title: Will of the People (album)

text: Per "The Guardian": "The Muse NFT album will retail for £20 and will be limited to 1,000 copies globally. As both an NFT and a limited-edition format, it is relatively sparse in its offering. Buyers will get a downloadable version of the album – complete with different sleeve – as high-res FLAC files; the members of Muse will digitally sign it[,] and each of the 1,000 buyers will have their names permanently listed on the linked roster of purchasers."


title: Will of the People (album)

text: On 25 November 2022, an alternative Italian version of "Ghosts (How Can I Move On)" is released with the Italian singer Elisa then a French version two weeks later, on 9 December, with the singer Mylène Farmer.


title: Will of the People (album)

text: "Will of the People" has received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received a score of 71 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reception.


title: Will of the People (album)

text: "Will of the People" debuted at number 1 in their home country, the UK selling 51,500 units in its first week and becoming their seventh chart-topping album on the UK Albums Chart. In the US, the album debuted at number 15 on the "Billboard" 200, including number 1 on the Top Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums charts with 24,000 album equivalent units. As of October 2022, "Will of the People" has sold over 200,000 units worldwide.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa are an animated meerkat and warthog duo introduced in Disney's 1994 animated film "The Lion King" and its franchise. Timon was played through his many appearances by Nathan Lane (in all three films and early episodes of the show), Max Casella (the original actor in Broadway musical), Kevin Schon (in certain episodes of the show), Quinton Flynn (in certain episodes of the show), Bruce Lanoil in the "Wild About Safety" shorts and "Kingdom Hearts II", while Pumbaa is voiced by Ernie Sabella (in all of his traditionally animated speaking appearances), and was portrayed by Tom Alan Robbins in the original cast of the Broadway musical. In the CGI remake, the characters are portrayed by Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, respectively. Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella first came to audition for the roles of the hyenas, but when the producers saw how well they worked together, they decided to cast them as Timon and Pumbaa.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: As with many characters in "The Lion King", Pumbaa's name derives from the East African language Swahili. In Swahili, "pumbaa (v.)" means "to be foolish, silly, weakminded, careless, negligent." Timon is one of the few characters whose name has no meaning in Swahili; "Timon" is a historical Greek name, taken to mean "he who respects." Timon's name may derive from Shakespeare's tragedy "Timon of Athens," another Shakespeare reference in a film which derives its plot from "Hamlet". The tragedy is based in the history of the real Timon of Athens, a famous misanthrope during the era of the Peloponnesian War, who refused life in Athens to live isolated. Another explanation is that he is named after the Greek philosopher Timon, a disciple of Pyrrho, the founder of the school of scepticism.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon is an insouciant and fast-talking meerkat who is known for claiming Pumbaa's ideas as his own. Pumbaa has problems with flatulence but is also a brave warrior, charging into battle like a battering ram, and taking great offense if anyone who's not his friend calls him a pig, at which point he exclaims "They call me "Mister" pig!"—a reference to Sidney Poitier's line "They call me Mister Tibbs!" from the 1967 film "In the Heat of the Night" and then screams as he charges. Unlike real meerkats, Timon can walk on his hind legs, while in real life, meerkats walk on all four legs and can only stand on their hind ones.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Based on the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from "Hamlet", Timon and Pumbaa are played by Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella. Timon was animated and created by Michael Surrey. They made their first appearances in the 1994 film when they chased away the vultures that swarmed around young Simba, who had collapsed from heat exhaustion. Timon and Pumbaa then took the comatose lion cub back to a small pool, where they splashed water on him to wake him up. After Simba is awakened by the two, they introduce themselves and welcome Simba to stay with them and follow their "hakuna matata" philosophy. At first, Simba is unsure about Timon and Pumbaa's lifestyle, but it is explained to him in the song "Hakuna Matata".


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Many years later, while out on a musical walk with Timon, Pumbaa is distracted by a bug, which he follows into the jungle. The bug leads him right to a hungry lioness prowling around, who then tries to hunt down Pumbaa. She chases the warthog until Simba springs into action, and the two lions engage in conflict. When the lioness pins Simba, he recognizes her as Nala, his childhood playmate. They are happy to be together, but Timon is jealous after they leave for a night of romance. He and Pumbaa start singing the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and are joined by Simba and Nala on their night out. Still, the two help Simba fight Scar and gain his rightful place as the king of the Pride Lands, most notably when they create a hula distraction to lure away Scar's hyenas. Pumbaa single-handedly defeats Shenzi, Banzai and Ed. They also stand on top of Pride Rock along with Simba and Nala when Rafiki presents Simba and Nala's newborn cub to the animals of the Pride Lands.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa starred in their own animated television series which focuses on their lives. The duo is seen having many adventures in their jungle home, as well as across the globe, such as the United States, Spain, and France. This series also reveals their last names: Timon's is revealed to be Berkowitz while Pumbaa's is revealed to be Smith. It is also shown that Timon and Pumbaa celebrate Bestest Best Friend Day (which, according to Timon, was made up by Pumbaa) to dedicate their friendship.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: It is revealed in the series that before Timon met Pumbaa, he had a best friend named Fred, who is a meerkat who enjoys pulling practical jokes. The episode "Isle of Manhood" also reveals Timon taking a manhood test in order to become a full-fledged meerkat.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: In "Timon's Time Togo", Timon dies from eating a poisonous bug, but the meerkat angel sends him back to Earth so that he can perform one good deed in order to enter Meerkat Heaven. Timon, however, decides to never again do any good deeds so that he'll never die and leave Pumbaa forever. In another episode "The Law of the Jungle", Timon breaks the law by touching a forbidden stick. Due to that, he gets sent to a jungle court by the vulture police, where a rhino judge, known as the Wonderful Rhino of Laws, comes up with various tests for Timon to prove his innocence.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: In "Timon...Alone", Timon decides to start a new life as a writer and wants to be away from Pumbaa in order to concentrate. He later realizes how lonely he is without Pumbaa and decides to find his friend and quit his new career as a writer. In another episode "Ice Escapades", Timon reveals that he dreams of becoming an ice skater and suggests that he and Pumbaa become world's famous ice skating champions. It turns out that Timon is not good at ice skating, but Pumbaa suggests that he keeps trying in order to live out his dream, which he does.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: The episode "Once Upon a Timon" reveals one of the two versions of Timon's origin and how he first met Pumbaa. Timon was a member of a colony of meerkats who each had a specific duty. The kingdom was ruled by the Duke Meerkat and his daughter Princess Tatiana, whom Timon had a romantic interest in. One day when Timon had sentinel duty while the Duke was away, he was convinced by Fred to leave his post, as he found the Duke being away as an opportunity for Timon to speak with the princess. While Timon was gone, a snake invaded the colony and kidnapped Tatiana. As a result, Timon got blamed for abandoning his post and was exiled from the colony. He soon met and befriended Pumbaa, who was also an outcast due to his flatulence problem. Soon enough, the two came across Tatiana, who was held captive by the snake, and rescued her. When Timon and Tatiana returned to the colony with Pumbaa, Timon was offered to marry the princess and live in luxury, but that would mean abandoning Pumbaa. Therefore, he decided to stay with his friend and live a jaunty life, in which they decided to name "Hakuna Matata".


