basilica of Sinhar settlement, the Mushabbak Basilica dating back to the second half of the 5th century, the 9th-century BC Assyrian settlement of Kafr Nabu, Brad village and the Saint Julianus Maronite monastery (399–402 AD) where the shrine of Saint Maron is located, the 5th-century Kimar settlement of the Roman and Byzantine eras, the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites of the 5th century, the Syro-Hittite Ain Dara temple of the Iron Age dating back to the 10th and 8th centuries BC, the ancient city of Cyrrhus with the old Roman amphitheatre and two historic bridges, etc.


title: Aleppo

text: The main highway leading to and within the city is the M4 Highway, which runs in the eastern side of the city from south to north along the Queiq River. Driving south on M4 Highway gives access to M5 Highway leading to Homs, Hama, and Damascus. The northern bypass of the city called Castello Road leads through Azaz to the border with Turkey and further to the city of Gaziantep. Driving east on M4 Highway gives access to the coastal road leading to Latakia and Tartus. Within the city, main routes include Al Jalaa Street, Shukri Al-Quwatly Street, King Faisal Street, Bab Antakya Street, Ibrahim Hanano Street and Tishreen Boulevard.


title: Aleppo

text: The city of Aleppo is a major transportation hub, served by a comprehensive public transport network of buses and minibuses. New modern buses are used to connect the city with Damascus and the other Syrian cities to the east and the south of Aleppo. The city is also served by local and inter-city share taxis.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo was one of the major stations of Syria that was connected to the Baghdad Railway in 1912, within the Ottoman Empire. The connections to Turkey and onwards to Ankara still exist today, with a twice weekly train from Damascus. It is perhaps for this historical reason that Aleppo is the headquarters of Syria national railway network, Chemins de Fer Syriens. As the railway is relatively slow, much of the passenger traffic to the port of Latakia had moved to road-based air-conditioned coaches. But this has reversed in recent years with the 2005 introduction of South Korean built DMUs providing a regular bi-hourly express service to both Latakia and Damascus, which miss intermediate stations.


title: Aleppo

text: However, after the break-out of the civil war in 2011, the Syrian railway network has suffered major damage and is partially out of use. Reconstruction of the Damascus-Aleppo railway line was started in 2020, after its completion and securing rail transport will be resumed.


title: Aleppo

text: The opening scene in Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" takes place on the railway station in Aleppo: "It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express."


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo International Airport (IATA: ALP, ICAO: OSAP) is the international airport serving the city. The airport serves as a secondary hub for Syrian Arab Airlines. The history of the airport dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. It was upgraded and developed in the years to 1999 when the new current terminal was opened.


title: Aleppo

text: The airport was closed since the beginning of 2013 as a result of the military operations in the area. However, following the Syrian government's recapture of eastern Aleppo during the Battle of Aleppo, an airplane conducted its first flight from the airport in four years.


title: Aleppo

text: The main role of the city was as a trading place throughout the history, as it sat at the crossroads of two trade routes and mediated the trade from India, the Tigris and Euphrates regions and the route coming from Damascus in the South, which traced the base of the mountains rather than the rugged seacoast. Although trade was often directed away from the city for political reasons , it continued to thrive until the Europeans began to use the Cape route to India and later to utilize the route through Egypt to the Red Sea.


title: Aleppo

text: The commercial traditions in Aleppo have deep roots in the history. The Aleppo Chamber of commerce founded in 1885, is one of the oldest chambers in the Middle East and the Arab world. According to many historians, Aleppo was the most developed commercial and industrial city in the Ottoman Empire after Constantinople and Cairo.


title: Aleppo

text: As the largest urban area in pre-civil war Syria, Aleppo was considered the capital of Syrian industry. The economy of the city was mainly driven by textiles, chemicals, pharmaceutics, agro-processing industries, electrical commodities, alcoholic beverages, engineering and tourism. It occupied a dominant position in the country's manufacturing output, with a share of more than 50% of manufacturing employment, and an even greater export share.


