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CSS Pontchartrain

Gunboat of the Confederate States Navy

CSS Pontchartrain was a gunboat that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Built in 1859 for passenger and cotton trade, she was purchased by the Confederates in October 1862. After seeing action against Union land positions during the campaigns for New Madrid, Missouri, and Island Number Ten, she was transferred to serve on the Arkansas River and the White River. In June 1862, two of her cannons were taken to a land fortification at St. Charles, Arkansas, where part of her crew saw action in the Battle of St. Charles while manning the guns. Her other cannons were then offloaded at Fort Hindman, where more of her crew were captured while fighting on land at the Battle of Arkansas Post in January 1863. Pontchartrain herself remained inactive at Little Rock, Arkansas, and was burned to prevent capture in September 1863 when the Confederates evacuated the city. ## Construction and characteristics In 1859, the side-wheel steamer Lizzie Simmons, which was also known as Eliza Simmons, was constructed at New Albany, Indiana. She was named after the wife of a planter in Louisiana and was intended to work in both the passenger trade and the cotton trade. In 1860, the ship ran on the route between New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Ouachita River before then moving to the route between New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee. While on the New Orleans to Ouachita route, her ship's captain was George Hamilton Kirk; on the second route it was W. B. Richardson. She had a tonnage of 454 tons, a length of 204 feet (62 m), a beam of 36 feet 6 inches (11.13 m), and a draft of 10 feet (3.0 m). The vessel did not have a mast and was powered by two side-wheels. Her sister ship would become CSS Maurepas, having previously been known as Grosse Tete. ## Service history ### New Madrid and Island Number Ten After the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Confederate States Navy purchased a number of vessels for military use. One of these was Lizzie Simmons, which was purchased on October 12, 1861, while at New Orleans. During January and February 1862, the vessel went through the process of conversion into a gunboat. The Confederates armed her with seven cannons, including an 8-inch (20 cm) smoothbore of a model similar to the Paixhans gun and two 32-pounder (14.5 kilogram) rifled guns. Renamed to Pontchartrain, she was commissioned into Confederate service in March and placed under the command of First Lieutenant John W. Dunnington, who had previously served on the gunboats CSS McRae and CSS Tuscarora. After her commissioning, she was sent up the Mississippi River to support the Confederate defenses at Columbus, Kentucky. On March 6, Union troops occupied Point Pleasant, Missouri, in an attempt to cut off the Confederate defenders of New Madrid, Missouri. Pontchartrain and the gunboat CSS General Polk were sent to investigate the movement. After coming too close to shore, Pontchartrain came under musket fire, which killed or wounded several aboard. The two Confederate vessels fired on the Union position and made several more sorties over the next three days, but were not able to dislodge the Union forces. A week later, Union troops made a demonstration against the Confederate defenses of New Madrid and Pontchartrain joined Confederate land fortifications in firing on the Union troops. The Confederates decided to abandon New Madrid. That night, Pontchartrain, along with McRae, the gunboat CSS Ivy, and several transports, took Confederate troops, supplies, and weapons from one of the forts guarding New Madrid downriver to Tiptonville, Tennessee, past the Union position at Point Pleasant. Pontchartrain was tasked with transporting artillery ammunition and troops during the withdrawal. With Confederate forces still holding out on Island Number Ten, Union forces established an artillery position across the Mississippi River from Tiptonville, with hopes of cutting the only supply line to Island Number Ten. On March 18, the Union artillery at the new position opened fired on some Confederate transports. Pontchartrain, Maurepas, General Polk, and McRae were sent downriver. During the exchange, Maurepas and General Polk were damaged, and the Confederate vessels withdrew downstream. While the Union guns temporarily withdrew, they later returned and along with the position at Point Pleasant made riverine supply to Island Number Ten difficult. In early April, two Union ironclads ran downriver past Island Number Ten, cutting off the Confederate garrison, which attempted to withdraw but was caught and forced to surrender. ### Arkansas The Confederate vessels withdrew to Fort Pillow, and after learning of Union vessels in the area, sortied against them, only to quickly withdraw upon learning that the Union flotilla was both strong and prepared. Afterwards, Pontchartrain and Maurepas were transferred to serve on the Arkansas River and the White River. The two 32-pounder rifled guns were sent from Pontchartrain to St. Charles, Arkansas, on June 8, to be emplaced in a fortification there on the White River. According to historian Ed Bearss, Pontchartrain had been sent up the Arkansas River to Little Rock, so the guns had to be shipped by both rail and water to get them to St. Charles. Naval historian Neil Chatelain states that Pontchartrain first traveled up the White River, offloaded the cannon at St. Charles, and then traveled up the Arkansas River to Little Rock. Dunnington and some of his men stayed to St. Charles to man the guns, and were present on June 17 when Union troops overran the position in the Battle of St. Charles, although Dunnington and his men were able to escape capture. Dunnington marched the remaining sailors overland to return to Pontchartrain, which they then took down the Arkansas River to Fort Hindman. The ship's heavy guns were offloaded, and 35 sailors remained behind to man them, along with Dunnington. Pontchartrain then returned upriver to Little Rock, where the Confederates began the process of converting her into a naval ram and started arming her with wood and iron. Dunnington and his men were captured in mid-January 1863 in the Battle of Arkansas Post. Pontchartrain remained inactive into the summer. The only Confederate warship remaining in Arkansas, Pontchartrain was an item of concern for Union naval forces. In February, a strike up the Arkansas River to destroy the gunboat was proposed, but never occurred. Rumors spread in April that Pontchartrain was preparing to attack, but this did not occur either. Historian Mark K. Christ suggests that both movements did not occur because of low river levels. In September, as Union forces were about to capture Little Rock, the Confederates burned Pontchartrain. Christ states that she was burned on September 10, while naval historian W. Craig Gaines states that the burning occurred on September 9. A commemorative marker has been erected where the ship was burned.

Further Sky

Extended play by Basement

Further Sky is an EP by English rock band Basement. The band went on hiatus in July 2012, prior to the release of their second album Colourmeinkindness in October 2012. They began practicing again around Christmas 2013, composing the song "Jet". Whilst guitarist Alex Henery was in the United States, the rest of the band wrote another song, "Summer's Colour". In late January 2014, they announced the end of their musical hiatus. Along with a cover of the Suede song "Animal Nitrate", the group recorded the aforementioned original songs in early 2014. Recording was done in secret at Livingston Studio 1 in London, with producer Dan Goudie. On 28 July 2014, the Further Sky EP was released through Run for Cover Records, and was available for streaming three days prior. Categorized as an alternative rock EP, it was met with a positive reception, with several of the music critics complimenting the change in sound and praising Andrew Fisher's vocals. Following this, the band toured Australia, Japan, America and the United Kingdom, which included playing as a support act for Brand New. ## Background Before the release of their second album Colourmeinkindness (2012), Basement announced a hiatus due to personal commitments. In 2014, guitarist Alex Henery revealed it was because vocalist Andrew Fisher wishing to become a certified teacher which required him to return to school for a period of a year and a half. Drummer James Fisher, Fisher's younger brother, was graduating from art school, and the rest of the members were working on their respective careers. Henery, meanwhile, was working as a videographer in Boston, Massachusetts for the record label Run for Cover Records. In late January 2014, the group announced that they would be returning from their hiatus and would perform shows during the summer. The band thought the hiatus would be lengthy while they focused on their professional lives, but were "glad that this is not the case". ## Composition and recording Basement practiced together when Henery was at home for Christmas in 2013. The practice was initially "just [...] for fun". Although the band had ideas, composing material was accidental according to Henery. A rough outline of "Jet" was a result of this practice session. Content with the song, the band recorded the rough outline of it with an iPhone. While Henery was residing in the US, the rest of the band had composed "Summer's Colour" in the UK. The other song on the EP is a cover of Suede's 1993 song "Animal Nitrate". The EP's sound has been described as alternative rock, and rock, with influences from shoegaze and Britpop. Henery considered the material "slightly more melodic" combined with "a stronger pop sensibility", but not far from Colourmeinkindness. Further Sky was recorded in three days, over the course of one weekend, in early 2014. Henery flew to the UK for the recording. Run for Cover told the band they could record wherever they wished. Recording took place in London at Livingston Studio 1. The band called it "an incredible experience" tracking at "such a prestigious" studio. The group was working with Dan Goudie, and, although they had not met him previously, they worked well together. Basement kept the recording secret. Henery called the whole process stress-free and enjoyable. Sam Pura mixed the tracks, while Piper Payne mastered them. ## Release On 16 June 2014, Further Sky was announced as the band's next project to be released and the track "Summer's Colour" was made available for streaming. On 7 July, the group released a video of themselves recording the EP. On 25 July, Further Sky was made available for streaming and was released three days later through Run for Cover Records. All of the songs were later included as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition of Colourmeinkindness. Basement toured between 26 July and 20 August in Australia, Japan, and sold out American venues. The latter then played a trio of shows in London, Leeds and Manchester in the UK in late October with Cloakroom and Newmoon as the opening act. In May 2015, the band performed at the Groezrock festival. In July and August, the band toured the US alongside Better Off, Whirr, and LVL UP. In September, the group supported Brand New on their tour of the UK. ## Reception Further Sky was met with received positive reviews music critics. AbsolutePunk staff member Aj LaGambina considered the release "easily digestible" and praised its "cohesiveness". He thought the songs were composed well, despite the short recording time-frame. LaGambina described the production as "well balanced" and praised Fisher's vocals as "com[ing] a very long way" from the band's first album, I Wish I Could Stay Here (2011). The only criticism the reviewer appointed to the EP was the percussion which sounded "a bit cymbal heavy." Alternative Press contributor Brian Kraus wrote that the band stuck with the alternative rock sound that they had used on Colourmekindness for this EP. He described Fisher's vocals as "stretch[ing] across the canvas", and not too dissimilar to those of the members of Swervedriver. Kraus considered "Animal Nitrate" the "most sprawling song" of the set. Zachary Houle of PopMatters thought the EP was "bright and punchy, and really anthemic" with "not a bad track in the bunch." Punknews.org reviewer RENALDO69 noted that the "heavy tones" of the band's previous work "are highly absent" on the EP but that it still contained the "same contemplative feel and introspective touches" that made the band lovable. He summarised the release as "upbeat", dropping the "complex melodies of old and gone" for material that is "more minimal, yet effective." After two plays, he thought it was reminiscent of Citizen and Sainthood Reps. Sputnikmusic staff member Dan H. called the change in sound to alternative rock as "suit[ing] the band well", noting that Fisher had "adopted a surprisingly approachable tone" with "a softer, more pronounced (vocal) delivery." ## Track listing All music written by Basement, except where noted. 1. "Summer's Colour" – 3:35 2. "Jet" – 3:26 3. "Animal Nitrate" (Brett Anderson, Bernard Butler) – 4:00 ## Personnel Personnel per sleeve. Basement - Ronan Crix – guitar - Andrew Fisher – vocals - James Fisher – drums - Alex Henery – guitar - Duncan Stewart – bass Production - Dan Goudie – producer - Sam Pura – mixing - Piper Payne – mastering

U.S. Route 95 in Arizona

Section of United States Numbered Highway in Arizona

U.S. Route 95 (US 95) is a major U.S. Highway in the American state of Arizona. Starting at the Mexican border in San Luis, US 95 acts as the main highway north through Gadsden, Somerton and Yuma before arriving in Quartzsite. Between Quartzsite and the California border on the Colorado River in Ehrenberg, US 95 runs entirely concurrent with I-10. Part of US 95 between San Luis and Yuma is maintained by local governments instead of the Arizona Department of Transportation, which maintains the remainder of the route. US 95 is one of Arizona's younger U.S. Highways, having been established in the state on June 27, 1960. In earlier years, the Arizona section of US 95 was a southern extension of Arizona State Route 95. The route between Quartzsite and San Luis was also the first segment of SR 95 to be commissioned by the Arizona State Highway Department. US 95 used to have major junctions with US 80 in Yuma and US 60/US 70 in Quartzsite, until all three routes were removed from southwestern Arizona between 1969 and 1982. ## Route description U.S. Route 95 (US 95) begins at the United States Customs and Immigration checkpoint station on the Mexican border in San Luis, Arizona. From there, the route proceeds north to Urtuzuastegui Street, where it becomes a one-way pair around downtown San Luis. US 95 northbound takes Urtuzuastegui Street to William Brooks Avenue to D Street to Main Street, while southbound US 95 takes Archibald Street from Main Street to Urtuzuastegui Street. The original alignment through the downtown district of San Luis, Main Street, is now maintained by the city of San Luis. On the north end of downtown, Cesar Chavez Boulevard provides direct access to Arizona State Route 195 (SR 195). Continuing north from San Luis, US 95 enters the rural landscape of southwestern Yuma County. The highway goes almost perfectly straight north, paralleling the Colorado River and international border to Gadsden. Through Gadsden, US 95 is called Main Street. Immediately north of Gadsden, US 95 curves east, then north a second time, curving east again at the Horn Lateral Irrigation Canal. US 95 becomes Main Street again as it passes through Somerton. On the east side of Somerton, US 95 angles to the northeast for short distance, before turning straight north at County 15th Street. Entering Yuma, US 95 becomes South Avenue B and continues to a junction with West 16th Street, where it heads east. At 4th Avenue, US 95 intersects with the Interstate 8 Business Loop (I-8 Business) at a signaled intersection. I-8 Business acts as both the main street through Yuma and a section of Historic US 80. East of I-8 Business, US 95 crosses over the Union Pacific Railroad on an overpass before arriving at a diamond interchange with Interstate 8 (I-8). US 95 continues east of the interchange to Araby Road, where state maintenance of the route takes over. After passing the main campus of Arizona Western College, US 95 curves north through Blaisdell and exits the Yuma metropolitan area. Near Dome, US 95 intersects with an early alignment of the old main highway between Yuma and Phoenix, before crossing the Gila River over a bridge. To the west of the Gila River bridge lies the abandoned McPhaul Suspension Bridge, which once carried US 95 over the Gila River until it was replaced in 1968 by the current US 95 bridge and routing. US 95 continues north through the Yuma Proving Ground, passing the access road for the Laguna Dam, the Laguna Army Airfield, and the General Motors Desert Proving Ground. US 95 straddles the line between Yuma County and La Paz County through some small mountains, passing a United States Border Patrol checkpoint before permanently entering La Paz County and La Paz Valley. Entering Quartzsite, US 95 becomes Central Boulevard and passes under I-10, arriving at a signaled intersection with I-10 Bus. and the southern terminus of SR 95 at Main Street. SR 95 continues north on Central Boulevard to Lake Havasu City which is home to the London Bridge, while US 95 heads left onto Main Street. At I-10 Exit 17, US 95 joins the interstate and runs concurrent with I-10 west out of Quartzsite. US 95 runs entirely concurrent with I-10 past Exit 11 at Dome Rock Road, Exit 5 at Morgantown and a weigh station before entering Ehrenberg. After passing Exit 1 for the Ehrenberg–Parker Highway, both US 95 and I-10 continue across the Colorado River bridge into Blythe, California. ## History U.S. Route 95 was a late addition to Arizona's U.S. Highway system, having been extended into the state around 1960 during the dawn of the Interstate Highway System. Though it is a short section of highway, only traveling between Ehrenberg and San Luis at the Mexico–United States border, it also serves as the main north–south highway to the cities of Yuma, San Luis, and Quartzsite. The history of US 95 in Arizona dates back to 1936, when it was first established as Arizona State Route 95 and to a network of territorial era wagon roads. ### Background The history of U.S. Route 95 in Arizona dates back to a network of primitive wagon roads between Quartzsite and San Luis. By 1925, the wagon road between San Luis and Yuma had become a fully paved county road with a gravel road connecting the paved road in Yuma to Araby. A graded dirt county road had also been constructed over some of the old wagon roads between Dome and Quartzsite. In 1928, the Arizona State Highway Department contracted the Levy Construction Company of Denver, Colorado to construct a new suspension bridge across the Gila River on the county road between Dome and Quartzsite. Construction began the same year and was completed in 1929. The new McPhaul Suspension Bridge not only carried the county road over the river but replaced the older more destruction prone Antelope Hill Highway Bridge upstream. The Antelope Hill Bridge was constantly destroyed by Gila River flooding and had to be reconstructed every time a major flood occurred. This made the county road and the McPhaul Bridge the primary north to south crossing of the Gila River in Yuma County. By 1935, the county road from Dome to Quartzsite was still unpaved. The road between Dome and Araby had more historical significance, once being a section of the Gila Trail and later Cooke's Wagon Road. This was a route extensively used by Native Americans, Spanish missionaries, United States Army personnel during the Mexican–American War, and prospectors heading to California during the 1848 gold rush. It was this same section between Araby and Dome that was first maintained by the Arizona government during the territorial days as part of the East–West Territorial Road. Following statehood, the old territorial road had become part of the new Borderland Highway. This new highway was one of Arizona's first state highways. After the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921, the western section of the Borderland Highway was renamed the Yuma–Phoenix Highway. On November 11, 1926, the Phoenix–Yuma Highway became part of the U.S. Highway System. Thus, U.S. Route 80 became the first U.S. Highway designation over what is now Arizona's section of US 95. However, the time period in which the highway from Araby to Dome was designated as US 80 was short lived. In 1928, US 80 was moved onto a shorter newly constructed alignment through Telegraph Pass. As such, Araby to Dome highway reverted to a county road. The road between Ehrenberg and Quartzsite, also previously served by unmaintained wagon roads, became a graded dirt county road by 1925. On September 9, 1927, this county road became part of the newly designated Arizona State Route 74 (SR 74). On June 8, 1931, SR 74 was replaced by US 60, when the latter highway was extended through Arizona to Los Angeles, California. What had started out as a simple county road between the Colorado River and Quartzsite was now the main highway from Los Angeles to Phoenix. ### Establishment of Route 95 On May 26, 1936, the paved county road through San Luis and Somerton to US 80 in Yuma was taken over by the Arizona State Highway Department and designated as State Route 95 (SR 95). On June 20, 1938, the county roads between US 80 in Yuma and Quartzsite became part of a northern extension of SR 95 to SR 72 in Bouse. Now a fully maintained state route, SR 95 was one of several highways funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects during the Great Depression. More specifically, the section of SR 95 between Yuma and Somerton was the part of the highway improved by the WPA. In 1938, the highway between San Luis and Yuma was widened, while the highway between Yuma and Quartzsite was heavily rebuilt and realigned. By 1939, all the unpaved sections of SR 95 had been surfaced with gravel and oiled down. In July 1939, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to pave SR 95 between US 80 and the McPhaul Bridge. The state followed up with the county resolution by putting out construction bids to pave this section of the highway. The contract was awarded to the Lewis Brothers of Phoenix on December 15 at a price of \$68,898. The paving project was completed between the McPhaul Bridge and Yuma in 1940. The pavement had been extended northward from the McPhaul Bridge to the Yuma Proving Grounds by 1942. During the rest of World War II, no further improvements were made to SR 95 and the highway remained unaltered by war's end in 1946. Improvement of SR 95 re-commenced on July 29, 1949, when a contract was awarded to two separate private contractors repave part of the highway 35 miles (56 km) north of Yuma. On January 18, 1951, SR 95 was re-routed away from an older routing from US 80 down 10th Street over the Southern Pacific Railroad down a route with many twists and turns to a new alignment from US 80 along 16th Street south of downtown to an intersection with the old alignment. At the time, 16th Street served the old Panther Field airport and the Silver Spur Rodeo Grounds. The new alignment was built by the Johnson Construction Company of Tucson at a cost of \$88,168. The older route was handed over to Yuma County. Also by 1951, the remainder of SR 95 between the Yuma Proving Grounds and Quartzite had been fully paved. Due to the very indirect route of SR 95 west of US 80, Yuma County constructed and paved an extension of 16th Street between US 80 and SR 95. The 16th Street extension and shortcut opened on July 8, 1953. On June 27, 1960, U.S. Route 95 was extended into Arizona from Blythe, California to Quartzsite, Arizona via US 60/US 70 through Ehrenberg. US 95 then replaced all of SR 95 between Quartzsite and San Luis. The US 95 extension had been requested by both California and Arizona earlier that year and approved by the American Association of State Highway Officials. On April 21, 1965, US 95 was re-routed on the west side of Yuma between Avenue B and US 80 from its older alignment to a straighter alignment down the western segment of 16th Street. Before 1965, US 95 (and earlier SR 95) had gone a few blocks further north on Avenue B to 1st Street, where it turned south sharing a wrong way concurrency with US 80 down 4th Avenue to 16th Street. In 1968, the McPhaul Bridge was replaced by a newer replacement bridge. Rather than be abandoned to the county, the approaches to the bridge and bridge itself were completely abandoned. Despite the fact it no longer carries traffic, the McPhaul Bridge is still standing today. On August 13, 1981, the historic suspension bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places. ### Later changes On February 13, 1969, the US 70 designation was removed from the highway between Ehrenberg and Quartzsite and truncated to Globe. This left US 60 and US 95 the only remaining U.S. Highways on the route. By 1971, US 60 and US 95 between Quartzsite and Ehrenberg had been rebuilt into a freeway and was now also signed as Interstate 10, save for a small section beginning at the east end of Ehrenberg and traveling over the Colorado River and the main street through Quartzsite. On May 24, 1974, US 60 through Quartzsite, including the western section concurrent with US 95, was designated I-10 Business. Between 1977 and 1978, US 80 had been truncated further east to Benson with I-8 Business taking its place as the major highway junction with US 95 in Yuma. In 1982, US 60 was truncated to Brenda and the designation removed from the I-10/US 95 overlap. On November 16, 1984, the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) took ownership of several city streets in San Luis and established the US 95 Truck route between the San Luis border crossing and US 95 at the southern end of downtown San Luis. Following the interstate construction, there were no major changes to US 95 until the early 21st Century. Most of US 95 from the north end of downtown San Luis to Araby Road east of Yuma was given up by ADOT in stages. On February 20, 2009, maintenance and ownership of US 95 through Somerton was handed over to the town itself. This was followed by the transfer of US 95 to the city of San Luis from G Street and Juan Sanchez Boulevard to County 22nd Street on March 19, 2010. On July 16, 2010, ADOT gave up ownership of US 95 from 32nd Street to Araby Road to the city of Yuma. Lastly on November 19, 2010, whatever sections of US 95 were still owned by ADOT between Yuma and downtown San Luis were transferred to different local jurisdictions depending on the location of each section. Despite the fact ADOT no longer owns US 95 between Yuma and San Luis, the designation is still recognized along the abandoned route. Today, ADOT maintains a different state highway between Araby Road and San Luis, known as State Route 195. In 2015, US 95 Truck in San Luis was retired from the State Highway System, after US 95 was re-routed through downtown. Between D Street and Urtuzuastegu Street, US 95 was removed from Main Street. Northbound US 95 was re-routed down 1st Avenue and D Street (former US 95 Truck) while southbound US 95 was re-routed down Archibald Street and Urtuzuastegu Street. As of December 31, 2020, the most recent ADOT State Highway System Log no longer lists any section of US 95 between I-8 and San Luis within the state highway inventory, suggesting all of US 95's southernmost section is now locally owned and maintained. ## Major intersections ## See also

California State Route 88

Highway in California

State Route 88 (SR 88), also known as the Carson Pass Highway, is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. It travels in an east–west direction from Stockton, in the San Joaquin Valley, to the Nevada state line, where it becomes Nevada State Route 88, eventually terminating at U.S. Route 395 (US 395). The highway is so named as it crests the Sierra Nevada at Carson Pass. The highway corridor predates the era of the automobile; the path over Carson pass was previously used for the California Trail and the Mormon Emigrant Trail. The mountainous portion of the route is included in the State Scenic Highway System. SR 88 is one of the few trans-Sierra state routes that Caltrans attempts to keep open year-round. Caltrans has winter closures in effect for all Sierra Nevada highway passes between Carson Pass and Walker Pass (SR 178), a span of over 200 miles (320 km). SR 88 follows a ridge to ascend most of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. The highway is occasionally used as a detour when U.S. Route 50, which follows the South Fork American River to ascend the Sierra Nevada, is flooded or otherwise closed. ## Route description SR 88 begins just outside Stockton as Waterloo Road, heading northeast towards Waterloo and Lockeford. After leaving the city, the route passes by several farms, vineyards and orchards, some of which have roadside stands and stores, in between the small towns in the San Joaquin Valley served by the route. While passing through farming villages in the valley, the highway has a brief concurrency with SR 12. The two routes separate to pass along opposite sides of the Camanche Reservoir, where SR 88 enters Amador County. As the road enters Amador County, the route begins an ascent up the foothills of the Sierra Nevada towards Jackson. Between Sunnybrook and Martell, the road runs adjacent the corridor of the Amador Central Railroad, an abandoned freight rail line, purchased and operated by the Amador County Historical Society and other heritage railway enthusiasts who sponsor occasional train rides along the route. The route enters Jackson, the largest town traversed in the Sierra foothills by the highway. The highway runs concurrent with SR 49 through the town. Many locations along SR 49, including Jackson, originated as settlements during the California Gold Rush of 1849, and have a rich gold mining history. Both routes 49 and 88 have been re-routed around the historic part of downtown and onto a four-lane road to the west of the historic district. SR 88 separates from SR 49 and leaves Jackson following Jackson Creek to climb to the small town of Pine Grove. Along this ascent the road passes to the south of the Jackson Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians and SR 88 is used as an access road for both the tribal nation and the Jackson Rancheria Casino Resort operated by the tribe. To scale the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, East of Pine Grove Highway 88 follows a ridge that separates the watershed of the North Fork Mokelumne River to the south of the highway, with a number of other watersheds to the north. At lower elevations the watershed to the north of this ridge is initially Sutter Creek, later the South Fork Cosumnes River, and later still that of the Middle Fork Cosmunes River. At the highest elevations the watershed to the north of the road and the ridge is the Silver Fork American River. Several overlooks are located at spots where SR 88 follows this ridge which provide views into the canyons of each of these rivers. For several miles this ridge, and by extension SR 88, form the boundary between Amador and El Dorado County. In the lower parts of this ridge are the settlements of Pioneer and Buckhorn. Two small settlements are located in the higher elevations of this ridge, Cooks Station, and Ham's Station. Both of these are today known as locations where Caltrans implements traveling restrictions during winter storms, such as requiring tire chains, restricting certain vehicles or complete closures. Where this ridge crosses the divide between the Cosumnes and American Rivers is where the road joins the Mormon Emigrant Trail, which follows a different ridge up the mountains from the modern U.S. Route 50 corridor near Sly Park. This trail is so named for the Mormons in California during the gold rush, who created this path to rejoin the Mormon migration to Utah. Just past Silver Lake, Route 88 reaches a geographic feature known as the Carson Spur. This is where this ridge effectively ends, and the road follows a dynamited path down to the Kirkwood Mountain Resort and the small town of Kirkwood, where the road crosses into Alpine County. The Carson Spur section is prone to frequent avalanches in the winter and is periodically closed for avalanche control measures. In the final push up to Carson Pass the road passes by Caples Lake. While the road uses ridges for the western approach to Carson Pass, the eastern approach rapidly descends into the West Fork Carson River canyon, reaching the river level in Hope Valley. Along this descent, the road features a view area overlooking Red Lake. The highway joins with SR 89 while inside the valley, at a place known as Pickett's Junction. The two routes run concurrent through Woodfords Canyon of the Carson River, which provides the final descent out of the Sierra Nevada. At the mouth of the canyon is the small town of Woodfords, where SR 89 separates from SR 88 and proceeds towards Markleeville. Hope Valley, Woodsfords Canyon and Markleeville are often cited as one of the best areas for autumn foliage viewing in the state of California. Shortly after exiting the mountains the highway reaches the Carson Valley, where it turns due north and becomes one of the main thoroughfares of the valley. SR 88 reaches the Nevada state line where it becomes Nevada State Route 88 which proceeds due north towards U.S. Route 395. SR 88 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System and the National Highway System. The portion over the Sierra Nevada is included in the State Scenic Highway System and is designated a National Forest Scenic Byway. Per Annual Average Daily Traffic data for 2020, the western terminus near Stockton is the most heavily used part of the road, averaging 24,100 vehicles per day. The lightest traffic counts, 1,450 vehicles per day, are at the Kirkwood turnoff. However, Caltrans notes that there is significant seasonal variation for traffic at the ski resort, with peak month traffic counts increasing to 3,600 vehicles per day at this location. Route 88 is one of three routes to continue with the same route number after crossing into Nevada, the others being Routes 28 and 266. ## History The portion of Route 88 east of Antelope Springs, near Buckhorn, started as the Amador/Nevada Wagon Route, a toll road with a franchise granted in 1852 and surveyed in 1857. While the route was based on the existing Kit Carson trail and Old Emigrant Road, among the primary reasons for granting the toll road franchise was to fund a realignment of the portion from Tragedy Spring to Caples Lake. In its original form, the road connected these landmarks by looping around the Silver Lake basin, over a high mountain ridge near Emigrant Lake reaching an elevation of 9,640 feet (2,940 m). This was a treacherous routing, and was rerouted via blasting a path through the Carson Spur in 1863. The path through the Carson Spur was re-dynamited and widened to its current form in 1960. The first numerical designation for the Amador County portion of modern SR 88 was SR 8, which overlaps the present highway from Alpine County to Jackson. Unlike modern SR 88, it continued south to Mokelumne Hill, then to Valley Springs along modern State Route 26 and a small portion of SR 49. A portion of modern Route 88 west of Jackson was then part of SR 104. During the 1940s, maps of the area showed both the 8 and 88 designations in use. The original alignment south and west of Jackson retained the SR 8 designation, while the modern alignment of SR 88, where the roads existed, used the 88 designation. Significant parts of the highway have been re-aligned and improved from the original wagon trail. A bypass of Jackson's historical district was completed in 1948. The modern form of the highway was assigned the 88 designation by the time the California Department of Highways, predecessor agency to Caltrans, announced major upgrades for the highway were in progress or recently completed in 1958. Already completed was a re-alignment of the eastern approach to Carson Pass. Originally the eastern approach ran along the south shore of Red Lake. The realigned highway passes the lake to the north. This change lengthened the approach, but reduced the grade. Improvements expected to be completed soon included paving a road to be used for the highway west of Martell towards what is today SR 124 and re-alignments along parts of the ridge, including bypassing a mountain in the ridge area called Peddler's Hill. The highway was not originally maintained in the winter, but became the most recent trans-Sierra Nevada highway to remain open year round in 1971. This change coincided with a change in ownership, and construction to significantly expand what is now called the Kirkwood Mountain Resort - which lies between Carson Pass and the Carson Spur. The developers building the resort agreed to build and donate maintenance facilities for Caltrans and contribute funds for snow plowing. ### Historical landmarks As the SR 88 corridor has history that predates the automobile, there are a number of historical markers and landmarks along the roadway. These include: - The Trail of the 1844 John C. Frémont Expedition, at the northwest corner of the Calaveras River (postmile SJ 6.09) - Clinton, on Clinton Rd., south of the highway, in Pine Grove—Clinton was the center of a placer mining community during the 1850s and of quartz mining as late as the 1880s. This town once decided Amador County elections as its votes were always counted last. - Irishtown, at the intersection of Pine Grove Wieland Rd. in Pine Grove—This was an important stopping place for emigrants on their way to the southern mines. The first white settlers on this spot found it a "city of wigwams," and hundreds of mortars in the rocks testify that this was a favorite Indian camping ground. - Maiden's Grave, burial place of Rachel Melton (d. 1850), a young girl who died while traveling to California via covered wagon (postmile AMA 61.3) - Cooks Station, a store and restaurant built in the 1860s and still in operation, elevation 5,000 feet (1,500 m) - Ham's Station is a historic restaurant and convenience store, first established in 1855, with current structures built cerca 1879. It originally served as a toll station on the highway. - Tragedy Spring, where 3 of the Mormons who helped build the Mormon Emigrant Trail were killed. - Two markers note the original alignment of the Old Emigrant Road that was bypassed with the construction via the Carson Spur. One is at the intersection of Mud Lake Rd (postmile AMA 63.1). The second marker is at postmile ALP 2.4, at Caples Lake. - The Kit Carson Marker (CHL \#315, postmile ALP 5.2), at the summit of Carson Pass, marks where Carson carved his name into a tree in 1844 while guiding John C. Frémont through the Sierra Nevada. The original can be found at Sutter's Fort, Sacramento. - On some large rocks near Carson Pass, a group of pioneers inscribed their names and the emblem of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1849 (postmile ALP 5.3). ## Major intersections ## See also - Eldorado National Forest, Amador Ranger Station, Pioneer - Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park, Pine Grove - Mount Zion State Park, Pine Grove - Sorensen's Resort, Hope Valley

Madame Tussauds Hong Kong

Wax museum in Hong Kong

Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, is part of the renowned chain of wax museums founded by Marie Tussaud of France, is located at the Peak Tower on Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. It is the first Madame Tussauds museums in Asia, the other being the Shanghai branch, which opened in 2006 and the third branch at Bangkok which opened in 2010. The Hong Kong branch houses nearly 100 wax figures of internationally known personalities, with Asian figures taking up more than a third of the total, of which sixteen were Hong Kongers. The wax figures are featured in a range of themed settings such as Hong Kong Glamour, Music Icons, Historical and National Heroes, The Champions and World Premiere. ## History In the late 1990s, Madame Tussauds had outlets spanning worldwide in major cities such as London, Amsterdam and Las Vegas, but none in the Asia-Pacific region. When the "Madame Tussaud's Touring Attraction" ran in Singapore and Australia, proving to be highly popular, the Tussauds Group decided to open a permanent outlet in Asia to cater to such demand, and Hong Kong was chosen for its proximity to the Asian markets. Madame Tussauds Hong Kong opened at The Peak in 2000, and features nearly 100 wax figures of internationally known personalities and local celebrities to date – with Asian figures taking up more than a third of the total, of which sixteen were Hong Kongers. Asian celebrities and superstars have often graced the unveiling of their wax likenesses with sizeable groups of their fans tagging along. In September 2005, it began its renovation in its effort to bring an interactive and immersive entertainment experience to visitors. It re-opened at a cost of HK\$20 million (US\$2.6 million) on 18 May 2006, adding a further 700 square metres (7,500 sq ft) of exhibition space on three floors and five themed areas. Visitors can journey through the attraction, stopping to mingle with the 'stars' in a range of themed settings including Hong Kong Glamour, Music Icons, Historical and National Heroes, The Champions and World Premiere. As of 2008, the museum is headed by Bret Pidgeon, who is currently the general manager of Madame Tussauds Hong Kong and Shanghai. He has worked for eight years for Madame Tussauds in New York previously. The museum is accessible from Central via minibus, taxi or Peak Tram and opens all year round from 10 am to 10 pm daily. Admission fee is HK\$140 (US\$18) for adults and HK\$70 for children aged between 3 and 11 years old. ## Wax figure making process In over one or more sittings, a highly skilled sculptor from Madame Tussauds Studios who is given direct access to the celebrity will record the colours of the hair and eyes, and over 500 precise body measurements are referenced. Most important is to capture the look of the celebrity to reflect the personality of each unique individual. The next task is to make a clay model of the head and body which is used to create a mould. Wax cast of the head and hands are made from the mould, and the eyes are inserted. Each eye is hand-painted to achieve a perfect match of the original. Real human hair is then inserted painstakingly strand by strand. The head and hands are coloured using a blend of oil, water and acrylic colour. From the mould, the body is cast in fibreglass, and the head and hands are fitted to the fiberglass body and dressed in clothes that are often donated by the celebrity. The pose, clothes and expression on the face all contribute to making the figure as realistic as possible. The whole process usually takes up to six months by a team of 20 people to create and cost about HK\$1 million each. ## Unique figures - The figure of Miriam Yeung, unveiled in November 2006, is the first in the world designed to giggle via in-built sensors. Miriam is well known for her fun-loving and bubbly personality, and Madame Tussauds want to capture that essence in her figure. - The figure of Connie Chan, unveiled in August 2006, was the first figure to appear in full Chinese regalia. The model's costume was inspired by the musical Only You, set in the Yuan Dynasty, in which Chan formerly starred. - The figure of Bae Yong-joon, unveiled in May 2006, is the first Korean star to be included in a Madame Tussauds exhibition. - The figure of Andy Lau, unveiled in April 2005, was the outlet first animatronic model that was crafted out of silicone rather than wax. Lau's animatronic heartbeat was modelled on a similar system installed in a replica of Brad Pitt at Madame Tussauds Amsterdam. ## Featured personalities The list of featured celebrities sorted according to on-site themes are: ### Hong Kong Glamour 1. Jackie Chan 2. Jay Chou 3. Bruce Lee 4. Michelle Yeoh 5. Ayumi Hamasaki 6. Brad Pitt 7. Cher 8. Eddie Murphy 9. Elle Macpherson 10. Gérard Depardieu 11. Hugh Grant 12. Joanna Lumley 13. Kelly Chen 14. Mel Gibson 15. Meryl Streep 16. Naomi Campbell 17. Cecilia Cheung 18. Aaron Kwok 19. Leo Ku (added on 4 April 2007) 20. Janice Vidal (added on 18 July 2007) 21. Angelina Jolie (added on 27 Sep 2007) 22. Donnie Yen (added on 30 April 2010) 23. Jet Li (added on 28 Sep 2010) 24. Kim Woo-bin (added on 22 Sep 2018) 25. Pia Wurtzbach (The First Filipino Wax Figure to join the list on 25 March 2019) 26. Jackson Wang (added on 29 July 2019) ### The Sports Champions 1. David Beckham 2. Lee Lai Shan 3. Muhammad Ali 4. Yao Ming 5. Chiyonofuji Mitsugu 6. Liu Xiang 7. Tiger Woods 8. Ronaldinho (added in December 2007) 9. Stephen Curry 10. Maria Sharapova 11. Wayne Rooney 12. Manny Pacquiao (The 2nd Filipino Celebrity Wax Figure Added On November 24, 2021) ### Historical figures and national heroes 1. Diana, Princess of Wales 2. Luciano Pavarotti 3. Mahatma Gandhi 4. Nelson Mandela 5. Bill Clinton 6. George W. Bush 7. Barack Obama (added on 20 Jan 2009) 8. Mikhail Gorbachev 9. Saddam Hussein 10. The Duke of Edinburgh 11. Elizabeth II 12. The Prince of Wales 13. The Princess Royal 14. The Duke of Cambridge (added on 7 Aug 2007) 15. Adolf Hitler 16. Sir Winston Churchill 17. Rembrandt van Rijn 18. Pablo Picasso 19. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 20. Deng Xiaoping 21. Jiang Zemin 22. Li Ka Shing 23. Lee Kuan Yew 24. Shigeru Yoshida 25. Hu Jintao 26. Albert Einstein 27. John Howard 28. Marie Tussaud 29. Sun Yat-sen (added in July 2007) 30. Mao Zedong (added in July 2007) 31. Yang Liwei (added in July 2007) 32. Donald Tsang (added on 7 April 2008) 33. Narendra Modi 34. Sukarno (became the second statue of Sukarno, the first statue of Sukarno was in Madame Tussauds Bangkok, added on 5 June 2014) 35. Joko Widodo(He became the fourth Indonesian wax figure on added on 1 May 2017'') 36. William Shakespeare 37. Donald Trump (added on 26 April 2018) ### World premiere 1. Elizabeth Taylor 2. Benny Hill 3. Pierce Brosnan 4. Andy Lau 5. Leon Lai 6. Anthony Hopkins 7. Jodie Foster 8. Harrison Ford 9. Humphrey Bogart 10. Macaulay Culkin 11. Marilyn Monroe 12. Alfred Hitchcock 13. Bae Yong-joon 14. Connie Chan 15. Kim Soo-hyun 16. Amitabh Bachchan 17. Bruce Lee 18. Lee Jong-suk 19. Suzy 20. Benedict Cumberbatch 21. Robert Downey Jr. 22. Scarlett Johansson 23. Prabhas 24. Sridevi 25. Audrey Hepburn ### Music icons 1. Leslie Cheung 2. Anita Mui 3. Elvis Presley 4. Freddie Mercury 5. Lady Gaga 6. Madonna 7. Michael Jackson 8. Britney Spears 9. Lang Lang 10. Mick Jagger 11. Miriam Yeung 12. Teresa Teng 13. The Beatles 14. Siwon Choi 15. Zhang Yixing 16. Nichkhun Horvejkul 17. Tina Turner 18. Twins 19. Joey Yung 20. G.E.M. 21. TVXQ 22. Ariana Grande 23. Miley Cyrus 24. Justin Bieber 25. Zayn Malik 26. Harry Styles ## Madame Tussauds Shanghai The second Asian outlet is located in the Chinese city of Shanghai. Attracted by Shanghai's growing reputation and tourism volume in East Asia, the Tussauds Group approached Shanghai authorities to discuss the possibility of opening its second Asian location in early 2004. The Shanghai authorities agreed with the proposal and Madame Tussauds Shanghai (上海杜莎夫人臘像館) was opened on 1 May 2006 on the 10th floor of the New World Department Store at West Nanjing Road. The Shanghai outlet houses nearly 75 wax figures of local and internationally known celebrities to date, and will add more in its second and third phases. The museum opens all year round from 10 am to 10 pm daily and it is divided up into seven themed sections: Glamour, Behind the Scenes, History and Heroes, Music, Film, Speed and Sport. Admission fee is RMB 135 (US\$20) for adults and RMB 100 for students. Madame Tussauds Shanghai is the Tussauds Group's sixth waxwork museum after London, Amsterdam, Las Vegas, New York City and Hong Kong. ## See also - Peak Galleria - Tourism in Hong Kong

Doraemon

Japanese manga series by Fujiko F. Fujio

Doraemon (ドラえもん) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Fujiko F. Fujio. The manga was first serialized in December 1969. Its chapters were collected in 45 tankōbon volumes published by Shogakukan from 1974 to 1996. The story revolves around an earless robotic cat named Doraemon, who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a boy named Nobita Nobi. The manga spawned a media franchise. Three anime TV series have been adapted in 1973, 1979, and 2005. Additionally, Shin-Ei Animation has produced over forty animated films, including two 3D computer-animated films, all of which are distributed by Toho. Various types of merchandise and media have been developed, including soundtrack albums, video games, and musicals. The manga series was licensed for an English language release in North America, via Amazon Kindle, by a collaboration of Fujiko F. Fujio Pro with Voyager Japan and AltJapan Co., Ltd. The anime series was licensed by Disney for an English-language release in North America in 2014, and LUK International in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Doraemon was well-received by critics and became a hit in many Asian countries. It won numerous awards, including the Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 1973 and 1994, the Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga in 1982, and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 1997. By 2019, it has sold over 250 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling manga series in history. The Doraemon character has been viewed as a Japanese cultural icon, and was appointed as the first "anime ambassador" in 2008 by the country's Foreign Ministry. ## Synopsis Nobita Nobi is a ten-year-old Japanese school boy, who is kind-hearted and honest, but also lazy, unlucky, weak, gets bad grades and is bad at sports. One day, a robot cat from the 22nd century named Doraemon is sent back to the past by Nobita's future grandchild, Sewashi Nobi, to take care of Nobita so that his descendants can have a better life. Doraemon has a four-dimensional pouch in which he stores tools, inventions, and gadgets from the future to aid Nobita whenever he is faced with a problem. Although Doraemon is a cat robot, he has a fear of mice because of an incident where robotic mice chewed off his ears. This is why Doraemon lost his original yellow color and turned blue, from sadness. Nobita has three main friends: Takeshi Goda (nicknamed Gian), Suneo Honekawa (Gian's sidekick), and Shizuka Minamoto, Nobita's best friend and love-interest. Gian is a strong, leading and domineering boy, but also loyal to his friends. Suneo is a wealthy and spoiled boy who uses his friendship with Gian to win the respect of other schoolmates. Shizuka is a gentle and kind girl who frequently plays with Nobita. Nobita has a crush on Shizuka; she is his prospective future wife (Nobita's future wife is initially Gian's younger sister). Although Gian and Suneo are Nobita's friends, they also typically bully and abuse him. Nobita normally responds by using Doraemon's gadgets to fight back against them, but Nobita has a tendency to get carried away with using the gadgets (or Gian and Suneo, if they steal it away), which typically results in unintended consequences for him and others. In addition to Gian, Suneo, and Shizuka, Dorami and Hidetoshi Dekisugi (common name Dekisugi) are also recurring characters. Dorami is Doraemon's younger sister, and Dekisugi is a gifted student boy who as Shizuka's close friend, frequently attracts the jealousy of Nobita. ## Creation and conception ### Development and themes Doraemon is written and illustrated by Fujiko F. Fujio, the pen name of Japanese manga artist Hiroshi Fujimoto. According to Fujio, it was originally conceived following a series of three events: when searching for ideas for a new manga, he wished a machine existed that would come up with ideas for him, he tripped over his daughter's toy, and heard cats fighting in his neighborhood. To set up the plot and characters, he inspired some elements from his earlier manga series, Obake no Q-Tarō, which involve an obake living with humans, with a similar formula. Fujio said that the idea for Doraemon came after "an accumulation of trial and error", during which he finally found the most suitable style of manga to him. Initially, the series achieved little success as gekiga was well-known at the time, and only became a hit after its adaptation into an anime TV series and multiple feature films. Doraemon is mainly aimed at children, so Fujio chose to create the character with a simple graphic style, based on shapes such as circles and ellipses. He used the same sequences of cartoons with regularity and continuity to enhance the reader's ease of understanding. In addition, blue, a characteristic color of Doraemon, was chosen as the main color in magazine publications, which used to have a yellow cover and red title. Set in Tokyo, the manga reflected parts of Japan's society, such as the class system and the "ideal" of Japanese childhood. Problems, if occur, were resolved in a way so as not to rely on violence and eroticism, and the stories were integrated with the concept of environmentalism. The manga also insisted on the ethical values of integrity, perseverance, courage, family and respect. In order to underline the crucial role of the young generation in society, the manga's creator chose to have the act carried out in a "children's domain" where young people can live with happiness, freedom and power without adult's interference. As Saya S. Shiraishi noted, the existence of the "domain" helped Doraemon to have a strong appeal in various Asian countries. During Doraemon's development, Fujio did not express a change in characters; he said, "When a manga hero become a success, the manga suddenly stops being interesting. So the hero has to be like the stripes on a barber pole; he seems to keep moving upward, but actually he stays in the same place." According to Zensho Ito, Fujio's former student, the "length" of time in the universe is one of the ideas that inspired Fujio to make Doraemon. Frequently displayed in its stories is Nobita's desire to control time, and there exist time-control gadgets that he uses to satisfy that desire, particularly the "Time Machine", which lies in his desk drawer. Unlike Western works on science fiction, the manga did not explain the theory nor the applied technology behind these tools, but instead focusing on how the characters exploit their advantages, making it more children-friendly. ### Origin of the name The name "Doraemon" can be roughly translated to "stray". Unusually, the name is written in a mixture of two Japanese scripts: Katakana (ドラ) and Hiragana (えもん). "Dora" derives from , and is a corruption of nora (stray), while "-emon" (in kanji 右衛門) is an old-fashioned suffix for male names (for example, as in Ishikawa Goemon). Nobita's home address in Tsukimidai ("moon-view-heights"), Nerima refers to Fujimidai ("Fuji-view-heights"), where Osamu Tezuka's residence and animation studio is based. The name "Nobita Nobi" refers to "nobi nobi", meaning "the way a young child grows up free, healthy, and happy, unrestrained in any sense". ### Gadgets Gadgets, or , are Doraemon's tools from the future, usually used to help the characters. Fujio said that Doraemon has a total of 1,293 gadgets; according to a 2004 analysis by Yasuyuki Yokoyama of Toyama University, there are 1,963 gadgets found in 1,344 sketches. The most important gadgets include "Take-Copter", a small piece of headgear made out of bamboo that can allow its users to fly; "Time Machine", a machine used for time travel; "Anywhere Door", a pink-colored door that allows people to travel according to the thoughts of the person who turns the knob; "Time Kerchief", a handkerchief which can turn an object new or old or a person young or old; "Translator Tool", a cuboid jelly that allow one to converse in any language; and "Designer", a camera used to instantly dress-up the user. Saya S. Shiraishi wrote that most of the gadgets were "an impressive testimony to the standards of quality control and innovation that exist in the twenty-second century". The gadgets were an essential part of the series so as to reflect a positive point of view about the association of technology in children, and to express the wishes of modern society. ### Conclusion The series stopped publishing after Fujimoto's death in 1996, without an ending; this has aroused numerous urban legends throughout the years. One of the most well-known "endings" of the manga was by an amateur manga cartoonist under the pen name "Yasue T. Tajima", first appeared on the Internet in 1998 and made up into a manga in 2005. The story takes place when Doraemon's battery dies, and Nobita later grows up becoming a robot engineer, potentially revive Doraemon and live a happy life. Tajima issued an apology in 2007, and the profits were shared with Shogakukan and the copyright owner, Fujiko F. Fujio Pro. Ryūichi Yagi and Takashi Yamazaki, the directors of Stand by Me Doraemon, confirmed that it had only one opening, while the ending has been rewritten several times. Because of this, Shogakukan had to clarify that only if the marriage of Nobita and Shizuka is finalized will the mission be accomplished, and then Doraemon will return to the future. ## Media ### Manga In December 1969, the Doraemon manga appeared in six different children's monthly magazines published by Shogakukan: Yoiko, Yōchien, Shogaku Ichi-nensei, Shogaku Ni-nensei, Shogaku San-nensei, and Shogaku Yon-nensei. The magazines were aimed at children from nursery school to fourth grade. In 1973, two other magazines, Shogaku Go-nensei and Shogaku Roku-nensei (aimed at fifth-grade and sixth-grade students respectively), started publishing the manga. In 1977, CoroCoro Comic was launched as the flagship magazine of Doraemon. Since the debut of Doraemon in 1969, the stories have been selectively collected into forty-five tankōbon volumes that were published under Shogakukan's Tentōmushi Comics (てんとう虫コミックス) imprint from July 31, 1974, to April 26, 1996. These volumes are collected in the Takaoka Central Library in Toyama, Japan, where Fujio was born. Between April 25, 2005, and February 28, 2006, Shōgakukan published a series of five manga volumes under the title Doraemon Plus (Doraemon+), featuring short stories which did not appear in the forty-five original volumes; a sixth volume, the first volume in eight years, was published on December 1, 2014. Additionally, 119 unpublished stories were compiled into six colored-manga volumes under the title Doraemon Kara Sakuhin-shu (ドラえもん カラー作品集, Doraemon Color Works), published from July 17, 1999, to September 2, 2006. Between July 24, 2009, and September 25, 2012, Shogakukan published a master works collection consisting of twenty volumes with all 1,345 stories written by Fujio. In December 2019, on the 50th anniversary of Doraemon, a "Volume 0" was published by Shogakukan featuring six different versions of Doraemon's first appearance. There have been two series of bilingual, Japanese and English, volumes of the manga by Shogakukan English Comics under the title Doraemon: Gadget Cat from the Future, and two audio versions. The first series has ten volumes and the second one has six. 21st Century Publishing House released bilingual English-Chinese versions in Mainland China, and Chingwin Publishing Group released bilingual English-Chinese versions in Taiwan. In July 2013, Fujiko F. Fujio Pro announced that they would be collaborating with ebook publisher Voyager Japan and localization company AltJapan Co., Ltd. to release an English-language version of the manga in full color digitally via the Amazon Kindle platform in North America. Shogakukan released the first volume in November 2013; by 2016, a total of 200 volumes have been published. This English version incorporates a variety of changes to character names; Nobita is "Noby", Shizuka is "Sue", Suneo is "Sneech", and Gian is "Big G", while dorayaki is "Yummy Bun/Fudgy Pudgy Pie". Also, by 2016, four volumes of the manga have been published in English in print by Shogakukan Asia. Shogakukan started digital distribution of all forty-five original volumes throughout Japan from July 16, 2015. #### Long Stories Doraemon Long Stories is the core of the work, as is Doraemon Short Stories. Doraemon Long Stories is a manga and movie series ongoing since 1979, featuring longer and continuous narratives about the characters' adventures into various lands of science fiction and fantasy. Long Stories manga series consists of twenty-four tankōbon volumes published from 1983 to 2004. #### Spin-off Several spin-off manga series of Doraemon have been made. The Doraemons, a manga illustrated by Michiaki Tanaka based on Doraemon, was published by Shogakukan in six tankōbon volumes from 1996 to 2001. Between 1997 and 2003, Shogakukan also published fifteen volumes of The Doraemons Special, created by Yukihiro Mitani and Masaru Miyazaki as a complement part of The Doraemons, including twelve from the main series and three from the Robot Training School Edition. Dorabase, a baseball-themed manga written and illustrated by Mugiwara Shintarō, is another spin-off of Doraemon; twenty-three volumes of the manga were published by Shogakukan from April 26, 2001, to October 28, 2011. ### Anime The first attempt of a Doraemon animated series was in 1973, by Nippon Television. After a January 1973 pilot named Doraemon Mirai Kara Yattekuru (ドラえもんが未来からやってくる, Doraemon Coming from the Future), twenty-six episodes, each with two segments, were broadcast on Nippon TV from April 1 to September 30 of the same year. The series was directed by Mitsuo Kaminashi with voice cast from Aoni Production; the character Doraemon was voiced by Kōsei Tomita, then later by Masako Nozawa. Later in the series, the animation studio, Nippon TeleMovie Productions, went bankrupt, and the masters were sold off or destroyed. The series was re-aired on Nippon TV and several local stations until 1979, when Shogakukan requested Toyama Television to cease broadcasting. Some of the segments were found in the archives of Imagica in 1995, and some others were recovered by Jun Masami in 2003. As of 2013, 21 of 52 segments are known to survive, two of which have no audio. Doraemon remained fairly exclusive in manga form until 1979 when a animation studio, Shin-Ei Animation (now owned by TV Asahi) produced an animated second attempt of Doraemon. The series aired on TV Asahi from April 2, 1979. Ryo Motohira served as chief director from 1981, and Tsutomu Shibayama from 1984. Eiichi Nakamura served as director of character designer, while Shunsuke Kikuchi was the composer. Nobuyo Ōyama voiced Doraemon in the series; because of this, in Asia, this version is sometimes referred to as the Ōyama Edition. In total, 1,787 episodes were produced and released in VHS and DVD by Toho. On April 15, 2005, a major renewal was carried out, including the replacement of voice actors and staff, and updated character designs (Doraemon (2005 TV series)). The third series is sometimes referred to in Asia as the Mizuta Edition, as a tribute for the voice actress for Doraemon, Wasabi Mizuta. It was released in DVD on February 10, 2006 under the title New TV-ban Doraemon (NEW TV 版 ドラえもん, Doraemon NEW TV Version) with Shogakukan Video banner. In May 2014, TV Asahi Corporation announced an agreement with The Walt Disney Company to bring the 2005 series to the Disney XD television channel and Disney Channel in the United States beginning in the summer of that year. Besides using the name changes that were used in AltJapan's English adaptation of the original manga, other changes and edits have also been made to make the show more relatable to an American audience, such as Japanese text being replaced with English text on certain objects like signs and graded papers, items such as yen notes being replaced by US dollar bills, and the setting being changed from Japan to the United States. Initial response to the edited dub was positive. The Disney adaptation began broadcast in Japan on Disney Channel from February 1, 2016. The broadcast offered the choice of the English voice track or a newly recorded Japanese track by the Japanese cast of the 2005 series. The anime has also been aired in over sixty countries worldwide. It premiered in Thailand in 1982, the Philippines in 1999, India in 2005, and Vietnam in 2010. Other Asian countries that broadcast the series include China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Korea. The series is licensed in EMEA regions by LUK International; it premiered in Spain in 1993 and France in 2003. It has also been distributed in South American countries, including Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. In 2017, POPS Worldwide, a Vietnamese multimedia company, collaborated with TV Asahi to release the anime series on YouTube and other digital platforms. #### Films By 2023, there have been 42 annual feature-length animated films produced by Shin-Ei Animation and released by Toho. The first twenty-five films are based on the 1979 anime, while the rest are based on the 2005 anime. Unlike the anime and manga series, the films are more action-adventure oriented, taking the familiar characters of Doraemon and placing them in a variety of exotic and perilous settings. A 3D computer animated film, Stand by Me Doraemon, debuted in Japan on August 8, 2014. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki and Ryūichi Yagi, it combines elements from the short stories of the manga series: "All the Way from the Country of the Future", "Imprinting Egg", "Goodbye, Shizuka-chan", "Romance in Snowy Mountain", "Nobita's the Night Before a Wedding", and "Goodbye, Doraemon ..." into a new complete story, from the first time Doraemon came to Nobita's house to Doraemon bidding farewell to Nobita. The film was a box office success, grossing \$183.4 million worldwide. A sequel, Stand by Me Doraemon 2, also directed by Yamazaki and Yagi, was released on November 20, 2020. #### Short films, OVA and crossover Several Doraemon short films were produced and released between 1989 and 2004. These include 2112: The Birth of Doraemon, a film about the life of Doraemon from birth before coming to Nobita; Doraemon: Nobita's the Night Before a Wedding, a film about the events related to the marriage of Nobita and Shizuka; The Day When I Was Born and Doraemon: A Grandmother's Recollections, the films about the relationship between Nobita and his parents along with his grandmother. Other short films focus on Dorami and The Doraemons. In 1981, Toho released What Am I for Momotaro, a film about Momotarō, the hero of Japanese folklore. In 1994, an educational OVA was made, titled Doraemon: Nobita to Mirai Note (ドラえもん のび太と未来ノート), where the main characters express the hope for a better Earth. The OVA was released in DVD along with the 13th issue of Fujiko F. Fujio Wonderland magazine in September 2004. A crossover episode of Doraemon with AIBOU: Tokyo Detective Duo aired on TV Asahi on November 9, 2018. #### Music The soundtrack of the 1973 anime series was composed by Nobuyoshi Koshibe, who also arranged the opening theme song "Doraemon" (ドラえもん) and the ending theme song "Doraemon Rumba" (ドラえもん ルンバ), both performed by Harumi Naitō. For the 1979 anime, Shunsuke Kikuchi was the composer, who arranged "Doraemon no Uta" (ドラえもんのうた); it had been performed by numerous singers, including Kumiko Ōsugi and Satoko Yamano. When the anime got a reboot in 2005, Kan Sawada was the composer of the series. There are four other opening themes, including an instrumental version of "Doraemon no Uta" performed by Twelve Girls Band; "Hagushichao" (ハグしちゃお) performed by Rimi Natsukawa; "Yume wo Kanaete Doraemon" (夢をかなえてドラえもん), the opening theme broadcast from 2007 to 2018; and "Doraemon" performed by Gen Hoshino, broadcast since October 2019. Numerous collections of theme songs of the anime series and feature films were initially available in cassettes. Since the 1990s, Doraemon songs have been released in CD, under the type of singles and compilation albums. Soundtracks of Doraemon feature films have been released by Nippon Columbia since 2001 in the album series "Doraemon Soundtrack History" (ドラえもんサウンドトラックヒストリー). ### Musical shows Doraemon has been adapted into a musical, titled Doraemon the Musical: Nobita and the Animal Planet (舞台版ドラえもん のび太とアニマル惑星プラネット。, Butaiban Doraemon: Nobita to Animaru Puranetto). Based on the 1990 anime film of the same name, it debuted at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space on September 4, 2008, running through September 14. Shoji Kokami was the director and writer, Makoto Sakamoto played Nobita and Reiko Suho as Shizuka; Jaian and Suneo were portrayed by Tomohiro Waki and Kensaku Kobayashi, respectively; Wasabi Mizuta voiced Doraemon. The musical was later revived and ran at Sunshine Theater, Tokyo from March 26 to April 2, 2017, then later in other prefectures including Fukuoka, Osaka, Miyagi, and Aichi. The 2017 revival is also directed and written by Kokami, with Mizuta reprising her role; Nobita, Shizuka, Jaian, and Suneo were played by Yuuchi Ogoe, Hina Higuchi, Koki Azuma, and Shō Jinnai, respectively. ### Video games Many Japanese-only video games based on Doraemon have been developed. For instance, in 1983, Bandai developed Dokodemo Dorayaki Doraemon (どこでも ドラヤキ ドラえもん), an arcade game inspired by Pac-Man. Doraemon, a NES video game made by Hudson Soft, was released on December 12, 1986, and became one of the best-selling games of that year in Japan with over 1.15 million copies sold. On December 6, 2007, Sega published Doraemon Wii, the first Doraemon video game released on Wii. Doraemon can also be seen in Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin rhythm game series, such as in Taiko no Tatsujin: Sesson de Dodon ga Don! (2017). The first Doraemon game to receive a Western release was Doraemon Story of Seasons (2019). Card games with Doraemon themes have also been made in several special occasions, sometimes to exploit the popularity of feature films. In 2016, a special edition of Uno about the series' characters was released exclusively in Japan, as a result of a cooperation between Asatsu-DK and Mattel. ### Merchandise In Japan, the Doraemon merchandising rights belong to Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, which has produced and distributed a wide range of products under its brand, such as toys, food, stationery, action figures, gashapon, shoes, clothing, and others. Several companies have collaborated on the creation and distribution of products on the series and its characters, including Sanrio, Converse, Moleskine, and ESP Guitars, which has made guitars decorated with Doraemon characters; a further partnership of Doraemon with Uniqlo led to a line of clothing designed by Takashi Murakami. The Doraemon franchise has also collaborated with various Japanese brands, including Tsi Groove & Sports's Jack Bunny!! golf apparel brand, Unicharm's MamiPoko diaper brand, and the video games LINE Pop 2, Monster Strike, and Granblue Fantasy. Viz Media owns the Doraemon merchandising rights in North and Latin America, which has developed Doraemon-themed clothing and collectibles in collaboration with retail chain Hot Topic, and themed Happy Meals in a 2015 collaboration with McDonald's. Viz Media Europe (now Crunchyroll EMEA) manages the merchandising in Europe except Spain and Portugal; LUK International has obtained licenses in these two countries. Characters from Doraemon have been used in advertising through specific agreements with Shogakukan. For instance, following the Cool Japan initiative promoted by the Japanese government, Sharp Corporation produced a series of commercials featuring the characters of Doraemon and Nobita, which were broadcast in several ASEAN countries. In late 2011, Shogakukan and Toyota Motor Corporation joined forces to create a series of live-action commercials as part of Toyota's ReBorn ad campaign, which depicted the manga's characters two decades after being grown up, where Hollywood actor Jean Reno played Doraemon. ## Reception ### General Doraemon is considered one of the best-known manga of all time, a true Japanese cultural icon, and an essential part of family life of the Japanese post-war generation. Akihiro Motoyama observed that "mothers who watched the movies when they were children are now taking their own children to see them". It was also commercially successful: over 108 million books were sold in Japan by 1996. The 1979 and 2005 anime series also achieved high ratings on television. With the film Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum, the Doraemon anime film series reached 100 million tickets sold at the Japanese box office, surpassing Godzilla as the highest-grossing film franchise in Japan. By 2015, it had sold over 103 million tickets, and was the largest franchise by numbers of admissions in the country. Doraemon was also a hit in Asia in general, and was considered one of the typical cases of Japanese soft power, although it was published without a license in some countries. The anime television series is available in over 60 countries, and reportedly getting high ratings in at least 30 countries. However, Doraemon was less successful in Western countries, because it was viewed as a children-only series, and there were some tight restrictions about publishing manga and broadcasting anime series there. The manga has sold over 170 million copies worldwide by 2012, and 250 million by 2019. Estimates show that Doraemon has generated at least more than \$4.3 billion in merchandise sales by 2019, and over \$1.7 billion from anime feature films by 2020, making it one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. Outside Japan, Doraemon achieved particular success in Vietnam, with a record-breaking 40 million copies sold by 2006. The manga was first launched there in 1992 by Kim Đồng Publishing House, but the copyright from Shogakukan was not fully acquired until 1996. In 1993, the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture considered the manga's publication to be "an impactful event for the improvement of children, youth and adult's likings ... [Doraemon] is a comprehensively educational book series which has the effect of developing children's personality". Doraemon is now a cultural icon in Vietnam, having featured in many cultural events. ### Critical response and analysis Doraemon received favorable reviews. Mark Schilling wrote, "For kids whose lives are often so regulated, Doraemon represents a welcome breath of freedom and a glimpse of a funnier, friendlier world where all dreams, even foolish ones, can come true." Italian writer Massimo Nicora wrote that the manga "can be interpreted as a type of book that criticizes, with irony, the omnipotence of science that pretends to solve every problem with its tools", alluding to the fact that Doraemon's gadgets often end up making the problems even worse than they initially were, more than anything else. He added that it represents "the metaphor of the childish imagination, which always manages to find the most bizarre and original solutions, in a continuous game of transformation of reality". Some critics considered that Nobita's flawed personality and modest background is different from the special or extraordinary characteristics usually seen in other typical anime and manga protagonists; this portrayal has been seen as reasons of its appeal as well as the contrary, especially in the United States. According to the Italian Parents Movement (Moige), in the manga, "the lazy Nobita does not know any kind of appreciable evolution", though there are still good points including "the criticism of bullying, the goodness that transpires from the little Nobita and the positive figure of Shizuka". In his 2000 article, Leo Ching explained that the success of Doraemon in Asia was because it had reflected the Asian values such as imagination and responsibility, the same reason that Oshin, another Japanese cultural export, became well-known there. On the other hand, according to an analysis by Anne Allison, professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University, the strong point of it was not the variety of the gadgets, but the relationship between Doraemon and Nobita, which was particularly appreciated. Jason Thompson praised the "silly situations" and "old fashioned, simple artwork", with Doraemon's expression and comments adding to the "surrounding elementary-school mischief". On the manga's 50th anniversary, an op-ed published on Asahi Shimbun stated that the manga "has already become a contemporary classic". ### Awards, accolades and public recognition Doraemon has received numerous accolades. It won the Japan Cartoonists Association Award twice in 1973 and 1994, the former for Excellence Award while the latter for Minister of Education, Science and Technology Award. In 1982, it received the first Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga. In 1997, the manga won the Grand Prize at the first Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. The 1979 series won the award from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs four times for best television series in 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1989. A 2006 poll among 80,000 Japanese fans for the 10th anniversary of the Japan Media Arts Festival placed Doraemon at fifth among the top ten best manga of all time. The 2005 and 2006 surveys conducted by TV Asahi found the Doraemon anime ranked fifth and third, respectively, among the 100 most favorite anime series of all time. In 2010, a survey conducted by researchers of Tokyo Polytechnic University found that most responders considered Doraemon, along with Dragon Ball franchise, to be the anime series that represents Cool Japan. In a 2013 survey, Doraemon was found to be the best anime recommended for foreign people. ### Controversies Doraemon has been blamed for having a negative impact on children, due to the controversial traits of the characters in the anime. The character has received criticism in China, where some media outlets considered Doraemon to be a politically subversive character and that it was a tool of Japan's "cultural invasion". In 2016, a resolution to ban Hindi dubbed Doraemon anime series was submitted in Pakistan. Around the same time, legal notices were served against several companies in India, targeting Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan for bans (which did not materialize), as having an adverse effect on children. Disney Channel India, the regional broadcaster of the anime, was banned in Bangladesh and Pakistan citing non-availability of localized dubs for content including Doraemon. ## Cultural impact and legacy The Doraemon manga has inspired many other mangakas; these include Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece with the idea of "Devil Fruits", and Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, who showed interest in drawing characters from anime shows during his childhood, including Doraemon. The manga has also been mentioned in Gin Tama and Great Teacher Onizuka. The character Doraemon is considered one of the cultural icons in Japan, and one of the most well-known characters in manga history; some critics compared his notability with Mickey Mouse and Snoopy. Mark Schilling noted that Doraemon's "Take-Copter" is familiar among Japanese people "just as Snoopy's biplane is familiar to most Americans". On April 22, 2002, on the special issue of Asian Hero in Time magazine, Doraemon was the only anime character to be named one of the twenty-two Asian Heroes, and was described as "The Cuddliest Hero in Asia". A 2007 poll by Oricon shown that Doraemon was the second-strongest manga character ever, behind only Son Goku of Dragon Ball. Doraemon is also referred as something with the ability to satisfy all wishes. In 2005, the Taiwan Society of New York selected Doraemon as a culturally significant work of Japanese otaku pop-culture in its exhibit Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, curated by renowned artist Takashi Murakami. In 2008, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed Doraemon as the first anime cultural ambassador; a Ministry spokesperson explained the decision as an attempt to help people in other countries understand Japanese anime better and to deepen their interest in Japanese culture. On September 3, 2012, Doraemon was granted official residence in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa, one hundred years before he was born. In the same year, Hong Kong celebrated the birthday of Doraemon 100 years early with a series of displays of the character. In April 2013, Doraemon was chosen as Japan's ambassador in Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and 2020 Summer Paralympics. He appeared in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony to promote the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. A Fujiko F. Fujio museum opened in Kawasaki on September 3, 2011, featuring Doraemon as the star of the museum. The National Museum of Singapore held a time-travelling exhibition in October 2020 as a tribute to the manga. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Shogakukan released an earthquake survival guidebook, which included the main cast of the Doraemon manga series. TV Asahi launched the Doraemon Fund charity fund to raise money for natural disasters in 2004, and in 2011. In 2020, Mumbai's Sion Friends Circle group distributed food and books to kids using mascots, one being Doraemon, to help during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Vietnam, a Doraemon scholarship fund was established in 1996, and the Doraemon character has been used for education of traffic safety. Doraemon's creator, Fujiko F. Fujio, received the Culture Fighter Medal from the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture in 1996 for his contributions to young education through the manga. Many prominent figures have been nicknamed after the cast of Doraemon: politician Osamu Fujimura is known as the "Doraemon of Nagatacho" due to his figure and warm personality, and sumo wrestler Takamisugi was nicknamed "Doraemon" because of his resemblance to the character. In 2015, a group of people in a drought-affected village in northern Thailand used a Doraemon toy to complete a rain-ritual, in order to avoid controversies that would occur by using real animals. A parody of Doraemon created by Hikari Fujisaki, titled Nozoemon (のぞえもん), was first serialized in Nihon Bungeisha's Comic Heaven magazine in September 2014, with the compiled book volume released on June 9, 2015; however, it was discontinued in August 2015 due to content issues. ## See also - Other manga series by Fujiko Fujio: Perman, Ninja Hattori-kun, Kiteretsu Daihyakka - 21 Emon, a manga by Fujiko F. Fujio set in the same universe as Doraemon

Man at the Crossroads

Fresco by Diego Rivera

Man at the Crossroads (1933) was a fresco by Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Originally slated to be installed in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the fresco showed aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture. As originally installed, it was a three-paneled artwork. A central panel, depicting a worker controlling machinery, flanked by two other panels, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, which respectively represented socialism and capitalism. The Rockefeller family approved of the fresco's idea: showing the contrast of capitalism as opposed to communism. However, after the New York World-Telegram complained about the piece, calling it "anti-capitalist propaganda", Rivera added images of Vladimir Lenin and a Soviet May Day parade in response. When these were discovered, Nelson Rockefeller – at the time a director of the Rockefeller Center – wanted Rivera to remove the portrait of Lenin, but Rivera was unwilling to do so. In May 1933, Rockefeller ordered Man at the Crossroads to be plastered-over and thereby destroyed before it was finished, resulting in protests and boycotts from other artists. The fresco was peeled off in 1934 and replaced by a mural from Josep Maria Sert three years later. Only black-and-white photographs exist of the original incomplete fresco, taken when Rivera suspected it might be destroyed. Using the photographs, Rivera repainted the composition in Mexico under the variant title Man, Controller of the Universe. The controversy over the fresco was significant because Rivera's communist ideals contrasted with the theme of Rockefeller Center, even though the Rockefeller family themselves admired Rivera's work. The creation and destruction of the fresco is dramatized in the films Cradle Will Rock (1999) and Frida (2002). The reactions to the fresco's controversy have been dramatized in Archibald MacLeish's 1933 collection Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City as well as in E. B. White's 1933 poem "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity". ## Commission John D. Rockefeller Jr., a businessman and member of the Rockefeller family, was heavily involved in the construction of Rockefeller Center in the 1930s. He wanted to have a 63 by 17 feet (19.2 by 5.2 m) mural placed on the lobby wall of the RCA Building (now 30 Rockefeller Plaza), the largest structure in Rockefeller Center. Meanwhile, his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, was a patron of the socialist Mexican artist Diego Rivera. This had been the case since winter 1931–1932, when Abby purchased many of Rivera's pieces at a Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition. At the time, Rivera was painting a controversial fresco in Detroit entitled Detroit Industry, commissioned by the Rockefellers' friend, Edsel Ford, who later became a MoMA trustee. Rivera had recently been kicked out of Communist Party USA for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons, and his commission for Detroit Industry did not help improve the Communist Party's views of him. The writer Daniel Okrent states that a key event in Man at the Crossroad's conception occurred during a luncheon that Abby hosted in January 1932, at which Rivera was a guest. Abby suggested that a mural by Rivera would be a positive addition to Rockefeller Center. The entire Rockefeller family became close friends with Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo over the next few months, which led to the decision to commission Rivera for the RCA Building's mural. Rivera was given the theme "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future", since John wanted the painting to make people pause and think. The historian Alan Balfour writes that the Rockefellers had full knowledge of Rivera's communist activities, but hired him anyway. Rivera was officially commissioned by Todd, Robertson & Todd, the development agents for Rockefeller Center. The full commission had planned for Man at the Crossroads to be a three-paneled mural. The two panels to either side, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, would respectively contrast capitalism and socialism. According to Rivera's verbal description of the planned mural, the center panel would depict a person at the literal intersection of these two ideals (namely, the "man at the crossroads"). The RCA Building lobby's wall had such a prominent position within Rockefeller Center that John and Abby Rockefeller's son Nelson had originally wanted Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to create the paintings on either side of Man at the Crossroads. Nelson had chosen these artists because he favored their modern style. Rivera's artistic renown made his commission all the more fitting, since it was so prominently located. However, neither of the other two artists were available: Matisse was already completing commissions for Philadelphia's Barnes Foundation at the time, while Picasso never responded to the wire that requested a meeting with "Pierre Picasso". Josep Maria Sert and Frank Brangwyn were later hired to paint other murals in their place. Sert would paint murals on the northern corridor, while Brangwyn would paint murals on the southern corridor. Rivera did not agree with principal Rockefeller Center architect Raymond Hood's suggestion that the mural be commissioned exclusively in grayscale colors. He also declined to take part in an artistic competition prior to the announcement of his commission, and wanted to withdraw from the project when it was announced that neither Matisse nor Picasso would be painting at the RCA Building. He eventually acquiesced after Nelson convinced Hood to remove his grayscale requirement and allowed Rivera to paint Man at the Crossroads in a fresco format. However, Rivera withdrew again after Sert and Brangwyn were announced as the new artists, calling them "two inferior painters". He eventually rejoined the project by fall 1932. As part of the contract, Rivera would be paid \$21,000 for the work. This was considerably more than the \$10,000 he had been paid for Detroit Industry, which he continued painting even as he was negotiating for Man at the Crossroads. According to Daniel Okrent, Rivera did not read the fine print of the contract that he signed, which stipulated that in exchange for the \$21,000, Rockefeller Center Inc. would hold full ownership of Man at the Crossroads; this would lead to a controversy when the work was later removed from the RCA Building. Rivera showed Abby the sketch of his proposed work in November 1932. Nelson and John also looked at the sketch, and Nelson concluded that there was nothing controversial about the planned mural. Rivera and the Rockefellers signed a contract in which they agreed that the sketch was the final plan for the mural, and that the completed work could not be different from what was on that sketch. In March 1933, Rivera traveled from Detroit to New York so he could work on the RCA Building mural. He employed artists from around the world in his six-person crew, which also included the artists Ben Shahn and Lucienne Bloch. Rivera's assistants converted his small sketch to full-size 1-square-foot (0.093 m²) pieces of tracing paper, which would then be painted onto the wall. Also in March 1933, Webster B. Todd, one of the contractors working on the construction of Rockefeller Center, requested sketches of Man at the Crossroads because he was concerned about the mural's potential controversial effect. Even so, Rivera did not express worry about any potential issues, even expressing pride over his work when The New York Times wrote a lengthy profile on him on April 2, 1933. The Rockefellers did not show concern either, and the complex's publicist Merle Crowell took credit for the New York Times article. ## Work Rivera's composition depicted many aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture, and as with his other paintings, contained influences from Communism. In the center, a workman was depicted controlling machinery. Before him, a giant fist emerged holding an orb depicting the recombination of atoms and dividing cells in acts of chemical and biological generation. From the central figure four propeller-like shapes stretched to the corner of the composition, depicting arcs of light created by giant lenses anchoring the left and right edges of the space. Rivera described these as "elongated ellipses". Within these, cosmological and biological forces such as exploding suns and cell-forms were depicted. These represented the discoveries made possible by the telescope and the microscope. Between and beyond the arcs were scenes of modern social life. Wealthy society women were seen playing cards and smoking at the left. Opposite, on the right, Lenin was seen holding hands with a multi-racial group of workers. Soldiers and war machinery occupied the top left above the society women, and a Russian May Day rally with red flags was seen at the right, above Lenin. For Rivera, this represented contrasting social visions: the "debauched rich" watched by the unemployed while war raged, and a socialist utopia ushered in by Lenin. Beyond the giant lenses to left and right were depicted figures contemplating the central scene, behind which were gigantic classical statues. The one on the left depicted an angry Jupiter, whose raised hand holding a thunderbolt had been severed by a lightning strike. This comprised The Frontier of Ethical Evolution. The one on the right was a headless seated Caesar. This comprised The Frontier of Material Development. For Rivera these represented the replacement of superstition by scientific mastery of nature, and the overthrow of authoritarian rule by liberated workers. The bottom part of the painting was to depict the controlled growth of natural resources, in the form of a variety of plants emerging from their roots, visible in a cut-away view under the soil. This portion of the original mural was never completed, and it exists only in the later recreation of the composition in Mexico. ## Destruction On 24 April 1933, the New York World-Telegram published an article attacking the mural as anti-capitalist propaganda. As a defiant response to the article, Rivera or one of his assistants added a portrait of Lenin to the mural, which had not been apparent in initial sketches. The Rockefellers did not express any visible concern about the mural. On April 28, to ensure that the late addition of Lenin would be undetected, Rivera sent his assistants to make sure that there was no trace of the Lenin portrait in the blueprints and outlines for Man at the Crossroads. Rivera thought that if anyone were to check the blueprints, they would not be able to discern the hidden portrait of Lenin unless they looked closely. He believed that his close relationship with the Rockefellers would permit the surreptitious addition of the portrait. The Lenin portrait would still have gone unnoticed if not for a mistake made by workmen applying a final coat of paint to the wall above Rivera's mural. Some of the paint dripped onto the mural, and when Raymond Hood went to examine the drip, he found the portrait of Lenin. Following the discovery of Lenin's portrait, Nelson Rockefeller delayed the mural's planned May 1 unveiling. He wrote to Rivera to request that the painter remove the picture of Lenin. The portrait was the only thing about Man at the Crossroads that offended the Rockefeller family, despite the presence of other overtly Communist icons such as the hammer and sickle. A letter of reply from Rivera, written on May 6, politely declined the offer to remove Lenin's portrait, but by way of a compromise, offered to add Abraham Lincoln to the work. Rivera also said that he would be amenable to adding portraits of other American icons such as the abolitionists Nat Turner, John Brown, or Harriet Beecher Stowe, but he refused to remove the portrait of Lenin: > "Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity." Daniel Okrent states that Rivera did not write the letter himself, instead leaving the task to Ben Shahn, the assistant most strongly opposed to Nelson's request to remove the Lenin portrait. Nelson then left the decision about the future of the mural to Todd, Robertson & Todd. Hugh Robertson, one of the firm's principals, had written a reply to Rivera by May 9. In the letter, Robertson wrote that Rivera had deceived Rockefeller Center Inc. in the contract he made with them, and thus, Rivera was compelled to remove the Lenin portrait immediately. However, it was unclear whether Rivera understood that the painting belonged to Rockefeller Center Inc. After reading the letter, Rivera went back to his painting. On 10 May 1933, as Rivera and his assistants worked on the mural, they were scrutinized throughout the day during what Rivera called "the battle of Rockefeller Center". By the evening, Robertson had ordered that Rivera stop all work on the mural. Rivera was paid in full, but the mural was covered in stretched canvas and left incomplete. He was unsatisfied with the monetary payment, saying that he intended to complete the mural: "I will not change my mural even if I lose in the courts." Rivera's net profit from Man at the Crossroads only amounted to US\$7,000 (), a third of his total payment, after accounting for all expenses. He promised to reproduce the mural at any building that asked him to do so. On May 12, two days after the stop-work order was announced, Rivera was also dismissed from a commission at Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition, where he had been hired to paint a mural for General Motors' pavilion. An architect for GM cited the controversy surrounding Man at the Crossroads as the grounds for Rivera's dismissal. The concealment of Man at the Crossroads was itself controversial. The artist John Sloan, the writer Lewis Mumford, and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz all showed support toward Rivera's position, while the Communist Party was stuck between endorsing a former member or his wealthy patron. The painter Edwin Blashfield supported Rivera's dismissal because the premise of Man at the Crossroads was contrary to the U.S. government. In May 1933, Rockefeller Center Inc. announced that the mural would "remain hidden for an indefinite time". Within days of the stop-work order, artists' groups had drawn up manifestos to demand that Rivera be able to complete his mural. In December 1933, Rockefeller Center developer John R. Todd proposed that Man at the Crossroads be moved to MoMA, and suggested that Rivera could be re-hired to finish the mural. Rockefeller Center Inc. agreed to this proposal, but it was never carried out because the Rockefeller Center's management had not permitted Rivera's team to lay the plaster onto a specially built metal substructure which had been developed by Rivera and his principal assistant Clifford Wight so that Rivera's frescoes could be removed from the buildings they decorated if necessary. The mural remained covered until February 1934, when workmen peeled the mural off the wall. Rivera said that the mural's destruction "will advance the cause of the labor revolution", while Rockefeller Center Inc. simply issued a two-sentence press release saying that the walls had been replastered, resulting in the mural's demolition. The destruction caused widespread controversy, with many artists vowing to boycott any future exhibitions or commissions at Rockefeller Center. Ralph Stackpole and Bernard Zakheim created paintings in which figures held up newspapers with headlines alluding to the Man at the Crossroads controversy. The communist New Workers School in Manhattan was one of the entities who protested the destruction of Man at the Crossroads. Its leader Bertram Wolfe was one of Rivera's associates and would later become his biographer. Rivera painted 21 frescoes and gave them to the school as a gift for their protests. The protests largely stopped when Robertson released Rivera's previous correspondence about preferring the mural's destruction. ## Aftermath Despite the disagreement over Man at the Crossroads, Nelson Rockefeller still admired Rivera's work, and the two had an amicable relationship. Years afterward, he would collect paintings and loan them to Rivera's art shows. However, according to Daniel Okrent, his mother felt "betrayed" by Rivera, and they were not known to see each other again after the dispute had subsided. As a result of the controversy, John Rockefeller saw to it that no artwork would be commissioned for Rockefeller Center without his explicit approval. As for Rivera, Bertram Wolfe wrote that the artist commissioned paintings for movements that opposed the Rockefellers' "continued rule". After Man at the Crossroads was demolished, Brangwyn was asked to exclude Jesus Christ from his own mural in the RCA Building's lobby, which depicted the Sermon on the Mount. Todd reportedly made the request because Christ could have been depicted in many different ways, but unlike with Man at the Crossroads, there was very little controversy. Brangwyn wrote to John Rockefeller to ask for reconsideration of this request. Brangwyn's mural, completed in December 1933, ultimately featured a depiction of Christ with his back turned. At the mural's unveiling, Todd said that Rockefeller Center management had not cajoled Brangwyn in any way. Meanwhile, replacements for Man at the Crossroads were being considered, and Rockefeller Center Inc. approached many artists for possible offers. Initially, Picasso showed interest in the commission, but Todd declined the offer because Picasso refused to show a preview of what he was going to paint, and because Picasso would not negotiate from his stated price of \$32,000. In 1937, Sert agreed to paint the replacement mural for \$27,000. The mural, titled American Progress, depicts a vast allegorical scene of men constructing modern America, and contains figures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Progress wraps around the west wall of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's Grand Lobby. According to American Heritage magazine, the controversy influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reaction to the idea of a Federal Art Project and similar New Deal-funded public art initiatives: “Commenting on the suggestion that the federal government should undertake a relief program for unemployed artists, Roosevelt expressed some misgiving: he didn't want, he told a friend in 1933, ‘a lot of young enthusiasts painting Lenin's head on the Justice Building.’“ The New Deal art programs were ultimately funded and persisted until the height of World War II, and in the end, “The New Deal administration did its best to give American artists easy rein, recognizing that freedom and originality are inseparable. There were exceptional cases, especially in connection with over a thousand murals executed under Treasury Department auspices for United States post offices across the country; but in general the absence of censorship was remarkable.” ## Man, Controller of the Universe Concerned that Nelson Rockefeller would destroy the work, Rivera had asked Lucienne Bloch to take photographs of the mural before it could be destroyed. In late 1933, Rivera went to Mexico City and persuaded the Mexican government to let him repaint the mural on a blank wall at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. In his biography of Rivera, Bertram Wolfe stated that the artist did not care for the location of the mural this time around. Rather, Wolfe wrote, Rivera had been "looking for a public place where he could let men see what kind of painting it was that these 'patrons of the arts' had chosen to destroy". Using the photographs as a reference, Rivera repainted the mural, though at a smaller scale, where it was renamed Man, Controller of the Universe. The composition was almost identical, but the central figure was moved slightly to be aligned with the supporting mast of the cylindrical telescope above him. The new version includes a portrait of Leon Trotsky alongside Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at the right. Others appear at the left, including Charles Darwin. Beside Darwin is John Rockefeller, Jr, a lifelong teetotaler, drinking in a nightclub with a woman. Above their heads is a dish of syphilis bacteria. ## Cultural significance The Rockefeller–Rivera dispute has become an emblem of the relationship of politics, aesthetics, creative freedom and economic power. Some works dramatized the incident, and a few went so far as to lampoon it. The American poet Archibald MacLeish's 1933 collection Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City was inspired by the incident. It included six poems about the mural in which both Nelson Rockefeller and Rivera were criticized. The New Yorker published E. B. White's poem "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity", an imaginary debate between Nelson Rockefeller and Rivera, on May 20, 1933. The incident has also been dramatized in the American films Cradle Will Rock (1999) and Frida (2002), both set in the 1930s. Other works focused specifically on Nelson Rockefeller's and Diego Rivera's conduct during the dispute over Man at the Crossroads. In her 1983 biography Frida, Hayden Herrera mentions that Kahlo wrote, "one could fight against [the Rockefellers] without being stabbed in the back". This referred to Rockefeller and Rivera's continued relationship even after the controversy had passed. Cary Reich writes in The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller that the controversy was an instance of Nelson's "princely tendency [...] to have surrogates handle his dirty work". The controversy surrounding the commissioning and destruction was loosely re-told as part of The Simpsons TV episode "Now Museum, Now You Don't" ## See also - List of works by Diego Rivera - Life of Washington, mural by Viktor Arnautoff - Freedom for Humanity, mural by Mear One