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: In the episode "Russia Hour", Pumbaa is shown to have an uncle named Boaris, who is very famous in Russia due to his ballet dancing skills. But then, before Boaris' farewell performance, he falls on fish eggs due to Timon throwing it on the ground and goes to the hospital, leaving it up to Pumbaa to perform in his uncle's place. Pumbaa, however, breaks his leg, and Timon is forced to stall. But then, Boaris, presumably recovered from his injury, shows up and does his final performance.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: In "Sense & Senegambia", Pumbaa is also revealed to have a deceased uncle named Ernie. In that same episode, Pumbaa believes he lost his bug-hunting skills after failing to catch and eat a cricket. Timon thinks this is because there is something wrong with the warthog's senses and so he purchases expensive aids for his friend. Pumbaa later learns from his dream of talking to Uncle Ernie that he needs to believe in himself and therefore, he regains his confidence and succeeds in catching bugs. In another episode "New Guinea Pig", it is shown that Pumbaa's tusks can get in his way of doing some activities or passing through some things. As a result, Pumbaa starts to get tired of them and considers trading them to the three natives. The warthog later realizes how useful his tusks are, as he uses them to free Timon and create an ice replica of himself. Pumbaa learns from Timon that his tusks are the most important parts of what makes him who he is. Also, years before the episode "Madagascar About You", an arranged marriage has been set up for Pumbaa before he was even born.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: In "Home Is Where the Hog Is", it is revealed that Pumbaa was a member of a warthog sounder, where he had a mate named Sharla. He was banished from the sounder due to his flatulence, which was apparently appalling even by warthog standards, and spent his life as a loner until he met and befriended Timon.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: It is unclear whether Timon and Pumbaa have taken up residence at Pride Rock, or just make frequent visits. They serve as aides to Simba and are often called upon to protect his adventurous daughter Kiara, replacing Zazu's role as babysitters. Despite being bumbling, Simba trusts them to look after Kiara and does not blame them when Kiara escapes as Kiara is known to do so.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: A few years later when a now adolescent Kiara goes on her first hunt, they are hired to make sure she won't get hurt. Furious that Simba broke his promise to let her hunt alone, Kiara leaves the Pride Lands to hunt outside the boundary. Timon and Pumbaa also teach Kovu how to have fun after he forgets due to years of indoctrination in hatred. When Kovu's pride, the Outsiders, ambush Simba, Timon is on Simba's side instantly, not even wanting to hear Kovu's explanation. Afterwards, they discover that Kiara has left Pride Rock (having left to find Kovu) and reveal this to Simba, much to the latter's annoyance as he had forbidden Kiara to leave Pride Rock in order to stop her from seeing Kovu again. Timon and Pumbaa later assist Simba and his pride in the battle against Kovu's vengeful and bitter mother Zira, and the Outsiders, but get chased off and trapped by a group of Outsider lionesses, until Timon threatens to use Pumbaa's tail as a gun and use his gas on them causing them to flee in fear. When Simba tries to make peace with Zira after Kiara convinces him that both prides "were one", he uses the same advice Timon and Pumbaa gave him when he was a cub (put the past behind you) showing how much he had learned from his old friends.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa are the main characters in this follow-up, which reveals an alternative version of Timon's origin and how he first met Pumbaa. The two are also revealed to have passed by and caused some key events in the first film before their first appearance. Timon, his mother Ma, and Uncle Max were part of a group of meerkats who lived on the savannah, but he was unable to do any job to a good standard, and almost led to the meerkats being eaten by the hyenas Shenzi, Banzai and Ed. Miserable, he received counsel from Rafiki, who taught him the "Hakuna Matata" philosophy and told him to "look beyond what you see." Timon took this literally and set off to find the ultimate paradise. Along the way, he first encountered Pumbaa, and the two became friends. On the way to find paradise, they passed by the presentation of Simba (it turns out that Pumbaa accidentally passed some gas and the smell made an elephant trumpet and a few animals collapse, causing the other animals to think they were bowing and later they all bowed) and Mufasa was very puzzled at seeing this and his majordomo Zazu then tells him they are bowing to his son; Simba, Nala, and when the animals are singing "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" (it was Timon who hit an elephant's leg with a stick, causing the pyramid of animals to collapse); the elephant graveyard where Mufasa was on his way to save Simba and Nala from the hyenas ("I see "carnivores""); the hyenas marching to "Be Prepared" ("something tells me this ain't the traveling company of Riverdance"); and the wildebeest stampede ("Shall we run for our lives?" "Oh yes, let's."). Finally, they reach a beautiful oasis and are enjoying life until they find an unconscious Simba. After rescuing Simba, Timon and Pumbaa find themselves as surrogate parents trying to keep up with the head-strong cub.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: The film also shows more of Simba's life with Timon and Pumbaa before Nala came along, stating that Simba had beaten Timon in every bug-eating contest they had done with one another. Timon and Pumbaa, afraid that Nala would take away their friend, attempted to spoil Simba and Nala's date by letting out bees, a spider, and tripping the two (explaining why they fell down the hill in the first film), but all failed. Later on, they see Simba and Nala arguing. They also mistake the appearance of Mufasa's ghost as bad weather ("I think the storm is coming to a head"). After they realize Simba has gone back to take his rightful place as king, it is revealed that Pumbaa had set off to help Simba before Timon, who was unsupportive and angry. Timon eventually came to his senses thanks to Rafiki's continued advice, and quickly followed, after which Rafiki says, "My work here is done." After the duo provide their hula distraction, they encounter Ma and Uncle Max, who had been searching for Timon ever since he left the meerkat colony. Later on during the fight, they defeat the hyenas by digging a massive tunnel network, sending the hyenas down Pride Rock where they get to take revenge on Scar who had betrayed them. At the end, Timon takes his entire meerkat colony to live in the oasis, free from danger.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Despite the appearance of Timon's mother, Ma (who was also given reference in at least one episode of "Timon & Pumbaa") and his Uncle Max, Timon's father is never mentioned. However, in deleted scenes, Timon's father is an active character, though he was apparently replaced by Uncle Max.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa appear with several of the film's other characters in the Disney Junior series "The Lion Guard", which centers around Simba & Nala's second-born cub, Kion. During the series, which is set within the time gap in "", Timon and Pumbaa are adoptive uncles of a young honey badger named Bunga, who is one of the members of the Lion Guard. When Bunga was an infant, he encountered Timon and Pumbaa singing "Utamu". Instantly smitten, Bunga had begun following them around. Pumbaa wanted to keep Bunga, but Timon didn't want to raise anymore kids since he and Pumbaa have already done so with Simba, but the two friends see that the honey badger wants to be with them as well. Before he accepted Bunga, Timon instructed the honey badger to climb a tree and fetch them some Utamu grubs. When Bunga had succeeded and given the grubs to Timon, the meerkat had allowed him to stay, and the three have lived together ever since.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen played Timon and Pumbaa (in the first instance of the latter being voiced by somebody other than Sabella) respectively in the 2019 CGI remake of "The Lion King". Director Jon Favreau encouraged Rogen and Eichner, who did their voice recordings together, to improvise a lot.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Eichner said that "It's such a great role that allows you to do so much. But I've learned that the bigger the project and the bigger the names that you're working with, the more you have to ignore it. If you get to the soundstage and you're thinking, 'Oh my God, what a full-circle moment! Nathan Lane did it originally! Beyoncé's in this!' then you're paralyzed creatively. You just have to put that out of your head in order to get the job done." Eichner also talked about having "what some may consider a gay sensibility" that he brought to the table when he voiced Timon.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Rogen said that "As an actor, I 100 percent don't think I'm right for every role—there are a lot of roles I don't think I'm right for even in movies I'm making—but Pumbaa was one I knew I could do well. Truthfully, I probably would have been a little insulted if [Favreau] "didn't" ask me to."


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Rogen reprised his role as Pumbaa in a cameo appearance in "", along with Mantis from the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise and B.O.B. from "Monsters vs. Aliens".


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa made regular appearances in the animated television series "Disney's House of Mouse" (2001–2002) as guests and also appeared in "". An occasional running gag in the show involved Timon trying to eat Jiminy Cricket, only to be stopped by Pumbaa.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: The two have made cameos in other Disney films and TV series. In "Aladdin and the King of Thieves", the Genie turns into Pumbaa in a scene saying, "Hakuna Matata". Timon appears in the "Virtual Magic Carpet Ride" game included on disc 2 of the 2004 "Aladdin" Platinum Edition DVD. In "Enchanted", Pip accidentally transforms himself momentarily into Pumbaa in the DVD extra "Pip's Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure". Pumbaa makes a cameo appearance in the "Good Neighbor Cruella" episode of "". Both characters make a cameo appearance in the "" finale film, "Leroy & Stitch", hidden among Stitch's experiment "cousins" in the climax. In "The Jungle Book 2", two animals resembling Timon and Pumbaa can briefly be seen dancing during the song "W-I-L-D" until Baloo knocks them off the wall with his backside. Rogen reprises the 2019 film version of Pumbaa in the 2022 film "", who appears in a scene with several other characters also voiced by Rogen.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa were featured in a series of commercials that were part of the Smart Yet Satisfying PSA Campaign. These commercials were co-developed by Disney, Team Nutrition, and the United States Department of Agriculture. They are all animated in the style of the 1995 TV show (and by extension, the style of a typical Disney Afternoon cartoon).


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa, along with a young Simba, appeared on the packaging of the Kellogg's cereal "Chocolate Mud & Bugs", which was themed around them.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa reprise their roles from "The Lion King" in the 2006 video game "Kingdom Hearts II". They charge in to battle the hyenas, and are saved by the game's main protagonists Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy. After Simba's coronation, they fear that Simba will forget them and let the other lions eat them, though Sora assures them that Simba will never forget them. Pumbaa later shows his bravery by standing between a pregnant Nala and Scar's "ghost". Ernie Sabella reprises his role as Pumbaa, while Timon is voiced by Bruce Lanoil. Coincidentally, Quinton Flynn also had a role in the game, providing the voice for Axel of Organization XIII.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon appears at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as a meetable character in Adventureland and at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, while Pumbaa occasionally appears on show or parade floats. At Walt Disney World, the two appear in signage explaining the park's safety policies to visitors. They were similarly featured on the Disney Safety website which was created in conjunction with Animax Entertainment until its closure. Timon and Pumbaa were main characters in "The Legend of the Lion King", a defunct Fantasyland attraction in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, which retold the story of the film using fully articulated puppets. The two also make cameo appearances in the Hong Kong Disneyland and the Disneyland versions of It's a Small World. They appeared along with Simba in the film "", an edutainment film at Epcot's Land Pavilion that ran from 1995 to 2018. Timon and Pumbaa both feature in Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom, voiced by Kevin Schon and Ernie Sabella.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Timon and Pumbaa were featured in a series of educational short called "Find Out Why", sponsored by the National Science Foundation. These shorts involved Timon and Pumbaa answering kids' questions about science, such as why there is lightning, why we sneeze, why pandas don't live in deserts, why there is wind, and why an airplane flies. The shorts were interstitial segments of the Saturday morning cartoon block "Disney's One Saturday Morning" in 2000. The series contained of nine shorts, five of which were featured in the extras at Disc 2 of the 1998 film's Special Edition DVD in 2004.


