title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The player assumes the role of three nameless characters over the course of the game. In the first act, the player acts as the Confederate magistrate of an outlying colony world of Mar Sara, threatened by both the Zerg and the Protoss, and is forced through events to join the rebel Sons of Korhal under its leader Arcturus Mengsk. Mengsk's campaign is accompanied by Jim Raynor, a morally conscious law enforcement officer from Mar Sara, and Sarah Kerrigan, a psychic assassin and Mengsk's second-in-command. The second episode of the game sees the player as a cerebrate, a commander within the Zerg Swarm. The player is ruled over by the Zerg Overmind – the manifestation of the collective consciousness of the Swarm and the game's primary antagonist – and is given advice from other cerebrates of higher rank and status while accomplishing the objectives of the Swarm. In the final part of "StarCraft", the player is a newly appointed Executor within the Protoss military reporting to Aldaris, a representative of the Protoss government. Aldaris is at odds with Tassadar – the former occupant of the player's position – over his association with Zeratul, a member of a heretical group known as dark templar.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The story of "StarCraft" is presented through its instruction manual, the briefings to each mission, and conversations within the missions themselves, along with the use of cinematic cutscenes at key points. The game itself is split into three episodes, one for the player to command each race. In the first segment of the game, the player and Jim Raynor are attempting to control the colony of Mar Sara in the wake of the Zerg attacks on other Terran worlds. After the Confederacy arrests Raynor for destroying Confederate property, despite the fact that it had been infested by the Zerg, the player joins Arcturus Mengsk and the Sons of Korhal. Raynor, who is freed by Mengsk's troops, also joins and frequently accompanies the player on missions. Mengsk then begins to use Confederate technology captured on Mar Sara to lure the Zerg to Confederate installations and further his own goals. After forcing Confederate general Edmund Duke to join him, Mengsk sacrifices his own second-in-command, Sarah Kerrigan, to ensure the destruction of the Confederacy by luring the Zerg to the Confederate capital Tarsonis. Raynor is outraged by Mengsk's true aims of obtaining power at any cost and deserts, followed by the player, taking with them a small army of the former colonial militia of Mar Sara. Mengsk reorganizes what remains of the Terran population into the Terran Dominion, crowning himself as emperor.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The second campaign reveals that Kerrigan was not killed by the Zerg, but rather is captured and infested in an effort to incorporate her psionic traits into the Zerg gene pool. She emerges with far more psionic powers and physical strength, her DNA completely altered. Meanwhile, the Protoss commander Tassadar discovers that the Zerg's cerebrates cannot be killed by conventional means, but that they can be harmed by the powers wielded by the heretical dark templar. Tassadar allies himself with the dark templar prelate Zeratul, who assassinates Zasz, one of the Zerg's cerebrates in their hive clusters on Char. The cerebrate's death results in its forces running amok through the Zerg hives, but briefly links the minds of Zeratul and the Zerg Overmind, allowing the Overmind to finally learn the location of the Protoss homeworld Aiur, which the Overmind has been seeking for millennia. The main Zerg swarm promptly invades Aiur, while Kerrigan is dispatched to deal with Tassadar, and despite facing heavy Protoss resistance, the Overmind is able to embed itself into the crust of the planet.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The final episode of the game sees Aldaris and the Protoss government branding Tassadar a traitor and a heretic for conspiring with the dark templar. The player (later retconned to be Artanis) initially serves Aldaris in defending Aiur from the Zerg invasion, but while on a mission to arrest Tassadar, the player joins him instead. A Protoss civil war erupts, pitting Tassadar, Zeratul, and their allies against the Protoss establishment (known as The Conclave.) The dark templar prove their worth when they use their energies to slay two more of the Zerg cerebrates on Aiur, and the Conclave reconciles with them. Aided by Raynor's forces—who sided with Tassadar back on Char—the Protoss break through the Overmind's weakened defenses and destroy the Overmind's outer shell, but take heavy casualties in the process. Tassadar channels his own psionic energies in combination with those of the dark templar through the hull of his command ship and crashes it into the Overmind, sacrificing himself in order to destroy it.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: Blizzard Entertainment began development on "StarCraft" in 1995, shortly after the release of highly successful "". Using the "Tides of Darkness" game engine as a base, "StarCraft" made its debut at E3 1996. The version of the game displayed, assembled by the team's lead programmer Bob Fitch, received a rather weak response from the convention and was criticized by many for being ""Warcraft" in space." As a consequence the entire project was overhauled, bringing the focus onto creating three distinct species. Bill Roper, one of the game's producers, stated this would be a major departure from the "Warcraft" approach, comparing its two equal sides to those of chess and stating that "StarCraft" would allow players to "develop very unique strategies based on which species is being played, and will require players to think of different strategies to combat the other two species." The hand-drawn graphics seen in the E3 version were also replaced with rendered graphics. In early 1997, the new version of "StarCraft" was unveiled, receiving a far more positive response.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: However, the game was still marred by technical difficulties, so Bob Fitch completely redesigned the "Warcraft II" engine within two months to ensure that many of the features desired by the designers, such as the abilities for units to burrow and cloak, could be implemented. Later improvements to the game included pre-rendered sprites and backgrounds, constructed using 3D Studio Max. An isometric in-game view was also adopted, in contrast to "Warcraft II"s auxiliary bird's eye perspective. In addition, the game utilized high quality music, composed by Blizzard's resident composers, and professional voice actors were hired.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: Despite the progress, "StarCraft" was slow to emerge. The continual delays inspired a group of "StarCraft" fans on the official forums who labeled themselves "Operation: Can't Wait Any Longer" to write a series of fictional stories in which the members of Operation CWAL attempted to retrieve the beta version of "StarCraft" from Blizzard's headquarters in Irvine, California. To pay homage to their presence on the forums and enthusiasm for the game, Blizzard Entertainment later incorporated the group's name into "StarCraft" as a cheat code to speed up the production of units and gave the group thanks in the game's credits. The game was released for Windows on March 31, 1998, with the Classic Mac OS version following a year later in 1999. Development on a Nintendo 64 version, "StarCraft 64", began in 1999, converted from PC by Mass Media Interactive Entertainment—a subsidiary of THQ—and published by Nintendo. "StarCraft 64" was released on June 13, 2000, in the US and Europe. It was also released in Australia on May 25, 2001.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The musical score to "StarCraft" was composed by Blizzard Entertainment's composers. Glenn Stafford composed the Terran and Protoss in-game themes, while Derek Duke, who was a contracted composer at the time, wrote all the in-game music for the Zerg. The cinematic scores were composed by Stafford and Hayes. Hayes also collaborated with Stafford on one of the Protoss in-game tracks. Tracy W. Bush provided additional support in composing. The musical score of the game was received well by reviewers, who have described it as "appropriately melodic and dark" and "impressive", with one reviewer noting that some of the music owed much of its inspiration to Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film "Alien". The first official game soundtrack, "StarCraft: Game Music Vol. 1", was released in 2000, comprising tracks from both "StarCraft" and "", as well as a sizable portion of remix tracks and music inspired by "StarCraft", created by several South Korean disc jockeys. The soundtrack was distributed by Net Vision Entertainment. In September 2008, Blizzard Entertainment announced that a second soundtrack, "StarCraft Original Soundtrack", had been released on iTunes. This soundtrack consisted entirely of the original music from "StarCraft" and "Brood War", both from in-game themes to music used in the cinematic cutscenes.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: Before the release of "StarCraft", Blizzard Entertainment released a free-to-download game demo entitled "Loomings", comprising three missions and a tutorial. The prequel was made available for the full game in October 1999 as a custom map campaign, adding two extra missions and hosting it on Battle.net. In addition, the full release of "StarCraft" included a secondary campaign entitled "Enslavers". Consisting of five missions played as both the Terrans and the Protoss, "Enslavers" is set in the second campaign in "StarCraft" and follows the story of a Terran smuggler who manages to take control of a Zerg cerebrate and is pursued by both the Protoss and Terran Dominion. "Enslavers" acts as an exemplar single-player campaign for the game's level editor, highlighting how to use the features of the program.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: "StarCraft"s first expansion, "", was released for Windows on July 31, 1998. The expansion was developed by Aztech New Media and authorized by Blizzard Entertainment. Its story focused on a separate Confederate colony alluded to in the manual to "StarCraft", following a group of Terran colonists and a Protoss fleet in their fight against the Zerg and a rising local insurgency. "Insurrection" was not received well, being criticized by reviewers for lacking the quality of the original game. "Insurrection" was followed within a few months by a second expansion, "Retribution". Developed by Stardock, published by WizardWorks and authorized by Blizzard Entertainment, "Retribution" follows all three races attempting to seize control of a powerful crystal on a Terran Dominion colony. The expansion was not received with critical support, instead being regarded as average but at least challenging. After the release of "Retribution", Blizzard Entertainment announced a new official expansion pack that would continue on the story of "StarCraft". "" was consequently created, developed jointly by Blizzard Entertainment and Saffire. "Brood War" continues the story of "StarCraft" from days after its conclusion, and was released for both Windows and Mac to critical praise on December 18, 1998, in the US and in March 1999 in Europe.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: Before "Insurrection", an unauthorized expansion pack, called "Stellar Forces", was published by Micro Star but was recalled weeks later when Blizzard won the court case against it. It consisted of 22 single player maps and 32 multi-player maps which are considered to be rather plain.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: In 2000, "StarCraft 64" was released in North America for the Nintendo 64, co-developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Mass Media Inc. and published by Nintendo. The game featured all of the missions from both "StarCraft" and the expansion "Brood War", as well as some exclusive missions, such as two different tutorials and a new secret mission, "Resurrection IV". Blizzard Entertainment had previously considered a PlayStation port of the game, but it was decided that the game would instead be released on the Nintendo 64. "Resurrection IV" is set after the conclusion of "Brood War", and follows Jim Raynor embarking on a mission to rescue the "Brood War" character Alexei Stukov, a vice admiral from Earth who has been captured by the Zerg. The "Brood War" missions required the use of a Nintendo 64 memory Expansion Pak to run. In addition, "StarCraft 64" features a split screen cooperative mode, also requiring the expansion pak, allowing two players to control one force in-game. "StarCraft 64" lacked the online multiplayer capabilities and speech in mission briefings. In addition, cut scenes were shortened. "StarCraft 64" was a runner-up for GameSpot's annual "Best Game Story" and "Best Strategy Game" awards among console games, which went respectively to "Summoner" and "Ogre Battle 64".


