title: History of Switzerland

text: Zürich was expelled from the Confederation from 1440 to 1450 due to a conflict over the territory of Toggenburg (the Old Zürich War). The Confederation's power and wealth increased significantly, with victories over Charles the Bold of Burgundy during the Burgundian Wars (1474–1477), greatly due to the success of the Swiss mercenaries, a powerful infantry force constituted by professional soldiers originary from the cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. They were notable for their service in foreign armies, especially among the military forces of the Kings of France, throughout the Early Modern period of European history, from the Late Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Their service as mercenaries was at its peak during the Renaissance, when their proven battlefield capabilities made them sought-after mercenary troops. The traditional listing order of the cantons of Switzerland reflects this state, listing the eight "Old Cantons" first, with the city-states preceding the founding cantons, followed by cantons that joined the Confederation after 1481, in historical order.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The Swiss defeated the Swabian League in 1499 and gained greater collective autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire, including exemption from the Imperial reforms of 1495 and immunity from most Imperial courts. In 1506, Pope Julius II engaged the Swiss Guard, which continues to serve the papacy to the present day. The expansion of the Confederation and the reputation of invincibility acquired during the earlier wars suffered a first setback in 1515 with the Swiss defeat in the Battle of Marignano and Battle of Bicocca.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The Reformation in Switzerland began in 1523, led by Huldrych Zwingli, priest of the Great Minster church in Zürich since 1518. Zürich adopted the Protestant religion, joined by Berne, Basel, and Schaffhausen, while Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Nidwalden, Zug, Fribourg and Solothurn remained Catholic. Glarus and Appenzell were split. This led to multiple inter-cantonal religious wars ("Kappeler Kriege") in 1529 and 1531, because each canton usually made the opposing religion illegal, and to the formation of two diets, the Protestant one meeting in Aarau and the Catholic one in Lucerne (as well as the formal full diet still meeting usually in Baden) but the Confederation survived.


title: History of Switzerland

text: During the Thirty Years' War, Switzerland was a relative "oasis of peace and prosperity" ("Grimmelshausen") in war-torn Europe, mostly because all major powers in Europe depended on Swiss mercenaries, and would not let Switzerland fall into the hands of one of their rivals. Politically, they all tried to take influence, by way of mercenary commanders such as Jörg Jenatsch or Johann Rudolf Wettstein. The "Drei Bünde" of Grisons, at that point not yet a member of the Confederacy, were involved in the war from 1620, which led to their loss of the Valtellina in 1623.


title: History of Switzerland

text: At the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, Switzerland attained legal independence from the Holy Roman Empire. The Valtellina became a dependency of the "Drei Bünde" again after the Treaty and remained so until the founding of the Cisalpine Republic by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797.


title: History of Switzerland

text: In 1653, peasants of territories subject to Lucerne, Bern, Solothurn, and Basel revolted because of currency devaluation. Although the authorities prevailed in this Swiss peasant war, they did pass some tax reforms and the incident in the long term prevented an absolutist development as would occur at some other courts of Europe. The confessional tensions remained, however, and erupted again in the First War of Villmergen, in 1656, and the Toggenburg War (or Second War of Villmergen), in 1712.


title: History of Switzerland

text: During the French Revolutionary Wars, the French army invaded Switzerland and turned it into an ally known as the "Helvetic Republic" (1798–1803). It had a central government with little role for cantons. The interference with localism and traditional liberties was deeply resented, although some modernizing reforms took place.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Resistance was strongest in the more traditional Catholic bastions, with armed uprisings breaking out in spring 1798 in the central part of Switzerland. The French Army suppressed the uprisings but support for revolutionary ideas steadily declined. The reform element was weak, and most Swiss resented their loss of local democracy, the centralization, the new taxes, the warfare, and the hostility to religion.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Major steps taken to emancipate the Jews included the repeal of special taxes and oaths in 1798. However, reaction took place in 1815, and not until 1879 were the Jews granted equal rights with the Christians.


title: History of Switzerland

text: In 1803, Napoleon's Act of Mediation partially restored the sovereignty of the cantons, and the former tributary and allied territories of Aargau, Thurgau, Grisons, St. Gallen, Vaud and Ticino became cantons with equal rights. Napoleon and his enemies fought numerous campaigns in Switzerland that ruined many localities.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The Congress of Vienna of 1814–15 fully reestablished Swiss independence and the European powers agreed to recognize permanent Swiss neutrality. At this time, Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva also joined Switzerland as new cantons, thereby extending Swiss territory to its current boundaries.


title: History of Switzerland

text: On 6 April 1814, the so-called "Long Diet" (delegates from all the nineteen cantons) met at Zurich to replace the constitution.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Cantonal constitutions were worked out independently from 1814, in general restoring the late feudal conditions of the 17th and 18th century. The Tagsatzung was re-organized by the Federal Treaty ("Bundesvertrag") of 7 August 1815.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The liberal Free Democratic Party of Switzerland was strong in the largely Protestant cantons obtained the majority in the Federal Diet in the early 1840s. It proposed a new Constitution for the Swiss Confederation which would draw the several cantons into a closer relationship. In addition to the centralization of the Swiss government, the new Constitution also included protections for trade and other progressive reform measures. The Federal Diet, with the approval of a majority of cantons, had taken measures against the Catholic Church such as the closure of monasteries and convents in Aargau in 1841, and the seizure of their properties. Catholic Lucerne, in retaliation, in 1844 recalled the Jesuits to head its education. That succeeded and seven Catholic cantons formed the "Sonderbund." This caused a liberal-radical move in the Protestant cantons to take control of the national Diet in 1847. The Diet ordered the Sonderbund dissolved, igniting a small-scale civil war against rural cantons were strongholds of pro-Catholic ultramontanism.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The Radical-liberal-Protestant element charged that the "Sonderbund" was in violation of the Federal Treaty of 1815, § 6 of which expressly forbade such separate alliances. Forming a majority in the Tagsatzung they decided to dissolve the Sonderbund on October 21, 1847. The odds were against the Catholics, who were heavily outnumbered in population; they were outnumbered in soldiers by 79,000 to 99,000, and lacked enough well-trained soldiers, officers and generals. When the Sonderbund refused to disband, the national army attacked in a brief civil war between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons, known as the "Sonderbundskrieg" ("Sonderbund War".) The national army was composed of soldiers of all the other cantons except Neuchâtel and Appenzell Innerrhoden (which remained neutral). The Sonderbund was easily defeated in less than a month; there were about 130 killed. Apart from small riots, this was the last armed conflict on Swiss territory. Many Sonderband leaders fled to Italy, but the victors were generous. They invited the defeated cantons to join them in a program of federal reform, and a new constitution was drafted along American lines. National issues were to be under the control of the national parliament, and the Jesuits were expelled. The Swiss voted heavily in favor of the new constitution by 2 million against 300,000. Switzerland became calm. However conservatives around Europe became frightened, and prepared their own forces to meet possible challenges, which indeed soon exploded the Revolutions of 1848. In those violent revolutions, outside Switzerland, the conservatives were always successful.


title: History of Switzerland

text: As a consequence of the civil war, Switzerland adopted a federal constitution in 1848, amending it extensively in 1874 and establishing federal responsibility for defense, trade, and legal matters, leaving all other matters to the cantonal governments. From then, and over much of the 20th century, continuous political, economic, and social improvement has characterized Swiss history.


title: History of Switzerland

text: While Switzerland was primarily rural, the cities experienced an industrial revolution in the late 19th century, focused especially on textiles. In Basel, for example, textiles, including silk, were the leading industry. In 1888 women made up 44% of the wage earners. Nearly half the women worked in the textile mills, with household servants the second largest job category. The share of women in the workforce was higher between 1890 and 1910 than it was in the late 1960s and 1970s.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Swiss Universities in the late 19th century are notable for the number of female students receiving medical education.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The major powers respected Switzerland's neutrality during World War I. In the Grimm–Hoffmann Affair, the Allies denounced a proposal by one politician to negotiate peace on the Eastern Front; they wanted the war there to continue so as to tie Germany down.


title: History of Switzerland

text: While the industrial sector began to grow in the mid-19th century, Switzerland's emergence as one of the most prosperous nations in Europe—the "Swiss miracle"—was a development of the short 20th century, among other things tied to the role of Switzerland during the World Wars.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Germany considered invading Switzerland during World War II, but never attacked. Under General Henri Guisan, the Swiss army prepared for mass mobilization of militia forces against invasion, and prepared strong, well-stockpiled positions high in the Alps known as the "Réduit". Switzerland remained independent and neutral through a combination of military deterrence, economic concessions to Germany, and good fortune as larger events during the war delayed an invasion.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Attempts by Switzerland's small Nazi party to cause an "Anschluss" with Germany failed miserably, largely due to Switzerland's multicultural heritage, strong sense of national identity, and long tradition of direct democracy and civil liberties. The Swiss press vigorously criticized the Third Reich, often infuriating German leaders. Switzerland was an important base for espionage by both sides in the conflict and often mediated communications between the Axis and Allied powers.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Switzerland's trade was blockaded by both the Allies and by the Axis. Both sides openly exerted pressure on Switzerland not to trade with the other. Economic cooperation and extension of credit to the Third Reich varied according to the perceived likelihood of invasion, and the availability of other trading partners. Concessions reached their zenith after a crucial rail link through Vichy France was severed in 1942, leaving Switzerland completely surrounded by the Axis. Switzerland relied on trade for half of its food and essentially all of its fuel, but controlled vital trans-alpine rail tunnels between Germany and Italy.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Switzerland's most important exports during the war were precision machine tools, watches, jewel bearings (used in bombsights), electricity, and dairy products. During World War Two, the Swiss franc was the only remaining major freely convertible currency in the world, and both the Allies and the Germans sold large amounts of gold to the Swiss National Bank. Between 1940 and 1945, the German Reichsbank sold 1.3 billion francs worth of gold to Swiss Banks in exchange for Swiss francs and other foreign currency.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Hundreds of millions of francs worth of this gold was monetary gold plundered from the central banks of occupied countries. 581,000 francs of "Melmer" gold taken from Holocaust victims in eastern Europe was sold to Swiss banks. In total, trade between Germany and Switzerland contributed about 0.5% to the German war effort but did not significantly lengthen the war.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Over the course of the war, Switzerland interned 300,000 refugees. 104,000 of these were foreign troops interned according to the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers outlined in the Hague Conventions. The rest were foreign civilians and were either interned or granted tolerance or residence permits by the cantonal authorities. Refugees were not allowed to hold jobs. 60,000 of the refugees were civilians escaping persecution by the Nazis. Of these, 26,000 to 27,000 were Jews. Between 10,000 and 25,000 civilian refugees were refused entry. At the beginning of the war, Switzerland had a Jewish population of between 18,000 and 28,000 and a total population of about 4 million.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Within Switzerland at the time of the conflict there was moderate polarization. Some were pacifists. Some took sides according to international capitalism or international communism. Others leaned more towards their language group, with some in French-speaking areas more pro-Allied, and some in Swiss-German areas more pro-Axis. The government attempted to thwart the activities of any individual, party, or faction in Switzerland that acted with extremism or attempted to break the unity of the nation. The Swiss-German speaking areas moved linguistically further away from the standard (high) German spoken in Germany, with more emphasis on local Swiss dialects.