title: Timon and Pumbaa

text: Disney Educational Productions and Underwriters Laboratories co-produced an educational film series called "Wild About Safety: Safety Smart with Timon and Pumbaa", where Pumbaa educated Timon on how to stay safe. Ernie Sabella reprised his role as Pumbaa, while Timon was voiced by Bruce Lanoil. The series ran from 2008 to 2013. Each installment is approximately 12 minutes long. They are all somewhat animated in the style of the 1994 film, with occasional use of stock footage from the movie, as well as Tony Bancroft, who animated Pumbaa in the film, returning as an animator for the series.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar, abbreviated C-RAM or counter-RAM, is a set of systems used to detect and/or destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds in the air before they hit their ground targets, or simply provide early warning.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: The 20mm Land-Based Phalanx Weapon System (also called C-RAM) is a land-based variant of the U.S. Navy's Phalanx close-in weapon system, a radar-controlled rapid-fire gun for close-in protection of vessels from missiles. Both use a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera to allow their operators to visually identify incoming fire before opening fire. But while naval Phalanx systems fire tungsten armor-piercing rounds, the C-RAM uses the 20mm HEIT-SD (high-explosive incendiary tracer, self-destruct) ammunition, originally developed for the M163 Vulcan air defense system. These rounds explode on impact with the target, or on tracer burnout, thereby greatly reducing the risk of collateral damage from rounds that fail to hit their target.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: Iron Dome is an Israeli missile system featuring multiple-target tracking and self-guided missile interceptors. Due to the ongoing increase of its engagement range and new missile and interception improvements, plus surface-to-air missile capability, it has developed into a fully-fledged air defence system. By November 2012, the system had intercepted over 400 rockets fired into Israel by Gaza Strip militants. Based on operational success, defense reporter Mark Thompson estimates that Iron Dome is currently the most-effective and most-tested counter missile system in existence.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: Nächstbereichschutzsystem MANTIS is a 35mm fully automated C-RAM system, produced by Rheinmetall based on Oerlikon's Skyshield. It has been in use by the Luftwaffe from 2011.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: A typical Porcupine configuration for the Italian Army consists of four firing units, one central control post for target designation and weapon control and a 3D radar system "track while scan type" for surveillance and target tracking. Each remote firing unit consists of a 20 mm M61A1 Gatling cannon, its ammunition handling system and a stabilised optronic infra-red (IR) tracking system.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: The DRACO is a multipurpose weapon station operating against Air, R.A.M. and Surface targets. It was designed for the Italian Army by OTO-Melara using the Centauro 8x8 wheeled armored vehicle chassis. The main armament consists of a high rate of fire 76mm/62 gun with an automatic ammunition loading system; the 76mm/62 gun is electrically controlled for elevation and traversing, and is stabilized in elevation. DRACO can be installed on 8x8 wheeled platforms, for combat support operations or convoy defence, as well as on tracked vehicles or on shelters for point defence. The main 76mm/62 gun and the automatic loading system are fully compatible with all in service 76mm rounds and also with 76mm DART guided ammunition. DRACO can be completely controlled by two Operators (the Commander and the Gunner) from a remote position, located inside the hull for mobile installation or inside a protected command shelter for fixed installation.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: The LD-2000 SPAAGM is a Chinese developed land-based close-in weapon system. LD-2000 is based on the Chinese Navy's Type 730 CIWS. In operation, it pairs with a Counter Battery Radar.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: Goalkeeper CIWS is a Dutch close-in weapon system (CIWS) introduced in 1979. It is an autonomous and completely automatic weapon system for short-range defence of ships against highly manoeuvrable missiles, aircraft and fast-manoeuvering surface vessels. Once activated the system automatically undertakes the entire air defence process from surveillance and detection to destruction, including the selection of the next priority target.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: The AK-630 is a Soviet and Russian fully automatic naval close-in weapon system based on a six-barreled 30 mm rotary cannon. It is mounted in an enclosed automatic turret and directed by MR-123 radar and television detection and tracking. The system's primary purpose is defense against anti-ship missiles and other precision guided weapons. However it can also be employed against fixed or rotary wing aircraft, ships and other small craft, coastal targets, and floating mines.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: The United States has been enhancing its directed-energy weapon capabilities aimed at countering threats posed by missiles. A directed-energy weapon is a ranged weapon system that inflicts damage at a target by the emission of highly focused energy, including laser, microwaves and particle beams. The US Army awarded a $29m contract in 2016 to Kratos Defense & Security Solutions for prototyping of such systems.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: The U.S. defense contractor Raytheon is developing a laser-based variation where low cost focused lasers will provide increased range and decreased time-to-intercept over the gun. A proof of concept was demonstrated on a 60 mm mortar round in 2006.


title: Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar

text: Iron Beam is an air defense system in development by Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Unveiled at the 2014 Singapore Air Show on 11 February, the system is designed to destroy short-range rockets, artillery, and mortars with a range of up to , too small for the Iron Dome system to intercept effectively. In addition, the system could also intercept unmanned aerial vehicles. Iron Beam will use a "directed high energy laser beam" to destroy hostile targets with ranges of up to . Iron Beam will constitute the fifth element of Israel's integrated air defense system, in addition to Arrow 2, Arrow 3, David's Sling, and Iron Dome. However, Iron Beam is also a stand-alone system.


title: Storm

text: A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), heavy precipitation (snowstorm, rainstorm), heavy freezing rain (ice storm), strong winds (tropical cyclone, windstorm), wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere such as in a dust storm, among other forms of severe weather.


title: Storm

text: Storms have the potential to harm lives and property via storm surge, heavy rain or snow causing flooding or road impassibility, lightning, wildfires, and vertical and horizontal wind shear. Systems with significant rainfall and duration help alleviate drought in places they move through. Heavy snowfall can allow special recreational activities to take place which would not be possible otherwise, such as skiing and snowmobiling.


title: Storm

text: Storms are created when a center of low pressure develops with the system of high pressure surrounding it. This combination of opposing forces can create winds and result in the formation of storm clouds such as cumulonimbus. Small localized areas of low pressure can form from hot air rising off hot ground, resulting in smaller disturbances such as dust devils and whirlwinds.


title: Storm

text: A strict meteorological definition of a terrestrial storm is a wind measuring 10 or higher on the Beaufort scale, meaning a wind speed of 24.5 m/s (89 km/h, 55 mph) or more; however, popular usage is not so restrictive. Storms can last anywhere from 12 to 200 hours, depending on season and geography. In North America, the east and northeast storms are noted for the most frequent repeatability and duration, especially during the cold period. Big terrestrial storms alter the oceanographic conditions that in turn may affect food abundance and distribution: strong currents, strong tides, increased siltation, change in water temperatures, overturn in the water column, etc.


title: Storm

text: Storms do not only occur on Earth; other planetary bodies with a sufficient atmosphere (gas giants in particular) also undergo stormy weather. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter provides a well-known example. Though technically an anticyclone, with greater than hurricane wind speeds, it is larger than the Earth and has persisted for at least 340 years, having first been observed by astronomer Galileo Galilei. Neptune also had its own lesser-known Great Dark Spot.


title: Storm

text: In September 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope – using Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 – imaged storms on Saturn generated by upwelling of warmer air, similar to a terrestrial thunderhead. The east-west extent of the same-year storm equaled the diameter of Earth. The storm was observed earlier in September 1990 and acquired the name Dragon Storm.


title: Storm

text: The dust storms of Mars vary in size, but can often cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars comes closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase the global temperature.


title: Storm

text: One particularly large Martian storm was exhaustively studied up close due to coincidental timing. When the first spacecraft to successfully orbit another planet, Mariner 9, arrived and successfully orbited Mars on 14 November 1971, planetary scientists were surprised to find the atmosphere was thick with a planet-wide robe of dust, the largest storm ever observed on Mars. The surface of the planet was totally obscured. Mariner 9's computer was reprogrammed from Earth to delay imaging of the surface for a couple of months until the dust settled, however, the surface-obscured images contributed much to the collection of Mars atmospheric and planetary surface science.


title: Storm

text: Two extrasolar planets are known to have storms: HD 209458 b and HD 80606 b. The former's storm was discovered on June 23, 2010 and measured at , while the latter produces winds of across the surface. The spin of the planet then creates giant swirling shock-wave storms that carry the heat aloft.


title: Storm

text: Shipwrecks are common with the passage of strong tropical cyclones. Such shipwrecks can change the course of history, as well as influence art and literature. A hurricane led to a victory of the Spanish over the French for control of Fort Caroline, and ultimately the Atlantic coast of North America, in 1565.


title: Storm

text: Strong winds from any storm type can damage or destroy vehicles, buildings, bridges, and other outside objects, turning loose debris into deadly flying projectiles. In the United States, major hurricanes comprise just 21% of all landfalling tropical cyclones, but account for 83% of all damage. Tropical cyclones often knock out power to tens or hundreds of thousands of people, preventing vital communication and hampering rescue efforts. Tropical cyclones often destroy key bridges, overpasses, and roads, complicating efforts to transport food, clean water, and medicine to the areas that need it. Furthermore, the damage caused by tropical cyclones to buildings and dwellings can result in economic damage to a region, and to a diaspora of the population of the region.


title: Storm

text: The storm surge, or the increase in sea level due to the cyclone, is typically the worst effect from landfalling tropical cyclones, historically resulting in 90% of tropical cyclone deaths. The relatively quick surge in sea level can move miles/kilometers inland, flooding homes and cutting off escape routes. The storm surges and winds of hurricanes may be destructive to human-made structures, but they also stir up the waters of coastal estuaries, which are typically important fish breeding locales.


title: Storm

text: Cloud-to-ground lightning frequently occurs within the phenomena of thunderstorms and have numerous hazards towards landscapes and populations. One of the more significant hazards lightning can pose is the wildfires they are capable of igniting. Under a regime of low precipitation (LP) thunderstorms, where little precipitation is present, rainfall cannot prevent fires from starting when vegetation is dry as lightning produces a concentrated amount of extreme heat. Wildfires can devastate vegetation and the biodiversity of an ecosystem. Wildfires that occur close to urban environments can inflict damages upon infrastructures, buildings, crops, and provide risks to explosions, should the flames be exposed to gas pipes. Direct damage caused by lightning strikes occurs on occasion. In areas with a high frequency for cloud-to-ground lightning, like Florida, lightning causes several fatalities per year, most commonly to people working outside.


