title: May Fourth Movement

text: Participants at the time, such as Hu Shih, referred to this era as the Chinese Renaissance because there was an intense focus on science and experimentation. In Chinese literature, the May Fourth Movement is regarded as the watershed after which the use of the vernacular language ("baihua") gained currency over and eventually replaced the use of Literary Chinese in literary works. Intellectuals were driven toward expressing themselves using the spoken tongue under the slogan 我手寫我口 ('my hand writes [what] my mouth [speaks]'), although the change was actually gradual: Hu Shih had already argued for the use of the modern vernacular language in literature in his 1917 essay "Preliminary discussion on literary reform" (文學改良芻議), while the first short story written exclusively in the vernacular language, "The True Story of Ah Q" by Lu Xun, was not published until 1921.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: More ordinary people also began to try to get in touch with new cultures and learn from foreign cultures. Joseph Chen said: "This intellectual ferment had already had an effect in altering the outlook of China's new youth.". After the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese modern female literature developed a literature with modern humanistic spirit, taking women as the subject of experience, thinking, aesthetics, and speech.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: In honor of the May Fourth Movement, May 4 is now celebrated as Youth Day in mainland China and as Literary Day in Taiwan.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The first direct effect of the May Fourth Movement was to get the Beiyang government to refuse to sign contracts that were unfavorable to China.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: During the movement, anger against Japan erupted because the Paris peace Treaty gave it the right to occupy the Shandong Peninsula. Many elements of society and joined students to publicize the boycott of Japanese products. The wave of a boycotts led to hopes that when Japanese products were suppressed, China's national industry would develop and promote the rapid development of China's national economy.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Although the movement was highly influential, many of the intellectuals at the time opposed the anti-traditional message and many political figures ignored it. "this limited May Fourth individualist enlightenment did not lead the individual against the collective of the nation-state, as full-scale, modern Western individualism would potentially do.".


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek, as a nationalist and Confucianist, was against the iconoclasm of the May Fourth Movement. As an anti-imperialist, he was skeptical of Western ideas and literature. He criticized these May Fourth intellectuals for corrupting the morals of youth. When the Nationalist party came to power under Chiang's rule, it carried out the opposite agenda. The New Life Movement promoted Confucianism, and the Kuomintang purged China's education system of western ideas, introducing Confucianism into the curriculum. Textbooks, exams, degrees, and educational instructors were all controlled by the state, as were all universities.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Some conservative philosophers and intellectuals opposed any change, but many more accepted or welcomed the challenge from the West but wanted to base new systems on Chinese values, not imported ones. These figures included Liang Shuming, Liu Shipei, Tao Xisheng, Xiong Shili, Zhang Binglin and Lu Xun's brother, Zhou Zuoren. In later years, others developed critiques, including figures as diverse as Lin Yutang, Qian Mu, Xu Fuguan, and Yu Yingshi. Li Changzhi believed that the May Fourth Movement copied foreign culture and lost the essence of its own culture. (Ta Kung Pao, 1942). This is consistent with what Vera Schwarcz has said: "Critically-minded intellectuals were accused of eroding national self-confidence, or more simply, of not being Chinese enough."


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Chinese Muslims ignored the May Fourth movement by continuing to teach Classical Chinese and literature with the Qur'an and Arabic along with officially mandated contemporary subjects at the "Normal Islamic School of Wanxian". Ha Decheng did a Classical Chinese translation of the Quran. Arabic, vernacular Chinese, Classical Chinese and the Qur'an were taught in Ningxia Islamic schools funded by Muslim General Ma Fuxiang.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Although the May Fourth Movement did find partial success in removing traditional Chinese culture, there were still proponents who steadfastly argued that China's traditions and values should be the fundamental foundations of the nation. From these opponents of Western civilization derived three neotraditional schools of thought: national essence, national character, and modern relevance of Confucianism. Each school of thought denounced the western values of individualism, materialism and utilitarianism as inadequate avenues for the development of China. Each school held to specific objectives. The "national essence" school sought to discover aspects of traditional culture that could potentially serve the national development of China. Such traditional aspects consisted of various philosophical and religious practices that emerged parallel with Confucianism. Most particularly, China imported Buddhism, a religion from their neighboring countries, India and Nepal. Under the "national character" school, advocates promoted the traditional family system, the primary target of the May Fourth Movement. In this school, reformers viewed Westerners as shells without morals. Finally, the modern relevance of Confucianism was centered on the notion that Confucian values were better than Western ones. In response to western culture's primary concentration on rational analysis, China's neo-traditionalists argued that this was misguided, especially in the practical, changing milieu of the world. Most importantly, these three neo-traditionalist thoughts did not consider the individual, which was the main theme of the May Fourth Movement.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, it became the nation's dominant political worldview for a generation. The term itself was in active use by the 1830s.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: This era, called the Jacksonian Era or Second Party System by historians and political scientists, lasted roughly from Jackson's 1828 election as president until slavery became the dominant issue with the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 and the political repercussions of the American Civil War dramatically reshaped American politics. It emerged when the long-dominant Democratic-Republican Party became factionalized around the 1824 United States presidential election. Jackson's supporters began to form the modern Democratic Party. His political rivals John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay created the National Republican Party, which would afterward combine with other anti-Jackson political groups to form the Whig Party.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Broadly speaking, the era was characterized by a democratic spirit. It built upon Jackson's equal political policy, subsequent to ending what he termed a monopoly of government by elites. Even before the Jacksonian era began, suffrage had been extended to a majority of white male adult citizens, a result which the Jacksonians celebrated. Jacksonian democracy also promoted the strength of the presidency and the executive branch at the expense of the United States Congress, while also seeking to broaden the public's participation in government. The Jacksonians demanded elected, not appointed, judges and rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. In national terms, they favored geographical expansionism, justifying it in terms of manifest destiny. There was usually a consensus among both Jacksonians and Whigs that battles over slavery should be avoided.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jackson's expansion of democracy was largely limited to European Americans, and voting rights were extended to adult white males only. There was little or no change, and in many cases a reduction of the rights of African Americans and Native Americans during the extensive period of Jacksonian democracy, spanning from 1829 to 1860.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Historian Robert V. Remini, in 1999, stated that Jacksonian Democracy involved the belief that the people are sovereign, that their will is absolute and that the majority rules.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Historian and social critic Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. argued in 1945 that Jacksonian democracy was built on the following:


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: An important movement in the period from 1800 to 1830—before the Jacksonians were organized—was the gradual expansion of the right to vote from only property owning men to include all white men over 21. Older states with property restrictions dropped them, namely all but Rhode Island, Virginia and North Carolina by the mid 1820s. No new states had property qualifications although three had adopted tax-paying qualifications—Ohio, Louisiana and Mississippi, of which only in Louisiana were these significant and long lasting. The process was peaceful and widely supported, except in the state of Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, the Dorr Rebellion of the 1840s demonstrated that the demand for equal suffrage was broad and strong, although the subsequent reform included a significant property requirement for any resident born outside of the United States. However, free black men lost voting rights in several states during this period.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: The fact that a man was now legally allowed to vote did not necessarily mean he routinely voted. He had to be pulled to the polls, which became the most important role of the local parties. They systematically sought out potential voters and brought them to the polls. Voter turnout soared during the 1830s, reaching about 80% of adult white male population in the 1840 presidential election. Tax-paying qualifications remained in only five states by 1860—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and North Carolina.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: One innovative strategy for increasing voter participation and input was developed outside the Jacksonian camp. Prior to the presidential election of 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party conducted the nation's first presidential nominating convention. Held in Baltimore, Maryland, September 26–28, 1831, it transformed the process by which political parties select their presidential and vice-presidential candidates.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: The period from 1824 to 1832 was politically chaotic. The Federalist Party and the First Party System were dead and with no effective opposition, the old Democratic-Republican Party withered away. Every state had numerous political factions, but they did not cross state lines. Political coalitions formed and dissolved and politicians moved in and out of alliances.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: More former Democratic-Republicans supported Jackson, while others such as Henry Clay opposed him. More former Federalists, such as Daniel Webster, opposed Jackson, although some like James Buchanan supported him. In 1828, John Quincy Adams pulled together a network of factions called the National Republicans, but he was defeated by Jackson. By the late 1830s, the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs—a fusion of the National Republicans and other anti-Jackson parties—politically battled it out nationally and in every state.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: The spirit of Jacksonian democracy animated the party that formed around him, from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the era, with the Whig Party the main opposition. The new Democratic Party became a coalition of poor farmers, city-dwelling laborers and Irish Catholics.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: The new party was pulled together by Martin Van Buren in 1828 as Jackson crusaded on claims of corruption by President John Quincy Adams. The new party (which did not get the name Democrats until 1834) swept to a landslide. As Mary Beth Norton explains regarding 1828:


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: The platforms, speeches and editorials were founded upon a broad consensus among Democrats. As Norton et al. explain:


