title: Homosexuality in India

text: In June 2016, a platform named Amour Queer Dating is launched in India, to help queer/LGBTIQ people find long term companions.


title: Michael Masi

text: Michael Masi (born 8 June 1978) is an Australian motorsports official. Masi served as Formula One race director from 2019 to 2021. In this role, Masi oversaw the logistics of a Formula One racing weekend, ensuring all cars, tracks, and drivers conform to FIA regulations before, during, and after a race. Masi was removed from his position following an FIA analysis into his application of safety car procedure at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.


title: Michael Masi

text: Masi was born in Sydney in 1978 and is of Italian descent. Growing up in the suburbs of Fairfield and Canada Bay, Masi initially studied marketing at TAFE before his roles in motorsport.


title: Michael Masi

text: Masi began his career in motor racing volunteering for Super Touring teams while still at school. He worked as deputy race director in the Supercars touring car racing series and at Rally Australia. In 2018, he was appointed by the FIA as the Formula 2 and Formula 3 deputy race director, and was appointed deputy to F1 race director Charlie Whiting. Masi alternated in this role between with Scot Elkins, who would become the race director for Formula E and the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters.


title: Michael Masi

text: Following Whiting's death before the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, Masi took on the role of Formula One race director.


title: Michael Masi

text: Several of Masi's decisions as race director were subject to scrutiny from drivers, teams, and press. During the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix qualifying session, cars were sent out on track even when a crane was on the track. During the 2021 season, Masi was required to defend the red flag procedures used during the 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, Masi was criticised for running qualifying in dangerous conditions, and then running the race behind the safety car for three laps, allegedly to ensure points were awarded. He was criticized for negotiating with teams to change positions during the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The following week, Masi's procedural error in the resumption of the race following a safety car period during the final lap of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was criticised for potentially altering championship results. Mercedes protested the result; the protest was not upheld.


title: Michael Masi

text: On 17 February 2022, Masi was removed from his role as Race Director following an FIA analysis into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He was replaced by Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas as race directors on an alternating basis for the 2022 Formula One season, and Herbie Blash as Permanent Senior Advisor to them. A new position within the FIA was offered to Masi.


title: Michael Masi

text: On 19 March 2022 the FIA published their official report into the Abu Dhabi controversy, concluding that Masi had incorrectly applied regulations, in that not all lapped cars had unlapped themselves, and the safety car had not completed one additional lap before coming back into the pitlane. The report attributed these matters to human error.


title: Michael Masi

text: Mercedes boss Toto Wolff subsequently referred to Masi as having been a "liability" to Formula One and stated that Masi did not take well to receiving feedback or criticism from anybody, as well as suggesting that he had acted disrespectfully at times towards some drivers in briefings.


title: Michael Masi

text: In July 2022, Masi left the FIA in order to relocate to Australia and spend more time with his family. In September, Masi was appointed the independent Chairman of the Supercars Commission in Australia. He was appointed to the board of directors of Karting Australia in December and will begin working in the role on 1 January 2023.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for the average adult. The cost of housing, such as the rent for an apartment, usually makes up the largest proportion of this estimate, so economists track the real estate market and other housing cost indicators as a major influence on the poverty line. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In October 2015, the World Bank updated the International Poverty Line (IPL), a global absolute minimum, to $1.90 per day (in PPP), where it currently stands (as of 2022), and also as of 2022, $3.20 per day in PPP for lower-middle income countries, and $5.50 per day in PPP for upper-middle income countries. Per the $1.90/day standard, the percentage of the global population living in absolute poverty fell from over 80% in 1800 to 10% by 2015, according to United Nations estimates, which found roughly 734 million people remained in absolute poverty.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The poverty threshold was first developed by Mollie Orshansky between 1963 and 1964. She attributed the poverty threshold as a measure of income inadequacy by taking the cost of food plan per family of three or four and multiplying it by a factor of three. In 1969 the inter agency poverty level review committee adjusted the threshold for only price changes.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Charles Booth, a pioneering investigator of poverty in London at the turn of the 20th century, popularised the idea of a "poverty line", a concept originally conceived by the London School Board. Booth set the line at 10 (50p) to 20 shillings (£1) per week, which he considered to be the minimum amount necessary for a family of four or five people to subsist on. Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree (1871–1954), a British sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist, surveyed rich families in York, and drew a poverty line in terms of a minimum weekly sum of money "necessary to enable families … to secure the necessaries of a healthy life", which included fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, and household and personal items. Based on data from leading nutritionists of the period, he calculated the cheapest price for the minimum calorific intake and nutritional balance necessary, before people get ill or lose weight. He considered this amount to set his poverty line and concluded that 27.84% of the total population of York lived below this poverty line. This result corresponded with that from Booth's study of poverty in London and so challenged the view, commonly held at the time, that abject poverty was a problem particular to London and was not widespread in the rest of Britain. Rowntree distinguished between primary poverty, those lacking in income and secondary poverty, those who had enough income, but spent it elsewhere (1901:295–96).


title: Poverty threshold

text: The term "absolute poverty" is also sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of enough resources to secure basic life necessities.


title: Poverty threshold

text: To assist in measuring this, the World Bank has a daily per capita international poverty line (IPL), a global absolute minimum, of $1.90 a day as of October 2015.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The new IPL replaces the $1.25 per day figure, which used 2005 data. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a figure (revised largely due to inflation) of $1.25 a day at 2005 purchasing power parity (PPP). The new figure of $1.90 is based on ICP PPP calculations and represents the international equivalent of what $1.90 could buy in the US in 2011. Most scholars agree that it better reflects today's reality, particularly new price levels in developing countries. The common IPL has in the past been roughly $1 a day.


title: Poverty threshold

text: These figures are artificially low according to Peter Edward of Newcastle University. He believes the real number as of 2015 was $7.40 per day.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Using a single monetary poverty threshold is problematic when applied worldwide, due to the difficulty of comparing prices between countries. Prices of the same goods vary dramatically from country to country; while this is typically corrected for by using PPP exchange rates, the basket of goods used to determine such rates is usually unrepresentative of the poor, most of whose expenditure is on basic foodstuffs rather than the relatively luxurious items (washing machines, air travel, healthcare) often included in PPP baskets. The economist Robert C. Allen has attempted to solve this by using standardized baskets of goods typical of those bought by the poor across countries and historical time, for example including a fixed calorific quantity of the cheapest local grain (such as corn, rice, or oats).


title: Poverty threshold

text: The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty in developing countries. It attempts to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of consumption goods. The poverty line is then defined as the amount of income required to satisfy those needs. The 'basic needs' approach was introduced by the International Labour Organization's World Employment Conference in 1976. "Perhaps the high point of the WEP was the World Employment Conference of 1976, which proposed the satisfaction of basic human needs as the overriding objective of national and international development policy. The basic needs approach to development was endorsed by governments and workers' and employers' organizations from all over the world. It influenced the programs and policies of major multilateral and bilateral development agencies, and was the precursor to the human development approach."


title: Poverty threshold

text: A traditional list of immediate "basic needs" is food (including water), shelter, and clothing. Many modern lists emphasize the minimum level of consumption of 'basic needs' of not just food, water, and shelter, but also sanitation, education, and health care. Different agencies use different lists.


title: Poverty threshold

text: According to a UN declaration that resulted from the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, absolute poverty is "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education, and information. It depends not only on income, but also on access to services."


title: Poverty threshold

text: David Gordon's paper, "Indicators of Poverty and Hunger", for the United Nations, further defines absolute poverty as the absence of any two of the following eight basic needs:


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1978, Ghai investigated the literature that criticized the basic needs approach. Critics argued that the basic needs approach lacked scientific rigour; it was consumption-oriented and antigrowth. Some considered it to be "a recipe for perpetuating economic backwardness" and for giving the impression "that poverty elimination is all too easy". Amartya Sen focused on 'capabilities' rather than consumption.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In the development discourse, the basic needs model focuses on the measurement of what is believed to be an eradicable level of poverty.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Relative poverty means low income relative to others in a country: for example, below 60% of the median income of people in that country.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Relative poverty measurements unlike absolute poverty measurements take the social economic environment of the people observed into consideration. It is based on the assumption that whether a person is considered poor depends on her/his income share relative to the income shares of other people who are living in the same economy. The threshold for relative poverty is considered to be at 50% of a country's median equivalised disposable income after social transfers. Thus, it can vary greatly from country to country even after adjusting for purchasing power standards (PPS).


title: Poverty threshold

text: A person can be poor in relative terms but not in absolute terms as the person might be able to meet her/his basic needs, but not be able to enjoy the same standards of living that other people in the same economy are enjoying. Relative poverty is thus a form of social exclusion that can for example affect peoples access to decent housing, education or job opportunities.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The relative poverty measure is used by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Canadian poverty researchers. In the European Union, the "relative poverty measure is the most prominent and most–quoted of the EU social inclusion indicators."


title: Poverty threshold

text: "Relative poverty reflects better the cost of social inclusion and equality of opportunity in a specific time and space."


title: Poverty threshold

text: "Once economic development has progressed beyond a certain minimum level, the rub of the poverty problem – from the point of view of both the poor individual and of the societies in which they live – is not so much the effects of poverty in any absolute form but the effects of the contrast, daily perceived, between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them. For practical purposes, the problem of poverty in the industrialized nations today is a problem of relative poverty (page 9)."


title: Poverty threshold

text: However, some have argued that as relative poverty is merely a measure of inequality, using the term 'poverty' for it is misleading. For example, if everyone in a country's income doubled, it would not reduce the amount of 'relative poverty' at all.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1776, Adam Smith argued that poverty is the inability to afford "not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without."