title: Storm

text: Precipitation with low potential of hydrogen levels (pH), otherwise known as acid rain, is also a frequent risk produced by lightning. Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acidic, and those with a pH greater than 7 are bases. "Clean" or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of about 5.2, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid (pH 5.6 in distilled water), but unpolluted rain also contains other chemicals. Nitric oxide present during thunderstorm phenomena, caused by the splitting of nitrogen molecules, can result in the production of acid rain, if nitric oxide forms compounds with the water molecules in precipitation, thus creating acid rain. Acid rain can damage infrastructures containing calcite or other solid chemical compounds containing carbon. In ecosystems, acid rain can dissolve plant tissues of vegetations and increase acidification process in bodies of water and in soil, resulting in deaths of marine and terrestrial organisms.


title: Storm

text: Hail damage to roofs often goes unnoticed until further structural damage is seen, such as leaks or cracks. It is hardest to recognize hail damage on shingled roofs and flat roofs, but all roofs have their own hail damage detection problems. Metal roofs are fairly resistant to hail damage, but may accumulate cosmetic damage in the form of dents and damaged coatings. Hail is also a common nuisance to drivers of automobiles, severely denting the vehicle and cracking or even shattering windshields and windows. Rarely, massive hailstones have been known to cause concussions or fatal head trauma. Hailstorms have been the cause of costly and deadly events throughout history. One of the earliest recorded incidents occurred around the 9th century in Roopkund, Uttarakhand, India. The largest hailstone in terms of diameter and weight ever recorded in the United States fell on July 23, 2010 in Vivian, South Dakota in the United States; it measured in diameter and in circumference, weighing in at . This broke the previous record for diameter set by a hailstone diameter and circumference which fell in Aurora, Nebraska in the United States on June 22, 2003, as well as the record for weight, set by a hailstone of that fell in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1970.


title: Storm

text: Various hazards, ranging from hail to lightning can affect outside technology facilities, such as antennas, satellite dishes, and towers. As a result, companies with outside facilities have begun installing such facilities underground, in order to reduce the risk of damage from storms.


title: Storm

text: Substantial snowfall can disrupt public infrastructure and services, slowing human activity even in regions that are accustomed to such weather. Air and ground transport may be greatly inhibited or shut down entirely. Populations living in snow-prone areas have developed various ways to travel across the snow, such as skis, snowshoes, and sleds pulled by horses, dogs, or other animals and later, snowmobiles. Basic utilities such as electricity, telephone lines, and gas supply can also fail. In addition, snow can make roads much harder to travel and vehicles attempting to use them can easily become stuck.


title: Storm

text: The combined effects can lead to a "snow day" on which gatherings such as school, work, or church are officially canceled. In areas that normally have very little or no snow, a snow day may occur when there is only light accumulation or even the threat of snowfall, since those areas are unprepared to handle any amount of snow. In some areas, such as some states in the United States, schools are given a yearly quota of snow days (or "calamity days"). Once the quota is exceeded, the snow days must be made up. In other states, all snow days must be made up. For example, schools may extend the remaining school days later into the afternoon, shorten spring break, or delay the start of summer vacation.


title: Storm

text: Accumulated snow is removed to make travel easier and safer, and to decrease the long-term effect of a heavy snowfall. This process utilizes shovels and snowplows, and is often assisted by sprinkling salt or other chloride-based chemicals, which reduce the melting temperature of snow. In some areas with abundant snowfall, such as Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, people harvest snow and store it surrounded by insulation in ice houses. This allows the snow to be used through the summer for refrigeration and air conditioning, which requires far less electricity than traditional cooling methods.


title: Storm

text: Hail can cause serious damage, notably to automobiles, aircraft, skylights, glass-roofed structures, livestock, and most commonly, farmers' crops. Wheat, corn, soybeans, and tobacco are the most sensitive crops to hail damage. Hail is one of Canada's most expensive hazards. Snowfall can be beneficial to agriculture by serving as a thermal insulator, conserving the heat of the Earth and protecting crops from subfreezing weather. Some agricultural areas depend on an accumulation of snow during winter that will melt gradually in spring, providing water for crop growth. If it melts into water and refreezes upon sensitive crops, such as oranges, the resulting ice will protect the fruit from exposure to lower temperatures. Although tropical cyclones take an enormous toll in lives and personal property, they may be important factors in the precipitation regimes of places they affect and bring much-needed precipitation to otherwise dry regions. Hurricanes in the eastern north Pacific often supply moisture to the Southwestern United States and parts of Mexico. Japan receives over half of its rainfall from typhoons. Hurricane Camille averted drought conditions and ended water deficits along much of its path, though it also killed 259 people and caused $9.14 billion (2005 USD) in damage.


title: Storm

text: Hail is one of the most significant thunderstorm hazards to aircraft. When hail stones exceed in diameter, planes can be seriously damaged within seconds. The hailstones accumulating on the ground can also be hazardous to landing aircraft. Strong wind outflow from thunderstorms causes rapid changes in the three-dimensional wind velocity just above ground level. Initially, this outflow causes a headwind that increases airspeed, which normally causes a pilot to reduce engine power if they are unaware of the wind shear. As the aircraft passes into the region of the downdraft, the localized headwind diminishes, reducing the aircraft's airspeed and increasing its sink rate. Then, when the aircraft passes through the other side of the downdraft, the headwind becomes a tailwind, reducing lift generated by the wings, and leaving the aircraft in a low-power, low-speed descent. This can lead to an accident if the aircraft is too low to effect a recovery before ground contact. As the result of the accidents in the 1970s and 1980s, in 1988 the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration mandated that all commercial aircraft have on-board wind shear detection systems by 1993. Between 1964 and 1985, wind shear directly caused or contributed to 26 major civil transport aircraft accidents in the U.S. that led to 620 deaths and 200 injuries. Since 1995, the number of major civil aircraft accidents caused by wind shear has dropped to approximately one every ten years, due to the mandated on-board detection as well as the addition of Doppler weather radar units on the ground. (NEXRAD)


title: Storm

text: In Devil May Cry 5 the video game. There is a song that goes like "I am the storm that is approaching."


title: Storm

text: Many winter sports, such as skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and snowshoeing depend upon snow. Where snow is scarce but the temperature is low enough, snow cannons may be used to produce an adequate amount for such sports. Children and adults can play on a sled or ride in a sleigh. Although a person's footsteps remain a visible lifeline within a snow-covered landscape, snow cover is considered a general danger to hiking since the snow obscures landmarks and makes the landscape itself appear uniform.


title: Storm

text: According to the Bible, a giant storm sent by God flooded the Earth. Noah and his family and the animals entered the Ark, and "the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." The flood covered even the highest mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet, and all creatures died; only Noah and those with him on the Ark were left alive. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is recorded to have calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee.


title: Storm

text: The "Sea Venture" was wrecked near Bermuda in 1609, which led to the colonization of Bermuda and provided the inspiration for Shakespeare's play "The Tempest"(1611). Specifically, Sir Thomas Gates, future governor of Virginia, was on his way to England from Jamestown, Virginia. On Saint James Day, while he was between Cuba and the Bahamas, a hurricane raged for nearly two days. Though one of the small vessels in the fleet sank to the bottom of the Florida Straits, seven of the remaining vessels reached Virginia within several days after the storm. The flagship of the fleet, known as "Sea Adventure", disappeared and was presumed lost. A small bit of fortune befell the ship and her crew when they made landfall on Bermuda. The vessel was damaged on a surrounding coral reef, but all aboard survived for nearly a year on the island. The British colonists claimed the island and quickly settled Bermuda. In May 1610, they set forth for Jamestown, this time arriving at their destination.


title: Storm

text: The children's novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow, chronicles the adventures of a young girl named Dorothy Gale in the Land of Oz, after being swept away from her Kansas farm home by a tornado. The story was originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900 and has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name "The Wizard of Oz", and adapted for use in other media. Thanks in part to the 1939 MGM movie, it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 Broadway musical which Baum adapted from his original story, led to Baum's writing thirteen more Oz books.


title: Storm

text: Hollywood director King Vidor (February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) survived the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 as a boy. Based on that experience, he published a fictionalized account of that cyclone, titled "Southern Storm", for the May 1935 issue of "Esquire" magazine. Erik Larson excerpts a passage from that article in his 2005 book, "Isaac's Storm":


title: Storm

text: Numerous other accounts of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 have been made in print and in film. Larson cites many of them in "Isaac's Storm", which centrally features that storm, as well as chronicles the creation of the Weather Bureau (which came to known as the National Weather Service) and that agency's fateful rivalry with the weather service in Cuba, and a number of other major storms, such as those which ravaged Indianola, Texas in 1875 and 1886.


title: Storm

text: The Great Storm of 1987 is key in an important scene near the end of "Possession: A Romance", the bestselling and Booker Prize-winning novel by A. S. Byatt. The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the night of October 15–16, 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused winds to hit much of southern England and northern France. It was the worst storm to hit England since the Great Storm of 1703 (284 years earlier) and was responsible for the deaths of at least 22 people in England and France combined (18 in England, at least four in France).


title: Storm

text: The Romantic seascape painters J. M. W. Turner and Ivan Aivazovsky created some of the most lasting impressions of the sublime and stormy seas that are firmly imprinted on the popular mind. Turner's representations of powerful natural forces reinvented the traditional seascape during the first half of the nineteenth century.


