title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Atomic Testing Museum, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, houses artifacts from the Nevada Test Site and records the dramatic history of the atomic age through a series of interactive modules, timelines, films, and actual equipment and gadgets from the site.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: In 2019, "The New York Times" noted that there was a "burgeoning literary scene" at Las Vegas centered around the Black Mountain Institute, a literature organization at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and its literary magazine, "The Believer".


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The valley is home to numerous other art galleries, orchestras, ballets, theaters, sculptures, and museums as well.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas is served by 22 television and 46 radio stations. The area is also served by two NOAA Weather Radio transmitters (162.55 MHz located in Boulder City and 162.40 MHz located on Mount Potosi).


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) provides commercial flights into the Las Vegas Valley. The airport serves domestic, international and cargo flights, as well as some private aircraft. General aviation traffic, however, will typically use the much smaller North Las Vegas Airport or other airfields in the county.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Public transportation is provided by RTC Transit. Numerous bus routes cover Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and other suburban areas.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Monorail runs from MGM Grand Las Vegas at the south end of the Strip to the Sahara Las Vegas at the north end of the Strip.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Until 1997, the Amtrak "Desert Wind" train service ran through Las Vegas using the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) rails that run through the city; Amtrak service to Las Vegas has since been replaced by Amtrak's Thruway Motorcoach bus service. Plans to restore Los Angeles to Las Vegas Amtrak service using a Talgo train have been discussed but no plan for a replacement has been implemented. The Las Vegas Amtrak station was located in the Plaza Hotel. It had the distinction of being the only train station located in a casino.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: While the Las Vegas area does not have any passenger rail service, proposals to revive passenger trains to Las Vegas have included the Brightline West high-speed train from Victorville, California; the California–Nevada Interstate Maglev, which would extend to Anaheim, California, with its first segment being to Primm, Nevada. The Las Vegas Railway Express; and the Z-Train, which would travel six days a week between Los Angeles Union Station and a new Z-Train Station adjacent to the Strip; and the Desert Lightning to Los Angeles and Phoenix.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas receives about 30 freight trains per day , and serves as a district crew change point, requiring all trains to stop in downtown. Freight traffic was 179,284 cars in 2004.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Two major freeways—Interstate 15 and Interstate 515 (including US 93 and US 95)—cross in downtown Las Vegas. I-15 connects Las Vegas to Los Angeles and San Diego, and heads northeast to Salt Lake City and beyond. Interstate 11 will eventually serve the connection from Nogales, Arizona to the Reno and Sparks vicinity of either Fernley or at the Reno Spaghetti Bowl in Reno when completed. I-515 goes southeast to Henderson, beyond which Interstate 11 bypasses Boulder City and U.S. Route 93 continues past the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge over the Colorado River towards Phoenix, Arizona. US 95 connects the city to northwestern Nevada, including Carson City (the state capitol) and Reno. US 93 splits from I-15 northeast of Las Vegas and goes north through the northeastern part of the state, serving Ely and Wells and US 95 heads south from I-11 and US 93 in Boulder City through far southeastern California. A three-quarters of the Las Vegas Beltway has been built, consisting of Interstate 215 on the south and Clark County 215 on the west and north. Other radial routes include SR 160 to Pahrump and SR 147 and SR 564 (former SR 146) to Lake Mead.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: With the notable exceptions of Las Vegas Boulevard, Boulder Highway and Tonopah Highway (better known as the northern part of Rancho Drive), the majority of surface streets outside downtown Las Vegas are laid out along Public Land Survey System section lines. Many are maintained, in part, by the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) as state highways.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas area is dependent on imported gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel as is most of Nevada, which has only one refinery. The region is dependent on the Calnev Pipeline and Unev pipeline as its two main sources of supply. Limited diesel is delivered to a dedicated terminal in North Las Vegas by rail. Diversified supply was provided by the completion of construction on the Unev pipeline in 2011 and its full operational status in 2012.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: About 25% of the electric power from Hoover Dam goes to Nevada, and about 70% of power to Southern Nevada comes from natural gas fired power stations.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: Las Vegas is home to several notable minor league teams, as well as the UNLV Rebels, and three major professional teams, the Las Vegas Raiders of the National Football League, the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League, and the Las Vegas Aces of the Women's National Basketball Association.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: There are several multi-use trail systems within the valley operated by multiple organizations. The River Mountains Loop Trail is a trail that connects the west side of the valley with Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. Summerlin offers more than 150 miles of award-winning trails within the community. There are also the Angel Park Trail, Bonanza Trail, and the county's Flamingo Arroyo Trail, I-215 West Beltway Trail (), I-215 East Beltway Trail (), Tropicana/Flamingo Washes Trail and the Western Trails Park Area Equestrian Trails (4 miles).


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Las Vegas Valley also hosts world class mountain biking including Bootleg Canyon Mountain Bike Park located in Boulder City which boasts itself as one of the International Mountain Biking Association's "epic rides".


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The Clark County School District operates all of the public primary and secondary schools in the county with the exception of 37 sponsored public charter schools.


title: Las Vegas Valley

text: The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is in Paradise, about three miles (5 km) south of the city limits and roughly two miles east of the Strip. Several national colleges, including the University of Phoenix and Le Cordon Bleu, have campuses in the Las Vegas area. Nevada State College, National University and Touro University Nevada are nearby Henderson. The College of Southern Nevada has campuses in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson. Henderson also is home to DeVry University, as well as the Roseman University of Health Sciences. Other private entity in the Las Vegas Valley includes Carrington College.


title: Gourd

text: Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly "Cucurbita" and "Lagenaria". The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd, "Lagenaria siceraria", have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BCE. Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film, and food.


title: Gourd

text: "Gourd" is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, luffa, and melons. More specifically, "gourd" refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera "Lagenaria" and "Cucurbita", or also to their hollow, dried-out shell.


title: Gourd

text: There are many different gourds worldwide. The main plants referred to as gourds include several species from the genus "Cucurbita" (mostly native to North America, including the Malabar gourd and turban squash), "Crescentia cujete" (the tree gourd or calabash tree, native to the American tropics) and "Lagenaria siceraria" (bottle gourd, thought to be originally from Africa but present worldwide). Other plants with gourd in their name include the luffa gourd (likely domesticated in Asia), which includes several species from the genus "Luffa", as well as the wax gourd, snake gourd, teasel gourd, hedgehog gourd, buffalo gourd/coyote gourd. The bitter melon/balsam apple/balsam pear is also sometimes referred to as a gourd.


title: Gourd

text: "L. siceraria" or bottle gourd, are native to the Americas, being found in Peruvian archaeological sites dating from 13,000 to 11,000 BCE and Thailand sites from 11,000 to 6,000 BCE. A study of bottle gourd DNA published in 2005 suggests that there are two distinct subspecies of bottle gourds, domesticated independently in Africa and Asia, the latter approximately 4,000 years earlier. The gourds found in the Americas appear to have come from the Asian subspecies very early in history, although a new study now indicates Africa. The archaeological and DNA records show it is likely that the gourd was among the first domesticated species, in Asia between 12,000 and 13,000 years before present, and possibly the first domesticated plant species.


title: Gourd

text: Wild, poisonous gourds ("Citrullus colocynthis") were unknowingly added to the company of prophets' stew according to a story of Elisha in the Hebrew Bible. Elisha added flour to the stew in order to purify it.


title: Gourd

text: Gourds continued to be used throughout history in almost every culture throughout the world. European contact in North America found extensive gourd use, including the use of bottle gourds as birdhouses to attract purple martins, which provided bug control for agriculture. Almost every culture had musical instruments made of gourds, including drums, stringed instruments common to Africa and wind instruments, including the nose flutes of the Pacific.


title: Gourd

text: Scientists in India have been working on crossbreeding six members of the "Momordica" (bitter gourd) genus found in India to reduce the unpleasant taste while retaining the nutritional and medicinal values of the plants. These include Teasle gourd ("Momordica dioica"), Spine gourd ("Momordica subangulata"), Sweet gourd ("Momordica cochinchinensis"), balsam apple ("Momordica balsamina") and "Momordica sahyadrica".


title: Gourd

text: Cultures from arid regions often associated gourds with water, and they appear in many creation myths. Since the beginning of their history, they have had a multitude of uses, including food, kitchen tools, toys, musical instruments and decoration. Today, gourds are commonly used for a wide variety of crafts, including jewelry, furniture, dishes, utensils and a wide variety of decorations using carving, burning and other techniques.


title: Gourd

text: Gourds are also used in instruments. For example, the Balafon, a West-African percussion instrument, is a xylophone that has gourds attached to the bottom of each note for resonance.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The Sympathizer is the 2015 debut novel by Vietnamese-American professor Viet Thanh Nguyen. It is a best-selling novel and recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel received generally positive acclaim from critics, and it was named a "New York Times" Editor's Choice.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The novel incorporates elements from a number of different novel genres: immigrant, mystery, political, metafiction, dark comedic, historical, spy, and war. The story depicts the anonymous narrator, a North Vietnamese mole in the South Vietnamese army, who stays embedded in a South Vietnamese community in exile in the United States. While in the United States, the narrator describes being an expatriate and a cultural advisor on the filming of an American film, closely resembling "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now", before returning to Vietnam as part of a guerrilla raid against the communists.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The dual identity of the narrator, as a mole and immigrant, and the Americanization of the Vietnam War in international literature are central themes in the novel. The novel was published 40 years to the month after the fall of Saigon, which is the initial scene of the book.


