title: History of Sparta

text: Athens was on the brink of civil war. Both sides sent delegates to present their case before King Pausanias. The Thirty were heard first. They complained that Piraeus was being occupied by a Boeotian puppet government. Pausanias immediately appointed Lysander harmost (governor), which required the assent of the ephors, and ordered him to Sparta with his brother, who had been made navarch over 40 ships. They were to put down the rebellion and expel the foreigners.


title: History of Sparta

text: After the Ten had been fully heard, Pausanias, obtaining the assent of three out of five ephors, went himself to Athens with a force including men from all the allies except the suspect Boeotia and Corinth. He met and superseded Lysander on the road. A battle ensued against Thrasybulus, whose forces killed two Spartan polemarchs but were driven at last into a marsh and trapped there. Pausanias broke off. He set up the board of 15 peace commissioners that had been sent with him by the Spartan assembly and invited both sides to a conference. The final reconciliation restored democracy to Athens. The Thirty held Eleusis, as they had previously massacred the entire population. It was made independent of Athens as a refuge for supporters of the Thirty. A general amnesty was declared. The Spartans ended their occupation.


title: History of Sparta

text: The former oligarchs repudiated the peace. After failure to raise assistance for their cause among the other states of Greece, they attempted a coup. Faced with the new Athenian state at overwhelming odds they were lured into a conference, seized and executed. Eleusis reverted to Athens. Sparta refused further involvement. Meanwhile, Lysander, who had been recalled to Sparta after his relief by Pausanias, with the assistance of King Agis (the second king) charged Pausanias with being too lenient with the Athenians. Not only was he acquitted by an overwhelming majority of the jurors (except for the supporters of Agis) including all five ephors, but the Spartan government repudiated all the decarchs that had been established by Lysander in former states of the Athenian Empire and ordered the former governments restored.


title: History of Sparta

text: The two major powers in the eastern Mediterranean in the 5th century BC had been Athens and Sparta. The defeat of Athens by Sparta resulted in Spartan hegemony in the early 4th century BC.


title: History of Sparta

text: Sparta's close relationship with Cyrus the Younger continued when she gave covert support to his attempt to seize the Persian throne. After Cyrus was killed at the Battle of Cunaxa, Sparta briefly attempted to be conciliatory towards Artaxerxes, the Persian king. In late 401 BC, however, Sparta decided to answer an appeal of several Ionian cities and sent an expedition to Anatolia. Though the war was fought under the banner of Greek liberty, the Spartan defeat at the Battle of Cnidus in 394 BC was widely welcomed by the Greek cities of the region. Though Persian rule meant to the cities of mainland Asia, the payment of tribute, this seems to have been considered a lesser evil than Spartan rule.


title: History of Sparta

text: At the end of 397 BC, Persia had sent a Rhodian agent with gifts to opponents of Sparta on the mainland of Greece. However, these inducements served mainly as encouragement to those who were already resentful of Sparta. In the event, it was Sparta who made the first aggressive move using, as a pretext, Boeotia's support for her ally Locris against Sparta's ally Phocis. An army under Lysander and Pausanias was despatched. As Pausanias was somewhat lukewarm to the whole enterprise, Lysander went on ahead. Having detached Orchomenos from the Boeotian League, Lysander was killed at the Battle of Haliartus. When Pausanias arrived rather than avenge the defeat he simply sought a truce to bury the bodies. For this Pausanias was prosecuted, this time successfully and went into exile.


title: History of Sparta

text: At the Battle of Coronea, Agesilaus I, the new king of Sparta, had slightly the better of the Boeotians and at Corinth, the Spartans maintained their position, yet they felt it necessary to rid themselves of Persian hostility and if possible use Persian power to strengthen their own position at home: they therefore concluded with Artaxerxes II the humiliating Peace of Antalcidas in 387 BC, by which they surrendered to the Great King of Persia the Greek cities of the Asia Minor coast and of Cyprus, and stipulated for the autonomy of all other Greek cities. Finally, Sparta and Persia were given the right to make war on those who did not respect the terms of the treaty. It was to be a very one sided interpretation of autonomy that Sparta enforced. The Boeotian League was broken up on the one hand while the Spartan dominated Peloponnesian League was excepted. Further, Sparta did not consider that autonomy included the right of a city to choose democracy over Sparta's preferred form of government. In 383 BC an appeal from two cities of Chalkidike and of the King of Macedon gave Sparta a pretext to break up the Chalkidian League headed by Olynthus. After several years of fighting Olynthus was defeated and the cities of the Chalkidike were enrolled into the Peloponnesian League. In hindsight the real beneficiary of this conflict was Philip II of Macedon.


title: History of Sparta

text: During the Corinthian War Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, whose lands in Anatolia had been invaded by Sparta and which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia. Sparta achieved a series of land victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the battle of Cnidus by a Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens. The event severely damaged Sparta's naval power but did not end its aspirations of invading further into Persia, until Conon the Athenian ravaged the Spartan coastline and provoked the old Spartan fear of a helot revolt.


title: History of Sparta

text: After a few more years of fighting in 387 BC, the Peace of Antalcidas was established, according to which all Greek cities of Ionia would return to Persian control, and Persia's Asian border would be free of the Spartan threat. The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system.


title: History of Sparta

text: In 382 BC, Phoebidas, while leading a Spartan army north against Olynthus made a detour to Thebes and seized the Kadmeia, the citadel of Thebes. The leader of the anti-Spartan faction was executed after a show trial, and a narrow clique of pro-Spartan partisans was placed in power in Thebes, and other Boeotian cities. It was a flagrant breach of the Peace of Antalcidas. It was the seizure of the Kadmeia that led to Theban rebellion and hence to the outbreak of the Boeotian War. Sparta started this war with the strategic initiative, however, Sparta failed to achieve its aims. Early on, a botched attack on Piraeus by the Spartan commander Sphodrias undermined Sparta's position by driving Athens into the arms of Thebes. Sparta then met defeat at sea (the Battle of Naxos) and on land (the Battle of Tegyra) and failed to prevent the re-establishment of the Boeotian League and creation of the Second Athenian League.


title: History of Sparta

text: In 371 BC, a fresh peace congress was summoned at Sparta to ratify the Peace of Callias. Again the Thebans refused to renounce their Boeotian hegemony, and the Spartan's sent a force under King Cleombrotus in an attempt to enforce Theban acceptance. When the Thebans gave battle at Leuctra, it was more out of brave despair than hope. However, it was Sparta that was defeated and this, along with the death of King Cleombrotus dealt a crushing blow to Spartan military prestige. The result of the battle was to transfer supremacy from Sparta to Thebes.


title: History of Sparta

text: As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta now increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was commented on by Aristotle, who viewed it as a sudden event. While some researchers view it as a result of war casualties, it appears that the number of citizens, after a certain point, started declining steadily at a rate of 50% reduction every fifty years regardless of the extent of battles. Most likely, this was the result of steady shifting of wealth among the citizen body, which was simply not as obvious until laws were passed allowing the citizens to give away their land plots.


title: History of Sparta

text: Sparta never fully recovered from the losses that it suffered at Leuctra in 371 BC and the subsequent helot revolts. Nonetheless, it was able to continue as a regional power for over two centuries. Neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to conquer Sparta itself.


title: History of Sparta

text: By the winter of late 370 BC, King Agesilaus took the field, not against Thebes, but in an attempt to preserve at least a toehold of influence for Sparta in Arkadia. This backfired when, in response, the Arkadians sent an appeal for help to Boeotia. Boeotia responded by sending a large army, led by Epaminondas, which first marched on Sparta itself and then moved to Messenia where the helots had already rebelled. Epaminondas made that rebellion permanent by fortifying the city of Messene.


title: History of Sparta

text: The final showdown was in 362 BC, by which time several of Boetia's former allies, such as Mantinea and Elis, had joined Sparta. Athens also fought with Sparta. The resulting Battle of Mantinea was won by Boetia and her allies but in the moment of victory, Epaminondas was killed. In the aftermath of the battle both Sparta's enemies and her allies swore a common peace. Only Sparta itself refused because it would not accept the independence of Messenia.


title: History of Sparta

text: Sparta had neither the men nor the money to recover her lost position, and the continued existence on her borders of an independent Messenia and Arcadia kept her in constant fear for her own safety. She did, indeed, join with Athens and Achaea in 353 BC to prevent Philip II of Macedon passing Thermopylae and entering Phocis, but beyond this, she took no part in the struggle of Greece with the new power which had sprung up on her northern borders. The final showdown saw Philip fighting Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea. Sparta was pinned down at home by Macedonian allies such as Messene and Argos and took no part.


title: History of Sparta

text: After the Battle of Chaeronea, Philip II of Macedon entered the Peloponnese. Sparta alone refused to join Philip's "Corinthian League" but Philip engineered the transfer of certain border districts to the neighbouring states of Argos, Arcadia and Messenia.


title: History of Sparta

text: During Alexander's campaigns in the east, the Spartan king, Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BC with the aim of securing the island for Sparta. Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BC. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle. More than 5,300 of the Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops. Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin. Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused to join.


title: History of Sparta

text: The memory of this defeat was still fresh in Spartan minds when the general revolt against Macedonian rule known as the Lamian War broke out – hence Sparta stayed neutral.