Ontario Highway 8

Ontario provincial highway

King's Highway 8, commonly referred to as Highway 8, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The 159.7-kilometre (99.2 mi) route travels from Highway 21 in Goderich, on the shores of Lake Huron, to Highway 5 in the outskirts of Hamilton near Lake Ontario. Before the 1970s, it continued east through Hamilton and along the edge of the Niagara Escarpment to the American border at the Whirlpool Bridge in Niagara Falls. However, the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) replaced the role of Highway 8 between those two cities, and the highway was subsequently transferred from the province to the newly formed Regional Municipality of Niagara in 1970. In 1998, the remaining portion east of Peters Corners was transferred to the city of Hamilton. Between Stratford and Kitchener, Highway 8 is concurrent with Highway 7. The two highways widen into a four-lane freeway east of New Hamburg, eventually becoming the Conestoga Parkway within Kitchener, where it splits with Highway 7. It follows a short connector freeway – known as the Freeport Diversion, King Street Bypass, or Highway 8 expressway – south to Highway 401. The route continues as the locally maintained Regional Road 8 (King Street East) through downtown Cambridge before resuming as a provincial highway at Branchton Road and soon after that entering the city of Hamilton. Highway 8 ends east of Peters Corners at an intersection with Hamilton Road 8. Highway 8 was one of the first roads assumed when the provincial highway system was established, though it was not numbered until 1925. The routes that predate the highway, including the Huron Road, and the Queenston Stone Road, were established during the settlement of Southwestern Ontario between 1780 and 1830. These early trails served as the principal routes in the regions through which they passed and eventually became part of the provincial highway system circa 1918. ## Route description Highway 8 is a 159.7-kilometre (99.2 mi) route that connects the shores of Lake Huron at Goderich with the head of Lake Ontario in Hamilton. Portions of the highway through Goderich, Clinton, Seaforth, Mitchell and Stratford are locally-maintained under a Connecting Link Agreement with the provincial government. Highway 8 begins at its western terminus in downtown Goderich, at a junction with Highway 21, within Huron County. It exits the town travelling southeast as a rural two-lane highway running roughly parallel and south of the Maitland River, passing through farmland outside of the many small communities it serves. At Holmesville, the river moves northwards while the highway continues southeast, now parallel to and north of the Goderich–Exeter Railway. Soon after, it passes through Clinton, where it intersects the northern terminus of Highway 4. Highway 8 is completely straight for approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) between Clinton and Stratford. After bisecting Seaforth, the highway enters Perth County and passes through the communities of Dublin, Mitchell (where it intersects Highway 23) and Sebringville. Entering Stratford as Huron Street, Highway 8 widens to four lanes. It crosses the Avon River, then turns east onto Ontario Street before encountering Highway 7 at Erie Street. The two routes become concurrent for the next 44.5 kilometres (27.7 mi), between Stratford and Kitchener. East of Stratford, the highway narrows back to two lanes and travels north of and parallel to the CN railway Guelph Subdivision. After passing through the village of Shakespeare, the route enters the Regional Municipality of Waterloo as it widens to four lanes and curves onto the New Hamburg Bypass. It travels south of New Hamburg and crosses the Nith River before becoming a divided four-lane freeway near Baden. At Trussler Road, the combined Highway 7/8 enters the city of Kitchener, where it is known as the Conestoga Parkway. The Conestoga Parkway runs through Kitchener, widening to a six-lane freeway near Fischer Hallman Road. At King Street in the city's centre, Highway 8 splits off southeastward at an interchange, while Highway 7 continues along the Conestoga Parkway. Traffic on Highway 8 heading northwest can continue under the Conestoga Parkway onto King Street into downtown Kitchener. Between the Conestoga Parkway and Highway 401, Highway 8 follows an eight-lane freeway known as the Freeport Diversion or Highway 8 Expressway. The expressway initially travels southeast, passing under Franklin Street before swerving slightly south. It crosses over the Grand River at its midpoint, followed by a partial interchange with King Street East that provides access to Highway 401 westbound to London. The expressway narrows to six lanes and later to four lanes at Sportsworld Drive. It merges to eastbound Highway 401 and from westbound 401. The MTO maintains approximately 670 metres (2,198.2 ft) of King Street and Shantz Hill Road at the Highway 401 interchange as an unsigned portion of Highway 8. Within Cambridge, the route continues as Waterloo Regional Road 8 along Shantz Hill Road, Fountain Street, King Street, Coronation Boulevard, and Dundas Street. Highway 8 resumes at Branchton Road, where it exits urban Cambridge into farmland travelling southeast. After approximately 3 kilometres (1.9 mi), the route enters Hamilton. It bypasses the communities of Sheffield and Rockton before eventually reaching Peters Corners, where it meets the western terminus of Highway 5 at a multilane roundabout. Highway 8 ends 200 metres (660 ft) to the east at an intersection with Hamilton Road 8. ## History ### Predecessors (1780–1918) While its history as a provincial highway dates back to 1918, significant portions of the roads that would be taken over by the province and eventually designated as Highway 8 had existed for nearly a century or longer. These include the Huron Road between Berlin (renamed Kitchener in 1916) and Goderich, which was built c. 1827; the Dundas and the Hamilton Stone Road that were established in 1819 along a trail blazed between Hamilton and Berlin in 1798; and the Queenston Road (later the Queenston Stone Road or the Queenston and Grimsby Stone Road), established along an aboriginal trail at the foot of the Niagara Escarpment in the 1780s. When settlers began arriving in the Niagara Peninsula following the American Revolution and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, natives were non-existent in the area, the local tribe having been ravaged over a century earlier. Trails crisscrossed the peninsula, with the dominant routes favouring an east–west orientation. The most significant of these was the Iroquois Trail that traversed along the foot of the Niagara Escarpment. In the east, Queenston provided an ideal crossing of the Niagara River. In the west, the escarpment breaks at Dundas, where the trail continued towards the Grand River at present-day Brantford, thus providing a portage between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The Iroquois Trail was utilised by famous historical figures, including John Graves Simcoe in 1793 on his voyage to Detroit, as well as during the War of 1812. It was widened to accommodate wagon traffic by 1785. Between approximately 1800 and 1820, large numbers of German and Dutch settlers from Pennsylvania travelled west across the Niagara Peninsula and onward to the Waterloo area. A trail cut from Hamilton to the Grand River, at Galt, in 1798 or 1799, was gradually widened to be fit for wagons by 1819. While Niagara-on-the-Lake served as the initial focal point of settlement into southwestern Ontario, Hamilton emerged in 1816 at the head of Lake Ontario, and immediately became the new hub for settlers. The route between Hamilton and Waterloo was improved to a stone road circa 1836. Over the years the route was known by various names, including the Waterloo Road, the Galt Road, the Old Dutch Road, the Beverly Road, and most often the Dundas and Hamilton Stone Road. Settlement beyond Waterloo was accomplished by the Canada Company, which acquired the Huron Tract in 1826. In order to implement the grand settlement plan, a trail was surveyed by Mahlon Burwell and William Dunlop from Guelph to Lake Huron at the mouth of the Maitland River beginning in 1827. After company commissioner Thomas Mercer Jones rode the muddy trail from Guelph to Goderich in June 1829, he recommended that it be widened to four rods (20 metres (66 ft)), which was done by the end of that year by Colonel Anthony Van Egmond. The trail was further improved to allow for the passage of wagons by 1832. The Canada Company venture would ultimately fail, but not before establishing the present-day settlement patterns. ### Designation and paving (1918–1949) Until 1918, the majority of the primary roads through southern Ontario formed part of the County Road System. The Department of Public Works and Highways paid up to 60% of the construction and maintenance costs for these roads, while the counties were responsible for the remaining 40%. The Ontario government passed an act in 1917 to permit the newly formed Department of Public Highways (DPHO) to take over (or assume) responsibility and upkeep of a provincial highway system. The initial system, between Windsor and Quebec, was bookended by branches to Niagara and Ottawa. The branch to Niagara would become the first provincial highway connection to the United States, and later become the easternmost portion of Highway 8. The Hamilton–Queenston Highway was assumed as part of "The Provincial Highway" in August 1918. In 1919, the federal government passed the Canada Highways Act, which provided C\$20,000,000 to provinces under the condition that they establish an official highway network; up to 40% of construction costs would be subsidized. The first network plan was approved on February 26, 1920, and included the Queenston Road. Most of the remainder of what would become Highway 8 – from Goderich to Hamilton – was assumed by the department throughout July 1920. On October 13, several roads were taken over by the province between St. David's near Queenston and the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge in Niagara Falls. The new route followed the present Four Mile Creek Road, St. Paul Avenue, and Portage Road south to Thorold Stone Road, which it followed east to Stanley Avenue, thence south to Bridge Street. However, none of these roads would receive a route number until the summer of 1925. Initially Highway 8 was almost entirely unpaved, except within towns and portions between Stratford and Shakespeare as well as between Kitchener and Hamilton. During the initial few years of the existence of the highway network, which were spent rebuilding culverts, bridges, and ditches, paving took a low priority. The first sections of Highway 8 paved by the DPHO were in 1922 between Hamilton and Stoney Creek, as well as between Sebringville and Stratford. The rest of the highway between Hamilton and Niagara Falls, as well as the remaining gaps between Kitchener and Hamilton, were paved the following year. Work was completed between Shakespeare and New Hamburg, as well as on the gaps between Petersburg and Kitchener in 1924. In 1925, paving between Mitchell and Sebringville was completed. At this time, Highway 8 was paved from Mitchell to New Hamburg, and from Petersburg to Niagara Falls. In 1926, paving was completed for 10 kilometres (6 mi) southeast of Goderich, as well as between Dublin and Mitchell. The following year, it was completed on the remaining gap between Goderich and Clinton, as well as between Seaforth and Dublin. The final unpaved section of Highway 8, between Clinton and Seaforth, was completed in 1928. ### Bypasses and the Conestoga Parkway (1949–1970) Highway 8 would remain unchanged for approximately 20 years until bypasses of several cities and towns along the route were built. The first such bypass was in Kitchener, where until 1949, the highway travelled into and out of the downtown core along King Street and Queen Street before following Highland Road west towards Stratford. By 1950, to divert truck traffic from the King and Queen Street intersection, it was redirected slightly along Ottawa Street and Courtland Avenue. The New Hamburg Diversion opened in 1957, bypassing its namesake as well as the community of Baden. The original route – following Huron Street, Waterloo Street, and Snyder's Street West – met the new bypass at Gingerich Road east of Baden. Farther east, two bypasses were constructed around the villages of Rockton and Sheffield beginning in 1958 that opened the following year. Within Hamilton, growing congestion in the 1950s led the city to hire American traffic engineer Wilbur Smith, who had made a business of consulting for cities to develop one-way street plans. Smith proposed a complete reorganisation of the downtown area, including converting Main Street – which Highway 8 followed through the city – to an eastbound one-way. King Street served the opposing direction in the one-way pairing. The switch from two-way to one-way traffic took place on October 28, 1956. It immediately drew condemnation from local businesses, which saw a significant reduction in customers. A special council meeting to discuss the matter was held on July 15, 1957, which drew a large public audience. At it, alderman Ramsey Evans, a member of the committee that had first suggested the one-way conversion, sought to undo it. The motion was defeated, and Main Street and King Street remain one-way streets. In the fall of 1961, the Department of Highways began construction of the Freeport Diversion, providing a new divided highway crossing of the Grand River. The diversion, connecting with King Street south of the Grand River and at Fergus Street, was completed in 1963. Although the concept of a ring road around Kitchener and Waterloo originated from the Kitchener-Waterloo and Suburban Planning Board in 1948, actual consideration was not given to it until it was recommended by a 1961 traffic study. By then, the opening of Highway 401 was attracting business away from the rapidly growing twin cities. Land was gradually purchased over the intervening years and picked up considerably when plans for the expressway system were first raised in late 1962. The provincial government reached a funding arrangement with Kitchener and Waterloo to cover 75% of the expected C\$22 million cost, and officially announced the Kitchener–Waterloo Expressway on May 21, 1964. The province eventually took over authority for the entire project in August 1965. Construction of the Kitchener–Waterloo Expressway began in February 1966 with the awarding of a C\$3 million contract to rebuild 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) of King Street into a four lane divided highway from Fairway Road (renamed from Block Line Road) to Doon Road, including the half cloverleaf interchange that would serve the western and northern legs of the expressway system. In the mid-to-late 1960s, Highway 8 was redirected along Fairway Road, Mill Street (now Vanier Drive) and a new road named Henry Sturm Boulevard that travelled east from Ottawa Street and Highland Road to Mill Street. The expressway was renamed the Conestoga Parkway in January 1967, after being chosen by a joint committee from a shortlist of 12 publicly-submitted names. The reconstruction of King Street was completed and opened in November 1967. Construction began several months later in October on a C\$3.6 million contract to build a 2.9-kilometre (1.8 mi) segment of the parkway from King Street to west of Homer Watson Boulevard. This section, which was built along the alignment of Henry Strum Boulevard, was opened to traffic between Courtland Avenue and King Street on November 25, 1968, at which point the Highway 8 designation was redirected along King Street and the Conestoga Parkway to Homer Watson Boulevard, via Henry Strum Boulevard, and onto Highland Road. ### Transfers and expressway extensions (1970–1997) During the 1960s, the Department of Highways undertook several regional transportation studies to determine traffic patterns, which had changed significantly since the highway network was established in the 1920s. Among these was the Niagara Peninsula Planning Study, released in 1964. It indicated that several highways were no longer provincially significant, and responsibility for them should be transferred to local government. Having largely been supplanted by the Queen Elizabeth Way, opened in the 1940s, the winding route of Highway 8 east of Winona was transferred to the new Regional Municipality of Niagara on September 1, 1970. The region designated the former highway as Regional Road 81. Meanwhile, work continued on the Conestoga Parkway in the early 1970s, with a section between Courtland Avenue and Fischer-Hallman Drive opening on September 1, 1971. Around this time, construction was underway on a new two lane alignment of Highway 7/8, first announced in 1963, to connect the New Hamburg Diversion with the Conestoga Parkway. It opened on August 13, 1973, bypassing Baden; the former alignment east of New Hamburg is now known as Gingerich Road. During the mid-1970s, proposals for a Highway 8 bypass of Cambridge were floated, but never gained traction. Although the proposal was shelved in 1988, the bypass idea was briefly revived as a result of recommendations in the Cambridge Area Transportation Study, released in June 1992. It recommended construction of a C\$54.5 million bypass of Highway 8 around the west side of Cambridge, from Highway 401 to south of the city. The proposal faced public backlash due to the cost as well as environmental concerns of crossing the Grand River and five environmentally sensitive areas. Following the completion of an environmental assessment in 1984, construction began by 1985 on a new 3.3-kilometre (2.1 mi) freeway link between the Freeport Diversion and Highway 401, which was known as Highway 8 New during construction. Highway 8 New was completed by 1988, and received the non-public designation Highway 7187, since the Highway 8 designation continued along King Street East and Shantz Hill Road towards Cambridge. However, in 2008, Highway 8 was rerouted along the 3.3-kilometre (2.1 mi) freeway segment, while King Street East and Shantz Hill Road were re-designated as Waterloo Regional Road 8. The province continues to maintain approximately 670 metres (2,198.2 ft) of Waterloo Regional Road 8 at the Highway 401 interchange as an unsigned portion of Highway. 8. The two lane segment of Highway 7/8 from Fischer-Hallman Road west to Baden was originally slated to be twinned to four lanes in the 1980s, but the project was put off for a decade. Early works tree clearing got underway in 1991 before the project was put on hold for archeological excavations. Construction began to widen the route as far west as Waterloo Regional Road 12 (Queen Street), south of Petersburg, on July 6, 1992, with a planned completion by August 1993. Budget constraints brought on by a recession in the 1990s resulted in the Mike Harris provincial government forming the Who Does What? committee to determine cost-cutting measures in order to balance the budget after a deficit incurred by former premier Bob Rae. It was determined that many Ontario highways no longer served long-distance traffic movement and should therefore be maintained by local or regional levels of government. The MTO consequently transferred many highways to lower levels of government in 1997 and 1998, which resulted in the removal of a significant percentage of the provincial highway network. As a result of this, the portion of Highway 8 east of Highway 5 at Peters Corners, through Dundas, Hamilton and Stoney Creek, was transferred to the Regional Municipality of Hamilton–Wentworth on April 1, 1997. A 2.3-kilometre (1.4 mi) section of King Street in Kitchener, from north of the Highway 401 interchange to the Freeport Diversion, was also transferred on that day to the Regional Municipality of Waterloo. ### Since 1997 In the early 1990s, the provincial government announced plans to widen the Conestoga Parkway and Freeport Diversion, as well as to improve the interchange between the two. The project was broken into several phases, and included rebuilding the Ottawa Street and Franklin Street overpasses. Construction began in August or September 1998 to widen the Conestoga Parkway from four to six lanes between Courtland Avenue and King Street. It was completed, along with widening of the parkway between King Street and Frederick Street, in July 2000. The expansion of Highway 8 from four lanes to eight lanes between the Conestoga Parkway and Fergus Avenue was originally scheduled to begin in 2001, but was delayed as businesses along Weber Street fought expropriation. Construction instead began in April 2002, which involved shifting one of the retaining walls further north and a new Franklin Street bridge to accommodate the eight lane cross-section freeway. Included with this project was a reconstruction of the bottle-necked interchange of the Conestoga Parkway and Highway 8, including a new flyover ramp from westbound Conestoga Parkway to eastbound Highway 8 to replace one of the two loop ramps, and realignment of the northbound to eastbound ramp. Both were completed and opened on June 11, 2004. Work began on the next phase, widening Highway 8 from four to eight lanes from Fergus Avenue to northwest of the Grand River, in April 2006. This work included rebuilding the Fairway Road interchange. Construction to twin Highway 8 over the Grand River and widen it northwest of the Sportsworld Drive interchange began in the summer of 2009, following the relocation of approximately 50 Wavy-rayed lampmussel, considered a species at risk in Canada. Both projects were completed and opened, except for one westbound lane over the Grand River, in November 2011; the fourth westbound lane was opened the following year. An operational and safety review of the three intersections at Peters Corners near Hamilton was undertaken in February 2001. Studies, including an environmental assessment were conducted between 2004 and 2009, and settled upon a roundabout as the ideal replacement, with traffic signals at the two intersections with Westover Road. Construction began in the spring of 2012, and the C\$6.3 million roundabout was opened on September 25, 2012. ## Future The interchange between the Freeport Diversion and Highway 401 is incomplete, providing access only between eastbound Highway 8 and eastbound Highway 401, and between westbound Highway 401 and westbound Highway 8. Although a detailed design for two additional ramps to provide access to and from the west to Highway 8 was prepared in 2010, there is no schedule or funding as of 2021 for this work. ## Suffixed routes ## Major intersections ## See also - Royal eponyms in Canada

Soggade Chinni Nayana

2016 Indian Telugu-language film

Soggade Chinni Nayana () is a 2016 Indian Telugu-language supernatural drama film directed by Kalyan Krishna Kurasala and written by Satyanand and Ram Mohan P. In addition to producing the film under his Annapurna Studios banner, Nagarjuna played dual roles, starring alongside Ramya Krishna and Lavanya Tripathi. Nassar, Mahadevan, Sampath Raj and Brahmanandam played supporting roles. The film revolves around the soul of Bangarraju, a flirtatious zamindar whom Yama sends back to earth to reconcile his son (Ram "Ramu" Mohan) and his wife Seetha; they are on the brink of divorce. In the process, he learns about his death and its connection with a local Shiva temple. P. S. Vinod and Siddhardh Ramaswami provided the cinematography, and Anup Rubens composed the film's soundtrack and background score. Prawin Pudi edited the film. Principal photography for the film began on 19 November 2014 after it was launched in Hyderabad, and wrapped on 4 October 2015. Most of the film was shot in and around Rajahmundry and Mysore. Produced on a budget of ₹15–20 crore, Soggade Chinni Nayana was released worldwide on 15 January 2016 during the Makar Sankranti festival season in 390-410 screens. It received positive reviews from critics and was commercially successful, earning ₹75 crore globally. The film was remade in Kannada as Upendra Matte Baa (2017). A sequel titled Bangarraju was released in 2022. ## Plot Ram "Ramu" Mohan is a socially-inept cardiologist practicing in the United States. His wife, Seetha, feels lonely since Ramu pays very little attention to her because of his work. They decide to divorce and leave for Sivapuram, Rajahmundry, where Ramu's mother Satyabhama lives. Satyabhama, shocked to learn that Ramu and Seetha are divorcing, shouts at a portrait of her deceased husband Bangarraju (a benevolent, flirtatious zamindar who died nearly 30 years ago in an accident). Bangarraju's soul is in Naraka, where he continues to flirt. Yama, at Shiva's command, sends him back to earth because there is a mission only he can fulfil. Bangarraju, who can be seen and heard only by Satyabhama, tries to solve his family's problems. After several unsuccessful attempts, Bangarraju possesses Ramu's body on his birthday. He meets Ramu's young female cousins, and invites them to his home. On his way back Ramu meets Suri, a frightened drunk who runs away as Ramu and Bangarraju look identical. To free himself from guilt, Suri later admits that he murdered Bangarraju with a lorry after he was bribed. Before he can disclose more details, Suri dies in an accident and Bangarraju learns that his family is in danger. Ramu spends quality time with his cousins, making Seetha jealous. Bangarraju is confronted by Satyabhama, who is unaware of recent events. He suggests that she help Seetha impress Ramu. At Satyabhama's suggestion, Ramu and Seetha go to a theatre to watch a film. When she is taunted, Ramu (possessed by Bangarraju) overpowers her tormenters. Seetha is pleasantly surprised, since Ramu failed to confront the same group earlier in a similar situation. The couple slowly grow closer, and Seetha realises that Ramu does love her. Bangarraju learns from Athmanandam, a godman who can communicate with souls, that his uncle Rudraraju masterminded his murder. Rudraraju and his cousin, Veerababu, wanted to steal jewellery from a 1,000-year old temple to Shiva. They murdered Bangarraju, bribing Suri to silence him. After Rudraraju's son dies when he is bitten by a divine snake, a tantrik warns that only Bangarraju's descendants can open the lock; others would be killed by the snake. The tantrik captures Bangarraju's soul and gives a few threads to Sampath, Rudraraju's grandson, telling him to tie them to the hands of every member of Bangarraju's family to keep his soul from communicating with them. After Sampath and the others leave, the snake kills the tantrik and saves Bangarraju's soul. Bangarraju reaches the temple, where Satyabhama can neither see nor hear him and he cannot possess Ramu. Rudraraju and Sampath attack Ramu and Seetha after the jewellery is removed from the treasury. Rudraraju tells his henchmen to put the couple in a car with the jewellery, which will make the villagers think that they are the thieves. The thread to Ramu's hand comes loose, and Bangarraju possesses him. Bangarraju fights them and retrieves the jewellery before leaving Ramu, who operates on an injured Seetha in a nearby hospital. Satyabhama removes the thread and can see Bangarraju. Ramu and Seetha reconcile, and Yama orders Bangarraju to come back in accordance with Shiva's instructions. When Satyabhama begs Bangarraju to stay, Yama gives him a chance to wipe away her tears. He asks her to keep smiling and live happily for his sake, and returns to Naraka. ## Cast ### Special guest appearance ## Production During the production of Manam (2014), producer and lead actor Nagarjuna liked the portions which were set against a village backdrop. He developed an interest in making a film based on Indian village life, feeling that audiences would see a "new, yet traditional lifestyle, something fresh and interesting". After sketching the basic idea, Ram Mohan P approached Virinchi Varma to direct the film; Mohan produced Varma's directorial debut, Uyyala Jampala (2013). Varma declined the offer, since he wanted to film his own script. Nagarjuna then gave the synopsis to Kalyan Krishna Kurasala, who completed the script within a month. Kurasala was confirmed as director, marking his directorial debut in Telugu cinema. Nagarjuna approved the inclusion of supernatural elements, such as the ghost of Bangarraju and the divine snake guarding his family, on the condition that they be positive and not frightening. The film was titled as Soggade Chinni Nayana named after the song from 1966 film Aastiparulu starring Akkineni Nageswara Rao. He played two roles: Bangarraju, a flirtatious zamindar, and his son Ramu (a socially-inept doctor, born the day after Bangarraju's death). Ramu's character was based on Umakanth, a contestant on Meelo Evaru Koteeswarudu (a game show hosted by Nagarjuna). As Bangarraju, Nagarjuna wore a dhoti and a 1959 watch; both were worn by his father, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, in his many village-film starring roles. Ramya Krishnan and Lavanya Tripathi were the female leads; Pranitha Subhash and Sonal Chauhan were considered before Tripathi was cast. Initially skeptical about playing a married woman, Tripathi agreed after listening to a script reading at the Annapurna Studios office. In a January 2016 interview with The Hindu, Nagarjuna mentioned that Bangarraju and Satyabhama (played by Ramya) would be a "hot, romantic" couple, in contrast to the "innocent, cute" Ramu and Seetha (played by Tripathi). After being cast, Tripathi said that her character, a traditional Indian girl, would have a romantic touch. L. Satyanand wrote Soggade Chinni Nayana's screenplay, and Anup Rubens composed its soundtrack and score. P. S. Vinod and Siddhardh Ramaswami were the cinematographers. Prawin Pudi and Ravinder Reddy were in charge of the film's editing and art direction respectively. A launch ceremony was held on 19 November 2014 at Annapurna Studios in Hyderabad, and principal photography began several hours later on a set erected in the Studios' premises. Anushka Shetty made a cameo appearance in the film. Hamsa Nandini confirmed her inclusion in the cast in December 2014; she played a supporting role and participated in a song with Nagarjuna. Raju Sundaram, Vishwa and Raghu choreographed the songs. Television presenter Anasuya Bharadwaj played Nagarjuna's cousin after Swathi Reddy backed out, citing scheduling conflicts. Diksha Panth also made a cameo appearance; her inclusion was confirmed in August 2015. Nagarjuna had to simultaneously complete his portions of Oopiri (2016) and Meelo Evaru Koteeswarudu during 2015. Filming resumed on 11 February 2015 after completion of two schedules. Principal photography continued in Mysore on 10 March 2015 after key sequences were filmed in and around Rajahmundry. Several scenes were filmed at a 1,500-year-old Vishnu temple in Kere Thonnur village in Mandya District. In September 2015, with Soggade Chinni Nayana nearing completion, its film unit told Indo-Asian News Service that a few key scenes would be re-filmed on the advice of writer Sai Madhav Burra (who changed some scenes to suit the story). The re-filming delayed its release. Principal photography wrapped on 4 October 2015 in Mysore, and post-production began shortly afterwards. Soggade Chinni Nayana was produced on a budget of ₹150–200 million. ## Music The six-song Soggade Chinni Nayana soundtrack was composed by Anup Rubens; however, its initial release had only five songs. Ramajogayya Sastry wrote the lyrics for two songs: "Vasthane Vasthane" and "Untale". Bhaskarabhatla, Balaji and Krishna Kanth wrote the lyrics of one song each. The title song was written by Anantha Sreeram and performed by Satya Yamini, Nuthana and Vinayak. The soundtrack, on Aditya Music, was released on 25 December 2015 with a promotional event at Shilpakala Vedika, Hyderabad. ### Reception According to Karthik Srinivasan of The Hindu, the hook of "Dikka Dikka Dum Dum" resembles one written by A. R. Rahman for the Tamil song "Kaatre En Vasal" from Rhythm (2000): "Thulli varum kaatre, thulli varun kaatre, thaaimozhi pesu". Srinivasan called its melody "heady, raucous and very rhythmic". Sangeetha Devi Dundoo from The Hindu wrote that Rubens' music complemented the film's rural backdrop. Sify called Rubens' music one of the film's biggest strengths, which "perfectly gelled with the rustic storyline". ## Release and reception Soggade Chinni Nayana was released worldwide on 15 January 2016 in 800-900 screens. Three other Telugu films (Nannaku Prematho, Express Raja and Dictator) were released at the same time, which affected its distribution. Nagarjuna defended his release decision, saying that the film's rural backdrop made it suitable for the Makar Sankranti season (a harvest festival). He added, "I announced the date two and a half months ago and blocked the theatres. There’s nothing I can do now". Global Cinema acquired the film's theatrical rights for the Nizam region. ### Critical reception The film received positive reviews from critics. Suresh Kavirayani of Deccan Chronicle gave Soggade Chinni Nayana four out of five stars, praising Kurasala's narrative clarity and calling it "wonderful overall" for its consistent tempo. Sangeetha Devi Dundoo, in The Hindu, gave the film 3.5 stars out of five and said it was set in a "familiar, comfort zone" which "guarantees a lot of fun". Dundoo found the temple-and-snake subplot engaging. Pranita Jonnalagedda of The Times of India also gave the film 3.5 stars out of five, calling it "so uncomplicated, unfussy and unpretentious" that viewers "get hooked to its simplicity". Sify gave Soggade Chinni Nayana three stars out of five, comparing the film to Nageswara Rao's 1978 film Sri Rama Raksha. The reviewer praised Nagarjuna's performance and Kurasala's narrative clarity. L. Ravichander of The Hans India gave it a negative review, calling it an obsolete film with crass humor. Ravichander called Ramya's performance the "lone bright spot ... all grace, charm and vigour." ### Box office Soggade Chinni Nayana had an average 70-percent theatre occupancy rate and grossed ₹55 million (with a distributor share of ₹39 million) at the AP-Nizam box office on its first day. In three days, the film grossed ₹130 million and collected a distributor share of ₹85 million at the AP-Nizam box office. The three-day global gross passed ₹200 million, with a distributor share of ₹141 million. According to trade analyst Taran Adarsh, Soggade Chinni Nayana grossed US\$535,183 (₹362 million) at the United States box office in its first weekend and was Nagarjuna's second-highest-grossing film in India (after Manam). In five days, the film grossed \$629,303 (₹42.9 million) at the U.S. box office after a significant decline. In its first week, Soggade Chinni Nayana grossed ₹347.4 million globally. With a distributor share of ₹228.3 million, it became profitable. After losing 30 screens to Airlift, Soggade Chinni Nayana grossed \$776,940 (₹52.7 million) in ten days at the U.S. box office. By the end of its second week, the film grossed ₹559.6 million globally and had a distributor share of ₹357.3 million. In its third week, after losing many screens due to new releases, the film retained 19 screens in the U.S. and grossed \$827,918 (₹53.2 million) in 17 days. With a distributor share of ₹38 million on an investment of ₹6.5 million, Soggade Chinni Nayana became Nagarjuna's highest-grossing film in India. In 20 days, the film grossed ₹638.8 million globally and collected a distributor share of ₹404.8 million; it became one of the few Telugu films to cross the 40-crore (₹400 million) mark. Soggade Chinni Nayana retained seven screens in its fourth week in the U.S., grossing \$837,089 (₹56.9 million) in 24 days. The film completed a 50-day-run in more than 75 theatres on 4 March 2016, a record for a Nagarjuna film. The global gross and distributor-share figures stood at ₹700 million and ₹440 million, respectively. It was estimated to have grossed over ₹750 million globally in its theatrical run. ## Remakes and dubbed versions The film was remade in Kannada as Upendra Matte Baa (2017). The Tamil dubbed version, Sokkali Mainar was released on 14 July 2017. The film was dubbed in Hindi as The Return Of Raju . ## Sequel Due to Bangarraju's popularity, Nagarjuna announced the film's sequel with Kurasala returning as director. The film is titled as Bangarraju and it has Nagarjuna reprising his roles as Bangarraju and Ramu and Ramya Krishna as Satyabhama alongside a new cast including Naga Chaitanya as Bangarraju's grandson, Chinna Bangarraju, and Krithi Shetty. However, its production was postponed due to several reasons and the pre-production works of the sequel was completed in November 2020 and filming was completed in December 2021. The film was released on 14 January 2022 coinciding with Sankranti. ## Awards and nominations

Route 41 (King County Metro)

Urban bus route in Seattle, Washington

Route 41 was an express bus route operated by King County Metro in Seattle, Washington, United States. It connected Lake City and Northgate to Downtown Seattle, with non-stop service on Interstate 5 south of Northgate Transit Center. The route was created in 1970 by the city-run Seattle Transit System as the 41 Blue Streak, the first in a series of express bus services in North Seattle using the Interstate 5 express lanes. It was transferred to Metro in 1973 and dropped the "Blue Streak" branding in 1978. Route 41 was moved to the downtown transit tunnel in 1991, and expanded into an all-day route in 2002. It has since become one of the busiest routes operated by King County Metro, with over 10,000 daily riders. The service was moved out of the downtown tunnel in 2019 and was retired on October 2, 2021, with the opening of Link light rail service to Northgate. ## Route Route 41 began in the Chinatown–International District neighborhood at the south end of Downtown Seattle, serving a pair of stops near International District/Chinatown station and King Street Station. The bus route traveled through Downtown Seattle on 3rd Avenue, the main transit corridor for the city, and turned east onto Olive Way near the Westlake Center. Inbound buses ran on Union Street, while outbound buses used Olive Way to reach Interstate 5, with northbound access to a direct ramp on Howell Street to the express lanes during certain times of the day. Route 41 traveled non-stop on Interstate 5 for 6 miles (9.7 km) to the Northgate Transit Center, a major bus station in North Seattle near the Northgate Mall; buses stopped at bays 2 and 5 for northbound and southbound trips, respectively. From the transit center, route 41 continued north on 5th Avenue Northeast past the Northgate Mall, and turned east onto Northeast 125th Street in Pinehurst. Buses make local stops through the mostly residential area, which gives way to the Lake City commercial center. Route 41 then turned north onto Lake City Way and terminated at Northeast 130th Street. Route 41 ran at a frequency of 6 minutes during peak hours on weekdays, and 15 to 20 minutes at other times. Some trips were truncated to Northgate instead of serving Lake City. In spring 2015, Metro estimated that 10,000 daily riders used route 41 on weekdays. ### Connections Route 41 was the trunk service for North Seattle, connecting with local buses at Northgate Transit Center and in Lake City. ## History ### Blue Streak The construction and completion of Interstate 5 through North Seattle spurred considerable suburban development in the 1950s. Northgate and Lake City were annexed into the city of Seattle in 1954, and the city-run Seattle Transit System expanded bus service into the area. The new service included a shuttle that ran at a significant loss for several years before being cancelled in the late 1950s. A second attempt at serving the north end with bus service was launched in 1963, with existing routes extended north towards Northgate and Lake City later that year. Increasing congestion on Interstate 5 and declining bus ridership led city officials to propose a rapid transit service using the freeway's reversible express lanes. In 1966, the federal government approved planning of an express bus service, named "Blue Streak" by Seattle Transit, that would use the express lanes between Northeast 110th Street and Cherry Street in Downtown Seattle. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded \$1.03 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) in January 1968 to Seattle Transit to develop the Blue Streak project, but the launch was delayed by a shortage in suitable buses. In May, HUD awarded a further \$2.39 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to purchase 70 diesel buses, which were delivered in November. The continued financial problems with Seattle Transit put the Blue Streak program in jeopardy, leading to calls to suspend the program before it launched. Service was originally slated to begin in 1968, and delays led to the federal government establishing a deadline in early 1969 for a city decision on whether to move forward. A park and ride lot in Northgate was secured in August 1969, settling the demands of the federal government. The United States Department of Transportation approved \$2 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) in operating funds for Blue Streak in January 1970, providing two-thirds of the system's operating budget for the first two years of service. Blue Streak service on Route 41 began on September 8, 1970, traveling on local streets between Sand Point, Lake City and Northgate Mall, and proceeding onto Interstate 5 non-stop to Downtown Seattle. Blue Streak buses were given exclusive use of the Columbia and Cherry ramps on the Interstate 5 reversible express lanes, as well as a bus-only lane on 5th Avenue. Buses traveled primarily on 3rd Avenue through Downtown, heading northbound during morning inbound trips and southbound during afternoon outbound trips towards Northgate. Buses ran at a frequency of 7 to 15 minutes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays. The trip between Northgate and downtown took an average of 15 minutes, and took near-full busloads on the first day. The 22 buses on Blue Streak service were initially colored red, but were later repainted blue to match the branding. US Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe praised the Blue Streak system during a speech on opening day, calling the express buses "an example [of] imaginative, innovative use of existing transportation facilities and equipment". The Blue Streak experiment attracted interest from mass transit advocates and officials from across the nation. The Blue Streak system was expanded to other routes in the 1970s and served as the model for modern park-and-ride express service in the Seattle metropolitan area and across the United States. In its first year of service, Blue Streak routes increased ridership in North Seattle amid an overall decline in Seattle Transit ridership. Seattle Transit general manager Lloyd Garber said that demand for parking was higher than expected and that it was too early to analyze ridership; after the first week of service, Seattle Transit began surveying riders to determine whether motorists had been lured by the new service. The study determined that 75 percent of surveyed patrons had switched from their personal automobiles, and that Blue Streak was responsible for a decrease of 400 vehicles on Interstate 5 at rush hour. By late October, demand at the Northgate park and ride prompted the State Highway Department to offer funding for an auxiliary lot. Seattle Transit cancelled Saturday service on the Blue Streak routes in March 1971, citing low patronage and the near-empty parking lot at Northgate. ### Metro Transit After a countywide public transit system was approved by voters on September 19, 1972, bus service within Seattle was transferred from the Seattle Transit System to the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle (Metro) on January 1, 1973. As part of the changeover, the leased Blue Streak parking lot was acquired by Metro using funds from the Urban Mass Transit Administration. As part of a system renumbering in January 1978, Metro eliminated the "Blue Streak" branding on routes, creating the modern route 41. Route 41 was chosen as one of the initial routes to be routed through the downtown transit tunnel in Downtown Seattle, but due to a delay in the production of special dual-mode buses for the tunnel, route 41 was not moved into the tunnel until 1991. Route 41 ran primarily during peak hours, with some limited midday service, and was supplemented by route 307, which ran from Downtown Seattle to Northgate and Bothell on weekends and nights. The northern terminus of route 41 was moved from Magnuson Park to 5th Avenue NE and NE 125th Street in 1997, eliminating service to Sand Point and Lake City. A major restructure of Northeast Seattle service occurred in 2002 to accommodate the new Sound Transit Express route 522 from Seattle to Woodinville via the State Route 522 corridor. As part of the restructure, route 307 was eliminated and replaced by route 522 as well as increased service on route 41, which was extended to Lake City and given service 7 days a week with frequencies as high as 15 minutes at midday on weekdays. Beginning in September 2005, the downtown transit tunnel was closed for renovations to accommodate light rail service. Route 41, the tunnel's most popular bus route, was routed onto surface streets within Downtown Seattle, primarily using 3rd Avenue between Jackson and Virginia streets until the tunnel reopened in September 2007. Buses were permanently removed from the downtown transit tunnel on March 23, 2019, as construction at Convention Place station had severed access to the north portal. Route 41 was relocated onto 3rd Avenue, serving stops near the transit tunnel stations, as well as Olive Way and Stewart Street. In July 2019, inbound southbound buses were moved from Stewart Street to Union Street to reduce morning travel times by 10 minutes. Route 41 was permanently retired on October 2, 2021, following the extension of Link light rail service to Northgate Transit Center. The express portion was replaced by the Link 1 Line, while the local portion was replaced by a realignment of Route 75.

Static Prevails

Static Prevails is the second studio album by American rock band Jimmy Eat World, released on July 23, 1996, through Capitol Records. Following the release of the band's self-titled debut album (1994), they signed to Capitol in mid-1995 for further releases. Carrier member Rick Burch replaced bassist Mitch Porter, who left to become a Mormon missionary. Recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles, California, and at Big Fish, in Encinitas, California, Wes Kidd, Mark Trombino, and Jimmy Eat World acted as producers for the album. Static Prevails saw the band move away from skate punk and pop-punk, and into a more aggressive sound consisting of post-hardcore, emo and punk rock. Preceded by a three-month United States tour, it was promoted with a mini tour of the country, a stint with the Smoking Popes and the Figgs, and a US tour with Sense Field in early 1997. A music video was filmed for "Rockstar", and "Call It in the Air" was released as the lead single in August 1996. The album received mixed reviews from music critics, who mostly commented on the vocals and guitarwork. It has since been viewed as a benchmark for the second wave of emo. ## Background and development Jimmy Eat World released their self-titled debut studio album in 1994, through local label Wooden Blue records. As the members left high school, frontman Jim Adkins was part of a production company with Joel Leibow, co-founder of Wooden Blue. The production company listed itself in Maximumrocknroll's guide Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, which assisted bands, promoters, and venues to book shows across the United States. After being contacted by Christie Front Drive for a show, Leibow asked the band to do a split single with Jimmy Eat World. Various major labels contacted the band and asked for a tape of their music. Loren Isreal, a talent scout from Capitol Records went to a show to check out Sense Field; however, the opening act, Christie Front Drive, caught his attention. Isreal asked them if they had new material he could hear, with the band responding by mentioning they had released a split with Jimmy Eat World. Sometime later, Jimmy Eat World played a benefit show; a staff member at Capitol was in the audience, and approached them. In mid-1995, they signed a development deal with the label that included one album, with the possibility for six more. As the band did not know any entertainment lawyers, they hired Lind's family attorney to gloss over the contract. Around this time, bassist Mitch Porter became a Mormon missionary at the insistence of his family, and left the band. Carrier bassist Rick Burch, who guitarist Tom Linton had been best friends with since the seventh grade, replaced Porter. Capitol set up the band to record demos for their next album with Jon Auer of the Posies in Seattle, Washington. They then visited Capitol's A&R person Craig Aaronson at his house in Los Angeles, California, where they showed him the demos they had done. Aaronson was discussing the band's songwriting process, which he felt made no sense; Adkins explained they used to write songs as a series of "cool part[s]" one after another. ## Recording and production When Jimmy Eat World was searching for an engineer to record Static Prevails, they came across former Drive Like Jehu member Mark Trombino. The band recorded two songs with him, "Opener" and "77 Satellites", both of which were released through record label An Industry for Outer Space on 7-inch vinyl. At Capitol's insistence, Jimmy Eat World went to a rehearsal room in Los Angeles, having been told to write some new songs and rewrite others, being guided by a producer they had hired. The band did pre-production at Mind's Eye Digital in Mesa, Arizona, with engineer Larry Elyea. Static Prevails was recorded in 1995 at Sound City in Los Angeles, and at Big Fish in Encinitas, California. While Jimmy Eat World wanted Trombino to produce the album, Capitol insisted on the production duo of Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, who had previously produced for the likes of Foo Fighters and Beck. The label eventually relented, with Jimmy Eat World working with Trombino, and Wes Kidd of labelmates Triple Fast Action; the band were also given a producer credit. Billy Bowers and Jeff Sheehan served as assistant engineers at Sound City. When Jimmy Eat World recorded Seventeen", it initially featured the chorus line "You're only seventeen"; however, when they realized it sounded too similar to a song by Winger, Linton changed the lyrics, and the band re-recorded it. Trombino, who also acted as engineer, mixed all of the tracks, apart from "Rockstar" and "Seventeen", in Studio C at Capitol Studios. Peter Doell, Billy Smith, and Steve Genewick worked as assistant engineers at Capitol. Rothrock and Schnapf mixed "Rockstar" and "Seventeen" at Sunset Sound, with Cappy Japngie serving as an assistant engineer. Captiol Records insisted on Rothrock and Schnapf mixing the tracks because the label planned to send them to alternative radio stations; subsequently, the vocals on both tracks ended up high in the mix. Stephen Marcussen mastered all of the recordings at Precision Mastering, while Craig Aaronson served as the executive producer. ## Composition Static Prevails marked a shift from Jimmy Eat World's previous skate punk material in the vein of NOFX, Rocket from the Crypt, and J Church, into aggressive but melodic post-hardcore, emo, and punk rock, by bands such as Seam, Tortoise, and Sunny Day Real Estate. Drummer Zach Lind attributed this change in style to listening to Christie Front Drive, who they found to be "really melodic but still very powerful". Lind played in a more aggressive and noisier style of rock-oriented drumming, with elements of his punk roots. Static Prevails splits lead vocals almost evenly between Linton and Adkins, which contrasted from the Linton-dominated Jimmy Eat World, where Adkins only sung lead on one track. Ted Simon compared Adkins' vocals to those of the Replacements' frontman Paul Westerberg. In addition to playing the drums, Lind played the accordion and the concertina. Tracks such as "Seventeen", "Digits" and "Robot Factory" are reminiscent of releases on indie labels like Homestead and Twin/Tone Records. Eric Richter of Christie Front Drive provided additional vocals on "Digits", while Kidd played an acoustic guitar on "Claire", Lind's ex-girlfriend Sarah Pont played violin, and Trombino contributed on the Moog synthesizer. The opening track, "Thinking, That's All", and "Call It in the Air" are screamo-esque songs, the former channeling the sound of Unwound. Linton said Adkins came up with the basic form of "Thinking, That's All", which the other members added to. The band had been playing "Rockstar" live for sometime, prior to signing with Capitol, with Linton often mumbling his speech as he had no lyrics for it. It was only during the demo session with Auer that he wrote the words, as the label thought it was a hit-sounding song. "Claire" evokes Texas Is the Reason with its quiet and loud sections, aided by a violin. Lind said the song was "formative" for the band, as it showed them that a simplistic arrangement can "make something [sound] cool". Linton said they took influence for it from Sunny Day Real Estate, particularly their song "In Circles" (1994), while Adkins the lyrics were "very journal entry-ish". "Call It in the Air", with its punk-esque sound, earned a comparison to Sense Field. Lind said it exemplified the band's punk roots. Lind said the opening drum part to "Seventeen" intentionally ripped off Drove Like Jehu, to the annoyance of Trombino. "Episode IV" is the first track the band wrote without any "loud, saturated guitar sounds", according to Adkins. He came up with the basic structure, which he showed to Linton, who thought it had a sound akin to "Hurt" (1994) by Nine Inch Nails. Linton opted to whisper his vocals instead of singing to "keep it a really delicate song". "Digits" was influenced by the work of Christie Front Drive; an earlier version of it was released on Jimmy Eat World's split with Christie Front Drive. "Caveman" features the sound of crickets throughout its length, which was achieved by taking a Neumann U67 microphone outside Big Fish Studios. For sometime, Linton struggled with the song's lyrics; he only came up with them while in the bathroom at the studio "looking at aerosol cans and trying to find some rhythming words to match the verse". The band used to open their shows with "World Is Static" as it would shift direction partway through. Alongside this, Adkins said they were employing choruses more often as they found enjoyment in repetition. The drums in it were inspired by John Anderson, the drummer of Boys Life. Staff members at Capitol asked Linton to tell Adkins to stop screaming as he was doing it for the majority of "World Is Static": "I was like, 'Yeah, I can't tell him that, because he'll just scream louder. Burch compared the hushed atmosphere of "In the Same Room" to falling snow. When mixing the song, Adkins said him and Trombino recorded radio static for its beginning, which Trombino compressed to make it sit around the vocals. The title of "Robot Factory" comes from a power plant in the McClintock area of Tempe, Arizona. The closing track, "Anderson Mesa", features a string arrangement; its title references the observatory of the same name. Adkins said it was about him living in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he previously attended college prior to dropping out. ## Release and promotion After the band handed in Static Prevails, the staff at Capitol were "bummed [...] Just guys being like, 'Uh ... this is a lot different than what we expected'", according to Linton. Jimmy Eat World toured the West Coast of the US in anticipation of the album between May and July 1996. Capitol released Static Prevails on July 23, 1996. The cover artwork features a sideways photo of chimneys, taken on a rooftop in Denver, Colorado, by Paul Drake. The original vinyl version featured different artwork, and included the bonus 7-inch vinyl of "In the Same Room" and "77 Satellites". The band made a music video for "Rockstar", which was included on some copies of the CD version of the album as enhanced content. It was filmed at Koo's Cafe, a DIY venue in Santa Ana, Calfironia, with directors Richard and Stefanie Reines of Drive-Thru Records. Capitol released "Call It in the Air" as the lead single on August 26, 1996, on a 7-inch vinyl, with "Rockstar" as the B-side. Jimmy Eat World promoted Static Prevails with a mini US tour along the West; later, the band embarked on the God Bless America tour with the Smoking Popes and the Figgs. In February 1997, Jimmy Eat World embarked on a cross-country US tour with Sense Field. Capitol felt the original version of "Seventeen" would work in the film Never Been Kissed (1999), and in return for letting the label use it in the film, the band met Drew Barrymore. Adkins felt the lyrics of the original tied in well with the lead character of the movie. Along with their third studio Clarity (1999), Static Prevails was re-released in 2007; "77 Satellites" and "What Would I Say to You Now" were included as bonus tracks. Static Prevails, along with Clarity and their fifth studio Futures (2004), was re-pressed on vinyl in 2014. ## Reception Static Prevails was met with mixed reviews from music critics. AllMusic reviewer Mike DaRonco stated that "what Static Prevails essentially lacks is the songwriting maturity that Jimmy Eat World could have perfected; but it's almost as if the studio heads at Capitol wouldn't let them so that there would be more room for radio-friendly pop songs. In the end, nobody won." Harry Guerin of RTÉ found it to be "largely a textbook emo record" that "never really keeps your attention throughout". According to him, the album has "too many instances of familiar sounding riffs and overwrought vocals [...] to be convincing". The staff at The New Rolling Stone Album Guide called it "very much of its time", complete with "anxiety-ridden vocals, lyrics of suburban melodrama, and screaming punk guitars". BBC Music writer Tim Nelson opened his review asking if the album title was "presumably meant ironically", as "staying still is one thing this propulsive pop album [...] doesn't do." In his eyes, the music "crosses the abyss between indie indulgence and soul-sucking corporate pap with aplomb". Barbara Restaino of Lollipop Magazine said that she though she would "really like it" to begin with, however, Adkins and Linton's voices "started to annoy me" after a while. Michael Carriere viewed Static Prevails and Clarity as landmarks in the second wave of emo. In 2012, Jason Heller of The A.V. Club noted, "As with so many punk bands that signed to a major during that decade, Jimmy Eat World gained precious few new fans—and lost many old ones—with Static Prevails." Coinciding with the album's 25th anniversary, Bandbox and Captiol Records released a version of the album with an accompanying booklet written by Alex Rice. He highlighted five songs from the band's catalogue – "Believe in What You Want" from Clarity, "Bleed American" from Bleed American (2001), "Futures" from their fifth studio album Futures (2004), "Action Needs an Audience" from their seventh studio album Invented (2010), and "Pol Roger" from their ninth studio album Integrity Blues (2016) – that drew influence from Static Prevails. Louder writer Alistair Lawrence said songs like "Claire" and "Digits" "create something uneven but distinct, which would unintentionally form part of the roadmap for emo's rite of passage through the late '90s". Andrew Sacher of BrooklynVegan felt that "Claire" was the "earliest example of what Jimmy Eat World would achieve artistically" with Clarity. ## Track listing All songs written by Jimmy Eat World. All recordings produced by Wes Kidd, Mark Trombino, and Jimmy Eat World. ## Personnel Personnel per booklet. Jimmy Eat World - Tom Linton – guitar, co-lead vocals - Jim Adkins – guitar, co-lead vocals - Zach Lind – drums, accordion, concertina - Rick Burch – bass guitar Additional musicians - Eric Richter – additional vocals (track 7) - Sarah Pont – violin - Mark Trombino – Moog - Wes Kidd – acoustic guitar (track 3) Production - Wes Kidd – producer - Mark Trombino – producer, engineer, mixing (all except tracks 2 and 5) - Jimmy Eat World – producer - Tom Rothrock – mixing (tracks 2 and 5) - Rob Schnapf – mixing (tracks 2 and 5) - Billy Bowers – assistant engineer - Jeff Sheehan – assistant engineer - Peter Doell – assistant engineer - Billy Smith – assistant engineer - Steve Genewick – assistant engineer - Cappy Japngie – assistant engineer - Larry Elyea – engineer - Stephen Marcussen – mastering - Craig Aaronson – executive producer - Paul Drake – cover photography, ambient band - Andy Mueller – smiley band photo - Jim Adkins – other photos - Ohiogirlco – design, art direction

110th Cavalry Division (Soviet Union)

The 110th Cavalry Division (Russian: 110-я кавалерийская дивизия) was a horsed cavalry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. It was formed in January 1942 as the 110th Separate Cavalry Division and reformed as the 110th Cavalry Division on 30 September 1942. Formed as a Kalmyk national division, its personnel were drawn from the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The division arrived on the frontlines on 14 May 1942, covering the retreat of Soviet troops across river Don during the 1942 German strategic summer offensive (Case Blue). After suffering heavy casualties, it broke down into separate units while continuing to fight in the Battle of the Caucasus. It was disbanded on 27 January 1943, after the Soviet Union began to dissolve national divisions. Unsubstantiated rumors surrounding its alleged misconduct during the war contributed to the decision to deport Kalmyks to Siberia. ## Formation During the early stages of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, the latter suffered massive casualties. Over one hundred Soviet divisions were disbanded due to losses in manpower. The Soviet State Defense Committee initiated the formation of hundreds of new divisions which were quickly sent to the front lines. Losses of materiel among the tank divisions and mechanized corps, meant that horsed cavalry divisions remained the only tool available for the execution of deep operations and raids. On 13 November 1941, following the suggestion of General Inspector of the Cavalry Oka Gorodovikov, the Soviets began forming 20 national cavalry divisions and 15 national rifle brigades. The new units drew upon the peoples of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (ASSRs), in Northern Caucasus, Central Asia, the Urals and the Lower Volga Region. Unlike typical cavalry divisions, national cavalry divisions were equipped and sustained using the funds of the respective republics and their formation was overseen by the local communist party committees. Most officers were appointed from among the native nationality, in order to prevent the development of a language barrier. On 20 November 1941, Deputy Defense Narkom Efim Shadenko ordered the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to form the 110th and 111th Separate Cavalry Divisions by January 1942. Most Kalmyks had only recently transitioned to sedentism, severely limiting the number of settlements that could host the new divisions. The 3,498-man-strong 110th Separate S.M. Budyonny Cavalry Division was to be formed in the Sadovoe, Tundutovo and Malye Derbety villages. Men were drafted from Serpinsky, Ketchenerovsky, Maloderbetsky, Ustinsky, Privolzhsky, Ulan-Holsky and Lagansky Uluses (Districts), located in the north and east of the republic. Since the command staff had departed the republic for the front lines, the first temporary commander of the division was appointed by the local political authorities. Former head of the Kalmyk ASSR Selhozbank (Agricultural Bank), Lieutenant Michael Onguldushev assumed command. In January 1942, command was transferred to Colonel Vasily Panin. Mobilization and training lagged behind schedule since over 16,000 Kalmyks were employed in various engineering projects around the Caucasus. On 23 February, the 110th Separate Cavalry Division received its military banner and its soldiers took the military oath. On the same day its size was expanded to 4,494 men, while soldiers were assigned to their respective units within it. On 4 March, the Soviet High Command disbanded 20 cavalry divisions after deeming cavalry to be less effective than expected. The 111th Separate Cavalry Division was disbanded on 12 March, its best cadres and equipment being transferred to the 110th Separate Cavalry Division. The latter dispatched 1,000 of its least trained recruits to reserve units. At 20 April, the 110th was judged to be fully equipped, now numbering 4,579 men and 4,825 horses. The 273rd, 292nd and 311th Cavalry Regiments forming its core. ## Operations ### Defense of the Don On 14 May 1942, the 110th Separate Cavalry Division was deployed to Zimovniki, Rostov Oblast. On 26 May 1942, after marching for 328 kilometres (204 mi) the 110th Separate Cavalry Division reached the Don river village of Kuteynovskaya. After joining the 17th Cavalry Corps, the division continued its training. In June, the Germans reached the banks of the Don. The German Army Groups A and B were tasked with encircling and annihilating the Soviet troops crossing the river, capturing the Caucasus and seizing the city of Stalingrad in what came to be known as Case Blue, the 1942 German strategic summer offensive. This would deny the Soviet Union its strategic oil and gas reserves and block the Persian Corridor of the Allied Lend-Lease programme. The Soviet North Caucasian Front responded by sending forward the 51st Army (which included the 110th Separate Cavalry Division) to the left bank of the Don. On 5 June, the 110th was assigned a 58-kilometre (36 mi) section of the front ranging from the Bagayevskaya to Semikarakorsk, while the 115th Cavalry Division protected a 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) stretch from Konstantinovka to Semikarakorsk on its northern flank. On 13 July, the Soviet High Command ordered all units remaining west of the Don to cross the river and concentrate at Stalingrad. The two divisions facilitated the retreat of those units, by providing anti-aircraft cover and collecting abandoned equipment. Between 16 and 27 July, 110th Separate Cavalry Division shot down five German aircraft using Maxim guns and rifle fire. The 115th Cavalry Division came under a massed tank attack and was heavily bombed, retreating from its positions. On 18 July, the 110th withdrew to the Sal river, establishing its headquarters at Batlaevka. The same day its positions became the target of heavy aerial bombing and artillery fire, while its advanced guard exchanged fire with the enemy, losing five killed and seven wounded. On 20 July, it lost 50 killed and dozens wounded to aerial bombardments and strafing. On 21 July, the 273rd Cavalry Regiment ambushed a unit of motorcyclists and two armored cars in a vineyard in the outskirts of the Puchliakovskaya village. The Germans retreated after suffering casualties and launched a second attack which was beaten off. On the night of 21 July, the 311th Cavalry Regiment's Reconnaissance Platoon was attacked by elements of the Motorized Infantry Division Großdeutschland at Kerchik, losing half of its troops killed. On the morning of 22 July, the II. and III. Grenadier Battalions of the Großdeutschland Division established a bridgehead on the southern bank of the Don at Puchliakovskaya and Melichovskaya which were abandoned by Soviet troops. Augmented by a tank company the I. Grenadier Battalion advanced on Razdorskaya village. The village and the nearby pontoon crossing was defended by the 3rd NKVD Battalion, the 1st Militsiya Battalion, two 45 mm guns and two anti-tank riflemen teams of the 273rd Cavalry Regiment. Anti-tank rifleman Sergeant Erdny Delikov opened fire at 150 metres (490 ft), destroying two tanks and one truck. The Germans received air support after firing flares, and the ensuing bombardment knocked out one of the 45 mm guns and both of the anti-tank rifles, mortally injuring Delikov. The delaying action at Razdorskaya enabled all retreating Soviet units in the vicinity to safely withdraw over the Don. On 31 March 1943, Delikov was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the first Kalmyk to receive the honor. By the end of the day, two out of the three river crossings located in the 110th Separate Cavalry Division's area of responsibility had fallen into enemy hands. The Bagaevskaya crossing remained intact, allowing the staff of the 37th Army, the 3rd Rifle Corps, 5th and 15th Tank Brigades and other smaller units to evade encirclement. On 22 July, the 110th was placed under the operational control of the 37th Army. On 23 July, Großdeutschland's motorcycle battalion, supported by three tanks, three armored cars, eight armored personnel carriers (APCs) and two heavy artillery pieces launched an assault on Bagaevskaya. The 292nd Cavalry Regiment repelled the first attack with the aid of an artillery and mortar barrage. The Germans lost a tank, four APCs and two armored cars. At 15:30, the Germans attacked again after a series of airstrikes, but were thrown back to their starting positions. On 24 July, the Germans conducted another unsuccessful attack on Bagaevskaya, losing five APCs, two tanks and two artillery pieces. The 292nd Cavalry Regiment blew up the Bagaevskaya bridge at 12:00 a.m. Having lost 150 men killed and wounded and over 200 horses, the 292nd withdrew to the Susat-Karpovka line. On 25 July, the III Panzer Corps broke through Soviet defenses south of Konstantinovskaya, putting the 110th Separate Cavalry Division in danger of encirclement. On the night of 25/26 July, it began augmenting its fortifications at Karpovka. The following morning, the Germans struck Karpovka and Azhinov, although the 110th Separate Cavalry Division stubbornly resisted enemy attempts to advance. Hundreds of its soldiers were killed, including Divisional Commissar Sergei Zayarny and Division Chief of Staff Alexei Raab. The divisional headquarters building was destroyed, burying with it the divisional and the regimental flags, which were recovered under intense enemy fire. The division conducted an organized retreat over the Manych river during the night. During the two weeks of fighting on the Don, the 110th Separate Cavalry Division lost approximately 1,000 men killed or missing in action and 700 wounded. According to Russian historian Vladimir Ubushaev, it managed to destroy up to four battalions of motorized infantry, 30 tanks, 55 armored cars, 45 mortars, 20 artillery pieces, 40 machine guns. In total, the 110th Separate Cavalry Division's delaying actions on the Don enabled over 425,000 men, 215 tanks, 1,300 artillery pieces, over 8,000 tractors and cars, 22,000 horses and other equipment to be safely transported to the Soviet rear. ### Battle of the Caucasus Between 27 and 29 July, the 110th fought a series of defensive battles around Tuzlukov, Krasniy and Veseliy in the vicinity of the Manych. Having suffered heavy casualties it withdrew under the orders of the 37th Army commander. Unable to build an adequate distance from German motorized troops to regroup and suffering losses as a result of German air supremacy it made a fighting retreat to Mozdok. The unit broke into numerous columns in order to minimize casualties; the bulk of its forces marched through Bashanta and Voroshilovsk. It clashed with enemy troops at Salsk, Sandata, Sablino and north-east of Voroshilovsk. In the middle of August, a part of the division took up defense positions at Voznesenskaya outside Mozdok, while a smaller group retreated to Maykop and Astrakhan. In the Northern Caucasus elements of the 110th merged into the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps, while in Astrakhan they came under the control of the 28th Army. The core of the division, stationed at Voznesenskaya, became an independent unit within the Northern Army Group of the Transcaucasian Front. By the beginning of September, the division had lost over 3,000 men killed and wounded, as well as 80% of its horses. On 5 September, the Military Committee of the Northern Army Group ordered the 110th's commander Colonel Vladimir Homutnikov to protect the newly built Kizlyar–Astrakhan railway. The division thus came under the control of the 44th Army. The division's sector of responsibility extended from the Cherniy Runok to the Zenzeli station in their native Kalmyk ASSR. The Germans attempted to disrupt the railway's operation by attacking the Ulan Hol station with a motorized infantry battalion and 10 tanks. A counterattack by the 292nd Cavalry Regiment cost the Germans 100 men killed, two tanks and three trucks. The 110th later marched 500 kilometres (310 mi) to Aga-Batyr north-east of Mozdok, where it helped the 36th Cavalry Division avoid encirclement. After 15 days of continuous fighting, the division liberated Terekli-Mekteb, Achikulak, Aga-Batyr, Tarskiy, Michailovskiy, Poltavskiy and Sovkhoz "Mozdokskiy". On 16 September, the division was reinforced by a group of Kalmyk cadets from the Novocherkassk Cavalry School. On 30 September, the 110th Separate Cavalry Division was officially disbanded. It was simultaneously reformed as the 110th Cavalry Division, drawing personnel from the Ordzhonikidze Krai and the unoccupied Uluses of the Kalmyk ASSR. The reformation dragged on as all available motor transport and horses in the Kalmyk ASSR had already been requisitioned. By the middle of November, the division's strength reached 2,719 men, only 30% of whom were Kalmyks. On 12 December, the division was incorporated into the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps, taking part in the fighting around Terekli-Mekteb. On 1 January 1943, the Northern Army Group of the Transcaucasian Front launched a counter-offensive. On 4 January, the 110th breached enemy lines at Achikulak. On 10 January, the division annihilated the defenders of the Orlovskaya and Praskovey fortified positions, capturing Budyonnovsk. Continuing its push, it covered the right flank of the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps. In the process, the division seized dozens of villages in the Ordzhonikidze Krai, Dagestan ASSR and Rostov Oblast, as well as the Zapadniy and Yashaltinskiy Uluses. In late January 1943, the Soviet Union began reorganizing its divisions. Recruitment based on ethnicity was deemed to be too logistically complex and many national divisions were disbanded. On 27 January, the 110th Cavalry Division was disbanded and its personnel were split between various units within the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps. ## Accusations of collaboration As early as the division's withdrawal from the Don, rumors began to spread that its personnel had turned to banditry, fled in the face of the enemy or outright defected. In November 1942, Kalmyk ASSR Communist Party First Secretary P. Lavrentiev sent Shadenko a series of letters accusing the staff of the 51st Army of spreading baseless and malicious rumors about the division. The rumors had an immediate effect on the treatment of ethnic Kalmyks by the Soviet military. Individual commanders within the 51st and 28th Armies attempted to deport Kalmyk civilians from a 25-kilometre (16 mi) zone around the frontlines. Ethnic Kalmyks were likewise blamed for not evacuating their cattle in time and defecting into the collaborationist Kalmykian Cavalry Corps. The latter was formed in Germany during the spring of 1943 from Kalmyk men taken by the Germans as forced laborers and defectors among prisoners of war. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov later cited reports about the alleged disintegration of the 110th Cavalry Division coming from the 37th and 51st Armies during a session of the State Defense Committee. Those reports are believed to have served as the catalyst behind 27 December 1943 decision to deport Kalmyks to Siberia. Former soldiers of the 110th Cavalry Division were among the Kalmyks recalled from active service and deported to Siberia. Many of whom died in special settlements. A report issued by NKVD officer A. Leontiev accused the division of turning to banditry en masse and spreading defeatist rumors in their native republic. While there are records of a limited number of defections among the 110th Cavalry Division, both modern and Soviet historiography consider the accusations leveled against the division a myth. ## Commanders The division was commanded by the following commanders: - Colonel Vasily Panin (January 1942 – 18 August 1942) - Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Lisitsyn (18 August – 27 August 1942) - Colonel Vladimir Homutnikov (28 August – 18 September 1942) - Colonel Ivan Terentiev (18 September – 29 September 1942) - Colonel Vladimir Homutnikov (30 September 1942 – 28 January 1943) ## Composition The division included the following units: - 273rd Cavalry Regiment - 292nd Cavalry Regiment - 311th Cavalry Regiment - 110th Separate Horse-Artillery Divizion - 99th Separate Artillery Park - 81st Separate Communications Half-Squadron - 110th Separate Chemical Protection Squadron - Separate Anti-Aircraft Battery - 94th Medical-Sanitary Squadron - 82nd Supply Train - 374th Veterinary Hospital - Editorial and Printing House - Military Prosecutor's Office - Military Tribunal - Special Department - Separate Rifle Platoon OO - 1925th Field Post Office - 1028th Field Cash Office of the State Bank

Rajkummar Rao

Indian film actor

Rajkummar Rao (born Raj Kumar Yadav; 31 August 1984) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi films. He has appeared in more than 30 films since 2010, and is the recipient of several accolades including a National Film Award, four Filmfare Awards and an Asia Pacific Screen Award. In 2017, he appeared on Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list. After studying acting at the Film and Television Institute of India, Rao made his acting debut with the anthology film Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010) and took on supporting roles in the films Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2 and Talaash: The Answer Lies Within (both 2012). He had his breakthrough in 2013 with critically acclaimed performances in the dramas Kai Po Che! and Shahid. His portrayal of lawyer Shahid Azmi in the latter won him the National Film Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Rao's career progressed with supporting roles in Queen (2014), Aligarh (2015), and Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017), with the latter winning him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He had lead roles in the independent films Trapped (2016) and Newton (2017), with the former winning him his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor and the latter earning him the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor. Rao had his highest-grossing release in the horror comedy Stree (2018), and his first English-film role in the satire The White Tiger (2021). Further praise came for his starring roles in Ludo (2020), Monica, O My Darling (2022) and Bheed (2023), and he won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for starring as a closeted gay man in Badhaai Do (2022). ## Early life Rajkummar Rao was born as Raj Kumar Yadav on 31 August 1984 in Prem Nagar, Gurgaon, Haryana, India. He had two older siblings and three cousins in his extended family. His father, Satya Prakash Yadav, was a government employee in the Haryana revenue department, and his mother, Kamlesh Yadav, a homemaker. His mother and father died in 2016 and 2019 respectively. He completed his 12th standard from S.N. Sidheshwar Senior. Sec Public School, where he participated in school plays. He graduated from The Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, (University of Delhi) where he was simultaneously doing theatre with Kshitij Theatre Group and the Shri Ram Centre in Delhi. Rao said that he decided to become an actor after seeing Manoj Bajpayee and being "highly influenced" by his performance. In 2008, he enrolled in a two-year acting course at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and moved to Mumbai to pursue a film career. Rao is a vegetarian. He changed his surname to Rao from Yadav in 2014 and also added an extra 'm' to his name. He said the reason for this was, "Rao or Yadav, I can use either of the surnames as both are family names. As far as the double 'm' in the first name is concerned, it's for my mother. She believes in numerology." He is formally trained in taekwondo. Rao had been in a relationship with actress Patralekha Paul since 2010. He married her on 15 November 2021 in Chandigarh. ## Career ### Early work (2010–2012) After graduating from the FTII in 2008, Rao spent the next year visiting studios and meeting casting directors. He made a small, uncredited appearance as a news reader in Ram Gopal Varma's 2010 political thriller Rann. After reading in a newspaper advertisement that mentioned Dibakar Banerjee was looking for newcomers for his found footage anthology film Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), he auditioned for the film and was selected. The film consists of three stories; Rao appears in the second story opposite Neha Chauhan. He played Adarsh, a supermarket supervisor who cons an employee into sleeping with him so he can record the act on a hidden camera and sell it. To fit the part, he had to lose 6 kilograms (13 lb) in a month. The film and Rao's performance met with critical acclaim. It also turned out to be a profitable box-office venture. After the success of his debut film, producer Ekta Kapoor offered Rao the lead role in the found footage horror film Ragini MMS (2011). He was reluctant initially to accept it, as it seemed similar to his previous work, but he took up the offer at casting director Atul Mongia's insistence. Despite an unfavorable critical response, the film was a box-office success. His next release was Bejoy Nambiar's crime thriller Shaitan (2011), in which he played a slimy police officer. Raja Sen, who was critical of the film, praised Rao's performance by calling him "reliably terrific". Director Anurag Kashyap had liked Rao's performance in Love Sex Aur Dhokha and cast him in Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2 (2012), a followup to his crime film Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1. He played the supporting role of Shamshad Alam for which he visited Wasseypur to perfect his accent and character. The film was a critical and financial success. His subsequent role was that of independence activist Lokenath Bal in Bedabrata Pain's historical drama Chittagong (2012), which was based on the Chittagong armoury raid. His final release of the year was Reema Kagti's suspense thriller Talaash: The Answer Lies Within, where he played a cop. The film, starring Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shernaz Patel, had worldwide earnings of over ₹1.74 billion (US\$24 million) to emerge as the year's eighth highest-grossing Hindi film. Rajeev Masand commented that in just one scene Rao shows "what a good actor can bring even to a small part". ### Breakthrough (2013–2016) Abhishek Kapoor's social drama film Kai Po Che! (2013) was Rao's first venture in 2013. Co-starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Amit Sadh, the film is based on Chetan Bhagat's 2008 novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life. The film was released in India on 22 February 2013 and received critical acclaim, with praise for the lead performances. Shilpa Jamkhandikar of Deccan Herald felt that Rao stood out and played off the role "beautifully". Rao received his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. In 2013, he also appeared in the Hansal Mehta-directed biographical drama Shahid, where he plays the title role of late lawyer Shahid Azmi. To prepare for the role, Rao met Azmi's family and spent time with them to understand the man and his personality. He also studied the Quran and attended courtrooms to understand how lawyers behave. Rao said he was "emotionally drained" as the character was challenging and complex. The film and his performance met with critical acclaim upon its release. Anupama Chopra called the film Rao's "triumph"; "His Shahid has strength, anguish and a controlled anger, but also real charm." The film was also a box-office success; Rao received the National Film Award for Best Actor at the 61st National Film Awards ceremony and his first Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics) at the 59th Filmfare Awards. His other 2013 release was the comedy film Boyss Toh Boyss Hain. In 2013, Rao played the supporting role of a manipulative fiancé in the comedy-drama Queen. The film had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival and was released theatrically in India on 7 March 2014. It was a critical and commercial success, grossing ₹970 million (US\$14 million) worldwide. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV noted that Rao "brings remarkable restraint to bear upon his interpretation of the disgustingly conservative city slicker who cannot see beyond his nose". The same year, he acted in a short film titled Bombay Mirror directed by Shlok Sharma along with Vijay Maurya. He collaborated with Mehta on his drama film CityLights (2014). Co-starring Patralekha Paul, the film tells the story of a poor farm family from Rajasthan that comes to Mumbai in search of a livelihood. To prepare for the role, Rao lived in the small town of Sadri in the Pali district of Rajasthan for a month, grew a moustache and became well-versed with the dialect. Critics praised the film and Rao's performance. Sweta Kaushal of Hindustan Times writing that he slips "effortlessly" into the role. It proved to be a moderate financial success. In 2015, Rao appeared in a supporting role in the romantic comedy Dolly Ki Doli, co-starring Sonam K Ahuja, Pulkit Samrat and Varun Sharma. It met with mixed reviews and had only an average gross at the box-office. Its followup was the Mohit Suri-directed romantic drama Hamari Adhuri Kahani (2015), where he plays an abusive husband to Vasudha Prasad (played by Vidya Balan). He returned to work with Mehta in the biographical drama Aligarh. Based on the life of Professor Ramchandra Siras, Manoj Bajpayee has the lead role, while Rao plays a journalist who tries to dig up the story. Aligarh met with critical acclaim upon its release, with particular praise for Bajpayee and Rao's performances. Sukanya Verma called Rao "pitch-perfect" in his role of "inquisitive journalist". Rao received his second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. Rao collaborated with Vikramaditya Motwane for his directorial venture, the survival drama Trapped (2016). It tells the story of a man trapped in his apartment without food, water and electricity for days. Rao found the role of Shaurya to be one of his most challenging to date. He had to lose weight and to maintain it remained on a carrot and coffee diet throughout the course of filming. Despite being a vegan, Rao ate meat in some scenes for the first time in his life, as Motwane insisted on realism. Trapped premiere at the 2016 Mumbai Film Festival and was released theatrically on 17 March 2017 to positive reviews. Subhash K. Jha wrote that Rao "immerses himself in the judiciously assembled plot with such radiant authenticity that after a while we cease to watch the skill that underlines the outstanding performance". Rao won his second Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics) for his performance in the film. ### Commercial success (2017–2018) Rao's first release in 2017 was the romantic comedy Behen Hogi Teri with Shruti Haasan; it met with an unfavorable critical response though critics praised Rao's performance. He followed this with another romantic comedy titled Bareilly Ki Barfi, directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and co-starring Kriti Sanon and Ayushmann Khurrana. The film and Rao's performance met with widespread critical acclaim. Namrata Joshi wrote: "Rao is a hoot and brings the house down with his chameleon turn and comic timing – simpering simpleton one minute, full of swagger the next; a role that could have become a caricature in the hands of a lesser actor." The film was a commercial success and Rao won his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. Amit V. Masurkar's black comedy Newton was Rao's next film. In it, he plays the role of an upright government clerk sent on election duty to a Naxal-controlled town. He asked the director if he could curl his hair and blink his eyes continuously to make the character distinct; Masurkar agreed. The film premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival and was released in India on 22 September 2017. Newton met with critical acclaim as did Rao's performance. Rajeev Masand commented, "It's hard to separate the actor from the character, and not many of our artistes can claim to possess that gift." The role earned him the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actor and his third nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics). He also made a cameo appearance in Dinesh Vijan's Raabta (2017). He had to apply prosthetics for five to six hours every day to look like a 324-year-old man. His final theatrical release of the year was Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana with Kriti Kharbanda, which met with mixed critical response. He also made his digital debut with ALTBalaji's historical biographical web mini-series Bose: Dead/Alive. Based on the 2012 book India's Biggest Cover-up by Anuj Dhar, he portrays nationalist leader Subhash Chandra Bose. For the role, Rao gained 13 kilograms (29 lb) and went half bald. Anvita Singh of India Today felt it was not Rao's best performance, but because of his skill as an actor he "does grab your attention". Rao reunited with Mehta for the biographical crime film Omerta, where he portrays the role of terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. To prepare for the role, Rao watched several videos, documentaries and hate speeches by Sheikh to "gather a lot of hatred and anger" inside himself. He said he was "disturbed" while shooting the film because of the character he was portraying and called it "easily the toughest character" he has played until then. The film had its world premier at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in India on 4 May 2018. The film and Rao's performance met with critical acclaim, with Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV calling it a "pitch-perfect performance". He starred next in the musical comedy Fanney Khan (2018) with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Anil Kapoor. A remake of the 2000 Belgian film Everybody's Famous!, the film was a critical and commercial failure. Stree (2018), the Amar Kaushik-directed horror comedy was his next release. Based on the Bangalore urban legend known as Nale Ba, the film also starred Shraddha Kapoor. The film, and Rao's performance, met with positive critical feedback. Rachit Gupta of The Times of India noted that Rao "handles the many shades of comedy, horror and romance with great ease". It also earned him his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. Stree was a major financial success. In the same year Rao appeared briefly in Tabrez Noorani's Love Sonia which was about sex trafficking. His final release of 2018 was 5 Weddings. ### 2019–present Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019), a film about a closeted lesbian, was Rao's first film of 2019. Co-starring Sonam K Ahuja, Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla, critics received the film warmly for its positive representation of homosexuality. However, it failed to do well commercially. He appeared next with Kangana Ranaut in the black comedy Judgementall Hai Kya. His performance earned him his fourth nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics). His final acting venture was Mikhil Musale's comedy flick Made in China where he plays a Gujarati businessman who receives a proposal to market a Chinese aphrodisiac in India. The film, based on the namesake novel by Parinda Joshi, met with mixed critical response. Anna M. M. Vetticad, who was critical of the film, praised Rao: "The best thing about it are Rao and [Boman] Irani who are a pleasure to watch even in this middling affair." The film fared moderately well at the box-office. Rao's first release of 2020 was Ramesh Sippy's romantic comedy Shimla Mirchi, which had been delayed for several years. It met with negative reviews from critics and was a box office disaster. His next acting venture, the Anurag Basu-directed anthology film Ludo also featuring an ensemble cast of Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Pankaj Tripathi, was directly streamed digitally on Netflix due to COVID-19 pandemic. Anupama Chopra called him one of the "standouts" of the film and wrote: "There is such sweetness in his longing. Of course, Alloo is an emotional fool but Rajkummar doesn't play him for laughs." The film earned him his second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor and his fifth nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics). The same year, he also reunited with Mehta for the sports comedy Chhalaang to play a Haryanvi physical instructor. In which he was paired opposite Nushrat Bharucha. It was premiered on Amazon Prime Video. In 2021, Rao made his Hollywood debut with Ramin Bahrani's The White Tiger, which was based on the eponymous novel by Aravind Adiga. Co-starring Priyanka Chopra and Adarsh Gourav, the film started streaming on Netflix on 22 January and met with positive critical reception. David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter noted that Rao "deftly balances a Western-schooled urge to tell himself he's a fair-minded man with the unmistakable air of privileged entitlement." His subsequent release was the horror-comedy Roohi co-starring Janhvi Kapoor. The second installment in Dinesh Vijan's horror-comedy universe, the first being Stree, the film met with mixed critical feedback and was a box office failure. Rao starred with Bhumi Pednekar in Badhaai Do, a spiritual sequel to the 2018 comedy-drama Badhaai Ho. He won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for his performance. He has wrapped up filming for the Hindi remake of the 2020 Telugu thriller HIT: The First Case. Rao reunited with Kriti Sanon in the comedy drama film Hum Do Hamare Do (2021). ## Public image Forbes India featured Rao in their 30 Under 30 list of 2014. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) listed him as India's Hottest Vegetarian Celebrity in 2017. The same year, he appeared on Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list and GQ magazine's list of 50 Most Influential Young Indians. He has served as the brand ambassador for Actimaxx, Seventh Street and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India's eat right movement. Rao donated an undisclosed amount of money to the PM CARES Fund, the Maharashtra Chief Minister's Relief Fund and Zomato's Feeding India to help feed families in need because of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. ## Filmography ## Awards and nominations