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith argued, "People are poverty stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of their community."


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1964, in a joint committee economic President's report in the United States, Republicans endorsed the concept of relative poverty: "No objective definition of poverty exists. ... The definition varies from place to place and time to time. In America as our standard of living rises, so does our idea of what is substandard."


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1965, Rose Friedman argued for the use of relative poverty claiming that the definition of poverty changes with general living standards. Those labelled as poor in 1995, would have had "a higher standard of living than many labelled not poor" in 1965.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1967, American economist Victor Fuchs proposed that "we define as poor any family whose income is less than one-half the median family income." This was the first introduction of the relative poverty rate as typically computed today


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 1979, British sociologist, Peter Townsend published his famous definition: "individuals... can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or are at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong (page 31)."


title: Poverty threshold

text: Brian Nolan and Christopher T. Whelan of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Ireland explained that "poverty has to be seen in terms of the standard of living of the society in question."


title: Poverty threshold

text: Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates by the European Union, UNICEF and the OECD. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income.


title: Poverty threshold

text: A measure of "relative poverty" defines "poverty" as being below some relative poverty threshold. For example, the statement that "those individuals who are employed and whose household equivalised disposable income is below 60% of national median equivalised income are poor" uses a relative measure to define poverty.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The term "relative poverty" can also be used in a different sense to mean "moderate poverty" – for example, a standard of living or level of income that is high enough to satisfy basic needs (like water, food, clothing, housing, and basic health care), but still significantly lower than that of the majority of the population under consideration.


title: Poverty threshold

text: An example of this could be a person living in poor conditions or squalid housing in a high crime area of a developed country and struggling to pay their bills every month due to low wages, debt or unemployment. While this person still benefits from the infrastructure of the developed country, they still endure a less than ideal lifestyle compared to their more affluent countrymen or even the more affluent individuals in less developed countries who have lower living costs.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Living Income refers to the income needed to afford a decent standard of living in the place one lives. The distinguishing feature between a living income and the poverty line is the concept of decency, wherein people thrive, not only survive. Based on years of stakeholder dialogue and expert consultations, the Living Income Community of Practice, an open learning community, established the formal definition of living income drawing on the work of Richard and Martha Anker, who co-authored "Living Wages Around the World: Manual for Measurement". They define a living income as:The net annual income required for a household in a particular place to afford a decent standard of living for all members of that household. Elements of a decent standard of living include food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transport, clothing, and other essential needs including provision for unexpected events.Like the poverty line calculation, using a single global monetary calculation for Living Income is problematic when applied worldwide. Additionally, the Living Income should be adjusted quarterly due to inflation and other significant changes such as currency adjustments. The actual income or proxy income can be used when measuring the gap between initial income and the living income benchmarks. The World Bank notes that poverty and standard of living can be measured by social perception as well, and found that in 2015, roughly one-third of the world's population was considered poor in relation to their particular society.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP) was founded by The Sustainable Food Lab, GIZ and ISEAL Alliance to measure the gap between what people around the world earn versus what they need to have a decent standard of living, and find ways to bridge this gap.


title: Poverty threshold

text: A variation on the LICOP's Living Income is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Living Wage Calculator, which compares the local minimum wage to the amount of money needed to cover expenses beyond what is needed to merely survive across the United States. The cost of living varies greatly if there are children or other dependents in the household.


title: Poverty threshold

text: An outdated or flawed poverty measure is an obstacle for policymakers, researchers and academics trying to find solutions to the problem of poverty. This has implications for people. The federal poverty line is used by dozens of federal, state, and local agencies, as well as several private organizations and charities, to decide who needs assistance. The assistance can take many forms, but it is often difficult to put in place any type of aid without measurements which provide data. In a rapidly evolving economic climate, poverty assessment often aids developed countries in determining the efficacy of their programs and guiding their development strategy. In addition, by measuring poverty one receives knowledge of which poverty reduction strategies work and which do not, helping to evaluate different projects, policies and institutions. To a large extent, measuring the poor and having strategies to do so keep the poor on the agenda, making the problem of political and moral concern.


title: Poverty threshold

text: It is hard to have exact number for poverty, as much data is collected through interviews, meaning income that is reported to the interviewer must be taken at face value. As a result, data could not rightly represent the situations true nature, nor fully represent the income earned illegally. In addition, if the data were correct and accurate, it would still not mean serving as an adequate measure of the living standards, the well-being or economic position of a given family or household. Research done by Haughton and Khandker finds that there is no ideal measure of well-being, arguing that all measures of poverty are imperfect. That is not to say that measuring poverty should be avoided; rather, all indicators of poverty should be approached with caution, and questions about how they are formulated should be raised.


title: Poverty threshold

text: As a result, depending on the indicator of economic status used, an estimate of who is disadvantaged, which groups have the highest poverty rates, and the nation's progress against poverty varies significantly. Hence, this can mean that defining poverty is not just a matter of measuring things accurately, but it also necessitates fundamental social judgments, many of which have moral implications.


title: Poverty threshold

text: National estimates are based on population-weighted subgroup estimates from household surveys. Definitions of the poverty line do vary considerably among nations. For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations. Even among rich nations, the standards differ greatly. Thus, the numbers are not comparable among countries. Even when nations do use the same method, some issues may remain.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In the UK in 2006, "more than five million people – over a fifth (23 percent) of all employees – were paid less than £6.67 an hour". This value is based on a low pay rate of 60 percent of full-time median earnings, equivalent to a little over £12,000 a year for a 35-hour working week. In April 2006, a 35-hour week would have earned someone £9,191 a year – before tax or National Insurance".


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 2019, the Low Pay Commission estimated that about 7% of people employed in the UK were earning at or below the National Minimum Wage. In 2021, the Office for National Statistics found that 3.8% of jobs were paid below the National Minimum Wage, a decrease from 7.4% in 2020 but an increase from 1.4% in 2019. They note that this increase from 2019 to 2021 is connected to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. The Guardian reported in 2021 that "almost 5m jobs, or one in six nationally, pay below the real living wage".


title: Poverty threshold

text: India's official poverty level is split according to rural versus urban thresholds. For urban dwellers, the poverty line is defined as living on less than 538.60 rupees (approximately US$12) per month, whereas for rural dwellers, it is defined as living on less than 356.35 rupees per month (approximately US$7.50). In 2019, the Indian government stated that 6.7% of its population is below its official poverty limit. As India is one of the fastest-growing economies in 2018, poverty is on the decline in the country, with close to 44 Indians escaping extreme poverty every minute, as per the World Poverty Clock. India lifted 271 million people out of poverty in a 10-year time period from 2005/06 to 2015/16.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In 2008 Iran government report by central statistics had recommended 9.5 around million people living below poverty line.


title: Poverty threshold

text: As of August 2022 the Iranian economy suffered the highest inflation in 75 years; official statistics put the poverty line at 10 million tomans ($500), while the


title: Poverty threshold

text: Singapore has experienced strong economic growth over the last ten years and has consistently ranked among the world's top countries in terms of GDP per capita.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Inequality has however increased dramatically over the same time span, yet there is no official poverty line in the country. Given Singapore's high level of growth and prosperity, many believe that poverty does not exist in the country, or that domestic poverty is not comparable to global absolute poverty. Such a view persists for a selection of reasons, and since there is no official poverty line, there is no strong acknowledgement that it exists.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Yet, Singapore is not considering establishing an official poverty line, with Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing claiming it would fail to represent the magnitude and scope of problems faced by the poor. As a result, social benefits and aids aimed at the poor would be a missed opportunity for those living right above such a line.


title: Poverty threshold

text: In the United States, the poverty thresholds are updated every year by Census Bureau. The threshold in the United States is updated and used for statistical purposes. In 2020, in the United States, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was an annual income of US$12,760, or about $35 per day. The threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was US$26,200, about $72 per day. According to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2018 One-year Estimates, 13.1% of Americans lived below the poverty line.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Women and children find themselves impacted by poverty more often when a part of single mother families. The poverty rate of women has increasingly exceeded that of men's. While the overall poverty rate is 12.3%, women poverty rate is 13.8% which is above the average and men are below the overall rate at 11.1%. Women and children (as single mother families) find themselves as a part of low class communities because they are 21.6% more likely to fall into poverty. However, extreme poverty, such as homelessness, disproportionately affects males to a high degree.