title: History of Sparta

text: Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claims on being the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply , "if" (he did).


title: History of Sparta

text: When Philip created the league of the Greeks on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join—they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition if it was not under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon the conquest of Persia, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription ""Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia [emphasis added]"".


title: History of Sparta

text: During Demetrius Poliorcetes’ campaign to conquer the Peloponnese in 294 BC, the Spartans led by Archidamus IV attempted to resist but were defeated in two battles. Had Demetrius not decided to turn his attention to Macedonia the city would have fallen. In 293 BC, a Spartan force, under Cleonymus, inspired Boeotia to defy Demetrius but Cleonymus soon departed leaving Thebes in the lurch. In 280 BC, a Spartan army, led by King Areus, again marched north, this time under the pretext of saving some sacred land near Delphi from the Aetolians. They somewhat pulled the moral high ground from under themselves, by looting the area. It was at this point that the Aetolians caught them and defeated them.


title: History of Sparta

text: In 272 BC, Cleonymus of Sparta (who had been displaced as King by Areus), persuaded Pyrrhus to invade the Peloponnese. Pyrrhus laid siege to Sparta confident that he could take the city with ease, however, the Spartans, with even the women taking part in the defence, succeeded in beating off Pyrrhus' attacks. At this point Pyrrhus received an appeal from an opposition Argive faction, for backing against the pro-Gonatas ruler of Argos, and he withdrew from Sparta. In 264 BC, Sparta formed an alliance with Athens and Ptolomeic Egypt (along with a number smaller Greek cities) in an attempt to break free of Macedon. During the resulting Chremonidean War the Spartan King Areus led two expeditions to the Isthmus where Corinth was garrisoned by Macedonia, he was killed in the second. When the Achaean League was expecting an attack from Aetolia, Sparta sent an army under Agis to help defend the Isthmus, but the Spartans were sent home when it seemed that no attack would materialize. In about 244 BC, an Aetolian army raided Laconia, carrying off, (it was said) 50,000 captives, although that is likely to be an exaggeration. Grainger has suggested that this raid was part of Aetolia's project to build a coalition of Peloponnesian cities. Though Aetolia was primarily concerned with confining Achaea, because the cities concerned were hostile to Sparta, Aetolia needed to demonstrate her anti-Spartan credentials.


title: History of Sparta

text: During the 3rd century BC, a social crisis slowly emerged: wealth had become concentrated amongst about 100 families and the number of equals (who had always formed the backbone of the Spartan army) had fallen to 700 (less than a tenth of its 9000 strong highpoint in the 7th century BC). Agis IV was the first Spartan king to attempt reform. His program combined debt cancellation and land reform. Opposition from King Leonidas was removed when he was deposed on somewhat dubious grounds. However, his opponents exploited a period when Agis IV was absent from Sparta and, on his return he was subjected to a travesty of a trial.


title: History of Sparta

text: The next attempt at reform came from Cleomenes III, the son of King Leonidas. In 229 BC, Cleomenes led an attack on Megalopolis, hence provoking war with Achaea. Aratus, who led the Achaean League forces, adopted a very cautious strategy, despite having 20,000 to Cleomenes 5000 men. Cleomenes was faced with obstruction from the Ephors which probably reflected a general lack of enthusiasm amongst the citizens of Sparta. Nonetheless he succeeded in defeating Aratus. With this success behind him he left the citizen troops in the field and with the mercenaries, marched on Sparta to stage a coup d'état. The ephorate was abolished – indeed four out of five of them had been killed during Cleomenes' seizure of power. Land was redistributed enabling a widening of the citizen body. Debts were cancelled. Cleomenes gave to Sphaerus, his stoic advisor, the task of restoring the old severe training and simple life. Historian Peter Green comments that giving such a responsibility to a non-Spartan was a telling indication of the extent that Sparta had lost her Lycurgian traditions. These reforms excited hostility amongst the wealthy of the Peloponnese who feared social revolution. For others, especially among the poor, Cleomenes inspired hope. This hope was quickly dashed when Cleomenes started taking cities and it became obvious that social reform outside Sparta was the last thing on his mind.


title: History of Sparta

text: Cleomenes' reforms had as their aim, the restoration of Spartan power. Initially Cleomenes was successful, taking cities that had until then been part of the Achaean League and winning the financial backing of Egypt. However Aratus, the leader of the Achaean League, decided to ally with Achaea's enemy, Macedonia. With Egypt deciding to cut financial aid Cleomenes decided to risk all on one battle. In the resulting Battle of Sellasia in 222 BC, Cleomenes was defeated by the Achaeans and Macedonia. Antigonus III Doson, the king of Macedon ceremonially entered Sparta with his army, something Sparta had never endured before. The ephors were restored, whilst the kingship was suspended.


title: History of Sparta

text: At the beginning of the Social War in 220 BC, envoys from Achaea unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Sparta to take the field against Aetolia. Aetolian envoys were at first equally unsuccessful but their presence was used as a pretext by Spartan royalists who staged a coup d'état that restored the dual kingship. Sparta then immediately entered the war on the side of Aetolia.


title: History of Sparta

text: The sources on Nabis, who took power in 207 BC, are so uniformly hostile that it is impossible today to judge the truth of


title: History of Sparta

text: the accusation against him – that his reforms were undertaken only to serve Nabis' interests. Certainly his reforms went far deeper than those of Cleomenes who had liberated 6000 helots merely as an emergency


title: History of Sparta

text: The historian W.G. Forest is willing to take these accusations at face value including that he murdered his ward, and participated


title: History of Sparta

text: in state sponsored piracy and brigandage – but not the self-interested motives ascribed to him. He sees him as a ruthless version


title: History of Sparta

text: of Cleomenes, sincerely attempting to solve Sparta's social crisis. He initiated the building of Sparta's first walls which extended to some 6 miles.


title: History of Sparta

text: It was this point that Achaea switched her alliance with Macedon to support Rome. As Achaea was Sparta's main rival, Nabis leaned towards Macedonia. It was getting increasingly difficult for Macedonia to hold Argos, so Philip V of Macedon decided to give Argos to Sparta which increased tension with the Achaean League. Nonetheless, he was careful not to violate the letter of his alliance with Rome. After the conclusion of the wars with Philip V, Sparta's control of Argos contradicted the official Roman policy of freedom to the Greeks and Titus Quinctius Flamininus organized a large army with which he invaded Laconia and laid siege to Sparta.


title: History of Sparta

text: Nabis was forced to capitulate, evacuating all his possessions outside Laconia, surrendering the Laconian seaports and his navy,


title: History of Sparta

text: Though the territory under his control now consisted only of the city of Sparta and its immediate environs, Nabis still hoped to regain his former power. In 192 BC, seeing that the Romans and their Achaean allies were distracted by the imminent war with King Antiochus III of Syria and the Aetolian League, Nabis attempted to recapture the harbor city of Gythium and the Laconian coastline. Initially, he was successful, capturing Gythium and defeating the Achaean League in a minor naval battle. Soon after, however, his army was routed by the Achaean general Philopoemen and shut up within the walls of Sparta. After ravaging the surrounding countryside, Philopoemen returned home.


title: History of Sparta

text: Within a few months, Nabis appealed to the Aetolian League to send troops so that he might protect his territory against the Romans and the Achaean League. The Aetolians responded by sending an army to Sparta. Once there, however, the Aetolians betrayed Nabis, assassinating him while he was drilling his army outside the city. The Aetolians then attempted to take control of the city, but were prevented from doing so by an uprising of the citizens. The Achaeans, seeking to take advantage of the ensuing chaos, dispatched Philopoemen to Sparta with a large army. Once there, he compelled the Spartans to join the Achaean League ending their independence.


title: History of Sparta

text: Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BC when the Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general


title: History of Sparta

text: Roman sense, some of the institutions of Lycurgus were restored and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs. The former Perioecic communities were not restored to Sparta and some of them were organized as the "League of Free Laconians".


title: History of Sparta

text: After 146 BC, sources for Spartan history are somewhat fragmentary. Pliny describes its freedom as being empty, though Chrimes argues that whilst this may be true in the area of external relations, Sparta retained a high level of autonomy in internal matters.


title: History of Sparta

text: A passage in Suetonius reveals that the Spartans were clients of the powerful patrician clan of the Claudii. Octavians's wife Livia was a member of the Claudii which might explain why Sparta was one of the few Greek cities that backed Octavian first in the war against Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC then in the war against Mark Antony in 30 BC.


title: History of Sparta

text: During the late 1st century BC and much of the 1st century AD Sparta was dominated by the powerful family of the Euryclids which acted something like a ""client-dynasty"" for the Romans. After the fall of the Euryclids from grace during the reign of Nero the city was ruled by republican institutions and civic life seems to have flourished. During the 2nd century AD a 12 kilometers long aqueduct was built.


title: History of Sparta

text: The Romans fielded Spartan auxiliary troops in their wars against the Parthians under the emperors Lucius Verus and Caracalla. It is likely that the Romans wished to use the legend of Spartan prowess. After an economic decline in the 3rd century, urban prosperity returned in the 4th century and Sparta even became a minor center of high studies as attested in some of the letters of Libanius.