title: The Sympathizer

text: Set as the flashback in a coerced confession of a political prisoner, the book tells the story of the South Vietnamese Government in 1975 and subsequent events in American exile in Los Angeles, through the eyes of a half-Vietnamese, half-French undercover communist agent. The spy remains unnamed throughout the novel from the fall of Saigon, to refugee camps and relocation in Los Angeles, to his time as a film consultant in the Philippines, and finally to his return and subsequent imprisonment in Vietnam.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The narrator lives in a series of dualities, at times contradictions: he is of mixed blood descent (Vietnamese mother, and French Catholic priest father), raised in Vietnam but attended college in the U.S., and a North Vietnamese mole yet a friend to South Vietnamese military officials and soldiers and a United States CIA agent. During the imminent fall of Saigon, he, as an aide-de-camp, arranges for a last minute flight as part of Operation Frequent Wind, to secure the safety of himself, his best friend Bon, and the General he advises. While they are being evacuated, the group is fired upon while boarding; during the escape, Bon's wife and child are killed along with many others.


title: The Sympathizer

text: In Los Angeles, the General and his former officers weaken quickly, disillusioned by a foreign culture and their rapid decline in status. The General attempts to reclaim some semblance of honor by opening his own business, a liquor store. The continuous emasculation and dehumanization within American society prompts the General to draft plans for assembling an army of South Vietnamese expatriates to return as rebels to Vietnam. While participating in the expatriate unit, the narrator takes a clerical position at Occidental College, begins having an affair with Ms. Mori, his Japanese-American colleague, and then the General's eldest daughter, Lana. While living in the United States, the narrator sends letters in invisible ink to Man, a North Vietnamese revolutionary and handler, providing intelligence about the General's attempts at raising a commando army.


title: The Sympathizer

text: When he receives an offer to consult for a Hollywood film on the Vietnam War called "The Hamlet", he sees it as an opportunity to show multiple sides of the War and to give the Vietnamese a voice in its historical portrayal. However, working on set in the Philippines, he not only fails to complicate the misleading, romantically American representation of the war, but almost dies when explosives detonate long before they should. There is skepticism as to whether the explosion was a mistake since the director greatly dislikes the narrator.


title: The Sympathizer

text: After he recovers, against Man's insistence that he stay in the U.S. and continue his work as a mole, the narrator decides to accompany the exiled troops back into Vietnam. Before he returns, he executes a left-leaning Vietnamese newspaper editor, "Sonny", who he learns had an affair with Ms. Mori while the narrator was in the Philippines. During his mission in Vietnam, he manages to barely save Bon's life. However, it is to no heroic avail as they are captured and imprisoned.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The encampment is where the protagonist writes his confession, a plea for absolution addressed to the commandant who is directed by the commissar. However, rather than writing what his communist comrades wish to hear, the protagonist writes a complex and nuanced reflection of the events that have led him to his imprisonment. He refuses to show only one side, he leaves nothing out (even his painful memories of a childhood without a father or of his first experience masturbating), and he sympathizes with the many perspectives of a complicated conflict that has divided a nation. While he still considers himself a communist and revolutionary, he acknowledges his friendships with those who are supposedly his enemy and he understands all soldiers as honorably fighting for their home. When his confession drafts are rejected, he is finally brought before the commissar.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The commissar, the man with no face, turns out to be his direct superior Man. Yet, this does not stop Man from subjecting him to torture as part of his reeducation. First, he must admit his crime of being complicit in the torturing and raping of a female communist agent. Then he must realize that he took part, albeit unconsciously, in the murder of his father. Lastly, he must learn Man's final lesson that a revolution fought for independence and freedom could make those things worth less than nothing, that nothingness itself was more precious than independence and freedom. The novel ends with the narrator among a crowd of boat people at sea.


title: The Sympathizer

text: Almost every review comments on the most distinctive stylistic feature: the anonymous narrator who provides continuous commentary. The narrator has an "acrobatic ability" that guides the reader through the contradictions of the war and American identity. The first person narration derives from the frame context for the book: a confession by the narrator to communist captors trying to make him account for his exile. The communist captors force him to write and rewrite the narrative, in an attempt to correct his ideological lens on America and the South Vietnamese enemies.


title: The Sympathizer

text: Many critiques compare the narrator's style to other authors, typically American authors. Randy Boyagoda, writing for "The Guardian", describes the initial passage of the novel as a "showy riff on Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"". For Boyagoda, the anonymity and doubled life reflection of the narrator closely parallel the African American narrator of "Invisible Man"'s commentary from the perspective of concealment. Ron Charles describes the narrative voice as close to both "Roth-inspired comic scene[s] of self-abuse" and "gorgeous Whitmanian catalogue of suffering".


title: The Sympathizer

text: Most reviews of the novel describe it as a literary response to the typically American-centric worldview of works like "Apocalypse Now" and "Platoon". In particular, the section of the novel where the narrator advises on "The Hamlet" helps critically examine this worldview. Ron Charles describes this section as "As funny as it is tragic", able to "carry the whole novel". "The New York Times"' book review describes the war as a "literary war", and says that Nguyen's "The Sympathizer" is "giving voice to the previously voiceless [Vietnamese perspective] while it compels the rest of us to look at the events of 40 years ago in a new light". In part, the novel is a response to Nguyen's own admiration of, but difficult relationship with, works like "Platoon", "Apocalypse Now", and "Rambo" and the slaughter of Vietnamese in the films.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The narrator's duality of caste, education, and loyalties drive much of the novels' activities. At first this duality is the strength of the novel's narrator, providing deft critique and investigation into the contradictions of social situations, but eventually, in the last, this duality "becomes an absurdist tour de force that might have been written by a Kafka or Genet".


title: The Sympathizer

text: In April 2021, A24 and Rhombus Media acquired the rights to the novel to adapt it into a television series. In July 2021, it was announced that HBO had given the production a series order. The series will be produced by A24 with Robert Downey Jr. as co-star and executive producer, Park Chan-wook as director and Don McKellar as co-showrunner.


title: The Sympathizer

text: In November 2022, Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Vy Le, Alan Trong, Sandra Oh, Kiều Chinh, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên joined the cast.


title: The Sympathizer

text: "The New York Times Book Review" praised the novel for its place in the broader Vietnam War literature, and for its treatment of dualities in a way that "compares favorably with masters like Conrad, Greene and le Carré". Writing for "The Washington Post", Ron Charles called the novel "surely a new classic of war fiction" which is "startlingly insightful and perilously candid". For Charles, it is less the particulars of the thematic explosion of the response to the Vietnam war that makes the novel relevant, but rather how "Nguyen plumbs the loneliness of human life, the costs of fraternity and the tragic limits of our sympathy". Randy Boyagoda, writing for "The Guardian", describes it as a "bold, artful and globally minded reimagining of the Vietnam war and its interwoven private and public legacies". A Vietnamese reviewer noted that, finally, Americans have a chance to gain a new perspective on the war, one that is in contrast to the one provided by Hollywood myth-makers.


title: The Sympathizer

text: The main critique from reviewers is, at times, the overwritten description in the novel. Though generally supportive of the novel, Boyagoda describes this overwriting: "the Captain's grandstanding against east/west stereotypes and against the putative ills of the US and Catholicism clogs his monologue because it does little more than advance an equally hackneyed set of complaints and rebuttals. Nguyen's own academic background also seeps in, inspiring didactic language."


title: Names of China

text: The names of China include the many contemporary and historical appellations given in various languages for the East Asian country known as "Zhōngguó" (/, "middle country") in its national language, Standard Mandarin. China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century, and became common usage in the West in the subsequent centuries. It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word "Qin" (), the name of the dynasty that unified China but also existed as a state for many centuries prior. There are, however, other alternative suggestions for the origin of the word.


title: Names of China

text: Chinese names for China, aside from "Zhongguo", include "Zhōnghuá" (/, "central beauty"), "Huáxià" (/, "beautiful grandness"), "Shénzhōu" (, "divine state") and "Jiǔzhōu" (, "nine states"). "Hàn" (/) and "Táng" () are common names given for the Chinese ethnicity, despite the Chinese nationality ("Zhōnghuá Mínzú") not referencing any singular ethnicity. The People's Republic of China () and Republic of China () are the official names for the two contemporary sovereign states currently claiming sovereignty over the traditional area of China. "Mainland China" is used to refer to areas under the jurisdiction of the PRC, usually excluding Hong Kong and Macau.


title: Names of China

text: There are also names for China used around the world that are derived from the languages of ethnic groups other than the Han; examples include "Cathay" from the Khitan language and "Tabgach" from Tuoba.


title: Names of China

text: "Zhōngguó" (中國) is the most common Chinese name for China in modern times. The earliest appearance of this two-character term is on the bronze vessel He "zun" (dating to 1038–), during the early Western Zhou period. The phrase "zhong guo" came into common usage in the Warring States period (475–221 BCE), when it referred to the "Central States"; the states of the Yellow River Valley of the Zhou era, as distinguished from the tribal periphery. In later periods, however, "Zhongguo" was not used in this sense. Dynastic names were used for the state in Imperial China and concepts of the state aside from the ruling dynasty were little understood. Rather, the country was called by the name of the dynasty, such as "Han" (), "Tang" (), "Great Ming" ("Da Ming" ), "Great Qing" ("Da Qing" ), as the case might be. Until the 19th century when the international system came to require a common legal language, there was no need for a fixed or unique name.


title: Names of China

text: As early as the Spring and Autumn period, "Zhongguo" could be understood as either the domain of the capital or used to refer the Chinese civilization ("zhuxia" 諸夏 "the various Xia" or "zhuhua" 諸華 "various Hua"), and the political and geographical domain that contained it, but Tianxia was the more common word for this idea. This developed into the usage of the Warring States period when, other than the cultural-civilizational community, it could be the geopolitical area of Chinese civilization, equivalent to Jiuzhou. In a more limited sense it could also refer to the Central Plain or the states of Zhao, Wei, and Han, etc., geographically central amongst the Warring States. Although "Zhongguo" could be used before the Song dynasty period to mean the transdynastic Chinese culture or civilization to which Chinese people belonged, it was in the Song dynasty when writers used "Zhongguo" as a term to describe the transdynastic entity with different dynastic names over time but having a set territory and defined by common ancestry, culture, and language.