title: Storm

text: Upon his travels to Holland, he took note of the familiar large rolling waves of the English seashore transforming into the sharper, choppy waves of a Dutch storm. A characteristic example of Turner's dramatic seascape is "The Slave Ship" of 1840. Aivazovsky left several thousand turbulent canvases in which he increasingly eliminated human figures and historical background to focus on such essential elements as light, sea, and sky. His grandiose "Ninth Wave" (1850) is an ode to human daring in the face of the elements.


title: Storm

text: The 1926 silent film "The Johnstown Flood" features the Great Flood of 1889 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The flood, caused by the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam after days of extremely heavy rainfall, prompted the first major disaster relief effort by the American Red Cross, directed by Clara Barton. The Johnstown Flood was depicted in numerous other media (both fictional and in non-fiction), as well.


title: Storm

text: Warner Bros.' 2000 dramatic disaster film "The Perfect Storm", directed by Wolfgang Petersen, is an adaptation of Sebastian Junger's 1997 non-fiction book of the same title. The book and film feature the crew of the "Andrea Gail", which got caught in the Perfect Storm of 1991. The 1991 Perfect Storm, also known as the Halloween Nor'easter of 1991, was a nor'easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and ultimately evolved into a small hurricane late in its life cycle.


title: Storm

text: Storms have also been portrayed in many works of music. Examples of storm music include Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" violin concerto RV 315 ("Summer") (third movement: Presto), Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" (the fourth movement), a scene in Act II of Rossini's opera "The Barber of Seville", the third act of Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and the fifth (Cloudburst) movement of Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite.


title: Uwu

text: uwu, also stylized as UwU, is an emoticon representing a cute face. The "u" characters represent closed eyes, while the "w" represents a mouth. It is used to express various warm, happy, or affectionate feelings.


title: Uwu

text: "uwu" is often used to denote cuteness, happiness, or tenderness. Excessive usage of the emoticon can also have the intended effect of annoying its recipient. The emoticon has been popular in the furry fandom.


title: Uwu

text: "uwu" also has a more surprised and sometimes allusive variant, "owo" (or "OwO"; also associated with the furry fandom and often the response, "what's this?") that may too denote cuteness, as well as curiosity and perplexion. "owo" originated in 2016, and gained popularity in 2018; as opposed to "uwu", the "o" characters represent open eyes. It is also sometimes used for trolling.


title: Uwu

text: "uwu" is known to date back as far as 2005, in an anime fanfiction. The origin of the word is unknown, with many people believing it to originate in Internet chat rooms. By 2014, the emoticon had spread across the Internet into Tumblr, becoming an Internet subculture.


title: Uwu

text: The word "uwu" is included in the Royal Spanish Academy's word observatory, defined as an "emoticon used to show happiness or tenderness".


title: Uwu

text: In 2020, the U.S. Army Esports Twitter account tweeted "uwu" in reply to a tweet by Discord, which was met by significant backlash from Twitter users. This event culminated in a trend of attempting to get banned from the U.S. Army Esports Discord server as quickly as possible, with a common technique being to link to .


title: Black Beauty

text: Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, "Black Beauty" is one of the best-selling books of all time.


title: Black Beauty

text: While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey "The Big Read". It is seen as a forerunner of the pony book.


title: Black Beauty

text: Although "Black Beauty" is looked at as a children's novel, Sewell did not write the novel for children. She said that her purpose in writing the novel was "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses"—an influence she attributed to an essay on animals she read earlier by Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) entitled "Essay on Animals". Her sympathetic portrayal of the plight of working animals led to a vast outpouring of concern for animal welfare and is said to have been instrumental in the abolition of the cruel practice of using the checkrein (or "bearing rein", a strap used to keep horses' heads high, fashionable in Victorian England but painful and damaging to a horse's neck). "Black Beauty" also mentions the use of blinkers on horses, concluding that this use is likely to cause accidents at night due to interference with "the full use of" a horse's ability to "see much better in the dark than men can."


title: Black Beauty

text: Anna Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth, England, and had a brother named Philip, who was an engineer in Europe. At the age of 14, Anna fell while walking home from school in the rain and injured both ankles. Through the mistreatment of the injury, she became unable to walk or stand for any length of time for the rest of her life. Disabled and unable to walk, she began learning about horses, spending many hours driving her father to and from the station from which he commuted to work. Her dependence on horse-drawn transportation fostered her respect for horses. Sewell's introduction to writing began in her youth when she helped edit the works of her mother, Mary Wright Sewell (1797–1884), a deeply religious, popular author of juvenile best-sellers.


title: Black Beauty

text: Anna Sewell never married or had children. In visits to European spas, she met many writers, artists, and philanthropists. Her only book was "Black Beauty", written between 1871 and 1877 in her house at Old Catton. During this time, her health was declining, and she could barely get out of bed. Her dearly-loved mother often had to help her with her illness. She sold the book to the local publishers, Jarrold & Sons. The book broke records for sales and is the "sixth best seller in the English language." By telling the story of a horse's life in the form of an autobiography and describing the world through the eyes of the horse, Anna Sewell broke new literary ground.


title: Black Beauty

text: Sewell died of hepatitis or tuberculosis on 25 April 1878, only five months after the novel was published, but she lived long enough to see its initial success. She was buried on 30 April 1878 in the Quaker burial-ground at Lammas near Buxton, Norfolk, where a wall plaque marks her resting place. Her birthplace in Church Plain, Great Yarmouth, is now a museum.


title: Black Beauty

text: The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behavior lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude.


title: Black Beauty

text: The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn cab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high license fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day cab licenses (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day cab licenses (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the cab license fee was much reduced.


title: Black Beauty

text: "Black Beauty" is considered to be one of the first fictional animal autobiographies. Originally meant to be informative literature read by adults on the norms of horse cruelty and preventions of these unjust acts, "Black Beauty" is now seen as a children's book. Narrated by the main character, Black Beauty, the novel is read by thousands of children worldwide.


title: Black Beauty

text: Sewell uses anthropomorphism in "Black Beauty". The text advocates the fairer treatment of horses in Victorian England. The story is narrated from Black Beauty's perspective and resultantly readers arguably gained insight into how horses suffered through their use by human beings with restrictive technical objects like the "bearing rein" and "blinkers" as well as procedures like cutting off the tails of the horses. For instance, Ginger describes the physical effects of the "bearing rein" to Black Beauty, by stating, "it is dreadful... your neck aching until you don't know how to bear it... its hurt my tongue and my jaw and the blood from my tongue covered the froth that kept flying from my lips". Tess Coslett highlights that Black Beauty's story is structured in a way that makes him similar to those he serves. The horses in the text have reactions as well as emotions and characteristics, like love and loyalty, which are similar to those of human beings. Coslett emphasizes that, while "Black Beauty" is not the first book written in the style of an animal autobiography, it is a novel that "allows the reader to slide in and out of horse-consciousness, blurring the human/animal divide". Dwyer suggests that  "by the end of the nineteenth century the concern for animal welfare was often mediated by considerations of utility", implying that these animals (horses) were seen to get the job done by any means rather than the approach that they could be demonizing the animal.


title: Black Beauty

text: Published in 1877, in the last years of Anna Sewell's life, "Black Beauty" sold over 50 million copies worldwide in 50 different languages. This different viewpoint sparked people's interest to speak for horses' well-being and implement legislation. According to Sewell, providing information was her original goal of horse injustice. Although the shift of perspectives was seen as good for some, it was also an issue to others including horse owners and people who sold such equipment for horses (equipment like blinders). It has been alleged that "Black Beauty" was banned in some countries, e.g. South Africa, for containing the words "Black" and "Beauty" during its apartheid restrictions on African natives. However, Claire Datnow, in her memoir "Behind the Walled Garden of Apartheid: Growing up White in Segregated South Africa", writes that this "fact" was a standing joke among her circle of friends, invented to make fun of the "ignorance of the censors"—the idea being that "Black Beauty" had been banned "because the censors thought it referred to a black woman."


title: Black Beauty

text: Upon publication of the book, many readers related to the pain of the victimized horses, sympathized and ultimately wanted to see the introduction of reforms that would improve the well-being of horses. Two years after the release of the novel, one million copies of "Black Beauty" were in circulation in the United States. In addition, animal rights activists would habitually distribute copies of the novel to horse drivers and to people in stables. The depiction of the "bearing rein" in "Black Beauty" spurred so much outrage and empathy from readers that its use was not only abolished in Victorian England, but public interest in anti-cruelty legislation in the United States also grew significantly. The arguably detrimental social practices concerning the use of horses in "Black Beauty" inspired the development of legislation in various states that would condemn such abusive behaviors towards animals. The impact of the novel is still very much recognized today. Writing in the "Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare", Bernard Unti calls "Black Beauty" "the most influential anti-cruelty novel of all time". Comparisons have also been made between "Black Beauty" and the most important social protest novel in the United States, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", by Harriet Beecher Stowe, on account of the strong degree of outrage and protest action that both novels triggered in society.


title: Black Beauty

text: "Black Beauty" was adapted for the stage in 2011 by playwright James Stone. The play was performed at the Broughton Hall Estate, North Yorkshire and Epsom Racecourse, Surrey. The production was a critical success and was performed around the UK in 2012.


title: Garden leave

text: Garden leave (also known as gardening leave) is the practice whereby an employee leaving a job – having resigned or otherwise had their employment terminated – is instructed to stay away from work during the notice period, while still remaining on the payroll. This practice is often used to prevent an employee from taking with them up-to-date (and perhaps sensitive) information when they leave their current employer, especially when they are very likely leaving to join a competitor. In jurisdictions where employee non-compete clauses are legal, the practice is used to maintain the effectiveness of such clauses. This is also sometimes used when an employee position is no longer needed during the notice period. Sometimes, the practice is used to avoid lackadaisical work or sabotage by an uninterested or disaffected employee, or when an employer wishes to imply that is the case.