Konstantin Stanislavski

Russian and Soviet actor and theatre director

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (Russian: Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский, IPA: [kənstɐnjˈtjin sjɪrˈɡjejɪvjɪtɕ stənjɪˈslafskjɪj]; [Алексеев]; – 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor, and the many productions that he directed garnered him a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his "system" of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique. Stanislavski (his stage name) performed and directed as an amateur until the age of 33, when he co-founded the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) company with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, following a legendary 18-hour discussion. Its influential tours of Europe (1906) and the US (1923–24), and its landmark productions of The Seagull (1898) and Hamlet (1911–12), established his reputation and opened new possibilities for the art of the theatre. By means of the MAT, Stanislavski was instrumental in promoting the new Russian drama of his day—principally the work of Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, and Mikhail Bulgakov—to audiences in Moscow and around the world; he also staged acclaimed productions of a wide range of classical Russian and European plays. He collaborated with the director and designer Edward Gordon Craig and was formative in the development of several other major practitioners, including Vsevolod Meyerhold (whom Stanislavski considered his "sole heir in the theatre"), Yevgeny Vakhtangov, and Michael Chekhov. At the MAT's 30-year anniversary celebrations in 1928, a massive heart attack on-stage put an end to his acting career (though he waited until the curtain fell before seeking medical assistance). He continued to direct, teach, and write about acting until his death a few weeks before the publication of the first volume of his life's great work, the acting manual An Actor's Work (1938). He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of Lenin and was the first to be granted the title of People's Artist of the USSR. Stanislavski wrote that "there is nothing more tedious than an actor's biography" and that "actors should be banned from talking about themselves". At the request of a US publisher, however, he reluctantly agreed to write his autobiography, My Life in Art (first published in English in 1924 and in a revised, Russian-language edition in 1926), though its account of his artistic development is not always accurate. Three English-language biographies have been published: David Magarshack's Stanislavsky: A Life (1950) ; Jean Benedetti's Stanislavski: His Life and Art (1988, revised and expanded 1999). and Nikolai M Gorchakov's "Stanislavsky Directs" (1954). An out-of-print English translation of Elena Poliakova's 1977 Russian biography of Stanislavski was also published in 1982. ## Overview of the system Stanislavski subjected his acting and direction to a rigorous process of artistic self-analysis and reflection. His system of acting developed out of his persistent efforts to remove the blocks that he encountered in his performances, beginning with a major crisis in 1906. He produced his early work using an external, director-centred technique that strove for an organic unity of all its elements—in each production he planned the interpretation of every role, blocking, and the mise en scène in detail in advance. He also introduced into the production process a period of discussion and detailed analysis of the play by the cast. Despite the success that this approach brought, particularly with his Naturalistic stagings of the plays of Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky, Stanislavski remained dissatisfied. Both his struggles with Chekhov's drama (out of which his notion of subtext emerged) and his experiments with Symbolism encouraged a greater attention to "inner action" and a more intensive investigation of the actor's process. He began to develop the more actor-centred techniques of "psychological realism" and his focus shifted from his productions to rehearsal process and pedagogy. He pioneered the use of theatre studios as a laboratory in which to innovate actor training and to experiment with new forms of theatre. Stanislavski organised his techniques into a coherent, systematic methodology, which built on three major strands of influence: (1) the director-centred, unified aesthetic and disciplined, ensemble approach of the Meiningen company; (2) the actor-centred realism of the Maly; and (3) the Naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement. The system cultivates what Stanislavski calls the "art of experiencing" (to which he contrasts the "art of representation"). It mobilises the actor's conscious thought and will to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly. In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment (a "task"). Stanislavski's earliest reference to his system appears in 1909, the same year that he first incorporated it into his rehearsal process. The MAT adopted it as its official rehearsal method in 1911. Later, Stanislavski further elaborated the system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the "Method of Physical Action". Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an "active analysis", in which the sequence of dramatic situations are improvised. "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the given circumstances." Just as the First Studio, led by his assistant and close friend Leopold Sulerzhitsky, had provided the forum in which he developed his initial ideas for the system during the 1910s, he hoped to secure his final legacy by opening another studio in 1935, in which the Method of Physical Action would be taught. The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises described in his manuals. Meanwhile, the transmission of his earlier work via the students of the First Studio was revolutionising acting in the West. With the arrival of Socialist realism in the USSR, the MAT and Stanislavski's system were enthroned as exemplary models. ## Family background and early influences Stanislavski had a privileged youth, growing up in one of the richest families in Russia, the Alekseyevs. He was born Konstantin Sergeyevich Alekseyev—he adopted the stage name "Stanislavski" in 1884 to keep his performance activities secret from his parents. Up until the communist revolution in 1917, Stanislavski often used his inherited wealth to fund his experiments in acting and directing. His family's discouragement meant that he appeared only as an amateur until he was thirty three. As a child, Stanislavski was interested in the circus, the ballet, and puppetry. Later, his family's two private theatres provided a forum for his theatrical impulses. After his debut performance at one in 1877, he started what would become a lifelong series of notebooks filled with critical observations on his acting, aphorisms, and problems—it was from this habit of self-analysis and critique that Stanislavski's system later emerged. Stanislavski chose not to attend university, preferring to work in the family business. Increasingly interested in "experiencing the role", Stanislavski experimented with maintaining a characterization in real life. In 1884, he began vocal training under Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, with whom he also explored the coordination of body and voice. A year later, Stanislavski briefly studied at the Moscow Theatre School but, disappointed with its approach, he left after little more than two weeks. Instead, he devoted particular attention to the performances of the Maly Theatre, the home of Russian psychological realism (as developed in the 19th century by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Shchepkin). Shchepkin's legacy included a disciplined, ensemble approach, extensive rehearsals, and the use of careful observation, self-knowledge, imagination, and emotion as the cornerstones of the craft. Stanislavski called the Maly his "university". One of Shchepkin's students, Glikeriya Fedotova, taught Stanislavski; she instilled in him the rejection of inspiration as the basis of the actor's art, stressed the importance of training and discipline, and encouraged the practice of responsive interaction with other actors that Stanislavski came to call "communication". As well as the artists of the Maly, performances given by foreign stars influenced Stanislavski. The effortless, emotive, and clear playing of the Italian Ernesto Rossi, who performed major Shakespearean tragic protagonists in Moscow in 1877, particularly impressed him. So too did Tommaso Salvini's 1882 performance of Othello. ## Amateur work as an actor and director By now well known as an amateur actor, at the age of twenty-five Stanslavski co-founded a Society of Art and Literature. Under its auspices, he performed in plays by Molière, Schiller, Pushkin, and Ostrovsky, as well as gaining his first experiences as a director. He became interested in the aesthetic theories of Vissarion Belinsky, from whom he took his conception of the role of the artist. On , Stanislavski married Maria Lilina (the stage name of Maria Petrovna Perevostchikova). Their first child, Xenia, died of pneumonia in May 1890 less than two months after she was born. Their second daughter, Kira, was born on . In January 1893, Stanislavski's father died. Their son Igor was born on . In February 1891, Stanislavski directed Leo Tolstoy's The Fruits of Enlightenment for the Society of Art and Literature, in what he later described as his first fully independent directorial work. But it was not until 1893 he first met the great realist novelist and playwright that became another important influence on him. Five years later the MAT would be his response to Tolstoy's demand for simplicity, directness, and accessibility in art. Stanislavski's directorial methods at this time were closely modelled on the disciplined, autocratic approach of Ludwig Chronegk, the director of the Meiningen Ensemble. In My Life in Art (1924), Stanislavski described this approach as one in which the director is "forced to work without the help of the actor". From 1894 onward, Stanislavski began to assemble detailed prompt-books that included a directorial commentary on the entire play and from which not even the smallest detail was allowed to deviate. Whereas the Ensemble's effects tended toward the grandiose, Stanislavski introduced lyrical elaborations through the mise-en-scène that dramatised more mundane and ordinary elements of life, in keeping with Belinsky's ideas about the "poetry of the real". By means of his rigid and detailed control of all theatrical elements, including the strict choreography of the actors' every gesture, in Stanislavski's words "the inner kernel of the play was revealed by itself". Analysing the Society's production of Othello (1896), Jean Benedetti observes that: > Stanislavski uses the theatre and its technical possibilities as an instrument of expression, a language, in its own right. The dramatic meaning is in the staging itself. [...] He went through the whole play in a completely different way, not relying on the text as such, with quotes from important speeches, not providing a 'literary' explanation, but speaking in terms of the play's dynamic, its action, the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists, the world in which they lived. His account flowed uninterruptedly from moment to moment. Benedetti argues that Stanislavski's task at this stage was to unite the realistic tradition of the creative actor inherited from Shchepkin and Gogol with the director-centred, organically unified Naturalistic aesthetic of the Meiningen approach. That synthesis would emerge eventually, but only in the wake of Stanislavski's directorial struggles with Symbolist theatre and an artistic crisis in his work as an actor. "The task of our generation", Stanislavski wrote as he was about to found the Moscow Art Theatre and begin his professional life in the theatre, is "to liberate art from outmoded tradition, from tired cliché and to give greater freedom to imagination and creative ability." ## Creation of the Moscow Art Theatre Stanislavski's historic meeting with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko on led to the creation of what was called initially the "Moscow Public-Accessible Theatre", but which came to be known as the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). Their eighteen-hour-long discussion has acquired a legendary status in the history of theatre. Nemirovich was a successful playwright, critic, theatre director, and acting teacher at the Philharmonic School who, like Stanislavski, was committed to the idea of a popular theatre. Their abilities complemented one another: Stanislavski brought his directorial talent for creating vivid stage images and selecting significant details; Nemirovich, his talent for dramatic and literary analysis, his professional expertise, and his ability to manage a theatre. Stanislavski later compared their discussions to the Treaty of Versailles, their scope was so wide-ranging; they agreed on the conventional practices they wished to abandon and, on the basis of the working method they found they had in common, defined the policy of their new theatre. Stanislavski and Nemirovich planned a professional company with an ensemble ethos that discouraged individual vanity; they would create a realistic theatre of international renown, with popular prices for seats, whose organically unified aesthetic would bring together the techniques of the Meiningen Ensemble and those of André Antoine's Théâtre Libre (which Stanislavski had seen during trips to Paris). Nemirovich assumed that Stanislavski would fund the theatre as a privately owned business, but Stanislavski insisted on a limited, joint stock company. Viktor Simov, whom Stanislavski had met in 1896, was engaged as the company's principal designer. In his opening speech on the first day of rehearsals, , Stanislavski stressed the "social character" of their collective undertaking. In an atmosphere more like a university than a theatre, as Stanislavski described it, the company was introduced to his working method of extensive reading and research and detailed rehearsals in which the action was defined at the table before being explored physically. Stanislavski's lifelong relationship with Vsevolod Meyerhold began during these rehearsals; by the end of June, Meyerhold was so impressed with Stanislavski's directorial skills that he declared him a genius. ## Naturalism at the MAT The lasting significance of Stanislavski's early work at the MAT lies in its development of a Naturalistic performance mode. In 1898, Stanislavski co-directed with Nemirovich the first of his productions of the work of Anton Chekhov. The MAT production of The Seagull was a crucial milestone for the fledgling company that has been described as "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama." Despite its 80 hours of rehearsal—a considerable length by the standards of the conventional practice of the day—Stanislavski felt it was under-rehearsed. The production's success was due to the fidelity of its delicate representation of everyday life, its intimate, ensemble playing, and the resonance of its mood of despondent uncertainty with the psychological disposition of the Russian intelligentsia of the time. Stanislavski went on to direct the successful premières of Chekhov's other major plays: Uncle Vanya in 1899 (in which he played Astrov), Three Sisters in 1901 (playing Vershinin), and The Cherry Orchard in 1904 (playing Gaev). Stanislavski's encounter with Chekhov's drama proved crucial to the creative development of both men. His ensemble approach and attention to the psychological realities of its characters revived Chekhov's interest in writing for the stage, while Chekhov's unwillingness to explain or expand on the text forced Stanislavski to dig beneath its surface in ways that were new in theatre. In response to Stanislavski's encouragement, Maxim Gorky promised to launch his playwrighting career with the MAT. In 1902, Stanislavski directed the première productions of the first two of Gorky's plays, The Philistines and The Lower Depths. As part of the rehearsal preparations for the latter, Stanislavski took the company to visit Khitrov Market, where they talked to its down-and-outs and soaked up its atmosphere of destitution. Stanislavski based his characterisation of Satin on an ex-officer he met there, who had fallen into poverty through gambling. The Lower Depths was a triumph that matched the production of The Seagull four years earlier, though Stanislavski regarded his own performance as external and mechanical. The productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Lower Depths remained in the MAT's repertoire for decades. Along with Chekhov and Gorky, the drama of Henrik Ibsen formed an important part of Stanislavski's work at this time—in its first two decades, the MAT staged more plays by Ibsen than any other playwright. In its first decade, Stanislavski directed Hedda Gabler (in which he played Løvborg), An Enemy of the People (playing Dr Stockmann, his favorite role), The Wild Duck, and Ghosts. "More's the pity I was not a Scandinavian and never saw how Ibsen was played in Scandinavia," Stanislavski wrote, because "those who have been there tell me that he is interpreted as simply, as true to life, as we play Chekhov". He also staged other important Naturalistic works, including Gerhart Hauptmann's Drayman Henschel, Lonely People, and Michael Kramer and Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness. ## Symbolism and the Theatre-Studio In 1904, Stanislavski finally acted on a suggestion made by Chekhov two years earlier that he stage several one-act plays by Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian Symbolist. Despite his enthusiasm, however, Stanislavski struggled to realise a theatrical approach to the static, lyrical dramas. When the triple bill consisting of The Blind, Intruder, and Interior opened on , the experiment was deemed a failure. Meyerhold, prompted by Stanislavski's positive response to his new ideas about Symbolist theatre, proposed that they form a "theatre studio" (a term which he invented) that would function as "a laboratory for the experiments of more or less experienced actors." The Theatre-Studio aimed to develop Meyerhold's aesthetic ideas into new theatrical forms that would return the MAT to the forefront of the avant-garde and Stanislavski's socially conscious ideas for a network of "people's theatres" that would reform Russian theatrical culture as a whole. Central to Meyerhold's approach was the use of improvisation to develop the performances. When the studio presented a work-in-progress, Stanislavski was encouraged; when performed in a fully equipped theatre in Moscow, however, it was regarded as a failure and the studio folded. Meyerhold drew an important lesson: "one must first educate a new actor and only then put new tasks before him", he wrote, adding that "Stanislavski, too, came to such a conclusion." Reflecting in 1908 on the Theatre-Studio's demise, Stanislavski wrote that "our theatre found its future among its ruins." Nemirovich disapproved of what he described as the malign influence of Meyerhold on Stanislavski's work at this time. Stanislavski engaged two important new collaborators in 1905: Liubov Gurevich became his literary advisor and Leopold Sulerzhitsky became his personal assistant. Stanislavski revised his interpretation of the role of Trigorin (and Meyerhold reprised his role as Konstantin) when the MAT revived its production of Chekhov's The Seagull on . This was the year of the abortive revolution in Russia. Stanislavski signed a protest against the violence of the secret police, Cossack troops, and the right-wing extremist paramilitary "Black Hundreds", which was submitted to the Duma on the . Rehearsals for the MAT's production of Alexander Griboyedov's classic verse comedy Woe from Wit were interrupted by gun-battles on the streets outside. Stanislavski and Nemirovich closed the theatre and embarked on the company's first tour outside of Russia. ## European tour and artistic crisis The MAT's first European tour began on in Berlin, where they played to an audience that included Max Reinhardt, Gerhart Hauptmann, Arthur Schnitzler, and Eleonora Duse. "It's as though we were the revelation", Stanislavski wrote of the rapturous acclaim they received. The success of the tour provided financial security for the company, garnered an international reputation for their work, and made a significant impact on European theatre. The tour also provoked a major artistic crisis for Stanislavski that had a significant impact on his future direction. From his attempts to resolve this crisis, his system would eventually emerge. Sometime in March 1906—Jean Benedetti suggests that it was during An Enemy of the People—Stanislavski became aware that he was acting without a flow of inner impulses and feelings and that as a consequence his performance had become mechanical. He spent June and July in Finland on holiday, where he studied, wrote, and reflected. With his notebooks on his own experience from 1889 onwards, he attempted to analyze "the foundation stones of our art" and the actor's creative process in particular. He began to formulate a psychological approach to controlling the actor's process in a Manual on Dramatic Art. ## Productions as research into working methods Stanislavski's activities began to move in a very different direction: his productions became opportunities for research, he was more interested in the process of rehearsal than its product, and his attention shifted away from the MAT towards its satellite projects—the theatre studios—in which he would develop his system. On his return to Moscow, he explored his new psychological approach in his production of Knut Hamsun's Symbolist play The Drama of Life. Nemirovich was particularly hostile to his new methods and their relationship continued to deteriorate in this period. In a statement made on , Stanislavski marked a significant shift in his directorial method and stressed the crucial contribution he now expected from a creative actor: > The committee is wrong if it thinks that the director's preparatory work in the study is necessary, as previously, when he alone decided the whole plan and all the details of the production, wrote the mise en scène and answered all the actors' questions for them. The director is no longer king, as before, when the actor possessed no clear individuality. [...] It is essential to understand this—rehearsals are divided into two stages: the first stage is one of experiment when the cast helps the director, the second is creating the performance when the director helps the cast. Stanislavski's preparations for Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird (which was to become his most famous production to-date) included improvisations and other exercises to stimulate the actors' imaginations; Nemirovich described one in which the cast imitated various animals. In rehearsals he sought ways to encourage his actors' will to create afresh in every performance. He focused on the search for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the characters are seeking to achieve at any given moment (what he would come to call their "task"). This use of the actor's conscious thought and will was designed to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly. Noting the importance to great actors' performances of their ability to remain relaxed, he discovered that he could abolish physical tension by focusing his attention on the specific action that the play demanded; when his concentration wavered, his tension returned. "What fascinates me most", Stanislavski wrote in May 1908, "is the rhythm of feelings, the development of affective memory and the psycho-physiology of the creative process." His interest in the creative use of the actor's personal experiences was spurred by a chance conversation in Germany in July that led him to the work of French psychologist Théodule-Armand Ribot. His "affective memory" contributed to the technique that Stanislavski would come to call "emotion memory". Together these elements formed a new vocabulary with which he explored a "return to realism" in a production of Gogol's The Government Inspector as soon as The Blue Bird had opened. At a theatre conference on , Stanislavski delivered a paper on his emerging system that stressed the role of his techniques of the "magic if" (which encourages the actor to respond to the fictional circumstances of the play "as if" they were real) and emotion memory. He developed his ideas about three trends in the history of acting, which were to appear eventually in the opening chapters of An Actor's Work: "stock-in-trade" acting, the art of representation, and the art of experiencing (his own approach). Stanislavski's production of A Month in the Country (1909) was a watershed in his artistic development. Breaking the MAT's tradition of open rehearsals, he prepared Turgenev's play in private. They began with a discussion of what he would come to call the "through-line" for the characters (their emotional development and the way they change over the course of the play). This production is the earliest recorded instance of his practice of analysing the action of the script into discrete "bits". At this stage in the development of his approach, Stanislavski's technique was to identify the emotional state contained in the psychological experience of the character during each bit and, through the use of the actor's emotion memory, to forge a subjective connection to it. Only after two months of rehearsals were the actors permitted to physicalise the text. Stanislavski insisted that they should play the actions that their discussions around the table had identified. Having realised a particular emotional state in a physical action, he assumed at this point in his experiments, the actor's repetition of that action would evoke the desired emotion. As with his experiments in The Drama of Life, they also explored non-verbal communication, whereby scenes were rehearsed as "silent études" with actors interacting "only with their eyes". The production's success when it opened in December 1909 seemed to prove the validity of his new methodology. Late in 1910, Gorky invited Stanislavski to join him in Capri, where they discussed actor training and Stanislavski's emerging "grammar". Inspired by a popular theatre performance in Naples that employed the techniques of the commedia dell'arte, Gorky suggested that they form a company, modeled on the medieval strolling players, in which a playwright and group of young actors would devise new plays together by means of improvisation. Stanislavski would develop this use of improvisation in his work with his First Studio. ## Staging the classics In his treatment of the classics, Stanislavski believed that it was legitimate for actors and directors to ignore the playwright's intentions for a play's staging. One of his most important—a collaboration with Edward Gordon Craig on a production of Hamlet—became a landmark of 20th-century theatrical modernism. Stanislavski hoped to prove that his recently developed system for creating internally justified, realistic acting could meet the formal demands of a classic play. Craig envisioned a Symbolist monodrama in which every aspect of production would be subjugated to the protagonist: it would present a dream-like vision as seen through Hamlet's eyes. Despite these contrasting approaches, the two practitioners did share some artistic assumptions; the system had developed out of Stanislavski's experiments with Symbolist drama, which had shifted his attention from a Naturalistic external surface to the characters' subtextual, inner world. Both had stressed the importance of achieving a unity of all theatrical elements in their work. Their production attracted enthusiastic and unprecedented worldwide attention for the theatre, placing it "on the cultural map for Western Europe", and it has come to be regarded as a seminal event that revolutionised the staging of Shakespeare's plays. It became "one of the most famous and passionately discussed productions in the history of the modern stage." Increasingly absorbed by his teaching, in 1913 Stanislavski held open rehearsals for his production of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid as a demonstration of the system. As with his production of Hamlet and his next, Goldoni's The Mistress of the Inn, he was keen to assay his system in the crucible of a classical text. He began to inflect his technique of dividing the action of the play into bits with an emphasis on improvisation; he would progress from analysis, through free improvisation, to the language of the text: > I divide the work into large bits clarifying the nature of each bit. Then, immediately, in my own words, I play each bit, observing all the curves. Then I go through the experiences of each bit ten times or so with its curves (not in a fixed way, not being consistent). Then I follow the successive bits in the book. And finally, I make the transition, imperceptibly, to the experiences as expressed in the actual words of the part. Stanislavski's struggles with both the Molière and Goldoni comedies revealed the importance of an appropriate definition of what he calls a character's "super-task" (the core problem that unites and subordinates the character's moment-to-moment tasks). This impacted particularly on the actors' ability to serve the plays' genre, because an unsatisfactory definition produced tragic rather than comic performances. Other European classics directed by Stanislavski include: Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and Othello, an unfinished production of Molière's Tartuffe, and Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro. Other classics of the Russian theatre directed by Stanislavki include: several plays by Ivan Turgenev, Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, Gogol's The Government Inspector, and plays by Tolstoy, Ostrovsky, and Pushkin. ## Studios and the search for a system Following the success of his production of A Month in the Country, Stanislavski made repeated requests to the board of the MAT for proper facilities to pursue his pedagogical work with young actors. Gorky encouraged him not to found a drama school to teach inexperienced beginners, but rather—following the example of the Theatre-Studio of 1905—to create a studio for research and experiment that would train young professionals. Stanislavski created the First Studio on . Its founding members included Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Michael Chekhov, Richard Boleslawski, and Maria Ouspenskaya, all of whom would exert a considerable influence on the subsequent history of theatre. Stanislavski selected Suler (as Gorky had nicknamed Sulerzhitsky) to lead the studio. In a focused, intense atmosphere, their work emphasised experimentation, improvisation, and self-discovery. Following Gorky's suggestions about devising new plays through improvisation, they searched for "the creative process common to authors, actors and directors". Stanislavski created the Second Studio of the MAT in 1916, in response to a production of Zinaida Gippius' The Green Ring that a group of young actors had prepared independently. With a greater focus on pedagogical work than the First Studio, the Second Studio provided the environment in which Stanislavski developed the training techniques that would form the basis for his manual An Actor's Work (1938). A significant influence on the development of the system came from Stanislavski's experience teaching and directing at his Opera Studio, which was founded in 1918. He hoped that the successful application of his system to opera, with its inescapable conventionality and artifice, would demonstrate the universality of his approach to performance and unite the work of Mikhail Shchepkin and Feodor Chaliapin. From this experience Stanislavski's notion of "tempo-rhythm" emerged. He invited Serge Wolkonsky to teach diction and Lev Pospekhin to teach expressive movement and dance and attended both of their classes as a student. ## From the First World War to the October Revolution Stanislavski spent the summer of 1914 in Marienbad where, as he had in 1906, he researched the history of theatre and theories of acting to clarify the discoveries that his practical experiments had produced. When the First World War broke out, Stanislavski was in Munich. "It seemed to me", he wrote of the atmosphere at the train station in an article detailing his experiences, "that death was hovering everywhere." The train was stopped at Immenstadt, where German soldiers denounced him as a Russian spy. Held in a room at the station with a large crowd with "the faces of wild beasts" baying at its windows, Stanislavski believed he was to be executed. He remembered that he was carrying an official document that mentioned having played to Kaiser Wilhelm during their tour of 1906 that, when he showed it to the officers, produced a change of attitude towards his group. They were placed on a slow train to Kempten. Gurevich later related how during the journey Stanislavski surprised her when he whispered that: > [E]vents of recent days had given him a clear impression of the superficiality of all that was called human culture, bourgeois culture, that a completely different kind of life was needed, where all needs were reduced to the minimum, where there was work—real artistic work—on behalf of the people, for those who had not yet been consumed by this bourgeois culture. In Kempten they were again ordered into one of the station's rooms, where Stanislavski overheard the German soldiers complain of a lack of ammunition; it was only this, he understood, that prevented their execution. The following morning they were placed on a train and eventually returned to Russia via Switzerland and France. Turning to the classics of Russian theatre, the MAT revived Griboyedov's comedy Woe from Wit and planned to stage three of Pushkin's "little tragedies" in early 1915. Stanislavski continued to develop his system, explaining at an open rehearsal for Woe from Wit his concept of the state of "I am being". This term marks the stage in the rehearsal process when the distinction between actor and character blurs (producing the "actor/role"), subconscious behavior takes the lead, and the actor feels fully present in the dramatic moment. He stressed the importance to achieving this state of a focus on action ("What would I do if ...") rather than emotion ("How would I feel if ..."): "You must ask the kinds of questions that lead to dynamic action." Instead of forcing emotion, he explained, actors should notice what is happening, attend to their relationships with the other actors, and try to understand "through the senses" the fictional world that surrounds them. When he prepared for his role in Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri, Stanislavski created a biography for Salieri in which he imagined the character's memories of each incident mentioned in the play, his relationships with the other people involved, and the circumstances that had impacted on Salieri's life. When he attempted to render all of this detail in performance, however, the subtext overwhelmed the text; overladen with heavy pauses, Pushkin's verse was fragmented to the point of incomprehensibility. His struggles with this role prompted him to attend more closely to the structure and dynamics of language in drama; to that end, he studied Serge Wolkonsky's The Expressive Word (1913). The French theatre practitioner Jacques Copeau contacted Stanislavski in October 1916. As a result of his conversations with Edward Gordon Craig, Copeau had come to believe that his work at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier shared a common approach with Stanislavski's investigations at the MAT. On , Stanislavski's assistant and closest friend, Leopold Sulerzhitsky, died from chronic nephritis. Reflecting on their relationship in 1931, Stanislavski said that Suler had understood him completely and that no one, since, had replaced him. ## Revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War years Stanislavski welcomed the February Revolution of 1917 and its overthrow of the absolute monarchy as a "miraculous liberation of Russia". With the October Revolution later in the year, the MAT closed for a few weeks and the First Studio was occupied by revolutionaries. Stanislavski thought that the social upheavals presented an opportunity to realize his long-standing ambitions to establish a Russian popular theatre that would provide, as the title of an essay he prepared that year put it, "The Aesthetic Education of the Popular Masses". Vladimir Lenin, who became a frequent visitor to the MAT after the revolution, praised Stanislavski as "a real artist" and indicated that, in his opinion, Stanislavski's approach was "the direction the theatre should take." The revolutions of that year brought about an abrupt change in Stanislavski's finances when his factories were nationalized, which left his wage from the MAT as his only source of income. On 29 August 1918 Stanislavski, along with several others from the MAT, was arrested by the Cheka, though he was released the following day. During the years of the Civil War, Stanislavski concentrated on teaching his system, directing (both at the MAT and its studios), and bringing performances of the classics to new audiences (such as factory workers and the Red Army). Several articles on Stanislavski and his system were published, but none were written by him. On 5 March 1921, Stanislavski was evicted from his large house on Carriage Row, where he had lived since 1903. Following the personal intervention of Lenin (prompted by Anatoly Lunacharsky), Stanislavski was re-housed at 6 Leontievski Lane, not far from the MAT. He was to live there until his death in 1938. On 29 May 1922, Stanislavski's favourite pupil, the director Yevgeny Vakhtangov, died of cancer. ## MAT tours in Europe and the United States In the wake of the temporary withdrawal of the state subsidy to the MAT that came with the New Economic Policy in 1921, Stanislavski and Nemirovich planned a tour to Europe and the US to augment the company's finances. The tour began in Berlin, where Stanislavski arrived on 18 September 1922, and proceeded to Prague, Zagreb, and Paris, where he was welcomed at the station by Jacques Hébertot, Aurélien Lugné-Poë, and Jacques Copeau. In Paris, he also met André Antoine, Louis Jouvet, Isadora Duncan, Firmin Gémier, and Harley Granville-Barker. He discussed with Copeau the possibility of establishing an international theatre studio and attended performances by Ermete Zacconi, whose control of his performance, economic expressivity, and ability both to "experience" and "represent" the role impressed him. The company sailed to New York City and arrived on 4 January 1923. When reporters asked about their repertoire, Stanislavski explained that "America wants to see what Europe already knows." David Belasco, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Feodor Chaliapin attended the opening night performance. Thanks in part to a vigorous publicity campaign that the American producer, Morris Gest, orchestrated, the tour garnered substantial critical praise, although it was not a financial success. As actors (among whom was the young Lee Strasberg) flocked to the performances to learn from the company, the tour made a substantial contribution to the development of American acting. Richard Boleslavsky presented a series of lectures on Stanislavski's system (which were eventually published as Acting: The First Six Lessons in 1933). A performance of Three Sisters on 31 March 1923 concluded the season in New York, after which they travelled to Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. At the request of a US publisher, Stanislavski reluctantly agreed to write his autobiography, My Life in Art, since his proposals for an account of the system or a history of the MAT and its approach had been rejected. He returned to Europe during the summer where he worked on the book and, in September, began rehearsals for a second tour. The company returned to New York on 7 November and went on to perform in Philadelphia, Boston, New Haven, Hartford, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, Newark, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit. On 20 March 1924, Stanislavski met President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. They were introduced by a translator, Elizabeth Hapgood, with whom he would later collaborate on An Actor Prepares. The company left the US on 17 May 1924. ## Soviet productions On his return to Moscow in August 1924, Stanislavski began with the help of Gurevich to make substantial revisions to his autobiography, in preparation for a definitive Russian-language edition, which was published in September 1926. He continued to act, reprising the role of Astrov in a new production of Uncle Vanya (his performance of which was described as "staggering"). With Nemirovich away touring with his Music Studio, Stanislavski led the MAT for two years, during which time the company thrived. With a company fully versed in his system, Stanislavski's work on Mikhail Bulgakov's The Days of the Turbins focused on the tempo-rhythm of the production's dramatic structure and the through-lines of action for the individual characters and the play as a whole. "See everything in terms of action" he advised them. Aware of the disapproval of Bulgakov felt by the Repertory Committee (Glavrepertkom) of the People's Commissariat for Education, Stanislavski threatened to close the theatre if the play was banned. Despite substantial hostility from the press, the production was a box-office success. In an attempt to render a classic play relevant to a contemporary Soviet audience, Stanislavski re-located the action in his fast and free-flowing production of Pierre Beaumarchais' 18th-century comedy The Marriage of Figaro to pre-Revolutionary France and emphasised the democratic point of view of Figaro and Susanna, in preference to that of the aristocratic Count Almaviva. His working methods contributed innovations to the system: the analysis of scenes in terms of concrete physical tasks and the use of the "line of the day" for each character. In preference to the tightly controlled, Meiningen-inspired scoring of the mise en scène with which he had choreographed crowd scenes in his early years, he now worked in terms of broad physical tasks: actors responded truthfully to the circumstances of scenes with sequences of improvised adaptations that attempted to solve concrete, physical problems. For the "line of the day," an actor elaborates in detail the events that supposedly occur to the character "off-stage", in order to form a continuum of experience (the "line" of the character's life that day) that helps to justify his or her behaviour "on-stage". This means that the actor develops a relationship to where (as a character) he has just come from and to where he intends to go when leaving the scene. The production was a great success, garnering ten curtain calls on opening night. Thanks to its cohesive unity and rhythmic qualities, it is recognised as one of Stanislavski's major achievements. With a performance of extracts from its major productions—including the first act of Three Sisters in which Stanislavski played Vershinin—the MAT celebrated its 30-year jubilee on 29 October 1928. While performing Stanislavski suffered a massive heart-attack, although he continued until the curtain call, after which he collapsed. With that, his acting career came to an end. ## A manual for actors While on holiday in August 1926, Stanislavski began to develop what would become An Actor's Work, his manual for actors written in the form of a fictional student's diary. Ideally, Stanislavski felt, it would consist of two volumes: the first would detail the actor's inner experiencing and outer, physical embodiment; the second would address rehearsal processes. Since the Soviet publishers used a format that would have made the first volume unwieldy, however, in practice this became three volumes—inner experiencing, outer characterisation, and rehearsal—each of which would be published separately, as it became ready. The danger that such an arrangement would obscure the mutual interdependence of these parts in the system as a whole would be avoided, Stanislavski hoped, by means of an initial overview that would stress their integration in his psycho-physical approach; as it turned out, however, he never wrote the overview and many English-language readers came to confuse the first volume on psychological processes—published in a heavily abridged version in the US as An Actor Prepares (1936)—with the system as a whole. The two editors—Hapgood with the American edition and Gurevich with the Russian—made conflicting demands on Stanislavski. Gurevich became increasingly concerned that splitting An Actor's Work into two books would not only encourage misunderstandings of the unity and mutual implication of the psychological and physical aspects of the system, but would also give its Soviet critics grounds on which to attack it: "to accuse you of dualism, spiritualism, idealism, etc." Frustrated with Stanislavski's tendency to tinker with details in preference to addressing more important missing sections, in May 1932 she terminated her involvement. Hapgood echoed Gurevich's frustration. In 1933, Stanislavski worked on the second half of An Actor's Work. By 1935, a version of the first volume was ready for publication in America, to which the publishers made significant abridgements. A significantly different and far more complete Russian edition, An Actor's Work on Himself, Part I, was not published until 1938, just after Stanislavski's death. The second part of An Actor's Work on Himself was published in the Soviet Union in 1948; an English-language variant, Building a Character, was published a year later. The third volume, An Actor's Work on a Role, was published in the Soviet Union in 1957; its nearest English-language equivalent, Creating a Role, was published in 1961. The differences between the Russian and English-language editions of volumes two and three were even greater than those of the first volume. In 2008, an English-language translation of the complete Russian edition of An Actor's Work was published, with one of An Actor's Work on a Role following in 2010. ## Development of the Method of Physical Action While recuperating in Nice at the end of 1929, Stanislavski began a production plan for Shakespeare's Othello. Hoping to use this as the basis for An Actor's Work on a Role, his plan offers the earliest exposition of the rehearsal process that became known as his Method of Physical Action. He first explored this approach practically in his work on Three Sisters and Carmen in 1934 and Molière in 1935. In contrast to his earlier method of working on a play—which involved extensive readings and analysis around a table before any attempt to physicalise its action—Stanislavski now encouraged his actors to explore the action through its "active analysis". He felt that too much discussion in the early stages of rehearsal confused and inhibited the actors. Instead, focusing on the simplest physical actions, they improvised the sequence of dramatic situations given in the play. "The best analysis of a play", he argued, "is to take action in the given circumstances." If the actor justified and committed to the truth of the actions (which are easier to shape and control than emotional responses), Stanislavski reasoned, they would evoke truthful thoughts and feelings. Stanislavski's attitude to the use of emotion memory in rehearsals (as distinct from its use in actor training) had shifted over the years. Ideally, he felt, an instinctive identification with a character's situation should arouse an emotional response. The use of emotion memory in lieu of that had demonstrated a propensity for encouraging self-indulgence or hysteria in the actor. Its direct approach to feeling, Stanislavski felt, more often produced a block than the desired expression. Instead, an indirect approach to the subconscious via a focus on actions (supported by a commitment to the given circumstances and imaginative "Magic Ifs") was a more reliable means of luring the appropriate emotional response. This shift in approach corresponded both with an increased attention to the structure and dynamic of the play as a whole and with a greater prominence given to the distinction between the planning of a role and its performance. In performance the actor is aware of only one step at a time, Stanislavski reasoned, but this focus risks the loss of the overall dynamic of a role in the welter of moment-to-moment detail. Consequently, the actor must also adopt a different point of view in order to plan the role in relation to its dramatic structure; this might involve adjusting the performance by holding back at certain moments and playing full out at others. A sense of the whole thereby informs the playing of each episode. Borrowing a term from Henry Irving, Stanislavski called this the "perspective of the role". Every afternoon for five weeks during the summer of 1934 in Paris, Stanislavski worked with the American actress Stella Adler, who had sought his assistance with the blocks she had confronted in her performances. Given the emphasis that emotion memory had received in New York City, Adler was surprised to find that Stanislavski rejected the technique except as a last resort. The news that this was Stanislavski's approach would have significant repercussions in the US; Lee Strasberg angrily rejected it and refused to modify his version of the system. ## Political fortunes under Stalin Following his heart attack in 1928, for the last decade of his life Stanislavski conducted most of his work writing, directing rehearsals, and teaching in his home on Leontievski Lane. In line with Joseph Stalin's policy of "isolation and preservation" towards certain internationally famous cultural figures, Stanislavski lived in a state of internal exile in Moscow. This protected him from the worst excesses of Stalin's "Great Terror". A number of articles critical of the terminology of Stanislavski's system appeared in the run-up to a RAPP conference in early 1931, at which the attacks continued. The system stood accused of philosophical idealism, of a-historicism, of disguising social and political problems under ethical and moral terms, and of "biological psychologism" (or "the suggestion of fixed qualities in nature"). In the wake of the first congress of the USSR Union of Writers (chaired by Maxim Gorky in August 1934), however, Socialist realism was established as the official party line in aesthetic matters. While the new policy would have disastrous consequences for the Soviet avant-garde, the MAT and Stanislavski's system were enthroned as exemplary models. ## Final work at the Opera-Dramatic Studio Given the difficulties he had with completing his manual for actors, Stanislavski decided that he needed to found a new studio if he was to ensure his legacy. "Our school will produce not just individuals," he wrote, "but a whole company". In June 1935, he began to instruct a group of teachers in the training techniques of the system and the rehearsal processes of the Method of Physical Action. Twenty students (out of 3,500 auditionees) were accepted for the dramatic section of the Opera-Dramatic Studio, where classes began on 15 November. Stanislavski arranged a curriculum of four years of study that focused exclusively on technique and method—two years of the work detailed later in An Actor's Work and two of that in An Actor's Work on a Role. Once the students were acquainted with the training techniques of the first two years, Stanislavski selected Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet for their work on roles. He worked with the students in March and April 1937, focusing on their sequences of physical actions, on establishing their through-lines of action, and on rehearsing scenes anew in terms of the actors' tasks. By June 1938 the students were ready for their first public showing, at which they performed a selection of scenes to a small number of spectators. The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises that Stanislavski described in his manuals. From late 1936 onwards, Stanislavski began to meet regularly with Vsevolod Meyerhold, with whom he discussed the possibility of developing a common theatrical language. In 1938, they made plans to work together on a production and discussed a synthesis of Stanislavski's Method of Physical Action and Meyerhold's biomechanical training. On 8 March, Meyerhold took over the rehearsals for Rigoletto, the staging of which he completed after Stanislavski's death. On his death-bed Stanislavski declared to Yuri Bakhrushin that Meyerhold was "my sole heir in the theatre—here or anywhere else". Stalin's police tortured and killed Meyerhold in February 1940. Stanislavski died in his home at 3:45 pm on 7 August 1938, having probably suffered another heart-attack five days earlier. Thousands of people attended his funeral. Three weeks after his death his widow, Lilina, received an advanced copy of the Russian-language edition of the first volume of An Actor's Work—the "labour of his life", as she called it. Stanislavski was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, not far from the grave of Anton Chekhov. ## See also - Ion Cojar - Ivana Chubbuck - Sanford Meisner - Lee Strasberg - Psycho-physical Awareness

Ted Heaton

British diver

Edmund Caunce Nowell 'Ted' Heaton (late 1872 – 19 September 1937) was a British diver and swimming instructor born in Liverpool, England. He is notable for his small tank diving displays during the late 19th century and for his several unsuccessful attempts to swim the English Channel during the early 20th century. Having begun training to swim the channel in 1893, he made a total of seven attempts. He often came within several miles of the French coast, with the closest being in August 1909 when he came within 2 miles (3.2 km). His swimming efforts earned him a role as a superintendent of his local swimming baths and a salary of £120 a year which also included accommodation and energy provision. Heaton undertook army service during World War I, by joining the Sportsmen's Battalions in 1916 given he was several years too old to enlist ordinarily. He worked with the Royal Fusiliers at Dover as a sergeant-instructor to prepare them for trench warfare and even did duty at a prisoner camp in India, before being discharged in 1919 on grounds of disability due to gallstones. He was employed as a swimming pool attendant on transatlantic passenger ships, notably the RMS Carinthia during 1928 to 1929. In the early 1930s as superintendent and swimming instructor at his swimming baths, he devised a swimming tuition system to allow school students to enter the water simultaneously, which utilised wood floats and canvas webs and upon catching the attention of Poland's Director of Education, was reviewed favourably. He was married twice, firstly to Elizabeth who died just two years later, while his second wife Julia committed suicide in 1927. He had three children to his second wife, two sons and a daughter. During his later life, he advertised himself as a swimming instructor at his Cornwallis Street baths. He died in September 1937 while on a visit to the seaside town of Southport. ## Early life Heaton was born in the fourth quarter of 1872. His father, Edward Heaton, was a book-keeper for Liverpool Docks. He trained as a printer's compositor, and worked in the profession irregularly before becoming a professional swimmer around the 1890s. ## Swimming and diving ### 19th century Heaton's early career was focused on circus acts and tank diving. One early feat reportedly took place at a Birkenhead circus, where in early 1896 he was reported to have dived 50 feet (15 m) into a 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) tank at Ohmy's Grand New Circus. He wrote to The Era in May 1896, after they erroneously stated that Professor Bracken held the unique position as a small tank champion high diver. Heaton disputed the statement, stating that he was the originator of small tank diving, having performed it at all the circuses and noting he was "the only small tank diver". Following the death of fellow high diver Tommy Burns in July 1897, Heaton organised a charity dive from Rhyl Pier to help raise money for the family to pay for the funeral costs, and he sent them the sum of £3 and 10 shillings from the proceeds. His charity performance in the evening was observed by over 2,000 people on the pier and 10,000 on the beach, where he dived, according to Heaton himself, with his body in flames. In January 1898, he dived into Belfast harbour from a specially constructed 50 feet (15 m) high platform at Queens Bridge, witnessed by around 15,000 spectators. Diving into a water tank that was "only 42 inches (1.1 m) deep", it was described as being a "great sensational dive". The following month, having been growing in popularity, he was engaged to perform a dive at the Cirque Raney, in Lyons, France, from a 50 ft height while enveloped in flames, into a tank measuring just 16 feet (4.9 m) by 10 feet (3.0 m). At the Scottish Zoo in September 1898, he was "a capital hit" when secured to perform a 50 feet (15 m) dive into a small water tank just 42 inches (1.1 m) deep, while "enveloped in flames from a large number of fireworks". His performance drew a big audience to the zoo. ### 20th century Heaton would sometimes combine swimming and diving into a single event, such as in June 1905 when he swam 10 miles (16 km) from Eastham to New Brighton, where the climax was diving off New Brighton Pier. During the 1900s, he made several unsuccessful attempts to swim the English Channel. Despite reportedly first training for the feat back in 1893, his first attempt was in July 1905 and reportedly started well. He entered the water at 7:41am and swam the breaststroke at pace, experiencing fine and sunny weather conditions. His attempt was alongside Annette Kellerman, who also attempted to swim the channel at the same time, but she left the water 5–6 miles (8.0–9.7 km) out due to sea-sickness. Despite swimming through strong currents, Heaton stopped at 2:30pm in a state of sickness, six miles from the shore, having to abandon his efforts due to swallowing a mouthful of oil. After undergoing vigorous training, Heaton prepared for another attempt to cross the channel in 1907. In late June, he attempted to beat the Wallasey ferryboat on the New Brighton to Egremont service, which was met with great interest from the boat's passengers. Despite not beating the ferryboat, which completed the journey in 20 minutes, Heaton swam the journey in just under 28 minutes, followed by a "brisk walk" along the beach. Two months later in early August, he made another attempt to cross the channel, this time with Jabez Wolffe. He started his swim at 8:55 am and was 4 miles (6.4 km) away from land by 11 am. The conditions were described as calm, with some fog haze caused by the heat which developed into something denser. Conditions for the next hour were described as unpleasant, until a light wind cleared the fog. As the swim developed into something resembling a race between the two swimmers, the weather turned around 2:30 pm with a darker sky that developed into a thunderstorm. Once this passed, the swimmers continued in their efforts, although due to a thick haze, the boats supporting Heaton lost sight of him for a time. Unable to see the coast and with no goal visible, he chose to give up his attempt despite being in fine physical condition, noting that another attempt would be made when the tides were next suitable. He made a fourth attempt several weeks later but left the water after just three hours of swimming due to choppy waters. In August 1909 on his fifth attempt, he reached within 1.75 miles (2.82 km) of the French coast but adverse tides forced him to give up, having been in the water for over 15 hours by that time. In early September 1910, he again unsuccessfully attempted to swim the English Channel, coming within four miles of the French shore and being retrieved from the channel in an exhausted state having spent sixteen hours in the water. Despite being a cold night, he continued with his swim but began showing signs of weakness as midnight approached, ultimately giving up on his effort at around 1:21am. On his seventh and what would be his final attempt to swim the channel during August 1911, he swam in a warm sea with just a slight breeze. Heaton entered the water around 8:20 am from the supporting boat which was also carrying his wife. Around an hour after entering the water, the wind increased and after over 10 hours swimming at 6:40 pm, abandoned his effort and returned to Dover. He came to within 5 miles (8.0 km) of the French coast. ## Outside competitive sport ### World War I volunteer In late 1914, Heaton joined the Sportsmen's Battalions of London, after being unable to enlist ordinarily due to exceeding the age limit by three years. During the early stages of World War I, he became a prime mover in the Liverpool Volunteer Athletic Corps and felt he wanted to be associated with strenuous wartime activities. Around the start of 1916, he was transferred to the Royal Fusiliers at Dover as a sergeant-instructor, where he was reported in February 1916 to be preparing them for trench warfare and several months later in April, had travelled to India to do duty in a 3000-strong prisoner camp in Rajputana, noting that he did not find the work or climate too taxing on his health. Having served in the military during the war in the Essex Regiment, he was discharged in December 1919 on disability grounds due to gallstones. ### Superintendent and instructor In August 1905, Heaton was appointed by an overwhelming majority as the superintendent of Cornwallis Street baths, earning a salary of £120 () a year despite a councillor opposing the appointment on the basis that his "only recommendation was his attempt to swim the channel". The role, which he secured from among a number of applicants, included a house, coal and gas and could rise to £150 () per annum. He also found employment as a swimming pool attendant on transatlantic passenger ships, notably the RMS Carinthia from 1928, with an expected length of service lasting for one year. He returned to Liverpool in mid-1929 and resumed swimming instruction at his Cornwallis Street baths. During his later years, he advertised himself as a swimming instructor, having been known to teach swimming to school children. In order to assist lessons among groups of students, he devised his own system of wood floats and canvas webs which allowed students to enter the water at a specific depth and familiarise themselves with the concept of buoyancy. The device allowed entire classes to be taken into the water simultaneously, whereas previously it was limited to one at a time. Heaton was inspired by a conversation he had with Lord Wavertree, who remarked on the slow speed of class swimming tuition. The device caught the attention of Poland's Director of Education, who upon witnessing use of the apparatus, expressed amazement at its simplicity. He promoted himself in 1932 as "Liverpool's famous swimming master". ## Personal life Heaton reportedly measured 5 feet 9.5 inches (1.765 m) in height and weighed 13 stone 8 pounds (86 kg; 190 lb) around the time he first started training in 1893 to swim the English Channel. His first marriage was to Elizabeth Emery in May 1890, but she died shortly after. He married Julia Rolling on 4 December 1893 at St Peter in Liverpool and they had two sons, Edmund James Whittaker (b. c1894), Regnialan (b. c1905) and a daughter, Ellen (b. c1896). According to the 1901 census, he had a younger brother Thomas Heaton, 16 years his junior who was living with him at the time. His daughter Ellen won third prize during a competitive swimming event for ladies in 1913 at Hoylake that was officiated by Heaton. His eldest son became incapacitated with frostbite while serving with the Scottish in trenches during the first world war, ultimately being treated in Fazakerley Hospital. His father was Edward Whittaker Heaton and was listed as a widower living with his son's family during the 1911 census. He died in 1915 at the age of 71 after being knocked down by a taxicab, dying from concussion. Heaton's wife Julia served in Bombay as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during World War I, having served in the role in Liverpool for around a year. In 1927, she committed suicide after swallowing poison whilst of unsound mind. He was known to have a friendship with cricketer Frank Sugg. He died on 19 September 1937 in Southport Infirmary while on a visit to the seaside town, leaving effects worth £135, 2 shillings and 1 penny (). He was buried at Allerton Cemetery on 22 September 1937. Heaton was still active as an instructor shortly before his death, with advertisements in local press just weeks before he died.

United States Special Operations Command

Unified combatant command of the United States Armed Forces responsible for special operations

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force of the United States Armed Forces. The command is part of the Department of Defense and is the only unified combatant command created by an Act of Congress. USSOCOM is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The idea of an American unified special operations command had its origins in the aftermath of Operation Eagle Claw, the disastrous attempted rescue of hostages at the American embassy in Iran in 1980. The ensuing investigation, chaired by Admiral James L. Holloway III, the retired Chief of Naval Operations, cited lack of command and control and inter-service coordination as significant factors in the failure of the mission. Since its activation on 16 April 1987, U.S. Special Operations Command has participated in many operations, from the 1989 invasion of Panama to the War on Terror. USSOCOM is involved with clandestine activity, such as direct action, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, unconventional warfare, psychological warfare, civil affairs, and counter-narcotics operations. Each branch has a distinct Special Operations Command that is capable of running its own operations, but when the different special operations forces need to work together for an operation, USSOCOM becomes the joint component command of the operation, instead of a SOC of a specific branch. ## History The unwieldy command and control structure of separate U.S. military special operations forces (SOF), which led to the failure of Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, highlighted the need within the US Department of Defense for reform and reorganization. The US Army Chief of Staff, General Edward C. "Shy" Meyer, had already helped create the U.S. Delta Force in 1977. Following Eagle Claw, he called for a further restructuring of special operations capabilities. Although unsuccessful at the joint level, Meyer nevertheless went on to consolidate Army SOF units under the new 1st Special Operations Command in 1982. By 1983, there was a small but growing sense in the US Congress of the need for military reforms. In June, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) began a two-year-long study of the Defense Department, which included an examination of SOF spearheaded by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). With concern mounting on Capitol Hill, the Department of Defense created the Joint Special Operations Agency on 1 January 1984; this agency, however, had neither operational nor command authority over any SOF. The Joint Special Operations Agency thus did little to improve SOF readiness, capabilities, or policies, and therefore was deemed insufficient. Within the Defense Department, there were a few staunch SOF supporters. Noel Koch, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and his deputy, Lynn Rylander, both advocated SOF reforms. At the same time, a few on Capitol Hill were determined to overhaul United States Special Operations Forces. They included Senators Sam Nunn (D-GA) and William Cohen (R-ME), both members of the Armed Services Committee, and Representative Dan Daniel (D-VA), the chairman of the United States House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. Congressman Daniel had become convinced that the U.S. military establishment was not interested in special operations, that the country's capability in this area was second rate, and that SOF operational command and control was an endemic problem. Senators Nunn and Cohen also felt strongly that the Department of Defense was not preparing adequately for future threats. Senator Cohen agreed that the U.S. needed a clearer organizational focus and chain of command for special operations to deal with low-intensity conflicts. In October 1985, the Senate Armed Services Committee published the results of its two-year review of the U.S. military structure, entitled "Defense Organization: The Need For Change." James R. Locher III, the principal author of this study, also examined past special operations and speculated on the most likely future threats. This influential document led to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. By spring 1986, SOF advocates had introduced reform bills in both houses of Congress. On 15 May, Senator Cohen introduced the Senate bill, co-sponsored by Senator Nunn and others, which called for a joint military organization for SOF and the establishment of an office in the Defense Department to ensure adequate funding and policy emphasis for low-intensity conflict and special operations. Representative Daniel's proposal went even further—he wanted a national special operations agency headed by a civilian who would bypass the Joint Chiefs and report directly to the US Secretary of Defense; this would keep Joint Chiefs and the Services out of the SOF budget process. Congress held hearings on the two bills in the summer of 1986. Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led the Pentagon's opposition to the bills. As an alternative, he proposed a new Special Operations Forces command led by a three-star general. This proposal was not well received on Capitol Hill—Congress wanted a four-star general in charge to give SOF more influence. A number of retired military officers and others testified in favor of the need for reform. By most accounts, retired Army Major General Richard Scholtes gave the most compelling reasons for the change. Scholtes, who commanded the joint special operations task force during Operation Urgent Fury, explained how conventional force leaders misused SOF during the operation, not allowing them to use their unique capabilities, which resulted in high SOF casualties. After his formal testimony, Scholtes met privately with a small number of Senators to elaborate on the problems that he had encountered in Grenada. Both the House and Senate passed SOF reform bills, and these went to a conference committee for reconciliation. Senate and House conferees forged a compromise. The bill called for a unified combatant command headed by a four-star general for all SOF, an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, a coordinating board for low-intensity conflict within the National Security Council, and a new Major Force Program (MFP-11) for SOF (the so-called "SOF checkbook"). The final bill, attached as a rider to the 1987 Defense Authorization Act, amended the Goldwater-Nichols Act and was signed into law in October 1986. This was interpreted as Congress forcing the hand of the DOD and the Reagan administration regarding what it saw as the past failures and emerging threats. The DOD and the administration were responsible for implementing the law, and Congress subsequently passed two additional bills to ensure implementation. The legislation promised to improve SOF in several respects. Once implemented, MFP-11 provided SOF with control over its own resources, better enabling it to modernize the force. Additionally, the law fostered interservice cooperation: a single commander for all SOF promoted interoperability among the same command forces. The establishment of a four-star commander-in-chief and an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict eventually gave SOF a voice in the highest councils of the Defense Department. However, implementing the provisions and mandates of the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987 was neither rapid nor smooth. One of the first issues to arise was the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, whose principal duties included monitorship of special operations activities and the low-intensity conflict activities of the Department of Defense. Congress increased the number of assistant secretaries of defense from 11 to 12, but the Department of Defense still did not fill this new billet. In December 1987, Congress directed Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh to carry out the ASD (SO/LIC) duties until the Senate approved a suitable replacement. Not until 18 months after the legislation passed did Ambassador Charles Whitehouse assume the duties of ASD (SO/LIC). Meanwhile, the establishment of USSOCOM provided its own measure of excitement. A quick solution to manning and basing a brand new unified command was to abolish an existing command. United States Readiness Command (USREDCOM), with an often misunderstood mission, did not appear to have a viable mission in the post-Goldwater-Nichols era, and its commander-in-chief, General James Lindsay, had had some special operations experience. On 23 January 1987, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to the Secretary of Defense that USREDCOM be disestablished to provide billets and facilities for USSOCOM. President Ronald Reagan approved the establishment of the new command on 13 April 1987. The Department of Defense activated USSOCOM on 16 April 1987 and nominated General Lindsay to be the first Commander in Chief Special Operations Command (USCINCSOC). The Senate accepted him without debate. ### Operation Earnest Will USSOCOM's first tactical operation involved 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) ("Night Stalkers") aviators, SEALs, and Special Boat Teams (SBT) working together during Operation Earnest Will in September 1987. During Operation Earnest Will, the United States ensured that neutral oil tankers and other merchant ships could safely transit the Persian Gulf during the Iran–Iraq War. Iranian attacks on tankers prompted Kuwait to ask the United States in December 1986 to register 11 Kuwaiti tankers as American ships so that they could be escorted by the U.S. Navy. President Reagan agreed to the Kuwaiti request on 10 March 1987, hoping it would deter Iranian attacks. The protection offered by U.S. naval vessels, however, did not stop Iran, which used mines and small boats to harass the convoys steaming to and from Kuwait. In late July 1987, Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen, commander of the Middle East Force, requested NSW assets. Special Boat Teams deployed with six Mark III Patrol Boats and two SEAL platoons in August. The Middle East Force decided to convert two oil servicing barges, Hercules and Wimbrown VII, into mobile sea bases. The mobile sea bases allowed SOF in the northern Persian Gulf to thwart clandestine Iranian mining and small boat attacks. On 21 September, Nightstalkers flying MH-60 and Little Birds took off from the frigate USS Jarrett to track an Iranian ship, Iran Ajr. The Nightstalkers observed Iran Ajr turn off her lights and begin laying mines. After receiving permission to attack, the helicopters fired guns and rockets, stopping the ship. As Iran Ajrs crew began to push mines over the side, the helicopters resumed firing until the crew abandoned the ship. Special Boat Teams provided security while a SEAL team boarded the vessel at first light and discovered nine mines on the vessel's deck, as well as a logbook revealing areas where previous mines had been laid. The logbook implicated Iran in mining international waters. Within a few days, the Special Operations forces had determined the Iranian pattern of activity; the Iranians hid during the day near oil and gas platforms in Iranian waters and at night they headed toward the Middle Shoals Buoy, a navigation aid for tankers. With this knowledge, SOF launched three Little Bird helicopters and two patrol craft to the buoy. The Little Bird helicopters arrived first and were fired upon by three Iranian boats anchored near the buoy. After a short but intense firefight, the helicopters sank all three boats. Three days later, in mid-October, an Iranian Silkworm missile hit the tanker Sea Isle City near the oil terminal outside Kuwait City. Seventeen crewmen and the American captain were injured in the missile attack. During Operation Nimble Archer, four destroyers shelled two oil platforms in the Rostam oil field. After the shelling, a SEAL platoon and a demolition unit planted explosives on one of the platforms to destroy it. The SEALs next boarded and searched a third-platform 2 miles (3 km) away. Documents and radios were taken for intelligence purposes. On 14 April 1988, 65 miles (100 km) east of Bahrain, the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine, blowing an immense hole in its hull. Ten sailors were injured. During Operation Praying Mantis the U.S. retaliated fiercely, attacking the Iranian frigate Sahand and oil platforms in the Sirri and Sassan oil fields. After U.S. warships bombarded the Sirri platform and set it ablaze, a UH-60 with a SEAL platoon flew toward the platform but was unable to get close enough because of the roaring fire. Secondary explosions soon wrecked the platform. Thereafter, Iranian attacks on neutral ships dropped drastically. On 18 July, Iran accepted the United Nations cease-fire; on 20 August 1988, the Iran–Iraq War ended. The remaining SEALs, patrol boats, and helicopters then returned to the United States. Special operations forces provided critical skills necessary to help CENTCOM gain control of the northern Persian Gulf and balk Iran's small boats and minelayers. The ability to work at night proved vital because Iranian units used darkness to conceal their actions. Additionally, because of Earnest Will operational requirements, USSOCOM would acquire new weapons systems—the patrol coastal ships and the Mark V Special Operations Craft. ### Somalia Special Operations Command first became involved in Somalia in 1992 as part of Operation Provide Relief. C-130s circled over Somali airstrips during the delivery of relief supplies. Special Forces medics accompanied many relief flights into the airstrips throughout southern Somalia to assess the area. They were the first U.S. soldiers in Somalia, arriving before U.S. forces who supported the expanded relief operations of Restore Hope. The first teams into Somalia was CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers with elements of JSOC. They conducted very high-risk advanced force operations prior to the entry of the follow-on forces. The first casualty of the conflict came from this team and was a Paramilitary officer and former Delta Force operator named Larry Freedman. Freedman was awarded the Intelligence Star for "extraordinary heroism" for his actions. The earliest missions during Operation Restore Hope were conducted by Navy SEALs. The SEALs performed several hydrographic reconnaissance missions to find suitable landing sites for Marines. On 7 December, the SEALs swam into Mogadishu Harbor, where they found suitable landing sites, assessed the area for threats, and concluded that the port could support offloading ships. This was a tough mission because the SEALs swam against a strong current which left many of them overheated and exhausted. Furthermore, they swam through raw sewage in the harbor, which made them sick. When the first SEALs hit the shore the following night, they were surprised to meet members of the news media. The first Marines came ashore soon thereafter, and the press redirected their attention to them. Later, the SEALs provided personal security for President George Bush during a visit to Somalia. In December 1992, Special Forces assets in Kenya moved to Somalia and joined Operation Restore Hope. January 1993, a Special Forces command element deployed to Mogadishu as the Joint Special Operations Forces-Somalia (JSOFOR) that would command and control all special operations for Restore Hope. JSOFOR's mission was to make initial contact with indigenous factions and leaders; provide information for force protection; and provide reports on the area for future relief and security operations. Before redeploying in April, JSOFOR elements drove over 26,000 miles (42,000 km), captured 277 weapons, and destroyed over 45,320 pounds (20,560 kg) of explosives. In August 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin directed the deployment of a Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) to Somalia in response to attacks made by General Mohamed Farrah Aidid's supporters upon U.S. and UN forces. The JSOTF, named Task Force (TF) Ranger was charged with a mission named Operation Gothic Serpent to capture Aidid. This was an especially arduous mission, for Aidid had gone underground, after several Lockheed AC-130 air raids and UN assaults on his strongholds. While Marines from the 24th MEU provided an interim QRF (Force Recon Det and helicopters from HMM-263), the task force arrived in the country and began training exercises. The Marines were asked to take on the Aidid snatch mission, but having the advantage of being in the area for more than two months, decided after mission analysis that the mission was a "no-go" due to several factors, centered around the inability to rescue the crew of a downed helicopter (re: the indigenous forces technique of using RPGs against helicopters and blocking the narrow streets in order to restrict the movement of a ground rescue force). This knowledge was not passed on to the Rangers, due to the Marines operating from the USS Wasp and the Rangers remaining on land. TF Ranger was made up of operators from Delta Force, 75th Ranger Regiment, 160th SOAR, SEALs from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, and Air Force special tactics units. During August and September 1993, the task force conducted six missions into Mogadishu, all of which were successes. Although Aidid remained free, the effect of these missions seriously limited his movements. On 3 October, TF Ranger launched its seventh mission, this time into Aidid's stronghold the Bakara Market to capture two of his key lieutenants. The mission was expected to take only one or two hours. Helicopters carried an assault and a ground convoy of security teams launched in the late afternoon from the TF Ranger compound at Mogadishu airport. The TF came under increasingly heavy fire, more intense than during previous missions. The assault team captured 24 Somalis including Aidid's lieutenants and were loading them onto the convoy trucks when a MH-60 Blackhawk was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). A small element from the security forces, as well as an MH-6 assault helicopter and an MH-60 carrying a fifteen-man combat search and rescue (CSAR) team, rushed to the crash site. The battle became increasingly worse. An RPG struck another MH-60, crashing less than 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south of the first downed helicopter. The task force faced overwhelming Somali mobs that overran the crash sites, causing a dire situation. A Somali mob overran the second site and, despite a heroic defense, killed everyone except the pilot, whom they took prisoner. Two defenders of this crash site, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. About this time, the mission's quick reaction force (QRF) also tried to reach the second crash site. This force too was pinned by the Somali fire and required the fire support of two AH-6 helicopters before it could break contact and make its way back to the base. The assault and security elements moved on foot towards the first crash area, passing through heavy fire, and occupied buildings south and southwest of the downed helicopter. They fought to establish defensive positions so as not to be pinned down by the very heavy enemy fire while treating their wounded and worked to free the pilot's body from the downed helicopter. With the detainees loaded on trucks, the ground convoy force attempted to reach the first crash site. Unable to find it amongst the narrow, winding alleyways, the convoy came under devastating small arms and RPG fire. The convoy had to return to base after suffering numerous casualties and sustaining substantial damage to their vehicles. Reinforcements, consisting of elements from the QRF, 10th Mountain Division soldiers, Rangers, SEALs, Pakistan Army tanks and Malaysian armored personnel carriers, finally arrived at 1:55 am on 4 October. The combined force worked until dawn to free the pilot's body, receiving RPG and small arms fire throughout the night. All the casualties were loaded onto the armored personnel carriers, and the remainder of the force was left behind and had no choice but to move out on foot. AH-6 gunships raked the streets with fire to support the movement. The main force of the convoy arrived at the Pakistani Stadium-compound for the QRF-at 6:30 am, thus concluding one of the bloodiest and fiercest urban firefights since the Vietnam War. Task Force Ranger experienced a total of 17 killed in action and 106 wounded. Various estimates placed Somali casualties above 1,000. Although Task Force Ranger's few missions were successes, the overall outcome of Operation Gothic Serpent was deemed a failure because of the Task Force's failure to complete their stated mission, capturing Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Most U.S. forces pulled out of Somalia by March 1994. The withdrawal from Somalia was completed in March 1995. Even though Operation Gothic Serpent failed, USSOCOM still made significant contributions to operations in Somalia. SOF performed reconnaissance and surveillance missions, assisted with humanitarian relief, protected American forces, and conducted riverine patrols. Additionally, they ensured the safe landing of the Marines and safeguarded the arrival of merchant ships carrying food. ### Iraq USSOCOM's 10th Special Forces Group, elements of JSOC, and CIA/SAD Paramilitary Officers linked up again and were the first to enter Iraq prior to the invasion. Their efforts organized the Kurdish Peshmerga to defeat Ansar Al Islam in Northern Iraq before the invasion. This battle was for control of a territory in Northeastern Iraq that was completely occupied by Ansar Al Islam, an ally of Al Qaeda. This was a very significant battle and led to the death of a substantial number of terrorists and the uncovering of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat. These terrorists would have been in the subsequent insurgency had they not been eliminated during this battle. Sargat was the only facility of its type discovered in the Iraq war. This battle may have been the Tora Bora of Iraq, but it was a sound defeat for Al Qaeda and their ally Ansar Al Islam. This combined team then led the Peshmerga against Saddam's Northern Army. This effort kept Saddam's forces in the north and denied the ability to redeploy to contest the invasion force coming from the south. This effort may have saved the lives of hundreds if not thousands of coalition servicemen and women. At the launch of the Iraq War, dozens of 12-member Special Forces teams infiltrated southern and western Iraq to hunt for Scud missiles and pinpoint bombing targets. Scores of Navy SEALs seized oil terminals and pumping stations on the southern coast. Air Force combat controllers flew combat missions in MC-130H Combat Talon IIs and established austere desert airstrips to begin the flow of soldiers and supplies deep into Iraq. It was notably different from the Persian Gulf war of 1991, where Special Operations forces were mostly kept participating. But it would not be a replay of Afghanistan, where Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs led the fighting. After their star turn in Afghanistan, many special operators were disappointed to play a supporting role in Iraq. Many special operators felt restricted by cautious commanders. From that point, USSOCOM has since killed or captured hundreds of insurgents and Al-Qaeda terrorists. It has conducted several foreign internal defense missions successfully training the Iraqi security forces. ### Afghanistan United States Special Operations Command played a pivotal role in fighting the former Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001 and toppling it thereafter, as well as combating the insurgency and capturing Saddam Hussein in Iraq. USSOCOM in 2004 was developing plans to have an expanded and more complex role in the global campaign against terrorism, and that role continued to emerge before and after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. In 2010, "of about 13,000 Special Operations forces deployed overseas, about 9,000 [were] evenly divided between Iraq and Afghanistan." In the initial stages of the War in Afghanistan, USSOCOM forces linked up with CIA Paramilitary Officers from Special Activities Division to defeat the Taliban without the need for large-scale conventional forces. This was one of the biggest successes of the global War on Terrorism. These units linked up several times during this war and engaged in several furious battles with the enemy. One such battle happened during Operation Anaconda, the mission to squeeze the life out of a Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold dug deep into the Shah-i-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The operation was seen as one of the heaviest and bloodiest fights in the War in Afghanistan. The battle on an Afghan mountaintop called Takur Ghar featured special operations forces from all 4 services and the CIA. Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Air Force Combat Controllers, and Pararescuemen fought against entrenched Al-Qaeda fighters atop a 10,000-foot (3,000 m) mountain. Subsequently, the entrenched Taliban became targets of every asset in the sky. According to an executive summary, the Battle of Takur Ghar was the most intense firefight American special operators have been involved in since 18 U.S. Army Rangers were killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993. During Operation Red Wings on 28 June 2005, four Navy SEALs, pinned down in a firefight, radioed for help. A Chinook helicopter, carrying 16 service members, responded but was shot down. All members of the rescue team and three of four SEALs on the ground died. It was the worst loss of life in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. The Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell alone survived. Team leader Michael P. Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the battle. ### Global presence In 2010, special operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of 2009. In 2011, SOC spokesman Colonel Tim Nye (Army) was reported to have said that the number of countries with SOC presence will likely reach 120 and that joint training exercises will have been carried out in most or all of those countries during the year. One study identified joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland in 2010 and also, through mid-year 2011, in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In addition, SOC forces executed the high-profile killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. In November 2009 The Nation reported on a covert JSOC/Blackwater anti-terrorist operation in Pakistan. In 2010, White House counterterrorism director John O. Brennan said that the United States "will not merely respond after the fact" of a terrorist attack but will "take the fight to al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates whether they plot and train in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond." Olson said, "In some places, in deference to host-country sensitivities, we are lower in profile. In every place, Special Operations forces activities are coordinated with the U.S. ambassador and are under the operational control of the four-star regional commander." The conduct of actions by SOC forces outside of Iraq and Afghan war zones has been the subject of internal U.S. debate, including between representatives of the Bush administration such as John B. Bellinger III, on one hand, and the Obama administration on another. The United Nations in 2010 also "questioned the administration's authority under international law to conduct such raids, particularly when they kill innocent civilians. One possible legal justification – the permission of the country in question – is complicated in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, where the governments privately agree but do not publicly acknowledge approving the attacks," as one report put it. ## Subordinate commands ### Joint Special Operations Command Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a component command of the USSOCOM and is charged to study special operations requirements and techniques to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, plan and conduct special operations exercises and training, and develop Joint Special Operations Tactics. It was established in 1980 on the recommendation of Col. Charlie Beckwith, in the aftermath of the failure of Operation Eagle Claw. Units - The U.S. Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, popularly known as Delta Force, is the first of the two counter-terrorism, special mission units that fall under the Joint Special Operations Command. Modeled after the British Special Air Service, Delta Force is regarded as one of the premier special operations forces in the world. Delta also includes a stringent training and selection process. Delta recruits primarily from the most proficient and highly skilled soldiers of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, although it encompasses the capability of recruiting throughout the U.S. Armed Forces. Recruits must pass a rigid selection course before beginning training, known as the Operators' Training Course (OTC). Delta has received training from numerous U.S. government agencies and other tiers one SOF and has created a curriculum based on this training and techniques that it has developed. Delta conducts clandestine and covert special operations all over the world. It has the capability to conduct myriad special operations missions but specializes in counter-terrorism and hostage rescue operations. - The Intelligence Support Activity (ISA, The Activity) is the support branch of JSOC and USSOCOM. Its primary missions are to provide Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) mainly for Delta and DEVGRU's operations. Before the establishing of the Strategic Support Branch in 2001, the ISA required the permission of the CIA to conduct covert operations, which considerably lessened its effectiveness in its support of JSOC operations as a whole. - The U.S. Navy's Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU, SEAL Team Six) is the second of the two counter-terrorism, special mission units that fall under the Joint Special Operations Command. DEVGRU is the U.S. Navy's counterpart to Delta, specializing in maritime counter-terrorism. DEVGRU recruits the most proficient operators from Naval Special Warfare, specifically the U.S. Navy SEALs. Like Delta, DEVGRU can conduct a variety of special operations missions but trains primarily for maritime counter-terrorism and hostage rescue operations. DEVGRU has gained prolific notoriety in recent years, due to high-profile hostage rescue operations and their role in the killing of Osama Bin Laden. - The Air Force 24th Special Tactics Squadron (24th STS) is the AFSOC component of JSOC. The 24th STS consists of specially selected AFSOC personnel, including Pararescuemen, Combat Controllers, and TACPs. These special operators usually serve with Delta Force and DEVGRU, because of the convenience of the 24th STS's ability to synchronize and control the different elements of airpower and enhance air operations deep in enemy territory; as well as, in the case of Pararescuemen, providing needed medical assistance. - The Joint Communications Unit (JCU) is a technical unit of the United States Special Operations Command charged to standardize and ensure interoperability of communication procedures and equipment of the Joint Special Operations Command and its subordinate units. The JCU was activated at Ft. Bragg, NC in 1980, after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw. The JCU has earned the reputation of "DoD's Finest Communicators". Portions of JSOC units have made up the constantly changing special operations task force, operating in the U.S. Central Command area of operations. The Task Force 11, Task Force 121, Task Force 6-26 and Task Force 145 are creations of the Pentagon's post-11 September campaign against terrorism, and it quickly became the model for how the military would gain intelligence and battle insurgents in the future. Originally known as Task Force 121, it was formed in the summer of 2003 when the military merged two existing Special Operations units, one hunting Osama bin Laden in and around Afghanistan, and the other tracking Sadaam Hussein in Iraq. ### Special Operations Command – Joint Capabilities Special Operations Command – Joint Capabilities (SOC-JC) was transferred to USSOCOM from the soon-to-be disestablished United States Joint Forces Command in 2011. Its primary mission was to train conventional and SOF commanders and their staffs to support USSOCOM international engagement training requirements, and support the implementation of capability solutions in order to improve strategic and operational Warfighting readiness and joint interoperability. SOC-JC must also be prepared to support the deployed Special Operations Joint Task Force (SOJTF) Headquarters (HQ). The Government Accountability Office wrote that SOC-JC was disestablished in 2013, and positions were to be zeroed out in 2014. ### Army Special Operations Command On 1 December 1989, the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) activated as the 16th major Army command. These special operations forces have been America's spearhead for unconventional warfare for more than 40 years. USASOC commands such units as the well known Special Forces (SF, or the "Green Berets"), the Rangers, and such relatively unknown units as two psychological operations groups, a special aviation regiment, a civil affairs brigade, and a special sustainment brigade. These are one of the USSOCOM's main weapons for waging unconventional warfare and counter-insurgency. The significance of these units is emphasized as conventional conflicts are becoming less prevalent as insurgent and guerrilla warfare increases. Units: - United States Army Special Forces (SF) aka Green Berets perform several doctrinal missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, and counter-terrorism. These missions make Special Forces unique in the U.S. military because they are employed throughout the three stages of the operational continuum: peacetime, conflict, and war. Foreign internal defense operations, SF's main peacetime mission, are designed to help friendly developing nations by working with their military and police forces to improve their technical skills, understanding of human rights issues, and help with humanitarian and civic action projects. Special Forces unconventional warfare capabilities provide a viable military option for a variety of operational taskings that are inappropriate or infeasible for conventional forces. Special Forces are the U.S. military's premiere unconventional warfare force. Foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare missions are the bread and butter of Special Forces soldiers. For this reason, SF candidates are trained extensively in weapons, engineering, communications, and medicine. SF soldiers are taught to be warriors first and teachers second because they must be able to train their team and be able to train their allies during an FID or UW mission. Often SF units are required to perform additional, or collateral, activities outside their primary missions. These collateral activities are coalition warfare/support, combat search and rescue, security assistance, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian de-mining, and counter-drug operations. - The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), commonly referred to as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group/"CAG", "The Unit", Army Compartmented Element, or within JSOC as Task Force Green, is an elite Special Mission Unit of the United States Army, under the organization of the USASOC but is controlled by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). It is used for hostage rescue and counterterrorism, as well as direct action and reconnaissance against high-value targets. 1st SFOD-D and its U.S. Navy counterpart, DEVGRU, "SEAL Team 6", perform many of the most highly complex and dangerous missions in the U.S. military. These units are also often referred to as "Tier One" and special mission units by the U.S. government. - The 75th Ranger Regiment (U.S. Army Rangers) is the premier light-infantry unit of the United States Army and is headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgia. The 75th Ranger Regiment's mission is to plan and conduct special missions in support of U.S. policy and objectives. The Rangers are a flexible and rapid-deployable force. Each battalion can deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours of notice. The Army places much importance on the 75th Ranger Regiment and its training; it possesses the capabilities to conduct conventional and most special operations missions. Rangers are capable of infiltrating by land, sea, or air and direct action operations such as conducting raids or assaulting buildings or airfields. - The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Night Stalkers) headquartered at Fort Campbell, Kentucky provides aviation support to units within USSOCOM. The Regiment consists of MH-6 and AH-6 light helicopters, MH-60 helicopters and MH-47 heavy assault helicopters. The capabilities of the 160th SOAR (A) have been evolving since the early 1980s. Its focus on night operations resulted in the nickname, "Night Stalkers." The primary mission of the Night Stalkers is to conduct overt or covert infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces across a wide range of environmental conditions. - 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) and 8th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) Soldiers use persuasion to influence perceptions and encourage desired behavior. PSYOP soldiers support national objectives at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of operations. Strategic psychological operations advance broad or long-term objectives; global in nature, they may be directed toward large audiences or at key communicators. Operational psychological operations are conducted on a smaller scale. 4th POG(A) is employed by theater commanders to target groups within the theater of operations. 4th POG(A) purpose can range from gaining support for U.S. operations to preparing the battlefield for combat. Tactical psychological operations are more limited, used by commanders to secure immediate and near-term goals. In this environment, these force-enhancing activities serve as a means to lower the morale and efficiency of enemy forces. - 95th Civil Affairs Brigade (Airborne) specialists identify critical requirements needed by local citizens in war or disaster situations. They also locate civilian resources to support military operations, help minimize civilian interference with operations, support national assistance activities, plan and execute noncombatant evacuation, support counter-drug operations and establish and maintain liaison with civilian aid agencies and other non-governmental organizations. In support of special operations, these culturally oriented, linguistically capable Soldiers may also be tasked to provide functional expertise for foreign internal defense operations, unconventional warfare operations and direct action missions. - 528th Sustainment Brigade (Special Operations) (Airborne) (SO) (A) has a difficult mission supporting USASOC. In their respective fields, signal, intelligence, medical, and support soldiers provide communications, focused intelligence, medical Role II support, supplies, maintenance, equipment, and expertise allowing ARSOF to "shoot, move and communicate" on a continuous basis. Because USASOC often uses ARSOF-unique items, soldiers assigned to these units are taught to operate and maintain a vast array of specialized equipment not normally used by their conventional counterparts. The 528th also provides the USASOC with centralized and integrated material management of property, equipment maintenance, logistical automation and repair parts and supplies. - John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center (USAJFKSWCS) trains USSOCOM and Army Special Operations Forces through development and evaluation of special operations concepts, doctrines and training. ### Marine Forces Special Operations Command In October 2005, the Secretary of Defense directed the formation of United States Marine Forces Special Operations Command, the Marine component of United States Special Operations Command. It was determined that the Marine Corps would initially form a unit of approximately 2500 to serve with USSOCOM. On February 24, 2006 MARSOC activated at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. MARSOC initially consisted of a small staff and the Foreign Military Training Unit (FMTU), which had been formed to conduct foreign internal defense. FMTU is now designated as the Marine Special Operations Advisor Group (MSOAG). As a service component of USSOCOM, MARSOC is tasked by the Commander USSOCOM to train, organize, equip, and deploy responsive U.S. Marine Corps special operations forces worldwide, in support of combatant commanders and other agencies. MARSOC has been directed to conduct foreign internal defense, direct action, and special reconnaissance. MARSOC has also been directed to develop a capability in unconventional warfare, counter-terrorism, and information operations. MARSOC deployed its first units in August 2006, six months after the group's initial activation. MARSOC reached full operational capability in October 2008. Units - Marine Raider Regiment (Marine Raiders) consists of a Headquarters Company and three Marine Raider Battalions, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The Regiment provides tailored military combat-skills training and advisor support for identified foreign forces in order to enhance their tactical capabilities and to prepare the environment as directed by USSOCOM as well as the capability to form the nucleus of a Joint Special Operations Task Force. Marines and Sailors of the MRR train, advise and assist friendly host nation forces – including naval and maritime military and paramilitary forces – to enable them to support their governments' internal security and stability, to counter-subversion and to reduce the risk of violence from internal and external threats. MRR deployments are coordinated by MARSOC, through USSOCOM, in accordance with engagement priorities for Overseas Contingency Operations. - Marine Raider Support Group (MRSG) trains, equips, structures, and provides specially qualified Marine forces, including, operational logistics, intelligence, Military Working Dogs, Firepower Control Teams, and communications support in order to sustain worldwide special operations missions as directed by Commander, U.S. Marine Forces Special Operations Command (COMMARFORSOC). - Marine Raider Training Center (MRTC) performs the screening, recruiting, training, assessment and doctrinal development functions for MARSOC. It includes two subordinate Special Missions Training Branches (SMTBs), one on each coast. ### Naval Special Warfare Command The United States Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM, NAVSOC, or NSWC) was commissioned April 16, 1987, at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego as the Naval component to the United States Special Operations Command. Naval Special Warfare Command provides vision, leadership, doctrinal guidance, resources and oversight to ensure component special operations forces are ready to meet the operational requirements of combatant commanders. Today, SEAL Teams and Special Boat Teams comprise the elite combat units of Naval Special Warfare. These teams are organized, trained, and equipped to conduct a variety of missions to include direct action, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, unconventional warfare and support psychological and civil affairs operations. Their highly trained operators are deployed worldwide in support of National Command Authority objectives, conducting operations with other conventional and special operations forces. Units - United States Navy SEALs have distinguished themselves as an individually reliable, collectively disciplined and highly skilled special operations force. The most important trait that distinguishes Navy SEALs from all other military forces is that SEALs are maritime special operations, as they strike from and return to the sea. SEALs (SEa, Air, Land) take their name from the elements in and from which they operate. SEALs are experts in direct action and special reconnaissance missions. Their stealth and clandestine methods of operation allow them to conduct multiple missions against targets that larger forces cannot approach undetected. Because of the dangers inherent in their missions, prospective SEALs go through what is considered by many military experts to be the toughest training regime in the world. - Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), referred to as SEAL Team Six, the name of its predecessor which was officially disbanded in 1987. - SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams are SEAL teams with an added underwater delivery capability who use the SDV MK VIII and the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS), submersibles that provide NSW with an unprecedented capability that combines the attributes of clandestine underwater mobility and the combat swimmer. - Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) operate and maintain state-of-the-art vessels and high-tech equipment to conduct coastal patrol and interdiction and support special operations missions. Focusing on infiltration and exfiltration of SEALs and other SOF, SWCCs provide dedicated rapid mobility in shallow water areas where larger ships cannot operate. They also bring to the table a unique SOF capability: Maritime Combatant Craft Aerial Delivery System—the ability to deliver combat craft via parachute drop. Like SEALs, SWCCs must have excellent physical fitness, highly motivated, combat-focused and responsive in high-stress situations. ### Air Force Special Operations Command Air Force Special Operations Command was established on May 22, 1990, with headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida. AFSOC is one of the 10 Air Force Major Commands or MAJCOMs, and the Air Force component of United States Special Operations Command. It holds operational and administrative oversight of subordinate special operations wings and groups in the regular Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command and the Air National Guard. AFSOC provides Air Force special operations forces for worldwide deployment and assignment to regional unified commands. The command's SOF are composed of highly trained, rapidly deployable airmen, conducting global special operations missions ranging from the precision application of firepower via airstrikes or close air support, to infiltration, exfiltration, resupply and refueling of SOF operational elements. AFSOC's unique capabilities include airborne radio and television broadcast for psychological operations, as well as aviation foreign internal defense instructors to provide other governments military expertise for their internal development. The command's core missions include battlefield air operations; agile combat support; aviation foreign internal defense; information operations; precision aerospace fires; psychological operations; specialized air mobility; specialized refueling; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Components - Combat Controllers (CCT) are ground combat forces specialized in a traditional pathfinder role while having a heavy emphasis on simultaneous air traffic control, fire support (via airstrikes, close air support and command, control, and communications in covert or austere environments. - Pararescuemen (PJ) are the only Department of Defense specialty specifically trained and equipped to conduct conventional and unconventional personnel recovery operations. A PJ's primary function is as a personnel recovery specialist with emergency trauma medical capabilities in humanitarian and combat environments. - Special Reconnaissance (SR) conduct long-range interdiction, surveillance and intelligence gathering. A subset of their responsibilities is to assess and interpret weather and environmental intelligence from forward-deployed locations, working alongside special operations forces. Organization' - The 1st Special Operations Wing (1 SOW) is located at Hurlburt Field, Florida. Its mission focus is unconventional warfare: counter-terrorism, combat search and rescue, personnel recovery, psychological operations, aviation assistance to developing nations, "deep battlefield" resupply, interdiction, and close air support. The wing's core missions include aerospace surface interface, agile combat support, combat aviation advisory operations, information operations, personnel recovery/recovery operations, precision aerospace fires, psychological operations dissemination, specialized aerospace mobility, and specialized aerial refueling. Among its aircraft is the MC-130 Combat Talon II, a low-level terrain-following special missions transport that can evade radar detection and slip into enemy territory at a 200-foot (61 m) altitude for infiltration/exfiltration missions, even in zero visibility, dropping off or recovering men or supplies with pinpoint accuracy. It also operates the AC-130 Spooky and Spectre gunships that provide highly accurate airborne gunfire for close air support of conventional and special operations forces on the ground. - The 24th Special Operations Wing (24 SOW) is located at Hurlburt Field, Florida. It is composed of the 720th Special Tactics Group, 724th Special Tactics Group, Special Tactics Training Squadron and 16 recruiting locations across the United States. The Special Tactics Squadrons, under the 720th STG and 724th STG, are made up of Special Tactics Officers, Combat Controllers, Combat Rescue Officers, Pararescuemen, Special Operations Weather Officers and Airmen, Air Liaison Officers, Tactical Air Control Party operators, and a number of combat support airmen which comprise 58 Air Force specialties. - The 27th Special Operations Wing (27 SOW) is located at Cannon AFB, New Mexico. Its primary mission includes infiltration, exfiltration and re-supply of special operations forces; air refueling of special operations rotary wing and tiltrotor aircraft; and precision fire support. These capabilities support a variety of special operations missions including direct action, unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, personnel recovery, psychological operations and information operations. - The 193d Special Operations Wing (193 SOW) is an Air National Guard (ANG) unit, operationally gained by AFSOC, and located at Harrisburg International Airport/Air National Guard Station (former Olmsted Air Force Base), Pennsylvania. Under Title 32 USC, the 193 SOW performs state missions for the Governor of Pennsylvania as part of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard. Under Title 10 USC, the 193 SOW is part of the Air Reserve Component (ARC) of the United States Air Force. Its primary wartime and contingency operations mission as an AFSOC-gained unit is psychological operations (PSYOP). The 193 SOW is unique in that it is the only unit in the U.S. Air Force to fly and maintain the Lockheed EC-130J Commando Solo aircraft. - The 919th Special Operations Wing (919 SOW) is an Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) unit, operationally gained by AFSOC, and located at Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field \#3/Duke Field, Florida. The 919 SOW flies and maintains the MC-130E Combat Talon I and MC-130P Combat Shadow special operations aircraft designed for covert operations. - The 352d Special Operations Wing (352 SOW) at RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom serves as the core to the United States European Command's standing Joint Special Operations Air Component headquarters. The squadron provides support for three flying squadrons, one special tactics squadron and one maintenance squadron for exercise, logistics, and war planning; aircrew training; communications; aerial delivery; medical; intelligence; security and force protection; weather; information technologies and transformation support and current operations. - The 353d Special Operations Group (353 SOG) is the focal point for all U.S. Air Force special operations activities throughout the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) theater. Headquartered at Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan the group is prepared to conduct a variety of high-priority, low-visibility missions. Its mission is air support of joint and allied special operations forces in the Pacific. It maintains a worldwide mobility commitment, participates in Pacific theater exercises as directed and supports humanitarian and relief operations. - The United States Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field, Florida is a primary support unit of the Air Force Special Operations Command. The USAFSOS prepares special operations Airmen to successfully plan, organize, and execute global special operations by providing indoctrination and education for AFSOC, other USSOCOM components, and joint/interagency/ coalition partners. ### Order of battle ## List of commanders The commander of U.S. Special Operations Command is a statutory office (), and is held by a four-star general or admiral. ## USSOCOM medal The United States Special Operations Command Medal was introduced in 1994 to recognize individuals for outstanding contributions to, and in support of, special operations. Some notable recipients include; - Lieutenant General Samuel V. Wilson - Colonel Ralph Puckett - SCPO Chris Beck Since it was created, there have been more than 50 recipients, only six of whom were not American, including; - General Benoît Puga (France) - † Kaptein Gunnar Sønsteby, 2008 (Norway) - † Generał broni Włodzimierz Potasiński, 2010 (Poland) - Generał dywizji Piotr Patalong, 2014 (Poland) - Generał brygady Jerzy Gut, 2014 (Poland) - Jungjang (Lieutenant General) Chun In-bum, 2016 (Republic of Korea) († posthumously)

S.L. Benfica in international football

None

Sport Lisboa e Benfica is a Portuguese professional football club based in Lisbon whose involvement in European competition dates back to the 1950s. As champions of Portugal, Benfica were supposed to participate in the inaugural edition of the European Cup in 1955, but they were not invited by the organizers. Two years later, Benfica made their European debut against Sevilla in the European Cup, on 19 September 1957. Benfica won their first European title in 1961, defeating Barcelona to win the European Cup, and successfully retained the title in the following year after defeating Real Madrid. After that, they appeared in five more finals (1963, 1965, 1968, 1988 and 1990) but did not reconquer the title. Benfica has also reached three UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League finals (1983, 2013 and 2014). With two consecutive European Cup titles, a Portuguese feat, Benfica are the second most decorated Portuguese team in overall UEFA competitions and hold the Portuguese record for most appearances in finals of UEFA competitions, with ten appearances. Additionally, their 42 participations in the Champions League (formerly the European Cup) are only surpassed by Real Madrid, and as of May 2023, Benfica occupy the eighth place at the competition's all-time ranking. Benfica's biggest European win is 10–0, which came against Stade Dudelange of Luxembourg for the 1965–66 European Cup, and their 18–0 aggregate win (8–0 in the first leg) constitutes a European Cup record. Brazilian defender Luisão holds the club record for most appearances in Europe, with 124 matches, while Portuguese striker Eusébio is the club's leading European goalscorer, with 56 goals. ## Background The first continental competition organised by UEFA was the European Cup in 1955. Conceived by Gabriel Hanot, the editor of L'Équipe, as a competition for winners of the European national football leagues, it is considered the most prestigious European football competition. That year, Benfica had won the Primeira Divisão, but the European Cup organizers selected Sporting CP to take part in the first edition. Another club competition, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, was established in 1955 and contested in parallel with the European Cup. It eventually came under the auspices of UEFA in 1971, who rebranded it as UEFA Cup. Since the 2009–10 season, the competition has been known as the UEFA Europa League. In 1957, Benfica won the league title and assured their European debut in the 1957–58 European Cup. The following years, UEFA created additional club competitions. The first, the Cup Winners' Cup, was inaugurated in 1960 for the winners of domestic cup competitions. Established in 1973, the UEFA Super Cup was originally a match played between the winners of the European Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup. Since 2000, it has been contested by the winners of the Champions League (formerly the European Cup) and the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup). The Intercontinental Cup was a competition for the winners of the European Cup (the later UEFA Champions League) and its South American equivalent, the Copa Libertadores. Established in 1960, the Intercontinental Cup was jointly organised by UEFA and the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL). It ran until 2004, when it was replaced by the FIFA Club World Cup, which includes the winners of all six continental confederations' premier club competitions. ## 1950–79 Benfica's first European silverware came in 1950 when, managed by Ted Smith, they beat French side Bordeaux at the Estádio Nacional in Oeiras, Portugal, to win the Latin Cup. Seven years later, the team reached their second and last Latin Cup final, but lost to Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid. After an unsuccessful UEFA competition debut in the 1957–58 European Cup, where they lost to Sevilla in the initial round, Benfica hired Hungarian manager Béla Guttmann, who led the team to their first ever European Cup final on 31 May 1961. Having overcome Hearts, Újpest Dózsa, AGF Aarhus and Rapid Wien, Benfica faced Barcelona in the final, where goals from José Águas, Mário Coluna and an own goal from Antoni Ramallets helped the club lift its first European Cup. The following year, Guttmann guided the team to back-to-back European Cup successes. After defeating Austria Wien, 1. FC Nürnberg and Tottenham Hotspur, Benfica met Real Madrid in the final on 2 May 1962. A hat-trick from Ferenc Puskás put the Spanish champions ahead before half-time, but a double from Coluna and rising star Eusébio overturned the score to 5–3. After consecutive European Cup wins, Guttmann reportedly approached the club's board of directors asking for a pay rise. As his demand was turned down, he left the club and reportedly professed his alleged curse. Benfica replaced him with Fernando Riera, and while the Chilean manager led the team to a third-straight European Cup final, he was unable to emulate Guttmann's success. On 25 May 1963, against Milan, Benfica's chances were slim after a harsh tackle from Gino Pivatelli severely debilitated Coluna. In a time when substitutions did not exist, Benfica played the rest of the match crippled, and two second-half goals from José Altafini sent the trophy to Italy. After a poor performance in the 1963–64 European Cup, Benfica returned to the final in the following season. Led by Romanian manager Elek Schwartz, Benfica eliminated Real Madrid 5–1 in the quarter-finals on their way to meet the holders Inter Milan in the final, played at Inter's home ground, San Siro, in a muddy and waterlogged pitch. A mistake from Alberto da Costa Pereira, allowing a shot from Jair to pass between his legs, cost Benfica their second attempt at a European Cup treble. The following season, Benfica defeated Stade Dudelange 18–0 on aggregate, establishing a European record for biggest win on aggregate. However, at a later stage of the competition, they conceded a record home defeat to Manchester United and were eliminated. After one year competing in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, Benfica returned to the European Cup and reached their fifth final in 1968. After eliminating Juventus 3–0 in the semi-finals, Benfica faced Manchester United at Wembley Stadium on 29 May 1968. Bobby Charlton opened the score, but Jaime Graça equalised on the 79th minute. Near the end of regular time, Eusébio squandered a one-on-one chance against Alex Stepney and the match went to extra time, where three goals in eight minutes gave the English side their first European title. The following season, Benfica were stopped in the quarter-finals by Ajax after a replay in Paris. As in the previous season's final, Benfica conceded three goals during extra time and were eliminated. In 1969–70, Benfica fell in the second round against Scottish team and eventual finalists Celtic in a coin toss decision. After a mildly successful period in the 1960s, where they stood among the top contenders, Benfica lost influence in the European stage in the following decade, as Dutch, German and English teams appeared stronger over the Southern European ones. In the 1971–72 European Cup, Benfica lost in the semi-finals to a Johan Cruyff-led Ajax on their way to a second consecutive win. They reached the quarter-finals of the 1974–75 European Cup Winners' Cup before being eliminated by another Dutch team, PSV Eindhoven. As historic players like Eusébio and Simões left the club, Benfica only secured two European Cup quarter-final presences in the late 1970s: in 1975–76 they lost 5–1 to the holders Bayern Munich; and in 1977–78 they were knocked out by the defending champions Liverpool with a 6–2 aggregate score. ### Competitive record Note: Benfica score is always listed first. ## 1980–2000 In the beginning of the 1980s, Benfica's domestic dominance had dwindled, leaving the team to play in second-level competitions, namely the Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup. In 1980–81, the team reached the Cup Winners' Cup semi-finals but lost to Carl Zeiss Jena from East Germany. This performance was bested two seasons later, as Benfica reached the 1983 UEFA Cup Final after overcoming a quarter-final bout against a Roma side featuring Falcão and Bruno Conti. In the two-legged final, Benfica faced Belgium's Anderlecht. In the first leg, on 4 May 1983, Benfica lost in Brussels with a sole goal from Kenneth Brylle. In the second leg, fourteen days later, Benfica manager Sven-Göran Eriksson chose not to start Zoran Filipović and João Alves, both undisputed starters, and the team drew 1–1, losing another European final. Benfica returned to the European Cup in the following two seasons, but defeats against Liverpool in both participations showed that the team was not yet ready to compete with Europe's best teams. After four seasons, Benfica proved ready to challenge for the European Cup in 1987–88. After eliminating teams like Anderlecht and Steaua București, they reached their sixth final in the competition, where they met PSV in a match played at Stuttgart's Neckarstadion on 25 May 1988. Following a goalless draw at the end of extra time, the match was decided by a penalty shoot-out. The Dutch side – fielding five Netherlands national team players that would go on to conquer the UEFA Euro 1988 a month later – converted all of their penalty kicks, whereas António Veloso allowed goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen to defend his penalty kick, and sealed Benfica's fourth consecutive European Cup final loss. Benfica did not wait long to make another appearance in the European Cup's showpiece match, as two years later – and with Swedish manager Eriksson again in charge – a team including Brazil's starting centre-backs Ricardo Gomes and Aldair, together with midfielders Valdo and Jonas Thern, eliminated Marseille with a controversial handled goal from Vata to reach their seventh European Cup final. Before the final, Eusébio visited Béla Guttmann's grave, asking for forgiveness in hope of ending the curse. On 23 May 1990, Benfica faced title holders Milan at Vienna's Praterstadion and were unable to prevent Frank Rijkaard to score the winning goal and give the Italian side its fourth and second consecutive European Cup title. In the early 1990s, Benfica took part in the last edition of the European Cup before being reformulated and converted into the UEFA Champions League. They reached the tournament's group stage after a successful performance at Highbury against Arsenal, with Isaías and Vasili Kulkov scoring in extra time. In the group stage, Benfica ended in third place, behind Barcelona and Sparta Prague. In 1992–93, Benfica reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup, beating eventual winners Juventus at home (their only loss in the competition), but losing 3–1 in Turin. The following season, Benfica returned to the Cup Winners' Cup and reached the semi-finals after a 5–5 aggregate draw against Bayer Leverkusen in the quarter-finals was decided on away goals. In Lisbon, Benfica beat Parma 2–1 for the first leg of the semi-finals, with Vítor Paneira even missing a penalty. However, in the return leg, centre-back Carlos Mozer was sent off on the 20th minute and the team resisted for 55 minutes before Roberto Sensini scored the only goal of the match, which put the Italians through. In their debut in the Champions League in 1994–95, Benfica won their group but succumbed to Milan in the knockout phase. In the late 1990s, the club's European performances did not match Benfica's historic record, with only a quarter-final presence in the 1996–97 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup as a highlight. The team's performances were subpar, with their lowest peak coming in the form of a 7–0 loss against Celta Vigo, Benfica's heaviest European defeat. ### Competitive record Note: Benfica score is always listed first. ## 2003–present After missing two seasons of European football for the first time since 1960, Benfica returned to UEFA competition in 2003–04. They entered that season's Champions League in the third qualifying round, but defeats against Lazio demoted them to the UEFA Cup. There, the team played their first European match at the new Estádio da Luz (3–1 win against Molde) and reached the fourth round, where they were eliminated by Inter Milan with a 4–3 away loss. After another season without playing in the Champions League, Benfica returned to UEFA's main competition in 2005–06, where they achieved their best performance in eleven years. Benfica knocked Manchester United out of the competition in the group stage and eliminated title holders Liverpool in the subsequent round, grabbing the club's first-ever win at Anfield. In the quarter-finals, Benfica were eliminated by Barcelona after a 2–0 loss at Camp Nou. The next two seasons were fairly similar; in 2006–07 and 2007–08, Benfica finished third in the group stage and were demoted to the UEFA Cup, where they reached the quarter-finals. In 2009–10, Benfica had a noteworthy run in the newly created UEFA Europa League, progressing all the way from the play-off round to the quarter-finals. Their campaign featured a 5–0 thrashing of English side Everton in the group stage and an aggregate 3–2 defeat of Marseille in the round of 16 The following season, Benfica returned to the Champions League, but as in 2006–07 and 2007–08, they were demoted to the Europa League. This time, however, the team overcame the quarter-final stage to reach their first European semi-final in 17 years. In the first ever European match between Portuguese teams, Benfica were surprised by Braga and missed the chance to qualify to the final. Benfica improved their European performance in the 2011–12 Champions League, progressing all the way to the quarter-finals. In the group stage, Benfica topped their group – knocking Manchester United out of European competitions once again – and defeated Zenit Saint Petersbourg in the last 16 before losing 3–1 on aggregate to Chelsea. In the 2012–13 and 2013–14 seasons, Benfica's run in the Champions League was not so successful, but the club managed to reach two Europa League finals, the first of them 23 years after their last appearance in a European final. Benfica lost the first final on 17 May 2013 to then Champions League holders Chelsea, with a 2–1 injury-time header from Branislav Ivanović, and drew 0–0 against Sevilla on 15 May 2014, losing the match penalty shoot-out 4–2. This extended the club's run of European final unsuccesses to eight, in a total of ten finals – a domestic record that ranked seventh all-time among UEFA clubs in 2014. In the mid 2010s, Benfica reached the Champions League knockout stage twice in a row for the first time. They qualified to the quarter-finals for a 18th time in 2015–16, where they lost 3–2 on aggregate to Bayern Munich, and were eliminated by Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16 in 2016–17. The following season, Benfica did not advance to the later stages of UEFA's prime tournament, setting the worst ever performance by a Portuguese team in the competition's group stage, with 6 losses and a negative goal difference of 13. Moreoever, by losing 5–0 to Basel, they equalled their previous biggest loss in the competition, against Borussia Dortmund in 1963–64. ### Competitive record Last updated: 2 September 2023 Note: Benfica score is always listed first. ## Records Benfica were the first Portuguese side to reach the final of the European Cup, the first to win it and the only one to this day to win the trophy in consecutive years. In the 1960s, they reached the final five times, more than any other team, surpassing Real Madrid and Milan, who reached three finals each. Their ten European finals are also a domestic record, and with 42 participations in the Champions League (formerly the European Cup), only Real Madrid has played more seasons in the competition. - Most appearances in European competition: Luisão, 127 - Most goals in European competition: Eusébio, 56 - First European match: Sevilla 3–1 Benfica in the European Cup, on 19 September 1957 - Biggest win: Benfica 10–0 Stade Dudelange in the European Cup, on 5 October 1965 - First goal in European competition: Francisco Palmeiro, in the 40th minute against Sevilla, on 19 September 1957 - Biggest defeat: Celta Vigo 7–0 Benfica in the UEFA Cup, on 25 November 1999 - Highest European home attendance: 110,000, against Marseille in the European Cup, on 18 April 1990 ### By competition ### By country ### Finals #### UEFA competitions #### Other international competitions ### Semi-finals #### UEFA competitions #### Other international competitions ## See also - List of UEFA club competition winners

Luggala

Mountain in Wicklow, Ireland

Luggala (), also called Fancy Mountain () at 595 metres (1,952 ft), is the 230th-highest peak in Ireland on the Arderin scale. Being below 600 metres (2,000 ft), it does not rank on the Vandeleur-Lynam or Hewitt scales. Luggala is in the northeastern section of the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, and overlooks the Lough Tay, which lies at the base of the steep granite cliffs on Luggala's eastern face. As well as a noted scenic point in County Wicklow, Luggala's eastern cliffs have many graded rock-climbing routes. Luggala Lodge, Lough Tay and 5,000 acres of surrounding land are owned by Luggala Estate Ltd an Irish company ultimately owned by Romito SA - Switzerland, a company with global investments at the forefront of environmental and heritage conservation. The estate dates from the 18th century when it was developed by the La Touche family, and then by the Guinness family from 1937 to its sale in 2019. The estate was the location of several films (e.g. Braveheart in 1995), and television series (e.g. Vikings from 2013), as well as visits by notable artists and musicians (e.g. the Beatles and Michael Jackson). There are no public rights of way or rights of access to any of the estate. Pedestrian access to certain areas of the estate is - when possible and feasible - granted to walkers respecting the endangered and fragile ecosystem and the Estate’s published “code of conduct”. ## Naming Historian Liam Price notes that Luggala, , was also known as Fancy, from , and also as Cloghoge (the nearby Cloghoge River drains Lough Tay into Lough Dan). According to Irish academic Paul Tempan, "Price's interpretation of this name [Luggala] as Log an Lágh, or 'hollow of the hill', is doubtful"; pointing out that there is no evidence in any Irish language dictionaries for the existence of the term "lágh". He also notes that the other term "Lá" is unlikely to be a translation of "day"; instead, Tempan records the translation as unresolved listing it in Irish Hill and Mountain Names as "hollow of the [obscure element]". ## Geography Luggala is in the northeastern section of the Wicklow Mountains, and directly overlooks Lough Tay, which lies at the base of steep granite cliffs on Luggala's east face; Luggala's other slopes are of a much gentler gradient, and are mostly covered in heather. The mountain is a largely isolated peak, with a deep valley between itself and its only neighbour, the peak of Knocknacloghoge 534 metres (1,752 ft) to the immediate south. Luggala is overlooked from the far north-east by the larger massif of Djouce at 725 metres (2,379 ft). Luggala is the 230th-highest peak in Ireland on the Arderin scale, Being below 600 metres (2,000 ft) in height, Luggala does not rank on the Vandeleur-Lynam or Hewitt scales. ## Luggala Estate The Luggala Estate is a 5,000-acre (2,000 hectares) estate (also known as the “Guinness Estate” after the Guinness family) designated an EU Natura 2000 habitat as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Area (SPA); it is located in a “Blue Dot” high-water catchment area as designated under the EU Water Framework Directive. In 2018, the Luggala Estate included the mountains of Luggala and Knocknacloghoge, the entire lake of Lough Tay, and part of the lake of Lough Dan. The estate was developed by the La Touche family, who founded the Bank of Ireland. In 1787, Peter LaTouche built the gothic Luggala Lodge (or "Luggala Castle"), as a hunting lodge which he modelled on Strawberry Hill House in London. In 1937, Ernest Guinness purchased the Luggala Estate from Viscount Powerscourt and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter Oonagh on her second marriage, to Lord Oranmore and Browne; she then gifted the property to her son Garech in 1970. Notable family members buried on the estate include Tara Browne, whose death in a car accident was an inspiration for the Beatles song "A Day in the Life". Luggala was owned by arts patron Garech Browne, the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, until his death in 2018. By 2018, Luggala Lodge was a 7,437 square feet (690.9 m²), seven-bedroom property, and the entire estate had 16,379 square feet (1,521.7 m²) of residential property. The buildings on the estate, including the Lodge, have been rented out commercially, and have included famous guests such as Mick Jagger, the Beatles, and latterly, Michael Jackson. The estate and grounds have been used as the location of some films, including The Hard Way (1979), Zardoz (1974), Excalibur (1981), Braveheart (1995), and King Arthur (2004), as well as the historical drama television series Vikings (from 2013), where it is featured as the fictional village of Kattegat. In 2017, before his death, Browne put the entire estate up for sale with an asking price of 28 million euros. In 2006, Browne had sold 1,600 acres (650 ha) of the estate to the Irish state for 1.6 million euros, and it is now part of the Wicklow Mountains National Park. On 27 August 2019, the Irish Times reported that the estate had been sold to an overseas buyer at a "substantial discount" to the asking price. In October 2019, several newspapers reported that the estate had been bought by the Count Padulli di Vighignolo for a sum estimated at 20 million euros. In December 2019, RTÉ aired a documentary titled Last Days at Luggala on Garech Browne's final years on the estate, up until his death in 2018. In January 2020, a minor part of the estate of Garech Browne, was auctioned at Sotheby's in London. In March 2020 the maintenance and repair of the estate's 18th and 19th-century livestock infrastructure encompassing almost 50 km of dry walls began with the help of Wicklow’s craftsmen versed in the techniques of the time. In May 2021, Luggala Estate Ltd committed and has started to undertake a multi-decade-long, self-funded, peatland rewetting and restoration programme aimed at bringing back the integrity of the habitats and the ecology degraded by peat harvesting, intensive grazing and neglect. The initiative represents Luggala’s initial response towards climate and biodiversity emergencies, and reactivates a proven natural process of carbon sequestration. ## Access There are no public rights of way or rights of access to any of the estate. However, owners have permitted public access to certain parts of the estate via the present pedestrian access gate (the Pier Gate) if this were not to interfere with the Estate activities and the privacy of its residents. In 2018, the Barbican International Corporation (BIC), a Guinness family Guernsey-based trust who controlled the Luggala Estate, erected new "private property" signage and a notice on a gate just off the R759 road frequently used by the public – called the "Pier gate" – that it would be locked after 5.30. The action led to protests by hill-walking groups, and calls on the Irish state to purchase the Luggala Estate – which was being offered for sale by the BIC trust for Euro 28 million – and which was bordered on three sides by the Wicklow Mountains National Park. From November 2019 Luggala Estate Ltd has reinstated - when feasible - pedestrian access to areas of the estate to responsible walkers respecting an environmental “code of conduct” and signage has been taken down. ## Recreation ### Hillwalking Access permitting, the most common route to the summit of Luggala is from the public access gate on the R759 – known as the "Pier gates" (). This 7-kilometre (4.3 mi), circa 2.5-hour route (to the summit and back), descends a tarmac road down to the bridge of Cloghoge River, where it then leaves the road (that continues on to Lough Dan), to ascend up the 400 metres (1,300 ft) long shoulder to the summit ridge of Luggala; the path is then retraced back to the Pier gates. There is a sandy/gravel mountain path from just beyond the bridge of Cloghoge River, that cuts through the ferns and heathers on Luggala, to the final summit ridge, however, it can be difficult to find in poor weather or low visibility. A longer 12-kilometre (7.5 mi), circa 5-hour route, incorporates the neighbouring peak of Knocknacloghoge and Lough Dan, before returning to the Pier gates; it is described as "surely one of the most scenic walks in the Wicklow Mountains". ### Rock climbing Luggala's east-facing granite cliffs are a rock-climbing location, however, route-finding can be difficult and the conditions are described as a "serious mountain crag". As of July 2019, the online climbing database lists 129 climbs, with the majority in the Very Severe (VS) 4c to E1 5b rock climbing grade categories, however, there are also several extreme routes such as Precious Metal (E7 6c), and The Great Roof (E6 5c, 6c). The Irish Online Climbing Database records five major sections: G & H Buttresses, Woody Wall & Conifer Buttress (Creag Conaisreach), South Buttress (Creag Fasra), Main Face, and North Buttress (Creag Thuaidh). It notes the rock is coarser with better friction than that of Glendalough, however, in contrast to Glendalough, the routes are less direct and do not follow obvious crack-lines; it also notes that the zig-zag nature of routes means that an ability to use double-rope techniques is important to avoid friction drag. Classic climbs are Pine Tree Buttress (S 4a), Muskrat Ramble (HVC 4b, 5a, 4c), and Dance of the Tumblers (E1 5b). ## See also - Wicklow Way - Wicklow Round - Wicklow Mountains - Lists of mountains in Ireland - List of historic houses in the Republic of Ireland