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: A remastered edition of the game, "", released August 14, 2017, preserves the gameplay of the original while adding support for ultra-high-definition graphics, Blizzard's modern online features, and re-recorded audio (soundtrack and sound effects).


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: On June 8, 2019, as part of the grand finals of the third season of the KSL, Blizzard announced a graphics overhaul pack for the game by Carbot Animations, the producers of multiple Blizzard-related parody animations, including their first and longest-running one, the "StarCrafts" series. As a graphical overhaul, its effect applies to all game modes and menus in "StarCraft: Remastered". It was released on July 10, 2019, as "StarCraft: Cartooned" alongside an announcer pack featuring South Korean YouTuber and children's television host Hyejin "Hey Jini" Kang.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: "StarCraft" was released internationally on March 31, 1998, and became the best-selling PC game for that year, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide. In the United States, it was the best-selling computer game of 1998, with 746,365 units sold. It was the country's 14th best-selling release of the period between 1993 and 1999, selling 916,000 copies. By April 1999, South Korean players had purchased almost 300,000 units of the game, increasing to units sold in Korea by November 1999. "StarCraft"s worldwide sales reached 4 million units by July 2001; South Korea accounted for 50% of these copies. By May 2007, "StarCraft" had sold over 9.5 million copies across the globe, with 4.5 million of these being sold in South Korea. Since the initial release of "StarCraft", Blizzard Entertainment reported that its Battle.net online multiplayer service grew by 800 percent.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: Generally, "StarCraft" was received positively by critics, with many contemporary reviewers noting that while the game may not have deviated significantly from the status quo of most real-time strategy games, it was one of the best to have applied the formula. In addition, "StarCraft"s pioneering use of three distinct, unique, and balanced races over two equal sides was praised by critics, with GameSpot commenting that this helped the game to "avoid the problem that has plagued every other game in the genre". Many critics also praised the strength of the story accompanying the game, with some reviewers being impressed by how well the story was folded into the gameplay. The game's voice acting in particular was praised; GameSpot later hailed the voice work in the game as one of the ten best in the industry at the time. Equally, the multiplayer aspects of the game were positively received. "StarCraft" has received multiple awards, including being named as one of the best games of all time by GameSpot, IGN, and "Game Informer". According to Blizzard Entertainment, "StarCraft" has won 37 awards and has received a star on the floor of the Metreon as part of the Walk of Game in San Francisco in early 2006.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: "Next Generation" reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it five stars out of five, and stated that "The quality of the play balancing and the elegance of the design mean that "StarCraft" sets a new high watermark for all real-time strategy games."


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The reviewer from the online second volume of "Pyramid" stated that "One of the most hotly anticipated computer games of the last two years, Blizzard Entertainment's "Starcraft" has had a tremendous amount of hype to live up to. The fact that it "does" live up to the high expectations set for it may be the only recommendation it needs."


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: Although at the time "StarCraft"s graphics and audio were praised by critics, later reviews have noted that the graphics do not compare to more modern games. The capacity for the game's artificial intelligence to navigate units to waypoints also faced some heavy criticism, with "PC Zone" stating that the inability for developers to make an effective pathfinding system was "the single most infuriating element of the real-time strategy genre". In addition, several reviewers expressed concern over some familiarities between the unit structures of each race, as well as over the potential imbalance of players using rushing tactics early in multiplayer games. Blizzard Entertainment has strived to balance rush tactics in later updates. The Nintendo 64 version of the game was not received as positively by reviewers, and was criticized for poor graphics in comparison to the PC version. However, critics did praise the game and Mass Media for using effective controls on the gamepad and maintaining the high quality audio.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: In 1998, "PC Gamer" declared it the 5th-best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "a strategy game that continues to evolve and surprise many months after its release, and that currently represents the state of the genre's art".


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide by February 2009, "StarCraft" became one of the best-selling games for the personal computer. It has been praised for pioneering the use of unique "factions" in RTS gameplay, and for having a compelling story.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: GameSpot described "StarCraft" as "The defining game of its genre. It is the standard by which all real-time strategy games are judged." "IGN" stated that "StarCraft" "is hands down one of the best, if not the best, real-time strategy games ever created." "StarCraft" is frequently included in the industry's best games rankings, for example it ranked 37 in "Edge"s top 100 games of all time. "StarCraft" has even been taken into space, as astronaut Daniel T. Barry took a copy of the game with him on the Space Shuttle mission STS-96 in 1999. "StarCraft"s popularity resulted in "Guinness World Records" awarding the game four world records, including "Best Selling PC Strategy Game," "Largest Income in Professional Gaming," and "Largest Audience for a Game Competition" when 120,000 fans turned out to watch the final of the SKY proleague season 2005 in Busan, South Korea. Researchers have shown that the audience for watching "StarCraft" games is diverse and that "StarCraft" uses instances of information asymmetry to make the game more entertaining for spectators. In addition, "StarCraft" has been the subject of an academic course; the University of California, Berkeley offered a student-run introductory course on theory and strategy in spring 2009.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: After its release, "StarCraft" rapidly grew in popularity in South Korea, eventually making its way to become the country's national e-sport after establishing a successful pro-gaming scene. Professional gamers in South Korea are media celebrities, and "StarCraft" games are broadcast over three television channels dedicated to the professional gaming scene. Professional gamers in South Korea have gained television contracts, sponsorships, and tournament prizes, allowing one of the most famous players, Lim "BoxeR" Yo-hwan, to gain a fan club of over half a million people. One player, Lee Yun-yeol, reported earnings in 2005 of .


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: "StarCraft" was part of the United States Air Force's Air and Space Basic Course, used to teach newly active officers about crisis planning under stress and joint service teamwork. Other efforts to make more 'realistic' current-day battle software led to distractions when simulated hardware didn't align with the real hardware active duty officers knew about. The science fiction setting allowed students to focus on the battle tactics.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment hosts a competition for AIs playing the game. As of 2015, humans still win.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: In 2014, an unofficial version for the Pandora handheld and the ARM architecture became available by static recompilation and reverse engineering of the original x86 version.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: In 2021, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted "StarCraft" to its World Video Game Hall of Fame. During the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine Ukrainian presidential spokesman and Chief of Staff Oleksiy Arestovych described reports of a potential Russian offensive as a "zerg rush" of 10,000 volunteers (in reference to Zerg swarm species tactics from the game), and proceeded to explain the meaning of the term.


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: The storyline of "StarCraft" has been adapted into several novels. The first novel, "Uprising", which was written by Blizzard employee Micky Neilson and published in December 2000, acts as a prequel to the events of "StarCraft". Other novels—"Liberty's Crusade" by Jeff Grubb and Aaron Rosenberg's "Queen of Blades"—retell the story of the game from different perspectives. At BlizzCon 2007, "StarCraft" creator Chris Metzen stated that he hoped to novelize the entirety of "StarCraft" and its expansion "Brood War" into a definitive text-based story. Later novels, such as Gabriel Mesta's "Shadow of the Xel'Naga" and Christie Golden's "The Dark Templar Saga", further expand the storyline, creating the setting for "StarCraft II".


title: StarCraft (video game)

text: A number of action figures and collectable statues based upon the characters and units in "StarCraft" have been produced by ToyCom. A number of model kits, made by Academy Hobby Model Kits, were also produced, displaying 1/30 scale versions of the marine and the hydralisk. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment teamed up with Fantasy Flight Games to create a board game with detailed sculptures of game characters. Blizzard Entertainment also licensed Wizards of the Coast to produce an Alternity based game entitled "StarCraft Adventures".


title: Legal tender

text: Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in payment of a debt extinguishes the debt. There is no obligation on the creditor to accept the tendered payment, but the act of tendering the payment in legal tender discharges the debt.


title: Legal tender

text: Some jurisdictions allow contract law to overrule the status of legal tender, allowing (for example) merchants to specify that they will not accept cash payments. Coins and banknotes are usually defined as legal tender in many countries, but personal cheques, credit cards, and similar non-cash methods of payment are usually not. Some jurisdictions may include a specific foreign currency as legal tender, at times as its exclusive legal tender or concurrently with its domestic currency. Some jurisdictions may forbid or restrict payment made by other than legal tender. In some jurisdictions legal tender can be refused as payment if no debt exists prior to the time of payment (where the obligation to pay may arise at the same time as the offer of payment). For example, vending machines and transport staff do not have to accept the largest denomination of banknote. Shopkeepers may reject large banknotes, which is covered by the legal concept known as invitation to treat.


title: Legal tender

text: The right, in many jurisdictions, of a trader to refuse to do business with any person means that a would-be purchaser may not force a purchase merely by presenting legal tender, as legal tender must only be accepted for debts already incurred.


