title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: According to American journalist R. G. Waldeck, who was present in Romania in 1940–1941, the violent killing of Codreanu only served to cement his popularity and arouse interest in his cause. She wrote: "To the Rumanian people the Capitano [sic, "Căpitanul"] remained a saint and a martyr and the apostle of a better Rumania. Even skeptical ones who did not agree with him in political matters still grew dreamy-eyed remembering Codreanu." Historiographer Lucian Boia notes that Codreanu, his rival Carol II, and military leader Ion Antonescu were each in turn perceived as "savior" figures by the Romanian public, and that, unlike other such examples of popular men, they all preached authoritarianism. Cioroianu also writes that Codreanu's death "whether or not paradoxically, would increase the personage's charisma and would turn him straight into a legend." Attitudes similar to those described by Waldeck were relatively widespread among Romanian youths, many of whom came to join the Iron Guard out of admiration for the deceased Codreanu while still in middle or high school.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: Under the leadership of Horia Sima, the Iron Guard eventually came to power for a five-month period in 1940–1941, proclaiming the fascist National Legionary State and forming an uneasy partnership with "Conducător" Ion Antonescu. This was a result of Carol's downfall, effected by the Second Vienna Award, through which Romania had lost Northern Transylvania to Hungary. On November 25, 1940, an investigation was carried out on the Jilava prison premises. The discovery of Codreanu and his associates' remains caused the Legionnaires to engage in a reprisal against the new regime's political prisoners, who were then detained in the same prison. On the next night, sixty-four inmates were shot, while on the 27th and 28 November there were fresh arrests and swift executions, with prominent victims such as Iorga and Virgil Madgearu ("see: Jilava Massacre"). The resulting widespread disorder brought the first open clash between Antonescu and the Legion. During the events, Codreanu was posthumously exonerated of all charges by a Legionary tribunal. His exhumation was a grandiose ceremony, marked by the participation of Romania's new ally, Nazi Germany: "Luftwaffe" planes dropped wreaths on Codreanu's open tomb.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: Codreanu's wife Elena withdrew from the public eye after her husband's killing, but, after the communist regime took hold, was arrested and deported to the Bărăgan, where she grew close to women aviators of the Blue Squadron. She also met and married Barbu Praporgescu (son of General David Praporgescu), moving in with him in Bucharest after their liberation. Widowed for a second time, she spent her final years with her relatives in Moldavia.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: The movement was eventually toppled from power by Antonescu as a consequence of the Legionnaires' Rebellion. The events associated with Sima's term in office resulted in conflicts and infighting within the Legion and its contemporary successors: many "Codrenist" Legionnaires claim to obey Codreanu and his father Ion Zelea, but not Sima, while, at the same time, the "Simist" faction claims to have followed Codreanu's guidance and inspiration in carrying out violent acts.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: Codreanu had an enduring influence in Italy. His views and style were attested to have influenced the controversial Traditionalist philosopher and racial theorist Julius Evola. Evola himself met with Codreanu on one occasion, and, in the words of his friend, the writer and historian Mircea Eliade, was "dazzled". Reportedly, the visit had been arranged by Eliade and philosopher Vasile Lovinescu, both of whom sympathized with the Iron Guard. Their guest later wrote that the Iron Guard founder was: "one of the worthiest and spiritually best oriented figures that I ever met in the nationalist movements of the time." According to De Felice, Codreanu has also become a main reference point for the Italian neofascist groups, alongside Evola and the ideologues of Nazism. He argues that this phenomenon, which tends to shadow references to Italian Fascism itself, is owed to Mussolini's failures in setting up "a true fascist state", and to the subsequent need of finding other role models. Evola's disciple and prominent neofascist activist Franco Freda published several of Codreanu's essays at his "Edizioni di Ar", while their follower Claudio Mutti was noted for his pro-Legionary rhetoric.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: In parallel, Codreanu is seen as a hero by representatives of the maverick Neo-Nazi movement known as Strasserism, and in particular by the British-based Strasserist International Third Position (ITP), which uses one of Codreanu's statements as its motto. Codreanu's activities and mystical interpretation of politics were probably an inspiration on Russian politician Alexander Barkashov, founder of the far right Russian National Unity.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: After the Romanian Revolution toppled the communist regime, various extremist groups began claiming to represent Codreanu's legacy. Reportedly, one of the first was the short-lived "Mișcarea pentru România" ("Movement for Romania"), founded by the student leader Marian Munteanu. It was soon followed by the Romanian branch of the ITP and its Timișoara-based mouthpiece, the journal "Gazeta de Vest", as well as by other groups claiming to represent the Legionary legacy. Among the latter is Noua Dreaptă, which depicts Codreanu as a spiritual figure, often with attributes equivalent to those of a Romanian Orthodox saint. Each year around November 30, these diverse groups have been known to reunite in Tâncăbești, where they organize festivities to commemorate Codreanu's death.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: In the early 2000s, Gigi Becali, a Romanian businessman, owner of the Steaua București football club, and leader of the right-wing New Generation Party, stated that he admired Codreanu and made attempts to capitalize on Legionary symbols and rhetoric, such as adopting a slogan originally coined by the Iron Guard: "I vow to God that I shall make Romania in the likeness of the holy sun in the sky". The statement, used by Becali during the 2004 presidential campaign, owed its inspiration to Legionary songs and was found in a much-publicized homage sent by Ion Moța to his Captain in 1937; it is also said to have been used by Codreanu himself. As a result of it, Becali was argued to have broken the 2002 government ordinance banning the use of fascist discourse. However, the Central Electoral Bureau rejected complaints against Becali, ruling that the slogan was not "identical" to the Legionary one. During the same period, Becali, speaking live in front of Oglinda Television cameras, called for Codreanu to be canonized. The station was fined 50 million lei by the National Audiovisual Council (around $1,223 USD in 2004).


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: In a poll of the Romanian public conducted by Romanian Television in 2006, Codreanu was voted 22nd among the 100 Greatest Romanians, coming in between Steaua footballer Mirel Rădoi at 21 and the interwar democratic politician Nicolae Titulescu at 23.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: Late in the 1930s, Codreanu's supporters began publishing books praising his virtues, among which are Vasile Marin's "Crez de Generație" ("Generation Credo") and Nicolae Roșu's "Orientări în Veac" ("Orientations in the Century"), both published in 1937. After the National Legionary State officially hailed Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as a martyr to the cause, his image came to be used as a propaganda tool in cultural contexts. Codreanu was integrated into the Legionary cult of death: usually at Iron Guard rallies, Codreanu and other fallen members were mentioned and greeted with the shout "Prezent!" ("Present!"). His personality cult was reflected in Legionary art, and a stylized image of him was displayed at major rallies, including the notorious and large-scale Bucharest ceremony of October 6, 1940. Although Codreanu was officially condemned by the communist regime a generation later, it is possible that, in its final stage under Nicolae Ceaușescu, it came to use the Captain's personality cult as a source of inspiration. The post-communist Noua Dreaptă, which publicizes portraits of Codreanu in the form of Orthodox icons, often makes use of such representation in its public rallies, usually associating it with its own symbol, the Celtic cross.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: In November 1940, the Legionary journalist Ovid Țopa, publishing in the Guard's newspaper "Buna Vestire", claimed that Codreanu stood alongside the mythical Dacian prophet and "precursor of Christ" Zalmoxis, the 15th century Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great, and Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu, as an essential figure of Romanian history and Romanian spirituality. Other Legionary texts of the time drew a similar parallel between Codreanu, Eminescu, and the 18th century Transylvanian Romanian peasant leader Horea. Thus, in 1937, sociologist Ernest Bernea had authored "Cartea căpitanilor" ("The Book of Captains"), where the preferred comparison was between Codreanu, Horea, and Horea's 19th century counterparts Tudor Vladimirescu and Avram Iancu. Also in November 1940, Codreanu was the subject of a conference given by the young philosopher Emil Cioran and aired by the state-owned Romanian Radio, in which Cioran notably praised the Guard's leader for "having given Romania a purpose". Other tribute pieces in various media came from other radical intellectuals of the period: Eliade, brothers Arșavir and Haig Acterian, Traian Brăileanu, Nichifor Crainic, N. Crevedia, Radu Gyr, Traian Herseni, Nae Ionescu, Constantin Noica, Petre P. Panaitescu, and Marietta Sadova.