Philippines at the 2020 Summer Olympics

Philippines at the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo

The Philippines competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Originally scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020, the Games were postponed to 23 July to 8 August 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the nation's official debut in 1924, Filipino athletes have appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games except the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because of the nation's partial support for the US-led boycott. The Philippine Olympic Committee fielded a team of 19 athletes, nine men and ten women, to compete in eleven different sports at the Games. The Philippines marked its Olympic debut in skateboarding (new to the 2020 Games), as well as its return to gymnastics and rowing. The Philippines left Tokyo with its best Olympic performance ever, bringing home four medals. This surpassed the three medals the country won at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The first-ever gold medal for the Philippines was won by weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz. The country's other medals, all in boxing, were a silver courtesy of Nesthy Petecio, a silver medal by Carlo Paalam, and a bronze medal by Eumir Marcial. ## Medalists ## Background ### Administration Philippine Football Federation president Mariano Araneta was appointed in August 2019 as chef de mission of the Filipino delegation to the Games by Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham Tolentino. Araneta was selected for his availability because his national sports association did not qualify a team for the Olympics. Araneta succeeded Joey Romasanta who had been appointed as chef de mission for the same edition of the Olympics by Tolentino's predecessor, Ricky Vargas. The Philippine Sports Commission, the Philippine government's sports agency, provided for the country's participation in the Olympics. The Philippines also sent five technical officials to the 2020 Summer Olympics: Karla Cabrera (archery), Marilee Estampador (fencing), Len Escollante (canoe), Jercyl Lerin (rowing) and Ferdinand Pascual (basketball). ### Qualification The Philippines aimed to qualify around 38 athletes for the Olympics, but only 19 athletes ultimately qualified. The Philippines made failed attempts to qualify athletes in archery, basketball (including 3x3), cycling, fencing, karate, surfing, and windsurfing. The country also intended to qualify athletes in canoeing, but had to withdraw its athletes from the Asian qualifiers due to a positive COVID-19 result. ### Opening and closing ceremonies For the opening ceremony, it was announced on 7 July 2021 that pole vaulter EJ Obiena and judoka Kiyomi Watanabe would be the flagbearers of the Philippines. However, Obiena was dropped as one of the flagbearers, after a new protocol was introduced which required flagbearers to be in Tokyo forty-eight hours prior to the opening ceremony. Obiena was set to arrive on 23 July, the date when the opening ceremony was scheduled to be held. Boxer Eumir Marcial was announced as Obiena's replacement. In the Parade of Nations, the Philippine delegation was represented by six officials and two athletes. The officials wore ready-to-wear barong from the Filipino clothing company Kultura, topped off by a shawl made by Filipino fashion designer Rajo Laurel. The two athletes who served as flagbearers wore the tracksuits supplied by Asics. Boxer Nesthy Petecio was named as flagbearer for the closing ceremony. ### Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic The delegation was affected by travel restrictions imposed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filipino businessman Enrique Razon has pledged to procure COVID-19 vaccines for the Philippine delegation from Moderna. Some athletes who had training outside the Philippines were vaccinated in their host countries. The Philippine delegation was somewhat affected by the disease, with at least two officials contracting COVID-19. No Filipino athlete tested positive for COVID-19 during the duration of the games. A sports official was unable to join the delegation after testing positive for COVID-19 when they were still in Manila. Another member of Team Philippines, a foreign coach who arrived in Tokyo was suspected to have contracted COVID-19 after routine testing yielded false positive and negative results. The coach, who at one point experienced fever, was isolated from the rest of the delegation. Rower Cris Nievarez was a close contact of a COVID-19 case which caused uncertainty whether he would be able to compete. Nievarez was able to take part in his event. ### Broadcasters ## Competitors In total, the Philippines qualified nineteen athletes competing in eleven sports for the 2020 Summer Olympics, making the delegation the largest since the 2000 Summer Olympics, when the country fielded 20 athletes. For the first time, there were more women (10 athletes) than men (9 athletes) competing for the country in the Olympics. The average age of the Philippines' athletes was 25 years; the oldest member being Juvic Pagunsan (43 years old) and the youngest being Yuka Saso (20 years old). All athletes except for Hidilyn Diaz (who has made four consecutive appearances since the 2008 Summer Olympics) were first time competitors in the games. The following is the list of number of competitors in the Games. ## Athletics Filipino athletes competed in the following track and field events (up to a maximum of 3 athletes in each event): Pole vaulter EJ Obiena, who was the first athlete of the Philippines to qualify for the Olympics in 2019, underwent training with Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov. Kristina Marie Knott, who trained under Rohsaan Griffin. Knott aimed to compete in the women's 200 m, but participated in a number of 100 m races in the run-up to the Olympics due to a dearth of 200 m competitions, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.Obiena and Knott were due to move to the Athletes Village for their stay in Tokyo, but the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) decided against this, as a coach in the village had tested positive for COVID-19. PATAFA decided that the athletes should remain in a nearby hotel and hired the service of a private vehicle to transport its athletes to and from the training venue. Obiena, who had a personal best of 5.91 meters in the men's pole vault, cleared 5.75 meters to qualify for the final on his third attempt. However, after he failed to clear 5.80 meters, he ultimately placed eleventh. Knott finished last among five runners in her heat in the women's 200 m. Experiencing heat exhaustion, she was rushed to a nearby medical station after she finished her race. She finished thirty-seventh overall among the 41 runners in the heats. Track & road events Field events ## Boxing The Philippines entered four boxers (two per gender) into the Olympic tournament. 2019 world silver medalist Eumir Marcial (men's middleweight) and 2019 Southeast Asian Games runner-up Irish Magno (women's flyweight) secured places in their respective weight divisions. Reigning world champion Nesthy Petecio (women's featherweight) and Carlo Paalam (men's flyweight) completed the nation's boxing lineup by topping the list of eligible boxers from Asia and Oceania in their respective weight divisions after the World Olympic Boxing Qualifier tournament, due to be held in Paris, France, was cancelled. Quarantine measures imposed in the Philippines in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on training, with some boxers reportedly gaining an extra 10 kilograms (22 lb) of weight due a lack of exercise while stranded in their homes. Eumir Marcial prepared for the Olympics in the United States, while the three other qualified boxers were sent to a training camp in Thailand. The boxing team trained with Australian consultant coach Don Abnett. The draw which determined the Filipino boxers' opponent was held on 22 July 2021. Three out of the four boxers ultimately won a medal. Irish Magno lost to Jutamas Jitpong in the round of 16, eliminating her from contention for a podium finish. Nesthy Petecio progressed all the way to the gold medal match, but lost to Japanese boxer Sena Irie, winning silver instead. Petecio became the first female Olympic medalist in boxing for the Philippines. Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial won silver and bronze, respectively. ## Golf The Philippines entered three golfers (one male and two female) into the Olympic tournament. Juvic Pagunsan (world no. 216), Yuka Saso (world no. 8), and Bianca Pagdanganan (world no. 165) qualified directly among the top 60 eligible players for their respective events based on the IGF World Rankings. ## Gymnastics ### Artistic The Philippines entered an artistic gymnast into the Olympic competition for the first time since 1968. Nineteen-year-old Carlos Yulo booked a spot in the men's individual all-around and apparatus events by topping the list of twelve gymnasts eligible for qualification at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. Yulo is the first Filipino born in the 2000s to qualify for the Summer Olympics. Yulo, after competing at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines, went to Japan to prepare for the Olympics. However, he had an eight-month hiatus, with his next competition after the SEA Games being the All-Japan Senior Gymnastics Championships held in September 2020. He was considered a strong contender to win the country's first gold medal in the floor exercise, his signature event. In the event, Yulo qualified only for the vault finals. In the floor exercise, Yulo failed to execute a landing in the early part of his routine. His second landing was self-described as "not good either". Yulo insisted that he was not affected by pressure or nervousness during his floor exercise performance and dismissed reports that he was nursing an injury, which he said he had sustained over three months ago. Yulo's coach Munehiro Kugiyama took responsibility for Yulo's failure to advance to the floor exercise finals. Yulo stated that he did not expect to qualify for the vault finals, and admitted his surprise with his performance in that apparatus' qualifiers. Tempering expectations that he would medal in vault, he nevertheless pledged to improve his previous score. Yulo finished fourth in the vault finals. Yulo incurred a penalty in his first vault when he missed his footing and had a misstep narrowly costing him a podium finish. Men ## Judo The Philippines qualified one judoka for the women's half-middleweight category (63 kg) at the Games. Kiyomi Watanabe accepted a continental berth from the Asian zone as the nation's top-ranked judoka. Watanabe faced Cristina Cabaña of Spain in the round of 32. Watanabe went for an attack on Cabaña but momentarily lost balance. This prompted Cabaña to take advantage of the situation, executing a sumi otoshi or corner throw on Watanabe. The throw was deemed to have resulted to an ippon ending the match in less than a minute. The throw was initially judged as a waza-ari, but the referee upgraded the decision to an ippon. ## Rowing For the first time since 2000, the Philippines qualified a boat in the men's single sculls for the Olympic Games. Cris Nievarez secured the fourth of five berths available at the 2021 FISA Asia & Oceania Olympic Qualification Regatta in Tokyo, Japan. Nievarez was the first athlete from the Philippine delegation to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympics. Ahead of the opening ceremony on 23 July, Nievarez clocked 7:22.97 in Heat 5 of the men's single sculls event, qualifying for the quarterfinals. In the heat, he finished behind Damir Martin of Croatia (7:09.17) and Alexander Vyazovkin of the ROC team (7:14.95). Nievarez, ended his bid for an Olympic medal after he placed fifth among rowers in his quarterfinal heat. He advanced to the semifinal C/D to determine his final placing. He finished 23rd overall out of 32 rowers after competing in the classification final D. According to Philippine Rowing Association president, Patrick Gregorio, Nievarez's performance was "beyond expectations". Nievarez was the first rower representing the Philippines to advance to the quarterfinals. Qualification Legend: FA=Final A (medal); FB=Final B (non-medal); FC=Final C (non-medal); FD=Final D (non-medal); FE=Final E (non-medal); FF=Final F (non-medal); SA/B=Semifinals A/B; SC/D=Semifinals C/D; SE/F=Semifinals E/F; QF=Quarterfinals; R=Repechage ## Shooting The Philippines granted an invitation from ISSF to send Jayson Valdez in the men's rifle shooting to the Olympics, as long as the minimum qualifying score (MQS) was fulfilled by 6 June 2021, marking the nation's return to the sport for the first time since London 2012. Valdez, competing in the men's 10 m air rifle, failed to advance to that event's final. He scored 612.6 in the qualification round, placing him as the 44th best shooter among 47 competitors. ## Skateboarding The Philippines entered one skateboarder into the Olympic tournament. Asian Games champion Margielyn Didal was automatically selected among the top 16 eligible skateboarders in the women's street based on the World Skate Olympic Rankings. Competing in the women's street event, Didal advanced to the finals after finishing with 12.02 points. In the final, Didal finished in 7th place, having a total score of 7.52. Didal was only able to land her second trick (out of five) and reportedly had an ankle sprain. After her participation, Didal stated that she competed with an ankle injury which she sustained on her last day of training while she was in Los Angeles. ## Swimming The Philippines received an invitation from FINA to send two top-ranked swimmers (one per gender) in their respective individual events to the Olympics. Luke Gebbie and Remedy Rule qualified by satisfying the Olympic Standard Time for their respective individual events. Gebbie is the Philippine national recordholder in the men's 100m freestyle while Rule is the Philippine national recordholder in the women's 100m butterfly. Rule failed to progress to the semifinals of the women's 100 m butterfly. However, she advanced to the semifinals of the 200 m butterfly, since there were only 16 competing swimmers (with the top 16 in the heats qualifying to the semifinals). She failed to advance to the 200 m butterfly finals after placing fifteenth. Gebbie likewise failed to advance to the semifinals of both events he competed in. While he finished first during his heat in the men's 50 m freestyle with a time of 22.84 seconds, he ultimately placed 41st of 73 participants. In the men's 100 m freestyle he clocked a time of 49.64 seconds, breaking both his personal record and the Philippine national record of 49.94 seconds, which he had set during the 2019 FINA World Championships. ## Taekwondo The Philippines entered one athlete into the taekwondo competition at the Games. Kurt Barbosa secured a spot in the men's flyweight category (58 kg) with a top two finish at the 2021 Asian Qualification Tournament in Amman, Jordan. Barbosa was drawn to face top-ranked South Korean athlete Jang Jun, who also won gold in the 2019 World Taekwondo Championships, in the Round of 16. Barbosa lost to Jang, but he could have still played in the repechage to potentially clinch a bronze medal if the South Korean reached the final. However Jang lost to Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi of Tunisia, which ended Barbosa's Olympic campaign. ## Weightlifting The Philippines entered two weightlifters into the Olympic competition. Rio 2016 silver medalist Hidilyn Diaz qualified second of the eight highest-ranked weightlifters in the women's 55 kg category, with rookie Elreen Ando also qualifying by virtue of heading the rankings of weightlifters from the Asian zone in the women's 64 kg category. Diaz was supported by Jeaneth Aro (sports nutritionist), Karen Trinidad (sports psychologist), Gao Kaiwen (head coach; from China), and Julius Naranjo (strength and conditioning mentor). She had been separated from her family since December 2019. In February 2020, Diaz went to Malaysia as part of her preparations for the Olympic Games, per the direction of coach Gao. However, she became stranded in the country due to COVID-19 pandemic-related travel restrictions. Her training in Malaysia was also disrupted by the movement control order imposed in the country, which affected the availability of gyms. Diaz, competing in the women's −55 kg, won the first-ever gold medal for the Philippines. She lifted 97 kg in the snatch and 127 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 224 kg, bettering Liao Qiuyun of China by a single kilo. Her score in the clean and jerk and her overall total score established new Olympic records. It was also the first time Diaz was ever to perform a 127 kg lift in the clean and jerk; she had only been able to successfully lift 125 kg while she was training. Diaz is the first Filipino competitor to win two consecutive Olympic medals since Teófilo Yldefonso in 1928 and 1932. Elreen Ando, for her part, finished 7th in her event, but managed to set new Philippine national records in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total in her weight class. ## See also - Philippines at the 2020 Summer Paralympics

Kid Icarus: Uprising

2012 video game

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a third-person shooter video game developed by Project Sora and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. Released worldwide in March 2012, it is the third installment in the Kid Icarus franchise, the first to be released since Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters in 1991, and the first worldwide release since the original NES game in 1986. It is also the only video game Project Sora made before shutting down in mid-2012. Kid Icarus: Uprising takes place in a setting based loosely around Greek mythology. The main protagonist is the angel Pit, servant to the Goddess of Light, Palutena. When the Goddess of Darkness Medusa returns to destroy humanity, Pit goes on missions first against her, then against the forces of Hades, the Lord of the Underworld and the source behind Medusa's return. During gameplay, the player controls Pit during airborne rail shooter segments and ground-based third-person shooter segments. In addition to the single-player campaign, various collectable and unlockable items can be obtained, and several multiplayer modes are available for up to six players. Masahiro Sakurai created Uprising after receiving a request from Satoru Iwata to create a launch title for the then in-development Nintendo 3DS. Development began in 2009, but faced multiple difficulties, such as lack of access to the hardware in its early stages, balancing its many elements, and issues with its control scheme. Sakurai was responsible for writing the story, which retained the lighthearted tone of the first Kid Icarus game while having uninterrupted gameplay. A team of composers worked on the music, including Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, and Yasunori Mitsuda. Since release, Uprising has sold over a million copies worldwide and received mainly positive reviews; praise was given to the story, characters, graphics, music, and gameplay, although the control scheme was frequently criticized. Elements from the game are prominently featured in the Super Smash Bros. series from its fourth installment onwards. ## Gameplay Kid Icarus: Uprising is a third-person shooter where players control of the angel Pit during his missions for Palutena, the Goddess of Light. Gameplay is divided into aerial-based rail shooter segments and ground-based segments that feature both linear paths and free-roaming areas. The game's difficulty, or Intensity, is determined by betting hearts in the Fiend's Cauldron before beginning each mission. The difficulty ranges from the very easy "0.0" to the highly difficult "9.0". Pit's combat abilities are divided between long-range attacks using gun-like weapons, and close-quarters melee attacks. During missions, defeating enemies grants the player hearts, the game's currency, which is used to increase difficulty by laying bets against the player's own performance. As the game progresses, Pit gains access to weapons separated into nine types, each with unique advantages and disadvantages: bows, bracer-like claws, blades (a combination of a sword and a gun), clubs, orbitars (twin orbs hovering near Pit), staffs, arms (a weapon that fits around his wrist), palms (magical tattoos covering Pit's arm), and cannons. Once equipped, weapons can be tested in the game's Practice Range. Using the 3DS' StreetPass network, players can share weapons with other players in the form of Weapon Gems. Other players can pay hearts to convert the gem into a weapon. Hearts can be spent to upgrade weapons or fuse Weapon Gems, and gained by dismantling unwanted weapons or converting Weapon Gems. Each chapter begins with an aerial battle, consisting of an on-rails shooter segment, with Pit being guided along a predetermined path. During these stages, the player moves Pit with the Circle Pad, aims with either the 3DS' stylus or face buttons, and fires with the L button. Not firing for a time allows the player to fire a powerful Charge Shot, which kills several enemies at once. Once on the ground, players control Pit as he traverses through the level, which features more open spaces and hidden areas unlocked when playing on certain difficulties. Pit can either shoot enemies from a distance or attack them up close with melee attacks, while also performing various moves to dodge enemy attacks. The main controls are carried over from aerial segments, but their assigned actions alter slightly. When an enemy strikes Pit, his health bar is depleted, and can be replenished with items scattered throughout levels. If sufficiently damaged, the health bar vanishes and Crisis Mode is activated: this will either end naturally or ended by fully replenishing health with a "Drink of the Gods" item. If Pit is defeated, the player is given the option to continue, but some Hearts are lost from the Fiend's Cauldron and the difficulty is lowered. Completing a level without dying grants additional rewards. In ground-based levels, Pit can take control of various vehicles for short stretches, gaining special attacks unique to each vehicle type. Each stage ends in a ground-based boss battle. Pit has the ability to sprint during ground-based gameplay, but sprinting for too long uses up his stamina and leaves him vulnerable to attack. Uprising supports both local and online multiplayer. Along with the game's single-player story mode, the game also features multiplayer for up to six players locally or via Wi-Fi. Players can compete in team-based cooperative matches or free-for-all melees using standard fighter characters. In the team-based mode, named Light vs. Dark, each team has a health meter that depletes when a player is defeated. The value of the player's weapon determines how far the meter depletes after death, and the player whose death depletes the meter completely will become their team's angel, a more powerful character who represents the team. The match ends when the other team's angel is defeated. In addition to normal ways of playing, Uprising comes bundled with a 3DS stand for the platform for ease of play. Augmented Reality (AR) Cards are collectible and can be used as part of a card contest. Using the 3DS' outer camera, the AR Cards produce "Idols" (representations of characters from Uprising): by lining up the back edges of two AR Cards and selecting the "Fight" option, Idols appear from the cards and battle each other, with the winner being determined by its statistics. ## Synopsis Twenty-five years after the first game, the Goddess of Darkness, Medusa, mysteriously resurrects and sets out to conquer the world. In response, Palutena sends Pit on missions to destroy Medusa's forces, and he fights her returning commanders Twinbellows, Hewdraw, Pandora, and Thanatos, as well as the new commander Dark Lord Gaol with help from a human mercenary named Magnus. In the battle with her, Pandora uses a magical mirror that spawns a doppelgänger of Pit called Dark Pit, intending to use him as a slave. However, because Pit destroys the mirror before he could be completed, Dark Pit turns against Pandora, steals her powers from her corpse, and vows to kill the gods to stop the conflict, as well as Pit in the belief he is the original. After briefly tailing him, Pit eventually gains the key to the Underworld from the defeated Thanatos, then retrieves the Three Sacred Treasures from space and travels to the Underworld, where he kills Medusa with Dark Pit's assistance. As the credits roll, it is revealed that Medusa was a resurrected puppet of Hades, the ruler of the Underworld who has been using the war to harvest the souls of humans and turn them into monsters to build his army. He spreads a rumor about a wish-granting seed guarded by a Phoenix, turning humanity against each other and prompting Viridi, the Goddess of Nature, to intervene;. Angered by both sides' desecration of Earth, Viridi and her army, the Forces of Nature, drop nuclear weapons called Reset Bombs that create artificial forests. This forces Pit and Palutena to focus on Viridi, destroying the Reset Bombs' depot and defeating her commanders, Arlon and Phosphora. Before Pit and Palutena can defeat Viridi, the deities' ongoing battles prompt a hive mind alien race called the Aurum to invade Earth for its resources. With assistance from the sun god, Pyrrhon, Pit and the deities reluctantly unite against the threat, but in the final battle against the Aurum Brain, Pyrrhon betrays the deities and attempts to gain power by taking over the Aurum Brain, but is taken over himself. Viridi saves Pit, who defeats the Aurum Brain, and Pyrrhon takes them away from Earth. Though peace is briefly restored, Pit wakes up three years later in the form of a ring, and after reclaiming his body with help from Magnus, he learns that, in his battle with Arlon, an insectoid monster called the Chaos Kin from another dimension escaped. The Chaos Kin devours others' souls to puppeteer them; its latest victim is Palutena, who, under its control, incapacitated Pit and sent her army against humanity, bringing them to the brink of extinction. Pit is forced to ally with a somewhat-reformed Viridi to save Palutena and humanity, but is unable to reach her temple since it is guarded by a forcefield. He claims the Lightning Chariot to break through the barrier and infiltrates the temple. He frees Palutena of the Chaos Kin, but it steals her soul and turns her to stone. Pit and Viridi follow the Chaos Kin into its dimension, and with the aid of Dark Pit, who has discovered he and Pit have a symbiotic relationship, they kill the Chaos Kin and restore Palutena. However, the Chaos Kin makes a desperate strike against Dark Pit, and Pit overuses his Power of Flight to save him, burning his wings and leaving him on the brink of death. To save him, Palutena and Viridi direct Dark Pit to a fountain called the Rewind Spring, where his wings can be restored. Pandora, who has been hiding in Dark Pit's wings, uses the Spring to reclaim her body but is defeated by Dark Pit, who revives Pit but loses Pandora's powers. Pit attempts to destroy Hades with the Three Sacred Treasures, but Hades easily destroys them and consumes him. After escaping from Hades' insides, Palutena guides Pit to the home of Dyntos, God of the Forge, who fashions a mecha called the Great Sacred Treasure after Pit proves himself worthy in three trials. Pit succeeds in injuring Hades, but the Great Sacred Treasure is badly damaged, leaving only its cannon intact. Hades attempts to launch a massive attack on Pit and a nearby town, but Medusa, whom Hades revived again, sacrifices herself to create an opening. With Palutena's and Viridi's help, Pit uses the cannon to vaporize Hades and save humanity. As he and Dark Pit celebrate among the townspeople, he manages to talk Viridi down from another attack. If the player waits five minutes after the credits end, a disembodied Hades speaks to the player, pretending to delete their save data and postulating that he will return for the next sequel in another twenty-five years. ## Development After completing work on Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, Masahiro Sakurai was taken out for a meal by Nintendo's then-president Satoru Iwata in July 2008. During their meal, Iwata asked Sakurai to develop a launch title for the Nintendo 3DS. The platform was still in early development at the time, with Sakurai being the first person outside of the company to learn of its existence. On his way home, Sakurai was faced with both ideas and problems: Sora Ltd., which had developed Super Smash Bros. Brawl, had been drastically reduced in size as most of the game's staff had been either from other Nintendo teams or outsourced. While he had the option of creating an easy-to-develop port for the system, Sakurai decided to create a game around the third-person shooter genre, which was unpopular in Japan yet seemed suited to the planned 3D effects of the 3DS. At this point, the project was still an original game. In later conversations with Iwata, Sakurai decided to use an existing Nintendo IP as the game's basis. This was inspired by feedback received from players of Super Smash Bros. Brawl that many members of its character roster had not been in an original game for some time. After a positive response from Iwata at the suggestion, Sakurai ran through the possible franchises. One of the franchises under consideration by Sakurai was Star Fox, but he felt that there were some restrictions in implementing the planned gameplay features within the Star Fox setting. He ultimately decided to use Kid Icarus due to its long absence from the gaming market and continued popularity in the West. He also decided upon him due to his involvement with the character through Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Once he had chosen a possible series, he conceived the basic sequence of five-minute aerial segments, ground-based combat, and bosses at the end of chapters. After submitting his plan, Sakurai was given the go-ahead to develop the game. Uprising was the first Kid Icarus game to be developed since the Western-exclusive 1991 Game Boy title Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, and the first to be planned for Japan since the original Kid Icarus in 1986. Sakurai took responsibility for writing the game's story and script himself. With video game stories, Sakurai believes that developers lack an ability to balance story-based gameplay hindrances with the prerequisite of victory over enemies. To this end, he was obsessed with striking that balance with Uprising, and so wrote the entire story script himself. He did this so he could write a story that "jibed" with the flow and style of gameplay. The characters' roles and personalities were shaped by their roles in the game and the game structure itself. He also wanted the dialogue to mesh perfectly with the story and music: by writing the script himself, Sakurai was able to sidestep the necessity of explaining to another writer all the time. This also made fine tuning much easier for him. While retaining the first game's Greek mythic influences, the mythology itself had no direct influence on the story of Uprising. Sakurai also wanted to make sure that the game's Greek influence did not stray in the same direction as the God of War series. For the main story, Sakurai avoided portraying a simple good versus evil situation; instead, he had the various factions coming into conflict due to clashing views rather than openly malicious intentions, with their overlapping conflicts creating escalating levels of chaos for players to experience. Rather than relying on standalone cutscenes, the majority of story dialogue was incorporated into gameplay. What cutscenes there were, were made as short as possible. Events after Chapter 6 were deliberately kept secret during the run-up to release so players would be taken by surprise by what they experienced. The character of Palutena, a damsel in distress in the original game, was reworked as Pit's partner and support. The original idea was for Pit to have a mascot character as his support, but was abandoned in favor of Palutena. Pit and Palutena's dialogue was influenced by the traditions of Japanese double acts. Dark Pit was written as a mirror image of Pit rather than an evil twin. A key element was retaining the humorous elements from the first game, such as anachronistic elements and silly enemy designs. This attitude, as observed by Sakurai, contrasted sharply with the weighty or grim character stories present in the greater majority of video games. The story was originally three chapters longer than the final version, but these additional parts needed to be cut during early development. ### Design In November 2008, after Sakurai was given the go-ahead to develop Uprising, he rented out an office in Takadanobaba, a district of Tokyo. At this stage, due to the game's platform still being in early development, there were no development tools available for Sakurai to use. Between November and March 2009, Sakurai finalized his vision for the game. During this period, to help design the game's settings and characters, Sakurai hired several outside illustrators to work on concept art: Toshio Noguchi, Akifumi Yamamoto and Masaki Hirooka. The art style was inspired by manga. In January 2009, development studio Project Sora was established for Uprising's development. At its inception, it had a staff of 30. With the start of active recruitment in March, the game officially entered development: at the time, it was the very first game to be in development for the new platform. During this early stage, due to the lack of platform specific development tools, the team were developing the game on Wii hardware and personal computers. The changing specifications of the developing hardware resulted in multiple features undergoing major revisions. This hardware instability led to a protracted development cycle: in the event, the team managed to fully utilize the platform's capabilities, doing detailed work on how many enemies they could show on the screen at any one time. Debugging also took a long time due to the size and variability of gameplay built into Uprising. From the start, Uprising was meant to be distinct from the original Kid Icarus: while Kid Icarus was a platformer featuring horizontal and vertical movement from a side-scrolling perspective, Uprising shifted to being a fully 3D third-person shooter divided between airborne and ground-based segments in each chapter. Much of the game's depth and scale came from Sakurai's own game design philosophy, along with the inclusion of various weapon types that opened up different strategic options. The number of weapons available in-game was decided from an early stage, as Sakurai wanted solid goals for the development team so development would go smoothly. The original Kid Icarus was notorious for its high difficulty, but this was an aspect Sakurai wanted to adjust so that casual gamers could also enjoy Uprising. For this reason, the Fiend's Cauldron was created as a user-controlled means of both setting difficulty and allowing players to challenge themselves by wagering resources against their performances. The Fiend's Cauldron tied into the game's overall theme of "challenge". The game's difficulty was one of the three key elements decided upon by Sakurai, alongside the music and lighthearted storyline. The addition of the AR Card game was based on Sakurai's wish to fully utilize the 3DS's planned features, and was inspired by the trophy viewing option from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Due to the volume of cards produced, the team needed to create a special system based on a colorbit, an ID recognition code along the bottom edge of a card. After consideration, it was decided to have the "Idol" displays able to fight each other, with battles revolving around a stat-based rock paper scissors mechanic. It also provided a means for players to measure the strength of characters without directly connecting their consoles. While the game featured fast-paced action and a high difficulty, its control scheme was designed to be relatively simple. This was because Sakurai had observed equivalent console games using all the buttons on a console's controller, creating a barrier for first-time players. To open up the game for newcomers while keeping gameplay depth, the team took the three basic controls and combined them with the game's structure. In later interviews, Sakurai said that the team had great difficulty properly incorporating the control scheme into the game. Their initial goal was to fully utilize the 3DS's processing power, which left little room for incorporation of elements such as the Circle Pad Pro, which was created fairly late in the game's own development cycle. Due to the lack of space, providing independent analogue controls for left-handed players was impossible. The inclusion of a stand for the system to help players properly experience Uprising as part of the game's package was requested by the team from an early stage. A major element of the 3DS's design that influenced development was the touchscreen, used for aiming Pit's weapons. While similar touch-based aiming had been used for first-person shooters on the Nintendo DS, Sakurai was dissatisfied with the resulting experience, phrasing it as "like trying to steer with oars". With the 3DS's touchscreen, the team was able to create a more responsive experience similar to a computer mouse, creating the system of flicking the 3DS stylus to change camera and character direction. The team also attempted to tackle the ingrained problem of trying to move the character and camera while stereoscopic 3D was enabled. The multiplayer functionality was decided upon from an early stage, with the main focus being on balancing it with the single-playing campaign. The design for weapon usage was inspired by fighter choices in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, contrasting with weapon systems from other equivalent Western shooters. ### Music The music was composed by a team consisting of Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, Masafumi Takada, Noriyuki Iwadare, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Takahiro Nishi. Nishi served as music director, while orchestration was handled by Mitsuda and his studio assistant Natsumi Kameoka. Early in the game's development, Sakurai and Nishi were in discussions about what the style of Uprising's music would be, and which composers to hire for it. The composers were those who had contributed most prominently to Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The music involved both live orchestral music, synthesized tracks, and tracks that combined both musical styles. The air battle themes were created to match the dialogue and action on-screen, which was stated early on to be an important goal. Another aspect of the music, as noted by Koshiro, was that it should stand out while not interfering with dialogue. Sakuraba and Koshiro were brought in fairly early, and thus encountered difficulties with creating their music. Sakuraba recalled that he needed to rewrite the opening theme multiple times after his first demo clashed with the footage he saw due to his not knowing much about the game's world. Takada came on board when there was an ample amount of footage, but was shocked when he saw gameplay from the game's fifth chapter and tried to create suitable music within Sakurai's guidelines. Iwadare was asked to create memorable melodies, but found creating suitable tracks difficult as many of his initial pieces were thrown out. For Kameoka, recording the live orchestral segments proved a time-consuming and difficult business: each element of a track was recorded separately, then mixed into a single track, then each orchestral element needed to be adjusted for speed and tone so they lined up correctly. According to Mitsuda, the live recording of music spanned seven full sessions, estimated by him as being the largest-scale musical production for a video game to that date. He was entirely dedicated to orchestration and recording for four months. Mitsuda was tasked with creating the music for the game's 2010 reveal trailer, which he knew was an important task as it would have an international audience. He estimated that around 150 people in total worked on the score throughout its creation. In separate commentary on selected tunes, Sakurai drew to particular tracks. Sakuraba's main theme was made notably different from earlier themes incorporated into the soundtrack, because he wanted Uprising to have an original theme to distinguish it from its predecessors: as it played in the main menu between missions, the team treated it as Palutena's theme tune. Koshiro composed "Magnus's Theme": the theme had two distinct versions based around the same motif, alongside incorporating one of Hirokazu Tanaka's original tracks for Kid Icarus. The theme for Dark Pit was composed by Western gun duels in mind, making heavy use of the acoustic guitar to give it a "Spanish flavor": multiple arrangements were created, including a version for use in multiplayer. Mitsuda was responsible for the "Boss Theme", and worked to make the music positive and encouraging as opposed to the more common "oppressive" boss tunes heard in games. Iwadare's "Space Pirate Theme", written for a faction of the Underworld Army, combined musical elements associated with both seafaring pirates and outer space. Iwadare also composed "Hades' Infernal Theme", which mixed choral, circus and "violent" elements to both symbolize Hades's contrasting attributes and distinguish him from Medusa. Koshiro's track, "Wrath of the Reset Bomb", used the motif associated with Viridi, which would be reused in multiple tracks. According to Sakurai, it was only intended to be used in one level, but he liked it so much that he made it the theme for Viridi's Forces of Nature. A track that went through multiple redrafts was "Aurum Island", the theme associated with the titular alien invaders: while every attempt made to create a theme ended up as a "techno-pop song", the tune underwent multiple adjustments so it would not clash with the rest of the soundtrack while retaining its form. "Lightning Chariot Base", due to the size of the level, was designed so players would notice its presence without growing tired of it. "Practice Arena", the tune for the pre-multiplayer training area, was designed by Takada to have a light, analogue feel; it was originally composed for a different unspecified area, but it was decided that it fitted well with the build-up to a multiplayer match. Selected music from the game was originally released in a promotional single CD by Club Nintendo. A limited 3-CD official soundtrack album, New Light Mythology: Palutena's Mirror Original Soundtrack, was released through Mitsuda's record label Sleigh Bells on 21 August 2012. The soundtrack received praise; Video Game Music Online writer Julius Acero gave it a perfect 5-star rating, calling it "the best modern Nintendo soundtrack, beating out the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and even Super Smash Bros. Brawl". It also won the site's "Best Score award in the Eastern category". Patrick Gann, writing for Original Sound Version, called it an "epic musical score", praising the developers for bringing together the composers to create the score. ## Release In 2009, Sakurai was working on a new game through Project Sora. Uprising was officially announced at Nintendo's E3 2010 conference immediately following the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS. In an interview closer to release, Sakurai said that he had misgivings about Uprising being shown off at gaming expos since 2010 while it was still in an unfinished state. The game suffered a delay that pushed its release into 2012, ultimately released worldwide in March. The game's box art was almost identical between its Japanese and English releases. The English version of Uprising was handled by Nintendo of America's localization department, Nintendo Treehouse. Sakurai gave the localization team "a lot of leeway" for this part of development. Much of the original script's humor stemmed from the usage of Japanese conversational nuances, which would not have been organized properly into English. Because of this, adjustments needed to be made so that it was enjoyable for English speaking audiences. The video game references were taken almost directly from the Japanese dub, with some adjustments so they resonated with the Western market. As with other localizations, the team avoided topical references so the scripts would take on a timeless feel. The casting and recording director was Ginny McSwain. Three prominent English cast members were Antony Del Rio who voiced Pit and Dark Pit, Ali Hillis who voiced Palutena, and Hynden Walch who voiced Viridi. The majority of voice recording was done separately, but half of the dialogue between Pit and Palutena was recorded by the two actors together before scheduling conflicts forced them to record their lines separately, responding to either voice clips of the other actors or the director reading lines. The European version only included the English voices, as there was no room on the 3DS cartridge to include multiple voice tracks. To promote the game, Nintendo collaborated with multiple Japanese animation studios to create animated shorts based on the world and characters of Uprising. There were three shorts produced: the single-episode Medusa's Revenge by Studio 4°C, the two-part Palutena's Revolting Dinner by Shaft, and the three-part Thanatos Rising by Production I.G. Sakurai supervised work on the animated shorts, but otherwise let the animators "do their own thing". The shorts were streamed in Japan, Europe, and North America through the 3DS's Nintendo Video service in the week prior to the game's release in each region. Limited packs of AR Cards were also produced by Nintendo in two series, including special packs featuring rare cards. Six random cards also came packaged with the game itself. ## Reception Kid Icarus: Uprising received largely positive reviews from critics. On aggregate site Metacritic, the game scored 83/100 based on 75 critic reviews. Famitsu gave the game a perfect score of 40 points. In its review, the magazine praised the attention to detail, flexibility, and general gameplay balance. It also positively noted the game's dialogue. Marty Silva, writing for 1Up.com, said that there was "a never-ending litany of things to love" about Uprising. IGN's Richard George called Uprising "a fantastic game" despite its flaws. Simon Parkin of Eurogamer said that "Kid Icarus: Uprising is a strong, pretty game turned into an essential one by way of its surrounding infrastructure". GameSpot's Ashton Raze said that Uprising was a fun game when it hit its stride, calling it "a deep and satisfying shooter" despite its issues with control and character movement. Neal Ronaghan of Nintendo World Report, while commenting on control issues, called Uprising an "amazing game" packed with content. Nintendo Power gave a positive review to the game. Jeff Cork of Game Informer was more critical than other reviewers, saying that most other aspects of the game were let down badly by the control scheme. Edge Magazine was positive overall, saying that fans of the original Kid Icarus would enjoy the game, praising the way it effectively combined elements from multiple genres. Steve Hogarty of Official Nintendo Magazine recommended Uprising for hardcore gamers rather than casual gamers, saying that it felt deeper than equivalent home console games. Opinions were generally positive on the lighthearted story, in-game dialogue, graphics, several aspects of gameplay, and its multiplayer options. However, a unanimous criticism was the control scheme, which was variously described as difficult or potentially damaging to players' hands, while also creating issues with moving Pit. There were also negative comments about the game's linear structure. During its first week on sale in Japan, Uprising reached the top of gaming charts with sales of 132,526 units. It also boosted sales of the 3DS to just over 67,000 from just under 26,000 the previous week. By April, the game remained in the top five best-selling games with over 205,000 units sold. Going into May, it was cited by Nintendo as a reason for increased profits, alongside other titles such as Fire Emblem Awakening. As of December 2012, Uprising had sold just over 316,000 copies in Japan, becoming the 28th best-selling game of the year. In North America, the game sold over 135,000 units, becoming one of the better-selling Nintendo products of the month. In the UK, the game came in seventh place in the all-format gaming charts. As of April 2013, the game has sold 1.18 million units, being the 10th best-selling title for the system at that time. ## Legacy Despite speculation about a sequel for Uprising being developed, Masahiro Sakurai confirmed that there were no plans for a sequel to the game. Upon being asked about a modern adaptation for the Nintendo Switch, he once again denied any possibilities, stating that it was difficult on a human resources level to maintain the development team as they were an ad hoc studio. Uprising was the only game Project Sora ever produced; just four months after the game's release, the studio was closed with no explanation given for the closure, while Sakurai and Sora Ltd. were beginning work on the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series. Pit returned from Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, now sporting his slightly updated redesign from Uprising, while fellow Kid Icarus characters Palutena and Dark Pit joined the roster as playable newcomers. The games' Classic Mode also incorporated a wager-based difficulty slider similar to the Fiend's Cauldron in Uprising, and an Easter egg called Palutena's Guidance can be triggered that mirrors the dialogue from the original game. All of these elements were retained in the 2018 follow up, Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch.

Adventure Time (short film)

"Adventure Time" is an animated short film created by Pendleton Ward, as well as the pilot to the Cartoon Network series of the same name. The short follows the adventures of Pen (voiced by Zack Shada), a human boy, and his best friend Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), a dog with magical powers to change shape and grow and shrink at will. In this episode, Pen and Jake have to rescue Princess Bubblegum (voiced by Paige Moss) from the antagonistic Ice King (voiced by John Kassir). "Adventure Time" first aired on Nicktoons on January 11, 2007, and later was showed in Fred Seibert's Random! Cartoons series showcase on December 7, 2008, subsequently leading to the creation of the animated series. It was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject. The short and the later-produced television series share elements, but the two differ slightly in setting, conception and continuity, especially in regard to the post-apocalyptic setting, which is only featured in the television series. ## Plot The short focused on a boy named Pen (later renamed Finn in the television series) and a dog named Jake as they learn from the Rainicorn that the Ice King has kidnapped Princess Bubblegum, in the hope of marrying her. Declaring that it's "Adventure Time", Pen and Jake set off to the Ice King's mountain lair. Pen and the Ice King fight while Jake remains outside flirting with Lady Rainicorn, ignoring the battle. Just when Pen seems to be gaining the upper hand, the Ice King uses his "frozen lightning bolts" to freeze Pen in a block of ice. For unexplained reasons, this transports Pen's mind back in time, and to Mars, where he has a short motivational conversation with Abraham Lincoln. After being told to believe in himself, Pen's mind is returned to the present, where he breaks out of the ice, just in time to see the Ice King fly away with Princess Bubblegum. Chasing after him using Jake's extendable legs, Pen rescues the princess from the Ice King's grasp. Jake pushes the magical crown off the Ice King's head, thereby removing the King's source of power. The Ice King then plummets off screen, yelling a long list of complex threats of things he will do when he returns. The story closes with Princess Bubblegum giving Pen a kiss; he enjoys it, but is also greatly embarrassed by the act. He attempts to leave, but Jake claims that they have nowhere else to go and that there are no adventures that need them. However, some nearby ninjas are stealing an old man's diamonds, and they both run off in pursuit. ## Characters - Pen (voiced by Zack Shada) – One of the two main protagonists of the short. According to Ward, he is "a little boy" who is "just hanging out". For the television series, he was renamed to Finn; the character would also go on to be voiced by Zack's younger brother Jeremy Shada. - Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio) – The other main protagonist of the short. Jake is Pen's "pal", according to Ward. DiMaggio would voice the character in both the short and the later series. - Princess Bubblegum (voiced by Paige Moss) – Princess Bubblegum is the damsel in distress. Voiced by Moss in the short, Bubblegum would later be voiced by Hynden Walch in the series. - Rainicorn (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) – Rainicorn would later be renamed "Lady Rainicorn" for the series, and would be voiced by Korean storyboard artist Niki Yang, rather than Dee Bradley Baker. - Ice King (voiced by John Kassir) – The main antagonist of the short; Ward later called him a "nutbar" in an interview. Kassir voiced the character in the short, but Tom Kenny would later voice the Ice King in the series. ## Production "Adventure Time" was created by Pendleton Ward. The short's style was influenced by his time at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). "Adventure Time" was Ward's first job in animation after he graduated from CalArts. Ward had been contacted by Eric Homan, the vice president of Development at Frederator Studios, after Homan saw one of Wards films at a CalArts animation screening called "The Producer's Show". Homan told Ward that he should consider pitching an idea to Frederator. Ward spent around two weeks storyboarding the outline for "Adventure Time", a process that he later called "exciting" because he was "jumping into it not knowing whether [he] would sink or swim." During the initial storyboard pitch to Frederator Studios, Ward brought a guitar and played the episode's theme song. Frederator's CEO Fred Seibert was initially disinclined to make the short, feeling it was too much of a "student film" and without much commercial appeal. Longtime colleagues, development executive Homan and production executive Kevin Kolde convinced him otherwise, arguing that Seibert had actually laughed in the presentation, something that he did not often do. Frederator approved the pitch, and "Adventure Time" soon went into production. Ward hired several of his recently graduated CalArts friends to work on the short with him. Neil Graf was tasked with coloring, Julian Narino was the background designer, and Adam Muto drew the props. Graf and Narino later got jobs with other series and studios—King of the Hill and Laika, respectively—but Muto continued working with Ward and eventually became Adventure Time's co-executive producer and showrunner. The finished short ran for seven minutes, and production wrapped up in the spring of 2006. ## Release and reception "Adventure Time" first aired as part of Frederator Studios' Random! Cartoons on December 7, 2008. In between airings, it leaked onto the internet and went viral. According to Frederator Studios producer and founder Fred Seibert the short, "between all of its distribution points," had been viewed almost 3,000,000 times by April 2008. The feature was later nominated for an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject, although it did not win. After its release and success, Frederator Studios then pitched an Adventure Time series to Nickelodeon, but the network passed on it twice. The studio then approached Cartoon Network. The network said they would be willing to produce the series if Ward could prove that "the seven-minute short made for Nick wasn't a one-hit wonder". Ward quickly retooled the concept of the pilot; he wanted a potential series to be "fully realized", rather than feature the "pre-school vibe" that he believed defined the original pilot. Initially, Ward submitted a rough storyboard that featured Finn and an "oblivious" Princess Bubblegum going on a spaghetti-supper date. However, the network was not happy with this story, and specifically asked for an episode that contained the same things that had "made the short so special, like the crazy opening dance, the 'Abe Lincoln moment,' funny catchwords, and the awkward princess/kiss moment at the end." Ward then created an early storyboard for the episode "The Enchiridion!", which was his attempt to emulate the style of the original short. Eventually, Cartoon Network approved the first season in September 2008, and "The Enchiridion!" became the first episode to enter into production.

Magnificent Mile

The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is an upscale section of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, running from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side. The district is located within downtown and one block east of Rush Street. The Magnificent Mile serves as the main thoroughfare between Chicago's Loop business district and its Gold Coast. It is generally the western boundary of the Streeterville neighborhood, to its east, and of River North to the west. The real estate developer Arthur Rubloff of Rubloff Company gave the district its nickname in the 1940s. Currently Chicago's largest shopping district, various mid-range and high-end shops line this section of the street; approximately 3.1 million square feet (290,000 m²) are occupied by retail, restaurants, museums and hotels. As of 2014, commercial rent on The Magnificent Mile is the third most expensive in the United States, behind Fifth Avenue in New York and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. There are many tall buildings, such as 875 North Michigan Avenue (formerly the "John Hancock Center"), in the district. Landmarks along the Magnificent Mile include Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower, the Chicago Water Tower, and the Allerton, Drake and Intercontinental Hotels. ## History After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, State Street (anchored by Marshall Field's) in the downtown Loop, especially the Loop Retail Historic District, was the city's retailing center. The convenience of mass transit including streetcars and elevated trains, supported a retail corridor along State Street from Lake Street to Van Buren Street. By the 1920s, commuter suburbs began to have significant retail districts. Prior to the bascule bridge construction, swing bridges across the river were open for ship traffic during half the daylight hours. The Rush Street Bridge was the swing bridge for this area. The opening of the Michigan Avenue Bridge in 1920 created a new commercial district. The concept for the Magnificent Mile was part of the 1909 Burnham Plan of Chicago. It was constructed during the 1920s to replace Pine Street, which had been lined with factories and warehouses near the river, and fine mansion and rowhouse residences farther north. The earliest building constructions varied in style, but challenged new heights in construction. The name the "Magnificent Mile" is a registered trademark of The Magnificent Mile Association, formerly the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association (GNMAA). After the Great Depression and World War II, Arthur Rubloff and William Zeckendorf bought or controlled most of the property along this stretch of the avenue and supported a plan by Holabird & Root for construction of new buildings and renovation of old ones that took advantage of new zoning laws. Soon the property values driven by the luxury shopping districts were pricing out the nearby artists of Tower Town, just southwest of the Chicago Water Tower. Rubloff and Zeckendorf successfully developed and promoted the area until it became one of the most prestigious addresses of the city. That distinction holds today, and spurred new investment along the Magnificent Mile and throughout the Near North Side. After 1950, suburban development reduced the Loop's daily significance to many Chicagoans as downtown retail sales slipped. However, the Magnificent Mile kept a luxury shopping district close to the central business district. The opening of the 74-story Water Tower Place in 1975 marked the return of Chicago to retailing prominence. By 1979, the State Street commercial corridor had lost its commercial vitality and was closed to street traffic for renovation including sidewalk widening until 1996. In August 2020, the Magnificent Mile was looted by large crowds during a night of unrest after Chicago police shot a black person in Englewood. In May 2022, a mass shooting nearby the neighborhood killed two people and critically injured eight others. ## Description Today, The Magnificent Mile contains a mixture of upscale department stores, restaurants, luxury retailers, residential and commercial buildings, financial services companies, and hotels, catering primarily to tourists and the affluent. The Magnificent Mile includes 3.1 million sq ft (290,000 m²) of retail space, 460 stores, 275 restaurants, 51 hotels, and a host of sightseeing and entertainment attractions to more than 22 million visitors annually. The American Planning Association selected The Magnificent Mile as one of the 10 Great Streets for 2007 through its Great Places in America program. In recent years, The Magnificent Mile has added trees and flower-filled medians to reflect the changing seasons. ### Retail Many of the world's leading retail stores populate The Magnificent Mile, including luxury department stores Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, and the Flagship Macy's on State Street. In addition, some of the finest luxury boutiques are located along The Magnificent Mile (many of which have only a few North American locations), including Canada Goose, Cartier, Bottega Veneta, Bulgari, Van Cleef & Arpels, Armani, Chanel, Burberry (its U.S. flagship location), Saint Laurent, Tom Ford, Gucci, Prada, Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton, Escada, Christian Louboutin, Tiffany & Co., Max Mara, Harry Winston, St. John, Omega, Stuart Weitzman, Montblanc, Anne Fontaine, Alice+Olivia, and Rolex. Also present are Ralph Lauren (Ralph Lauren's largest store in the world), Kate Spade, Eskandar, Barbour, Cole Haan, Charles David, Lanvin, Marc Jacobs, Henri Bendel, Hugo Boss, Brunello Cucinelli, Dolce & Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, L'Occitane en Provence, Diesel, Carolina Herrera, American Girl, Moncler, Furla, Harry Winston, Aritzia, Ermenegildo Zegna, Zara, Vera Wang, La Perla, MCM, Tumi, Agent Provocateur, L.K.Bennett, Dennis Basso, Lululemon, Piazza Sempione, Graff Diamonds, Fratelli Rosseti, Hickey Freeman, Kiehl's, Jil Sander, Henry Beguelin, Michael Kors, Bernadaud, Christofle, J. Crew, Arthur, Sermoneta, H&M, Manrico Cashmere, Marlowe, Paul Stuart, Graff Diamonds, David Yurman, Fogal, Wolford, The Art of Shaving, BHLDN, Buccellati, Victoria's Secret, Banana Republic, AllSaints, Starbucks Reserve Roastery (largest Starbucks in the world), Frette, Pratesi, Uniqlo (its first in the Midwest), and many others. The Magnificent Mile is also notable for its three urban shopping centers: Water Tower Place, The Shops at North Bridge, and 900 North Michigan Shops. Each spans multiple floors and city blocks and offers various tenants: mall mainstays and more upscale apparel shops, restaurants, and unique attractions, such as museums. In its book The 10 Best of Everything: An Ultimate Guide for Travelers, National Geographic named The Magnificent Mile along with Rodeo Drive and Fifth Avenue as one of the 10 best shopping avenues in the world. In 2011, rent on The Magnificent Mile is the third most expensive in the country, behind Fifth Avenue in New York and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. In 2013 alone, rent rose 46%. ### Hotels and dining Renowned and critically acclaimed restaurants such as The Signature Room at The 95th, Spiaggia, Tru, The Pump Room, Lawry's The Prime Rib, The Grand Lux, and The Park Hyatt Room provide a variety of dining options. Three 5-star hotels (The Peninsula Chicago, Four Seasons Hotel Chicago, and Ritz-Carlton Chicago) and Illinois' only 4-star hotel (Park Hyatt) are located within about five blocks along The Magnificent Mile. Other hotels such as Intercontinental, Knickerbocker, Westin, Drake Hotel, and the Conrad Chicago offer convenient luxurious accommodations as well. Selected luxury-class hotels are shown below: ### Banks The largest banks have branches along the strip including the three largest banks in the nation: Bank of America, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase's Chase Bank. Additionally, the largest banks in Chicago are present, such as Harris Bank, which is technically across the street from The Magnificent Mile. American Express has a Magnificent Mile address for one of its two Chicago service offices. Fidelity Investments has an office at the foot of The Magnificent Mile. ### Chicago landmarks Historic and landmark presences are shown in the table below, which lists Chicago Landmarks, National Register of Historic Places locations, and National Historic Landmarks along The Magnificent Mile. At the northern edge of this district on the west, one finds the exclusive One Magnificent Mile building and Oak Street running to the west. Also, at the northern edge of the district one finds the Chicago Landmark East Lake Shore Drive District, an extremely expensive and exclusive one-block area of real estate running east from N. Michigan Ave. and facing directly onto Lake Michigan. At the southern edge of the district, the Michigan Avenue Bridge sits among four majestic 1920s skyscrapers, two of which are on The Magnificent Mile (Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building), and two of which are not (333 North Michigan and London Guarantee Building). These buildings are contributing properties to the Michigan–Wacker Historic District. Several of the tallest buildings in the world are located in The Magnificent Mile district. These buildings are: ### Malls ## Seasonal events With each season, the ambiance of The Magnificent Mile changes. This change is signaled by several official events: Median planters were constructed as part of a streetscape improvement project in 1994. In the spring, hundreds of thousands of tulips bloom from mid April until the end of May. In 2008, a public art installation of kinetic sculptures designed by local and international architects was placed in the garden beds. During the summer, the "Gardens of The Magnificent Mile" festival event occurs. It is a self-guided landscape display walking tour. In 2007 and 2008, fashion dress forms graced the garden beds. The forms were designed by students from the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago and the International Academy of Design and Technology, as well as prominent designers located on the Avenue. In 2009 and 2010 the first ever Summer Concert Series presented by Walgreens brought top level musical talent to the Avenue for free lunchtime shows for guests, locals, and employees of the Avenue. Past artists include: Collective Soul, Better Than Ezra, Mat Kearney, Michael Franti, Kris Allen, and Guster. The tradition of lighting the trees of The Magnificent Mile to start the Christmas season extends more than forty years. More than one million lights are lit and fireworks follow the event. The Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, presented by BMO Harris Bank, is the annual kick-off to Chicago's Christmas season. The day of the event has special activities and offers across Magnificent Mile businesses, plus interactive holiday booths in Pioneer Court, and a free concert with free concerts featuring popular artists all afternoon on the Harris Stage (past artists have included Jason Mraz, Mitchel Musso, and KT Tunstall). In the evening, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse lead a procession down Michigan Avenue from Oak Street to Wacker Drive, stopping at each block to light the trees. He brings along other Disney friends, marching bands, celebrities and more. It is considered the first annual Christmas procession of the year. ## Transportation and infrastructure North Michigan Avenue is a six-lane two-way street that is serviced by Chicago Transit Authority public buses along the Magnificent Mile that connect the area to the entire Chicago metropolitan area. It is also serviced by seasonal trolley service along the street, and the foot of the Magnificent Mile is serviced by seasonal water transit services. Two blocks west along State Street, the Chicago 'L' rapid transit services the street via its Red Line. Pedestrian traffic abounds along the broad sidewalks that are shielded by extensive, mature greenery that provides much of the friendly atmosphere. In autumn 2011, North Michigan Avenue was completely repaved from the Chicago River to Oak Street with a durable stone-matrix asphalt pavement mix that incorporated high levels of recycled materials, including waste shingles, ground tire rubber, and asphalt millings, diverting some 800 tons of material from landfills. The \$1 million project was completed without ever completely halting traffic on the street. In July 2012, the City of Chicago and CDOT were honored with the Environmental Leadership Award from the National Asphalt Pavement Association. ### Intersections

Basarab I of Wallachia

First independent ruler of Wallachia (r. c. 1310–1351/52)

Basarab I (), also known as Basarab the Founder (Romanian: Basarab Întemeietorul; c. 1270 – 1351/1352), was a voivode and later the first independent ruler of Wallachia who lived in the first half of the 14th century. Many details of his life are uncertain. Although his name is of Turkic origin, 14th-century sources unanimously state that he was a Vlach (Romanian). According to two popular theories, Basarab either came into power between 1304 and 1324 by dethroning or peacefully succeeding the legendary founder of Wallachia, Radu Negru, or in 1310 by succeeding his father, Thocomerius. A royal charter issued on 26 July 1324 is the first document to reference Basarab. According to the charter, he was subject to Charles I of Hungary as the voivode of Wallachia. Basarab became "disloyal to the Holy Crown of Hungary" in 1325. He seized the Banate of Severin and raided the southern regions of the Kingdom of Hungary. Basarab supported Michael Shishman of Bulgaria's attack against the Kingdom of Serbia, but their united armies were defeated in the Battle of Velbazhd on 28 July 1330. Soon after, Charles I of Hungary invaded Wallachia, but the Wallachians ambushed and almost annihilated the royal troops in the Battle of Posada, which occurred between 9 and 12 November 1330. The Battle of Posada ended Hungarian suzerainty in Wallachia, and the first independent Romanian principality was consequently founded. Basarab's descendants ruled Wallachia for at least two centuries. The region of Bessarabia, situated between the rivers Dniester and Prut, was named for the Basarab dynasty. ## Origins Basarab was the son of Thocomerius, according to a charter written by Charles I of Hungary in 1332. Thocomerius' social position cannot be determined. A scholarly hypothesis states that he was descended from Seneslau, a mid-13th-century Vlach (Romanian) lord. Historian Vlad Georgescu writes that Thocomerius was the probable successor to Bărbat, the late 13th-century ruler of Oltenia. Historian Tudor Sălăgean says that Thocomerius was "a local potentate." Basarab's name is of Turkic origin. Its first part is the present participle for the verb bas- ("press, rule, govern"); the second part matches the Turkic honorific title aba or oba ("father, elder kinsman"), which can be recognized in Cuman names, such as Terteroba, Arslanapa and Ursoba. Basarab's name implies that he was of Cuman or Pecheneg ancestry, but this hypothesis has not been proven. At least four royal charters from the 14th century refer to Basarab as a Vlach. Charles I of Hungary referred to him as "Basarab, our disloyal Vlach" in 1332. Pope John XXII addressed Basarab as a "devout Catholic prince" in a letter written on 1 February 1327. On the same day, the pope sent similar letters to Charles I of Hungary and his high officials, including Thomas Szécsényi, the voivode of Transylvania, and Mikcs Ákos, the ban of Slavonia, asking them to support the Dominicans' actions against the "heretics". According to scholar Neagu Djuvara, this correspondence with the Holy See proves that Basarab was a Catholic, which also testifies to Basarab's Cuman origin, because the Cumans had been baptized according to Catholic rite. Historians Matei Cazacu and Dan Mureșan reject Djuvara's theory, saying that all other sources prove that Basarab was an Eastern Orthodox. For instance, the Illuminated Chronicle, completed in the late 1350s, referred to Basarab as a "perfidious schismatic." ## Reign ### Charles I's voivode The details of Basarab's accession are obscure. Early Romanian chronicles attribute the establishment of Wallachia to the legendary Radu Negru. According to 17th-century Wallachian chronicles, Radu Negru, after departing from Făgăraș, arrived in Wallachia in either 1290 or 1292, accompanied by "many peoples". One of those chronicles, Istoria Țării Românești, states that "Basarab" was the surname of an Oltenian boyar family, who accepted Radu Negru's suzerainty following his "dismounting". Historian Neagu Djuvara tentatively associates Basarab (or, alternatively, Basarab's father) with Radu Negru; Laurențiu Rădvan writes that Basarab either dethroned or peacefully succeeded Radu Negru between 1304 and 1324. Other historians, such as Vlad Georgescu, state that Basarab succeeded his father, Thocomerius, around 1310. Basarab was first mentioned in a royal charter issued by Charles I of Hungary on 26 July 1324, in which he was described as "our voivode of Wallachia". This shows that Charles I regarded Basarab as a loyal vassal at that time. Historian István Vásáry states that Basarab only accepted Charles' suzerainty after the king restored royal authority in the Banate of Severin, a Hungarian border province, in 1321. In exchange for his loyalty, Basarab's possession of Severin Fort was confirmed, according to historians Tudor Sălăgean and Attila Bárány. ### Towards independence A royal charter dated 18 June 1325 records that a person named Stephen, who was the son of a Cuman ispán in Hungary, stated that the king was weaker than Basarab and "did not even reach up to [his] ankle". The same charter describes Basarab as "disloyal to the Holy Crown of Hungary", showing that Basarab had betrayed the crown. A royal charter from 1329 listed Basarab, along with the Bulgarians, Serbs and Tatars, as an enemy who "[made] hostile inroads" around Mehadia. Basarab seems to have entirely controlled the Banate of Severin between 1324 and 1330, since royal charters did not mention a Ban of Severin during this period. In a letter written in 1327, Pope John XXII alluded to "territories of the Kingdom of Hungary which were subjected" to Basarab. Michael III Shishman, Tsar of Bulgaria, attacked Serbia in 1330. He was accompanied by "the ruler of the Yas", along with Vlach and "black Tatar" auxiliary troops. According to Serbian sources and a letter written by Stephen Dušan, who became King of Serbia in 1331, Basarab personally led his army to Serbia to assist Shishman. The Serbs routed the united army of Michael Shishman and his allies at the Battle of Velbazhd on 28 July 1330. Shishman was killed while fleeing from the battlefield. Taking advantage of the weakened state of Basarab's allies, Charles I of Hungary decided to restore his suzerainty in Wallachia. According to a royal charter issued two years after the events, Charles wanted to recapture "marginal lands" that Basarab "illegally" held in Wallachia. He invaded Oltenia, captured Severin Fort and appointed Denis Szécsi Ban of Severin in September 1330. According to the Illuminated Chronicle, Basarab offered 7,000 "marks of silver" as compensation, along with a yearly tribute to the king. He also promised to send one of his sons to the royal court in Visegrád. However, Charles I refused Basarab's offer, saying that "[h]e is the shepherd of my sheep, and I will drag him by his beard from his lair". Charles continued his campaign, but he and his soldiers suffered from hunger while marching to Curtea de Argeș through a sparsely populated region. Charles was compelled to sign an armistice with Basarab, and the royal army started retreating from Wallachia. On 9 November, however, the Wallachians ambushed the king and his soldiers at a narrow pass in the Southern Carpathians. Standing on the cliffs above the valley, the Wallachians shot arrows and threw rocks upon the army. The battle lasted until 12 November. The royal army was decimated, and King Charles narrowly escaped. Historian Sălăgean writes that Basarab repelled Charles' invasion without assistance from his allies. A charter written in 1351 by Louis I, Charles' son and successor, states that pagan "neighbors and a troop formed of other subjects unfaithful" to Charles supported Basarab during the war, suggesting that Tatar auxiliaries fought for Basarab. However, the credibility of the report, written decades after the events, is uncertain. ### Independent ruler Archaeological research shows that after his capital of Curtea de Argeș was destroyed during Charles I's campaign, Basarab moved his seat to Câmpulung. Basarab's victory in the Battle of Posada enabled the introduction of an active foreign policy. He supported the efforts of his son-in-law, Ivan Alexander, to seize the Bulgarian crown, which he did in February 1331. With Basarab's support, Ivan Alexander successfully campaigned against the Byzantine Empire in 1331 and 1332. According to Sălăgean, Basarab allegedly took possession of Severin Fort in the early 1330s. The reconstruction of Curtea de Argeș started after 1340, with the erection of new fortifications and a new palace. The construction of the Princely Church of Saint Nicholas in Curtea de Argeș also commenced during Basarab's rule, but it was completed after his death. Basarab seems to have made his son, Nicholas Alexander, his co-ruler around 1344. Louis I of Hungary, who had succeeded Charles I in 1342, marched to southeastern Transylvania in the summer of 1344. To prevent a campaign against Wallachia, Nicholas Alexander visited Louis I and swore loyalty to him, according to the nearly contemporaneous John of Küküllő's chronicle. Wallachian troops supported Andrew Lackfi's attack against the Mongols in 1345, according to a Wallachian chronicle, but historian Victor Spinei rejects this report. According to a charter of his grandson, Vladislav I Vlaicu, Basarab died in the year 6860 of the Byzantine calendar, which is AD 1351 or 1352. ## Family A diptych from Câmpulung contains a reference to "Io Basarab voivode and his wife, Marghita". Although the diptych (which was revised and renewed in 1710) may contain a scribal error, historians tend to accept that Basarab's wife was named Marghita (from Margarete). According to Wallachian folklore, Marghita was the Catholic wife of the legendary founder of Wallachia, Radu Negru. She was told to have erected a Catholic church in Câmpulung, and committed suicide after the church was destroyed on her husband's order. In his letter concerning the Battle of Velbazhd, Stephen Dušan mentioned that Basarab was "the father-in-law of Tsar Alexander of Bulgaria", showing that Basarab's daughter, Theodora, was Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria's wife. Historian Vásáry states that Basarab married her to Ivan Alexander around 1323 to strengthen his alliance with Bulgaria. She gave birth to children, but Ivan Alexander abandoned her and married a converted Jew, Sarah-Theodora, in the 1350s. Basarab's son and successor, Nicholas Alexander, discontinued Basarab's alliance with Bulgaria. ## Legacy Basarab's victory at the Battle of Posada was a turning point in the history of Wallachia. Sălăgean writes that the victory "sanctioned the independence of Wallachia from the Hungarian crown" and altered its international status. Georgescu describes Wallachia as the "first independent Romanian principality." Although the kings of Hungary continued to demand loyalty from the voivodes of Wallachia, Basarab and his successors yielded to them only temporarily in the 14th century. The descendants of Basarab ruled Wallachia for at least two centuries. Examples of his descendants include Mircea the Old and Vlad Dracula. Neagoe Basarab, a member of the Craiovești boyar family, forged a genealogy to prove that he was a descendant of Basarab, and adopted "Basarab" as his family name after his accession in 1512. From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Moldavian and Serbian chronicles used the name "Basarab" when referring to Wallachia. From the next century onward, the southern region of the land between the Dniester and Prut rivers was named Basarabia. After the Russian Empire annexed Basarabia in 1812, the region was renamed to Bessarabia. The region is now part of the Republic of Moldova. ## See also - Foundation of Wallachia - Cumania - Țara Litua

Agent Carter (TV series)

2015–2016 Marvel Television series

Marvel's Agent Carter, or simply Agent Carter, is an American television series created by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely for ABC, based on the Marvel Comics character Peggy Carter following her roles in the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger and the 2013 Marvel One-Shot short film of Agent Carter. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and shares continuity with the franchise's films and other television series. The series was produced by ABC Studios, Marvel Television, and Fazekas & Butters, with Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, and Chris Dingess serving as showrunners. Hayley Atwell reprises her role of Peggy Carter from the film series and One-Shot, with James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, and Enver Gjokaj also starring; they are joined by Shea Whigham for the first season. In the series, Carter must balance life as a secret agent with that of a single woman in 1940s America. Development on a series inspired by the short film had begun by September 2013, with Atwell's involvement confirmed in January 2014. That May, ABC ordered the show straight to series. Agent Carter introduces the origins of several characters and story lines from MCU films, while other characters from the films also appear. The first season, consisting of eight episodes, originally aired from January 6 to February 24, 2015, while the second season, consisting of 10 episodes, originally aired from January 19 to March 1, 2016. Both seasons aired during mid-season breaks of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite a positive critical response, viewership fell, and on May 12, 2016, ABC cancelled Agent Carter. ## Premise The first season takes place in 1946, with Peggy Carter having to balance the routine office work she does for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) in New York City with secretly assisting Howard Stark, who finds himself framed for supplying deadly weapons to enemies of the United States. Carter is assisted by Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, to find those responsible and dispose of the weapons. In the second season, Carter moves from New York City to Los Angeles to deal with the threats of the new Atomic Age by the Secret Empire in the aftermath of World War II, gaining new friends, a new home, and a potential new love interest. ## Cast and characters - Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter: An SSR agent initially stuck doing administrative work. Butters said Carter's "superpower is the fact that other people underestimate her. And she often uses that to her advantage". On the influence that the apparent death of Steve Rogers has on Carter, Atwell explained that "he was the greatest person she ever knew—even before he took the serum and became Captain America. She knew his character and she saw a kindred spirit in him. So I think she's grieving the loss of him but she's also determined to make sure that his work wasn't in vain. That gives her a tremendous amount of determination to carry on despite the obstacles that she comes across." Gabriella Graves portrays a young Carter. - James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis: Howard Stark's butler and ally to Carter, who will eventually be a tutor to Tony Stark and inspire his J.A.R.V.I.S. artificial intelligence. Atwell referred to Carter's relationship with Jarvis as the series' "comic relief", and said "she needs someone who is in contact with Howard to help kind of run this mission[, and] they have this very witty banter back and forth". Fazekas explained that some of the character's persona "has come from the comics and some of it we've developed ourselves. Some of it is influenced by James D'Arcy himself and his strengths." D'Arcy was initially nervous about portraying Jarvis's comedic side, given his history of "predominantly play[ing] psychopaths". He did not study Paul Bettany's performance as J.A.R.V.I.S. when approaching the character. - Chad Michael Murray as Jack Thompson: A war veteran and agent with the SSR, described as chauvinistic and "chest-puffing". Murray compared the character to Indiana Jones, and stated that "he's working his way up to become the head of the SSR. His goal in life is to just be great at his job. So he has a large chip on his shoulder, which gives him an attitude." Murray also noted that, unlike his character on One Tree Hill, Thompson does not serve as the "moral compass", which meant that he would not be "confined to a box" and would instead be allowed to "really play things up and do what's unexpected". For the second season, Thompson is made chief of the East Coast SSR office. - Enver Gjokaj as Daniel Sousa: A war veteran who is an agent with the SSR and experiences prejudice due to his injured leg. "He accepts his injury, he accepts his compromised status in society ... Peggy says, 'Forget this. I'm Peggy Carter. I'm going to do something else.' I think that's the difference between the two of them." Considering a potentially romantic relationship between Sousa and Carter, Gjokaj said, "I think there's definitely a situation where...if she hadn't dated Captain America, he might ask her out for a drink. It's like if your new girlfriend dated Ryan Gosling. It's going to make you sweat a bit." For the second season, Sousa is made chief of the West Coast SSR office. - Shea Whigham as Roger Dooley: The SSR chief who oversees Agents Carter, Thompson, and Sousa until he dies to save his fellow SSR agents at the end of season one. Whigham believes that, unlike many of the other agents, Dooley does respect Carter, saying, "I think he likes her. I think he cares deeply. I'm not sure that he can always show that ... these are things that keep him up at night, as well as the other boys, when I send them out on missions." The character was always intended to die during the first season's penultimate episode to help build stakes for the series given that "everyone knows Peggy lives", so from the beginning, Whigham was only hired for the seven required episodes. ## Episodes ### Season 1 (2015) ### Season 2 (2016) ## Production ### Development A potential Agent Carter series was initially brought up in July 2013 by Louis D'Esposito, after a screening of his Agent Carter Marvel One-Shot at San Diego Comic-Con. By September, Marvel Television was developing a series inspired by the short film, featuring Peggy Carter, and was in search of a writer for the series. In January 2014, ABC Entertainment Group president Paul Lee confirmed that the show was in development, and revealed that Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas would act as the series' showrunners. Chris Dingess also serves as a showrunner. In March 2014, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, writers of the Captain America films, stated that they envisioned the series, which had not yet been greenlit, as a limited series of approximately 13 episodes. By April 2014, there were indications that the series would be ordered straight to series, bypassing a pilot order, and would air between the late 2014 and early 2015 portions of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., if that series got a second season renewal. On May 8, 2014, ABC officially ordered the series for eight episodes, with executive producers Butters, Fazekas, Markus, McFeely, Dingess, Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Alan Fine, Joe Quesada, Stan Lee, and Jeph Loeb. The series was renewed for a second season on May 7, 2015, of 10 episodes. ### Writing Markus and McFeely stated in March 2014 that the series would be set in 1946 initially, occurring in the middle of the timeline established in the One-Shot, and would focus on one case for Carter. Additional seasons would then advance a year and examine a new case. Despite working on Captain America: Civil War at the same time, Markus and McFeely remained involved with the series after writing the first script. When the showrunners joined the series, they went on a "mini-camp" with Markus and McFeely to develop the series from a pilot script written by the pair. They looked to several different influences outside of Marvel in developing the series, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, L.A. Confidential, and the works of author James Ellroy. Elaborating on deviating from the comics, Fazekas said, for example, "if we're using a minor character or a bad guy from an old comic book, we don't have to adhere to what that character was in that comic book from 1945. Because there are so many different iterations of a specific character, you can't be true to every single one." ABC asked the producers to not have the series follow a "Gadget of the Week or Bad Guy of the Week" model, and instead focus on telling the story of Carter balancing her personal and professional lives. Fazekas called this "such a nice change" from previous television experience, with the group feeling free to drop whole story ideas in favor of focusing on the series' central storyline. On the time periods the series could potentially explore following the first season given Carter's role in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Atwell said, "I think the great thing about the fact that I've already played her at the end of her life means that we know ... [Now] we have an opportunity, if the show does go into second and third and fourth and fifth [seasons], we know that we can explore all of these aspects of her character because we know she lives such a long life and she's had a fulfilled life. I think what's going to start happening in Season 1 is seeds are going to be planted as to what happens in her personal life—and yet it's still open to the possibility of new men coming into her life, deepening relationships with the men that we discover in Season 1. Obviously, the era is 1946 but in the second, third, fourth, fifth season—if it goes onto that—we can explore different time periods. We can explore the late forties, the early fifties, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, up until present day, so it's very exciting because of that." However, Butters clarified that future seasons would likely stay in the same time period, possibly changing location to a place like Hollywood or Europe, to remain in a pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. setting and avoid competing with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This was the case with the second season, which moved the series to 1947 Los Angeles. ### Casting Atwell, who portrayed Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the Agent Carter short film, expressed interest in returning as the character in October 2013, before Lee confirmed her involvement in January 2014. That August, Chad Michael Murray and Enver Gjokaj were cast as SSR agents Jack Thompson and Daniel Sousa, respectively, while James D'Arcy was cast the next month as Edwin Jarvis, the character who would eventually inspire the artificial intelligence J.A.R.V.I.S. from the MCU films. Shea Whigham was also cast, as SSR chief Roger Dooley. Atwell, D'Arcy, Gjokaj, and Murray returned for the second season. ### Design #### Costumes The costume designer for the series was Giovanna Ottobre-Melton, who felt comfortable with the series' period setting after spending months researching American styles in the 1940s for the 2013 television series Mob City. She noted that "many comic books were all blended by the color, style, and fabrics" from 1940s New York. Due to the large amount of action in the series, fabrics "with the feel and texture of the 1940s" had to be sourced in large quantities, to allow for the creation of four, five, or more of each costume. Ottobre-Melton's process "for each episode, [is to] read the script first, and then search for historic photos that relate to what the episode is about. Afterwards I chose the fabrics, and then begin to design the outfits." #### Props When creating the gadgets for the series, the writers noted the need to combine the period setting with the influence of Howard Stark, who opens the door to "things that are fantastic for the time period". They worked closely with the props department to develop technology that appears "both retro and futuristic at the same time", with Fazekas explaining that the goal was to avoid a science fiction look, so the fantastical aspects were reserved solely for function while the aesthetic was kept within the realms of that time period. ### Filming Filming for the series took place in Los Angeles, with the story's location shifting from New York City to Los Angeles with the second season to capitalize on this. Gabriel Beristain, cinematographer for the One-Shot and the first season of the series, used a combination of modern digital technology and traditional analog techniques to replicate the feel of classic films that are set in the 1940s, but to also have the convenience and consistency of modern technology, such as using the Arri Alexa digital camera, along with Leica Lenses and silk-stocking diffusion nets. Edward J. Pei took over as cinematographer for the second season. Stunt coordinator Casey O'Neill, who also worked on the One-Shot and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, incorporated the specific fighting styles of the characters, such as the more "CIA-trained" fighting of Carter or the more acrobatic, "Black Widow"-inspired style of antagonist Dottie Underwood. ### Visual effects Sheena Duggal served as visual effect supervisor, returning in the same capacity from the Agent Carter One-Shot, with the visual effects for the series created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Base FX, and later DNeg TV. Duggal worked closest with ILM, who coordinated with Base and DNeg to ensure a "seamless workflow". The majority of the series' visual effects work focuses on set extensions to depict the period setting, as well as the more fantastical aspects such as Howard Stark's inventions, or Zero Matter and Jason Wilkes' intangibility in the second season. ### Music In June 2014, Christopher Lennertz, who composed the music for the Agent Carter One-Shot, talked about potentially working on the series, saying, D'Esposito "told me last summer at Comic-Con that there was a possibility this was going to become a series. And he said that if he was going to be involved, he wanted me to be involved, too." In September 2014, Lennertz officially signed on to compose for the series. Lennertz combined all the different style elements of the show in the music, such as mixing jazz and period elements, with orchestra and electronic elements. Lennertz said, the music is "always done from a sense of being sort of in control and savvy and clever, rather than just being strong or just having a superpower or sort of being so much further along than anybody else physically. Part of it was just trying to make it that she's just smarter than everybody else. She's got such command over so many of these situations, and that was the most important thing was to give her that personality." A soundtrack album for the first season was released on iTunes on December 11, 2015, and the single "Whatcha Gonna Do (It's Up to You)" from the second season was released on March 18, 2016. ### Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins Because Carter originated from the films, Fazekas said Marvel Studios co-presidents Feige and D'Esposito were very invested in the production of the series and called them "really collaborative and very generous with their world". Markus, talking about the series' place in the greater architecture of the MCU, later said, "you really only need to drop the tiniest bit of hint and its connected. You don't have to go, 'Howard Stark's wearing the same pants that Tony wears!' ... Everything is enhanced just by the knowledge that its all connected." Butters said, "We always want to feel like you see us as a piece of [the MCU]. But because of our time period, we kind of are on our own a little bit." In July 2014, Fazekas explained the series' relationship with the One-Shot by saying, "The short really is the basis for the series. [Carter]'s working at SSR, post-war...If you think of the short as sort of the end of the series, the series would be leading up to that moment where she gets assigned to S.H.I.E.L.D." Markus reiterated this in January 2015, but acknowledged that it would be harder to keep continuity with the short the longer they made the series. The first season introduces the origins of the Black Widow and Winter Soldier programs, which both appear in several MCU films, while the second season shows the discovery of the Darkforce (known as Zero Matter in the series), which previously appeared in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and has ties to the Marvel characters Doctor Strange and Cloak. ## Release ### Broadcast Agent Carter aired on ABC in the United States, in 720p high definition and 5.1 surround sound. It also aired on CTV in Canada, and TV2 in New Zealand. In October 2014, Channel 4, the channel that airs Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the United Kingdom, stated that they did not "have any current plans [to air] Agent Carter". In June 2015, FOX UK purchased the broadcast rights for the United Kingdom, with the series premiering on July 12, 2015. In February 2016, the series was announced to air on 7flix in Australia. ### Home media The complete first season became available on Blu-ray and DVD on September 18, 2015, as an Amazon.com exclusive. On November 29, 2017, Hulu acquired the exclusive streaming rights to the series. Both seasons of Agent Carter were made available on Disney+ at launch, on November 12, 2019. ## Reception ### Ratings Maureen Ryan of Variety blamed both seasons' low viewership on "the questionable scheduling decisions" made by then ABC president Paul Lee, saying that the series "has received lackluster promotion, especially [for its second season]. The botched rollout of season two included a changed premiere date and episodes that were difficult to access in advance on Marvel's dreadful media site. Capping the mishandling is the fact that the full first season was only made available on ABC.com days before season two began, which frustrated viewers who might have wanted to jump on board in advance." ### Critical response The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 96% approval rating with an average rating of 7.9/10 based on 50 reviews for the first season. The website's consensus reads, "Focusing on Peggy Carter as a person first and an action hero second makes Marvel's Agent Carter a winning, stylish drama with bursts of excitement and an undercurrent of cheeky fun". The second season scored a 76% approval rating with an average score of 8/10 based on 21 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "A move from New York to Hollywood gives Agent Carter new territory to explore, as the series continues to search for a storyline as dynamic as its heroine". Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 72 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews" for the series overall. ### Accolades ## Cancellation Arguing for the renewal of the series for a third season following its low viewership, Ryan said that "letting the show die would be a serious mistake, for the network and for the bigger Disney-ABC conglomerate...These days, entertainment properties have to be viewed not just through the lens of their ratings (admittedly weak for Agent Carter). They have to be evaluated within the context of the overall value they bring to any entertainment colossus, and what Agent Carter adds to Disney-ABC is simply too valuable to give up ... [bringing] something different to the company's superhero portfolio." She suggested if ABC did not renew the series for broadcast, that it should explore other opportunities, such as debuting on its online Watch ABC app, or being sold to Netflix, where "fans of super-heroic storytelling already flock to" and Agent Carter's "status as a period piece—which may have harmed it on broadcast—could be a real draw for Netflix viewers". Ryan also felt Marvel "could copy what CBS is doing with Star Trek" by creating a subscription service for a monthly fee, where consumers could access Marvel's films and televisions shows "as well as premium exclusives like a third season of Agent Carter". Ryan concluded, "A third Agent Carter season could help solidify Marvel's standing not just with female fans, but with everyone who appreciates excellent and adventurous storytelling." In March 2016, Fazekas said the producers felt "bad" about the chances for a third season due to the series' low viewership, adding she "would love to see it live on, even if it's in some other form, digital or whatever. I doubt that there's a Netflix play for it." She also added that ABC wanted some sort of conclusion to the series, and so the writers and producers would find a way to conclude the lingering plot threads in some form if the series was not renewed. On May 12, 2016, ABC canceled the series. Loeb stated in August 2016 that he did not understand the cancellation, as "there were no conversations" regarding the series' future between ABC and Marvel, with the latter simply receiving a call from ABC saying Agent Carter was canceled. He added that since the networks decide what content they would like from Marvel Television, "if someone wants to call and say, 'We want a two-hour Agent Carter [film special] for May 2017,' boom. We'll put together the greatest Agent Carter movie we can." Atwell added that she was also not part of the conversation to cancel the series and called it "a network political thing" since ABC wanted her to headline the more "mainstream" drama Conviction "to get their ratings up" instead of staying on Agent Carter, which Atwell felt had gained a "cult following". After speculation regarding a revival for the series by Netflix, chief content officer Ted Sarandos stated the streaming service passed on reviving Agent Carter because it is "looking for truly original brands to own and in that Marvel space we already have" original Marvel series. He also added that due to existing international broadcasting "deal complexities" for the series, Netflix would not have been able to air Agent Carter globally, as "some of those output partners still had it on the air, so they would argue its covered by their output [deals]. Unfortunately, it was a business decision more than a creative one." When the series was canceled shortly after the release of Captain America: Civil War, in which Carter dies, Meagan Damore of Comic Book Resources felt that "for all intents and purposes" Carter had "effectively been phased out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe", and the universe had subsequently lost "a wonderful role model and...inspiration" to fans of the character and series. Damore lamented the fact that the second season's cliffhanger ending had been left unresolved, and that viewers would never get the chance to see Carter's "happy ending", despite knowing she gets one, leaving the character's "fate unfulfilled, languishing in the obscurity of 'what could have beens'". She also noted that Marvel had now lost "the opportunity to show several prominent MCU events, not the least of which is the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and added that despite making "leaps and bounds for women in the MCU, the same [could not] be said for people of color", wishing the series had addressed Asian American women like Hazel Ying Lee, one of 38 Women Airforce Service Pilots who died in the line of duty, or Black women like Harriet Ida Pickens and Frances Wills, the first two Black members of the United States Naval Reserve. ## Future ### Suggested spin-off podcast In March 2015, Butters revealed that there had been discussions with Thrilling Adventure Hour co-creator Ben Blacker about turning the fictional Captain America Adventure Program radio show from the first season into a real podcast. Butters said these well-received segments had not been part of their original pitch to Marvel, and that a second season renewal for the series would help the podcast's chances. She said the potential episodes would be "little fifteen-minute storylines". ### Planned third season Before the cancellation, Atwell said on the series' future, "We think that there could be more to come....the [second season] finale doesn't suggest that that's it and they live happily ever after; that's the end. We know that's not the case. They've done it in a very clever way which wraps up and that gives the audience a very satisfying conclusion but they're not quite finishing it". Fazekas explained that an early idea from Markus and McFeely was to set the third season in London, but "you can put the show anywhere, because it's spies. [The location is] all going to be determined by what story we want to tell. I loved [Los Angeles]. I loved how it looked, I loved how it looked on Peggy. We would be very happy to do another L.A. season, but we're not married to it." Fazekas added that seeds for a third season had been planted throughout the second, and that the end of the second season—with someone shooting Thompson and taking the M. Carter file—was "very much tied to a third season arc", with the shooter and their reasoning already determined. Atwell said the third season would have gone "further back into [Carter's] past" while having "a possible kind of twist... into something to do with [her] family". She also added that more insight would have been provided on Carter's brother, Michael. Writer Jose Molina expanded on this in July 2018, stating that the season would have focused on the investigation of the assassination attempt on Thompson, along with the revelation that Michael was still alive and involved in some "very nefarious, super-villainous shenanigans". ### Feature films and other television series D'Arcy went on to reprise his role as Jarvis in the MCU film Avengers: Endgame (2019), marking the first time a character introduced in an MCU television series appears in an MCU film. Additionally, Gjokaj reprises his role as Sousa in the seventh season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The episode "Alien Commies from the Future!" is set in 1955, eight years after the events of Agent Carter season two, and sees Sousa as the head of the S.H.I.E.L.D.-run Area 51 base. In "Out of the Past", the S.H.I.E.L.D. team fakes Sousa's death, allowing him to join the team as they travel to future time periods. ### Potential revival While promoting Endgame, Markus and McFeely were asked about the potential for Agent Carter to be revived by Disney's new streaming service Disney+. McFeely acknowledged that the series' fanbase was "really dedicated", but was unsure if there was enough support to justify the cost of making the series and its period setting.

Wellington Monument, Somerset

Triangular obelisk on a point of the Blackdown Hills

The Wellington Monument is a 175-foot-high (53 m) triangular obelisk located on a point of the Blackdown Hills, 3 km (1.9 miles) south of Wellington in the English county of Somerset. It is a grade II\* listed building and is the tallest three-sided obelisk in the world. The monument was designed to commemorate the Duke of Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo. Construction of the original design commenced in 1817; a revised and cheaper design was eventually used, though, and building was completed in 1854. It is now owned by the National Trust, which closed the monument to the public in 2007, owing to safety concerns; surveys showed that extensive renovation work was needed. Repairs were completed, leaving the monument "now possibly in better condition than when it was first completed" and the monument reopened in August 2021. ## Construction The monument was erected to celebrate the victory of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Following his victory at the Battle of Talavera in 1809, Wellesley was ennobled as a viscount. Peerages in the United Kingdom usually include a territorial designation, symbolically tying them to a particular location. Because Arthur was abroad with the army, his brother Richard Wellesley selected the location; he chose the town of Wellington, Somerset, due to its similarity to the family name, although Arthur Wellesley had never visited it. The new title was 'Viscount Wellington of Talavera, and of Wellington in the County of Somerset'. Parliament awarded him £100,000, and with this he bought two manors in the town, including the land the monument now stands on. The association was continued with Wellesley's subsequent promotions to higher ranks of nobility; he ultimately became Duke of Wellington in 1814. The monument was proposed in 1815 by William Sanford of Nynehead Court, and he started a public subscription to pay for it. Within months £1450 had been raised and a design competition was held. The winning entry envisaged a 95 feet (29 m) pillar with three cottages at the base to house old soldiers as caretakers. It was designed by Thomas Lee and the foundation stone was laid by Lord Somerville in 1817. By 1818 the column was 47 feet (14 m) high but all funds had been spent. Another appeal raised further funds, and the column was raised to 121 feet (37 m) by 1820. It was damaged in 1846 when it was struck by lightning. Construction restarted after the Duke's death, and was completed in 1854 by Henry Goodridge. The monument's design was inspired by an Egyptian obelisk, but in the shape of the type of bayonet used by Wellington's armies, a spike of triangular cross-section rather than a blade, with funds raised from local subscribers to commemorate his achievements. The initial designs envisaged a cast iron statue of the Duke on the top of the column with more statues on the plinth, but these were never built. The upper section of the column was restored in 1890 when the pinnacle was raised by 1.5 metres (4.9 ft). The original plans were for twenty-four cannons, captured from the French army at the Battle of Waterloo, to be installed around the base. In 1818 one brass and 15 iron cannons were transported from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich to Exeter Quay, but they were never transported to the monument. After years of storage at Exeter ten were sunk into the ground as bollards, and the brass gun sold in 1837 for £64 to cover the storage costs incurred by the local corporation. In 1890, when four guns were requested for the monument as part of a restoration project, they were found to be naval cannons cast in Scotland dating from 1789, and never used at the Battle of Waterloo. Four cannons were eventually installed in 1910, surrounding the monument, but these were removed during the Second World War (1939–1945) for scrap metal to help the war effort. The need for scrap metal fell and they were eventually buried at Watchet. The one cannon remaining at Exeter was brought to the monument in 1977 and finally installed in 1984. ## Architecture The monument is built of local stone, Calcareous Grit, a Sandstone from Northay. The triangular column is 80 feet (24 m) wide at the base and 175 feet (53 m) high. The base has an Egyptian winged panel above the studded iron door and is surmounted by a coved dentil cornice. A counterweight hangs inside the top of the monument to help balance it in windy weather. An internal staircase ascends to a viewing platform, which has three circular windows, one on each face. ## National Trust ownership and restoration The monument was acquired by the National Trust in 1934. It is floodlit on special occasions with new lights installed in 2015. In 1985, the Wellington Rotary Club donated the cannon currently standing at the base of the monument. The National Trust closed the monument to the public in 2007, owing to safety concerns. Surveys showed that extensive renovation work was needed to reopen the internal staircase to the viewing platform. In June 2009, the National Trust announced plans to reclad the monument at a cost of £4 million. The painted fence was replaced by an open wire fence in 2010, aiding visibility, but still preventing public access to the base of the monument. Survey work in 2010 showed the extent of cracks in the stonework. In 2013 it was announced that further funding would be needed for the restoration project. Sensors recording the movement of the tower are also to be installed. In 2015 Rebecca Pow the new local Member of Parliament for Taunton Deane asked the government to make available money for a restoration fund. In 2016 she further highlighted the deteriorating condition of the monument and started a petition for its repair. Complicated repairs were completed, over two years and at a cost of £3.1m, and the monument reopened in August 2021; the Trust said that after repairs it was expected to be removed from the at-risk register, and that it was "now possibly in better condition than when it was first completed".