title: Legal tender

text: The term "legal tender" is from Middle French "tendre" (verb form), meaning "to offer". The "Latin" root is "tendere" (to stretch out), and the sense of "tender" as an "offer" is related to the etymology of the English word "extend" (to hold outward).


title: Legal tender

text: Demonetization is the act of stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender. It occurs whenever there is a change of national currency: The current form or forms of money is or are pulled from circulation and retired, often to be replaced with new notes or coins. Sometimes, a country completely replaces the old currency with new currency. The opposite of demonetization is remonetization, in which a form of payment is restored as legal tender. Coins and banknotes may cease to be legal tender if new notes of the same currency replace them or if a new currency is introduced replacing the former one. Examples of this are:


title: Legal tender

text: Individual coins or banknotes can be demonetised and cease to be legal tender (for example, the pre-decimal United Kingdom farthing or the Bank of England 1 pound note), but the Bank of England does redeem all Bank of England banknotes by exchanging them for legal tender currency at its counters in London (or by post) regardless of how old they are. Banknotes issued by retail banks in the UK (Scotland and Northern Ireland) are not legal tender, but one of the criteria for legal protection under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act is that banknotes must be payable on demand, therefore withdrawn notes remain a liability of the issuing bank without any time limits.


title: Legal tender

text: In the case of the euro, coins and banknotes of former national currencies were in some cases considered legal tender from 1 January 1999 until various dates in 2002. Most countries continued to exchange pre-euro notes and coins for a period of time; only Ireland continues to do so. Legally, those coins and banknotes were considered non-decimal sub-divisions of the euro.


title: Legal tender

text: When the so-called "Swiss" dinar ceased to be legal tender in Iraq, it still circulated in the northern Kurdish regions, despite lacking government backing it had a stable market value for more than a decade.


title: Legal tender

text: This is also true of the paper money issued by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The Confederate currency became worthless by its own terms after the war, since it could only be redeemed a stated number of years after a peace treaty was signed between the Confederacy and the United States (which never happened, as the Confederacy was defeated and dissolved).


title: Legal tender

text: Demonetisation is currently prohibited in the United States, and the Coinage Act of 1965 applies to all US coins and currency regardless of age. The closest historical equivalent in the US, other than Confederate money, was from 1933 to 1974, when the government banned most private ownership of gold bullion, including gold coins held for non-numismatic purposes. Now, however, even surviving pre-1933 gold coins are legal tender under the 1964 act.


title: Legal tender

text: Banknotes and coins may be withdrawn from circulation, but remain legal tender. United States banknotes issued at any date remain legal tender even after they are withdrawn from circulation. Canadian 1- and 2-dollar bills remain legal tender even if they have been withdrawn and replaced by coins, but Canadian $1,000 bills remain legal tender even if they are removed from circulation as they arrive at a bank. However, Bank of England notes that are withdrawn from circulation generally cease to be legal tender but remain redeemable for current currency at the Bank of England itself or by post. All paper and polymer issues of New Zealand banknotes issued from 1967 onwards (and 1- and 2-dollar notes until 1993) are still legal tender; however, 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins are no longer used in New Zealand.


title: Legal tender

text: A cashless society describes an economic state whereby financial transactions are not conducted with money in the form of physical banknotes or coins. Cashless societies have existed, based on barter and other methods of exchange. In modern usage, the term usually refers to financial transactions conducted by transfer of digital information (usually an electronic representation of money) between the transacting parties.


title: Legal tender

text: Sometimes currency issues such as commemorative coins or transfer bills may be issued that are not intended for public circulation but are nonetheless legal tender. An example of such currency is Maundy money. Some currency issuers, particularly the Scottish banks, issue special commemorative banknotes which are intended for ordinary circulation (though no Scottish banknotes nor notes from Northern Ireland are legal tender in the United Kingdom). As well, some standard coins are minted on higher-quality dies as 'uncirculated' versions of the coin, for collectors to purchase at a premium; these coins are nevertheless legal tender. Some countries issue precious-metal coins which have a currency value indicated on them which is far below the value of the metal the coin contains: these coins are known as "non-circulating legal tender" or "NCLT".


title: Legal tender

text: The Australian dollar, comprising notes and coins, is legal tender in Australia. Australian notes are legal tender by virtue of the "Reserve Bank Act 1959", s.36(1), without an amount limit. The "Currency Act 1965" similarly provides that Australian coins intended for general circulation are also legal tender, but only for the following amounts:


title: Legal tender

text: Although the "Reserve Bank Act 1959" and the "Currency Act 1965" establishes that Australian banknotes and coins have legal tender status, Australian banknotes and coins do not necessarily have to be used in transactions and refusal to accept payment in legal tender is not unlawful. It appears that a provider of goods or services is at liberty to set the commercial terms upon which payment will take place before the "contract" for supply of the goods or services is entered into. If a provider of goods or services specifies other means of payment prior to the contract, then there is usually no obligation for legal tender to be accepted as payment. This is the case even when an existing debt is involved. However, refusal to accept legal tender in payment of an existing debt, where no other means of payment/settlement has been specified in advance, conceivably could have consequences in legal proceedings.


title: Legal tender

text: Australia Post prohibits the sending of coins or banknotes, of any country, except via registered post.


title: Legal tender

text: In 1901, notes in circulation in Australia consisted of bank notes payable in gold coin and issued by the trading banks, and Queensland Treasury notes. Bank notes circulated in all States except Queensland, but were not legal tender except for a brief period in 1893 in New South Wales. There were, however, some restrictions on their issue and other provisions for the protection of the public. Queensland Treasury notes were issued by the Queensland Government and were legal tender in that state. Notes of both categories continued in circulation until 1910, when the Commonwealth Parliament passed the "Australian Notes Act 1910" and the "Bank Notes Tax Act 1910". The "Australian Notes Act 1910" prohibited the circulation of state notes as money, and the "Bank Notes Tax Act 1910" imposed a tax of 10%, per annum, on "all bank notes issued or re-issued by any bank in the Commonwealth after the commencement of this Act, and not redeemed". These Acts effectively put an end to the issue of notes by the trading banks and the Queensland Treasury. "The Reserve Bank Act 1959" expressly prohibits persons and states from issuing "a bill or note for the payment of money payable to bearer on demand and intended for circulation".


title: Legal tender

text: In general, Canadian dollar banknotes issued by the Bank of Canada and coins issued under the authority of the Royal Canadian Mint Act are legal tender in Canada. However, commercial transactions may legally be settled in any manner agreed by the parties involved with the transactions. For example, convenience stores may refuse $100 bank notes if they feel that would put them at risk of being counterfeit victims; however, official policy suggests that the retailers should evaluate the impact of that approach. In the case that no mutually acceptable form of payment can be found for the tender, the parties involved should seek legal advice.


title: Legal tender

text: Under the "Currency Act", there are limits to the value of a transaction for which only coins are used. A payment in coins is a legal tender for no more than the following amounts for the following denominations of coins:


title: Legal tender

text: In the case of coins of a denomination greater than $10, a payment is a legal tender for no more than the value of a single coin of that denomination. Where more than one amount is payable by one person to another on the same day under one or more obligations, the total of those amounts is deemed to be one amount due and payable on that day.


title: Legal tender

text: In the People's Republic of China, the official currency renminbi serves as the unlimited legal tender for all transactions. It is by law that any public institution or individual must not refuse using the currency to settle public or private domestic owing.


title: Legal tender

text: In June 2021, El Salvador became the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, after the Legislative Assembly had voted 62–22 to pass a bill submitted by President Nayib Bukele classifying the cryptocurrency as such.


title: Legal tender

text: Euro coins and banknotes became legal tender in most countries of the Eurozone on 1 January 2002. Although one side of the coins is used for different national marks for each country, all coins and all banknotes are legal tender throughout the eurozone. Although some eurozone countries do not put 1 cent and 2 cent coins into general circulation (prices in those countries are by general understanding always rounded to whole multiples of 5 cent), 1 cent and 2 cent coins from other eurozone countries remain legal tender in those countries.


title: Legal tender

text: Council Regulation (EC) No 974/98 limits the number of coins that can be offered for payment to fifty. Governments that issue the coins must establish the euro as the only legal tender. Due to variations on the legislative meaning of legal tender in various member states and the ability of contract law to overrule the status of legal tender, it is possible for merchants to choose to refuse to accept euro banknotes and coins within specific countries within the Eurozone. For example, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Finland, and Ireland have "de jure" or "de facto" removed the use of 1 cent and 2 cent coins and adopted cash rounding to the nearest multiple of 5 cents. National laws may also impose restrictions as to maximal amounts that can be settled by coins or notes.


title: Legal tender

text: Kosovo and Montenegro, which are not a member of the European Union, Eurozone nor does it have a formal monetary agreement with the EU, unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 as its "de facto" domestic currency to ensure monetary stability and to continue to avoid the high/hyper inflation seen in preceding decades: this means that the euro is not a legal tender there, however it is treated as such by the government and the population.


title: Legal tender

text: Legal tender was enacted the first time for gold and silver coins in the French Penal Code of 1807 (art. 475, 11°). In 1870, legal tender was extended to all notes of the Banque de France. Anyone refusing such coins for their whole value would be prosecuted (French Penal Code art. R. 642-3).


title: Legal tender

text: According to the Economic and Monetary Union Act, 1998 of the Republic of Ireland which replaced the legal tender provisions that had been re-enacted in Irish legislation from previous British enactments, "No person, other than the Central Bank of Ireland and such persons as may be designated by the Minister by order, shall be obliged to accept more than 50 coins denominated in euro or in cent in any single transaction."