title: Poverty threshold

text: A minority group is defined as "a category of people who experience relative disadvantage as compared to members of a dominant social group." Minorities are traditionally separated into the following groups: African Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. According to the current US Poverty statistics, Black Americans – 21%, Foreign born non-citizens – 19%, Hispanic Americans – 18%, and adults with a disability – 25%. This does not include all minority groups, but these groups alone account for 85% of people under the poverty line in the United States. Whites have a poverty rate of 8.7%; the poverty rate is more than double for Black and Hispanic Americans.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Living below the poverty threshold can have a major impact on a child's education. The psychological stresses induced by poverty may affect a student's ability to perform well academically. In addition, the risk of poor health is more prevalent for those living in poverty. Health issues commonly affect the extent to which one can continue and fully take advantage of his or her education. Poor students in the United States are more likely to dropout of school at some point in their education. Research has also found that children living in poverty perform poorly academically and have lower graduation rates. Impoverished children also experience more disciplinary issues in school than others.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Schools in impoverished communities usually do not receive much funding, which can also set their students apart from those living in more affluent neighborhoods. There is much dispute over whether upward mobility that brings a child out of poverty may or may not have a significant positive impact on his or her education; inadequate academic habits that form as early as preschool typically are unknown to improve despite changes in socioeconomic status.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The nation's poverty threshold is issued by the Census Bureau. According to the Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation the threshold is statistically relevant and can be a solid predictor of people in poverty. The reasoning for using Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is due to its action for distributive purposes under the direction of Health and Human Services. So FPL is a tool derived from the threshold but can be used to show eligibility for certain federal programs. Federal poverty levels have direct effects on individuals' healthcare. In the past years and into the present government, the use of the poverty threshold has consequences for such programs like Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.  The benefits which different families are eligible for are contingent on FPL. The FPL, in turn, is calculated based on federal numbers from the previous year.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The benefits and qualifications for federal programs are dependent on number of people on a plan and the income of the total group. For 2019, the U.S Department of health & Human Services enumerate what the line is for different families. For a single person, the line is $12,490 and up to $43,430 for a family of 8, in the lower 48 states. Another issue is reduced-cost coverage. These reductions are based on income relative to FPL, and work in connection with public health services such as Medicaid. The divisions of FPL percentages are nominally, above 400%, below 138% and below 100% of the FPL. After the advent of the American Care Act, Medicaid was expanded on states bases. For example, enrolling in the ACA kept the benefits of Medicaid when the income was up to 138% of the FPL.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Health Affairs along with analysis by Georgetown found that public assistance does counteract poverty threats between 2010 and 2015. In regards to Medicaid, child poverty is decreased by 5.3%, and Hispanic and Black poverty by 6.1% and 4.9% respectively. The reduction of family poverty also has the highest decrease with Medicaid over other public assistance programs. Expanding state Medicaid decreased the amount individuals paid by an average of $42, while it increased the costs to $326 for people not in expanded states. The same study analyzed showed 2.6 million people were kept out of poverty by the effects of Medicaid. From a 2013–2015 study, expansion states showed a smaller gap in health insurance between households making below $25,000 and above $75,000. Expansion also significantly reduced the gap of having a primary care physician between impoverished and higher income individuals. In terms of education level and employment, health insurance differences were also reduced. Non-expansion also showed poor residents went from a 22% chance of being uninsured to 66% from 2013 to 2015.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Living above or below the poverty threshold is not necessarily a position in which an individual remains static. As many as one in three impoverished people were not poor at birth; rather, they descended into poverty over the course of their life. Additionally, a study which analyzed data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) found that nearly 40% of 20-year-olds received food stamps at some point before they turned 65. This indicates that many Americans will dip below the poverty line sometime during adulthood, but will not necessarily remain there for the rest of their life. Furthermore, 44% of individuals who are given transfer benefits (other than Social Security) in one year do not receive them the next. Over 90% of Americans who receive transfers from the government stop receiving them within 10 years, indicating that the population living below the poverty threshold is in flux and does not remain constant.


title: Poverty threshold

text: Most experts and the public agree that the official poverty line in the United States is substantially lower than the actual cost of basic needs. In particular, a 2017 Urban Institute study found that 61% of non-elderly adults earning between 100 and 200% of the poverty line reported at least one material hardship, not significantly different from those below the poverty line. The cause of the discrepancy is believed to be an outdated model of spending patterns based on actual spending in the year 1955; the number and proportion of material needs has risen substantially since then.


title: Poverty threshold

text: The US Census Bureau calculates the poverty line the same throughout the US regardless of the cost-of-living in a state or urban area. For instance, the cost-of-living in California, the most populous state, was 42% greater than the US average in 2010, while the cost-of-living in Texas, the second-most populous state, was 10% less than the US average. In 2017, California had the highest poverty rate in the country when housing costs are factored in, a measure calculated by the Census Bureau known as "the supplemental poverty measure".


title: Poverty threshold

text: In addition to wage and salary income, investment income and government transfers such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps) and housing subsidies are included in a household's income. Studies measuring the differences between income before and after taxes and government transfers, have found that without social support programs, poverty would be roughly 30% to 40% higher than the official poverty line indicates.


title: Bonnie Somerville

text: Bonnie Somerville (born February 24, 1974) is an American actress and singer. She has had roles in a number of movies and television series, most notably as Mona in "Friends", "NYPD Blue", "Grosse Pointe", "The O.C.", "Cashmere Mafia", "Without a Paddle", and "Golden Boy". She starred as Dr. Christa Lorenson in season one of the CBS medical drama "Code Black".


title: Bonnie Somerville

text: Somerville was born and grew up in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. She started acting and singing at a young age, appearing in high school plays at Poly Prep Country Day School in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Somerville studied Musical Theater at Boston College. At the age of 22 she moved to Los Angeles, assembled a band and got an agent.


title: Bonnie Somerville

text: Somerville's first acting job was as an extra in the 1996 film "City Hall". She had a lead role as Lyne Danner in the CBS miniseries "" (1999), in which she also sang. In 2000, Somerville starred in the series "Grosse Pointe" which aired on The WB from September 2000 to February 2001. The series followed the set of a fictitious WB nighttime soap, also called "Grosse Pointe", and several characters were based on real-life actors. Somerville played Ross Geller's girlfriend, Mona, for seven episodes in the eighth season of the NBC sitcom "Friends". She had small roles in films "Bedazzled" (2000), "Spider-Man 2" (2004) and "Without a Paddle" (2004).


title: Bonnie Somerville

text: In 2003, Somerville landed a recurring role as Rachel Hoffman, a former colleague of Sandy Cohen, in the first season of Fox's teen drama series "The O.C.". She appeared on the cover of "Stuff" magazine's May 2004 issue titled, "Girls of "The O.C."" and later on the cover of the magazine's November 2005 issue. In 2005, Somerville starred in the short-lived sitcom "Kitchen Confidential" opposite Bradley Cooper. During the final season of "NYPD Blue", she had a supporting role as Det. Laura Murphy, appearing in fifteen episodes. Her song "Winding Road" was included on the "Garden State" soundtrack, a film written and directed by Zach Braff. She sang backup vocals on Joshua Radin's first album, "We Were Here" (2006). Somerville was a singer in the charity cover band Band from TV with Greg Grunberg, Bob Guiney, James Denton, Hugh Laurie among others.


title: Bonnie Somerville

text: In 2008, portrayed Caitlin Dowd in ABC's comedy-drama series "Cashmere Mafia", her third Darren Star-produced television show. "Cashmere Mafia" followed the lives of four ambitious women as they try to balance their glamorous and demanding careers with their complex personal lives in New York City. ABC decided not to renew the series for a second season. She portrayed Suzie Cavandish in the ABC Family romantic comedy film "Labor Pains" (2009) starring Lindsay Lohan. She also appeared in films "Shades of Ray"(2008), "The Ugly Truth" (2009), "The Search for Santa Paws" (2010), "Seven Below" (2012), "Fire with Fire" (2012) and "Treasure Buddies" (2012). Somerville portrayed Sam in the comedy film "The Best and the Brightest" (2010) opposite Neil Patrick Harris.


title: Bonnie Somerville

text: She had guest roles on several television shows, including "Gary Unmarried", "Royal Pains, The Mentalist" and "Motive." In 2011, Somerville starred in the Hallmark Channel Christmas television film "A Holiday Engagement", in which she sings the song "Angels We Have Heard On High". In 2013, Somerville played Detective Mackenzie on CBS's crime drama series "Golden Boy" which aired for one season. She played Dr. Christa Lorenson, a mature first-year resident, in the first season of the medical drama series "Code Black". She filmed a cameo for the musical drama film "A Star Is Born" (2018) but her scenes were deleted.


title: Alannah Myles

text: Alannah Myles (née Byles; born December 25, 1958) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has won both a Grammy and a Juno Award for the song "Black Velvet". The song was a top-ten hit in Canada; it was also a number one hit on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1990.


title: Alannah Myles

text: Myles was born Alannah Byles on Christmas Day 1958 in Toronto, Ontario. She is the daughter of William Douglas Byles, who was a pioneer in the Canadian broadcasting industry and was inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Hall of Fame in 1997. She is the second of five children. Raised by her parents in Ontario, Myles spent her childhood composing and learning music. Myles began writing songs around age 9, and performed in a songwriting group for the Kiwanis Music Festival in Toronto at age 12.


title: Alannah Myles

text: At the age of 18, she began performing solo gigs in southern Ontario, eventually meeting Christopher Ward, a recording artist and songwriter with Warner Music Group. With Ward's help, she formed her own band and performed cover versions of rock and blues songs, while polishing her own material.