title: History of Switzerland

text: In the 1960s, significant controversy arose among historians regarding the nation's relations with Nazi Germany.


title: History of Switzerland

text: By the 1990s the controversies included a class-action lawsuit brought in New York over Jewish assets in Holocaust-era bank accounts. The government commissioned an authoritative study of Switzerland's interaction with the Nazi regime. The final report by this independent panel of international scholars, known as the Bergier Commission, was issued in 2002.


title: History of Switzerland

text: During the Cold War, Swiss authorities considered the construction of a Swiss nuclear bomb. Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility. However, financial problems with the defense budget prevented the substantial funds from being allocated, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative. All remaining plans for building nuclear weapons were dropped by 1988.


title: History of Switzerland

text: From 1959, the Federal Council, elected by the parliament, is composed of members of the four major parties, the Protestant Free Democrats, the Catholic Christian Democrats, the left-wing Social Democrats and the right-wing People's Party, essentially creating a system without a sizeable parliamentary opposition (see concordance system), reflecting the powerful position of an opposition in a direct democracy.


title: History of Switzerland

text: In 1963, Switzerland joined the Council of Europe. In 1979, parts of the canton of Bern attained independence, forming the new canton of Jura.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Switzerland's role in many United Nations and international organizations helped to mitigate the country's concern for neutrality. In 2002, Switzerland voters gave 55% of their vote in favour of the UN and joined the United Nations. This followed decades of debate and its previous rejection of membership in 1986 by a 3-1 popular vote.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Swiss women gained the right to vote in national level elections in 1971, and an equal rights amendment was ratified in 1981, however it was not until 1990 that the courts established full nationwide voting rights for women in all elections.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Switzerland is not a member state of the EU, but has been (together with Liechtenstein) surrounded by EU territory since the joining of Austria in 1995. In 2005, Switzerland agreed to join the Schengen treaty and Dublin Convention by popular vote. In February 2014, Swiss voters approved a referendum to reinstitute quotas on immigration to Switzerland, setting off a period of finding an implementation that would not violate the EU's freedom of movement accords that Switzerland adopted.


title: History of Switzerland

text: Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Switzerland decided to adopt all EU sanctions against Russia. According to the Swiss President Ignazio Cassis, the measures were "unprecedented but consistent with Swiss neutrality". The administration also confirmed that Switzerland would continue to offer its services to find a peaceful solution in the conflict. Switzerland only participates in humanitarian missions and provides relief supplies to the Ukrainian population and neighbouring countries.


title: History of Switzerland

text: The order of precedence of the Swiss cantons given in the federal constitution follows the historical order of accession except for the three city cantons of Zürich, Bern and Lucerne placed at the top.


title: Dhow

text: Dhow (; ) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically sporting long thin hulls, dhows are trading vessels primarily used to carry heavy items, such as fruit, fresh water, or other heavy merchandise, along the coasts of Eastern Arabia, East Africa, Yemen and coastal South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh). Larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty, smaller ones typically around twelve.


title: Dhow

text: The exact origins of the dhow are lost to history. Some claim that the sambuk, a type of dhow, may be derived from the Portuguese caravel.


title: Dhow

text: The dhow was the ship of trade used by the Swahili. It was a dhow that transported a giraffe to Chinese Emperor Yong Le's court, in 1414. Another source suggests the ship that carried the giraffe to China was part of a large Chinese fleet led by Zheng He.


title: Dhow

text: Ships that are similar to the dhow are mentioned or described in the 1001 Nights including various ports where they harboured. The dhow is also associated with the pearl trade.


title: Dhow

text: The Yemeni Hadhrami people, as well as Omanis, for centuries came to Beypore, in Kerala, India for their dhows. This was because of the good timber in the Kerala forests, the availability of good coir rope, and the skilled shipwrights. In former times, the sheathing planks of a dhow's hull were held together by coconut rope. Beypore dhows are known as 'Uru' in Malayalam, the local language of Kerala. Settlers from Yemen, known as 'Baramis', or 'Daramis' which could be derived from the word 'Hardamis' are still active in making urus in Kerala.


title: Dhow

text: Dhows were extensively used for the Indian Ocean slave trade, which the Royal Navy attempted to suppress. In his 1873 book, Captain G. L. Sulivan described "four different kinds of coasting dhows, as shown in the engravings, viz. the Bateele, the Badane, Bugala or genuine Dhow, and the Matapa boat".


title: Dhow

text: In the 1920s, British writers identified Al Hudaydah as the centre for dhow building. Those built in Al Hudaydah were smaller in size, and used for travel along the coasts. They were constructed of acacia found in Yemen. They are distinguishable for their smaller triangular sails on movable bases to harvest the irregular winds of the Red Sea.


title: Dhow

text: Captain Alan Villiers (1903–1982) documented the days of sailing trade in the Indian Ocean by sailing on dhows between 1938 and 1939 taking numerous photographs and publishing books on the subject of dhow navigation.


title: Dhow

text: Even to the present day, dhows make commercial journeys between the Persian Gulf and East Africa using sails as their only means of propulsion. Their cargo is mostly dates and fish to East Africa and mangrove timber to the lands in the Persian Gulf. They often sail south with the monsoon in winter or early spring, and back again to Arabia in late spring or early summer.


title: Dhow

text: For celestial navigation, dhow sailors have traditionally used the kamal, an observation device that determines latitude by finding the angle of the Pole Star above the horizon.


title: Dhow

text: The term "dhow" is sometimes also applied to certain smaller lateen-sail rigged boats traditionally used in the Red Sea, the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf area, as well as in the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to the Bay of Bengal. These include the feluccas used in Egypt, Sudan and Iraq, and the dhoni used in the Maldives, as well as the , and . All these vessels have common elements with the dhow. On the Swahili Coast, in countries such as Kenya, the Swahili word used for dhow is "jahazi".


title: Perry McCarthy

text: Perry McCarthy (born 3 March 1961) is a British racing driver, who drove for the Andrea Moda team in Formula One in , though never making it into a race, before moving into sportscars, including driving in the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times between 1996 and 2003.


title: Perry McCarthy

text: McCarthy also portrayed The Stig in the first two series of the revamped version of BBC motoring show "Top Gear".


title: Perry McCarthy

text: Born in Stepney, East London, McCarthy grew up to work for his father's company servicing North Sea oil rigs. Unlike most Formula One drivers, McCarthy did not start racing in karts. He worked his way through the junior categories of motor sport in Europe, such as Formula Ford, Formula 3, eventually F3000 and various touring and sports car races in the US, including drives for Spice Engineering.


title: Perry McCarthy

text: In 1991, McCarthy was chosen to test for the Footwork Formula One team. Although he impressed the team, his break did not come until the eve of the 1992 Formula One season, when he was signed by the independent Andrea Moda team run by Andrea Sassetti who thought that entering Formula One would be a good way to advertise his shoe business. The team was uncompetitive, disorganized and poorly managed, and after a lengthy battle to gain an FIA Super Licence the season soon descended into farce. Because Sassetti was unable to release McCarthy for Enrico Bertaggia, who had left the team before and attempted to return with the promise of extra funding, McCarthy received unfair treatment from the owner, being frequently denied more than a handful of laps in which to prepare, which led to his failure to qualify for any Grand Prix. His Grand Prix debut in Spain lasted eighteen metres down the pit lane in pre-qualifying before the engine failed. In the British Grand Prix, he was sent out with wet tyres on a dry track. For the Hungarian Grand Prix, he was only allowed to leave the pits 45 seconds before the end of the pre-qualifying session, which made it impossible for him to set a lap time even if he had a faster car. Finally, in the Belgian Grand Prix, Andrea Moda's final entry, McCarthy was sent out for the qualifying session with a broken steering part in his car, which has been extracted from teammate Roberto Moreno's car, which would have led to a violent crash at the Raidillon curve had McCarthy not managed to regain control of the car. He relived this dramatic story and discussed his brief stint around the F1 paddock during an appearance on award-winning motoring podcast Fuelling Around. The team folded before the end of the season in controversial circumstances and McCarthy was left without a drive. In a July 2004 interview with "The Times", McCarthy discussed how this period in his career had contributed to his being dubbed the world's unluckiest racing driver, saying "Dick Dastardly had more luck than me".


title: Perry McCarthy

text: McCarthy did not race in Formula One after 1992, but tested for both Williams and Benetton teams during the 1990s. He was denied a permanent role as test driver at Benetton because he was covering for their normal test driver, Alessandro Zanardi, who was unwell. He had little success at Williams because he did not see eye to eye with the engineers and the position was then given to David Coulthard.