title: Legal tender

text: The Decimal Currency Act, 1970 governed legal tender prior to the adoption of the euro and laid down the analogous provisions as in United Kingdom legislation (all inherited from previous UK law), namely: coins denominated above 10 pence became legal tender for payment not exceeding £10, coins denominated not more than 10 pence became legal tender for payment not exceeding £5, and bronze coins became legal tender for payment not exceeding 20 pence.


title: Legal tender

text: The Indian rupee is the "de facto" legal tender currency in India. The Indian rupee is also legal tender in Nepal and Bhutan, but the Nepalese rupee and Bhutanese ngultrum are not legal tender in India. Both the Nepalese rupee and Bhutanese ngultrum are pegged with the Indian rupee.


title: Legal tender

text: The Indian rupee used to be an official currency of several other countries, including the Straits Settlements (now Singapore and parts of Malaysia), Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Trucial States (now the UAE), Oman, Aden Colony and Aden Protectorate (now parts of Yemen), British Somaliland, British East Africa, and Zanzibar.


title: Legal tender

text: In 1837, the Indian rupee was made the sole official currency of the Straits Settlements, as it was administered as a part of India. In 1845, the British replaced the Indian rupee with the Straits dollar after administration of the Straits Settlements separated from India earlier in that same year.


title: Legal tender

text: After partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Pakistani rupee came into existence, initially using Indian coins and Indian currency notes simply overstamped with the word "Pakistan". New coins and banknotes were issued in 1948.


title: Legal tender

text: The Gulf rupee, also known as the Persian Gulf rupee (XPGR), was introduced by the Government of India as a replacement for the Indian rupee for circulation exclusively outside the country with the Reserve Bank of India Amendment Act of 1 May 1959. This creation of a separate currency was an attempt to reduce the strain put on India's foreign reserves by gold smuggling.


title: Legal tender

text: Kuwait and Bahrain eventually replaced the Gulf rupee with their own currencies (the Kuwaiti dinar and the Bahraini dinar) after gaining independence from Britain in 1961 and 1965, respectively.


title: Legal tender

text: On 6 June 1966, India devalued the rupee. To avoid following this devaluation, several of the states using the rupee adopted their own currencies. Qatar and most of the Trucial States adopted the Qatar and Dubai riyal, whilst Abu Dhabi adopted the Bahraini dinar. Only Oman continued to use the Gulf rupee until 1970, with the government backing the currency at its old peg to the pound. Oman later replaced the Gulf rupee with its own rial in 1970.


title: Legal tender

text: On 8 November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that existing INR 500 and INR 1000 banknotes would no longer be accepted as legal tender with a view to curb counterfeiting, tax evasion and the parallel economy. The Reserve Bank of India outlined a scheme for holders of such banknotes to either deposit them into their bank accounts for full, unlimited value, or to exchange the banknotes for new, subject to a cap.


title: Legal tender

text: New Zealand has a complex history of legal tender. English law applied, as applicable to local circumstances, either from 6 January 1840 (when the Governor of New South Wales by proclamation annexed New Zealand) or from 14 January 1840 (when Captain Hobson (of the Royal Navy) was sworn in as Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand). The English Laws Act 1858 subsequently confirmed that English legislation passed prior to 14 January 1840 was and had been the law of New Zealand, as applicable to local circumstances. The (UK) Coinage Act 1816 therefore applied and British coins were confirmed as legal tender in New Zealand. (Unusually, until 1989, the Reserve Bank (established in 1934) did not have the right to issue coins as legal tender. Coins had to be issued by the Minister of Finance.)


title: Legal tender

text: The history of bank notes in New Zealand was considerably more complex. In 1840 the Union Bank of Australia started issuing bank notes under provisions of British law, but these were not automatically legal tender.


title: Legal tender

text: In 1844 ordinances were passed making the Union Bank banknotes legal tender and authorizing the government to issue debentures in small denominations, thus creating two sets of legal tender. These debentures were circulated but were traded at a discount to their face value because of distrust of the colonial government amongst the settler population. In 1845 the British Colonial office disallowed the Ordinance and the debentures were recalled, not without first causing a panic among holders.


title: Legal tender

text: In 1847 the Colonial Bank of Issue became the only issuer of legal tender. In 1856, however, the Colonial Bank of Issue was disbanded; and through the Paper Currency Act 1856 the Union Bank was confirmed once again as an issuer of legal tender. The Act also authorized the Oriental Bank to issue legal tender - but this bank ceased operations in 1861.


title: Legal tender

text: Between 1861 and 1874, a number of other banks including the Bank of New Zealand, the Bank of New South Wales, the National Bank of New Zealand and the Colonial Bank of New Zealand were created by Acts of Parliament and authorized to issue bank-notes backed by gold, however these notes were not legal tender.


title: Legal tender

text: The 1893 Bank Note Issue Act allowed the government to declare a bank's right to issue legal tender. This enabled the government to make such a declaration to assist the Bank of New Zealand when in 1895 the bank encountered financial difficulties that could have led to its failure.


title: Legal tender

text: In 1914 the Banking Amendment Act gave legal-tender status to bank notes from any issuer and removed the requirement that banks authorized to issue bank notes must redeem them on demand for gold (the gold standard).


title: Legal tender

text: In 1933 the Coinage Act authorized a specific New Zealand coinage and removed legal-tender status from British coins. In the same year the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was established. The bank was given a monopoly on the issue of legal tender. The Reserve Bank also provided a mechanism through which the other issuers of legal tender could phase out their bank notes. These banknotes were convertible into British legal tender on demand at the Reserve Bank and remained so until the 1938 Sterling Exchange Suspension Notice that suspended provisions of a 1936 amendment of the 1933 Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act.


title: Legal tender

text: In 1964 the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act re-stated that only notes issued by the Reserve Bank were legal tender. The Act also ended the right of individuals to redeem their bank notes for coin, effectively ending the distinction between coin and notes in New Zealand. The Act came into force in 1967, establishing as legal tender all New Zealand dollar five-dollar banknotes and greater, all decimal coins, the pre-decimal sixpence, the shilling, and the florin. Also passed in 1964 was the Decimal Currency Act, which created the basis for a decimal currency, introduced in 1967.


title: Legal tender

text: The Norwegian krone (NOK) is legal tender in Norway according to the Central Bank () of 24 May 1985. However, no-one is obliged to accept more than 25 coins of each denomination (of which currently 1, 5, 10 and 20 NOK denominations are in common circulation).


title: Legal tender

text: Singapore and Brunei have a Currency Interchangeability Agreement since 12 June 1967. Under the agreement, Singapore dollar and Brunei dollar are exchangeable at par without charge in both countries. As such, the currency of one country is accepted in the other country as "customary tender".


title: Legal tender

text: The Swiss franc is the only legal tender in Switzerland. Any payment consisting of up to 100 Swiss coins is legal tender; banknotes are legal tender for any amount.


title: Legal tender

text: The sixth series of Swiss bank notes from 1976, recalled by the National Bank in 2000, and the eighth series from the 1990's, withdrawn in 2021, are both no longer legal tender, but banknotes can be exchanged by the Swiss National Bank or other authorized banks for current notes without limitation as to time.


title: Legal tender

text: The Swiss franc is also the legal tender of the Principality of Liechtenstein, which is joined to Switzerland in a customs union.


title: Legal tender

text: The Swiss franc is also the currency used for administrative and accounting purposes by most of the numerous international organisations that are headquartered in Switzerland.


title: Legal tender

text: The New Taiwan dollar issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is legal tender for all payments within the territory of the Republic of China, Taiwan. However, since 2007, candidates to become civil servants in elections in the Republic of China may no longer pay any deposit in coinage.


title: Legal tender

text: Series 2 banknotes first issued in 1925 during the reign of Rama VI and continuing into the reign of Rama VII added the legend,


title: Legal tender

text: In the UK legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning in the settlement of debts: a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if they pay the exact amount (change cannot be demanded) into court in legal tender. Legal tender is solely for the guaranteed settlement of debts and does not affect any party's right of refusal of service in any transaction.


title: Legal tender

text: In the 19th century, gold coins were legal tender to any amount, but silver coins were not legal tender for sums over 2 pounds nor bronze for sums over 1 shilling. This provision was retained in revised form at the introduction of decimal currency, and the Coinage Act 1971 laid down that coins denominated above 10 pence became legal tender for payment not exceeding 10 pounds, non-bronze coins denominated not more than 10 pence became legal tender for payment not exceeding 5 pounds, and bronze coins became legal tender for payment not exceeding 20 pence.


title: Legal tender

text: Throughout the United Kingdom, coins valued 1 pound, 2 pounds, and 5 pounds sterling are legal tender in unlimited amounts. Twenty pence pieces and fifty pence pieces are legal tender in amounts up to 10 pounds; five pence pieces and ten pence pieces are legal tender in amounts up to 5 pounds; and pennies and two pence coins are legal tender in amounts up to 20 pence. In accordance with the Coinage Act 1971, gold sovereigns are also legal tender for any amount. Although it is not specifically mentioned on them, the face values of gold coins are 50p; £1; £2; and £5, a mere fraction of their worth as bullion. Five pound coins, although legal tender, are intended as souvenirs and are almost never seen in circulation.


title: Legal tender

text: To meet the legal definition of legal tender, the exact amount due must be tendered; no change can be demanded.


title: Legal tender

text: Maundy money is legal tender but may not be accepted by retailers and is worth much more than face value due to its rarity value and silver content.


title: Legal tender

text: Bank of England notes are legal tender in England and Wales and are issued in the denominations of £5, £10, £20 and £50. They can always be redeemed at the Bank of England even if discontinued. Banknotes issued by Scottish and Northern Irish banks are not legal tender anywhere but are widely accepted with agreement between parties.


