title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph was initially conceived as a sixteen-year-old boy that was athletic and muscular, designed to be a foil to Sokka. Her prototype design is featured in the show's intro as the earthbender. As the series progressed and the time came closer to introduce an earthbender who would join the main characters, head writer Aaron Ehasz suggested that they create contrast by designing a little girl who is able to defeat strong, adult earthbenders; some of the staff found this humorous, but it was initially rejected by "Avatar" co-creator Bryan Konietzko. Following several long discussions, Konietzko stopped fighting the idea and warmed up to it, after which Toph was made female and introduced into the series, becoming one of Konietzko's favorite characters. The character's original design was recycled into the appearances of minor characters The Boulder and Sud. Her original design greatly influenced the appearance of Bolin in "The Legend of Korra". Her Earth Rumble outfit, the clothing she wears for the majority of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", was inspired by European fashion styles. Her fancy dress was modeled after the traditional clothing of the Chinese Tang dynasty.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph was favored by the creators to return in "The Legend of Korra" after the appearances of both Katara and Zuko, DiMartino writing that it "never quite made sense" for there to be a trip to the swamp, where she was located, during the third season. In the following season, she was meant to serve as a foil to Korra with her "gruff mentoring style" contrasting the reserved Korra. Her design became a subject of difficulty for the staff, who wanted her to return to the size of her twelve-year-old self from the original series despite flashbacks in the earlier part of "The Legend of Korra" showing her as having grown in height. Konietzko was content with the staff's wishes but wanted her shortened height to come from her having become hunched since then. Artists had issues carrying out this design, resulting in multiple takes.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph is fiercely independent, direct, belligerent, and practiced in taunting and insulting her opponents and on occasion her friends, particularly Sokka. On several occasions Toph appears picking her nose, spitting, and belching loudly. As she explained to Aang and his companions, she does this intentionally as a rebellion against the principles of refined culture that her aristocratic parents attempted to make her conform to. If the situation absolutely requires it, she actually knows how to behave in upper-class culture much better than Aang's companions do. She is usually covered in dirt, or as she calls it, "a healthy coating of earth".


title: Toph Beifong

text: In her advanced age, despite retaining much of her strength as an earthbender, Toph refuses to take part in prolonged conflicts, admitting that she is too old and lacks the energy for such endeavors.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In "The Serpent's Pass", Toph's passport reads (tǔ guó tóu děng hù zhào běi fāng tuò fú), which translates as "Earth Kingdom First Class Passport: Beifong Toph". Here, her name means "supported lotus", which matches her parents' view of their daughter as a flower in need of protection. In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", her name is written as (Tuō Fū), which is the phonetic transcription based on the official guide for foreign names. In "The Earth King", her name is reverted to . Her last name Beifong () is close to the Mandarin pronunciation of the word "North" (běi fāng). The word (Tuō) also means "to support in one's palm", or "drag" and is the word used for child care, and is also intended to sound like the English word "tough" and "toff" (meaning "upper class").


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph's parents view her blindness as a disability and therefore keep her concealed. Despite her handicap, Toph has developed special skills by keeping company with the blind 'badgermoles' that inhabited nearby caves. By imitating their movements, Toph became a master of the martial art known as 'earthbending', but she kept her ability secret from her overprotective family. Toph fought frequently in "Earth Rumble", an earthbending lei tai tournament resembling professional wrestling, under the alias "Blind Bandit". By the time Aang and his friends discover Toph at the tournament, she had become champion, holding a 42–0 win–loss record. However, Aang unintentionally beats her in a match when he tries to talk to her, as she could not sense air currents. When her parents learn about this and confine her further, Toph runs away to accompany Aang and his friends as Aang's earthbending instructor, although her parents believe she was kidnapped by Aang. Toph nearly leaves the group after feuding with over not contributing to the group's teamwork, though rejoins them following a meeting with Iroh and encountering Princess Azula for the first time. Toph successfully begins Aang's training of earthbending and slows the descent of Wan Shi Tong's Library, where the group learns the date of the next Day of Black Sun and inadvertently gains an advantage over the Fire Nation, as it sinks, though fails to prevent Appa from being kidnapped by sandbenders. Due to Appa being the group's transportation, they are forced to travel on foot, journeying through Serpent's Pass and preventing a drill from entering Ba Sing Se. Now in the city, she infiltrates the Earth Kingdom Royal Palace, meeting Dai Li, bonds with Katara, encounters Jet and reunites with Appa. Toph also learns to metalbend after she is captured in a metal cage by people who were sent by her parents to retrieve her. She realizes that metal contains small amounts of earth, which she can manipulate. She quickly escapes and traps her captors in the same small cage.


title: Toph Beifong

text: After the events of the Book 2 finale, Toph, alongside Sokka, Katara and the Southern Water Tribe, captured a Fire Nation ship. Once in the Fire Nation, she assumed the identity of a regular Fire Nation girl.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In “The Runaway”, Toph uses her earthbending senses to foil a vendor's trick, and by bargaining and continuing to use her senses, she extracts more and more money from him. Katara is distressed by this, and scolds Toph for her immoral behavior, but later enlists her to pull a huge scam.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Katara fakes turning Toph over to the police in order to collect the reward money, with the assumption that Toph will metalbend her way out of prison and rejoin her. However, it is revealed that there is no reward money and the cells are made of wood, and Katara is shoved in jail alongside Toph. Aang and Sokka attempt to overtake their adversary Combustion Man, but Katara ends up busting herself and Toph out by being resourceful in her attempt to draw water for her bending.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph then is part of the invasion team, and she helps Aang get to Firelord Ozai's underground bunker. She later is seen riding on Appa after the invasion team's defeat.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In “The Western Air Temple”, she arrives at the Western Air Temple with the Gaang and meets Zuko. She is accepting of him at first, urging Katara and Sokka to accept his help, but after she is burned by him she too grows angry with him. When he reattempts to join their team, she happily accepts him on the grounds of Aang's acceptance.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In the finale, Toph helps Sokka and Suki attack a Fire Nation airship. Suki hops off the ship in order to help Toph and Sokka get to safety. Toph is nearly knocked off the burning ship and killed, but Sokka rescues her and they are promptly retrieved by Suki. She later celebrates the Firelord's defeat with her friends in Iroh's tea shop.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In "" trilogy, Toph is revealed to have established the Beifong Metalbending Academy, an instructional institution to help earthbenders learn metalbending, shortly after the end of the television series. She chooses her three students (Penga, The Dark One, and Ho Tun) on the basis of her meteorite bracelet shivering in their presence. Though claiming her motives behind founding the school were due to her love of metalbending, in actuality she enjoys bossing people around. Initially worried her students are not capable of being metalbenders, they surprise her with their victory over Kunyo and his firebending students, renewing her confidence in them and she participates in the battle for Yu Dao.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In "" trilogy, Toph encounters her father for the first time since the series, though he refuses to acknowledge her as his daughter. It is further revealed that her parents broke up after the people they sent to bring Toph back had failed. Toph prevents others from being killed by debris falling from the mine collapsing, including her father, who reconciles with her as she saves everyone. Following this, she passes out and has her students assist Aang in his battle against the spirit of Old Iron.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In "The Legend of Korra", Toph is revealed to have founded Republic City's police force and taught the art of metalbending to her students. Two of her students were her daughters Lin and Suyin. Her daughters mention in passing to Korra that they are actually half-sisters by two different fathers, but their identities were not revealed, and due to as-yet-unexplained reasons neither of Toph's daughters ever knew their fathers. Due to her own strict upbringing, Toph raised the pair as a single parent with essentially no restrictions. But it caused both of them to feel that she was ignoring them as their mutual need for her attention caused them to react in different ways: the older and strict Lin followed in her mother's footsteps as a Republic City police officer while the free-spirited Suyin became a delinquent by hanging with the wrong crowd, which Lin disapproved of. Eventually, Lin caught Suyin driving the getaway car for her criminal friends after a jewel theft, during which Suyin accidentally scarred the right side of Lin's face. Although upset with her daughters for putting her in a tough situation, Toph was forced to look the other way and tear up the police report because of the controversy it would cause before sending Suyin away to live with her grandparents; Lin did not take this kindly. This ignites a rift between Toph and her daughters. Toph, feeling guilt over her questionable actions, retired the following year with Lin eventually succeeding her as Republic City's Chief of Police by the time of the first season.