title: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

text: The Legionary leader was portrayed in a poem by his follower Radu Gyr, who notably spoke of Codreanu's death as a prelude to his resurrection. In contrast, Codreanu's schoolmate Petre Pandrea, who spent part of his life as a Romanian Communist Party affiliate, left an unflattering memoir of their encounters, used as a preferential source in texts on Codreanu published during the communist period. Despite his earlier confrontation with the Iron Guard, the leftist poet Tudor Arghezi is thought by some to have deplored Codreanu's killing, and to have alluded to it in his poem version of the "Făt-Frumos" stories. Mircea Eliade, whose early Legionary sympathies became a notorious topic of outrage, was indicated by his disciple Ioan Petru Culianu to have based Eugen Cucoanes, the main character in his novella "Un om mare" ("A Big Man"), on Codreanu. This hypothesis was commented upon by literary critics Matei Călinescu and Mircea Iorgulescu, the latter of whom argued that there was too-little evidence to support it. The neofascist Claudio Mutti claimed that Codreanu inspired the character Ieronim Thanase in Eliade's "Nouăsprăzece trandafiri" ("Nineteen Roses") story, a view rejected by Călinescu.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System (as well as other planetary systems). It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting the Sun. The theory was developed by Immanuel Kant and published in his "Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens" (1755) and then modified in 1796 by Pierre Laplace. Originally applied to the Solar System, the process of planetary system formation is now thought to be at work throughout the universe. The widely accepted modern variant of the nebular theory is the solar nebular disk model (SNDM) or solar nebular model. It offered explanations for a variety of properties of the Solar System, including the nearly circular and coplanar orbits of the planets, and their motion in the same direction as the Sun's rotation. Some elements of the original nebular theory are echoed in modern theories of planetary formation, but most elements have been superseded.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: According to the nebular theory, stars form in massive and dense clouds of molecular hydrogen—giant molecular clouds (GMC). These clouds are gravitationally unstable, and matter coalesces within them to smaller denser clumps, which then rotate, collapse, and form stars. Star formation is a complex process, which always produces a gaseous protoplanetary disk (proplyd) around the young star. This may give birth to planets in certain circumstances, which are not well known. Thus the formation of planetary systems is thought to be a natural result of star formation. A Sun-like star usually takes approximately 1 million years to form, with the protoplanetary disk evolving into a planetary system over the next 10–100 million years.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The protoplanetary disk is an accretion disk that feeds the central star. Initially very hot, the disk later cools in what is known as the T Tauri star stage; here, formation of small dust grains made of rocks and ice is possible. The grains eventually may coagulate into kilometer-sized planetesimals. If the disk is massive enough, the runaway accretions begin, resulting in the rapid—100,000 to 300,000 years—formation of Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos. Near the star, the planetary embryos go through a stage of violent mergers, producing a few terrestrial planets. The last stage takes approximately 100 million to a billion years.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The formation of giant planets is a more complicated process. It is thought to occur beyond the frost line, where planetary embryos mainly are made of various types of ice. As a result, they are several times more massive than in the inner part of the protoplanetary disk. What follows after the embryo formation is not completely clear. Some embryos appear to continue to grow and eventually reach 5–10 Earth masses—the threshold value, which is necessary to begin accretion of the hydrogen–helium gas from the disk. The accumulation of gas by the core is initially a slow process, which continues for several million years, but after the forming protoplanet reaches about 30 Earth masses () it accelerates and proceeds in a runaway manner. Jupiter- and Saturn-like planets are thought to accumulate the bulk of their mass during only 10,000 years. The accretion stops when the gas is exhausted. The formed planets can migrate over long distances during or after their formation. Ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune are thought to be failed cores, which formed too late when the disk had almost disappeared.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: There is evidence that Emanuel Swedenborg first proposed parts of the nebular theory in 1734. Immanuel Kant, familiar with Swedenborg's work, developed the theory further in 1755, publishing his own "Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens", wherein he argued that gaseous clouds (nebulae) slowly rotate, gradually collapse and flatten due to gravity, eventually forming stars and planets.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Pierre-Simon Laplace independently developed and proposed a similar model in 1796 in his "Exposition du systeme du monde". He envisioned that the Sun originally had an extended hot atmosphere throughout the volume of the Solar System. His theory featured a contracting and cooling protosolar cloud—the protosolar nebula. As this cooled and contracted, it flattened and spun more rapidly, throwing off (or shedding) a series of gaseous rings of material; and according to him, the planets condensed from this material. His model was similar to Kant's, except more detailed and on a smaller scale. While the Laplacian nebular model dominated in the 19th century, it encountered a number of difficulties. The main problem involved angular momentum distribution between the Sun and planets. The planets have 99% of the angular momentum, and this fact could not be explained by the nebular model. As a result, astronomers largely abandoned this theory of planet formation at the beginning of the 20th century.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: A major critique came during the 19th century from James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), who maintained that "different rotation between the inner and outer parts of a ring" could not allow condensation of material. Astronomer Sir David Brewster also rejected Laplace, writing in 1876 that "those who believe in the Nebular Theory consider it as certain that our Earth derived its solid matter and its atmosphere from a ring thrown from the Solar atmosphere, which afterwards contracted into a solid terraqueous sphere, from which the Moon was thrown off by the same process". He argued that under such view, "the Moon must necessarily have carried off water and air from the watery and aerial parts of the Earth and must have an atmosphere". Brewster claimed that Sir Isaac Newton's religious beliefs had previously considered nebular ideas as tending to atheism, and quoted him as saying that "the growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation of a Divine power, seemed to him apparently absurd".