title: Legal tender

text: In a 1976 case, " Miliangos v George Frank Ltd", the House of Lords established that the English courts could order debts to be paid in currencies other than sterling under certain circumstances, overturning two centuries of precedent.


title: Legal tender

text: Coins are legal tender in Scotland, but no banknotes are. Scottish banknotes are legal currency and widely accepted, but are not legal tender anywhere in the UK.


title: Legal tender

text: Before the Civil War (1861 to 1865), silver coins were legal tender only up to the sum of $5. Before 1853, when U.S. silver coins were reduced in weight 7%, coins had exactly their value in metal (from 1830 to 1852). Two silver 50 cent coins had exactly $1 worth of silver. A gold U.S. dollar of 1849 had $1 worth of gold. With the flood of gold coming out of the California mines in the early 1850s, the price of silver rose (gold went down). Thus, 50 cent coins of 1840 to 1852 were worth 53 cents if melted down. The government could increase the value of the gold coins (expensive) or reduce the size of all U.S. silver coins. With the reduction of 1853, a 50-cent coin now had only 48 cents of silver. This is the reason for the $5 limit of silver coins as legal tender; paying somebody $100 in the new silver coins would be giving them $96 worth of silver. Most people preferred bank check or gold coins for large purchases.


title: Legal tender

text: During the early American Civil War, the federal government first issued United States Notes (the first greenback notes), which were not redeemable in gold and silver coins but could be used to pay "all dues" to the federal government. Since land purchases and duties on imports were payable only in gold or the new Demand Notes, the Demand Notes were bought by importers and land speculators for about 97 cents on the gold dollar and never lost value. 1862 greenbacks (Legal Tender Notes) at first traded for 97 cents on the dollar but gained/lost value depending on fortunes of the Union army. The value of Legal Tender Greenbacks swung wildly but trading was from 85 to 33 cents on the gold dollar.


title: Legal tender

text: This resulted in a situation in which the greenback "Legal Tender" notes of 1862 were fiat, and so gold and silver were held and paper circulated at a discount because of Gresham's law. The 1861 Demand Notes were a huge success but robbed the customs house of much needed gold coin (interest on most bonds back then was paid in gold). A money-strapped Congress, which had to pay for the war, eventually adopted the Legal Tender Act of 1862, issuing United States Notes backed only by treasury securities, and compelled the people to accept the new notes at a discount; prices rose except for those who had gold and/or silver coins.


title: Legal tender

text: Following the Civil War, paper currency was disputed as to whether it must be accepted as payment. In 1869, Hepburn v. Griswold found that Henry Griswold would not have to accept paper currency because it could not truly be "legal tender" and was unconstitutional as a legally enforceable means to pay debts. This led to the Legal Tender Cases in 1870, which overturned the previous ruling and established the paper currency as constitutional and proper legal tender that must be accepted in all situations.


title: Legal tender

text: With the 1884 Supreme Court ruling in "Juilliard v. Greenman", the "Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the right to issue notes to be legal tender for the payment of public and private debt. Legal-tender notes are treasury notes or banknotes that, in the eyes of the law, must be accepted in the payment of debts." The ruling in the Legal Tender Cases (which include "Juilliard v. Greenman") led later courts to "support the federal government's invalidation of gold clauses in private contracts in the 1930s."


title: Legal tender

text: On the other hand, coins made of gold or silver may not necessarily be legal tender, if they are not fiat money in the jurisdiction where they are proffered as payment. The Coinage Act of 1965 states (in part):


title: Legal tender

text: Contrary to common misconception, there is no federal law stating that a private business, a person, or a government organization must accept currency or coins for payment. Private businesses are free to create their own policies on whether they accept cash, unless there is a specific state law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in cents or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores, and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency as a matter of policy or safety.


title: Legal tender

text: The principal purpose of that statute is to ensure the nationwide acceptance of U.S. currency, consistent with constitutional language that reserves to Congress the power to create a uniform currency that holds the same value throughout the United States. While the statute provides that U.S. money is legal tender that may be accepted for the payment of debts, it does not require "acceptance" of cash payments, nor does it provide that restrictions cannot be imposed upon the acceptance of cash.


title: Legal tender

text: On 11 December 2016, Venezuela's government announced demonetisation following almost 500% inflation in the country. People of the country were given 3 days to get rid of the 100 Bolivar notes (most widely used currency) post the introduction of new note of higher denominations. As of 15 June 2017, there has been 7 extensions (one per month) of the legal use of the 100 bolivares bill notes. The 100 Bolivar notes were still legal tender as of 30 December 2017.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: Grant Dean Williams (born November 30, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A 6'6" power forward, he played college basketball for the Tennessee Volunteers.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: Williams was drafted 22nd overall in the 2019 NBA draft by the Celtics. He reached the NBA Finals with the team in 2022.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: Williams was an All-Southeastern Conference player as a freshman, sophomore, and junior for the Tennessee Volunteers. He was awarded back-to-back SEC Player of the Year honors for the 2017–18 and 2018–19 seasons, becoming the first player to do so since Corliss Williamson in 1995. Williams led Tennessee as a third seed in the 2018 NCAA tournament and second seed in the 2019 NCAA tournament.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: Williams was selected with the 22nd overall draft pick by the Boston Celtics in the 2019 NBA draft. On July 11, 2019, the Celtics announced that they had signed him to a four-year, $11.8 million rookie-scale contract. On October 23, 2019, Williams made his professional debut, coming off the bench in a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. On December 4, 2019, he made his first career start in a winning effort against the Miami Heat. In an effort to garner support for teammates making the 2020 NBA All-Star Game, Williams pledged to dye his hair pink if Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Kemba Walker all received a selection. However, Williams did not do so as Brown did not make the team. Williams finished his rookie season averaging just over 15 minutes per game in 69 games, 3.4 points per game, and 2.6 rebounds per game.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: Upon completion of the 2020–21 NBA season, Williams' second season in the league, he slightly increased his averages in all major statistical categories. He finished the season averaging just over 18 minutes per game, 4.7 points per game, and 2.8 rebounds per game.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: On March 21, 2022, Williams scored a then career-high 20 points in a win against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He finished the 2021–22 NBA season with career-best averages with over 24 minutes per game, 7.8 points per game, and 3.6 rebounds per game. On May 15, Williams scored a career-high 27 points in a decisive Game 7 win over the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. His performance was highlighted by a 7-for-18 mark from three point range, records for both made threes and three attempts in an NBA Game 7. Williams helped the Celtics reach the NBA Finals, but lost to the Golden State Warriors in 6 games.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: On October 26, 2022, Williams was suspended for one game without pay for making contact with a game official during a 102–120 loss to the Chicago Bulls two days earlier.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: Williams' mother, Teresa Johnson, is an electrical engineer for NASA. His father, Gilbert, is a jazz artist and former college basketball player, who has worked as a bodyguard for musicians, including Prince. He is a cousin of former NBA players Salim and Damon Stoudamire. Turning down offers from Ivy League schools Harvard and Yale, Williams graduated from Tennessee in three years with a degree in business. At Tennessee, he received the C & C Millwright Athletic Scholarship.


title: Grant Williams (basketball)

text: After a game against the Denver Nuggets on March 20, 2022 where he blocked a shot from Nikola Jokić, who is often referred to as "The Joker", Williams insisted that the media called him "Batman". The nickname has stuck among Celtics fans.


title: Terra preta

text: Terra preta (, locally , literally "black soil" in Portuguese) is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil (anthrosol) found in the Amazon Basin. It is also known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth". In Portuguese its full name is or ("black soil of the Indian", "Indians' black earth"). "Terra mulata" ("mulatto earth") is lighter or brownish in color.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" owes its characteristic black color to its weathered charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bones, broken pottery, compost and manure to the low fertility Amazonian soil. A product of indigenous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture, the charcoal is stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" is characterized by the presence of low-temperature charcoal residues in high concentrations; of high quantities of tiny pottery shards; of organic matter such as plant residues, animal feces, fish and animal bones, and other material; and of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, zinc and manganese. Fertile soils such as "terra preta" show high levels of microorganic activities and other specific characteristics within particular ecosystems.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" zones are generally surrounded by "terra comum" ( or ), or "common soil"; these are infertile soils, mainly acrisols, but also ferralsols and arenosols. Deforested arable soils in the Amazon are productive for a short period of time before their nutrients are consumed or leached away by rain or flooding. This forces farmers to migrate to an unburned area and clear it (by fire). "Terra preta" is less prone to nutrient leaching because of its high concentration of charcoal, microbial life and organic matter. The combination accumulates nutrients, minerals and microorganisms and withstands leaching.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" soils were created by farming communities between 450 BCE and 950 CE. Soil depths can reach . It is reported to regenerate itself at the rate of per year.


title: Terra preta

text: The origins of the Amazonian dark earths were not immediately clear to later settlers. One idea was that they resulted from ashfall from volcanoes in the Andes, since they occur more frequently on the brows of higher terraces. Another theory considered its formation to be a result of sedimentation in tertiary lakes or in recent ponds.


title: Terra preta

text: Soils with elevated charcoal content and a common presence of pottery remains can accrete accidentally near living quarters as residues from food preparation, cooking fires, animal and fish bones, broken pottery, etc., accumulated. Many "terra preta" soil structures are now thought to have formed under kitchen middens, as well as being manufactured intentionally on larger scales.


title: Terra preta

text: Farmed areas around living areas are referred to as "terra mulata". "Terra mulata" soils are more fertile than surrounding soils but less fertile than "terra preta", and were most likely intentionally improved using charcoal.