title: Toph Beifong

text: In the third-season episodes, "The Metal Clan" and "Old Wounds", it is revealed that Toph made her peace with a repentant Suyin and spent some years living with Suyin's family in Zaofu, a city of creative metalbenders founded by Suyin, which recognized Toph as the inventor of metalbending. A statue of her was built to honor her discovery. Some years prior to the events of the series, Toph left Zaofu to travel the world in search of enlightenment and had not been seen or heard from since.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph appears in the fourth-season episode "Korra Alone", having made a home in the sacred spirit wilds of the Foggy Swamp where Aang's reincarnation, Korra, encounters her. In the episodes "The Coronation" and "The Calling", she assists Korra by removing the remnant liquid-metal poison placed in her body by the Red Lotus through helping her overcome her fears brought about by her past adversaries. Toph returns in the tenth episode, "Operation: Beifong", to aid Lin, her granddaughter Opal, and Bolin, in freeing Suyin and her family from Kuvira's Earth Empire forces. She reveals that Lin's father was named Kanto, a nice man whose relationship with Toph didn't work out.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Eighty-five-year-old Toph returns in "" upon being approached by Avatar Korra and Earth King Wu, requesting her assistance in stopping those who desired to further strengthen the Earth Empire's influence by becoming governor in the election, to which the elderly earthbending master and metalbending founder was not interested in.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Being blind, Toph's mechanoreceptors and other senses are hyper-sensitive. By grounding herself barefoot, Toph can "see" and "feel" even the most minute seismic vibrations in the earth, be it the presence of trees or the march of ants several meters away, an earthbending technique dubbed the "seismic sense". Toph has acquired an acute sense of hearing, enabling her to recognize people by their voices, discern a person's physical appearance by sound, overhear distant conversations, and sense falsehood via the individual's subtle breathing patterns, heartbeat, and physical reactions. After taking residence in the Foggy Swamp, Toph claimed her heightened senses has expanded to point of being fine-tuned via the spirit vines with events around the world.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph is disadvantaged against opponents who require minimal contact with the ground and vulnerable to any attacks initiated in mid-air. Terrain that impairs Toph's ability to sense vibrations also hinders her abilities; she has some difficulty with sand, which constantly lacks solidity, preventing her from accurately "feeling" her surroundings. Because Toph relies on sensation in her feet to perform earthbending, she becomes truly "blind" if the soles of her feet are damaged, as shown when Zuko accidentally burns her feet. Although, she can feel the vibrations of the earth with her hands to some degree, they are not nearly as sensitive as her feet. Her affinity with the earth is further illustrated in that Toph does not know how to swim and expresses an aversion to flying.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Toph is highly skilled in earthbending which utilizes chinese martial arts techniques of Hóng Quán and Chu Gar Nán Pài Tángláng.<ref name="avatar2/index.jhtml"></ref> Earthbending represents the element of substance. It is categorized as the "most diverse and enduring" of the "four bending arts". Earthbending is the geokinetic ability to manipulate earth, rock, sand, lava, and metals in all their various forms. Earthbending utilizes "neutral jing", which involves waiting and listening for the right moment to act decisively. Earthbending involves enduring attacks until the right opportunity to counterattack reveals itself, emphasizes "heavily rooted stances and strong blows that evoke the mass and power of earth", and demands precise stepping footwork to maintain constant contact with the ground. Earthbending parallels Five Animals movements (such as the tiger's hard blows and the crane's affinity to landing gracefully). Earthbending is at its strongest when the feet or hand are in direct contact with the ground, enabling earthbenders to transfer their kinetic energies into their bending for fast and powerful moves. This reliance on direct contact with the earth is a figurative Achilles' heel; separating earthbenders from any contact with the earth renders them ineffective.


title: Toph Beifong

text: The series' creators consulted a professional martial artist in the design of the show's fighting style. The primary concepts in Earthbending (i.e. listening, reacting, balancing attacks and defense) and drawing power from a stable lower body are referred to in the practice of "neutral jing". The concept of "neutral jing" relates to the philosophy of "sticky hands". The purpose of sticky hands is to enable the practitioner to predict their opponent's next move. Similar to Toph detecting the movements of others through her connection with earth, a practitioner learns to detect their opponent's upcoming move by maintaining constant contact between their own arms, hands or wrists, and their foe's arm. By practicing with a partner in this manner, a practitioner learns to "read" the slight movements of their opponent's arms to detect their next attack and subsequently move accordingly to neutralize it.


title: Toph Beifong

text: Throughout "Avatar: The Last Airbender", Toph is the first earthbender known to bend metal. When Toph is imprisoned in iron, the sadhu Guru Pathik explains to Aang in a parallel scene that metal is refined earth; whereupon Toph locates the iron's impurities and manipulates them to "bend" the metal portion. She practices and hones her initially unique skill throughout the rest of the series, later teaching it to other earthbenders prior to the events of the "Legend of Korra".


title: Toph Beifong

text: Reviewer Michael Mammano loved that while Toph "never loses her rough edge, she's always been deftly humanized", feeling her relationships with her daughters would matter to her and thought it was "incredibly refreshing and feminist" that she had two children with different men because nowhere in the narrative was Toph "questioned or shamed for having children out of wedlock", adding: "She has been canonically confirmed as a woman who had a sex life that was on her terms." Mammano braced for her to die in "The Legend of Korra" episode "Operation: Beifong", though she survived and felt that as her final appearance in the series, "it was a great send-off, especially given her parting words." Toph's character was viewed as being "ruined" due to her poor parenting in the eyes of her daughter Lin in "The Legend of Korra". (Aang received similar criticisms from his children Bumi and Kya.) Mammano objected to this by reasoning that the story is told from the perspective of her children while she was no longer around to defend herself, with and that grown children would never be able to fully understand their parents' rationale for raising them the way they did.


title: João Lourenço

text: João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço (born 5 March 1954) is an Angolan politician, who has served as the president of Angola since 26 September 2017. Previously, he was Minister of Defence from 2014 to 2017. In September 2018, he became the Chairman of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the ruling party. He was the party's Secretary-General from 1998 to 2003.


title: João Lourenço

text: João Lourenço was designated in December 2016 to occupy the party's number one position in the August 2017 legislative election. In terms of the 2010 constitution, "the individual heading the national list of the political party or coalition of political parties which receives the most votes in general elections ... shall be elected President of the Republic and Head of the Executive" (Article 109). As the MPLA won a majority of 150 seats, Lourenço automatically became President of Angola, succeeding José Eduardo dos Santos, who had been in power for 38 years. Lourenço was officially sworn into office on 26 September 2017.


title: João Lourenço

text: Born in 1954, Lourenço grew up in a politically engaged family of ten children. His father, Sequeira João Lourenço (1923–1999), a native of Malanje, was a nurse and nationalist, who served three years of imprisonment in Portuguese Angola for illegal political activity. His mother, Josefa Gonçalves Cipriano Lourenço (1928–1997), a seamstress, was a native of Namibe. He received both a primary and secondary Portuguese-language education in Bié Province and Luanda.


title: João Lourenço

text: Lourenço studied at the Industrial Institute of Luanda and later participated in the liberation struggle in Ponta Negra, in August 1974, where he was part of the first group of MPLA soldiers to enter Angolan territory via Miconge, towards the city of Cabinda after the fall of the Portuguese colonial regime.


title: João Lourenço

text: He began his military career fighting against the Portuguese in the Angolan War of Independence and fought as a member of the MPLA in the Angolan Civil War. Lourenço conducted his training in artillery and then became a political officer in the MPLA. In 1978, Lourenço traveled to the Soviet Union and studied at the Lenin Military-Political Academy, where he furthered his military training and completed a master's degree in Historical Sciences. He later returned to Angola in 1982. Now an artillery general, Lourenço turned towards politics and in 1984 was appointed as Governor of Moxico Province.


title: João Lourenço

text: Lourenço's early politics were mainly confined within the MPLA as an officer responsible for keeping guerrilla soldiers' morale high. Following his appointment as Governor of Moxico Province in 1984, he continued to rise through the ranks of the ruling party. He also served as the provincial commissioner of Moxico Province for the MPLA, president of the Regional Military Council of the 3rd Military Political Region, First Secretary of MPLA and Provincial Commissioner of Benguela Province. He was the MPLA's Secretary for Information from 1992 to 1997 and President of the MPLA Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly from 1993 to 1998.


title: João Lourenço

text: At a party congress, he was elected as Secretary-General of the MPLA on 12 December 1998. His election was said to be linked to the favour of President José Eduardo dos Santos and it was thought that Lourenço could potentially succeed the long-ruling dos Santos at some point. However, after dos Santos said in 2001 that he would not seek re-election as president, Lourenço openly expressed an interest in becoming the MPLA's presidential candidate and thereby damaged his standing with dos Santos, who apparently had no real intention of leaving office, but had sought to expose political rivals. Juilão Mateus Paulo succeeded him as MPLA Secretary-General at a December 2003 party congress.


title: João Lourenço

text: Lourenço was First Vice-President of the National Assembly from 2003 to 2014. He was appointed as Minister of Defense in April 2014, and he was designated as Vice-President of the MPLA in August 2016. In September 2018 he became the Chairman of the MPLA, replacing José Eduardo dos Santos.


title: João Lourenço

text: Lourenço is very close to Elliott Broidy. Through Broidy's firm Circinus, Broidy allegedly received $6 million in January 2017 for lobbying on behalf of the interests of Angola by arranging meetings with Angolans and several Republican United States Senators including Ron Johnson and Tom Cotton, fostering a closer relationship between Washington, and Luanda, attempting to arrange meetings among Lourenço and Mike Pence and Donald Trump and allowing Lourenço to attend a September 2017 event at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club of which Broidy is a member, however, Lourenço did not attend.


title: João Lourenço

text: In December 2016 the MPLA designated Lourenço as the party's top candidate in the 2017 legislative election. He was elected President of Angola on 23 August 2017 and took office on 26 September becoming the third President in the country's history. On 8 September 2018, he was elected President of the MPLA, Angola's ruling party since 1975, becoming its 5th party leader.


title: João Lourenço

text: In June 2018, Lourenço legalised Angola's first LGBT collective. The following January, he replaced the 1886 colonial law banning homosexual acts, and prohibited discrimination against LGBT people. The reforms also permitted abortion in cases of rape or danger to mother or fetus.


title: João Lourenço

text: He is married to Ana Afonso Dias Lourenço, a Member of Parliament of the MPLA and former Minister of Planning, who held a position at the World Bank in Washington D.C. until October 2016. They have six children, all of whom are currently active in the MPLA. Apart from his indigenous Umbundu language and Portuguese, he speaks Russian, Spanish, and English. He is popularly nicknamed "Ti Mimoso" and "JLo".