title: Aleppo

text: Possessing the most developed commercial and industrial plants in Syria, Aleppo is a major centre for manufacturing precious metals and stones. The annual amount of the processed gold produced in Aleppo is around 8.5 tonnes, making up to 40% of the entire manufactured gold in Syria.


title: Aleppo

text: The industrial city of Aleppo in Sheikh Najjar district is one of the largest in Syria and the region. Occupying an area of in the north-eastern suburbs of Aleppo, the total investments in the city counted more than US$3.4 billion during 2010. Still under development, it is envisaged to open hotels, exhibition centres and other facilities within the industrial city.


title: Aleppo

text: In July 2022, the Aleppo Thermal Power Plant, which generates 200 megawatts of electricity for the city and its surroundings, was put into partial operation after restoration.


title: Aleppo

text: The old traditional crafts are well-preserved in the old part of the city. The famous laurel soap of Aleppo is considered to be the world's first hard soap.


title: Aleppo

text: In the 2000s, Aleppo was one of the fastest-growing cities in Syria and the Middle East. Many villagers and inhabitants of other Syrian districts are migrating to Aleppo in an effort to find better job opportunities, a fact that always increases population pressure, with a growing demand for new residential capacity. New districts and residential communities have been built in the suburbs of Aleppo, many of them were still under construction .


title: Aleppo

text: Two major construction projects are scheduled in Aleppo: the "Old City Revival" project and the "Reopening of the stream bed of Queiq River".


title: Aleppo

text: Like other major Syrian cities, Aleppo is suffering from the dispersal of informal settlements: almost half of its population (around 1.2 million) is estimated to live in 22 informal settlements of different types.


title: Aleppo

text: As the main economic centre of Syria, Aleppo has a large number of educational institutions. According to the UNICEF, there are around over 1280 schools in Aleppo and its suburbs that welcomed 485,000 new students as of September 2018, and around 25,000 students resumed their learning as of December 2021.


title: Aleppo

text: Not to mention there are some colleges. In addition to the University of Aleppo, there are state colleges and private universities which attract large numbers of students from other regions of Syria and the Arab countries. The number of the students in Aleppo University is more than 60,000. The university has 18 faculties and 8 technical colleges in the city of Aleppo.


title: Aleppo

text: Currently, there are two private universities operating in the city: al-Shahba University (SU) and Mamoun University for Science and Technology (MUST). Branches of the state conservatory and the fine arts school are also operating in the city.


title: Aleppo

text: Aleppo is home to several Christian schools, such as St. Mariam's Christian School (the city's main Christian school) and Armenian private schools as well as two international schools: International School of Aleppo and Lycée Français d'Alep.


title: Aleppo

text: The city of Aleppo is considered an important centre of team sports with football being the most popular in the city. The five major sporting clubs of the city are al-Ittihad SC, al-Hurriya SC, al-Yarmouk SC, Jalaa SC and Ouroube SC. Many other sport clubs are located in several districts of the city including al-Herafyeen SC, Shorta Aleppo SC, Ommal Aleppo SC, Nayrab SC, al-Shahbaa SC, al-Qala'a SC and Aleppo Railways SC.


title: Aleppo

text: Basketball is also played in the city. All of the 5 Aleppine major sport clubs participate in the men's and women's top division of the Syrian Basketball League, in which both Jalaa SC and Al-Ittihad SC consecutively dominated winning the league from 1956 to 1993.


title: Aleppo

text: In July 2022, international qualifying matches were played in Aleppo for the first time since the beginning of the conflict. In the Hamadaniah Arena, the Syrian national team met the teams of Iran and Bahrain as part of the qualification for the World Cup.


title: Aleppo

text: Other sports being practiced by the major clubs in the city include tennis, handball, volleyball, athletics, table tennis and swimming.


title: Aleppo

text: With a capacity of 53,200 seats, the Aleppo International Stadium is the largest sports venue in Syria. Other major sport venues in the city include the Al-Hamadaniah Sports Arena, Bassel al-Assad Swimming Complex, and Al-Hamadaniah Olympic Swimming and Diving Complex.