title: Names of China

text: There were different usages of the term "Zhongguo" in every period. It could refer to the capital of the emperor to distinguish it from the capitals of his vassals, as in Western Zhou. It could refer to the states of the Central Plain to distinguish them from states in outer regions. The "Shi Jing" defines "Zhongguo" as the capital region, setting it in apposition to the capital city. During the Han dynasty, three usages of "Zhongguo" were common. The "Records of the Grand Historian" uses "Zhongguo" to denote the capital, and also uses the concept "zhong" ("center, central") and "zhongguo" to indicate the center of civilization: "There are eight famous mountains in the world: three in Man and Yi (the barbarian wilds), five in "Zhōngguó"." () In this sense, the term "Zhongguo" is synonymous with "Huáxià" (/) and "Zhōnghuá" (/), names of China that were first authentically attested since Warring States period and Eastern Jin period, respectively.


title: Names of China

text: From the Qin to Ming dynasty literati discussed "Zhongguo" as both a historical place or territory and as a culture. Writers of the Ming period in particular used the term as a political tool to express opposition to expansionist policies that incorporated foreigners into the empire. In contrast foreign conquerors typically avoided discussions of "Zhongguo" and instead defined membership in their empires to include both Han and non-Han peoples.


title: Names of China

text: "Zhongguo" appeared in a formal international legal document for the first time during the Qing dynasty in the Treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689. The term was then used in communications with other states and in treaties. The Manchu rulers incorporated Inner Asian polities into their empire, and Wei Yuan, a statecraft scholar, distinguished the new territories from "Zhongguo", which he defined as the 17 provinces of "China proper" plus the Manchu homelands in the Northeast. By the late 19th century the term had emerged as a common name for the whole country. The empire was sometimes referred to as Great Qing but increasingly as "Zhongguo" (see the discussion below).


title: Names of China

text: "Dulimbai Gurun" is the Manchu name for China, with "Dulimbai" meaning "central" or "middle," and "Gurun" meaning "nation" or "state." The historian Zhao Gang writes that "not long after the collapse of the Ming, China [Zhongguo] became the equivalent of Great Qing (Da Qing)—another official title of the Qing state", and "Qing and China became interchangeable official titles, and the latter often appeared as a substitute for the former in official documents." The Qing dynasty referred to their realm as ""Dulimbai Gurun"" in Manchu. The Qing equated the lands of the Qing realm (including present day Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas) as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas; both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China". Officials used "China" (though not exclusively) in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the "Chinese language" (Manchu: "Dulimbai gurun i bithe") referred to Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and the term "Chinese people" (; Manchu: "Dulimbai gurun i niyalma") referred to all Han, Manchus, and Mongol subjects of the Qing. Ming loyalist Han literati held to defining the old Ming borders as China and using "foreigner" to describe minorities under Qing rule such as the Mongols, as part of their anti-Qing ideology.


title: Names of China

text: When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into "Dulimbai Gurun" in a Manchu language memorial. The Qing expounded on their ideology that they were bringing together the "outer" non-Han Chinese like the Inner Mongols, Eastern Mongols, Oirat Mongols, and Tibetans together with the "inner" Han Chinese, into "one family" united in the Qing state, showing that the diverse subjects of the Qing were all part of one family, the Qing used the phrase "" () or "" (), to convey this idea of "unification" of the different peoples. A Manchu language version of a treaty with the Russian Empire concerning criminal jurisdiction over bandits called people from the Qing as "people of the Central Kingdom (Dulimbai Gurun)". In the Manchu official Tulisen's Manchu language account of his meeting with the Torghut Mongol leader Ayuki Khan, it was mentioned that while the Torghuts were unlike the Russians, the "people of the Central Kingdom" ("dulimba-i gurun/") were like the Torghut Mongols, and the "people of the Central Kingdom" referred to the Manchus.


title: Names of China

text: Mark Elliott noted that it was under the Qing that "China" transformed into a definition of referring to lands where the "state claimed sovereignty" rather than only the Central Plains area and its people by the end of the 18th century.


title: Names of China

text: Elena Barabantseva also noted that the Manchu referred to all subjects of the Qing empire regardless of ethnicity as "Chinese" (), and used the term () as a synonym for the entire Qing empire while using "Hàn rén" () to refer only to the core area of the empire, with the entire empire viewed as multiethnic.


title: Names of China

text: Joseph W. Esherick noted that while the Qing Emperors governed frontier non-Han areas in a different, separate system under the Lifanyuan and kept them separate from Han areas and administration, it was the Manchu Qing Emperors who expanded the definition of "Zhongguo" () and made it "flexible" by using that term to refer to the entire Empire and using that term to other countries in diplomatic correspondence, while some Han Chinese subjects criticized their usage of the term and the Han literati Wei Yuan used "Zhongguo" only to refer to the seventeen provinces of China and three provinces of the east (Manchuria), excluding other frontier areas. Due to Qing using treaties clarifying the international borders of the Qing state, it was able to inculcate in the Chinese people a sense that China included areas such as Mongolia and Tibet due to education reforms in geography which made it clear where the borders of the Qing state were even if they didn't understand how the Chinese identity included Tibetans and Mongolians or understand what the connotations of being Chinese were. The Treaty of Nanking (1842) English version refers to "His Majesty the Emperor of China" while the Chinese refers both to "The Great Qing Emperor" ("Da Qing Huangdi") and to "Zhongguo" as well. The Treaty of Tientsin (1858) has similar language.


title: Names of China

text: In the late 19th century the reformer Liang Qichao argued in a famous passage that "our greatest shame is that our country has no name. The names that people ordinarily think of, such as Xia, Han, or Tang, are all the titles of bygone dynasties." He argued that the other countries of the world "all boast of their own state names, such as England and France, the only exception being the Central States." The Japanese term ""Shina"" was proposed as a basically neutral Western-influenced equivalent for "China". Liang and Chinese revolutionaries, such as Sun Yat-sen, who both lived extensive periods in Japan, used "Shina" extensively, and it was used in literature as well as by ordinary Chinese. But with the overthrow of the Qing in 1911, most Chinese dropped "Shina" as foreign and demanded that even Japanese replace it with "Zhonghua minguo" or simply "Zhongguo". Liang went on to argue that the concept of "tianxia" had to be abandoned in favor of "guojia", that is, "nation," for which he accepted the term "Zhongguo". After the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1912, "Zhongguo" was also adopted as the abbreviation of "Zhonghua minguo".


title: Names of China

text: Qing official Zhang Deyi objected to the western European name "China" and said that China referred to itself as Zhonghua in response to a European who asked why Chinese used the term "guizi" to refer to all Europeans.


title: Names of China

text: In the 20th century after the May Fourth Movement, educated students began to spread the concept of "Zhōnghuá" (/), which represented the people, including 56 minority ethnic groups and the Han Chinese, with a single culture identifying themselves as "Chinese". The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China both used the title "Zhōnghuá" in their official names. Thus, "Zhōngguó" became the common name for both governments, and "Zhōngguó rén" for their citizens, though Taiwanese people may reject being called as such. Overseas Chinese are referred to as "huáqiáo" (/), "Chinese overseas", or "huáyì" (/), "Chinese descendants" (i.e., Chinese children born overseas).


title: Names of China

text: The English translation of "Zhongguo" as the "Middle Kingdom" entered European languages through the Portuguese in the 16th century and became popular in the mid 19th century. By the mid 20th century the term was thoroughly entrenched in the English language to reflect the Western view of China as the inwards looking Middle Kingdom, or more accurately the "Central Kingdom". Endymion Wilkinson points out that the Chinese were not unique in thinking of their country as central, although China was the only culture to use the concept for their name. The term "Zhongguo" was also not commonly used as a name for China until quite recently, nor did it mean the "Middle Kingdom" to the Chinese, or even have the same meaning throughout the course of history (see above).


title: Names of China

text: The name "Huaxia" (/; ) is generally used as a sobriquet in Chinese text. Under traditional interpretations, it is the combination of two words which originally referred to the elegance of the traditional attire of the Han Chinese and the Confucian concept of rites.


title: Names of China

text: In the original sense, Huaxia refers to a confederation of tribes—living along the Yellow River—who were the ancestors of what later became the Han ethnic group in China. During the Warring States (475–221 BCE), the self-awareness of the Huaxia identity developed and took hold in ancient China.


title: Names of China

text: "Zhonghua minzu" is a term meaning Chinese nation in the sense of a multi-ethnic national identity. Though originally rejected by the PRC, it has been used officially since the 1980s for nationalist politics.


title: Names of China

text: "Tianchao" (; ), translated as "heavenly dynasty" or "Celestial Empire;" and "Tianxia" (; ) translated as "under heaven," are both phrases that have been used to refer to China. These terms were usually used in the context of civil wars or periods of division, with the term "Tianchao" evoking the idea of the realm's ruling dynasty was appointed by heaven; or that whoever ends up reunifying China is said to have ruled "Tianxia", or everything under heaven. This fits with the traditional Chinese theory of rulership in which the emperor was nominally the political leader of the entire world and not merely the leader of a nation-state within the world. Historically the term was connected to the later Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE), especially the Spring and Autumn period (eighth to fourth century BCE) and the Warring States period (from there to 221 BCE, when China was reunified by the Qin state). The phrase "Tianchao" continues to see use on Chinese internet discussion boards, in reference to China.