title: Alannah Myles

text: Myles changed her surname from Byles at the age of 19, after deciding to pursue a career in entertainment. Appearances in TV commercials paid for music demos that led to numerous rejections in Canada, until she recorded masters for three songs; "Who Loves You" and a video demo for "Just One Kiss", directed by photographer Deborah Samuel. With matched financing from her songwriting collaborator, MuchMusic (City TV) and program director Christopher Ward, she signed her first record contract with Atlantic Records in 1987.


title: Alannah Myles

text: Myles was featured in several TV and film productions as a guest host and actor prior to becoming a recording artist. She appeared in a 1984 episode of the television series "The Kids of Degrassi Street", in which she played the role of an aspiring singer and single mother. In 1989 she appeared in an episode of "War of the Worlds", which aired only three weeks after the release of her self-titled debut album.


title: Alannah Myles

text: Myles was a candidate to be the original host of FashionTelevision, as shared by Jeanne Beker on the "Reinvention of the VJ" podcast, hosted by Erica Ehm. Beker suggested that Ward was lobbying for Myles to get the role on the new TV program. Beker would eventually become the program's first host.


title: Alannah Myles

text: In late 1987, Warner Music Canada's director of artists and repertoire (A&R), Bob Roper, sent Myles's three-song video package to all of Warner Music Group's US affiliates, which garnered a contract for seven or eight years from Atlantic Records (WMG), given by head of A&R Tunc Erim and Atlantic label founder Ahmet Ertegun. Myles left her acting career, co-wrote and recorded the remainder of her first album with Christopher Ward and producer David Tyson. In 1989, Atlantic Records released her self-titled debut album, and Myles toured internationally for 18 months. Her first album was awarded the Diamond Award for sales of over one million units; she is the only Canadian debut artist to attain that award. Her first album was reported to have sold more than six million copies internationally.


title: Alannah Myles

text: In May 1989, Warner Music in Canada released "Alannah Myles", which produced four Top 40 hits, including "Love Is", "Lover Of Mine", "Still Got This Thing" and her number-one classic rock hit, "Black Velvet". Atlantic Records' 1989 debut album release was ineligible for Grammy nominations until the early 1990 US single release "Black Velvet" became a number-one hit, claiming ASCAP's most played song on radio for 1989 and 1990. By 2005, it had received ASCAP Millionaire Award for over four million radio airplays. "Black Velvet" won Myles the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance in 1991 and three Juno Awards.


title: Alannah Myles

text: In 1992, Myles was nominated for a second Grammy award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance her second CD "Rockinghorse". "Song Instead Of a Kiss", written and composed by Myles, Nancy Simmonds, and Canadian poet Robert Priest, was a 60-piece orchestrated ballad that reached number one on several radio stations around the globe but was met with little response in America, whose audiences were accustomed to "that slow southern style" of "Black Velvet". The album, released that year, included the other hit singles "Our World, Our Times", and "Sonny, Say You Will". Myles received a Grammy nomination for "Rockinghorse" and several global awards, including a Juno and Much Music's People's Choice Award for "Our World, Our Times".


title: Alannah Myles

text: In 1991, Myles sang "O Canada" at a Major League Baseball game at Skydome in Toronto. It was broadcast on CBS Sports.


title: Alannah Myles

text: In 1995, Myles released her final album on Atlantic Records before being released from the label, granting Warner/Atlantic a "Best Of" CD after only three records. The "A-lan-nah" album, which contained no Top 40 singles, included two tracks which made it into the Top 100, namely "Family Secret" and "Blow Wind, Blow".


title: Alannah Myles

text: In 1997, she terminated her eight-record contract with Atlantic Records with the help of her then-manager Miles Copeland III, who immediately signed her to his own Ark 21 Records. On Ark 21, she released "A Rival", which contained the Top 40 hit "Bad 4 You", written and recorded by Myles, Desmond Child, and Eric Bazilian at Copeland's Castle songwriting retreat at Grand Brassac, France. The "A Rival" album agreement with Miles Copeland III, Ark 21 Records was successfully terminated in 2014 with 100% copyright reversions returned to "Alannah Myles" by 2015 and re-released on Myles's independently owned label, Fascinate inc.


title: Alannah Myles

text: After the release of "A Rival", Myles released two "Best Of" compilations, in 1998 and 2001, and both featuring two new songs, and then left Ark 21 Records. She maintained a low profile for almost a decade but gigged around Canada and Europe during this time. In 2001, Myles duetted with Saga frontman Michael Sadler on a cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush's "Don't Give Up", released as a B-side to the Saga single "Money Talks". In 2004, she released a cover of "I Can't Stand the Rain", with Jeff Healey on guitar, for a Tina Turner tribute album "What's Love? A Tribute to Tina Turner".


title: Alannah Myles

text: In February 2005, together with the Swedish band Kee Marcello's K2, Myles participated in the third semi-final of Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Their selection, "We Got It All", scored very few points and finished seventh out of eight songs, yet it managed to dominate the leading newspaper and media headlines in Sweden.


title: Alannah Myles

text: Myles's first new solo release in a decade was an Elvis Tribute EP, released on iTunes in August 2007, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death. The EP features a re-recording of her signature song "Black Velvet", as well as two new songs. All three of them were later included on her next album.


title: Alannah Myles

text: In April 2008, Myles released her fifth studio album, "Black Velvet", which featured a new recording of her song of the same name, in addition to 10 new studio recordings. Myles financed and co-produced the album.


title: Alannah Myles

text: In early 2008, Myles released the CD "Black Velvet" on Linus Entertainment, which resulted in a staggered release internationally while the indie label merged with Canada's True North Records, followed by a video for the song "Trouble" featuring a jug band performance. "Trouble" was awarded an 'Honourable Mention' as a finalist in the blues category at the 2009 International Songwriting Contest. Myles won the 15th annual USA Songwriting Competition for both Best Rock/Alternative Song as well as grand prize finalist for a selection, written and composed jointly with Nancy Simmonds for her "Black Velvet" CD, titled "Give Me Love".


title: Alannah Myles

text: Myles's song "Black Velvet" was one of four selected to be covered on the CBC Television reality television show "Cover Me Canada."


title: Alannah Myles

text: After terminating a six-year lease with Canadian indie label Linus Entertainment in August 2013, Myles's "Black Velvet" album was retitled "85bpm", repackaged for her 25th anniversary with new images photographed by fellow Canadian Deborah Samuel. A newly recorded song written by Anne Peebles, produced by Michael Borkosky, "Can't Stand the Rain" was added to "85bpm", featuring a solo played by Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey, re-released on Myles's independently owned label, Fascinate inc., digitally distributed by Tuncecore.com, with audio CDs and a 25th anniversary live concert DVD, both distributed by Amazon.com in the US.


title: Caveman

text: The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or "ape-like" by Marcellin Boule and Arthur Keith.


title: Caveman

text: The term "caveman" has its taxonomic equivalent in the now-obsolete binomial classification of "Homo troglodytes" (Linnaeus, 1758).


title: Caveman

text: Cavemen are typically portrayed as wearing shaggy animal hides, and capable of cave painting like behaviorally modern humans of the last glacial period. They are often shown armed with rocks, cattle bone clubs, spears, or sticks with rocks tied to them, and are portrayed as unintelligent, easily frightened, and aggressive. Popular culture also frequently represents cavemen as living with, or alongside, dinosaurs, even though non-avian dinosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years before the emergence of the "Homo sapiens" species. The era that most people think of when they talk about "cavemen" is the Paleolithic Era, sometimes referred to as the Stone Age (though actually the Paleolithic is but one part of the Stone Age). This era extends from more than 2 million years into the past until sometime between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago.


title: Caveman

text: The image of these people living in caves arises from the fact that caves are where the preponderance of artifacts have been found from European Stone Age cultures. However, this most likely reflects the degree of preservation that caves provide over the millennia, rather than an indication of them being a typical form of shelter. Until the last glacial period, the great majority of humans did not live in caves, as nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes that lived in a variety of temporary structures, such as tents and wooden huts (e.g., at Ohalo). A few genuine cave dwellings did exist, however, such as at Mount Carmel in Israel.


title: Caveman

text: Stereotypical cavemen have traditionally been depicted wearing smock-like garments made from the skin of other animals and held up by a shoulder strap on one side. They are also depicted carrying large clubs approximately conical in shape. They often have grunt-like names, such as Ugg and Zog.


title: Caveman

text: Caveman-like heraldic "wild men" were found in European and African iconography for hundreds of years. During the Middle Ages, these beings were generally depicted in art and literature as bearded and covered in hair, and often wielding clubs and dwelling in caves. While wild men were always depicted as living outside of civilization, there was an ongoing debate as to whether they were human or non-human.


title: Caveman

text: In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" (1912), ape-men are depicted in a fight with modern humans. "How the First Letter Was Written" and "How the Alphabet was Made" is one of Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories" (1902) featuring a group of cave-people. Edgar Rice Burroughs adapted this idea for "The Land That Time Forgot" (1918). A genre of cavemen films emerged, typified by D. W. Griffith's "Man's Genesis" (1912); they inspired Charles Chaplin's satiric take, in "His Prehistoric Past" (1914) as well as "Brute Force" (1914), "The Cave Man" (1912), and later "Cave Man" (1934). From the descriptions, Griffith's characters cannot talk, and use sticks and stones for weapons, while the hero of "Cave Man" is a Tarzanesque figure who fights dinosaurs. "Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels", which aired from 1977 to 1980, is a classic animated comedy depicting cavemen as totally hairy with a club.