title: History of Sparta

text: In 396 AD, Alaric sacked Sparta and, though it was rebuilt, the revived city was much smaller than before. The city was finally abandoned during this period when many of the population centers of the Peloponnese were raided by an Avaro-Slav army. Some settlement by Proto-Slavic tribes occurred around this time. The scale of the Slavic incursions and settlement in the later 6th and especially in the 7th century remain a matter of dispute. The Slavs occupied most of the Peloponnese, as evidenced by Slavic toponyms, with the exception of the eastern coast, which remained in Byzantine hands. The latter was included in the "thema" of Hellas, established by Justinian II ca. 690.


title: History of Sparta

text: Under Nikephoros I, following a Slavic revolt and attack on Patras, a determined Hellenization process was carried out. According to the (not always reliable) "Chronicle of Monemvasia", in 805 the Byzantine governor of Corinth went to war with the Slavs, exterminated them, and allowed the original inhabitants to claim their own lands. They regained control of the city of Patras and the peninsula was re-settled with Greeks. Many Slavs were transported to Asia Minor, and many Asian, Sicilian and Calabrian Greeks were resettled in the Peloponnese. The entire peninsula was formed into the new "thema" of Peloponnesos, with its capital at Corinth. There was also continuity of the Peloponnesian Greek population. With re-Hellenization, the Slavs likely became a minority among the Greeks, although the historian J.V.A. Fine considers it is unlikely that a large number of people could have easily been transplanted into Greece in the 9th century; this suggests that many Greeks had remained in the territory and continued to speak Greek throughout the period of Slavic occupation. By the end of the 9th century, the Peloponnese was culturally and administratively Greek again, with the exception of a few small Slavic tribes in the mountains such as the Melingoi and Ezeritai.


title: History of Sparta

text: According to Byzantine sources, the Mani Peninsula in southern Laconian remained pagan until well into the 10th century. In his "De administrando imperio", Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos also claims that the Maniots retained autonomy during the Slavic invasion, and that they descend from the ancient Greeks. Doric-speaking populations survive today in Tsakonia. During its Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to the nearby settlement of Mystras.


title: History of Sparta

text: On their arrival in the Morea, the Frankish Crusaders found a fortified city named Lacedaemonia (Sparta) occupying part of the site of ancient Sparta, and this continued to exist, though greatly depopulated, even after the Prince of Achaea William II Villehardouin had in 1249 founded the fortress and city of Mystras, on a spur of Taygetus (some 3 miles northwest of Sparta).


title: History of Sparta

text: This passed shortly afterwards into the hands of the Byzantines and became the centre of the Despotate of the Morea, until the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II captured it in 1460. In 1687 it came into the possession of the Venetians, from whom it was wrested again in 1715 by the Turks. Thus for nearly six centuries it was Mystras and not Sparta which formed the center and focus of Laconian history.


title: History of Sparta

text: In 1777, following the Orlov events, some inhabitants of Sparta bearing the name "Karagiannakos" () migrated to Koldere, near Magnesia (ad Sipylum).


title: History of Sparta

text: The Mani Peninsula region of Laconia retained some measure of autonomy during the Ottoman period, and played a significant role in the Greek War of Independence.


title: History of Sparta

text: Until modern times, the site of ancient Sparta was occupied by a small town of a few thousand people who lived amongst the ruins, in the shadow of Mystras, a more important medieval Greek settlement nearby. The Palaiologos family (the last Byzantine Greek imperial dynasty) also lived in Mystras. In 1834, after the Greek War of Independence, King Otto of Greece decreed that the town was to be expanded into a city.


title: Fizz buzz

text: Fizz buzz is a group word game for children to teach them about division. Players take turns to count incrementally, replacing any number divisible by three with the word "fizz", and any number divisible by five with the word "buzz".


title: Fizz buzz

text: Players generally sit in a circle. The player designated to go first says the number "1", and the players then count upwards in turn. However, any number divisible by three is replaced by the word "fizz" and any number divisible by five by the word "buzz". Numbers divisible by both three and five (i.e. divisible by 15) become "fizz buzz". A player who hesitates or makes a mistake is eliminated.


title: Fizz buzz

text: In some versions of the game, other divisibility rules such as 7 can be used instead. Another rule that may be used to complicate the game is where numbers containing a digit also trigger the corresponding rule (for instance, 52 would use the same rule for a number divisible by 5).


title: Fizz buzz

text: Fizz buzz (often spelled FizzBuzz in this context) has been used as an interview screening device for computer programmers. Writing a program to output the first 100 FizzBuzz numbers is a relatively trivial problem requiring little more than a loop and conditional statements. However, its value in coding interviews is to analyze fundamental coding habits that may be indicative of overall coding ingenuity.


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: The retroperitoneal space (retroperitoneum) is the anatomical space (sometimes a potential space) behind ("retro") the peritoneum. It has no specific delineating anatomical structures. Organs are retroperitoneal if they have peritoneum on their anterior side only. Structures that are not suspended by mesentery in the abdominal cavity and that lie between the parietal peritoneum and abdominal wall are classified as retroperitoneal.


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: This is different from organs that are not retroperitoneal, which have peritoneum on their posterior side and are suspended by mesentery in the abdominal cavity.


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: Structures that lie behind the peritoneum are termed "retroperitoneal". Organs that were once suspended within the abdominal cavity by mesentery but migrated posterior to the peritoneum during the course of embryogenesis to become retroperitoneal are considered to be secondarily retroperitoneal organs.


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: It is also called the perinephric space. Bounded by the anterior and posterior leaves of the renal fascia. It contains the following structures:


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: Bounded by the posterior layer of peritoneum and the anterior leaf of the renal fascia. It contains the following structures:


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: Bounded by the posterior leaf of the renal fascia and the muscles of the posterior abdominal wall. It contains only fat ("pararenal fat"), and is also called the "paranephric body", or "pararenal fat body".


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: Bleeding from a blood vessel or structure in the retroperitoneal such as the aorta or inferior vena cava into the retroperitoneal space can lead to a retroperitoneal hemorrhage.


title: Retroperitoneal space

text: It is also possible to have a neoplasm in this area, more commonly a metastasis; or very rarely a primary neoplasm. The most common type is a sarcoma followed by lymphoma, extragonadal germ cell tumor, and Gastrointestinal stromal tumor/GIST. Examples of tumors include


title: Kellita Smith

text: Kellita Smith (born January 15, 1969) is an American actress, model and comedian. She is best known for her role as Wanda McCullough, Bernie Mac's wife on the FOX sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show".


title: Kellita Smith

text: Born in Chicago, Illinois, She was raised in Oakland, California. Smith studied at Santa Rosa Junior College, receiving her associate degree in political science.


title: Kellita Smith

text: In early years, Smith worked as a model. She began her acting career on stage in a regional production of "Tell It Like It Tiz". Other theatrical credits include the Los Angeles productions of "No Place to be Somebody" at the K.C. Theatre Company, "Feelings" (The Hudson Theatre) for which she won an NAACP Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1996, "The Thirteenth Thorn" (Complex Theatre) for which she was nominated for an NAACP Theatre Award for Best Actress, and "One Woman Two Lives", which premiered at The Imagined Life Theater in July 2009.


title: Kellita Smith

text: On television, Smith made her debut in an episode of "In Living Color" and later guest-starred on "Living Single", "Moesha", "3rd Rock from the Sun", "The Parkers" and "NYPD Blue". She had recurring roles in "Martin", "Sister, Sister", and "Malcolm & Eddie" before co-starring on "The Jamie Foxx Show" from 1997 to 1999. In 2001 she was cast opposite Bernie Mac in the Fox sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show". The series aired on Fox for five seasons from 2001 to 2006. She was nominated four times for a NAACP Image Award for her role as Wanda McCullough on "The Bernie Mac Show". In film, Smith co-starred alongside Mo'Nique in "Hair Show" (2004), and later appeared in "Fair Game", "King's Ransom", "Roll Bounce" and "Three Can Play That Game".


title: Kellita Smith

text: In 2012, Smith returned to television with the role of First Lady Katherine Johnson in the syndicated sitcom, "The First Family". In 2014, Smith was cast as Roberta Warren in the Syfy post-apocalyptic series, "Z Nation". In this role, she also appeared on "" in 2015. In the Cut is an American sitcom created by Bentley Kyle Evans that debuted on Bounce TV on August 25, 2015.[1] Seth Kelley. "Bounce TV Orders Original Comedy Series 'In The Cut'". Variety. Retrieved January 28, 2016. Kellita Smith as Cheryl (season 2–present), the new owner of the beauty salon Cheryl's, and Jay's wife. On March 19, 2020, it was announced that the sixth season would premiere on April 1, 2020.[8] ""In the Cut" Returns for New Season Starting April 1st on Bounce". The Futon Critic. March 19, 2020.


title: Kellita Smith

text: She is also described as B. Rosenberger Rosenberg's African American girlfriend in Charlie Kaufman's novel Antkind.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that results in directional motion. Humans can hold their breath underwater and undertake rudimentary locomotive swimming within weeks of birth, as a survival response.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is consistently among the top public recreational activities, and in some countries, swimming lessons are a compulsory part of the educational curriculum. As a formalized sport, swimming is featured in a range of local, national, and international competitions, including every modern Summer Olympics.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming involves repeated motions known as strokes in order to propel the body forward. While the front crawl, also known as freestyle, is widely regarded as the fastest out of four primary strokes, other strokes are practiced for special purposes, such as for training.