title: Aleppo

text: On 29 January 2017, Aleppo hosted the first sports event since 2012, when the local football rivals al-Ittihad SC and al-Hurriya SC played at the Ri'ayet al-Shabab Stadium, within the frames of the 2016–17 Syrian Premier League.


title: Aleppo

text: The city of Aleppo is the capital of Aleppo Governorate and the centre of Mount Simeon District. Aleppo City Council is the governing body of the city. The first municipality council was formed in 1868. However, the governor being appointed directly by the president of the republic, has a supreme authority over the city and the entire governorate. But the city is managed directly by the mayor.


title: Aleppo

text: The "Integrated Urban Development in Aleppo" (UDP) is a joint programme between the German Development Cooperation (GTZ) and the Municipality of Aleppo. The programme promotes capacities for sustainable urban management and development at the national and municipal level.


title: Aleppo

text: The UDP cooperates closely with other interventions in the sector, namely the EU-supported 'Municipal Administration Modernization' programme. It is planned to operate from 2007 to 2016.


title: Aleppo

text: As an ancient trading centre, Aleppo has impressive "souqs", "khans", "hammams", "madrasas", mosques and churches, all in need of more care and preservation work. After World War II the city was significantly redesigned; in 1954 French architect André Gutton had a number of wide new roads cut through the city to allow easier passage for modern traffic. Between 1954 and 1983 many buildings in the old city were demolished to allow for the construction of modern apartment blocks, particularly in the northwestern areas (Bab al-Faraj and Bab al-Jinan). As awareness for the need to preserve this unique cultural heritage increased, Gutton's master plan was finally abandoned in 1979 to be replaced with a new plan presented by the Swiss expert and urban designer Stefano Bianca, which adopted the idea of "preserving the traditional architectural style of Ancient Aleppo" paving the way for UNESCO to declare the Old City of Aleppo as a World Heritage Site in 1986.


title: Aleppo

text: Several international institutions have joined efforts with local authorities and the Aleppo Archaeological Society, to rehabilitate the old city by accommodating contemporary life while preserving the old one. The governorate and the municipality are implementing serious programmes directed towards the enhancement of the ancient city and Jdeydeh quarter.


title: Aleppo

text: The German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and Aga Khan Foundation (within the frames of Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme) has made a great contribution in the preservation process of the old city.


title: Nuclear family

text: A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger extended family, or a family with more than two parents. Nuclear families typically center on a heterosexual married couple which may have any number of children. There are differences in definition among observers. Some definitions allow only biological children that are full-blood siblings and consider adopted or half and step siblings a part of the immediate family, but others allow for a step-parent and any mix of dependent children, including stepchildren and adopted children. Some sociologists and anthropologists consider the nuclear family as the most basic form of social organization, while others consider the extended family structure to be the most common family structure in most cultures and at most times.


title: Nuclear family

text: The term "nuclear family" was popularized in the 20th century. In the United States, it became the most common form of family structure in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Since that time, the number of North American nuclear families is gradually decreasing, while the number of alternative family formations has increased; this phenomenon is generally opposed by members of such philosophies as social conservatism or familialism, which consider the nuclear family structure important.


title: Nuclear family

text: DNA extracted from bones and teeth discovered in a 4,600-year-old Stone Age burial site in Germany has provided the earliest evidence for the social recognition of a family consisting of two parents with multiple children.


title: Nuclear family

text: Historians Alan Macfarlane and Peter Laslett, among other European researchers, say that nuclear families have been a primary arrangement in England since the 13th century. This primary arrangement was different from the normal arrangements in Southern Europe, in parts of Asia, and the Middle East where it was common for young adults to remain in or marry into the family home. In England, multi-generational households were uncommon because young adults would save enough money to move out, into their own household once they married. Sociologist Brigitte Berger argued, "the young nuclear family had to be flexible and mobile as it searched for opportunity and property. Forced to rely on their own ingenuity, its members also needed to plan for the future and develop bourgeois habits of work and saving." Berge also mentions that this could be one of the reasons why the Industrial Revolution began in England and other Northwest European countries. However, the historicity of the nuclear family in England has been challenged by Cord Oestmann.