Mega Man Battle Network (video game)

2001 video game

Mega Man Battle Network is a role-playing video game developed by Capcom for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld console. It is the first title of the Mega Man Battle Network series of games. It was originally released in Japan as a GBA launch game on March 21, 2001 and was released later that year in North America and Europe. It was also released via the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan on July 9, 2014, in Europe on July 24, 2014, and in North America on July 31, 2014. Battle Network takes place during the 21st century in a world where society and everyday life is driven by the internet. Users are able to interact with and virtually explore nearly any electronic device using highly advanced, online avatars called "NetNavis". The game follows a young boy named Lan Hikari and his NetNavi MegaMan.EXE as they solve a series of crimes instigated by the "WWW (World Three)" organization. Rather than share the platform gameplay of its predecessors, Battle Network is a tactical role-playing game in which the player respectively controls Lan in the game's outside world and MegaMan.EXE in its virtual world. Battles take place in real-time; special abilities called "Battle Chips" can be accessed to fight off the numerous computer viruses present in the game's cyberspace environments. Battle Network was created amidst the rise of collectible card games, as shown by its collectible Battle Chips that are used to create "Folders" (like card decks). According to producer Keiji Inafune, the development team wanted Battle Network to identify specifically with younger gamers by creating a setting resembling the real world and a gameplay model that mixes traditional action and RPG elements. Battle Network received positive reviews from critics. Its unconventional combat system was given significant praise and its presentation was well-regarded. However, its storyline was met with mixed opinions. The game was followed by a number of sequels and spin-off titles, as well as other media. An enhanced port of the game, , released in Japan in 2009 for the Nintendo DS. ## Plot Mega Man Battle Network is set in an ambiguous year in the 21st century ("20XX AD") in an alternate reality to the original Mega Man series. Within the world of Battle Network, the Net has become humanity's primary means of communication, commerce, and even crime. Users are able to "jack in" to the Net and other computerized devices and explore their various aspects using (or "operating") program avatars called "NetNavis (Network Navigators)" as if they were physical locations. The Net and the inner workings of computers are displayed as a virtual world within which users (through their NetNavis) and computer programs can interact. Users often do so by communicating through a "PET (PErsonal information Terminal)" device. The plot of Mega Man Battle Network follows one such pair, Lan Hikari and his NetNavi MegaMan.EXE. Lan is a fifth grader in the town of ACDC. His father, Dr. Yuichiro Hikari, is one of the world's top scientists and NetNavi researchers. Throughout the story, Lan and MegaMan solve various criminal cases around ACDC involving other Navis and their operators. Some of the confrontations with the various criminals involve desperate, life-threatening situations including school students being re-educated as mindless slaves, the city's waterworks freezing over, oxygen being cut off at a large party, and a bus rigged to explode. The duo continuously crosses paths with Eugene Chaud, an official "NetBattler" commissioned by the government to investigate crimes on the Net. Chaud and his NetNavi ProtoMan.EXE act as rivals to Lan and MegaMan.EXE. The protagonists eventually learn that the criminals are all connected to an organization called the "WWW (World Three)". The WWW intentionally infects computer networks with computer viruses so as to hinder their normal operations and hack vital information. The group is led by Dr. Wily, a former colleague of Lan's grandfather. While working together, Wily had specialized in robotics while Lan's grandfather specialized in networks, which eventually led to NetNavis. The government cut Wily's funding, opting instead to pursue Hikari's NetNavi project. Wily's goal throughout the game is to collect four super programs with which the "LifeVirus" may be constructed. The LifeVirus is a nearly indestructible virus capable of wiping out the Net and all associated devices. The protagonists infiltrate the WWW, but MegaMan becomes disabled. Chaud arrives and gives Lan a batch file from Dr. Hikari to restore his Navi. After receiving the file "Hub.bat", Lan questions his father about the name. It is revealed the MegaMan is actually a unique Navi made by Lan's father. When Lan's twin brother, Hub, died at a young age, Dr. Hikari transferred Hub's consciousness into the NetNavi MegaMan. This created a special physical and virtual bond between the two brothers. In the end, Lan and MegaMan manage to defeat Wily, destroy the LifeVirus, and restore peace to ACDC. ## Gameplay Unlike the previous action-platformer entries of the Mega Man franchise, Mega Man Battle Network is a real-time tactical RPG. To progress through the game the player must alternately navigate the outside world as Lan Hikari and the Net as MegaMan.EXE, each containing certain tasks that must be completed to allow advancement in the other. Controlling Lan, the player may travel around the world map, interact with non-player characters, check email, purchase items, initiate Net missions, or speak with MegaMan.EXE through his PET. In contrast with traditional Mega Man entries in which battle and movement through the levels happen in the same setting, Battle Network's combat occurs only through by battling computer viruses within the Net. This cyber world is represented by a series of branching pathways and nodes, where MegaMan.EXE can travel to both new and previously visited locations, find and purchase items, and fight viruses. Battles do not generally appear on the field screen of the Net but are usually set as random encounters. The battlefield itself is made up of 18 tiles divided into two groups of nine, one group being space in which MegaMan.EXE may freely move and the other group being space inhabited by enemies. Akin to other Mega Man games, MegaMan.EXE possesses an arm cannon called the "Mega Buster". The player can transition among the nine provided tiles and fire the Mega Buster at enemies from across the screen. The objective of each battle is to delete all the viruses by reducing their hit points (HP) to zero. If MegaMan.EXE's own health depletes, a game over occurs. Certain power-up programs can be found that upgrade MegaMan.EXE's HP, defense, or Mega Buster power. The Mega Buster is quite weak on its own, so in order to delete viruses more efficiently, the player must access special abilities called "Battle Chips". These are minor programs that contain data that the Navi can utilize to perform more powerful attacks, summon other Navis for help, or execute supportive actions such as restoring HP or destroying tiles on the enemies' side of the battlefield. Battle Chips are uploaded to MegaMan.EXE by Lan's PET in a process called "Customization." Each turn in battle presents the player with five random chips from which to choose, though the player is limited to chips of the same variety or chips with the same alphabetic code. Once the "Battle Gauge" (or "Custom Gauge") at the top of the screen fills during battle, another random set of chips can be chosen from a general pool called the "folder". At any given time, the player may only have exactly 30 chips in the folder from which the Customization process may draw. The player is only allowed to carry up to ten of the same kind of chip and up to five Navi-summon chips in the folder. However, a player may possess any number of other chips in inactive reserve, called the "sack", which may be moved to the active folder outside of battle. Every chip and enemy is aligned to one of five elements: Neutral, Fire, Water, Electric, and Wood. If MegaMan.EXE hits an enemy with an attack aligned to an element they are weak against, the attack will do double damage. Battle Network features a very limited multiplayer option. Up to two players may connect with each other using a Game Link Cable and then give or trade Battle Chips. Players may also engage in battles with one another. The "test battle" mode has no stakes whereas the "real battle" mode allows the winning player to take a battle chip from the loser. ## Development and release Initially conceptualized with the intention of being a horror game, Mega Man Battle Network was developed by Capcom Production Studio 2 amidst the success of Nintendo's portable RPG franchise Pokémon. Rather than extend upon the traditional action-platform formula for the Mega Man series as they had done with the 3D Mega Man Legends, Capcom followed Nintendo's example on the latter's then-newest handheld console, the GBA. While creating Battle Network, director Masahiro Yasuma found difficulty in blending action attributes with "the kind of fun you get from a Pokémon game" in order to make it enjoyable, new, and fresh. Yasuma recalled that production was further challenged because no effective precursor of its type had been made before. Producer Keiji Inafune stated that the development team wanted to add a "real world" feel to the Mega Man series by placing the protagonist of Battle Network in a location where the internet is prevalent. With the release of the portable GBA, the team felt that they should target modern gamers, specifically children, as an audience for the new series. The developers thought such a theme would be both successful and relevant because these younger gamers grew up with and utilized such technology on a daily basis. To ensure the game's popularity, Capcom marketed Battle Network alongside an afternoon anime adaptation, emphasized head-to-head matches between players, and provided fans with exclusive content via special events. Inafune credited himself for redesigning the protagonist Mega Man as MegaMan.EXE for the Battle Network series, though he recounted the character designers were reluctant to hand over the responsibility to him and even altered his illustrations afterwards. The character's initial concept art went through a large number of changes before it was finalized to a much simpler design, so that even very young fans could easily draw it. Yuji Ishihara acted as a primary character artist for the game. Each of the game's boss characters was designed so that their bodies would exude a certain motif; for example, StoneMan.EXE was meant to look like a huge castle made from stone masonry. Some bosses resembled their original Mega Man series counterparts while others were a large departure from these more humanoid appearances. Ishihara explained that the artists chose size and shape variety among the characters to "provide a little bit of surprise and excitement" to fans familiar with their classic forms. The musical score for Battle Network was composed by Akari Kaida, who would later work on the fifth installment of the series. All 22 musical tracks for Mega Man Battle Network were included on the Rockman EXE 1 \~ 3 Game Music Collection, released in Japan by Suleputer on December 18, 2002. The Japanese version of Battle Network was first announced in August 2000 as one of four games set to be released for the recently unveiled GBA. A demo of the game was promoted at Nintendo Space World that month, where it was displayed on only two out of the 140 playable consoles. The game was displayed on five kiosks at the Tokyo Game Show the following month. According to series planners Masakazu Eguchi and Masahiro Yasuma, this beta build of the game involved the player fighting a malevolent WoodMan.EXE within the school's electronic blackboard. Battle Network was officially released in Japan as a GBA launch title on March 21, 2001. A television advertisement of the game featured the song "Neo Venus" by Japanese rock band Janne Da Arc. The English localization of Battle Network was announced on May 17, 2001, just prior to the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The game was released in North America and Europe on October 31 and November 30 respectively. Ubisoft published Mega Man Battle Network in PAL regions as part of a seven-GBA game licensing agreement with Capcom. Its first sequel, Mega Man Battle Network 2, was announced before the Japan World Hobby Fair in June 2001. Attendees to the fair were able to download chip data for the character Bass.EXE into their original Battle Network cartridges. ## Reception and legacy Mega Man Battle Network has been generally well-received, holding aggregates score of 80% on GameRankings and 79 out of 100 on Metacritic. The graphics of Battle Network were overall favored by reviewers. IGN's Craig Harris, GameSpy contributor James Fudge, and Kristian Brogger of Game Informer were all impressed by the game's crisp, colorful style and futuristic locales. As far as the sound was concerned, Justin Speer of GameSpot opined that the music appropriately matched the rich visuals. Brogger otherwise accepted the sound as "enough [...] to get by", but that nothing would be missed if it were turned off. Harris comparably stated that "the standard Japanese tunage could have been given a bit more variety". The reviewers gave mixed opinions of the game's storyline. Though Brogger called it "engrossing", Harris recognized the plot as the game's one major fault, describing it as "kiddy" and disliking the consistent use of computer terminology for character names. Speer similarly summarized, "If there's something that might hold you back from enjoying the game, it's the lighthearted and somewhat goofy story. However, the game doesn't take itself too seriously, so neither should you." The battle system of Battle Network was a positive stand-out aspect for many critics. In his Battle Network series decade retrospective, 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish felt the first game suffered from terrible plotting, unbalanced play design, and unattractive and annoying environment navigation. Still, Parish perceived the game's combat mechanics to be its sole reason for success, marrying the original Mega Man action qualities with an RPG structure and requiring "a combination of sharp thinking and quick reflexes" on the player's part. Speer found battle within the game to rightfully capture the spirit of Mega Man as its "most original and compelling feature". Harris likewise regarded the battle interface to be well-designed, a refreshing change from traditional Japanese RPGs, what gives the game its charm, and a very appreciative addition to the game's limited multiplayer mode. Fudge summarized the combat as "very easy to learn, but difficult to master -- and yet very satisfying". He admitted that the random encounters can occasionally be overwhelming. Brogger considered the gameplay both deep and simple to pick up on, but thought the menu system to be "clunky" at times and its battles to be repetitive. Mega Man Battle Network entered Japanese sales charts at number 12, selling approximately 43,048 units during its first week. A total of 224,837 units were sold in Japan during 2001, with the game being listed by Dengeki Online as the 50th best-selling video game in the region for that year. The success of Mega Man Battle Network led to several sequels and spin-offs on other consoles, mobile phones, and arcade; an anime series; and numerous pieces of merchandise. A successor series called Mega Man Star Force began in 2006 after Capcom decided to stop developing new Battle Network titles. ## Rockman.EXE: Operate Shooting Star A Nintendo DS port of the game entitled Rockman.EXE: Operate Shooting Star was revealed at the 2009 World Hobby Fair in Japan, and released there on November 12, 2009. Christian Svensson, Capcom's then Vice President of Strategic Planning & Business Development, stated that the company had no plans to localize the game for Western territories, but a fan translation of the game into English was released in 2018, as well as an optional voice acting removal patch.In addition to various gameplay enhancements, it also features a crossover with the Mega Man Star Force series, and the ability to control either Mega Man. Star Force Mega Man brings his ability to lock-on to far-away targets, as well as a brief shield to block minor attacks. Both Mega Men utilize Battle Chips instead of Battle Cards, and new Chips (including a Navi Chip representing Omega-Xis) appear. The PET interface was revamped to allow for touchscreen capabilities, including a map while traversing the cyber world, similar to its implementation in Double Team DS. In January 2009, monthly Japanese magazine CoroCoro Comic held their annual Mega Man boss design contest. However, unlike previous contests, it was unknown what upcoming Mega Man title the winning boss would appear in, nor was it revealed even after the winner was announced as Clock Genius in the April 2009 issue. At the 2009 World Hobby Fair convention in Japan, the new Mega Man title was finally unveiled as a crossover between the Battle Network and Star Force series. The Battle Network series officially ended in 2005 with the release of Mega Man Battle Network 6 for the Game Boy Advance. Around the 20th anniversary of the Mega Man franchise, Capcom was receiving a strong sentiment from fans wanting a new Battle Network title. Series producer Takeshi Horinouchi stated that they wanted one more try at the series. He explained, "This game’s inspiration is actually a celebratory image drawn by the designer for Mega Man’s 20th anniversary. From that time, I’d secretly been thinking 'In time we should try something neat with EXE and Star Force.’ Thus, our next project Rockman EXE Operate Shooting Star has come to be started. Essentially, this is a Mega Man Battle Network 1 remake for the DS, porting it and adding something extra. You the fans may be wondering, what sort of theme comes with combining EXE and Shooting Star? This is something that Battle Network fans of course, and Star Force fans as well, will enjoy." According to the Japanese publication Famitsu, Rockman.EXE: Operate Shooting Star was the ninth best-selling game in Japan during its release week at approximately 23,000 copies sold. A total of 44,110 units were sold in Japan by the end of 2009.

Lloyd Mathews

Royal Navy officer

Sir Lloyd William Mathews, KCMG, CB (7 March 1850 – 11 October 1901) was a British naval officer, politician and abolitionist. Mathews joined the Royal Navy as a cadet at the age of 13 and progressed through the ranks to lieutenant. He was involved with the Third Anglo-Ashanti War of 1873–4, afterwards being stationed in East Africa for the suppression of the slave trade. In 1877 he was seconded from the navy to Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar in order to form a European-style army; he would remain in the employment of the government of Zanzibar for the rest of his life. His army quickly reached 6,300 men and was used in several expeditions to suppress the slave trade and rebellions against the Zanzibar government. Mathews retired from the Royal Navy in 1881 and was appointed Brigadier-General of Zanzibar. There followed more expeditions to the African mainland, including a failed attempt to stop German expansion in East Africa. In October 1891 Mathews was appointed First Minister to the Zanzibar government, a position in which he was "irremovable by the sultan". During this time Mathews was a keen abolitionist and promoted this cause to the Sultans he worked with. This resulted in the prohibiting of the slave trade in Zanzibar's dominions in 1890 and the abolition of slavery in 1897. Mathews was appointed the British Consul-General for East Africa in 1891 but declined to take up the position, remaining in Zanzibar instead. Mathews and his troops also played a key role in the ending of the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 which erupted out of an attempt to bypass the requirement that new Sultans must be vetted by the British consul. During his time as first minister Mathews continued to be involved with the military and was part of two large campaigns, one to Witu and another to Mwele. Mathews was decorated by several governments, receiving appointments as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, Companion of the Order of the Bath and as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George from the British government and membership in the Prussian Order of the Crown. Zanzibar also rewarded him and he was a member of the Grand Order of Hamondieh and a first class member of the Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar. Mathews died of malaria in Zanzibar on 11 October 1901. ## Early life and career Mathews was born at Funchal on Madeira on 7 March 1850. His father, Captain William Matthews, was Welsh and his mother, Jane Wallas Penfold, was the daughter of William Penfold and Sarah Gilbert. Her sister, Augusta Jane Robley (née Penfold), was the author of a book about the flora and fauna of Madeira, which is now in the Natural History Museum. His sister, Estella, Countess Cave of Richmond, was an author and the first Division Commissioner of Kingston Girl Guides. Mathews became a cadet of the Royal Navy in 1863 and was appointed a midshipman on 23 September 1866. From 1868, he was stationed in the Mediterranean but his first active service was during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War of 1873–4 where he qualified for the campaign medal. He was promoted to lieutenant on 31 March 1874. On 27 August 1875 Mathews was posted to HMS London, a depot ship and the Royal Navy headquarters for East Africa, to assist in the suppression of the slave trade in the area. Whilst onboard he drilled his own troops, captured several slave dhows and was commended for his actions by the Admiralty. ## Commander in Chief of Zanzibar In August 1877, Mathews was seconded from the Navy to Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar to form a European-style army which could be used to enforce Zanzibar's control over its mainland possessions. The army had traditionally been composed entirely of Arabs and Persians but Mathews opened up recruitment to the African majority on the island and had 300 recruits in training by the end of the year. In addition, Mathews employed some unorthodox recruitment methods such as purchasing slaves from their masters, using inmates from the prison and recruiting from Africans rescued from the slavers. In June 1877, at the instigation of John Kirk, the explorer and friend of the Sultan, the British government sent a shipment of 500 modern rifles and ammunition as a gift with which to arm the troops. Mathews introduced a new uniform for the troops consisting of a red cap, short black jackets and white trousers for the enlisted ranks and dark blue frock coats and trousers with gold and silver lace for the Arab officers. The latter was possibly modelled on the Royal Navy officers uniform with which he was familiar. The army grew quickly; by the 1880s Mathews would command 1,300 men, his forces eventually numbering 1,000 regulars and 5,000 irregulars. One of the first tasks for the new army was to suppress the smuggling of slaves from Pangani on the mainland to the island of Pemba, north of Zanzibar. The troops completed this mission, capturing several slavers and hindering the trade. Mathews retired from the Royal Navy in June 1881 and was appointed Brigadier-General of Zanzibar. In 1880, the Sultan dispatched a military force under Mathews to bring his unruly African mainland territories under control. Mathews' expedition was initially intended to reach Unyanyembe but his men refused to march inland and, when made to do so, deserted in large numbers. The expedition ended instead at Mamboya where a 60-man garrison was established. This had been reduced to a mere handful of men by the mid-1880s but the expedition proved that the Sultan was serious about maintaining control of all of his possessions. Mathews' men were also involved in several expeditions to halt the land-based slave trade which had developed once the seas became too heavily policed for the traders. In 1881, Mathews' old vessel, HMS London, was captained by Charles J Brownrigg. This vessel and her crew made several patrols aimed at hindering the slave trade using smaller steam boats for the actual pursuits and captures. On 3 December 1881 they caught up with a slave dhow captained by Hindi bin Hattam. This dhow had around 100 slaves on board and was transporting them between Pemba and Zanzibar. Captain Brownrigg led a boarding party to release the slaves but bin Hattam's men then attacked the sailors, killing Brownrigg and his party before sailing away. Mathews led a force to Wete on Pemba and, after a short battle, took a mortally wounded bin Hattem prisoner before returning to Zanzibar. Mathews returned to the African mainland territories once more in 1884 when he landed with a force which intended to establish further garrisons there to dissuade German territorial claims. This attempt ultimately failed when five German warships steamed into Zanzibar Town harbour and threatened the Sultan into signing away the territories which would later form German East Africa. Further territories were ceded to the German East Africa Company in 1888 but unrest amongst the locals against them prevented them from taking control and Mathews was dispatched with 100 men to restore order. Finding around 8,000 people gathered against the German administrators Mathews was forced to return with his men to Zanzibar. He landed once again with more troops but found himself subject to death threats and that his troops would not obey his orders and so returned again to Zanzibar. ## First Minister In October 1891, upon the formation of the first constitutional government in Zanzibar, Mathews was appointed First Minister, despite some hostility from Sultan Ali bin Said. In this capacity Mathews was "irremovable by the sultan" and answerable only to the Sultan and the British Consul. His position was so strong that one missionary on the island is quoted as saying that his powers defied "analytical examination" and that Mathews really could say "L'état est moi" (I am the state). Mathews was also known as the "Strong man of Zanzibar". The principal departments of government were mostly run by Britons or British Indians and Mathews' approval was required before they could be removed from office. Mathews was rewarded by the Zanzibar government for his role with his appointment as a first class member of the Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar, which he was granted licence by Queen Victoria to accept and wear on 17 May 1886. Mathews used his position to suppress slavery in the country and in 1889 convinced the Sultan to issue a decree purchasing the freedom of all slaves who had taken refuge in his dominions and, from 1890, the prohibiting the slave trade. On 1 February 1891, Mathews was appointed Her Majesty's Commissioner and Consul-General to the British Sphere of Influence in East Africa. He never took up the post and instead chose to remain in Zanzibar. Mathews was rewarded for his service in Zanzibar by the British government which appointed him a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1880 and a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 24 May 1889. Despite becoming renowned in East Africa as a man who ran a fair administration and was strict with criminals, unhappiness with effective British rule and his halting of the slave trade led some Arabs to petition the Sultan for his removal in 1892. In 1893, Mathews purchased the island of Changuu for the government. He intended it to be used as a prison but it never housed prisoners and was instead used to quarantine yellow fever cases before its present use as a conservation area for giant tortoises. Mathews was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1894. He was also awarded membership of the Order of the Crown by the German government. Matters came to a head when Khalid bin Barghash attempted to take control of the palace in Zanzibar Town upon the death of his uncle in August 1896, despite failing to gain the consent of the British consul there. Mathews opposed this succession and, with British agreement, called up 900 soldiers in an attempt to prevent it. This situation eventually led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War and Mathews, with the support of Admiral Harry Rawson and five vessels of the Royal Navy, bombarded the palace and secured the end of Khalid's administration. Mathews' helped to arrange the succession of a pro-British Sultan, Hamoud bin Mohammed, as Khalid's successor. Mathews continued his reforms after the war, abolishing slavery in 1897 and establishing new farms to grow produce using Western techniques. He was appointed a member of the Grand Order of Hamondieh of Zanzibar and was permitted to accept and wear the decoration on 25 August 1897. ## Military expeditions ### Mwele In addition to the smaller-scale expeditions described earlier, Mathews embarked on two much larger expeditions to the African mainland during his tenure as first minister, the first at Mwele. The initial rebellion in the area had been led by Mbaruk bin Rashid at Gazi, which Mathews had put down with 1,200 men in 1882. However, in 1895 Mbaruk's nephew, Mbaruk bin Rashid, refused to acknowledge the appointment of a new leader at Takaungu. This led to open rebellion at Konjoro in February of that year when the younger Mbaruk attacked Zanzibari troops under Arthur Raikes, one of Mathews' officers. Mathews was part of an Anglo-Zanzibari expedition sent to quell it, which consisted of 310 British sailors, 50 Royal Marines, 54 Sudanese and 164 Zanzibari troops. Konjoro was destroyed and the leaders fled to Gazi where the older Mbaruk failed to turn them over. Another force, under Admiral Rawson, with 400 British marines and sailors, was sent after them. This further expedition failed to capture the ringleaders and a third expedition was organised by Rawson with 220 sailors, 80 marines, 60 Sudanese and 50 Zanzibaris, which destroyed Mwele. During the latter action Mathews was wounded in the shoulder. ### Witu Following the death of a German logger who had been operating illegally, the Sultan of Zanzibar and the British government dispatched an expedition on 20 October 1890 to bring the Sultan of Witu to justice. Nine warships and three transports carrying 800 sailors and marines, 150 Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEA) Indian police, 200 Zanzibari and 50 Sudanese troops were sent, defeating the Sultan and establishing a British protectorate. The IBEA was given control of the area and established a force of 250 Indian police to maintain the peace. The police were withdrawn in July 1893 following threats of violence from the new Sultan of Witu, Oman, and another expedition was dispatched to the region. This consisted of three warships: HMS Blanche, HMS Sparrow and the Zanzibari ship HHS Barawa. The latter carried Mathews with 125 Askaris and 50 Sudanese under Brigadier-General Hatch of the Zanzibar army. Mathews and an escort force went to Witu where, on 31 July, they removed the flag of the IBEA company and replaced it with the red flag of Zanzibar, before destroying several villages and causing Oman to retreat into the forests. The British troops then withdrew, having suffered heavily from malaria, but the Sudanese and Zanzibari troops remained. A further expedition was sent of 140 sailors and 85 other troops but Oman died soon after and a more pliable sultan, Omar bin Hamid, was appointed to govern on behalf of Zanzibar, bringing the affair to a close. In return for this action, Mathews received the British East and West Africa campaign medal. ## Later life Mathews died of malaria in Zanzibar on 11 October 1901 and was buried with full military honours in the British cemetery outside Zanzibar Town. His successor as first minister was Alexander Stuart Rogers. Changuu Island, which Mathews bought for a prison, now has a restaurant named in his honour and also a church. Mathews House, at the Western end of Zanzibar Town, is also named for him.

Gravity the Seducer

2011 album by Ladytron

Gravity the Seducer is the fifth studio album by English electronic music band Ladytron. It was released on 12 September 2011 by Nettwerk. Recorded in Kent, England, the album has been described as "haunted, evocative, romantic", and having "a feminine warmth". Three singles have been released from the album, "White Elephant", "Ambulances" and "Mirage". The song "Ace of Hz" had previously been released as a single from the greatest hits album Best of 00–10 before appearing on Gravity the Seducer. Release of the album coincided with a tour across Canada and the United States. Gravity the Seducer earned generally positive reviews and reached number 72 on the UK Albums Chart, the group's highest-peaking album in their home country as of September 2012. ## Production Gravity the Seducer was Ladytron's second studio album released under the Nettwerk record label, with whom they signed in 2007. Their first release through Nettwork was the 2008 studio album Velocifero, followed in March 2011 by the greatest hits album Best of 00–10. Ladytron also self-released the live album, Live at London Astoria 16.07.08 in 2009. Gravity the Seducer was recorded in Kent, England, and was co-produced by Barny Barnicott, who had previously collaborated with Arctic Monkeys and Editors. as well as having worked on Ladytron's 2005 album Witching Hour. The band felt that the production of the album was different from that of Velocifero, with band member Daniel Hunt noting that the latter record had been "made with performance in mind", as the band had recently finished touring when it was produced. Gravity the Seducer was produced "while removed from that thinking". In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, singer Helen Marnie described the album as "the warmest, most emotional, thing we've ever done". The vocal parts on the album have been mixed at a lower volume than previous Ladytron albums, while four tracks are entirely instrumental. The title Gravity the Seducer is taken from a line in the song "Ninety Degrees", which Hunt has described as "expanding our creative horizons". The cover artwork, designed by Neil Krug, has been described as an "endless vista" thematically linked the music's "vast atmospheres", and has been compared to the works of design group Hipgnosis. ## Release and promotion Gravity the Seducer was released on 12 September 2011 in the United Kingdom, and the following day in the United States. In support of the album, Ladytron toured Europe, North America, Brazil, Chile, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore throughout 2011. ### Singles "Ace of Hz", the fourth song from Gravity the Seducer, also appeared on band's greatest hits compilation Best of 00–10 and on their Ace of Hz EP. "Ace of Hz" had been released as a single on 30 November 2010. The song was also included in the video game FIFA 11. "White Elephant" was officially released as the lead single from Gravity the Seducer on 17 May 2011. For further promotion, the songs "Ambulances" and "Mirage" were released as digital downloads on 21 June and 9 August, respectively. The video for "Mirage" was filmed at the Callanish Stones, a five-thousand-year-old stone circle near the Scottish village of Callanish. The video was co-directed by Michael Sherrington and Daniel Hunt. ## Critical reception Gravity the Seducer received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 68, based on 20 reviews. The Independent's Simon Price praised the album as "faultless", noting that it represented the band "at their most electronically pure". Chris Todd of Clash magazine lauded Gravity the Seducer as "an album of lush and elegant pop music, beguiling and gloriously cinematic." Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson described the album as "uniformly sleek [and] polished like a summer skyline" and praised singer Helen Marnie's "lightly lilting" vocals, but felt that the similarity between certain songs left the album feeling "almost barren". Heather Phares of AllMusic described the album as "an admirable artistic choice, even though it doesn't always pay off". The A.V. Club's Christopher Bahn called the album "heart-on-sleeve and icily detached at the same time"; however, Bahn opined that "the lack of a propulsive single ... as well as an overabundance of instrumentals, suggests a band that's spinning its wheels". Jamie Crossan of NME found the album to be "nothing new", but felt that the album's content is more of what "the band have always excelled" at. Larry Fitzmaurice of Pitchfork dubbed the album "upsettingly uneven", adding that it represented a transition away from the sound of band's earlier work, which he felt was still evident in "Ace of Hz" and "Mirage", towards a "floatier, airy feel". Michael Hann of The Guardian expressed that Gravity the Seducer did not measure up to the band's earlier work, picking out their earlier single "Destroy Everything You Touch" as a yardstick "that subsequent work will always be judged against". Spin magazine's Barry Walters remarked that the album "lacks the infectious, dark-disco rumble" of Ladytron's earlier work, noting that it "withhold[s] the hooks that previously put the sweet in their bitter". John Calvert of Drowned in Sound characterised the album as "slightly bland" and "nondescript in its understated sophistication", concluding that "Gravity the Seducer never manages to get under your skin the way the band intended". ## Commercial performance In the band's home country, the United Kingdom, Gravity the Seducer peaked at number 72 on the UK Albums Chart, spending one week on the chart. It became the band's highest-peaking album on the chart to date. The album's highest chart position was on the United States' Heatseekers Albums chart, where it peaked at number two. The album reached 112 on the Billboard 200, as well as number 27 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart and number six on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Gravity the Seducer reached number 50 on the Finnish Albums Chart, spending one week on the chart; number 90 in the Canadian Albums Chart; and number four on the Belgian Heatseekers Albums Chart, spending a week on that chart. ## Track listing ## Gravity the Seducer (Remixed) On 29 November 2013, Ladytron released the remix album Gravity the Seducer (Remixed), a collection of remixes of Gravity the Seducer songs. They also released an exclusive limited-edition blue vinyl of this remix album on Record Store Day special Black Friday. ## Personnel Credits adapted from the liner notes of Gravity the Seducer. - Ladytron – production - Daniel Hunt – production - Barny Barnicott – additional production, engineering, mixing - Alessandro Cortini – additional production - Neil Krug – artwork - Trevor Tarczynski – design ## Charts

Anna Bågenholm

Swedish radiologist

Anna Elisabeth Johansson Bågenholm (born 1970) is a Swedish radiologist from Vänersborg, who survived after a skiing accident in 1999 left her trapped under a layer of ice for 80 minutes in freezing water. During this time she experienced extreme hypothermia and her body temperature decreased to 13.7 °C (56.7 °F), one of the lowest survived body temperatures ever recorded in a human with accidental hypothermia. Bågenholm was able to find an air pocket under the ice, but experienced circulatory arrest after 40 minutes in the water. After rescue, Bågenholm was transported by helicopter to the Tromsø University Hospital, where a team of more than a hundred doctors and nurses worked in shifts for nine hours to save her life. Bågenholm woke up ten days after the accident, paralyzed from the neck down and subsequently spent two months recovering in an intensive care unit. Although she has made an almost full recovery from the incident, late in 2009 she was still having minor symptoms in hands and feet related to nerve injury. Bågenholm's case has been discussed in the leading British medical journal The Lancet, and in medical textbooks. ## Background and incident Anna Bågenholm was born in 1970 in Vänersborg, Sweden, one of eight children. At the time of the incident, she was 29 years old and studying to become an orthopedic surgeon. Bågenholm decided to do her residency in Narvik, Norway, and, in May 1998, she became an assistant surgeon at the Narvik Hospital. Bågenholm's mentor during this period was Yngve Jones, a doctor at the Narvik Hospital who was about to celebrate his retirement with a party on 20 May 1999. On that day, Bågenholm was skiing in the mountains outside of Narvik with two of her colleagues, Marie Falkenberg and Torvind Næsheim. An expert skier, Bågenholm often skied after work. As she was heading down a steep mountainside—a route she had taken several times before—she lost control of her skis. She fell headfirst onto a layer of ice on a frozen stream near a waterfall, landing on her back. A hole opened up in the ice and Bågenholm's head and torso were pulled in as meltwater filled her clothes. Her body became trapped under the ice, which was 20 centimetres (7.9 in) thick. When Falkenberg and Næsheim found Bågenholm, only her feet and skis were above the ice. ## Rescue attempts Bågenholm's colleagues made an attempt to free her but failed. At 18:27 local time (CET), seven minutes after she had fallen into the water, they called for help on a mobile phone. Police lieutenant Bård Mikalsen received the call and put together two rescue teams; one at the top of the mountain and one at the bottom. Mikalsen also contacted the Bodø rescue team, which was equipped with a Sea King helicopter, but they told him that the helicopter had left to transport a sick child. Mikalsen was persistent and convinced the dispatcher to turn the helicopter around. Falkenberg and Næsheim held onto Bågenholm's skis as they waited for the rescue teams to arrive. At first Bågenholm struggled in the cold water before she found an air pocket and was able to remain conscious for 40 minutes before experiencing circulatory arrest. Ketil Singstad led the rescue team from the top of the mountain. He skied as fast as he could to Bågenholm's location, where he and his rescue team tried unsuccessfully to pull her out with a rope. They then tried to dig her out, but their snow shovel could not break through the ice. Rescuers from the bottom of the mountain then arrived, bringing with them a pointed gardening shovel. They were able to cut a hole in the ice, and pulled her through at 19:40. Bågenholm had been in the water for 80 minutes when she was rescued. ## Resuscitation and recovery When Bågenholm was pulled out of the water, her pupils were dilated, her blood was not circulating, and she was not breathing. Falkenberg and Næsheim, both doctors, began giving her cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The rescue helicopter soon arrived and Bågenholm was taken to the Tromsø University Hospital in an hour. The helicopter emergency team continued to give her CPR during the flight, and she was ventilated with oxygen. She was also treated with a defibrillator, but to no effect. Bågenholm arrived at the hospital at 21:10. Her body temperature at this point was 13.7 °C (56.7 °F), the lowest survived body temperature ever recorded in a human with accidental hypothermia at the time, Dr. Mads Gilbert, an anesthesiologist and the chief of the hospital's emergency room, proceeded with the resuscitation attempt. He commented on Bågenholm's state: "She has completely dilated pupils. She is ashen, flaxen white. She's wet. She's ice cold when I touch her skin, and she looks absolutely dead." Gilbert had treated many cases of hypothermia before because of the cold climate in Norway, and knew how to treat Bågenholm. The electrocardiogram connected to her showed no signs of life, but Gilbert knew patients should be "warmed up before you declare them dead". He and his team hoped Bågenholm's brain had received enough oxygen from the CPR she was given after her rescue. Bågenholm was taken to the operating theatre, where a team of more than a hundred doctors and nurses worked in shifts for nine hours to save her life. At 21:40, she was connected to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine that warmed up her blood outside of her body before it was reinserted into her veins. Bågenholm's first heart beat was recorded at 22:15, and her body temperature had risen to 36.4 °C (97.5 °F) at 0:49. Bågenholm's lung function deteriorated at 02:20, and she spent the following 35 days connected to a ventilator. Bågenholm soon began to show signs of vitality, and woke up paralyzed from the neck down on 30 May. She feared she would spend the rest of her life on her back, and was angry with her colleagues for saving her. Bågenholm soon recovered from the paralysis, however, and later apologized to her friends; "I was very irritated when I realized they had saved me. I feared a meaningless life, without any dignity. Now I am very happy to be alive and want to apologize." Bågenholm's kidneys and digestive system were not working properly, so she had to recover in an intensive care unit for two more months. After spending 28 days in the Tromsø intensive care unit, she was flown to Sweden in an ambulance helicopter for the remainder of her recovery. Dr Petter Andreas Steen, professor at the National Hospital in Oslo, said it was "an extraordinary medical achievement" that Bågenholm's life could be saved. He believed the reason she was able to recover was that her metabolism slowed down during the incident and the tissues inside her body required less oxygen at the low temperatures. According to the journal Proto (published by the Massachusetts General Hospital), Bågenholm's metabolism slowed down to ten percent of its baseline rate and thus she barely needed any oxygen at all. ## Aftermath Despite the severe damage to Bågenholm's body, no permanent brain damage was diagnosed. Gilbert commented on this: "Her body had time to cool down completely before the heart stopped. Her brain was so cold when the heart stopped that the brain cells needed very little oxygen, so the brain could survive for quite a prolonged time." Gilbert also noted that therapeutic hypothermia, a method used to save those in circulatory arrest by lowering their body temperature, has become more frequent at Norwegian hospitals after Bågenholm's case gained fame. Bågenholm returned to work in October 1999. On 7 October 1999–140 days after the accident—she returned to the hospital in Tromsø and met the doctors and nurses that helped save her life. Bågenholm commented: "When you are a patient, you're not thinking you are going to die. You think, I'm going to make it. But as a medical person, I think it's amazing that I'm alive." As of October 2009, Bågenholm has made an almost full recovery, although minor symptoms in hands and feet related to nerve injury remain. In late 2009, she was working as a radiologist at the hospital where her life was saved. According to BBC News, most patients who have extreme hypothermia die, even if doctors are able to restart their hearts. The survival rate for adults whose body temperature has decreased to below 28 °C (82 °F) is 10%–33%. Prior to Bågenholm's accident, the lowest survived body temperature was 14.4 °C (57.9 °F), which had been recorded in a child. Gilbert said > "victims of very deep accidental hypothermia with circulatory arrest should be seen as potentially resuscitable with a prospect of full recovery. The key success factors of such marginal resuscitation efforts are early bystander actions with vigorous CPR and early warning of the emergency system, early dispatch of adequate rescue units (ground and air-ambulances) and good co-ordination between the resources outside and inside the hospital, aggressive rewarming and a spirit not to give up." General practitioner Jel Coward from Tywyn, Wales, said persons who experience extreme hypothermia are often mistakenly thought dead because it can be difficult to detect a pulse on them. He said this case "really does bring it home to us how cautious one has to be before diagnosing death in people who are cold." After the incident, Bågenholm became a subject of fiction and medical textbooks, and her case has been discussed in the leading British medical journal The Lancet. On 25 October 2009 her story was featured on CNN's television program Another Day: Cheating Death. Hosted by Sanjay Gupta, the program features stories from people who have survived severe conditions against all odds. Bågenholm hoped the program would give the people watching it more knowledge of hypothermia. The story is also included in Gupta's companion book, Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Lives Against All Odds. On 30 October 2009, Bågenholm and Gilbert appeared together on the popular Norwegian NRK talk show Skavlan, hosted by Fredrik Skavlan. ## See also - Therapeutic hypothermia

Kaʻiminaʻauao

Hawaiian princess (1845–1848)

Kaʻiminaʻauao (November 7, 1845 – November 10, 1848) was a Hawaiian high chiefess who was given in adoption to Queen Kalama and King Kamehameha III. She died of the measles at the age of three, during an epidemic of measles, whooping cough and influenza that killed more than 10,000 Native Hawaiians. Her elder brother and sister became King Kalākaua (who reigned from 1874 to 1891), and Queen Liliʻuokalani (who reigned as Hawaii's last monarch from 1891 to 1893). ## Name Her name has been traditionally spelled Kaiminaauao or Kaʻiminaʻauao with the two ʻokina, which are phonemic glottal stop, as it is used in many Polynesian languages. It is alternatively spelled as Kaiminiaauao. Her name means "the search for knowledge" in the Hawaiian language. According to Hawaiian linguist Mary Kawena Pukui, ʻimi naʻau ao means "to seek knowledge or education; ambitious to learn; one seeking education or learning, research, learning". ## Family Kaʻiminaʻauao was born on November 7, 1845. Born into the aliʻi class of Hawaiian nobility, her father High Chief Caesar Kapaʻakea and mother High Chiefess Analea Keohokālole were advisors to the reigning king Kamehameha III. Her mother was the daughter of ʻAikanaka and Kamaʻeokalani while her father was the son of Kamanawa II (half-brother of ʻAikanaka) and Kamokuiki. From her parents, she descended from Keaweaheulu and Kameʻeiamoku, the royal counselors of Kamehameha I during his conquest of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Kameʻeiamoku, the grandfather of both her mother and father, was one of the royal twins alongside Kamanawa depicted on the Hawaiian coat of arms. Kaʻiminaʻauao's family were collateral relations of the House of Kamehameha. Another relative of the family was the High Chiefess Kapiʻolani who plucked the sacred ʻōhelo berries and openly defied the goddess Pele as a dramatic demonstration of her new faith in Christianity. The fifth child and third daughter of a large family, her sibling included James Kaliokalani, David Kalākaua (who reigned as king from 1874 to 1891), Lydia Kamakaʻeha (who reigned as Hawaii's last monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani from 1891 to 1893), Anna Kaʻiulani, Miriam Likelike, and William Pitt Leleiohoku II. All her siblings were given away in hānai to other family members and friends. The Hawaiian custom of hānai is an informal form of adoption between extended families practiced by Hawaiian royals and commoners alike. She was adopted by Queen Kalama, the wife of King Kamehameha III. The royal couple were childless at the time because two sons born to Kalama (both named Keaweaweʻulaokalani) had died during infancy. Kamehameha III had previously adopted his half-sister Kīnaʻu's son Alexander Liholiho (the future Kamehameha IV) as his heir and successor. Contemporary English sources referred to Kaʻiminaʻauao as the ward of the queen. ## Death and funeral The measles epidemic of 1848-49 was brought to Hilo by an American warship. During this short period, a combination of measles and whooping cough and influenza epidemics killed 10,000 people, mostly Native Hawaiians. Among the high chiefs who died were Moses Kekūāiwa (son of Kīnaʻu and Kekūanāoʻa), William Pitt Leleiohoku I (husband of Ruth Keʻelikōlani) and the three-year-old Kaʻiminaʻauao, who died on November 10, 1848. The bodies of the deceased were embalmed with alcohol in lead coffins and placed inside wooden coffins. Initially buried in the Pohukaina Tomb, located on grounds of ʻIolani Palace, her remains were left behind when the coffins of other royals were moved to the newly constructed Royal Mausoleum at Mauna ʻAla in the Nuʻuanu Valley in 1865. This changed after the accession of her brother as king. On the evening of November 30, 1875, her remains and the remains of her parents, buried at the cemetery of Kawaiahaʻo Church, were transported to the Royal Mausoleum followed by torchlight under a military escort led by John Owen Dominis. In a ceremony officiated by her sister Liliʻuokalani on June 24, 1910, her remains, and those of her family, were transferred for a final time to the underground Kalākaua Crypt after the main mausoleum building had been converted into a chapel. Kaʻiminaʻauao's three elder siblings were educated at the Chiefs' Children's School (later renamed the Royal School) founded in 1839 by the American missionary couple Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke to provide a Western-style education to the Hawaiian royal children. The children at the school were chosen by Kamehameha III to be eligible for the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaii. It was intended that Kaʻiminaʻauao would join the school. However, her early death and the death of other aliʻi children in the epidemic prevented the addition of new scholars to the school. This deficit of scholars would lead to the closure of the school in 1850. Juliette Montague Cooke wrote: "A little girl, sister of three of our scholars, adopted by the Queen, and who was expecting to enter our family, died on 10th inst. aged three years and two days." ## Ancestry

Røst Airport

Airport in Røst, Norway

Røst Airport (Norwegian: Røst lufthavn; ) is a regional airport serving Røst Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The airport is located on the northern edge of the main island of Røstlandet, just north of the main village of Røstlandet. It is owned and operated by the state-owned Avinor, and the tower is remotely controlled from Bodø. The airport handled 9,889 passengers in 2014. Services are provided by Widerøe, operating Dash 8-100 aircraft on contract with the Ministry of Transport and Communications to Bodø Airport and Leknes Airport. Røst was first served using seaplanes from the 1960s, and then by helicopters from 1970. Røst Airport opened on 1 June 1986, initially with Widerøe operating de Havilland Canada Twin Otters. From 2000 to 2001 the service was operated by Guard Air, and from 2003 to 2008 by Kato Air; otherwise Widerøe has flown the route. ## History Services to Røst started in 1965, when Widerøe commenced seaplane services to the island using de Havilland Canada Otters and Noorduyn Norseman aircraft. The routes were operated two to three times per week as a charter service, with subsidies from the municipalities of Værøy and Røst. Helikopter Service flew between Bodø Airport to Røst and Værøy—an island community further inland from Røst—with three weekly services from 1973. The helicopters doubled as serving for search and rescue duty; in case they were needed for the latter flights to Værøy and Røst were cancelled. The regional airports in Lofoten and Vesterålen opened in 1972, with the Værøy and Røst service being taken over by Widerøe on 1 September 1973. As they did not want to operate helicopters, they subcontracted the operations to Helilift. The service operated twice per day on weekdays and once per day in the weekends, using two sixteen-seat Sikorsky S-58Ts. Subsidies of 1.9 million Norwegian krone (NOK) was granted for the route in 1973, and the service transported 5,359 passengers (from both Røst and Værøy). One of the helicopters was bought by Widerøe in December 1976 and the operations were subcontracted to Offshore Helicopters. The second Sikorsky was bought from Helilift in March 1978 and also operated by Offshore Helicopters. Helikopter Service merged with Offshore Helicopters in 1980, and the new Helikopter Service took over the route. They introduced an eleven-seat Bell 212 helicopters from 1 January 1982 because of the high maintenance costs of the S-58Ts. In 1982 the service to both islands handled 7,145 passengers and three tonnes of post and cargo, and made 744 landings. It received subsidies for NOK 4 million. Plans for an airport with short take-off and landing flights was launched by the government in December 1983. The airport was proposed along with five other regional airport: Fagernes Airport, Leirin; Førde Airport, Bringeland; Mosjøen Airport, Kjærstad; Rørvik Airport, Ryum and Værøy Airport. The plans were passed by Parliament on 10 April 1984 and construction started in 1985. On 22 August 1985 the municipality was granted concession to operate the airport. Værøy and Røst Airports were opened on 1 June 1986, with Røst Airport having cost about NOK 15 million to build. The Civil Aviation Administration proposed in 1994 closing the airport along with eight other regional airports, because they had high subsidy levels. Røst Airport was nationalized on 1 January 1997, along with 25 other regional airports, and placed under the control of the Norwegian Civil Airport Administration (now Avinor). ### Service After the airport opened, services started with Widerøe-operated twenty-seat de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters. The airline operated two trips Bodø–Røst–Værøy–Bodø on weekdays and one round trip during the weekend. In addition, there were two weekly trips that connected Værøy to Leknes Airport before returning to Bodø. The service was subsidized by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Widerøe replaced the Twin Otters with 37-seat de Havilland Canada DHC-8-100 Dash 8s in 1995. The route from Bodø to Røst was made subject to public service obligation from 1 April 1997, which was won by the incumbent, after beating Valdresfly and Helikopter Service in the auction. The following contract, valid from 1 April 2000, was awarded to Guard Air, but this company folded in 2001. Helikopter Service operated the route temporarily until Widerøe took it over again the same year. On 1 April 2003, Kato Air took over the Bodø–Røst route, using Dornier 228 aircraft. The new airline had a troubled start with the passenger numbers dropping by 27 percent. On 4 December, a flight from Røst to Bodø was hit by lightning, and received severe damage during the landing at Bodø. The choice of the operator was criticized by the Røst Municipal Council following the incident, stated that the ministry had prioritized price over safety. The council stated that they did not feel that Kato Air provided the same service as Widerøe and that the aircraft were a safety hazard. Among the complaints were lack of accessibility for disabled people, no cabin pressurization, no weather radar, more expensive tickets, no discounted tickets and no possibility for carry-on baggage. In February 2006, there was a wave of cancellations by Kato Air, due to technical problems with both the airline's aircraft. In June, the airline's pilots started selling tickets themselves at the airport. The company stated that this was because they had declined Widerøe to do this because of higher costs. The Civil Aviation Authority of Norway withdrew Kato Air's concession in 2008 due to lack on maintenance. On an interim basis, the helicopter airline Lufttransport, that operated the route to the nearby island of Værøy, took over the route from 5 September to 29 October, when Widerøe started flying again. ## Facilities Røst Airport is a regional airport owned and operated by Avinor. It serves the island of Røstlandet, the most remote island in the Lofoten archipelago. It has a terminal building with a capacity for 40 passengers per hour. The largest aircraft that can operate at the airport are the Dash 8-100. There is free parking at the airport for 20 vehicles. Taxis can be prebooked. The airport resides at an elevation of 3 meters (9.8 feet) above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 03–21 with an asphalt surface measuring 880 by 30 meters (2,887 ft × 98 ft). ## Airlines and destinations The airport is served twice daily with a de Havilland Canada DHC-8-100 Dash 8 by Widerøe. Flight operate from Bodø Airport via Røst to Svolvær Helle before returning to Bodø. The routes are operated as a public service obligation on contract with the Ministry of Transport and Communications. ## Statistics

Louis-René Villermé

French economist and physician

Louis-René Villermé (10 March 1782 – 16 November 1863) was a French economist and physician. He was known for his early studies of social epidemiology, or the effects of socioeconomic status on health, in early industrial France, and was an advocate for hygienic reform in factories and prisons. His work is considered pivotal in the history of the fields of sociology and statistical inquiry, and he is considered a founder of epidemiology. Villermé published works on the conditions in prisons in France, and the benefits of helping prisoners return to outside life when their sentences ended. Another concerned the role of industrialization on the general health and quality of life of working-class people. His best-known work was concerned with workers in the cotton, wool, and silk industries, including the children that worked in the mills. ## Career Born in Paris on 10 March 1782, Villermé was a man of many occupations; he covered a wide range of professions in his lifetime including: medical student, army surgeon, author, social economist, and member of several medical boards. He studied with the anatomist Guillaume Dupuytren during 1801–1804. Villermé then spent 10 years serving in the army room during 1804–1814 under the reign of Napoleon. In 1819, Villermé married. After his military service, he began work as Secretary-General of the Société Médicale d'Emulation in 1818. Villermé was elected to the Académie royale de médecine in 1823. Later in life, he became an economist who wrote about social issues. Villermé was one of the pioneering advocates of hygienic reform and one of the first in France to relate hygienic reform with that of social reform. He conducted numerous early studies on social epidemiology, the health disparities among classes in correlation with wages and living conditions, using his knowledge as a physician to incorporate data analysis as well as social investigations of the working class. He even conducted studies that related mortality rates with income. He was described by Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet as "one of the men who has thrown most light upon this important subject." He is considered one of the founders of epidemiology. Villermé was responsible for the establishment in 1829 of what may have been the first journal of urban studies, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale (Annals of Public Hygiene and Forensic Medicine, 1829). As one of its editors, he advocated for the use of statistics as a tool, and published the works of statisticians from France and other countries. In addition to being a member of the Académie royale de médecine, Villermé was a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques after it was reestablished in 1832. He was appointed by it to lead a commission into textile workers, and served as its president. His work is considered pivotal in the history of the fields of sociology and statistical inquiry, Politically, Villermé was a liberal, with an optimistic belief that industrialism and haut commerce could be sources of "productive" wealth which would improve public health. In terms of political economy, he generally did not support government intervention or regulation, believing that a healthy private sector would self-regulate and that enlightened employers would provide higher wages. He did not adopt a radical or proletarian view focused on class relations and political organizing. However, in the area of child labor, Villermé was an active supporter of government intervention. He strongly advocated against child labor and for the required education of young children, positions that influenced the passage of comprehensive French child labor legislation in 1841. > If following my tour a maximum duration of work for children in factories should be adopted, I would certainly be well rewarded for all my trouble... This law, which would only be a copy of one passed in England not long ago, is absolutely demanded by conscience and humanity. ## Works ### On Prisons Villermé published Des prisons telles qu'elles sont et telles qu'elles devraient être (On Prisons as They Are and as They Should Be) in 1820. In this work he called attention to the unhealthy conditions of the prisons in Paris. He outlined several components of the prison systems that he believed should be abolished including torture, ill treatment, cells, and unequal treatment of prisoners based on the amount of money men are able to give up. Villermé urged the government of Paris to take after the newly reformed prison systems of the United States and Russia. His goal was to persuade officials to reevaluate the unhealthy living environments and treatments of men in prisons so that men are able to become functioning citizens upon their release. This work in particular reflects the multifaceted approach Villermé took in his research, combining knowledge of medicine, data analysis, and social epidemiology. In the year 1826, he conducted a study connecting mortality rates with wealth and poverty based on neighborhoods in Paris. Louis-René Villermé is also accounted as the author of the one of the first life expectancy tables that directly linked income to mortality rates and life expectancy. He concluded that poor people die younger. This extended into his study in 1829 that reasoned the cause for shorter heights in poorer people was the result of inadequate money to provide proper nutrition. Villermé's work on height is considered the first study in auxological epidemiology. ### Tableau Villermé’s Tableau discussed the role of industrialization on the general health and quality of life for the laboring class. His perspective in this work is unique in that he maintained that the process of industrialization is not completely to blame. He even suggested the industrial movement to be beneficial for the future of society, calling on examples of industrialization in the United States. He also discussed the role of children working in the textile industry. The point is made that, in some cases, at least half of the workforce in a textile factory was made up of the children of textile workers, many under the age of eighteen. Villermé contrasted the quality of life of workers who maintained family life with those taken over completely by their labor. He blamed both the working conditions associated with industrialization as well as the workers themselves to an extent. This work served not only as valuable information to medical institutions and boards, but also as a social statement, widely accepted by the public. It is from this work that Villermé received his reputation as a moral economist. ### The Physical Condition of Cotton, Wool and Silk Workers His most popular work was that of Tableau de l'état physique et moral des ouvriers employés dans les manufactures de coton, de laine et de soie (Study of the Physical Condition of Cotton, Wool and Silk workers), the final product of extended research and observation, published in the year 1840. The book outlined the physical and moral conditions of different labor forces. Villermé discussed his observations made concerning workers in the cotton, wool, and silk industries. He brought attention to the treacherous working conditions, unfit for adults as well as the danger for young children working alongside the adults, and critiqued the low wages provided to workers. There was a comparison throughout the entirety of the first section between the three occupations and different locations throughout France. The second portion of the book included the topic of health as it relates to dangerous workplaces and the effects of low pay and overcrowding. and he is considered a founder of epidemiology. Villermé covered a wide array of subject matter including: children in the workplace, savings accounts, asylum rooms, and drunkenness among the working class. The work was unique in combining health topics with research and social reforms.

When Love Was Blind (1911 film)

When Love Was Blind is a 1911 American silent short drama film produced by the Thanhouser Company. The film focuses on young blind woman, May Read, who is saved from her burning home by Frank Larson. In the act of saving her, Frank is disfigured, but the two fall and love, marry and have a child. Two years later, the family physician offers to restore May's sight through a surgery. Frank consents despite his fears that May will not love him if she gazes upon his disfigured face. The surgery is a success and the doctor tells May not to remove the bandages. May ignores this warning and is permanently blinded after attempting to gaze at her husband, but she is content knowing her baby is beautiful. Directed by Lucius J. Henderson and starred Lucille Younge, the film was a critical success. The film is presumed lost. ## Plot The film focuses on May Read, the daughter of a wealthy widow, who was blinded by an unknown affliction when she was a child. While her mother is away, a fire starts in the house and May is left in the blaze while the servants flee. Frank Larson makes his way into the burning house and brings May out to the safety of the street, but doing so has disfigured him for life. May and Frank fall in love and the couple are married with the blessing of May's mother. Two years pass and couple have their first child. Their family physician offers to perform an operation to restore May's sight. Despite Frank's worries that his wife will not love him if she should see his scarred face, Frank consents to the operation. The operation is a success and the doctor warns May not to remove the bandages as she will lose her sight again. May's desire to see her child is so strong that she removes the bandages and gazes upon her child. Upon trying to gaze upon her husband, who is standing in strong light, May is permanently blinded. The film concludes with May being content with her blindness and knowing that her baby is as beautiful. ## Production Little is known about the production of the work. The film was shot at the Thanhouser Studio in New Rochelle, New York under the direction of Lucius J. Henderson and starred Lucille Younge as May Read. A surviving film still shows the "disfigured husband", giving the possibility of identifying the actor who played Frank Larson. The film is presumed lost because it is not known to be held in any archive or by any collector. ## Release and reception The single reel film, approximately 960 feet long, was released on January 24, 1911. Reviews for the film from critics and industry publications were positive. The Billboard gave the film a positive review for its moving story of true love shown by the actors playing the blind wife and facially disfigured husband. The reviewer also noted that the photography was up to the usual high standard of Thanhouser releases. The Moving Picture World opened with the declaration that, "When this picture is past, the wonder will linger long in the memory whether the wife would have loved her husband just the same if she had seen him in the short time when her affliction was alleviated. And it must be admitted that the producers have added materially to the dramatic interest of the film by leaving that question unanswered." The New York Dramatic Mirror review praised the film for its photography, setting and acting, but highlighted technical inconsistencies in the progression of the fire and the overly drawn out struggle of the father in the smoke. Walton of The Moving Picture News also praised the film, stating that "The situations are well handled; the acting of the principals shows the true grip of the characters. The work of this firm of late has been not only artistic but throbbing with that clean, human life which is winning high praise." In local papers, the film was reviewed positively by theater advertisements, owing to the sentimental nature of the film and the technical execution of the fire scene.

Bugchasing

Seeking HIV infection through sex

Bugchasing (alternatively bug chasing) is the particularly rare practice of intentionally seeking human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection through sexual activity. Bugchasers—those who eroticize HIV—are a subculture of barebackers, men who have unprotected sex with other men. It is statistically rare for men to self-identify as bugchasers, and many of those who do never participate in sexual acts that can lead to HIV infection. There are some explanations for the behavior and fantasies of bugchasing, ranging from sexual excitement at the idea of HIV-positive status, to finding a shared sense of community with other HIV-positive people, to suicidality. By 2003, the concept had entered the public consciousness after Rolling Stone published "Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV+", an article—since widely disputed for its statistical methods—describing the practice. It may have existed since the AIDS crisis began. It has since been mentioned in or the focus of pieces of media and popular culture. As of 2021, bugchasing behavior still persists as a niche behavior, in spite of the widespread availability of effective PrEP and HAART treatments that protect against HIV transmission in otherwise unprotected sex. ## Origins The precise origins of bugchasing—the pursuit of HIV infection—are largely unknown, with its inception located either at the beginning of the AIDS crisis or closer to the 1990s. But it existed by at least 1997, when Newsweek published an article about the subject, followed by Rolling Stone in 2003. The Rolling Stone article, "Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV+", written by Gregory Freeman, was the first to bring widespread concern and attention to the practice. That article claimed that around 25 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States (10,000 of 45,000) were linked to bugchasing activity. Freeman's statistics erroneously counted all men who engaged in barebacking, regardless of motivation or attempts to seek out HIV infection, as bugchasers. Authorities that Freeman cited have since claimed he fabricated their statements, and his data have been widely criticized. In the estimation of sexuality studies scholar Octavio R. Gonzalez, Freeman's article was perhaps most responsible for bringing the term bugchasing to a mainstream audience, and public interest in and understanding of the practice increased following Freeman's article. ## Motivation and activity Bugchasers are men who have sex with men (MSM) who eroticize HIV infection, particularly through engaging in online sexual fantasies of being infected with HIV, or who actually pursue infection with the virus. Since little is understood about the practice in general, the motivations for developing bugchasing identity and behavior remain largely undefined. However, at least four motivations have been suggested. First, some men may become bugchasers as a result of fear of HIV infection, which had previously altered their sexual behavior, such as men abstaining from sex entirely, committing to one partner, or using preventative measures such as condoms. In this way, bugchasers may view their actions as empowering, both sexually and personally; the transformation of bugchasers from HIV-negative to HIV-positive status is understood by the group as masculinizing, which grants them additional status. Second, some men view HIV-positive status as erotic or sexually stimulating. It may be a subject of pleasure or the ultimate taboo to overcome. Third, bugchasers may understand HIV-positive status (or its pursuit) as granting a shared identity and sense of community. And fourth, bugchasing has been described as a political device and action against social norms (such as those tied to heteronormativity) through transgression of—or rebellion against—popular sentiments about gay life. There is a fifth possible motivation—suicide—but this remains an unclear or imprecise explanation for bugchasing behavior. Bugchasing is a rare sexual taboo. It is described as "statistically rare". Many self-identified bugchasers do not deliberately seek out sex with HIV-positive people, and their identities frequently do not align with their actions. Many men who self-identify as bugchasers never attempt to become HIV-positive. There are many self-identified bugchasers on the internet, using sites such as Twitter and (formerly) Tumblr. The widespread availability of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), capable of preventing HIV infection in otherwise unprotected sexual encounters, has not resulted in the disappearance of bugchasing. Some men incorporate taking PrEP alongside bugchasing behavior, others experiment with bugchasing while on PrEP, and others view it as emasculating and refuse to use it. ## Group dynamics While barebacking and bugchasing are both centered in risky sexual activity, they are distinct activities. Bugchasing is a subculture of barebacking, and intent is a distinguishing characteristic between bugchasers and barebackers: most barebackers do not intend to be infected (or infect others) with HIV, which is the apparent focus of bugchasing behavior. In the view of ethnologist Jamie García-Iglesias and researcher Tim Dean, bugchasers circulate several metaphors that distinguish their identity from other MSM communities: insemination, pregnancy, and paternity. According to Dean and the psychological researcher Hugh Klein, since HIV is able to spread and reproduce through the sexual activity belonging to bugchasing, its cultural dimensions—institutions, norms, practices, and forms of kinship that, taken together, form a community situated around HIV status—may be transmitted through viral infection, similar to cultural propagation through birth and paternity. It is this sense of community—at once built but also destroyed by the consequences of HIV infection—that is described by García-Iglesias as both "queer world-making and world-shattering". Similarly, bugchasing spaces may reinforce certain notions of masculinity. The sex researcher Ellie Reynolds writes that HIV-positive men who purposely seek out others to infect with HIV—known as giftgivers—are constructed as hypermasculine through a penetrative sexual role, while bugchasers are understood to lack masculinity: penetrated (rather than penetrating), having their rectums described with words relating to women such as "pussy" and "mancunt", they occupy a feminine role in the social order. Whether giftgivers continue to exist is uncertain, given what García-Iglesias calls their "statistically rare" population and "biological implausib[ility] (on the basis of widespread successful treatment)". ## Media and culture American filmmaker Louise Hogarth released a documentary, The Gift, in the same year the Rolling Stone piece was published. It focused on narratives of bugchasers, emphasizing the self-reported positive aspects of HIV infection. Three years later, Ricky Dyer, an HIV-positive man, released a documentary through BBC3 entitled "I love being HIV+", suggesting that most bugchasing activity is simply fantasy. In 2009, gay playwright Erik Patterson ran the tragicomedy He Asked For It, dealing with bugchasing and HIV-positive status in contemporary Hollywood. Bugchasing was also a part of the show Queer as Folk. In 2012, Canadian Steven Boone was tried and convicted of three counts each of attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault after having unprotected sex with four men after previously contracting HIV. A self-described "poz vampire"—the word poz referring to acquiring HIV—he was immersed in bugchasing culture. His convictions on attempted murder have since been quashed after appealing to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, while the aggravated sexual assault convictions remain. The appeals court said it was not proven in the original case that he intended to kill his sexual partners; it offered the government the possibility of a new trial. Other cases of people being charged for the willful transmission of HIV have been reported.

Thou Shalt Not Kill (Spooks)

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" is the premiere episode of the British television series Spooks. It first aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 13 May 2002. The episode was written by series creator David Wolstencroft and directed by Bharat Nalluri. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" focuses on MI5's activities in stopping an anti-abortion group who have smuggled 20 explosive devices to be used against family planning doctors. The episode title is a reference to the sixth Commandment. The pilot went through 30 rewrites and four separate story changes before the BBC were satisfied with the plot. It would be rewritten again following the September 11 attacks, with the purpose of acknowledging the series premise as battling terrorism. Filming took place mostly in London, England using a long lens camera. The idea of using split screen, regularly used by the series, came from Nalluri after filming wrapped up for the episode, and was not inspired by the American television series 24. Following its broadcast, the pilot was seen by over nine million viewers, easily winning its time slot, having nearly doubled viewership from ITV1 at the same time; the ratings went beyond the producers' expectations. However, critics gave varied responses towards the episode. ## Plot When a car bomb detonates in the Liverpool suburb of Allerton, killing family planning doctor Karen Lynott (Karen Westwood) and severely injuring her young daughter Sarah, Section D of MI5 is on the case. Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo) learns from one of his assets, "Osprey" (Kelly Rolfe), that the group responsible have smuggled 20 bombs into the country from Ireland. After following her, the team learn that the terrorist responsible for smuggling the bombs and killing Lynott is Mary Kane (Lisa Eichhorn), an American anti-abortion extremist; she smuggled herself into the country under an assumed name and has been setting up cells across the UK. Section D also learn that Kane may be setting up the attacks in tribute to her husband, who is on death row in Florida following a series of attacks on abortion clinics. Upon tracking the movements of one cell, the Central Intelligence Agency pressure MI5 to extradite Kane back to the United States; such an action will seriously hinder their efforts to find the cells and a put a stop to them. By the time Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) signs the extradition forms, Kane has evaded MI5. In the meantime, Zoe Reynolds (Keeley Hawes) goes undercover to pose as a sympathizer to the cell. She lures a member, Rachel (Rachel Power) to the same hospital Sarah Lynott is being treated; Sarah later dies from the extent of her injuries. Senior case officer and team leader Tom Quinn (Matthew Macfadyen) attempts to persuade her to stop Kane, believing she has little regard for any life. Rachel leaves in haste, but unbeknownst to her, MI5 bug her mobile phone and record a phone conversation she makes to the cell regarding their next target, Diane Sullivan, a doctor living in London. Tom's team are able to take Sullivan to safety whilst Zoe poses as the target. The team see Kane deliver a bomb to Zoe's car, and prepares to detonate it via mobile phone. To counter the attack, a Bomb Squad jams the signal long enough for Tom to arrest her. During the interrogation, Tom promises to send her to a state in the US where the death penalty does not apply in exchange for the locations of every cell she runs in the UK. After she cooperates, Tom goes back on the deal and delivers Kane to CIA liaison Christine Dale (Megan Dodds), who returns her to Florida to be executed. Over the course of the episode, Tom enters a relationship with civilian Ellie Simm (Esther Hall) following an unrelated operation before the events of the episode, going by the pseudonym of civil servant in IT "Matthew Archer". ## Production The script for the episode went through 30 drafts, and four separate stories before the BBC were satisfied and ordered the series. Writing the pilot was completed before the September 11 terrorist attacks; after the attacks took place, the producers decided to add mention of the events into the episode in order to acknowledge the fact that the series is about fighting terrorism. Writer David Wolstencroft decided that Tom Quinn would use IT as his cover story for Ellie Simm, because IT has, according to Wolstencroft, "something that has an enormous amount of thought and technical fact behind it that nobody would really understand," and according to series producer Jane Featherstone, has people reluctant to be asking questions about. A scene where a cat escaped during Zoe's operation to bug Kane's cottage, and the ensuing search in the rain mirrored an experience during Wolstencroft's early career. It was also intended that the episode established that although spies plan heavily before operations, things can go wrong. Among the main cast, Peter Firth was attracted to appearing on Spooks after hearing of Howard Brenton's involvement in the series. The cast were advised by ex-MI5 officers in order to help give insight into how the characters operate in the spy world and how their personal lives would be affected by it. The character Maisie Simm (Heather Cave), Ellie's daughter, was created because Featherstone believed that "children are the best spies of all"; Maisie is often seen "spying" on Tom throughout the episode and first series. Megan Dodds guest starred as Christine Dale; the producers were sufficiently impressed with her performance that she would later return as Dale in the second series. Principal photography took place in November and December 2001. The majority of filming was done with a long lens, which proved difficult as many filming location were short on space. 40 to 50 cuts were made in the first 10 minutes of the episode to quickly introduce the main characters. Filming took part almost entirely in London; some London locations doubled as Liverpool locations, including the hospital, which was filmed in Covent Garden. The hospital scenes were first in the episode to be shot. The scenes set in a cottage in The Wirral were filmed in Surrey; the cottage was dubbed the "cottage from hell" according to director Bharat Nalluri because of its small size. The Freemasons' Hall in London served as the filming location for Thames House, the headquarters for MI5. The Hall was chosen as the producers felt that both buildings were similar in architecture. The Grid set was filmed in a Kensington medical school. Borough Market was located to film the scenes where Kane is arrested; filming proved to be difficult as they had to reset the scene several times. The idea for split screening came to Nalluri after visiting a pub one night after filming wrapped up. In the audio commentary for the episode, Nalluri stated he was not inspired by the American series 24, which also uses split screen, as he was not yet aware of the show. The news report covering Mary and Paul Kane's past activities were snippets of real-life news from the United States, which were edited together. The music was composed by Jennie Muskett, who spent just two to three hours putting several pieces of background music together. One part of the episode centred on Zoe posing as target Diane Sullivan. Some publicity shots of Keeley Hawes in the series were shots of her with long brunette hair, though in fact she has short blonde hair. ## Broadcast and reception The pilot was first broadcast on Monday 13 May 2002, during the 9 to 10 pm time slot. The Spooks producers were hoping the ratings for the pilot would achieve at least six million viewers, with a 30 per cent audience share; at the time this would be considered acceptable ratings by the BBC, as it would allow them to further consider Spooks' future. The episode ended up with an overnight rating of 9.2 million viewers, with a 41 per cent audience share, easily winning its time slot, and nearly doubling the numbers of ITV1's Helen West, which was viewed by 4.8 million with 22 per cent share in the same slot. The final numbers posted on the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board website was up slightly to 9.6 million viewers, making the Spooks pilot the seventh most viewed BBC One broadcast, and the tenth most viewed broadcast in total the week it aired. Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian called it "one of those shiny and insubtantial series," adding that "all that leaping out of bed at dawn on the pretext that you have to go and sell a house tends to wear thin." Banks-Smith also called the story "slightly unexpected." She also stated "Spooks appears to plume itself on its authenticity, and there are moments, well one moment, so stupid it has to be true." Thomas Sudcliff of The Independent felt it was a "different kind of spy drama" with "a literal description, derived from the sort of rueful story you could imagine being told at an MI5 staff social," and "a lot of bullshit too, naturally. This is one of those dramas where colleagues never make small talk but instead launch straight into an urgent purposive shorthand." Joe Joseph of The Times stated that it "bears a closer resemblance [...] 24," which "shaded the pleasure of this opening episode," but felt that by the end of the episode, Spooks had "established a voice of its own." Gerard O'Donovan of The Telegraph thought that the episode "proved thoroughly entertaining," and praised Wolstencroft's writing, which O'Donovan felt was "confident enough to be playful with its subject - especially regarding Britain's poor-relation relationship with America." Alison Graham of the Radio Times said that after the episode, the series "looks like it's going to be great fun," but "it's presumably not meant to be taken too seriously, because surely life in MI5 can't be this exciting?"

German torpedo boat T34

German torpedo boat

The German torpedo boat T34 was one of fifteen Type 39 torpedo boats built for the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) during World War II. Completed in mid-1944, the boat was still working up in the Baltic when she struck a mine in November and sank. ## Design and description The Type 39 torpedo boat was conceived as a general-purpose design, much larger than preceding German torpedo boats. The boats had an overall length of 102.5 meters (336 ft 3 in) and were 97 meters (318 ft 3 in) long at the waterline. They had a beam of 10 meters (32 ft 10 in), a draft of 3.22 meters (10 ft 7 in) at deep load and displaced 1,294 metric tons (1,274 long tons) at standard load and 1,754 metric tons (1,726 long tons) at deep load. Their crew numbered 206 officers and sailors. The Type 39s were fitted with a pair of geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, using steam from four high-pressure water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce 32,000 shaft horsepower (24,000 kW) which was intended give the ships a maximum speed of 33.5 knots (62.0 km/h; 38.6 mph). They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 2,400 nautical miles (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). As built, the Type 39 ships mounted four 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK C/32 guns in single mounts protected by gun shields; one forward of the superstructure, one between the funnels, and two aft, one superfiring over the other. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by four 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 AA guns in two twin-gun mounts on platforms abaft the rear funnel and a dozen 2 cm (0.8 in) C/38 guns. One quadruple mount was positioned on the aft superstructure and two more were fitted on the bridge wings. They carried six above-water 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes in two triple mounts amidships and could also carry 30 mines; the full complement of 60 mines made the ships top-heavy which could be dangerous in bad weather. For anti-submarine work the boats were fitted with a S-Gerät sonar and four depth charge launchers. The Type 39s were equipped with a FuMO 21 radar and various FumB radar detectors were installed late in the war. ## Construction and career T34 was ordered on 20 January 1941 from Schichau, laid down at their Elbing, East Prussia, shipyard on 5 March 1943 as yard number 1516, launched on 23 October 1943 and commissioned on 12 August 1944. Kapitänleutnant Freiherr von Lüttitz was appointed in command. As part of her lengthy working up, she conducted gunnery practice with the radio-controlled target ship Hessen in the Baltic on 20 November, the boat struck a mine laid by Soviet submarine L-3 and sank off Cape Arkona at with the loss of 62 crewmen.

Vikram (actor)

Indian actor

Kennedy John Victor (born 17 April 1966), better known by his stage name Vikram, is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. He is among the most decorated actors in Tamil cinema, with laurels including seven Filmfare Awards South, a National Film Award and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award. Amongst his other honours include the Kalaimamani Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu in 2004 and an honorary doctorate by the Popular University of Milan in May 2011. Vikram is the first Indian actor to receive the Doctorate in the history of the European Universities in acting. Based on the earnings of Indian celebrities, Vikram was included in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list for 2016 and 2018. Vikram debuted with the romance En Kadhal Kanmani (1990) followed by his major breakthrough with his portrayal of a rogue-turned-lover in Bala's tragedy film Sethu (1999) and next appeared in hit films like Dhill (2001), Gemini (2002), Dhool (2003), Saamy (2003), Anniyan (2005), Raavanan (2010), Deiva Thirumagal (2011) and Iru Mugan (2017). He also earned widespread critical acclaim for diverse roles of disadvantaged people in Kasi (2001), Samurai (2002) and Pithamagan (2003); the lattermost won him the National Film Award for Best Actor. Vikram's highest-grossing releases came with the romantic thriller I (2015) and the epic historical drama Ponniyin Selvan: I (2022) and Ponniyin Selvan: II (2023). Vikram has promoted various social causes and appeared as the Youth Envoy for the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 2011. He has been a brand ambassador of Sanjeevani Trust and a school for special children, Vidya Sudha, which he stayed at during the making of Deiva Thirumagal as well as having long-term associations with the Kasi Eye Care and running his own welfare association through the Vikram Foundation. In 2016, he produced and directed the video to the flood relief anthem, Spirit of Chennai, as a tribute to the city's volunteers following the 2015 South Indian floods. ## Early life and family Vikram was born as Kennedy John Victor on 17 April 1966 to a Christian father and a Hindu mother. His father, John Victor (alias Vinod Raj) was a native of Paramakudi and ran away from home to start a career in films, but worked only in minor roles. Vikram's mother, Rajeshwari, was a government officer who reached the rank of sub-collector. Rajeshwari was born in a Hindu family with film connections. Her brother, Thiagarajan, is an established director-actor in the Tamil film industry; he is the father of actor Prashanth, making him Vikram's first cousin (although the two have never openly acknowledged this relationship). Vikram has two siblings, both younger to him. His brother, Arvind, appeared in the low-budget Tamil film, Eppo Kalyanam (2022). His sister, Anitha, is a teacher. Vikram's father, Vinod Raj, was a small time actor who did not fare successfully in films and only managed to act in supporting roles in Tamil films and television serials. This inspired Vikram to take theatre lessons and become professionally trained in classical and cinema dance forms to ensure that he became a leading actor. Vikram decided to use a screen name because he disliked his original name, Kennedy, and he also felt that such a foreign name was not a fit name for an actor in Tamil films. He took the name Vikram (a Hindu name) which means "man who does great deeds." In one interview, he said that he was also inspired to take the name because it was a mixture of several names dear to him: "Vi" from his father's name (Vinod), "K" from Kennedy, "Ra" from his mother's name (Rajeshwari) and "ram" from his sun sign, Aries. Vikram was educated at Montfort School, Yercaud (a boarding school in a hill station near Salem) and graduated in 1983. He has mentioned that he used his opportunities at school well by taking part in karate, horseback riding and swimming and noted that such early exposure to activities gave him confidence as a youngster. Vikram lurked in the fringes of the school's theatre club for a long period and often took part in backstage work before being handed the lead role in a school adaptation of Molière's The Doctor in Spite of Himself after the original lead had contracted chicken pox. Despite expressing his interest to join films after school, his father forced him to go through education and Vikram subsequently graduated from Loyola College, Chennai with a degree in English Literature and worked halfway towards an MBA programme. Through the prolific dramatics club, Vikram appeared in stage productions including college adaptations of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy, receiving best actor awards for his performances. After winning a Best Actor Award at a function held at IIT Madras, Vikram was hit by a truck during a ride on his motorbike on the way home and suffered a serious leg injury. He remained hospital-ridden for three years during college and subsequently went through twenty-three surgeries to prevent his leg from being amputated. Vikram then returned to finish the final year of his degree after his accident and secured permission to finish his dissertation at home, as he was only able to walk on crutches for a short period. ## Acting career ### 1990–1998 Vikram began his professional career by modelling in advert films for brands including Chola Tea, TVS Excel and Alwyn watches as well as appearing in a six episode television serial titled Galatta Kudumbam, which aired between November and December 1988. During the final year of his M.B.A programme at Loyola College, he was recognised by the film industry, with veteran director C. V. Sridhar approaching him for a lead role in a film. Vikram made his film debut in 1990 by appearing in En Kadhal Kanmani, a small-budget love story featuring him alongside Rekha Nambiar, with Sridhar's Thanthu Vitten Ennai, opposite Rohini being his next release. He then signed on to be a part of cinematographer P. C. Sriram's college love story Meera, with high expectations, however, the three films failed to launch his career. His appearances in Meera and in Kaaval Geetham, with another veteran director S. P. Muthuraman, helped him secure film offers from the Malayalam and Telugu film industries. In 1993, he almost signed on to appear in Mani Ratnam's Bombay and featured in the initial photo shoot alongside Manisha Koirala. However, Mani Ratnam wanted Vikram to remove his beard for the role, and Vikram could not do so due to continuity problems with another film he had signed and hence was dropped from the project. Between 1993 and 1994, Vikram appeared in a series of films where he portrayed supporting roles. He appeared in three successful Malayalam films by appearing with Mammootty, Suresh Gopi and Jayaram in Joshi's successful action film Dhruvam, before teaming up with Gopi again for Shaji Kailas's Mafia, which explored Bangalore's criminal underworld. Furthermore, Joshi cast him again alongside Mammootty in the action drama Sainyam in the role of an air cadet. During the period, Vikram also appeared in the small budget Telugu film Chirunavvula Varamistava in the lead role and as Akkineni Nageswara Rao's eldest son in the family drama Bangaru Kutumbam, with both films failing to give him a breakthrough although the latter was a box office success. A brief return to Tamil films also proved unsuccessful, with his role in Vikraman's multi-starrer Pudhiya Mannargal, with music composed by A. R. Rahman turning out to be a commercial failure. Throughout 1995 and 1996, Vikram appeared in further Telugu and Malayalam films to receive income, being kept away from Tamil films due to a lack of offers. He played the lead role in the Malayalam film Mayoora Nritam directed by Vijayakrishnan's and even played villain in Street opposite Babu Antony and lead roles in the small budget Telugu films Adalla Majaka and Sriraj Ginne's Akka! Bagunnava?. He collaborated again with Mammootty in Indraprastham and Suresh Gopi in Rajaputhran, before appearing in his first lead role in Malayalam with Itha Oru Snehagatha opposite Laila. Vikram signed Amitabh Bachchan's first Tamil language film production, Ullaasam, which also featured Ajith Kumar and Maheswari. The big budget film created anticipation prior to release, but was average run at the box office. However, Vikram acknowledged the film for expanding his female fan base as a result of the soft-personality of his character. He followed it up with appearances in the unsuccessful films Kurralla Rajyam in Telugu and then in the Ilaiyaraaja musical Kangalin Vaarthaigal, before playing a short role in Parthiban's critically acclaimed film Housefull. During his struggling phase, Vikram dubbed for other heroes in films including voices for Prabhu Deva in Kaadhalan, Ajith Kumar in Amaravathi and Abbas in Kandukondain Kandukondain respectively. Vikram has mentioned that he did not look down on dubbing and saw it as a "dignity of labour". During the period, he also attended dancing classes every day, and tried acting out different scenes and different characters with his small group of friends. He began to turn down chances to play supporting roles in films and was intent on making a breakthrough as a lead actor and notably turned down the role of Swarnamalya's fiancée in Mani Ratnam's Alaipayuthey. Vikram also rejected approaches from television serial producers, citing that working in television would reduce his chances of becoming a mainstream actor. He also refused opportunities to take part in film events as a backing dancer, with actor Sriman revealing that Vikram was "one amongst not many" who was not interested in travelling to Canada to participate in such shows. ### 1999–2001 In 1999, he played the eponymous lead in debutant director Bala's romantic drama Sethu. To prepare for the character, which was also referred to as Chiyaan, Vikram shaved his head, lost 21 kilograms and grew his nails long for the role. After beginning production in April 1997, the film went through development hell after industry strikes and lack of funds hampered progress. During this phase, he did not accept other acting offers to maintain the continuity of his looks. The film then struggled to find a distributor, who shunned it due to the tragic climax and the film remained unreleased. Vikram described the period of production as "the worst phase of his career" as he was financially strapped and "his fire was in danger of dying down". He turned down an opportunity from a friend to take up a job in technology and attempted to stay in the industry by directing a serial titled Mounam Pesiyadhey, with Ameer as his assistant director. Sethu finally released in December 1999 and initially began running at a single noon show at a suburban theater, but gradually gained an audience through word-of-mouth publicity. Eventually, it ran for over 100 days at several cinema halls across Chennai. Vikram was constantly being mobbed by people on the streets as a result of the film's success. Critics highly praised Vikram's performance with a reviewer referring to Vikram as "a revelation" and that "he is very natural and his acting in last few scenes are just too good and could even be compared with the best we have seen". Similarly, a critic from the Malaysian daily New Straits Times, described the film as an "unforgettable experience" and described Vikram's performance as "praise-worthy". The performance drew accolades with Vikram winning the Filmfare Special Award – South and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize, in addition to his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil for his portrayal of the title character, while reports emerged that he missed out on the National Film Award for Best Actor by a single vote to Mohanlal. Post-Sethu, Vikram has said that the film would always remain close to him regardless of its commercial success and that it put him on the "right path", with Vikram choosing to adapt the prefix of Chiyaan to his screen name. Vikram did not sign up to a film for 65 days after the release of Sethu, to ensure that he made the right career move. Vikram spent time completing projects he had agreed to feature in before the release of Sethu and hence made a couple of appearances in the Malayalam films Red Indians and the horror film Indriyam. He also played a leading role in Siragugal, a rare Tamil telefilm produced and featuring Raadhika, which was shot entirely in the suburbs of London. Furthermore, he also completed two Telugu films during the period; 9 Nelalu and Youth. 9 Nelalu featured Vikram as the husband of the character played by Soundarya, who faces the challenges of being a surrogate mother. The film won positive reviews, with a critic mentioning that Vikram gave a "controlled performance" while Vikram's newfound popularity in Tamil films saw the film dubbed into Tamil soon after as Kandaen Seethaiyai, with an inserted comedy track by comedian Vivek. His next release was Rajakumaran's Vinnukum Mannukum, alongside Sarath Kumar, Khushbu and Devayani, which revolved around an ordinary boy falling in love with an actress. Vikram has since mentioned his displeasure at being a part of the film, claiming that he had arguments with the director for every single shot and that "everything in that film, right from the first shot was wrong"; the film became a failure commercially. His next film was Dhill, where he played an aspiring police officer, Kanagavel, who tackles a corrupt policeman. To appear trim in the role of the aspiring police officer, Vikram went on a strict diet eating only fruits and drinking juice. The film opened to positive reviews, with a critic from The Hindu claiming that "Vikram has the ability and potential" and that "Vikram has once again proved that his success in Sethu was not a fluke". Dhill subsequently went on to become Vikram's first success in the masala film genre and led the way for more such films in the same genre for him. Vikram's portrayal of a blind folk singer in Vinayan's Kasi won him his first Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil and the film also proved to be a commercial success. For the film, he sunbathed on the terrace of his beachside home in Chennai for a sunburnt look and got dizzying headaches while practising to look blind. Again, Vikram's performance won positive reviews from critics, with a reviewer describing it as an "extraordinarily detailed performance" and that "as the blind singer, he brings laughter, tears and a lump in one's throat". ### 2002–2003 The following year, Vikram went on to play the title role in Saran's Gemini, produced by AVM Productions, his first big-budget film in the Tamil industry, which featured him in the role of a local rowdy. The action film received positive reviews, with a critic citing that Vikram "delivers a convincing performance" and consequently became a "box office triumph". Similarly, the film's soundtrack composed by Bharadwaj had become popular prior to release, with Vikram also singing a version of the hit song "O Podu!" for the album. Balaji Sakthivel's Samurai was his next release, featuring him as a vigilante Robin Hood-esque figure who kidnapped corrupt politicians. Vikram had signed the film in early 2000 and the film was on hold during production, leading to a two-year delay and the film finally opened to average reviews and box office collections. The critic from The Hindu gave praise for Vikram's "admirably well-maintained physique and powerful eyes", whilst another labelled that the film's single major positive was Vikram's convincing portrayal. His final release of the year was Prabhu Solomon's King, a drama film which featured him alongside Sneha and Nassar. Vikram played Raja, a magician, who is unaware that he has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, with his family trying to keep the truth away from him. The film also met with an unfavorable response commercially, but received positive reviews from critics. ### 2003–2009 The success of Dharani's Dhill resulted in the film's team collaborating to make a film in a similar genre; Dhool, which also featured Jyothika, Reemma Sen and Vivek. The film saw Vikram play Aarumugham, a villager, who comes to the city seeking help in regard to a water crisis back home, but subsequently ends up tackling the corrupt politicians who are behind the water scam. In regard to his performance, the Rediff.com review praised his enactment, citing that "Vikram is at his peak" and that "he seems as much at home with comedy as with action, in romance as in emotional sequences", while the critic from The Hindu also praised his performance. The film became a blockbuster and his fifth success in two and a half years, with Vikram being dubbed as "the matinee idol of our times" by a leading Indian newspaper. He also featured in the romantic film Kadhal Sadugudu, with Priyanka Trivedi which was a critical and commercial failure, with reviewers claiming that "there are times you wish Vikram were a little more brisk and dynamic" in regard to his performance. After release, Vikram was critical of the film's failure, confessing that the story "underwent a lot of changes after the initial narration", lamenting that he was "taken for a royal ride" by the producers. Vikram was then signed on by K. Balachander to appear in his banner's biggest production at the time, the masala film Saamy, directed by Hari. Vikram played Aarusaamy, an honest cop working in Tirunelveli, who solves the region's communal problems with his down-to-earth approach. Vikram worked on his body for the film, sporting a thick waist to show notable differences from his other police film, Dhill and also put on eight kilograms. The film took a large opening, grossing over Rs. 70 million in 10 days in Tamil Nadu, while also taking the largest opening of the new millennium in Kerala, with the Telugu remake rights also sold for a record price. Due to the good opening, the film has proved to be profitable just 10 days after its release and consequently went on to become a blockbuster. Vikram's performance was acclaimed by critics, with a critic from Sify claiming that Vikram had "succumbed to the superstar image trap", but is the "mainstay of the picture". Later that year, he starred in Bala's crime drama Pithamagan, alongside Suriya, Sangeetha and Laila, playing the role of Chitthan, a gravedigger with autism spectrum disorders. He did not have any dialogue in the film and the actor's acting muscles were stretched as he had to use body language and facial expressions to convey his feelings and thoughts, with Vikram also applying the make-up for the character himself. The film received highly positive reviews upon release, with a critic from The Hindu calling it a "symphony on celluloid", while noting that it will be a "milestone in Vikram's career" and "he carves a niche for himself in the viewer's mind with his expressions and excellent body language". His performance earned him the National Film Award for Best Actor, with the latter accolade making him only the third Tamil actor to win the award; he also received two nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil for Saamy and Pithamagan, winning for the latter, his second win in the category. His next release was the revenge drama Arul, directed by Hari. The film received mixed to positive reviews. and moderate box office collections. Vikram signed on to feature in the action thriller Anniyan, directed by prominent director Shankar in March 2004. Vikram agreed to shoot for the film for 140 days, which was revealed to be amongst the longest contracts signed by an actor in a Tamil film. The film featured him as a character suffering from dissociative identity disorder with three distinct personae: a meek lawyer, a suave fashion model and a psychotic serial killer. Prior to release, the film was touted as the most expensive South Indian film ever, costing Rs 263.8 million, and was released across India with 400 prints. Anniyan took an "extraordinary opening", and went on to become a blockbuster grossing more than Rs. 1 billion through the original and two dubbed versions. Vikram's performance received widespread critical acclaim, with a reviewer from Sify citing that "Anniyan truly belongs to Vikram and the film is unthinkable without him" and "it is a role that could have been reduced to a caricature by a lesser actor". Anniyan won several accolades at award ceremonies the following year, with Vikram winning his third Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil for his performance in the film. Later in the year, he signed and completed Shafi's comedy film with Asin, Majaa, in less than five months. The film which also featured Pasupathy as his brother, saw Vikram work as the assistant director under Shafi. Majaa faced a poor response at the box office and fetched average reviews, with a reviewer citing that "you will surely find something missing". Vikram then signed up for Bheema in October 2005, with the film facing severe delays and only releasing in January 2008. The film saw him portray Sekhar, who grows up idolizing the gangster played by Prakash Raj, and Vikram revealed that he approached the film like an actor, even though the film's script was written "for a star". Upon release, the film gained mixed reviews though reviewers praised Vikram's performance, with a critic claiming that "Vikram breathes life into the film", "he looks sensational with his toned body, killer looks and unarguably delivers yet another outstanding performance of his career" and to "see the film only for him". Similarly, the review from The Hindu was critical of the excessive violence and mentioned that "as narration gives way after a point, Vikram can only appear helpless". His next release, Kanthaswamy, directed by Susi Ganesan and also featuring Shriya Saran, became the first superhero film in Tamil cinema, with Vikram being featured as a vigilante dressed as an anthropomorphic rooster, Kokorako and a CBI Officer. Kanthaswamy became Vikram's most expensive production beating Anniyan, with the film boasting of high production values of having an innovative pre-launch trailer and with scenes shot in Italy and Mexico. The film earned a mixed response from critics, with the reviewer from Sify claiming that the film "strikes a fine balance between style and substance" and proceeding to state that "Vikram is mesmerizing and has given an extra dimension to the characters he plays in the film and steers it to the winning post", suggesting that "there are very few people in Indian cinema who can do the larger-than-life fantasy characters as easily as Vikram". Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu labelled the film as "slow death", claiming that "as an actor, Vikram has nothing to do". The film took a strong opening, with a collection of Rs. 370 million, including Rs. 160 million in Tamil Nadu, at the box office in the opening week of its international release. The film subsequently went on to become one of the most profitable films of the year and ran in theaters for over one hundred days. ### 2010–2014 Vikram then featured in Mani Ratnam's bilingual films Raavanan and Raavan, inspired by the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana, with Vikram featuring as the tribal leader, Veeraiya, in the Tamil version and the cop, Dev Pratap Sharma, in the Hindi version of the films, which were shot simultaneously. Vikram revealed that changes between the two characters during filming took up to 45 minutes, with Abhishek Bachchan playing the tribal leader in the Hindi version, whilst Prithviraj played the cop in the Tamil version, with Aishwarya Rai as the female lead. Vikram was initially apprehensive, because both roles were to be shot almost simultaneously, but revealed that he succeeded by showing differences in his body language and expressions. Vikram revealed that he and Abhishek Bachchan played the roles in the respective versions without inspiration from one another. Despite being a non-speaker and making his debut in Hindi, he dubbed his lines in the language, remarking jovially that it was the "most difficult thing in the world". After promotions at the Cannes Film Festival and a premiere at Leicester Square in London, the two versions and the dubbed Telugu version released simultaneously in 2,200 screens worldwide and took a big opening on day one, earning 200 million. The Tamil version, Raavanan won rave reviews from critics, with The Hindu calling it a "master-stroke" and claiming that Vikram "raises the bar higher with every venture". The critic cited that "emotions of love, animus, anguish and joy dance on his face in quick succession", concluding that "Vikram lifts the role to an admirable level". The critic from Sify labelled it as an "astonishing portrayal", while the critic from the Hindustan Times praised Vikram's "ability to get into Veeraiya's skin and emote with conviction". The Tamil version emerged as a commercial success, with Vikram's performance winning him his fourth Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil among other accolades. In contrast, the Hindi version fetched mixed reviews, with critics agreeing that Vikram's performance as the tribal leader was more convincing than Bachchan's. Baradwaj Rangan, writing for The New Indian Express rated the film 4/5 and said: "Raavan falls for Sita (and vice versa) in an intriguingly idiosyncratic take on the Ramayana – if you can get past the lead performances, that is". Whereas, Taran Adarsh, writing for Bollywood Hungama rated it 1.5/5 and said: "On the whole, Raavan is a king-sized disappointment, in terms of content" though mentioning that Vikram was "first-rate, although the role isn't substantial enough". Raavan subsequently went on to become a surprise flop at the Indian box office. The film was also screened at the Venice Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival, with Vikram in attendance. After two years of discussions, Vikram began a film under the direction of Selvaraghavan in a project dubbed by the media as Sindubad. The film began shoot and completed a schedule by early 2010 in the Himalayas with Swati Reddy appearing as the female lead. However, the film was reported to be momentarily shelved and subsequently never took off again after the producer Singanamala Ramesh walked out. Vikram then agreed terms to feature in Vikram Kumar's 24, produced by Mohan Natarajan, with Ileana D'Cruz signed on to play the female lead role. The film progressed briefly with shots being canned in caves, before the director was ousted from the project, cancelling the film. Vikram then also shot briefly for a third successive shelved project directed by Boopathy Pandian for the same producer, featuring him in the role of an investigative cop; however the film failed to progress and instead Natarajan financed Vikram's next film. His 2011 release, the melodrama Deiva Thirumagal, directed by A. L. Vijay, saw Vikram portray a father with a developmental disability having the mental maturity of a seven-year-old. To prepare for the role, Vikram visited homes for the mentally challenged such as Vidya Sagar and Vidya Sudha for a month, watching their body language and taking notes. He also communicated with the patients, to pick up the nuances of people with impaired speech. Vikram has since gone on to describe his role as Krishna as the best character he has ever portrayed. The film, which also featured Sara Arjun, Anushka Shetty and Amala Paul in supporting roles, opened to predominantly positive reviews from critics and enjoyed commercial success at the box office. The reviewer from The Deccan Chronicle described that the film was "Vikram's show all the way" and that "his rendition of a mentally-challenged man trying to cope with the everyday realities of raising a child is a work of art", praising his "fiery, complex performance as one of the more viciously honest depictions of mental illness cinema has seen". Similarly, another critic described that the on-screen chemistry between Vikram and his daughter, played by Sara Arjun, is "magic" and their performances "are sure to leave a lump in your throat". The critic from The Hindu praised the film and Vikram's performance, but analysed that "a problem arises only when you stop looking at Krishna as a character, and begin to see him as Vikram, the hero" and that Vikram should have "underplayed a little here and there and it would have worked better". For his performance in the film, Vikram won his first Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics) – Tamil, in addition to his seventh nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil. Vikram next featured in Rajapattai (2011), alongside Deeksha Seth, under the direction of Suseenthiran, where he played a henchman trying to get a break in the Tamil film industry. The film opened to mixed reviews from critics in December 2011 and performed below expectations at the box office. Vikram also completed half of a fantasy period film during 2011, Karikalan, in which he played Karikala Chola, a Tamil king who ruled in 270 BC, opposite Zarine Khan, under the direction of graphics director Kannan, but the film was later shelved owing to production troubles. He then appeared in his second project with director Vijay, portraying the lead role of a blinded RAW agent in the action-thriller, Thaandavam. The film, which also featured Anushka Shetty, Amy Jackson and Lakshmi Rai in pivotal roles, opened to mixed reviews in September 2012. For his role of a blind man, Vikram trained under noted human echolocation specialist Daniel Kish, with the latter also playing a cameo in the film. A critic from Sify.com noted that it was "Vikram and him alone who diverts your attention from the film's little logical script flaws and spellbinds you with an endearing act that is Thaandavam's biggest strength"; subsequently, the film did average business commercially. For his performance in the film, Vikram received his eighth nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil. The actor was next seen portraying the title role in Bejoy Nambiar's Hindi-language film David playing out a love story between a careless drunkard fisherman and a mute girl played by Isha Sherwani. The film won mixed reviews and performed average business at the box office. The film was also released in Tamil for which Vikram was one of the producers. ### 2015–present Vikram signed on to collaborate again with Shankar for I, a romantic thriller opposite Amy Jackson, in early 2012. Following hushed production developments, it was revealed that the actor would sport four significantly different looks in the film: a body builder, a beast, a model and a hunchback. He put on weight to portray the bodybuilder, sticking to a diet of protein and coffee, to ensure his muscles were defined on screen. Vikram subsequently lost weight to portray a model, before shaving his head and reducing his weight to 56 kilograms to portray the crippled hunchback. He changed his physique by eating small meals of egg whites and apples instead of regular food intakes, while engaging in an intensive weight loss regime to become thin. The cast and crew of the film reportedly struggled to recognise the actor at times, while he also stayed away from the media for close to a year when sporting the look. Taking almost three years for production, Vikram described the film "as the toughest he has ever done" and regularly suffered folliculitis as a result of the prosthetic make-up he had to wear. The film opened amidst much expectation in January 2015 to mixed reviews, though Vikram's portrayal of Lingesan received highly positive reviews. A critic from The Times of India noted: "Vikram bowls you over with a heart-wrenching performance whether he is handsome or disfigured", while The Hindu added his transformation was "laudable", and that "Vikram wins hearts as the earnest-to-boot gym rat and as the strapping new model on the block, he floors the audience with his performance as Koonan, the deformed hunchback". Similarly, Rediff.com noted the actor "is truly impressive and deserves much applause", while Sify.com added he "lived the role". Despite the mixed critical reception, I performed well at the box office, as well as becoming the most successful Tamil film of all time in Kerala. By early 2015, it was the sixth highest-grossing Tamil film of all time at the time. I won Vikram his fifth Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil. He then worked on Vijay Milton's road-thriller, 10 Enradhukulla (2015), which featured him as an unnamed race driver who goes on a road trip through India. Paired opposite Samantha, the film opened to mixed reviews and did not perform well at the box office. A critic from Sify.com however, noted that Vikram "breathes life to his role and his energy level is highly infectious", adding that "the way he smiles, dances and fights is a treat for his fans". Likewise, a critic from The Hindu criticised the film's script, adding that "it's hard to see Vikram in this fluff". Vikram later appeared in Iru Mugan (2016), a science fiction action film directed by Anand Shankar, featuring him alongside Nayanthara and Nithya Menen. The film was a critical and commercial success, and earned him his tenth nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil. His next films are Sketch (2018) directed by Vijay Chandar followed by Saamy Square (2018) directed by Hari. In 2022, Vikram appears in Mahaan as Gandhi Mahaan, along with his son Dhruv Vikram. It released on 10, February in Amazon Prime Video. He also signed his 58th film with R. Ajay Gnanamuthu as the director who is known for his work in Demonte Colony. The film was titled as Cobra and was released on 31 August 2022. The film received mixed reviews from critics. His most recent role was Aditya Karikalan in Mani Ratnam's film Ponniyin Selvan, which released on 30 September 2022. It is the first Tamil film to release in IMAX format. ## Other work ### Film and television work Apart from acting, Vikram has also been a part of other film-making processes with credits as a playback singer and as an assistant director. In 2000, Vikram and actress Meena launched a pop album titled Kadhalism, which the pair would sing and appear in music videos for, although the project was completed without much promotion. Following the success of Bharadwaj's music for Vikram's 2002 film Gemini, Vikram sang a version of the hit song "O Podu!" for the extended version of the album. During the making of Kanthaswamy in 2009, the music composer Devi Sri Prasad had asked Vikram to sing a few rough tracks during the film's song composition in Malaysia. The producers were impressed with his voice and Vikram ended up singing four songs in the film. Furthermore, Vikram also recorded all four tracks in the Telugu version of the album titled Mallana. He then went on to sing for a film he was unrelated to, by lending five different voices in "Meghame" for G. V. Prakash Kumar's album in Madrasapattinam. He sang two further songs under Prakash Kumar for his Deiva Thirumagal, singing in the voice of his character, an adult with the maturity of a six-year-old. In 2011, he sang the song "Laddu Laddu" for his film Rajapattai, under composer Yuvan Shankar Raja's direction. Vikram announced his own production company Reel Life Entertainment in July 2009 and announced that Sasikumar would direct his first film, the action thriller Easan, featuring Samudrakani, Vaibhav, Abhinaya and Aparnaa Bajpai. However, after 90% of the shoot had been completed, Vikram pulled out of the venture, citing that Sasikumar had overshot his budget and the director eventually bought and released the film. The actor, however, was later listed as one of the three producers for the Tamil version of the 2013 film, David, thereby making his debut in film financing. Vikram has also worked as the assistant director under Shafi in Majaa, and has mentioned that he would like to direct a film in the future. ### Philanthropy Vikram has promoted various social causes with several of his charity works being linked to characters he had portrayed in his films. He has been a brand ambassador of Sanjeevani Trust and a school for special children Vidya Sudha, where he stayed during the making of Deiva Thirumagal. Moreover, he has had a long-term association since the making of his film Kasi with the Kasi Eye Care, which does free eye surgeries for the poor. Vikram has also set up The Vikram Foundation through his fan club to provide heart operations for the poor, educate poor children and rehabilitate victims from natural disasters. Every year, Vikram has celebrated his birthday doing charity work across Tamil Nadu and in 2008, he organised a camp where a thousand of his fans pledged their eyes in an eye donation appeal. He has lent his support for the Chennai-based charity The Banyan, and appeared in the charity musical Netru, Indru, Naalai directed by Mani Ratnam for the cause. The actor also starred in the 2010 "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" music video on national integration alongside a bevy of Indian actors and musicians, describing the experience as "phenomenal". In 2011, Vikram was selected as a Youth Envoy for the United Nations Human Settlements Programme with his aim being to spread awareness about the statutes of U.N. Habitat which include urban stabilisation and to help formulate plans for effective water management, slum eradication and women and youth empowerment. Soon after, he announced two further social projects, "Karka Kasadara" and "Patchai Puratchi", with the former being to identify school and college dropouts and help them to stand on their own feet, while the latter was about planting trees with an aim to make Chennai go green. In 2016, he produced and directed the video to the flood relief anthem Spirit of Chennai, as a tribute to the city's volunteers following the 2015 South Indian floods. ## In the media Vikram is a prolific method actor, being often compared akin to Hollywood's Christian Bale. Since the success of Sethu, Vikram's intense performances and variety of roles have received critical acclaim. His performances as a rogue turned mentally ill patient in Sethu, a gravedigger with autism spectrum disorder in Bala's Pithamagan, a Brahmin lawyer with multiple personality disorder in Anniyan and a mentally challenged adult with the maturity of a six-year-old boy in Deiva Thirumagal are all roles in which he played a mentally affected man, with Vikram mentioning that he does such roles to reinvent himself on screen. Furthermore, Vikram has enjoyed a large fan following in Andhra Pradesh as a result of a series of successful dubbed Telugu films with Aparichitudu, dubbed from his Tamil film Anniyan, being among the most successful Telugu films of 2005. All his films are thus released in Telugu soon after their original release in Tamil, while Anniyan was also dubbed in Hindi as Aparichit. He has also enjoyed success in Kerala, where his films have demanded large box office openings akin to Malayalam film stars. In 2004, Vikram participated in a live stadium stage event organised by producer P. L. Thenappan titled "Vikram Mega Nite". The event, held in Singapore, attracted several hundreds of his South East Asian fans and was held in the form of a stage musical. Vikram's pan-Indian popularity has also prompted him to be regularly considered for brand endorsements. In 2005, he was signed as Coca-Cola's brand ambassador in Tamil Nadu. He has been the ambassador for Brooke Bond 3 Roses, Manappuram General Finance and Leasing Ltd and Josco Jewellers since 2010. In 2015, Vikram has endorsed Big Deal TV, a celebrity-driven home shopping channel. He is amongst the most decorated actors in terms of awards in the history of Tamil cinema. He holds a National Film Award for Best Actor; a feat only matched by four other actors in Tamil films. Moreover, Vikram holds seven Filmfare Awards South, with the tally being only second to Kamal Haasan who has ten wins. In 2010 his film Raavan was promoted at the Cannes Film Festival and then screened at Venice Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival. Within weeks of release, Deiva Thirumagal was sent to the Asia Pacific Screen Awards after it was nominated by the Film Federation of India and the National Film Development Corporation. Vikram is also a recipient of the Kalaimamani Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu in 2004. Other recognitions includes a string of Cinema Express Awards, Vijay Awards and Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, including recognition in three different categories. In 2011, Vikram was awarded an honorary doctorate from Università Popolare degli Studi di Milano (People's University of Milan) in the field of Fine Arts. Vikram accepted the title on 29 May 2011 and in his next release, Deiva Thirumagal, he was credited as Dr. Chiyaan Vikram. ## Personal life Vikram met Shailaja Balakrishnan in the late 1980s and married her in 1992 at Guruvayoor Temple in a mass wedding alongside dozens of couples. The pair then had a low-key wedding ceremony conducted at the church at Loyola College, Chennai. She hails from Thalassery, Kerala and now works as a psychology teacher at a leading Chennai school. Shailaja also worked with the team of Deiva Thirumagal by giving professional advice on how people with special needs are treated and helping develop the character played by Vikram. The couple has a daughter Akshita born in 1993 and a son Dhruv born in 1997. His daughter married Manu Ranjith, the great-grandson of M. Karunanidhi, on 30 October 2017. He lives near the beach in Besant Nagar, Chennai and has stated that he would remain based in Chennai regardless of any offers in other regional films. His son Dhruv made his debut with Adithya Varma in the year 2019 which was the Tamil remake of the Telugu film Arjun Reddy. ## Filmography ## Awards and nominations ## Discography \| leo