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The perceived deficiencies of the Laplacian model stimulated scientists to find a replacement for it. During the 20th century many theories addressed the issue, including the "planetesimal theory" of Thomas Chamberlin and Forest Moulton (1901), the "tidal model" of James Jeans (1917), the "accretion model" of Otto Schmidt (1944), the "protoplanet theory" of William McCrea (1960) and finally the "capture theory" of Michael Woolfson. In 1978 Andrew Prentice resurrected the initial Laplacian ideas about planet formation and developed the "modern Laplacian theory". None of these attempts proved completely successful, and many of the proposed theories were descriptive.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The birth of the modern widely accepted theory of planetary formation—the solar nebular disk model (SNDM)—can be traced to the Soviet astronomer Victor Safronov. His 1969 book "Evolution of the protoplanetary cloud and formation of the Earth and the planets", which was translated to English in 1972, had a long-lasting effect on the way scientists think about the formation of the planets. In this book almost all major problems of the planetary formation process were formulated and some of them solved. Safronov's ideas were further developed in the works of George Wetherill, who discovered "runaway accretion". While originally applied only to the Solar System, the SNDM was subsequently thought by theorists to be at work throughout the Universe; as of astronomers have discovered extrasolar planets in our galaxy.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The star formation process naturally results in the appearance of accretion disks around young stellar objects. At the age of about 1 million years, 100% of stars may have such disks. This conclusion is supported by the discovery of the gaseous and dusty disks around protostars and T Tauri stars as well as by theoretical considerations. Observations of these disks show that the dust grains inside them grow in size on short (thousand-year) time scales, producing 1 centimeter sized particles.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The accretion process, by which 1 km planetesimals grow into 1,000 km sized bodies, is well understood now. This process develops inside any disk where the number density of planetesimals is sufficiently high, and proceeds in a runaway manner. Growth later slows and continues as oligarchic accretion. The end result is formation of planetary embryos of varying sizes, which depend on the distance from the star. Various simulations have demonstrated that the merger of embryos in the inner part of the protoplanetary disk leads to the formation of a few Earth-sized bodies. Thus the origin of terrestrial planets is now considered to be an almost solved problem.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The physics of accretion disks encounters some problems. The most important one is how the material, which is accreted by the protostar, loses its angular momentum. One possible explanation suggested by Hannes Alfvén was that angular momentum was shed by the solar wind during its T Tauri star phase. The momentum is transported to the outer parts of the disk by viscous stresses. Viscosity is generated by macroscopic turbulence, but the precise mechanism that produces this turbulence is not well understood. Another possible process for shedding angular momentum is magnetic braking, where the spin of the star is transferred into the surrounding disk via that star's magnetic field. The main processes responsible for the disappearance of the gas in disks are viscous diffusion and photo-evaporation.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The formation of planetesimals is the biggest unsolved problem in the nebular disk model. How 1 cm sized particles coalesce into 1 km planetesimals is a mystery. This mechanism appears to be the key to the question as to why some stars have planets, while others have nothing around them, not even dust belts.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The formation timescale of giant planets is also an important problem. Old theories were unable to explain how their cores could form fast enough to accumulate significant amounts of gas from the quickly disappearing protoplanetary disk. The mean lifetime of the disks, which is less than ten million (10) years, appeared to be shorter than the time necessary for the core formation. Much progress has been done to solve this problem and current models of giant planet formation are now capable of forming Jupiter (or more massive planets) in about 4 million years or less, well within the average lifetime of gaseous disks.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Another potential problem of giant planet formation is their orbital migration. Some calculations show that interaction with the disk can cause rapid inward migration, which, if not stopped, results in the planet reaching the "central regions still as a sub-Jovian object." More recent calculations indicate that disk evolution during migration can mitigate this problem.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Stars are thought to form inside giant clouds of cold molecular hydrogen—giant molecular clouds roughly 300,000 times the mass of the Sun () and 20 parsecs in diameter. Over millions of years, giant molecular clouds are prone to collapse and fragmentation. These fragments then form small, dense cores, which in turn collapse into stars. The cores range in mass from a fraction to several times that of the Sun and are called protostellar (protosolar) nebulae. They possess diameters of 0.01–0.1 pc (2,000–20,000 AU) and a particle number density of roughly 10,000 to 100,000 cm.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The initial collapse of a solar-mass protostellar nebula takes around 100,000 years. Every nebula begins with a certain amount of angular momentum. Gas in the central part of the nebula, with relatively low angular momentum, undergoes fast compression and forms a hot hydrostatic (not contracting) core containing a small fraction of the mass of the original nebula. This core forms the seed of what will become a star. As the collapse continues, conservation of angular momentum means that the rotation of the infalling envelope accelerates, which largely prevents the gas from directly accreting onto the central core. The gas is instead forced to spread outwards near its equatorial plane, forming a disk, which in turn accretes onto the core. The core gradually grows in mass until it becomes a young hot protostar. At this stage, the protostar and its disk are heavily obscured by the infalling envelope and are not directly observable. In fact the remaining envelope's opacity is so high that even millimeter-wave radiation has trouble escaping from inside it. Such objects are observed as very bright condensations, which emit mainly millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave radiation. They are classified as spectral Class 0 protostars. The collapse is often accompanied by bipolar outflows—jets—that emanate along the rotational axis of the inferred disk. The jets are frequently observed in star-forming regions (see Herbig–Haro (HH) objects). The luminosity of the Class 0 protostars is high — a solar-mass protostar may radiate at up to 100 solar luminosities. The source of this energy is gravitational collapse, as their cores are not yet hot enough to begin nuclear fusion.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: As the infall of its material onto the disk continues, the envelope eventually becomes thin and transparent and the young stellar object (YSO) becomes observable, initially in far-infrared light and later in the visible. Around this time the protostar begins to fuse deuterium. If the protostar is sufficiently massive (above 80 Jupiter masses ()), hydrogen fusion follows. Otherwise, if its mass is too low, the object becomes a brown dwarf. This birth of a new star occurs approximately 100,000 years after the collapse begins. Objects at this stage are known as Class I protostars, which are also called young T Tauri stars, evolved protostars, or young stellar objects. By this time the forming star has already accreted much of its mass: the total mass of the disk and remaining envelope does not exceed 10–20% of the mass of the central YSO.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: At the next stage the envelope completely disappears, having been gathered up by the disk, and the protostar becomes a classical T Tauri star. This happens after about 1 million years. The mass of the disk around a classical T Tauri star is about 1–3% of the stellar mass, and it is accreted at a rate of 10 to per year. A pair of bipolar jets is usually present as well. The accretion explains all peculiar properties of classical T Tauri stars: strong flux in the emission lines (up to 100% of the intrinsic luminosity of the star), magnetic activity, photometric variability and jets. The emission lines actually form as the accreted gas hits the "surface" of the star, which happens around its magnetic poles. The jets are byproducts of accretion: they carry away excessive angular momentum. The classical T Tauri stage lasts about 10 million years. The disk eventually disappears due to accretion onto the central star, planet formation, ejection by jets and photoevaporation by UV-radiation from the central star and nearby stars. As a result, the young star becomes a weakly lined T Tauri star, which slowly, over hundreds of millions of years, evolves into an ordinary Sun-like star.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Under certain circumstances the disk, which can now be called protoplanetary, may give birth to a planetary system. Protoplanetary disks have been observed around a very high fraction of stars in young star clusters. They exist from the beginning of a star's formation, but at the earliest stages are unobservable due to the opacity of the surrounding envelope. The disk of a Class 0 protostar is thought to be massive and hot. It is an accretion disk, which feeds the central protostar. The temperature can easily exceed 400 K inside 5 AU and 1,000 K inside 1 AU. The heating of the disk is primarily caused by the viscous dissipation of turbulence in it and by the infall of the gas from the nebula. The high temperature in the inner disk causes most of the volatile material—water, organics, and some rocks—to evaporate, leaving only the most refractory elements like iron. The ice can survive only in the outer part of the disk.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The main problem in the physics of accretion disks is the generation of turbulence and the mechanism responsible for the high effective viscosity. The turbulent viscosity is thought to be responsible for the transport of the mass to the central protostar and momentum to the periphery of the disk. This is vital for accretion, because the gas can be accreted by the central protostar only if it loses most of its angular momentum, which must be carried away by the small part of the gas drifting outwards. The result of this process is the growth of both the protostar and of the disk radius, which can reach 1,000 AU if the initial angular momentum of the nebula is large enough. Large disks are routinely observed in many star-forming regions such as the Orion nebula.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The lifespan of the accretion disks is about 10 million years. By the time the star reaches the classical T-Tauri stage, the disk becomes thinner and cools. Less volatile materials start to condense close to its center, forming 0.1–1 μm dust grains that contain crystalline silicates. The transport of the material from the outer disk can mix these newly formed dust grains with primordial ones, which contain organic matter and other volatiles. This mixing can explain some peculiarities in the composition of Solar System bodies such as the presence of interstellar grains in primitive meteorites and refractory inclusions in comets.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Dust particles tend to stick to each other in the dense disk environment, leading to the formation of larger particles up to several centimeters in size. The signatures of the dust processing and coagulation are observed in the infrared spectra of the young disks. Further aggregation can lead to the formation of planetesimals measuring 1 km across or larger, which are the building blocks of planets. Planetesimal formation is another unsolved problem of disk physics, as simple sticking becomes ineffective as dust particles grow larger.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: One hypothesis is formation by gravitational instability. Particles several centimeters in size or larger slowly settle near the middle plane of the disk, forming a very thin—less than 100 km—and dense layer. This layer is gravitationally unstable and may fragment into numerous clumps, which in turn collapse into planetesimals. However, the differing velocities of the gas disk and the solids near the mid-plane can generate turbulence which prevents the layer from becoming thin enough to fragment due to gravitational instability. This may limit the formation of planetesimals via gravitational instabilities to specific locations in the disk where the concentration of solids is enhanced.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Another possible mechanism for the formation of planetesimals is the streaming instability in which the drag felt by particles orbiting through gas creates a feedback effect causing the growth of local concentrations. These local concentrations push back on the gas creating a region where the headwind felt by the particles is smaller. The concentration is thus able to orbit faster and undergoes less radial drift. Isolated particles join these concentrations as they are overtaken or as they drift inward causing it to grow in mass. Eventually these concentrations form massive filaments which fragment and undergo gravitational collapse forming planetesimals the size of the larger asteroids.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Planetary formation can also be triggered by gravitational instability within the disk itself, which leads to its fragmentation into clumps. Some of them, if they are dense enough, will collapse, which can lead to rapid formation of gas giant planets and even brown dwarfs on the timescale of 1,000 years. If these clumps migrate inward as the collapse proceeds tidal forces from the star can result in a significant mass loss leaving behind a smaller body. However it is only possible in massive disks—more massive than . In comparison, typical disk masses are . Because the massive disks are rare, this mechanism of planet formation is thought to be infrequent. On the other hand, it may play a major role in the formation of brown dwarfs.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The ultimate dissipation of protoplanetary disks is triggered by a number of different mechanisms. The inner part of the disk is either accreted by the star or ejected by the bipolar jets, whereas the outer part can evaporate under the star's powerful UV radiation during the T Tauri stage or by nearby stars. The gas in the central part can either be accreted or ejected by the growing planets, while the small dust particles are ejected by the radiation pressure of the central star. What is finally left is either a planetary system, a remnant disk of dust without planets, or nothing, if planetesimals failed to form.