title: Caveman

text: D. W. Griffith's "Brute Force", a silent film released in 1914, represents one of the earliest portrayals of cavemen and dinosaurs together, with its depiction of a "Ceratosaurus". The film reinforced the incorrect notion that non-avian dinosaurs co-existed with prehistoric humans.


title: Caveman

text: The anachronistic combination of cavemen with dinosaurs eventually became a cliché, and has often been intentionally invoked for comedic effect. The comic strips "B.C.", "Alley Oop", the Spanish comic franchise "Mortadelo y Filemón", and occasionally "The Far Side" and "Gogs" portray "cavemen" with dinosaurs. Gary Larson, in his 1989 book "The Prehistory of the Far Side", stated he once felt that he needed to confess his cartooning sins in this regard: "O Father, I Have Portrayed Primitive Man and Dinosaurs In The Same Cartoon". The animated series "The Flintstones", a spoof on family sitcoms, portrays the Flintstones even using dinosaurs, pterosaurs and prehistoric mammals as tools, household appliances, vehicles, and construction machines.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (born Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Louis von Steuben; September 17, 1730 – November 28, 1794), also referred to as Baron von Steuben (), was a Prussian military officer who played a leading role in the American Revolutionary War by reforming the Continental Army into a disciplined and professional fighting force. His contributions marked a significant improvement in the performance of US troops, and he is subsequently regarded as one of the fathers of the United States Army.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Born into a military family, Steuben was exposed to war from an early age; at 14 years old, he observed his father directing Prussian engineers in the 1744 siege of Prague. At age 16 or 17, he enlisted in the Prussian Army, which was considered the most professional and disciplined in Europe. During his 17 years of military service, Steuben took part in several battles in the Seven Years' War (1756–63), rose to the rank of captain, and became "aide-de-camp" to Prussian King Frederick the Great, who was renowned for his military prowess and strategy. Steuben's career culminated in his attendance of Frederick's elite school for young military officers, after which he was abruptly discharged from the army in 1763, allegedly by the machinations of a rival.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Steuben spent 11 years as court chamberlain to the prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, a small German principality. In 1769, the Duchess of Wurttemburg, a niece of Frederick, named him to the chivalric Order of Fidelity, a meritorious award that conferred the title, , or 'free lord'; in 1771, his service to Hohenzollern-Hechingen earned him the title "baron". In 1775, as the American Revolution had begun, Steuben saw a reduction in his salary and sought some form of military work; unable to find employment in peacetime Europe, he joined the US war effort through mutual French contacts with US diplomats, most notably ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin. Due to his military exploits, and his willingness to serve the Americans without compensation, Steuben made a positive impression on both Congress and General George Washington, who appointed him as temporary Inspector General of the Continental Army.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Appalled by the state of US forces, Steuben took the lead in teaching soldiers the essentials of military drills, tactics, and discipline based on Prussian techniques. He wrote "Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States," which remained the army's drill manual for decades, and continues to influence modern U.S. army manuals. Steuben also addressed widespread administrative waste and graft, helping save desperately needed supplies and funds. As these reforms began bearing fruit on the battlefield, in 1778, Congress, on Washington's recommendation, commissioned Steuben as Inspector General with the rank of Major General. He served the remainder of the war as Washington's chief of staff and one of his most trusted advisors.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: After the war, Steuben was made a U.S. citizen and granted a large estate in New York in reward for his service. In 1780, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, a learned society that included most of the nation's most prominent founding fathers.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Baron von Steuben was born in the fortress town of Magdeburg in Prussia (now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany), on September 17, 1730, the son of Royal Prussian Engineer Capt. Wilhelm von Steuben and his wife, Elizabeth von Jagvodin. When his father entered the service of Empress Anna of Russia, young Friedrich went with him to Crimea and then to Kronstadt, staying until the Russian war against the Turks under General Burkhard Christoph von Münnich. In 1740, Steuben's father returned to Prussia and Friedrich was educated in the garrison towns Neisse and Breslau by Jesuits. Despite his education by a Catholic order, von Steuben remained critical of Roman Catholicism. Originally, von Steuben's family were Protestants in the Kingdom of Prussia, and after his emigration to America he became a member of the Reformed German Church, a Reformed congregation in New York. It is said that at age 14 he served as a volunteer with his father in one of the campaigns of the War of the Austrian Succession.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Baron von Steuben joined the Prussian Army at age 17. He served as a second lieutenant during the Seven Years' War in 1756, and was wounded at the 1757 Battle of Prague. He served as adjutant to the free battalion of General Johann von Mayr and was promoted to first lieutenant in 1759. In August 1759 he was wounded a second time at the Battle of Kunersdorf. In the same year, he was appointed deputy quartermaster at the general headquarters. In 1761 he became adjutant of the Major General Von Knobloch upon being taken prisoner by the Russians at Treptow. He subsequently attained the rank of captain and served as aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great; in 1762 he was one of 13 young officers chosen to participate in a special course of instruction delivered by the king himself.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Upon the reduction of the army at the end of the war, in 1763, Steuben was one of many officers who found themselves unemployed. Towards the end of his life, Steuben indicated in a letter that "an inconsiderate step and an implacable personal enemy" led to his leaving the Prussian army.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: In 1764, Steuben became "Hofmarschall" to Fürst Josef Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, a post he held until 1777. In 1769 the Duchess of Württemberg, niece of Frederick the Great, presented him with the Cross of the Order of "De la Fidelite". In 1771 he began to use the title baron. That same year he accompanied the prince to France, hoping to borrow money. Failing to find funds, they returned to Germany in 1775, deeply in debt.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: In 1763, Steuben had been formally introduced to the future French Minister of War, Claude Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, in Hamburg. They met again in Paris in 1777. The Count, fully realizing the potential of an officer with Prussian general staff training, introduced him to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, however, was unable to offer Steuben a rank or pay in the American army. The Continental Congress had grown tired of foreign mercenaries coming to America and demanding a high rank and pay. Promoting these men over qualified American officers caused discontent in the ranks. Steuben would have to go to America strictly as a volunteer and present himself to Congress. Steuben left these first meetings in disgust and returned to Prussia. After unknown events, Steuben discharged from his position as a captain and traveled to Paris. It is speculated that he was, or was accused to be, a homosexual. It is unknown whether or not this occurred, and regardless, no charges were pursued.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Upon the Count's recommendation, Steuben was introduced to future president George Washington by means of a letter from Franklin as a "Lieutenant General in the King of Prussia's service", an exaggeration of his actual credentials that appears to be based on a mistranslation of his service record. He was advanced travel funds and left Europe from Marseilles on Friday, September 26, 1777, on board the frigate "Flamand".


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: The Baron, his Italian Greyhound Azor (which he took with him everywhere), his young "aide-de-camp" Louis de Pontière, his military secretary, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau (then called Pierre Etienne Du Ponceau), and two other companions, reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on December 1, 1777, where they were almost arrested for being British because Steuben had mistakenly outfitted them in red uniforms. They were extravagantly entertained in Boston. On February 5, 1778, Steuben and his party arrived in York, Pennsylvania, where the Continental Congress had relocated after being ousted from Philadelphia by the British advance. Arrangements were made for Steuben to be paid following the successful completion of the war according to his contributions. He arrived at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778, and reported for duty as a volunteer. One soldier's first impression of the Baron was "of the ancient fabled God of War ... he seemed to me a perfect personification of Mars. The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea. He turned the volunteers into a great army."