11th Battalion (Australia)

Infantry battalion of the Australian Army

The 11th Battalion was an Australian Army battalion that was among the first infantry units raised during World War I for the First Australian Imperial Force. It was the first battalion recruited in Western Australia, and following a brief training period in Perth, the battalion sailed to Egypt where it undertook four months of intensive training. In April 1915 it took part in the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula, landing at Anzac Cove. In August 1915 the battalion was in action in the Battle of Lone Pine. Following the withdrawal from Gallipoli, the battalion returned to Egypt where it was split to help form the 51st Battalion. In March 1916, the battalion was deployed to the Western Front in France and Belgium where it took part in trench warfare until the end of the war in November 1918. The battalion was disbanded in 1919, but since 1921 has been re-activated and merged several times as a reserve unit, initially as the 11th Battalion (City of Perth Regiment), which fought a brief campaign against the Japanese on New Britain during World War II. Other units that have maintained the traditions of the original 11th Battalion include the 11th/44th Battalion (City of Perth Regiment), 'A' (City of Perth) Company, 1st Battalion, Royal Western Australia Regiment and the current 11th/28th Battalion, Royal Western Australia Regiment. ## World War I ### Formation The 11th Battalion was formed on 17 August 1914, less than two weeks after the declaration of war on 4 August, and was among the first infantry units raised during World War I for the all-volunteer First Australian Imperial Force. Along with the 9th, 10th and 12th Battalions, it formed Colonel Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan's 3rd Brigade, which was assigned to the 1st Division. The first battalion raised in Western Australia, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Lyon-Johnston, the 11th concentrated at Blackboy Hill, Western Australia. Drawing personnel from around the state with the majority coming from Perth and the goldfields, recruits came from all elements of society, with the majority being former labourers and agricultural workers or miners. Seventy-three percent of original enlistments were Australian-born, with the remaining recruits being mainly English-born with smaller numbers coming from other parts of the British Isles. By 24 September it had reached its authorised strength of 1,023 officers and other ranks. On formation, the battalion consisted of eight rifle companies, designated 'A' to 'H', and a headquarters company with signals, transport, medical and machine-gun sections. The majority of the battalion's non-commissioned officers were long-serving Citizens Forces soldiers or regular personnel. Some had previously fought in South Africa during the Boer War and others had previously served in the British Army. Rudimentary training was undertaken at Bellevue, Western Australia, and at the end of October it sailed from Fremantle on the SS Ascanius and SS Medic. Originally bound for the United Kingdom, where they were to complete training, after stopovers in the Cocos Islands and Colombo, their orders were changed due to concerns about overcrowding in training camps in the United Kingdom and at the start of December, the battalion arrived at Mena Camp in Cairo, Egypt. There, the battalion's eight companies were reorganised into the four that existed under the British Army establishment and further training was undertaken. The battalion remained in Egypt until early March 1915 when it sailed on SS Suffolk and SS Nizam from Alexandria to the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea, in preparation for the Landing at Anzac Cove. ### Gallipoli #### Landing at Anzac Cove On 24 April 1915, the battalion disembarked from Suffolk and boarded HMS London, which was bound for Gallipoli in the Dardanelles. At 4:30 on the morning of 25 April, 'A' and 'C' Companies of the battalion landed at North Beach, north of Ari Burnu Knoll, a mile south of Fisherman's Hut, on the left flank of the first wave. Under heavy machine gun and rifle fire, the battalion stormed the cliffs, driving the Turks back. However, the battalion became disorganised during the landing and mixed with other units. Small sections of the battalion were engaged in firefights all along the Australian front. Major Edmund Drake-Brockman, one of the battalion's senior officers, tried to sort the scattered men into their battalions: 9th on the right, 10th in the middle and 11th on the left. Meanwhile, the second half of the battalion landed further north of the first wave, directly under heavy machine-gun fire from Turks fully prepared and alerted by the first wave. Over the next few days, the battalion dug in on the first and second ridges under heavy fire from the Turks. Casualties were heavy, but a defensive line was established. On 30 April, the battalion was withdrawn and moved into reserve on the beach. The next day, it reoccupied its section of the front. At this stage, the battalion was 450-strong. By 1 May, 30 officers and 940 other ranks from the battalion had landed. #### Raid on Gaba Tepe On 4 May 1915, a party of 100 men from the battalion, led by Captain Raymond Leane and a detail of engineers, launched an unsuccessful attack on a Turkish fort at Gaba Tepe, which was being used to observe artillery fire onto Australian positions around Anzac Cove. The Turks opened heavy fire on the party which was forced to withdraw. The Australians lost four killed, including an officer, and 19 others were wounded. The raid was the AIF's first of the war. At this point, the battalion estimated that it had suffered 38 killed, 200 wounded and 197 missing. On 15 May, the battalion received 244 reinforcements, bringing its total strength to 23 officers and 723 other ranks. In the early morning on 19 May, Turkish forces launched an attack against the left flank of the Australian lines, which developed into a major battle along the whole Australian front. The attack was repulsed with heavy losses. The 11th Battalion suffered nine killed and eight wounded, mainly from shrapnel. One Turkish officer and five soldiers surrendered. On 21 May, a truce was declared and a burial party from the 12th Battalion was sent out. However, it was fired at by the Turks and as a result burial parties were discontinued. A similar truce was declared on 24 May. A line was drawn halfway between the two lines and each side sent out parties to bury the dead and collect equipment. #### Lone Pine On 27 July 1915, after two weeks in reserve, the battalion relieved the 12th Battalion at Tasmanian Post, on the right on the Australian front line. On 31 July, a party of around 200 men led by Leane were ordered to capture a section of Turkish trenches in front of the battalion's position. After engineers detonated three mines prepared near Turkish communications trenches, the storming party captured the Turkish trench following a bayonet charge, with the loss of one officer and 36 other ranks killed. Seventy-three other members of the battalion were wounded during the attack, including Leane, who was mentioned in despatches. Turkish casualties were estimated by the battalion to be 60 killed. On 6 August, the battalion held off a fierce Turkish counterattack on the trench, which became known as "Leane's Trench" during the Battle of Lone Pine. Heavy casualties were sustained on both sides. The battalion suffered 41 killed, 94 wounded and 19 missing. By the end of the month, the 11th Battalion's strength, despite having received six batches of reinforcements, had fallen to just over 500 men, approximately half its authorised strength. The following month, command of the battalion passed to Leane when Lyon-Johnston took over as brigade commander. As the health of the men deteriorated, the battalion's strength fell further to just over 300. The arrival of winter in October brought heavy rain and even harsher conditions. #### Withdrawal In November, the battalion supported the 5th Light Horse around "Chatham Post" until it was withdrawn, with the 9th Battalion, from Anzac Cove. The withdrawal had been planned for the 14th, but due to bad weather this was delayed until the night of the 16/17 November 1915. From Anzac Cove, it sailed to Lemnos where it recuperated at Sampi Camp, following seven months in the trenches. The battalion's war diary records particularly bad weather on Lemnos during this period, noting "Mudros seems a most unsuitable place to send troops for a rest". During this rest period, the battalion reported its first and only case of diphtheria, following which the whole brigade was quarantined. On 17 December, the battalion's last casualty of the campaign, a soldier named Private Hayes, died from meningitis. The battalion lost a total of 353 men killed during the campaign. ### Western Front In early 1916, the battalion sailed to Alexandria on the Empress of Britain. From Alexandria, it travelled by train to bivouac at Tall al Kabir. At this time, the battalion received 367 reinforcements from Australia before undertaking defensive duties around Gebel Habieta, guarding the Suez Canal. In February, the AIF was re-organised and expanded. This saw the veteran battalions split to provide cadres for new battalions and as a part of this process, the 11th Battalion provided personnel to the 51st Battalion, by transferring the even numbered sections to the new battalion. At this time, the battalion received four Lewis Guns for organic direct fire support. On 30 March 1916, as the AIF's infantry divisions were transferred to Europe, the battalion sailed from Alexandria aboard the HMT Corsican. It arrived at Marseilles, France, on 5 April and then moved by train to Flêtre where it was billeted until the 19th when it moved to Sailly, where it commemorated Anzac Day on 25 April. In mid-May, after a period of acclimatisation and training to prepare them for the European battlefield, the 11th Battalion moved up to the front line around Petillon in the Fleurbaix sector, with a strength of 27 officers and 929 other ranks. A further draft of reinforcements, totalling 69 men all ranks, arrived on 25 May, and on 30 May the battalion had its first experience of combat on the Western Front. Late that evening, German artillery bombarded the Allied line around the Cordonnerie salient, before infantry launched a raid on the 11th Battalion's trenches. In the fighting that followed the 11th Battalion lost four men captured, 37 killed and 70 wounded. #### Pozières and Mouquet Farm Throughout June, the 11th Battalion was placed in support of the front as it was brought back up to strength. At this time, the battalion's organic fire support was increased by the addition of two extra Lewis Guns. The following month, they moved to the Somme and were committed to the fighting around Pozières. After arriving at Albert on 19 July amidst a gas attack, the battalion spent the next couple of days preparing to attack, working to improve trenches and cache stores, during which they were subjected to heavy artillery bombardment. The attack was put in just before midnight on 23 July and was a costly success. Amidst heavy casualties, the 11th Battalion took the forward German trenches and amidst the confusion of the fighting advanced beyond their limit of exploitation, entering Pozières and moving beyond where they became embroiled in close quarters fighting. After capturing five artillery pieces, the battalion's officers and non-commissioned officers eventually managed to regain control of the advance and the battalion was brought back into a defensive line along their first objective. At dawn, patrols from the battalion entered the village again and cleared out the cellars beneath the battered remains of the village's buildings, capturing over 40 prisoners. During the night of 24/25 July, the Australians attacked again, but after establishing a new defensive line, the 11th was forced to withdraw after suffering heavily from both friendly and enemy shelling. In the morning of 25 July, further casualties were sustained by German artillery. German infantry then launched a counterattack on the battalion's right, but the Australians managed to hold their ground. They remained in the line throughout the day, before the 19th Battalion arrived as part of the 5th Brigade's relief of the 3rd Brigade. Having lost 19 officers and 512 other ranks killed, wounded or missing, the battalion had suffered the most of all the 3rd Brigade's battalions and was moved back to Berteaucourt to be rebuilt. After re-organising, in mid-August the 11th Battalion moved to La Boisselle where they were placed into brigade reserve. Just before dawn on 21 August, about 200 men from the 11th took part in an attack around Mouquet Farm; casualties amounted to 20 killed and 40 wounded and afterwards the battalion was moved to Belgium. The 11th Battalion spent the remainder of 1916 in the Ypres sector, in Flanders, but was moved back to the Somme at the end of the year as the worst winter in 40 years descended on the front. #### Louverval In early 1917, the Germans fell back towards the Hindenburg Line in an effort to shorten their lines and move into prepared positions. As the Allies pursued the withdrawing Germans, in late February the 11th Battalion captured Le Barque, conducting mopping-up operations before advancing to Thilloy where they fought a minor engagement before being relieved by the 3rd Battalion, having lost 12 killed and 30 wounded during the fighting and a further 10 men killed and 13 wounded by artillery. Sickness also took a heavy toll during this time due to the bad weather. In March, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Rafferty took over as commanding officer and the following month, as the Allied line was pushed further forward towards the Hindenburg Line, the 11th Battalion played a supporting role during the 3rd Brigade's attack around Boursies, before occupying the front around the village of Louverval. On 15 April 1917, during the Battle of Lagnicourt, Lieutenant Charles Pope, of 'A' Company, was in command of an important picket post on the right of the battalion's positions outside Louverval, with orders to "hold the position at all costs". The Germans attacked the position with overwhelming numbers and surrounded the post. Having used up their ammunition, the remainder of the post charged with fixed bayonets into the surrounding German positions. Pope's body was later found with those of his men, having killed 80 Germans. Pope was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, Australia's highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy. #### Bullecourt and the Third Battle of Ypres In early May, the 11th Battalion moved to Norieul, where they occupied a recently captured portion of the German line. A couple of days later, during the Second Battle of Bullecourt, their position was attacked by German "shock troops". In response to the attack, supporting artillery was called down, and the attack repulsed. The Germans laid down a heavy bombardment in retaliation. An attack was ordered, but the order was rescinded when the senior officer in the forward trench, Major Aubrey Darnell, expressed concerns about the state of the soldiers in the assault wave. The Germans then put in another attack, which was once again turned back, before the 11th launched a limited counterattack and regained the ground that had been lost. The battalion, having lost 68 men killed, two captured and 140 wounded, was down to a strength of just over 400 men. They were relieved and then moved back to Bapaume, where they received a draft of over 100 reinforcements. Over the next couple of months, the battalion was rebuilt, reaching a strength of 44 officers and 1,002 other ranks by late August. The following month they were committed to the Third Battle of Ypres. Their first attack came around Glencorse Wood on 20 September, during which the 11th Battalion lost 46 killed and 100 wounded, before moving to Westhoek Ridge in early October. Another move saw them transferred to Broodeseinde Ridge, where they conducted a raid on German positions around Celtic Wood on 6/7 October in concert with the 12th Battalion. The following day, the 11th Battalion moved to a position on "Anzac Ridge", before later moving to Zonnebeke at the end of the month where they suffered heavy casualties from German artillery. Throughout November and the first part of December, the battalion remained out of the line, resting around Bologne, before returning to the front around Messines in late December, remaining there over New Years. The battalion's strength during this time was 32 officers and 687 other ranks. #### German Spring Offensive and the final Hundred Days In early 1918, after the capitulation of the Russian Empire the Germans, having moved the bulk of their forces to the Western Front, launched the Spring Offensive, striking against the British forces in the Somme. The initial onslaught pushed the Allied forces back and the Australian divisions, which had been merged into the Australian Corps, were thrown into the line in an effort to stem the tide. In early March, the 11th Battalion moved to the Hollebeke sector, where they were subjected to gas attacks before being sent south to Amiens at the start of April, joining the rest of the 1st Division in defence of Hazebrouck in the middle of the month. For the next couple of months the battalion rotated through the line in a defensive role as the German offensive was blunted. In June, as the Allies sought to regain some of the initiative, they undertook a series of Peaceful Penetration raids. On 2 June, the 11th Battalion attacked Mont de Merris, which resulted in the capture of a large amount of German equipment and over 200 prisoners for the loss of 16 men killed and 74 wounded. A lesser attack was launched on the German trenches opposite the battalion on 22 June. Around this time, a small group of US soldiers was attached to the 11th Battalion to gain experience. The following month, the battalion captured Gerbedoen Farm before supporting the 10th Battalion's successful attack on Merris. On 8 August, the Allies launched their own offensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, around Amiens. The 11th Battalion did not take part in the opening phase of the offensive, moving to Hamel and establishing themselves in a defensive position around Harbonnieres. On 10 August, the battalion was committed to a strong attack around Lihons; although successful, the attack lasted three days and resulted in heavy casualties, including 58 killed and 140 wounded. On the night of 12/13 August, the 11th was withdrawn to the support line just behind the front. Later, they were moved to Vaire and then Cerisy, before supporting the 9th and 12th Battalions around Chuignolles and Proyart on 23 August and then around Chuignes and Cappy two days later, where further losses were experienced. The 11th Battalion's final attack came against the Hindenburg Outpost Line on 18 September when they launched a three-company attack around Fervaque Farm and Carpeza Copse near Villeret. Despite being severely understrength – each company had an average strength of just 76 men – they advanced over 3,000 yards (2,700 m) and took over 120 prisoners and large quantities of German equipment, for the loss of 18 men killed. Further casualties came on 24 October when German aircraft attacked the battalion headquarters, killing a number of officers, including Darnell, who was the acting commanding officer. The heavy casualties that the Australians had suffered during the final year of the war, and the decrease in volunteers arriving from Australia, meant that the battalion was desperately understrength. In October, they were withdrawn from the line for rest and reorganisation, at the insistence of the Australian prime minister, Billy Hughes. At this time, the battalion was reorganised into a two-company structure. In early November, the battalion prepared to return to the front around St. Quentin, but before they could return to the fighting, an armistice came into effect, bringing the war to an end. By the end of the war, a total of over 9,000 men had served in the 11th Battalion, of which 1,115 were killed and 2,424 wounded. Members of the battalion received the following decorations for their service during the war: one Victoria Cross, one Companion of the Order of the Bath, two Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George, seven Distinguished Service Orders, one Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 30 Military Crosses and one Bar, 25 Distinguished Conduct Medals with one Bar, 96 Military Medals with two Bars, three Meritorious Service Medals, 85 Mentions in Despatches and seven foreign awards. Following the armistice, the 11th Battalion was moved to Chaelet, in Belgium, where the demobilisation process began. The battalion's personnel were slowly repatriated to Australia, while those that waited undertook training to prepare them for civilian life. On 6 February 1919, the 11th Battalion was amalgamated with the 12th, to form the 11th/12th Battalion; a further amalgamation occurred on 27 March when the 11th/12th merged with the 9th/10th Battalion, forming the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade Battalion. A short time later, the battalion disbanded. The 11th Battalion's final commanding officer was Major Jack O'Neil, an original member of the battalion who had been appointed a company sergeant major during the battalion's formative period at Blackboy Camp. ## Inter war years and World War II In 1921, following the conclusion of the demobilisation of the AIF, the government undertook a review of Australia's military requirements and the part-time military force, the Citizens Forces, was reorganised to perpetuate the numerical designations of the AIF units. As a result, the 11th Battalion was reformed in Perth, drawing personnel and lineage from the 2nd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, 51st Infantry Regiment. Upon formation, the battalion was assigned to the 13th Brigade, and inherited the battle honour of "South Africa, 1899–1902", which it bore for the 1st and 2nd Battalions, West Australian Infantry. In 1927, territorial designations were introduced and the battalion adopted the title of the "Perth Regiment"; it was also awarded battle honours for World War I, receiving a total of 23. Its motto at this time was Vigilans. Upon establishment, the Citizens Forces units were manned through both voluntary and compulsory service; but, in 1929–30, following the election of the Scullin Labor government, the compulsory service scheme was abolished and the Citizens Forces was replaced with an all volunteer "Militia". As a result of the economic pressures of the Great Depression the number of volunteers fell, and consequently a number of infantry battalions had to be disbanded or amalgamated. The 11th Battalion was one of those amalgamated, being joined with the 16th Battalion in 1930 to become the 11th/16th Battalion. The two units remained linked until 1 October 1936, when the 11th Battalion (City of Perth Regiment) was re-formed in its own right, as part of an expansion of the Militia due to concerns about war in Europe. During World War II, like most Militia units, the 11th Battalion performed garrison duties for most of the war. It was mobilised for war service at Melville, Western Australia, in December 1941. In the early part of the war, the battalion remained in Western Australia, and was assigned to the 4th Division, as part of the 13th Brigade, before later moving to the Northern Territory in 1943, where the 13th Brigade was deployed to defend Darwin, replacing the 3rd Brigade. Later in 1943, the battalion was gazetted as an AIF battalion, after more than 65 percent of its personnel volunteered to serve outside Australian territory. As the threat to Darwin passed, its garrison was reduced and the 13th Brigade was reorganised to prepare it for operations in the Pacific. The battalion, along with the rest of the 13th Brigade, was later transferred to the 5th Division and saw service against the Japanese during 1945 in the New Britain Campaign. Due to the large size of Japanese forces on New Britain, the Australian campaign was focused mainly upon containment. After landing at Jacquinot Bay the battalion was based around the Tol Plantation and conducted patrolling operations to restrict the Japanese to the Gazelle Peninsula. Little contact was made and actual combat was limited; the battalion's casualties amounted to three dead and four wounded. Following the end of the war, the 11th Battalion occupied Rabaul, before being disbanded on 11 April 1946. ## Post World War II In 1948, Australia's part-time military force was re-raised in the guise of the Citizens Military Force. At this time, the 11th/44th Battalion (City of Perth Regiment) was formed. From 1960, following a reorganisation of the Army that saw the adoption of the Pentropic divisional establishment, the 11th/44th was reduced to a company-sized element and 'A' (City of Perth) Company, 1st Battalion, Royal Western Australia Regiment maintained the traditions of the 11th Battalion. The following year, the 11th Battalion was awarded the 15 battle honours that had been earned by the 11th and 2/11th Battalions during World War II. A separate 11th Battalion, Royal Western Australia Regiment was reformed in 1966, being formed through a designation of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Western Australia Regiment. Ten years later, the battalion was reduced to an independent company and in 1987, the 11th Independent Rifle Company was amalgamated with the 28th Independent Rifle Company to form the current 11th/28th Battalion, Royal Western Australia Regiment. ## Alliances The 11th Battalion held the following alliance: - United Kingdom – Royal Sussex Regiment (approved in 1925). ## Battle honours The 11th Battalion received the following battle honours: - Boer War - South Africa, 1899–1902 (inherited). - World War I - Somme 1916–18, Pozières, Bullecourt, Ypres 1917, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Lys, Hazebrouck, Amiens, Albert 1918, Hindenburg Line, Epehy, France and Flanders 1916–1918, ANZAC, Landing at ANZAC, Defence of ANZAC, Suvla, Sari Bair, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1915–16. - World War II - North Africa 1940–41, Bardia 1941, Capture of Tobruk, Derna, Greece 1941, Brallos Pass, Crete, Retimo, South-West Pacific 1944–45, Liberation of Australian New Guinea, Matapau, Abau–Malin, Wewak, Wirui Mission.

79th Street station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)

New York City Subway station in Manhattan

The 79th Street station is a local station on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of 79th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it is served by the 1 train at all times and the 2 train during late nights. The 79th Street station was constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. Construction of the line segment that includes the 79th Street station began on August 22 of the same year. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. The station's platforms have been lengthened since opening. The 79th Street station contains two side platforms and four tracks; express trains use the inner two tracks to bypass the station. The station was built with tile and mosaic decorations, although most of the original design has been replaced with a cinder block design. The platforms contain exits to 79th Street and Broadway and are not connected to each other within fare control. The remaining portion of the original station interior is a New York City designated landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ## History ### Construction and opening Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act. The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx. A plan was formally adopted in 1897, and all legal conflicts concerning the route alignment were resolved near the end of 1899. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, under which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations. Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway. The 79th Street station was constructed as part of the IRT's West Side Line (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line) from 60th Street to 82nd Street, for which work had begun on August 22, 1900. Work for that section had been awarded to William Bradley. By late 1903, the subway was nearly complete, but the IRT Powerhouse and the system's electrical substations were still under construction, delaying the system's opening. The 79th Street station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from City Hall to 145th Street on the West Side Branch. The opening of the first subway line, and particularly the 79th Street station, helped contribute to the development of the Upper West Side. ### Service changes and station renovations After the first subway line was completed in 1908, the station was served by local trains along both the West Side (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street) and East Side (now the Lenox Avenue Line). West Side local trains had their southern terminus at City Hall during rush hours and South Ferry at other times, and had their northern terminus at 242nd Street. East Side local trains ran from City Hall to Lenox Avenue (145th Street). To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to \$1.5 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) spent on platform lengthening, \$500,000 (equivalent to \$ million in ) was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. Platforms at local stations, such as the 79th Street station, were lengthened by between 20 and 30 feet (6.1 and 9.1 m). Both platforms were extended to the north and south. Six-car local trains began operating in October 1910. The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line opened south of Times Square–42nd Street in 1918, and the original line was divided into an "H"-shaped system. The original subway north of Times Square thus became part of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, and all local trains were sent to South Ferry. In December 1922, the Transit Commission approved a \$3 million project to lengthen platforms at 14 local stations along the original IRT line, including 79th Street and five other stations on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. Platform lengths at these stations would be increased from 225 to 436 feet (69 to 133 m). The commission postponed the platform-lengthening project in September 1923, at which point the cost had risen to \$5.6 million. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. The IRT routes were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of "R-type" rolling stock, which contained rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The Broadway route to 242nd Street became known as the 1 and the Lenox Avenue route as the 3. The original IRT stations north of Times Square could barely fit local trains of five or six cars depending on the configuration of the trains. Stations on the line from 50th Street to 96th Street, including this station but excluding the 91st Street station, had their platforms extended in the 1950s to accommodate ten-car trains as part of a \$100 million () rebuilding program. The contract to extend the platforms at 79th Street and 86th Street was awarded to Delma Engineering Corporation for \$1,867,705 in 1957 (). The platform extensions at the local stations were completed by early 1958. Once the project was completed, all 1 trains became local and all 2 and 3 trains became express, and eight-car local trains began operation. Increased and lengthened service was implemented during peak hours on the 1 train on February 6, 1959. Due to the lengthening of the platforms at 86th Street and 96th Street, the intermediate 91st Street station was closed on February 2, 1959, because it was too close to the other two stations. In November 1959, the Warshaw Construction Company received a contract to remove fifteen entrance/exit kiosks on IRT lines, including two at the 79th Street station. This was part of a citywide initiative to remove the kiosks, which obstructed motorists' views of pedestrians. On June 28, 1964, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) awarded a contract to construct additional entrances at the station to Delma Engineering Corporation for \$212,874 (). Work on the project was still underway in 1967. In April 1988, the NYCTA unveiled plans to speed up service on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line through the implementation of a skip-stop service: the 9 train. When skip-stop service started in 1989, it was only implemented north of 137th Street–City College on weekdays, and 79th Street was served by both the 1 and the 9. Skip-stop service ended on May 27, 2005, as a result of a decrease in the number of riders who benefited. In 1979, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the space within the boundaries of the original station, excluding expansions made after 1904, as a city landmark. The station was designated along with eleven others on the original IRT. The original interiors were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. ## Station layout Like other local stations, 79th Street has four tracks and two side platforms. The station is served by the 1 at all times and by the 2 during late nights; the center express tracks are used by the 2 train during daytime hours and the 3 train at all times. The station is between 86th Street to the north and 72nd Street to the south. The platforms were originally 200 feet (61 m) long, like at other local stations on the original IRT, but as a result of the 1958–1959 platform extension, became 525 feet (160 m) long. The station was also originally 55.5 feet (16.9 m) wide. ### Design As with other stations built as part of the original IRT, the station was constructed using a cut-and-cover method. The tunnel is covered by a "U"-shaped trough that contains utility pipes and wires. The bottom of this trough contains a foundation of concrete no less than 4 inches (100 mm) thick. Each platform consists of 3-inch-thick (7.6 cm) concrete slabs, beneath which are drainage basins. The original platforms contain circular, cast-iron Doric-style columns spaced every 15 feet (4.6 m), while the platform extensions contain I-beam columns. Additional columns between the tracks, spaced every 5 feet (1.5 m), support the jack-arched concrete station roofs. The ceiling height varies based on whether there are utilities in the ceiling; the areas without utilities is about 15 feet (4.6 m) above platform level. There is a 1-inch (25 mm) gap between the trough wall and the platform walls, which are made of 4-inch (100 mm)-thick brick covered over by a tiled finish. The fare control areas are at platform level, and there is no crossover or crossunder between the platforms. The walls along the platforms near the fare control areas consist of a brick wainscoting on the lowest part of the wall, with bronze air vents along the wainscoting, and white glass tiles above. The platform walls are divided at 15-foot (4.6 m) intervals by buff and salmon tile pilasters, or vertical bands. There are tiled plaques about halfway up each pilaster, with the number "79" in white-on-green tile, and buff-and-salmon foliate designs around them. Atop each pilaster are buff faience plaques depicting two cornucopias around a shield. A cornice with egg-and-dart patterns atop bead-and-reel moldings run atop these walls. The mosaic tiles at all original IRT stations were manufactured by the American Encaustic Tile Company, which subcontracted the installations at each station. The decorative work was performed by tile contractor Alfred Boote Company and faience contractor Rookwood Pottery Company. The ceilings of the original platforms and fare control areas contain plaster molding. The section of the ceiling north of the fare control area is smooth, and the section south of fare control is composed of segmental vaults supported by the center columns. The remainders of both platforms have cream-colored tiles and a salmon trim line with "79TH ST" written on it in black Sans Serif font at regular intervals. These tiles were installed during the late 1950s renovation. ### Exits The southbound platform is fully staffed, containing a turnstile bank, token booth, staircase going up to the northwest corner of West 79th Street and Broadway, and passageway separated from the platform by a steel fence leading to a staircase that goes up to the southwest corner of the intersection. This passageway has a High Entry-Exit Turnstile to the platform, with walls made of cinder block tiles. The northbound platform's fare control is unstaffed, containing a turnstile bank, now-closed customer assistance booth, staircase going up to the southeast corner of West 79th Street and Broadway, and passageway separated from the platform by a steel fence leading to a staircase that goes up to the northeast corner of the intersection. This passageway has a High Exit-Only Turnstile to the platform, with walls made of cinder block tiles. The street staircases on both sides contain relatively simple, modern steel railings like those seen at most New York City Subway stations.

Johnny Roepke

American football player (1905–1962)

John Peter Roepke (December 28, 1905 – February 26, 1962) was an American football halfback who played one season in the National Football League (NFL) for the Frankford Yellow Jackets as well as four seasons in minor leagues with the Atlantic City Tornadoes, Clifton Heights Orange & Black, Upper Darby Greenbacks, and Paterson Night Hawks. A native of New Jersey, he attended Penn State University, playing football, baseball, and basketball before graduating in 1928. He was selected to the College Football All-America Team following his senior season of 1927. Roepke also briefly played professional baseball for the Scranton Miners in 1928. ## Early life and high school career Roepke was born on December 28, 1905, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He attended William L. Dickinson High School there, playing football, baseball, and basketball. Following his third season of high school, where he was named all state as a halfback, Roepke was elected team captain for his senior year of 1923. Shortly before his last sports game with the high school, the state championship baseball game against Plainfield High School on June 23, 1924, Roepke announced that he would attend Penn State University. As his team's pitcher, he threw a no-hitter versus Plainfield, only letting two people get to a base through a walk. ## College career During his freshman year of 1924, Roepke did not see much action for the Penn State athletic teams. As a sophomore in 1925, he earned a varsity letter and got his first action as a football player. After their game against West Virginia, Roepke was given drills to replace Bas Gray as team punter. He also was given the starting left halfback position for their season finale against Pittsburgh, replacing Bill Pritchard. Roepke was described by The Wilkes-Barre Record as a "good punter, the best forward passer on the squad and a shifty man with the ball [which] makes him a triple threat player." With Roepke starting at halfback during the season finale, Penn State lost 7–23 before 50,000 fans. The Penn State team ended the year with a record of 4–4–1. In basketball, Roepke earned a starting position for the 1925–26 team, replacing Mike Hamas, who retired due to injury. He played the forward position. Roepke was injured playing football during their game against Lebanon Valley on October 2, 1926, forcing him to miss their games against Marietta College, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and George Washington. It left the team without a punter, as he was "the best kicking regular on the squad." His injury required an operation, and sidelined him for "at least a month." "Bus" Harrington was shifted to left halfback as a replacement for Roepke. He returned for their game against Bucknell, where he scored three of nine points, contributing to the other six, and helped shut them out 9–0. Following the season finale, a loss against Pittsburgh, Roepke was mentioned on several all-Eastern teams for his performance, as well as earned the team captain position for his senior season of 1927. By the end of week two in 1927, Roepke had already scored 36 points and was the leader in the eastern United States. He scored eight against Lebanon Valley in week one, and "ran wild" versus Gettysburg the following week, scoring 28 out of his team's 34 points. Against Syracuse during week five, Roepke kicked the game-winning field goal in the fourth quarter to win 9–6. It was Penn State's first ever win in their rivalry with Syracuse. By mid-November, Roepke was "considered by many as an outstanding candidate for the all-America team," according to the Ohio News Journal. By November 21, Roepke was third in the eastern United States in scoring with 89 points, only behind Bob Nork of Georgetown and Myles Lane of Dartmouth. He finished the season ranked fourth in the eastern U.S., after dropping one spot to Jack Conner. He made a total of 12 touchdowns, one field goal, and 14 extra points, earning a third-team All-America selection by Walter Eckersall at the end of the season. ## Professional career ### Baseball Following his graduation from Penn State, Roepke began a professional baseball career in the New York–Pennsylvania League with the Scranton Miners as a pitcher. He played his first game on June 13, 1928, allowing nine hits in two innings pitched before being benched. The Miners lost the game, 4–10, against the York White Roses. It was his only appearance with the team. The Miners finished the season with a record of 55–78, placing seventh in the league. ### Football After the baseball season ended, Roepke tried out professional football, playing for the Frankford Yellow Jackets of the National Football League (NFL). He appeared in 10 out of the team's 16 games, starting three of them at a "back" position. In week three of the season, a 10–6 victory over the Providence Steam Roller, Roepke scored his first career points on a field goal. In a 19–0 shutout over the Pottsville Maroons, he scored his first professional touchdown, on a 12-yard rush in the first quarter. In week ten, he threw a touchdown pass to Carl Waite. He also kicked one extra point during the season, as the Yellow Jackets placed second in the league. Roepke left Frankford after the season to join the Atlantic City Tornadoes, the first 1929 opponents of his former team. After the first game, a 0–6 loss for Atlantic City, Roepke left the team and joined the Clifton Heights Orange & Black. He finished the season with Clifton before joining the Upper Darby Greenbacks the following year. He returned with the Greenbacks for the 1931 season. In October 1932, Roepke was signed by the Paterson Night Hawks prior to their game against the New York Giants. He made two appearances for the Night Hawks before retiring. ## Later life and death Roepke was married on December 22, 1928, to Anne Kost of Tyrone, Pennsylvania. Roepke later worked for the Manhattan Rubber Division of Raybestos, Inc. He died on February 26, 1962, at the age of 56, following a short illness.

Good Old Mountain Dew

Appalachian folk song

"Good Old Mountain Dew" (ROUD 18669), sometimes called simply "Mountain Dew" or "Real Old Mountain Dew", is an Appalachian folk song composed by Bascom Lamar Lunsford and Scotty Wiseman. There are two versions of the lyrics, a 1928 version written by Lunsford and a 1935 adaptation by Wiseman. Both versions of the song are about moonshine. The 1935 version has been widely covered and has entered into the folk tradition becoming a standard. ## Creation Along with being an amateur folklorist and musician, Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a lawyer practicing in rural North Carolina during the 1920s. At the time, the manufacturing of beverage alcohol for non-medicinal purposes was illegal in the United States due to prohibition, but North Carolina residents nevertheless continued their longstanding tradition of making a form of illegal whiskey called moonshine. Lunsford frequently defended local clients that were accused of the practice, and the original lyrics and banjo accompaniment to "Good Old Mountain Dew" were written during the course of one of these cases. In 1928, Lunsford recorded the song for Brunswick Records. Scotty Wiseman, of the duo Lulu Belle and Scotty, was a friend of Lunsford's. When Lulu Belle and Scotty needed one more song to finish a 1935 record for Vocalion Records, Wiseman suggested using the song his friend had written. To make the piece appeal to more people, Wiseman added the modern chorus and replaced verses about a man appearing in court with verses about making moonshine. Two years later, at the National Folk Festival in Chicago, Wiseman showed his version to Lunsford. Lunsford was impressed with it; later the same night, he sold the song to Wiseman for \$25 () so he could buy a train ticket back to North Carolina. Wiseman copyrighted the song and made sure that 50% of the royalties it earned were given to Lunsford until Lunsford's death. ## Lyrics and themes The 1928 version of "Good Old Mountain Dew" is close to the style of a ballad. The lyrics tell the story of a man's first day in court to answer charges of making illegal alcohol. In the first verse, the prosecutor closes his case. In the next three verses, several respected members of the community—the deacon, the doctor, and the conductor—visit the charged man, trying to buy his whiskey. In the final verse, the judge offers the young man clemency if he is willing to pay court costs for the trial. The 1935 lyrics are not ballad-like and do not tell a story. This version tells of an "old hollow tree" that is used as a dead drop. A person who is looking to buy moonshine places money in the tree and leaves. When that person returns, there is a jug where the money was. The song goes on to extoll the drink and tell of its great properties. ## Relationship with "The Rare Old Mountain Dew" There is some controversy over the possible connection between "Good Old Mountain Dew" and the Irish folk song "The Rare Old Mountain Dew", which dates to 1916 or earlier (at least a decade before "Good Old Mountain Dew" was written). The terms "mountain dew" and "moonshine" are thought to have come to the United States from Ireland. Lunsford wrote several parodies and adaptations of other Irish folk songs; based on this, some folklorists claim that the song "Good Old Mountain Dew" was based on "The Rare Old Mountain Dew". Other folklorists disagree, pointing out that the only commonality the songs share is the use of the phrase "mountain dew". ## Recordings and adaptions Since 1935, "Good Old Mountain Dew" has been rerecorded and covered by a wide variety of folk, old time, and country musicians, including Grandpa Jones, Glen Campbell, and Willie Nelson. Nelson's cover reached number 23 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs and stayed there for six weeks. Over time, artists have added new verses, but the tune has remained the same since it was first written in the 1920s. The gospel song "Traveling the Highway Home" is based on "Good Old Mountain Dew" and uses the same tune, but has lyrics about moving closer to eternal life after death instead of about moonshine. After PepsiCo bought the soft drink Mountain Dew in 1964, they commissioned a set of advertisements featuring a "Good Old Mountain Dew"-based jingle and the drink's mascot: a barefooted back-country man called "Willie the Hillbilly". ## See also - "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground"

Super Mario Bros. 35

2020 video game

Super Mario Bros. 35 was a 2020 online multiplayer platform game with battle royale elements. Developed by Arika and published by Nintendo, the game was part of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. in 2020. It was released on the Nintendo Switch as a free downloadable game for members of the Nintendo Switch Online service on October 1, 2020. Its servers were shut down on April 1, 2021, following the official end of the anniversary. The game was similar in concept to Tetris 99. The game featured the classic platforming of Super Mario Bros., with the addition of 35 players competed in real-time in a battle royale format. Enemies that the player defeated were sent to other opponents using one of four targeting options. The game featured power-ups that could be obtained by spending collected coins on an "item roulette" and a timer that was extended by defeating enemies and completing levels. Super Mario Bros. 35 received generally positive reviews from critics, praising the game's unique concept of combining Super Mario Bros. with battle royale gameplay and innovation, while criticizing the game's repetition and simplicity. ## Gameplay Super Mario Bros. 35 combined run-and-jump platforming with battle royale elements. Thirty-five players each controlled the protagonist Mario, with Luigi being unlockable as a playable character through an easter egg, and simultaneously traversed through the original set of thirty-two two-dimensional levels from Super Mario Bros. These courses contained items, such as coins and power-ups, and enemies that were to be defeated. A player won once all other players were defeated. Different enemies appeared in certain levels, with different ways of defeating them. Goombas were the most common enemies. Most enemies could be defeated by jumping onto them. Other enemies would drop a projectile when stomped on, such as the Koopa Troopa, which dropped a shell that could be kicked left or right and would ricochet when it comes in contact with an object. Bowser appeared as a boss in the fourth stage of each world. Enemies defeated by the player were sent to other opponents in real-time, appearing in their levels as an additional hindrance. Players could either manually target their opponents or choose from four types of opponents to attack: players who collected the most coins, players who had the least amount of time remaining, players who attacked the player themselves, or random players. Each player would be assigned a timer that started at 35 seconds. They were awarded additional seconds by eliminating enemies, and doing so in rapid succession yielded higher rewards. Letting the timer run out caused the player to lose. Players could earn a bounty of coins if they knocked out any opponents during a match. If a player collected 20 coins, they would have the option to spend them to spin the "item roulette". This provided the player with one of four items: Super Mushrooms, a mushroom that made Mario larger, gave him the ability to destroy bricks, and gave him an additional hitpoint; Fire Flowers, which gave Mario the ability to shoot bouncing fireballs at enemies; Starmen, which made Mario invincible to enemies for a brief period of time; and POW Blocks, which cleared all enemies on the screen. At the start of each game, each player could vote for which level to start on. All of the selected levels would be placed in a queue, along with some randomly-chosen levels. Beyond the first level, each player could only vote for levels they had completed. In this pre-game screen, players could also choose to spend 50 coins to start with a power-up of their choice. In limited-time "Special Battle" events, players could compete in a fixed list of courses and conditions that had a different theme every week. These conditions included starting with coins, a power-up, or more time on the in-game timer. The game also featured a variety of player icons that could be unlocked by meeting various requirements, as well as daily challenges such as placing fifth or better three games in a row. ## Development and release Super Mario Bros. 35 was developed by Arika, starting before the release of the company's previous game, Tetris 99, in February 2019. Super Mario Bros. 35 was announced on September 3, 2020, as part of the Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary. Following the game's announcement, comparisons were drawn between Super Mario Bros. 35 and Mario Royale, a fan project by InfernoPlus that Nintendo had ordered to be removed one year prior due to copyright infringement. Arika denied cloning the project, stating that the game had been in development before Mario Royale was released. Super Mario Bros. 35 was released on October 1 for free for Nintendo Switch Online members; One week after the release, the game received an update fixing minor bugs and connection stability. To celebrate Halloween, the Special Battle mode only had courses that were underground and night themed from October 20 to November 2, 2020. For the final Special Battle, which ran from March 30 to April 1, all courses were in circulation in order. Some players were accused of hacking to obtain 99,999 coins in a single round to gain an easy supply of power-ups, allowing them to top the leaderboards. Nintendo took action by removing videos published online showing gameplay that was suspected of demonstrating hacking. Super Mario Bros. 35 was discontinued on April 1, 2021. According to the president of Nintendo of America, Doug Bowser, the 35th-anniversary products were discontinued due to the 35th anniversary being a celebration that was intended to be unique. He considered the concept successful, mentioning how Super Mario 3D All-Stars sold over 2 million copies in the time frame. He stated how limited-time events were not planned to be used as a marketing strategy for future anniversaries. In June 2021, Hackaday reported that a reverse engineered game server has been implemented. ## Reception Super Mario Bros. 35 received "generally favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic. The website calculated a normalized rating of 75/100 based on 28 reviews. The game remained playable until April 1, and was removed from the Nintendo eShop the day before. Critics praised the game for its innovation and gameplay, while criticizing its repetition and simplicity. Chris Button from GameSpot noted how the game introduced a new competitive twist to the classic version. Chris Scullion from Nintendo Life stated that it took the classic game and "dials it to 11". Kirstin Swalley from Hardcore Gamer believed the concept was creative and "silly in the best kind of way". Kotaku's Ethan Gach appreciated the concept, calling the late-game a "true gauntlet of death", but felt that the "novelty doesn't last long". Seth Macy of IGN reiterated the latter sentiment, noting that "the repetition of the early levels in Super Mario Bros. 35 definitely makes it feel less super". Major complaints from critics focused on the repetition of early levels. Players start with only one level available to play and unlock more throughout gameplay, causing many players to be forced to play through the beginning levels because beginners have yet to have more levels unlocked. Zachary Cuevas from iMore stated that the method to unlock new levels was unclear, and Chris Carter from Destructoid wrote that not enough players were choosing different levels before a match, which he believes is due to the lack of an in-game tutorial. Button observed that the repetition creates a lack of pacing and little intensity, but that Special Battle was a good competitive alternative. Other minor complaints come from the final moments of rounds, where gameplay regularly results in two players going through levels under a test of endurance of the standard platforming. Shacknews's Ozzie Mejia stated that the final two players would "find themselves in a deadlock after playing the same levels over and over", but appreciated how the in-game timer would speed up to fit the moment. Gach thought the ending competition revolved only around the standard platforming but could be challenging for skilled players. Scullion stated the game went back and forth with the final players until someone won. Aubin Gregoire from Jeuxvideo.com commented that the face-to-face battles could last up to five minutes, and the gameplay started to loop. While critics believed the game had a complex strategy, reviewers found cases where the overwhelming difficulty could be cleared by simply using a fire flower or an invincibility star. Nadia Oxford from USgamer called the game unpredictable, and liked how randomly occurring enemies gave her a new experience from her original experience with the game. Ars Technica's Kyle Orland believed the fire flower was overpowered, and made getting through large groups of enemies too easy. He claimed that certain enemies, such as Bloopers and Buzzy Beetles, would be more of a nuisance, but were uncommon sights.

1901 Louisiana hurricane

Category 1 Atlantic hurricane in 1901

The 1901 Louisiana hurricane was the first hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana in the month of August or earlier since 1888. The fourth tropical cyclone and second hurricane of the season, this storm developed southwest of the Azores on August 2. Moving southwestward and later westward, the depression remained weak for several days, until strengthening into a tropical storm while approaching the Bahamas early on August 9. It then crossed through the islands and intensified only slightly. Late on August 10, the storm made landfall near Deerfield Beach, Florida. After reaching the Gulf of Mexico the next day, continuous intensifying occurred and by August 12, the storm reached hurricane status. Peaking with winds of 90 mph (145 km/h), it struck Louisiana late on August 14 and then Mississippi less than 24 hours later. The system weakened to a tropical storm early on August 16 and became extratropical several hours later. Along portions of the east coast of Florida, "considerable damage" was reported due to strong winds. In Alabama, trees were uprooted, houses were de-roofed, and chimneys collapsed in Mobile. Some areas of the city were also inundated with up to 18 inches (460 mm) of water due to storm tide. Several yachts, schooners, and ships were wrecked or sunk, resulting in at least \$70,000 (1901 USD) in damage. However, due to warnings by the Weather Bureau, the Mobile Chamber of Commerce estimated that several millions of dollars in damage was evaded. All towns along the coast of Mississippi "suffered seriously". In Louisiana, severe damage was reported at some towns due to strong winds and high tides. The community of Port Eads reported that only the lighthouse was not destroyed, while other sources state that an office building also remained standing. In New Orleans, overflowing levees inundated numerous streets. Outside the city, crops suffered severely, particularly rice. Overall, the storm caused 10–15 deaths and \$1 million in damage. ## Meteorological history A tropical depression developed about 615 miles (990 km) southwest of Flores Island, Azores at 0000 UTC on August 2. The depression moved southwestward and remained weak for several days. On August 5, it re-curved west-southwestward and then westward while passing north of the Lesser Antilles. The next day, the system curved west-northwestward and briefly to the west on August 8. Finally, the depression strengthened into a tropical storm at 0000 UTC on August 9, while located about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Cat Island, Bahamas. Around that time, the Weather Bureau first observed a "feeble disturbance in the subtropical north of Cuba." Between August 9 and August 10, the storm strengthened slightly further and moved through the Bahamas, passing over Cat Island and the Berry Islands. Around 2200 UTC on August 10, the system made landfall near Deerfield Beach, Florida with winds of 45 mph (70 km/h). Early on August 11, the storm weakened slightly while crossing Florida. It then decelerated and reached the eastern Gulf of Mexico several hours later. Thereafter, the system began to re-strengthen and became a Category 1 hurricane on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale at 1200 UTC on August 12. Early the next day, the storm attained its maximum sustained wind speed of 90 mph (145 km/h). It weakened slightly early on August 14 and curved northwestward while approaching the coast of Louisiana. At 2100 UTC, the storm made landfall near Buras with winds of 85 mph (135 km/h). Curving northeastward, the hurricane re-emerged into the Gulf of Mexico early on August 15. However, around 1700 UTC, it made another landfall near Ocean Springs, Mississippi at the same intensity. Early on August 16, the system weakened to a tropical storm. It then weakened much quicker and transitioned into an extratropical cyclone over Mississippi at 0000 UTC on August 17. The remnant extratropical cyclone persisted until late the next day, at which time it dissipated over Indiana. ## Preparations and impact As the storm approached the east coast of Florida on August 10, a warning was sent to all Weather Bureau stations in Florida, as well as Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, regarding a "disturbance of moderate intensity", which posed a threat to small crafts in Florida and the western Bahamas. The next day, as the storm was moving across Florida, another message sent to Weather Bureau stations from New Orleans to Charleston warned of the potential for severe squalls along the west coast of Florida. While approaching the Gulf Coast of the United States on August 13, storm warnings were ordered for Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as for the west coast of Florida. At the National Weather Service office in New Orleans, hurricane warnings were ordered in Louisiana from mouth of the Mississippi River westward on August 15 and expanded to eastern Texas later that day. In New Orleans, 500 men, who were city authorities or levee board members, worked to strengthen the levees along canals in the city. Throughout much of the Gulf Coast of the United States, vessels and ships were warned to take precautions and remain in port. In Florida, "considerable damage" due to strong winds was reported along portions of the east coast. Wind gusts reached 70 mph (110 km/h) in Pensacola. Offshore, the Portuguese bark Propheta, with a cargo of timber worth \$5,000, was badly damaged. Strong winds up to 60 mph (97 km/h) were observed in the Mobile area of Alabama, uprooting trees, unroofing houses, and toppling chimneys. Tides inundated the cotton exchange with up to 18 inches (460 mm) of water, while the Western Union, post office, and electrical house for railroads were also flooded. The pleasure yacht Ariel, which was bound for the Fish River, was smashed into pieces at a wharf along the eastern end of Mobile Bay. Between 12 and 15 schooners from the F. F. Saunders company fishing fleet were badly damaged; four of which sank, resulting in \$70,000 in damage. However, due to warnings by the Weather Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce estimated that several millions of dollars in damage was evaded. All towns along the coast of Mississippi "suffered seriously". High winds and rough seas were observed in Louisiana. In Port Eads, five-minute sustained winds reached 56 mph (90 km/h), before the anemometer blew away. At the same location, a 24-hour rainfall record was set for the month of August, with 7.64 inches (194 mm) of precipitation observed. According to a contemporaneous report, the weather instrument shelter was swept away due to storm tides and the flag staff was broken. While the office building did weather the storm intact, documents in it were soaked. However, a report written in 2010 states that in Port Eads only the lighthouse remained standing in the aftermath of the devastation. Fifteen fatalities were reported after a house was swept away by storm tides. The 2010 report, however, states that a total of ten deaths were caused by the storm over its entire existence. In Pilottown, the large "lookout" tower was toppled and destroyed. The outhouse that displaymen used and slept in was blown over and then rapidly filled with water, due to tides rising to 4 feet (1.2 m) in only 10 minutes. Additionally, property of the Weather Bureau was also damaged. Buras reported 4 feet (1.2 m) of water in town. River stages along the Mississippi River at New Orleans rose to a level of 7 feet (2.1 m) during the storm, producing much flooding. The Carondelet Canal also overflowed, inundating streets in the neighborhood of Tremé with 1 to 3 feet (0.30 to 0.91 m) of water. Levee breaks around New Orleans flooded the city. Additionally, strong winds littered the streets with tree branches. The worst hit areas of New Orleans were the neighborhoods of Bucktown, Milneburg, West End, all of which are located on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. In the New Orleans suburb of Shell Beach, severe crop damage was reported, particularly to rice. While sailing the Mississippi River just outside New Orleans, Dr. J. N. Thomas reported that a schooner and a small boat were wrecked, resulting in 60 deaths. However, this was not confirmed. Overall, damage in Louisiana reached \$1 million, which excluded losses to crops. ## See also - Hurricane Isaac (2012) – another minimal hurricane which had a similar impact in Louisiana - Hurricane Lili (1990) – another hurricane which formed in the central Atlantic and took an unusual southwestward track

Ely and Littleport riots of 1816

1816 civil unrest in Cambridgeshire, England

The Ely and Littleport riots of 1816, also known as the Ely riots or Littleport riots, occurred between 22 and 24 May 1816 in the Isle of Ely (now in Cambridgeshire). The riots were caused by high unemployment and rising grain costs, similar to the general unrest which spread throughout England following the Napoleonic Wars. The Littleport riot broke out when a group of residents met at The Globe Inn. Fuelled by alcohol, they left the inn and began intimidating wealthier Littleport residents, demanding money and destroying property. The riot spread to Ely where magistrates attempted to calm the protests by ordering poor relief and fixing a minimum wage. The following day, encouraged by Lord Liverpool's government, a militia of the citizens of Ely, led by Sir Henry Bate Dudley and backed by the 1st The Royal Dragoons, rounded up the rioters. In the ensuing altercation at The George and Dragon in Littleport, a trooper was injured, one rioter was killed, and at least one went on the run. Edward Christian, brother of Fletcher Christian, had been appointed Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely in 1800 by the Bishop of Ely. As the Chief Justice, Christian was entitled to try the rioters alone. The government, in this case via the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, nevertheless appointed a Special Commission, consisting of Justice Abbott and Justice Burrough. The rioters were tried in the assizes at Ely during the week commencing 17 June 1816. 23 men and one woman were condemned, of which five were subsequently hanged. General unrest and riots such as that at Littleport may have been a factor in the government passing the Vagrancy Act 1824 and subsequently the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. ## Background In 1815, the government increased taxation on imported wheat and grain to help pay for the costs of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). Poor laws, such as the Speenhamland system, were designed to help alleviate financial distress of the poorer communities, but such systems helped to keep wages artificially low as the farmers knew labourers' wages would be supplemented by the system. Basic commodities, like cereals and bread, became heavily over-priced, creating widespread social unrest. The worst hit were the families of the men returning from the Battle of Waterloo (1815) who arrived home at a time when unemployment was already high. One reply to a questionnaire circulated by the Board of Agriculture in February, March, and April 1816 reported that "the state of the labouring poor is very deplorable, and arises entirely from the want of employment, which they are willing to seek, but the farmer cannot afford to furnish." In early 1816, a quarter (28 pounds) of wheat cost 52 shillings (£), rising through 76 shillings (£) in May to 103 shillings (£) in December. Average wages for the period remained static at 8–9 shillings (£–£), per week. In 1815, a pound of bread was quoted at over 4 shillings (£) and predicted to rise to over 5 shillings (£). ## Rioting ### Preceding events in the region There was rioting in the first months of 1816 in West Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. On 16 May riots broke out in Bury St Edmunds (known locally as Bury) and Brandon in West Suffolk and also in Hockwold, Feltwell and Norwich in Norfolk. On the morning of 20 May, a meeting was held in Southery, Norfolk. The group, including a Thomas Sindall, marched through Denver to Downham Market to meet with the magistrates at their weekly meeting at The Crown public house. Sindall was the only person known to have been at both the riots at Downham Market and Littleport. He was killed by troopers at Littleport—see below. The mob of 1,500, mainly men but some women, besieged The Crown until the magistrates agreed to allow a deputation of eight rioters inside to make their pleas: to have work and two-shillings (£) per day. The magistrates acceded to these demands, but they had already called the yeoman cavalry from Upwell, who arrived at 5 pm. Backed by the troops, the Riot Act was then read in the market place by Reverend Dering, causing further tussles, which subsided after arrests started to be made. At the Norfolk and Norwich Assizes in August, nine men and six women were sentenced to death. Thirteen of those sentences were commuted, and two of the Downham rioters, Daniel Harwood and Thomas Thody, were hanged on the afternoon of 31 August 1816. ### Littleport Littleport is a large village in Cambridgeshire with a population in 1811 of 1,847. It is just under 11 miles (18 km) south-south-west of Downham Market and just over 4 miles (6 km) north-north-east of Ely. On 22 May 1816, a group of 56 residents met at The Globe Inn in Littleport to discuss the lack of work and rising grain costs. Fuelled by alcohol, the residents directed their anger at local farmer Henry Martin. He had been overseer of the poor in 1814 and was not well liked by the parishioners. One man went to get a horn from Burgess, the lighterman, and started blowing it outside The Globe Inn, gathering hundreds of villagers to join the first group, and the riot commenced. The rioters began at Mingey's shop, where stones were thrown through the windows, and then they invaded Mr Clarke's property and threw his belongings into the street. Next, at Josiah Dewey's place, the Reverend John Vachell and his wife arrived to try to calm the rioters. Vachell had been vicar of St George's since 1795 and was also a magistrate; he was an unpopular man, as he dealt harshly with even minor offences. He read or tried to read the Riot Act without effect, as the crowd "told him to go home." The rioters next visited the premises of disabled 90-year-old Mr Sindall, throwing his furniture into the street; his housekeeper, Mrs Hutt, was intimidated by a rioter wielding a butcher's cleaver. After stopping at the place of Mr Little, "a nice old gentleman," who gave the mob £2 (£), they continued to Robert Speechly's and demolished his furniture. Next they broke into the house of Rebecca Waddelow looking for Harry Martin, her grandson. He had seen them coming and escaped out the back. Rebecca Cutlack was visiting at the time, and they robbed her and removed property worth between £100 and £200 (£–£). At about 11 pm, the rioters arrived at the house of the Reverend Vachell, who, after threatening to shoot anyone who entered his house, was disarmed when three men rushed him. He fled on foot with his wife and two daughters towards Ely. After Vachell had left, the rioters destroyed his goods and chattels and stole some of his silverware. Vachell was later to sue the Hundred of Ely for the damages under the Riot Act. He received over £708 (£), an award which was challenged in the press, as many people complained about the size of the resulting district levies used to pay for it. The rioters then stopped a post-chaise returning with Hugh Robert Evans senior and Henry Martin from a turnpike trust meeting in Downham. They robbed Evans of 14 shillings (£) before allowing them both to proceed. On reaching Ely, Evans alerted the magistrates who sent a carriage for Reverend Vachell, which collected him and his family walking towards Ely. ### Ely Ely is a city with an 1811 population of 4,249 people. The city is nearly 15 miles (24 km) north-north-east of Cambridge and 67 miles (108 km) north-north-east of London. When Vachell arrived in Ely, he alerted fellow clergymen and magistrates Reverend William Metcalfe and Reverend Henry Law who dispatched Thomas Archer, as a messenger, to Bury, 26 miles (42 km) to the east. The rioters in Littleport had in the interim stolen a wagon and horses from Henry Tansley and equipped it with fowling guns front and back. A man named John Dennis emerged as in command of the makeshift army. Most of the Littleport mob, armed with guns and pitch-forks, then began the march to Ely, arriving three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) north of the city between 5 am and 6 am on 23 May. The Reverend Metcalfe met them, read the Riot Act, and asked what the mob required. On being told that they wanted "the price of a stone of flour per day" and that "our children are starving, give us a living wage," the Reverend agreed but stated that he would have to converse with the other magistrates. He asked everyone to return to Littleport, but they marched on. Metcalfe implored them to go to the market place and many did go there, where they were joined by Ely citizens. The magistrates negotiated with a committee of the rioters in the White Hart public house. Recognising the needs of the rioters, the Ely magistrates, the Reverends Metcalfe, Peploe Ward and Law drafted a response, offering poor families two-shillings per head per week and ordering farmers to pay two-shillings (£) per day wages. On hearing the proclamation, the mob cheered. The magistrates then "gave the men some beer, told them not to get drunk and tried to persuade them to go home". Some took the advice, whilst others continued the rampage, intimidating shopkeepers, millers and bankers and stealing from some. However, most of the rioters, marching with their wagons and guns, left the city for Littleport before the arrival of the military from Bury. Meanwhile, the magistrates delegated Henry Law to go to London to discuss the matter with Lord Sidmouth (Henry Addington), the Home Secretary. On the way, Law stopped at the barracks of the Royston troop of volunteer yeomanry cavalry and requested they go to Ely. Law was unable to convince Sidmouth of the seriousness of the situation, and Sidmouth asked Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley to return with Law and report on the matter. ## Restoring order A detachment of 18 men of the 1st The Royal Dragoons, commanded by Captain Methuen, arrived in Ely from Bury on 23 May in the late afternoon. They marched through the streets as a show of force, remaining all night. The following afternoon, 24 May, the troops marched on Littleport, led by Sir Henry Bate Dudley and John Bacon, a Bow Street constable. They were followed by the Royston troop of volunteer yeomanry cavalry summoned earlier by Henry Law, and a militia of gentlemen and inhabitants of Ely. Before arrival at the Ely Road, a small detachment of troops were ordered across the Hemp Field to enter the village from the east. The larger group then charged at a hard gallop down the Mill Street incline through to Main Street. The rioters were found making a stand in The George and Dragon near the west end of Station Road. The militia were called to the front when the rioters would not come out after being ordered to by Bate Dudley. Thomas South, shooting from a window, hit trooper Wallace in the forearm. The militia got the rioters out of the public house and assembled them in the street, surrounded by the troopers. Thomas Sindall (it is unclear what relation, if any, he was to the elderly Mr Sindall mentioned above) attempted to take a musket from trooper William Porter but was not successful. Sindall ran away and when he did not stop after being called on to do so by Porter, he was shot through the back of the head. Thomas Sindall was killed; he was the only person known to be at both Downham Market and Littleport. The result of this shooting was to subdue the rest of the rioters. Those captured were taken to Ely gaol and the rest of the rioters were rounded up. The home secretary, Lord Sidmouth, had dispatched three troops of cavalry (100 men), two six–pounder cannons and three companies of the 69th (South Lincolnshire) Regiment of Foot under Major General Byng to help capture the leading rioters. Two rioters were hidden in Lakenheath by a labourer who eventually betrayed them for £5 each (£). One rioter, William Gotobed, a bricklayer, escaped and was eventually pardoned a few years later. He returned to Littleport after seven years and then went to America. The rioting spread to nearby areas such as Little Downham, although such areas were not as badly affected. It took until 10 June before the areas were finally cleared of trouble and all of the rioters had been captured. ## Trial The assizes for the 82 persons, 73 of whom were in prison and nine on bail, lasted from Monday 17 June 1816 through to the following Saturday. ### Special Commission From AD 970 until 1837 the Bishop of Ely retained exclusive jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, and was also keeper of the records (custos rotulorum). As part of this right, the bishop appointed a Chief Justice of the Isle of Ely; Edward Christian had held the post since 1800. In these special assizes, the Crown, via Lord Sidmouth, created a Special Commission. Sidmouth appointed two judges, Mr Justice Abbott and Mr Justice Burrough to preside over it. Christian, nevertheless, felt he should attend and indeed was in attendance throughout. After the trial Christian said, "It was suggested to me in London, ... that it would be more conducive to the great object of the Commission, ... if I declined my rotation of duty, and left the trial of all the prisoners to them [the appointed commissioners]." ### Monday Shortly after 10 am, the three judges went to the courthouse, in the market place at that time, and the Special Commission was read. The judges then breakfasted at the bishop's palace, after which a service was held in the cathedral and attended by 50 of the principal inhabitants of Ely. The sermon, preached by Henry Bate Dudley, was "that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient". After the service, around 1 pm, the court reconvened; the grand jury was sworn in, and Mr W. Dunn Gardner elected the foreman. Mr Gurney, Mr Bolland and Mr Richardson, were counsel for the Crown, led by Mr William Hobhouse, Treasury solicitor. For the defence, Mr Hunt was counsel for Jefferson, Wyebrow, Harley, Pricke, Cooper, Freeman and Jessop; Mr Hart was counsel for John Easey, Joseph Easey, Benton, Layton, Atkin, Hobbs and another. Mr Justice Abbott addressed the court: > Gentlemen of the Grand Jury,—You have been called together at this unusual period, and with the present solemnities, in consequence of some very daring acts of outrage committed by various misguided individuals in this town and its immediate neighbourhood, which must still be fresh in your recollection. In contemplating the nature of these atrocities, it is impossible to consider without commendation, the conductors of those prompt and efficacious measures by which, after it had domineered for several days together, the spirit of tumult and devastation was finally subdued. He then went on to direct the jury at length, commenting at one point that these disturbances "seem to have been the necessity of an advance in the wages of husbandry; but the circumstances of some among the offenders do not correspond with the supposition of such an object". He was probably referring to John Dennis, licensed victualler of Littleport. He outlined the three capital offences that would be presented, namely burglary, robbery from the person and stealing in a dwelling house. He defined burglary as breaking into a house at night with intent, robbery from the person as extortion by violence or threat thereof, and stealing in a dwelling house as an actual act of stealing, not just the threat. He reminded the jury that when offences are carried out by a mob, it is the whole mob that is guilty, not just the person doing the deed. He closed: > It is of the highest importance to the peace and safety, not only of this isle, but of the surrounding country, that all who are present on this solemn inquiry, and all who read the account of its proceedings (and there are few parts of the kingdom in which it will not be read) may be convinced by the awful lesson which may here be taught, that whatever wild or chimerical notions may prevail of the power of an armed multitude, the law is too strong for its assailants; and that, however triumphant or destructive their sway for a few days, those who defy the law, will ultimately be compelled to submit either to its justice or its mercy. The court adjourned until the following day. ### Tuesday On Tuesday 18 June the court opened at 9 am; 12 defendants were charged with breaking into the house of Rebecca Waddelow in Littleport and stealing personal property and money. After hearing evidence, the judges held a discussion. Mr Justice Abbott informed the jury that a mistake had been made in the indictment, directing the jury to acquit. All 12 defendants were pronounced not guilty. Seven defendants were then indicted for breaking into the house of Josiah Dewey in Littleport, stealing money and property and assaulting Dewey. Mr Gurney addressed the jury. Three witnesses testified. The jury recorded a verdict of guilty against Chevall, Easey, Jessop, South and Benton; Dann and Torrington were acquitted. The court adjourned at 5 pm. ### Wednesday On Wednesday 19 June the court opened at 9 am; the indictment on three of the defendants was read for forcibly entering the house of Robert Speechly in Littleport and stealing personal property. Mr Gurney addressed the jury, who later pronounced all defendants guilty. Five defendants were then indicted for forcing their way in the house of Rev. John Vachell in Littleport, threatening him and stealing £2. Mr Gurney addressed the jury. Two witnesses testified. A verdict of guilty was returned against Harley and Newell whilst Warner and Stibbard were acquitted. Five defendants were then indicted for stealing £50 from the house of Robert Edwards in Ely. Mr Gurney addressed the jury at length describing the events occurring in the town of Ely on the morning of the 23 May 1816. Eight witnesses were called. The jury returned guilty verdicts against Dennis, Jefferson, and Rutter. Hopkin and Cammell were given not guilty verdicts. ### Thursday On Thursday morning 20 June two defendants were indicted for stealing silverware from the home of Rev. J. Vachell in Littleport and one was charged with receiving the stolen goods. Four witnesses called were Elizabeth Carter following which Mr Justice Burrough summed up. Lavender was pronounced guilty of the theft and Beamiss and Butcher received not guilty verdicts. John Gaultrip was next, also indicted for stealing spoons at the vicarage. As the evidence was contradictory, Gaultrip was acquitted by the jury. Next at the bar was William Beamiss indicted for highway robbery of Hugh Robert Evans, of Ely. Two witness were called. Mr Justice Abbott summed up and the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the prisoner Beamiss. Then nine defendants were charged with threatening W. Cooper of Ely and stealing from him. Mr Gurney addressed the jury, explaining the circumstances of the disturbances carried out by the mob in Ely. Nine witnesses were called. Mr Justice Abbott spoke to the jury for a long time. The jury retired for fifteen minutes. On returning, it pronounced as guilty Dennis, Jessop, Atkin, Layton, Hobbs, Pricke, Cooper, and Jefferson. It acquitted Freeman. Six defendants were then charged with stealing from George Stevens in Ely. Three witness were examined following which Dennis, Layton, Atkin, and Cammell were all pronounced guilty by the jury. Capital convictions against Aaron Chevall and William Beamiss, for robbing Henry Tansley of two £1 notes, were also returned by the jury. The court adjourned at 6 pm. ### Friday On Friday morning 21 June, seven prisoners were brought to the bar on a similar charge as on Tuesday (breaking into the house of Rebecca Waddelow in Littleport and stealing personal property and money). The prisoners all pleaded not guilty. Mr Gurney addressed the jury explaining that these were the same persons indicted on Tuesday for the same offence. He explained to the jury that the earlier indictment incorrectly described the house to be the property of Rebecca Waddelow, leading to the prisoners' acquittal. He also explained that in the original indictment, other persons had been charged, but as these other persons had since been convicted of capital offences, they had been removed from the indictment. The witness were all brought forward again and made their statements. They said much the same as previously, though this took much of the day. In summing up, Mr Abbott went on a length closing with "the duty which it belonged to them [the jury] to execute – confident that, from experience which the court had now of them, their verdict would be such as good sense would dictate, and the public justice of the country require". It took the jury five minutes to find Walker, Butcher and Crow guilty and Nicholas, Wilson and Jefferson not guilty. Brought to the bar next was Henry Benson, a farmer who was out on bail, charged with inciting to riot. Benson was held in surety for £400 plus two other sureties for £200 each. He was to appear for trial at the next assizes. Richard Cooper the elder and Richard Cooper the younger were also bound over to the next assizes. Father and son, William Beamiss the elder and the younger, were then brought in and charged with assaulting and stealing from Robert Cheesewright the younger, of Littleport, in the Isle of Ely. Mr Gurney addressed the jury. Mr Burrough summed up and the jury gave their guilty verdict to both prisoners shortly after. Next, between 20 and 30 prisoners were brought to the bar and "indicted for having committed various felonies and misdemeanour's at Littleport on 22, 23, and 24 of May last". A few were put to the next assizes and the remainder chose to be tried immediately. Mr Gurney addressed the jury explaining that his Majesty's government was keen not to put to the jury more cases than was necessary. If the prisoners now at the bar offered a small surety and remained on good behaviour, there would be no more said. Mr Abbott spoke to the prisoners at length, finally demanding that each of them offer surety of £50 and find two more sureties each of £10 or one more each of £20. Mr Abbott then thanked the jury for their services. The court adjourned. ### Sentences Saturday On Saturday 22 June 1816 six men were acquitted; 10 were discharged; 36 were bailed; 23 men and one woman were condemned of whom 18 men and the woman, Sarah Hobbs, had their sentences commuted. Of the 19 persons commuted, nine were sentenced to penal transportation. Seven of those nine sailed on the convict ship Sir William Bensley, which departed for New South Wales on 9 October 1816, captained by Lew E Williams. Records exist for the following known to have sailed: James Newell, Richard Jessop, John Jefferson, Joseph Easey, Aaron Chevell, all of Littleport and all transported for life; Richard Rutter of Littleport for 14 years; John Easey of Littleport for seven years. Two others were also sentenced to transportation for seven years, Mark Benton and John Walker, both of Littleport. 10, including Sarah Hobbs, were committed to Ely gaol for 12 months; five were from Littleport and five, including Sarah Hobbs were from Ely. The five condemned without commutation were all from Littleport. They were William Beamiss (42) the elder, shoemaker, for stealing from the persons of Henry Tansley and Robert Cheeseright, both of Littleport; George Crow (23), labourer, for stealing in the dwelling-house of Rebecca Waddelow and Henry Martin, both of Littleport; John Dennis (32), a publican, for stealing from the persons of William Cooper, Robert Edwards, and George Stevens, all of Ely; Isaac Harley junior (33), labourer, for stealing from the person of the Reverend John Vachell, of Littleport; and Thomas South the younger (22), labourer, for stealing in the dwelling-house of Josiah Dewey and Robert Speechly, both of Littleport. ### Execution On Friday 28 June 1816 at 9 am, the condemned men, William Beamiss, George Crow, John Dennis, Isaac Harley and Thomas South, were driven from the gaol at Ely market place in a black-draped cart and two horses costing five-pound five-shillings (£) accompanied by the bishop's gaol chaplain, John Griffin, in a hired chaise and pair costing 13 shillings (£). In submitting his expenses on 29 June, chief bailiff F. Bagge noted "We have no power of pressing a cart for the purpose, and 'tis a difficult matter to get one, people feel's so much upon the occasion". The men arrived at the gallows at Parnell pits around 11 am, and were hanged after praying with the crowd for some time. Griffin was unofficially given the ropes, which cost one-pound five-shillings (£), after hanging, which he kept; he left a collection to his housekeeper, who sold them as a cure for sore throats. Following the hanging, the bodies were placed in coffins and displayed in a cottage in Gaol Street, where many people came to visit. They were buried the next day in St Mary's Church, Ely, with the vicar's blessing. As a warning to others, a stone plaque (pictured) was installed on the west side of St Mary's Church; it concludes, "May their awful Fate be a warning to others". In 1816, there were a total of 83 people executed in England: 80 men, including the five Littleport rioters, and three women. ## Aftermath A few days after the execution, the ten condemned prisoners who had had their sentences commuted to twelve months' imprisonment were transported to the prison hulk Justitia, moored at Woolwich on the River Thames. Such ships were used as holding areas prior to convicts being transferred to a regular vessel for penal transportation to, at this time, Australia. Residents of Ely tried to hold meetings to complain at this apparent extension of the prisoners' sentences. Despite, or because of, media attention—newspapers of the time took sides depending whether they supported the government or not—the prisoners were returned to Ely gaol; it may all have been a simple mistake by the clerk of the assizes. On 3 April 1816, lieutenant-colonel William Sorell was appointed lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania. He sailed on the Sir William Bensley, the same ship transporting the rioters sentenced to penal transportation. Leaving England on 9 October 1816, the ship arrived in New South Wales 152 days later on 10 March 1817. Soon after, Sorrel sailed to Hobart arriving on 8 April 1817, where he distinguished himself as the third lieutenant-governor. John Vachell remained vicar of St George's, Littleport, until his death in 1830, but lived elsewhere and a series of curates were appointed, including George Bitton Jermyn from 1817. Vachell was buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul's Church, Aldeburgh where there is a gravestone inset into the church wall. Some of the St George's church registers were destroyed during the riots. The remaining registers start from 1754 (marriages), 1756 (burials), and 1783 (baptism). General unrest and riots such as that at Littleport may have been a factor in the government passing the Vagrancy Act of 1824. Due in part to some difficulties in enforcing the law and to continued public unease, the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 was created leading to the first modern police force. ## See also - Year Without a Summer—1816 summer had severe climate abnormalities resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere - The Fool—a 1975 play by Edward Bond, charting the life of rural poet John Clare and involving him in the Littleport riots

Italian cruiser Trieste

Heavy cruiser of the Italian Royal Navy

Trieste was the second of two Trento-class heavy cruisers built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy). The ship was laid down in June 1925, was launched in October 1926, and was commissioned in December 1928. Trieste was very lightly armored, with only a 70 mm (2.8 in) thick armored belt, though she possessed a high speed and heavy main battery of eight 203 mm (8 in) guns. Though nominally built under the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, the two cruisers significantly exceeded the displacement limits imposed by the treaty. The ship spent the 1930s conducting training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea, participating in naval reviews held for foreign dignitaries, and serving as the flagship of the Cruiser Division. She also helped transport Italian volunteer troops that had been sent to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War return to Italy in 1938. The ship saw extensive action during World War II, including the battles of Cape Spartivento and Cape Matapan in November 1940 and March 1941, respectively. Trieste was also employed to escort convoys to supply Italian forces in North Africa; during one of these operations in November 1941, she was torpedoed by a British submarine. On 10 April 1943, while the ship was moored in La Maddalena, Sardinia, she was bombed and sunk by American heavy bombers. Her superstructure was cut away and she was refloated in 1950; the Spanish Navy purchased the hull in 1952, with plans to convert the vessel into a light aircraft carrier, though the plan came to nothing due to the growing costs of the project. She was ultimately broken up by 1959. ## Design Trieste was 196.96 meters (646 ft 2 in) long overall, with a beam of 20.6 m (67 ft 7 in) and a draft of 6.8 m (22 ft 4 in). She displaced 13,326 long tons (13,540 t) at full load, though her displacement was nominally within the 10,000-long-ton (10,160 t) restriction set in place by the Washington Naval Treaty. The ship's superstructure included a large conning tower forward and a smaller, secondary conning position aft. She was fitted with a pair of tripod masts, one just aft of the conning tower and the second further aft. She had a crew of 723 officers and enlisted men, though during the war this increased to 781. Her power plant consisted of four Parsons steam turbines powered by twelve oil-fired Yarrow boilers, which were trunked into two funnels amidships. Her engines were rated at 150,000 shaft horsepower (110,000 kW) for a top speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph), but on sea trials only reached 35.65 knots (66.02 km/h; 41.03 mph). That speed could only be reached on a very light displacement, and in service, her practical top speed was only 31 knots (57 km/h; 36 mph). The ship had a cruising range of 4,160 nautical miles (7,700 km; 4,790 mi) at a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph). Trieste was armed with a main battery of eight 203 mm (8 in) Mod 24 50-caliber guns in four gun turrets. The turrets were arranged in superfiring pairs forward and aft. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a battery of sixteen 100 mm (4 in) 47-cal. guns in twin mounts, four Vickers-Terni 40 mm/39 guns in single mounts and four 12.7 mm (0.50 in) guns. In addition to the gun armament, she carried eight 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes in four deck mounted twin launchers. She carried a pair of IMAM Ro.43 seaplanes for aerial reconnaissance; the hangar was located in under the forecastle and a fixed catapult was mounted on the centerline at the bow. Trieste's secondary battery was revised several times during her career. The 100 mm guns were replaced with newer Mod 31 versions of the same caliber. In 1937–1938, the two aft-most 100 mm guns were removed, along with all four 12.7 mm machine guns; eight 37 mm (1.5 in) 54-cal. Breda M1932 guns and eight 13.2 mm (0.52 in) Breda M1931 machine guns, all in twin mounts, were installed in their place. In 1943, the ship received eight 20 mm (0.79 in) 65-cal. Breda M1940 guns in single mounts. She was protected with an armor belt that was 70 mm (2.8 in) thick amidships with armored bulkheads 40 to 60 mm (1.6 to 2.4 in) thick on either end. Her armor deck was 50 mm (2 in) thick in the central portion of the ship and reduced to 20 mm (0.79 in) at either end. The gun turrets had 100 mm (3.9 in) thick plating on the faces and the supporting barbettes they sat in were 60 to 70 mm (2.4 to 2.8 in) thick. The main conning tower had 100 mm thick sides. ## Service history Trieste had her keel laid at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in her namesake city on 22 June 1925. The completed hull was launched on 24 October 1926, a year before her sister Trento. After fitting-out work was completed, the ship was commissioned into the Italian fleet on 21 December 1928. On 16 May 1929 she joined Trento in the newly created Cruiser Division for a cruise in the northern Mediterranean Sea that lasted until 4 June. On 1 October, Trieste became the flagship of the 1st Squadron. In mid-1931, she entered the shipyard in La Spezia for an overhaul that included the replacement of her tripod foremast with a more stable five-legged version. On 6 and 7 July 1933, Trieste, Trento, and the four Zara-class cruisers held a naval review for the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the Gulf of Naples. On 2 December 1933, Trieste, Trento, and the heavy cruiser Bolzano formed the 2nd Division of the 1st Squadron. The unit was renamed the 3rd Division in July 1934. On 18 June 1935, Trieste temporarily relieved Trento as the divisional flagship. Mussolini took a short tour of Italian Libya from 10 to 12 March 1937, and Trieste was among the vessels to escort him. On 7 June, she took part in a major naval review held during the visit of German Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg. The ship became the 2nd Squadron flagship on 15 February 1938. On 5 May, another naval review was held in the Gulf of Naples, this time for the state visit of German dictator Adolf Hitler. On 12 October 1938, Trieste steamed out of Messina with the 10th Destroyer Squadron, bound for Cadiz, Spain. There, they met four Italian merchant ships on 15 October, which embarked 10,000 members of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (Corps of Volunteer Troops) that had been sent to support General Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. The convoy left Cadiz on 16 October and arrived back in Naples on the 20th. On 17 May 1939, Trieste took part in another fleet review, this one for Prince Paul of Yugoslavia during his visit to Italy. From 5 to 19 June, Trieste joined the rest of the fleet in Livorno for the first celebration of Navy Day on 10 June. From October to December, the ship underwent a major refit, which included modifications to her armament and the installation of funnel caps. ### World War II On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France, formally entering World War II. The heavy cruiser Pola replaced Trieste as the squadron flagship, which in turn became the flagship of the 3rd Division, which also included Trento and Bolzano. These four cruisers deployed north of Sicily to patrol for Allied vessels on Italy's first day of the war. On 31 August, the 3rd Division sortied to intercept the British convoy from Alexandria to Malta in Operation Hats, though the Italian fleet broke off the operation without encountering the merchant ships. Trieste arrived back in Taranto on 2 September. She was present there on the night of 11–12 November, when the British raided the port, and she emerged undamaged. Trieste sortied with the fleet on 26 November in an attempt to intercept another convoy to Malta. The following morning, a reconnaissance floatplane from Bolzano located the British squadron. Shortly after 12:00, Italian reconnaissance reports informed the Italian fleet commander, Vice Admiral Inigo Campioni of the strength of the British fleet, and so he ordered his ships to disengage. By this time, Trieste and the other heavy cruisers had already begun engaging their British counterparts in the Battle of Cape Spartivento, and had scored two hits on the cruiser HMS Berwick, the second of which is credited to either Trieste or Trento. The battlecruiser HMS Renown intervened, and quickly straddled Trieste twice, though she inflicted only splinter damage. This forced Campioni to commit the battleship Vittorio Veneto, which in turn forced the British cruisers to break off the action, allowing both sides to disengage. On 9 February 1941, Trieste sortied with the rest of the 2nd Squadron to search for Force H after the latter had shelled Genoa; the Italians returned to port without success. On 12–13 March, Trieste escorted a fast convoy to North Africa. #### Battle of Cape Matapan On 27 March, the division sortied with the rest of the fleet for a major sweep toward the island of Crete. During the operation, Trieste flew the flag of Rear Admiral Luigi Sansonetti. At 06:55 on the 28th, an IMAM Ro.43 floatplane launched by Vittorio Veneto located a British cruiser squadron, and by 07:55, Trieste and the 3rd Division had come within visual range. Seventeen minutes later, the Italian cruisers opened fire from a range of 24,000 yd (22,000 m), initiating the first phase of the Battle of Cape Matapan; in the span of the next forty minutes, Trieste fired a total of 132 armor-piercing shells, though trouble with her rangefinders and the extreme range of the action prevented her from scoring any significant hits. At 08:55, the Italian fleet commander, Vice Admiral Angelo Iachino instructed Sansonetti to break off the action with the British cruisers and turn northwest, to lure the British vessels into range for Vittorio Veneto. By about 11:00, Vittorio Veneto had closed the distance enough to open fire, prompting Sansonetti to turn his three cruisers back to join the fight. The 6-inch-gun-armed British cruisers were outmatched both by the Italian heavy cruisers and Vittorio Veneto, and they quickly reversed course. While the two sides were still maneuvering, a group of British torpedo bombers from Crete arrived and unsuccessfully attacked Trieste and the rest of her division shortly after 12:00. Further attacks from the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable convinced Iachino to break off the action and withdraw at 12:20. Later in the day, Vittorio Veneto and Pola were torpedoed by British aircraft, the latter left immobilized. Trieste, Trento, and Bolzano were also attacked by aircraft, but they escaped without damage. Trieste reached Taranto in company with the damaged Vittorio Veneto at 15:30 the following day. in the meantime, Pola and two other Zara-class cruisers were destroyed in the night action with British battleships late on the 28th. #### Convoy operations From 24 to 30 April, Trieste and Bolzano escorted a convoy to North Africa. A combination of heavy seas and the presence of British warships forced the convoy to shelter in Palermo, Messina, and Augusta in Sicily before being able to make the crossing to Tripoli. A month later, the two cruisers covered another convoy; for the return leg of the voyage, the ships joined a second convoy also returning to Italy. Another convoy made the crossing on 8–9 June, again escorted by Trieste and Bolzano, along with the destroyers Corazziere, Ascari, and Lanciere. Trieste and the heavy cruiser Gorizia and the vessels of the 12th Destroyer Squadron covered four ocean liners that had been converted into troopships on 25 June; heavy British air attacks that night forced the convoy to return to Taranto. A second attempt was made on 27 June, and the ships successfully reached Tripoli on the morning of the 29th. Heavy air attacks targeted the ships while they were unloading the following day, but the ships were able to complete the task, depart that day, and reach Taranto on 1 July. From 16 to 20 July, Trieste, Bolzano, Ascari, Corazziere, and the destroyer Carabiniere covered another fast convoy to Tripoli. On 22 August, Trieste sortied with other elements of the Italian fleet to try to locate Force H; they returned to port four days later empty handed. In late September, the British sent another convoy to reinforce Malta, codenamed Operation Halberd; the Italian fleet sortied on 26 September to try to intercept it, but broke off the operation upon discovering the strength of the British escort force. Trieste took part in the Duisburg convoy on 8–9 November along with Trento, the two ships serving as the convoy's covering force. The convoy was attacked by British warships in the early hours of 9 November, though the covering force failed to intervene and the convoy was destroyed. Trieste escorted another convoy to Libya on 21 November in company with the light cruiser Luigi di Savoia Duca degli Abruzzi. Late that evening, the convoy came under a combined submarine and aircraft attack; at 23:12, Trieste was torpedoed by the submarine HMS Utmost, and a torpedo bomber hit Duca degli Abruzzi shortly thereafter. The two damaged vessels were escorted back to Messina by the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and the destroyer Bersagliere, arriving at around 08:00 the next morning. After repairs were completed, Trieste joined Bolzano and Gorizia—the only other surviving heavy cruisers in the fleet—in the reorganized 3rd Division. The ships sortied with eight destroyers on 12 August 1942 to try to intercept a British convoy; while turning back after the operation was cancelled, Bolzano and one of the destroyers were torpedoed by a British submarine. #### Fate On 10 April 1943, while moored in La Maddalena, Sardinia, Trieste came under attack from B-24 Liberator heavy bombers from the United States Army Air Forces. She received several hits at 13:45, and at 16:13 she capsized to starboard and sank in the shallow water. Casualties were relatively light, with 66 men killed or missing—of those, three were officers, eight were non-commissioned officers, and fifty-five were enlisted sailors—and 66 wounded—eight NCOs and fifty-eight sailors. The ship remained on the naval register until 18 October 1946, when she was formally stricken. Salvage operations began in 1950, starting with the removal of the ship's superstructure. The hull was then made watertight, was refloated, still capsized, and was towed to La Spezia. There, the ship was righted, and upon inspection, the shipyard workers discovered that fuel oil that had leaked into the engine rooms had preserved the machinery. The Spanish Navy purchased the hull and towed it to Cartagena and then to Ferrol in 1952 to convert Trieste into a light aircraft carrier. The cost of the project proved to be prohibitive, and in 1956 the Spanish Navy sold the vessel for scrap; the ship was broken up by 1959.