title: Nuclear family

text: Family structures of a mixing couple and their children were present in Western Europe and New England in the 17th century, influenced by church and theocratic governments. With the emergence of proto-industrialization and early capitalism, the nuclear family became a financially viable social unit.


title: Nuclear family

text: The term "nuclear family" first appeared in the early 20th century. Merriam-Webster dates the term back to 1924, while the "Oxford English Dictionary" has a reference to the term from 1925; thus it is relatively new. While the phrase dates approximately from the Atomic Age, the term "nuclear" is not used here in the context of nuclear warfare, nuclear power, nuclear fission or nuclear fusion; rather, it arises from a more general use of the noun "nucleus", itself originating in the Latin "nux", meaning "nut", i.e. the core of something – thus, the nuclear family refers to all members of the family being part of the same core rather than directly to atomic weapons.


title: Nuclear family

text: In its most common usage, the term "nuclear family" refers to a household consisting of a father, a mother and their children all in one household dwelling. George Murdock, an observer of families, offered an early description:


title: Nuclear family

text: Many individuals are part of two nuclear families in their lives: the family of origin in which they are offspring, and the family of procreation in which they are a parent.


title: Nuclear family

text: Alternative definitions have evolved to include family units headed by same-sex parents and perhaps additional adult relatives who take on a cohabiting parental role; in the latter case, it also receives the name of conjugal family.


title: Nuclear family

text: An extended group consists of non-nuclear (or "non-immediate") family members considered together with nuclear (or "immediate") family members. When extended family is involved they also influence children's development just as much as the parents would on their own. In an extended family resources are usually shared among those involved, adding more of a community aspect to the family unit. This is not limited to the sharing of objects and money, but includes sharing time. For example, extended family such as grandparents can watch over their grandchildren allowing parents to continue and pursue careers and creating a healthy and supportive environment the children to grow up in and allows the parents to have much less stress. Extended families help keep the kids in the family healthier because of all the resources the kids get now that they have other individuals able to help them and support them as they grow up.


title: Nuclear family

text: In 2005, information from the United States Census Bureau showed that 70% of children in the US live in two-parent families, with 66% of those living with parents who were married, and 60% living with their biological parents. The information also explained that "the figures suggest that the tumultuous shifts in family structure since the late 1960s have leveled off since 1990".


title: Nuclear family

text: When considered separately from couples without children, single-parent families, and unmarried couples with children, the United States nuclear families appear to constitute a minority of households – with a rising prevalence of other family arrangements. In 2000, nuclear families with the original biological parents constituted roughly 24.10% of American households, compared with 40.30% in 1970. Roughly two-thirds of all children in the United States will spend at least some time in a single-parent household. According to some sociologists, "[The nuclear family] no longer seems adequate to cover the wide diversity of household arrangements we see today." (Edwards 1991; Stacey 1996). A new term has been introduced, "postmodern family", intended to describe the great variability in family forms, including single-parent families and couples without children." Nuclear family households are now less common compared to household with couples without children, single-parent families, and unmarried couples with children.


title: Nuclear family

text: In the UK, the number of nuclear families fell from 39.0% of all households in 1968 to 28.0% in 1992. The decrease accompanied an equivalent increase in the number of single-parent households and in the number of adults living alone.


title: Nuclear family

text: Professor Wolfgang Haak of Adelaide University, detects traces of the nuclear family in prehistoric Central Europe. A 2005 archeological dig in Elau in Germany, analyzed by Haak, revealed genetic evidence suggesting that the 13 individuals found in a grave were closely related. Haak said, "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe... Their unity in death suggest[s] a unity in life." This paper does not regard the nuclear family as "natural" or as the only model for human family life. "This does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities. For example, polygamous unions are prevalent in ethnographic data and models of household communities have apparently been involving a high degree of complexity from their origins."