title: Names of China

text: The phrase "Tianchao" was first translated into English and French in the early 19th century, appearing in foreign publicans and diplomatic correspondences, with the translated phrase "Celestial Empire" occasionally used to refer to China. During this period, the term "celestial" was used by some to refer to the subjects of the Qing dynasty in a non-prejudicial manner, derived from the term "Celestial Empire". However, the term "celestial" was also used in a pejorative manner during the 19th century, in reference to Chinese immigrants in Australasia and North America. The translated phrase has largely fallen into disuse in the 20th century.


title: Names of China

text: "Jiangshan" (; ) and "Heshan" (; ) literally mean "rivers and mountains". This term is quite similar in usage to "Tianxia", and simply refers to the entire world, and here the most prominent features of which being rivers and mountains. The use of this term is also common as part of the phrase "Jiangshan sheji" (; ; lit. "rivers and mountains, soil and grain"), suggesting the need to implement good governance.


title: Names of China

text: The name "Jiuzhou" (; ) means "nine provinces". Widely used in pre-modern Chinese text, the word originated during the middle of Warring States period of China (c. 400–221 BCE). During that time, the Yellow River river region was divided into nine geographical regions; thus this name was coined. Some people also attribute this word to the mythical hero and king, Yu the Great, who, in the legend, divided China into nine provinces during his reign. (Consult Zhou for more information.)


title: Names of China

text: This name means "Divine Realm" or "Divine Land" (; ) and comes from the same period as Jiuzhou meaning "nine provinces". It was thought that the world was divided into nine major states, one of which is Shenzhou, which is in turn divided into nine smaller states, one of which is Jiuzhou mentioned above.


title: Names of China

text: This name, "Four Seas" (; ), is sometimes used to refer to the world, or simply China, which is perceived as the civilized world. It came from the ancient notion that the world is flat and surrounded by sea.


title: Names of China

text: The name "Han" (/; ) derives from the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220), who presided over China's first "golden age". The Han dynasty collapsed in 220 and was followed by a long period of disorder, including Three Kingdoms, Sixteen Kingdoms, and Southern and Northern dynasties periods. During these periods, various non-Han ethnic groups established various dynasties in northern China. It was during this period that people began to use the term "Han" to refer to the natives of North China, who (unlike the minorities) were the descendants of the subjects of the Han dynasty.


title: Names of China

text: During the Yuan dynasty, subjects of the empire was divided into four classes: Mongols, Semu or "Colour-eyeds", Hans, and "Southerns". Northern Chinese were called Han, which was considered to be the highest class of Chinese. This class "Han" includes all ethnic groups in northern China including Khitan and Jurchen who have in most part sinicized during the last two hundreds years. The name "Han" became popularly accepted.


title: Names of China

text: During the Qing dynasty, the Manchu rulers also used the name Han to distinguish the natives of the Central Plains from the Manchus. After the fall of the Qing government, the Han became the name of a nationality within China. Today the term "Han Persons", often rendered in English as Han Chinese, is used by the People's Republic of China to refer to the most populous of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups of China. The "Han Chinese" are simply referred to as "Chinese" by some.


title: Names of China

text: The name "Tang" (; ) comes from the Tang dynasty (618–690, 705–907) that presided over China's second golden age. It was during the Tang dynasty that South China was finally and fully Sinicized; Tang would become synonymous with China in Southern China and it is usually Southern Chinese who refer to themselves as ""People of Tang"" (, ). For example, the sinicization and rapid development of Guangdong during the Tang period would lead the Cantonese to refer to themselves as "Tong-yan" () in Cantonese, while China is called "Tong-saan" (; ). Chinatowns worldwide, often dominated by Southern Chinese, also became referred to "Tang people's Street" (, Cantonese: Tong-yan-gaai; ). The Cantonese term "Tongsan" (Tang mountain) is recorded in Old Malay as one of the local terms for China, along with the Sanskrit-derived "Cina". It is still used in Malaysia today, usually in a derogatory sense.


title: Names of China

text: Among Taiwanese, "Tang mountain" (Min-Nan: Tn̂g-soaⁿ) has been used, for example, in the saying, "has Tangshan father, no Tangshan mother" (; ). This refers how the Han people crossing the Taiwan Strait in the 17th and 18th centuries were mostly men, and that many of their offspring would be through intermarriage with Taiwanese aborigine women.


title: Names of China

text: In Ryukyuan, Karate was originally called "tii" (, hand) or "karatii" (, Tang hand) because "too-nu-kuku" or "kara-nu-kuku" () was a common Ryukyuan name for China; it was changed to "karate" (, open hand) to appeal to Japanese people after the First Sino-Japanese War.


title: Names of China

text: "Dàlù" (/; ), literally "big continent" or "mainland" in this context, is used as a short form of "Zhōnggúo Dàlù" (/, Mainland China), excluding (depending on the context) Hong Kong and Macau, and/or Taiwan. This term is used in official context in both the mainland and Taiwan, when referring to the mainland as opposed to Taiwan. In certain contexts, it is equivalent to the term "Neidi" (; , literally "the inner land"). While "Neidi" generally refers to the interior as opposed to a particular coastal or border location, or the coastal or border regions generally, it is used in Hong Kong specifically to mean mainland China excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Increasingly, it is also being used in an official context within mainland China, for example in reference to the separate judicial and customs jurisdictions of mainland China on the one hand and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan on the other.


title: Names of China

text: The term "Neidi" is also often used in Xinjiang and Tibet to distinguish the eastern provinces of China from the minority-populated, autonomous regions of the west.


title: Names of China

text: The name New China has been frequently applied to China by the Chinese Communist Party as a positive political and social term contrasting pre-1949 China (the establishment of the PRC) and the new name of the socialist state, Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó (in the older postal romanization, Chunghwa Jenmin Konghokuo) or the "People's Republic of China" in English, was adapted from the CCP's short-lived Chinese Soviet Republic in 1931. This term is also sometimes used by writers outside mainland China. The PRC was known to many in the West during the Cold War as "Communist China" or "Red China" to distinguish it from the Republic of China which is commonly called "Taiwan", "Nationalist China" or "Free China". In some contexts, particularly in economics, trade, and sports, "China" is often used to refer to mainland China to the exclusion of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.


title: Names of China

text: The official name of the People's Republic of China in major neighboring countries official languages and scripts:


title: Names of China

text: In 1912, China adopted its official name, Chunghwa Minkuo (rendered in pinyin Zhōnghuá Mínguó) or in English as the "Republic of China", which also has sometimes been referred to as "Republican China" or the "Republican Era" (), in contrast to the empire it replaced, or as "Nationalist China", after the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). ("Chunghwa") is a term that pertains to "China" while ("Minkuo"), literally "People's State" or "Peopledom", stands for "republic". The name had stemmed from the party manifesto of Tongmenghui in 1905, which says the four goals of the Chinese revolution was "to expel the Manchu rulers, to revive "Chunghwa", to establish a Republic, and to distribute land equally among the people.()." The convener of Tongmenghui and Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen proposed the name "Chunghwa Minkuo" as the assumed name of the new country when the revolution succeeded.


title: Names of China

text: With the separation from mainland China in 1949 as a result of the Chinese Civil War, the territory of the Republic of China has largely been confined to the island of Taiwan and some other small islands. Thus, the country is often simply referred to as simply "Taiwan", although this may not be perceived as politically neutral. (See Taiwan Independence.) Amid the hostile rhetoric of the Cold War, the government and its supporters sometimes referred to itself as "Free China" or "Liberal China", in contrast to People's Republic of China (which was historically called the "Bandit-occupied Area" () by the ROC). In addition, the ROC, due to pressure from the PRC, was forced to use the name "Chinese Taipei" () whenever it participates in international forums or most sporting events such as the Olympic Games.


title: Names of China

text: Taiwanese politician Mei Feng had criticised the official English name of the state "Republic of China" fails to translate the Chinese character "Min" ( English: people) according to Sun Yat-sen's original interpretations, while the name should instead be translated as "the People's Republic of China," which confuses with the current official name of China under communist control. To avoid confusion, the Chen Shui-ban led DPP administration began to put an aside of "Taiwan" next to the nation's official name since 2005.


title: Names of China

text: The official name of the Republic of China in major neighboring countries official languages and scripts:


title: Names of China

text: Names used in the parts of Asia, especially East and Southeast Asia, are usually derived directly from words in one of the languages of China. Those languages belonging to a former dependency (tributary) or Chinese-influenced country have an especially similar pronunciation to that of Chinese. Those used in Indo-European languages, however, have indirect names that came via other routes and may bear little resemblance to what is used in China.


title: Names of China

text: English, most Indo-European languages, and many others use various forms of the name "China" and the prefix "Sino-" or "Sin-" from the Latin "Sina". Europeans had knowledge of a country known in Greek as "Thina" or "Sina" from the early period; the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" from perhaps the first century AD recorded a country known as "Thin" ("θίν"). The English name for "China" itself is derived from Middle Persian ("Chīnī" ). This modern word "China" was first used by Europeans starting with Portuguese explorers of the 16th century – it was first recorded in 1516 in the journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The journal was translated and published in England in 1555.


title: Names of China

text: The traditional etymology, proposed in the 17th century by Martin Martini and supported by later scholars such as Paul Pelliot and Berthold Laufer, is that the word "China" and its related terms are ultimately derived from the polity known as Qin that unified China to form the Qin Dynasty (, Old Chinese: "*dzin") in the 3rd century BC, but existed as a state on the furthest west of China since the 9th century BC. This is still the most commonly held theory, although the etymology is still a matter of debate according to the "Oxford English Dictionary", and many other suggestions have been mooted.