title: Swimming

text: There are various risks present during swimming, mainly due to it taking place in water. Swimmers are at risk of incapacitation due to panic and exhaustion, which may cause death due to drowning. Other dangers include getting an infection or contact with hostile aquatic fauna. To minimize these risks, most facilities employ a lifeguard to look for signs of distress.


title: Swimming

text: Swimmers often wear specialized swimwear, although depending on the culture of the area, some swimmers may also swim nude or wear their day attire. In addition to this, a variety of equipment can be used to enhance the swimming experience or performance, including but not limited to the use of swimming goggles, floatation devices, swim fins, and snorkels.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming relies on the nearly neutral buoyancy of the human body. On average, the body has a relative density of 0.98 compared to water, which causes the body to float. However, buoyancy varies on the basis of body composition, lung inflation, muscle and fat content, centre of gravity and the salinity of the water. Higher levels of body fat and saltier water both lower the relative density of the body and increase its buoyancy. Human males tend to have a lower centre of gravity and higher muscle content, therefore find it more difficult to float or be buoyant. See also: "Hydrostatic weighing."


title: Swimming

text: Since the human body is less dense than water, water is able to support the weight of the body during swimming. As a result, swimming is “low-impact” compared to land activities such as running. The density and viscosity of water also create resistance for objects moving through the water. Swimming strokes use this resistance to create propulsion, but this same resistance also generates drag on the body.


title: Swimming

text: Hydrodynamics is important to stroke technique for swimming faster, and swimmers who want to swim faster or exhaust less try to reduce the drag of the body's motion through the water. To be more hydrodynamically effective, swimmers can either increase the power of their strokes or reduce water resistance, though power must increase by a factor of three to achieve the same effect as reducing resistance. Efficient swimming by reducing water resistance involves a horizontal water position, rolling the body to reduce the breadth of the body in the water, and extending the arms as far as possible to reduce wave resistance.


title: Swimming

text: Just before plunging into the pool, swimmers may perform exercises such as squatting. Squatting helps in enhancing a swimmer's start by warming up the thigh muscles.


title: Swimming

text: Human babies demonstrate an innate swimming or diving reflex from newborn until the age of approximately 6 months. Other mammals also demonstrate this phenomenon (see mammalian diving reflex). The diving response involves apnea, reflex bradycardia, and peripheral vasoconstriction; in other words, babies immersed in water spontaneously hold their breath, slow their heart rate, and reduce blood circulation to the extremities (fingers and toes).


title: Swimming

text: Because infants are innately able to swim, classes for babies of about 6 months old are offered in many locations. This helps build muscle memory and makes strong swimmers from a young age.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming can be undertaken using a wide range of styles, known as 'strokes,' and these strokes are used for different purposes, or to distinguish between classes in competitive swimming. It is not necessary to use a defined stroke for propulsion through the water, and untrained swimmers may use a 'doggy paddle' of arm and leg movements, similar to the way four-legged animals swim.


title: Swimming

text: There are four main strokes used in competition and recreation swimming: the front crawl, also known as freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using the breaststroke. In 1873, John Arthur Trudgen introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions. Butterfly was developed in the 1930s, and was considered a variant of the breaststroke until accepted as a separate style in 1953. Butterfly is considered the hardest stroke by many people, but it is the most effective for all-around toning and the building of muscles. It also burns the most calories and can be the second fastest stroke if practiced regularly.


title: Swimming

text: In non-competitive swimming, there are some swimming strokes including sidestroke. The sidestroke toward the end of the 19th century, this pattern was changed by raising one arm above the water first, then the other, and then each in turn. It is still used in lifesaving and recreational swimming.


title: Swimming

text: Other strokes exist for particular reasons such as training, school lessons, and rescue, and it is often possible to change strokes to avoid using parts of the body, either to separate specific body parts, such as swimming with only arms or legs to exercise them harder, or for amputees or those affected by paralysis.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming has been recorded since prehistoric times, and the earliest records of swimming date back to Stone Age paintings from around 7,000 years ago. Written references date from 2000 BC. Some of the earliest references include the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible (Ezekiel 47:5, Acts 27:42, Isaiah 25:11), Beowulf, and other sagas.


title: Swimming

text: The coastal tribes living in the volatile Low Countries were known as excellent swimmers by the Romans. Men and horses of the Batavi tribe could cross the Rhine without losing formation, according to Tacitus. Dio Cassius describes one surprise tactic employed by Aulus Plautius against the Celts at the Battle of the Medway:


title: Swimming

text: The [British Celts] thought that Romans would not be able to cross it without a bridge, and consequently bivouacked in rather careless fashion on the opposite bank; but he sent across a detachment of [Batavii], who were accustomed to swim easily in full armour across the most turbulent streams. . . . Thence the Britons retired to the river Thames at a point near where it empties into the ocean and at flood-tide forms a lake. This they easily crossed because they knew where the firm ground and the easy passages in this region were to be found, but the Romans in attempting to follow them were not so successful. However, the [Batavii] swam across again and some others got over by a bridge a little way up-stream, after which they assailed the barbarians from several sides at once and cut down many of them."


title: Swimming

text: In 1538, Nikolaus Wynmann, a Swiss–German professor of languages, wrote the earliest known complete book about swimming, "Colymbetes, sive de arte natandi dialogus et festivus et iucundus lectu" ("The Swimmer, or A Dialogue on the Art of Swimming and Joyful and Pleasant to Read").


title: Swimming

text: There are many reasons why people swim, from swimming as a recreational pursuit to swimming as a necessary part of a job or other activity. Swimming may also be used to rehabilitate injuries, especially various cardiovascular and muscle injuries. People may also pursue swimming as a career or field of interest. Some may be gifted and choose to compete professionally and go onto claim fame.


title: Swimming

text: Many swimmers swim for recreation, with swimming consistently ranking as one of the physical activities people are most likely to take part in. Recreational swimming can also be used for exercise, relaxation or rehabilitation. The support of the water, and the reduction in impact, makes swimming accessible for people who are unable to undertake activities such as running. Swimming is one of the most relaxing activities, water is known to calm us and can help reduce stress.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is primarily a cardiovascular/aerobic exercise due to the long exercise time, requiring a constant oxygen supply to the muscles, except for short sprints where the muscles work anaerobically. Furthermore, swimming can help tone and strengthen muscles. Swimming allows sufferers of arthritis to exercise affected joints without worsening their symptoms. However, swimmers with arthritis may wish to avoid swimming breaststroke, as improper technique can exacerbate arthritic knee pain. As with most aerobic exercise, swimming reduces the harmful effects of stress. Swimming is also effective in improving health for people with cardiovascular problems and chronic illnesses. It is proven to positively impact the mental health of pregnant women and mothers. Swimming can even improve mood. Although many forms of physical activity have been shown to improve bone density and health, this is where swimming has its downfalls. Due to the low-impact nature of the sport, studies have demonstrated that bone mass acquisition will be negatively impacted, which could be an issue for adolescent athletes in particular. Regular swimming activities contribute to the restoration of health, and in many cases, complete recovery. Activity in water is the basis for a good work of the heart muscle, the endocrine system of the body, stable blood pressure, full blood circulation in the vessels, which is not only the prevention of a lot of problems but also a powerful healing effect without any side effects.


title: Swimming

text: Since 2010, the Americans with Disabilities Act has required that swimming pools in the United States be accessible to disabled swimmers.


title: Swimming

text: "Water-based exercise can benefit older adults by improving quality of life and decreasing disability. It also improves or maintains the bone health of post-menopausal women."


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is an ideal workout for the elderly, as it is a low-impact sport with very little risk of injury. Exercise in the water works out all muscle groups, helping with conditions such as muscular dystrophy which is common in seniors. It is also a common way to relieve pain from arthritis.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming as a sport predominantly involves participants competing to be the fastest over a given distance in a certain period of time. Competitors swim different distances in different levels of competition. For example, swimming has been an Olympic sport since 1896, and the current program includes events from 50 m to 1500 m in length, across all four main strokes and medley. During the season competitive swimmers typically train several times a week, this is in order to preserve fitness as well as promoting overload in training. Furthermore when the cycle of work is completed swimmers go through a stage called taper where intensity is reduced in preparation for racing, during taper power and feel in the water are concentrated.


title: Swimming

text: The sport is governed internationally by the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA), and competition pools for FINA events are 25 or 50 meters in length. In the United States, a pool 25 yards in length is commonly used for competition.


title: Swimming

text: Other swimming and water-related sporting disciplines include open water swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo, triathlon, and the modern pentathlon.


title: Swimming

text: As a popular leisure activity done all over the world, one of the primary risks of swimming is drowning. Drowning may occur from a variety of factors, from swimming fatigue to simply inexperience in the water. From 2005 to 2014, an average of 3,536 fatal unintentional drownings occurred in the United States, approximating 10 deaths a day.