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Because planetesimals are so numerous, and spread throughout the protoplanetary disk, some survive the formation of a planetary system. Asteroids are understood to be left-over planetesimals, gradually grinding each other down into smaller and smaller bits, while comets are typically planetesimals from the farther reaches of a planetary system. Meteorites are samples of planetesimals that reach a planetary surface, and provide a great deal of information about the formation of the Solar System. Primitive-type meteorites are chunks of shattered low-mass planetesimals, where no thermal differentiation took place, while processed-type meteorites are chunks from shattered massive planetesimals. Interstellar objects could have been captured, and become part of the young Solar system.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: According to the solar nebular disk model, rocky planets form in the inner part of the protoplanetary disk, within the frost line, where the temperature is high enough to prevent condensation of water ice and other substances into grains. This results in coagulation of purely rocky grains and later in the formation of rocky planetesimals. Such conditions are thought to exist in the inner 3–4 AU part of the disk of a Sun-like star.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: After small planetesimals—about 1 km in diameter—have formed by one way or another, "runaway accretion" begins. It is called runaway because the mass growth rate is proportional to , where R and M are the radius and mass of the growing body, respectively. The specific (divided by mass) growth accelerates as the mass increases. This leads to the preferential growth of larger bodies at the expense of smaller ones. The runaway accretion lasts between 10,000 and 100,000 years and ends when the largest bodies exceed approximately 1,000 km in diameter. Slowing of the accretion is caused by gravitational perturbations by large bodies on the remaining planetesimals. In addition, the influence of larger bodies stops further growth of smaller bodies.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The next stage is called "oligarchic accretion". It is characterized by the dominance of several hundred of the largest bodies—oligarchs, which continue to slowly accrete planetesimals. No body other than the oligarchs can grow. At this stage the rate of accretion is proportional to R, which is derived from the geometrical cross-section of an oligarch. The specific accretion rate is proportional to ; and it declines with the mass of the body. This allows smaller oligarchs to catch up to larger ones. The oligarchs are kept at the distance of about (= is the Hill radius, where a is the semimajor axis, e is the orbital eccentricity, and M is the mass of the central star) from each other by the influence of the remaining planetesimals. Their orbital eccentricities and inclinations remain small. The oligarchs continue to accrete until planetesimals are exhausted in the disk around them. Sometimes nearby oligarchs merge. The final mass of an oligarch depends on the distance from the star and surface density of planetesimals and is called the isolation mass. For the rocky planets it is up to , or one Mars mass. The final result of the oligarchic stage is the formation of about 100 Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos uniformly spaced at about . They are thought to reside inside gaps in the disk and to be separated by rings of remaining planetesimals. This stage is thought to last a few hundred thousand years.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The last stage of rocky planet formation is the "merger stage". It begins when only a small number of planetesimals remains and embryos become massive enough to perturb each other, which causes their orbits to become chaotic. During this stage embryos expel remaining planetesimals, and collide with each other. The result of this process, which lasts for 10 to 100 million years, is the formation of a limited number of Earth-sized bodies. Simulations show that the number of surviving planets is on average from 2 to 5. In the Solar System they may be represented by Earth and Venus. Formation of both planets required merging of approximately 10–20 embryos, while an equal number of them were thrown out of the Solar System. Some of the embryos, which originated in the asteroid belt, are thought to have brought water to Earth. Mars and Mercury may be regarded as remaining embryos that survived that rivalry. Rocky planets, which have managed to coalesce, settle eventually into more or less stable orbits, explaining why planetary systems are generally packed to the limit; or, in other words, why they always appear to be at the brink of instability.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The formation of giant planets is an outstanding problem in the planetary sciences. In the framework of the solar nebular model two theories for their formation exist. The first one is the "disk instability model", where giant planets form in the massive protoplanetary disks as a result of its gravitational fragmentation (see above). The second possibility is the "core accretion model", which is also known as the "nucleated instability model". The latter scenario is thought to be the most promising one, because it can explain the formation of the giant planets in relatively low-mass disks (less than ). In this model giant planet formation is divided into two stages: a) accretion of a core of approximately and b) accretion of gas from the protoplanetary disk. Either method may also lead to the creation of brown dwarfs. Searches as of 2011 have found that core accretion is likely the dominant formation mechanism.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Giant planet core formation is thought to proceed roughly along the lines of the terrestrial planet formation. It starts with planetesimals that undergo runaway growth, followed by the slower oligarchic stage. Hypotheses do not predict a merger stage, due to the low probability of collisions between planetary embryos in the outer part of planetary systems. An additional difference is the composition of the planetesimals, which in the case of giant planets form beyond the so-called frost line and consist mainly of ice—the ice to rock ratio is about 4 to 1. This enhances the mass of planetesimals fourfold. However, the minimum mass nebula capable of terrestrial planet formation can only form cores at the distance of Jupiter (5 AU) within 10 million years. The latter number represents the average lifetime of gaseous disks around Sun-like stars. The proposed solutions include enhanced mass of the disk—a tenfold increase would suffice; protoplanet migration, which allows the embryo to accrete more planetesimals; and finally accretion enhancement due to gas drag in the gaseous envelopes of the embryos. Some combination of the above-mentioned ideas may explain the formation of the cores of gas giant planets such as Jupiter and perhaps even Saturn. The formation of planets like Uranus and Neptune is more problematic, since no theory has been capable of providing for the in situ formation of their cores at the distance of 20–30 AU from the central star. One hypothesis is that they initially accreted in the Jupiter-Saturn region, then were scattered and migrated to their present location. Another possible solution is the growth of the cores of the giant planets via pebble accretion. In pebble accretion objects between a cm and a meter in diameter falling toward a massive body are slowed enough by gas drag for them to spiral toward it and be accreted. Growth via pebble accretion may be as much as 1000 times faster than by the accretion of planetesimals.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Once the cores are of sufficient mass (), they begin to gather gas from the surrounding disk. Initially it is a slow process, increasing the core masses up to in a few million years. After that, the accretion rates increase dramatically and the remaining 90% of the mass is accumulated in approximately 10,000 years. The accretion of gas stops when the supply from the disk is exhausted. This happens gradually, due to the formation of a density gap in the protoplanetary disk and to disk dispersal. In this model ice giants—Uranus and Neptune—are failed cores that began gas accretion too late, when almost all gas had already disappeared. The post-runaway-gas-accretion stage is characterized by migration of the newly formed giant planets and continued slow gas accretion. Migration is caused by the interaction of the planet sitting in the gap with the remaining disk. It stops when the protoplanetary disk disappears or when the end of the disk is attained. The latter case corresponds to the so-called hot Jupiters, which are likely to have stopped their migration when they reached the inner hole in the protoplanetary disk.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Giant planets can significantly influence terrestrial planet formation. The presence of giants tends to increase eccentricities and inclinations (see Kozai mechanism) of planetesimals and embryos in the terrestrial planet region (inside 4 AU in the Solar System). If giant planets form too early, they can slow or prevent inner planet accretion. If they form near the end of the oligarchic stage, as is thought to have happened in the Solar System, they will influence the merges of planetary embryos, making them more violent. As a result, the number of terrestrial planets will decrease and they will be more massive. In addition, the size of the system will shrink, because terrestrial planets will form closer to the central star. The influence of giant planets in the Solar System, particularly that of Jupiter, is thought to have been limited because they are relatively remote from the terrestrial planets.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The region of a planetary system adjacent to the giant planets will be influenced in a different way. In such a region, eccentricities of embryos may become so large that the embryos pass close to a giant planet, which may cause them to be ejected from the system. If all embryos are removed, then no planets will form in this region. An additional consequence is that a huge number of small planetesimals will remain, because giant planets are incapable of clearing them all out without the help of embryos. The total mass of remaining planetesimals will be small, because cumulative action of the embryos before their ejection and giant planets is still strong enough to remove 99% of the small bodies. Such a region will eventually evolve into an asteroid belt, which is a full analog of the asteroid belt in the Solar System, located from 2 to 4 AU from the Sun.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Thousands of exoplanets have been identified in the last twenty years, with, at the very least, billions more, within our observable universe, yet to be discovered. The orbits of many of these planets and systems of planets differ significantly from the planets in the Solar System. The exoplanets discovered include hot-Jupiters, warm-Jupiters, super-Earths, and systems of tightly packed inner planets.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The hot-Jupiters and warm-Jupiters are thought to have migrated to their current orbits during or following their formation. A number of possible mechanisms for this migration have been proposed. Type I or Type II migration could smoothly decrease the semimajor axis of the planet's orbit resulting in a warm- or hot-Jupiter. Gravitational scattering by other planets onto eccentric orbits with a perihelion near the star followed by the circularization of its orbit due to tidal interactions with the star can leave a planet on a close orbit. If a massive companion planet or star on an inclined orbit was present an exchange of inclination for eccentricity via the Kozai mechanism raising eccentricities and lowering perihelion followed by circularization can also result in a close orbit. Many of the Jupiter-sized planets have eccentric orbits which may indicate that gravitational encounters occurred between the planets, although migration while in resonance can also excite eccentricities. The in situ growth of hot Jupiters from closely orbiting super Earths has also been proposed. The cores in this hypothesis could have formed locally or at a greater distance and migrated close to the star.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Super-Earths and other closely orbiting planets are thought to have either formed in situ or ex situ, that is, to have migrated inward from their initial locations. The in situ formation of closely orbiting super-Earths would require a massive disk, the migration of planetary embryos followed by collisions and mergers, or the radial drift of small solids from farther out in the disk. The migration of the super-Earths, or the embryos that collided to form them, is likely to have been Type I due to their smaller mass. The resonant orbits of some of the exoplanet systems indicates that some migration occurred in these systems, while the spacing of the orbits in many of the other systems not in resonance indicates that an instability likely occurred in those systems after the dissipation of the gas disk. The absence of Super-Earths and closely orbiting planets in the Solar System may be due to the previous formation of Jupiter blocking their inward migration.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The amount of gas a super-Earth that formed in situ acquires may depend on when the planetary embryos merged due to giant impacts relative to the dissipation of the gas disk. If the mergers happen after the gas disk dissipates terrestrial planets can form, if in a transition disk a super-Earth with a gas envelope containing a few percent of its mass may form. If the mergers happen too early runaway gas accretion may occur leading to the formation of a gas giant. The mergers begin when the dynamical friction due to the gas disk becomes insufficient to prevent collisions, a process that will begin earlier in a higher metallicity disk. Alternatively gas accretion may be limited due to the envelopes not being in hydrostatic equilibrium, instead gas may flow through the envelope slowing its growth and delaying the onset of runaway gas accretion until the mass of the core reaches 15 Earth masses.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: Use of the term "accretion disk" for the protoplanetary disk leads to confusion over the planetary accretion process.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: The protoplanetary disk is sometimes referred to as an accretion disk, because while the young T Tauri-like protostar is still contracting, gaseous material may still be falling onto it, accreting on its surface from the disk's inner edge. In an accretion disk, there is a net flux of mass from larger radii toward smaller radii.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: However, that meaning should not be confused with the process of accretion forming the planets. In this context, accretion refers to the process of cooled, solidified grains of dust and ice orbiting the protostar in the protoplanetary disk, colliding and sticking together and gradually growing, up to and including the high-energy collisions between sizable planetesimals.


