title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Technological advances proceeded in a range of areas. Watermills to grind grain had existed during most of the Anglo-Saxon period, using horizontal mill designs; from the 12th century on many more were built, eliminating the use of hand mills, with the older horizontal mills gradually supplanted by a new vertical mill design. Windmills began to be built in the late 12th century and slowly became more common. Water-powered fulling mills and powered hammers first appeared in the 12th century; water power was harnessed to assist in smelting by the 14th century, with the first blast furnace opening in 1496. New mining methods were developed and horse-powered pumps were installed in English mines by the end of the Middle Ages. The introduction of hopped beer transformed the brewing industry in the 14th century, and new techniques were invented to better preserve fish. Glazed pottery became widespread in the 12th and 13th centuries, with stoneware pots largely replacing wooden plates and bowls by the 15th century. William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde began using the printing press during the late 15th century. Transport links were also improved; many road bridges were either erected or rebuilt in stone during the long economic boom of the 12th and 13th centuries. England's maritime trade benefited from the introduction of cog ships, and many docks were improved and fitted with cranes for the first time.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Warfare was endemic in early Anglo-Saxon England, and major conflicts still occurred approximately every generation in the later period. Groups of well-armed noblemen and their households formed the heart of these armies, supported by larger numbers of temporary troops levied from across the kingdom, called the fyrd. By the 9th century, armies of 20,000 men could be called up for campaigns, with another 28,000 men available to guard urban defences. The most common weapon was the spear, with swords used by the wealthier nobles; cavalry was probably less common than in wider Europe, but some Anglo-Saxons did fight from horseback. The Viking attacks on England in the 9th century led to developments in tactics, including the use of shield walls in battle, and the Scandinavian seizure of power in the 11th century introduced housecarls, a form of elite household soldier who protected the king.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Anglo-Norman warfare was characterised by attritional military campaigns, in which commanders tried to raid enemy lands and seize castles in order to allow them to take control of their adversaries' territory, ultimately winning slow but strategic victories. Pitched battles were occasionally fought between armies but these were considered risky engagements and usually avoided by prudent commanders. The armies of the period comprised bodies of mounted, armoured knights, supported by infantry. Crossbowmen become more numerous in the 12th century, alongside the older shortbow. At the heart of these armies was the "familia regis", the permanent military household of the king, which was supported in war by feudal levies, drawn up by local nobles for a limited period of service during a campaign. Mercenaries were increasingly employed, driving up the cost of warfare considerably, and adequate supplies of ready cash became essential for the success of campaigns.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: In the late 13th century Edward I expanded the "familia regis" to become a small standing army, forming the core of much larger armies up to 28,700 strong, largely comprising foot soldiers, for campaigns in Scotland and France. By the time of Edward III, armies were smaller in size, but the troops were typically better equipped and uniformed, and the archers carried the longbow, a potentially devastating weapon. Cannons were first used by English forces at battles such as Crécy in 1346. Soldiers began to be contracted for specific campaigns, a practice which may have hastened the development of the armies of retainers that grew up under bastard feudalism. By the late 15th century, however, English armies were somewhat backward by wider European standards; the Wars of the Roses were fought by inexperienced soldiers, often with outdated weapons, allowing the European forces which intervened in the conflict to have a decisive effect on the outcomes of battles.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The first references to an English navy occur in 851, when chroniclers described Wessex ships defeating a Viking fleet. These early fleets were limited in size but grew in size in the 10th century, allowing the power of Wessex to be projected across the Irish Sea and the English Channel; Cnut's fleet had as many as 40 vessels, while Edward the Confessor could muster 80 ships. Some ships were manned by sailors called lithesmen and bustsecarls, probably drawn from the coastal towns, while other vessels were mobilised as part of a national levy and manned by their regular crews. Naval forces played an important role during the rest of the Middle Ages, enabling the transportation of troops and supplies, raids into hostile territory and attacks on enemy fleets. English naval power became particularly important after the loss of Normandy in 1204, which turned the English Channel from a friendly transit route into a contested and critical border region. English fleets in the 13th and 14th centuries typically comprised specialist vessels, such as galleys and large transport ships, and pressed merchant vessels conscripted into action; the latter increasingly included cogs, a new form of sailing ship. Battles might be fought when one fleet found another at anchor, such as the English victory at Sluys in 1340, or in more open waters, as off the coast of Winchelsea in 1350; raiding campaigns, such as the French attacks on the south of England between 1338 and 1339, could cause devastation from which some towns never fully recovered.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Many of the fortifications built by the Romans in England survived into the Middle Ages, including the walls surrounding their military forts and cities. These defences were often reused during the unstable post-Roman period. The Anglo-Saxon kings undertook significant planned urban expansion in the 8th and 9th centuries, creating "burhs", often protected with earth and wood ramparts. "Burh" walls sometimes utilised older Roman fortifications, both for practical reasons and to bolster their owners' reputations through the symbolism of former Roman power.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Although a small number of castles had been built in England during the 1050s, after the conquest the Normans began to build timber motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large numbers to control their newly occupied territories. During the 12th century the Normans began to build more castles in stone, with characteristic square keeps that supported both military and political functions. Royal castles were used to control key towns and forests, whilst baronial castles were used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates; a feudal system called the castle-guard was sometimes used to provide garrisons. Castles and sieges continued to grow in military sophistication during the 12th century, and in the 13th century new defensive town walls were constructed across England.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: By the 14th century, castles were combining defences with luxurious, sophisticated living arrangements and landscaped gardens and parks. Early gunpowder weapons were used to defend castles by the end of the 14th century and gunports became an essential feature for a fashionable castle. The economics of maintaining castles meant that many were left to decline or abandoned; in contrast, a small number of castles were developed by the very wealthy into palaces that hosted lavish feasts and celebrations amid elaborate architecture. Smaller defensible structures called tower houses emerged in the north of England to protect against the Scottish threat. By the late medieval period, town walls were increasingly less military in character and more often expressions of civic pride or part of urban governance: many grand gatehouses were built in the 14th and 15th centuries for these purposes.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Medieval England produced art in the form of paintings, carvings, books, fabrics and many functional but beautiful objects. A wide range of materials was used, including gold, glass and ivory, the art usually drawing overt attention to the materials utilised in the designs. Anglo-Saxon artists created carved ivories, illuminated manuscripts, embroidered cloths, crosses and stone sculpture, although relatively few of these have survived to the modern period. They produced a wide range of metalwork, frequently using gold and garnets, with brooches, buckles, sword hilts and drinking horns particularly favoured designs. Early designs, such as those found at the Sutton Hoo burial, used a zoomorphic style, heavily influenced by Germanic fashions, in which animal shapes were distorted into flowing shapes and positioned alongside geometric patterns. From the 7th century onwards more naturalistic designs became popular, showing a plasticity of form and incorporating both animals and people into the designs. In the 10th century, Carolingian styles, inspired by Classical imagery, began to enter from the continent, becoming widely used in the reformed Benedictine monasteries across the south and east of England.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Norman conquest introduced northern French artistic styles, particular in illuminated manuscripts and murals, and reduced the demand for carvings. In other artistic areas, including embroidery, the Anglo-Saxon influence remained evident into the 12th century, and the famous Bayeux Tapestry is an example of older styles being reemployed under the new regime. Stained glass became a distinctive form of English art during this later medieval period, although the coloured glass for these works was almost entirely imported from Europe. Little early stained glass in England has survived, but it typically had both an ornamental and educational function, while later works also commemorated the sponsors of the windows into the designs. English tapestry making and embroidery in the early 14th century were of an especially high quality; works produced by nuns and London professionals were exported across Europe, becoming known as the "opus anglicanum". English illuminated books, such as the Queen Mary Psalter, were also famous in this period, featuring rich decoration, a combination of grotesque and natural figures and rich colours. The quality of illuminated art in England declined significantly in the face of competition from Flanders in the 14th century, and later English illuminated medieval pieces generally imitated Flemish styles.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Anglo-Saxons produced extensive poetry in Old English, some of which was written down as early as the 9th century, although most surviving poems were compiled in the 10th and early 11th century. "Beowulf", probably written between 650 and 750, is typical of these poems, portraying a vivid, heroic tale, ending with the protagonist's death at the hands of a dragon, but still showing signs of the new Christian influences in England. Old English was also used for academic and courtly writing from the 9th century onwards, including translations of popular foreign works, including "The Pastoral Care".


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Poetry and stories written in French were popular after the Norman conquest, and by the 12th century some works on English history began to be produced in French verse. Romantic poems about tournaments and courtly love became popular in Paris and this fashion spread into England in the form of "lays"; stories about the court of King Arthur were also fashionable, due in part to the interest of Henry II. English continued to be used on a modest scale to write local religious works and some poems in the north of England, but most major works were produced in Latin or French. In the reign of Richard II there was an upsurge in the use of Middle English in poetry, sometimes termed "Ricardian poetry", although the works still emulated French fashions. The work of Geoffrey Chaucer from the 1370s onwards, however, culminating in the influential "Canterbury Tales", was uniquely English in style. Major pieces of courtly poetry continued to be produced into the 15th century by Chaucer's disciples, and Thomas Malory compiled the older Arthurian tales to produce "Le Morte d'Arthur".