title: Perry McCarthy

text: After a brief retirement, McCarthy returned to sports car racing, appearing at Le Mans in 2002 and numerous other events. In 2002, he released his autobiography entitled "Flat Out, Flat Broke", in which he spoke candidly about his time in Formula One and, in the second edition, his work for the BBC's "Top Gear" motoring show as The Stig, a masked, anonymous, racing driver who evaluated the latest high performance cars. McCarthy was the original, black-suited Stig, who left after the first two series. He provided commentary on F1 races for the BBC in 2009. McCarthy now works as a corporate ambassador and after-dinner speaker for corporations around the world.


title: Perry McCarthy

text: In 2002, McCarthy wrote an autobiography, titled "Flat Out, Flat Broke: Formula 1 the Hard Way!"; it detailed his career, and the hardships he faced while trying to break into Formula One. In the second edition of this book, McCarthy revealed that he was "Top Gear"s The Stig.


title: Ku Klux Klan members in United States politics

text: This is a partial list of notable historical figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership of the Klan is secret. Political opponents sometimes allege that a person was a member of the Klan, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.


text: In 2018, "The Washington Post" reported that, by 1930, the KKK, while its "membership remained semi-secret, claimed 11 governors, 16 senators and as many as 75 congressmen –roughly split between Republicans


text: In 1921, Hugo Black (D) successfully defended E. R. Stephenson in his trial for the murder of a Catholic priest, Fr. James E. Coyle. E.R. Stephenson's daughter had converted to Catholicism and married a man of Puerto Rican descent, and Coyle had conducted the wedding. Hugo Black got Stephenson acquitted in part by arguing to the jury that Puerto Ricans should be considered black under the South's one drop rule. Black, a Democrat, joined the Ku Klux Klan shortly afterwards, in order to gain votes from the anti-Catholic element in Alabama. He built his winning Senate campaign around multiple appearances at KKK meetings across Alabama. Late in life, Black told an interviewer:


text: at that time, I was joining every organization in sight! ... In my part of Alabama, the Klan was engaged in unlawful activities ... The general feeling in the community was that if responsible citizens didn't join the Klan it would soon become dominated by the less responsible members.


text: News of his membership was a secret until shortly after he was confirmed as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Black later said that joining the Klan was a mistake, but he went on to say, "I would have joined any group if it helped get me votes."


text: On the Supreme Court, Black wrote the opinion in "Korematsu v. United States", which upheld the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Black also wrote the opinion in "Everson v. Board of Education", a key case about the separation of church and state. Some have argued that his views on the separation of church and state were influenced by the Klan's anti-Catholicism.


text: Despite his former Klan membership, Black joined the Supreme Court's unanimous decisions in "Shelley v. Kraemer" (1948), which outlawed judicial enforcement of racially restrictive covenants, and "Brown v Board of Education", which outlawed school segregation. Justice William Douglas would write years later that at least 3 (and possibly as many as 5) Supreme Court justices were originally planning to rule school segregation constitutional, but Black had actually been one of the 4 justices who were planning to strike down school segregation from the beginning of the Brown case.


text: Robert C. Byrd (D), the U.S. senator for West Virginia, a recruiter for the Klan while in his 20s and 30s, rising to the title of Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of his local chapter. After leaving the group, Byrd spoke in favor of the Klan during his early political career. Though he later said he officially left the organization in 1943, Byrd wrote a letter in 1946 to the group's Imperial Wizard stating "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." Byrd attempted to explain or defend his former membership in the Klan in his 1958 U.S. Senate campaign when he was 41 years old. Byrd, a Democrat, eventually became his party leader in the Senate. Byrd later said joining the Klan was his "greatest mistake," and after his death, the NAACP released a statement praising Byrd, acknowledging his former affiliation with the Klan and saying that he "became a champion for civil rights and liberties" and "came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda". In a 2001 interview, Byrd used the term "white niggers" twice during a national television broadcast. The full quote ran as follows: "My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much." Byrd later apologized for the phrase and admitted that it "has no place in today's society," and did not clarify the intended meaning of the term in his context.


text: John Brown Gordon (D), the U.S. Senator for Georgia, was a founder of the KKK in his home state of Georgia.


text: James Thomas Heflin (1869–1951) (D), the U.S. Senator for Alabama, was suspected of being a member of the KKK.


text: Rufus C. Holman (R), the U.S. Senator for Oregon, was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Oregon, serving as an officer in that organization.


text: Earle Mayfield (1881–1964) (D), U.S. Senator (1923–1929) for Texas from 1923 through 1929. Mayfield had been a Texas Senator from 1907 through 1913.


text: Rice W. Means (R), the U.S. Senator for Colorado, was the directing head of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado.


text: John Tyler Morgan (D) (June 20, 1824 – June 11, 1907, the U.S. Senator for Alabama (March 4, 1877, to June 11, 1907), was the Grand Dragon of the KKK in Alabama.


text: Edmund Pettus (July 6, 1821 – 1907) (D), the U.S. Senator for Alabama (1896 to 1907), was also a Grand Dragon of the KKK in Alabama.


text: William Bliss Pine (1877–1942) (R), the U.S. Senator for Oklahoma (March 4, 1925, to March 3, 1931), was a Klansman, according to historian Chalmers and the Eufaula "Indian Journal."


text: Daniel F. Steck (1881–1950) (D), of Iowa, in 1925, with the help of the Klan, defeated Senator Smith W. Brookhart (1869–1944) (R), a progressive. Because the vote was close, there was a recount, and Steck was the victor. Brookhart contested it. Steck reportedly had no Klan connections, except that he enlisted the Klan's top lawyer and legislative expert, William Francis Zumbrunn (1877–1930), to secure his seat in the 69th Congress (1925–1926). Earlier, Zumbrunn – with lawyer William Pinkney McLean, Jr. (1872–1937) of Fort Worth – helped seat Klan Senator from Texas, Earle Mayfield.


text: In the 1926 Oregon election, the Ku Klux Klan, under the auspices of The Oregon Good Government League, helped Frederick Steiwer (1883–1939) win the Republican primary by spreading word that it was supporting the reelection of his opponent, Senator Robert N. Stanfield (1877–1945) (R). The effort was fueled by White Supremacist (anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic) groups in Oregon in support of the state's Compulsory Education Act, enacted in 1922, mandating public education; which would have taken effect in 1926; but the Supreme Court, in 1925, struck it down in "Pierce v. Society of Sisters."


text: Arthur Raymond Robinson (1881–1961) (R), of Indiana, was, on November 2, 1925, characterized by "Time" magazine was follows: "The New Man. Arthur R. Robinson is only 44. He is an Indianapolis attorney, a 'good Republican' but of no particular political importance. He is said to be a good orator. Against him politically is the fact that he supported Governor Jackson in the last election and so, justly or unjustly, he is considered a 'Klan man."


text: According to historian Chalmers, "the Klan supported Frank B. Willis (1871–1928) (R) [of Ohio] not because it liked him, but because it disliked his anti-Klan opponent, Atlee Pomerene (1863–1937) (D), more.


text: Clifford Davis (D), U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 9th and 10th congressional districts was an active member in Tennessee.


text: George Gordon (D), U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 10th congressional district, became one of the Klan's first members. In 1867, Gordon became the Klan's first Grand Dragon for the Realm of Tennessee, and wrote its "Precscript", a constitution setting out the organization's purpose, principles, and the like.


text: William David Upshaw (D), U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, was an active member in Georgia.


text: Homer Martin Adkins (D), (1890 – 1964) the Governor of Arkansas, was a supporter of the Klan in his home state of Arkansas.


text: Bibb Graves (D), (1873 – 1942) was the Governor of Alabama. He lost his first campaign for governor in 1922, but four years later, with the secret endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan, he was elected to his first term as governor. Graves was almost certainly the Exalted Cyclops (chapter president) of the Montgomery chapter of the Klan. Graves, like Hugo Black, used the strength of the Klan to further his electoral prospects.


text: Edward L. Jackson (R), (1873 – 1954) was the Governor of Indiana in 1925 and his administration came under fire for granting undue favor to the Klan's agenda and associates. Jackson was further damaged by the arrest and trial of Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson for the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer. When it was revealed that Jackson had attempted to bribe former Gov. Warren T. McCray with $10,000 to appoint a Klansman to a local office, Jackson was taken to court. His case ended with a hung jury, and Jackson ended his political career in disgrace. There is, however, evidence that Jackson joined the KKK himself.


text: Clarence Morley (R),(1869 – 1948) the Governor of Colorado, was a KKK member and a strong supporter of Prohibition. He tried to ban the Catholic Church from using sacramental wine and attempted to have the University of Colorado fire all Jewish and Catholic professors.


text: Clifford Walker (D), (1877 – 1954) the Governor of Georgia, was revealed to be a Klan member by the press in 1924.


text: Elmer David Davies (D), a Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, was a member of the KKK while at university.


text: Lee Cazort (D), the Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas, was active in the Klan, and openly endorsed the Klan's platform.


text: John Morton (D), the Tennessee Secretary of State, was the founder of the Nashville chapter of the KKK


text: William L. Saunders (D), the North Carolina Secretary of State, was the founder of the North Carolina chapter.


text: A notable number of local officials were also Klansmen, resulting in such as the "reign of terror" inflicted by Louisiana by crony "exalted cyclops": Bastrop mayor, John Killian Skipwith, known as Captain J. K. Skipwith, and Mer Rouge mayor, Bunnie McEwin McKoin, MD, better known as Dr. B. M. McKoin (and whose surname was variously misreported as McCoin, M'Koin and McKoln in media).


text: Benjamin F. Stapleton (D), was Mayor of Denver in the 1920s–1940s. He was a Klan member in the early 1920s and appointed fellow Klansmen to positions in municipal government. Ultimately, Stapleton broke from the Klan and removed several Klansmen from office.