title: Garden leave

text: The term can also refer to the case of an employee sent home pending disciplinary proceeding, when they are between projects, or when, as a result of publicity, their presence at work is considered counter-productive. It has also been used in British football.


title: Garden leave

text: Employees continue to receive their normal pay during garden leave and must adhere to their conditions of employment, such as confidentiality and non-compete clause, at least until their notice period expires. A similar practice applies in the United States where an employee (typically a high-ranking executive) that is immediately relieved of responsibilities usually remains with the company as a consultant (special adviser) for the remainder of their contract, continuing to receive a salary and office during that period.


title: Garden leave

text: The term originated in the British civil service, where employees had the right to request special leave for exceptional purposes. "Gardening leave" became a euphemism for "suspended" as an employee who was formally suspended pending an investigation into their conduct would often request to be out of the office on special leave instead. The term came to widespread public attention in 1986 when it was used in the BBC sitcom "Yes, Prime Minister" episode "One of Us" and in Silent Witness season 18, regarding Officer Carl Parry.


title: North East England

text: North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authority or metropolitan district and civil parishes. They are also multiple divisions without administrative functions; ceremonial county, emergency services (fire-and-rescue and police), built-up areas and historic county. The most populous places in the region are Newcastle upon Tyne (city), Middlesbrough, Sunderland (city), Gateshead, Darlington and Hartlepool. Durham also has city status.


title: North East England

text: The region's historic importance is displayed by Northumberland's ancient castles, the two World Heritage Sites of Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, and Hadrian's Wall, one of the frontiers of the Roman Empire. In fact, Roman archaeology can be found widely across the region and a special exhibition based around the Roman Fort of Segedunum at Wallsend and the other forts along Hadrian's Wall are complemented by the numerous artifacts that are displayed in the Great North Museum Hancock in Newcastle. St. Peter's Church in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland and St. Pauls in Jarrow also hold significant historical value and have a joint bid to become a World Heritage Site.


title: North East England

text: The area has a strong religious past, as can be seen in works such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". The works of Cuthbert (634–687 AD), Bede (673–735 AD) and Hilda of Whitby (614–680 AD) were hugely influential in the early church, and are still venerated by some today. These saints are usually associated with the monasteries on the island of Lindisfarne, Wearmouth-Jarrow, and the Abbey at Whitby, though they are also associated with many other religious sites in the region. Bede is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar. He worked at the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, translating some forty books on all areas of knowledge, including nature, history, astronomy, poetry and theological matters such as the lives of the saints. His best known work is "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People". One of the most famous pieces of art and literature created in the region is the "Lindisfarne Gospels", thought to be the work of a monk named Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698. This body of work is thought to have been created in honour of Cuthbert, around 710–720.


title: North East England

text: In 793, the Vikings arrived on the shores of north-east England with a raiding party from Norway who attacked the monastic settlement on Lindisfarne. The monks fled or were slaughtered, and Bishop Higbald sought refuge on the mainland. A chronicler recorded: "On the 8th June, the harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church by rapine and slaughter." There were three hundred years of Viking raids, battles and settlement until William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at Hastings in 1066. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" notes the change from raiding to settlement when it records that in 876 the Vikings "Shared out the land of the Northumbrians and they proceeded to plough and support themselves"


title: North East England

text: The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria extended from the Scottish borders (then Pictish borders) at the Firth of Forth to the north, and to the south of York, its capital, down to the Humber. The last independent Northumbrian king from 947–8 was Eric Bloodaxe, who died at the Battle of Stainmore, Westmorland, in 954. After Eric Bloodaxe's death, all England was ruled by Eadred, the grandson of Alfred the Great; and so began the machinery of national government. Today the Viking legacy can still be found in the language and place names of north-east England and in the DNA of its people. The name Newcastle comes from the castle built shortly after the conquest in 1080 by Robert Curthose, William the Conqueror's eldest son.


title: North East England

text: The region is generally hilly and sparsely populated in the North and West, and urban and arable in the East and South. The highest point in the region is The Cheviot, in the Cheviot Hills, at .


title: North East England

text: The region contains the urban centres of Tyneside, Wearside, and Teesside and is noted for the rich natural beauty of its coastline, Northumberland National Park, and the section of the Pennines that includes Teesdale and Weardale.


title: North East England

text: North East England has a Marine west coast climate (generally found along the west coast of middle latitude continents) with narrower temperature ranges than the south of England and sufficient precipitation in all months. Summers and winters are mild rather than extremely hot or cold, due to the strong maritime influence of the North Atlantic Current of the Gulf Stream. The Met Office operates several weather stations in the region and are able to show the regional variations in temperature and its relation to the distance from the North Sea. The warmest summers in the region are found in Stockton-on-Tees and the Middlesbrough area, with a 1981-2010 July average high of . Precipitation is often low by English standards, in spite of the low levels of sunshine, with Stockton-on-Tees averaging only annually, and with the seaside town of Tynemouth (despite its slightly sunnier climate) recording annually. The summers on the northern coastlines are significantly cooler than in the southern and central inland areas: Tynemouth is only just above in July. Further inland, frosts during winter are more common, due to the higher elevations and distance from the sea.


title: North East England

text: The former Association of North East Councils was based in Newcastle upon Tyne, and the preceding North East Assembly was based in Gateshead until its dissolution in 2009.


title: North East England

text: The North East with Scotland, the South West of England, Wales and Northern Ireland are the British regions to have seen the least immigration in over 50 years. The Northeast of England as a region has the lowest rate of HIV infection in the UK, but has the highest rate of heart attacks among men and of lung cancer among women in England, along with the highest male lung cancer rate in the UK . As of November 2017 the region has the joint highest unemployment rate in the UK at 5.5% and as of April 2013 youth unemployment in the North East is 24.8%, with 51,000 out of work. In 2010 the region had the second highest trade union membership among UK men. Higher education students from the North East are most likely to pick a university in their home region. The Northeast, as part of the "North" demographic region, has the highest proportion of Christians in Great Britain. Last immigration wave before 21st century was in the late 1990s as a result of the government's dispersal policy scheme that broke up refugee communities, asylum seekers in South England, relocating the new arrivals throughout the country. In 2017, most migrants were non-EU born, and about 60.000 EU-born. The North East has the smallest population of all English regions.


title: North East England

text: North East England, together with Tweeddale, was the ancient British tribal kingdom of Bernicia (Bryneich) and is notable for providing the stable ancestry of its present indigenous population, which has been identified by DNA analysis to be an offshoot of the group "Scotland, Cumbria and the North of Ireland", but not so closely related to the other peoples of the UK.


title: North East England

text: In a 2022 study by Joscha Gretzinger et al., the population of North East England was found to be among the groups with the highest amount of Iron Age/Roman period British Isles-related ancestry, being on par with Cornish people in that regard.


title: North East England

text: The Office for National Statistics in April 2013 report that the estimated number of conceptions to women aged under 18 in England and Wales in 2011 is the lowest since records began in 1969. Conception statistics include pregnancies that result in either one or more live births or stillbirths or a legal abortion.


title: North East England

text: A comparison of rates across regions in England shows that the North East had the highest of under 18 conception rates in 2011, with 38.4 per thousand women aged 15–17. The South East had the lowest rate for women aged under 18 in 2011 with 26.1 per thousand women aged 15–17.


title: North East England

text: A study into social deprivation was published in 2010 to help the local partners developing a Regional Strategy for the North East better understand the factors influencing deprivation in the region. The study had two main aspects: Firstly to establish if there are different types of deprived neighbourhoods in the Northeast, and if so, how deprived neighbourhoods can be better recognised. Secondly to present a summary of "what works" in tackling deprivation in each of these types of area.


title: North East England

text: The report discusses the factors influencing deprivation and points out that it is a significant problem for the North East with 34% of the regions Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are amongst England's 20% most deprived in the 2007 Indices of Deprivation(these indices have been updated in 2010). It takes many years for areas to become deprived, suggesting that the underlying causes of area-based deprivation are long-term such as:


title: North East England

text: The region's most deprived council districts, as measured by the LSOA data before County Durham and Northumberland became unitary authorities in 2007, are in descending order Easington (7th in England), Middlesbrough (9th), Hartlepool (23rd), Wear Valley (33rd), Sunderland (35th), Newcastle upon Tyne (37th), South Tyneside (38th), Wansbeck (46th), Redcar and Cleveland (50th), Gateshead (52nd), Sedgefield (54th), Derwentside (73rd), Blyth Valley (80th), and Stockton on Tees (98th).


title: North East England

text: The least deprived council districts in 2007 were, in descending order, Tynedale, Castle Morpeth, Teesdale, then Alnwick. Since the April 2009 abolition of these four districts, Northumberland is the least deprived, followed by North Tyneside.


title: North East England

text: Unemployment is a severe problem in the North East, where many children grow up in households where no adult works. in 2010 Easington had the highest rate in the country, as 40.3% of its households with children had no working adult, followed by Sedgefield with 34%. In 2013 the Office for National Statistics report issued the statements highlighted below


title: North East England

text: In 2020, following George Floyd's murder, it was reported that BAME communities suffered inequalities exacerbated by the poor housing of deprived neighbourhoods.