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (; The Luncheon on the Grass) – originally titled Le Bain ("The Bath") – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863. It depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, where the painting sparked public notoriety and controversy. The work is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A smaller, earlier version can be seen at the Courtauld Gallery, London.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: The painting features a nude woman casually lunching with two fully dressed men. Her body is starkly lit and she stares directly at the viewer. The two men, dressed as young dandies, sit with her. In front of them, the woman's clothes, a basket of fruit, and a round loaf of bread are displayed, as in a still life. In the background, yet too large in comparison with the figures in the foreground, a lightly clad woman bathes in a stream. The man on the right wears a flat hat with a tassel, a kind normally worn indoors.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: Despite the mundane subject, Manet deliberately chose a large canvas size, measuring 81.9 × 104.1 in (208 by 264.5 cm), normally reserved for historical, religious and mythological subjects. The style of the painting breaks with the academic traditions of the time. He did not try to hide the brush strokes; the painting even looks unfinished in some parts of the scene. The nude is also starkly different from the smooth, flawless figures of Cabanel or Ingres.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: A nude woman casually lunching with fully dressed men was an affront to audiences' sense of propriety, though Émile Zola, a contemporary of Manet's, argued that this was not uncommon in paintings found in the Louvre. Zola also felt that such a reaction came from viewing art differently from the perspective of "analytic" painters like Manet, who use a painting's subject as a pretext to paint.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: There is much not known about the painting, such as when Manet actually began painting it, how he got the idea and how and what sort of preparatory works he did. Though Manet had claimed this piece was once valued at 25,000 Francs in 1871, it remained in his possession until 1878 when Jean-Baptiste Faure, opera-singer and collector, bought it for just 2,600 Francs.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: The figures of this painting are a testament to how deeply connected Manet was to "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe". Some assume that the landscape of the painting is meant to be l'Île Saint-Ouen, which was just up the Seine from his family property in Gennevilliers. Manet often used real models and people he knew as reference during his creation process. The female nude is thought to be Victorine Meurent, the woman who became his favorite and frequently portrayed model, who later was the subject of "Olympia". The male figure on the right was based on a combination of his two brothers, Eugène and Gustave Manet. The other man is based on his brother-in-law, Dutch sculptor Ferdinand Leenhoff. Nancy Locke referred to this scene as Manet's family portrait.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: What many critics find shocking about this painting is the interaction, or lack thereof, between the three main subjects in the foreground and the woman bathing in the background. There are many contrasting qualities to the painting that juxtapose and distance the female nude from the other two male subjects. For example, the feminine versus the masculine, the naked versus the clothed, and the white color palette versus the dark color palette creates a clear social difference between the men and the woman. Additionally, some viewers are intrigued by the questions raised by the gaze of the nude woman. It is indeterminable whether she is challenging or accepting the viewer, looking past the viewer, engaging the viewer, or even looking at the viewer at all. This encounter identifies the gaze as a figure of the painting itself, as well as the figure object of the woman's gaze.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: As with the later "Olympia" (1863) and other works, Manet's composition reveals his study of the old masters, as the disposition of the main figures is derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving "The Judgment of Paris" (c. 1515) after a drawing by Raphael. Raphael was an artist revered by the conservative members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and his paintings were part of the teaching programme at the École des Beaux-Arts, where copies of fifty-two images from his most celebrated frescoes were permanently on display. "Le Bain" (an early title for "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe") was therefore, in many ways, a defiant painting. Manet was cheekily reworking Raphael, turning a mythological scene from one of the most celebrated engravings of the Renaissance into a tableau of somewhat vulgar Parisian holidaymakers.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: Scholars also cite two works as important precedents for Manet's painting "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe": "The Pastoral Concert" by Giorgione or possibly Titian (in the Louvre) and Giorgione's "The Tempest", both of which are famous Renaissance paintings. "The Tempest", which also features a fully dressed man and a nude woman in a rural setting, offers an important precedent for Manet's painting "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe." "Pastoral Concert" even more closely resembles "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe," as it features two dressed men seated in a rural setting, with two undressed women. "Pastoral Concert" is in the collection of the Louvre in Paris and is likely, therefore, to have been studied by Manet.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: According to Antonin Proust, he and Manet had been lounging by the Seine as they spotted a woman bathing in the river. This prompted Manet to say, "I copied Giorgione's women, the women with musicians. It's black that painting. The ground has come through. I want to redo it and do it with a transparent atmosphere with people like those we see over there."


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: There may be a connection between "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" and the work of Jean Antoine Watteau. Manet's original title, "Le Bain", initially drew the main attention to the woman near the water. This bathing figure alone is quite similar to the figure in Watteau's "La Villageoise", as both women crouch or lean over near water, simultaneously holding up their skirts. It is possible that Manet adapted this pose, which is more clearly seen in a sketch of his, years before his creation of "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe".


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: There were many mixed reviews and responses to "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" when it was first displayed and it continues to yield a variety of responses. The initial response was characterized by its blunt rejection from the Paris Salon and subsequent display in the Salon des Refusés. Though many critiques were rooted in confusion about the piece, they were not always completely negative.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: One interpretation of the work is that it depicts the rampant prostitution present at that time in the Bois de Boulogne, a large park on the western outskirts of Paris. This prostitution was common knowledge in Paris, but was considered a taboo subject unsuitable for a painting.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: Though the peculiarity of the combination of one female nude with three clothed figures sparked mixed responses, the lack of interaction of the figures in addition to the lack of engagement by the nude woman provoked laughter instead of offense. Anne McCauley claimed that laughter as a response represses the sexual tension and makes the scene rather unthreatening to the viewer in the end.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: "The Luncheon on the Grass" is the greatest work of Édouard Manet, one in which he realizes the dream of all painters: to place figures of natural grandeur in a landscape. We know the power with which he vanquished this difficulty. There are some leaves, some tree trunks, and, in the background, a river in which a chemise-wearing woman bathes; in the foreground, two young men are seated across from a second woman who has just exited the water and who dries her naked skin in the open air. This nude woman has scandalized the public, who see only her in the canvas. My God! What indecency: a woman without the slightest covering between two clothed men! That has never been seen. And this belief is a gross error, for in the Louvre there are more than fifty paintings in which are found mixes of persons clothed and nude. But no one goes to the Louvre to be scandalized. The crowd has kept itself moreover from judging "The Luncheon on the Grass" like a veritable work of art should be judged; they see in it only some people who are having a picnic, finishing bathing, and they believed that the artist had placed an obscene intent in the disposition of the subject, while the artist had simply sought to obtain vibrant oppositions and a straightforward audience. Painters, especially Édouard Manet, who is an analytic painter, do not have this preoccupation with the subject which torments the crowd above all; the subject, for them, is merely a pretext to paint, while for the crowd, the subject alone exists. Thus, assuredly, the nude woman of "The Luncheon on the Grass" is only there to furnish the artist the occasion to paint a bit of flesh. That which must be seen in the painting is not a luncheon on the grass; it is the entire landscape, with its vigors and its finesses, with its foregrounds so large, so solid, and its backgrounds of a light delicateness; it is this firm modeled flesh under great spots of light, these tissues supple and strong, and particularly this delicious silhouette of a woman wearing a chemise who makes, in the background, an adorable dapple of white in the milieu of green leaves. It is, in short, this vast ensemble, full of atmosphere, this corner of nature rendered with a simplicity so just, all of this admirable page in which an artist has placed all the particular and rare elements which are in him.


title: Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

text: Zola presents a fictionalised version of the painting and the controversy surrounding it in his 1886 novel "L'Œuvre" ("The Masterpiece").


title: French Defence

text: This is most commonly followed by 2.d4 d5, with Black intending ...c5 soon after, attacking White's and gaining on the . The French has a reputation for solidity and resilience, although some lines such as the Winawer Variation can lead to complications. Black's position is often somewhat in the early game; in particular, the pawn on e6 can impede the of the bishop on c8.


title: French Defence

text: Following the opening moves 1.e4 e6, the main line of the French Defence continues 2.d4 d5 (see below for alternatives). White sets up a , which Black immediately challenges by attacking the pawn on e4. The same position can be reached by from a Queen's Pawn Game after 1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 or the declining of a Blackmar–Diemer Gambit after 1.d4 d5 2.e4 e6.


title: French Defence

text: White's options include defending the e4-pawn with 3.Nc3 or 3.Nd2, advancing it with 3.e5, or exchanging it with 3.exd5, each of which leads to different types of positions. Defending the pawn with 3.Bd3 allows 3...dxe4 4.Bxe4 Nf6, when Black gains either a tempo or the advantage of .


title: French Defence

text: The diagram shows a pawn structure commonly found in the French. Black has more space on the queenside, so tends to focus on that side of the board, almost always playing ...c7–c5 early on to attack White's pawn chain at its base, and may follow up by advancing his a- and b-pawns.


title: French Defence

text: Alternatively or simultaneously, Black will play against White's centre, which is cramping his position. In the unlikely case that the flank attack ...c7–c5 is insufficient to achieve counterplay, Black can also try ...f7–f6. In many positions, White may support the pawn on e5 by playing f2–f4, with ideas of f4–f5, but the primary drawback to the advance of the f-pawn is opening of the g1–a7 diagonal, which is particularly significant due to the black queen's oft-found position on b6 and the heavy pressure on d4. In addition, many French Advance lines do not provide White with the time to play f2–f4 as it does not support the heavily pressured d4-pawn. For instance, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.f4? (if White plays Nf3, f4 will come much slower) 5...Qb6 6.Nf3 Nh6! and the knight will go to f5 to place fatal pressure on d4 and dxc5 will never be an option as the white king would be stuck in the centre of the board after ...Bxc5.


title: French Defence

text: White usually tries to exploit his extra space on the , where he will often play for a mating attack. White tries to do this in the Alekhine–Chatard Attack, for example. Another example is the following line of the Classical French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.f4 0-0 8.Nf3 c5 9.Bd3 (diagram). White's eyes the weak h7-pawn, which is usually defended by a knight on f6, but here it has been pushed away by e5. If 9...cxd4 (Black does better with 9...f5 or 9...f6), White can play the Greek gift sacrifice 10.Bxh7+ Kxh7 11.Ng5+ Qxg5 12.fxg5 dxc3 13.Qh5+! where Black has three minor pieces for the queen, which gives him a slight material superiority, but his king is vulnerable and White has good attacking chances.


title: French Defence

text: Apart from a piece attack, White may play for the advance of his kingside pawns (an especially common idea in the endgame), which usually involves f2–f4, g2–g4 and then f4–f5 to use his natural spatial advantage on that side of the board. A white pawn on f5 can be very strong as it may threaten to capture on e6 or advance to f6. Sometimes the h-pawn to h5 or h6 may also be effective. A modern idea is for White to gain space on the queenside by playing a2–a3 and b2–b4. If implemented successfully, this will further restrict Black's pieces.


title: French Defence

text: One of the drawbacks of the French Defence for Black is his , which is blocked in by his pawn on e6 and can remain passive throughout the game. An often-cited example of the potential weakness of this bishop is S. Tarrasch–R. Teichmann, San Sebastián 1912, in which the diagrammed position was reached after fifteen moves of a Classical French.