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Music and singing were important in England during the medieval period, being used in religious ceremonies, court occasions and to accompany theatrical works. Singing techniques called gymel were introduced in England in the 13th century, accompanied by instruments such as the guitar, harp, pipes and organ. Henry IV sponsored an extensive range of music in England, while his son Henry V brought back many influences from occupied France. Carols became an important form of music in the 15th century; originally these had been a song sung during a dance with a prominent refrain — the 15th century form lost the dancing and introduced strong religious overtones. Ballads were also popular from the late 14th century onwards, including the "Ballad of Chevy Chase" and others describing the activities of Robin Hood. Miracle plays were performed to communicate the Bible in various locations. By the late 14th century, these had been extended into vernacular mystery plays which performed annually over several days, broken up into various cycles of plays; a handful have survived into the 21st century. Guilds competed to produce the best plays in each town and performances were often an expression of civic identity.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: In the century after the collapse of the Romano-British economy, very few substantial buildings were constructed and many villas and towns were abandoned. New long- and round-houses were constructed in some settlements, while in others timber buildings were built imitating the older Roman styles. The Germanic immigrants constructed small rectangular buildings from wood, and occasionally grander halls. However, the conversion to Christianity in the 6th and 7th centuries reintroduced Italian and French masons, and these craftsmen built stone churches, low in height, following a narrow, rectangular plan, plastered inside and fitted with glass and colourful vestments. This Romanesque style developed throughout the period, featuring characteristic circular arches. By the 10th and 11th centuries, much larger churches and monastery buildings were being built, featuring square and circular towers after the contemporary European fashion. The palaces constructed for the nobility centred on great timber halls, while manor houses began to appear in rural areas.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The Normans brought with them architectural styles from their own duchy, where austere stone churches were preferred. Under the early Norman kings this style was adapted to produce large, plain cathedrals with ribbed vaulting. During the 12th century the Anglo-Norman style became richer and more ornate, with pointed arches derived from French architecture replacing the curved Romanesque designs; this style is termed Early English Gothic and continued, with variation, throughout the rest of the Middle Ages. In the early 14th century the Perpendicular Gothic style was created in England, with an emphasis on verticality, immense windows and soaring arcades. Fine timber roofs in a variety of styles, but in particular the hammerbeam, were built in many English buildings. In the 15th century the architectural focus turned away from cathedrals and monasteries in favour of parish churches, often decorated with richly carved woodwork; in turn, these churches influenced the design of new chantry chapels for existing cathedrals.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: Meanwhile, domestic architecture had continued to develop, with the Normans, having first occupied the older Anglo-Saxon dwellings, rapidly beginning to build larger buildings in stone and timber. The elite preferred houses with large, ground-floor halls but the less wealthy constructed simpler houses with the halls on the first floor; master and servants frequently lived in the same spaces. Wealthier town-houses were also built using stone, and incorporated business and domestic arrangements into a single functional design. By the 14th century grander houses and castles were sophisticated affairs: expensively tiled, often featuring murals and glass windows, these buildings were often designed as a set of apartments to allow greater privacy. Fashionable brick began to be used in some parts of the country, copying French tastes. Architecture that emulated the older defensive designs remained popular. Less is known about the houses of peasants during this period, although many peasants appear to have lived in relatively substantial, timber-framed long-houses; the quality of these houses improved in the prosperous years following the Black Death, often being built by professional craftsmen.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The first history of medieval England was written by Bede in the 8th century; many more accounts of contemporary and ancient history followed, usually termed chronicles. In the 16th century, the first academic histories began to be written, typically drawing primarily on the chroniclers and interpreting them in the light of current political concerns. Edward Gibbon's 18th-century writings were influential, presenting the medieval period as a dark age between the glories of Rome and the rebirth of civilisation in the Early Modern period. Late Victorian historians continued to use the chroniclers as sources, but also deployed documents such as "Domesday Book" and "Magna Carta", alongside newly discovered financial, legal and commercial records. They produced a progressive account of political and economic development in England. The growth of the British Empire spurred interest in the various periods of English hegemony during the Middle Ages, including the Angevin Empire and the Hundred Years' War.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: By the 1930s, older historical analyses were challenged by a range of neo-positivist, Marxist and econometric approaches, supported by a widening body of documentary, archaeological and scientific evidence. Marxist and Neo-Marxist analyses continued to be popular in the post-war years, producing seminal works on economic issues and social protests. Post-modern analysis became influential in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on identity, gender, interpretation and culture. Many studies focused on particular regions or groups, drawing on new records and new scientific approaches, including landscape and environmental archaeology. Fresh archaeological finds, such as the Staffordshire Hoard, continue to challenge previous interpretations, and historical studies of England in the Middle Ages have never been so diverse as in the early 21st century.


title: England in the Middle Ages

text: The period has also been used in a wide range of popular culture. William Shakespeare's plays on the lives of the medieval kings have proved to have had long lasting appeal, heavily influencing both popular interpretations and histories of figures such as King John and Henry V. Other playwrights have since taken key medieval events, such as the death of Thomas Becket, and used them to draw out contemporary themes and issues. The medieval mystery plays continue to be enacted in key English towns and cities. Film-makers have drawn extensively on the medieval period, often taking themes from Shakespeare or the Robin Hood ballads for inspiration. Historical fiction set in England during the Middle Ages remains persistently popular, with the 1980s and 1990s seeing a particular growth of historical detective fiction. The period has also inspired fantasy writers, including J. R. R. Tolkien's stories of Middle-earth. English medieval music was revived from the 1950s, with choral and musical groups attempting to authentically reproduce the original sounds. Medieval living history events were first held during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the period has inspired a considerable community of historical re-enactors, part of England's growing heritage industry.


title: John James Audubon

text: John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America. He was notable for his extensive studies documenting all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations, which depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book titled "The Birds of America" (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon is also known for identifying 25 new species. He is the eponym of the National Audubon Society, and his name adorns a large number of towns, neighborhoods, and streets across the United States. Dozens of scientific names first published by Audubon are still in use by the scientific community.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon was born in Les Cayes in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) on his father's sugarcane plantation. He was the son of Lieutenant Jean Audubon, a French naval officer (and privateer) from the south of Brittany, and his mistress, Jeanne Rabine, a 27-year-old chambermaid from Les Touches, Brittany (now in the modern region Pays de la Loire). They named him Jean Rabin. Another 1887 biographer has stated that his mother was a lady from a Louisiana plantation. His mother died when he was a few months old, as she had suffered from tropical disease since arriving on the island. His father already had an unknown number of mixed-race children (among them a daughter named Marie-Madeleine), some by his mixed-race housekeeper, Catherine "Sanitte" Bouffard (described as a quadroon, meaning she was three-quarters European in ancestry). Following Jeanne Rabin's death, Audubon renewed his relationship with Sanitte Bouffard and had a daughter by her, named Muguet. Bouffard also took care of the infant boy Jean.


title: John James Audubon

text: The senior Audubon had commanded ships. During the American Revolution, he had been imprisoned by Britain. After his release, he helped the American cause. He had long worked to save money and secure his family's future with real estate. Due to slave unrest in the Caribbean, in 1789 he sold part of his plantation in Saint-Domingue and purchased a 284-acre farm called Mill Grove, 20 miles from Philadelphia, to diversify his investments. Increasing tension in Saint-Domingue between the colonists and the African slaves, who greatly outnumbered them, convinced the senior Jean Audubon to return to France, where he became a member of the Republican Guard. In 1788 he arranged for Jean and in 1791 for Muget to be transported to France.


title: John James Audubon

text: The children were raised in Couëron, near Nantes, France, by Audubon and his French wife, Anne Moynet Audubon, whom he had married years before his time in Saint-Domingue. In 1794 they formally adopted both the children to regularize their legal status in France. They renamed the boy Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon and the girl Rose.


title: John James Audubon

text: From his earliest days, Audubon had an affinity for birds. "I felt an intimacy with them...bordering on frenzy [that] must accompany my steps through life." His father encouraged his interest in nature:


title: John James Audubon

text: He would point out the elegant movement of the birds, and the beauty and softness of their plumage. He called my attention to their show of pleasure or sense of danger, their perfect forms and splendid attire. He would speak of their departure and return with the seasons.


title: John James Audubon

text: In France during the years of the French Revolution and its aftermath, the younger Audubon grew up to be a handsome and gregarious man. He played flute and violin, and learned to ride, fence, and dance. A enjoyed roaming in the woods, often returning with natural curiosities, including birds' eggs and nests, of which he made crude drawings. His father planned to make a seaman of his son. At twelve, Audubon went to military school and became a cabin boy. He quickly found out that he was susceptible to seasickness and not fond of mathematics or navigation. After failing the officer's qualification test, Audubon ended his incipient naval career. He returned to exploring fields again, focusing on birds.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1803, his father obtained a false passport so that Jean-Jacques could go to the United States to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. 18-year-old Jean-Jacques boarded ship, changing his name to the anglicized form John James Audubon. Jean Audubon and Claude Rozier arranged a business partnership for their sons John James Audubon and Jean Ferdinand Rozier to pursue lead mining in Pennsylvania. The Audubon-Rozier partnership was based on Claude Rozier's buying half of Jean Audubon's share of a plantation in Haiti, and lending money to the partnership as secured by half interest in lead mining at Audubon's Pennsylvania property of Mill Grove.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon caught yellow fever upon arrival in New York City. The ship's captain placed him in a boarding house run by Quaker women. They nursed Audubon to recovery and taught him English. He traveled with the family's Quaker lawyer to the Audubon family farm, Mill Grove. The homestead is located on the Perkiomen Creek a few miles from Valley Forge.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon lived with the tenants in the two-story stone house, in an area that he considered a paradise. "Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment; cares I knew not, and cared naught about them." Studying his surroundings, Audubon quickly learned the ornithologist's rule, which he wrote down as, "The nature of the place—whether high or low, moist or dry, whether sloping north or south, or bearing tall trees or low shrubs—generally gives hint as to its inhabitants."