title: Nuclear family

text: Lastly, large shifts in the financial landscape for families has made the historically middle class, traditional, nuclear family structure significantly more risky, expensive and unstable. The expenses associated with raising a family; notably housing, medical care and education, have all increased very rapidly, particularly since the 1950s. Since then middle class incomes have stagnated or even declined, whilst living costs have soared to the point where even two-income households are now unable to offer the same level of financial stability that was once possible under the single income nuclear family household of the 1950s.


title: Nuclear family

text: As a fertility factor, single nuclear family households generally have a higher number of children than co-operative living arrangements according to studies from both the Western world and India.


title: Nuclear family

text: There have been studies done that shows a difference in the number of children wanted per household according to where they live. Families that live in rural areas wanted to have more kids than families in urban areas. A study done in Japan between October 2011 and February 2012 further researched the effect of area of residence on mean desired number of children. Researchers of the study came to the conclusion that the women living in rural areas with larger families were more likely to want more children, compared to women that lived in urban areas in Japan.


title: Nuclear family

text: For social conservatism in the United States and Canada, the idea that the nuclear family is traditional is a very important aspect, where family is seen as the primary unit of society. These movements oppose alternative family forms and social institutions that are seen by them to undermine parental authority. The numbers of nuclear families is slowly dwindling in the US as more women pursue higher education, develop professional lives, and delay having children until later in their life. Children and marriage have become less appealing as many women continue to face societal, familial, and/or peer pressure to give up their education and career to focus on stabilizing the home. As diversity in the United States continues to increase, it is becoming difficult for the traditional nuclear family to stay the norm. Data from 2014 also suggests that single parents and the likelihood of children living with one is also correlated with race. Pew Research Center has found that 54% of African-American individuals will be single parents compared to 19% of White individuals. Several factors account for the differences in family structure including economic and social class. Differences in education level also change the amount of single parents. In 2014, those with less than a high school education are 46% more likely to be a single parent compared to 12% who have graduated from college.


title: Nuclear family

text: Critics of the term "traditional family" point out that in most cultures and at most times, the extended family model has been most common, not the nuclear family, though it has had a longer tradition in England than in other parts of Europe and Asia which contributed large numbers of immigrants to the Americas. The nuclear family became the most common form in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.


title: Nuclear family

text: The concept that narrowly defines a nuclear family as central to stability in modern society that has been promoted by familialists who are social conservatives in the United States, and has been challenged as historically and sociologically inadequate to describe the complexity of actual family relations. In "Freudian Theories of Identification and Their Derivatives" Urie Bronfenbrenner states, "Very little is known about the extent variation in the behavior of fathers and mothers towards sons and daughters, and even less about the possible effects on such differential treatment." Little is known about how parental behavior and identification processes work, and how children interpret sex role learning. In his theory, he uses "identification" with the father in the sense that the son will follow the sex role provided by his father and then for the father to be able to identify the difference of the "cross sex" parent for his daughter.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of up to 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria "Salmonella typhi". She persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease. Because of that, she was twice forcibly quarantined by authorities, eventually for the final two decades of her life. Mallon died after a total of nearly 30 years in isolation. Her popular nickname has since gained currency as a term for persons who spread disease or other misfortune, not always aware that they are doing so.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland. Presumably, she was born with typhoid fever because her mother was infected during pregnancy. At the age of 15, she emigrated from Ireland to the United States. She lived with her aunt and uncle for a time and worked as a maid, but eventually became a cook for affluent families.


title: Mary Mallon

text: From 1900 to 1907, Mallon worked as a cook in the New York City area for eight families, seven of whom contracted typhoid. In 1900, she worked in Mamaroneck, New York, where within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. In 1901, she moved to Manhattan, where members of the family for whom she worked developed fevers and diarrhea, and the laundry worker died. Mallon then went to work for a lawyer and left after seven of the eight people in that household became ill.