text: David Duke (D/R), a politician who ran in both Democrat and Republican presidential primaries, was openly involved in the leadership of the Ku Klux Klan. He was founder and Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1970s; he re-titled his position as "National Director" and said that the KKK needed to "get out of the cow pasture and into hotel meeting rooms". He left the organization in 1980. He ran for president in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries. In 1989 Duke switched political parties from Democrat to Republican. In 1989, he became a member of the Louisiana State Legislature from the 81st district, and was Republican Party chairman for St. Tammany Parish.


text: Edward Douglass White, a Democrat and the Chief Justice of the United States, was alleged to be a Klansman in one unverified source. More complete is legal historian Paul Finkelman in "American National Biography" (2000) about that single report: "Although the moviemaker D. W. Griffith claimed White endorsed his racist movie, The Birth of a Nation (1915), and asserted that White had been in the Ku Klux Klan, there is no evidence to support either of Griffith’s contentions."


text: The consensus of modern historians is that Warren Harding was never a member, and instead was an important enemy of the Klan. While one source claims Warren G. Harding, a Republican, was a Ku Klux Klan member while President, that claim is based on a third-hand account of a second-hand recollection in 1985 of a deathbed statement made sometime in the late 1940s concerning an incident in the early 1920s. Independent investigations have turned up many contradictions and no supporting evidence for the claim. Historians reject the claim and note that Harding in fact publicly fought and spoke against the Klan.


text: The rejected claim was made by Wyn Craig Wade. He stated Harding's membership as fact and gives a detailed account of a secret swearing-in ceremony in the White House, based on a private communication he received in 1985 from journalist Stetson Kennedy. Kennedy, in turn had, along with Elizabeth Gardner, tape recorded some time in the "late 1940s" a deathbed confession of former Imperial Klokard Alton Young. Young claimed to have been a member of the "Presidential Induction Team". Young also said on his deathbed that he had repudiated racism. In his book, "The Strange Deaths of President Harding", historian Robert Ferrell says he was unable to find any records of any such "ceremony" in which Harding was brought into the Klan in the White House. John Dean, in his 2004 book "Warren G. Harding", also could find no proof of Klan membership or activity on the part of Harding. Review of the personal records of Harding's Personal White House Secretary, George Christian Jr., also do not support the contention that Harding received members of the Klan while in office. Appointment books maintained in the White House, detailing President Harding's daily schedules, do not show any such event.


text: In their 2005 book "Freakonomics", University of Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner alluded to Warren Harding's possible Klan affiliation. However, in a "New York Times Magazine" "Freakonomics" column, entitled "Hoodwinked? Does it matter if an activist who exposes the inner workings of the Ku Klux Klan isn't open about how he got those secrets?", Dubner and Levitt said that they no longer accepted Stetson Kennedy's testimony about Harding and the Klan.


text: The 1920 Republican Party platform, which essentially expressed Harding's political philosophy, called for Congress to pass laws combating lynching. Harding denounced lynching in a landmark 21 October 1921 speech in Birmingham, Alabama, which was covered in the national press. Harding also vigorously supported an anti-lynching bill in Congress during his term in the White House. His "comments about race and equality were remarkable for 1921."


text: Payne argues that the Klan was so angry with Harding's attacks on the KKK that it originated and spread the false rumor that he was a member.


text: Carl S. Anthony, biographer of Harding's wife, found no such proof of Harding's membership in the Klan. He does however discuss the events leading up to the period when the alleged Klan ceremony was held in June 1923:


text: [K]nowing that some branches of the Shriners were anti-Catholic and in that sense sympathetic to the Ku Klax Klan and that the Klan itself was holding a demonstration less than a half mile from Washington, Harding censured hate groups in his Shriners speech. The press "considered [it] a direct attack" on the Klan, particularly in light of his criticism weeks earlier of "factions of hatred and prejudice and violence [that] challeng[ed] both civil and religious liberty".


text: In 2005, "The Straight Dope" presented a summary of many of these arguments against Harding's membership, and noted that, while it might have been politically expedient for him to join the KKK in public, to do it in private would have been of no benefit to him.


text: It was falsely rumored, in his lifetime, that Harding was partly of African-American descent, so he would have been an unlikely recruit for the Ku Klux Klan.


text: One common misconception is that President Calvin Coolidge was a Klan member, a claim that Klan websites have spread. In reality, Coolidge was adamantly opposed to the Klan. According to Jerry L. Wallace at the Coolidge Foundation, "Coolidge expressed his antipathy to the Klan by reaching out in a positive, public way directly to its victims: Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants, with whom he had good relations—especially so for Irish Catholics—going back long before the rise of the Invisible Empire . . . [and] sought to highlight their positive achievements and contributions to American life." Ironically, many Klan members voted for the Republican Coolidge in the 1924 presidential election because the Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis denounced the Klan at the party's convention.


text: Harry S. Truman, the Democratic politician who became president in 1945, was accused by opponents of having dabbled with the Klan briefly. In 1924, he was a judge in Jackson County, Missouri. Truman was up for reelection, and his friends Edgar Hinde and Spencer Salisbury advised him to join the Klan. The Klan was politically powerful in Jackson County, and two of Truman's opponents in the Democratic primary had Klan support. Truman refused at first, but paid the Klan's $10 membership fee, and a meeting with a Klan officer was arranged.


text: According to Salisbury's version of the story, Truman was inducted, but afterward "was never active; he was just a member who wouldn't do anything". Salisbury, however, told the story after he became Truman's bitter enemy, so historians are reluctant to believe his claims.


text: According to Hinde and Margaret Truman’s accounts, the Klan officer demanded that Truman pledge not to hire any Catholics or Jews if he was reelected. Truman refused, and demanded the return of his $10 membership fee; most of the men he had commanded in World War I had been local Irish Catholics.


text: Truman had at least one other strong reason to object to the anti-Catholic requirement, which was that the Catholic Pendergast family, which operated a political machine in Jackson County, were his patrons; Pendergast family lore has it that Truman was originally accepted for patronage without even meeting him, on the basis of his family background plus the fact that he was not a member of any anti-Catholic organization such as the Klan. The Pendergast faction of the Democratic Party was known as the "Goats", as opposed to the rival Shannon machine's "Rabbits". The battle lines were drawn when Truman put only Goats on the county payroll, and the Klan began encouraging voters to support Protestant, "100% American" candidates, allying itself against Truman and with the Rabbits, while Shannon instructed his people to vote Republican in the election, which Truman lost.


text: Truman later claimed that the Klan "threatened to kill me, and I went out to one of their meetings and dared them to try", speculating that if Truman's armed friends had shown up earlier, violence might have resulted. However, biographer Alonzo Hamby believes that this story, which is not supported by any recorded facts, was a confabulation based on a meeting with a hostile and menacing group of Democrats that contained many Klansmen, showing Truman's "Walter Mitty-like tendency ... to rewrite his personal history". Sympathetic observers see Truman's flirtation with the Klan as a momentary aberration, point out that his close friend and business partner Eddie Jacobson was Jewish, and say that in later years Truman's presidency marked the first significant improvement in the federal government's record on civil rights since the post-Reconstruction nadir marked by the Wilson administration.


text: An anonymous person told the FBI that Ned O'Neal Touchstone (1926–1988) – newspaper publisher who has been chronicled as influential in radical right politics in Louisiana politics during the 1960s – was a member of a group that called itself "the Original Members of the Ku Klux Klan" and that in 1963 he claimed that the group had documented proof of Lyndon Johnson having been a member of some KKK group in the 1930s.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The State flag described in the 2008 Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar was adopted by enacting the 2010 Union Flag Law and the repealing of the 1974 State Flag Law on 21 October 2010. It was hoisted for the first time at 3:00 p.m. local time on 21 October 2010. Orders were also handed out to ensure all old flags were burned.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: Unlike the previous 1974 State Flag Law, the 2010 Union Flag Law includes the definition of the flag. The current flag is a horizontal tricolour flag of yellow, green, and red charged with a five-pointed white star in the centre of the field. The background is a yellow, green, and red tricolor meant to honour the tricolours used during the independence struggle. The yellow represents unity, conformity, wisdom, happiness, and unity of all national races amicably. The green symbolises fertility, conformity,


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: fairness, and being a peaceful, pleasant, and green nation. The red represents bravery and decisiveness. The white star stands for purity, honesty,


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The two flags used by the country immediately before the 2010 flag both originated in the Burmese Resistance, which adopted a red flag with a white star when fighting the occupying Japanese forces during World War II.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The National Flag of the Union of Burma was designed by Maung Win and adopted by the Constituent Assembly of the Union of Burma in August 1947. It was hoisted for the first time at 4:25 AM on 4 January 1948 when Burma gained independence. The flag consisted of a red field defaced with a blue canton. The blue canton was charged with one large white star surrounded by five smaller stars between its rays. The big white star in the canton and the red field honour the Resistance Flag and indicate the anti-fascist struggle. The four small white stars between the rays of the big white star symbolize the unity of various ethnic races of the republican union founded as a result of the resistance. The red represents bravery, courage, and preservation. The blue canton means the nature of the sky, having deep meanings, the fresh and clear mind, and the light emitted in the night sky. The usage of stars is for the nature of the stars: never stopping, never cancelling the chosen path, always moving forward, being a guide for travellers, and existing since the beginning of the world, while the colour white represents purity, righteousness and steadiness. This flag has a ratio of 5:9 in which the canton has a ratio of 2:4. On 3 January 1974, it was replaced by the State Flag of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The State flag adopted on 3 January 1974 upon the coming into force of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma has a similar ratio and background colours as the previous flag but with different charge in the canton. The colour representations are also different: white is for purity and virtue; red for bravery and decisiveness; blue for peacefulness and steadiness. It depicts 14 equal-sized white stars encircling a pinion and ear of paddy in a blue canton against a red field. The paddy represents cultivators while the pinion represents workers; the combination symbolizes the cultivators and workers as the basic social classes for building the State. The 14 equal-sized white stars represent the equality and unity of the 14 member states of the Union.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The 14-star flag was hung upside down during the 8888 Uprising of 1988 by demonstrators as a sign of protest against the military government. Despite its association with the period of military rule under Ne Win and later the State Peace and Development Council, the 1974 flag is used by demonstrators in the 2021 Myanmar protests, alongside the 1948 flag.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: When hanging or depicting vertically, the yellow must be on left and the star must point to left. <br>