title: French Defence

text: Black's position is passive because his light-square bishop is hemmed in by pawns on a6, b5, d5, e6 and f7. White will probably try to exchange Black's knight, which is the only one of his pieces that has any scope. Although it might be possible for Black to hold on for a draw, it is not easy and, barring any mistakes by White, Black will have few chances to create counterplay; this is why, for many years, the classical lines fell out of favour, and 3...Bb4 began to be seen more frequently after World War I, owing to the efforts of Nimzowitsch and Botvinnik. In Tarrasch–Teichmann, White won after 41 moves. In order to avoid this fate, Black usually makes it a priority early in the game to find a useful post for the bishop. Black can play ...Bd7–a4 to attack a pawn on c2, which occurs in many lines of the Winawer Variation. If Black's f-pawn has moved to f6, then Black may also consider bringing the bishop to g6 or h5 via d7 and e8. If White's light-square bishop is on the f1–a6 diagonal, Black can try to exchange it by playing ...b6 and ...Ba6, or ...Qb6 followed by ...Bd7–b5.


title: French Defence

text: Played in over 40% of all games after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5, 3. Nc3 is the most commonly seen line against the French. Black has three main options, 3...Bb4 (the Winawer Variation), 3...Nf6 (the Classical Variation), and 3...dxe4 (the Rubinstein Variation). An eccentric idea is 3...Nc6 4.Nf3 Nf6 with the idea of 5.e5 Ne4; German IM Helmut Reefschlaeger has been fond of this move.


title: French Defence

text: This variation, named after Szymon Winawer and pioneered by Nimzowitsch and Botvinnik, is one of the main systems in the French, due chiefly to the latter's efforts in the 1940s, becoming the most often seen rejoinder to 3.Nc3, though in the 1980s, the Classical Variation with 3...Nf6 began a revival, and has since become more popular.


title: French Defence

text: 3... Bb4 pins the knight on c3, forcing White to resolve the central tension. White normally clarifies the central situation for the moment with 4. e5, gaining space and hoping to show that Black's b4-bishop is misplaced. The main line then is: 4... c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3, resulting in the diagrammed position.


title: French Defence

text: While White has doubled pawns on the queenside, which form the basis for Black's counterplay, they can also help White since they strengthen his centre and give him a semi-open b-file. White has a spatial advantage on the kingside, where Black is even weaker than usual because he has traded off his . Combined with the bishop pair, this gives White attacking chances, which he must attempt to use as the long-term features of this pawn structure favour Black.


title: French Defence

text: In the diagrammed position, Black most frequently plays 6... Ne7 (The main alternative is 6...Qc7, which can simply transpose to main lines after 7.Qg4 Ne7, but Black also has the option of 7.Qg4 f5 or ...f6. 6...Qa5 has recently become a popular alternative). Now White can exploit the absence of Black's dark-square bishop by playing 7. Qg4, giving Black two choices: he may sacrifice his kingside pawns with 7...Qc7 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd4 but destroy White's centre in return, the so-called "Poisoned Pawn Variation"; or he can play 7...0-0 8.Bd3 Nbc6, which avoids giving up material, but leaves the king on the flank where White is trying to attack. A more recent alternative is 7... Kf8, which tries to make use of the locked pawn centre (the king is safe from central attacks, and can run away from a kingside attack). Experts on the 7.Qg4 line include Judit Polgár.


title: French Defence

text: If the tactical complications of 7.Qg4 are not to White's taste, 7.Nf3 and 7.a4 are good positional alternatives, and 7.h4 is a more aggressive attempt:


title: French Defence

text: 7. Nf3 is a natural developing move, and White usually follows it up by developing the king's bishop to d3 or e2 (occasionally to b5) and castling kingside. This is called the Winawer Advance Variation. This line often continues 7...Bd7 8.Bd3 c4 9.Be2 Ba4 10.0-0 Qa5 11.Bd2 Nbc6 12.Ng5 h6 13.Nh3 0-0-0. Its assessment is unclear, but most likely Black would be considered "comfortable" here.


title: French Defence

text: The purpose behind 7. a4 is threefold: it prepares Bc1–a3, taking advantage of the absence of Black's dark-square bishop. It also prevents Black from playing ...Qa5–a4 or ...Bd7–a4 attacking c2, and if Black plays ...b6 (followed by ...Ba6 to trade off the bad bishop), White may play a5 to attack the b6-pawn. World Champions Vasily Smyslov and Bobby Fischer both used this line with success.


title: French Defence

text: White also has 7. h4, which has the ideas of either pushing this pawn to h6 to cause more dark-square weaknesses in the Black kingside (if Black meets h5 with ...h6, White can play g4-g5), or getting the rook into the game via Rh3–g3.


title: French Defence

text: Black can also gain attacking chances in most lines: against 7.Qg4, Black will attack White's king in the centre; whereas against the other lines, Black can often gain an attack with ...0-0-0, normally combined with ...c4 to close the queenside, and then ...f6 to open up the kingside, where White's king often resides. If Black can accomplish this, White is often left without meaningful play, although ...c4 does permit White a4 followed by Ba3 if Black has not stopped this by placing a piece on a4 (for example, by Bd7–a4).


title: French Defence

text: The Steinitz Variation, named after Wilhelm Steinitz, continues with 4. e5 Nfd7. Here 5.Nce2, the Shirov–Anand Variation, prepares to bolster the white pawn centre with c2–c3 and f2–f4; while 5.Nf3 transposes to a position also reached via the Two Knights Variation (2.Nf3 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.d4). The main line of the Steinitz is 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Be3. (Instead 7.Ne2 transposes to the Shirov–Anand Variation, while 7.Be2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Ndxe5! 9.fxe5 Qh4+ wins a pawn for Black.) Here Black may step up the pressure on d4 by playing 7...Qb6 or 7...cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qb6, begin queenside play with 7...a6 8.Qd2 b5, or continue kingside development by playing 7...Be7 or 7...cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bc5. In these lines, White has the option of playing either Qd2 and 0-0-0, or Be2 and 0-0, with the former typically leading to positions due to opposite-side castling when Black castles kingside in both cases.


title: French Defence

text: This variation is named after Akiba Rubinstein and can also arise from a different move order: 3.Nd2 dxe4. White has freer development and more space in the centre, which Black intends to neutralise by playing ...c7–c5 at some point. This solid line has undergone a modest revival, featuring in many grandmaster (GM) games as a drawing weapon but theory still gives White a slight edge. After 3... dxe4 4. Nxe4, Black has the following options:


title: French Defence

text: One rare sideline after 3.Nc3 is 3...c6, which is known as the Paulsen Variation, after Louis Paulsen. It can also be reached via a Caro-Kann Defence move order (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 e6).


title: French Defence

text: The Tarrasch Variation is named after Siegbert Tarrasch. This move became particularly popular during the 1970s and early 1980s when Anatoly Karpov used it to great effect. Though less aggressive than the alternate 3.Nc3, it is still used by top-level players seeking a small, safe advantage.


title: French Defence

text: Like 3.Nc3, 3.Nd2 protects e4, but is different in several key respects: it does not block White's c-pawn from advancing, which means he can play c3 at some point to support his d4-pawn. Hence, it avoids the Winawer Variation as 3...Bb4 is now readily answered by 4.c3. On the other hand, 3.Nd2 develops the knight to an arguably less active square than 3.Nc3, and in addition, it hems in White's dark-square bishop. Hence, White will typically have to spend an extra tempo moving the knight from d2 at some point before developing said bishop.


title: French Defence

text: The main line of the Advance Variation continues 3... c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 and then we have a branching point:


title: French Defence

text: There are alternative strategies to 3... c5 that were tried in the early 20th century such as 3...b6, intending to fianchetto the bad bishop and which can transpose to Owen's Defence or 3...Nc6, played by Carlos Guimard, intending to keep the bad bishop on c8 or d7 which is passive and obtains little counterplay. Also, 4...Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 intending 6...Bb5 to trade off the "bad" queen's bishop is possible.


title: French Defence

text: Many players who begin with 1.e4 find that the French Defence is the most difficult opening for them to play against due to the closed structure and unique strategies of the system. Thus, many players choose to play the exchange so that the position becomes simple and clearcut. White makes no effort to exploit the advantage of the first move, and has often chosen this line with expectation of an early draw, and indeed draws often occur if neither side breaks the symmetry. An extreme example was Capablanca–Maróczy, Lake Hopatcong 1926, which went: 4.Bd3 Bd6 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.0-0 0-0 7.Bg5 Bg4 8.Re1 Nbd7 9.Nbd2 c6 10.c3 Qc7 11.Qc2 Rfe8 12.Bh4 Bh5 13.Bg3 Bxg3 14.hxg3 Bg6 15.Rxe8+ Rxe8 16.Bxg6 hxg6 17.Re1 Rxe1+ 18.Nxe1 Ne8 19.Nd3 Nd6 20.Qb3 a6 21.Kf1 .


title: French Defence

text: Despite the symmetrical pawn structure, White cannot force a draw. An obsession with obtaining one sometimes results in embarrassment for White, as in Tatai–Korchnoi, Beer Sheva 1978, which continued 4.Bd3 c5!? 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Qe2+ Be7 7.dxc5 Nf6 8.h3 0-0 9.0-0 Bxc5 10.c3 Re8 11.Qc2 Qd6 12.Nbd2 Qg3 13.Bf5 Re2 14.Nd4 Nxd4 . A less extreme example was Mikhail Gurevich–Short, Manila 1990 where White, a strong Russian grandmaster, played openly for the draw but was ground down by Short in 42 moves.


title: French Defence

text: To create genuine winning chances, White will often play c2–c4 at some stage to put pressure on Black's d5-pawn. Black can give White an isolated queen's pawn by capturing on c4, but this gives White's pieces greater freedom, which may lead to attacking chances. This occurs in lines such as 3.exd5 exd5 4.c4 (played by GMs Normunds Miezis and Maurice Ashley) and 4.Nf3 Bd6 5.c4, which may transpose to the Petroff. Conversely, if White declines to do this, Black may play ...c7–c5 himself, e.g. 4.Bd3 c5, as in the above-cited Tatai–Korchnoi game.