title: John James Audubon

text: His father hoped that the lead mines on the property could be commercially developed, as lead was an essential component of bullets. This could provide his son with a profitable occupation. At Mill Grove, Audubon met the owner of the nearby Fatland Ford estate, William Bakewell, and his daughter Lucy Bakewell.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon set about to study American birds, determined to illustrate his findings in a more realistic manner than most artists did then. He began drawing and painting birds, and recording their behavior. After an accidental fall into a creek, Audubon contracted a severe fever. He was nursed and recovered at Fatland Ford, with Lucy at his side.


title: John James Audubon

text: Risking conscription in France, Audubon returned in 1805 to see his father and ask permission to marry. He also needed to discuss family business plans. While there, he met the naturalist and physician Charles-Marie D'Orbigny, who improved Audubon's taxidermy skills and taught him scientific methods of research. Although his return ship was overtaken by an English privateer, Audubon and his hidden gold coins survived the encounter.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon resumed his bird studies and created his own nature museum, perhaps inspired by the great museum of natural history created by Charles Willson Peale in Philadelphia. Peale's bird exhibits were considered scientifically advanced. Audubon's room was brimming with birds' eggs, stuffed raccoons and opossums, fish, snakes, and other creatures. He had become proficient at specimen preparation and taxidermy.


title: John James Audubon

text: Deeming the mining venture too risky, with his father's approval Audubon sold part of the Mill Grove farm, including the house and mine, but retaining some land for investment.


title: John James Audubon

text: In volume 2 of "Ornithological Biography" (1834), Audubon told a story from his childhood, 30 years after the events reportedly took place, that has since garnered him the label of "first bird bander in America". The story has since been exposed as likely apocryphal. In the spring of 1804, according to the story, Audubon discovered a nest of the "Pewee Flycatcher", now known as Eastern Phoebe ("Sayornis phoebe"), in a small grotto on the property of Mill Grove. To determine whether the other phoebes on the property were "descended from the same stock", Audubon (1834:126) said that he tied silver threads to the legs of five nestlings:I took the whole family out, and blew off the exuviae of the feathers from the nest. I attached light threads to their legs: these they invariably removed, either with their bills, or with the assistance of their parents. I renewed them, however, until I found the little fellows habituated to them; and at last, when they were about to leave the nest, I fixed a light silver thread to the leg of each, loose enough not to hurt the part, but so fastened that no exertions of theirs could remove it.He also said that he had "ample proof afterwards that the brood of young Pewees, raised in the cave, returned the following spring, and established themselves farther up on the creek, and among the outhouses in the neighbourhood … having caught several of these birds on the nest, [he] had the pleasure of finding that two of them had the little ring on the leg", but multiple independent primary sources (including original, dated drawings of European species) demonstrate that Audubon was in France during the spring of 1805, not in Pennsylvania as he later claimed. Furthermore, Audubon's claim to have re-sighted 2 out of 5 of the banded phoebes as adults (i.e., a 40% rate of natal philopatry) has not been replicated by modern studies with much larger sample sizes (e.g., 1.6% rate among 549 nestlings banded; and 1.3% rate among 217 nestlings banded). These facts cast doubt on the truth of Audubon's story.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1808, Audubon moved to Kentucky, which was rapidly being settled. Six months later, he married Lucy Bakewell at her family estate, Fatland Ford, Pennsylvania, and took her the next day to Kentucky. The two shared many common interests, and began to explore the natural world around them. Though their finances were tenuous, the Audubons started a family. They had two sons, Victor Gifford (1809–1860) and John Woodhouse Audubon (1812–1862), and two daughters who died while still young, Lucy at two years (1815–1817) and Rose at nine months (1819–1820). Both sons eventually helped publish their father's works. John W. Audubon became a naturalist, writer, and painter in his own right.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon and Jean Ferdinand Rozier moved their merchant business partnership west at various stages, ending ultimately in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, a former French colonial settlement west of the Mississippi River and south of St. Louis. Shipping goods ahead, Audubon and Rozier started a general store in Louisville, Kentucky on the Ohio River; the city had an increasingly important slave market and was the most important port between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. Soon he was drawing bird specimens again. He regularly burned his earlier efforts to force continuous improvement. He also took detailed field notes to document his drawings.


title: John James Audubon

text: Due to rising tensions with the British, President Jefferson ordered an embargo on British trade in 1808, adversely affecting Audubon's trading business. In 1810, Audubon moved his business further west to the less competitive Henderson, Kentucky, area. He and his small family took over an abandoned log cabin. In the fields and forests, Audubon wore typical frontier clothes and moccasins, having "a ball pouch, a buffalo horn filled with gunpowder, a butcher knife, and a tomahawk on his belt".


title: John James Audubon

text: He frequently turned to hunting and fishing to feed his family, as business was slow. On a prospecting trip down the Ohio River with a load of goods, Audubon joined up with Shawnee and Osage hunting parties, learning their methods, drawing specimens by the bonfire, and finally parting "like brethren". Audubon had great respect for Native Americans: "Whenever I meet Indians, I feel the greatness of our Creator in all its splendor, for there I see the man naked from His hand and yet free from acquired sorrow." Audubon also admired the skill of Kentucky riflemen and the "regulators", citizen lawmen who created a kind of justice on the Kentucky frontier. In his travel notes, he claims to have encountered Daniel Boone.


title: John James Audubon

text: Nine enslaved people worked for the Audubon family while he was in Henderson, until he needed money, then he sold them. Audubon was condemned for owning slaves and his overall support for enslavement by abolitionists who were working to free the enslaved. In return, he dismissed abolitionists in both the USA and the United Kingdom.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon and Rozier mutually agreed to end their partnership at Ste. Genevieve on April 6, 1811. Audubon had decided to work at ornithology and art, and wanted to return to Lucy and their son in Kentucky. Rozier agreed to pay Audubon US$3,000 (), with $1,000 in cash and the balance to be paid over time.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon was working in Missouri and out riding when the 1811 New Madrid earthquake struck. When Audubon reached his house, he was relieved to find no major damage, but the area was shaken by aftershocks for months. The quake is estimated to have ranked from 8.4 to 8.8 on today's moment magnitude scale of severity, stronger than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 which is estimated at 7.8. Audubon writes that while on horseback, he first believed the distant rumbling to be the sound of a tornado,


title: John James Audubon

text: but the animal knew better than I what was forthcoming, and instead of going faster, so nearly stopped that I remarked he placed one foot after another on the ground with as much precaution as if walking on a smooth piece of ice. I thought he had suddenly foundered, and, speaking to him, was on point of dismounting and leading him, when he all of a sudden fell a-groaning piteously, hung his head, spread out his forelegs, as if to save himself from falling, and stood stock still, continuing to groan. I thought my horse was about to die, and would have sprung from his back had a minute more elapsed; but as that instant all the shrubs and trees began to move from their very roots, the ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the ruffled water of a lake, and I became bewildered in my ideas, as I too plainly discovered, that all this awful commotion was the result of an earthquake. I had never witnessed anything of the kind before, although like every person, I knew earthquakes by description. But what is description compared to reality! Who can tell the sensations which I experienced when I found myself rocking, as it were, upon my horse, and with him moving to and fro like a child in a cradle, with the most imminent danger around me.


title: John James Audubon

text: He noted that as the earthquake retreated, "the air was filled with an extremely disagreeable sulphurous odor."


title: John James Audubon

text: During a visit to Philadelphia in 1812 following Congress' declaration of war against Great Britain, Audubon became an American citizen and had to give up his French citizenship. After his return to Kentucky, he found that rats had eaten his entire collection of more than 200 drawings. After weeks of depression, he took to the field again, determined to re-do his drawings to an even higher standard.


title: John James Audubon

text: The War of 1812 upset Audubon's plans to move his business to New Orleans. He formed a partnership with Lucy's brother and built up their trade in Henderson. Between 1812 and the Panic of 1819, times were good. Audubon bought land and slaves, founded a flour mill, and enjoyed his growing family. After 1819, Audubon went bankrupt and was thrown into jail for debt. The little money he earned was from drawing portraits, particularly death-bed sketches, greatly esteemed by country folk before photography. He wrote, "[M]y heart was sorely heavy, for scarcely had I enough to keep my dear ones alive; and yet through these dark days I was being led to the development of the talents I loved."


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon worked for a brief time as the first paid employee of the Western History Society, now known as The Museum of Natural History at The Cincinnati Museum Center. He then traveled south on the Mississippi with his gun, paintbox, and assistant Joseph Mason, who stayed with him from October 1820 to August 1822 and painted the plant life backgrounds of many of Audubon's bird studies. He was committed to find and paint all the birds of North America for eventual publication. His goal was to surpass the earlier ornithological work of poet-naturalist Alexander Wilson. Though he could not afford to buy Wilson's work, Audubon used it to guide him when he had access to a copy.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1818, Rafinesque visited Kentucky and the Ohio River valley to study fishes and was a guest of Audubon. In the middle of the night, Rafinesque noticed a bat in his room and thought it was a new species. He happened to grab Audubon's favourite violin in an effort to knock the bat down, resulting in the destruction of the violin. Audubon reportedly took revenge by showing drawings and describing some fictitious fishes and rodents to Rafinesque; Rafinesque gave scientific names to some of these fishes in his "Ichthyologia Ohiensis".


title: John James Audubon

text: On October 12, 1820, Audubon traveled into Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida in search of ornithological specimens. He traveled with George Lehman, a professional Swiss landscape artist. The following summer, he moved upriver to the Oakley Plantation in Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, where he taught drawing to Eliza Pirrie, the young daughter of the owners. Though low-paying, the job was ideal, as it afforded him much time to roam and paint in the woods. (The plantation has been preserved as the Audubon State Historic Site, and is located at 11788 Highway 965, between Jackson and St. Francisville.)