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jackson vetoed more legislation than all previous presidents combined. The long-term effect was to create the modern, strong presidency. Jackson and his supporters also opposed reform as a movement. Reformers eager to turn their programs into legislation called for a more active government. However, Democrats tended to oppose programs like educational reform and the establishment of a public education system. For instance, they believed that public schools restricted individual liberty by interfering with parental responsibility and undermined freedom of religion by replacing church schools.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jackson looked at the Indian question in terms of military and legal policy, not as a problem due to their race. In 1813, Jackson adopted and treated as his own son a three-year-old Indian orphan—seeing in him a fellow orphan that was "so much like myself I feel an unusual sympathy for him". In legal terms, when it became a matter of state sovereignty versus tribal sovereignty he went with the states and forced the Indians to fresh lands with no white rivals in what became known as the Trail of Tears.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Among the leading followers was Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois, who was the key player in the passage of the compromise of 1850, and was a leading contender for the 1852 Democratic presidential nomination. According to his biographer Robert W. Johanssen:


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jackson fulfilled his promise of broadening the influence of the citizenry in government, although not without vehement controversy over his methods.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jacksonian policies included ending the bank of the United States, expanding westward and removing American Indians from the Southeast. Jackson was denounced as a tyrant by opponents on both ends of the political spectrum such as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. This led to the rise of the Whig Party.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Jackson created a spoils system to clear out elected officials in government of an opposing party and replace them with his supporters as a reward for their electioneering. With Congress controlled by his enemies, Jackson relied heavily on the power of the veto to block their moves.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: One of the most important of these was the Maysville Road veto in 1830. A part of Clay's American System, the bill would have allowed for federal funding of a project to construct a road linking Lexington and the Ohio River, the entirety of which would be in the state of Kentucky, Clay's home state. His primary objection was based on the local nature of the project. He argued it was not the federal government's job to fund projects of such a local nature and or those lacking a connection to the nation as a whole. The debates in Congress reflected two competing visions of federalism. The Jacksonians saw the union strictly as the cooperative aggregation of the individual states, while the Whigs saw the entire nation as a distinct entity.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Carl Lane argues "securing national debt freedom was a core element of Jacksonian democracy". Paying off the national debt was a high priority which would make a reality of the Jeffersonian vision of America truly free from rich bankers, self-sufficient in world affairs, virtuous at home, and administered by a small government not prone to financial corruption or payoffs.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: What became of Jacksonian Democracy, according to Sean Wilentz was diffusion. Many ex-Jacksonians turned their crusade against the Money Power into one against the Slave Power and became Republicans. He points to the struggle over the Wilmot Proviso of 1846, the Free Soil Party revolt of 1848, and the mass defections from the Democrats in 1854 over the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Other Jacksonian leaders such as Chief Justice Roger B. Taney endorsed slavery through the 1857 Dred Scott decision. Southern Jacksonians overwhelmingly endorsed secession in 1861, apart from a few opponents led by Andrew Johnson. In the North, Jacksonians Martin Van Buren, Stephen A. Douglas and the War Democrats fiercely opposed secession, while Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and the Copperheads did not.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: In addition to Jackson, his second Vice President and one of the key organizational leaders of the Jacksonian Democratic Party, Martin Van Buren, served as president. He helped shape modern presidential campaign organizations and methods.


title: Jacksonian democracy

text: Van Buren was defeated in 1840 by Whig William Henry Harrison. Harrison died just 30 days into his term and his Vice President John Tyler quickly reached accommodation with the Jacksonians. Tyler was then succeeded by James K. Polk, a Jacksonian who won the election of 1844 with Jackson's endorsement. Franklin Pierce had been a supporter of Jackson as well. James Buchanan served in Jackson's administration as Minister to Russia and as Polk's Secretary of State, but he did not pursue Jacksonian policies. Finally, Andrew Johnson, who had been a strong supporter of Jackson, became president following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, but by then Jacksonian democracy had been pushed off the stage of American politics.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: FiveThirtyEight, sometimes rendered as 538, is an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college, was founded on March 7, 2008, as a polling aggregation website with a blog created by analyst Nate Silver. In August 2010, the blog became a licensed feature of "The New York Times" online and renamed FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In July 2013, ESPN acquired "FiveThirtyEight", hiring Silver as editor-in-chief and a contributor for "ESPN.com"; the new publication launched on March 17, 2014. Since then, the "FiveThirtyEight" blog has covered a broad spectrum of subjects including politics, sports, science, economics, and popular culture. In 2018, the operations were transferred from ESPN to sister property ABC News (also under parent The Walt Disney Company).


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: During the presidential primaries and general election of 2008 the site compiled polling data through a unique methodology derived from Silver's experience in sabermetrics to "balance out the polls with comparative demographic data". Silver weighted "each poll based on the pollster's historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Since the 2008 election, the site has published articles—typically creating or analyzing statistical information—on a wide variety of topics in current politics and political news. These included a monthly update on the prospects for turnover in the Senate; federal economic policies; Congressional support for legislation; public support for health care reform, global warming legislation and LGBT rights; elections around the world; marijuana legalization; and numerous other topics. The site and its founder are best known for election forecasts, including the 2012 presidential election in which "FiveThirtyEight" correctly predicted the vote winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" has won numerous awards. These include Bloggie Awards for Best Political Coverage in 2008 and Best Weblog about Politics in 2009 as well as Webbies for Best Political Blog in 2012 and 2013. While under the ownership of ESPN in 2016, "FiveThirtyEight" won the Data Journalism Website of the Year award from the Global Editors Network.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: When Silver started "FiveThirtyEight" in early March 2008, he published under the name Poblano, the same name that he had used since November 2007 when he began publishing a diary on the political blog "Daily Kos". The name "FiveThirtyEight" derives from the 538 electors in the United States Electoral College. Writing as Poblano on "Daily Kos", Silver had gained a following, especially for his primary election forecast on Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008. From that primary election day, which included contests in 24 states plus American Samoa, Poblano predicted that Barack Obama would come away with 859 delegates, and Hillary Clinton 829; in the final contests, Obama won 847 delegates and Clinton 834. Based on this result, "New York Times" op-ed columnist William Kristol wrote: "And an interesting regression analysis at the Daily Kos Web site (poblano.dailykos.com) of the determinants of the Democratic vote so far, applied to the demographics of the Ohio electorate, suggests that Obama has a better chance than is generally realized in Ohio".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" gained further national attention for beating out most pollsters' projections in the North Carolina and Indiana Democratic party primaries on May 6, 2008. As Mark Blumenthal wrote in "National Journal", "Over the last week, an anonymous blogger who writes under the pseudonym Poblano did something bold on his blog, "FiveThirtyEight.com". He posted predictions for the upcoming primaries based not on polling data, but on a statistical model driven mostly by demographic and past vote data. ... Critics scoffed. Most of the public polls pointed to a close race in North Carolina. ... But a funny thing happened. The model got it right." Silver relied on demographic data and on the history of voting in "other" states during the 2008 Democratic primary elections.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On May 30, 2008, Silver revealed his true identity for the first time to his "FiveThirtyEight" readers. After that date, he published just four more diaries on "Daily Kos".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: As the primary season was coming to an end, Silver began to build a model for the general election race. This model, too, relied in part on demographic information but mainly involved a complex method of aggregating polling results. In 2008, "Rasmussen Reports" had an apparently short-term partnership with "FiveThirtyEight" in order to include this unique methodology for generating poll averages in their "Balance of Power Calculator". At the same time, "FiveThirtyEight"s daily "Today's Polls" column began to be mirrored on "The Plank", a blog published by "The New Republic".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: By early October 2008, "FiveThirtyEight" approached 2.5 million visitors per week, while averaging approximately 400,000 per weekday. During October 2008 the site received 3.63 million unique visitors, 20.57 million site visits, and 32.18 million page views. On Election Day, November 4, 2008, the site had nearly 5 million page views.<ref name="NYT-2008/11/10"></ref>


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On June 3, 2010, Silver announced that in early August the blog would be "relaunched under a "NYTimes.com" domain".<ref group=538 name="FiveThirtyEight-2010/06"></ref> The transition took place on August 25, 2010, with the publication of Silver's first "FiveThirtyEight" blog article online in "The New York Times".<ref group=538 name="FiveThirtyEight-2010/08/25"></ref>


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In July 2013, it was revealed that Silver and his "FiveThirtyEight" blog would depart "The New York Times" and join ESPN. In its announcement of its acquisition of "FiveThirtyEight", ESPN reported that "Silver will serve as the editor-in-chief of the site and will build a team of journalists, editors, analysts and contributors in the coming months. Much like Grantland, which ESPN launched in 2011, the site will retain an independent brand sensibility and editorial point-of-view, while interfacing with other websites in the ESPN and Disney families. The site will return to its original URL, www.FiveThirtyEight.com."