title: Terra preta

text: This type of soil appeared between 450 BCE and 950 CE at sites throughout the Amazon Basin. Recent research has reported that "terra preta" may be of natural origin, suggesting that pre-Columbian people intentionally utilized and improved existing areas of soil fertility scattered among areas of lower fertility.


title: Terra preta

text: Amazonians formed complex, large-scale social formations, including chiefdoms (particularly in the inter-fluvial regions) and even large towns and cities. For instance, the culture on the island of Marajó may have developed social stratification and supported a population of 100,000. Amazonians may have used "terra preta" to make the land suitable for large-scale agriculture.


title: Terra preta

text: Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana was the first European to traverse the Amazon River in the 16th century. He reported densely populated regions extending hundreds of kilometres along the river, suggesting population levels exceeding even those of today. Orellana may have exaggerated the level of development, although that is disputed. The evidence to support his claim comes from the discovery of geoglyphs dating between 0–1250 CE and from "terra preta". Beyond the geoglyphs, these populations left no lasting monuments, possibly because they built with wood, which would have rotted in the humid climate, as stone was unavailable.


title: Terra preta

text: Whatever its extent, this civilization vanished after the demographic collapse of the 16th and 17th century, due to European-introduced diseases such as smallpox and "bandeirante" slave-raiding. The settled agrarians again became nomads, while still maintaining specific traditions of their settled forbears. Their semi-nomadic descendants have the distinction among tribal indigenous societies of a hereditary, yet landless, aristocracy, a historical anomaly for a society without a sedentary, agrarian culture.


title: Terra preta

text: Moreover, many indigenous peoples adapted to a more mobile lifestyle to escape colonialism. This might have made the benefits of "terra preta", such as its self-renewing capacity, less attractive: farmers would not have been able to cultivate the renewed soil as they migrated. Slash-and-char agriculture may have been an adaptation to these conditions. For 350 years after the European arrival, the Portuguese portion of the basin remained untended.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" soils are found mainly in the Brazilian Amazon, where Sombroek "et al." estimate that they cover at least 0.1 to 0.3%, or of low forested Amazonia; but others estimate this surface at 10.0% or more (twice the area of Great Britain). Recent model-based predictions suggest that the extent of "terra preta" soils may be of 3.2% of the forest.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" exists in small plots averaging , but areas of almost have also been reported. They are found among various climatic, geological, and topographical situations. Their distributions either follow main water courses, from East Amazonia to the central basin, or are located on interfluvial sites (mainly of circular or lenticular shape) and of a smaller size averaging some , (see distribution map of "terra preta" sites in Amazon basin The spreads of tropical forest between the savannas could be mainly anthropogenic—a notion with dramatic implications worldwide for agriculture and conservation.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" sites are also known in the Llanos de Moxos of Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and French Guiana, and on the African continent in Benin, Liberia, and the South African savannas.


title: Terra preta

text: In the international soil classification system World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) "Terra preta" is called Pretic Anthrosol. The most common original soil before transformed into a terra preta is the Ferralsol. "Terra preta" has a carbon content ranging from high to very high (more than 13–14% organic matter) in its A horizon, but without hydromorphic characteristics. "Terra preta" presents important variants. For instance, gardens close to dwellings received more nutrients than fields farther away. The variations in Amazonian dark earths prevent clearly determining whether all of them were intentionally created for soil improvement or whether the lightest variants are a by-product of habitation.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta"'s capacity to increase its own volume—thus to sequester more carbon—was first documented by pedologist William I. Woods of the University of Kansas. This remains the central mystery of terra preta.


title: Terra preta

text: The transformation of biomass into charcoal produces a series of charcoal derivatives known as pyrogenic or black carbon, the composition of which varies from lightly charred organic matter, to soot particles rich in graphite formed by recomposition of free radicals. All types of carbonized materials are called charcoal. By convention, charcoal is considered to be any natural organic matter transformed thermally or by a dehydration reaction with an oxygen/carbon (O/C) ratio less than 60; smaller values have been suggested. Because of possible interactions with minerals and organic matter from the soil, it is almost impossible to identify charcoal by determining only the proportion of O/C. The hydrogen/carbon percentage or molecular markers such as benzenepolycarboxylic acid, are used as a second level of identification.


title: Terra preta

text: Indigenous people added low temperature charcoal to poor soils. Up to 9% black carbon has been measured in some "terra preta" (against 0.5% in surrounding soils). Other measurements found carbon levels 70 times greater than in surrounding ferralsols, with approximate average values of 50 Mg/ha/m.


title: Terra preta

text: The chemical structure of charcoal in "terra preta" soils is characterized by poly-condensed aromatic groups that provide prolonged biological and chemical stability against microbial degradation; it also provides, after partial oxidation, the highest nutrient retention. Low temperature charcoal (but not that from grasses or high cellulose materials) has an internal layer of biological petroleum condensates that the bacteria consume, and is similar to cellulose in its effects on microbial growth. Charring at high temperature consumes that layer and brings little increase in soil fertility. The formation of condensed aromatic structures depends on the method of manufacture of charcoal. The slow oxidation of charcoal creates carboxylic groups; these increase the cation exchange capacity of the soil. The nucleus of black carbon particles produced by the biomass remains aromatic even after thousands of years and presents the spectral characteristics of fresh charcoal. Around that nucleus and on the surface of the black carbon particles are higher proportions of forms of carboxylic and phenolic carbons spatially and structurally distinct from the particle's nucleus. Analysis of the groups of molecules provides evidences both for the oxidation of the black carbon particle itself, as well as for the adsorption of non-black carbon.


title: Terra preta

text: This charcoal is thus decisive for the sustainability of "terra preta". Amending ferralsol with wood charcoal greatly increases productivity. Globally, agricultural lands have lost on average 50% of their carbon due to intensive cultivation and other damage of human origin.


title: Terra preta

text: Fresh charcoal must be "charged" before it can function as a biotope. Several experiments demonstrate that uncharged charcoal can bring a temporary depletion of available nutrients when first put into the soil, that is until its pores fill with nutrients. This is overcome by soaking the charcoal for two to four weeks in any liquid nutrient (urine, plant tea, etc.).


title: Terra preta

text: Charcoal's porosity brings better retention of organic matter, of water and of dissolved nutrients, as well as of pollutants such as pesticides and aromatic poly-cyclic hydrocarbons.


title: Terra preta

text: Charcoal's high absorption potential of organic molecules (and of water) is due to its porous structure. "Terra preta"'s high concentration of charcoal supports a high concentration of organic matter (on average three times more than in the surrounding poor soils), up to 150 g/kg. Organic matter can be found at deep.


title: Terra preta

text: Bechtold proposes to use "terra preta" for soils that show, at depth, a minimum proportion of organic matter over 2.0–2.5%. The accumulation of organic matter in moist tropical soils is a paradox, because of optimum conditions for organic matter degradation. It is remarkable that anthrosols regenerate in spite of these tropical conditions' prevalence and their fast mineralisation rates. The stability of organic matter is mainly because the biomass is only partially consumed.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" soils also show higher quantities of nutrients, and a better retention of these nutrients, than surrounding infertile soils. The proportion of P reaches 200–400 mg/kg. The quantity of N is also higher in anthrosol, but that nutrient is immobilized because of the high proportion of C over N in the soil.


title: Terra preta

text: Anthrosol's availability of P, Ca, Mn and Zn is higher than ferrasol. The absorption of P, K, Ca, Zn, and Cu by the plants increases when the quantity of available charcoal increases. The production of biomass for two crops (rice and "Vigna unguiculata") increased by 38–45% without fertilization (P < 0.05), compared to crops on fertilized ferralsol.


title: Terra preta

text: Amending with charcoal pieces approximately in diameter, instead of ground charcoal, did not change the results except for manganese (Mn), for which absorption considerably increased.


title: Terra preta

text: Nutrient leaching is minimal in this anthrosol, despite their abundance, resulting in high fertility. When inorganic nutrients are applied to the soil, however, the nutrients' drainage in anthrosol exceeds that in fertilized ferralsol.


title: Terra preta

text: As potential sources of nutrients, only C (via photosynthesis) and N (from biological fixation) can be produced "in situ". All the other elements (P, K, Ca, Mg, etc.) must be present in the soil. In Amazonia, the provisioning of nutrients from the decomposition of naturally available organic matter fails as the heavy rainfalls wash away the released nutrients and the natural soils (ferralsols, acrisols, lixisols, arenosols, uxisols, etc.) lack the mineral matter to provide those nutrients. The clay matter that exists in those soils is capable of holding only a small fraction of the nutrients made available from decomposition. In the case of "terra preta", the only possible nutrient sources are primary and secondary. The following components have been found:


title: Terra preta

text: The peregrine earthworm "Pontoscolex corethrurus" (Oligochaeta: Glossoscolecidae) ingests charcoal and mixes it into a finely ground form with the mineral soil. "P. corethrurus" is widespread in Amazonia and notably in clearings after burning processes thanks to its tolerance of a low content of organic matter in the soil. This as an essential element in the generation of "terra preta", associated with agronomic knowledge involving layering the charcoal in thin regular layers favorable to its burying by "P. corethrurus".


title: Terra preta

text: Some ants are repelled from fresh "terra preta"; their density is found to be low about 10 days after production compared to that in control soils.