title: Names of China

text: The existence of the word "Cīna" in ancient Indian texts was noted by the Sanskrit scholar Hermann Jacobi who pointed out its use in the Book 2 of "Arthashastra" with reference to silk and woven cloth produced by the country of "Cīna", although textual analysis suggests that Book 2 may not have been written long before 150 AD. The word is also found in other Sanskrit texts such as the "Mahābhārata" and the "Laws of Manu". The Indologist Patrick Olivelle argued that the word "Cīnā" may not have been known in India before the first century BC, nevertheless he agreed that it probably referred to Qin but thought that the word itself was derived from a Central Asian language. Some Chinese and Indian scholars argued for the state of Jing (, another name for Chu) as the likely origin of the name. Another suggestion, made by Geoff Wade, is that the " Cīnāh" in Sanskrit texts refers to an ancient kingdom centered in present-day Guizhou, called Yelang, in the south Tibeto-Burman highlands. The inhabitants referred to themselves as "Zina" according to Wade.


title: Names of China

text: In economic contexts, "Greater China" (/, "dà Zhōnghuá dìqū") is intended to be a neutral and non-political way to refer to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.


title: Names of China

text: Sinologists usually use "Chinese" in a more restricted sense, akin to the classical usage of "Zhongguo", to the Han ethnic group, which makes up the bulk of the population in China and of the overseas Chinese.


title: Names of China

text: "Sēres" (Σῆρες) was the Ancient Greek and Roman name for the northwestern part of China and its inhabitants. It meant "of silk," or "land where silk comes from." The name is thought to derive from the Chinese word for silk, "sī" (/; Middle Chinese "sɨ", Old Chinese *"slɯ", per Zhengzhang). It is itself at the origin of the Latin for silk, ""sērica"". See the main article Serica for more details.


title: Names of China

text: This may be a back formation from "sērikos" (σηρικός), "made of silk", from "sēr" (σήρ), "silkworm", in which case "Sēres" is "the land where silk comes from."


title: Names of China

text: "Sīnae" was an ancient Greek and Roman name for some people who dwelt south of the Seres (Serica) in the eastern extremity of the habitable world. References to the Sinae include mention of a city that the Romans called "Sēra Mētropolis", which may be modern Chang'an. The Latin prefixes "Sino-" and "Sin-" as well as words such as "Sinica", which are traditionally used to refer to China or the Chinese, came from "Sīnae". It is generally thought that "Chīna", "Sīna" and "Thīna" are variants that ultimately derived from Qin, which was the westernmost state in China that eventually formed the Qin Dynasty. There are however other opinions on its etymology (See section on China above). Henry Yule thought that this term may have come to Europe through the Arabs, who made the China of the farther east into "Sin", and perhaps sometimes into "Thin". Hence the "Thin" of the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, who appears to be the first extant writer to employ the name in this form; hence also the Sinæ and Thinae of Ptolemy.


title: Names of China

text: Some denied that Ptolemy's Sinae really represented the Chinese as Ptolemy called the country "Sērice" and the capital "Sēra", but regarded them as distinct from "Sīnae". Marcian of Heraclea (a condenser of Ptolemy) tells us that the "nations of the Sinae lie at the extremity of the habitable world, and adjoin the eastern Terra incognita". The 6th century Cosmas Indicopleustes refers to a "country of silk" called "Tzinista", which is understood as referring to China, beyond which "there is neither navigation nor any land to inhabit". It seems probable that the same region is meant by both. According to Henry Yule, Ptolemy's misrendering of the Indian Sea as a closed basin meant that Ptolemy must also have misplaced the Chinese coast, leading to the misconception of Serica and Sina as separate countries.


title: Names of China

text: In the Hebrew Bible, there is a mention of a faraway country Sinim in the Book of Isaiah 49:12 which some had assumed to be a reference to China. In Genesis 10:17, a tribes called the Sinites were said to be the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, but they are usually considered to be a different people, probably from the northern part of Lebanon.


title: Names of China

text: This group of names derives from Khitan, an ethnic group that originated in Manchuria and conquered parts of Northern China early tenth century forming the Liao dynasty, and later in the twelfth century dominated Central Asia as the Kara Khitan Khanate. Due to long period of domination of Northern China and then Central Asia by these nomadic conquerors, the name Khitan become associated with China to the people in and around the northwestern region. Muslim historians referred to the Kara Khitan state as "Khitay" or "Khitai"; they may have adopted this form of "Khitan" via the Uyghurs of Kocho in whose language the final -n or -ń became -y. The name was then introduced to medieval and early modern Europe through Islamic and Russian sources. In English and in several other European languages, the name "Cathay" was used in the translations of the adventures of Marco Polo, which used this word for northern China. Words related to Khitay are still used in many Turkic and Slavic languages to refer to China. However, its use by Turkic speakers within China, such as the Uyghurs, is considered pejorative by the Chinese authority who tried to ban it.


title: Names of China

text: There is no evidence that either in the 13th or 14th century, Cathayans, "i.e." Chinese, travelled officially to Europe, but it is possible that some did, in unofficial capacities, at least in the 13th century. During the campaigns of Hulagu (the grandson of Genghis Khan) in Persia (1256–65), and the reigns of his successors, Chinese engineers were employed on the banks of the Tigris, and Chinese astrologers and physicians could be consulted. Many diplomatic communications passed between the Hulaguid Ilkhans and Christian princes. The former, as the great khan's liegemen, still received from him their seals of state; and two of their letters which survive in the archives of France exhibit the vermilion impressions of those seals in Chinese characters—perhaps affording the earliest specimen of those characters to reach western Europe.


title: Names of China

text: The word "Tabgach" came from the metatheses of "Tuoba" ("*t'akbat"), a dominant tribe of the Xianbei and the surname of the Northern Wei emperors in the 5th century before sinicisation. It referred to Northern China, which was dominated by part-Xianbei, part-Han people.


title: Names of China

text: "Nikan" (Manchu: , means "Han/China") was a Manchu ethnonym of unknown origin that referred specifically to the ethnic group known in English as the Han Chinese; the stem of this word was also conjugated as a verb, "nikara(-mbi)", and used to mean "to speak the Chinese language." Since "Nikan" was essentially an ethnonym and referred to a group of people (i.e., a nation) rather than to a political body (i.e., a state), the correct translation of "China (proper)" into the Manchu language is "Nikan gurun", literally the "Nikan state" or "country of the Nikans" (i.e., country of the Hans).


title: Names of China

text: This exonym for the Han Chinese is also used in the Daur language, in which it appears as "Niaken" ( or ). As in the case of the Manchu language, the Daur word "Niaken" is essentially an ethnonym, and the proper way to refer to the country of the Han Chinese (i.e., "China" in a cultural sense) is "Niaken gurun", while "niakendaaci-" is a verb meaning "to talk in Chinese."


title: Names of China

text: Japanese: "Kara" (; variously written in kanji as or ). An identical name was used by the ancient and medieval Japanese to refer to the country that is now known as Korea, and many Japanese historians and linguists believe that the word "Kara" referring to China and/or Korea may have derived from a metonymic extension of the appellation of the ancient city-states of Gaya.


title: Names of China

text: The Japanese word "karate" (, lit. "empty hand") is derived from the Okinawan word "karatii" (, lit. "Chinese/Asian/foreign hand/trick/means/method/style") and refers to Okinawan martial arts; the character for "kara" was changed to remove the connotation of the style originating in China.


title: Names of China

text: Japanese: "Morokoshi" (; variously written in kanji as or ). This obsolete Japanese name for China is believed to have derived from a "kun" reading of the Chinese compound "Zhūyuè" or


title: Names of China

text: Bǎiyuè as "all the Yue" or "the hundred (i.e., myriad, various, or numerous) Yue," which was an ancient Chinese name for the societies of the regions that are now southern China.


title: Names of China

text: The Japanese common noun "tōmorokoshi" (), which refers to maize, appears to contain an element cognate with the proper noun formerly used in reference to China. Although "tōmorokoshi" is traditionally written with Chinese characters that literally mean "jade Shu millet," the etymology of the Japanese word appears to go back to "Tang morokoshi," in which "morokoshi" was the obsolete Japanese name for China as well as the Japanese word for sorghum, which seems to have been introduced into Japan from China.


title: Names of China

text: From Chinese "Manzi" (southern barbarians). The division of North China and South China under the Jin dynasty and Song dynasty weakened the idea of a unified China, and it was common for non-Han peoples to refer to the politically disparate North and South by different names for some time. While Northern China was called Cathay, Southern China was referred to as Mangi. Manzi often appears in documents of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty as a disparaging term for Southern China. The Mongols also called Southern Chinese "Nangkiyas" or "Nangkiyad", and considered them ethnically distinct from North Chinese. The word "Manzi" reached the Western world as "Mangi" (as used by Marco Polo), which is a name commonly found on medieval maps. Note however that the Chinese themselves considered "Manzi" to be derogatory and never used it as a self-appellation. Some early scholars believed "Mangi" to be a corruption of the Persian "Machin" () and Arabic "Māṣīn" (), which may be a mistake as these two forms are derived from the Sanskrit "Maha Chin" meaning Great China.


title: Kia Stinger

text: The Stinger traces its roots to the GT Concept from the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show and the Kia GT4 Stinger from the 2014 North American International Auto Show. Design work was led by Peter Schreyer and Gregory Guillaume (Kia's Chief Designer) at Kia's European studio in Frankfurt and engineered by former BMW M Vice President of Engineering Albert Biermann, the car was unveiled at the 2017 North American International Auto Show. Biermann is now the executive vice president of performance development and high performance vehicles of the Hyundai Motor Group.


title: Kia Stinger

text: Testing of the car involved over at the Korea International Circuit and at the Nürburgring Nordschleife.