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: According to Silver, the focus of "FiveThirtyEight" in its ESPN phase would broaden: "People also think it's going to be a sports site with a little politics thrown in, or it's going to be a politics site with sports thrown in. ... But we take our science and economics and lifestyle coverage very seriously. ... It's a data journalism site. Politics is one topic that sometimes data journalism is good at covering. It's certainly good with presidential elections. But we don't really see politics as how the site is going to grow".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" launched its ESPN webpage on March 17, 2014. The lead story by Silver explained that "FiveThirtyEight is a data journalism organization. ... We've expanded our staff from two full-time journalists to 20 and counting. Few of them will focus on politics exclusively; instead, our coverage will span five major subject areas – politics, economics, science, life and sports. Our team also has a broad set of skills and experience in methods that fall under the rubric of data journalism. These include statistical analysis, but also data visualization, computer programming and data-literate reporting. So in addition to written stories, we'll have interactive graphics and features".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In April 2018, it was announced that "FiveThirtyEight" would be transferred to ABC News from ESPN, Inc., majority owned by The Walt Disney Company. ABC News Live streaming channel was launched on Roku in May 2019. With the reorganization creating the Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International segment in March 2018, ABC News Digital and Live Streaming (websites, ABC News Live and "FiveThirtyEight") was transferred to the new segment.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: One unique aspect of the site is Silver's efforts to rank pollsters by accuracy, weight their polls accordingly, and then supplement those polls with his own electoral projections based on demographics and prior voting patterns. "I did think there was room for a more sophisticated way of handling these things", Silver said.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" weighs pollsters' historical track records through a complex methodology and assigns them values to indicate "Pollster-Introduced Error".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: At base Silver's method is similar to other analysts' approaches to taking advantage of the multiple polls that are conducted within each state: he averaged the polling results. But especially in the early months of the election season polling in many states is sparse and episodic. The "average" of polls over an extended period (perhaps several weeks) would not reveal the true state of voter preferences at the present time, nor provide an accurate forecast of the future. One approach to this problem was followed by "Pollster.com": if enough polls were available, it computed a locally weighted moving average or LOESS.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: However, while adopting such an approach in his own analysis, Silver reasoned that there was additional information available in polls from "similar" states that might help to fill the gaps in information about the trends in a given state. Accordingly, he adapted an approach that he had previously used in his baseball forecasting: using nearest neighbor analysis he first identified "most similar states" and then factored into his electoral projections for a given state the polling information from "similar states". He carried this approach one step further by also factoring national polling trends into the estimates for a given state. Thus, his projections were not simply based on the polling trends in a given state.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Furthermore, a basic intuition that Silver drew from his analysis of the 2008 Democratic party primary elections was that the voting history of a state or Congressional district provided clues to current voting. This is what allowed him to beat all the pollsters in his forecasts in the Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, for example. Using such information allowed Silver to come up with estimates of the vote preferences even in states for which there were few if any polls. For his general election projections for each state, in addition to relying on the available polls in a given state and "similar states", Silver estimated a ""538" regression" using historical voting information along with demographic characteristics of the states to create an estimate that he treated as a separate poll (equivalent to the actually available polls from that state). This approach helped to stabilize his projections, because if there were few if any polls in a given state, the state forecast was largely determined by the "538" regression estimate.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In July 2008, the site began to report regular updates of projections of 2008 U.S. Senate races. Special procedures were developed relying on both polls and demographic analysis. The projections were updated on a weekly basis.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In the final update of his presidential forecast model at midday of November 4, 2008, Silver projected a popular vote victory by 6.1 percentage points for Barack Obama and electoral vote totals of 349 (based on a probabilistic projection) or 353 (based on fixed projections of each state). Obama won with 365 electoral college votes. Silver's predictions matched the actual results everywhere except in Indiana and the 2nd congressional district of Nebraska, which awards an electoral vote separately from the rest of the state. His projected national popular vote differential was below the actual figure of 7.2 points.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: The forecasts for the Senate proved to be correct for every race, but the near stalemate in Minnesota led to a recount that was settled only on June 30, 2009. In Alaska, after a protracted counting of ballots, on November 19 Republican incumbent Ted Stevens conceded the seat to Democrat Mark Begich, an outcome that Silver had forecast on election day. In Georgia, a run-off election on December 2 led to the re-election of Republican Saxby Chambliss, a result that was also consistent with Silver's original projection.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: During the first two months after the election, no major innovations in content were introduced. A substantial percentage of the articles focused on Senatorial races: the runoff in Georgia, won by Saxby Chambliss; recounts of votes in Alaska (won by Mark Begich), and Minnesota (Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman); and the appointments of Senatorial replacements in Colorado, New York, and Illinois.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: After President Obama's inauguration, Sean Quinn reported that he was moving to Washington, D.C., to continue political writing from that locale. On February 4, 2009, he became the first blogger to join the White House press corps. After that time, however, he contributed only a handful of articles to "FiveThirtyEight".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: During the post-2008 election period Silver devoted attention to developing some tools for the analysis of forthcoming 2010 Congressional elections, as well as discussing policy issues and the policy agenda for the Obama administration, especially economic policies. He developed a list of 2010 Senate races in which he made monthly updates of predicted party turnover.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Later, Silver adapted his methods to address a variety of issues of the day, including health care reform, climate change, unemployment, and popular support for same-sex marriage. He wrote a series of columns investigating the credibility of polls by Georgia-based firm Strategic Vision, LLC. According to Silver's analysis, Strategic Vision's data displayed statistical anomalies that were inconsistent with random polling. Later, he uncovered indirect evidence that Strategic Vision may have gone as far as to fabricate the results of a citizenship survey taken by Oklahoma high school students, which led him to denounce Strategic Vision as "disreputable and fraudulent". "FiveThirtyEight" devoted more than a dozen articles to the Iranian presidential election in June 2009, assessing of the quality of the vote counting. International affairs columnist Renard Sexton began the series with an analysis of polling leading up to the election; then posts by Silver, Andrew Gelman and Sexton analyzed the reported returns and political implications.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" covered the November 3, 2009, elections in the United States in detail. "FiveThirtyEight" writers Schaller, Gelman, and Silver also gave extensive coverage to the January 19, 2010 Massachusetts special election to the U.S. Senate. The ""538" model" once again aggregated the disparate polls to correctly predict that the Republican Scott Brown would win.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In spring of 2010, "FiveThirtyEight" turned a focus on the United Kingdom general election scheduled for May 6, with a series of more than forty articles on the subject that culminated in projections of the number of seats that the three major parties were expected to win. Following a number of preview posts in January and February, Renard Sexton examined subjects such as the UK polling industry and the 'surge' of the third-party Liberal Democrats, while Silver, Sexton and Dan Berman developed a seat projection model. The UK election was the first time the "FiveThirtyEight" team did an election night 'liveblog' of a non-U.S. election.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In April 2010, "The Guardian" published Silver's predictions for the 2010 United Kingdom General Election. The majority of polling organisations in the UK use the concept of uniform swing to predict the outcome of elections. However, by applying his own methodology, Silver produced very different results, which suggested that a Conservative victory might have been the most likely outcome. After a series of articles, including critiques and responses to other electoral analysts, his "final projection" was published on the eve of the election. In the end, Silver's projections were off the mark, particularly compared with those of some other organizations, and Silver wrote a "post mortem" on his blog.<ref group=538 name="FiveThirtyEight-2010/05"></ref> Silver examined the pitfalls of the forecasting process, while Sexton discussed the final government agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On June 6, 2010, "FiveThirtyEight" posted pollster rankings that updated and elaborated Silver's efforts from the 2008 election. Silver expanded the database to more than 4,700 election polls and developed a model for rating the polls that was more sophisticated than his original rankings.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Silver responded on "538": "Where's the transparency? Well, it's here [citing his June 6 article], in an article that contains 4,807 words and 18 footnotes. Every detail of how the pollster ratings are calculated is explained. It's also here [referring to another article], in the form of Pollster Scorecards, a feature which we'll continue to roll out over the coming weeks for each of the major polling firms, and which will explain in some detail how we arrive at the particular rating that we did for each one".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: As for why the complete "538" polling database had not been released publicly, Silver responded: "The principal reason is because I don't know that I'm legally entitled to do so. The polling database was compiled from approximately eight or ten distinct data sources, which were disclosed in a comment which I posted shortly after the pollster ratings were released, and which are detailed again at the end of this article. These include some subscription services, and others from websites that are direct competitors of this one. Although polls contained in these databases are ultimately a matter of the public record and clearly we feel as though we have every right to use them for research purposes, I don't know what rights we might have to re-publish their data in full".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Silver also commented on the fact that the "538" ratings had contributed to Markos Moulitsas's decision to end "Daily Kos" use of Research 2000 as its pollster.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Subsequently, on June 11, Mark Blumenthal also commented on the question of transparency in an article in the "National Journal" titled "Transparency In Rating: Nate Silver's Impressive Ranking Of Pollsters' Accuracy Is Less Impressive In Making Clear What Data Is Used". He noted that in the case of Research 2000 there were some discrepancies between what Silver reported and what the pollster itself reported. Other researchers questioned aspects of the methodology.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On June 16, 2010, Silver announced on his blog that he is willing to give all pollsters who he had included in his rating a list of their polls that he had in his archive, along with the key information that he used (poll marginals, sample size, dates of administration); and he encouraged the pollsters to examine the lists and the results to compare them with the pollster's own record and make corrections.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In September 2014, Silver put into the public domain all of his pollster ratings, as well as descriptive summary data for all of the more than 6,600 polls in his data collection for the final three weeks of U.S. Presidential primaries and general elections, state governor elections, and U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress elections for the years 1998–2012. In addition to updating his pollster ratings, he published an updated methodological report.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On June 3, 2010, "The New York Times" and Silver announced that "FiveThirtyEight" had formed a partnership under which the blog would be hosted by the "Times" for a period of three years. In legal terms, "FiveThirtyEight" granted a "license" to the "Times" to publish the blog. The blog would be listed under the "Politics" tab of the News section of the "Times".<ref name="niemanlab.org/2010/06"></ref> "FiveThirtyEight" would thus be subject to and benefit from editing and technical production by the "Times", while "FiveThirtyEight" would be responsible for creating the content.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Silver received bids from several major media entities before selecting the "Times". Under terms of the agreement, Silver would also write monthly articles for the print version of both the newspaper and the Sunday magazine. Silver did not move his blog to the highest bidder, because he was concerned with maintaining his own voice while gaining the exposure and technical support that a larger media company could provide. "There's a bit of a Groucho Marx quality to it [Silver has said]. ... You shouldn't want to belong to any media brand that seems desperate to have you as a member, even though they'll probably offer the most cash".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: The first column of the renamed "FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus" appeared in the "Times" on August 25, 2010, with the introduction of U.S. Senate election forecasts. At the same time, Silver published a brief history of the blog. All columns from the original "FiveThirtyEight" were also archived for public access.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Shortly after "FiveThirtyEight" relocated to "The New York Times", Silver introduced his prediction models for the 2010 elections to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and state Governorships. Each of these models relied initially on a combination of electoral history, demographics, and polling. The "538" model had forecast a net pickup of 8 seats by the Republicans in the Senate and 55 seats in the House, close to the actual outcome of a pickup of 6 seats in the Senate and 63 seats in the House.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: When the transition to "The New York Times" was announced, Silver listed his staff of writers for the first time. However, of the seven listed writers, only three of them had published on "538"/"New York Times" by late December 2010: Silver, Renard Sexton and Hale Stewart. Andrew Gelman contributed again in early 2011. Brian McCabe published his first article in January 2011.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Beginning in 2011, one writer who emerged as a regular contributor was Micah Cohen. Cohen provided a periodic "Reads and Reactions" column in which he summarized Silver's articles for the previous couple of weeks, as well as reactions to them in the media and other blogs, and suggested some additional readings related to the subject of Silver's columns. Silver identified Cohen as "my news assistant". Cohen also contributed additional columns on occasion.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On September 12, 2011, Silver introduced another writer: "FiveThirtyEight extends a hearty welcome to John Sides, a political scientist at George Washington University, who will be writing a series of posts for this site over the next month. Mr. Sides is also the founder of the blog "The Monkey Cage", which was named the 2010 Blog of the Year by "The Week" magazine".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: While politics and elections remained the main focus of "FiveThirtyEight", the blog also sometimes addressed sports, including the March Madness and the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball tournament selection process, the B.C.S. rankings in NCAA college football, the NBA, and Major League Baseball matters ranging from the 2011 attendance at the New York Mets' Citi Field to the historic 2011 collapse of the Boston Red Sox.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In addition, "FiveThirtyEight" sometimes turned its attention to other topics, such as the economics of blogging, the financial ratings by Standard & Poors, economists' tendency to underpredict unemployment levels, and the economic impact and media coverage of Hurricane Irene (2011).