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon called his future work "The Birds of America". He attempted to paint one page each day. Painting with newly discovered technique, he decided his earlier works were inferior and re-did them. He hired hunters to gather specimens for him. Audubon realized the ambitious project would take him away from his family for months at a time.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon sometimes used his drawing talent to trade for goods or sell small works to raise cash. He made charcoal portraits on demand at $5 each and gave drawing lessons. In 1823, Audubon took lessons in oil painting technique from John Steen, a teacher of American landscape, and history painter Thomas Cole. Though he did not use oils much for his bird work, Audubon earned good money painting oil portraits for patrons along the Mississippi. (Audubon's account reveals that he learned oil painting in December 1822 from Jacob Stein, an itinerant portrait artist. After they had enjoyed all the portrait patronage to be expected in Natchez, Mississippi, during January–March 1823, they resolved to travel together as perambulating portrait-artists.) During this period (1822–1823), Audubon also worked as an instructor at Jefferson College in Washington, Mississippi.


title: John James Audubon

text: Lucy became the steady breadwinner for the couple and their two young sons. Trained as a teacher, she conducted classes for children in their home. Later she was hired as a local teacher in Louisiana. She boarded with their children at the home of a wealthy plantation owner, as was often the custom of the time.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1824, Audubon returned to Philadelphia to seek a publisher for his bird drawings. He took oil painting lessons from Thomas Sully and met Charles Bonaparte, who admired his work and recommended he go to Europe to have his bird drawings engraved. Audubon was nominated for membership at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia by Charles Alexandre Lesueur, Reuben Haines, and Isaiah Lukens, on July 27, 1824. However, he failed to gather enough support, and his nomination was rejected by vote on August 31, 1824; around the same time accusations of scientific misconduct were levied by Alexander Lawson and others.


title: John James Audubon

text: With his wife's support, in 1826 at age 41, Audubon took his growing collection of work to England. He sailed from New Orleans to Liverpool on the cotton-hauling ship "Delos", reaching England in the autumn of 1826 with his portfolio of over 300 drawings. With letters of introduction to prominent Englishmen, and paintings of imaginary species including the "Bird of Washington", Audubon gained their quick attention. "I have been received here in a manner not to be expected during my highest enthusiastic hopes."


title: John James Audubon

text: The British could not get enough of Audubon's images of backwoods America and its natural attractions. He met with great acceptance as he toured around England and Scotland, and was lionized as "the American woodsman". He raised enough money to begin publishing his "The Birds of America". This monumental work consists of 435 hand-colored, life-size prints of 497 bird species, made from engraved copper plates of various sizes depending on the size of the image. They were printed on sheets measuring about . The work illustrates slightly more than 700 North American bird species, of which some were based on specimens collected by fellow ornithologist John Kirk Townsend on his journey across America with Thomas Nuttall in 1834 as part of Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's second expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.


title: John James Audubon

text: The pages were organized for artistic effect and contrasting interest, as if the reader were taking a visual tour. (Some critics thought he should have organized the plates in Linnaean order as befitting a "serious" ornithological treatise.) The first and perhaps most famous plate was the wild turkey. Among the earliest plates printed was the "Bird of Washington", which generated favorable publicity for Audubon as his first discovery of a new species. However, no specimen of the species has ever been found, and research published in 2020 suggests that this plate was a mixture of plagiarism and ornithological fraud.


title: John James Audubon

text: The cost of printing the entire work was $115,640 (over $2,000,000 today), paid for from advance subscriptions, exhibitions, oil painting commissions, and animal skins, which Audubon hunted and sold. Audubon's great work was a remarkable accomplishment. It took more than 14 years of field observations and drawings, plus his single-handed management and promotion of the project to make it a success. A reviewer wrote,


title: John James Audubon

text: All anxieties and fears which overshadowed his work in its beginning had passed away. The prophecies of kind but overprudent friends, who did not understand his self-sustaining energy, had proved untrue; the malicious hope of his enemies, for even the gentle lover of nature has enemies, had been disappointed; he had secured a commanding place in the respect and gratitude of men.


title: John James Audubon

text: Colorists applied each color in assembly-line fashion (over fifty were hired for the work). The original edition was engraved in aquatint by Robert Havell, Jr., who took over the task after the first ten plates engraved by W. H. Lizars were deemed inadequate. Known as the Double Elephant folio for its double elephant paper size, it is often regarded as the greatest picture book ever produced and the finest aquatint work. By the 1830s the aquatint process had been largely superseded by lithography. A contemporary French critic wrote, "A magic power transported us into the forests which for so many years this man of genius has trod. Learned and ignorant alike were astonished at the spectacle ... It is a real and palpable vision of the New World."


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon sold oil-painted copies of the drawings to make extra money and publicize the book. A potential publisher had Audubon's portrait painted by John Syme, who clothed the naturalist in frontier clothes; the portrait was hung at the entrance of his exhibitions, promoting his rustic image. The painting is now held in the White House art collection, and is not frequently displayed. The New-York Historical Society holds all 435 of the preparatory watercolors for "The Birds of America". Lucy Audubon sold them to the society after her husband's death. All but 80 of the original copper plates were melted down when Lucy Audubon, desperate for money, sold them for scrap to the Phelps Dodge Corporation.


title: John James Audubon

text: King George IV was among the avid fans of Audubon and subscribed to support publication of the book. Britain's Royal Society recognized Audubon's achievement by electing him as a fellow. He was the second American to be elected after statesman Benjamin Franklin. While in Edinburgh to seek subscribers for the book, Audubon gave a demonstration of his method of supporting birds with wire at professor Robert Jameson's Wernerian Natural History Association. Student Charles Darwin was in the audience. Audubon also visited the dissecting theatre of the anatomist Robert Knox. Audubon was also successful in France, gaining the King and several of the nobility as subscribers.


title: John James Audubon

text: "The Birds of America" became very popular during Europe's Romantic era. Audubon's dramatic portraits of birds appealed to people in this period's fascination with natural history.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon returned to America in 1829 to complete more drawings for his magnum opus. He also hunted animals and shipped the valued skins to British friends. He was reunited with his family. After settling business affairs, Lucy accompanied him back to England. Audubon found that during his absence, he had lost some subscribers due to the uneven quality of coloring of the plates. Others were in arrears in their payments. His engraver fixed the plates and Audubon reassured subscribers, but a few begged off. He responded, ""The Birds of America" will then raise in value as much as they are now depreciated by certain fools and envious persons." He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1830 and to the American Philosophical Society in 1831.


title: John James Audubon

text: He followed "The Birds of America" with a sequel "Ornithological Biographies". This was a collection of life histories of each species written with Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray. The two books were printed separately to avoid a British law requiring copies of all publications with text to be deposited in copyright libraries, a huge financial burden for the self-published Audubon. Both books were published between 1827 and 1839.


title: John James Audubon

text: During the 1830s, Audubon continued making expeditions in North America. During a trip to Key West, a companion wrote in a newspaper article, "Mr. Audubon is the most enthusiastic and indefatigable man I ever knew ... Mr. Audubon was neither dispirited by heat, fatigue, or bad luck ... he rose every morning at 3 o'clock and went out ... until 1 o'clock." Then he would draw the rest of the day before returning to the field in the evening, a routine he kept up for weeks and months. In the posthumously published book"The Life of John James Audubon The Naturalist", edited by his widow and derived primarily from his notes, Audubon related visiting the northeastern Florida coastal sugar plantation of John Joachim Bulow for Christmas 1831/early January 1832. It was started by his father and at 4,675 acres, was the largest in East Florida. Bulow had a sugar mill built there under direction of a Scottish engineer, who accompanied Audubon on an excursion in the region. The mill was destroyed in 1836 in the Seminole Wars. The plantation site is preserved today as the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park.