title: Kia Stinger

text: The Stinger uses a shortened version of the Hyundai Genesis' front-engine, rear-wheel-drive platform with additional steel reinforcement and is offered with a choice of two engines: a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder that produces ; and a twin-turbo V6 engine that generates at 6,000 rpm and of torque from 1,300-4,500 rpm for the AWD variant. For the European and Korean markets, the Stinger is offered with a base 2.2-liter CRDi diesel I4 that produces . GT variants are equipped with Brembo brakes and Michelin tires. The sole transmission is an 8-speed automatic with five driving modes plus paddle-shifters.


title: Kia Stinger

text: Kia claims that the Stinger accelerates from zero to in 7.7, 6 and 4.9 seconds for the 2.2-liter diesel, 2.0-liter petrol and 3.3-liter petrol respectively. Schreyer reportedly drove a pre-production Stinger GT at a top speed of on the Autobahn.


title: Kia Stinger

text: During a test by "Car and Driver", an all-wheel-drive U.S. spec GT 3.3T with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires achieved in 4.6 seconds on the track, reached 0.91 g on the skidpad and was able to stop from in . According to this publication, the U.S. model's top speed is governed at per Kia specs. In tests conducted by "Motor Trend", the four-cylinder U.S. spec Stinger 2.0 RWD on Bridgestone Potenza tires reached in 6.6 seconds, completed the run in 15 seconds and stopped from in . The average lateral acceleration recorded in track testing was 0.85 g.


title: Kia Stinger

text: In August 2020, Kia unveiled a refreshed Stinger that went on sale in South Korea on the third quarter of 2020 and worldwide by the end of year. Styling updates include revised headlights and tail lights, a new 10.25-inch infotainment screen and an additional wheel design. Kia also added an optional 2.5-litre "Smartstream" FR G2.5 T-GDi engine producing as well as a variable exhaust to the existing 3.3-litre Lambda II RS T-GDi that increases the power by .


title: Kia Stinger

text: The Kia Stinger was updated for the British market on 6 January 2021, while the North American model was updated on 16 March 2021, making it one of the first cars to bear the new Kia logo in said region, alongside the Carnival. The Mexican model later arrived on 3 May 2021, also sporting the new Kia logo.


title: Kia Stinger

text: In June 2017, Kia Motors teamed up with "GQ" magazine to promote the Stinger as a "street style icon".


title: Kia Stinger

text: The Stinger GT was featured in series 2 episode 3 of "The Grand Tour", where co-presenter James May raced it against two longboard riders on a mountain road in Majorca, with the car going uphill and the skateboarders going downhill.


title: Kia Stinger

text: On 4 February 2018, Kia released two Stinger commercials during Super Bowl LII. The first commercial features racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi. The second features Aerosmith lead vocalist Steven Tyler driving the car on an oval track in reverse until he becomes 40 years younger.


title: Kia Stinger

text: Euro NCAP test results for a LHD, 2.2-liter CRDi GT-Line 5-door fastback variant on a 2017 registration:


title: Kia Stinger

text: In 2018, Queensland Police Service and Tasmania Police in Australia selected the Stinger 330SI as their new Road Policing car, replacing the discontinued Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore police cars.


title: Kia Stinger

text: Since 2019, the V6 variants of the Stinger have been utilised by "SPEED" police units in Poland. The unlabelled vehicles are used to monitor the safety on the roads; they are also used as pursuit vehicles.


title: Kia Stinger

text: The Stinger won the iF Product Design Award in the "Transportation Design" category and the Red Dot award in the "Best of the Best Car Design" category in 2018.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The Noida serial murders (also Nithari serial murders or Nithari Kand) occurred in the house of businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in Sector-31, Noida near Nithari village, Uttar Pradesh, India between 2005 and 2006. Moninder Singh was convicted in two out of the five cases against him and his servant Surinder Koli who aided him was convicted in 10 out of the 16 cases against him. Both were sentenced to death.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: In December 2006, two Nithari village residents reported they knew the location of the remains of children who had gone missing in the previous two years:


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: the municipal water tank behind house D5, Sector-31, Noida. Both had daughters who were missing, and they suspected Surinder Koli, the domestic help at D5, was involved in the disappearances. The residents claimed they had been repeatedly ignored by local authorities; therefore, they sought the help of former Resident Welfare Association (RWA) President S C Mishra. That morning, Mishra and the two residents searched the tank drain. One of the residents claimed to have found a decomposed hand, after which they contacted the police.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: Anxious parents of children missing in the last two years rushed to Nithari with photographs. Koli, under the alias Satish, later confessed to killing six children and a 20-year-old woman referred to as "Payal" after sexually assaulting them.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The families of the missing children accused the police of negligence. Initially, some police officers, including Noida SP city, denied any criminal angle and asserted that the families had provided false information about the ages of the missing; that they weren't minors but instead were adults who left home after fighting with their parents. The residents also alleged that the police were corrupt and were paid to conceal information. Demands were made for an independent investigation. One of the residents asserted that the police were claiming credit for discovering the bodies when it was the residents who dug them up. The police denied having found fifteen bodies, reiterating that they had discovered skulls, bones and other body parts, and said they were unable to give a figure for the number of victims. The victims' identities and number could only be established with DNA tests. The police then sealed the house and did not allow news media near the site.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The Central government tried to ascertain the facts behind the discovery of the skeletal remains and whether it had "inter-state ramifications". Law and order are state matters, but the Home Ministry asked for details about the magnitude of the crime.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: On 26 and 27 December respectively, Koli's employer, Moninder Singh Pandher, and Koli were taken into custody by the police in connection with the disappearance of "Payal". After Koli's confession, the police started digging up the nearby land area and discovered the children's bodies.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: Two policemen were suspended on 31 December for failing to take action despite being informed about a number of children missing, as angry residents charged the house of the alleged mastermind, demanding the removal of the Mulayam Singh government.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The situation at Nithari was aggravated as an angry mob of villagers fought with police, then pelting stones at each other, just outside the residence of the accused. The police also detained Pandher's maid Maya under suspicion that she lured women to the house. As more body parts were dug up near the premises, hundreds of local residents descended on the spot and alleged that there was an organ trade connection to the grisly killings of young children. A doctor living close to the Pandher residence, Navin Choudhary, had been under police suspicion a few years prior in connection with an alleged kidney racket at his hospital. Searches were conducted throughout his properties, and the investigators found no evidence to support the claim.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: On 1 January 2007, the remand magistrate granted the police custody of Pandher and Koli until 10 January 2007, as the investigators said that further interrogation was required to complete the recovery of victims' remains. The court also granted permission for Narco Analysis. On the same evening, police conducted a raid on Pandher's Chandigarh residence. His wife and son were interrogated about Pandher's habits. Police sources disclosed that their relationship with him was "strained", which was later found untrue. His behaviour was described as normal. A senior police inspector revealed that there would be a series of searches conducted at Pandher's Ludhiana farmhouse and nearby places. The recent child kidnapping cases in Chandigarh - Pandher's hometown - were re-opened, but nothing was found.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The next day, 15 of the 17 skeletons discovered in the village were identified. Ten of them were identified by Koli when he was confronted with the photographs of the missing children. Five others were identified by family members after being shown belongings recovered from the scene. The torsos of the bodies were missing and the investigating team was looking into possibilities that the killings were motivated by illicit trade in human organs. The police said that there were at least 31 child victims.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: Security was increased as police expected more disturbance, following two days of violence near Pandher's residence. In a press statement, Chief Justice of India Y. K. Sabharwal asserted that the investigation was at a preliminary level, and neither the courts nor the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) were involved at that point.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The Central Government, however, constituted a high-level inquiry committee to go into the police lapses, during the period of reporting and investigation. Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav said that he would await the report of the committee looking into the issue before making the decision whether there should be a CBI probe into the matter. The committee was headed by the Joint Secretary, Women and Child Development Ministry, Manjula Krishnan. Under the terms of the reference,