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" published a graph showing different growth curves of the news stories covering Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street protests. Silver pointed out that conflicts with the police caused the sharpest increases in news coverage of the protests<ref group=538 name="FiveThirtyEight-2011/10/07"></ref> and assessed the geography of the protests by analyzing news reports of the size and location of events across the United States.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" rolled out its 2012 general election forecasting model on June 7, 2012. The model forecast both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, with the latter being central to the exercise and involving a forecast of each state. In the initial forecast, Barack Obama was estimated to have a 61.8% chance of winning the electoral vote. The website provided maps and statistics about the electoral outcomes in each state as well as nationally. Later posts addressed methodological issues such as the "house effects" of different pollsters as well as the validity of telephone surveys that did not call cell phones.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On the morning of November 6, Election Day, Silver's model gave President Obama a 90.9% chance of winning a majority of the electoral votes. The "538" model correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Silver, along with at least two academic-based analysts who aggregated polls from multiple pollsters, thus not only correctly predicted all 50 states, but also all nine "swing states". In contrast, individual pollsters were less successful. For example, Rasmussen Reports "missed on six of its nine swing-state polls".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: An independent analysis of Silver's state-by-state projections, assessing whether the percentages of votes that the candidates actually received fell within the "margin of error" of Silver's forecasts, found that "48 out of 50 states actually fell within his margin of error, giving him a success rate of 96%. And assuming that his projected margin of error figures represent 95 percent confidence intervals, which it is likely they did, Silver performed just about exactly as well as he would expect to over 50 trials. Wizard, indeed". Additional tests of the accuracy of the electoral vote predictions were published by other researchers.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" launched its ESPN-affiliated stage on March 17, 2014. As of July, it had a staff of 20 writers, editors, data visualization specialists, and others. By March 2016, this staff had nearly doubled to 37 listed on the masthead, and 7 listed as contributors. The site produced articles under 5 headings: politics, economics, science and health, (cultural) life, and sports. In addition to feature articles it produced podcasts on a range of subjects.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Monthly traffic to the site grew steadily from about 2.8 million unique visitors in April 2014 to 10.7 million unique visitors in January 2016.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On September 3, 2014, "FiveThirtyEight" introduced its forecasts for each of the 36 U.S. Senate elections being contested that year. At that time, the Republican Party was given a 64 percent chance of holding a majority of the seats in the Senate after the election. However, Silver also remarked, "An equally important theme is the high degree of uncertainty around that outcome. A large number of states remain competitive, and Democrats could easily retain the Senate". About two weeks later, the forecast showed the Republican chances of holding the majority down to 55 percent.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" sought to apply its mathematical models to the Oscars, and produced internal predictions regarding the subject, predicting four out of six categories correctly. The website also compiled a list of other predictions made by other people using different methods.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight" applied two separate models to forecast the 2016 presidential primary elections – "polls-only" and "polls-plus" models. The "polls-only" model relied only on polls from a particular state, while the "polls-plus" model was based on state polls, national polls and endorsements. For each contest, "FiveThirtyEight" produced probability distributions and average expected vote shares according to both models.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: As early as June 2015, "FiveThirtyEight" argued that Donald Trump "isn't a real candidate". When Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2016, "New York Times" media columnist Jim Rutenberg wrote that "predictions can have consequences" and criticized "FiveThirtyEight" for underestimating Trump's chances. He argued that by giving "Mr. Trump a 2 percent chance at the nomination despite strong polls in his favor ... they also arguably sapped the journalistic will to scour his record as aggressively as those of his supposedly more serious rivals".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In a long retrospective, "How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed up on Donald Trump", published in May 2016 after Trump had become the likely nominee, Silver reviewed how he had erred in evaluating Trump's chances early in the primary campaign. Silver wrote, "The big mistake is a curious one for a website that focuses on statistics. Unlike virtually every other forecast we publish at FiveThirtyEight – including the primary and caucus projections I just mentioned – our early estimates of Trump's chances weren't based on a statistical model. Instead, they were what we [call] 'subjective odds' – which is to say, educated guesses. In other words, we were basically acting like pundits, but attaching numbers to our estimates. And we succumbed to some of the same biases that pundits often suffer, such as not changing our minds quickly enough in the face of new evidence. Without a model as a fortification, we found ourselves rambling around the countryside like all the other pundit-barbarians, randomly setting fire to things".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: On the Democratic side, "FiveThirtyEight" argued that Senator Bernie Sanders could "lose everywhere else after Iowa and New Hampshire" and that the "Democratic establishment would rush in to squash" him if he does not. Sanders went on to win 23 states in the primaries.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting", a progressive nonprofit media watch group, wrote in May 2016 that "FiveThirtyEight" "sacrificed its integrity to go after Sanders" and that they have "at times gone beyond the realm of punditry into the realm of hackery – that is, not just treating their own opinions as though they were objective data, but spinning the data so that it conforms to their opinions."


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: "FiveThirtyEight"s predictions for each state primary, both for the Republican and the Democratic party nominations, were based on statistical analysis, not on the analyst's opinions. The core data employed were polls, which "FiveThirtyEight" aggregated for each state (while also considering national polls) using essentially the same method it had employed since 2008. In the 2016 primaries, the projections also took into account endorsements. The website also kept track of the accumulation of national party convention delegates. In a comparison of prediction success published by Bloomberg News after the primary season was completed, "FiveThirtyEight" prediction success tied for the highest percentage of correct primary poll winners, at 92%; but it lagged behind PredictWise in predicting a larger set of primaries. Notably, even with "FiveThirtyEight" track record of correctly predicting elections that pollsters get wrong, it still missed Bernie Sanders's upset victory in the Michigan primary, for instance, regarded as "one of the biggest upsets in modern political history".