title: Swimming

text: To minimize the risk and prevent potential drownings from occurring, lifeguards are often employed to supervise swimming locations such as pools, waterparks, lakes and beaches. Different lifeguards receive different training depending on the sites that they are employed at; i.e. a waterfront lifeguard receives more rigorous training than a poolside lifeguard. Well-known aquatic training services include the National Lifesaving Society and the Canadian Red Cross, which specialize in training lifeguards in North America.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is used to rescue people in the water who are in distress, including exhausted swimmers, non-swimmers who have accidentally entered the water, and others who have come to harm on the water. Lifeguards or volunteer lifesavers are deployed at many pools and beaches worldwide to fulfil this purpose, and they, as well as rescue swimmers, may use specific swimming styles for rescue purposes.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is also used in marine biology to observe plants and animals in their natural habitat. Other sciences use swimming; for example, Konrad Lorenz swam with geese as part of his studies of animal behavior.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming also has military purposes. Military swimming is usually done by special operation forces, such as Navy SEALs and US Army Special Forces. Swimming is used to approach a location, gather intelligence, engage in sabotage or combat, and subsequently depart. This may also include airborne insertion into water or exiting a submarine while it is submerged. Due to regular exposure to large bodies of water, all recruits in the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard are required to complete basic swimming or water survival training.


title: Swimming

text: Swimming is also a professional sport. Companies sponsor swimmers who have the skills to compete at the international level. Many swimmers compete competitively to represent their home countries in the Olympics. Professional swimmers may also earn a living as entertainers, performing in water ballets.


title: Swimming

text: Locomotion by swimming over brief distances is frequent when alternatives are precluded. There have been cases of political refugees swimming in the Baltic Sea and of people jumping in the water and swimming ashore from vessels not intended to reach land where they planned to go.


title: Swimming

text: There are many risks associated with voluntary or involuntary human presence in water, which may result in death directly or through drowning asphyxiation. Swimming is both the goal of much voluntary presence and the prime means of regaining land in accidental situations.


title: Swimming

text: Around any pool area, safety equipment is often important, and is a zoning requirement for most residential pools in the United States. Supervision by personnel trained in rescue techniques is required at most competitive swimming meets and public pools.


title: Swimming

text: In Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia and Finland, the curriculum for the fifth grade (fourth grade in Estonia) states that all children should learn how to swim as well as how to handle emergencies near water. Most commonly, children are expected to be able to swim —of which at least on their back – after first falling into deep water and getting their head under water. Even though about 95 percent of Swedish school children know how to swim, drowning remains the third most common cause of death among children.


title: Swimming

text: In both the Netherlands and Belgium swimming lessons under school time ("schoolzwemmen", school swimming) are supported by the government. Most schools provide swimming lessons. There is a long tradition of swimming lessons in the Netherlands and Belgium, the Dutch translation for the breaststroke swimming style is even "schoolslag" (schoolstroke). In France, swimming is a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary schools. Children usually spend one semester per year learning swimming during CP/CE1/CE2/CM1 (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade).


title: Swimming

text: In many places, swimming lessons are provided by local swimming pools, both those run by the local authority and by private leisure companies. Many schools also include swimming lessons into their Physical Education curricula, provided either in the schools' own pool or in the nearest public pool.


title: Swimming

text: In the UK, the "Top-ups scheme" calls for school children who cannot swim by the age of 11 to receive intensive daily lessons. Children who have not reached Great Britain's National Curriculum standard of swimming 25 meters by the time they leave primary school receive a half-hour lesson every day for two weeks during term-time.


title: Swimming

text: In the United States there is the Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) initiative that provides lessons for infant children, to cope with an emergency where they have fallen into the water. They are taught how to roll-back-to-float (hold their breath underwater, to roll onto their back, to float unassisted, rest and breathe until help arrives), while clothed and unclothed. In ISR they teach the children how to roll with their clothes on, as a simulation, if they were to actually fall in walking or crawling by.


title: Swimming

text: In Switzerland, swimming lessons for babies are popular, to help them getting used to be in another element. At the competition level, unlike in other countries - such as the Commonwealth countries, swimming teams are not related to educational institutions (high-schools and universities), but rather to cities or regions.


title: Swimming

text: Standard everyday clothing is usually impractical for swimming and is unsafe under some circumstances. Most cultures today expect swimmers to wear swimsuits.


title: Swimming

text: Men's swimsuits commonly resemble shorts, or briefs. Men's casual swimsuits (for example, boardshorts) are rarely skintight, unlike competitive swimwear, like jammers or diveskins. In most cases, boys and men swim with their upper body exposed, except in countries where custom or law prohibits it in a public setting, or for practical reasons such as sun protection.


title: Swimming

text: Modern women's swimsuits are generally skintight, covering the pubic region and the breasts (See bikini). Women's swimwear may also cover the midriff as well. Women's swimwear is often a fashion statement, and whether it is modest or not is a subject of debate by many groups, religious and secular.


title: Swimming

text: Competitive swimwear is built so that the wearer can swim faster and more efficiently. Modern competitive swimwear is skintight and lightweight. There are many kinds of competitive swimwear for each gender. It is used in aquatic competitions, such as water polo, swim racing, diving, and rowing.


title: Swimming

text: Wetsuits provide both thermal insulation and flotation. Many swimmers lack buoyancy in the leg. The wetsuit provides additional volume at a lower density and therefore improves buoyancy and trim while swimming. It provides insulation between the skin and water which reduces heat loss. The wetsuit is the usual choice for those who swim in cold water for long periods of time, as it reduces susceptibility to hypothermia.


title: Swimming

text: Some people also choose to wear no clothing while swimming; this is known as skinny dipping. In some European countries public pools have naturist sessions to allow clothes-free swimming and many countries have naturist beaches where one can swim naked. It is legal to swim naked in the sea at all UK beaches. It was common for males to swim naked in a public setting up to the early 20th century. Today, skinny dipping can be a rebellious activity or merely a casual one.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a part of Amazon.com's cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), that allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications. EC2 encourages scalable deployment of applications by providing a web service through which a user can boot an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to configure a virtual machine, which Amazon calls an "instance", containing any software desired. A user can create, launch, and terminate server-instances as needed, paying by the second for active servershence the term "elastic". EC2 provides users with control over the geographical location of instances that allows for latency optimization and high levels of redundancy. In November 2010, Amazon switched its own retail website platform to EC2 and AWS.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon announced a limited public beta test of EC2 on August 25, 2006, offering access on a first-come, first-served basis.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon added two new instance types (Large and Extra-Large) on October 16, 2007. On May 29, 2008, two more types were added, High-CPU Medium and High-CPU Extra Large. There were twelve types of instances available.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon added three new features on March 27, 2008, static IP addresses, availability zones, and user selectable kernels.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon EC2 went into full production when it dropped the beta label on October 23, 2008. On the same day, Amazon announced the following features:


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon EC2 was developed mostly by a team in Cape Town, South Africa led by Chris Pinkham. Pinkham provided the initial architecture guidance for EC2 and then built the team and led the development of the project along with Willem van Biljon.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Initially, EC2 used Xen virtualization exclusively. However, on November 6, 2017, Amazon announced the new C5 family of instances that were based on a custom architecture around the KVM hypervisor, called Nitro. Each virtual machine, called an "instance", functions as a virtual private server. Amazon sizes instances based on "Elastic Compute Units". The performance of otherwise identical virtual machines may vary. On November 28, 2017, AWS announced a bare-metal instance type offering marking a remarkable departure from exclusively offering virtualized instance types.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: , Amazon charged about $0.0058/hour ($4.176/month) for the smallest "Nano Instance" (t2.nano) virtual machine running Linux or Windows. Storage-optimized instances cost as much as $4.992/hour (i3.16xlarge). "Reserved" instances can go as low as $2.50/month for a three-year prepaid plan. The data transfer charge ranges from free to $0.12 per gigabyte, depending on the direction and monthly volume (inbound data transfer is free on all AWS services).


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon offered a bundle of free resource credits to new account holders. The credits are designed to run a "micro" sized server, storage (EBS), and bandwidth for one year. Unused credits cannot be carried over from one month to the next.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Reserved instances enable EC2 or RDS service users to reserve an instance for one or three years. The corresponding hourly rate charged by Amazon to operate the instance is 35-75% lower than the rate charged for on-demand instances.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Reserved instances can be purchased in three different ways: All Upfront, Partial Upfront and No Upfront. The different purchase options allow for different structuring of payment models.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: In September 2016, AWS announced several enhancements to Reserved instances, introducing a new feature called scope and a new reservation type called a Convertible. In October 2017, AWS announced the allowance to subdivide the instances purchased for more flexibility