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The panel met the parents of the victims to record their statements even as the police determined that out of the 17 confirmed people killed, 10 were girls. Parents of eight of the sexually abused children were given compensation of Rs. 12 lakhs. The DNA samples from the human remains were sent to a forensic laboratory in Hyderabad for the identification of the victims while forensic samples were sent to the laboratory in Agra for determining the age, cause of death and other details. It was determined that "Payal" was the only adult victim identified, with all other 11 victims below the age of 10. Seven of the eight families that had been provided compensation of Rs. 200,000 on 3 January 2007 returned their cheques in protest. However, the cheques were soon returned to them. They demanded houses and jobs in compensation as well.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: After pressure and public outcry, the Uttar Pradesh Government suspended two superintendents of police and dismissed six policemen for dereliction of duty. This action followed the report by the four-member committee. On 17 January 2007 the inquiry committee submitted its reports indicting the Uttar Pradesh Police for "gross negligence" in handling the cases of missing persons. The committee said that the local administration was negligent and irresponsible while dealing with the missing persons reports and did not rule out organ trade as a possible motive behind the killings.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The two accused in the case were already in police custody while the skeletal remains of the young children were being unearthed from behind and in front of Pandher's residence. An FIR had been filed on 7 October 2006. Investigations revealed that Payal's cellphone was being used although the SIM card she owned remained inactive. Through digital surveillance, the investigators were able to track down a number of people and could finally reach the man who sold the phone. The rickshaw cart puller affirmed that the phone belonged to someone from the Pandher residence. After the affirmation of the facts by the witness, Moninder Singh was called for interrogation, which subsequently revealed nothing. His aide and servant, Surinder Koli was picked up the next day and he confessed killing the woman and dumping her body behind the house. The police started digging and henceforth recovered the skeletal remains of the missing children instead of Payal.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: Nand Lal, the father of the girl – "Deepika" alias "Payal", alleged that the police had threatened and harassed him. He stated that it was because of the court intervention that the police officers registered the FIR.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The investigating teams seized erotic literature along with a laptop computer connected to a webcam, which immediately raised apprehensions of the presence of an international child pornography racket. The police also recovered photographs of Pandher with nude children and foreigners during his four international visits. It was alleged that Pandher supplied such pictures abroad and could link him to pedophilia, which was later discovered to be untrue. Later during the investigation it was found that the nude children in the pictures were Pandher's grandchildren. There was no link found to child pornography. The laptop and the webcam were later returned to the family, and the story was classified as a media-created rumour.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The police initially suspected an organ trade angle as to the motive behind the murders and raided the house of a doctor who lived in the neighbourhood of the primary accused. A team of officials, accompanied by a team of forensic experts, went to pick up possible evidence for tests. The police revealed that the doctor had been accused of a similar crime in 1998, although the court had absolved him the same year. There was a second raid a few days later. The police were, however, cautious with the news reports suggesting the accused committed cannibalism even before the polygraph tests had barely begun. They were "aghast" when they learned of media reports that one of the accused had confessed to the consumption of the victims' livers and other body parts. Such a possibility was not ruled out by the investigating team, considering the amount of brutality the duo had allegedly committed on the victims.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The accused duo were brought to the Directorate of Forensic Sciences in Gandhinagar city in order to undergo brain mapping and polygraph tests on 4 January 2007 and narco analysis five days later. The police director told the scribes that both the accused had been cooperative during the tests and examinations. A senior director of the institute announced the conclusion of the extensive tests and declared that a conclusion had been drawn. Surinder Koli had confessed to the crimes and had given his employer a clean chit saying that he was unaware of Koli's actions. Surinder Koli also revealed that all deaths had taken place through strangulation. He would then rape them before taking the bodies to his personal washroom and dismembering them. Pandher was declared to be a womaniser and depressed.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: After four days of discourse and mounting pressure from the Government of India, the Uttar Pradesh Government decided to hand over the inquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The notification came after the Department of Personnel and Training, which governs the CBI, sent a letter to the state government making a proper request for a probe by the agency in line with the prescribed norms.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The two accused were taken to the CBI headquarters in Mumbai Jail on the night of 11 January 2007, a day before the investigation was to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The CBI continued its investigation and discovered three more skulls and human remains at the site of the serial killings. The investigators searched the drains outside the house and found three skulls, believed to be of the children, and several body parts, including parts of legs, bones, and torso. Several objects were found that are believed to belong to the victims. The exhibits were sealed and forwarded to forensic labs.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The Central inquiry committee that investigated the serial killings discovered serious lapses on the part of the police in handling the cases of missing persons. The reports were incriminating and proclaimed that the local police failed in their duty to respond to complaints over the past two years.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The discovery of several polythene bags containing parts of human torsos led the investigators to conclude that it was unlikely that the accused had links to illegal organ trade. The CBI team discovered the bags in the drains outside the Pandher residence. After interrogating Surinder Koli, they came to a "prima facie" conclusion that "he is a psychopath used to carry out the killings". Interrogators also said that it was possible that Pandher had no role to play in the murders. The seized materials were sent to laboratory for post-mortem, individualisation, and DNA extraction. The materials received from the Uttar Pradesh police were also forwarded for forensic examination. Some liquor bottles, a double-barreled gun, cartridges, mobile phones, photographs, photo albums and a blood-stained grill were handed over to the CBI for extensive examination. Preliminary investigations revealed that the bones were not more than two years old. The CBI also revealed that only fifteen skulls had been found thus far, and not seventeen as claimed by the state police.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: In November 2007, the Supreme Court notified the CBI concerning the case about the allegation by a relative of a victim that the investigating agency was trying to shield Moninder Singh Pandher, one of the key accused in the case.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: Payal was the only adult victim in the string of serial murders. Young girls constituted the majority of victims. Post-mortem reports of the 17 sets of skulls and bones recovered showed that 11 of the killed were girls. Doctors at Noida Government Hospital revealed that there was a "butcher-like precision" in the chopping of the bodies. The post mortem reports revealed that there had been a pattern in the killings. A gory revelation was made by the AIIMS on 6 February 2007. It was also concluded that there were 19 skulls in all; 16 complete and 3 damaged. The bodies had been cut into three pieces before being disposed of by the servant. The CBI sources said that the manservant, after strangling the victims, severed their heads and threw them in the drain behind the house of his employer. Sources also revealed that he used to keep the viscera in a polythene bag before disposing of it in a drain, so as to prevent detection. The skulls and the other remains were forwarded to the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad for further profiling. The crime scene examination, recovery and collection of human remains and exhibits and their detailed examination was carried out by experts from AIIMS and CFSL under the chairmanship and guidance of professor T D Dogra.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: On 12 February 2009, both the accused—Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic servant Surinder Koli—were found guilty of the 8 February 2005 murder of Rimpa Haldar, 14, by a special sessions court in Ghaziabad. This verdict left the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) red faced, as the CBI had earlier given a clean chit to Moninder Singh Pandher in all its chargesheets. Both the accused Moninder Singh Pandher and Surinder Koli were given the death sentence on 13 February 2009, as the case was classified as "rarest of rare".


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: In February 2011, the Supreme Court of India upheld their death sentence. In July 2014, the President of India rejected the mercy petitions filed by Koli. On 3 September 2014, the Court issued a death warrant against Koli in Nithari case. On the evening of 4 September 2014 Surinder Koli was transferred to Meerut Jail because of the absence of hanging facilities at Dasna Jail, Ghaziabad. He was to be hanged on 12 September 2014.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: The Supreme Court of India stayed the death sentence for one week after a petition was filed for same. On 29 October 2014, the Supreme Court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India H. L. Dattu rejected the death sentence review petition stating that the court had not committed any error in judgement. On 28 January 2015, the High Court bench headed by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud and Justice P. K. S. Baghel commuted the death sentence of Surinder Koli to life imprisonment on the ground of "inordinate delay" in deciding his mercy petition. The Allahabad HC will hear a petition by Surinder Koli, seeking commutation of death sentence. In one of the first six cases, the HC had reduced his punishment to life. In 2014, the SC had stopped his hanging at a midnight hearing, saying inordinate delay in execution was valid grounds for commutation. In 2019, he was given a death sentence in 10th conviction.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: On 10 September 2009, the Allahabad high court acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher and overturned his death sentence. He was not named a main suspect by investigators initially, but was summoned as co-accused during the trial. Pandher faces trial in five cases out of the remaining 12, and could be re-sentenced to death if found guilty in any of those killings. The same day Pandher was acquitted, the Allahabad high court upheld the death sentence for Surinder Koli, the former domestic servant of Pandher.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: On 24 July 2017, both Koli and Pandher have been given the death sentence (case #8 out of 16) in the latest hearing by the CBI Court at Ghaziabad.


title: 2006 Noida serial murders

text: A BBC documentary on the case titled "Slumdog Cannibal" was released in 2012. In 2017, another documentary titled "The Karma Killings" was released on Netflix, directed by Ram Devineni. The case was also covered in an episode of the true crime podcast titled "The Desi Crime Podcast" and an episode of RedHanded titled 'Village of the Damned: The Nithari Child Murders'.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: was both a title and a rank. The title of was first created in 1926 by the second commander of the SS, Joseph Berchtold. Julius Schreck, founder of the SS and Berchtold's predecessor, never referred to himself as . Yet, the title was retroactively applied to him in later years. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank of . This set the precedent for the commander of the SS to be called .


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: Prior to the Night of the Long Knives, the SS was an elite corps of the (SA or storm troopers), and the was subordinate to the SA's operating head, the . On 20 July 1934, as part of the purge of the SA, the SS was made an independent branch of the Nazi Party, responsible only to Hitler. From that point on, the title of became an actual rank, and in fact the highest rank of the SS. In this position, Himmler was on paper the equivalent of a in the German Army. As Himmler's position and authority grew in Nazi Germany, so did his rank in a "de facto" sense. Further, there was never more than one at any one time, with Himmler holding the position as his personal title from 1929 (becoming his actual rank in 1934) until April 1945.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: Under its original inception, the title and rank of was the designation for the head of the (General-SS). In this capacity, the SS Reich Leader was the direct commander of the SS Senior District Leaders ("SS-Oberabschnitt Führer"); by 1936, the was head of the three main SS branches: the , (SS-VT; Political Action Troops), and the (SS-TV; Concentration Camp Service).


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: During the Second World War, the in effect held several additional roles and wielded enormous personal power. He was responsible for all internal security within Nazi Germany. He was overseer of the concentration camps, extermination camps (through the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS-TV), and the "Einsatzgruppen" mobile death squads (through the Reich Security Main Office; RSHA). Over time, his influence on both civil and foreign policy became marked, as the "Reichsführer" reported directly to Hitler and his actions were not tempered by checks and balances. This meant the office holder could implement broad policy, such as the Nazi plan for the Genocide or extermination of the Jews, or order criminal acts such as the "Stalag Luft III" murders, without impediment.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: It is difficult to separate the office from the duties assigned to the individual. As of 20 April 1934, Himmler in his position of already controlled the SD and the Gestapo. On 17 June 1936 Himmler was named chief of all German police, thereby placing all uniformed police (Orpo) and criminal police (Kripo) in Germany under his control. In the latter role, he was nominally subordinate to the Interior Minister, Wilhelm Frick. It is not clear how much of this power would technically reside in the office of the "Reichsführer-SS" were those duties to be split up. These questions became moot by the time Himmler became the Interior Minister in 1943.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: It is difficult to define precisely the full detailed duties and responsibilities of the beyond that of leader and senior member of the SS, since, in the words of historian Martin Windrow, "by the outbreak of the (Second World) war it would have been impossible to define exactly the role within the state" of the entire SS itself.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: The rank of was defined in the SS hierarchy as the highest possible rank of the . The exact position of the rank within the military Waffen-SS (Armed SS) evolved over many years, ranging from clearly defined to vaguely associated. The Waffen-SS was originally a small armed SS unit called the , and in the 1930s was under the command of Himmler who, in his position as , issued directives and orders to SS-VT commanders. Hold-outs existed for some aspects of the armed SS however, as well as within the special bodyguard unit known as the . Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Sepp Dietrich was the real commander and handled day-to-day administration.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: The Waffen-SS eventually grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions and served alongside the German Army, but was never formally part of it. During World War II, the authority of the over the Waffen-SS was mainly administrative in that certain General-SS offices controlled supply and logistics aspects of the Waffen-SS. Himmler also held authority to create new Waffen-SS divisions as well as order the formation of various smaller SS combat units. The daily association with the Waffen-SS, however, encompassed primarily inspecting Waffen-SS troops and presenting high-ranking medals to its members.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: The further never exercised direct operational authority over Waffen-SS units until the very end of the war and then only through his capacity as an Army Group commander and not as the head of the SS. Top Waffen-SS commanders, such as Sepp Dietrich, Wilhelm Bittrich, and Matthias Kleinheisterkamp, further held a certain derision for Himmler, describing him as "sly and unmilitary".