Dwarf (Dungeons & Dragons)

Fictional playable humanoid race

A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from the dwarves of European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings. ## History The concept of the dwarf comes from Norse and Teutonic mythology. In particular, the dwarves in the Germanic story The Ring of the Nibelungen and the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin" have been called "ancestors" of Dungeons & Dragons dwarves. Along with giants, dwarves were one of the first types of non-humans to be introduced into the Chainmail game, the forebear of D&D, when miniature figures of varying sizes were used together in the same wargame. The dwarf in D&D is based on Tolkien's version of the dwarf. The dwarf first appears as a player character race in the original 1974 edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with a design that is strongly influenced by the dwarves of Poul Anderson's 1961 novel Three Hearts and Three Lions. This early version of the D&D dwarf is limited to playing a fighter, and can not progress beyond the sixth level. With the release of the first supplement, Greyhawk, in 1976, they were then allowed to play a thief with no level restriction. Beginning with the 1981 revision of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, and continuing also in all subsequent revisions, demi-humans such as dwarves were treated as their own classes. Dwarves were only permitted a maximum level of 12 (compared to the Halfling's 8, the Elves' 10, and the human classes 36). With the arrival of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the dwarf was returned to a player character race in the Player's Handbook (1978) and detailed as a monster in the original Monster Manual (1977). A number of dwarven subraces are presented as character races in the original Unearthed Arcana (1985). In 1989, the hill dwarf, the most common dwarven subrace, appears as a character race in the second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook and as a monster in the Monstrous Compendium Volume Two. Dwarves are detailed as a race for the Forgotten Realms setting in Dwarves Deep (1990). Several dwarven races are detailed as player character races in The Complete Book of Dwarves (1991). The dwarf appears as a character race in the third edition Player's Handbook (2000), the 3.5 revised Player's Handbook (2003), the fourth edition Player's Handbook (2008), and the fifth edition Player's Handbook (2014). The arctic dwarf, gray dwarf, gold dwarf, shield dwarf, urdunnir, and wild dwarf are all detailed in Races of Faerûn (2003). Dwarves are one of the races detailed in Races of Stone (2004). The dwarf, including the dwarf bolter and the dwarf hammerer, appears as a monster in the fourth edition Monster Manual (2008). ## Description Dwarves average four feet in height, with stout, broad bodies. Male dwarves grow thick facial hair. The female dwarves in The Lord of the Rings novels, which greatly inspired D&D, were able to grow beards as well. Some authors, such as R. A. Salvatore, have followed suit in their writing, though the game rules' official position is that females do not grow beards—the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons portrayed female dwarves as "beardless and even attractive". In specific campaign settings, the potential for female dwarven facial hair sees much variation: In the World of Greyhawk some females can grow beards but those generally shave, in the Forgotten Realms they can grow full beards but also usually shave, and in Eberron they do not grow facial hair at all. In older editions of the game, female dwarves did grow beards in various campaign settings. The book Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson strongly influenced Dungeons & Dragons, having a dwarf named Hugi with a Scottish accent. Most popular portrayals of dwarves feature such an accent. Dwarves tend to be more useful for combat-oriented players, as they gain a number of special abilities and bonuses in combat, mostly related to their hardiness and smaller stature compared to humans. Dwarves are also resistant to poison and magic, can see in the dark (a skill called infravision in earlier editions and darkvision beginning with third edition), and can detect different types of mining-related features underground, such as sloping tunnels. The dwarven ability to detect a sloping passage underground is also taken directly from Anderson's book. Dwarves are generally good in alignment. Ilan Mitchell-Smith wrote that dwarves, along with other races allowed for use by players such as elves and halflings, are "defined in terms of subjectivity, and ultimately, humanity" as opposed to many other creatures who serve as a type of "monstrous other". Dwarves usually worship Moradin, whom they believe is their creator. According to their legends, Moradin fashioned the dwarves into a likeness of himself using gems and metal. He then breathed life into them. In many campaign settings, the dwarven pantheon of gods consists of the leader Moradin, as well as Abbathor, Berronar Truesilver, Clanggedin Silverbeard, Dugmaren Brightmantle, Dumathoin, Muamman Duathal, and Vergadain, and Laduguer is god of the duergar. Several gods including Hanseath were introduced in Races of Stone. Other dwarven gods may be present in different campaign settings. Dwarves get along well with gnomes, who are often regarded as close cousins of the dwarven race. Dwarves are accepting of humans, half-elves and halflings. Dwarves often do not get to know humans well as they live longer than the average human, and prefer to become friendly with the human's family in general. Dwarves do not trust half-orcs, and fail to appreciate elves, with whom they only ally in their many battles against orcs, goblins, evil giants and trolls. ## Subraces Over the history of D&D publications and rules editions, more than a dozen subraces of dwarf have been described. Hill dwarves are the standard dwarven race. Mountain dwarves live deeper underground and have fairer skin than hill dwarves. Aleithian dwarves are deep-dwelling psionic dwarves who follow the dragon god Sardior. In the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions of D&D, Azers physically resembled dwarves, though they were unrelated. In the 4th Edition of the game, they are a product of the enslavement of dwarves by giants and titans. Badlands dwarves have adapted to life in the inhospitable wastes, developing a natural knack for finding water and tolerance to heat and thirst. Deep dwarves dwell underground and have a greater ability to see in the dark, but are sensitive to light. They are more resistant to magic and poison than standard dwarves. Dream dwarves are contemplative dwarves in touch with the world around them, which they call the "earth dream." The duergar are an "evil and avaricious" subrace that live in the Underdark. Frost dwarves are extra-planar dwarves who reside on the Iron Wastes of the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. They were once duergar enslaved by frost giants. Glacier dwarves reside in cold glaciers, mining a special material known as blue ice. These dwarves have great skill at crafting with ice and magical ice, and are tolerant to cold weather. Seacliff dwarves make their home in high seaside cliffs and are excellent swimmers. ### In campaign settings On Athas, the planet of the Dark Sun campaign setting, dwarves stand less than 5' tall and weigh nearly 200 lbs. Each dwarf pursues a singular obsession, called a focus, that requires at least a week to complete. Athasian dwarves do not live underground, but some communities focus on unearthing long-lost dwarven strongholds. Physically, the dwarves of Athas are unique among their kind, having no hair at all. Athasian dwarves can breed with humans to produce muls, who are sterile offspring that share the strength and resiliency of dwarves with the size of humans. In the Dragonlance setting, the dwarves are divided into three distinct groups, which are sub-divided into clans. Hill dwarves consist of a single clan called the Neidar. They are very similar to the mountain dwarves but are slightly more forthcoming towards other races and cultures. Flint Fireforge, one of the Heroes of the Lance, is a Neidar. Mountain dwarves consist of several clans, two of these being the Hylar and the Daewar clans. Gully dwarves, or Aghar ("the Anguished") are thought to be the offspring of gnomes and dwarves. Gully dwarves are first referred to in the Dragonlance Chronicles, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, as a "miserable lot." Several clans live together, following the rule of their chieftains or one particular powerful leader. Gully dwarves are known to be vicious fighters when cornered. They are generally stupid and often hold menial jobs. They are characterized as "a tiny, dirty, unorganized folk", but as having heart. The highest an average gully dwarf can count is 2, though some have become smart enough to count to 3. They are smaller than normal dwarves. They have no land of their own and live in ruined cities, sewers, and dirty parts of cities. Gully dwarves could be used as player characters in the D&D game. They were by design weaker than other character options, and so only appealing to few players who "enjoy the underdog status" they provided. The Forgotten Realms world of Faerûn has several major dwarven subraces. Shield dwarves, also known as mountain dwarves, are the dominant dwarves in the northern parts of Faerûn. These dwarves tend to be fatalistic due to generations of declining numbers. Gold dwarves, also known as hill dwarves, are the dominant dwarves in southern Faerûn. They are generally a more upbeat group than their northern cousins. They primarily reside in and around the Deep Realm, an underground realm surrounding a Grand Canyon-like gorge. Arctic dwarves (also known as the Inugaakalikurit), found in the northernmost reaches of Faerûn, are smaller and stronger than most other dwarves, and immune to cold. Urdunnir, also known as orecutter dwarves, have the magical ability to shape metal and stone, and can walk through the latter. Wild dwarves are short, primitive dwarves found in the deep jungles of Faerûn. Gray dwarves, or duergar, are mainly found in the Underdark, and have an aversion to light. Bruenor Battlehammer, a Shield Dwarf, is the king of Mithril Hall in the Forgotten Realms setting who reclaims his homeland from monsters including a shadow dragon named Shimmergloom that he kills single-handedly. Their gods include Deep Duerra, Gorm Gulthyn, Haela Brightaxe, Marthammor Duin, and Thard Harr. In the World of Greyhawk setting, the group of humans known as Flan call dwarves dwur. They are found throughout the Flanaess, and are particularly numerous in the Lortmils, Principality of Ulek, Glorioles, Iron Hills, Crystalmists, and Ratik. Lord Obmi is a notable dwarf of the setting, a servant of Iuz and member of the Boneshadow organization. Dwarves in the Spelljammer campaign setting operate in huge spacefaring asteroids, honeycombed with tunnels. ## Novels D&D novels prominently featuring dwarves include the following: - Dragonlance - Dragons of the Dwarven Depths (July 2006), by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, () - The Last Thane by Douglas Niles - Dark Thane by Jeff Crook - The Dwarf Home trilogy by Douglas Niles - The Dwarven Nations trilogy by Dan Parkinson - The Gates of Thorbardin by Dan Parkinson - Gully Dwarves by Dan Parkinson - Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes (August 1987), edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, () - Forgotten Realms - The War of the Spider Queen series by R.A. Salvatore - The Icewind Dale Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

Eugene Wigner

Hungarian-American physicist and mathematician (1902–1995)

Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner (Hungarian: Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles". A graduate of the Technical University of Berlin, Wigner worked as an assistant to Karl Weissenberg and Richard Becker at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and David Hilbert at the University of Göttingen. Wigner and Hermann Weyl were responsible for introducing group theory into physics, particularly the theory of symmetry in physics. Along the way he performed ground-breaking work in pure mathematics, in which he authored a number of mathematical theorems. In particular, Wigner's theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. He is also known for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus. In 1930, Princeton University recruited Wigner, along with John von Neumann, and he moved to the United States, where he obtained citizenship in 1937. Wigner participated in a meeting with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein that resulted in the Einstein–Szilard letter, which prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to initiate the Manhattan Project to develop atomic bombs. Wigner was afraid that the German nuclear weapon project would develop an atomic bomb first. During the Manhattan Project, he led a team whose task was to design nuclear reactors to convert uranium into weapons grade plutonium. At the time, reactors existed only on paper, and no reactor had yet gone critical. Wigner was disappointed that DuPont was given responsibility for the detailed design of the reactors, not just their construction. He became director of research and development at the Clinton Laboratory (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) in early 1946, but became frustrated with bureaucratic interference by the Atomic Energy Commission, and returned to Princeton. In the postwar period, he served on a number of government bodies, including the National Bureau of Standards from 1947 to 1951, the mathematics panel of the National Research Council from 1951 to 1954, the physics panel of the National Science Foundation, and the influential General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1952 to 1957 and again from 1959 to 1964. In later life, he became more philosophical, and published The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, his best-known work outside technical mathematics and physics. ## Early life and education Wigner Jenő Pál was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on November 17, 1902, to middle class Jewish parents, Elisabeth Elsa Einhorn and Antal Anton Wigner, a leather tanner. He had an older sister, Berta, known as Biri, and a younger sister Margit, known as Manci, who later married British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. He was home schooled by a professional teacher until the age of 9, when he started school at the third grade. During this period, Wigner developed an interest in mathematical problems. At the age of 11, Wigner contracted what his doctors believed to be tuberculosis. His parents sent him to live for six weeks in a sanatorium in the Austrian mountains, before the doctors concluded that the diagnosis was mistaken. Wigner's family was Jewish, but not religiously observant, and his Bar Mitzvah was a secular one. From 1915 through 1919, he studied at the secondary grammar school called Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium, the school his father had attended. Religious education was compulsory, and he attended classes in Judaism taught by a rabbi. A fellow student was János von Neumann, who was a year behind Wigner. They both benefited from the instruction of the noted mathematics teacher László Rátz. In 1919, to escape the Béla Kun communist regime, the Wigner family briefly fled to Austria, returning to Hungary after Kun's downfall. Partly as a reaction to the prominence of Jews in the Kun regime, the family converted to Lutheranism. Wigner explained later in his life that his family decision to convert to Lutheranism "was not at heart a religious decision but an anti-communist one". After graduating from the secondary school in 1920, Wigner enrolled at the Budapest University of Technical Sciences, known as the Műegyetem. He was not happy with the courses on offer, and in 1921 enrolled at the Technische Hochschule Berlin (now Technical University of Berlin), where he studied chemical engineering. He also attended the Wednesday afternoon colloquia of the German Physical Society. These colloquia featured leading researchers including Max Planck, Max von Laue, Rudolf Ladenburg, Werner Heisenberg, Walther Nernst, Wolfgang Pauli, and Albert Einstein. Wigner also met the physicist Leó Szilárd, who at once became Wigner's closest friend. A third experience in Berlin was formative. Wigner worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry (now the Fritz Haber Institute), and there he met Michael Polanyi, who became, after László Rátz, Wigner's greatest teacher. Polanyi supervised Wigner's DSc thesis, Bildung und Zerfall von Molekülen ("Formation and Decay of Molecules"). ## Middle years Wigner returned to Budapest, where he went to work at his father's tannery, but in 1926, he accepted an offer from Karl Weissenberg at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. Weissenberg wanted someone to assist him with his work on x-ray crystallography, and Polanyi had recommended Wigner. After six months as Weissenberg's assistant, Wigner went to work for Richard Becker for two semesters. Wigner explored quantum mechanics, studying the work of Erwin Schrödinger. He also delved into the group theory of Ferdinand Frobenius and Eduard Ritter von Weber. Wigner received a request from Arnold Sommerfeld to work at the University of Göttingen as an assistant to the great mathematician David Hilbert. This proved a disappointment, as the aged Hilbert's abilities were failing, and his interests had shifted to logic. Wigner nonetheless studied independently. He laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics and in 1927 introduced what is now known as the Wigner D-matrix. Wigner and Hermann Weyl were responsible for introducing group theory into quantum mechanics. The latter had written a standard text, Group Theory and Quantum Mechanics (1928), but it was not easy to understand, especially for younger physicists. Wigner's Group Theory and Its Application to the Quantum Mechanics of Atomic Spectra (1931) made group theory accessible to a wider audience. In these works, Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics. Wigner's theorem proved by Wigner in 1931, is a cornerstone of the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. The theorem specifies how physical symmetries such as rotations, translations, and CPT symmetry are represented on the Hilbert space of states. According to the theorem, any symmetry transformation is represented by a linear and unitary or antilinear and antiunitary transformation of Hilbert space. The representation of a symmetry group on a Hilbert space is either an ordinary representation or a projective representation. In the late 1930s, Wigner extended his research into atomic nuclei. By 1929, his papers were drawing notice in the world of physics. In 1930, Princeton University recruited Wigner for a one-year lectureship, at 7 times the salary that he had been drawing in Europe. Princeton recruited von Neumann at the same time. Jenő Pál Wigner and János von Neumann had collaborated on three papers together in 1928 and two in 1929. They anglicized their first names to "Eugene" and "John", respectively. When their year was up, Princeton offered a five-year contract as visiting professors for half the year. The Technische Hochschule responded with a teaching assignment for the other half of the year. This was very timely, since the Nazis soon rose to power in Germany. At Princeton in 1934, Wigner introduced his sister Margit "Manci" Wigner to the physicist Paul Dirac, with whom she remarried. Princeton did not rehire Wigner when his contract ran out in 1936. Through Gregory Breit, Wigner found new employment at the University of Wisconsin. There, he met his first wife, Amelia Frank, who was a physics student there. However, she died unexpectedly in 1937, leaving Wigner distraught. He therefore accepted a 1938 offer from Princeton to return there. Wigner became a naturalized citizen of the United States on January 8, 1937, and he brought his parents to the United States. ## Manhattan Project Although he was a professed political amateur, on August 2, 1939, he participated in a meeting with Leó Szilárd and Albert Einstein that resulted in the Einstein–Szilárd letter, which prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to initiate the Manhattan Project to develop atomic bombs. Wigner was afraid that the German nuclear weapon project would develop an atomic bomb first, and even refused to have his fingerprints taken because they could be used to track him down if Germany won. "Thoughts of being murdered," he later recalled, "focus your mind wonderfully." On June 4, 1941, Wigner married his second wife, Mary Annette Wheeler, a professor of physics at Vassar College, who had completed her Ph.D. at Yale University in 1932. After the war she taught physics on the faculty of Rutgers University's Douglass College in New Jersey until her retirement in 1964. They remained married until her death in November 1977. They had two children, David Wigner and Martha Wigner Upton. During the Manhattan Project, Wigner led a team that included J. Ernest Wilkins Jr., Alvin M. Weinberg, Katharine Way, Gale Young and Edward Creutz. The group's task was to design the production nuclear reactors that would convert uranium into weapons grade plutonium. At the time, reactors existed only on paper, and no reactor had yet gone critical. In July 1942, Wigner chose a conservative 100 MW design, with a graphite neutron moderator and water cooling. Wigner was present at a converted rackets court under the stands at the University of Chicago's abandoned Stagg Field on December 2, 1942, when the world's first atomic reactor, Chicago Pile One (CP-1) achieved a controlled nuclear chain reaction. Wigner was disappointed that DuPont was given responsibility for the detailed design of the reactors, not just their construction. He threatened to resign in February 1943, but was talked out of it by the head of the Metallurgical Laboratory, Arthur Compton, who sent him on vacation instead. As it turned out, a design decision by DuPont to give the reactor additional load tubes for more uranium saved the project when neutron poisoning became a problem. Without the additional tubes, the reactor could have been run at 35% power until the boron impurities in the graphite were burned up and enough plutonium produced to run the reactor at full power; but this would have set the project back a year. During the 1950s, he would even work for DuPont on the Savannah River Site. Wigner did not regret working on the Manhattan Project, and sometimes wished the atomic bomb had been ready a year earlier. An important discovery Wigner made during the project was the Wigner effect. This is a swelling of the graphite moderator caused by the displacement of atoms by neutron radiation. The Wigner effect was a serious problem for the reactors at the Hanford Site in the immediate post-war period, and resulted in production cutbacks and a reactor being shut down entirely. It was eventually discovered that it could be overcome by controlled heating and annealing. Through Manhattan project funding, Wigner and Leonard Eisenbud also developed an important general approach to nuclear reactions, the Wigner–Eisenbud R-matrix theory, which was published in 1947. ## Later years Wigner was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1944 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1945. He accepted a position as the director of research and development at the Clinton Laboratory (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in early 1946. Because he did not want to be involved in administrative duties, he became co-director of the laboratory, with James Lum handling the administrative chores as executive director. When the newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) took charge of the laboratory's operations at the start of 1947, Wigner feared that many of the technical decisions would be made in Washington. He also saw the Army's continuation of wartime security policies at the laboratory as a "meddlesome oversight", interfering with research. One such incident occurred in March 1947, when the AEC discovered that Wigner's scientists were conducting experiments with a critical mass of uranium-235 when the director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., had forbidden such experiments in August 1946 after the death of Louis Slotin at the Los Alamos Laboratory. Wigner argued that Groves's order had been superseded, but was forced to terminate the experiments, which were completely different from the one that killed Slotin. Feeling unsuited to a managerial role in such an environment, he left Oak Ridge in 1947 and returned to Princeton University, although he maintained a consulting role with the facility for many years. In the postwar period, he served on a number of government bodies, including the National Bureau of Standards from 1947 to 1951, the mathematics panel of the National Research Council from 1951 to 1954, the physics panel of the National Science Foundation, and the influential General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1952 to 1957 and again from 1959 to 1964. He also contributed to civil defense. Wigner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. Near the end of his life, Wigner's thoughts turned more philosophical. In 1960, he published a now classic article on the philosophy of mathematics and of physics, which has become his best-known work outside technical mathematics and physics, "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". He argued that biology and cognition could be the origin of physical concepts, as we humans perceive them, and that the happy coincidence that mathematics and physics were so well matched, seemed to be "unreasonable" and hard to explain. His original paper has provoked and inspired many responses across a wide range of disciplines. These included Richard Hamming in Computer Science, Arthur Lesk in Molecular Biology, Peter Norvig in data mining, Max Tegmark in Physics, Ivor Grattan-Guinness in Mathematics, and Vela Velupillai in Economics. Turning to philosophical questions about the theory of quantum mechanics, Wigner developed a thought experiment (later called Wigner's Friend paradox) to illustrate his belief that consciousness is foundational to the quantum mechanical measurement process. He thereby followed an ontological approach that sets human's consciousness at the center: "All that quantum mechanics purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent impressions (also called 'apperceptions') of the consciousness". Measurements are understood as the interactions which create the impressions in our consciousness (and as a result modify the wave function of the "measured" physical system), an idea which has been called the "consciousness causes collapse" interpretation. Interestingly, Hugh Everett III (a student of Wigner) discussed Wigner's thought experiment in the introductory part of his 1957 dissertation as an "amusing, but extremely hypothetical drama". In an early draft of Everett's work, one also finds a drawing of the Wigner's Friend situation, which must be seen as the first evidence on paper of the thought experiment that was later assigned to be Wigner's. This suggests that Everett must at least have discussed the problem together with Wigner. In November 1963, Wigner called for the allocation of 10% of the national defense budget to be spent on nuclear blast shelters and survival resources, arguing that such an expenditure would be less costly than disarmament. Wigner considered a recent Woods Hole study's conclusion that a nuclear strike would kill 20% of Americans to be a very modest projection and that the country could recover from such an attack more quickly than Germany had recovered from the devastation of World War II. Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles". The prize was shared that year, with the other half of the award divided between Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen. Wigner professed that he had never considered the possibility that this might occur, and added: "I never expected to get my name in the newspapers without doing something wicked." He also won the Franklin Medal in 1950, the Enrico Fermi award in 1958, the Atoms for Peace Award in 1959, the Max Planck Medal in 1961, the National Medal of Science in 1969, the Albert Einstein Award in 1972, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1974, the eponymous Wigner Medal in 1978, and the Herzl Prize in 1982. In 1968 he gave the Josiah Willard Gibbs lecture. After his retirement from Princeton in 1971, Wigner prepared the first edition of Symmetries and Reflections, a collection of philosophical essays, and became more involved in international and political meetings; around this time he became a leader and vocal defender of the Unification Church's annual International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences. Mary died in November 1977. In 1979, Wigner married his third wife, Eileen Clare-Patton (Pat) Hamilton, the widow of physicist Donald Ross Hamilton, the dean of the graduate school at Princeton University, who had died in 1972. In 1992, at the age of 90, he published his memoirs, The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner with Andrew Szanton. In it, Wigner said: "The full meaning of life, the collective meaning of all human desires, is fundamentally a mystery beyond our grasp. As a young man, I chafed at this state of affairs. But by now I have made peace with it. I even feel a certain honor to be associated with such a mystery." In his collection of essays 'Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses' (1995), he commented: "It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Wigner was credited as a member of the advisory board for the Western Goals Foundation, a private domestic intelligence agency created in the US in 1979 to "fill the critical gap caused by the crippling of the FBI, the disabling of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the destruction of crucial government files". Wigner died of pneumonia at the University Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey on 1 January 1995. He was survived by his wife Eileen (died 2010) and children Erika, David and Martha, and his sisters Bertha and Margit. ## Publications - 1958 (with Alvin M. Weinberg). Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors University of Chicago Press. - 1959\. Group Theory and its Application to the Quantum Mechanics of Atomic Spectra. New York: Academic Press. Translation by J. J. Griffin of 1931, Gruppentheorie und ihre Anwendungen auf die Quantenmechanik der Atomspektren, Vieweg Verlag, Braunschweig. - 1970 Symmetries and Reflections: Scientific Essays. Indiana University Press, Bloomington - 1992 (as told to Andrew Szanton). The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner. Plenum. - 1995 (with Jagdish Mehra and Arthur Wightman, eds.). Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses. Springer, Berlin ## Selected contributions Theoretical physics - Bargmann–Wigner equations - Jordan–Wigner transformation - Newton–Wigner localization - Polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution - Relativistic Breit–Wigner distribution - Thomas–Wigner rotation - Wigner–Eckart theorem - Wigner–Inonu contraction - Wigner–Seitz cell - Wigner–Seitz radius - Wigner–Weyl transform - Wigner–Wilkins spectrum - Wigner's classification - Wigner quasi-probability distribution - Wigner's friend - Wigner's theorem - Wigner crystal - Wigner D-matrix - Wigner effect - Wigner energy - Wigner lattice - Wigner's disease - Thomas–Wigner rotation - Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation - Wigner–Witmer correlation rules Mathematics - Gabor–Wigner transform - Modified Wigner distribution function - Wigner distribution function - Wigner semicircle distribution - Wigner rotation - Wigner quasi-probability distribution - Wigner semicircle distribution - 6-j symbol - 9-j symbol - Wigner 3-j symbols - Wigner–İnönü group contraction - Wigner surmise ## See also - List of things named after Eugene Wigner - The Martians (scientists) - List of Jewish Nobel laureates

Hypatia

Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician (died 415)

Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy. Although preceded by Pandrosion, another Alexandrine female mathematician, she is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. She wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and another commentary on Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. Many modern scholars also believe that Hypatia may have edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Almagest, based on the title of her father Theon's commentary on Book III of the Almagest. Hypatia constructed astrolabes and hydrometers, but did not invent either of these, which were both in use long before she was born. She was tolerant towards Christians and taught many Christian students, including Synesius, the future bishop of Ptolemais. Ancient sources record that Hypatia was widely beloved by pagans and Christians alike and that she established great influence with the political elite in Alexandria. Towards the end of her life, Hypatia advised Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was in the midst of a political feud with Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril and, in March 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians led by a lector named Peter. Hypatia's murder shocked the empire and transformed her into a "martyr for philosophy", leading future Neoplatonists such as the historian Damascius (c. 458 – c. 538) to become increasingly fervent in their opposition to Christianity. During the Middle Ages, Hypatia was co-opted as a symbol of Christian virtue and scholars believe she was part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. During the Age of Enlightenment, she became a symbol of opposition to Catholicism. In the nineteenth century, European literature, especially Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel Hypatia, romanticized her as "the last of the Hellenes". In the twentieth century, Hypatia became seen as an icon for women's rights and a precursor to the feminist movement. Since the late twentieth century, some portrayals have associated Hypatia's death with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, despite the historical fact that the library no longer existed during Hypatia's lifetime. ## Life ### Upbringing Hypatia was the daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria (c. 335 – c. 405 AD). According to classical historian Edward J. Watts, Theon was the head of a school called the "Mouseion", which was named in emulation of the Hellenistic Mouseion, whose membership had ceased in the 260s AD. Theon's school was exclusive, highly prestigious, and doctrinally conservative. Theon rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and may have taken pride in teaching a pure, Plotinian Neoplatonism. Although he was widely seen as a great mathematician at the time, Theon's mathematical work has been deemed by modern standards as essentially "minor", "trivial", and "completely unoriginal". His primary achievement was the production of a new edition of Euclid's Elements, in which he corrected scribal errors that had been made over the course of nearly 700 years of copying. Theon's edition of Euclid's Elements became the most widely used edition of the textbook for centuries and almost totally supplanted all other editions. Nothing is known about Hypatia's mother, who is never mentioned in any of the extant sources. Theon dedicates his commentary on Book IV of Ptolemy's Almagest to an individual named Epiphanius, addressing him as "my dear son", indicating that he may have been Hypatia's brother, but the Greek word Theon uses (teknon) does not always mean "son" in the biological sense and was often used merely to signal strong feelings of paternal connection. Hypatia's exact year of birth is still under debate, with suggested dates ranging from 350 to 370 AD. Many scholars have followed Richard Hoche in inferring that Hypatia was born around 370. According to Damascius's lost work Life of Isidore, preserved in the entry for Hypatia in the Suda, a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, Hypatia flourished during the reign of Arcadius. Hoche reasoned that Damascius's description of her physical beauty would imply that she was at most 30 at that time, and the year 370 was 30 years prior to the midpoint of Arcadius's reign. In contrast, theories that she was born as early as 350 are based on the wording of the chronicler John Malalas (c. 491 – 578), who calls her old at the time of her death in 415. Robert Penella argues that both theories are weakly based, and that her birth date should be left unspecified. ### Career Hypatia was a Neoplatonist, but, like her father, she rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and instead embraced the original Neoplatonism formulated by Plotinus. The Alexandrian school was renowned at the time for its philosophy, and Alexandria was regarded as second only to Athens as the philosophical capital of the Greco-Roman world. Hypatia taught students from all over the Mediterranean. According to Damascius, she lectured on the writings of Plato and Aristotle. He also states that she walked through Alexandria in a tribon, a kind of cloak associated with philosophers, giving impromptu public lectures. According to Watts, two main varieties of Neoplatonism were taught in Alexandria during the late fourth century. The first was the overtly pagan religious Neoplatonism taught at the Serapeum, which was greatly influenced by the teachings of Iamblichus. The second variety was the more moderate and less polemical variety championed by Hypatia and her father Theon, which was based on the teachings of Plotinus. Although Hypatia herself was a pagan, she was tolerant of Christians. In fact, every one of her known students was Christian. One of her most prominent pupils was Synesius of Cyrene, who went on to become a bishop of Ptolemais (now in eastern Libya) in 410. Afterward, he continued to exchange letters with Hypatia and his extant letters are the main sources of information about her career. Seven letters by Synesius to Hypatia have survived, but none from her addressed to him are extant. In a letter written in around 395 to his friend Herculianus, Synesius describes Hypatia as "... a person so renowned, her reputation seemed literally incredible. We have seen and heard for ourselves she who honorably presides over the mysteries of philosophy." Synesius preserves the legacy of Hypatia's opinions and teachings, such as the pursuit of "the philosophical state of apatheia—complete liberation from emotions and affections". The Christian historian Socrates of Constantinople, a contemporary of Hypatia, describes her in his Ecclesiastical History: > There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Philostorgius, another Christian historian, who was also a contemporary of Hypatia, states that she excelled her father in mathematics and the lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria records that, like her father, she was also an extraordinarily talented astronomer. Damascius writes that Hypatia was "exceedingly beautiful and fair of form", but nothing else is known regarding her physical appearance and no ancient depictions of her have survived. Damascius states that Hypatia remained a lifelong virgin and that, when one of the men who came to her lectures tried to court her, she tried to soothe his lust by playing the lyre. When he refused to abandon his pursuit, she rejected him outright, displaying her bloody menstrual rags and declaring "This is what you really love, my young man, but you do not love beauty for its own sake." Damascius further relates that the young man was so traumatized that he abandoned his desires for her immediately. ## Death ### Background From 382 – 412, the bishop of Alexandria was Theophilus. Theophilus was militantly opposed to Iamblichean Neoplatonism and, in 391, he demolished the Serapeum. Despite this, Theophilus tolerated Hypatia's school and seems to have regarded Hypatia as his ally. Theophilus supported the bishopric of Hypatia's pupil Synesius, who describes Theophilus in his letters with love and admiration. Theophilus also permitted Hypatia herself to establish close relationships with the Roman prefects and other prominent political leaders. Partly as a result of Theophilus's tolerance, Hypatia became extremely popular with the people of Alexandria and exerted profound political influence. Theophilus died unexpectedly in 412. He had been training his nephew Cyril, but had not officially named him as his successor. A violent power struggle over the diocese broke out between Cyril and his rival Timothy. Cyril won and immediately began to punish those who had supported Timothy; he closed the churches of the Novatianists, who had supported Timothy, and confiscated their property. Hypatia's school seems to have immediately taken a strong distrust towards the new bishop, as evidenced by the fact that, in all his vast correspondences, Synesius only ever wrote one letter to Cyril, in which he treats the younger bishop as inexperienced and misguided. In a letter written to Hypatia in 413, Synesius requests her to intercede on behalf of two individuals impacted by the ongoing civil strife in Alexandria, insisting, "You always have power, and you can bring about good by using that power." He also reminds her that she had taught him that a Neoplatonic philosopher must introduce the highest moral standards to political life and act for the benefit of their fellow citizens. According to Socrates Scholasticus, in 414, following an exchange of hostilities and a Jewish-led massacre, Cyril closed all the synagogues in Alexandria, confiscated all the property belonging to the Jews, and expelled a number of Jews from the city; Scholasticus suggests all the Jews were expelled, while John of Nikiu notes it was only those involved in the massacre. Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was also a close friend of Hypatia and a recent convert to Christianity, was outraged by Cyril's actions and sent a scathing report to the emperor. The conflict escalated and a riot broke out in which the parabalani, a group of Christian clerics under Cyril's authority, nearly killed Orestes. As punishment, Orestes had Ammonius, the monk who had started the riot, publicly tortured to death. Cyril tried to proclaim Ammonius a martyr, but Christians in Alexandria were disgusted, since Ammonius had been killed for inciting a riot and attempting to murder the governor, not for his faith. Prominent Alexandrian Christians intervened and forced Cyril to drop the matter. Nonetheless, Cyril's feud with Orestes continued. Orestes frequently consulted Hypatia for advice because she was well-liked among both pagans and Christians alike, she had not been involved in any previous stages of the conflict, and she had an impeccable reputation as a wise counselor. Despite Hypatia's popularity, Cyril and his allies attempted to discredit her and undermine her reputation. Socrates Scholasticus mentions rumors accusing Hypatia of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril. Traces of other rumors that spread among the Christian populace of Alexandria may be found in the writings of the seventh-century Egyptian Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, who alleges in his Chronicle that Hypatia had engaged in satanic practices and had intentionally hampered the church's influence over Orestes: > And in those days there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles. And the governor of the city honoured her exceedingly; for she had beguiled him through her magic. And he ceased attending church as had been his custom... And he not only did this, but he drew many believers to her, and he himself received the unbelievers at his house. ### Murder According to Socrates Scholasticus, during the Christian season of Lent in March 415, a mob of Christians under the leadership of a lector named Peter, raided Hypatia's carriage as she was travelling home. They dragged her into a building known as the Kaisarion, a former pagan temple and center of the Roman imperial cult in Alexandria that had been converted into a Christian church. There, the mob stripped Hypatia naked and murdered her using ostraka, which can either be translated as "roof tiles" or "oyster shells". Damascius adds that they also cut out her eyeballs. They tore her body into pieces and dragged her limbs through the town to a place called Cinarion, where they set them on fire. According to Watts, this was in line with the traditional manner in which Alexandrians carried the bodies of the "vilest criminals" outside the city limits to cremate them as a way of symbolically purifying the city. Although Socrates Scholasticus never explicitly identifies Hypatia's murderers, they are commonly assumed to have been members of the parabalani. Christopher Haas disputes this identification, arguing that the murderers were more likely "a crowd of Alexandrian laymen". Socrates Scholasticus presents Hypatia's murder as entirely politically motivated and makes no mention of any role that Hypatia's paganism might have played in her death. Instead, he reasons that "she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop." Socrates Scholasticus unequivocally condemns the actions of the mob, declaring, "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort." The Canadian mathematician Ari Belenkiy has argued that Hypatia may have been involved in a controversy over the date of the Christian holiday of Easter 417 and that she was killed on the vernal equinox while making astronomical observations. Classical scholars Alan Cameron and Edward J. Watts both dismiss this hypothesis, noting that there is absolutely no evidence in any ancient text to support any part of the hypothesis. ### Aftermath Hypatia's death sent shockwaves throughout the empire; for centuries, philosophers had been seen as effectively untouchable during the displays of public violence that sometimes occurred in Roman cities and the murder of a female philosopher at the hand of a mob was seen as "profoundly dangerous and destabilizing". Although no concrete evidence was ever discovered definitively linking Cyril to the murder of Hypatia, it was widely believed that he had ordered it. Even if Cyril had not directly ordered the murder himself, his smear campaign against Hypatia had inspired it. The Alexandrian council was alarmed at Cyril's conduct and sent an embassy to Constantinople. The advisors of Theodosius II launched an investigation to determine Cyril's role in the murder. The investigation resulted in the emperors Honorius and Theodosius II issuing an edict in autumn of 416, which attempted to remove the parabalani from Cyril's power and instead place them under the authority of Orestes. The edict restricted the parabalani from attending "any public spectacle whatever" or entering "the meeting place of a municipal council or a courtroom." It also severely restricted their recruitment by limiting the total number of parabalani to no more than five hundred. According to Damascius, Cyril himself allegedly only managed to escape even more serious punishment by bribing one of Theodosius's officials. Watts argues that Hypatia's murder was the turning point in Cyril's fight to gain political control of Alexandria. Hypatia had been the linchpin holding Orestes's opposition against Cyril together, and, without her, the opposition quickly collapsed. Two years later, Cyril overturned the law placing the parabalani under Orestes's control and, by the early 420s, Cyril had come to dominate the Alexandrian council. ## Works Hypatia has been described as a universal genius, but she was probably more of a teacher and commentator than an innovator. No evidence has been found that Hypatia ever published any independent works on philosophy and she does not appear to have made any groundbreaking mathematical discoveries. During Hypatia's time period, scholars preserved classical mathematical works and commented on them to develop their arguments, rather than publishing original works. It has also been suggested that the closure of the Mouseion and the destruction of the Serapeum may have led Hypatia and her father to focus their efforts on preserving seminal mathematical books and making them accessible to their students. The Suda mistakenly states that all of Hypatia's writings have been lost, but modern scholarship has identified several works by her as extant. This kind of authorial uncertainty is typical of female philosophers from antiquity. Hypatia wrote in Greek, which was the language spoken by most educated people in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. In classical antiquity, astronomy was seen as being essentially mathematical in character. Furthermore, no distinction was made between mathematics and numerology or astronomy and astrology. ### Edition of the Almagest Hypatia is now known to have edited the existing text of Book III of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was once thought that Hypatia had merely revised Theon's commentary on the Almagest, based on the title of Theon's commentary on the third book of Almagest, which reads "Commentary by Theon of Alexandria on Book III of Ptolemy's Almagest, edition revised by my daughter Hypatia, the philosopher", but, based on analysis of the titles of Theon's other commentaries and similar titles from the time period, scholars have concluded that Hypatia corrected, not her father's commentary, but the text of Almagest itself. Her contribution is thought to be an improved method for the long division algorithms needed for astronomical computation. The Ptolemaic model of the universe was geocentric, meaning it taught that the Sun revolved around the Earth. In the Almagest, Ptolemy proposed a division problem for calculating the number of degrees swept out by the Sun in a single day as it orbits the Earth. In his early commentary, Theon had tried to improve upon Ptolemy's division calculation. In the text edited by Hypatia, a tabular method is detailed. This tabular method might be the "astronomical table" which historic sources attribute to Hypatia. Classicist Alan Cameron additionally states that it is possible Hypatia may have edited, not only Book III, but all nine extant books of the Almagest. ### Independent writings Hypatia wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which had been written sometime around the year 250 AD. It set out more than 100 mathematical problems, for which solutions are proposed using algebra. For centuries, scholars believed that this commentary had been lost. Only volumes one through six of the Arithmetica have survived in the original Greek, but at least four additional volumes have been preserved in an Arabic translation produced around the year 860. The Arabic text contains numerous expansions not found in the Greek text, including verifications of Diophantus's examples and additional problems. Cameron states that the most likely source of the additional material is Hypatia herself, since Hypatia is the only ancient writer known to have written a commentary on the Arithmetica and the additions appear to follow the same methods used by her father Theon. The first person to deduce that the additional material in the Arabic manuscripts came from Hypatia was the nineteenth-century scholar Paul Tannery. In 1885, Sir Thomas Heath published the first English translation of the surviving portion of the Arithmetica. Heath argued that surviving text of Arithmetica is actually a school edition produced by Hypatia to aid her students. According to Mary Ellen Waithe, Hypatia used an unusual algorithm for division (in the then-standard sexagesimal numeral system), making it easy for scholars to pick out which parts of the text she had written. The consensus that Hypatia's commentary is the source of the additional material in the Arabic manuscripts of the Arithmetica has been challenged by Wilbur Knorr, a historian of mathematics, who argues that the interpolations are "of such low level as not to require any real mathematical insight" and that the author of the interpolations can only have been "an essentially trivial mind... in direct conflict with ancient testimonies of Hypatia's high caliber as a philosopher and mathematician." Cameron rejects this argument, noting that "Theon too enjoyed a high reputation, yet his surviving work has been judged 'completely unoriginal.'" Cameron also insists that "Hypatia's work on Diophantus was what we today might call a school edition, designed for the use of students rather than professional mathematicians." Hypatia also wrote a commentary on Apollonius of Perga's work on conic sections, but this commentary is no longer extant. She also created an "Astronomical Canon"; this is believed to have been either a new edition of the Handy Tables by the Alexandrian Ptolemy or the aforementioned commentary on his Almagest. Based on a close reading in comparison with her supposed contributions to the work of Diophantus, Knorr suggests that Hypatia may also have edited Archimedes' Measurement of a Circle, an anonymous text on isometric figures, and a text later used by John of Tynemouth in his work on Archimedes' measurement of the sphere. A high degree of mathematical accomplishment would have been needed to comment on Apollonius's advanced mathematics or the astronomical Canon. Because of this, most scholars today recognize that Hypatia must have been among the leading mathematicians of her day. ### Reputed inventions One of Synesius's letters describes Hypatia as having taught him how to construct a silver plane astrolabe as a gift for an official. An astrolabe is a device used to calculate date and time based on the positions of the stars and planets. It can also be used to predict where the stars and planets will be on any given date. A "little astrolabe", or "plane astrolabe", is a kind of astrolabe that used stereographic projection of the celestial sphere to represent the heavens on a plane surface, as opposed to an armillary sphere, which was globe-shaped. Armillary spheres were large and normally used for display, whereas a plane astrolabe was portable and could be used for practical measurements. The statement from Synesius's letter has sometimes been wrongly interpreted to mean that Hypatia invented the plane astrolabe herself, but the plane astrolabe was in use at least 500 years before Hypatia was born. Hypatia may have learned how to construct a plane astrolabe from her father Theon, who had written two treatises on astrolabes: one entitled Memoirs on the Little Astrolabe and another study on the armillary sphere in Ptolemy's Almagest. Theon's treatise is now lost, but it was well known to the Syrian bishop Severus Sebokht (575–667), who describes its contents in his own treatise on astrolabes. Hypatia and Theon may have also studied Ptolemy's Planisphaerium, which describes the calculations necessary in order to construct an astrolabe. Synesius's wording indicates that Hypatia did not design or construct the astrolabe herself, but merely acted as a guide and mentor during the process of constructing it. In another letter, Synesius requests Hypatia to construct him a "hydroscope", a device now known as a hydrometer, to determine the density or specific gravity of liquids. Based on this request, it has been claimed that Hypatia invented the hydrometer herself. The minute detail in which Synesius describes the instrument, however, indicates that he assumes she has never heard of the device, but trusts she will be able to replicate it based on a verbal description. Hydrometers were based on Archimedes' 3rd century BC principles, may have been invented by him, and were being described by the 2nd century AD in a poem by the Roman author Remnius. Although modern authors frequently credit Hypatia with having developed a variety of other inventions, these other attributions may all be discounted as spurious. Booth concludes, "The modern day reputation held by Hypatia as a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and mechanical inventor, is disproportionate to the amount of surviving evidence of her life's work. This reputation is either built on myth or hearsay as opposed to evidence. Either that or we are missing all of the evidence that would support it." ## Legacy ### Antiquity Neoplatonism and paganism both survived for centuries after Hypatia's death, and new academic lecture halls continued to be built in Alexandria after her death. Over the next 200 years, Neoplatonist philosophers such as Hierocles of Alexandria, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Olympiodorus the Younger made astronomical observations, taught mathematics, and wrote lengthy commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Hypatia was not the last female Neoplatonist philosopher; later ones include Aedesia, Asclepigenia, and Theodora of Emesa. According to Watts, however, Hypatia had no appointed successor, no spouse, and no offspring and her sudden death not only left her legacy unprotected, but also triggered a backlash against her entire ideology. Hypatia, with her tolerance towards Christian students and her willingness to cooperate with Christian leaders, had hoped to establish a precedent that Neoplatonism and Christianity could coexist peacefully and cooperatively. Instead, her death and the subsequent failure by the Christian government to impose justice on her killers destroyed that notion entirely and led future Neoplatonists such as Damascius to consider Christian bishops as "dangerous, jealous figures who were also utterly unphilosophical." Hypatia became seen as a "martyr for philosophy", and her murder led philosophers to adopt attitudes that increasingly emphasized the pagan aspects of their beliefs system and helped create a sense of identity for philosophers as pagan traditionalists set apart from the Christian masses. Thus, while Hypatia's death did not bring an end to Neoplatonist philosophy as a whole, Watts argues that it did bring an end to her particular variety of it. Shortly after Hypatia's murder, a forged anti-Christian letter appeared under her name. Damascius was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers. A passage from Damascius's Life of Isidore, preserved in the Suda, concludes that Hypatia's murder was due to Cyril's envy over "her wisdom exceeding all bounds and especially in the things concerning astronomy". Damascius's account of the Christian murder of Hypatia is the sole historical source attributing direct responsibility to Bishop Cyril. At the same time, Damascius was not entirely kind to Hypatia either; he characterizes her as nothing more than a wandering Cynic, and compares her unfavorably with his own teacher Isidore of Alexandria, remarking that "Isidorus greatly outshone Hypatia, not just as a man does over a woman, but in the way a genuine philosopher will over a mere geometer." ### Middle Ages Hypatia's death was similar to those of Christian martyrs in Alexandria, who had been dragged through the streets during the Decian persecution in 250. Other aspects of Hypatia's life also fit the mold for a Christian martyr, especially her lifelong virginity. In the Early Middle Ages, Christians conflated Hypatia's death with stories of the Decian martyrs and she became part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a virgin martyr said to have been exceedingly wise and well-educated. The earliest attestation for the cult of Saint Catherine comes from the eighth century, around three hundred years after Hypatia's death. One story tells of Saint Catherine being confronted by fifty pagan philosophers seeking to convert her, but instead converting all of them to Christianity through her eloquence. Another legend claimed that Saint Catherine had been a student of Athanasius of Alexandria. In the Laodikeia of Asia Minor (today Denizli in Turkey) until late 19th century Hypatia was venerated as identical to St. Catherine. The Byzantine Suda encyclopedia contains a very long entry about Hypatia, which summarizes two different accounts of her life. The first eleven lines come from one source and the rest of the entry comes from Damascius's Life of Isidore. Most of the first eleven lines of the entry probably come from Hesychius's Onomatologos, but some parts are of unknown origin, including a claim that she was "the wife of Isidore the Philosopher" (apparently Isidore of Alexandria). Watts describes this as a very puzzling claim, not only because Isidore of Alexandria was not born until long after Hypatia's death, and no other philosopher of that name contemporary with Hypatia is known, but also because it contradicts Damascius's own statement quoted in the same entry about Hypatia being a lifelong virgin. Watts suggests that someone probably misunderstood the meaning of the word gynē used by Damascius to describe Hypatia in his Life of Isidore, since the same word can mean either "woman" or "wife". The Byzantine and Christian intellectual Photios (c. 810/820–893) includes both Damascius's account of Hypatia and Socrates Scholasticus's in his Bibliotheke. In his own comments, Photios remarks on Hypatia's great fame as a scholar, but does not mention her death, perhaps indicating that he saw her scholarly work as more significant. The intellectual Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021–1096), the second wife of Byzantine emperor Constantine X Doukas, was described by the historian Nicephorus Gregoras as a "second Hypatia". ### Early modern period Early eighteenth-century Deist scholar John Toland used the murder of Hypatia as the basis for an anti-Catholic tract, portraying Hypatia's death in the worst possible light by changing the story and inventing elements not found in any of the ancient sources. A 1721 response by Thomas Lewis defended Cyril, rejected Damascius's account as unreliable because its author was "a heathen" and argued that Socrates Scholasticus was "a Puritan", who was consistently biased against Cyril. Voltaire, in his Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke ou le tombeau de fanatisme (1736) interpreted Hypatia as a believer in "the laws of rational Nature" and "the capacities of the human mind free of dogmas" and described her death as "a bestial murder perpetrated by Cyril's tonsured hounds, with a fanatical gang at their heels". Later, in an entry for his Dictionnaire philosophique (1772), Voltaire again portrayed Hypatia as a freethinking deistic genius brutally murdered by ignorant and misunderstanding Christians. Most of the entry ignores Hypatia herself altogether and instead deals with the controversy over whether or not Cyril was responsible for her death. Voltaire concludes with the snide remark that "When one strips beautiful women naked, it is not to massacre them." In his monumental work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the English historian Edward Gibbon expanded on Toland and Voltaire's misleading portrayals by declaring Cyril as the sole cause of all evil in Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century and construing Hypatia's murder as evidence to support his thesis that the rise of Christianity hastened the decline of the Roman Empire. He remarks on Cyril's continued veneration as a Christian saint, commenting that "superstition [Christianity] perhaps would more gently expiate the blood of a virgin, than the banishment of a saint." In response to these accusations, Catholic authors, as well as some French Protestants, insisted with increased vehemence that Cyril had absolutely no involvement in Hypatia's murder and that Peter the Lector was solely responsible. In the course of these heated debates, Hypatia herself tended to be cast aside and ignored, while the debates focused far more intently on the question of whether Peter the Lector had acted alone or under Cyril's orders. ### Nineteenth century In the nineteenth century European literary authors spun the legend of Hypatia as part of neo-Hellenism, a movement that romanticised ancient Greeks and their values. Interest in the "literary legend of Hypatia" began to rise. Diodata Saluzzo Roero's 1827 Ipazia ovvero delle Filosofie suggested that Cyril had actually converted Hypatia to Christianity, and that she had been killed by a "treacherous" priest. In his 1852 Hypatie and 1857 Hypathie et Cyrille, French poet Charles Leconte de Lisle portrayed Hypatia as the epitome of "vulnerable truth and beauty". Leconte de Lisle's first poem portrayed Hypatia as a woman born after her time, a victim of the laws of history. His second poem reverted to the eighteenth-century Deistic portrayal of Hypatia as the victim of Christian brutality, but with the twist that Hypatia tries and fails to convince Cyril that Neoplatonism and Christianity are actually fundamentally the same. Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel Hypatia; Or, New Foes with an Old Face was originally intended as a historical treatise, but instead became a typical mid-Victorian romance with a militantly anti-Catholic message, portraying Hypatia as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine" with the "spirit of Plato and the body of Aphrodite." Kingsley's novel was tremendously popular; it was translated into several European languages and remained continuously in print for the rest of the century. It promoted the romantic vision of Hypatia as "the last of the Hellenes" and was quickly adapted into a broad variety of stage productions, the first of which was a play written by Elizabeth Bowers, performed in Philadelphia in 1859, starring the writer herself in the titular role. On 2 January 1893, a much higher-profile stage play adaptation Hypatia, written by G. Stuart Ogilvie and produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree, opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London. The title role was initially played by Julia Neilson, and it featured an elaborate musical score written by the composer Hubert Parry. The novel also spawned works of visual art, including an 1867 image portraying Hypatia as a young woman by the early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and an 1885 painting by Charles William Mitchell showing a nude Hypatia standing before an altar in a church. At the same time, European philosophers and scientists described Hypatia as the last representative of science and free inquiry before a "long medieval decline". In 1843, German authors Soldan and Heppe argued in their highly influential History of the Witchcraft Trials that Hypatia may have been, in effect, the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority (see witch-hunt). Hypatia was honored as an astronomer when 238 Hypatia, a main belt asteroid discovered in 1884, was named for her. The lunar crater Hypatia was also named for her, in addition to craters named for her father Theon. The 180 km Rimae Hypatia are located north of the crater, one degree south of the equator, along the Mare Tranquillitatis. ### Twentieth century In 1908, American writer Elbert Hubbard published a putative biography of Hypatia in his series Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers. The book is almost entirely a work of fiction. In it, Hubbard relates a completely made-up physical exercise program which he claims Theon established for his daughter, involving "fishing, horseback-riding, and rowing". He claims that Theon taught Hypatia to "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than to never think at all." Hubbard claims that, as a young woman, Hypatia traveled to Athens, where she studied under Plutarch of Athens. All of this supposed biographical information, however, is completely fictional and is not found in any ancient source. Hubbard even attributes to Hypatia numerous completely fabricated quotations in which she presents modern, rationalist views. The cover illustration for the book, a drawing of Hypatia by artist Jules Maurice Gaspard showing her as a beautiful young woman with her wavy hair tied back in the classical style, has now become the most iconic and widely reproduced image of her. Around the same time, Hypatia was adopted by feminists, and her life and death began to be viewed in the light of the women's rights movement. The author Carlo Pascal claimed in 1908 that her murder was an anti-feminist act and brought about a change in the treatment of women, as well as the decline of the Mediterranean civilization in general. Dora Russell published a book on the inadequate education of women and inequality with the title Hypatia or Woman and Knowledge in 1925. The prologue explains why she chose the title: "Hypatia was a university lecturer denounced by Church dignitaries and torn to pieces by Christians. Such will probably be the fate of this book." Hypatia's death became symbolic for some historians. For example, Kathleen Wider proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, and Stephen Greenblatt writes that her murder "effectively marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life". On the other hand, Christian Wildberg notes that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian I. Falsehoods and misconceptions about Hypatia continued to proliferate throughout the late twentieth century. Though Hubbard's fictional biography may have been intended for children, Lynn M. Osen relied on it as her main source in her influential 1974 article on Hypatia in her 1974 book Women in Mathematics. Fordham University used Hubbard's biography as the main source of information about Hypatia in a medieval history course. Carl Sagan's 1980 PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage relates a heavily fictionalized retelling of Hypatia's death, which results in the "Great Library of Alexandria" being burned by militant Christians. In actuality, though Christians led by Theophilus did destroy the Serapeum in 391 AD, the Library of Alexandria had already ceased to exist in any recognizable form centuries prior to Hypatia's birth. As a female intellectual, Hypatia became a role model for modern intelligent women and two feminist journals were named after her: the Greek journal Hypatia: Feminist Studies was launched in Athens in 1984, and Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy in the United States in 1986. In the United Kingdom, the Hypatia Trust maintains a library and archive of feminine literary, artistic and scientific work; and, sponsors the Hypatia-in-the-Woods women's retreat in Washington, United States. Judy Chicago's large-scale art piece The Dinner Party awards Hypatia a table setting. The table runner depicts Hellenistic goddesses weeping over her death. Chicago states that the social unrest leading to Hypatia's murder resulted from Roman patriarchy and mistreatment of women and that this ongoing unrest can only be brought to an end through the restoration of an original, primeval matriarchy. She (anachronistically and incorrectly) concludes that Hypatia's writings were burned in the Library of Alexandria when it was destroyed. Major works of twentieth century literature contain references to Hypatia, including Marcel Proust's volume "Within a Budding Grove" from In Search of Lost Time, and Iain Pears's The Dream of Scipio. ### Twenty-first century Hypatia has continued to be a popular subject in both fiction and nonfiction by authors in many countries and languages. In 2015, the planet designated Iota Draconis b was named after Hypatia. In Umberto Eco's 2002 novel Baudolino, the hero's love interest is a half-satyr, half-woman descendant of a female-only community of Hypatia's disciples, collectively known as "hypatias". Charlotte Kramer's 2006 novel Holy Murder: the Death of Hypatia of Alexandria portrays Cyril as an archetypal villain, while Hypatia is described as brilliant, beloved, and more knowledgeable of scripture than Cyril. Ki Longfellow's novel Flow Down Like Silver (2009) invents an elaborate backstory for why Hypatia first started teaching. Youssef Ziedan's novel Azazeel (2012) describes Hypatia's murder through the eyes of a witness. Bruce MacLennan's 2013 book The Wisdom of Hypatia presents Hypatia as a guide who introduces Neoplatonic philosophy and exercises for modern life. In The Plot to Save Socrates (2006) by Paul Levinson and its sequels, Hypatia is a time-traveler from the twenty-first century United States. In the TV series The Good Place, Hypatia is played by Lisa Kudrow as one of the few ancient philosophers eligible for heaven, by not having defended slavery. The 2009 film Agora, directed by Alejandro Amenábar and starring Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, is a heavily fictionalized dramatization of Hypatia's final years. The film, which was intended to criticize contemporary Christian fundamentalism, has had wide-ranging impact on the popular conception of Hypatia. It emphasizes Hypatia's astronomical and mechanical studies rather than her philosophy, portraying her as "less Plato than Copernicus", and emphasizes the restrictions imposed on women by the early Christian church, including depictions of Hypatia being sexually assaulted by one of her father's Christian slaves, and of Cyril reading from 1 Timothy 2:8–12 forbidding women from teaching. The film contains numerous historical inaccuracies: It inflates Hypatia's achievements and incorrectly portrays her as finding a proof of Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric model of the universe, which there is no evidence that Hypatia ever studied. It also contains a scene based on Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which Christians raid the Serapeum and burn all of its scrolls, leaving the building itself largely intact. In reality, the Serapeum probably did not have any scrolls in it at that time, and the building was demolished in 391 AD. The film also implies that Hypatia is an atheist, directly contradictory to the surviving sources, which all portray her as following the teachings of Plotinus that the goal of philosophy was "a mystical union with the divine." ## See also - Timeline of women in science

1973 UEFA Cup final

The 1973 UEFA Cup Final was an association football match played over two-legs between Liverpool of England and Borussia Mönchengladbach of West Germany. The first leg was played at Anfield, Liverpool on 10 May 1973 and the second leg was played on 23 May 1973 at the Bökelbergstadion, Mönchengladbach. It was the final of the 1972–73 season of Europe's secondary cup competition, the UEFA Cup. Liverpool and Mönchengladbach were both appearing in their first final, although Liverpool had previously reached the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup losing 2–1 to Borussia Dortmund. Each club needed to progress through four rounds to reach the final. Matches were contested over two legs, with a match at each team's home ground. The majority of Liverpool's ties were won by at least two goals, the exception was the semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur, which Liverpool won on the away goals rule. Borussia Mönchengladbach's ties were predominantly one-sided. The West German team won by at least four goals in all four of their ties, a 9–2 aggregate victory over 1. FC Kaiserslautern represented their biggest margin of victory. Watched by a crowd of 41,169 at Anfield, Liverpool took the lead in the first leg when Kevin Keegan scored in the 21st minute. Another goal by Keegan in the first half, extended Liverpool's lead and a further goal by Larry Lloyd meant Liverpool won the first leg 3–0. Therefore, in the second leg at the Bökelbergstadion, Liverpool had to avoid losing by three clear goals to win the competition. A crowd of 34,905 watched Borussia take the lead in the 29th minute courtesy of a Jupp Heynckes goal, he scored again 11 minutes later to double Borussia's lead. Borussia were unable to find the third goal they needed to take the match into extra-time and won the second leg 2–0. Thus, Liverpool won the final 3–2 on aggregate to win their first European trophy. ## Route to the final ### Liverpool Liverpool qualified for the UEFA Cup as a result of finishing third in the 1971–72 Football League First Division. Their opponents in the first round were West German team Eintracht Frankfurt. Liverpool won the first leg at their home ground, Anfield, 2–0. The second leg at Frankfurt's home ground the Waldstadion ended in a 0–0 draw, which meant Liverpool progressed to the second round with a 2–0 aggregate victory. Greek team AEK Athens were the opposition. Liverpool won the first leg at Anfield 3–0, a 3–1 victory at AEK's home ground the Nikos Goumas Stadium ensured Liverpool won the tie 6–1 on aggregate. The opposition in the third round were Dynamo Berlin of East Germany. The first leg at Dynamo's home ground the Sportforum ended in a 0–0 draw. The second leg at Anfield was more eventful Liverpool took the lead through Phil Boersma in the first minute and Dynamo equalised six minutes later. Two further goals for Liverpool secured a 3–1 victory in the match and on aggregate. In the quarter-finals Liverpool again faced East German opposition, their opponents were Dynamo Dresden. Liverpool won the first leg 2–0 at Anfield, and they won the second leg 1–0 in East Germany, to beat Dresden 3–0 on aggregate. Reigning champions Tottenham Hotspur were the opposition in the semi-final. Liverpool won an attacking match at Anfield 1–0. The second leg at White Hart Lane was equally eventful. Tottenham took the lead in the second half when Martin Peters scored to give Spurs the lead. Seven minutes Liverpool equalised when Steve Heighway scored this levelled the match and gave Liverpool a 2–1 lead on aggregate. Tottenham went 2–1 up when Peters scored again, this levelled the aggregate score at 2–2, but Liverpool had scored an away goal, and would, therefore, progress to the next round as a result. ### Borussia Mönchengladbach Borussia qualified for the UEFA Cup courtesy of a third-place finish in the 1971–72 Bundesliga. The opposition in the first round were Scottish side Aberdeen. The first leg was held at Aberdeen's home ground Pittodrie, with Borussia winning 3–2. The second leg at Borussia's home ground the Bökelbergstadion was won 6–3 by the West German side, this meant they qualified for the second round courtesy of a 9–5 aggregate victory. Danish side Hvidovre IF were the opposition in the second round. A 3–0 victory in West Germany was followed by a 3–1 victory in Denmark to secure a 6–1 aggregate victory for Borussia. Fellow West German side 1. FC Köln were the opposition in the third round. The first leg at Köln's home ground the Müngersdorfer Stadion ended in a 0–0 draw. Borussia easily won the second leg at their home ground 5–0 to win the tie by the same score on aggregate. They were again drawn against West German opposition in the quarter-finals, the team in this instance was 1. FC Kaiserslautern. The first leg held at Kaiserlautern's home ground the Fritz-Walter-Stadion was won 2–1 by Borussia and a 7–1 victory in the second leg at their home ground ensured they progressed to the semi-finals courtesy of a 9–2 aggregate victory. Dutch team Twente were Borussia's opposition in the semi-finals. The first leg was held in West Germany and Borussia won 3–0 to put themselves in a good position to reach the final going into the second leg in the Netherlands. Borussia won the second leg 2–1 to win the tie 5–1 on aggregate and progress to their first European final. ## Background Liverpool were appearing in their second European final. They had previously lost 2–1 in the final of the 1965–66 European Cup Winners' Cup against West German team Borussia Dortmund. Borussia Mönchengladbach were appearing in their first European final, they had appeared in European competition but the furthest they had progressed was the second round of the 1970–71 European Cup and 1971–72 European Cup when they were beat by English team Everton and Inter Milan of Italy respectively. Liverpool had won the 1972–73 Football League First Division, a 2–0 victory over Leeds United ensured they became champions. Their league success meant that whatever the result they would be competing in the European Cup the following season. As a result of their league success, Liverpool were looking to become the first English team to win a European trophy in the same year as winning the league. Borussia Mönchengladbach had finished fifth in the 1972–73 Bundesliga, however they won the 1972–73 DFB-Pokal, the German domestic cup competition. This meant they would be participating in the European Cup Winners' Cup in the following season. ## First leg ### Summary #### Abandoned game There had been heavy rain in Liverpool in the week before the first leg. Nevertheless, Austrian referee Erich Linemayr decided that the first leg on 9 May would still go ahead. The rain intensified following kick-off and the players were unable to pass the ball to each other. The referee took the decision to abandon the game after 27 minutes with the match to be played the next day. #### Re-arranged game The 27 minutes that had been played the previous day had given Liverpool manager Bill Shankly insight into how to beat Borussia. He noted that defender Günter Netzer was suspect in the air, to exploit this he decided to omit Brian Hall in place of John Toshack, whom Shankly believed would exploit this weakness. The inclusion of Toshack had the desired effect. In the 21st minute his header across the penalty area from a Chris Lawler pass, set up the first goal for Kevin Keegan, who dived forward to head the ball into the far corner of the goal. Keegan nearly extended Liverpool's lead four minutes later when they were awarded a penalty for handball. Alec Lindsay put a high pass into the penalty area; Borussia defender Rainer Bonhof, under pressure from Toshack, handled the ball and Liverpool were awarded a penalty. However, Keegan's penalty was saved by Borussia goalkeeper Wolfgang Kleff who pushed the effort round the post. Borussia nearly made Keegan pay for his penalty miss a few minutes later, but Dietmar Danner's shot hit the post. Keegan made amends in the 33rd minute when he scored again. Emlyn Hughes headed the ball into the Borussia penalty area, Toshack who was facing away from the Borussia goal headed the ball back to Keegan, who volleyed the ball into the goal from ten yards to give Liverpool a 2–0 lead. Liverpool extended their lead in the 60th minute when defender Larry Lloyd scored. Toshack won Liverpool a corner and with Borussia defender Netzer focusing on the striker, Lloyd was left unmarked to head in Keegan's corner and extend the English club's lead to 3–0. Despite Liverpool's goals, Borussia were presented with an opportunity to get back into the tie when they were awarded a penalty in the 65th minute. Steve Heighway's tackle on Henning Jensen was judged to be a foul by Austrian referee Linemayr. Jupp Heynckes took the penalty for the German team hitting it to Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence's right, but Clemence dived the right way and saved the penalty, preventing Borussia from scoring an away goal. No further goals were scored and the referee blew for full-time with the final score 3–0 to Liverpool. Shankly was equivocal in his praise of the players after the match stating: "It was an international-class game. Really tremendous. I am not making predictions about the second-leg, but we have a distinct advantage because we did not give away a goal." Shankly had Clemence to thank for Liverpool not conceding an away goal and the goalkeeper revealed that he had done his homework on the penalty taker Heynckes: "I watched Heynckes take a penalty in the semi-final on television and decided to dive the same way. The save was a reward for my homework." ### Details ## Second leg ### Summary Liverpool's 3–0 victory in the first leg meant that Borussia needed to score three goals to force the tie into extra-time. Liverpool employed a "holding action" against the "attacking Germans" in order to protect their three goal lead. Another bout of torrential rain affected the second leg, as a result the pitch was slippery, and with the onus on Borussia to attack this caused problems for the Liverpool defence. Knowing the task in hand Borussia bombarded Liverpool in the first half, the architect was midfielder Günter Netzer whose passing was instrumental to Borussia's play. Borussia's attacking brought their first goal in the 30th minute. Jupp Heynckes who had missed the penalty for Borussia in the first leg, scored from six yards after Bernd Rupp passed to him from the right hand side of the pitch. Heynckes extended the German side's lead in the 39th minute when he curled the ball into the Liverpool goal from left of the Liverpool penalty area. Borussia needed one more goal to level the tie and take it into extra-time. However, despite an initial spell of dominance following the start of the second half they were unable to match the intensity that they had shown in the first half, Liverpool gained confidence from this and saw out the second half, losing the match 2–0, but they won their first European trophy as a result of a 3–2 aggregate victory. Liverpool's victory meant that they became the first English team to win a European trophy and league championship in the same season. ### Details ## See also - 1977 European Cup Final – contested between same teams - Liverpool F.C. in European football

Guianan cock-of-the-rock

Species of bird

The Guianan cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola rupicola) is a species of cotinga, a passerine bird from South America. It is about 30 cm (12 in) in length and weighs about 200 to 220 g (7.1 to 7.8 oz). It is found in tropical rainforests, near its preferred habitat of rocky outcrops. The female's plumage is brownish / dark smokey grey in colour, and generally less noticeable than the males because of their nesting work in rocky areas. The male's feathers are a bright orange. Both have a heavy body, broad-based bill and wear a remarkable half-moon crest on the head. It is one of two species of the genus Rupicola, the other being the Andean cock-of-the-rock. The Guianan cock-of-the-rock lives across the forested region of northeastern South America. Its diet consists mostly of fruit, but they sometimes feast on small snakes and lizards. The Guianan cock-of-the-rock breeds in the early months of the year and, on average, the female lays her eggs around March. The females choose a mate by flying down to the ground and pecking the male on his rump. The male then turns around and the mating takes place almost immediately. During the height of the mating season, males engage in competitive displays in lek, which is a complex courting behaviour that is done to attract females. Males and females live separately except when the females choose a mate. The mating success varies based on multiple factors, ranging from the plumage exhibited by a male to the composition of the lek itself. There is speculation that the male-male competition is an important factor in lek formation and breeding. The main predators of the Guianan cock-of-the-rock are harpy eagles and black-and-white hawk-eagles. ## Description The Guianan cock-of-the-rock is a stout-bodied bird with a prominent half-moon crest. It is a sexually dimorphic bird. The male's crest is more pronounced than the female's and is bright orange. The males also have an orange-tipped black tail, black, orange and white wings, a bright orange bill, an orange iris yellowing as it nears the outer edge, and silky-orange filamentous feathers of the inner remiges. Both sexes also have orange legs and skin. The less conspicuous female is dark brownish-grey overall and has a yellow-tipped black bill, a duller orange iris, and a smaller crest. One-year-old juvenile males look similar to an adult female, but have orange speckles over their bodies. After two years, the juvenile males become mostly orange with brown and grey spots. Males attain their definitive plumage at around three years. Juvenile females look almost identical to their adult counterparts. Guianan cocks-of-the-rock have a total length of approximately 30 cm (12 in) and a total weight of around 200 to 220 g (7.1 to 7.8 oz). The two species of cock-of-the-rock are allopatric, and therefore do not meet with one another. The plumage of the male Andean cock-of-the-rock is redder and its wings are mostly black, lacking the orange colouration seen on the male Guianan. The female Andean cock-of-the-rock is reddish brown rather than the brownish-gray of the Guianan. ## Etymology The generic and specific names are derived from the Latin words rupes "rock" or "cliff", and cola "inhabiting", which express its habit of nesting on rock walls. ## Taxonomy The Guianan cock-of-the-rock is one of two species of genus Rupicola. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 as the type species of its genus. Its closest relative and congener, the Andean cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus), is similar in body shape and colouration, though the two are wholly allopatric from each other. Their closest family relatives are the Red cotingas (Genus Phoenicircus). The two Rupicola species are in the subfamily Rupicolinae, which also includes other species of cotingas such as the before-mentioned Red cotingas (Genus Phoenicircus, which is a sister genus to Rupicola), Snowornis pihas, and the berryeaters (Genus Carpornis). ## Range and habitat As suggested by its name, the Guianan cock-of-the-rock is found in the Guianan Shield, occurring in French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, southern Venezuela, eastern Colombia and northern Amazonian Brazil. Its preferred habitats are humid forests near rocky outcrops. They are normally found at an altitude of 300 to 2,000 m (980 to 6,560 ft). The Guianan cock-of-the-rock has distinctive territorial markings. Males usually take dominance of an area on the ground, although sometimes they occupy middle strata in forests. They make their characteristic marking by clearing out debris from the ground, including twigs, leaves, and pellets. This area is called a “court”. Quality of courts are known to have some influence on mate choice. The court quality is determined by the territory density and location to the center of activity in the lek. The reason for the focus on the center of activity in the lek is that successful males tended to own courts in the most densely clustered lek areas. Guianan courts are commonly found in the Guianan Shield, a forested region in northeastern South America. ## Ecology and behavior ### Diet The diet of the adult Guianan cock-of-the-rock consists mainly of fruits meaning they are frugivorous. Up to 65 species of fruit have been reported in their diet, primarily from canopy trees or lianas. Three quarters (75%) of the fruit eaten by the Guianan cock-of-the-rock at one study site were either black- or red-coloured fruit. In British Guiana, E. Thomas. Gilliard found papayas growing at the base of a huge rock. On top of the rock were perched females that were nesting. He found that no other papayas were growing in that part of the forest and speculated that the perched females ate papayas in the forest where they are native and dropped the seeds below where they were nesting. Small snakes, lizards, insects and frogs are occasionally found in its diet. By selectively feeding on nearby fruit trees and then defecating or regurgitating the seeds within the leks, these birds can actively influence the regeneration and succession of the forest habitat where they breed. ### Breeding Guianan cocks-of-the-rock breed early in the year, and the females lay their eggs around March, nesting in rocky areas. During the height of mating season, males gather in leks with multiple males defending a social display arena of much greater area than that of a lone male. The males each have their own area on the forest floor where they make their courts. The size of each court is about 1 metre (3 ft) in diameter, and the next bird is often about 3 metres (10 ft) away. The females and males live separately; only when it is time to mate do females fly over to observe and choose a male. When this occurs, the females tap the males from behind and insemination quickly follows. When females approach a lek, the males stand firmly and present themselves rigidly. Mating success is dependent on a variety of factors that range from the plumage exhibited by a male to the composition of the lek itself. In one study, the female Guianan cocks-of-the-rock displayed sexual selection based on sequential comparisons or threshold standards. The hens engaged in a “pool–comparison” tactic, meaning that females chose males of higher rank in courtship. Males of higher rank were those with more matings received from other females; the lower-ranking single males were ignored. The rankings were determined by where the courts were positioned in the lek: courts that were more centrally placed indicated more successful and higher-ranking males. The females in the study were individually observed to aggregate towards larger, more centrally concentrated leks, demonstrating active female choice. #### Nesting Unlike other species of the family Cotingidae, the Guianan cock-of-the-rock makes its nest on rocky cliff faces and caves rather than in the trees. The female lays one or two eggs in the nest of mud and plant material, which is attached by saliva to a vertical rock. The female takes care of the building and maintenance of the nest, the incubation of the eggs and the parenting. The male does not participate at all. Eggs typically incubate for 27–28 days. The ideal nesting sites for this species are usually located in a cave or vertical rock face with crevices that provide some shelter and protection from the elements. The nests themselves are solid moldings formed from mud and plant material deposited into the crevices. Due to the solid nature of these nests, they typically persist from one breeding season to the next. Females will make repairs to their nests as a breeding season begins. #### Mating behavior The smaller of the two cocks-of-the-rock, the male Guianan takes the lesser part in breeding. It is polygynous and has nothing to do with nesting once mating is done. The male's energy instead is devoted to very elaborate display rituals that show off his magnificent plumage. These displays take place in communal leks, where 40 or more males may gather to challenge rivals and beckon to the females. The displaying male purposely contrasts himself from the forest, shows his crest and plumage so much that the bill and tail become obscured; almost making him difficult to recognize as a bird, to attract females. Within the lek, each female has her own perch on a low branch, while the males own a "court" on the ground below that is cleared of dead leaves by the draughts of each male taking off and landing. The males have a variety of calls and movements, showing off the crest, elongated filaments on the rump, secondary feathers, and the snapping of their bills. Males display on branches about 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) from the ground until a female approaches, when the males display and call from individual plots on the ground. Most males copulate with only a few females. However, some are very successful and may copulate with many. Unlike many other bird species, the male does not use resources nor parental care to entice females. Males often engage in courtship disruption practices. In a study conducted by Pepper W. Trail, the interactions between adult males, females, and yearlings were observed and linked to mate choice and male dispersion patterns within leks. Adult males produced this disruptive behaviour with varying intensity, which depended on the situation. In lower-intensity disruptions, males usually directed their aggression or threats towards neighboring males, in attempts to improve or maintain breeding status and success. The males that were hassled tended to be more successful and often were disrupted with much greater frequency than males with lower mating success. Higher-intensity disruptions were used by less successful males and directed towards females that wandered by. This behaviour is suggested to have the effect of redirecting females towards the hassling male. Yearlings often disrupted courtships of the more mature adults on the basis of practice for future courtships, since the yearlings do not possess any territory within the lek. Female disruption was an uncommon event that had little, if any, effect on the accessibility of a male. Young males of highly promiscuous species such as the Cock-of-the rock often failed to mate in their first year, probably because older, more experienced males will enjoy the majority of matings. In this strong system of sexual selection, the successive breeding of dominant and aggressive males leads to high sex drives and the endurance of polygyny. A theory suggests that the selection of these aggressive males also puts a premium, or value, on female characteristics. Hence, there is a less likely occurrence of female–elicited aggression. Male Guianan cock-of-the-rock "delight in homosexuality" with almost 40 percent engaging in a form of homosexual activity and a small percentage never copulating with females. #### Ecological consequences of breeding One possible advantage to lek formation (in Guianan cock-of-the-rock and other species) is severe selection and consequent rapid evolutionary advancement, all of which is possible due to the high expendability of males. Only a few males are needed to fertilize the next generation. The courtship behaviour is similarly theorized to have arisen from differences in division of labour between the two sexes. Females expend their energy on building nests and rearing young, while males spend most of their time and energy of finding mates and caring for their plumage. Guianan cocks-of-the-rock form large leks, averaging 55 adult males. The males in these display leks were especially vulnerable to attacks and predation by large snakes and other natural predators. In manipulated groups of smaller size, around 6, predation was less likely to occur, due to an inverse relationship between the number and frequency of attacks and the size of leks. Thus, with a smaller frequency of attacks on the smaller group, the Guianan cock-of-the-rock males was less likely to flush or disperse completely as compared to a large group where a false alarm could trigger a complete flush 90% of the time. It was found that these birds have relatively ineffective methods of anti-predation and that social anti-predation and the infrequency of encounters with predators were keeping these lekking males alive. There is speculation that the simulation of male-male competition is important in lek formation and breeding. #### Impact of natural and sexual selection on trait development The colouration of the males allows them to visibly stand out from the brown forest floor. This bright colouration provides a sexual advantage for the adult males, increasing their likelihood of successfully mating. The result is rapid evolutionary selection within the species for brighter plumage and more conspicuous behaviour patterns in the males. The bright colouration also makes the males more susceptible to predation. Males are more expendable for this reason; only a small number of males are needed within any generation in order to perpetuate the species. While sexual selection leads to bright plumage, natural selection in turn favors defensive colouration in the birds. There is higher fitness in birds monitoring nests whose colouration acts as camouflage-protection from predation. ## Conservation Fairly common in its large range, and with its population stable, the Guianan cock-of-the-rock is considered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to be a Least Concern on its red list of threatened species. The main predators of the Guianan cock-of-the-rock are harpy eagles, black-and-white hawk-eagles, black hawk-eagles and slaty-backed forest falcons. Felines such as the jaguar, mountain lion, and ocelot can also be predators, along with snakes such as the bird snake, tree boas, boa constrictor, tiger rat snake, and fer-de-lance. The species is rare in captivity, but breeding has been achieved at a small number of facilities. The world's first successful captive breeding was at Dallas World Aquarium (USA) in 2008. ### Predation response In larger lek groups there is less risk of predation. In a group there are more individuals to alert the group about an approaching predator. All the birds in the groups will be vigilant in looking for a predator because there is an advantage to seeing the predator first. There is also the risk that in a bigger group there will more false alarm signals. The common signal is vocalization, after which the birds will fly up into the trees. It was found the birds did not however give this signal when there was a snake.