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Cloud providers maintain large amounts of excess capacity they have to sell or risk incurring losses.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon EC2 Spot instances are spare compute capacity in the AWS cloud available at up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices. As a trade-off, AWS offers no SLA on these instances and customers take the risk that it can be interrupted with only two minutes of notification when Amazon needs the capacity back. Researchers from the Israeli Institute of Technology found that "they (Spot instances) are typically generated at random from within a tight price interval via a dynamic hidden reserve price". Some companies, like Spotinst, are using machine learning to predict spot interruptions up to 15 minutes in advance.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: In November 2019, Amazon announced Savings Plans. Savings Plans are an alternative to Reserved Instances that come in two different plan types: Compute Savings Plans and EC2 Instances Savings Plans. Compute Savings Plans allow an organisation to commit to EC2 and Fargate usage with the freedom to change region, family, size, availability zone, OS and tenancy inside the lifespan of the commitment. EC2 Instance Savings plans provide the lowest prices but are less flexible meaning a user must commit to individual instance families within a region to take advantage, but with the freedom to change instances within the family in that region. AWS Savings plans are tricky if you don't know how they work. You buy Savings Plans based on hourly commitment. AWS uses the Cost Explorer to automatically calculate how that commitment will look like as a monthly charge on your AWS bill.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: When it launched in August 2006, the EC2 service offered Linux and later Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris and Solaris Express Community Edition. In October 2008, EC2 added the Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 operating systems to the list of available operating systems.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: In March 2011, NetBSD AMIs became available. In November 2012, Windows Server 2012 support was added.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Since 2006, Colin Percival, a FreeBSD developer and Security Officer, solicited Amazon to add FreeBSD. In November 2012, Amazon officially supported running FreeBSD in EC2. The FreeBSD/EC2 platform is maintained by Percival who also developed the secure deduplicating Amazon S3-cloud based backup service Tarsnap.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon has their own Linux distribution based on the Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a low cost offering known as the Amazon Linux AMI. Version 2013.03 included:


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: On November 30, 2020, Amazon announced that it would be adding macOS to the EC2 service. Initial support was announced for macOS Mojave and macOS Catalina running on Mac mini.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: An EC2 instance may be launched with a choice of two types of storage for its boot disk or "root device." The first option is a local "instance-store" disk as a root device (originally the only choice). The second option is to use an EBS volume as a root device. Instance-store volumes are temporary storage, which survive rebooting an EC2 instance, but when the instance is stopped or terminated (e.g., by an API call, or due to a failure), this store is lost.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: The Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides raw block devices that can be attached to Amazon EC2 instances. These block devices can then be used like any raw block device. In a typical use case, this would include formatting the device with a filesystem and mounting it. In addition, EBS supports a number of advanced storage features, including snapshotting and cloning. EBS volumes can be up to 16TB in size. EBS volumes are built on replicated storage, so that the failure of a single component will not cause data loss.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: EBS volumes provide persistent storage independent of the lifetime of the EC2 instance, and act much like hard drives on a real server. More accurately, they appear as block devices to the operating system that are backed by Amazon's disk arrays. The OS is free to use the device however it wants. In the most common case, a file system is loaded and the volume acts as a hard drive. Another possible use is the creation of RAID arrays by combining two or more EBS volumes. RAID allows increases of speed and/or reliability of EBS. Users can set up and manage storage volumes of sizes from 1GB to 16TB. The volumes support snapshots, which can be taken from a GUI tool or the API. EBS volumes can be attached or detached from instances while they are running, and moved from one instance to another.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Simple Storage Service (S3) is a storage system in which data is accessible to EC2 instances, or directly over the network to suitably authenticated callers (all communication is over HTTP). Amazon does not charge for the bandwidth for communications between EC2 instances and S3 storage "in the same region." Accessing S3 data stored in a different region (for example, data stored in Europe from a US East Coast EC2 instance) will be billed at Amazon's normal rates.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: S3-based storage is priced per gigabyte per month. Applications access S3 through an API. For example, Apache Hadoop supports a special s3: filesystem to support reading from and writing to S3 storage during a MapReduce job. There are also S3 filesystems for Linux, which mount a remote S3 filestore on an EC2 image, as if it were local storage. As S3 is not a full POSIX filesystem, things may not behave the same as on a local disk (e.g., no locking support).


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon's elastic IP address feature is similar to static IP address in traditional data centers, with one key difference. A user can programmatically map an elastic IP address to any virtual machine instance without a network administrator's help and without having to wait for DNS to propagate the binding. In this sense an Elastic IP Address belongs to the account and not to a virtual machine instance. It exists until it is explicitly removed, and remains associated with the account even while it is associated with no instance.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon CloudWatch is a web service that provides real-time monitoring to Amazon's EC2 customers on their resource utilization such as CPU, disk, network and replica lag for RDS Database replicas. CloudWatch does not provide any memory, disk space, or load average metrics without running additional software on the instance. Since December 2017 Amazon provides a CloudWatch Agent for Windows and Linux operating systems included disk and previously not available memory information, previously Amazon provided example scripts for Linux instances to collect OS information. The data is aggregated and provided through AWS management console. It can also be accessed through command line tools and Web APIs, if the customer desires to monitor their EC2 resources through their enterprise monitoring software. Amazon provides an API which allows clients to operate on CloudWatch alarms.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: The metrics collected by Amazon CloudWatch enables the auto-scaling feature to dynamically add or remove EC2 instances. The customers are charged by the number of monitoring instances.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Since May 2011, Amazon CloudWatch accepts custom metrics that can be submitted programmatically via Web Services API and then monitored the same way as all other internal metrics, including setting up the alarms for them, and since July 2014 Cloudwatch Logs service is also available.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon's auto-scaling feature of EC2 allows it to automatically adapt computing capacity to site traffic. The schedule-based (e.g. time-of-the-day) and rule-based (e.g. CPU utilization thresholds) auto scaling mechanisms are easy to use and efficient for simple applications. However, one potential problem is that VMs may take up to several minutes to be ready to use, which are not suitable for time critical applications. The VM startup time is dependent on image size, VM type, data center locations, etc. The convenience of using EC2 enables you to dynamically increase capacity in accordance with demand and access resources rapidly.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Generally, Amazon EC2 is priced on a per instance / per hour basis. However, any instance can be rented on a per month basis as well. In such case, Reserved and Spot Instances pricing can be applied, resulting in a significant discount. Instances are priced depending on their "size", namely how much CPU and RAM are included.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon EC2 price varies from $2.5 per month for "nano" instance with 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB RAM on board to "xlarge" type of instances with 32 vCPU and 488 GB RAM billed up to $3997.19 per month.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: The charts above show how Amazon EC2 pricing is compared to similar Cloud Computing services: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Kamatera, and Vultr.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: To make EC2 more fault-tolerant, Amazon engineered "Availability Zones" that are designed to be insulated from failures in other availability zones. Availability zones do not share the same infrastructure. Applications running in more than one availability zone can achieve higher availability.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: EC2 provides users with control over the geographical location of instances that allows for latency optimization and high levels of redundancy. For example, to minimize downtime, a user can set up server instances in multiple zones that are insulated from each other for most causes of failure such that one backs up the other.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Higher-availability database services, like Amazon Relational Database Service run separately from EC2 instances.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: In early July 2008, the anti-spam organizations Outblaze and Spamhaus.org began blocking Amazon's EC2 address pool due to problems with the distribution of spam and malware.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: On December 1, 2010, Amazon pulled its service to WikiLeaks after coming under political pressure in the US. The Internet group Anonymous attempted to attack EC2 in revenge; however, Amazon was not affected by the attack.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Amazon's websites were temporarily offline on December 12, 2010, although it was initially unclear if this was due to attacks or a hardware failure. An Amazon official later stated that it was due to a hardware failure.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Shortly before 5 am ET on April 21, 2011, an outage started at EC2's Northern Virginia data center that brought down several websites, including Foursquare, Springpad, Reddit, Quora, and Hootsuite. Specifically, attempts to use Amazon's elastic-disk and database services hung, failed, or were slow. Service was restored to some parts of the datacenter (three of four "availability zones" in Amazon's terms) by late afternoon Eastern time that day; problems for at least some customers were continuing as of April 25. 0.07% of EBS volumes in one zone have also been lost; EBS failures were a part of normal operation even before this outage and were a risk documented by Amazon, though the number of failures and the number of "simultaneous" failures may find some EC2 users unprepared.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: On Sunday August 6, 2011, Amazon suffered a power outage in one of their Ireland availability zones. Lightning was originally blamed for the outage; however, on August 11, Irish energy supplier ESB Networks dismissed this as a cause, but at time of writing, could not confirm what the cause of the problem was. The power outage raised multiple questions regarding Amazon's EBS infrastructure, which caused several bugs in their software to be exposed. The bugs resulted in some customers' data being deleted when recovering EBS volumes in a mid-write operation during the crash.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: August 8, 2011 saw another network connectivity outage of Amazon's Northern Virginia datacenter, knocking out the likes of Reddit, Quora, Netflix and FourSquare. The outage lasted around 25 minutes.