title: North East England

text: In the ONS International Territorial Levels (ITL), North East England is a level-1 ITL region, coded "UKC", which is subdivided as follows:


title: North East England

text: The latest statistical report from the Office for National Statistics comparing the North East of England to other regions of the United Kingdom, dated May 2012, states:


title: North East England

text: The North East is the most affordable region in the UK. Figures from 2017 indicate it is the UK region with lowest cost of living per household.


title: North East England

text: Regional television is provided by the BBC North East and Cumbria, which broadcasts the regional evening "Look North" programme from Spital Tongues in Newcastle. Its commercial rival, ITV Tyne Tees & Border, broadcasts the evening programme "ITV News Tyne Tees" from Gateshead.


title: North East England

text: BBC Radios Newcastle and Tees. National radio comes from Bilsdale on the North York Moors for Teesside, Pontop Pike in County Durham for Tyne and Wear, and Chatton near Wooler for Northumberland. These transmitters are also the main television transmitters. Commercial radio stations such as Metro, Heart (formally Real radio), Capital (formerly Galaxy), TFM, Greatest Hits Teesside (formally called Magic, then TFM 2), and Sun FM. Digital radio comes from the Bauer Tyne & Wear and Bauer Teesside multiplexes. There are also Nova Radio North East, Radio Hartlepool and Spark FM community radio stations.


title: North East England

text: Regional newspapers include the "Evening Chronicle, "Sunderland Echo", The Journal," "Evening Gazette", "Shields Gazette", "Hartlepool Mail", "The Northern Echo" and the "Darlington and Stockton Times". There are also free publications such as "The Ferryhill Chapter", "Bishop Press", "The Hartlepool Post" and "Shildon Town Crier".


title: North East England

text: The region was created in 1994 and was originally defined as the metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle upon Tyne; Gateshead; North Tyneside; South Tyneside and City of Sunderland, together with the ceremonial counties of County Durham and Cleveland. A reform of local government abolished Cleveland and splitting the former area between County Durham and North Yorkshire. However, the former Cleveland area has a series of local authorities, making the technical relocation of places in the region purely ceremonial.


title: North East England

text: The North East has a strong tendency to vote Labour. In the 2015 election, 47% of the electorate voted Labour, while 25% voted Conservative, 17% UKIP, 6% Liberal Democrat and 4% Green. At the 2009 European election, Labour got 25% of the region's vote, the Conservatives 20%, the Liberal Democrats 18%, and UK Independence Party 15%. However, in recent years, the North East has seen a significant swing away from Labour. In the 2019 election, many constituencies were targeted by the Conservatives and their representation increased to 10 MPs. The region wide vote shares were 43% for Labour and 38% for the Conservatives, with the Brexit Party a distant third on 8%.


title: North East England

text: In November 2004, a referendum on whether a directly elected regional assembly should be set up for North East England resulted in a decisive "no" vote. The number of people who voted against the plans was 696,519 (78%), while 197,310 (22%) voted in favour. John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, admitted that his plans for regional devolution had suffered an "emphatic defeat" to the no campaign, spearheaded by Dominic Cummings. Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative spokesman for the regions, said the vote would mean the end of plans for a North East Assembly. He told the BBC: "The whole idea of regional government has been blown out of the water by this vote".


title: North East England

text: The North East Combined Authority was established in 2014 and covered much of the region. North of Tyne authorities later split off, leaving south Tyne and Wear County and Durham County authorities.


title: North East England

text: The Tees Valley boroughs were not a part of the authority (Darlington, Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar & Cleveland, and Middlesbrough) and established the Tees Valley Combined Authority in 2016.


title: North East England

text: After more than 2,000 years of industrial activity as a result of abundant minerals such as salt and coal, the chemical industry of the Northeast England is today spread across the whole of the region, with pharmaceuticals being primarily produced in the north of the region, speciality and fine chemicals spread across the middle of the region and commodity chemicals and petrochemicals on Teesside.


title: North East England

text: These companies are members of the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC). The early chemical industry in this region, however, was primarily Tyneside based and associated with the manufacture of soap and glass. The most important chemical activity in the 18th and 19th centuries was the manufacture of alkali to make soap, which was when mixed with lime and sand and used to make glass. The effects of the industrial revolution could be seen through an economy dominated by iron and steel, coal mining and shipbuilding. Rationalisation of chemical firms in 1891 left only four works on Tyneside.


title: North East England

text: Before the industrial revolution alkali was mostly used to aid the bleaching process of cloth. As the industrial revolution took hold, increasing demand for alkali came from higher production of dyestuffs, and bleach. In 1798 John Losh and the Earl of Dundonald took out a lease for a rich supply of brine pumped from a nearby coal mine, the Walker pit, becoming the supplier of raw material for The Losh, Wilson & Bell Alkali works. The works were established at Walker-on-Tyne in 1807 and bleaching powder manufacture began there in 1830, Losh Brothers soon manufactured half the soda in England. By 1814 the Leblanc process of making alkali from common salt was introduced to Britain. Alkali works using this process opened at Tyne Dock 1822, Felling shore Tyneside 1826, Friars Goose Gateshead 1828 and again on Felling Shore in 1834. Such works also produced soda, alum and Epsom salts.


title: North East England

text: The river frontage at South Shore of the River Tyne at Gateshead was one of the main locations for the chemical industry such that in the 19th century, which led to a cluster of iron, soap and alkali manufacturing. By 1828 the alkali works had a large problem controlling emissions of hydrochloric acid fumes which devastated the neighbouring countryside. One solution was to build tall chimneys to drive the fumes further away and in 1833 the tallest chimney in England was built at the Friars Goose Alkali Works. The passing of the Alkali Act of 1863 in the UK Parliament brought about a further reduced pollution from these processes and was the first industrial environmental legislation to come into practice globally.


title: North East England

text: Salt-making in and around Greatham (between Hartlepool and Billingham) had been important in Roman and medieval times, and salt was also produced on Wearside from the 1580s, but by the 16th century the industry had been eclipsed by South Shields on the Tyne. In 1894 the industry returned to Greatham with the establishment of the Greatham Salt and Brine Company by George Weddell. The works was later purchased by the famous salt-making company Cerebos in 1903. By the mid-20th century, Cerebos was owned by the food conglomerate Rank Hovis McDougall, and the factory closed in 2002.


title: North East England

text: Glass manufacture has been an important industry in the Northeast of England since stained glass glaziers worked on the Wearmouth and Jarrow monasteries in 674 AD. Sunderland and Tyneside were noted for glass-making between the 17th and 19th centuries. In 1827 about two fifths of all English glass was made in the Tyneside area and in 1845 South Shields was making more plate glass than anywhere else in England. Sunderland was also rising to prominence as a glass-making centre, with James Hartley's Wear Glass Works opening in 1836, and by 1865 one third of the sheet glass in England was supplied by his Sunderland works.


title: North East England

text: Coal mining was one of the first industrial activities in Northeast England because the region was fortunate to have shallow seams of coal near the coast, which meant that material could be transported in and out by sea. This led to the growth of ports in Sunderland, Newcastle, Teesport Middlesbrough, Seaham, Hartlepool and Blyth. The energy from coal underpinned the development of many of the industries around these ports. As discussed in the classic historical review of "Victorian Cities" by Asa Briggs, Middlesbrough was developed as a port downstream of Yarm and Stockton to take bigger coal ships. The Northumberland-Durham coalfield was one of the earliest coal mining areas to be worked in the country, with the Romans extracting coal here which caused the area to become an important source of coal in the 13th and 14th centuries. Many current towns and villages across the region were originally settlements set up for the coal miners. For example, Seaham is a port community that was developed to handle output of the coal mining interests of Charles William Vane-Tempest-Stewart the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry, a military leader and business man who became one of the UK's richest men due to his coal mining developments. The Marquis built his business interests using the inherited wealth of his wife Francis Anne. The Marquis also built one of the country's finest country houses in the region as a palace for his family and his royal connections. It is called Wynyard Hall.


title: North East England

text: London was one of the places which received coal from the area and there are references to shipments of coal being sent to the capital, for example 526 cauldrons of coal from Tyneside to London in 1376 for smiths involved in building Windsor Castle. Before the growth of mining companies, the coal from the North East was often sent to London using monks. The coal was often called sea coal because it often washed up from undersea outcrops on the Northumbrian coast. This could explain the name Se-coles Lane in London. It also led to the colloquial phrase "taking coals to Newcastle", meaning why take something to a place that already has an excess of it.


title: North East England

text: Improvements in technology meant equipment could be built to go deeper than ever before. One example was the High Main seam at Walker Colliery on Tyneside, which became one of the deepest coal mines in the world, thanks to large engine cylinders which helped drain the mine. Other mining developments from this region include water level and ventilation techniques introduced by John Buddle who also helped to introduce the miner's safety lamp which was invented here by Stephenson and Davy.


title: North East England

text: Sir Humphry Davy, after contemplating a communication he had received from Reverend Dr Robert Gray Rector of Bishopwearmouth (later Bishop of Bristol) regarding the problem of gas in mines, took up the challenge of solving the problem of providing light in "fire-damp" ridden collieries. He started the work with several days of discussions with John Buddle, the overseer at Wallsend Colliery, other colliery owners and finally the Reverend John Hodgson, Vicar of Jarrow. Davy also collected samples of "fire-damp" before returning to his laboratory in London. Two designs of his lamps emerged and were tested at the most hazardous pits in the country, then at Newcastle-upon- Tyne and Whitehaven in Cumberland, and were a resounding success. He later published his paper on "The safety lamp for coal mines and some researches on flame" in 1818, which made underground coal mines much more safe. George Stephenson a colliery engineer at Killingworth Main Colliery also invented a safety lamp which was successfully tested on 21 October 1815. This became known as the "Geordie" lamp. As a result, some in the Northeast then tried to challenge the delivery of some Ceremonial Plate to Davy but the Davy Lamper's won the day and on 25 September 1817 a dinner service as presented to Davy from the coal owners at the Queen's Head in Newcastle. Davy declined to take out a patent on his lamp design effectively giving it to the nation and the world's coal miners.