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: The final prediction by "FiveThirtyEight" on the morning of election day (November 8, 2016) had Hillary Clinton with a 71% chance to win the 2016 United States presidential election, while other major forecasters had predicted Clinton to win with at least an 85% to 99% probability. "FiveThirtyEight"s model pointed to the possibility of an Electoral College-popular vote split widening in final weeks based on both Clinton's small lead in general polls, but also on Trump's improvement in swing states like Florida or Pennsylvania, mixed with Clinton's poor performing in several of those swing states in comparison with Obama's performance in 2012. The main issues pointed out by the forecast model was the imbalance of Clinton's improvement in very populated states like Texas, Georgia (projected safe for Republican) and California (projected safe for Democrats); mixed with her inability to attract white voters without a college degree, an increasing demographic in swing states, in addition to a potential decline in turnout from minorities. In consequence, Clinton's probabilities to win the Electoral College were not improving. Silver also focused on state-by-state numbers in so-called 'must-win' states like Ohio and Florida, plus a consideration of polls' margin of error in advantages of less than three points.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Donald Trump won the election. "FiveThirtyEight" projected a much higher probability of Donald Trump winning the presidency than other pollsters, a projection which was criticized by Ryan Grim of "the Huffington Post" as "unskewing" too much in favor of Trump. While "FiveThirtyEight" expressed that "nonetheless, Clinton is probably going to win, and she could win by a big margin", the forecaster also made points about the uncertainty of poll trackers in some cases, the considerable number of undecided voters, and the unpredictable outcome in traditional swing states.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: In early August 2020, "FiveThirtyEight" announced that for their 2020 general election forecast they had designed a new graphical structure. This included going with modular structure, a "ball swarm" design for the chart depicting each candidate's chances, and the addition of a "forecast mascot" named Fivey Fox. An episode of "Chart Chat" discussing the design described the direction saying "FiveThirtyEight has leaned heavily towards a cutesy and engaging approach. The Fivey Fox mascot pops up next to most charts with call-outs to more further information."


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Fivey Fox would also issue reminders to readers of "the potential for extreme outcomes" according to Jessica Hullman, in a piece written for "The Hill". Hullman also said of the design that the introduction of the mascot, in conjunction with the new simplified look of the page, was "perhaps the strongest indicator that Silver intends to emphasize uncertainty" in his coverage of the 2020 election.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Jasmine Mithani, visual journalist with "FiveThirtyEight", said in an interview when asked about the complaints of new mascot said "I think the biggest complaint about Fivey Fox is that some people find it infantilizing, but that wasn't our intention" and that the motivation for including the character was to help make the forecast more of "a teaching tool". In November 2020, "Rolling Stone" reported that Fivey Fox had reached over 7,000 followers on his dedicated Twitter account.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: The forecast favored the actual winner of 48 states, the District of Columbia, and four of the five congressional districts awarding electoral votes, only missing Florida, North Carolina, and Maine's 2nd congressional district. In those three contests the forecast had favored Biden, but they were carried by Trump. Despite correctly forecasting Biden to win nationally, they overestimated Biden's margins in some battleground states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and underestimated Trump's margins in states such as Ohio, Iowa and Texas. Their forecast showed Democrats winning Senate races in North Carolina and Maine, which Republicans ended up winning. However, their forecast did correctly predict that the Democrats would take control of the Senate. In the House elections, their forecast favored Democrats to gain seats, yet Democrats suffered a net loss of 10 seats. The actual house results fell outside their 80% confidence interval, with Democrats winning 222 seats, lower than the confidence interval's lower bound of 225.


title: FiveThirtyEight

text: Fivey Fox is the mascot of "FiveThirtyEight". This is in reference to a phrase attributed to Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing". The name "Fivey" is a reference to the website's name, "FiveThirtyEight". Fivey Fox is colored orange, white and beige with comically sized black glasses and has white colored sock-like paws.


title: Unicron

text: Unicron is a fictional villain from the "Transformers" media franchise. Designed by Floro Dery, he was introduced in the 1986 animated film "" and has since reappeared in "", "", "", "", "" and Atari's 2004 "Transformers" video game. Unicron is a prodigiously large robot whose scale reaches planetary proportions, and he is also able to transform into a giant planet. Unicron's origin has expanded over the years from simply being a large robot to being a god of chaos who devours realities. He often employs the help of Decepticons in his work, and in some stories is considered part of the origin of the Decepticon forces.


title: Unicron

text: According to the Transformers lore, before the dawn of time, Order and Chaos exist within an extra-dimensional entity known as The One. To explore the fledgling universe, he creates the astral being known as Unicron, and then subdivides him, creating his twin, Primus.


title: Unicron

text: Unicron's size is never specified in any canon materials, aside from the vague term "planet size". In "The Transformers: The Movie", Unicron's height appears to be anywhere from several kilometers (as when handling Galvatron) to several hundred kilometers (as when attacking and destroying Lithone and Cybertron's moons, and attacking Cybertron). A planet-mode diameter of has been suggested and robot-mode dimensions can follow from that estimate, provided that there is no change in size (compression or expansion) common among so many Transformers. One scene in the movie shows Jazz driving out of one of Unicron's eyes, just small enough to fit through them, though in another scene the Quintesson ship Hot Rod arrived in is tiny compared with the eye. Unicron is also small enough to stand on Cybertron's surface.


title: Unicron

text: The character Unicron first appears in the opening scene of 1986's "", immediately making clear his goal by consuming the small world of Lithone. Subsequently, when the Decepticons Megatron, Skywarp, Thundercracker, and the Insecticons are set adrift in space and left to die following a furious battle with the Autobots, Unicron appears before them and offers Megatron a deal: in exchange for a new body, and new troops, Megatron will destroy the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, the only thing that can stand in Unicron's way. Thus, Unicron rebuilds Megatron into a new and more powerful body and rechristens him to Galvatron. He then uses the battered bodies of the other Decepticons and creates Scourge, the Sweeps and Cyclonus. Unicron also gives Galvatron a vessel, and Galvatron begins to carry out his assigned task, although he is loath to do so. When Galvatron shows any signs of opposition to Unicron's will, Unicron inflicts agonizing torture in his mind to coerce him into obedience.


title: Unicron

text: Following Unicron's consumption of Cybertron's two moons, Galvatron obtains the Matrix from Ultra Magnus, believing he can use it to bring Unicron under his control. Attempting to open the Matrix to intimidate Unicron, Galvatron only prompts his transformation into robot mode and is swallowed by the planet-eater. Unicron lays waste to Cybertron, halted briefly when the young Autobot rookie, Hot Rod, crashes a Quintesson spacecraft through his eye. Finding Hot Rod inside Unicron's body, Galvatron suggests an alliance against their common enemy. However, Unicron inflicts his mental torture upon Galvatron, forcing him to fight Hot Rod. Hot Rod seizes the Matrix from Galvatron during the fight and becomes Rodimus Prime. Rodimus throws Galvatron into space, freeing him from Unicron's mind-control. Rodimus opens the Matrix within Unicron, destroying his body, leaving only his head, which becomes a moon of Cybertron.


title: Unicron

text: The third season of "The Transformers" animated series continues Unicron's story where the movie left off, as the planet-eater's deactivated head settles into orbit around Cybertron. His head is visited by Cyclonus, who accesses the memory bank to discern the fate of Galvatron. Later, the ghost of the deceased Decepticon Starscream reactivates Unicron's head and enters into a bargain with him, performing three labors in exchange for the restoration of his body. Starscream (inhabiting and controlling Scourge's body) gathers for Unicron Metroplex's eyes (breaking one and replacing it with one from Trypticon) and Trypticon's transformation cog. He begins to connect his head to Cybertron, which would become Unicron's new body. Starscream demands that Unicron restore his own body so that he can complete the required connections. Once Unicron does so, Starscream double-crosses him and refuses to finish the job. Unicron's head is subsequently blown off into space by an explosion instigated by the Autobots.


title: Unicron

text: Later, when searching for a new supply of positrons (anti-electrons), the Decepticons venture to Unicron's head, where Cyclonus and Scourge accidentally awake the slumbering demi-god. At the same time, Grimlock constructs the Technobots from pieces of Unicron's head, and one of their number, Strafe, severs enough of Unicron's neural connections to shut him back down.


title: Unicron

text: Although Unicron himself does not appear again, his origin in the animated series is later revealed. Unicron was created near the beginning of the universe by the diminutive genius known as Primacron, who intended for him to devour all life in the universe, leaving a blank slate that Primacron could use as he saw fit. However, Unicron turned upon Primacron, deciding that "he" would rule the universe and subsequently set out to achieve that goal.