title: Nebular hypothesis

text: In addition, the giant planets probably had accretion disks of their own, in the first meaning of the word. The clouds of captured hydrogen and helium gas contracted, spun up, flattened, and deposited gas onto the surface of each giant protoplanet, while solid bodies within that disk accreted into the giant planet's regular moons.


title: G minor

text: G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative major is B-flat major and its parallel major is G major.


title: G minor

text: According to Paolo Pietropaolo, it is the contrarian of musical keys. It is smart, argumentative, and stubborn.


title: G minor

text: Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary. The G harmonic minor and melodic minor scales are:


title: G minor

text: G minor has been considered the key through which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart best expressed sadness and tragedy, and many of his minor key works are in G minor, such as Piano Quartet No. 1 and String Quintet No. 4. Though Mozart touched on various minor keys in his symphonies, G minor is the only minor key he used as a main key for his numbered symphonies (No. 25, and the famous No. 40). In the Classical period, symphonies in G minor almost always used four horns, two in G and two in B alto. Another convention of G minor symphonies observed in Mozart's No. 25 and Mozart's No. 40 was the choice of E-flat major, the subdominant of the relative major B, for the slow movement, with other examples including Joseph Haydn's No. 39 and Johann Baptist Wanhal's G minor symphony from before 1771.


title: Son Lux

text: Son Lux is an American experimental band. Originally the solo project and moniker of founding member Ryan Lott, the band's first three albums, "At War with Walls & Mazes", "We Are Rising" and "Lanterns", shaped the band's unique sound through post-rock and electronica influences.


title: Son Lux

text: With the release of their fourth studio album, "Bones", in 2015, Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang joined Son Lux, transforming the project into a three-piece band. After the release of their EPs "Stranger Forms" and "Remedy", the band's fifth album, "Brighter Wounds", was released in February 2018. The band composed the music for 2022 science fiction action film "Everything Everywhere All at Once".


title: Son Lux

text: Son Lux started in 2008 as the moniker and solo recording project of American musician and composer Ryan Lott. Their debut studio album, "At War with Walls & Mazes", was released in March of that same year. Following this release, NPR named Son Lux "Best New Artist" on their program "All Songs Considered".


title: Son Lux

text: Lott then released the second album "We Are Rising" on May 17, 2011, recorded in the entire month of February for the RPM Challenge. Adam Kivel, writing for "Consequence of Sound", described the album as "the dark, operatic middle ground between Owen Pallett and "In Rainbows"-era Radiohead or Wild Beasts' fantastic, operatic heights."


title: Son Lux

text: Son Lux signed with Joyful Noise Recordings in May 2013, the same month that their "haunting rendition" of "Black Waters" was featured in the eponymous flexi-disc series released by Joyful Noise. After the announcement of Lott joining Joyful Noise, the project released "TEAR", a conceptual 7" featuring one new song in two distinct parts. "Lanterns" was then released on October 29, 2013. It includes vocals from then label-mate Stranger Cat, the musical project of Cat Martino. The lead single "Lost It To Trying" was named one of "Pitchfork"'s Best New Tracks.


title: Son Lux

text: In 2014, Son Lux released the extended play "Alternate Worlds", which contained re-imagined songs from "Lanterns", including a version of "Easy" with vocal contributions from Lorde. Later in 2014, Glassnote announced that they had signed Son Lux worldwide. Additionally, Lott composed the score and soundtrack for the 2014 film "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby".


title: Son Lux

text: In 2015, Lott was featured on "The Art Assignment" in a project that invites viewers to work collaboratively around music that he wrote for the program.


title: Son Lux

text: Son Lux's fourth album, "Bones", was released on June 23, 2015. With the release of the album, the project transformed into a trio when touring members Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang joined Lott as members of the band.


title: Son Lux

text: On July 15, 2016, Son Lux appeared on stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival as a guest of Woodkid at the "Woodkid and Friends" evening.


title: Son Lux

text: On April 7, 2017, the band released the song "Dangerous", simultaneously announcing the song as the lead single from their fourth EP, "Remedy", which was released on May 12. On December 15, 2017, a song titled "Eazy" by hip-hop artist G-Eazy was released featuring sampled audio from "Easy".


title: Son Lux

text: Son Lux released their fifth album, "Brighter Wounds", on February 9, 2018, on their new record label, City Slang. The album received a review of 7.3 out of 10 points on Pitchfork.


title: Son Lux

text: On April 5, 2019, Son Lux released a box set with one of their earlier labels, Joyful Noise Recordings, that has two reissued early albums and a new album of unreleased recordings, "Remnants". In May 2020, the collection entitled "Reincarnates" was released. This collection, much like "Remnants" consisted of previously unheard or rare tracks, including three reworkings of "Change is Everything" from the "Bones" album, and a new version of "Remedy" (entitled "Remedy, Surging Sea", and included a crowd-sourced choir of over 300 voices).


title: Son Lux

text: In February 2021, Son Lux announced that their next album, "Tomorrows III", will be released on April 16, 2021, and is scheduled to be the final album in the "Tomorrows" trilogy of albums.


title: Son Lux

text: In 2022, the band composed the musical score for the film "Everything Everywhere All At Once". The 49-track soundtrack released on April 8, 2022, and includes collaborations with Mitski, David Byrne, a flute-playing André 3000, Randy Newman, Moses Sumney, and yMusic, plus others.


title: Robbie Williams discography

text: The discography of Robbie Williams, an English singer-songwriter, consists of twelve studio albums, one live album, ten compilation albums, one extended play, ten video albums, fifty-nine singles (including six as a featured artist), six promotional singles and fifty-six music videos (including two as a featured artist). Williams originally found success in the male pop group Take That, which he joined in 1990 following a successful audition: they released a series of UK number-one singles, including "Pray", "Relight My Fire", "Babe" and "Back for Good". Williams left Take That in 1995 to pursue a solo career; the group disbanded the following year.


title: Robbie Williams discography

text: His first single, a cover of English singer George Michael's "Freedom", reached number two on the UK Singles Chart in 1996. "Life thru a Lens", Williams' debut studio album, was released the following year. Although the album initially sold poorly, strong radio play of its fourth single, "Angels", helped to increase sales of "Life thru a Lens", leading to it topping the UK Albums Chart and later being certified eight times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Although it only reached number four in the United Kingdom, consistent sales eventually led "Angels" to be certified double platinum by the BPI; the single also reached the top ten of the French, German and Swiss singles charts.


title: Robbie Williams discography

text: Williams released his second album, "I've Been Expecting You", in October 1998. It too topped the UK Albums Chart and experienced reasonable international success, reaching the top twenty of several worldwide charts. Two of the album's singles, "Millennium" and the double A-side "She's the One" / "It's Only Us", became Williams' first singles as a solo artist to top the UK Singles Chart. "Sing When You're Winning" followed in August 2000, and became his first to achieve significant overseas commercial success, topping many national album charts and including the UK number-ones "Rock DJ" and "Eternity" / "The Road to Mandalay". A collection of covers of popular swing songs, entitled "Swing When You're Winning", was released in November 2001 and his cover of the Carson Parks song "Somethin' Stupid" with actress Nicole Kidman became his most successful single to date, reaching the top three of many singles charts and peaking at number one in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. During 2002, Williams collaborated with concept band 1 Giant Leap on their single "My Culture", which reached number nine in the UK. His next two albums, "Escapology" (2002) and "Intensive Care" (2005), maintained this success, both topping the UK Albums Chart, and contained the international top-five hits "Feel" and "Tripping". Williams released his first live album, "Live at Knebworth", in 2003 and his first greatest hits album, "Greatest Hits", in 2004, with the latter certified six times platinum by the BPI and eight times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).


title: Robbie Williams discography

text: Following a deliberate break from media scrutiny, Williams released his seventh album "Rudebox" in October 2006 to great public anticipation. Despite a lukewarm critical reception, it matched the chart success of its predecessors, becoming Williams' seventh album in a row to reach number one in the United Kingdom and spawning the UK number-four single of the same name.


title: Robbie Williams discography

text: His eighth album, "Reality Killed the Video Star", followed in November 2009, but became his first studio album not to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart, charting at number two. The single "Bodies" reached number two in the UK and topped several European singles charts. Another retrospective compilation album, "" was released in 2010, reaching number one in the UK: during the year, Williams also returned to Take That, who had reformed in 2006 without him. "Take the Crown", Williams' ninth studio album, was released in November 2012 and featured the UK number-one single "Candy"; his tenth studio album, "Swings Both Ways", was released the following year and became the one thousandth album to top the UK Albums Chart.


title: Robbie Williams discography

text: As of 2020, Williams has had 14 UK number-one singles (seven solo and seven with Take That; not including being part of four number-one charity singles).


title: Richard Herd

text: Richard Thomas Herd Jr. (September 26, 1932 – May 26, 2020) was an American actor, appearing in numerous supporting, recurring, and guest roles in television series and occasional film roles, from the 1970s to the 2010s. He was well known in the science fiction community for his role in the 1983 NBC miniseries "V" and 1984 sequel "V: The Final Battle", as John, the Visitors' Supreme Commander. Other major roles in his career included recurring parts on the NBC series "seaQuest DSV" as Admiral William Noyce; on "" as Admiral Owen Paris, the father of helmsman Tom Paris; and as George Costanza's boss Matt Wilhelm on "Seinfeld". In two guest appearances on "Quantum Leap", he played children's show host "Captain Galaxy", a would-be time traveler, and a miner named Ziggy Ziganovich. He also voiced Father Elijah in the Dead Money DLC for "". Herd appeared at a number of fan conventions for his science fiction roles.


title: Richard Herd

text: Herd was born in Boston, the son of Katherine (Lydon) and Richard Herd Sr., a train engineer who died while serving in the Army during World War II.


title: Richard Herd

text: Herd was drafted during the Korean War, injuring his knee during basic training. He went on to serve in the United States Army Ordnance Corps and was honorably discharged. He then worked in Long Island, New York for the United States Army Signal Corps as a civilian actor, along with Robert Ludlum, making Army training films.