title: North East England

text: The moment when the new safety lamp was first tested was recorded by John Buddle in a report from the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines on 4 September 1835 "I first tried the lamp in an explosive mixture on the surface; and then took it to the mine; it is impossible for me to express my feelings at the time when I first suspended the lamp in the mine and saw it red hot. I said to those around me: "We have at last subdued this monster [fire-damp]." With some describing it as one of the most significant moments in the industrialization of the world."


title: North East England

text: As an example of the many coal mines (colloquially known as pits) that were created in the Northeast's Monkwearmouth Colliery (or Wearmouth Colliery) was a large deep pit that went out under the North Sea. It was located on the north bank of the River Wear and was the largest pit in Sunderland and one of the most important in County Durham. The mine opened in 1835 and was the last to remain operating in the Durham Coalfield, with the last shift leaving the pit on 10 December 1993 and ending over 800 years of commercial underground coal mining in the region. The Colliery site has been cleared to make way for the Sunderland A.F.C's Stadium of Light which opened in July 1997. The mine is commemorated by a large sculpture of a miners lamp at the entrance to the stadium.


title: North East England

text: The Durham Coalfield remains a national resource for the UK economy today and for the future. Most of the mines in the region were closed during the years of UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (see UK miners' strike (1984–1985)) however several large open cast coal mines are still operational in the region.


title: North East England

text: Today companies like Five-Quarter are investigating the use of the latest technology for underground coal gasification to access the Durham Coalfield reserves. Professor Paul Younger of Newcastle University in 2011 reported that "Around 75 per cent of the coal in the North East is still underground, even though we have been mining it on an industrial scale longer than anyone else in the world. Previously a lot of this coal was too deep for conventional mining, or too far off shore. Even today this resource this could never be exploited by conventional means, but the technology to harness that resource has now become cost effective." Accessing these reserves is of particular importance to the local chemical industry.


title: North East England

text: Shipbuilding was once one of this region's largest industrial sectors. Ships were built on the River Wear at Sunderland from at least 1346 and on the River Tees at Stockton from at least 1470, with the Northeast of England more generally being the birthplace of some of the world's greatest vessels. This was recognised in 2013 with the regions shipbuilding heritage and global impact being recognized by UNESCO and placed on their Memory of the World Register, ranking the regions shipbuilding heritage alongside iconic items such as the Domesday Book in terms of historical importance.


title: North East England

text: The early ships were built of wood, but in the 19th century there was a move towards building ships of iron then steel. Ships were built across the region, especially along Tyneside in Jarrow and Wearside in Sunderland and also in smaller ports like Blyth, Whitby and Hartlepool. Sunderland's early development was due to coal but it later transitioned to become the largest shipbuilding town in the world giving the town its fame. The first recorded shipbuilder was Thomas Menville at Hendon in 1346. By 1790 Sunderland was building around nineteen ships per year making it the most important shipbuilding centre in the United Kingdom. By 1840 there were 65 shipyards such that over 150 wooden vessels were built at Sunderland in 1850. At this time 2,025 shipwrights worked in the town and some 2,000 others were employed in related industries. Sunderland's first iron ships were built from 1852 and wooden shipbuilding ceased here in 1876. Sunderland shipbuilders included Austin and Son, William Pickersgill and William Doxford.


title: North East England

text: It was between 1790 and 1805 that Thomas Haw of Stockton began building ships for the Napoleonic wars. Shipbuilding did not begin in Middlesbrough until 1833 when a wooden sailing ship called "The Middlesbro"' was built. Teesside's first iron ship was built in Thornaby in 1854, it was a screw steamer called "The Advance", and Teesside's first steel ship was "Little Lucy" built in 1858. One famous Teesside-built ship was the long "Talpore", built by Pearse and Co of Stockton in 1860. It was a troop ship for the River Indus, and was the world's largest river steamer at the time. An archive of the ships built on Teesside has been created, In Hartlepool Thomas Richardson of Castle Eden and John Parkin of Sunderland established a shipyard at Old Hartlepool in 1835 and built The Castle Eden ship. The shipbuilding company of William Gray was established here in 1862 and Gray became one of the most influential men in the town. He was the first mayor of West Hartlepool in 1887. William Gray shipbuilders won the Blue Ribband prize for maximum output in 1878, 1882, 1888, 1895, 1898 and 1900. The yard closed in 1961.


title: North East England

text: On Tyneside, Charles Mark Palmer, born in South Shields, established a yard at Jarrow in 1851 and built its first iron collier, "The John Bowes", in the following year. It was the first ever seagoing screw collier and was built for John Bowes of Barnard Castle for shipping coal to London. Palmer was also famed for building the first rolled armour plates for warships in 1854. William Smith and Co launched the 1,600-ton "Blenheim" in 1848. W. G. Armstrong, the famous northern engineer, acquired an interest in the Tyneside shipbuilding firm of Mitchells in 1882, and the company of W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell and Co was formed. The yard built battleships as well as a ship called "Gluckauf", which was arguably the world's first oil tanker. It was launched by the yard in 1886. Scotsman Charles Mitchell started building ships at Walker-on-Tyne in 1852 and purchased a site at Wallsend in 1873 to soak up excess orders from his Walker shipyard. The new yard failed financially and was handed to his brother-in-law Charles Swan. Charles and his brother Henry were directors of the Wallsend Slipway Company, a repair yard established by Mitchell in 1871. In 1878 Charles arranged a partnership with Sunderland shipbuilder George Hunter, but in 1879 Charles died after falling overboard from a channel steamer whilst returning from the Continent with his wife. Hunter went into temporary partnership with Swan's wife before becoming Managing Director in 1880. Swan Hunters built their first steel ship at Wallsend in 1884 and their first oil tanker in 1889.


title: North East England

text: Most early ships built at the Swan Hunter yard were smaller, like colliers and barges, but in 1898 it built its first ocean liner, "Ultonia," with a further 21 liners being built between 1898 and 1903. The most famous ship ever launched there was undoubtedly , a transatlantic ocean liner that launched on 20 September 1906. The ship was long, with a Beam (nautical) of 88 ft (27 m) and a gross register tonnage of 31,938 tons. It carried 2,000 passengers on its maiden voyage on 16 November 1907 and won the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, a record held for 22 years.


title: North East England

text: A major pioneering innovation in marine engineering was the steam turbine, invented by Charles Algernon Parsons. He patented the first steam turbine on Tyneside in 1884. Parsons, born in Ireland in 1854, was the youngest son of the Earl of Rosse and a keen inventor, who was a junior partner in the Tyneside engineering firm of Clarke Chapman. In 1894 Parsons' Marine Turbine Company launched , the first ship to be powered by electric turbines. She can be still be seen (and boarded) at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne.


title: North East England

text: Shipyard closures in the 20th century took place during economic slumps and occurred in two phases, between 1909–1933 and 1960–1993. Early closures included Smiths Dock at North Shields in 1909, which became a ship repair yard, Armstrongs of Elswick in 1921, Richardson Duck of Stockton (1925), Priestman's of Sunderland (1933) and Palmers of Jarrow and Hebburn (1933). There were 28 North East closures in this period of which 14 were on the Tyne, 7 on the Wear, 6 on the Tees and 1 at Hartlepool. Six shipyards closed in the 1960s including W.Gray of Hartlepool (1961), Short Brothers of Sunderland (1964) and The Blyth Shipbuiding Company (1966). There were five closures in the region in the 1970s including the Furness yard at Haverton Hill, near Stockton, in 1979.


title: North East England

text: The coal and shipbuilding industry that once dominated the North East suffered a marked decline during the second half of the 20th century. Tyneside is now re-inventing itself as an international centre of art, culture and through The Centre For Life, scientific research, especially in healthcare and biotechnology. Newcastle University is now a leading institution in the development of stem cell technology being the first in the United Kingdom and the second institution in Europe to obtain a licence to do such work. As with the rest of the region, Sunderland suffered economic decline during the last century, but is now becoming an important area for quaternary industry, bioscience, computing and high tech industries. The economy of Sunderland is now dominated by the Nissan's European car manufacturing facility and supply chain which is also leading that company's development of electric vehicles.


title: North East England

text: The economy of Teesside continues to be largely based on the petrochemical, commodity chemical and steel industries that form a significant part of the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC), but newer industries such as offshore engineering and digital computing, particularly in the field of Game design, have emerged from Teesside University. Northumberland, although largely rural and an important tourist location with its castles, beaches, and history has a nationally significant concentration of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies around Cramlington and Prudhoe. The county has also seen a huge investment into the creation of the UKs largest reservoir, Kielder Water, enabling the Northeast to attract more industry. Kielder forest around the reservoir is known to have the darkest night sky in England, making it an ideal location for both professional and amateur astronomers. The City of Durham with its highly regarded University, Castle and Cathedral attracts many tourists and also a significant number of knowledge intensive businesses (KIBS) in architecture, engineering, technology and measurement science. At Sedgefield in County Durham, Netpark is home to the Centre for Process Innovation's Printable Electronics Technology Centre, a nationally important centre for the development of printed electronics and a number of other emerging electronics companies such as Kromek.