title: French Defence

text: If c2–c4 is not played, White and Black have two main piece setups. White may put his pieces on Nf3, Bd3, Bg5 (pinning the black knight), Nc3, Qd2 or the queen's knight can go to d2 instead and White can support the centre with c3 and perhaps play Qb3. Conversely, when the queen's knight is on c3, the king's knight may go to e2 when the enemy bishop and knight can be kept out of the key squares e4 and g4 by f3. When the knight is on c3 in the first and last of the above strategies, White may choose either short or long castling. The positions are so symmetrical that the options and strategies are the same for both sides.


title: French Defence

text: Another way to unbalance the position is for White or Black to castle on opposite sides of the board. An example of this is the line 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Bd6 6.Nf3 Bg4 7.0-0 Nge7 8.Re1 Qd7 9.Nbd2 .


title: French Defence

text: There are also a few rare continuations after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5, including 3.Bd3 (the Schlechter Variation), 3.Be3 (the Alapin Gambit), and 3.c4 (the Diemer–Duhm Gambit, which can also be reached via the Queen's Gambit Declined).


title: French Defence

text: Although 2...d5 is the most consistent move after 1.e4 e6 2.d4, Black occasionally plays other moves. Chief among them is 2...c5, the Franco-Benoni Defence, so-called because it features the ...c7–c5 push characteristic of the Benoni Defence. White may continue 3.d5, when play can transpose into the Benoni, though White has extra options since c2–c4 is not mandated. 3.Nf3, transposing into a normal Sicilian Defence, and 3.c3, transposing into a line of the Alapin Sicilian (usually arrived at after 1.e4 c5 2.c3 e6 3.d4) are also common. Play may also lead back to the French; for example, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5 3.c3 d5 4.e5 transposes into the Advance Variation. Another move is 2...b6, which transposes into Owen's Defence or the English Defence. Also possible is 2...f5, the Franco-Hiva Gambit, but this is regarded as dubious.


title: French Defence

text: The French Defence is named after a match played by correspondence between the cities of London and Paris in 1834 (although earlier examples of games with the opening do exist). It was Jacques Chamouillet, one of the players of the Paris team, who persuaded the others to adopt this defence.


title: French Defence

text: As a reply to 1.e4, the French Defence received relatively little attention in the nineteenth century compared to 1...e5. The first world chess champion Wilhelm Steinitz said "I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings". In the early 20th century, Géza Maróczy was perhaps the first world-class player to make it his primary weapon against 1.e4. For a long time, it was the third most popular reply to 1.e4, behind only 1...c5 and 1...e5. However, according to the Mega Database 2007, in 2006, 1...e6 was second only to the Sicilian in popularity.


title: French Defence

text: Historically important contributors to the theory of the defence include Mikhail Botvinnik, Viktor Korchnoi, Akiba Rubinstein, Aron Nimzowitsch, Tigran Petrosian, Lev Psakhis, Wolfgang Uhlmann and Rafael Vaganian. More recently, its leading practitioners include Evgeny Bareev, Alexey Dreev, Mikhail Gurevich, Alexander Khalifman, Smbat Lputian, Alexander Morozevich, Teimour Radjabov, Nigel Short, Gata Kamsky, and Yury Shulman.


title: French Defence

text: The Exchange Variation was recommended by Howard Staunton in the 19th century, but has been in decline ever since. In the early 1990s Garry Kasparov briefly experimented with it before switching to 3.Nc3. Note that Black's game is made much easier as his queen's bishop has been liberated. It has the reputation of giving immediate equality to Black, due to the symmetrical pawn structure.


title: French Defence

text: Like the Exchange, the Advance Variation was frequently played in the early days of the French Defence. Aron Nimzowitsch believed it to be White's best choice and enriched its theory with many ideas. However, the Advance declined in popularity throughout most of the 20th century until it was revived in the 1980s by GM and prominent opening theoretician Evgeny Sveshnikov, who continued to be a leading expert in this line. In recent years, it has become nearly as popular as 3.Nd2; GM Alexander Grischuk has championed it successfully at the highest levels. It is also a popular choice at the club level due to the availability of a simple, straightforward plan involving attacking chances and extra space.


title: French Defence

text: The "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings" includes an alphanumeric classification system for openings that is widely used in chess literature. Codes C00 to C19 are the French Defence, broken up in the following way (all apart from C00 start with the moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5):


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The Battle of Savo Island, also known as the First Battle of Savo Island and, in Japanese sources, as the , and colloquially among Allied Guadalcanal veterans as the Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks, was a naval battle of the Solomon Islands campaign of the Pacific War of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval forces. The battle took place on August 8–9, 1942, and was the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign, and the first of several naval battles in the straits later-named Ironbottom Sound, near the island of Guadalcanal.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The Imperial Japanese Navy, in response to Allied amphibious landings in the eastern Solomon Islands, mobilized a task force of seven cruisers and one destroyer under the command of Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa. The task forces sailed from Japanese bases in New Britain and New Ireland down New Georgia Sound (also known as "the Slot"), with the intention of interrupting the Allied landings by attacking the supporting amphibious fleet and its screening force. The Allied screen consisted of eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers under Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, but only five cruisers and seven destroyers were involved in the battle. In a night action, Mikawa thoroughly surprised and routed the Allied force, sinking one Australian and three American cruisers, while suffering only light damage in return. The battle has often been cited as the worst defeat in the history of the United States Navy. Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, considers this battle and the Battle of Tassafaronga to be two of the worst defeats in U.S. naval history, second only to Pearl Harbor.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: After the initial engagement, Mikawa, fearing Allied carrier strikes against his fleet in daylight, decided to withdraw under cover of night rather than attempt to locate and destroy the Allied invasion transports. The Japanese attacks prompted the remaining Allied warships and the amphibious force to withdraw earlier than planned (before unloading all supplies), temporarily ceding control of the seas around Guadalcanal to the Japanese. This early withdrawal of the fleet left the Allied ground forces (primarily United States Marines), which had landed on Guadalcanal and nearby islands only two days before, in a precarious situation, with limited supplies, equipment, and food to hold their beachhead.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Mikawa's decision to withdraw under cover of night rather than attempt to destroy the Allied invasion transports was primarily founded on concern over possible Allied carrier strikes against his fleet in daylight. In reality, the Allied carrier fleet, similarly fearing Japanese attack, had already withdrawn beyond operational range. This missed opportunity to cripple (rather than interrupt) the supply of Allied forces on Guadalcanal contributed to Japan's failure to recapture the island. At this critical early stage of the campaign, it allowed the Allied forces to entrench and fortify themselves sufficiently to defend the area around Henderson Field until additional Allied reinforcements arrived later in the year.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The battle was the first of five costly, large-scale sea and air-sea actions fought in support of the ground battles on Guadalcanal itself, as the Japanese sought to counter the American offensive in the Pacific. These sea battles took place after increasing delays by each side to regroup and refit, until the November 30, 1942 Battle of Tassafaronga – after which the Japanese, eschewing the costly losses, attempted resupplying by submarine and barges. The final naval battle, the Battle of Rennell Island, took place months later on January 29–30, 1943, by which time the Japanese were preparing to evacuate their remaining land forces and withdraw.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: On August 7, 1942, Allied forces (primarily U.S. Marines) landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida Island in the eastern Solomon Islands. The landings were meant to deny their use to the Japanese as bases, especially the nearly completed airfield at Henderson Field that was being constructed on Guadalcanal. If Japanese air and sea forces were allowed to establish forward operating bases in the Eastern Solomons they would be in a position to threaten the supply shipping routes between the U.S. and Australia. The Allies also wanted to use the islands as launching points for a campaign to recapture the Solomons, isolate or capture the major Japanese base at Rabaul, and support the Allied New Guinea campaign, which was then building strength under General Douglas MacArthur. The landings initiated the six-month-long Guadalcanal campaign.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The overall commander of Allied naval forces in the Guadalcanal and Tulagi operation was U.S. Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher. He also commanded the carrier task groups providing air cover. U.S. Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner commanded the amphibious fleet that delivered the 16,000 Allied troops to Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Also under Turner was Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley's screening force of eight cruisers, fifteen destroyers, and five minesweepers. This force was to protect Turner's ships and provide gunfire support for the landings. Crutchley commanded his force of mostly American ships from his flagship, the Australian heavy cruiser .