title: Mary Mallon

text: In June 1904, she was hired by a prosperous lawyer, Henry Gilsey. Within a week, the laundry worker was infected with typhoid, and soon four of the seven servants were ill. No members of Gilsey's family were infected because they resided separately, and the servants lived in their own house. The investigator Dr. R. L. Wilson concluded that the laundry worker had caused the outbreak, but he failed to prove it. Immediately after the outbreak began, Mallon left and moved to Tuxedo Park, where she was hired by George Kessler. Two weeks later, the laundry worker in his household was infected and taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, where her case of typhoid was the first in a long time.


title: Mary Mallon

text: In August 1906, Mallon took a position in Oyster Bay on Long Island with the family of a wealthy New York banker, Charles Henry Warren. Mallon went along with the Warrens when they rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer of 1906. From August 27 to September 3, six of the 11 people in the family came down with typhoid fever. The disease at that time was "unusual" in Oyster Bay, according to three medical doctors who practiced there. The landlord, understanding that it would be impossible to rent a house with the reputation of typhoid, hired several independent experts to find the source of infection. They took water samples from pipes, faucets, toilets, and the cesspool, all of which were negative for typhoid.


title: Mary Mallon

text: In late 1906, Mallon was hired by Walter Bowen, whose family lived on Park Avenue. Their maid fell sick on January 23, 1907, and soon two of the household's servants had been hospitalized and the daughter of the house had contracted typhoid and died.


title: Mary Mallon

text: George Soper, an investigator hired by the Oyster Bay property owner after the outbreak there, had been trying to determine the cause of typhoid outbreaks in well-to-do families, when it was known that the disease typically struck in unsanitary conditions. He discovered that a female Irish cook, who fit the physical description he had been given, was involved in all of the outbreaks. He was unable to locate her because she generally left after an outbreak began, without giving a forwarding address. The Park Avenue outbreak helped to identify Mallon as the source of the infections. Soper learned of the case while it was still active and discovered Mallon was the cook.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Soper first met Mallon in the kitchen of the Bowens' Park Avenue penthouse and accused her of spreading the disease. Though Soper himself recollected his behavior "as diplomatic as possible", he infuriated Mallon and she threatened him with a carving fork. When Mallon refused to give samples, Soper decided to compile a five-year history of her employment. He found that of the eight families that had hired Mallon as a cook, members of seven claimed to have contracted typhoid fever. Then Soper found out where Mallon's boyfriend lived and arranged a new meeting there. He took Dr. Raymond Hoobler in an attempt to persuade Mary to give them samples of urine and stool for analysis. Mallon again refused to cooperate, believing that typhoid was everywhere and that the outbreaks had happened because of contaminated food and water. At that time, the concept of healthy carriers was unknown even to healthcare workers.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Soper published his findings on June 15, 1907, in the "Journal of the American Medical Association". He wrote:


title: Mary Mallon

text: It was found that the family changed cooks on August 4. This was about three weeks before the typhoid epidemic broke out. The new cook, Mallon, remained in the family only a short time and left about three weeks after the outbreak occurred. Mallon was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single. She seemed to be in perfect health.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Soper notified the New York City Health Department, whose investigators realized that Mallon was a typhoid carrier. Under sections 1169 and 1170 of the Greater New York Charter, Mallon was arrested as a public health threat. She was forced into an ambulance by five policemen and Dr. Josephine Baker, who at some point had to sit on Mallon to restrain her. Mallon was transported to the Willard Parker Hospital, where she was restrained and forced to give samples. For four days, she was not allowed to get up and use the bathroom on her own. The massive numbers of typhoid bacteria that were discovered in her stool samples indicated that the infection center was in her gallbladder. Under questioning, Mallon admitted that she almost never washed her hands. This was not unusual at the time; the germ theory of disease still was not fully accepted.


title: Mary Mallon

text: On March 19, 1907, Mallon was sentenced to quarantine on North Brother Island. While quarantined, she gave stool and urine samples three times per week. Authorities suggested removing her gallbladder, but she refused because she did not believe she carried the disease. At the time, gallbladder removal was dangerous, and people had died from the procedure. Mallon was also unwilling to stop working as a cook, a job that earned more money for her than any other. Having no home of her own, she was always on the verge of poverty.