title: Richard Herd

text: Herd started out his career as an actor on the New York stage. He made his film debut in "Hercules in New York" (1970). Herd's first major film role was in the thriller "The China Syndrome" alongside Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas, where he played the character Evan McCormack, the corrupt Chairman of the California Gas & Electric Board. This role helped make him well known outside the United States. He portrayed James W. McCord, Jr. in the Academy Award-winning "All the President's Men" (1976).


title: Richard Herd

text: In addition to science fiction, he was a regular as Captain Dennis Sheridan on "T. J. Hooker" from 1982 to 1983 (he continued to appear on the series sporadically until 1984), and appeared on "Seinfeld" as Mr. Wilhelm, George Costanza's boss at the Yankees. Guest appearances included "M*A*S*H", "The Rockford Files", "The Feather and Father Gang", "The Golden Girls", "Starsky & Hutch", "Quantum Leap", "The A-Team," "Midnight Caller", "Hart to Hart", "NYPD Blue", "Renegade", "Pacific Blue", and "JAG".


title: Richard Herd

text: In 2012 he played Judge Paul Landsman in the TV series "" episode "Rest in Pieces". Herd portrayed Roman Armitage in "Get Out" (2017).


title: Richard Herd

text: Herd lived in Los Angeles with his wife of 40 years, Patricia Crowder Herd. He died at his home from complications of colon cancer on May 26, 2020, aged 87.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Benjamin Banneker (November 9, 1731October 19, 1806) was an African-American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author. He was a landowner who also worked as a surveyor and farmer.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Born in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a free African-American mother and a father who had formerly been enslaved, Banneker had little or no formal education and was largely self-taught. He became known for assisting Major Andrew Ellicott in a survey that established the original borders of the District of Columbia, the federal capital district of the United States.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker's knowledge of astronomy helped him author a commercially successful series of almanacs. He corresponded with Thomas Jefferson on the topics of slavery and racial equality. Abolitionists and advocates of racial equality promoted and praised Banneker's works. Although a fire on the day of Banneker's funeral destroyed many of his papers and belongings, one of his journals and several of his remaining artifacts are presently available for public viewing.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker became a folk-hero after his death, leading to many accounts of his life being exaggerated or embellished. The names of parks, schools and streets commemorate him and his works, as do other tributes.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Baltimore County, Maryland, to Mary Banneky, a free black woman, and Robert, a freed slave from Guinea who died in 1759. There are two conflicting accounts of Banneker's family history.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker himself and his earliest biographers described him as having only African ancestry. None of Banneker's surviving papers describe a white ancestor or identify the name of his grandmother.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: However, later biographers have contended that Banneker's mother was the child of Molly Welsh, a former white indentured servant, and an African slave named Banneka. The first published description of Molly Welsh was based on interviews with her descendants that took place in 1836, long after the deaths of both Molly and Benjamin. According to that story, Molly purchased Banneka to help establish a farm located near the future site of Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, west of Baltimore.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A biographer suggested in 2002 that Banneka may have been a member of the Dogon people, who several anthropologists have claimed had an early knowledge of astronomy (see Dogon astronomical beliefs). Molly supposedly freed and married Banneka, who may have shared his knowledge of astronomy with her. The biographer suggested that Benjamin acquired this knowledge from Molly, as Benjamin was born after Banneka's death.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A genealogist who in 2016 reported an analysis of records related to Banneker's family tree was unable to identify any documents that showed that Banneker had a white grandmother, but could not rule out that possibility. The report noted that the name "Bannaker" may have had the same origin as that of Banaka, a small village in the present-day Klay District of Bomi County in northwestern Liberia that had once participated in the African slave trade. A 2021 update to this genealogy stated that Benjamin Banneker's father, Robert, was by May 18, 1731, married to Mary Lett (then called Mary Beneca), the daughter of a white woman by an enslaved man. The update noted that Banaka is the home of the Vai people, who have lived there since about 1500 when they left the Mali Empire.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1737, Banneker was named at the age of 6 on the deed of his family's farm in the Patapsco Valley in rural Baltimore County. A letter writer stated in 1791 that Banneker's parents had sent him to an obscure school where he learned reading, writing and arithmetic as far as double position. However, the remainder of Banneker's early life is not well documented.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Unverified accounts that first appeared in books published more than 140 years after Banneker's death relate that, as a young teenager, Banneker met and befriended Peter Heinrich, a Quaker who later established a school near the Banneker family farm. (Quakers were leaders in the anti-slavery movement and advocates of racial equality (see Quakers in the abolition movement and Testimony of equality)). These accounts state that Heinrich shared his personal library and provided Banneker with his only classroom instruction. Banneker's formal education (if any) presumably ended when he was old enough to help on his family's farm.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Around 1753, at about the age of 21, Banneker reportedly completed a wooden clock that struck on the hour. He appears to have modelled his clock from a borrowed pocket watch by carving each piece to scale. The clock continued to work until his death.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: After his father died in 1759, Banneker lived with his mother and sisters. In 1768, he signed a Baltimore County petition to move the county seat from Joppa to Baltimore. An entry for his property in a 1773 Baltimore County tax list identified Banneker as the only adult member of his household.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1772, brothers Andrew Ellicott, John Ellicott and Joseph Ellicott moved from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and bought land along the Patapsco Falls near Banneker's farm on which to construct gristmills, around which the village of Ellicott's Mills (now Ellicott City) subsequently developed. The Ellicotts were Quakers who held the same views on racial equality as did many of their faith. Banneker studied the mills and became acquainted with their proprietors.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1788, George Ellicott, a son of Andrew Ellicott, loaned Banneker books and equipment to begin a more formal study of astronomy. During the following year, Banneker sent George his work calculating a solar eclipse.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1790, Banneker prepared an ephemeris for 1791, which he hoped would be placed within a published almanac. However, he was unable to find a printer that was willing to publish and distribute the work.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In early 1791, U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson asked surveyor Major Andrew Ellicott (a son of Joseph Ellicott and a cousin of George Ellicott) to survey an area that would contain a new federal district. In February 1791, Ellicott left a surveying team that he had been leading in western New York so that he could begin the district's survey. Ellicott then hired Banneker as a replacement to assist in the initial survey of the federal district's boundaries, advancing him $60 for travel expenses to and at Georgetown.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The territory that became the original District of Columbia was formed from land along the Potomac River that the states of Maryland and Virginia ceded to the federal government of the United States in accordance with the 1790 federal Residence Act and later legislation. The territory was a square that measured on each side, totaling (see: Founding of Washington, D.C.). Ellicott's team placed boundary marker stones at or near every mile point along the borders of the new capital territory (see: Boundary markers of the original District of Columbia).


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Biographers have stated that Banneker's duties on the survey consisted primarily of making astronomical observations and calculations to establish base points, including one at Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, where the survey started and where the south corner stone was to be located. They have also stated that Banneker maintained a clock that he used to relate points on the ground to the positions of stars at specific times.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: However, some have noted that Banneker's actual role in the survey is uncertain, as his involvement in the effort "rests on extremely meager documentation". An April 21, 1791, news report of the April 15 dedication ceremony for the first boundary stone (the south corner stone) stated that it was Andrew Ellicott who "ascertained the precise point from which the first line of the district was to proceed". The news report did not mention Banneker's name.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker left the boundary survey in April 1791 within three months of its initiation because the time that he was devoting to the project was conflicting with the time that he had expected to use to calculate an ephemeris for the year of 1792. Further, the arrival of spring required him to direct more attention to his farm than was needed during the winter. In addition, Andrew Ellicott's younger brothers, Benjamin and Joseph Ellicott, who usually assisted Andrew, had completed the New York survey and were able to join the survey of the federal district at around that time.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker therefore returned to his home near Ellicott's Mills. The Ellicotts and other members of the surveying team then laid the remaining Virginia marker stones later in 1791. The team laid the Maryland stones and completed the boundary survey in 1792.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: After returning to Ellicott's Mills, Banneker made astronomical calculations that predicted eclipses and planetary conjunctions for inclusion in an almanac and ephemeris for the year of 1792. To aid Banneker in his efforts to have his almanac published, Andrew Ellicott (who had been authoring almanacs and ephemerides of his own since 1780) forwarded Banneker's ephemeris to James Pemberton, the president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Pemberton then asked William Waring, a Philadelphia mathematician and ephemeris calculator, and David Rittenhouse, a prominent American astronomer, almanac author, surveyor and scientific instrument maker who was at the time serving as the president of the American Philosophical Society, to confirm the accuracy of Banneker's work. Waring endorsed Banneker's work, stating, "I have examined Benjamin Banneker's Almanac for 1792, and am of the Opinion that it well deserves the Acceptance and Encouragement of the Public."


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Rittenhouse responded to Pemberton by stating that Banneker's ephemeris "was a very extraordinary performance, considering the Colour of the Author" and that he "had no doubt that the Calculations are sufficiently accurate for the purposes of a common Almanac. ... Every instance of Genius amongst the Negroes is worthy of attention, because their suppressors seem to lay great stress on their supposed inferior mental abilities." A biographer wrote that Banneker replied to Rittenhouse's endorsement by stating: "I am annoyed to find that the subject of my race is so much stressed. The work is either correct or it is not. In this case, I believe it to be perfect."