title: Unicron

text: In the "" storyline, Unicron (voiced by John Noble) is the source of Dark Energon, a poisonous and corruptive form of Energon with the ability to revive the dead - albeit in a mindless, zombie-like "Terrorcon" state - also known by the name "the blood of Unicron". Unicron is believed to represent the Anti-Spark (most likely a counterpart of the AllSpark).


title: Unicron

text: When Unicron attacks Cybertron in the midst of the chaos caused by a Mini-Con civil war, Sentinel Maximus and Omega Prime fight him off with the help of their allies. In the end Unicron is driven off, badly wounded, by Primus.


title: Unicron

text: In conjunction with the Unite Warriors line, Takara Tomy released a comic detailing how the Galvatronus combiner came to be. Following his defeat at the conclusion of "The Headmasters", Galvatron's icy tomb is discovered by Cyclonus, whose body Galvatron modifies to accommodate his own head in the chest compartment. Seeking a more fitting form, Galvatron directs Cyclonus to approach the disembodied head of Unicron, who is convinced to help Galvatron attain a combiner form with Cyclonus as its core. To accomplish this, Unicron opens dimensional rifts in order to bring Curse Armada Thrust, Zombie War Breakdown, and Wandering Roller into their world. To Cyclonus' surprise, Starscream makes an appearance, expressing interest in joining this new alliance. Unicron grants Starscream a new physical form, and Galvatron's head takes control of his new minions to take on his new form of Galvatronus.


title: Unicron

text: Debuting in "", the six horns of Unicron began appearing out of the Earth in response to the approach of Cybertron. Unicron is noted by Quintessa to be another name for Earth, and Optimus Prime recognizes Unicron as Cybertron's ancient enemy. Quintessa plans to drain Unicron's energy to restore the damaged Cybertron, killing life on Earth in the process. Simmons later helps Burton locate an ancient book containing details about Unicron, noting that the center-point of Unicron's horns (during the era when all of the Earth's continents formed Pangaea) is Stonehenge. Megatron and Quintessa begin draining energy from Unicron but are foiled, and later Quintessa (disguised as a human) approaches a scientist studying one of Unicron's horns to warn him not to touch the chaos-bringer and offers a way to kill him.


title: Unicron

text: Unicron is among the characters appearing in the 2004 "Transformers" video game for the PlayStation 2. Unicron begins attacking Cybertron, requiring the Autobots to collect enough Mini-cons to create a power-up mode for Optimus Prime. The player must chase Unicron as he orbits around Cybertron and enters his maw as he prepares to fire, blasting him with the Matrix Cannon until eventually Unicron is destroyed.


title: Unicron

text: Unicron is mentioned a number of times in "". Eons ago, Unicron created Thunderwing to serve him and destroy the Matrix of Leadership. After Unicron's demise, a meteor of Dark Energon with Thunderwing sealed within crashes on Earth. Optimus Prime comes across the meteor and finds Thunderwing who reveals that he is a minion of Unicron and his mission was to destroy the Matrix. Thunderwing seeks help from the Decepticons for the repairs needed. He fails thanks to the combined efforts of Prime and Jack Darby and falls into a volcano.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The People's Republic of China has developed and possesses weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear weapons. The first of China's nuclear weapons tests took place in 1964, and its first hydrogen bomb test occurred in 1967. Tests continued until 1996, when China signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). China has acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984 and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The number of nuclear warheads in China's arsenal is a state secret. There are varying estimates of the size of China's arsenal. China was estimated by the Federation of American Scientists to have an arsenal of about 260 total warheads as of 2015, the fourth largest nuclear arsenal amongst the five nuclear weapon states acknowledged by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and one of 320 total warheads by the "SIPRI Yearbook 2020", the third largest. According to some estimates by US intelligence community, the country could "more than double" the "number of warheads on missiles that could threaten the United States by the mid-2020s".


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Early in 2011, China published a defense white paper, which repeated its nuclear policies of maintaining a minimum deterrent with a no-first-use pledge. China has yet to define what it means by a "minimum deterrent posture". This is together with the fact that "it is deploying four new nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, invites concern as to the scale and intention of China’s nuclear upgrade".


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The People's Republic of China signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on January 13, 1993, and ratified it on April 25, 1997.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China was found to have supplied Albania with a small stockpile of chemical weapons in the 1970s during the Cold War.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China is currently a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention and Chinese officials have stated that China has never engaged in biological activities with offensive military applications. However, China was reported to have had an active biological weapons program in the 1980s.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Kanatjan Alibekov, former director of one of the Soviet germ-warfare programs, said that China suffered a serious accident at one of its biological weapons plants in the late 1980s. Alibekov asserted that Soviet reconnaissance satellites identified a biological weapons laboratory and plant near a site for testing nuclear warheads. The Soviets suspected that two separate epidemics of hemorrhagic fever that swept the region in the late 1980s were caused by an accident in a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed her concerns over possible Chinese biological weapon transfers to Iran and other nations in a letter to Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) in January 1997. Albright stated that she had received reports regarding transfers of dual-use items from Chinese entities to the Iranian government which concerned her and that the United States had to encourage China to adopt comprehensive export controls to prevent assistance to Iran's alleged biological weapons program. The United States acted upon the allegations on January 16, 2002, when it imposed sanctions on three Chinese firms accused of supplying Iran with materials used in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons. In response to this, China issued export control protocols on dual use biological technology in late 2002.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: A biological program in China was described in a 2015 detailed study by the Indian Ministry of Defence funded Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. It pointed to 42 facilities, some in the same compound, that had the capacity, possibly latently, of research, development, production or testing of biological weapons.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: According to Nuclear Threat Initiative, no evidence of the program's existence has been officially released.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Mao Zedong decided to begin a Chinese nuclear-weapons program during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–1955 over the Quemoy and Matsu Islands. While he did not expect to be able to match the large American nuclear arsenal, Mao believed that even a few bombs would increase China's diplomatic credibility. As a result of the Anti-Party Group incident in Soviet Union, Khrushchev's position within the international communist bloc became insecure for a time, thus necessitating the support of Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong. The CCP thus traded its support for Khrushchev for Soviet technology of nuclear weapons. The Agreement on New Technology for National Defence was later signed in October, which promised Soviet support for Chinese development of nuclear weapons.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Construction of uranium-enrichment plants in Baotou and Lanzhou began in 1958, and a plutonium facility in Jiuquan and the Lop Nur nuclear test site by 1960. The Soviet Union provided assistance in the early Chinese program by sending advisers to help in the facilities devoted to fissile material production and, in October 1957, agreed to provide a prototype bomb, missiles, and related technology. The Chinese, who preferred to import technology and components to developing them within China, exported uranium to the Soviet Union, and the Soviets sent two R-2 missiles in 1958.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: That year, however, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev told Mao that he planned to discuss arms control with the United States and Britain. China was already opposed to Khrushchev's post-Stalin policy of "peaceful coexistence". Although Soviet officials assured China that it was under the Soviet nuclear umbrella, the disagreements widened the emerging Sino-Soviet split. In June 1959, the two nations formally ended their agreement on military and technology cooperation, and in July 1960, all Soviet assistance with the Chinese nuclear program was abruptly terminated and all Soviet technicians were withdrawn from the program.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: According to Arms Control and Disarmament Agency director William Foster, the American government, under Kennedy and Johnson administration, was concerned about the program and studied ways to sabotage or attack it, perhaps with the aid of Taiwan or the Soviet Union, but Khrushchev was not interested. The Chinese conducted their first nuclear test, code-named 596, on 16 October 1964, China's last nuclear test was on July 29, 1996. According to the Australian Geological Survey Organisation in Canberra, the yield of the 1996 test was 1-5 kilotons of TNT. This was China's 22nd underground test and 45th test overall.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China has made significant improvements in its miniaturization techniques since the 1980s. There have been accusations, notably by the Cox Commission, that this was done primarily by covertly acquiring the U.S.'s W88 nuclear warhead design as well as guided ballistic missile technology. Chinese scientists have stated that they have made advances in these areas, but insist that these advances were made without espionage.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The international community has debated the size of the Chinese nuclear force since the nation first acquired such technology. Because of strict secrecy it is very difficult to determine the exact size and composition of China's nuclear forces. Estimates vary over time. Several declassified U.S. government reports give historical estimates. The 1984 Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Estimative Brief estimates the Chinese nuclear stockpile as consisting of between 150 and 160 warheads. A 1993 United States National Security Council report estimated that China's nuclear deterrent force relied on 60 to 70 nuclear armed ballistic missiles. The Defense Intelligence Agency's "The Decades Ahead: 1999 – 2020" report estimates the 1999 Nuclear Weapons' Inventory as between 140 and 157. In 2004 the U.S. Department of Defense assessed that China had about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of targeting the United States. In 2006 a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimate presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee was that "China currently has more than 100 nuclear warheads."