title: Terra preta

text: A newly coined term is 'synthetic "terra preta"’. STP is a fertilizer consisting of materials thought to replicate the original materials, including crushed clay, blood and bone meal, manure and biochar is of particulate nature and capable of moving down the soil profile and improving soil fertility and carbon in the current soil peds and aggregates over a viable time frame. Such a mixture provides multiple soil improvements reaching at least the quality of "terra mulata". Blood, bone meal and chicken manure are useful for short term organic manure addition. Perhaps the most important and unique part of the improvement of soil fertility is carbon, thought to have been gradually incorporated 4 to 10 thousand years ago. Biochar is capable of decreasing soil acidity and if soaked in nutrient rich liquid can slowly release nutrients and provide habitat for microbes in soil due to its high porosity surface area.


title: Terra preta

text: The goal is an economically viable process that could be included in modern agriculture. Average poor tropical soils are easily enrichable to "terra preta nova" by the addition of charcoal and condensed smoke. "Terra preta" may be an important avenue of future carbon sequestration while reversing the current worldwide decline in soil fertility and associated desertification. Whether this is possible on a larger scale has yet to be proven. Tree Lucerne (tagasaste or "Cytisus proliferus") is one type of fertilizer tree used to make "terra preta". Efforts to recreate these soils are underway by companies such as Embrapa and other organizations in Brazil.


title: Terra preta

text: Synthetic "terra preta" is produced at the Sachamama Center for Biocultural Regeneration in High Amazon, Peru. This area has many "terra preta" soil zones, demonstrating that this anthrosol was created not only in the Amazon basin, but also at higher elevations.


title: Terra preta

text: A synthetic "terra preta" process was developed by Alfons-Eduard Krieger to produce a high humus, nutrient-rich, water-adsorbing soil.


title: Terra preta

text: "Terra preta" sanitation (TPS) systems have been studied as an alternative sanitation option by using the effects of lactic-aid conditions in urine-diverting dry toilets and a subsequent treatment by vermicomposting.


title: Bank run

text: A bank run or run on the bank occurs when many clients withdraw their money from a bank, because they believe the bank may cease to function in the near future. In other words, it is when, in a fractional-reserve banking system (where banks normally only keep a small proportion of their assets as cash), numerous customers withdraw cash from deposit accounts with a financial institution at the same time because they believe that the financial institution is, or might become, insolvent; they keep the cash or transfer it into other assets, such as government bonds, precious metals or gemstones. When they transfer funds to another institution, it may be characterized as a capital flight. As a bank run progresses, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy: as more people withdraw cash, the likelihood of default increases, triggering further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it runs out of cash and thus faces sudden bankruptcy. To combat a bank run, a bank may limit how much cash each customer may withdraw, suspend withdrawals altogether, or promptly acquire more cash from other banks or from the central bank, besides other measures.


title: Bank run

text: A banking panic or bank panic is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time, as people suddenly try to convert their threatened deposits into cash or try to get out of their domestic banking system altogether. A systemic banking crisis is one where all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out. The resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession as domestic businesses and consumers are starved of capital as the domestic banking system shuts down. According to former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Great Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve System, and much of the economic damage was caused directly by bank runs. The cost of cleaning up a systemic banking crisis can be huge, with fiscal costs averaging 13% of GDP and economic output losses averaging 20% of GDP for important crises from 1970 to 2007.


title: Bank run

text: Several techniques have been used to try to prevent bank runs or mitigate their effects. They have included a higher reserve requirement (requiring banks to keep more of their reserves as cash), government bailouts of banks, supervision and regulation of commercial banks, the organization of central banks that act as a lender of last resort, the protection of deposit insurance systems such as the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and after a run has started, a temporary suspension of withdrawals. These techniques do not always work: for example, even with deposit insurance, depositors may still be motivated by beliefs they may lack immediate access to deposits during a bank reorganization.


title: Bank run

text: Bank runs first appeared as part of cycles of credit expansion and its subsequent contraction. In the 16th century onwards, English goldsmiths issuing promissory notes suffered severe failures due to bad harvests, plummeting parts of the country into famine and unrest. Other examples are the Dutch tulip manias (1634–1637), the British South Sea Bubble (1717–1719), the French Mississippi Company (1717–1720), the post-Napoleonic depression (1815–1830), and the Great Depression (1929–1939).


title: Bank run

text: Bank runs have also been used to blackmail individuals or governments. In 1832, for example, the British government under the Duke of Wellington overturned a majority government on the orders of the king, William IV, to prevent reform (the later 1832 Reform Act). Wellington's actions angered reformers, and they threatened a run on the banks under the rallying cry "Stop the Duke, go for gold!".


title: Bank run

text: Many of the recessions in the United States were caused by banking panics. The Great Depression contained several banking crises consisting of runs on multiple banks from 1929 to 1933; some of these were specific to regions of the U.S. Bank runs were most common in states whose laws allowed banks to operate only a single branch, dramatically increasing risk compared to banks with multiple branches particularly when single-branch banks were located in areas economically dependent on a single industry.


title: Bank run

text: Banking panics began in the Southern United States in November 1930, one year after the stock market crash, triggered by the collapse of a string of banks in Tennessee and Kentucky, which brought down their correspondent networks. In December, New York City experienced massive bank runs that were contained to the many branches of a single bank. Philadelphia was hit a week later by bank runs that affected several banks, but were successfully contained by quick action by the leading city banks and the Federal Reserve Bank. Withdrawals became worse after financial conglomerates in New York and Los Angeles failed in prominently-covered scandals. Much of the US Depression's economic damage was caused directly by bank runs, though Canada had no bank runs during this same era due to different banking regulations.


title: Bank run

text: Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz argued that steady withdrawals from banks by nervous depositors ("hoarding") were inspired by news of the fall 1930 bank runs and forced banks to liquidate loans, which directly caused a decrease in the money supply, shrinking the economy. Bank runs continued to plague the United States for the next several years. Citywide runs hit Boston (December 1931), Chicago (June 1931 and June 1932), Toledo (June 1931), and St. Louis (January 1933), among others. Institutions put into place during the Depression have prevented runs on U.S. commercial banks since the 1930s, even under conditions such as the U.S. savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Bank run

text: The global financial crisis that began in 2007 was centered around market-liquidity failures that were comparable to a bank run. The crisis contained a wave of bank nationalizations, including those associated with Northern Rock of the UK and IndyMac of the U.S. This crisis was caused by low real interest rates stimulating an asset price bubble fuelled by new financial products that were not stress tested and that failed in the downturn.


title: Bank run

text: Under fractional-reserve banking, the type of banking currently used in most developed countries, banks retain only a fraction of their demand deposits as cash. The remainder is invested in securities and loans, whose terms are typically longer than the demand deposits, resulting in an asset–liability mismatch. No bank has enough reserves on hand to cope with all deposits being taken out at once.


title: Bank run

text: Diamond and Dybvig developed an influential model to explain why bank runs occur and why banks issue deposits that are more liquid than their assets. According to the model, the bank acts as an intermediary between borrowers who prefer long-maturity loans and depositors who prefer liquid accounts. The Diamond–Dybvig model provides an example of an economic game with more than one Nash equilibrium, where it is logical for individual depositors to engage in a bank run once they suspect one might start, even though that run will cause the bank to collapse.


title: Bank run

text: In the model, business investment requires expenditures in the present to obtain returns that take time in coming, for example, spending on machines and buildings now for production in future years. A business or entrepreneur that needs to borrow to finance investment will want to give their investments a long time to generate returns before full repayment, and will prefer long maturity loans, which offer little liquidity to the lender. The same principle applies to individuals and households seeking financing to purchase large-ticket items such as housing or automobiles. The households and firms who have the money to lend to these businesses may have sudden, unpredictable needs for cash, so they are often willing to lend only on the condition of being guaranteed immediate access to their money in the form of liquid demand deposit accounts, that is, accounts with shortest possible maturity. Since borrowers need money and depositors fear to make these loans individually, banks provide a valuable service by aggregating funds from many individual deposits, portioning them into loans for borrowers, and spreading the risks both of default and sudden demands for cash. Banks can charge much higher interest on their long-term loans than they pay out on demand deposits, allowing them to earn a profit.


title: Bank run

text: If only a few depositors withdraw at any given time, this arrangement works well. Barring some major emergency on a scale matching or exceeding the bank's geographical area of operation, depositors' unpredictable needs for cash are unlikely to occur at the same time; that is, by the law of large numbers, banks can expect only a small percentage of accounts withdrawn on any one day because individual expenditure needs are largely uncorrelated. A bank can make loans over a long horizon, while keeping only relatively small amounts of cash on hand to pay any depositors who may demand withdrawals.


title: Bank run

text: However, if many depositors withdraw all at once, the bank itself (as opposed to individual investors) may run short of liquidity, and depositors will rush to withdraw their money, forcing the bank to liquidate many of its assets at a loss, and eventually to fail. If such a bank were to attempt to call in its loans early, businesses might be forced to disrupt their production while individuals might need to sell their homes and/or vehicles, causing further losses to the larger economy. Even so, many if not most debtors would be unable to pay the bank in full on demand and would be forced to declare bankruptcy, possibly affecting other creditors in the process.


title: Bank run

text: A bank run can occur even when started by a false story. Even depositors who know the story is false will have an incentive to withdraw, if they suspect other depositors will believe the story. The story becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, Robert K. Merton, who coined the term "self-fulfilling prophecy", mentioned bank runs as a prime example of the concept in his book "Social Theory and Social Structure". Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, once noted that it may not be rational to start a bank run, but it is rational to participate in one once it had started.


title: Bank run

text: A bank run is the sudden withdrawal of deposits of just one bank. A "banking panic" or "bank panic" is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time, as a cascading failure. In a "systemic banking crisis", all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out; this can result when regulators ignore systemic risks and spillover effects.