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Pemberton then made arrangements for Joseph Crukshank (a Philadelphia Quaker who was a founder of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery and who had since 1770 been publishing almanacs, including at least one that Waring had calculated) to print Banneker's almanac. Having thus secured the support of Pemberton, Rittenhouse and Waring, Banneker delivered a manuscript containing his ephemeris to William Goddard, a Baltimore printer who had published "The Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris" for every year since 1782. Goddard then agreed to print and distribute Banneker's work within an almanac and ephemeris for the year of 1792.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker's "Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of our Lord, 1792" was the first in a six-year series of almanacs and ephemerides that printers agreed to publish and sell. At least 28 editions of the almanacs, some of which appeared during the same year, were printed in seven cities in five states: Baltimore; Philadelphia; Wilmington, Delaware; Alexandria, Virginia; Petersburg, Virginia; Richmond, Virginia; and Trenton, New Jersey.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The title pages of the Baltimore editions of Banneker's 1792, 1793 and 1794 almanacs and ephemerides stated that the publications contained:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: the Motions of the Sun and Moon, the True Places and Aspects of the Planets, the Rising and Setting of the Sun, Place and Age of the Moon, &c. – The Lunations, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Judgment of the Weather, Festivals, and other remarkable Days; Days for holding the Supreme and Circuit Courts of the "United States", as also the useful Courts in "Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland", and "Virginia." Also – several useful Tables, and valuable Receipts. – Various Selections from the Commonplace–Book of the "Kentucky Philosopher", an "American Sage"; with interesting and entertaining Essays, in Prose and Verse –the whole comprising a greater, more pleasing, and useful Variety than any Work of the "Kind" and "Price" in "North America".


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In addition to the information that its title page described, the 1792 almanac contained a tide table listing the methods for calculating the time of high water at four locations along the Chesapeake Bay (Cape Charles and Point Lookout, Virginia; Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland). Later almanacs contained tables for making such calculations for those locations as well as for Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Halifax, Quebec, Hatteras, Nantucket and other places. Monthly tables in each edition listed astronomical data and weather predictions for each of the months' dates.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A Philadelphia edition of Banneker's 1795 almanac contained a lengthy account of a yellow fever epidemic that had struck that city in 1793. Written by a committee whose president was the city's mayor, Matthew Clarkson, the account related the presumed origins and causes of the epidemic, as well as the extent and duration of the event.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The title pages of two Baltimore editions of Banneker's 1795 almanac had woodcut portraits of him as he may have appeared. However, a biographer later concluded that the portraits were more likely portrayals of an idealized African-American youth.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A Baltimore edition of Banneker's 1796 almanac contained a table enumerating the population of each U.S. state and the Southwest Territory as recorded in the 1790 United States census. The table listed the number of free persons and slaves in each state and the territory according to race and gender, as well as to whether they were above or below the age of 16 years. The table also listed the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives that each state had during the almanac's year.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The almanacs' editors prefaced the publications with adulatory references to Banneker and his race. Editions of Banneker's 1792 and 1793 almanacs contained full or abridged copies of a lengthy commendatory letter that James McHenry, the Secretary of the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention and self-described friend of Banneker, had written to Goddard and his partner, James Angell, in August 1791 to support the almanac's publication.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: As first published in Banneker's 1792 almanac and later given an increased circulation when re-published in Philadelphia within "The American Museum, or Universal Magazine", McHenry's full letter began:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Benjamin Banneker, a free Negro, has calculated an Almanack, for the ensuing year, 1792, which being desirous to dispose of, to the best advantage, he has requested me to aid his application to you for that purpose. Having fully satisfied myself, in respect to his title to this type of authorship, if you can agree to him for the price of his work, I may venture to assure you it will do you credit, as Editors, while it will afford you the opportunity to encourage talents that have thus far surmounted the most discouraging circumstances and prejudices."


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In their preface to Banneker's 1792 almanac, the editors of the work wrote that they:feel themselves gratified in the Opportunity of presenting to the Public, through the Medium of their Press, what must be considered as an extraordinary Effort of Genius — a complete and accurate EPHEMERIS for the Year 1792, calculated by a sable Descendant of Africa, ... — They flatter themselves that a philanthropic Public, in this enlightened Era, will be induced to give their Patronage and Support to this Work, not only on Account of its intrinsic Merit, (it having met the Approbation of several of the most distinguished Astronomers in America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse) but from similar Motives to those which induced the Editors to give this Calculation the Preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest Merit from Obscurity, and controverting the long-established illiberal Prejudice against the Blacks.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: After Goddard and Angell had published their 1792 Baltimore edition of the almanac, Angell wrote in the 1793 edition (which he alone edited) that abolitionists William Pitt, Charles James Fox and William Wilberforce had introduced the 1792 edition into the British House of Commons to aid their effort to end the British slave trade in Africa. However, the British Parliament's report of the debate that accompanied this effort did not mention either Banneker or his almanac.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The title page of a Petersburg edition of Banneker's 1794 "Virginia Almanack" stated that the work was "Calculated by that ingenious self taught astronomer Benjamin Banneker, a black man", repeating a term that Angell had used in the 1793 Baltimore almanac. The introduction to a 1795 Philadelphia edition contained a poem titled: "Addressed to Benjamin Banneker". The verse began and ended:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text:
Fain would the muse exalt her tuneful lays,
And chant in strains sublime Banneker's praise;Fain would the soar on Fame's majestic wing,
Thy "genius", great Banneker, to sing;Thy "talents" and thy "greatness" would I shew,
Not in applausive strains to thee undue;...
Long may thou live an "evidence" to shew,
That "Afric's" sable race have "talents" too.
 And may thy genius bright its "strength" retain;Tho' nature to decline may still remain;
And may favour us to thy "latest" yearsWith thy "Ephemeris" call'd Banneker's.
A work which ages yet "unborn" shall nameAnd be the "monument" of lasting "fame";
A work which after ages shall "adore",When Banneker, alas! shall be "no more!"


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The writer of a tribute in a 1796 Baltimore edition quoted a quatrain and amended another that an Englishman, Thomas Gray, had placed in a popular poem first published in 1751 (see Adaptations and parodies of "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"). The revised rhyme stated:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Nor you ye proud, impute to these the blameIf Afric's sons to genius are unknown,For Banneker has prov'd they may acquire a name,As bright, as lasting, as your own.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Supported by Andrew, George and Elias Ellicott and heavily promoted by the Maryland and Pennsylvania abolition societies, the early editions of the almanacs achieved commercial success. Printers then distributed at least nine editions of Banneker's 1795 almanac. A Wilmington, Delaware, printer issued five editions for distribution by different vendors. Printers in Baltimore issued three versions of the almanac, while three Philadelphia printers also sold editions. A Trenton, New Jersey, printer additionally sold a version of the work.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text:
In 1796, Banneker gave a manuscript of one of his almanacs to Suzanna Mason, a member of the Ellicott family who was visiting his home. In 1836, Mason's daughter wrote a published memoir of her mother's life, letters and manuscripts. The memoir contained a copy of a poem that Mason had sent to Banneker shortly after her 1796 visit. A portion of the verse stated:But thou, a man exhalted high,
Conspicuous in the world's keen eye,
On record now thy name's enrolled,
And future ages will be told,
There lived a man called Banneker,
An African astronomer.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker kept a series of journals that contained his notebooks for astronomical observations, his diary and accounts of his dreams. The journals, only one of which escaped a fire on the day of his funeral, additionally contained a number of mathematical calculations and puzzles.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The surviving journal described in April 1800 Banneker's recollections of the 1749, 1766 and 1783 emergences of Brood X of the seventeen-year periodical cicada ("Magicicada septendecim" and related species) and stated, "... they may be expected again in they year 1800 which is Seventeen Since their third appearance to me." Describing an effect that the pathogenic fungus, "Massospora cicadina", has on its host, the journal further stated that the insects:... begin to Sing or make a noise from first they come out of the Earth till they die. The hindermost part rots off, and it does not appear to be any pain to them, for they still continue on Singing till they die. The journal also recorded Banneker's observations on the hives and behavior of honey bees.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker's 1792 almanac contained an extract from an anonymous essay entitled ""On Negro Slavery, and the Slave Trade"" that the "Columbian Magazine" had published in 1790. After quoting a statement that David Rittenhouse had made (that Negroes "have been doomed to endless slavery by us — merely because "their" bodies have been disposed to reflect or absorb the rays of light in a way different from "ours""), the extract concluded:The time, it is hoped "is not very remote", when those ill-fated people, dwelling in this land of freedom, shall commence a participation with the white inhabitants, in the blessings of liberty; and experience the kindly protection of government, for the essential rights of human nature.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A Philadelphia edition of Banneker's 1793 almanac that Joseph Crukshank published contained copies of pleas for peace that the English anti-slavery poet William Cowper and others had authored, as well as anti-slavery speeches and writings from England and America. The latter included extracts from speeches that William Pitt, Matthew Montagu and Charles James Fox had given to the British House of Commons in 1792 during the debate on a motion for the abolition of the British slave trade, an extract from a 1789 poem by an English Quaker, Thomas Wilkinson, and an extract from a query in Thomas Jefferson's 1787 "Notes on the State of Virginia".


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Crukshank's edition of Banneker's 1793 almanac also contained a copy of "A Plan of a "Peace-Office", for the United States". Although the almanac did not identify the Plan's author, writers later attributed the work to Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the 1776 Declaration of Independence.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Plan proposed the appointment of a "Secretary of Peace", described the Secretary's powers and advocated federal support and promotion of the Christian religion. The Plan stated:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: I. Let a Secretary of Peace be appointed to preside in this office; ...; let him be a genuine republican and a sincere Christian, ...