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: A variety of estimates abound regarding China's current stockpile. Although the total number of nuclear weapons in the Chinese arsenal is unknown, estimates vary from as low as 80 to as high as 2,000. The 2,000-warhead estimate has largely been rejected by diplomats in the field. It appears to have been derived from a 1990s-era Usenet post, in which a Singaporean college student made unsubstantiated statements concerning a supposed 2,000-warhead stockpile.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: In 2004, China stated that "among the nuclear-weapon states, China ... possesses the smallest nuclear arsenal," implying China has fewer than the United Kingdom's 200 nuclear weapons. Several non-official sources estimate that China has around 400 nuclear warheads. However, U.S. intelligence estimates suggest a much smaller nuclear force than many non-governmental organizations.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: In 2011, high estimates of the Chinese nuclear arsenal again emerged. One three-year study by Georgetown University raised the possibility that China had 3,000 nuclear weapons, hidden in a sophisticated tunnel network. The study was based on state media footage showing tunnel entrances, and estimated a 4,800 km (3,000 mile) network. The tunnel network was revealed after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake collapsed tunnels in the hills. China has confirmed the existence of the tunnel network. In response, the US military was ordered by law to study the possibility of this tunnel network concealing a nuclear arsenal. However, the tunnel theory has come under substantial attack due to several apparent flaws in its reasoning. From a production standpoint, China probably does not have enough fissile material to produce 3,000 nuclear weapons. Such an arsenal would require 9–12 tons of plutonium as well as 45–75 tons of enriched uranium and a substantial amount of tritium. The Chinese are estimated to have only 2 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, which limits their arsenal to 450–600 weapons, despite a 18-ton disposable supply of uranium, theoretically enough for 1,000 warheads.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: In 2012, STRATCOM commander C. Robert Kehler said that the best estimates were "in the range of several hundred" warheads and FAS estimated the total to be "approximately 240 warheads".


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The U.S. Department of Defense 2013 report to Congress on China's military developments stated that the Chinese nuclear arsenal consists of 50–75 ICBMs, located in both land-based silos and Ballistic missile submarine platforms. In addition to the ICBMs, the report stated that China has approximately 1,100 short-range ballistic missiles, although it does not have the warhead capacity to equip them all with nuclear weapons.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China is one of the five nuclear weapons states (NWS) recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which China ratified in 1992. China is the only NWS to give an unqualified security assurance to non-nuclear-weapon states:


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Chinese public policy has always been one of the "no first use rule" while maintaining a deterrent retaliatory force targeted for countervalue targets.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: In 2005, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a white paper stating that the government "would not be the first to use [nuclear] weapons at any time and in any circumstance". In addition, the paper went on to state that this "no first use" policy would remain unchanged in the future and that China would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China normally stores nuclear warheads separately from their launching systems, unless there is a heightened threat level.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China, along with all other nuclear weapon states and all members of NATO with the exception of the Netherlands, decided not to sign the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a binding agreement for negotiations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China refused to join talks in 2020 between the U.S. and Russia on extending their bilateral New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, as the Trump administration requested. China's position is that as its nuclear warhead arsenal is a small fraction of the U.S. and Russia arsenals, their inclusion in an arms reduction treaty is unnecessary.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Historically, China has been implicated in the development of the Pakistani nuclear program before China ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992. In the early 1980s, China is believed to have given Pakistan a "package" including uranium enrichment technology, high-enriched uranium, and the design for a compact nuclear weapon. China also received stolen technology that Abdul Qadeer Khan brought back to Pakistan and Pakistan set up a centrifuge plant in China as revealed in his letters which state "(1)You know we had cooperation with China for 15 years. We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km south-west of Xi'an). We sent 135 C-130 plane loads of machines, inverters, valves, flow meters, pressure gauges. Our teams stayed there for weeks to help and their teams stayed here for weeks at a time. Late minister Liu We, V. M. [vice minister] Li Chew, Vice Minister Jiang Shengjie used to visit us. (2)The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50 kg enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%). Chinese helped PAEC [Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the rival organisation to the Khan Research Laboratories] in setting up UF6 plant, production reactor for plutonium and reprocessing plant."


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The rapid growth of China's nuclear power has raised concerns in many countries, especially its neighboring countries. These nations believed that asking China to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was the only way to stop its nuclear development. However, it was not until the 1980s that China had changed its attitude toward developing nuclear powers. Before the 1980s, the Chinese government strongly opposed joining the NPT, thinking that it was imbalanced. The Chinese government believed that the Treaty “[served] the interests of some States” and only favored the countries that already had nuclear weapons. Additionally, the Chinese government thought this Treaty was discriminatory since many countries were attempting to restrict and deprive nuclear weapons of a country that had only just tested them successfully, rather than countries like the U.S. or U.S.S.R., which have at least 100 times more nuclear weapons. Therefore, China chose not to join the NPT at this time.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Beginning in the 1980s, China's policy and attitude toward nuclear weapons and the NPT had changed under the administration of Deng Xiaoping. Though China continued developing more advanced nuclear technology and weapons, by the 1980s, the country had indicated that it intended on accepting the terms of the NPT. Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang provided Washington with verbal assurances that China did not advocate or encourage nuclear proliferation and that all of their nuclear tests going forward were only for improving safety features on existing warheads. In 1990, though it was not a member of the NPT, China still attended the fourth NPT review conference. While it criticized the Treaty for not banning the deployment of nuclear weapons outside national territories and for not including concrete provisions for general nuclear disarmament, China had also stated that the Treaty had a positive impact and contributed to the maintenance of world peace and stability. In August 1991, shortly after France acceded to the NPT, China also declared its intention to join, though it again expressed its reservations about the Treaty's discriminatory nature. China formally acceded to the NPT in March 1992 as a nuclear weapons state and pledged for a “No-First-Use Policy" to show its commitments to sustain the regional and international security and maintain the stability between China and other countries.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The following are estimates of China's strategic missile forces from the International Institute of Strategic Studies "Military Balance 2010". According to these estimates, China has up to 90 inter-continental range ballistic missiles (66 land-based ICBMs and 24 submarine-based JL-2 SLBMs), not counting MIRV warheads.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The following are estimates from the United States Department of Defense 2010 report to Congress concerning the "Military Power of the People's Republic of China"


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The following table is an overview of PRC nuclear forces taken from a November 2006 report by Hans M. Kristensen, Robert S. Norris, and Matthew G. McKinzie of the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council titled "Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning".


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: After increasing during the Bush administration, the number of Chinese nuclear armed missiles capable of reaching North America leveled off during the Obama administration with delays in bringing forth new capabilities such as MIRV and operational sub launched missiles. The U.S. DOD 2013 report to Congress continued to state that China had 50–75 ICBMs. However the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated that it was possible for China to finally have an operational Submarine-launched ballistic missile capability by the end of the year. The US–China Economic and Security Review Commission stated in November 2014 that patrols with nuclear-armed submarines would take place before the end of the year, "giving China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent".


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The Dongfeng 5A is a single-warhead, three-stage, liquid-fueled missile with a range of 13,000+ km. In 2000, General Eugene Habiger of the U.S. Air Force, then-commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, testified before Congress that China has 18 silo-based DF-5s. Since the early 21st century, the Second Artillery Corps have also deployed up to 10 Solid-fueled mobile DF-31 ICBMs, with a range of 7,200+ km and possibly up to 3 MIRVs. China has also developed the DF-31A, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 11,200+ km with possibly 3–6 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capability.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China stores many of its missiles in huge tunnel complexes; US Representative Michael Turner referring to 2009 Chinese media reports said "This network of tunnels could be in excess of 5,000 kilometers (3,110 miles), and is used to transport nuclear weapons and forces," the Chinese Army newsletter calls this tunnel system an underground Great Wall of China.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: Approximately 55% of China's missiles are in the medium-range category, targeted at regional theater targets.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The CJ-10 long-range cruise missile made its first public appearance in 2009 during a military parade on the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China as a part of the Second Artillery Corps' long-range conventional missile forces; the CJ-10 represents the next generation in rocket weapons technology in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). A similar naval cruise missile, the YJ-62, was also revealed during the parade; the YJ-62 serves as the PLA Navy's latest development into naval rocketry.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China "keeps most of its warheads at a central storage facility in the Qinling mountain range, though some are kept at smaller regional storage facilities."