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: When hanging or depicting vertically, the blue canton must be in the upper hoist, and the stars in the canton must point to the left.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: In 1930, the Dobama Asiayone adopted a tricolour (, ) of yellow, green and red. In 1935, a peacock was added in the centre of the tricolour. In 1938, the leftists from Dobama Asiayone replaced the peacock with a hammer and sickle. Both of the tricolours were widely used by anti-colonialists during British rule. The peacock flag was also used by the Burma Independence Army and the State of Burma adopted it as the national flag from 1943 to 1945. In 1943, a stylized version of the peacock was introduced. This version was used by the Burma Defense Army (with the peacock in red) and as a variant of the national flag by the State of Burma (with the peacock in gold). There are two songs with the same name, "" (meaning: "Tricolour Song"), composed by two different composers about the meaning behind the Tricolour symbolism and the hope of Burmese people.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: In these tricolours, the color yellow symbolizes the Sasana (Buddhism) and education, green represents staple grains, crops, minerals and jewelry, red signifies bravery or courage, and the peacock represents the Konbaung. The hammer and sickle represent workers and peasants, respectively.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: In 1945, when the Burma National Army changed sides and fought together with local resistance forces against the Japanese, a new flag, with a red field charged with a white star in the upper hoist, was adopted as the "Resistance Flag."


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The tricolours and the resistance flag have been depicted as "national flags" together with the pre-colonial and post-independence national flags. The resistance flag is referred and honoured by the 1948–1974 flag, while all the tricolours are referred and honoured by the current flag.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: In 1947, the Constituent Assembly of the Union of Burma formed a preparatory committee for State flag, State seal and State anthem. That committee held a flag design contest, and the flag designed by Maung Win won the first prize. There was a dispute at the committee's meeting in August 1947 whether or not the peacock should be added further to the proposed State flag; but after long discussions, the committee decided that the peacock should be rejected.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: A new design for the national flag was proposed on 10 November 2006 during a constitutional convention. The new flag would have consisted of three equally sized green, yellow, and red horizontal stripes, with a white star in the hoist end of the green stripe.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: In September 2007, another new design was proposed with a larger white star in the middle and with the stripes in a different order, namely: yellow, green, and red. The proposal was a version of Burmese Tricolour with the white star.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The flag proposed in September 2007 was included in the new constitution, and was accepted with the 2008 referendum.


title: Flag of Myanmar

text: The ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) proposed a series of constitutional amendments in July 2019, including one to change the national flag. Four political parties, the NLD, SNLD, ZCD and NUP proposed four new designs for the flag. The NLD proposed changing the national flag as they do not believe that the flag adopted in 2010 has the full support of the people of Myanmar. Their proposed flag was based on the flag adopted by the country at independence and consisted of a red field with a blue canton in the upper hoist. Within the blue canton is a large white star representing the union which is surrounded by 14 smaller white stars representing the states and regions of the country.


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: The GMA T.50 or Gordon Murray Automotive Type 50 is a sports car manufactured by Gordon Murray Automotive. Designed by Gordon Murray and inspired by the McLaren F1, the T.50 is powered by an all-new bespoke naturally aspirated V12 engine developed by Cosworth. The engine is rated at at 11,500 rpm with a max torque of at 9,000 rpm


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: The GMA T.50's main competitors are the Aston Martin Valkyrie and the Mercedes-AMG One. The T.50 achieves a kerb weight of , superseding the vast majority of vehicles in its class, with the naturally aspirated V12 weighing alone and the chassis being at least lighter than the McLaren F1. As a result, the T.50 features one of the highest power-to-weight ratios amongst its class at per tonne, while its engine attains a specific output of per litre.


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: A distinctive feature of the GMA T.50 is the 8.5 kW 40 cm aerodynamic fan integrated into the rear of the car, powered by a 48 volt electrical motor. Inspired by the Brabham BT46B Formula One car, it is purpose-built to significantly improve the ground effect of the T.50. As the T.50 makes use of very aggressive and steep angled rear diffusers, this in turn creates substantial turbulent or semi-stalled air passing over the diffuser when the T.50 has its fan inactive. By utilising the integrated aerodynamic fan, the T.50 can suck the air under the car at a 90-degree angle and provide a significant increase in overall downforce as it provides a laminar flow of air passing over the rear diffuser, thus, creating a greater level of suction in tandem with the Venturi effect, created underneath the car, ahead of the steep rear diffusers. This allows the T.50 to control the boundary layer and turbulent vortices underneath the car, significantly improving downforce. As a result of the T.50’s fan-assisted aerodynamic design, the need for any aerodynamic package on the front or rear of the T.50, such as a splitter, a wing or an aggressive aerodynamic design are considered ineffective in providing further downforce and are thus considered negligible, allowing a free form and flowing exterior design. The T.50 does make use of active aero spoilers however, that operate in conjunction with the aerodynamic fan. The active aero and fan functionality of the car is dependent on the driver selected mode which is provided in six presets made available in the cockpit of the car. The fan assisted aero design allows for a 30% increase in downforce when a 'high downforce' mode is selected, channeling air through aero ducts perpendicular to the airflow underneath the car, providing a high suction ground effect. Furthermore, under braking the T.50 provides 100% additional downforce by extending the active spoilers to a 45-degree angle of attack and utilising diffuser ducts. The T.50 can also achieve reductions in drag by selecting the specialised mode presets of 'streamline' and 'Vmax' modes, allowing for a 12.5% reduction in overall drag.


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: The car has been noted for its numerous similarities to the McLaren F1, produced between 1992 and 1998, which Gordon Murray conceptualised and co-designed. The T.50 has been described by Gordon Murray Automotive as being the "spiritual successor to the Murray-devised McLaren F1". The T.50 shares familiar features of the F1: a centralised driving position with two passenger seats flanking the driver, a six-speed manual gearbox, V12 powertrain, ticket passenger windows, dihedral wing doors as well as fan assisted ground-effect aerodynamics.


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: The T.50 addresses many of the design and engineering inadequacies of the 90’s supercar, many of those the result of period design practices and time and budget constraints enforced by McLaren. As recorded by Murray "the spine is 50 mm too wide, the headlamps are like glow worms in a jar, the air-con was hopeless, the brakes squeak, the clutch needs adjusting every 5,000 miles, the fuel tank bag replacing every five years, loading luggage in the lockers was a pain. This all stuck in my head".


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: GMA plans to build 100 customer cars at its Surrey production site. Each car cost £2.36 million before local taxes and all of the planned 100 road spec units were sold within 48 hours of its global premiere. As of August 2020 there are to be 13 GMA T.50 prototypes to pass crash, durability and emission regulations.