title: Bank run

text: Systemic banking crises are associated with substantial fiscal costs and large output losses. Frequently, emergency liquidity support and blanket guarantees have been used to contain these crises, not always successfully. Although fiscal tightening may help contain market pressures if a crisis is triggered by unsustainable fiscal policies, expansionary fiscal policies are typically used. In crises of liquidity and solvency, central banks can provide liquidity to support illiquid banks. Depositor protection can help restore confidence, although it tends to be costly and does not necessarily speed up economic recovery. Intervention is often delayed in the hope that recovery will occur, and this delay increases the stress on the economy.


title: Bank run

text: Some measures are more effective than others in containing economic fallout and restoring the banking system after a systemic crisis. These include establishing the scale of the problem, targeted debt relief programs to distressed borrowers, corporate restructuring programs, recognizing bank losses, and adequately capitalizing banks. Speed of intervention appears to be crucial; intervention is often delayed in the hope that insolvent banks will recover if given liquidity support and relaxation of regulations, and in the end this delay increases stress on the economy. Programs that are targeted, that specify clear quantifiable rules that limit access to preferred assistance, and that contain meaningful standards for capital regulation, appear to be more successful. According to IMF, government-owned asset management companies (bad banks) are largely ineffective due to political constraints.


title: Bank run

text: A "silent run" occurs when the implicit fiscal deficit from a government's unbooked loss exposure to zombie banks is large enough to deter depositors of those banks. As more depositors and investors begin to doubt whether a government can support a country's banking system, the silent run on the system can gather steam, causing the zombie banks' funding costs to increase. If a zombie bank sells some assets at market value, its remaining assets contain a larger fraction of unbooked losses; if it rolls over its liabilities at increased interest rates, it squeezes its profits along with the profits of healthier competitors. The longer the silent run goes on, the more benefits are transferred from healthy banks and taxpayers to the zombie banks. The term is also used when many depositors in countries with deposit insurance draw down their balances below the limit for deposit insurance.


title: Bank run

text: The cost of cleaning up after a crisis can be huge. In systemically important banking crises in the world from 1970 to 2007, the average net recapitalization cost to the government was 6% of GDP, fiscal costs associated with crisis management averaged 13% of GDP (16% of GDP if expense recoveries are ignored), and economic output losses averaged about 20% of GDP during the first four years of the crisis.


title: Bank run

text: Some prevention techniques apply across the whole economy, though they may still allow individual institutions to fail.


title: Bank run

text: The role of the lender of last resort, and the existence of deposit insurance, both create moral hazard, since they reduce banks' incentive to avoid making risky loans. They are nonetheless standard practice, as the benefits of collective prevention are commonly believed to outweigh the costs of excessive risk-taking.


title: Bank run

text: The bank panic of 1933 is the setting of Archibald MacLeish's 1935 play, "Panic". Other fictional depictions of bank runs include those in "American Madness" (1932), "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946, set in 1932 U.S.), "Silver River" (1948), "Mary Poppins" (1964, set in 1910 London), "Rollover" (1981), "Noble House" (1988) and "The Pope Must Die" (1991).


title: Bank run

text: A run on a bank is one of the many causes of the characters' suffering in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle".


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The Good Conduct Medal is one of the oldest military awards of the United States Armed Forces. The U.S. Navy's variant of the Good Conduct Medal was established in 1869, the Marine Corps version in 1896, the Coast Guard version in 1923, the Army version in 1941, and the Air Force version in 1963; the Air Force Good Conduct Medal was temporarily discontinued from February 2006 to February 2009, followed by its subsequent reinstatement.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The criteria for a Good Conduct Medal are defined by Executive Orders 8809, 9323, and 10444. The Good Conduct Medal, each one specific to one of the five branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, is currently awarded to any active duty enlisted member of the United States military who completes three consecutive years of "honorable and faithful service". Such service implies that a standard enlistment was completed without any non-judicial punishment, disciplinary infractions, or court martial offenses. If a service member commits an offense, the three-year mark "resets" and a service member must perform an additional three years of service without having to be disciplined, before the Good Conduct may be authorized.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: During times of war, the Good Conduct Medal may be awarded for one year of faithful service. The Good Conduct Medal may also be awarded posthumously, to any enlisted service member who dies in the line of duty.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: Service for the Good Conduct Medal must be performed on active duty; with two exceptions, it is not awarded to enlisted members of the military reserve components, to include the Army National Guard and Air National Guard, for inactive part-time (e.g., "drilling") reserve duty or full-time Army Reserve Technician or Air Reserve Technician (ART) status, although enlisted reservists and national guardsmen are eligible if they complete sufficient active service via mobilization to active duty. This restriction does not apply to full-time active duty enlisted members in the Reserve Component, such as Army and Air Force personnel in an Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) status, Navy personnel in a Full Time Support (FTS), previously known as Training & Administration of the Reserve (TAR), and Marine Corps Active Reserve (AR) programs.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: On 1 January 2014, the Navy discontinued the Naval Reserve Meritorious Service Medal, a "de facto" Good Conduct Medal for Navy Reserve (formerly Naval Reserve) enlisted personnel. Since that date, all Navy enlisted personnel have received the Navy Good Conduct Medal, whether in a full-time active duty or a part-time drilling reserve status.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The various services have established separate Reserve Good Conduct Medals, albeit under various names, as a comparable award available to enlisted Reserve and National Guard members who satisfactorily perform annual training, drill duty and any additional active duty of less than 3 consecutive years duration. The exception, as previously stated, is the United States Navy, which discontinued that service's separate award for Reserve Component enlisted personnel as of 1 January 2014. Enlisted Navy Reservists now earn time towards the Navy Good Conduct Medal, the same as the Active Component (e.g., Regular Navy) and any time previously earned towards an unawarded Naval Reserve Meritorious Service Medal is automatically carried over to the Navy Good Conduct Medal.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The Navy Good Conduct Medal is the oldest Good Conduct Medal, dating back to 26 April 1869. There have been a total of four versions of the Navy Good Conduct Medal, the first version of which was issued from 1870 to 1884. The original Navy Good Conduct Medal was also not worn on a uniform, but issued with discharge papers as a badge to present during reenlistment. A sailor in the Navy received a new Good Conduct Medal for each honorable enlistment completed.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The second version of the Navy Good Conduct Medal was issued between 1880 and 1884. The medal was considered a "transitional decoration" and was the first of the Good Conduct Medals to be worn on a uniform. The medal was phased out by 1885 and a new medal issued between 1885 and 1961. The new medal was a Good Conduct medallion suspended from an all red ribbon. Enlistment bars, denoting each honorable enlistment completed, were pinned on the ribbon as attachments.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: There was slight oddity during the Spanish–American War when the Navy created the Specially Meritorious Service Medal which also had an all red suspension and service ribbon. There were recorded cases of Navy enlisted personnel who were awarded both the Good Conduct Medal and the Specially Meritorious Service Medal who wore two red service ribbons on their Navy service uniforms. This is one of the rare times in the history of U.S. military awards that two awards had identical ribbons.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: In the 1950s bronze and silver 3/16 inch stars, with one silver star worn in lieu of five bronze stars (e.g., six awards), replaced the enlistment bars. Although the medal itself had not changed since 1884, in 1961 a ring suspension for the ribbon and medal combination was adopted, differentiating the suspension from its Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal counterpart and standardizing it with the majority of other service medals. It is this 1961 version of the Navy Good Conduct Medal that is still in use today.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The current Navy Good Conduct Medal is issued to every active duty enlisted sailor who completes three years of honorable and faithful service since 1 January 1996. For prior awards to personnel between 1 November 1963 and 1 January 1996, four years of service were required. The four year requirement also applies for award of the Navy Good Conduct Medal from its original establishment until 1 November 1963.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: Additional awards of the Navy Good Conduct Medal are denoted by bronze and silver 3/16 inch stars; silver stars are worn in place of five bronze ones. The reverse side of the medal has three words, "FIDELITY ZEAL OBEDIENCE" superimposed in a semicircle. Upon 12 years of service, sailors are also allowed to wear gold-colored version of their petty officer insignia, something usually seen with those with the rate of chief petty officer or petty officer first class and above, but occasionally petty officer second class. Prior to June 2019, those 12 years had to be infraction-free. It is extremely rare in the contemporary U.S. Navy, but provisions do allow for sailors rated petty officer third class to wear gold rate insignia, provided they meet the same requirements.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal was established on 20 July 1896. The medal was originally a ribbon and medal suspended from a clasp bearing the words "U.S. Marine Corps". The clasp was eliminated after 1935 and the medal has remained unchanged in appearance since that time. Since its inception in 1896, the name of the recipient was engraved by hand on the reverse side of the medal until stamping the name on the medal began during World War II (numbered on the rim) and was done completely by 1951.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: Prior to 10 December 1945, four years of honorable creditable enlisted service was required in the Marine Corps for award of the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal. After 10 December 1945, the required period of service was reduced to three years. Since that latter date, members of the Marine Corps must have three consecutive years of honorable and faithful service in order to be eligible for the medal.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: In 1953, the Marine Corps adopted bronze and silver 3/16-inch service stars to denote additional awards of the Good Conduct Medal, replacing enlistment bars showing each honorable period of service.


title: Good Conduct Medal (United States)

text: The Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal (CGGCM) was authorized by the Commandant of the Coast Guard on 18 May 1921, but not designed until 1923 and originally used enlistment bars as attachments, in the same manner as the Marine Corps and Navy Good Conduct Medals. In 1966, the Coast Guard began using bronze and silver 3/16-inch service stars to denote additional awards of the Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal. Originally, the service requirement for the CGGCM was four continuous years of service. Starting on 1 July 1983, the service requirement was reduced to three years.