title: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

text: Another Northern Virginia datacenter outage occurred on October 22, 2012, from approximately 10 am to 4 pm PT. Edmodo, Airbnb, Flipboard, Reddit, and other customers were affected. Anonymous claimed responsibility, but Amazon denied this assertion.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The most widely professed religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina is Islam and a large portion of the Muslims of Bosnia are followers of the Sunni denomination of Islam; the majority of Sunnis follow the Hanafi school of thought, also known as a madhab. Bosniaks are generally associated with Islam, Bosnian Croats with the Roman Catholic Church, and Bosnian Serbs with the Serbian Orthodox Church. The State Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the entity Constitutions of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska provide for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in ethnically integrated areas or in areas where government officials are of the majority religion; the state-level Law on Religious Freedom also provides comprehensive rights to religious communities. However, local authorities sometimes restricted the right to worship of adherents of religious groups in areas where such persons are in the minority. 45% of Herzegovinian and Bosnian Muslims described themselves as Sunni Muslims while 47% described themselves as non-denominational Muslims.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Government protection of religious freedom declined, especially during the campaign period prior to the October 2006 national elections, due to selective legal enforcement and the indifference of some government officials. At the end of the period covered by this report, the Government was implementing the State Law on Religious Freedom to protect the rights of religious communities and create a government registry allowing them to establish legal status.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief and practice persisted. Religious intolerance directly reflected ethnic intolerance because of the virtually indistinguishable identification of ethnicity with religious background. Discrimination against religious minorities occurred in nearly all parts of the country. In some communities local religious leaders and politicians contributed to intolerance and an increase in nationalism through public statements and sermons. A number of illegally constructed religious objects continued to cause ethnic/religious tension and conflict in various communities. Religious symbols were often misused for political purposes.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: In a 2009 Gallup poll, 77% of respondents in Bosnia and Herzegovina answered 'yes' to the question "Is religion an important part of your daily life?", while 21% responded negatively. According to a 2017 Pew Research poll, 31% of Bosnian Muslims, 10% of Orthodox Christians and 54% of Catholic Christians reported attending religious services once a week or more than once a week.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Islam peaked in 1600 (25%) of Bosnians followed it. In Bosnia 30% of Bosnians were Sunni Muslim and around 38%-40% were Christian. Bosniaks are generally associated with Islam, Bosnian Croats with the Roman Catholic Church, and Bosnian Serbs with the Serbian Orthodox Church. According to the most recent census, conducted in 2013 and whose results were published in 2016, Muslims today constitute 50.70% of the population; Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, constitute 45.94%; and other groups, including Protestants, Jews and nonreligious persons, constitute 3.36%, although these figures are often disputed by Bosnia's Serb community. The Jewish community has approximately 1,000 believers and maintains a historic place in society by virtue of centuries of coexistence with other religious communities and its active role in mediating among those communities.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The rate of religious observance is relatively low among the traditional religious groups; however, some areas of significantly greater observance exist, such as among Catholic Croats in the Herzegovina region and among Bosnian Muslims in central Bosnia. For many Bosnian Muslims, religion often serves as a community or ethnic identifier, and religious practice is confined to occasional visits to the mosque or significant rites of passage such as birth, marriage, and death. Nevertheless, religious leaders from the Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox communities claimed that all forms of observance were increasing among young persons as an expression of increased identification with their ethnic heritage, in large part due to the national religious revival that occurred as a result of the 1992–95 Bosnian war. Younger believers who grew up in the post-communist period also have more freedom to practice their religion and more access to religious education. Leaders from the three largest religious communities observed that they enjoyed greater support from their believers in rural areas of Bosnia than from those in urban centers such as Sarajevo or Banja Luka.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Ethnic cleansing during the 1992–95 war caused internal migration and refugee flows, which segregated the population into separate ethnoreligious areas. Increased levels of returns, which peaked in 2002, continued to slow significantly, leaving the majority of Serbian Orthodox adherents living in the RS and the majority of Muslims and Catholics in the Federation. Within the Federation, distinct Muslim and Catholic majority areas remain. However, returns of Serbian Orthodox adherents and Muslims in recent years to their prewar homes in western Bosnia and Muslims to their prewar homes in eastern Bosnia have shifted the ethnoreligious composition in both areas. For example, the prewar population of the eastern RS town of Bratunac was 64% Bosniak. In 1995 the population was almost completely Serb; in 2007, after the return of 6,500 Bosniaks, the population was 38% Bosniak. Similarly, in Prijedor Municipality in the RS, approximately half of the prewar Bosniak population of 49,500 returned, partially reversing the effects of ethnic cleansing. Christians, on the other hand, seem to rarely move back to their old towns; the number of Catholics returning to central Bosnia and the RS, as well as of Serbs returning to the Federation, was negligible.The Catholic community maintains its Bishops' Conference as an overarching organizational and regional structure, with bishops residing in Mostar, Banja Luka, and Sarajevo; the Franciscan order maintains its strongest presence in central Bosnia, in Sarajevo, and in Herzegovina. The Serbian Orthodox Church maintains its greatest influence in the RS, with the most influential bishops residing in Banja Luka, Trebinje, and Bijeljina. The Jewish community, like most other small religious groups in Bosnia, including Protestants, has its strongest membership in Sarajevo. There are several small Christian denominations throughout the country. In late 2011, a Rodnover association named Svaroži Krug, was established in the nation as a part of the panslavic Praskozorje movement.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Islam is one of the two main faiths in Bosnia and Herzegovina, making up almost half of the nation's population. The first Muslims were documented in the late 14th century though Islam started spreading in the 15th century. There are eight muftis (Islamic scholars) located in the major municipalities: Sarajevo, Bihać, Travnik, Tuzla, Goražde, Zenica, Mostar, and Banja Luka. The more conservative Islamic communities in Bosnia are located in towns such as Travnik, Zavidovići, Tešanj, Maglaj, Bugojno, and Zenica. 45% of Herzegovinian and Bosnian Muslims described themselves as Sunni Muslims while 47% described themselves as just Muslims. However, 7% of Muslims either refused to answer which Muslim branch they belonged to, said they belonged to no Muslim branch or said they did not know.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina comprising almost a third of the nation's population. According to the CIA World Factbook, Orthodox Christians make up 30.7% of the country's population. However, a 2017 Pew Research poll conducted in Central Eastern Europe revealed that 35% of the population declared themselves as belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is mainly followed by the Serb population in the country and in the entity of Republic of Srpska. The jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia is organized into five subdivisions consisting of one metropolitanate and four eparchies.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the third largest religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina making up around an eighth of the nations population. Catholicism is generally followed by the Croat population which mainly lives in Western Herzegovina. The Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the oldest Church in Bosnia that survived. It has been present since the spread of Catholicism in Europe and has been the largest branch of Christianity up until the 12th century when the famous Bogumili became the largest religious group in Medieval Bosnia.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: During the interwar period between the World Wars, when Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, several members of Yugoslavian royalty had contact with prominent members of the Baháʼí Faith. In July, 1938, Marie of Edinburgh, a member of the religion and Queen of Rumania, died. A message of condolence was communicated, in the name of all Baháʼí communities in East and West, to her daughter, Maria, then Queen of Yugoslavia, to which she replied expressing "sincere thanks to all of Baháʼu'lláh's followers." Later Princess Olga of Yugoslavia, on being informed of the death of Hand of the Cause Martha Root in 1939, remarked “She was so kind and gentle, and a real worker for peace. I am sure she will be sadly missed in her work.”