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Washington appointed von Steuben as temporary inspector general. He went out into the camp to talk with the officers and men, inspect their huts, and scrutinize their equipment. Steuben established standards of sanitation and camp layouts that would still be standard a century and a half later. There had previously been no set arrangement of tents and huts. Men relieved themselves where they wished, and when an animal died it was stripped of its meat and the rest was left to rot where it lay. Steuben laid out a plan to have rows for command, officers, and enlisted men. Kitchens and latrines were on opposite sides of the camp, with latrines on the downhill side. There was the familiar arrangement of company and regimental streets.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: On May 5, 1778, on General Washington's recommendation, Congress appointed Steuben inspector general of the army, with the rank and pay of major general. The internal administration had been neglected, and no books had been kept either as to supplies, clothing, or men. Steuben became aware of the "administrative incompetence, graft, war profiteering" that existed. He enforced the keeping of exact records and strict inspections. His inspections saved the army an estimated loss of five to eight thousand muskets.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Steuben picked 120 men from various regiments to form an honor guard for General Washington, and used them to demonstrate military training to the rest of the troops. These men in turn trained other personnel at regimental and brigade levels. Steuben's eccentric personality greatly enhanced his mystique. In full military dress uniform, he twice a day trained the soldiers who, at this point, were themselves greatly lacking in proper clothing.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: As he could only speak and write a small amount of English, Steuben originally wrote the drills in German, the military language of Europe at the time. His secretary, Du Ponceau, then translated the drills from German into French, and a secretary for Washington translated it to English. They did this every single night so Washington could command his soldiers in the morning. Colonel Alexander Hamilton and General Nathanael Greene were of great help in assisting Steuben in drafting a training program for the Army. The Baron's willingness and ability to work with the men, as well as his use of profanity (in several different languages), made him popular among the soldiers. It is here he met his close friend and future adopted heir, Captain Benjamin Walker. Within weeks, Walker was Steuben's aide-de-camp.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Steuben introduced a system of progressive training, beginning with the school of the soldier, with and without arms, and going through the school of the regiment. This corrected the previous policy of simply assigning personnel to regiments. Each company commander was made responsible for the training of new men, but actual instruction was done by sergeants specifically selected for being the best obtainable.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: In the earlier part of the war, the Americans used the bayonet mostly as a cooking skewer or tool rather than as a fighting instrument. Steuben's introduction of effective bayonet charges became crucial. In the Battle of Stony Point, Continental Army soldiers attacked with unloaded muskets and won the battle solely on Steuben's bayonet training.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: The first results of Steuben's training were in evidence at the Battle of Barren Hill, May 20, 1778, and then again at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. Steuben, by then serving in Washington's headquarters, was the first to determine that the enemy was heading for Monmouth.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: During the winter of 1778–1779, Steuben prepared "Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States", commonly known as the "Blue Book". Its basis was the training plan he had devised at Valley Forge. It was used by the United States Army until 1814, and affected U.S. drills and tactics until the Mexican–American War of 1846.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: On May 2, 1779, during the second Middlebrook encampment, a review of the army was held to honor the French minister Conrad Alexandre Gérard de Rayneval and the Spanish diplomat Juan de Miralles. Led by General William Smallwood, four battalions performed precise military formations to demonstrate their mastery of Steuben's training. After the review, about sixty generals and colonels attended a dinner hosted by Steuben in a large tent near his headquarters at the Abraham Staats House.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: In 1780, Steuben sat on the court-martial of the British Army officer Major John André, captured and charged with espionage in conjunction with the defection of General Benedict Arnold. He later traveled with Nathanael Greene, the new commander of the Southern campaign. He quartered in Virginia, since U.S. supplies and soldiers would be provided to the army from there. Steuben would help in the defense of Virginia with approximately 1,000 militia fighting a delaying action in the Battle of Blandford. During the spring of 1781, he aided Greene in the campaign in the South, culminating in the delivery of 450 Virginia Continentals to Lafayette in June.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: He was forced to take sick leave, rejoining the army for the final campaign at Yorktown, where his role was as commander of one of the three divisions of Washington's troops. In 1783, General Von Steuben joined General Knox at Vail's Gate, near West Point, in the fall of 1782 and in early 1783 moved to the Verplanck homestead, at Mount Gulian, across the Hudson River from Washington's headquarters in Newburgh. Steuben gave assistance to Washington in demobilizing the army in 1783 as well as aiding in the defense plan of the new nation. In May 1783, Steuben presided over the founding of the Society of the Cincinnati. He was discharged from the military with honor on March 24, 1784.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Steuben became a U.S. citizen by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in March 1784 and later by the New York authorities in July 1786. With the war over, Steuben resigned from service and first settled with his longtime companion, William North, for whom he created a special room at his retreat he called the Louvre on Manhattan Island, where he became a prominent figure and elder in the German Reformed Church. From 1785 until his death in 1794, he served as president of the German Society of the City of New York, a charitable society founded in 1784 to assist German immigrants.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: In 1786, during Shays' Rebellion, under the written name "Belisarius", Steuben criticized the Massachusetts government for being an oligarchy.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: On December 23, 1783, the state of New Jersey presented him with the use of an estate in Bergen County now known as Steuben House, which had been confiscated from Loyalist Jan Zabriskie in 1781. Located in the formerly strategic New Bridge Landing, the estate included a gristmill and about of land. Legislators initially conditioned the grant, requiring Steuben to "hold, occupy and enjoy the said estate in person, and not by tenant." Gen. Philemon Dickinson of the New Jersey Militia informed the baron of this gift and responded to his inquiries that "there are on the premises an exceeding good House, an excellent barn, together with many useful outbuildings, all of which I am told, want some repairs...there is...a Grist-mill; a good Orchard, some meadow Ground, & plenty of Wood. The distance from N York by land 15 miles, but you may keep a boat & go from your own door to N York by waterOysters, Fish & wild fowl in abundancePossession will be given to you in the Spring, when you will take a view of the premises." Von Steuben spent considerable sums to repair wartime damages to the house and restore its commercial operations under former aide Walker.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: On September 5, 1788, the New Jersey Legislature gave Baron von Steuben full title to the former Zabriskie estate. A month later, recognizing his financial embarrassment, Steuben wrote another former aide-de-camp and companion, William North, recognizing: "The Jersey Estate must and is to be sold. Walker is my administrator, all debts are to be paid out of it." On November 6, 1788, Steuben again wrote North (at his new home in Duanesburg, New York), noting "My Jersey Estate is Advertised but not yet Sold, from this Walker Shall immediately pay to you the money, you so generously lend me and all my debts in New-York will be payed. I support my present poverty with more heroism than I Expected. All Clubs and parties are renounced, I seldom leave the House." Steuben eventually sold the New Jersey property to a son of the previous owner, and it remained in the Zabriskie family until 1909. It is the only remaining eighteenth-century building that von Steuben owned.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Von Steuben moved upstate and settled in Oneida County on a small estate in the vicinity of Rome, New York, on land granted to him for his military service and where he had spent summers. He was later appointed a regent for what evolved into the University of the State of New York. In 1790, Congress awarded him a pension of $2,500 a year, which he kept until his death.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Von Steuben died on November 28, 1794, at his estate in Oneida County, and was buried in a grove at what became the Steuben Memorial State Historic Site. The estate became part of the town of Steuben, New York, which was named for him.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Von Steuben had arrived in the United States with his 17-year-old secretary, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau. At Valley Forge, he began close relationships with Benjamin Walker and William North, then both military officers in their 20s. Von Steuben formally adopted Walker and North and made them his heirs. Some consider this action an indication of homosexual tendencies, as some homosexuals of the time period would use adoption as a subsitution for marriage.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: He never married and had no children, and he did not care much for his European relatives. Thus, he left his estate to his companions and aides-de-camp, Walker and North, with whom he had had an "extraordinarily intense emotional relationship ... treating them as surrogate sons." A third young man, John W. Mulligan (1774–1862), who also considered himself one of von Steuben's "sons," inherited his vast library, collection of maps and $2,500 in cash. Following von Steuben's death, North divided the property bequeathed to him among his military companions.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Generally, Von Steuben Day takes place in September in many cities throughout the United States. It is often considered the German-American event of the year. Participants march, dance, wear German costumes and play German music, and the event is attended by millions of people. The German-American Steuben Parade is held annually in September in New York City. It is one of the largest parades in the city and is traditionally followed by an Oktoberfest in Central Park as well as celebrations in Yorkville, Manhattan, a historically German section of New York City. The German-American Steuben Parade has been taking place since 1958. Chicago also hosts a von Steuben Day parade, which is featured in the U.S. film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Philadelphia hosts a smaller Steuben Parade in the Northeast section of the city.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: The Steuben Society was founded in 1919 as "an educational, fraternal, and patriotic organization of American citizens of German background". In the difficult post-World War I years the Society helped the German-American community to reorganize. It is now one of the largest organizations for Americans of German descent.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: A warship, a submarine, and an ocean liner (later pressed into military service) were named in von Steuben's honor. In World War I the captured German ship was renamed as USS "Von Steuben", and in World War II there was the Dampfschiff "General von Steuben", an ill-fated German luxury passenger ship which was turned into an armed transport ship during the war. During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy submarine was named for him.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Several locations in the United States are also named Steuben, most of them in his honor. Examples include Steuben County, New York, Steuben County, Indiana, and the city of Steubenville, Ohio. Several buildings are named for Steuben, among them Von Steuben Metropolitan High School in Chicago, Illinois, as well as one of the cadet barracks buildings at Valley Forge Military Academy and College.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Von Steuben was one of four European military leaders who assisted the U.S. cause during the Revolution and was honored with a statue in Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The statue by Albert Jaegers was dedicated in 1910. A copy was dedicated in Potsdam, Germany, in 1911, and destroyed during World War II. A new cast was given in honor of German-American friendship in 1987, and to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin. It was installed in the Dahlem district, in what had been the U.S. sector of the formerly divided city. An additional cast is in Steuben's home town of Magdeburg. Statues of Steuben by J. Otto Schweizer can be found in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Utica, New York, in addition to an equestrian statue by Schweizer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A bust of Steuben is in the garden of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: The Steuben House, presented to Steuben as a gift for his services in the Continental Army, is located at New Bridge Landing in River Edge, New Jersey. The house and surrounding farmland were seized in 1781 from a Loyalist family. The house looks much as it did after Steuben renovated it. The State of New Jersey took possession of the historic mansion and one acre of ground for $9,000 on June 27, 1928. It was opened as a public museum in September 1939. The Bergen County Historical Society opens the building for special events. It is under the jurisdiction of the Historic New Bridge Landing Park Commission. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1970 for its significance in architecture and military history.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Franciscan University of Steubenville also honors their city’s namesake by having The Barons as their moniker and mascot.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: Other tributes include Steuben Field, the stadium of the Hamilton College football team. Von Steuben, acting as Alexander Hamilton's surrogate, laid the cornerstone of the school.