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The Allied landings took the Japanese by surprise. The Allies secured Tulagi, nearby islets Gavutu and Tanambogo, and the airfield under construction on Guadalcanal by nightfall on August 8. On August 7 and 8, Japanese aircraft based at Rabaul attacked the Allied amphibious forces several times, setting afire the U.S. transport ship (which sank later) and heavily damaging the destroyer . In these air attacks, the Japanese lost 36 aircraft, while the U.S. lost 19 aircraft, including 14 carrier-based fighter aircraft.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Concerned over the losses to his carrier fighter aircraft strength, anxious about the threat to his carriers from further Japanese air attacks, and worried about his ships' fuel levels, Fletcher announced that he would be withdrawing his carrier task forces on the evening of August 8.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Some historians contend that Fletcher's fuel situation was not at all critical but that Fletcher used it to justify his withdrawal from the battle area. Fletcher's biographer notes that Fletcher concluded that the landing was a success and that no important targets for close air support were at hand. Being concerned over the loss of 21 of his carrier fighters, he assessed that his carriers were threatened by torpedo-bomber strikes, and, wanting to refuel before Japanese naval forces arrived, withdrew as he had previously forewarned Turner and Vandegrift. Turner, however, believed that Fletcher understood that he was to provide air cover until all the transports were unloaded on August 9.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Even though the unloading was going more slowly than planned, Turner decided that without carrier air cover he would have to withdraw his ships from Guadalcanal. He planned to unload as much as possible during the night and depart the next day.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Unprepared for the Allied operation at Guadalcanal, the initial Japanese response included airstrikes and an attempted reinforcement. Mikawa, commander of the newly formed Japanese Eighth Fleet headquartered at Rabaul, loaded 519 naval troops on two transports and sent them towards Guadalcanal on August 7. When the Japanese learned that Allied forces at Guadalcanal were stronger than originally reported, the transports were recalled.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Mikawa also assembled all the available warships in the area to attack the Allied forces at Guadalcanal. At Rabaul were the heavy "Takao"-class cruiser (Mikawa's flagship), the light cruisers and and the destroyer . En route from Kavieng were four heavy cruisers of Cruiser Division 6 under Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto: the "Aoba"-class and and the "Furutaka"-class and , totaling 34 8-inch main guns.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The Japanese Navy had trained extensively in night-fighting tactics before the war, a fact of which the Allies were unaware. Mikawa hoped to engage the Allied naval forces off Guadalcanal and Tulagi on the night of August 8 and 9, when he could employ his night-battle expertise while avoiding attacks from Allied aircraft, which could not operate effectively at night. Mikawa's warships rendezvoused at sea near Cape St. George in the evening of August 7 and then headed east-southeast.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Mikawa decided to take his fleet north of Buka Island and then down the east coast of Bougainville. The fleet would pause east of Kieta for six hours on the morning of August 8. (This would avoid daytime air attacks during their final approach to Guadalcanal.) They would then proceed along the dangerous channel known as "The Slot", hoping that no Allied plane would see them in the fading light. The Japanese fleet was in fact sighted in St George Channel, where their column almost ran into , lying in ambush. She was too close to fire torpedoes, but her captain, Lieutenant Commander H.G. Munson, radioed: "Two destroyers and three larger ships of unknown type heading one four zero true at high speed eight miles west of Cape St George" Once at Bougainville, Mikawa spread his ships out over a wide area to mask the composition of his force and launched four floatplanes from his cruisers to scout for Allied ships in the southern Solomons. At 10:20 and 11:10, his ships were spotted by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Hudson reconnaissance aircraft based at Milne Bay in New Guinea. The first Hudson misidentified them as "three cruisers, three destroyers, and two seaplane tenders". (Note: Some accounts state that the first Hudson's crew identified the enemy ships correctly, but the composition of enemy forces was changed from the aircraft crews' report by intelligence officers in Milne Bay.) The Hudson's crew tried to report the sighting to the Allied radio station at Fall River, New Guinea. Receiving no acknowledgment, they returned to Milne Bay at 12:42 to ensure that the report was received as soon as possible. The second Hudson also failed to report its sighting by radio, but completed its patrol and landed at Milne Bay at 15:00. It reported sighting "two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and one unknown type". For unknown reasons, these reports were not relayed to the Allied fleet off Guadalcanal until 18:45 and 21:30, respectively, on August 8. U.S. official historian Samuel Morison wrote in his 1949 account that the RAAF Hudson's crew failed to report the sighting until after they had landed and even had tea. This claim made international headlines and was repeated by many subsequent historians. Later research has discredited this version of events, and in 2014, the U.S. Navy's Naval History and Heritage Command acknowledged in a letter to the Hudson's radio operator, who had lobbied for decades to clear his crewmates' name, that Morison's criticisms were "unwarranted."


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Mikawa's floatplanes returned around 12:00 and reported two groups of Allied ships, one off Guadalcanal and the other off Tulagi. By 13:00, he reassembled his warships and headed south through Bougainville Strait at . At 13:45, the cruiser force was near Choiseul south-east of Bougainville. At that time, several surviving Japanese aircraft from the noon torpedo raid on the Allied ships off the coast of Guadalcanal flew over the cruisers on the way back to Rabaul and gave them waves of encouragement. Mikawa entered New Georgia Sound (later dubbed as "the Slot") by 16:00 and began his run towards Guadalcanal. He communicated the following battle plan to his warships: "On the rush-in we will go from S. (south) of Savo Island and torpedo the enemy main force in front of Guadalcanal anchorage; after which we will turn toward the Tulagi forward area to shell and torpedo the enemy. We will then withdraw north of Savo Island."


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Mikawa's run down the Slot was not detected by Allied forces. Turner had requested that U.S. Admiral John S. McCain Sr., commander of Allied air forces for the South Pacific area, conduct extra reconnaissance missions over the Slot in the afternoon of August 8. But, for unexplained reasons, McCain did not order the missions, nor did he tell Turner that they were not carried out. Thus, Turner mistakenly believed that the Slot was under Allied observation throughout the day. However, McCain cannot totally bear fault, as his patrol craft were few in number, and operated over a vast area at the extreme limit of their endurance. Turner had fifteen scouting planes of the cruiser force, which were never used that afternoon and remained on the decks of their cruisers, filled with gasoline and serving as an explosive hazard to the cruisers.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: To protect the unloading transports during the night, Crutchley divided the Allied warship forces into three groups. A "southern" group, consisting of the Australian cruisers HMAS "Australia" and , cruiser , and destroyers and , patrolled between Lunga Point and Savo Island to block the entrance between Savo Island and Cape Esperance on Guadalcanal. A "northern" group, consisting of the cruisers , and , and destroyers and , conducted a box-shaped patrol between the Tulagi anchorage and Savo Island to defend the passage between Savo and Florida Islands. An "eastern" group consisting of the cruisers and and two U.S. destroyers guarded the eastern entrances to the sound between Florida and Guadalcanal Islands. Crutchley placed two radar-equipped U.S. destroyers to the west of Savo Island to provide early warning for any approaching Japanese ships. The destroyer patrolled the northern passage and the destroyer patrolled the southern passage, with a gap of between their uncoordinated patrol patterns. At this time, the Allies were unaware of all of the limitations of their primitive ship-borne radars, such as the effectiveness of the radar could be greatly degraded by the presence of nearby landmasses. "Chicago"s Captain Bode ordered his ship's radar to be used only intermittently due to the concern it would reveal his position, a decision that conformed with general navy radar usage guidelines, but which may have been incorrect in this specific circumstance. He allowed a single sweep every half hour with the fire control radar, but the timing of the last pre-engagement sweep was too early to detect the approaching Japanese cruisers. Wary of the potential threat from Japanese submarines to the transport ships, Crutchley placed his remaining seven destroyers as close-in protection around the two transport anchorages.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The crews of the Allied ships were fatigued after two days of constant alert and action in supporting the landings. Also, the weather was extremely hot and humid, inducing further fatigue and, in Morison's words, "inviting weary sailors to slackness." In response, most of Crutchley's warships went to "Condition II" the night of August 8, which meant that half the crews were on duty while the other half rested, either in their bunks or near their battle stations.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: In the evening, Turner called a conference on his command ship off Guadalcanal with Crutchley and Marine commander Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift to discuss the departure of Fletcher's carriers and the resulting withdrawal schedule for the transport ships. At 20:55, Crutchley left the southern group in "Australia" to attend the conference, leaving Captain Howard D. Bode of "Chicago" in charge of the southern group. Crutchley did not inform the commanders of the other cruiser groups of his absence, contributing further to the dissolution of command arrangements. Bode, awakened from sleep in his cabin, decided not to place his ship in the lead of the southern group of ships, the customary place for the senior ship and went back to sleep. At the conference, Turner, Crutchley, and Vandegrift discussed the reports of the "seaplane tender" force reported by the Australian Hudson crew earlier that day. They decided it would not be a threat that night, because seaplane tenders did not normally engage in a surface action. Vandegrift said that he would need to inspect the transport unloading situation at Tulagi before recommending a withdrawal time for the transport ships, and he departed at midnight to conduct the inspection. Crutchley elected not to return with "Australia" to the southern force but instead stationed his ship just outside the Guadalcanal transport anchorage, without informing the other Allied ship commanders of his intentions or location.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: As Mikawa's force neared the Guadalcanal area, the Japanese ships launched three floatplanes for one final reconnaissance of the Allied ships, and to provide illumination by dropping flares during the upcoming battle. Although several of the Allied ships heard and/or observed one or more of these floatplanes, starting at 23:45 on August 8, none of them interpreted the presence of unknown aircraft in the area as an actionable threat, and no one reported the sightings to Crutchley or Turner.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Mikawa's force approached in a single column led by "Chōkai", with "Aoba", "Kako", "Kinugasa", "Furutaka", "Tenryū", "Yūbari", and "Yūnagi" following. Sometime between 00:44 and 00:54 on August 9, lookouts in Mikawa's ships spotted "Blue" about ahead of the Japanese column.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: To avoid "Blue", Mikawa changed course to pass north of Savo Island. He also ordered his ships to slow to , to reduce wakes that might make his ships more visible. Four minutes later, Mikawa's lookouts spied either "Ralph Talbot" about away or a small schooner of unknown nationality. The Japanese ships held their course while pointing more than 50 guns at "Blue", ready to open fire at the first indication that "Blue" had sighted them. When "Blue" was less than away from Mikawa's force, she suddenly reversed course, having reached the end of her patrol track, and steamed away, apparently oblivious to the long column of large Japanese ships sailing by her. Seeing that his ships were still undetected, Mikawa turned back to a course south of Savo Island and increased speed, first to , and then to . At 01:25, Mikawa released his ships to operate independently of his flagship, and at 01:31, he ordered, "Every ship attack."