title: Gordon Murray Automotive T.50

text: There will be 25 racing variants of the car, designated as the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50S Niki Lauda, each with a price of £3.1 million (before taxes). It has reduced its weight by 134 kg giving the car a weight of 852 kg. Additions include a 1784mm wide delta wing on the rear, underbody aerofoil, new front splitter and adjustable diffusers which give the car 1500 kg of downforce. The engine has its power boosted to beyond 700PS, an aero fin is added which extends from the roof to the rear of the car and the underbody diffusor ducts are fully opened with the fan permanently running at 7000rpm.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: James Emory Foxx (October 22, 1907 – July 21, 1967), nicknamed "Double X" and "The Beast", was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Philadelphia Phillies. A tremendous power hitter, Foxx retired with the second most home runs, behind only Babe Ruth, and fifth-most runs batted in (RBI). His greatest seasons were with the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Sox where he hit a then-record 30 or more home runs in 12 consecutive seasons and drove in more than 100 runs in 13 consecutive years.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, Foxx became the ninth player to win a Triple Crown and set a then-record for most MVP awards with three. His 58 home runs hit in 1932 were third-most all-time in a season at the time, his 438 total bases collected that same season are fifth most all time, and he is one of only 7 batters to accumulate over 400 total bases in a season more than once. Foxx won two American League (AL) batting titles, led all of baseball in home runs four times, and batted over .300 in eleven full seasons. On September 24, 1940, Foxx became the second member of the 500 Home Run Club when he hit a sixth-inning home run off George Caster. For nearly 67 years, he held the record for the youngest major leaguer to reach 500 home runs. His 534 home runs are currently 19th all time, and his 1,922 RBI are tenth all time. With a career batting average of .325 and slugging percentage of .609, he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Foxx was born in rural Sudlersville on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on October 22, 1907, to tenant farmers Dell and Mattie Foxx. Dell Foxx had played baseball for a town team when he was younger. Jimmie Foxx did well in school but excelled in sports, particularly soccer, track, and baseball. He played all three sports at Sudlersville High School, and set the state record in both the 220 and 80 yard dash in 1923. So great were his athletic exploits he was regarded as "the most promising athletic prospect in the State of Maryland", and a scholarship to the University of Maryland was arranged – in track and field – should he wish to attend. In 1924, during his junior year of high school, he was signed by the minor league Class D level Easton Farmers, who were managed by former Philadelphia Athletics great and Hall of Fame member Frank "Home Run" Baker, for $100 () a month. As a result, Connie Mack, owner of the Philadelphia Athletics, of which the Easton Farmers were a part of, forbade Foxx from competing in other sports, to limit injury risk.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Foxx had hoped to pitch or play third base, but since the team was short on catchers, Foxx moved behind the plate, a position he had played in high school and on summer all-star teams. He immediately drew interest from the Philadelphia Athletics (A's) and New York Yankees. In July 1924, Mack purchased Foxx's contract from the Farmers for $2,000 (), and Foxx stated that he would finish out the season with Easton before joining the Athletics. He traveled to Philadelphia later in the 1924 season and sat in the dugout during games, and never appeared in one. Foxx left high school during his senior year, in 1925, and joined the Athletics for spring training in Fort Myers, Florida. As a result, he did not graduate, but he did receive a certificate which designated him an honorary member of the class.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: During spring training in 1925, Foxx split duties at catcher with Mickey Cochrane and Cy Perkins, and when the season started he played the role of third-string catcher. On May 1, 1925, in a game against the Washington Senators, he recorded his first career hit off Vean Gregg. In June, Mack optioned Foxx to the Providence Grays to accumulate time and practice hitting at a higher level instead of sitting on the bench in Shibe Park. In the next season, Foxx appeared in a few more games, mostly as a pinch hitter or a replacement catcher. In 1927, Foxx signed a contract for $3,000 (); however, because future Baseball Hall of Fame member Mickey Cochrane was still the primary catcher, he remained in a backup role, but had started to transition to first base. He recorded his first home run on May 31, 1927, against Urban Shocker of the New York Yankees, and finished the season batting .323 over 61 games.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: In 1929, installed as the A's regular first baseman, Foxx had a breakthrough year. On May 1, he recorded the first 5-hit game of his career as well as the first multi home run game of his career, one of three such games that season. By early July, he was batting over .400 until a slump later in the season caused his average to drop. He finished the year with 20 games where he collected 3 or more hits and finished with a .354 average with 33 home runs. During that year, Foxx appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine. A strong start to the 1930 season showed that Foxx was a hitter to be feared, and on May 30, he recorded the first six-hit game of his career, against the Senators. By the end of June, after hitting 11 home runs in both May and June, he had 22 on the season and was batting .360. A slow end to the season lowered his season numbers, however, he still hit over 30 home runs for the second time in his career and finished with a .335 batting average. The 1931 season was hampered by injuries and a sinus infection, marking his first season where he did not hit above .300. He still managed to hit 30 home runs, extending his streak to 3 straight seasons.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: The 1932 season would be Foxx's first truly outstanding year. In a sign of games to come, he recorded three hits and a home run during his first game, the first of 20 games where he would record three or more hits that season. By the end of May, he had recorded 17 home runs, 49 runs batted in, and had a batting average of .417, leading the American League in every major hitting category. On July 10, Foxx had his first 3 home run game, against the Cleveland Indians, he also collected 6 hits, including a double in an 18-inning game. Although a thumb and wrist injury in August slowed his pace, he still hit 7 home runs and batted .356 over the month. Foxx finished the season strong, hitting over .390 over the last month of the season and collected another 10 home runs, the fourth such month where he reached double digits in home runs hit. At the end of the season, he had amassed 151 runs scored, 213 hits, 58 home runs, 169 RBI, a .364 batting average, and 438 total bases; he led the AL in every major category except hits and batting average. The batting champion that year, Dale Alexander, hit .367 but played in only 124 games. By modern rules that would have disqualified Alexander, Foxx would have won the Triple Crown with a 15-point lead over the runner up, Lou Gehrig. Even though Foxx actually hit 60 home runs that year, two were hit in games that were rained out, erasing them from the official batting records, causing him to narrowly miss Babe Ruth's Major League record 60 home runs. In October, Foxx would receive 75 out of the maximum 80 possible MVP votes, giving him his first MVP award in his career.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: After an uncharacteristically slow start to the 1933 season that saw him hitting only .301 with 7 home runs by June 6, he started hitting home runs again, with his second three home run game against the New York Yankees. During the month of June, he hit 13 home runs, scored 37 runs, and batted over .380 in 31 games played. On August 14, he hit for the cycle and set a then-AL record 9 runs batted in. He would hit multiple home runs in seven games and collect four or more hits in five games. He finished the season leading the American league in home runs, RBI, and batting average, which secured him the ninth Triple Crown in MLB history. He also finished with 403 total bases, leading the American League and making him the third player in history to record 400 total bases in back-to-back seasons, with Lou Gehrig and Chuck Klein being the others. As a result of his phenomenal season, he was awarded his second MVP award at the end of the year.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: His 1934 season saw Foxx continue to terrorize American League pitchers. He finished the season with 44 home runs, 130 runs batted in and a .334 average. While his numbers were down compared to his previous two seasons, he still finished in the top 5 in several batting categories. This also marked the third straight season where he hit 40 or more home runs. At the end of the season, during an exhibition game in Winnipeg, he got hit by a pitch in the head and was knocked unconscious. After the incident, he suffered sinus problems for the rest of his career. In late 1934, Foxx, along with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Charlie Gehringer, among others, went on a tour of Japan and played 18 games against Japanese teams. The start of the 1935 season saw Foxx return to his original position at catcher because of the loss of Mickey Cochrane to the Detroit Tigers. After poor performance and a series of injuries to the other Athletic infielders, Connie Mack placed Foxx back at first base. Even after finishing the season leading the American League in home runs for the 3rd time and finishing in the top 10 in most batting categories, it was still not enough for the Athletics to finish above last place. Connie Mack sold Foxx to the Boston Red Sox along with Johnny Marcum for $150,000 (equivalent to approximately $ in dollars).


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: His first season with the Red Sox was another standout campaign as he led the team in every batting category except stolen bases. He finished in the top 10 in most offensive categories by the end of the season and hit over 40 home runs for the fourth time in his career. The following season was the first time where health problems had a large effect. He fell ill with the flu during spring training in 1937 and was admitted to the hospital with pain in his forehead and vision problems. He missed the first handful of games in the season before returning with the club. He still continued to hit home runs that would leave the ballpark, including one that left Fenway Park by the center field flagpole. Hall of Fame pitcher Lefty Gomez once joked about a home run hit off him, stating "I knew immediately what it was. That was a home-run ball hit off me in 1937 by Jimmie Foxx" in response to Apollo astronauts finding objects on the Moon. There is no record of Foxx hitting a home run off Gomez that season, but Foxx had hit 14 home runs off Gomez during his career.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: In 1938, Foxx put on an offensive showcase during the months of May, June, and September, recording at least 10 home runs and 30 RBI in each of those three months,


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: In 1939, health problems popped up again for Foxx. Early in the season, he sought treatment for pain caused by his presumed sinus problem on a road trip from Chicago to Washington. Later on in the season, he had an emergency appendectomy in Philadelphia which cut his season short. There were very few teammates that knew how serious his health problems were. One who did was Ted Williams, who he would talk to regularly. It was at this time that Foxx had begun to drink more heavily, although it was used as a self-medication for the chronic pain that he experienced in his later career. While his heavy drinking is well known, teammates, including Ted Williams, attest that he was never overtly drunk or violent and continued to act as a mentor to his younger teammates, including Dom DiMaggio. With all of the health problems and chronic pain that Foxx had experienced, he still had an outstanding offensive season, hitting an AL leading 35 home runs and batting over .360. He finished second in MVP voting behind Joe DiMaggio. His next two seasons saw a continued decline, but Foxx continued to play at near-MVP levels. He hit 36 home runs in 1940, which marked his 12th straight season where he hit 30 or more. He finished sixth in MVP balloting and he was an All Star in his final full season in 1941 where he hit .300 and drove in 105 batters over 135 games played. On September 24, 1940, he hit his 500th career home run against George Caster, becoming the second member of the 500 Home Run Club after Babe Ruth. He suffered a broken toe during spring training in 1942 and broke a rib during batting practice later in the season. In the twilight of his career, his contract was sold to the Chicago Cubs for $10,000 () in June.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: With the Cubs in 1942, he split time between first base and pinch hitting duties, and by the end of the season, it was clear that his career was in sharp decline. Over 100 games, he hit .226 and had only 8 home runs, by far the lowest totals of his career since his first full season in 1929. He sat out all of 1943 and returned as a pinch hitter in 1944, playing only 14 games. Foxx joined the Phillies in 1945 and was a two-way player. Between hitting and pitching, he hit 7 home runs over 89 games and compiled a 1–0 record and 1.59 earned run average (ERA) over 22 innings. He retired at the end of the season.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Foxx finished his 20-year career with 534 home runs, 1,922 runs batted in, 1,751 runs scored, 2,646 hits, 458 doubles, 125 triples, 1,452 bases on balls and a .325 batting average. His 12 consecutive seasons with 30 or more home runs was a major league record until it was broken by Barry Bonds in 2004. At the end of his career, his 534 home runs placed him second only to Ruth on the all-time list and first among right-handed hitters. He retained these positions until Willie Mays passed Foxx for second place in 1966. Foxx set the record for the youngest player to reach 500 home runs at age 32 years and 338 days in the final week of the 1940 Major League Baseball season. It held until August 4, 2007, when it was broken by Alex Rodriguez at age 32 years and 8 days. During the 1930s, no one hit more home runs than Foxx's 415 between the Athletics and Red Sox. Six years after retirement, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Foxx worked as a minor league manager and coach after his playing days ended, including managing the Fort Wayne Daisies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League for one season in 1952. He took the team to the playoffs where they lost in the first round 2 games to 1 against the Rockford Peaches. The character of Jimmy Dugan in the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own", played broadly by Tom Hanks, is loosely based on Foxx, though his players remember Foxx as having behaved significantly more gentlemanly to them, rather than the brusque manner Hanks showed his team. Foxx served as head coach for the University of Miami baseball team for two seasons, going 9–8 in 1956 and 11–12 in 1957, before being let go following the 1957 season.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: A series of bad investments left Foxx broke by 1958. The Red Sox responded by naming Foxx hitting coach of their Triple-A affiliate, the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association, that season. In the early 1960s, he lived in Galesburg, Illinois where he was working as a greeter at a locally owned steak house. He eventually retired to suburban Cleveland in Lakewood and was employed by the Lakewood Recreation Department. His two children, a daughter and a son, also lived in Lakewood. His son, Jimmie Foxx, Jr., played football at Lakewood High School and Kent State University.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Foxx died in 1967 at age 59 in Miami, Florida. He became ill while eating dinner with his brother and was taken to a hospital where resuscitative efforts failed. An autopsy showed that Foxx had choked on a piece of food. The year before, Foxx's second wife, Dorothy, had also died of choking. Foxx is buried at Flagler Memorial Park in Miami.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Known as one of the greatest power hitters of all time, Ted Williams was quoted as saying in response to a question about Foxx breaking Babe Ruth's home run record, "What a man. And I'll bet he does it, too!" However, long-standing chronic health problems, injuries, heavy drinking, and a marriage of constant abuse and harassment from his first wife all caused his career to be cut short in his 30s. During his time catching in 1940, Hall of Famer Joe Cronin said, "He's a marvel, isn't he? Tell me: who was a better all-around ball player than Foxxie? Why right now I'd say he was the best catcher in the American League…They can talk all they want to about some of those old time ball players being able to play different positions. I'll take Foxxie. They don't come any better."