title: John James Audubon

text: In March 1832, Audubon booked passage at St. Augustine, Florida, aboard the schooner "Agnes", bound for Charleston, South Carolina. A gale forced the vessel to berth at the mouth of the Savannah River, where an officer of the United States Army Corps of Engineers on Cockspur Island where Fort Pulaski was under construction, transported Audubon upstream to Savannah, Georgia, on their barge. Just as he was about to board a Charleston-bound stage coach, he remembered William Gaston, a Savannah resident who had once befriended him. Audubon stayed at City Hotel, and the next day sought out and found the acquaintance, "who showed but little enthusiasm for his "Birds of America"" and who doubted that the book would sell a single copy in the city. A dejected Audubon continued to talk to the merchant and a mutual friend who, by chance, had appeared. The merchant, having further considered his position, said, "I subscribe to your work", gave him $200 for the first volume, and promised to act as his agent in finding additional subscriptions.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1833, Audubon sailed north from Maine, accompanied by his son John, and five other young colleagues, to explore the ornithology of Labrador. On the return voyage, their ship "Ripley" made a stop at St. George's, Newfoundland. There Audubon and his assistants documented 36 species of birds.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon painted some of his works while staying at the Key West house and gardens of Capt. John H. Geiger. This site was preserved as the Audubon House and Tropical Gardens.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1841, having finished the "Ornithological Biographies", Audubon returned to the United States with his family. He bought an estate on the Hudson River in northern Manhattan. (The roughly 20-acre estate came to be known as Audubon Park in the 1860s when Audubon's widow began selling off parcels of the estate for the development of free-standing single family homes.) Between 1840 and 1844, he published an octavo edition of "The Birds of America", with 65 additional plates. Printed in standard format to be more affordable than the oversize British edition, it earned $36,000 and was purchased by 1100 subscribers. Audubon spent much time on "subscription-gathering trips", drumming up sales of the octavo edition, as he hoped to leave his family a sizeable income.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon made some excursions out West where he hoped to record Western species he had missed, but his health began to fail. In 1848, he manifested signs of senility or possibly dementia from what is now called Alzheimer's disease, his "noble mind in ruins". He died at his family home in northern Manhattan on January 27, 1851. Audubon is buried in the graveyard at the Church of the Intercession in the Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum at 155th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, near his home. An imposing monument in his honor was erected at the cemetery, which is now recognized as part of the Heritage Rose District of NYC.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon's final work dealt with mammals; he prepared "The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America" (1845–1849) in collaboration with his good friend Rev. John Bachman of Charleston, South Carolina, who supplied much of the scientific text. His son, John Woodhouse Audubon, drew most of the plates. The work was completed by Audubon's sons, and the second volume was published posthumously in 1851.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon developed his own methods for drawing birds. First, he killed them using fine shot. He then used wires to prop them into a natural position, unlike the common method of many ornithologists, who prepared and stuffed the specimens into a rigid pose. When working on a major specimen like an eagle, he would spend up to four 15-hour days, preparing, studying, and drawing it. His paintings of birds are set true-to-life in their natural habitat. He often portrayed them as if caught in motion, especially feeding or hunting. This was in stark contrast to the stiff representations of birds by his contemporaries, such as Alexander Wilson. Audubon based his paintings on his extensive field observations. He worked primarily with watercolor early on. He added colored chalk or pastel to add softness to feathers, especially those of owls and herons. He employed multiple layers of watercoloring, and sometimes used gouache. All species were drawn life size which accounts for the contorted poses of the larger birds as Audubon strove to fit them within the page size. Smaller species were usually placed on branches with berries, fruit, and flowers. He used several birds in a drawing to present all views of anatomy and wings. Larger birds were often placed in their ground habitat or perching on stumps. At times, as with woodpeckers, he combined several species on one page to offer contrasting features. He frequently depicted the birds' nests and eggs, and occasionally natural predators, such as snakes. He usually illustrated male and female variations, and sometimes juveniles. In later drawings, Audubon used assistants to render the habitat for him. In addition to faithful renderings of anatomy, Audubon also employed carefully constructed composition, drama, and slightly exaggerated poses to achieve artistic as well as scientific effects.


title: John James Audubon

text: The success of "Birds of America" may be considered to be marred by numerous accusations of plagiarism, scientific fraud, and deliberate manipulation of the primary record. Research has uncovered that Audubon falsified (and fabricated) scientific data, published fraudulent data and images in scientific journals and commercial books, invented new species to impress potential subscribers, and to "prank" rivals, and most likely stole the holotype specimen of Harris's hawk ("Parabuteo unicinctus harrisi") before pretending not to know its collector, who was one of his subscribers. He failed to credit work by Joseph Mason, prompting a series of articles in 1835 by critic John Neal questioning Audubon's honesty and trustworthiness. Audubon also repeatedly lied about the details of his autobiography, including the place and circumstances of his birth. His diaries, which might have cleared up some of these issues, were destroyed by his granddaughter, who published a doctored version that realigned the "primary" record with some of his false narratives.


title: John James Audubon

text: The litany of misconduct in Audubon's scientific career has drawn comparisons to others such as Richard Meinertzhagen. Similar to early biographies of Meinertzhagen, Audubon's scientific misconduct has been repeatedly ignored and/or played down by biographers, who defend "Ornithological Biography" as a "valuable resource and a very good read".


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon's influence on ornithology and natural history was far reaching. Nearly all later ornithological works were inspired by his artistry and high standards. Charles Darwin quoted Audubon three times in "On the Origin of Species" and also in later works. Despite some errors in field observations, he made a significant contribution to the understanding of bird anatomy and behavior through his field notes. "The Birds of America" is still considered one of the greatest examples of book art. Audubon discovered 25 new species and 12 new subspecies.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon is the subject of the 1969 book-length poem, "Audubon: A Vision" by Robert Penn Warren. Stephen Vincent Benét, with his wife Rosemary Benét, included a poem about Audubon in the children's poetry book "A Book of Americans".


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon's 1833 trip to Labrador is the subject of the novel "Creation" by Katherine Govier. Audubon and his wife, Lucy, are the chief characters in the "June" section of the Maureen Howard novel "Big as Life: Three Tales for Spring". In the novel "Audubon's Watch", John Gregory Brown explores a mysterious death that took place on a Louisiana plantation when Audubon worked there as a young man.


title: John James Audubon

text: George Voskovec plays Audubon in the 1952 American film "The Iron Mistress", which stars Alan Ladd as James Bowie. The film imagines a friendship between the two men.


title: John James Audubon

text: In 1985, The National Gallery of Art 20C History Project produced a documentary, "John James Audubon: The Birds of America", now widely available online.


title: John James Audubon

text: In July 2007, PBS's American Masters series aired an episode titled "John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature", Supplemental material is available on the PBS website.


title: John James Audubon

text: Audubon appears in the short story "Audubon In Atlantis" by Harry Turtledove, published in the 2010 collection "Atlantis and Other Places".


title: John James Audubon

text: The choral oratorio "Audubon" by James Kallembach was premiered on November 9, 2018, in Boston, Massachusetts by Chorus pro Musica. The work depicts scenes of Audubon's life and descriptions of the birds he drew with text drawn from the 2004 biography by Richard Rhodes.


title: John James Audubon

text: Some of Audubon's bird specimens survive in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and there are 5 specimens in the collections of World Museum, National Museums Liverpool.


title: Felt

text: Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp–based rayon. Blended fibers are also common. Natural fibre felt has special properties that allow it to be used for a wide variety of purposes. "It is fire-retardant and self-extinguishing; it dampens vibration and absorbs sound; and it can hold large amounts of fluid without feeling wet..."


title: Felt

text: Felt from wool is one of the oldest known textiles. Many cultures have legends as to the origins of felt making. Sumerian legend claims that the secret of feltmaking was discovered by Urnamman of Lagash. The story of Saint Clement and Saint Christopher relates that the men packed their sandals with wool to prevent blisters while fleeing from persecution. At the end of their journey, the movement and sweat had turned the wool into felt socks.


title: Felt

text: Most likely felt's origins can be found in central Asia, where there is evidence of feltmaking in Siberia (Altai mountains) in Northern Mongolia and more recently evidence dating back to the first century AD in Mongolia. Siberian tombs (7th to 2nd century BC) show the broad uses of felt in that culture, including clothing, jewelry, wall hangings, and elaborate horse blankets. Employing careful color use, stitching, and other techniques, these feltmakers were able to use felt as an illustrative and decorative medium on which they could depict abstract designs and realistic scenes with great skill. Over time these makers became known for the beautiful abstract patterns they used that were derived from plant, animal, and other symbolic designs.


title: Felt

text: From Siberia and Mongolia, feltmaking spread across the areas held by the Turkic-Mongolian tribes. Sheep and camel herds were central to the wealth and lifestyle of these tribes, both of which were critical to producing the fibers needed for felting. As nomads traveling frequently and living on fairly treeless plains, felt provided housing (yurts, tents, etc.), insulation, floor coverings, and inside walling, as well as many household necessities from bedding and coverings to clothing. In nomadic peoples, an area where feltmaking was particularly visible was in trappings for their animals and for travel. Felt was often featured in the blankets that went under saddles.


title: Felt

text: Dyes provided rich coloring, and colored slices of pre-felts (semi-felted sheets that could be cut in decorative ways), along with dyed yarns and threads were combined to create beautiful designs on the wool backgrounds. Felt was even used to create totems and amulets with protective functions. In traditional societies, the patterns embedded in the felt were also imbued with significant religious and symbolic meaning.


title: Felt

text: Feltmaking is still practised by nomadic peoples (such as Mongols and Turkic people) in Central Asia, where rugs, tents and clothing are regularly made. Some of these are traditional items, such as the classic yurt (Gers), while others are designed for the tourist market, such as decorated slippers. In the Western world, felt is widely used as a medium for expression in both textile art and contemporary art and design, where it has significance as an ecologically responsible textile and building material.


title: Felt

text: In addition to Central Asian traditions of felting, Scandinavian countries have also supported feltmaking, particularly for clothing.


title: Felt

text: In the wet felting process, hot water is applied to layers of animal hairs, while repeated agitation and compression causes the fibers to hook together or weave together into a single piece of fabric. Wrapping the properly arranged fiber in a sturdy, textured material, such as a bamboo mat or burlap, will speed up the felting process. The felted material may be finished by fulling.