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: Attached to the office was the 18,438-strong SS formations managed by the ("Command Staff ") reporting directly to Himmler. To head the Command Staff, Himmler appointed career army officer Kurt Knoblauch, who acted as chief of staff for the units. Prior to the launch of the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, these formations included two motorized SS-Infantry Brigades, two SS-Cavalry Regiments combined into the SS Cavalry Brigade, a bodyguard battalion, flak units and a number of companies of support troops. Units were temporarily placed under army command for operations, but the could call them back at any time. Despite the name, it was not employed as a unified HQ unit. Instead, its individual units were sent to occupied areas, subordinated to local Higher SS and Police Leaders (HSSPFs) and used for so-called "pacification actions" alongside the . Often these actions were atrocities and mass murders, targeting Jews, political prisoners and "suspected partisans".


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: In all, five people held the title of during the twenty years of its existence. Three persons held the position as a title while two held the actual SS rank.


title: Reichsführer-SS

text: Hanke was appointed SS leader in April 1945, but not informed until early May. He was captured by Czech partisans on 6 May and interned. He was killed on 8 June, while attempting to escape a POW camp. Historians have often speculated that Reinhard Heydrich would have eventually held the rank had Himmler in some way been killed or removed from his position earlier in World War II, and indeed Heydrich was often seen as Himmler's heir apparent by senior SS leaders. However, at a diplomatic function in Italy in 1941, Heydrich was reported as stating that he had no desire to succeed Himmler.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The Degtyaryov machine gun ( literally: "Degtyaryov's infantry machine gun") or DP-27/DP-28 is a light machine gun firing the 7.62×54mmR cartridge that was primarily used by the Soviet Union, with service trials starting in 1927, followed by general deployment in 1928.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: Besides being the standard Soviet infantry light machine gun (LMG) during World War II, with various modifications it was used in aircraft as a flexible defensive weapon, and it equipped almost all Soviet tanks in WWII as either a flexible bow machine gun or a co-axial machine gun controlled by the gunner. It was improved in 1943 producing the DPM, but it was replaced in 1946 with the RP-46 which improved on the basic DP design by converting it to use belt feed. The DP machine gun was supplemented in the 1950s by the more modern RPD machine gun and entirely replaced in Soviet service by the general purpose PK machine gun in the 1960s.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The DP-27 is a light machine gun designed for the Soviet Red Army in the 1920s under the leadership of Vasily Degtyaryov (1880-1949), the first test model being the DP-26. Two test guns were manufactured and fired 5,000 rounds each from September 27–29, 1926, during which weaknesses were discovered in the extractor and firing pin mechanisms. After design improvements, two more guns were made and tested in December 1926, firing 40,000 rounds under adverse conditions, resulting in only .6% stoppages. However, changes to the bolt carrier and the chamber locking mechanism were still required. After this redesign the improved gun, now called the DP-27, was tested by the Red Army at the Kovrov plant on January 17–21 of 1927, passing all tests and being approved for manufacture. A full year of service testing followed, after which the primary requested change was the addition of the large flash suppressor that is now considered one of the recognition features of the design. With further refinements, the DP was to be the primary light machine gun of the Red Army during WWII.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The DP-27 was designed to fire the same 7.62×54mmR ("R" indicating "rimmed") ammunition as the main Soviet infantry rifle, the Mosin-Nagant, much simplifying ammunition logistics for Soviet infantry units. Of typical Russian design philosophy, the DP-27 was a sturdy and simple gun that was easy and cheap to manufacture, and could be relied upon to perform even in the most adverse conditions; it was capable of withstanding being buried in dirt, mud, or sand and still operating consistently. However, being magazine fed, it had a rate of fire similar to other light machine guns, like the Bren light machine gun, but low when compared to its main wartime rivals, the German MG 34/MG 42 series, firing at a rate of 550rpm as compared to the 800-1,500rpm of the German general-purpose machine guns.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The operating mechanism of the DP-27 is gas-operated, using a Kjellmann-Friberg flap locking design to lock the bolt against the chamber until the round had left the barrel, aided by a recoil spring. Ammunition came in the form of a 47-round circular pan magazine that attached to the top of the receiver. Because of the shape of its magazine, the DP-27 was nicknamed the "record player".


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: Its main parts were a removable barrel with an integrated flash suppressor and gas cylinder, a receiver with the rear sight, a perforated barrel shroud/guide with the front sight, the bolt and locking flaps, the bolt carrier and gas piston rod, a recoil spring, stock and trigger mechanism group, a bipod for firing from prone positions, and the previously-mentioned pan magazine. In total, the first versions contained only 80 parts, indicating both the simplicity and ease of manufacture of the design. Early versions had 26 transverse cooling fins machined into the barrel, but it was found that these had little cooling effect and so were deleted in 1938, further easing manufacture.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The design had several weaknesses that would eventually be addressed in later variants. The pan magazines were prone to damage, while also being difficult and time-consuming to reload. The bipod mechanism was weak and likely to fail if not handled with care. The recoil spring's location near the barrel led to overheating, causing it to lose proper spring temper. Typical of light machine guns of the era, the 47-round magazines made sustained fire impossible. In contrast, the German MG-34/MG-42 were continuous belt-fed general-purpose machine guns and provided a sustained fire capability the DP series could not match.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The Degtyaryov machine gun was accepted for Red Army service in 1927 with the official designation 7,62-мм ручной пулемет обр. 1927 г (7.62mm Hand-Held Machine Gun Model 1927). It was called the ДП-27 (DP-27) or just DP in use, besides the aforementioned soldier slang name of "Record Player" due to the disc-shaped magazine.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: For reasons that are unclear, it is often called the DP-28 in the west, even though no Soviet sources ever used that designation. It is possible, since the Soviets generally named equipment referring to the first year of use, that western sources became confused between the initial service testing date of 1927 and the general service distribution date of 1928 and assumed it would be called the DP-28.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: Despite its numerous problems, the DP had a reputation as a relatively effective light support weapon. It was nicknamed the "Record player" (proigryvatel') by Red Army troops because the disc-shaped pan magazine resembled a gramophone record and its top cover revolved while the weapon was fired. Many were captured by the Finnish army in the Winter War and the Continuation War and partially replaced the Lahti-Saloranta M/26. The DP received the nickname "Emma" in Finnish service after a popular waltz, again due to the magazine's resemblance to a record player. In the summer of 1944, the Finnish army had about 3400 Finnish-made Lahti-Salorantas and 9000 captured Soviet-made Degtyarevs on the front. Captured examples were operated by the Volkssturm, the late-war German militia, and in German service the Degtyarev received the designation "Leichtes Maschinengewehr" 120("r").


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: The Chinese Nationalists received 5,600 DPs from the USSR and used them in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. The North Korean and Chinese Communists used the DP in the Korean War and copied the DPM as the Type 53.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: Examples of all variants of the DP machine gun were given or sold to the Viet Minh in the First Indochina War by the USSR and Chinese Communists. Similarly, in the Vietnam War to the NVA and Vietcong.


title: Degtyaryov machine gun

text: DPMs have also been recovered from Taliban fighters during the War in Afghanistan while DPs or DPMs have been spotted in 2014 in the Northern Mali conflict.


title: Miller–Urey experiment

text: The Miller–Urey experiment (or Miller experiment) is a famous chemistry experiment that simulated the conditions thought at the time (1952) to be present in the atmosphere of the early, prebiotic Earth, in order to test the hypothesis of the chemical origin of life under those conditions. The experiment used water (HO), methane (CH), ammonia (NH), hydrogen (H), and an electric arc (the latter simulating hypothesized lightning).


title: Miller–Urey experiment

text: At the time, it supported Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that the hypothesized conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized more complex organic compounds from simpler inorganic precursors. One of the most famous experiments of all time, it is considered to be groundbreaking, and to be the classic experiment investigating abiogenesis. It was performed in 1952 by Stanley Miller, supervised by Harold Urey at the University of Chicago, and published the following year.


title: Miller–Urey experiment

text: After Miller's death in 2007, scientists examining sealed vials preserved from the original experiments were able to show that there were actually well over 20 different amino acids produced in Miller's original experiments. That is considerably more than what Miller originally reported, and more than the 20 that naturally occur in the genetic code. More recent evidence suggests that Earth's original atmosphere might have had a composition different from the gas used in the Miller experiment, but prebiotic experiments continue to produce racemic mixtures of simple-to-complex compounds—such as cyanide—under varying conditions.