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: A statue of Foxx was erected in his hometown of Sudlersville, Maryland, on October 25, 1997. In 1999, he ranked number 15 on "The Sporting News" list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.


title: Jimmie Foxx

text: Tom Hanks's character Jimmy Dugan in the movie "A League of Their Own" was largely based on Foxx and Hack Wilson, although the producers took a number of liberties in creating the role.


title: Infibulation

text: Infibulation is the ritual removal of the external female genitalia and the suturing of the vulva, a practice found mainly in northeastern Africa, particularly in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan. The World Health Organization refers to the procedure as Type III female genital mutilation. Infibulation can also refer to placing a clasp through the foreskin in men.


title: Infibulation

text: The World Health Organization refers to female infibulation as Type III female genital mutilation. Often called "pharaonic circumcision" in countries where it is practiced, it refers to the removal of the inner and outer labia and the suturing of the vulva. It is usually accompanied by the removal of the clitoral glans. The practice is concentrated in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan. During a 2014 survey in Sudan, over 80 percent of those who had experienced any form of FGM had been sewn closed.


title: Infibulation

text: The procedure leaves a wall of skin and flesh across the vagina and the rest of the pubic area. By inserting a twig or similar object before the wound heals, a small hole is created for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. The legs are bound together for two to four weeks to allow healing.


title: Infibulation

text: The vagina is usually penetrated at the time of a woman's marriage by her husband's penis, or by cutting the tissue with a knife. The vagina is opened further for childbirth and usually closed again afterwards, a process known as defibulation (or deinfibulation) and reinfibulation. Infibulation can cause chronic pain and infection, organ damage, prolonged micturition, urinary incontinence, inability to get pregnant, difficulty giving birth, obstetric fistula, and fatal bleeding.


title: Infibulation

text: Infibulation also referred to placing a clasp through the male foreskin. In ancient Greece, male athletes, singers and other public performers used a clasp or string to close the foreskin and draw the penis over to one side, a practice known as "kynodesmē" (literally "dog tie"). Many "kynodesmē" are depicted on vases, almost exclusively confined to symposiasts and komasts, who are as a general rule older (or at least mature) men. In Rome, a fibula was often a type of ring used similarly to a kynodesme.


title: Infibulation

text: "Kynodesmē" was seen as a sign of restraint and abstinence, but was also related to concerns of modesty; in artistic representations, it was regarded as obscene and offensive to show a long penis and the glans penis in particular. Tying up the penis with a string was a way of avoiding what was seen as the shameful and dishonorable spectacle of an exposed glans penis, something associated with those without repute, such as slaves and barbarians. It therefore conveyed the moral worth and modesty of the subject.


title: Indian national calendar

text: The Indian national calendar, sometimes called the Saka calendar, is a solar calendar that is used alongside the Gregorian calendar by "The Gazette of India", in news broadcasts by All India Radio, and in calendars and official communications issued by the Government of India. Shaka Samvat is generally 78 years behind of Gregorian Calendar, except during January to March, when it is behind by 79 years.


title: Indian national calendar

text: Originally through historical Indian influence, the Saka calendar is also used in Java and Bali among Indonesian Hindus. Nyepi, the "Day of Silence", is a celebration of the Saka new year in Bali. Nepal's Nepal Sambat evolved from the Saka calendar. The Saka calendar was also used in several areas in the modern-day Philippines as written in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription. In India, Yugabda is also used with corresponding months of Saka/Nepal Sambat. Yugabda is based on Kaliyuga Sankhya preserved by Indian Astrology. The "Kali Yuga" began years ago and has years left as of 2022 CE. "Kali Yuga" will end in the year 428,899 CE.


title: Indian national calendar

text: The calendar months follow the signs of the tropical zodiac rather than the sidereal zodiac normally used with the Hindu and Buddhist calendars.


title: Indian national calendar

text: Chaitra is the first month of the calendar and begins on the March equinox, similar to Farvardin, the first month of the Iranian Solar Hijri calendar. Chaitra has 30 days and starts on March 21, except in leap years, when it has 31 days and starts on March 22. The months in the first half of the year all have 31 days, to take into account the slower movement of the sun across the ecliptic at this time.


title: Indian national calendar

text: The names of the months are derived from the older Hindu lunisolar calendar, so variations in spellings exist, and there is a possible source of confusion as to what calendar a date belongs to.


title: Indian national calendar

text: The names of the weekdays are derived from the seven classical planets (see Navagraha). The first day of the week is Ravivara (Sunday). The official calendar reckoned by the government of India has Sunday as the first and Saturday as the last day of the week.


title: Indian national calendar

text: Years are counted in the Saka era, which starts its year 0 in the year 78 of the Christian Era/Common Era. To determine leap years, add 78 to the Saka year – if the result is a leap year in the Gregorian calendar, then the Saka year is a leap year as well.


title: Indian national calendar

text: The Kushana king Kanishka is believed to have created the calendar that came to be known as the Saka Calendar.


title: Indian national calendar

text: Senior Indian Astrophysicist Meghnad Saha was the head of the Calendar Reform Committee under the aegis of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Other members of the Committee were: A. C. Banerjee, K. L. Daftari, J. S. Karandikar, Gorakh Prasad, R. V. Vaidya and N. C. Lahiri. It was Saha's effort, which led to the formation of the Committee. The task before the Committee was to prepare an accurate calendar based on scientific study, which could be adopted uniformly throughout India. The Committee had to undertake a detailed study of thirty different calendars prevalent in different parts of the country. The task was further complicated by the integration of those calendars with religion and local sentiments. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in his preface to the Report of the Committee, published in 1955, wrote: "They (different calendars) represent past political divisions in the country ... . Now that we have attained Independence, it is obviously desirable that there should be a certain uniformity in the calendar for our civic, social, and other purposes, and this should be done on a scientific approach to this problem." Usage started officially at 1 Chaitra 1879, Saka Era, or 22 March 1957.


title: Indian national calendar

text: India has adopted pie Ephemeris Time in the Indian Ephemeris from 1960 onwards ' m pursuance of the resolution passed1 by the International Astronomical Union in 1955 to adopt the Ephemeris Time in all national ephemendes, m order to have uniformity with other nations in indicating the position of the


title: Indian national calendar

text: planets in the Epheirteris A statement is laid on the table giving technical reasonsThe Greenwich Mean Time, lately called Universal Time, had so long been the basic measure of time in terms of which the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets were calculated and shown in the Ephemera It has been observed for some years past that the rotation of the Earth, by which the Universal Time and in fact all mean solar times are determined,is not uniform, it has got a gradual retardation as well as fluctuations for various reasons, as a result of which the Universal Time does not increase uniformly ' As a uniformly increasing time-scale is the independent argument necessary in dynamical astronomy, it has been decided in accordance with a resolution of the International Astronomical Union held at Dublin in 1955 that the positions of the sun, moon and planets would be given in all the national ephemendes with effect from the issue of 1960, not in terms of the Universal Time but of Ephemeries Time defined by resolution of 1952 meeting of the International Astronomical Union This has been done in all the national ephemendes from the 1960 issue, and India have also adopted the same Due to the existence of the fluctuation factor in the rotation of the Earth and consequently in the expression of Ephemera Time, it is not possible to give a definite value of Ephemeris Time in Advance, it is possible only to estimate an approximate value by extrapolation The difference between the Ephemeris Time and the Greenwich Mean Time is now very small, the estimated value of the difference for 1960 is 35*0 seconds of time, so that at Oh-Om-Os G M.T the Ephemeris Time’s Oh-Om-35s


title: Agartala

text: Agartala () is the capital city of the Indian state of Tripura, and is one of the largest cities in northeast India. The city is governed by the Agartala Municipal Corporation. The city is the seat of the Government of Tripura. It is located on the banks of the Haora River, near the Bangladesh border, about east of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka and about 2,499 km (1,522 mi) from the national capital New Delhi. Agartala is being developed under the Smart Cities Mission, a flagship scheme of the Government of India. Agartala is India's third international internet gateway after the ones in Mumbai and Chennai.


title: Agartala

text: Agartala is a derivative of two words, namely "agar", a valuable perfume and incense tree of genus Aquilaria, and the suffix "tala", meaning "underneath," a reference to the density of agarwood trees in the region. The agar tree is historically referred to in the story of the King Raghu who tied up his elephant's feet to an agar tree on the banks of River Lauhitya.


title: Agartala

text: One of the earliest kings of Tripura was Patardan B.C. 1900, long before the Manikya Dynasty. According to folklore, Chitrarath, Drikpati, Dharmapha, Loknath Jivandharan were important kings during the time of B.C. in Agartala.