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Following the end of World War II in Yugoslavia and establishment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a nominally atheist state, religions became discouraged. The first member of the Baháʼí Faith in Yugoslavia was an isolated Baháʼí in Belgrade who converted to the religion in 1963. Active plans for promoting the religion in the former Yugoslavia were designated in the Six Year Plan (which ran April 1986 to April 1992) and extended in the Two Year Plan during which the region gained several local spiritual assemblies, all under the general guidance of the Bahá'ís of Austria. The first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was formed in November 1990.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Since the Bosnian War in 1990s and the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Baháʼís had not elected a National Spiritual Assembly, but do have a small population in a few regions in the country. Separate committees in Austria were established for the region of the former Yugoslavia. During 2000 and 2001, the Bahá'í-inspired Landegg Academy Bahá'í School of Switzerland sent faculty and students to the region including Bosnia offering training in principles of peace seminars to thousands of students and parents, and hundreds of teachers, school administrators and staff in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Travnik. Activities increased with a burgeoning community of Baháʼís. In 2001, Baháʼí youth gathered for a dance workshop (see Oscar DeGruy) in Zenica The program from Landegg was formalized to the name Education for Peace Program and the Bosnian-Herzegovina government affirmed the program in 2002 intending to roll it out across the national school system. By 2003 Baháʼís had organized Bosnia and Herzegovina into 17 subregions, and four of these contained at least one Baháʼí and a few Ruhi Institute study circles were operating. Across 2004-5 ambassadors including from Bosnia and Herzegovina were received on official visits to the Bahá'í World Center in Haifa, Israel. The same year Bosnians participated in a Bahá'í summer school held in Croatia-Slovenia.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: A presence of Bahá'ís was noted before 2010, though the Association of Religion Data Archives did not register a community of adherents by then, or 2015. Bahá'ís did note devotional meetings of the religion held in Sarajevo and Bihać, Bosnia. An online magazine did a short profile in 2018. The small community of Baha'is of Bosnia and Herzegovina has continued to have a presence in events beyond the confines of the country. In November 2004 membership of Baha'i inspired General Assembly of the International Environment Forum lists one member. In February 2008 the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina aligned themselves with the declaration of the President of Slovenia on behalf of the European Union on the deteriorating situation of the Baháʼís in Iran. See Persecution of Baháʼís.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Hinduism is a minority faith in Bosnia-Herzegovina, represented mainly by the ISKCON movement. In the former Yugoslavia, the ISKCON movement has been present since the 1970s and has existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1988. It was officially registered as a religious community in 2005. There is an organized community in Sarajevo and there are also members in other cities. ISKCON has about 300-500 members in the country.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The State Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, respect for religious freedom declined due to selective legal enforcement and indifference of some government officials, which allowed societal violence and the threat of violence to restrict the ability to worship of adherents of religious groups in areas where they are in the minority. On October 16, 2006, the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees issued instructions for implementation of the Law on Religious Freedom, which provides for freedom of religion, ensures legal status of churches and religious communities, and prohibits any form of discrimination against any religious community. The law also provides the basis for the establishment of relations between the state and religious communities.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The State Constitution safeguards the rights of the three major ethnic groups (Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats), and by extension the three largest religious communities, by providing proportional representation for each group in the government and in the armed forces. As a result of the governmental structure created by the Dayton Accords, parliamentary seats and most government positions are apportioned specifically to members of the three "constituent peoples." These stipulations often result in constitutional discrimination against "others" and sympathizers of certain religious communities that do not fit neatly into the three groups. During the period covered by this report, members of the Bosnian Jewish and the Romani communities filed separate lawsuits before the European Court of Human Rights to address this discrimination against those considered "others" by the State Constitution. Their claims were not addressed during the reporting period.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia's state-level government does not officially recognize any religious holy days as an official holiday, and Parliament continued to disagree on a state law on national holidays. Entity and cantonal authorities routinely recognize religious holidays celebrated by members of the area's majority religion, with government and public offices closed on those days. In May 2007 the RS Constitutional Court overruled a Vital National Interest veto by Bosniaks in the RS Council of Peoples, thus enabling the RS National Assembly to pass the Law on Holidays in the RS, which includes observance of RS Day on January 9. Locally observed holy days include Orthodox Easter and Christmas in the RS, Catholic Easter and Christmas in Herzegovina, and Kurban Bajram and Ramadan Bajram in Sarajevo and central Bosnia. On January 27, 2007, BiH officially marked Holocaust Day for the first time and commemorated the day with a series of exhibitions, lectures, and discussions throughout the country.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The State Law on Religious Freedom governs religion and the licensing of religious groups, and it provides for the right to freedom of conscience and religion in Bosnia. It grants churches and religious communities legal status and allows them concessions that are characteristic of a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The law also creates a unified register for all religious groups within the Bosnian Ministry of Justice, while the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees is tasked with documenting violations of religious freedom.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: According to the law, any group of 300 adult citizens may apply to form a new church or religious community with a written application to the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice will issue a decision within 30 days of the application, and an appeal may be made to the Bosnian Council of Ministers. The law allows minority religious organizations to register legally and operate without unwarranted restrictions. At the end of the period covered by this report, the Alliance of Baptist Churches awaited registration confirmation.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Political parties dominated by a single ethnic group remained powerful and continued to identify closely with the religion associated with their predominant ethnic group. Many political party leaders were former communists who manipulated the core attributes of their particular ethnic group, including religion, to strengthen their credibility with voters. For example, offices of local Bosnian Serb mayors in the RS were often decorated with religious icons, although few officials practiced religion in any meaningful sense. In recent years many Bosnians have turned to their respective religious leaders to fill the void left by politicians, who are perceived by the public as apathetic or corrupt. This enabled religious leaders to play an influential political role, often promoting nationalist platforms, in the 2006 national elections and subsequent government formation as well as in political programs.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The lines dividing politics, ethnic identity, and religion were often blurred, particularly during the period prior to the 2006 national elections and during the public debate over proposed changes to the Bosnian Constitution. Some religious leaders became increasingly political and vocal in this period and used religious sermons and services for political campaign purposes. Political candidates courted religious leaders during the campaign season and were often photographed together in campaign propaganda and media reports. Religious leaders also used their position to influence the election outcome by encouraging their communities to vote for certain individuals or parties. For example, prior to the elections Bosnia's Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter that was read in every Catholic church on July 2, 2006, in place of the traditional Sunday sermon. The letter reminded believers of the importance of their vote and encouraged Croat parties to form coalitions so that no Croat vote would be wasted. It also urged them to oppose U.S.-brokered constitutional amendments "through which war horrors would be legalized and the Croat people marginalized." During the preelection period, the media and others often criticized the head of the BiH Islamic community for his appearance at public events with presidential candidate Haris Silajdzic and for his public statements calling on Silajdzic to "write a new constitution" so Bosniaks would honor him as they do wartime president Alija Izetbegovic.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The State Law on Religious Freedom reaffirms the right of every citizen to religious education. The law calls for an official representative of the various churches or religious communities to be responsible for teaching religious studies in all public and private preschools, primary schools, and universities throughout Bosnia. These individuals are employees of the municipality in which they teach but have been accredited by the religious body governing the curriculum. However, the law was not always fully implemented, particularly in segregated school systems or where there was political resistance from nationalist party officials at the municipal level. During the period covered by this report, the entity, cantonal, and municipal governments gave varying levels of financial support to the four traditional religious communities - Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, Catholic, and Jewish. Religious communities tended to receive the most funding in areas where their adherents were in the majority.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Religious education is largely decentralized, as is the education system generally. Public schools offer religious education classes, but with some exceptions, schools generally offer religious instruction only in the municipality's majority religion. By law, students (or their parents, in the case of primary school students) may choose not to attend the classes. However, students of the majority religion and sometimes also of minority religious groups faced pressure from teachers and peers to attend religious instruction, and most did so. Children who are reluctant to be singled out as different from their classmates often attend instruction of the majority religion, even if it is not the religion they practice at home. If a sufficient number of students of minority religious group(s) attend a particular school (20 in the RS, 15 in the Federation), the school must organize religion classes on their behalf. However, in rural areas there are usually no qualified religious representatives available to teach religious studies to the handful of minority students. Minority students are often widely scattered across remote areas, making it logistically difficult to provide classes even when a teacher is available. In the Federation's five cantons with Bosniak majorities, schools offer Islamic religious instruction as a 2-hour-per-week elective course. In cantons with Croat majorities, all Croat students attend the "elective" 1-hour weekly Catholic religion course for primary and middle schools. Use of religious symbolism by the majority group in art classes, such as minority children in Bosniak majority areas being tasked to draw mosques or those in Christian majority areas being asked to draw crosses, continued to be a problem.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Parents may enroll their children in private schools for religious reasons. In Sarajevo, Tuzla, Travnik, Visoko, Mostar, and Bihać, Muslim students may attend madrassahs. These Islamic secondary schools provide training for students who want to become religious officials as well as general education to prepare students for university studies. There is one Serbian Orthodox secondary school in Foca. In Sarajevo, Tuzla, Travnik, Zepce, Banja Luka, Bihac, and Zenica, students may attend Catholic school centers. Although primarily Croat, these schools are open to students of other ethnicities and religious groups. Some of these centers have both primary and secondary schools, and although the principals are priests, the majority of teachers are not religious officials. The curriculum is a combination of Bosniak and Croat curricula used in the Federation.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Facilities also exist for the three largest religious communities at the university level. The Faculty of Islamic Sciences is located in Sarajevo, the Serbian Orthodox Seminary in Foča in the RS, and two Catholic theology faculties (one run by the Franciscans and one run by the diocese) in Sarajevo.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Weak administrative and judicial systems effectively restricted religious freedom and posed major obstacles to safeguarding the rights of religious minorities. In some cases local governments made improvements in protecting religious freedom; however, serious problems remained, including an atmosphere in which violations of religious freedom occurred. For example, local police rarely made arrests in cases of vandalism against religious buildings or violence and harassment against religious officials or believers. Successful prosecutions were extremely rare. Local police frequently alleged that juveniles, intoxicated individuals, or mentally unstable persons were responsible for these attacks.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Lack of uniform protection posed obstacles to safeguarding minority rights, despite improved police and judicial protection for minorities in some parts of the country. Ethnic quotas set for the recruitment of new officers into police academies were observed, but reforms intended to establish a countrywide effective, professional, multi-ethnic police force failed. Police forces as well as entity and local governments frequently allowed or encouraged an atmosphere in which violations of religious freedom could take place. In some cases the reluctance of police and prosecutors to aggressively investigate and prosecute crimes against religious minorities remained a major obstacle to safeguarding the rights of religious minorities. The appropriation of religious symbols and buildings for political purposes in combination with restrictions on religious services and ceremonies had a negative impact on inter-religious dialogue and inter-ethnic relations in many communities. Authorities of the majority religious or ethnic group often discriminated against those of the minority group in matters related to municipal services, including security and education.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Governments at the local level restricted religious services and ceremonies. In the eastern RS municipality of Bratunac, the Serb majority municipal assembly repeatedly denied a permit for the Islamic community to build a cemetery and memorial on its property surrounding a downtown mosque. Bosniak organizers hoped to bury 98 identified victims of a 1992 massacre in Bratunac in which more than 600 persons, including the local imam, were killed. Organizers planned to hold the burials at the mosque on May 12, 2007, the 15th anniversary of the massacre, but Serb veterans' associations and local residents protested the planned burials. The mayor and assembly denied the building permit, claiming that the proposed cemetery and memorial had not been envisioned in the town's urban plan. After more than a year of repeated requests and appeals from Bosniak organizers, the RS Government and the international community intervened, and the parties reached a last-minute agreement that enabled the burials to take place at a different location on the planned date.


title: Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Religious officials of Sarajevo's minority populations complained of discrimination by local authorities regarding the use of religious property, obstructionism in municipal services, and daily harassment such as the frequent towing of vehicles parked near churches and church offices.