title: Felt

text: Only certain types of fiber can be wet felted successfully. Most types of fleece, such as those taken from the alpaca or the Merino sheep, can be put through the wet felting process. One may also use mohair (goat), angora (rabbit), or hair from rodents such as beavers and muskrats. These types of fiber are covered in tiny scales, similar to the scales found on a strand of human hair. Heat, motion, and moisture of the fleece causes the scales to open, while agitating them causes them to latch onto each other, creating felt. There is an alternative theory that the fibers wind around each other during felting. Plant fibers and synthetic fibers will not wet felt.


title: Felt

text: In order to make multi-colored designs, felters conduct a two-step process in which they create pre-felts of specialized colors—these semi-completed sheets of colored felt can then be cut with a sharp implement (knife or scissors) and the distinctive colors placed next to each other as in making a mosaic. The felting process is then resumed and the edges of the fabric attach to each other as the felting process is completed. Shrdak carpets (Turkmenistan) use a form of this method wherein two pieces of contrasting color are cut out with the same pattern, the cut-outs are then switched, fitting one into the other, which makes a sharply defined and colorful patterned piece. In order to strengthen the joints of a mosaic style felt, feltmakers often add a backing layer of fleece that is felted along with the other components. Feltmakers can differ in their orientation to this added layer—where some will lay it on top of the design before felting and others will place the design on top of the strengthening layer.


title: Felt

text: The process of felting was adapted to the lifestyles of the different cultures in which it flourished. In Central Asia, it is common to conduct the rolling/friction process with the aid of a horse, donkey, or camel, which will pull the rolled felt until the process is complete. Alternately, a group of people in a line might roll the felt along, kicking it regularly with their feet. Further fulling can include throwing or slamming and working the edges with careful rolling. In Turkey, some baths had areas dedicated to feltmaking, making use of the steam and hot water that were already present for bathing.


title: Felt

text: As felting grew in importance to a society, so, too, did the knowledge about techniques and approaches. Amateur or community felting obviously continued in many communities at the same time that felting specialists and felting centers began to develop. However, the importance of felting to community life can be seen in the fact that, in many Central Asian communities, felt production is directed by a leader who oversees the process as a ritual that includes prayers—words and actions to bring good luck to the process. Successfully completing the creation of felt (certainly large felt pieces) is reason for celebration, feasting, and the sharing of traditional stories.


title: Felt

text: In Turkey, craft guilds called "ahi" came into being, and these groups were responsible for registering members and protecting the knowledge of felting. In Istanbul at one time, there were 1,000 felters working in 400 workshops registered in this ahi.


title: Felt

text: is a method of creating felt that uses specially designed needles instead of water. Felting needles have angled notches along the shaft that catch fibers and tangle them together to produce felt. These notches are sometimes erroneously called "barbs", but barbs are protrusions (like barbed wire) and would be too difficult to thrust into the wool and nearly impossible to pull out. Felting needles are thin and sharp, with shafts of a variety of different gauges and shapes. Needle felting is used in industrial felt making as well as for individual art and craft applications.


title: Felt

text: Felting needles are sometimes fitted in holders that allow the use of 2 or more needles at one time to sculpt wool objects and shapes. Individual needles are often used for detail while multiple needles that are paired together are used for larger areas or to form the base of the project. At any point in time a variety of fibers and fiber colors may be added, using needles to incorporate them into the project.


title: Felt

text: Needle felting can be used to create both 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional artwork, including soft sculpture, dolls, figurines, jewelry, and 2 dimensional wool paintings. Needle felting is popular with artists and craftspeople worldwide. One example is Ikuyo Fujita（藤田育代 "Fujita Ikuyo)," a Japanese artist who works primarily in needle felt painting and mogol (pipe cleaner) art.


title: Felt

text: Recently, needle-felting machines have become popular for art or craft felters. Similar to a sewing machine, these tools have several needles that punch fibers together. These machines can be used to create felted products more efficiently. The embellishment machine allows the user to create unique combinations of fibers and designs.


title: Felt

text: Invented in the mid 17th century and used until the mid-20th centuries, a process called "carroting" was used in the manufacture of good quality felt for making men's hats. Beaver, rabbit or hare skins were treated with a dilute solution of the mercury compound mercuric nitrate. The skins were dried in an oven where the thin fur at the sides turned orange, the color of carrots. Pelts were stretched over a bar in a cutting machine, and the skin was sliced off in thin shreds, with the fleece coming away entirely. The fur was blown onto a cone-shaped colander and then treated with hot water to consolidate it. The cone then peeled off and passed through wet rollers to cause the fur to felt. These 'hoods' were then dyed and blocked to make hats. The toxic solutions from the carrot and the vapours it produced resulted in widespread cases of mercury poisoning among hatters. This may be the origin of the phrase "mad as a hatter" which was used to humorous effect by Lewis Carroll in the chapter "A Mad Tea Party" of the novel "Alice in Wonderland".


title: Felt

text: Felt is used in a wide range of industries and manufacturing processes, from the automotive industry and casinos to musical instruments and home construction, as well as in gun wadding, either inside cartridges or pushed down the barrel of a muzzleloader. Felt had many uses in ancient times and continues to be widely used today.


title: Felt

text: Felt is frequently used in industry as a sound or vibration damper, as a non-woven fabric for air filtration, and in machinery for cushioning and padding moving parts.


title: Felt

text: During the 18th and 19th centuries gentlemen's top hats made from beaver felt were popular. In the early part of the 20th century, cloth felt hats, such as fedoras, trilbies and homburgs, were worn by many men in the western world. Felt is often used in footwear as boot liners, with the Russian valenki being an example.


title: Felt

text: Many musical instruments use felt. It is often used as a damper. On drum cymbal stands, it protects the cymbal from cracking and ensures a clean sound. It is used to wrap bass drum strikers and timpani mallets. Felt is used extensively in pianos; for example, piano hammers are made of wool felt around a wooden core. The density and springiness of the felt is a major part of what creates a piano's tone. As the felt becomes grooved and "packed" with use and age, the tone suffers. Felt is placed under the piano keys on accordions to control touch and key noise; it is also used on the "pallets" to silence notes not sounded by preventing air flow. Felt is used with other instruments, particularly stringed instruments, as a damper to reduce volume or eliminate unwanted sounds.


title: Felt

text: Felt is used for framing paintings. It is laid between the slip mount and picture as a protective measure to avoid damage from rubbing to the edge of the painting. This is commonly found as a preventive measure on paintings which have already been restored or professionally framed. It is widely used to protect paintings executed on various surfaces including canvas, wood panel and copper plate.


title: Felt

text: A felt-covered board can be used in storytelling to small children. Small felt cutouts or figures of animals, people, or other objects will adhere to a felt board, and in the process of telling the story, the storyteller also acts it out on the board with the animals or people. Puppets can also be made with felt. The best known example of felt puppets are Jim Henson's Muppets. Felt pressed dolls, such as Lenci dolls, were very popular in the nineteenth century and just after World War I.


title: Felt

text: As part of the overall renewal of interest in textile and fiber arts, beginning in the 1970s and continuing through today, felt has experienced a strong revival in interest, including its historical roots. Stirling is commonly associated with the development of nuno felting, a key technique for contemporary art felting. German artist Joseph Beuys prominently integrates felt within his works. English artist Jenny Cowern shifted from traditional drawing and painting media into using felt as her primary media.


title: Felt

text: Modern day felters with access to a broad range of sheep and other animal fibers have exploited knowledge of these different breeds to produce special effects in their felt. Fleece locks are classified by the Bradford or Micron count, both which designate the fineness to coarseness of the material. Fine wools range from 64 to 80 (Bradford); medium 40-60 (Bradford); and coarse 36-60 (Bradford). Merino, the finest and most delicate sheep fleece, will be employed for clothing that goes next to the body. Claudy Jongstra raises traditional and rare breeds of sheep with much hardier coats (Drenthe, Heath, Gotland, Schoonbeek, and Wensleydale) on her property in Friesland and these are used in her interior design projects. Exploitation of these characteristics of the fleece in tandem with the use of other techniques, such as stitching and incorporation of other fibers, provides felters with a broad range of possibilities