title: Agartala

text: In the past, Tripura served as the capital to several Hindu kingdoms. Although a timeline of the rulers has not been found, records reveal that the area has been ruled by as many as 179 Hindu rulers, starting from the mythological King Druhya to the last King of Tripura, Kirit Bikram Kishore Manikya. Tripura also came under Mughal rule. The state came under the governance of the British in 1808.


title: Agartala

text: Much later the ancient capital of the then princely state 'Swadhin Tripura' was at Rangamati (Udaipur, South Tripura) by the bank of the river Gomati. In 1760 it was shifted by the Maharaja Krishna Chandra Manikya Bahadur (r.1829–1849) of Manikya Dynasty to present old Agartala by the bank of the river Haora/Saidra and was named 'Haveli'. Due to frequent invasion of the Kukis and also to keep easy communication with the British Bengali, the Maharaja Krishna Chandra Manikya started the process of shifting the capital from Old Haveli to New Haveli (present Agartala) in 1849.


title: Agartala

text: During the British Raj, Agartala was the capital of the 'Hill Tippera' state; it became a municipality in 1874–75, and in 1901 had a population of 9,513. The princely state always remained as cake piece to the British and many other invaders. For example, when Arakhan soldiers attacked the old capital of the state the king of Tripura responded by defeating the entire troop.


title: Agartala

text: The Agartala Municipality was established during the reign of Maharaja Bir Chandra Manikya (1862–1896) within an area of having a population of only 875 by a royal proclamation in the last part of 1871. A.W.S. Power, the first British political agent for Tipperah was also appointed as the Chairman of the Agartala Municipality in 1872 who held office from 1872 to 1873. The municipality located at the crossing of latitude N 23 –50' and longitude E 91-17' covering 3 km area during that period.


title: Agartala

text: Bir Bikram Kishore Debbarman is called the founder of the planned city of Agartala. He had gone on a tour to the United Kingdom and was so impressed at the architecture that he started planning similar township in Agartala. During the 1940s the town was re-organised in a planned manner with new roads and a market building.


title: Agartala

text: The estimated population of Agartala was 5,22,603 in 2014 after the municipal expansion (189,327 in the 2001 census).


title: Agartala

text: From 1901 to 1971 the city did not experience notable progress in infrastructure development with only an 8 km of area but 1981 saw Agartala expanding and increasing its connectivity as well as businesses in various fields, the city area expanding to 58.84 km, greater Agartala is planned as of 2011 with an additional of 92 km. Agartala had a different type of history from the earlier times of the epic days as it was a princely state and was connected with Bangladesh. Though the East India Company had not arrived in the princely capital of the state but they always remained in a certain in capturing and ruling. The East India Company had set their base of North East India in the Assam province with Shillong as their capital.


title: Agartala

text: The Nobel laureate Indian (Bengali) poet Rabindranath Tagore or Robindronath Thakur visited the city multiple times and built a house that still exists. The historical book Rajmala contains incidents and historical stories of Agartala.


title: Agartala

text: Agartala is situated on a plain land along the Haora River, although the city also extends to the low-lying hills on its northern parts.


title: Agartala

text: Agartala has a monsoon influenced humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cwa") just short of being hot enough to qualify as a borderline tropical savanna ("Aw")/tropical monsoon ("Am") climate. Large amounts of rain fall all year except during the dry "winter" or "cool" season. The city experiences long, hot and wet summers, lasting from April to October. Average temperatures are around , fluctuating with rainfall. There is a short, mild winter from mid-November to early March, with mostly dry conditions and average temperatures around . The best time to visit is from September to February. Summers are long and extremely hot with much sunlight and warm days. Rain is very common in this season and the city can be found flooded. The Haora River flows through the city and remains flooded with water during the time of monsoon.


title: Agartala

text: As of the 2011 Indian Census, Agartala had a total population of 400,004, of which 200,132 were males and 199,872 were females. The population within the age range of 0 to 6 year is 35,034. The total number of literates in Agartala was 344,711, which constituted 86.18% of the population with male literacy of 87.53% and female literacy of 84.82%. The effective literacy rate of 7+ population of Agartala was 94.5%, of which male literacy rate was 96.2% and female literacy rate was 92.8%. The sex ratio of Agartala is 999 females per 1,000 males. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are 77,663 and 19,767 respectively.


title: Agartala

text: Bengali, the official state language, is the dominant language in Agartala spoken by 363,363 people, while English is also a popular language in the state; Kokborok is spoken by 16,200 people in the city. According to the 2011 census, 94.09% of the population is Hindu, 4.37% Muslim, 0.99% Christian, and 0.28% Buddhist. The remainder of the population includes Sikhs, Jains, and other religions; 0.27%.


title: Agartala

text: The city mainly consists of Bengalis and Tripuris. Bengali is widely spoken in the city as a result of the erstwhile regal patronage and high influx of Bengalis from Comilla, Sylhet, Noakhali, and Chittagong districts of Bangladesh. Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja are celebrated with great grandeur and ecstatic enthusiasm, which reflect the influence of the culture of the Bengalis. Hence, nearly every festivity attracts participation from citizens of diverse backgrounds.


title: Agartala

text: There is also a growing population of Tripuri people in the city. Among the native Tripuri festivals, the most famous are Kharchi, Garia and Ker festivals and Tring, the Tripuri New year celebrations. The major areas where the Tripuri live are in the localities of Abhoynagar, Banamalipur, Krishnanagar, Nandannagar and Kunjaban areas who have started to mass migrate to Agartala from other parts of Tripura.


title: Agartala

text: Agartala has emerged as one of the fastest-growing cities in the northeastern region of India today. The city area under the AMC has seen a consistent expansion in recent times with conglomeration of various industries and businesses shaping up. Poverty and literacy still remains a challenge for the governing bodies.


title: Agartala

text: Agartala city consists of many "paras", which means "locality" in Bengali. Each collection of neighbourhoods or "para" is usually also a municipal ward or division. There are 49 wards under the municipal corporation jurisdiction.


title: Agartala

text: Banamalipur is an important business centre and a part of urban Agartala, which falls under the Agartala post office. Dhaleswar is a locality in the state close to Banamalipur, under the east police station and Dhaleswar Post Office.


title: Agartala

text: Pratapgar, Math Chowmuhani, Kashari Patti, and Ker Chowmuhani are some important places in the city. One of the largest banyan trees is located in Ker Chowmuhani. Under that tree lies the Shiv-Kali temple of Ker Chowmuhani. This is one of the most peaceful temples in Agartala. In local language "Chowmuhani" is an intersection of three or four roads, i.e., a place where a couple of roads are linked up across a particular point; in pure Bengali "Chowmuhani" is called "more".


title: Agartala

text: Kaman Chowmuhani is the most important place and a part of the heart of the city. The name Kaman Chowmuhani is derived from the Bengali word "Kaman" meaning "Cannon" in English. It so happened when the king of Tripura Dhanya Manikya defeated the soldiers of Husain Shah in battle and forfeited their cannon which was later set up in this place from where its name is derived. The place along with its object is a unique icon of Agartala.


title: Agartala

text: Krishnanagar is one of the most densely populated parts of the city. It encompasses the most visited temples of Agartala like Jagannnatha temple, Laxminarayana temple, Durgabari temple and Alpkhbaba temple. Radha Nagar has a bus stand and it connects buses and other vehicles to the northern part of the state.


title: Agartala

text: Shibnagar is another locality which connects the city to Maharaja Bir Bikram College, the oldest college of the state whereas Ramnagar is the most dense locality in Tripura. The rectangular gridiron network of Ramnagar dates from the eras of the Rajas, one of the earliest planned neighbourhood in the city. There are 12 divisions in this area and many clubs which organise Durga puja. Joynagar is another a locality in Agartala which has six lanes. There are four clubs which organise Durga puja. The closest landmark of Joynager is Battala market, one of the important business hubs in the state.


title: Agartala

text: Abhoynagar and Arundhutinagar are two residential areas around the city and are densely populated, (Arundhutinagar) being located 5 km away from the city centre confining the railway station of the capital city.


title: Agartala

text: Gol Bazar (Maharajganj bazar) is the most important business hub as well as the largest market in the state of Tripura. Products are exported to many Indian cities from this zone. The market was established by the king of Tripura before India's independence.


title: Agartala

text: Gurkha Basti is one of the biggest slum areas in the city, a recent campaign has been launched by the state government to make the city slum free and hence relocation of its residents is underway. Kunjaban is a census town in west Tripura district, which mainly includes government buildings and localities. The secretariat and the seat of the state government is located in this area. New Capital Complex is located in Kunjaban and is a planned and modern area. The Secretariat and the State Assembly along with the new Governor House is located here.


title: Agartala

text: College Tilla consists of the historic Maharaja Bir Bikram College which was set up by Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya in 1947. It is surrounded by some localities and quarter complexes of many government employees.


title: Agartala

text: 79 Tilla is another important part of Agartala with major offices such as the BSNL Office, electric office, Geological Survey office and Quarters, and the AG Quarters. It is located 2.5 km approx from the heart of the city.


title: Agartala

text: GB Bazar is another important market of this state which is located 2 km from the heart of the city. The Agartala Government Medical College is located here.


title: Agartala

text: Amtali, Badhar Ghat, College Tilla, Jagaharimura, Lake Chowmuhani, Advisor Chowmuhani, Ganaraj Chowmuhani, Durjoynagar, Bardowali are some important places in the city.


title: Agartala

text: Battala is the commercial area of the city, it is often called Bottala in Bengali and is also known as the electronics market of Agartala. Products are imported from surrounding countries and the cheapest variety of cloths and accessories are found. Battala also has a strong food market and is the second biggest market in Tripura after Gol Bazar.


title: Agartala

text: Melarmath is one of the most important parts of the city and also the electronic business hub centre; the city center market as well as other prominent structures are located here. Melarmath Kali Bari temple is one of the widely known temples of Agartala.


title: Agartala

text: These areas are subdivided into residential blocks, such as Banamalipur which is divided into North Banamalipur, Madhya Banamlipur, South Banamalipur, etc.