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: At about this time, "Yūnagi" detached from the Japanese column and reversed direction, perhaps because she lost sight of the other Japanese ships ahead of her, or perhaps she was ordered to provide a rearguard for Mikawa's force. One minute later, Japanese lookouts sighted a warship to port. This ship was the destroyer , heavily damaged the day before and now departing Guadalcanal independently for repairs in Australia. Whether "Jarvis" sighted the Japanese ships is unknown, since her radios had been destroyed. "Furutaka" launched torpedoes at "Jarvis", which all missed. The Japanese ships passed as close to "Jarvis" as , close enough for officers on "Tenryū" to look down onto the destroyer's decks without seeing any of her crew moving about. If "Jarvis" was aware of the Japanese ships passing by, she did not respond in any noticeable way and was torpedoed and sunk the following day by aircraft from Rabaul. There were no survivors.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Two minutes after sighting "Jarvis", the Japanese lookouts sighted the Allied destroyers and cruisers of the southern force about away, silhouetted by the glow from the burning "George F. Elliott". Several minutes later, at about 01:38, the Japanese cruisers began launching salvos of torpedoes at the Allied southern force ships. At this same time, lookouts on "Chōkai" spotted the ships of the Allied northern force at a range of . "Chōkai" turned to face this new threat, and the rest of the Japanese column followed, while still preparing to engage the Allied southern force ships with gunfire.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: "Patterson"s crew was alert because the destroyer's captain had taken seriously the earlier daytime sightings of Japanese warships and evening sightings of unknown aircraft, and told his crew to be ready for action. At 01:43, "Patterson" spotted a ship, probably "Kinugasa", dead ahead and immediately sent a warning by radio and signal lamp: "Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering the harbor!" "Patterson" increased speed to full, and fired star shells towards the Japanese column. Her captain ordered a torpedo attack, but his order was not heard over the noise from the destroyer's guns.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: At about the same moment that "Patterson" sighted the Japanese ships and went into action, the Japanese floatplanes overhead, on orders from Mikawa, dropped aerial flares directly over "Canberra" and "Chicago". "Canberra" responded immediately, with Captain Frank Getting ordering an increase in speed, a reversal of an initial turn to port, which kept "Canberra" between the Japanese and the Allied transports, and for her guns to train out and fire at any targets that could be sighted. Less than one minute later, as "Canberra"s guns took aim at the Japanese, "Chōkai" and "Furutaka" opened fire on her, scoring numerous hits within a few seconds. "Aoba" and "Kako" joined in with gunfire, and within the next three minutes "Canberra" took up to 24 large-caliber hits. Early hits killed her gunnery officer, mortally wounded Getting, and destroyed both boiler rooms, knocking out power to the entire ship before "Canberra" could fire any of her guns or communicate a warning to other Allied ships. The cruiser glided to a stop, on fire, with a 5- to 10-degree list to starboard, and unable to fight the fires or pump out flooded compartments because of lack of power. Since all of the Japanese ships were on the port side of "Canberra", the damage to the ship's starboard side occurred either from shells entering low on the port side and exiting below the waterline on the starboard side, or from one or two torpedo hits on the starboard side. If torpedoes did hit "Canberra" on the starboard side, then they may have come from a nearby Allied ship, and at this time the U.S. destroyer "Bagley" was the only ship on that side of the Australian cruiser and had fired torpedoes moments earlier.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The crew of "Chicago", observing the illumination of their ship by air-dropped flares and the sudden turn by "Canberra" in front of them, came alert and awakened Captain Bode from "a sound sleep". Bode ordered his guns to fire star shells towards the Japanese column, but the shells did not function. At 01:47, a torpedo, probably from "Kako", hit "Chicago"s bow, sending a shock wave throughout the ship that damaged the main battery director. A second torpedo hit but failed to explode, and a shell hit the cruiser's mainmast, killing two crewmen. "Chicago" steamed west for 40 minutes, leaving behind the transports she was assigned to protect. The cruiser fired her secondary batteries at the trailing ships in the Japanese column and may have hit "Tenryū", causing slight damage. Bode did not try to assert control over any of the other Allied ships in the southern force, of which he was still technically in command. More significantly, Bode made no attempt to warn any of the other Allied ships or personnel in the Guadalcanal area as his ship headed away from the battle area.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: During this time, "Patterson" engaged in a gun duel with the Japanese column. "Patterson" received a shell hit aft, causing moderate damage and killing 10 crew members. "Patterson" continued to pursue and fire at the Japanese ships and may have hit "Kinugasa", causing moderate damage. "Patterson" then lost sight of the Japanese column as it headed northeast along the eastern shore of Savo Island. "Bagley", whose crew sighted the Japanese shortly after "Patterson" and "Canberra", circled completely around to port before firing torpedoes in the general direction of the rapidly disappearing Japanese column; one or two of which may have hit "Canberra". "Bagley" played no further role in the battle. "Yūnagi" exchanged non-damaging gunfire with "Jarvis" before exiting the battle area to the west with the intention of eventually rejoining the Japanese column north and west of Savo Island.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: At 01:44, as Mikawa's ships headed towards the Allied northern force, "Tenryū" and "Yūbari" split from the rest of the Japanese column and took a more westward course. "Furutaka", either because of a steering problem, or to avoid a possible collision with "Canberra", followed "Yūbari" and "Tenryū". Thus, the Allied northern force was about to be enveloped and attacked from two sides.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: When Mikawa's ships attacked the Allied southern force, the captains of all three U.S. northern force cruisers were asleep, with their ships steaming quietly at . Although crewmen on all three ships observed flares or gunfire from the battle south of Savo or else received "Patterson"s warning of threatening ships entering the area, it took some time for the crews to go from Condition II to full alert. At 01:44, the Japanese cruisers began firing torpedoes at the northern force. At 01:50, they aimed powerful searchlights at the three northern cruisers and opened fire with their guns.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: "Astoria"s bridge crew called general quarters upon sighting the flares south of Savo, around 01:49. At 01:52, shortly after the Japanese searchlights came on and shells began falling around the ship, "Astoria"s main gun director crews spotted the Japanese cruisers and opened fire. "Astoria"s captain, awakened to find his ship in action, rushed to the bridge and ordered a ceasefire, fearful that his ship might be firing on friendly forces. As shells continued to cascade around his ship, the captain ordered firing resumed less than a minute later. "Chōkai" had found the range, and "Astoria" was quickly hit by numerous shells and set afire. Between 02:00 and 02:15, "Aoba", "Kinugasa", and "Kako" joined "Chōkai" in pounding "Astoria", destroying the cruiser's engine room and bringing the flaming ship to a halt. At 02:16, one of "Astoria"s remaining operational main gun turrets fired at "Kinugasa"s searchlight, but missed and hit one of "Chōkai"s forward turrets, putting the turret out of action and causing moderate damage to the ship. "Astoria" sank at 12:16 after all attempts to save her failed.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: "Quincy" had also seen the aircraft flares over the southern ships, received "Patterson"s warning, and had just sounded general quarters and was coming alert when the searchlights from the Japanese column came on. "Quincy"s captain gave the order to commence firing, but the gun crews were not ready. Within a few minutes, "Quincy" was caught in a crossfire between "Aoba", "Furutaka", and "Tenryū", and was hit heavily and set afire. "Quincy"s captain ordered his cruiser to charge towards the eastern Japanese column, but as she turned to do so "Quincy" was hit by two torpedoes from "Tenryū", causing severe damage. "Quincy" managed to fire a few main gun salvos, one of which hit "Chōkai"s chart room from Admiral Mikawa and killed or wounded 36 men, although Mikawa was not injured. At 02:10, incoming shells killed or wounded almost all of "Quincy"s bridge crew, including the captain. At 02:16, the cruiser was hit by a torpedo from "Aoba", and the ship's remaining guns were silenced. "Quincy"s assistant gunnery officer, sent to the bridge to ask for instructions, reported on what he found:


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Like "Quincy" and "Astoria", "Vincennes" also sighted the aerial flares to the south, and furthermore, actually sighted gunfire from the southern engagement. At 01:50, when the U.S. cruisers were illuminated by the Japanese searchlights, "Vincennes" hesitated to open fire, believing that the searchlight's source might be friendly ships. Shortly thereafter, "Kako" opened fire on "Vincennes" which responded with her own gunfire at 01:53. As "Vincennes" began to receive damaging shell hits, her commander, U.S. Captain Frederick L. Riefkohl, ordered an increase of speed to , but shortly thereafter, at 01:55, two torpedoes from "Chōkai" hit, causing heavy damage. "Kinugasa" now joined "Kako" in pounding "Vincennes". "Vincennes" scored one hit on "Kinugasa" causing moderate damage to her steering engines. The rest of the Japanese ships also fired and hit "Vincennes" up to 74 times, and, at 02:03, another torpedo hit her, this time from "Yūbari". With all boiler rooms destroyed, "Vincennes" came to a halt, burning "everywhere" and listing to port. At 02:16, Riefkohl ordered the crew to abandon ship, and "Vincennes" sank at 02:50.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: During the engagement, the U.S. destroyers "Helm" and "Wilson" struggled to see the Japanese ships. Both destroyers briefly fired at Mikawa's cruisers but caused no damage and received no damage to themselves.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: At 02:16, the Japanese columns ceased fire on the northern Allied force as they moved out of range around the north side of Savo Island. "Ralph Talbot" encountered "Furutaka", "Tenryū", and "Yūbari" as they cleared Savo Island. The Japanese ships fixed the U.S. destroyer with searchlights and hit her several times with gunfire, causing heavy damage, but "Ralph Talbot" escaped into a nearby rain squall, and the Japanese ships left her behind.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: At 02:16 Mikawa conferred with his staff about whether they should turn to continue the battle with the surviving Allied warships and try to sink the Allied transports in the two anchorages. Several factors influenced his ultimate decision. His ships were scattered and would take some time to regroup. His ships would need to reload their torpedo tubes, a labor-intensive task that would take some time. Mikawa also did not know the number and locations of any remaining Allied warships and his ships had expended much of their ammunition.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: More importantly, Mikawa had no air cover and believed that U.S. aircraft carriers were in the area. Mikawa was probably aware that the Japanese Navy had no more heavy cruisers in production, and thus would be unable to replace any he might lose to air attack the next day if he remained near Guadalcanal. He was unaware that the U.S. carriers had withdrawn from the battle area and would not be a threat the next day. Although several of Mikawa's staff urged an attack on the Allied transports, the consensus was to withdraw from the battle area. Therefore, at 02:20, Mikawa ordered his ships to retire.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: At 04:00 on August 9, "Patterson" came alongside "Canberra" to assist the cruiser in fighting her fires. By 05:00, it appeared that the fires were almost under control, but Turner, who at this time intended to withdraw all Allied ships by 06:30, ordered the ship to be scuttled if she was not able to accompany the fleet. After the survivors were removed, the destroyers and sank "Canberra", which took some 300 shells and five torpedoes.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Later in the morning of August 9, General Vandegrift advised Admiral Turner that he needed more supplies unloaded from the transports before they withdrew. Therefore, Turner postponed the withdrawal of his ships until mid-afternoon. In the meantime, "Astoria"s crew tried to save their sinking ship. "Astoria"s fires eventually became completely out of control, and the ship sank at 12:15.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: On the morning of August 9, an Australian coastwatcher on Bougainville radioed a warning of a Japanese airstrike on the way from Rabaul. The Allied transport crews ceased unloading for a time, but were puzzled when the airstrike did not materialize. Allied forces did not discover until after the war was over that this Japanese airstrike instead concentrated on "Jarvis" south of Guadalcanal, sinking her with all hands. The Allied transports and warships all departed the Guadalcanal area by nightfall on August 9. During the naval surface battle of Savo Island, three U.S. heavy cruisers, "Astoria", "Quincy", and "Vincennes", and one Australian heavy cruiser, "Canberra", were sunk or scuttled.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: In the late evening of August 9, Mikawa on "Chōkai" released the four cruisers of Cruiser Division 6 to return to their home base at Kavieng. At 08:10 on August 10, "Kako" was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine from her destination. The other three Japanese cruisers picked up all but 71 of her crew and went on to Kavieng.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Admiral Yamamoto signaled a congratulatory note to Mikawa on his victory, stating, "Appreciate the courageous and hard fighting of every man of your organization. I expect you to expand your exploits and you will make every effort to support the land forces of the Imperial army which are now engaged in a desperate struggle." Later on, though, when it became apparent that Mikawa had missed an opportunity to destroy the Allied transports, he was intensely criticised by his comrades.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: From the time of the battle until several months later, almost all Allied supplies and reinforcements sent to Guadalcanal came by transports in small convoys, mainly during daylight hours, while Allied aircraft from the New Hebrides and Henderson Field and any available aircraft carriers flew covering missions. During this time, Allied forces on Guadalcanal received barely enough ammunition and provisions to withstand the several Japanese drives to retake the islands.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Despite their defeat in this battle, the Allies eventually won the battle for Guadalcanal, an important step in the eventual defeat of Japan. In hindsight, if Mikawa had elected to risk his ships to go after the Allied transports on the morning of August 9, he could have improved the chances of Japanese victory in the Guadalcanal campaign at its inception, and the course of the war in the southern Pacific could have gone much differently. Although the Allied warships at Guadalcanal that night were completely routed, the transports were unaffected. Many of these same transports would subsequently be used many times to bring crucial supplies and reinforcements to Allied forces on Guadalcanal over succeeding months. Mikawa's decision not to destroy the Allied transport ships when he had the opportunity would prove to be a crucial strategic mistake for the Japanese.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: A formal United States Navy board of inquiry, known as the Hepburn Investigation, prepared a report of the battle. The board interviewed most of the major Allied officers involved over several months, beginning in December. The report recommended official censure for only one officer, Captain Howard D. Bode of the "Chicago", for failing to broadcast a warning to the fleet of encroaching enemy ships. The report stopped short of recommending formal action against other Allied officers, including Admirals Fletcher, Turner, McCain, and Crutchley, and Captain Riefkohl. The careers of Turner, Crutchley, and McCain do not appear to have been affected by the defeat or the mistakes they made in contributing to it. Riefkohl never commanded ships again. Captain Bode, upon learning that the report was going to be especially critical of his actions, shot himself in his quarters at Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, on April 19, 1943, and died the next day. Crutchley was later gazetted with the Legion of Merit (Chief Commander).