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The Dong Feng 4 or DF-4 (also known as the CSS-3) is a long-range two-stage Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missile with liquid fuel (nitric acid/UDMH). It was thought to be deployed in limited numbers in underground silos beginning in 1980. The DF-4 has a takeoff thrust of 1,224.00 kN, a takeoff weight of 82,000 kg, a diameter of 2.25 m, a length of 28.05 m, and a fin span of 2.74 m. It is equipped with a 2,190 kg nuclear warhead with 3,300 kt explosive yield, and its range is 5,500 km. The missile uses inertial guidance, resulting in a relatively poor CEP of 1,500 meters.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The Dongfeng 5 or DF-5 is a 3-stage Chinese ICBM. It has a length 32.6 m and a diameter of 3.35 m. It weighs 183 tonnes and has an estimated range of 12,000–15,000 kilometers. The DF-5 had its first flight in 1971 and was in operational service 10 years later. One of the downsides of the missile was that it took between 30 and 60 minutes to fuel.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The Dong Feng 31 (or CSS-10) is a medium-range, three stage, solid propellant intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the People's Republic of China. It is a land-based variant of the submarine-launched JL-2.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The DF-41 (or CSS-X-10) is an intercontinental ballistic missile believed to be operational. It is designed to carry Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV), delivering multiple nuclear warheads.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The US DoD estimated in 2006 that the PRC was developing ground- and air-launched cruise missiles that could easily be converted to carry nuclear warheads once developed.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The DongHai 10 (DH-10) is a cruise missile developed in the People's Republic of China. According to Jane's Defence Weekly, the DH-10 is a second-generation land-attack cruise missile (LACM), with over 4,000 km range, integrated inertial navigation system, GPS, terrain contour mapping system, and digital scene-matching terminal-homing system. The missile is estimated to have a circular error probable (CEP) of 10 meters.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The ChangJian-10 (Long Sword 10) is a cruise missile developed by China, based on the Hongniao missile family. It has a range of 2,200 km. Although not confirmed, it is suspected that the CJ-10 could carry nuclear warheads. An air-launched variant (named CJ-20) has also been developed.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: There are three missiles in this family: the HN-1, HN-2, and HN-3. Reportedly based on the Kh-SD/65 missiles, the Hongniao (or Red Bird) missiles are some of the first nuclear-capable cruise missiles in China. The HN-1 has a range of 600 km, the HN-2 has a range of 1,800 km, and the HN-3 has a range of 3,000 km.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: There are 2 missiles in the Chang Feng (or Long Wind) family: CF-1 and CF-2. These are the first domestically developed long-range cruise missiles for China. The CF-1 has a range of 400 km while the CF-2 has a range of 800 km. Both variants can carry a 10 kt nuclear warhead.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) stockpile of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is thought to be relatively new. China launched its first second-generation nuclear submarine in April 1981. The navy currently has a 1 Type 092 "Xia" class SSBN at roughly 8000 tons displacement. A second Type 092 was reportedly lost in an accident in 1985. The Type 092 is equipped with 12 JL-1 SLBMs with a range of 2150–2500 km. The JL-1 is a modified DF-21 missile. It is suspected that the Type 092 is being converted into a cruise missile submarine.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: The Chinese navy has developed Type 094 ballistic missile submarine, open source satellite imagery has shown that at least 2 of these have been completed. This submarine will be capable of carrying 12 of the longer ranged, more modern JL-2s with a range of approximately 14000 km.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China is also developing the Type 096 submarine, claimed to be able to carry up to 24 JL-3 ballistic missiles each. Some Chinese sources state that the submarine is already undergoing trials.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China's bomber force consists mostly of Chinese-made versions of Soviet aircraft. The People's Liberation Army Air Force has 120 H-6s (a variant of the Tupolev Tu-16). These bombers are outfitted to carry nuclear as well as conventional weapons. While the H-6 fleet is aging, it is not as old as the American B-52 Stratofortress. The Chinese have also produced the Xian JH-7 "Flying Leopard" fighter-bomber with a range and payload exceeding the F-111 (currently about 80 are in service) capable of delivering a nuclear strike. China has also bought the advanced Sukhoi Su-30 from Russia; currently, about 100 Su-30s (MKK and MK2 variants) have been purchased by China. The Su-30 is capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: China is alleged to be testing rumored new H-8 and Xian H-20 strategic bombers which are either described as an upgraded H-6 or an aircraft in the same class as the US B-2, able to carry nuclear weapons.


title: China and weapons of mass destruction

text: See Edouard Valensi, China's Winning Nuclear Strategy: To Blind the American Tiger, Twelve Tables Publishers, 2022.


title: Father

text: A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive father is a male who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption. A biological father is the male genetic contributor to the creation of the infant, through sexual intercourse or sperm donation. A biological father may have legal obligations to a child not raised by him, such as an obligation of monetary support. A putative father is a man whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepfather is a male who is the husband of a child's mother and they may form a family unit, but who generally does not have the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child.


title: Father

text: The adjective "paternal" refers to a father and comparatively to "maternal" for a mother. The verb "to father" means to procreate or to sire a child from which also derives the noun "fathering". Biological fathers determine the sex of their child through a sperm cell which either contains an X chromosome (female), or Y chromosome (male). Related terms of endearment are "dad" ("dada", "daddy"), "baba, papa", "pappa", papasita, ("pa", "pap") and "pop". A male role model that children can look up to is sometimes referred to as a "father-figure".


title: Father

text: The paternity rights of a father with regard to his children differ widely from country to country often reflecting the level of involvement and roles expected by that society.


title: Father

text: Parental leave is when a father takes time off to support his newly born or adopted baby. Paid paternity leave first began in Sweden in 1976, and is paid in more than half of European Union countries. In the case of male same-sex couples the law often makes no provision for either one or both fathers to take paternity leave.


title: Father

text: Fathers' rights movements such as Fathers 4 Justice argue that family courts are biased against fathers.


title: Father

text: Child support is an ongoing periodic payment made by one parent to the other; it is normally paid by the parent who does not have custody.


title: Father

text: An estimated 2% of British fathers experiences paternity fraud during a non-paternity event, bringing up a child they wrongly believe to be their biological offspring.


title: Father

text: In almost all cultures fathers are regarded as secondary caregivers. This perception is slowly changing with more and more fathers becoming primary caregivers, while mothers go to work, or in single parenting situations and male same-sex parenting couples.


title: Father

text: In the West, the image of the married father as the primary wage-earner is changing. The social context of fatherhood plays an important part in the well-being of men and their children. In the United States 16% of single parents were men as of 2013.


title: Father

text: Involved fathers offer developmentally specific provisions to their children and are impacted themselves by doing so. Active father figures may play a role in reducing behavior and psychological problems in young adults. An increased amount of father–child involvement may help increase a child's social stability, educational achievement, and their potential to have a solid marriage as an adult. Their children may also be more curious about the world around them and develop greater problem solving skills. Children who were raised with fathers perceive themselves to be more cognitively and physically competent than their peers without a father. Mothers raising children together with a father reported less severe disputes with their child.


title: Father

text: The father-figure is not always a child's biological father and some children will have a biological father as well as a step- or nurturing father. When a child is conceived through sperm donation, the donor will be the "biological father" of the child.


title: Father

text: Fatherhood as legitimate identity can be dependent on domestic factors and behaviors. For example, a study of the relationship between fathers, their sons, and home computers found that the construction of fatherhood and masculinity required that fathers display computer expertise.


title: Father

text: Roman law defined fatherhood as "Mater semper certa; pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant" ("The [identity of the] mother is always certain; the father is whom the marriage vows indicate"). The recent emergence of accurate scientific testing, particularly DNA testing, has resulted in the family law relating to fatherhood experiencing rapid changes.


title: Father

text: Many male animals do not participate in the rearing of their young. The development of human men as creatures which are involved in their offspring's upbringing took place during the stone age.


title: Father

text: In medieval and most of modern European history, caring for children was predominantly the domain of mothers, whereas fathers in many societies provide for the family as a whole. Since the 1950s, social scientists and feminists have increasingly challenged gender roles in Western countries, including that of the male breadwinner. Policies are increasingly targeting fatherhood as a tool of changing gender relations. Research from various societies suggest that since the middle of the 20th century fathers have become increasingly involved in the care of their children.


title: Father

text: Many species, though, display little or no paternal role in caring for offspring. The male leaves the female soon after mating and long before any offspring are born. It is the females who must do all the work of caring for the young.


title: Burgundy wine

text: Burgundy wine ( or "") is made in the Burgundy region of eastern France, in the valleys and slopes west of the Saône, a tributary of the Rhône. The most famous wines produced here, and those commonly referred to as "Burgundies," are dry red wines made from pinot noir grapes and white wines made from chardonnay grapes.


title: Burgundy wine

text: Red and white wines are also made from other grape varieties, such as gamay and aligoté, respectively. Small amounts of rosé and sparkling wines are also produced in the region. Chardonnay-dominated Chablis and gamay-dominated Beaujolais are recognised as part of the Burgundy wine region, but wines from those subregions are usually referred to by their own names rather than as "Burgundy wines".


title: Burgundy wine

text: Burgundy has a higher number of ' (AOCs) than any other French region, and is often seen as the most '-conscious of the French wine regions. The various Burgundy AOCs are classified from carefully delineated ' vineyards down to more non-specific regional appellations. The practice of delineating vineyards by their ' in Burgundy goes back to medieval times, when various monasteries played a key role in developing the Burgundy wine industry. The historical importance of the Burgundy wine region and its unique "climats" system led to sites in the region being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Climats, terroirs of Burgundy site.


title: Burgundy wine

text: The Burgundy region runs from Auxerre in the north to Mâcon in the south, or to Lyon if the Beaujolais area is included as part of Burgundy. Chablis, a white wine made from Chardonnay grapes, is produced in the area around Auxerre. Other smaller appellations near Chablis include Irancy, which produces red wines and Saint-Bris, which produces white wines from Sauvignon blanc.