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: II. Let a power be given to the Secretary to establish and maintain free schools in every city, village and township in the United States; ... Let the youth of our country be instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and in the doctrines of a religion of some kind; the Christian religion should be preferred to all others; for it belongs to this religion exclusively to teach us not only to cultivate peace with all men, but to forgive—nay more, to love our very enemies. ...


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: III. Let every family be furnished at public expense, by the Secretary of this office, with an American edition of the Bible. ...


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: IV. Let the following sentence be inscribed in letters of gold over the door of every home in the United States: THE SON OF MAN CAME INTO THE WORLD, NOT TO DESTROY MEN'S LIVES, BUT TO SAVE THEM.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: V. To inspire a veneration for human life, and a horror at the shedding of human blood, let all those laws be repealed which authorise juries, judges, sheriffs, or hangmen to assume the resentments of individuals, and to commit murder in cold blood in any case whatever. ...


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: VI. To subdue that passion for war, ... militia laws should everywhere be repealed, and military dresses and military titles should be laid aside. ...


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: On August 19, 1791, after departing the federal capital area, Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1776 had drafted the United States Declaration of Independence and in 1791 was serving as United States Secretary of State. Quoting language in the Declaration, the letter expressed a plea for justice for African Americans.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: To support his plea, Banneker included within his letter a handwritten manuscript of an almanac for 1792 containing his ephemeris with his astronomical calculations. He retained handwritten copies of the letter and Jefferson's August 30, 1791, reply in a volume of manuscripts that became part of a journal.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In late 1792, James Angell published a Baltimore edition of Banneker's 1793 almanac that contained copies of Banneker's letter and Jefferson's reply. Soon afterwards, a Philadelphia printer distributed two sequential editions of a widely circulated pamphlet that also contained the letter and reply.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: "The Universal Asylum, and Columbian Magazine" also published Banneker's letter and Jefferson's reply in Philadelphia in late 1792. The "Magazine" editors (A Society of Gentlemen) titled the letter as being "from the famous self-taught astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, a black man".


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In his letter, Banneker accused Jefferson of criminally using fraud and violence to oppress his slaves by stating:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: ... Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to your Selves.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text:
And now Sir, I Shall conclude and Subscribe my Self with the most profound respect,
Your most Obedient humble Servant
Benjamin Banneker


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Jefferson's reply did not directly respond to Banneker's accusations, but instead expressed his support for the advancement of his "black brethren". His reply, which writers have characterized as "courteous", "polite", "ambivalent", "ambiguous", "evasive", "tepid" and "noncommittal", stated:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text:
Philadelphia Aug. 30. 1791.
Sir,
I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th. instant and for the Almanac it contained. no body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecillity of their present existence, and other circumstance which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic society because I considered it as a document to which your whole colour had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them. I am with great esteem, Sir,
Your most obedt. humble servt.
Th: Jefferson


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, to whom Jefferson sent Banneker's almanac, was a noted French mathematician and abolitionist who was a member of the French Société des Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of the Blacks). It appears that the Academy of Sciences itself did not receive the almanac.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: When writing his letter, Banneker informed Jefferson that his 1791 work with Andrew Ellicott on the District boundary survey had affected his work on his 1792 ephemeris and almanac by stating:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: ... And altho I had almost declined to make my calculation for the ensuing year, in consequence of that time which I had allotted therefor being taking up at the Federal Territory by the request of Mr. Andrew Ellicott, ...


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: On the same day that he replied to Banneker (August 30, 1791), Jefferson sent a letter to the Marquis de Condorcet that contained the following paragraph relating to Banneker's race, abilities, almanac and work with Andrew Ellicott:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: I am happy to be able to inform you that we have now in the United States a negro, the son of a black man born in Africa, and of a black woman born in the United States, who is a very respectable mathematician. I procured him to be employed under one of our chief directors in laying out the new federal city on the Patowmac, & in the intervals of his leisure, while on that work, he made an Almanac for the next year, which he sent me in his own hand writing, & which I inclose to you. I have seen very elegant solutions of Geometrical problems by him. Add to this that he is a very worthy & respectable member of society. He is a free man. I shall be delighted to see these instances of moral eminence so multiplied as to prove that the want of talents observed in them is merely the effect of their degraded condition, and not proceeding from any difference in the structure of the parts on which intellect depends.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1809, three years after Banneker's death, Jefferson expressed a different opinion of Banneker in a letter to Joel Barlow that criticized a "diatribe" that a French abolitionist, Henri Grégoire, had written in 1808:


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: the whole do not amount in point of evidence, to what we know ourselves of Banneker. we know he had spherical trigonometry enough to make almanacs, but not without the suspicion of aid from Ellicot, who was his neighbor & friend, & never missed an opportunity of puffing him. I have a long letter from Banneker which shews him to have had a mind of very common stature indeed.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Banneker never married. For reasons that are unclear, the four editions of his 1797 almanac were the last ones that printers published. After selling much of his homesite to the Ellicotts and others, he probably died in his log cabin nine years later on October 19, 1806, aged 74. (Some sources state that Banneker died on Sunday, October 9, 1806, which was actually a Thursday.) His chronic alcoholism, which worsened as he aged, may have contributed to his death.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: Mr. Banneker is a prominent instance to prove that a descendant of Africa is susceptible of as great mental improvement and deep knowledge into the mysteries of nature as that of any other nation.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A commemorative obelisk that the Maryland Bicentennial Commission and the State Commission on Afro American History and Culture erected in 1977 near his unmarked grave stands in the yard of the Mount Gilboa African Methodist Episcopal Church in Oella, Maryland (see Mount Gilboa Chapel).


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: On the day of his funeral in 1806, a fire burned Banneker's log cabin to the ground, destroying many of his belongings and papers. In 1813, William Goodard, who had published the Baltimore edition of Banneker's 1792 almanac (Banneker's first published almanac), donated the manuscript for the almanac to the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston holds in its collections the August 17, 1791, handwritten letter that Banneker sent to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson endorsed the letter as received on August 21, 1791.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Library of Congress holds a copy of Jefferson's August 30, 1791, handwritten reply to Banneker. Jefferson produced this document on a letter copying press made by James Watt & Co. that he used before he sent his reply to Banneker. He retained the copy in his files.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Library of Congress also holds a copy of Jefferson's August 30, 1791, handwritten letter to the Marquis de Condorcet that described Banneker's race, abilities, almanac and work with Andrew Ellicott. Jefferson produced this document on his copying press before sending the handwritten letter to the Marquis.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Library of Congress holds a handwritten duplicate of Jefferson's letter to the Marquis de Condorcet. The pagination in the duplicate differs from that in the copy that Jefferson produced on his copying press. The Library attributes the duplicate to Jefferson.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Princeton University Library holds within its Straus Autograph Collection the recipient's copy of the handwritten letter that Jefferson sent to Joel Barlow in 1809. Jefferson's letter cited the letter that Banneker had sent to him in 1791. Barlow endorsed Jefferson's letter after he received it.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: The Library of Congress holds a copy of Jefferson's 1809 letter to Joel Barlow that Jefferson had retained in his files after sending his handwritten letter to Barlow. Jefferson used a polygraph device that enabled him to make the copy at the same time that he was writing the original. An Englishman, John Isaac Hawkins, and an American, Charles Willson Peale, had earlier developed this device with the help of Jefferson's suggestions.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1987, a member of the Ellicott family, which had retained Banneker's only remaining journal, donated that document and other Banneker manuscripts to the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. The family also retained several items that Banneker had used after borrowing them from George Ellicott, as well as some that Banneker himself had owned.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1996, a descendant of George Ellicott decided to sell at auction some of those items, including a drop-leaf table, candlesticks, candle molds, maps, letters and diaries. Although supporters of the planned Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, Maryland, had hoped to obtain these and several other items related to Banneker and the Ellicotts, a Virginia investment banker won most of the items with a series of bids that totaled $85,000. The purchaser stated that he expected to keep some of the items and to donate the rest to the planned African American Civil War Memorial museum in Washington, D.C.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: In 1997, it was announced that the artifacts would initially be exhibited in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and then loaned to the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. After completion of the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, the artifacts would be loaned to that facility for a period of twenty years. The Oella museum displayed the table, candle molds and candlesticks after it opened in 1998.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A substantial mythology exaggerating Banneker's accomplishments has developed during the two centuries that have elapsed since his death, becoming a part of African-American culture. Several such urban legends describe Banneker's alleged activities in the Washington, D.C., area around the time that he assisted Andrew Ellicott in the federal district boundary survey. Others involve his clock, his astronomical works, his almanacs and his journals.


title: Benjamin Banneker

text: A United States postage stamp and the names of a number of recreational and cultural facilities, schools, streets, and other facilities and institutions throughout the United States have commemorated Banneker's documented and mythical accomplishments throughout the years since he lived. In 1983, Rita Dove, a future Poet Laureate of the United States, wrote a biographical poem about Banneker while on the faculty of Arizona State University.


title: Origin of birds

text: The scientific question of within which larger group of animals birds evolved has traditionally been called the "origin of birds". The present scientific consensus is that birds are a group of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs that originated during the Mesozoic Era.