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: Historian Richard B. Frank adds that "This lethargy of mind would not be completely shaken off without some more hard blows to (U.S.) Navy pride around Guadalcanal, but after Savo, the United States picked itself up off the deck and prepared for the most savage combat in its history."


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The report of the inquiry caused the US Navy to make many operational, and structural, changes. All the earlier models of US Navy cruisers were retrofitted with emergency diesel-electric generators. The fire mains of the ships were changed to a vertical loop design that could be broken many times and still function.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: During the battle at Savo, many ship fires were attributed to aviation facilities filled with gas, oil, and planes. Motorboats were filled with gasoline and also caught fire. In some cases, these facilities were dead amidships, presenting a perfect target for enemy ships at night. Ready-service lockers (lockers containing ammunition that is armed and ready for use) added to the destruction, and it was noted that the lockers were never close to being depleted, i.e. they contained much more dangerous ammunition than they needed to. A focus was put on removing or minimizing flammable amidship materials.


title: Battle of Savo Island

text: The Naval Commander in Chief Admiral Ernest King would order sweeping changes be made before ships entered surface combat in the future.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: Rachel Hollis (; born January 9, 1983) is an American author, motivational speaker, and blogger. She is the author of three self-help books, including "Girl, Wash Your Face" and "Girl, Stop Apologizing". She faced backlash in 2021 after posting a controversial TikTok video; "The New York Times" subsequently ran a story about her entitled "Girl, Wash Your Timeline."


title: Rachel Hollis

text: After graduating high school, Hollis moved to Los Angeles, California, and got a job at Miramax. While working there, she met her future husband and founded an event-planning company called Chic Events.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: Her breakthrough moment on social media came in March 2015, when an Instagram photo of her celebrating her stretch marks went viral. "I wear a bikini because I'm proud of this body and every mark on it. Those marks prove that I was blessed enough to carry my babies and that flabby tummy means I worked hard to lose what weight I could," she wrote in the post. It garnered more than ten million views.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: Hollis' book "Girl, Wash Your Face" was described by "The Washington Post" as mixing "memoir, motivational tips, Bible quotations and common-sense girl talk." The prevailing message of "Girl, Wash Your Face" is one largely of female self-reliance, summed up by Hollis as "You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for how happy you are."


title: Rachel Hollis

text: Since the success of her book, Hollis and her family have moved outside of Austin, Texas. She frequently posts YouTube videos with motivational messages, and has garnered over 163,000 subscribers.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: In 2019, Hollis founded the podcast syndicated network "Three Percent Chance."  The network serves as the home for Straight Up with Trent Shelton, The Rachel Hollis Podcast, Start Today Morning Show, Rise Together Podcast, Talking Body with Amy Porterfield, and The New EDU podcast with Hope King and Wade King of Get Your Teach On. Rachel and Dave Hollis co-hosted a podcast titled RISE.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: On July 27, 2020, HarperCollins announced their intention to release a new book by Hollis on September 29, 2020. The book, entitled "Didn't See That Coming", was about navigating through crisis, loss, and grief.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: On January 31, 2019, BuzzFeed News published an article by reporter Stephanie McNeal detailing multiple instances of Hollis plagiarizing quotes from other authors on her Instagram and explicitly attributing the quotes to herself, including quotes from RuPaul, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tim Hiller, Debra Condren, and Terry Cole-Whittaker. The article additionally pointed out that the title of Hollis's 2019 book, "Girl, Stop Apologizing" bore strong resemblance to Canadian professor and author Maja Jovanovic's 2016 book, "Hey Ladies, Stop Apologizing."


title: Rachel Hollis

text: In April 2020, the quote "Still I rise," plagiarized from Maya Angelou, was posted without attribution to Hollis's Instagram page. Hollis blamed the incident on her team following widespread public outrage and issued an apology.


title: Rachel Hollis

text: In March 2021, a commenter called Hollis "unrelatable" for speaking about having a twice-weekly housekeeper who "cleans the toilets." In response, Hollis released a TikTok video in which she said, "What is it about me that made you think I want to be relatable? No, sis. Literally everything I do in my life is to live a life that most people can't relate to." The video's caption read "Harriet Tubman, RBG, Marie Curie, Oprah Winfrey, Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Malala Yousafzai, Wu Zetian … all Unrelatable AF. Happy Women's History Month." "Vox" wrote that "the post appeared clumsy at best and racist at worst. Was Hollis really saying that her struggles to build a brand as a lifestyle guru — a brand built on the sense she has created that she is just like her fans — was the same as Harriet Tubman escaping slavery and then going back to help other enslaved people escape? And was she really trying to tell her followers that she never wanted to be relatable after selling thousands of books telling them all the ways in which she was the same kind of person they were?" On April 4, Hollis released an initial apology for the video, in which she blamed her team for mishandling the situation. Eventually, Hollis deleted the original video and the initial apology and issued a new apology stating "I am so deeply sorry for the things I said in my recent posts and the hurt I have caused in the past few days. By talking about my own success, I diminished the struggles and hard work of many people who work tirelessly every day."


title: Thomas Henry Huxley

text: Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.


title: Thomas Henry Huxley

text: The stories regarding Huxley's famous 1860 Oxford evolution debate with Samuel Wilberforce were a key moment in the wider acceptance of evolution and in his own career, although some historians think that the surviving story of the debate is a later fabrication. Huxley had been planning to leave Oxford on the previous day, but, after an encounter with Robert Chambers, the author of "Vestiges", he changed his mind and decided to join the debate. Wilberforce was coached by Richard Owen, against whom Huxley also debated about whether humans were closely related to apes.


title: Thomas Henry Huxley

text: Huxley was slow to accept some of Darwin's ideas, such as gradualism, and was undecided about natural selection, but despite this he was wholehearted in his public support of Darwin. Instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, he fought against the more extreme versions of religious tradition. Huxley coined the term "agnosticism" in 1869 and elaborated on it in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not.


title: Thomas Henry Huxley

text: Huxley had little formal schooling and was virtually self-taught. He became perhaps the finest comparative anatomist of the later 19th century. He worked on invertebrates, clarifying relationships between groups previously little understood. Later, he worked on vertebrates, especially on the relationship between apes and humans. After comparing "Archaeopteryx" with "Compsognathus", he concluded that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs, a belief still widely held today.


title: Thomas Henry Huxley

text: The tendency has been for this fine anatomical work to be overshadowed by his energetic and controversial activity in favour of evolution, and by his extensive public work on scientific education, both of which had significant effects on society in Britain and elsewhere. Huxley's 1893 Romanes Lecture, "Evolution and Ethics", is exceedingly influential in China; the Chinese translation of Huxley's lecture even transformed the Chinese translation of Darwin's "Origin of Species".


title: Thomas Henry Huxley

text: Thomas Henry Huxley was born in Ealing, then a village in Middlesex. He was the second youngest of eight children of George Huxley and Rachel Withers. His parents were members of the Church of England but he sympathized with nonconformists. Like some other British scientists of the nineteenth century such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Huxley was brought up in a literate middle-class family which had fallen on hard times. His father was a mathematics teacher at Great Ealing School until it closed, putting the family into financial difficulties. As a result, Thomas left school at the age of 10, after only two years of formal schooling.