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: The various depictions of Steuben in popular U.S. media include portrayals by Nehemiah Persoff in the 1979 U.S. TV miniseries "The Rebels", Kurt Knudson in the 1984 TV miniseries "George Washington", being voiced by Austrian-American Arnold Schwarzenegger in the animated series "Liberty's Kids", and by David Cross on the "Philadelphia" episode of "Drunk History".


title: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

text: In 2007, a popular documentary DVD was released by LionHeart FilmWorks and director Kevin Hershberger titled "Von Steuben's Continentals: The First American Army". The 60-minute, live-action documentary details the uniforms, camp life, food, weapons, equipment, and drill of the Continental soldier from 1775–1781, as taught and developed by Baron von Steuben.


title: Anandhi

text: Anandhi (born Rakshita; 10 December 1996) is an Indian actress who primarily appears in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films. After her debut in the Telugu film "Bus Stop" (2012), she appeared in Vetrimaaran's Tamil production "Poriyaalan" and Prabhu Solomon's "Kayal" (2014). She won Special Prize for "Kayal" at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards.


title: Anandhi

text: Anandhi made her debut with Maruthi's coming-of-age film "Bus Stop" (2012). Critics responded positively. Her next film, "Priyathama Neevachata Kushalama", opened in March 2013 to negative reviews, though a critic claimed that "the saving grace for the film is performance of the lead pair - Varun Sandesh and Hasika", adding that Hasika "looks traditional and has put up a decent show as well."


title: Anandhi

text: Anandhi was next seen in Vijay Maddala's next directorial venture "Green Signal", where she appeared alongside newcomer Revanth, though the film garnered negative reviews. In early 2013, she had also signed on to appear in the Tamil film, "Poriyaalan" alongside Harish Kalyan, written by Manimaran. During production, the scope of the film became larger after it was announced that director Vetrimaaran had chosen to invest in the venture as a co-producer.


title: Anandhi

text: Anandhi appeared in Prabhu Solomon's directorial venture "Kayal", in which she plays the title role. The director decided to rechristen her as Anandhi from Rakshita for the film, and she was selected after auditioning twice before impressing Solomon. Her performance received praise. She was nominated for several Best Debut Actress awards for 2014, including at the Vijay Awards.


title: Anandhi

text: In 2015, Anandhi's first release was in A. Sarkunam's "Chandi Veeran" produced by Bala, in which she portrayed the romantic interest of Atharvaa's character. Anandhi then worked on the adult comedy flick "Trisha Illana Nayanthara" (2015) starring alongside G. V. Prakash Kumar. Post-release, Anandhi revealed her displeasure at working with the director and revealed that she was led to believe that the film would be a "cute love story" and not an "adult comedy". Anandhi nonetheless helped to promote the release of the film's Telugu version. In 2016, she played a small role in "Visaranai", followed by two films with G. V. Prakash Kumar in "Enakku Innoru Per Irukku" and "Kadavul Irukaan Kumaru". In 2017, her films were "Rubaai", "Pandigai" and "En Aaloda Seruppa Kaanom". In 2018, she appeared in Mari Selvaraj's debut film "Pariyerum Perumal", one of the best Tamil films made on caste discrimination and the pain of the oppressed people. The film was released to positive reviews, while the cast's performance was critically acclaimed. Her next project was "Irandam Ulagaporin Kadaisi Gundu" (2019). Anandhi's character in the film was similar to that she played in "Pariyerum Perumal".


title: Anandhi

text: Anandhi appeared in the web series "Live Telecast" directed by Venkat Prabhu and starring Kajal Aggarwal and Vaibhav Reddy.


title: Anandhi

text: Anandhi married Socrates on 7 January 2021 in Warangal, Telangana. He is a marine engineer turned assistant director, philosopher and brother-in-law of Moodar Koodam–fame director Naveen, notable for working in "Alaudhinin Arputha Camera" and "Agni Siragugal".


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: In mathematics, particularly linear algebra and numerical analysis, the Gram–Schmidt process is a method for orthonormalizing a set of vectors in an inner product space, most commonly the Euclidean space equipped with the standard inner product. The Gram–Schmidt process takes a finite, linearly independent set of vectors for and generates an orthogonal set that spans the same "k"-dimensional subspace of R as "S".


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The method is named after Jørgen Pedersen Gram and Erhard Schmidt, but Pierre-Simon Laplace had been familiar with it before Gram and Schmidt. In the theory of Lie group decompositions it is generalized by the Iwasawa decomposition.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The application of the Gram–Schmidt process to the column vectors of a full column rank matrix yields the QR decomposition (it is decomposed into an orthogonal and a triangular matrix).


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: where formula_2 denotes the inner product of the vectors u and v. This operator projects the vector v orthogonally onto the line spanned by vector u. If u = 0, we define formula_3, i.e., the projection map formula_4 is the zero map, sending every vector to the zero vector.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The sequence is the required system of orthogonal vectors, and the normalized vectors form an ortho"normal" set. The calculation of the sequence is known as "Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization", while the calculation of the sequence is known as "Gram–Schmidt orthonormalization" as the vectors are normalized.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: To check that these formulas yield an orthogonal sequence, first compute formula_6 by substituting the above formula for u: we get zero. Then use this to compute formula_7 again by substituting the formula for u: we get zero. The general proof proceeds by mathematical induction.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Geometrically, this method proceeds as follows: to compute u, it projects v orthogonally onto the subspace "U" generated by , which is the same as the subspace generated by . The vector u is then defined to be the difference between v and this projection, guaranteed to be orthogonal to all of the vectors in the subspace "U".


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The Gram–Schmidt process also applies to a linearly independent countably infinite sequence . The result is an orthogonal (or orthonormal) sequence such that for natural number :


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: If the Gram–Schmidt process is applied to a linearly dependent sequence, it outputs the vector on the "i"th step, assuming that is a linear combination of . If an orthonormal basis is to be produced, then the algorithm should test for zero vectors in the output and discard them because no multiple of a zero vector can have a length of 1. The number of vectors output by the algorithm will then be the dimension of the space spanned by the original inputs.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: A variant of the Gram–Schmidt process using transfinite recursion applied to a (possibly uncountably) infinite sequence of vectors formula_8 yields a set of orthonormal vectors formula_9 with formula_10 such that for any formula_11, the completion of the span of formula_12 is the same as that of In particular, when applied to a (algebraic) basis of a Hilbert space (or, more generally, a basis of any dense subspace), it yields a (functional-analytic) orthonormal basis. Note that in the general case often the strict inequality formula_13 holds, even if the starting set was linearly independent, and the span of formula_9 need not be a subspace of the span of formula_8 (rather, it's a subspace of its completion).


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Denote by formula_22 the result of applying the Gram–Schmidt process to a collection of vectors formula_23. This yields a map formula_24.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Further a parametrized version of the Gram–Schmidt process yields a (strong) deformation retraction of the general linear group formula_28 onto the orthogonal group formula_29.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: When this process is implemented on a computer, the vectors formula_30 are often not quite orthogonal, due to rounding errors. For the Gram–Schmidt process as described above (sometimes referred to as "classical Gram–Schmidt") this loss of orthogonality is particularly bad; therefore, it is said that the (classical) Gram–Schmidt process is numerically unstable.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The Gram–Schmidt process can be stabilized by a small modification; this version is sometimes referred to as modified Gram-Schmidt or MGS. This approach gives the same result as the original formula in exact arithmetic and introduces smaller errors in finite-precision arithmetic.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: This method is used in the previous animation, when the intermediate vector is used when orthogonalizing the blue vector .


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Here is another description of the modified algorithm. Given the vectors formula_33, in our first step we produce vectors formula_34by removing components along the direction of formula_35. In formulas, formula_36. After this step we already have two of our desired orthogonal vectors formula_37, namely formula_38, but we also made formula_39 already orthogonal to formula_40. Next, we orthogonalize those remaining vectors against formula_41. This means we compute formula_42 by subtraction formula_43. Now we have stored the vectors formula_44 where the first three vectors are already formula_45 and the remaining vectors are already orthogonal to formula_46. As should be clear now, the next step orthogonalizes formula_47 against formula_48. Proceeding in this manner we find the full set of orthogonal vectors formula_37. If orthonormal vectors are desired, then we normalize as we go, so that the denominators in the subtraction formulas turn into ones.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The following MATLAB algorithm implements the Gram–Schmidt orthonormalization for Euclidean Vectors. The vectors (columns of matrix codice_1, so that codice_2 is the "j"th vector) are replaced by orthonormal vectors (columns of codice_3) which span the same subspace.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The cost of this algorithm is asymptotically floating point operations, where is the dimensionality of the vectors.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: If the rows are written as a matrix formula_50, then applying Gaussian elimination to the augmented matrix formula_51 will produce the orthogonalized vectors in place of formula_50. However the matrix formula_53 must be brought to row echelon form, using only the row operation of adding a scalar multiple of one row to another. For example, taking formula_54 as above, we have