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Kevin Mark Phillips (born 25 July 1973) is an English former professional footballer who is currently manager of NPL Premier Division club South Shields.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: A former forward, Phillips was the Premier League top scorer in the 1999–2000 season with 30 goals for Sunderland, a tally which won him the European Golden Shoe. He remains the only Englishman to win the trophy. He also had spells at Watford, Southampton, Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City, Blackpool, Crystal Palace, and Leicester City.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. He started his footballing career as a trainee with Southampton, where he spent six years, four as a schoolboy, before being taken on as an apprentice in 1989. As a youth, Phillips was considered to be too small to play up front and was played at right back, in which position he made two reserve team appearances in 1990. He failed to make the grade at Southampton and was released by manager Chris Nicholl, and returned to Hertfordshire where he signed for non-League semi-professional side Baldock Town in the summer of 1991.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: At Baldock Town, he was initially played as a defender until an injury crisis resulted in manager Ian Allinson playing Phillips as a striker, scoring twice in his first match in his new role. He was signed by Watford in December 1994 for an initial £10,000, plus four additional payments of £5,000.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips established himself in the squad during the second half of the 1994–95 season, and played regularly before suffering a foot injury in March 1996, initially diagnosed as a hairline fracture and later discovered to be a hole in a ligament in his foot, that kept him out for a year. Watford were relegated from Division One in 1995–96, and by the time Phillips returned to the team, they were in the top half of Division Two, and went on to finish 13th. In July 1997, Phillips signed for Sunderland for a fee of £325,000, potentially rising to more than £600,000.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips signed for Sunderland just after their relegation from the Premiership. Fifteen matches into the Division One season, the club were in mid-table and Phillips had four goals. In the remainder of the season, Phillips set or equalled club records by scoring in seven consecutive matches and in nine consecutive home matches, became the first Sunderland player since Brian Clough in 1961–62 to score 30 goals in a season, and finished the campaign with 35 goals in all competitions, the most by any Sunderland player in one season since the Second World War. His tally included a four-goal haul in the third round of the FA Cup at Rotherham United and two goals in the play-off campaign. After scoring Sunderland's second goal in the play-off final, Phillips was substituted after 73 minutes with an injury, so missed the remainder of the 4–4 draw with Charlton Athletic which Sunderland lost 7–6 on penalties. Phillips later described the final as his "most disappointing day in football", but also as the best match he had ever played in.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips scored eight goals in the opening weeks of the 1998–99 season as Sunderland reached the top of the Division One table. A broken toe sustained in a League Cup tie against Chester City in mid-September kept him out for nearly four months, but his goalscoring resumed immediately upon his return, with a "screaming volley" away to Queens Park Rangers. Promotion was confirmed in April as Phillips scored four of Sunderland's five goals in an away game against Bury, and he ended the season with 23 goals from only 26 league games, and 25 goals in all competitions. His form earned him an international call-up for England, and he made his debut in the starting eleven in a friendly against Hungary.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In the run-up to the start of the 1999–2000 FA Premier League season, pundit Rodney Marsh predicted that Phillips would struggle to get more than five or six goals at the higher level. Forming a potent "little and large" strike pairing with veteran target-man Niall Quinn, Phillips scored his sixth goal on 18 September – the first of a hat-trick against Derby County – and was named Premier League Player of the Month for October. His goal tally was 20 by mid-January and 30 by the season's end, a total that earned him not only the Premier League Golden Boot but also the European Golden Shoe award – , he remains the only Englishman to have won the latter – and with a 14-goal return from Quinn contributed to Sunderland's seventh-place finish, just missing out on a UEFA Cup place.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In January 2001, Phillips scored his 104th goal for Sunderland, breaking the club's post-war goalscoring record. As the season wore on, Phillips suffered both a lack of form and disciplinary problems: he scored only once between mid-January and May, and came in for criticism from fans and local press. He finished the season with 18 goals in all competitions, 14 in the league, as Sunderland again finished seventh and missed out on UEFA Cup qualification.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips' goals contribution to Sunderland's 2001–02 season fell to 13, of which 11 came in the league. He relinquished his penalty-taking duties, after three consecutive spot-kicks were saved, but his goal on the final day of the season, in a 1–1 draw with Derby County, was enough to ensure 17th place and Premier League survival. He played the last months of the campaign despite a groin problem which required surgery over the 2002 close season.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Amid interest from clubs including Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, Phillips "pledged his future" to Sunderland ahead of the 2002–03 season, though he later confirmed he had submitted a transfer request in August. Manager Peter Reid brought in strikers Tore André Flo and Marcus Stewart, and warned Phillips he was no longer an automatic first choice. Phillips in fact started 32 of the 38 league matches, but scored only 6 goals as the club were relegated with just four wins and what were then Premier League record lows of 19 points and 21 goals. A second transfer request was rejected in January, but at the end of the season Phillips confirmed that the club's need to reduce its expenditure in light of relegation meant that he would be leaving. He had played in 235 matches for Sunderland, and scored 130 goals at an average of better than a goal every two games.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In August 2003, following Sunderland's relegation from the Premier League, Phillips moved to the south coast to join Southampton for a fee of £3.25 million, with Phillips signing a four-year contract, while taking a substantial cut in his salary.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: He made his debut on 16 August, coming on as a substitute away to Leicester City and scoring with a long-range strike in a 2–2 draw. His next goal came at White Hart Lane on 20 September when the ball ricocheted in off him from an attempted clearance by Tottenham Hotspur's Anthony Gardner. This was followed in mid-week by the equalising goal in a 1–1 draw with Steaua Bucharest in the UEFA Cup First round. On the following Saturday, Phillips was sent off in the final minute of a bad-tempered 1–0 defeat to Middlesbrough, after he kicked out at Boro defender Franck Queudrue.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips then failed to score for over three months until his fourth goal of the season came in a 2–1 victory over Leeds United on 17 January 2004. There then followed a rich run of form with Phillips netting ten further goals in the final four months of the season including two goals in the matches at Manchester United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Manchester City. Phillips ended the 2003–04 season with 13 goals in total, from 37 appearances.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In March 2004, manager Gordon Strachan had resigned to be replaced by Paul Sturrock who was dismissed shortly after the start of the 2004–05 season, to be replaced in turn by Steve Wigley who spent just three months in charge before the arrival of Harry Redknapp from local rivals Portsmouth in December. Phillips had now played under four managers within a year.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Despite the frequent changes in manager, Phillips continued to score regularly in his partnership with new signing Peter Crouch. He managed ten league goals in 2004–05, including two in a 3–3 draw with Fulham on 5 January. Despite Phillips's goals, the club finished at the bottom of the table and were relegated after 27 years in the top flight. On 29 June 2005, Phillips departed from Southampton after two years and 22 league goals to join Aston Villa in a £1 million deal.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips signed a two-year contract with Premier League club Aston Villa for a fee of £1 million on 29 June 2005. He scored just four minutes into his Villa debut, and then returned from injury to seal Villa's first Premier League defeat of local rivals Birmingham City in seven attempts. Phillips shared front-man duties with Juan Pablo Ángel and fellow new signing Milan Baroš, but illness and further injuries disrupted his season, in which he contributed only five goals. He began the 2006–07 season with Villa, but on 22 August, he signed for West Bromwich Albion of the Championship for a £700,000 fee.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips joined West Bromwich Albion despite strong interest from Sunderland, where his former strike partner Niall Quinn had recently become both chairman and manager. He cited a reluctance to move his family and home for a third time in three years as a major factor in his decision. He scored 22 goals in his first season with West Brom, including two hat-tricks, one in a 5–1 win at Ipswich Town and the second in a 7–0 defeat of Barnsley on the final day of the regular season that confirmed Albion's place in the play-offs. Phillips scored twice in the first leg of the play-off semi-final against Wolverhampton Wanderers, and headed the only goal of the second leg to ensure their progression to the final, in which they lost 1–0 to Derby County.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: He missed six weeks of the 2007–08 season because of a knee injury sustained in early November, but rediscovered his goalscoring form on his return to win the Championship player-of-the-month award for December. Described by Albion manager Tony Mowbray as "a natural goal-scorer with great awareness and vision", Phillips scored his 200th League goal in a 1–1 draw with Crystal Palace on 13 March 2008. For the last match of the season, away to Queens Park Rangers, fans of West Bromwich Albion chose to dress up as superheroes in honour of Phillips, who is nicknamed "Super Kev"; Albion won the match 2–0 to win promotion to the Premier League as champions. Phillips won numerous awards over the season. He received Player-of-the-Year awards from both the West Bromwich Albion Supporters Club and from the club itself, after scoring 24 goals from 30 starts and finishing as the Championship's second top goalscorer. At national level, he was chosen Championship Player of the Year at the annual Football League Awards, ahead of Andy Gray of Charlton Athletic and Michael Kightly of Wolverhampton Wanderers, and, together with teammates Paul Robinson and Jonathan Greening, was named in the PFA Championship Team of the Year.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: When his contract with West Bromwich Albion expired at the end of the 2007–08 season, the club offered Phillips a one-year deal, with an additional second year if he made 19 or more league appearances. He rejected the offer, preferring to sign a two-year contract with Birmingham City, newly relegated from the Premier League. He made his debut on the opening day of the 2008–09 season against Sheffield United, coming on as a substitute to score a stoppage time winner in a 1–0 victory. Phillips continued his scoring run with goals in his next two games, against Southampton and Barnsley, "lashed in a stinging low drive" against Reading that earned him the club's Goal of the Season award, and finished the season with 14 goals in all competitions. His 14th, to take a two-goal lead in a 2–1 win against promotion rivals Reading on the last day of the season, ensured Birmingham's return to the Premier League after just one season in the Championship.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: At 36, Phillips recognised he would play a reduced role at the higher level. In a season when manager Alex McLeish relied on consistency in team selection – Birmingham set a Premier League record of nine consecutive matches with the same starting eleven, and a club record twelve-match unbeaten run in the top flight – he started only twice, but came on as substitute in 17 games. He scored only four goals, but those goals contributed four points to the club's highest finish for more than 50 years. Against Wolverhampton Wanderers, he came off the bench to score twice in the last ten minutes and win the game, and on 27 March 2010, 1–0 down at home to Arsenal, a 92nd-minute clearance by Bacary Sagna deflected off Phillips' face via the goalkeeper into the net for his 250th career goal.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: He signed a one-year contract extension ahead of the 2010–11 season, but missed the start through injury. He went on to make five league starts, but his major contribution came in the League Cup. Facing League One club Brentford, Phillips scored a stoppage-time equaliser and converted his penalty in the shootout by which Birmingham progressed to the quarter-final. They went on to reach the final, where Phillips received his first winners' medal in a cup competition, albeit as an unused substitute, as Birmingham defeated favourites Arsenal 2–1. Birmingham finished 18th in the League, so were relegated to the Championship, and Phillips was one of several players to leave the club when their contracts expired at the end of the season.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: On 10 July 2011, Phillips signed a one-year deal with Football League Championship club Blackpool. On 14 August, he scored both of Blackpool's goals in their 2–1 league victory over Peterborough United, on his home debut. He again scored twice a few days later, including a last-minute equaliser, in a 2–2 draw away at Brighton & Hove Albion. On 5 November, Phillips scored the only goal of the game against Millwall within three minutes of coming on as a substitute. In a five-game spell in January and February 2012, he came off the bench to score late equalising goals in three league matches, two of which Blackpool went on to win, and, in his first start for three months, converted a 93rd-minute penalty against Sheffield Wednesday in the fourth round of the FA Cup to force a replay. Phillips finished the season as the club's top scorer, with 17 goals in all competitions, and won their goal of the season for his equaliser against Cardiff City, described in "The Observer" as "a lovely lob punishing [goalkeeper] David Marshall for a punched clearance that lacked the required distance. Phillips took the ball down on his chest, picked his spot and scored with consummate skill and accuracy".