title: Mary Mallon

text: After the publication of Soper's article in the "Journal of the American Medical Association", Mallon attracted extensive media attention and received the nickname "Typhoid Mary". Later, in a textbook that defined typhoid fever, she again was called "Typhoid Mary".


title: Mary Mallon

text: Soper visited Mallon in quarantine, telling her he would write a book and give her part of the royalties. She angrily rejected his proposal and locked herself in the bathroom until he left. She hated the nickname and wrote in a letter to her lawyer:


title: Mary Mallon

text: I wonder how the said Dr. William H. Park would like to be insulted and put in the Journal and call him or his wife Typhoid William Park.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Not all medical experts supported the decision to forcibly quarantine Mallon. For example, Milton J. Rosenau and Charles V. Chapin both argued that she just had to be taught to carefully treat her condition and ensure that she would not transmit the typhoid to others. Both considered isolation to be an unnecessary, overly strict punishment. Mallon suffered from a nervous breakdown after her arrest and forcible transportation to the hospital. In 1909, she tried to sue the New York Health Department, but her complaint was denied and the case closed by the New York Supreme Court. In a letter to her lawyer, she complained that she was treated like a "guinea pig". She was obliged to give samples for analysis three times a week, but for six months was not allowed to visit an eye doctor, even though her eyelid was paralyzed and she had to bandage it at night. Her medical treatment was hectic: she was given urotropin in three-month courses for a year, threatening to destroy her kidneys. That was changed to brewer's yeast and hexamethylenamin in increasing doses. She was first told that she had typhoid in her intestinal tract, then in her bowel muscles, then in her gallbladder.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Mallon herself never believed that she was a carrier. With the help of a friend, she sent several samples to an independent New York laboratory. All came back negative for typhoid. On North Brother Island, almost a quarter of her analyses from March 1907 through June 1909 were also negative. After 2 years and 11 months of Mallon's quarantine, Eugene H. Porter, the New York State Commissioner of Health, decided that disease carriers should no longer be kept in isolation and that Mallon could be freed if she agreed to stop working as a cook and take reasonable steps to avoid transmitting typhoid to others. On February 19, 1910, Mallon said she was "prepared to change her occupation (that of a cook), and would give assurance by affidavit that she would upon her release take such hygienic precautions as would protect those with whom she came in contact, from infection." She was released from quarantine and returned to the mainland.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Upon her release, Mallon was given a job as a laundry worker, which paid less than cooking—$20 per month instead of $50. At some point, she wounded her arm and the wound became infected, meaning that she could not work at all for six months. After several unsuccessful years, she started cooking again. She used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown, and took jobs as a cook against the explicit instructions of health authorities. No agencies that hired servants for upscale families would offer her employment, so for the next five years, she moved to the mass sector. She worked in a number of kitchens in restaurants, hotels, and spa centers. Almost everywhere she worked, there were outbreaks of typhoid. However, she changed jobs frequently, and Soper was unable to find her.


title: Mary Mallon

text: In 1915, Mallon started working at Sloane Hospital for Women in New York City. Soon 25 people were infected, and two died. The head obstetrician, Dr. Edward B. Cragin, called Soper and asked him to help in the investigation. Soper identified Mallon from the servants' verbal descriptions and also by her handwriting.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Mallon again fled, but the police were able to find and arrest her when she took food to a friend in Long Island. Mallon was returned to quarantine on North Brother Island on March 27, 1915.


title: Mary Mallon

text: Little is known about her life during the second quarantine. She remained on North Brother for more than 23 years, and the authorities gave her a private one-story cottage. As of 1918, she was allowed to take day trips to the mainland. In 1925, Dr. Alexandra Plavska came to the island for an internship. She organized a laboratory on the second floor of the chapel and offered Mallon a job as a technician. Mallon washed bottles, did recordings, and prepared glasses for pathologists.