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The result of the Gram–Schmidt process may be expressed in a non-recursive formula using determinants.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: and vectors; the meaning of this expression is defined to be the result of a cofactor expansion along the row of vectors.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: The determinant formula for the Gram-Schmidt is computationally slower (exponentially slower) than the recursive algorithms described above; it is mainly of theoretical interest.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Expressed using notation used in geometric algebra, the unnormalized results of the Gram–Schmidt process can be expressed as


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: which is equivalent to the expression using the formula_63 operator defined above. The results can equivalently be expressed as


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Other orthogonalization algorithms use Householder transformations or Givens rotations. The algorithms using Householder transformations are more stable than the stabilized Gram–Schmidt process. On the other hand, the Gram–Schmidt process produces the formula_65th orthogonalized vector after the formula_65th iteration, while orthogonalization using Householder reflections produces all the vectors only at the end. This makes only the Gram–Schmidt process applicable for iterative methods like the Arnoldi iteration.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: Yet another alternative is motivated by the use of Cholesky decomposition for inverting the matrix of the normal equations in linear least squares. Let formula_67 be a full column rank matrix, whose columns need to be orthogonalized. The matrix formula_68 is Hermitian and positive definite, so it can be written as formula_69 using the Cholesky decomposition. The lower triangular matrix formula_70 with strictly positive diagonal entries is invertible. Then columns of the matrix formula_71 are orthonormal and span the same subspace as the columns of the original matrix formula_67. The explicit use of the product formula_68 makes the algorithm unstable, especially if the product's condition number is large. Nevertheless, this algorithm is used in practice and implemented in some software packages because of its high efficiency and simplicity.


title: Gram–Schmidt process

text: In quantum mechanics there are several orthogonalization schemes with characteristics better suited for certain applications than original Gram–Schmidt. Nevertheless, it remains a popular and effective algorithm for even the largest electronic structure calculations.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: The Arado Ar 234 "Blitz" (English: lightning) is a jet-powered bomber designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Arado. It was the world's first operational turbojet-powered bomber, seeing service during the latter half of the Second World War.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: Development of the Ar 234 can be traced back to the latter half of 1940 and the request to tender from the Ministry of Aviation to produce a jet-powered high-speed reconnaissance aircraft. Arado was the only respondent with their "E.370" design. While its range was beneath that of the Ministry's specification, an initial order for two prototypes was promptly issued to the company, designated "Ar 234". While both of the prototypes had been mostly completed prior to the end of 1941, the Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engines were not available prior to February 1943. Due to engine unreliability, the maiden flight of the Ar 234 V1 was delayed until 30 July 1943. In addition to the original reconnaissance-orientated "Ar 234A", the fast bomber "Ar 234B" model was developed in response to a request by the Ministry of Aviation. Due to a lack of internal space in the relatively slender fuselage, bombloads of up to 1,500 kg (3,310 lb) had to be carried on external racks rather than in internal bomb bays.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: The Ar 234 was only produced in limited numbers, despite hopes that production would reach 500 per month in late 1945; this was in part due to a lack of available jet engines and other critical materials, for which the aircraft had to compete with other types, such as the Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter/fighter-bomber aircraft. Several models were proposed, which typically featured more powerful or alternative engines, cockpit improvements, and adaptations to function as a night fighter. During the latter portion of 1944, active aerial reconnaissance missions over enemy territory commenced; the Ar 234 was almost entirely used to perform such reconnaissance missions. It was in this capacity that it become the last Luftwaffe aircraft to fly over the United Kingdom during the conflict, in April 1945. In its capacity as a bomber, perhaps the most prominent use of the Ar 234 was the repeated attempts made to destroy the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen between 7 and 17 March 1945. Many aircraft were destroyed or even captured on the ground due to a lack of servicable engines or sufficient fuel supplies.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: During the closing months of 1940, the Nazi German Ministry of Aviation offered a tender for a jet-powered high-speed reconnaissance aircraft with a range of . Arado was the only company to respond, offering their "E.370" project, led by Professor Walter Blume. The design was of a high-wing mostly conventional-looking aircraft that was powered by a pair of Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engines, one being located underneath each wing.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: Arado estimated that the E.370 would possess a maximum speed of at , an operating altitude of and a range of . While the range was short of the Ministry's specification, it decided to order a pair of prototypes, which were designated as the "Ar 234". These were largely complete before the end of 1941, but the Jumo 004 engines were not ready until February 1943. When they did arrive, the engines were considered unreliable by Junkers for in-flight use and were cleared for static and taxi tests only. Months later, flight-qualified engines were finally delivered; accordingly, on 30 July 1943, the Ar 234 V1 performed its maiden flight from Rheine airfield.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: The second prototype, V2, crashed on 2 October 1943 at Rheine near Münster after suffering a fire in its port wing, the failure of both engines, and various instrumentation failures. The aircraft dived into the ground from , killing the pilot. That same year, the third prototype, V3, was displayed to Adolf Hitler at Insterberg; he was immediately enthusiastic about the aircraft and authorised Arado to obtain factory personnel, raw materials, and the funds necessary to built two hundred by the end of 1944. The eight prototype aircraft were fitted with the trolley-and-skid landing gear intended for the never-produced Ar 234A version.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: The sixth and eighth in the series were powered by four BMW 003 jet engines instead of two Jumo 004s; the sixth had the four engines in individual nacelles, while the eighth had the engines in "twinned" nacelles underneath each wing. A 1942 engineering drawing of the E 370 showed a 1,430-litre (378 US gal) forward tank, 830 litres (219 US gal) central tank in mid-fuselage, and an aft tank of 1,540 litres (407 US gal) capacity. These were the first four-engined jet aircraft to fly. The twin-Jumo 004 powered Ar 234 V7 prototype made history on 2 August 1944 as the first jet aircraft used for a reconnaissance mission, flown by Erich Sommer.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: The projected weight for the aircraft was approximately . To reduce weight and maximize the internal fuel, Arado did not use retractable landing gear. Instead, the aircraft was to take off from a jettisonable tricycle gear-style trolley, referred to as a nosewheel takeoff-carriage in English, as described in an Ar 234A Typenblatt factory drawing for the V8 prototype, and land on three retractable skids, one under the central section of the fuselage and one under each engine nacelle. The main skid, beneath the fuselage, was originally intended to fully retract, and was originally shown in a 1942-dated engineering drawing, under the E 370 airframe factory development designation, as intended to be made from a three-sided channel-section component, featuring a set of nine triple-beaded wooden rollers within the channel-section main skid. However, this landing gear did not allow aircraft to move after the landing run, which would have left aircraft scattered over an airfield, unable to taxi off the runway. Erich Sommer said that landing the skid-equipped prototypes on a wet grass airstrip "was like greased lightning" and "like [landing on] soap", due to the complete lack of braking capability.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: At the request of the Ministry of Aviation, Arado also produced a pair of prototypes configured as a fast bomber version of the aircraft, known as the "Ar 234B". On 12 March 1944, the first of these, Ar 234 V9, performed its first flight; it was the first to feature a fully retractable tricycle landing gear, while the main gear retracted forward into the mid-fuselage, the nose gear retracted rearwards.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: The Ar 234 had a very slender fuselage with the internal volume being largely filled with fuel tanks, thus leaving no room for an internal bomb bay, thus the bombload had to be carried on external racks. The forward-set cockpit did not naturally provide the pilot with any direct visibility to the rear, thus the rear firing guns were aimed through a periscope, which had been derived from the type used on tanks, that was mounted on the cockpit roof. This periscope could also be turned forwards to assist in dive-bombing runs; however, its usefulness was impacted somewhat by the scope's image being upside-down. The defensive fixed rear gun system intended for the prototype series was generally considered useless by pilots, thus it was omitted in the Ar 234B. The aircraft was slightly wider at mid-fuselage to house the main landing gear, and the central fuel tank was removed for the same reason, with enlarged forward (1,800-litre/476 US gal) and aft (2,000-litre/528 US gal) fuel tanks to compensate.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: During flight testing, while carrying its maximum bombload of three SC 500 bombs, the Ar 234 V9 could reach at , faster than any other Luftwaffe bomber at the time. The normal bomb load consisted of a pair of 500 kg (1,100 lb) bombs suspended from the engines or one large 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) bomb semi-recessed in the underside of the fuselage, while the maximum bombload was 1,500 kg (3,310 lb). It could also carry the heavier BT 1400 (1,510 kg unpowered bomb-torpedo), although the ground clearance was limited. If this munition was deployed, the aircraft's fuel capacity was noticeably reduced while rocket assistance would also be used to aid takeoff. The pilot would commonly engage the autopilot while using the bomb aimer, the viewfinder of which were interfaced with the autopilot so that the aircraft's trajectory could be adjusted directly.


title: Arado Ar 234

text: Production lines were already being set up, and 20 B-0 pre-production aircraft were delivered by the end of June. Later production was slow, as the Arado plants were given the simultaneous tasks of producing aircraft from other bombed-out factories hit during the USAAF's "Big Week",(20-25 February 1944) against the German aircraft industry, in addition to an ongoing license-construction and the nascent phasing-out of Heinkel's heavy He 177A bomber, even as the Arado firm was intended to be the sole subcontractor for the He 177B-series strategic bomber, meant to start construction at Arado as early as October 1944. Between mid-1944 and the end of the conflict, a total of 210 aircraft were built. During February 1945, production was switched to the C variant. It was hoped that by November 1945 production would reach 500 per month.