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Phillips took up the option to extend his Blackpool contract for a further year, but scored only twice from 18 appearances before following manager Ian Holloway to Championship rivals Crystal Palace.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: On the last day of the January 2013 transfer window, Phillips signed on loan to Crystal Palace until the end of the 2012–13 season. He made his debut as a half-time substitute in the 2–1 win at home to Charlton Athletic, after being 1–0 down prior to his introduction, and scored his first goal for the Eagles in their next game, against his former club Watford at Vicarage Road. Palace were again trailing when he came off the bench, 2–0 down with half an hour remaining, and Phillips scored the equaliser as the side fought back to achieve a 2–2 draw. Phillips' hat-trick, scored in eight minutes either side of half-time in a 4–2 defeat of Hull City, made him the oldest scorer in Palace's history at 39 years 7 months. This is also the club's fastest ever hat-trick in the league, beating the previous record set by Dougie Freedman in 11 minutes in a 5–0 win against Grimsby Town exactly 17 years before. On 27 May, he came on as a substitute in the play-off final and converted an extra-time penalty to secure Palace's promotion to the Premier League at the expense of former club Watford. Steve Parish indicated in the "Croydon Advertiser" that Phillips had agreed to a one-year deal with Palace in July 2013.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: On 31 December 2013, Crystal Palace confirmed that Phillips would leave the club by mutual consent in January.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: On 15 January 2014, Leicester City confirmed that they had signed Phillips on a short-term contract until the end of the season. The striker made his debut on 18 January 2014 against Leeds United, coming on as a substitute for Jamie Vardy, helping create the opportunity that saw fellow former England international David Nugent score the winning goal of the game. On 1 February 2014, Phillips scored his first goal for the club against AFC Bournemouth, heading in winger Anthony Knockaert's cross. Phillips' second goal for Leicester, his first at home, came in the 3–1 victory over former club Blackpool on 15 March 2014. On 28 April 2014, he announced his intention to retire from football at the conclusion of the 2013–14 season. With Leicester already confirmed as champions, Phillips played his final career game in the last match of the season, against Doncaster Rovers on 3 May 2014, and was substituted in the 65th minute.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Following his retirement from football, Phillips was offered a coaching role and remained at Leicester City as assistant first team coach for the club's first season back in the Premier League.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In June 2018 Phillips joined as first-team coach to Gary Rowett at Stoke City. He left Stoke on 8 January 2019.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: On 16 January 2022, Phillips was appointed as manager of Northern Premier League Premier Division club South Shields. Despite being favourites to win the league, South Shields finished second and lost in the play-off semi-finals to Warrington Town in Phillips' first season as manager.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: Between April 1999 and February 2002, Phillips made eight appearances for England but failed to score. His debut came when he was one of five international debutants selected by manager Kevin Keegan for the friendly match away to Hungary. Phillips had an opportunity to score in the first half, but his shot hit the keeper's legs. In the 74th minute, Phillips was replaced by fellow debutant Emile Heskey.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In the final warm-up match before the Euro 2000 tournament, Phillips failed to score in a 2–1 victory against Malta, with the BBC describing him as having "that slightly desperate look of all fringe players who have been left precious little time to impress". Despite this, Phillips was selected by Keegan as part of the England squad for Euro 2000, but he remained an unused substitute.


title: Kevin Phillips (footballer)

text: In his final appearance for England, he came on as a half-time substitute in a friendly against the Netherlands on 13 February 2002, in which he had a chance to equalise when he forced keeper Edwin van der Sar into an error; Van der Sar then produced a point-blank save from David Beckham's follow-up.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Indonesia AirAsia from Surabaya, Java, Indonesia, to Singapore. On 28 December 2014, the Airbus A320 flying the route crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 162 people on board. When search operations ended in March 2015, only 116 bodies had been recovered. This was the third-deadliest aviation accident in Indonesian soil, behind Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 and Lion Air Flight 610. It is also the first fatal crash of an Airbus A320 aircraft since the crash of XL Airways Germany Flight 888T in 2008, as well as the second deadliest involving the Airbus A320 family, behind TAM Airlines Flight 3054 in 2007.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: In December 2015, the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT or NTSC) released a report concluding that a non-critical malfunction in the rudder control system prompted the captain to perform a non-standard reset of the on-board flight control computers. Control of the aircraft was subsequently lost, resulting in a stall and uncontrolled descent into the sea. Miscommunication between the two pilots was cited as a contributing factor.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 was a scheduled flight from Surabaya, Java, Indonesia, to Singapore on Sunday, 2014. It was scheduled to depart Juanda International Airport at 05:20 Western Indonesian Time (WIB, UTC+7) and arrive at Singapore Changi Airport at 08:30 Singapore Standard Time (SST, UTC+8). Flight 8501 took off at 05:35 WIB and reached its cruising altitude at flight level (FL) 320 at fourteen minutes later. It joined air route M635, heading north-west out over the western Java Sea. The plane was in contact with Jakarta air traffic control (ATC).


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: The flight was normal until 06:00 when an electronic centralised aircraft monitor (ECAM) memo was displayed, along with a master caution light, to indicate a fault with the rudder limiter system. Captain Iriyanto read the actions for fixing this failure, and rebooted the aircraft's two Flight Augmentation Computers (FACs). The same fault recurred at 06:09, and the captain fixed it in the same way.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: At 06:11 the pilots turned fifteen degrees to the left to avoid inclement weather, and contacted Jakarta ATC to request a climb to FL 380 at for the same reason. The controller could not give immediate permission for this due to other aircraft in the vicinity, and instructed them to wait.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: While they were waiting for permission to climb, the rudder limiter problem occurred for a third time, and for the third time the captain reset the FAC computers. When the memo displayed for the fourth time, Captain Iriyanto decided to reset the FAC circuit breakers (CB). He had previously seen this action being performed by a ground engineer, and believed that it was acceptable to do so in flight.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: The FAC circuit breakers were reset at 06:16:45, with immediate consequences, as this action not only reset the FAC computers but also disconnected the autopilot and auto throttle, and the flight control law changed from Normal to Alternate. It allowed the aircraft to roll to the left, and by the time First Officer Plesel reacted to this it was banked at 54 degrees.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: Plesel, possibly spatially disoriented due to the roll sensation, over-corrected twice: first by making a sharp right bank input and then a sharp left bank input. After that, at 06:17, Plesel made a nose-up input on his side-stick, causing the aircraft to enter a steep climb at a 24-degree nose-up pitch. In just 54 seconds, the aircraft climbed from FL 320 to , exceeding a climb rate of . It then entered a stall, at around 06:17:40, descending at a rate of up to . The aircraft also began a turn to the left, forming at least one complete circle before disappearing from radar at 06:18:44. At 06:20:35 the flight data recorder stopped recording. The CVR stopped recording one second later, at 06:20:36. The aircraft crashed into the Java Sea and was destroyed. All 162 people on board were killed.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: Its last recorded position was over the Java Sea, Karimata Strait between the islands of Belitung and Kalimantan (). The aircraft crashed in the Java Sea, Karimata Strait between the islands of Belitung and Borneo (). The cockpit voice recorder captured multiple warnings, including a stall warning, sounding in the cockpit during the final minutes of the flight. No distress signal was sent from the aircraft. Search and rescue (SAR) operations were activated by the Indonesia National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) from the Pangkal Pinang office.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: The aircraft was an Airbus A320-216, with serial number 3648, registered as PK-AXC. It first flew on 2008, and was delivered to AirAsia on 2008. The aircraft was six years old and had accumulated approximately 23,000 flight hours over 13,600 flights. It had undergone its most recent scheduled maintenance on 2014. The aircraft was powered by two CFM International CFM56-5B6 engines and was configured to carry 180 passengers.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: AirAsia released details of the 155 passengers, which included 137 adults, 17 children, and one infant. The crew consisted of two pilots, four flight attendants and an engineer.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: Forty-one people who were on board the AirAsia flight were members of a single church congregation in Surabaya. Most were families with young children travelling to Singapore for a new year's holiday.


title: Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501

text: The bodies began to be returned to their families on 1 January 2015. At that time, the East Java Regional Police Department's Disaster Victim Identification commissioner stated that the victims were identified by the means of "post mortem" results, thumb prints, and their personal belongings.