I Found a Way

Television theme song

"I Found a Way" (also known as "Found a Way") is a song by American actor and singer Drake Bell, from the Nickelodeon show Drake & Josh's soundtrack album of the same name (2005), and Bell's debut studio album Telegraph (2005). The song was written by Bell and Michael Corcoran, one of Bell's band members. It served as the theme song for the show after the show's producer Dan Schneider lauded the track. Bell performed "I Found a Way" at various events throughout his career. ## Background and production American actor and singer Drake Bell told American animator Butch Hartman during an interview in September 2018 that the theme song for Drake & Josh was originally going to be a Lenny Kravitz song. American producer Dan Schneider asked Bell how much of his music he wanted to put on the show. Bell was very eager to make music for the show and told Schneider he wanted to be a "rock star". The actor told his friend Michael Corcoran, one of his band members, that they should write a theme song for Drake & Josh because everyone was listening to Kravitz at the time and wanted to have a track that could be identified with the show. Bell and Corcoran were faced with writer's block for hours because of wanting to "make a theme song" and decided to just "write a song". Bell told Hartman the track they wrote was similar to the works of Elvis Costello and is about helping out your brother when they are feeling down. The two musicians made a one minute demo of the song. Bell brought the record to Warner Bros Studios to show Schneider the demo. The producer was reluctant at first, not wanting to hurt Bell's feelings if he did not like the track. Bell insisted and played the track to him. Schneider ended up loving the track and made it the theme song for Drake & Josh. ## Release and lyrics "I Found a Way" was originally released as the first track from the Nickelodeon show Drake & Josh's soundtrack album of the same name on February 22, 2005. It was later released as the second track under the title "Found a Way" on Bell's debut studio album Telegraph on August 23, 2005. It received a music video directed by Joey Boukadakis. According to Bell, his fans have usually sung the song's chorus as: "If you open up your mind/See what's inside/It's gonna take some time to realize." Bell stated that the correct lyric was, "It's gonna take some time to re-align." ## Critical reception Writing for Bustle, Taylor Ferber said the theme song is "catchy AF" and opined it is "totally a perfect fit to get audiences in the upbeat mood of the show, and it's also unique in that one of its stars performed it". Lauren Hazlewood of Fashion described it as a "catchy theme song" while the staff of Iowa City Press-Citizen labeled the song as a "signature tune". Maria Serra of Alternative Press praised the track, calling it a "banger". MTV News editor Crystal Bell ranked "I Found a Way" at number 4 on her The 17 Best Nickelodeon Theme Songs, Ranked list, calling it "a hella catchy tune". Bustle's Tobi Gbile ranked "I Found a Way" at number four on his These Childhood Theme Songs Will Give You Feels list, saying the theme song is one of his favorites and that it became "one of Nickelodeon's staple tracks in the mid 2000s". Nick Caruso and Matt Webb Mitovich for TVLine included the theme song on their The Top TV Theme Songs of All Time: 2000-2009 Edition list. ## Live performances In August 2016, American actor Josh Peck posted a video on his Instagram account of fellow American actor John Stamos singing his own version of theme song. Stamos sings in the video: "Drake and Josh. Everybody loves Drake and Josh". Bell sang the song with a fan in Fresno, California, at a meet and greet held at Heroes Comics prior to his concert in 2018. During one of his shows in 2020, the actor started to sing "I Found a Way" and stopped the crowd after they sang, "It's gonna take some time to realize." Before continuing to play the track, Bell told the audience that the word was "realign" and not "realize". Bell also performed the song for American actor Jonathan Goldstein, who played the dad named Walter Nichols in Drake & Josh, during a 2020 reunion. He performed the song live in Tucson, Arizona at a drive-in concert on March 13, 2021. ## Credits and personnel Credits adapted from Tidal. - Drake Bell – vocals, writer - Michael Corcoran – writer

The French Democracy

2005 French short film

The French Democracy is a short 2005 French political film made by Alex Chan using computer animation from Lionhead Studios' 2005 business simulation game The Movies. The plot centers on three Moroccan men who turn to rioting after facing different forms of discrimination. Chan, a French native of Chinese descent, created the film to convey his view that racism caused the riots of the 2005 civil unrest in France. Although Chan was restricted by shortcomings and technical limitations in The Movies, he finished the film after four days of production. The film was uploaded to The Movies Online, Lionhead's website for user-created videos, on 22 November 2005 and was soon covered by American and French press. Although real-time-rendered, three-dimensional computer animation (machinima) had been used in earlier political films, The French Democracy attained an unprecedented level of mainstream attention for political machinima. While acknowledging the film's flaws, such as the grammatically poor English subtitles, commentators praised its clear political message and compared it to films such as La Haine and Do the Right Thing. The French Democracy inspired other politically conscious machinima works and fueled discussion about the art form's potential for political expression. Some raised concerns that video game companies would use their copyrights to control the content of derivative machinima films. ## Synopsis The French Democracy begins with a re-enactment of the real-life 27 October 2005 event that triggered riots in France: the electrocution of two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré. In the film, the youths attempt to hide from police in a building near an electric power station. In a televised speech, the Minister of the Interior vows to increase efforts to fight crime. Three fictional Moroccan men discuss the recent events and disagree with means used by the police, and feel that blacks are unfairly targeted. They face different forms of discrimination: overnight detention for lack of a passport during an identity check, refusal of employment and housing rental, and police brutality. Angered, the three riot using Molotov cocktails. A white family watches television coverage of the chaos, and the film ends with a dedication to Benna and Traoré, lamenting the loss of the French ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity. ## Background and production Alex Chan, 27 years old at the time of the civil unrest, was a French-born freelance industrial designer whose parents were Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. Although Chan was successful professionally, he felt that there was racial and cultural discrimination in France, based on his own previous attempts to find housing and violence directed towards him. He lived in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris, near housing projects where rioting had caused the destruction of cars owned by acquaintances. In the aftermath of the unrest, Chan was dissatisfied, stating that "the media, especially in the United States, ... linked what was happening, the riots, to terrorism and put the blame on the Muslim community". Chan wanted instead to depict "more human" rioters who turned to violence in response to racism. According to Chan, the title The French Democracy is meant to be ironic, in that the youths express themselves by rioting rather than through the political system. He elaborated: > [The French Democracy is] a shortcut made with The Movies technology about the recent events concerning riots in French suburbs. This movie is trying to help people have a better understanding of the origin of these events, as some reasons that pushed all this youth to have such violent acts. As a matter of fact TFD offers a sincere inside view from a French citizen who lives in one of these neighborhoods where the riots took place. This fictional documentary is strongly inspired by real events and reactions and tries to make the spectator think more about how French society could and should potentially be. Although he had no previous film-making experience, Chan decided to make his public statement as a film after he bought The Movies, a business simulation game released by Lionhead Studios on 8 November. After he progressed in the game far enough to unlock the desired film-making tools, he switched to Sandbox mode, in which he completed the film in three or four days. Because Chan had no computer microphone, the film presents dialogue in English subtitles. Despite his lack of fluency, he chose English to broaden his audience. Production was also affected by the limitations of The Movies. Restricted to the scenery provided by the software, Chan set the electrocution deaths in a shack. The game's Manhattan-based setting forced him to approximate the Paris Métro with the New York City Subway and to include the Empire State Building in the background. Given the game's choices for skin color, Chan needed to apply the lightest pigment available for blacks to one character. ## Reception Under the pseudonym Koulamata, Chan uploaded the finished film to The Movies Online on 22 November 2005. Some viewers praised it, but others criticized the poor subtitles or the portrayal of police action against minorities. According to Libération, criticism was stronger in France than elsewhere. Lionhead's selection of The French Democracy as a "hot pick" led to redistribution from other Internet sites, followed by coverage in mainstream media—including The Washington Post, BusinessWeek, USA Today, and Libération. The Washington Post and MTV originally created religious connotations by incorrectly labeling Chan's characters as Muslims; they issued corrected stories after Chan complained. In 2006, the film was shown at the Flash Festival at Centre Georges Pompidou and at the World Wide Short Film Festival in Toronto. By Chan's own assessment, The French Democracy is unpolished. The Washington Post found "broken English" in the subtitles, and BusinessWeek deemed them "stilted and ungrammatical". Josh Lee of PopMatters deemed the character animations of The Movies too exaggerated for the film's serious message; he felt that they made the film's depiction of police brutality seem better suited for the silent film comedy series Keystone Cops. Alterités, a French Internet publication about media issues related to immigration, called the characters "très ethnicisés" (very ethnicized). However, some critics felt that these problems with production quality helped to convey the film's message. In a MétaMorphoses article, Franck Beau considered the film's aesthetic a strong point because, having originated in video games, it completely differed from those of traditional animation and filming. He argued that the work's power lay in its "simplicité extrême" (extreme simplicity) and in the "fonctionnement logique" (logical operation) of the underlying video game. BusinessWeek wrote that "the combination of amateurish technique and a strong emotional message is oddly moving", and Henry Lowood of Stanford University similarly thought that the awkward subtitles and cinematography created a sense of authenticity. Lee found a filming precedent in Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 work La Haine, also "lauded for its low-budget aesthetic as much as for its expressions of rage, fear, and alienation". A discussion panel at the AMAS' 2006 Machinima Film Festival compared Chan's work to Do the Right Thing (1989) and The Battle of Algiers (1966). ## Legacy Although earlier political machinima films existed, The French Democracy attained an unprecedented level of mainstream attention, according to Paul Marino, executive director of the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS). Based on the interest, Marino considered adding a documentary or commentary category to the AMAS' awards. Xavier Lardy, founder of machinima.fr, stated that no previous machinima work had "such a clear and prominent political message". Others further contrasted The French Democracy's serious nature with the prevalence of gaming-related references in other machinima works, such as the Leeroy Jenkins video and Rooster Teeth Productions' comedy series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. Berkeley stated that The French Democracy was a rare exception to machinima's basis in "accepted cinematic and televisual conventions". The French Democracy was, according to Alterités, "evidence that 'technological innovations are being used to satisfy the thirst for public expression", and Olli Sotamaa felt that the work justified further research into connections between citizenship and video gaming. Peter Molyneux, chief executive officer of Lionhead Studios, praised Chan's "timely and poignant" work for inspiring other commentary films on American and British society and for "demonstrating the potential power and impact that these films can have". In CineAction, Elijah Horwatt wrote that Thuyen Nguyen's 2006 An Unfair War, a criticism of the Iraq War, similarly attempts "to speak for those who cannot". Joshua Garrison mimicked Chan's "political pseudo-documentary style" in his Virginia Tech Massacre, a controversial Halo 3–based re-enactment of the eponymous real-life event. Although initially undecided, Chan eventually became a professional machinima film-maker. His later work includes World of Electors, a series about the 2007 French presidential election. Writing for The Escapist, Allen Varney felt that the political awareness was overstated because the percentage of The Movies films that offered social commentary remained small and because the machinima and political communities were mostly separate. He argued that machinima's outstanding copyright issues and possible marginalization constrained potential for expression. Marino and others added concerns that, although game developers had condoned machinima, a controversial film could prompt them to control machinima content by enforcing their copyrights.

Voices of a Distant Star

2002 Japanese anime film

Voices of a Distant Star (Japanese: ほしのこえ, Hepburn: Hoshi no Koe, lit. "Beyond the stars") is a Japanese science fiction original video animation (OVA) short film created and animated by Makoto Shinkai. It follows the lives of two close childhood friends, a boy and a girl, who are separated when the girl is sent into space to fight in a war against aliens. As the 15-year-old girl goes deeper and deeper into space, the texts she sends take longer to reach the Earth; the film simultaneously follows her battles and the boy's life as he receives her texts over the years. The OVA premiered in Japan in February 2002 in an advance screening. It was followed by two DVD releases on April 19 and October 6, 2002. ADV Films licensed the OVA for release in North America and the United Kingdom, Madman Entertainment licensed it for Australasia, and Anime Limited licensed it for the United Kingdom. In 2002, it won the Animation Kobe award for packaged work. It also won the 2003 Seiun Award for Best Media. It was very positively received by critics, who praised its artistic dimension, plot, and music; the English-language version, however, was criticized for its dubbing. The OVA was adapted into a drama CD by Pioneer LDC and a novel was written by Waku Ōba, illustrated by Makoto Shinkai and Kou Yaginuma, and published by Media Factory's imprint MF Bunko J. Makoto Shinkai adapted a manga from the OVA, illustrated by Mizu Sahara; Kodansha serialized it in its manga magazine, Afternoon, from April 2004, and released the manga as a one-shot on February 23, 2005. The manga was licensed for a North American release by Tokyopop, which published it on August 1, 2006. ## Plot A schoolgirl named Mikako Nagamine (Mika Shinohara (original Japanese), Sumi Muto (Japanese), Cynthia Martinez (English)) is recruited into the UN Space Army to fight in a war against a group of aliens called the Tarsians—named after the Tharsis region of Mars where they were first encountered. As a Special Agent, Mikako pilots a giant robotic mecha called a Tracer as part of a fighting squadron attached to the spacecraft carrier Lysithea. When the Lysithea leaves Earth to search for the Tarsians, Mikako's friend Noboru Terao (Makoto Shinkai (original Japanese), Chihiro Suzuki (Japanese), Adam Colon (English)) remains on Earth. The two continue to communicate across space using the e-mail facilities on their mobile telephones. As the Lysithea travels deeper into space, messages take increasingly longer to reach Noboru on Earth, and the time-lag of their correspondence eventually spans years. The narrative begins in 2047. Mikako is apparently alone in a hauntingly empty city, trying to contact people through her mobile telephone. She wakes up in her Tracer orbiting an extrasolar planet. She then goes to Agartha, the fictional fourth planet of the Sirius Solar System. Mikako sends an e-mail to Noboru (which shows the date 2047-09-16), with the subject "I am here", which would reach him eight years later. Some flashes of imagery, perhaps indicative of memory, a hallucination, or even a mystical encounter, are then shown. The room shown at the beginning of the animation is presented again; Mikako is squatting in the corner, sobbing and pleading with her doppelganger to let her see Noboru again so she can tell him she loves him. The ship's alarm warns Mikako that the Tarsians are surrounding her, but she does not understand. A climactic battle ensues. On Earth, Noboru receives the message almost nine years later. At Agartha, three of the four carriers equipped with the warp engines which brought the expeditionary force to Sirius have been destroyed. The Lysithea is still intact after Mikako joins the fight and stops its destruction. After winning the battle, Mikako lets her damaged Tracer drift in space. In the manga, 16-year-old Mikako sends a message to 25-year-old Noboru, telling him that she loves him. By this time, Noboru himself has joined the UN, which has launched a rescue mission for the Lysithea. When Mikako hears that the UN is sending help for their rescue, she consults a list of people on the mission, and finds that Noboru is among them. The manga ends with Mikako saying that they will definitely meet again. ## Production Voices of a Distant Star was written, directed and produced by Makoto Shinkai on his Power Mac G4 using LightWave, Adobe Photoshop 5.0, Adobe After Effects 4.1 and Commotion 3.1 DV software. Around June 2000, Shinkai drew the first picture for Voices—of a girl holding a mobile telephone in a cockpit. Shinkai said the OVA was inspired by Dracula and Laputa. He stated that production took seven months to complete. He said another inspiration was his frequent sending of text messaging to his wife when he was working. Shinkai cited the availability of digital hardware and software tools for image production at his workplace, Falcom, and friends' view that individual film production could occur because of the improvement of consumer electronics. Makoto and his then girlfriend, Mika Shinohara, provided the voice acting for the working dub. A second Japanese dub was later created for the DVD release with professional voice actors. Makoto's friend Tenmon, who had worked with Makoto's video game company, provided the soundtrack. The song and film were created together in sync during storyboarding. Sometimes, the timing of the animation had to be changed to match the music. > I think it's because of the theme of the story - communication between people. I used cell phones in the story because that is what is commonly used in Japan to communicate, but there are many countries where people don't use cell phones. Communication from the heart is ever-lastingly important wherever you are, so I assume that is why it appealed to so many people. The other thing that is appealing is that I created this animation by myself. The mass media reported on the man who created anime by himself. I'm looking forward to more people doing things this way and seeing an emergence of independent animators, whether it's individuals or small groups. The ending theme to the OVA, "Through the Years and Far Away (Hello, Little Star)", was composed by Tenmon, with lyrics written by K. Juno and sung by Low. ## Media ### OVA The Voices of a Distant Star OVA was directed, written and produced by Makoto Shinkai. Shinkai and his fiancé, Mika Shinohara, provided the voices of the characters for the original video. The OVA was released for an advanced screening in February 2002. Yoshihiro Hagiwara produced the DVD release, and the voice actors were Chihiro Suzuki and Sumi Mutoh. CoMix Wave Inc. released it on DVD on April 19, 2002. A DVD Book version of the story was released by Tokuma Shoten on October 6, 2002. In July 2002, ADV Films announced it had licensed Voices of a Distant Star for a North American release. Steven Foster, director of ADV Films, directed the dubbing of the film into English, with voices provided by Adam Colon and Cynthia Martinez. ADV Films released the North American DVD on June 10, 2003. On June 30, 2003, ADV recalled the North American DVDs because they failed to include the original Japanese tracks made by Shinkai and Shinohara. ADV Films UK released the DVD in the United Kingdom on November 17, 2003. ADV Films UK also released a Shinkai Collection DVD set, containing Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, on September 3, 2007. Anime Limited has since taken over ADV Film's license for the film and has announced DVD and Blu-ray twin-pack releases of Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days in the UK. The film was licensed in Australasia by Madman Entertainment, which released the DVD on October 15, 2003. The film was licensed in France by Kazé, in Italy by D/visual, in Russia by XLM Media, in Taiwan by Proware Multimedia International. Crunchyroll streamed the film for free for 48 hours beginning on March 5, 2010, to celebrate Shinkai as director. On March 10, 2022, GKIDS announced that they have licensed Voices of a Distant Star, along with three other works by Makoto Shinkai, for North American home video release in 2022; the film was included as a bonus feature on the Blu-ray release of 5 Centimeters per Second on June 7. ### Other A drama CD was released by Pioneer LDC on June 25, 2002. A novel was adapted from the OVA by Waku Ōba and illustrated by Makoto Shinkai and Kou Yaginuma. The novel was published by Media Factory's imprint MF Bunko J on July 25, 2002. The OVA was adapted into a manga by Makoto Shinkai and illustrated by Mizu Sahara. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine, Afternoon from April 2004. Kodansha released the manga in one volume on February 23, 2005. The manga was licensed for a North American release by Tokyopop, which published the manga on August 1, 2006. The manga was also licensed in Italy by D/visual, in Germany by Egmont Manga & Anime and in Portugal by Panini Comics. The manga was re-licensed in English by Vertical. A second novel, Words of Love/Across the Stars, was written by Arata Kanoh and initially released in 2006, although it would not get an English translation and release by Vertical until 2019. ## Reception Voices of A Distant Star has received the Special Prize at the 6th Japan Media Arts Festival. It has also won the Animation Kobe for packaged work in 2002 and the 2003 Seiun Award for best media. The film was listed 100th on DVD Verdict's Top 100 DVD Films list. Anime News Network's Jonathan Mays criticized Steven Foster's dubbing of the film. He said, "Foster carelessly omits critical details, completely rewrites some scenes, misinterprets emotions, and even adds new dialogue where the original track had silence". In an Anime News Network interview, Foster said he "made some changes to make the jokes more accessible". Mays also said, "The animation is breathtaking. Shinkai's backgrounds have very few equals. The character designs look uninspired, but paired with the animator's beautifully realized worlds, the generic appearance fades into the magnificence of the scene." He said Shinkai's use of lighting is "masterful", "incredibly realistic" and conveys the characters' moods well. He called the characters "unoriginal". DVD Verdict's Rob Lineberger commended the music, saying "the simple score infuses the animation with meaning. Solitary piano notes are sluggish, as though the pianist lacked the enthusiasm needed to pick up his fingers. When the action kicks in, it arrives with a sonic punch from 5.1 speakers. Rockets scream around you, birds move overhead, engines thrum quietly in your wake. The soundtrack does what it is supposed to do: transport you to another world". THEM Anime Review's Carlos Ross said, "The voice-acting is remarkable, the directing is solid, and music is quite competent. But the real kicker here is the animation quality, which actually equals (and sometimes exceeds) that of excellent television series like Vandread and Full Metal Panic ... there is a remarkable amount of storyline; the plot is well-written and executed, and never gets a chance to be too drawn out. And Shinkai gives equal time to the slick action sequences and the well-handled, genuinely touching romance". IGN's A.E. Sparrow said, "While [the film] was visually one of the best pieces of eye-candy I have seen in a year or so, it's ultimately a voice track over a sequence of pretty pictures. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely beautiful, but it left me wanting more". Mania's Chris Beveridge commended ADV Films for obtaining the original computer files that were used to create it. He said, "the transfer here is simply gorgeous. Colors are amazingly lush and deep, saturated without bleeding. Cross coloration is non-existent and only a few very minor areas of aliasing occur. The only real 'flaw' that I could see with this transfer is during some of the panning sequences up and down, there's a slight stutter that's simply inherent in the materials". DVDs Worth Watching's Johanna Draper Carlson said, "the character designs are familiar and uninspired, and the cross-cutting choppy". ### Manga IGN's A.E. Sparrow said that compared with the film, the manga has "a healthy amount of additional storylines, characters and dialogue". He also said, "Mizu Sahara's artwork brings a bit of clarity to scenes that might have come off as muddled in the anime". Anime News Network's Theron Martin said the manga has "strong storytelling which carries good emotional appeal, fleshes out the original anime" but said it "unnecessarily adds on to the ending", and that "character designs were not Shinkai's strong point, and Sahara's are only a slight improvement". Manga Worth Reading's Johanna Draper Carlson said, "the art is denser than in many manga, with toned backgrounds anchoring the drawn world. Faces are often in shadow, suggesting separation and loss." Pop Culture Shock's Melinda Beasi wrote, "the manga is absolutely beautiful. The art is nicely detailed and very expressive, and the panel layouts, including the placement and style of dialogue and narrative text, make the story visually interesting and easy to follow". She also said, "Sahara also spends more time exploring both Mikako's and Noboru's feelings about Mikako's appointment to the Lysithea, which is very revealing for both characters". Mania.com's Sakura Eries said, "there's not a lot of detail in the backgrounds, the mecha designs are dull, and the warp scenes, which were so spectacular in the anime, don't make much of an impact".

The 3rd Birthday

2010 video game

The 3rd Birthday (Japanese: ザ・サード バースデイ, Hepburn: Za Sādo Bāsudei) is a role-playing shooter developed by HexaDrive and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation Portable. It was released in Japan in 2010 and in North America and Europe in 2011. The game is the third entry in the Parasite Eve video game series, based on the titular Japanese novel, and a spin-off, having only a loose connection to events from past games. The game features a third-person shooter-based combat system with role-playing mechanics. A key mechanic is the Overdive ability, which allows the player to possess pre-positioned human allies and inflict damage upon enemies. The game takes place in 2013, a year after creatures known as the Twisted have appeared from beneath Manhattan and decimated the city. To fight back against the Twisted, an investigatory team called the Counter Twisted Investigation (CTI) is formed. Among their number is series protagonist Aya Brea, who was found unconscious and suffering amnesia two years before the game's events. Using her Overdive ability, Aya travels into the past to alter the outcome of battles against the Twisted. At the same time, Aya attempts to find out the origin of the Twisted and regain her memories. The 3rd Birthday was created as a conceptual rebirth for Aya's character, as well as a means of re-introducing her to the gaming community, with it being over a decade since the last game in the series. Among the staff were Hajime Tabata, Yoshinori Kitase, Motomu Toriyama, Isamu Kamikokuryo, and Aya's original designer Tetsuya Nomura. Originally announced as an episodic title for mobile phones, the game was later changed into a PSP exclusive. Upon release, the game reached sixth place in Japanese sales charts, and was among the top five games in North American and UK sales charts during its opening months. Reviews have been mixed; critics praised the presentation and several parts of the gameplay, while opinions were mixed about the story, and many cited difficulties with camera control and some of the shooter mechanics. ## Gameplay The 3rd Birthday is a third-person role-playing shooter. The player controls series protagonist Aya Brea through rendered-to-scale environments in from a third-person perspective. The game plays out as a series of missions, between which Aya rests at the Counter Twisted Investigation headquarters, which acts as the game's main hub. In the hub, Aya can receive briefings for missions, view additional documents, buy and customize new weapons. She also has the option to transport back there should she die during a mission. The game can be saved both at the hub and in safe zones within missions. At the end of each mission, Aya is given a grade based on performance, enemies killed, and the number of times she died. Depending on her score, she will earn differing amounts of Bounty Points, a currency used to customize weapons and repair protective gear in the hub area. During missions, players navigate a series of linear linked areas fighting off multiple enemies. Items can be picked up during missions, such as grenades and medical kits. Aya has access to multiple guns for use in combat, including handguns, assault rifles and shotguns. By holding down a button on the controller, Aya automatically aims at an enemy and can fire at will. Taking cover behind objects or shields, or standing idle outside of battle, allows Aya to regenerate health. While in combat, an energy meter is charged and can be activated when full. When activated, Aya enters "Liberation Mode", a state enabling her to move around the battlefield at high speed for a short period of time. In most battle situations, Aya is accompanied by a group of allied NPC (non-playable character) soldiers that the player can direct around the battle area. Available commands include offering supporting fire, directly attacking enemies, or staying behind cover. They can also all fire at the same enemy in certain situations, dealing high damage. Each NPC has a separate health meter, and is permanently removed from battle upon defeat. Central to combat is Overdive, an ability which enables Aya to transmit herself between bodies. If her health is low, Aya can transport herself into the body of an allied NPC, taking on their health level, position and current weapon in the process. NPCs not controlled by Aya are controlled by the game's AI. Aya can remain in a body for the duration of a level, or until the unit has died. If Aya cannot jump to another body, she dies and the level must either be restarted or exited. Overdive can be activated at any time, enabling Aya to transport around the battlefield to avoid enemy attacks or save herself when her current unit's health is low. Overdive can also be used to attack enemies if Aya maintains a sustained assault. After a time, a triangle icon appears on enemies, allowing her to perform an Overdive attack, dealing high damage to the targeted enemy. During combat, Aya gains experience points and gains experience levels when a certain quantity is achieved. Gaining a level both restores her health and raises her maximum health and energy levels. Weapons also gain levels the more they are used. In addition to leveling up, Aya's stats can be customized using Over Energy (OE) clips found during missions or acquired during Overdive attacks. Using a 3x3 grid accessed in the hub area, certain OE clips grant different stat boosts and abilities. Creating a new grid automatically deletes the effects of the original. ## Plot The game's story plays out in episodes, similar to a television series, with many events told out of sequence. On Christmas Eve of 2012, monstrous creatures dubbed as "Babels" appear in New York City. Along with lifeforms spawned by them called the Twisted, they lay waste to the city and consume any human in their path. By the following year, an investigatory team known as the CTI (Counter Twisted Investigation) has been formed. One of the CTI members is Aya Brea, who was found outside St. Thomson's Cathedral in 2010, just before the Babels and Twisted began appearing. Dr. Hyde Bohr, Chief of the CTI, finds that Aya is suffering from amnesia, and that her personality has changed. After taking Aya in, the CTI discovered that she was capable of transferring her soul from body to body independent of time, an ability dubbed "Overdive", which enables her to fight the Twisted. Bohr and the others planned to use this unique ability to travel back through time and prevent the disaster, developing a machine called "Overdive System" to allow Aya to travel into the past and change events. As she embarks on each mission, she is confronted by powerful, sentient Twisted born from corrupted humans, later dubbed High Ones. One such High One is Kyle Madigan, a man she met and fell in love with during Parasite Eve II. As she defeats each High One, she regains pieces of her memory, most prominently her memories of being engaged to Kyle, and the existence of Eve Brea, her adopted sister. After an incident that saw the CTI HQ and the Overdive device destroyed by the Kyle High One, Aya reunites with Kunihiko Maeda, a man who aided her in Parasite Eve, to resolve the entire mystery behind the appearance of the Babel, Twisted and High Ones. Aya eventually discovers that Bohr is himself a High One. Bohr masterminded the death of other High Ones in order to form the Grand Babel, which functions like a giant Overdive system. Bohr seeks to dive back in the past to Time Zero, the point where events were set in motion, to fulfill his plan for the survival of his own species from a time war cycle between humans, the Twisted, and the High Ones. Aya battles Bohr and is pulled with him into Time Zero, where she discovers the truth. In 2010 at St. Thomson's Cathedral, Aya and Kyle were going to be married. The Cathedral was attacked by a SWAT team and Aya was killed. Eve attempted to save Aya by sending her consciousness into Aya's body, creating the Overdive ability. The event caused Aya's consciousness to separate from her body and fragment through time to create the Twisted, Eve's consciousness became trapped in Aya's body while parts of Eve's body were transplanted into the people close to them creating the High Ones. The "Aya" of the main story is in fact Eve in Aya's body. After these revelations, Eve returns to her body and is asked by Bohr to assimilate him and trigger the birth of a new species. Eve refuses, and when Bohr tries to force the process, a reborn Aya shoots him to death. Aya then reveals that to avert the birth of the Twisted and High Ones, the sources (Aya and Eve) must be removed. Expressing her regret of not being able to marry Kyle, she tells Eve to shoot her. In a fit of emotion, Eve switches bodies with Aya before shooting her, creating a new timeline where Eve's body and Aya's consciousness do not exist, erasing the game's events. Though Eve offers to marry Kyle, he refuses and hints that he is going to find Aya. In a post-credits sequence four years after the game's events, Eve is walking the streets of New York and is wished a "Happy Fourth Birthday" by a woman resembling Aya. ## Development Concepts for a third installment in the Parasite Eve video game series had been around for some time. As work was being finished on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Nomura voiced his wish to create a new game for the character Aya Brea, and this time it was taken up. Despite the story of Parasite Eve II not leaving many avenues for a sequel, the development team wanted to take advantage of advancing gaming technology and popularity by creating a mature gaming experience that would re-introduce Aya to players around the world. The main staff consisted of director Hajime Tabata, producer Yoshinori Kitase, creative producer and character designer Tetsuya Nomura, art director Isamu Kamikokuryo, scenario director Motomu Toriyama, and main writer Toshimitsu Takeuchi. Nomura requested Tabata as the two had worked well together on previous projects, and Nomura was busy with other projects despite his strong interest. The 3rd Birthday was originally announced in May 2007 as an episodic mobile game developed by Square Enix for Japan's FOMA mobile service. In 2008, during a special Square Enix event, the game was announced to have changed to a game for the PlayStation Portable. Part of the reason, as stated by Nomura, was that the desired level of realism was not possible on mobile phones. The game became exclusive to PSP as Tabata wanted to make full usage of the platform's hardware capabilities, along with it being a gaming platform available worldwide. Tabata and his team worked on The 3rd Birthday at the same time as fellow mobile-turned-PSP title Final Fantasy Type-0. Square Enix requested Tabata to concentrate on finishing The 3rd Birthday, leading to Type-0 almost being cancelled. The final version of the game was co-developed by Square Enix and HexaDrive, a company created by former Capcom staff members. As the new form of The 3rd Birthday had transformed into a third-person shooter, Square Enix wanted staff members with experience at developing such games, and then-company CEO Yoichi Wada recommended HexaDrive to Tabata. As multiple HexaDrive staff members had also worked on fellow shooter Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tabata agreed to the collaboration. While aiming for a high quality product, the team designed the game as if for the PlayStation 3 home console, then worked to fit it onto the PSP. During development, the team sought creative help from the team developing Final Fantasy XIII for the visual design. The team had previously experimented with shooters with Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, but this time they wanted to create something closer to a third-person shooter. The team was assembled by Tabata based on their development experience with action games. While working inside the control and hardware limitations of the title, the team created firearms and the lock-on mechanic as the fundamental attack action, instead of the free-roaming style of a standard third-person shooter. While designing levels to function with the game's Overdive system, the team considered what the level would hold, how often players would utilize the function, the difficulty of levels, and the positioning and strength of enemies. During development, a questionnaire was circulated around company staff concerning the character Aya, to find out which of the planned features were popular. One of those that survived in the final game was Aya's clothes being damaged when she was hit by an enemy. Nomura was among the first to suggest this feature originally, tying it with increased enemy difficulty to present a dilemma to players who "might purposely make her take damage just to see more of her body". Nomura worked on the character designs for the main cast. He was originally only going to work on Aya and Eve, but after seeing the settings for the other characters, he offered to design them too. The team wanted to emphasize the character's sexuality. As part of this, the team included a scene where Aya takes a shower. This was inspired by a similar scene in Parasite Eve II. When the title was being developed for PSP, the team's main challenge with the character was to make her look as realistic as possible while retaining her established physical traits. Using this new realism, the team wanted to portray the fear felt by humans when faced with such threats through Aya. Achieving this realism proved one of the most difficult aspects of development. Her alternate costumes were not a high priority for the team, so their artists had high creative freedom. While many of the concepts for the final version were present in the original mobile version, such as Overdive and the Twisted, the original story was scrapped when the game came to upgraded platforms. In creating the story for The 3rd Birthday, the team took inspiration from the 10-year gap in the character's in-game and real-time history. This meant that it would be difficult to create a straightforward sequel, so the team instead decided to make the game about Aya's return. Toriyama imagined story concepts such as the snowy New York setting and the image of a bloodstained wedding dress. These two concepts survived the platform upgrade. Over the course of the development, he adjusted the plot numerous times to be more adult-oriented and to include complex narrative twists. The original concept was to make the game feel like a television drama, with multiple cliffhangers and moments of high drama. The game was designed from the outset as having no direct connection to the previous Parasite Eve games. The game's title came from it being Aya's third video game appearance, as well as it being a noticeable change in setting. The game's logo was designed to both look like the letter "B" and the number "3". It was originally only going to represent the number, but Nomura added the extra lines to display the game's "multi-faceted" nature. A notable addition was the option to skip cutscenes, a feature the team regretted leaving out of Crisis Core. ## Music The music for The 3rd Birthday was composed by Mitsuto Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Sekito, with additional work by original Parasite Eve composer Yoko Shimomura. Shimomura was involved from an early stage, when The 3rd Birthday was still a mobile game. When she was originally asked to compose for the title, she was involved with a number of other projects which made handling the entire score difficult. When asked whether she wanted to work with anyone on the composition, she suggested Suzuki and Sekito. The general instruction was to follow the pattern used by the music for Parasite Eve, with Suzuki and Sekito handling the majority of tracks, going so far as referring to the songs from the original Parasite Eve when handling remixes of old themes. In keeping with the game's other development goals, Shimomura wanted to alter some of the established music, although she asked the team to include familiar themes from earlier games for fans. Suzuki was responsible for a large amount of track mixing. Sekito was mostly involved with choosing and helping with instrumentation, in particular whether to include symphonic music. The composers had a relatively high degree of freedom, but they also had problems when composing some tracks that did not fit into selected scenes. Re-orchestrations of two pieces of classical music, "Sleepers Wake" by Johann Sebastian Bach, and "Joy to the World", a popular Christmas song, were used by Suzuki and Shimomura respectively to represent key moments and motifs within the game. The order of songs in the game was created to reflect the situation in a level. These variations were emphasized during mixing, while they also needed to adjust the mixing and track length based on the game as a whole. For the game's theme song, the company collaborated with Japanese rock band Superfly. The game's theme song Eyes on Me, described as a "standard love song", was specially composed by the band for the game. It was the band's first video game theme song. The game's soundtrack was released as an album by Square Enix on December 22, 2010. The 3rd Birthday Original Soundtrack contains 66 tracks across 3 discs and has a total length of 2:56:52. ## Reception During production, Nomura and Tabata stated that the team were aiming to sell 500,000 copies of the game, a sales-goal based strategy they had previously used for Crisis Core. During its first week, The 3rd Birthday debuted at \#6 in Japanese gaming charts, selling 140,000 units. By the end of 2011, the game had sold 353,747 units in Japan. The game reached the top of the charts for PSP games in North America by the beginning of April 2011, overtaking fellow Square Enix title Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy and the PSP port of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Later that month, it had fallen to \#3 in US charts, remaining there into June of that year. In the UK during the same initial period, it reached \#3, tailing behind Dissidia 012 and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu praised the title's gameplay, calling Aya "deeply customizable", finding the Overdive system and its strategic elements exhilarating and saying that those undaunted by the high difficulty would find much enjoyment in repeated playthroughs. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com called it "an interesting blend of RPG and shooter", praising the working of Overdive. Eurogamer's Kristan Reed was less enthusiastic, referring to the conflicts with the Twisted as "relentless and ultimately repetitive", finding the high difficulty off-putting and Aya's movement speed unsuited for battle. Game Informer's Annette Gonzalez enjoyed the control layout and gameplay, but cited difficulties with the camera. Carolyn Petit of GameSpot said that the game sometimes succeeded in creating tension, but that other battles were frustrating and the camera was difficult. IGN's Patrick Kolan was pleased with the effort put into the game, and generally praised the battle and later levels, despite several cases of repetition during the main campaign. Emily Gera of VideoGamer.com found the basic shooter gameplay repetitive, but felt that the gameplay was saved by the Overdive ability and the quality of fights. Parish said the game looked "gorgeous" and the soundtrack "exceptional". Petit praised the CGI cutscenes and varied level environments, and said the score "shifts adeptly between haunting and thrilling to suit the action." Kolan generally called the game one of the best-looking entries on the platform, and praised the soundtrack, despite it being "a little ho-hum". Gonzalez also praised the cutscenes, while citing the environments as "[ranging] from detailed to drab". Famitsu was less positive about the story, saying that the mix of different elements made it "a bit hard to follow." Parish positively noted connections to the second game, but found the later story developments either confusing or weak, and disliked the way returning supporting characters had been changed. Petit said that those who wanted a straightforward story would be disappointed, and positively noted its exploration of existence, identity, and memory. Her main criticism was with the dialogue, which she referred to as "stilted". Kolan also faulted the voice acting and localization, especially when compared to games such as Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Gonzalez cited the story as intriguing, with "plenty of plot twists". Parish and Petit were both highly critical of Aya's portrayal: Parish disliked both her outfit, which seemed to conform too much female stereotypes in video games, and the clothes-tearing mechanic, which seemed to be included merely to flaunt her sexuality. Petit shared many points of criticism with Parish, also noting that Aya's portrayal of "one-part action hero, one-part submissive sex object" was wrong for a lead character, and that Aya's in-combat vocals were not suited to the game's situations. Reed referred to Aya as "[a] sighing, whimpering lead character".

Mikoyan-Gurevich DIS

1941 Soviet heavy fighter prototype

The Mikoyan-Gurevich DIS (Russian: Дальний истребитель сопровождения/ Dalnij Istrebitel' Soprovozhdenya – "long-range escort fighter") was a prototype Soviet heavy fighter of World War II, envisioned to serve primarily in the escort fighter role. The service designation MiG-5 was reserved for the production version of the aircraft. Competing designs in the USSR included the Grushin Gr-1, Polikarpov TIS and Tairov Ta-3. It was intended to develop reconnaissance and bomber versions but these plans were disrupted by Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion in June 1941. The project failed due to its disappointing Mikulin AM-37 engines and when a second prototype was built with M-82 radial engines its performance was mediocre. The design was cancelled in 1943 after at least two prototypes had been built. ## Design and development The NKAP (Narodnyy komissariat aviatsionnoy promyshlennosti—People's Ministry of the Aircraft Industry) requested on 7 October 1940 that the OKO (opytno-konstrooktorskiy otdel—Experimental Design Department) of Factory (Zavod) No. 1, which would later become the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau (OKB) begin work on a twin-engined long-range, single-seat escort fighter intended to use the AM-37 engine, then under development by Mikulin. It also requested that specifications, along with a model, be ready to be discussed on 12 November of that year. Three days later Mikoyan and Gurevich were ordered to produce three prototypes to undergo State acceptance trials on 1 August, 1 September and 1 November 1941. After the meeting, the NKAP broadened its roles to include bombing, torpedo attack, reconnaissance and interdiction. A low-wing, twin-engined, twin-tailed monoplane, the DIS was of mixed construction. The front section was built from duralumin, the middle section was a wooden monocoque and the rear section was steel tubes covered with a duralumin skin. The twin tails were wooden and had an electrically operated variable-incidence horizontal stabilizer. The elevators had duralumin frames, but were covered by fabric. The two-spar wing was made in three pieces. The center section was metal, but the outer panels were wooden with fabric-covered ailerons and veneer-covered Schrenk flaps. The wing had leading edge slats along two-thirds of its length. The main undercarriage retracted rearwards into the rear of the engine nacelles and the tailwheel retracted into the rear fuselage. The Mikulin AM-37 inline engines were slung underneath the wings with the engine oil coolers mounted in the outer wing panels. The air intakes for the engine superchargers were located in the wing leading edge. The pilot was provided with a glass panel on the underside of the nose to improve his downward visibility, and he was protected by armor up to 9 mm (0.35 in) thick at the front, rear, sides and underside of his seat. The fuel capacity was 1,920 litres (422 imp gal; 507 US gal) in two protected tanks behind the pilot, and another four in the wings. The DIS was intended to be armed with a 23 mm (0.91 in) VYa cannon with 200 rounds in a pod beneath the nose, but the VVS preferred the Taubin MP-6 cannon. The DIS was to carry two of them with 120 rounds per gun, but they proved to be a failure and the aircraft reverted to the original VYa cannon. Each wing root was to have a synchronized 12.7 mm (0.50 in) Berezin UBS machine gun with 300 rounds mounted below a pair of 7.62 mm (0.300 in) ShKAS machine guns with 1000 rounds per gun. The gun pod could be removed and bombs up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) or a torpedo could be carried instead. ### Flight testing The first prototype, with the internal designation of T, made its first flight on 11 June 1941. Its initial flight tests, conducted by the manufacturer between 1 July and 5 October, were a disappointment as it could reach only a speed of 560 km/h (348 mph) at 7,500 metres (24,606 ft), 104 km/h (65 mph) slower than estimated. The three-bladed 3.1-metre (10 ft) AV-5L-114 propellers were exchanged for four-bladed 3.1-metre (10 ft) AV-9B-L-149 propellers and the engine installation was redesigned, after wind tunnel tests by TsAGI (Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute), which revealed that the poorly designed engine accessories were the major cause of the excess drag. After modifications, the aircraft reached 610 km/h (380 mph) at an altitude of 6,800 metres (22,310 ft). Its time to 5,000 metres (16,404 ft) was 5.5 minutes. Even with the improvements the LII (Lyotno-Issledovatel'skiy Institoot—Flight Research Institute) did not recommend production, but recommended that development and testing should continue. The German advance on Moscow in October 1941 forced the Institute and the DIS to evacuate to Kazan while the OKO and its factory went to Kuibyshev. The failure of the AM-37 to enter production doomed the project, albeit temporarily. The OKO, along with all other aircraft designers, had been directed to use the Shvetsov ASh-82 radial engine as a backup engine for their products in May 1941, but the evacuation disrupted the production of this version, known internally as the IT and it was not built until the autumn of 1942. Aside from the engines, it differed from the T in small respects. Its tailcone was split vertically to use as an air brake and the armament was revised to consist of two VYa cannon in the undernose pod with 150 rounds each and four Berezin UBK machine guns mounted in the wing roots. It made its first flight on 28 January 1943 and demonstrated a top speed of 604 km/h (375 mph) and a time to 5,000 meters of 6.3 minutes. Flight testing was stopped on 10 February when the floatless carburetors had to be sent to TsIAM (Tsentrahl'nyy Institoot Aviatsionnovo Motorostroyeniya—Central Institute of Aviation Motors) for adjustment. There were continuous problems with these and they delayed the entire project until it was cancelled in October 1943. The service designation MiG-5 was reserved for the production version of this aircraft, as demonstrated in the NKAP order of 2 October 1941, which instructed Zavod No. 1 to begin manufacture of the MiG-5 after the completion of its State acceptance tests. Other known designations for the aircraft include the DIS-200 and Idzeliye 71, its factory designation. The bomber version, if it had entered production, might have been known as the MiG-2. Two prototypes are known to have been built, but some records suggest that others were also built. The original order called for three aircraft and was amended later for two additional aircraft with M-82 engines. Some sources quote dates for the latter version's first flight of January 1942 and 15 October 1941, which could be an indication that two of the latter version were completed, or they could simply be clerical errors. ## Variants - DIS – basic designation - DIS-T – initial prototype with 2 × Mikulin AM-37 inline engines with 1,400 hp each. - DIS-IT – second prototype with 2 × Shvetsov M-82F radial engines with 1,700 hp each; other subtle revisions added to improved performance. - MiG-5 – reserved Soviet Air Forces designation for production-quality aircraft (not used). ## Specifications (DIS-T) ## Comparable aircraft - de Havilland Mosquito - Tupolev Tu-2 - Petlyakov Pe-2 - Focke-Wulf Fw 187 - Lockheed P-38 Lightning - Messerschmitt Bf 110 - Nakajima J5N - Westland Whirlwind

Karabakh Khanate

Khanate under Iranian and Russian control

The Karabakh Khanate (also spelled Qarabagh; Persian: خانات قره‌باغ, romanized: Khānāt-e Qarabāgh) was a khanate under Iranian and later Russian suzerainty, which controlled the historical region of Karabakh, now divided between modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan. In terms of structure, the Karabakh Khanate was a miniature version of Iranian kingship. The administrative and literary language in Karabakh until the end of the 19th century was Persian, with Arabic being used only for religious studies, despite the fact that most of the Muslims in the region spoke a Turkic dialect. It was governed by members of the Javanshir, a Turkic tribe which lived in the lowlands of the region. In 1747, the Javanshir chieftain Panah Ali Khan capitalized on the turmoil that erupted after the death of the Iranian shah (king) Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) by seizing most of Karabakh. The following year he declared his allegiance to Nader Shah's son and successor Adel Shah (r. 1747–1748), who officially appointed him khan of Karabakh. Panah Ali Khan's tenure was marked by building activities (such as the castles of Bayat, Shah-Bulaghi, and Panahabad) and the subjugation of four of the melikdoms through the assistance of his new ally, Shahnazar II, the melik (prince) of Varanda. In 1762, Panah Ali Khan acknowledged the authority of the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779), who had established his authority in most of Iran. The latter took Panah Ali Khan hostage to Shiraz and appointed his son Ibrahim Khalil Khan as the new khan. Following Karim Khan's death in 1779, Ibrahim Khalil Khan strived to maintain his autonomy by allying himself with the Georgian king Heraclius II and making contact with the Russian Empire, even briefly submitting to the latter. Because of his defiance, he was in 1797 ousted from Karabakh by Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, the new ruler of Iran. Following Agha Mohammad Khan's assassination in Shusha in the same year, Ibrahim Khalil Khan restored his authority in Karabakh. He established friendly relations with Agha Mohammad Khan's successor Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797–1834), who married his daughter and confirmed him as the khan of Karabakh. In May 1805, he submitted to the Russians, signing the Treaty of Kurekchay, which granted them full authority over Karabakh's external affairs in exchange for a yearly payment. Soon finding himself in a difficult position, Ibrahim Khalil Khan rejoined the Iranians. However, he was shortly afterwards murdered by a group Russian soldiers under the instigation of his grandson Ja'far Qoli Agha and the Russian garrison leader. The Russians subsequently confirmed Ibrahim Khalil Khan's son Mehdi Qoli Khan as the khan, although real power was held by the Russians. By signing the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Iran officially ceded most of their Caucasian holdings (including Karabakh) to Russia. In 1822, Mehdi Qoli Khan fled to Iran as a result of the attempts by the Russian general Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov to abolish the khanates, which occurred afterwards. ## Background Karabakh is a historic region located in the Armenian highlands in the South Caucasus. The area was originally considered the southern part of Arran and was mostly inhabited by Armenians. However, due to Turkic and Mongol invasions, the Armenians there became a minority in the 11th century, and by the 14th century, the Turko-Persian name Karabakh ("Black Garden") started slowly replacing the name of the area. Many of the surviving Armenian nobles and their followers resettled in the highlands of Karabakh, where they continued to have authority. The population of the Armenians in the lowlands was further dwindled by Timur's conquests and invasions of Turkmen tribes in the 14th and 15th centuries. By the early 16th century, Armenia had become a focal point of the constant wars between the Ottoman Empire (c. 1299–1922) and Safavid Iran (1501–1736), which further reduced the Armenian population. The Safavids divided their Armenian territories into two provinces ruled by a beglarbegi (governor-general), Karabakh and Erivan. The Iranian-ruled part of Armenia was known as Iranian Armenia or Eastern Armenia, whilst the Ottoman part was known as Ottoman Armenia or Western Armenia. The lowlands of Karabakh were dominated by nomadic Turkic tribes, who moved to the hillsides in search of suitable pastures throughout the summer. The highlands of Karabakh were dominated by Armenian meliks (princes), who had established five melikdoms (Dizak, Gulistan, Jraberd, Khachen and Varanda) that ruled in Karabakh. These Armenian-ruled principalities, which upheld the notion of Armenian statehood, were used by the Safavids to fight the Ottoman Empire. From 1554 and onwards, the governorship of both Karabakh and its capital Ganja was held by the Ziyadoghlu family of the Turkic Qajar tribe. Following the collapse of the Safavid regime in 1722, the governorship was divided into two distinct areas, each controlled by a local clan. It was during this period that Panah Ali Khan distinguished himself. He was the leader of the Turkic Javanshir tribe, which now dominated the lowlands of Karabakh, as well as the Otuziki and Kebirlu tribal federation. The Safavid-era historian Iskandar Beg Munshi (died c. 1632) reported that the Javanshir did not belong to the seven principal Qizilbash tribes, but instead a lower-ranking group referred to as the "gholam amirs". According to the Rowzat-al-Safa Naseri, the later leaders of the Javanshir belonged to the Sarijalu tribe as they had taken over the leadership of the Javanshir. For decades, the Javanshir had moved its sheep to Karabakh, where they had given the meliks an annual tax in exchange for access to summer pasturage. Karabakh thus held immense significance for the tribe. In 1723, the Ottomans invaded Iran, conquering most of its northeastern part by 1724. Karabakh and Zangezur were the only parts of Iranian Armenia which managed to fend of the Ottomans, under the leadership of Davit Bek, who led the Armenian meliks. Although Davit Bek died between 1726 and 1728, his successors managed to maintain their control over most of the highlands until the resurgence of Iran, now led by Nader Khan Afshar, who repelled the Ottomans in 1735. The following year, he crowned himself as Nader Shah, marking the foundation of the Afsharid dynasty. Nader Shah rewarded the meliks by acknowledging Karabakh and Zangezur as semi-autonomous regions. He had Iranian Armenia organized into four khanates; Erivan, Nakhchivan, Ganja, and Karabakh. A khanate was a type of administrative unit governed by a hereditary or appointed ruler subject to Iranian rule. The title of the ruler was either beglarbegi or khan, which was identical to the Ottoman rank of pasha. Nader Shah also forced several Turkic tribes (including the Javanshir) to mainland Iran in order to guarantee their allegiance. Panah Ali Khan's son Ibrahim Khalil Khan and the rest of the Javanshir tribe were forced to resettle in Khorasan. Panah Ali Khan was an exception, as he was kept hostage. However, following the execution of his brother Behbud Ali Beg in c. 1744, Panah Ali Khan escaped to the Lezgins, where he concealed himself from Nader Shah. ## History ### Panah Ali Khan Following Nader Shah's assassination in 1747, Iran fell into turmoil, especially in the South Caucasus. There the Georgians and local khans fought over land. Some Turkic tribes took advantage of his death by restoring their power in Iranian Armenia. The Qajars restored their power in Ganja, Erivan and Nakhchivan, while Panah Ali Khan seized control over all of Karabakh, with the exception of the five melikdoms. Ibrahim Khalil Khan and the rest of the Javanshir tribe had also returned to Karabakh. In 1748, Panah Ali Khan declared his allegiance to Nader Shah's son and successor Adel Shah (r. 1747–1748), who officially appointed him khan of Karabakh. Shortly afterwards, Panah Ali Khan had the Bayat Castle constructed, in which he housed his entire family, his retinue, dignitaries, and numerous tribal leaders. Panah Ali Khan soon fell into a conflict with Haji Chalabi Khan, the khan of the Shaki Khanate. He occasionally attempted to form an alliance with Georgia in an effort to restrain Haji Chalabi Khan's goals, but his efforts were ineffective. In 1752, Panah Ali Khan relocated everyone from Bayat to the newly constructed Shah-Bulaghi stronghold, which brought him within close proximity of the highlands ruled by the ive Armenian melikdoms. Panah Ali Khan made an alliance with Shahnazar II, the melik of Varanda, while he imposed his authority on the remaining meliks and made their subjects pay him taxes. Both Armenian sources and the Javanshir historian Mirza Jamal Javanshir agree that it was through the efforts of Shahnazar II (who was in conflict with the other meliks) that Panah Ali Khan gained access to the highlands and started attacking the meliks. Together, Panah Ali Khan and Shahnazar II had the Panahabad fortress constructed in Shusha, a place in Varanda. Panah Ali Khan relocated the notables, dignitaries, and tribal leaders there. The power of the Javanshir became centered in that stronghold, which would withstand many sieges. The nature of the Javanshir khans' patron-client relationship with Shahnazar II is unclear, but it appears that their control of the fortress was restricted to its southern part, which was its Muslim sector. In 1757, the Qajar chieftain Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar made an unsuccessful attempt at capturing Shusha. Panah Ali Khan afterwards captured the city of Ardabil and installed his clansman Dargah-Qoli Beg Javanshir its governor, though it is uncertain how long he held the post. Nazar Ali Khan Shahsevan is later recorded as its governor under the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand (r. 1751–1779). In the spring or summer of 1761, the Afshar chieftain Fath-Ali Khan Afshar besieged Shusha. Panah Ali Khan made him lift the siege by giving Ibrahim Khalil Khan as hostage. By 1762, Karim Khan had established his authority across most of Iran, and was eventually acknowledged by Georgia and the various khans of the South Caucasus as their suzerain. This included Panah Ali Khan, who along with some other khans was taken hostage to the city of Shiraz, where he died. ### Ibrahim Khalil Khan #### Consolidation of power Karim Khan subsequently appointed Ibrahim Khalil Khan as the new khan of Karabakh. Following Karim Khan's death on 1 March 1779, however, a power struggle ensured amongst his kinsmen. Ibrahim Khalil Khan took advantage on the chaos that followed by pursuing his own goals. He enhanced his standing by forging an alliance with Heraclius II, the king of Eastern Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti). Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, the future shah of Iran, had been a nominal hostage of Karim Khan in Shiraz and was entirely preoccupied with establishing his authority and eliminating rivals in Iran. As they battled to preserve their autonomy at a time when the Iranians and Russians wanted to incorporate the eastern Caucasus under their own empires, Georgia and Karabakh's partnership turned out to be highly beneficial for both of them. Capitalizing on the turmoil in Iran, as well as the Ottomans inability to confront Russia, a group of Russians politicians, led by the military leader and statesman Grigory Potemkin, convinced the Russian empress Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) to agree to a bilateral treaty (the Treaty of Georgievsk) with Heraclius in 1783. Heraclius, who was worried of reinstatement of fidelty to Iran, agreed to the terms of the treaty, which was to renounce his loyalty to Iran in return for Russian protection. This treaty strained the relationship between Heraclius and Ibrahim Khalil Khan, who also attempted to get in contact with the Russians, but was ignored by Catherine II, as she did not want to get embroiled in the conflict between the khans. Ibrahim Khalil Khan continued his fathers efforts to dominate all of Karabakh, succeeding in retaining Shahnazar II's support and also married his daughter. He also took Melik Bakhtam of Dizak hostage and had him sent to Ardabil in mainland Iran, which Dizak was incorporated into. Ibrahim Khalil also captured both Melik Abov of Gulistan and Melik Medjlum of Jraberd and granted their domains to others. #### First conflict with Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 caused the Russian troops to abandon the city of Tiflis at the same time as Agha Mohammad Khan's authority in Iran was growing. Since the time of the first Safavid shah (king) Ismail I (r. 1501–1524), the Iranian shahs had declared rulership over parts of the Caucasus. This included Nader Shah, Karim Khan and now Agha Mohammad Khan. The neighboring khanates were still seen as Iranian dependencies even when the shahs in mainland Iran lacked the power to enforce their rule in the area. Likewise, Agha Mohammad Khan also considered Georgia to be an Iranian province. He issued threatening letters to the khans who had established connections with Russia in an effort to reestablish Iranian dominance over the border districts. In 1792/93, Agha Mohammad Khan assigned his lieutenant Soleyman Khan Qajar with the task of putting an end to any opposition against his authority. Instead of going in person, Ibrahim Khalil Khan dispatched his nephew Abd al-Samad Beg to deliver presents and offerings to Soleyman Khan in the city of Tabriz. He also asked for a deadline of the summer to prepare to make the trip himself. Soleyman Khan took Abd al-Samad as his captive, and by the end of November 1793 went to the Mazandaran region before making his way to the city of Tehran. Abd al-Samad was later part of the retinue that accompanied Agha Mohammad Khan during his siege of the city of Kerman. During the siege, Abd al-Samad made an attempt to escape to Karabakh, but was captured and killed near Tehran. This incident upset Ibrahim Khalil, who continued to make excuses to avoid meeting Agha Mohammad Khan. Agha Mohammad Khan was prepared to reinstate Iranian rule in the southeastern Caucasus by the summer of 1795. He was unafraid to engage the Russians, a trait he retained throughout, and neither the Treaty of Georgievsk nor Russian activity in the southeastern Caucasus seemed to discourage him. His 60,000 soldiers, which was primarily made up of cavalry, advanced into the area in the summer of that year. The first few months were spent by Agha Mohammad Khan winning the Muslim rulers' compliance. Ibrahim Khalil Khan and two other khans (Mir-Mostafa Khan of Talesh and Mohammad Khan Qajar of Erivan) entered into correspondence with the Russians, who gave them hope that they could defeat the Iranian forces. Heraclius also contacted the Russians, asking them for assistance against the impending invasion. 10,000 of Agha Mohammad Khan's forces first marched towards Talesh, which quickly submitted. Meanwhile, Ibrahim Khalil Khan had the Khudafarin bridge demolished to stop the Iranian army from crossing the Aras river. The bridge served as the main route from the Azerbaijan region into Karabakh and the rest of Caucasus. Despite this, the Iranian forces succeeded in getting to the other side of the river by using boats, and also rebuilt the bridge. Ibrahim Khalil Khan's forces were defeated and withdrew to Shusha, which was then besieged by Agha Mohammad Khan for 43 days. Due to the capture of his two nephews and the worsening conditions of the siege, Ibrahim Khalil Khan petitioned for peace and promised that he would acknowledge Agha Mohammad Khan's suzerainty. He sent one of his sons to act as a hostage in his stead, claiming that his age-related ailments prevented him from meeting Agha Mohammad Khan directly. However, he still refused to give entry into Shusha. Agha Mohammad Khan was willing to compromise in order to clear a path to Tiflis due to the campaign's primary goal being the subjugation of Georgia. #### Dispute over Karabakh between Iran and Russia As a result of Heraclius' refusal to submit, Agha Mohammad Khan marched to Tiflis and had it ravaged in September 1795. Catherine II, viewing the attack on Tiflis as an offense to Russia, used it as a reason to invade the South Caucasus. In March 1796, she sent a public declaration, written in Persian and Armenian, to all the khans and important figures of the region. The letter explained her reason behind the invasion as a way to protect Georgia and the rest of the South Caucasus from the "usurper" Agha Mohammad Khan. Ibrahim Khalil Khan submitted to the Russians, as he feared them more than the Iranians. Although neither a treaty nor a Russian garrison was established in Karabakh, this event established a model for eventual Russian assertions of sovereignty over Karabakh and other khanates. However, Catherine II's death on 17 November 1796 led to the withdrawal of the Russian forces under the orders of her son and successor Paul I (r. 1796–1801), and thus an end to the campaign. By January 1797, all the Russian troops had withdrawn to Kizlyar. In order to exact revenge on the khans who had acknowledged the authority of Russia, Agha Mohammad Khan went back to the Caucasus. Ibrahim Khalil Khan escaped this time to his relative Umma Khan V in Daghestan, but his family was reinstated following Agha Mohammad Khan's assassination in Shusha on 17 June 1797. Ibrahim Khalil Khan's nephew Mohammad Beg briefly assumed charge of the khanate, but not long after Ibrahim Khalil Khan came back and re-established his authority. He quickly established friendly relations with Agha Mohammad Khan's successor Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797–1834), who married his daughter and confirmed him as the khan of Karabakh. Fath-Ali Shah was later convinced of Ibrahim Khalil Khan's lack of reliability by his unwillingness to help Javad Khan against the Russian siege of Ganja in 1804. Thus, Ibrahim Khalil Khan's son Abu'l-Fath Khan Javanshir was appointed as the new khan. Despite this, Ibrahim Khalil Khan continued to rule as the khan of Karabakh. Multiple clashes took place in 1804 between the Iranian and Russian armies, but they had no significant impact on the situation. The Georgian nobleman Pavel Tsitsianov, who led the Russian campaign and led the siege of Ganja, soon forced Ibrahim Khalil Khan to yield and accept a Russian garrison in Shusha. In May 1805, they signed the Treaty of Kurekchay, which granted Russia full authority over Karabakh's external affairs in exchange for a yearly payment. Russia also recognized Ibrahim Khalil and his lineage through his eldest son as the rulers of Karabakh. In the same year, Fath-Ali Shah led a large force to the Aras river, while the crown prince Abbas Mirza was assigned with the task of handling Ibrahim Khalil Khan. The Russians were temporarily interrupted by the murder of Tsitsianov in February 1806. During this period, Ibrahim Khalil Khan sent a letter to Fath-Ali Shah, in which he apologized for yielding to the Russians, declared his willingness to side with Iran, and requested assistance in regaining control of the castle at Shusha. Ibrahim Khalil Khan's change of heart had been caused by the recent death of his eldest son and heir Mohammad Hasan Agha, who was a prominent major-general in the Russian army, and the Russians not seeming to be in a position to defend effectively against the larger Iranian army that was drawing near. Fath-Ali Shah pardoned Ibrahim Khalil Khan, who moved to an adjacent hill outside Shusha so that the Iranian forces could assault its garrison. One of Ibrahim Khalil Khan's grandchildren, Ja'far Qoli Agha, the son of Mohammad Hasan Agha, whose succession was meant to be assured by the Treaty of Kurekchay and who had his own plans for ruling Karabakh, was frightened and angered by this action. On 2 June 1806, Ibrahim Khalil Khan along with some of his relatives and 30 members of his retinue were killed by a group Russian soldiers under the instigation of Ja'far Qoli Agha and the commander of the Russian garrison. Although Ja'far Qoli Agha had hoped to become the new khan for helping the Russians against his grandfather's "betrayal", they ultimately appointed Ibrahim Khalil Khan's 30-year-old son Mehdi Qoli Khan Javanshir, due to the support he enjoyed amongst the distinguished figures of Karabakh. ### Mehdi Qoli Khan Mehdi Qoli Khan consented to abide by the Treaty of Kurekchay on September 22, 1806, when tsar Alexander I (r. 1801–1825) officially confirmed him as khan. Kotliarevskii, the new commander of the Russian garrison in Shusha, was forbidden by the Russian commander Ivan Gudovich to meddle in the internal affairs of the khanate because of his high regard for Mehdi Qoli Khan. Although Mehdi Qoli Khan held the title of khan of Karabakh, he was in reality a figurehead, the real authority being held by the Russians. In 1807, southern Karabakh had a sizable Iranian military presence. In June 1812, Mehdi Qoli Khan received a farman (royal decree) from Fath-Ali Shah, asking him to reaffirm his loyalty and work with him to expel the Russians from Karabakh. In addition to forgiving Mehdi Qoli Khan for his earlier transgressions, Fath-Ali Shah would also install him as Karabakh's governor and work with him to bring back the tribes of Karabakh who had sought asylum in Azerbaijan. Mehdi Qoli Khan, who changed his alliance between Iran and Russia to his greatest advantage like the majority of the khans in the South Caucasus, made the decision to stick by Russia. In an effort to reassure his continuous allegiance to the Russian Empire, he sent Kotliarevskii the farman. The Russo-Iranian War of 1804–1813 ended with the Treaty of Gulistan, in which Iran agreed to cede the majority of their holdings in the eastern Caucasus to Russia, including Karabakh. The treaty was signed in Gulistan, a village in Karabakh. The Iranians were disillusioned by the treaty, and officials like Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam vehemently opposed it. In 1822, Mehdi Qoli Khan fled to Iran as a result of the attempts by the Russian general Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov to abolish the khanates, which occurred afterwards. In Iran, Mehdi Qoli Khan was amongst the members of the "war party" or the "hawks", who advocated for war against the Russians. He was later amongst the Iranian soldiers during the Russo-Iranian War of 1826–1828. He was finally given permission to go back to Karabakh in 1836, where he retired. He died 1845 and was buried in Aghdam. ## Building activity According to Mirza Jamal Javanshir, Bayat received many new settlers (including artisans) from nearby areas, including Ardabil and Tabriz. The Iranian American historian George Bournoutian stated this passage shows that Javanshirs tribal dominion included more than just pastoral or migratory land. Their forts, which resembled small cities, served as the hubs of the khanate. The strongholds of Bayat, Shah-Bulaghi, and Shusha required a large number of craftsmen and laborers to construct and maintain them. A common method in a large fortress-town was to have it centered around a maidan (square), which was next to the bazaar, the principal mosque, and hammams (baths). ## Coinage Following the establishment of the Iranian rial currency in 1790, the ten-shahi stopped being used. It was later re-established by Ibrahim Khalil Khan, being minted in silver at Shusha under the name of panahabadi in honor of Panah Ali Khan. This was the first time silver coins were minted by the khans of Karabakh, a late development compared to other khanates. This was because Panah Ali Khan and Shahnazar II shared control over Shusha, with the minting of silver coins only being a possibility following the death of Shahnazar II in 1792. The panahabadi was modeled after a silver coin variant minted by the Ganja Khanate. The khans of Karabakh never issued coins under their own name, due to lacking the legitimacy of an sovereign monarch and any claims to independence. Two types of panahabadi have been discovered, one of light weight, which corresponded to one eighth of Iranian rupia, and a heavier one, which almost weighted the same as that of 10 kopecks of the Russian empress Catherine II. According to the numismatists Alexander Akopyan and Pavel Petrov, this was not unusual, as Ibrahim Khalil displayed pro-Russian sentiment and engaged in negotiations with Russian officials, but was also under Iranian influence and tried to have his coins easily spread in Iran. The panahabadi was still in circulation in some regions of South Caucasus and Iran up until the early 19th century. The inscription on the obverse side read "There is one God, His name is Allah, and Mohammad was His Prophet", whilst its reverse side read "minted in Panahabad." "Panahabad" was a laqab (honorific) used to refer to Shusha, albeit it was only employed in official, bureaucratic language and not as a toponym, as the word is missing from Turkic texts that date back to the fortress' construction. The panahabadi seemingly only had its own name as a result of these coins' weights being different from earlier Iranian abbasi as well as from the rial and rupia later weight systems. Another coin type, called the sahibqirani, was first minted 1800/01 in the name of Fath-Ali Shah. A unique variant of the sahibqirani is engraved with a Persian poem; be-nām muhrum ṣāḥib az-zamānī, mukram sikke ṣāḥibqirānī ("in the name of the stamp of Sahib al-Zamani, this sahibqirani minted with honor"). The majority of the known coins minted by the Karabakh Khanate were issued during their association with Russia. ## Demographics ### In the mahals According to a survey conducted by the Russian Empire in 1823, the mahals (districts) of Karabakh was composed of 17,101 families of villagers and nomads. Its inhabitants were either classified as Tatars, Armenians, or nomads. There were 8,445 nomadic families, 4,654 Armenian families, and 4,002 Tatar families, which means that the nomads comprised 49.38% of the population, followed by Armenians (27.22%) and then the Tatars (23.40%). The survey adds that by including Shusha, the entire population of Karabakh consisted of 18,563 families. There were roughly 300 settlements in Karabakh, equally split between the Armenians and Tatars. There were a few more people living in Armenian villages than in Tatar ones. The number of nomad pastures was about 375. Accordingly, there were 30 families per settlement and approximately 25 families every nomad pasture. Karabakh's overall population is estimated to have been between 113,000 and 115,000 people, taking into account the estimated 5.5–6.5 person average family size in the area throughout the 19th century. In the five mahals (Gulistan, Khachen, Jraberd, Varanda and Dizak) that later came to be known as Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenians made up the vast majority of the population. In all the villages in the mahals of Gulistan, Khachen, and Jraberd, they were the only people there. Only one Tatar village each existed in the mahals of Varanda and Dizak, while the rest of the villages were populated by Armenians. Overall, there were 1,536 Armenian families and 53 Tatar families in the five mahals, which means that in 1822, 96.67% of Nagorno-Karabakhs inhabitants were Armenians, with the remaining 3.33% being Tatars. ### Shusha According to the 1823 Russian survey, 371 families were registered as living in Shusha's three-quarters. The Kazanchi and Ahlisi quarters were fully made up of people with Armenian names, whilst the Tabrizi quarter was totally made up of people with Muslim names. In the Tabrizi sector of Shusha, there were 162 Muslim families, whereas the other two-quarters of Shusha were home to 209 Armenian families. The survey also includes a list of Muslim (numbering 765) and Armenian (numbering 326) families who were listed as inhabiting Shusha and its surroundings, originating from several settlements and nomadic fields in Karabakh. They either belonged to the khan's family, the clergy, the government, or the subjects of different officials. Instead of paying taxes, they provided a range of services to the monarch, the mulkdars, or the tiyuldars. This means that in 1823, there were a total of 1,462 families living in Shusha and its surroundings, with 921 families (63.41%) of them being Muslims and 535 (36.59%) of them being Armenian. ## Revenue Taxes were paid yearly in one single payment by the inhabitants of Shusha. The Armenian quarters were required to pay the most, providing 590 gold rubles and 200 kharvars ("donkey's load") of firewood every year. The Muslim quarter were required to pay 200 gold rubles and 60 kharvars of firewood. ## Administration Karabakh was a province of an imperial structure that was entirely Iranian, in the same fashion as other provinces such as Lorestan and Khorasan. In terms of structure, the Karabakh Khanate was a miniature version of Iranian kingship. In the same pattern as Afsharid and Zand rulers, Panah Ali Khan's family were all distinguished figures and served as officials. He used minbashis, yuzbashis, monshis, eshiq-aghasis, keshikchis, yasavols, nazers, and other personnel in the administration of his court and province. In exchange for tax exemption, every Karabakhi tribesman who appeared on the records enrolled the cavalry. Even tax-exempt tribes contributed financially and in kind when mercenaries were needed, but the khan covered the expenses of their equipment and horse fodder when they joined the army. The Iranologist Willem Floor uses the example of Panah Ali Khan as an argument that the character and design of Iran's political system were unaffected by increased tribal activity. Qajar Iran contains instances that are similar to those of the iqta''' (land grants) made to women in the Seljuk and Ilkhanate eras. A portion from Qom's earnings was provided to Ibrahim Khalil Khan's daughter Agha Baji and her 200 personal attendants from Karabakh after she joined the harem of Fath-Ali Shah. A lot of crown land was also given out; Abu'l-Fath Khan Javanshir, one of Ibrahim Khalil Khan's sons, was given much of the land of the Shahsevan tribe in Azerbaijan. The administrative and literary language in Karabakh until the end of the 19th century was Persian, with Arabic being used only for religious studies, despite the fact that most of the Muslims in the region spoke a Turkic dialect. Persian was also spoken in the judiciary. ## Historiography ### In contemporary historiography The political history of Iran under the Safavid, Afsharid, Zand, or Qajar dynasties is the main subject of the majority of Iranian primary sources. Events taking place in remote areas like Karabakh are typically given a brief paragraph in these texts, unless the shah felt it important to visit such areas. Karabakh is the only the main subject of a few chronicles, which were written by Turks of the South Caucasus, later known as Azerbaijanis. All of them, with one exception, wrote in Persian. The Tarikh-e Qarabagh of Mirza Jamal Javanshir (died 1853) is the earliest written source that focuses on Karabakh. It focuses on political and, to a lesser extent, social and economic circumstances in Karabakh from the 1740s until 1806. ### In Azerbaijani historiography The khanates, which were marginalized in Soviet historiography as remnants of an archaic feudal institution, have been revived in post-Soviet Azerbaijani historiography. They are difficult foundational pieces for a national narrative because of their briefness, diversity, and constant factional strife. Modern Azerbaijani academia and history books refer to all of the khanates north and south of the Aras as "Azerbaijani khanates," reinventing them as the forerunners of the Azerbaijani nation. This includes the Karabakh Khanate, whose Javanshir khans are portrayed as "founding fathers". Additionally, the ethnic heritage of the nomads that lived in Karabakh, which included Turkic, Kurdish, and other Caucasian tribes, is disregarded by Azerbaijani historians, who groups them together with the Tatars, considering them all to be "Azerbaijanis." However, before the 20th century, the Azerbaijanis barely constituted as an ethnic group, much less a nation. The people who lived in the present-day country of Azerbaijan identified as either Muslims of the ummah'' (community), or Turks, who shared a language family spread out throughout a considerable portion of Central Asia, or as Persians. Before 1988, Azerbaijani experts did not dispute the historical Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, which changed when the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh demanded that their region break way from Azerbaijan. In order to defend their government's anti-Armenian policies in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani politicians, journalists, and academics asserted that the region had never been a part of historical Armenia and that the region's Armenian residents were immigrants who had slowly relocated there after 1828. The 2003 Azerbaijani edition of the Russian survey of 1823 is an altered version of the original work; in addition to having several typographical errors, it also frequently omits key information, such as the word "Armenian," either mistakenly or on purpose. Modern Azerbaijani scholars and historians claim that the present-day country of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijan region in present-day northwestern Iran used to be one entity, based on arguments such as Nakhchivan and southern Karabakh being temporarily part of the administrative division of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan, the linguistical similarities between the two places, and so on. However, the vast majority of current European historians, as well as 19th century Russian and Iranian sources, consider them to have been two distinct geographical and political areas. Prior to 1918 the word "Azerbaijan" referred to the Iranian region of Azerbaijan.

St. Louis Eagles

Ice hockey team

The St. Louis Eagles were a professional ice hockey team that played in the National Hockey League (NHL). Based in St. Louis, the Eagles played for only one year, the 1934–35 NHL season. The team was founded in 1883 as the Ottawa Senators, a successful independent team that joined the NHL as a charter member in 1917. From the mid-1920s onward, they endured financial strain caused, in part, by being in the NHL's smallest market. The financial problems forced the Senators to suspend operations for the 1931–32 season. Upon their return to play, having sold their better players in an effort to raise funds, the Senators finished in last place for two straight seasons and continued to lose money. Following the repeat last place finishes, the team decided that it could not survive in Ottawa and hoped to move to a bigger market. In an attempt to recoup losses and pay outstanding debts, the Senators moved to St. Louis as the Eagles. However, the team continued to lose money because of increased travel expenses, and it was forced to sell players to other teams to meet its financial obligations. After the season, the owners asked the NHL for permission to suspend operations for a second time. This time, the NHL refused the request. Instead, the league bought back the franchise, halted its operations, and dispersed its players among the remaining teams. ## History ### The move from Ottawa The Ottawa Senators were founded in 1883 as an amateur club. They began paying their players "under the table" in 1903 and turned openly professional in 1907. They were a charter member of the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1917, and won the Stanley Cup four times in the NHL's first decade (and seven times prior to the league's formation – including their time as the Silver Seven). However, for the better part of their tenure in Ottawa, the Senators played in the smallest market in the NHL. The 1931 census listed only 110,000 people in the city of Ottawa—roughly one-fifth the size of Toronto, the league's second-smallest market. The team started having attendance problems when the NHL expanded to the United States in 1924; games against the new American teams did not draw well. Despite winning what would be its last Stanley Cup in 1927, the team lost \$50,000 for the season. The Senators asked the NHL for permission to suspend operations for the 1931–32 season in order to help eliminate debt. The league granted the request. During their suspended season, Ottawa received \$25,000 for the use of its players, while the NHL co-signed a Bank of Montreal loan of \$28,000 for the franchise. The Senators returned for the 1932–33 season and finished in last place. They finished last again in 1933–34 season. After the season, the Ottawa Auditorium, owners of the Senators, announced that the team would be moving elsewhere for the next season due to losses of \$60,000 over the previous two seasons. Auditorium officials said they needed to move the Senators to a larger city in order to protect the shareholders and pay off their debts. The Senators' owners decided to move the franchise to St. Louis, Missouri, and the transfer was approved by the league on May 14, 1934. Thomas Franklin Ahearn resigned as president of the Ottawa Auditorium and Redmond Quain became president. Quain transferred the players' contracts and franchise operations to a new company called the Hockey Association of St. Louis, Inc. Eddie Gerard was hired to coach the new team. The club was renamed the Eagles, inspired by the logo of the Anheuser-Busch brewing company, which was founded in St. Louis. The Senators name and logo remained in Ottawa and would be used by a senior amateur team until 1954. At the time, St. Louis was the seventh largest city in the United States, with over 800,000 inhabitants— over seven times larger than Ottawa. Despite this, St. Louis had been denied an NHL franchise in 1932 because travel to the Midwest was considered too expensive during the Great Depression. Even before the debut of the Eagles, a problem had arisen for the new NHL club. There was already a professional hockey team in the city, the St. Louis Flyers, playing in the minor-pro American Hockey Association (AHA). The owners of the Flyers claimed they had an agreement with the NHL which prevented it from settling west of the Mississippi. They threatened to sue for \$200,000 in compensation as soon as the Eagles played their first game. Following a visit from the AHA President, the Flyers were asked not to go forward with the lawsuit. The Flyers did not pursue further legal action and eventually changed their home arena. ### 1934–35 season At the time there were nine teams in the NHL, divided into two divisions, the Canadian and American. Logically, the Eagles should have been placed in the American Division with the Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings. However, the Eagles retained the Senators' place in the Canadian Division alongside the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Maroons, and New York Americans. The core of the Senators' players returned and the team played their games in the St. Louis Arena. The arena was built in 1929 to host the National Dairy Show, but had suffered financially. In 1931, an ice hockey rink was set up to attract new business. Once the Eagles began play the St. Louis Arena gained the distinction of being the only NHL stadium with racially segregated seating. In their first game the Eagles succumbed to a late rally by the defending Stanley Cup champion Black Hawks, losing 3–1. They registered their first win in the next game winning 4–2 over the Rangers. Following the win the Eagles went on an eight-game losing streak. After the first 13 games the Eagles posted a 2–11–0 record placing them last in their division. Gerard resigned as head coach and was replaced by George "Buck" Boucher, the coach that Gerard himself had replaced after the franchise's last season in Ottawa. Under Boucher's coaching the team showed improvement, posting a 3–3–3 record in the first nine games. However, the early losing streak had already damaged the fan base. Their inaugural game drew 12,622 fans, but attendance quickly diminished. In early January 1935 the team cut ticket prices to the lowest in the league in an attempt to bring out fans. By February the financial state of the team forced the Eagles to essentially sell leading goal scorer Syd Howe to the Detroit Red Wings. Officially, the trade broke down as such - Detroit received Howe and Ralph Bowman in exchange for Teddy Graham and \$50,000. At the time it was considered a large sum of money. Likewise Frank Finnigan was sold to the Maple Leafs. The Eagles were unable to maintain the early success under Boucher, and finished with the worst record in the league for the third year in a row, with a record of 11–31–6. With only 84 goals scored, they were the lowest scoring team in the league. Only the Montreal Canadiens allowed more goals during the season, surrendering 145 to the Eagles' 144. ### The end of the Eagles By season's end the Eagles ownership had lost \$70,000, due primarily to the cost of train travel. In those days, NHL teams traveled primarily by rail. Due to being in the Canadian Division, the Eagles had to make many trips to Montreal and Toronto. An attempt to stabilize the franchise by selling off some of its players netted \$58,000. The owners had hoped to move again to save the franchise. There was interest from Cleveland and also in a return to Ottawa, but neither came to fruition. As a result, the ownership again petitioned the NHL to allow them to suspend operations for a year. This time the NHL refused and the Eagles were put up for sale. After no credible offers surfaced, the NHL bought the franchise and player contracts for \$40,000, and opted to play as an eight-team league. If the NHL ever resold the franchise, proceeds were to go to the Ottawa Hockey Association. The NHL distributed the players under contract with St. Louis through a dispersal draft. Teams selected players in an order based on the previous season's standings. Teams with the lowest point totals selected first. The Chicago Black Hawks did not participate in the draft. Eighteen of the 23 players under contract were selected with the remaining players being placed in the minor leagues. The players were distributed as follows: - New York Americans: Forwards: Pete Kelly, Eddie Finnigan - Montreal Canadiens: Goaltender: Bill Beveridge, Defenseman: Irv Frew, Forwards: Paul Drouin, Henri Lauzon - Detroit Red Wings: Forward: Carl Voss, Goaltender: William Peterkin - New York Rangers: Forward: Glen Brydson, Defenseman: Vernon Ayres - Montreal Maroons: Forward: Joe Lamb, Goaltender: Bill Taugher - Boston Bruins: Forward: Bill Cowley, Defenseman: Teddy Graham - Toronto Maple Leafs: Forwards: Gerry Shannon, Cliff Purpur, Jim Dewey, Defenseman: Mickey Blake No credible offers to purchase the dormant franchise ever surfaced. As a result, the Senators/Eagles franchise never took the ice again, and remain one of two NHL teams to fold after winning a Stanley Cup (the other being the Maroons). In 1938, the Montreal Maroons attempted to move to St. Louis. They were denied by the NHL due to the high travel costs that plagued the Eagles. The NHL returned to St. Louis in 1967, when the league doubled in size from the Original Six. The new team was named the Blues and they joined the Minnesota North Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, and Pittsburgh Penguins as part of the new expansion. ## Final standings ## Players Twenty-nine players represented the Eagles during their lone season of existence. The last active player who played with the Eagles was Bill Cowley, who retired in 1947 after his final season with the Boston Bruins. He was also the only player in franchise history to start his career with the Eagles and be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Syd Howe was the only captain of the team during its existence and the two players were the only Eagles players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Pete Kelly was the last surviving St. Louis Eagle, dying in 2004. Carl Voss led the team with 18 assists and 31 points Howe led them in goalscoring registering 14, despite being traded midway through the season. The totals were much lower than the NHL leaders as Charlie Conacher of Toronto led the league with 36 goals and 57 points, while Art Chapman of the Americans led for assists notching 34. Bill Beveridge was the only goaltender the team used during the season. Out of his 11 wins three were shutouts. The list of players in the history of the team is presented below. Goaltending All player stats taken from Hockey-Reference.com ### Team captains - Syd Howe, 1934–35

Ernest Radcliffe Bond

British police commissioner

Ernest Radcliffe Bond, OBE, QPM, (1 March 1919 – 20 November 2003), also called Commander X, was a British soldier, and later policeman famous for his service in the Metropolitan Police Service. Bond experienced the Fraud Squad, the Flying Squad, the Murder Squad, and became the first commander of the newly formed Bomb Squad (later the Anti-Terrorist Branch, now merged into Counter Terrorism Command). His notable achievements in the bomb squad were negotiating the rise of The Angry Brigade, eventually jailing several members. The other major event he negotiated as commander with the Bomb Squad was the Balcombe Street siege, in which two people were taken hostage by four Irish Republican Army members, who demanded a plane to Ireland. Bond, answering the demands, refused saying that the police "are not going to make any deals". The gunmen surrendered, the event a success for police with no casualties on either side. ## Early life Ernest Radcliffe Bond was born on 1 March 1919 in Barrow-in-Furness, where he lived in a "close-knit community" at 58 John Street. His father, William Edward Bond, was a shipyard worker, and his mother was Annie Elizabeth Bond née Radcliffe. Bond was an apprentice French polisher after he left school. ## Military career Bond joined the British Army on 16 September 1935, entering the 2nd battalion of the Scots Guards. His objective was to fight in any short engagement that he could, and then to become a police officer. He was sent to Palestine to help with the Arab Revolt. However, his plan was scuppered by the outbreak of World War II, and he stayed with his battalion, serving first in Norway as a sergeant. After a short time in No. 8 (Guards) Commando, where he served in a group of units under Robert Laycock's command fighting in the Middle East in 1941, by that time Bond had been promoted to the rank of sergeant. The unit was disbanded, and he journeyed to North Africa with his original battalion in the Scots Guards, fighting in the Eighth Army. In 1941, still in North Africa, Bond joined "L" Detachment in the Special Service Brigade, which became David Stirling's Special Air Service. Bond was part of a parachute training mission in Kabrit, Egypt, against the airfields of Gazala and Tmimi. The conditions were "atrocious", and his aeroplane crashed in desert. He became a prisoner of war for the remainder of the conflict. He was reported to have spent four years in jail in his military career. ## Police career When Bond was released from his imprisonment by the Axis, he was demobilised in 1946 and entered the Metropolitan Police with the warrant number 128434, realising his pre-war ambition. He was 'on the beat' for 2 years, working in Lambeth with 'M' division. His division became 'E' division, patrolling Holborn, when he decided to enter the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 1948. He experienced another promotion in 1957, to become a Detective Sergeant; "he began to develop a reputation for his discerning skill as a detective." Bond rapidly experienced both the Fraud Squad and the Flying Squad; and in 1963 joined the Murder Squad at the rank of Detective Inspector. Bond joined the Bomb Squad, newly formed in January 1971 due to concern over The Angry Brigade. Bond became the unit's first commander on 23 June 1971, being promoted to that position in 1969. The unit served at Tintagel House, and Bond's name was theoretically meant to be kept secret and he should be called 'Commander X', so that he was not bombed, but journalists have since claimed to have known his name within days of his appointment. The press lauded Commander X as a "mystery supremo to hunt down the Angry Brigade." The Angry Brigade was a new political group; "a small group [around 200] of leftwing radicals and anarchists," who claimed responsibility for about 20 small bombings which began on 20 November 1970, with the bombing of a BBC van. At its formation, the Bomb Squad comprised around 30 men, one third from CID, the rest from Special Branch. The Angry Brigade's decline came in 1971, when various conspirators were arrested. At the 1971–72 trial, the nine conspirators were denied bail at Clerkenwell Court after Bond opposed the move, and the judge, J Purcell, "remanded all nine in custody for a week." There were concerns that the police had "over-reached themselves." The Angry Brigade member John Barker later said that "the police framed a guilty man," and Bond was called an "old-fashioned plod" by a defendant. He told the Purcell that "I am quite certain that, sooner or later, we would have had somebody killed." Due to his success, in 1972 he was awarded the Queen's Police Medal and promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Operations). The Irish Republican Army (IRA) also had a bombing campaign ongoing, and in December 1975 Bond "saturated" the centre of London with plainclothes police officers. Four IRA members took two people hostage in Balcombe Street, following a police chase which involved a shoot out on 7 December. The terrorists called the police, in a call which was routed to Bond; who refused their demands of a plane to fly to Ireland, proclaiming that > "They are not going anywhere and they are not getting any plane to Ireland. We are not going to make any deals at all." The gunmen gave up on 12 December, their surrender sparking fears of reprisals, after what Bond called a "rather humiliating episode," Bond "masterminded" the operation to regain the hostages. He retired the following year, in 1976, and received the Order of the British Empire in the New Year's honours list. Upon his retirement in February 1976, he had served in the police for 30 years, full of "exemplary conduct." In his time, Bond received 12 Commissioner's Commendations and 7 for "courage, diligence and determination in the course of investigations." ## Personal life Bond married the 23-year-old Mabel Phoebe Isabell née Laming on 29 October 1939, the daughter of a dock worker, Alfred Thomas Laming. They had two sons and two daughters together, who all survived both Ernest and Mabel. When Bond had retired, he indulged his interests in decorating and gardening, and remained a Freemason. Mabel died in 1992, and on 20 November 2003, Ernest died of prostate cancer in Welling; in his home.

Bee

Clade of insects

Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea. They are currently considered a clade, called Anthophila. There are over 20,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families. Some species – including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees – live socially in colonies while most species (\>90%) – including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees – are solitary. Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are the Halictidae, or sweat bees, but they are small and often mistaken for wasps or flies. Bees range in size from tiny stingless bee species, whose workers are less than 2 millimetres (0.08 in) long, to Megachile pluto, the largest species of leafcutter bee, whose females can attain a length of 39 millimetres (1.54 in). Bees feed on nectar and pollen, the former primarily as an energy source and the latter primarily for protein and other nutrients. Most pollen is used as food for their larvae. Vertebrate predators of bees include primates and birds such as bee-eaters; insect predators include beewolves and dragonflies. Bee pollination is important both ecologically and commercially, and the decline in wild bees has increased the value of pollination by commercially managed hives of honey bees. The analysis of 353 wild bee and hoverfly species across Britain from 1980 to 2013 found the insects have been lost from a quarter of the places they inhabited in 1980. Human beekeeping or apiculture (meliponiculture for stingless bees) has been practised for millennia, since at least the times of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. Bees have appeared in mythology and folklore, through all phases of art and literature from ancient times to the present day, although primarily focused in the Northern Hemisphere where beekeeping is far more common. In Mesoamerica, the Mayans have practiced large-scale intensive meliponiculture since pre-Columbian times. ## Evolution The immediate ancestors of bees were stinging wasps in the family Crabronidae, which were predators of other insects. The switch from insect prey to pollen may have resulted from the consumption of prey insects which were flower visitors and were partially covered with pollen when they were fed to the wasp larvae. This same evolutionary scenario may have occurred within the vespoid wasps, where the pollen wasps evolved from predatory ancestors. The oldest non-compression bee fossil is found in New Jersey amber, Cretotrigona prisca, a corbiculate bee of Cretaceous age (\~65 mya). A fossil from the early Cretaceous (\~100 mya), Melittosphex burmensis, was initially considered "an extinct lineage of pollen-collecting Apoidea sister to the modern bees", but subsequent research has rejected the claim that Melittosphex is a bee, or even a member of the superfamily Apoidea to which bees belong, instead treating the lineage as incertae sedis within the Aculeata. By the Eocene (\~45 mya) there was already considerable diversity among eusocial bee lineages. The highly eusocial corbiculate Apidae appeared roughly 87 Mya, and the Allodapini (within the Apidae) around 53 Mya. The Colletidae appear as fossils only from the late Oligocene (\~25 Mya) to early Miocene. The Melittidae are known from Palaeomacropis eocenicus in the Early Eocene. The Megachilidae are known from trace fossils (characteristic leaf cuttings) from the Middle Eocene. The Andrenidae are known from the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, around 34 Mya, of the Florissant shale. The Halictidae first appear in the Early Eocene with species found in amber. The Stenotritidae are known from fossil brood cells of Pleistocene age. ### Coevolution The earliest animal-pollinated flowers were shallow, cup-shaped blooms pollinated by insects such as beetles, so the syndrome of insect pollination was well established before the first appearance of bees. The novelty is that bees are specialized as pollination agents, with behavioral and physical modifications that specifically enhance pollination, and are the most efficient pollinating insects. In a process of coevolution, flowers developed floral rewards such as nectar and longer tubes, and bees developed longer tongues to extract the nectar. Bees also developed structures known as scopal hairs and pollen baskets to collect and carry pollen. The location and type differ among and between groups of bees. Most species have scopal hairs on their hind legs or on the underside of their abdomens. Some species in the family Apidae have pollen baskets on their hind legs, while very few lack these and instead collect pollen in their crops. The appearance of these structures drove the adaptive radiation of the angiosperms, and, in turn, bees themselves. Bees coevolved not only with flowers but it is believed that some species coevolved with mites. Some provide tufts of hairs called acarinaria that appear to provide lodgings for mites; in return, it is believed that mites eat fungi that attack pollen, so the relationship in this case may be mutualistic. ### Phylogeny #### External This phylogenetic tree is based on Debevic et al, 2012, which used molecular phylogeny to demonstrate that the bees (Anthophila) arose from deep within the Crabronidae, which is therefore paraphyletic. The placement of the Heterogynaidae is uncertain. The small subfamily Mellininae was not included in this analysis. #### Internal This cladogram of the bee families is based on Hedtke et al., 2013, which places the former families Dasypodaidae and Meganomiidae as subfamilies inside the Melittidae. English names, where available, are given in parentheses. ## Characteristics Bees differ from closely related groups such as wasps by having branched or plume-like setae (hairs), combs on the forelimbs for cleaning their antennae, small anatomical differences in limb structure, and the venation of the hind wings; and in females, by having the seventh dorsal abdominal plate divided into two half-plates. Bees have the following characteristics: - A pair of large compound eyes which cover much of the surface of the head. Between and above these are three small simple eyes (ocelli) which provide information on light intensity. - The antennae usually have 13 segments in males and 12 in females, and are geniculate, having an elbow joint part way along. They house large numbers of sense organs that can detect touch (mechanoreceptors), smell and taste; and small, hairlike mechanoreceptors that can detect air movement so as to "hear" sounds. - The mouthparts are adapted for both chewing and sucking by having both a pair of mandibles and a long proboscis for sucking up nectar. - The thorax has three segments, each with a pair of robust legs, and a pair of membranous wings on the hind two segments. The front legs of corbiculate bees bear combs for cleaning the antennae, and in many species the hind legs bear pollen baskets, flattened sections with incurving hairs to secure the collected pollen. The wings are synchronised in flight, and the somewhat smaller hind wings connect to the forewings by a row of hooks along their margin which connect to a groove in the forewing. - The abdomen has nine segments, the hindermost three being modified into the sting. The largest species of bee is thought to be Wallace's giant bee Megachile pluto, whose females can attain a length of 39 millimetres (1.54 in). The smallest species may be dwarf stingless bees in the tribe Meliponini whose workers are less than 2 millimetres (0.08 in) in length. ## Sociality ### Haplodiploid breeding system According to inclusive fitness theory, organisms can gain fitness not just through increasing their own reproductive output, but also that of close relatives. In evolutionary terms, individuals should help relatives when Cost \< Relatedness \* Benefit. The requirements for eusociality are more easily fulfilled by haplodiploid species such as bees because of their unusual relatedness structure. In haplodiploid species, females develop from fertilized eggs and males from unfertilized eggs. Because a male is haploid (has only one copy of each gene), his daughters (which are diploid, with two copies of each gene) share 100% of his genes and 50% of their mother's. Therefore, they share 75% of their genes with each other. This mechanism of sex determination gives rise to what W. D. Hamilton termed "supersisters", more closely related to their sisters than they would be to their own offspring. Workers often do not reproduce, but they can pass on more of their genes by helping to raise their sisters (as queens) than they would by having their own offspring (each of which would only have 50% of their genes), assuming they would produce similar numbers. This unusual situation has been proposed as an explanation of the multiple (at least nine) evolutions of eusociality within Hymenoptera. Haplodiploidy is neither necessary nor sufficient for eusociality. Some eusocial species such as termites are not haplodiploid. Conversely, all bees are haplodiploid but not all are eusocial, and among eusocial species many queens mate with multiple males, creating half-sisters that share only 25% of each-other's genes. But, monogamy (queens mating singly) is the ancestral state for all eusocial species so far investigated, so it is likely that haplodiploidy contributed to the evolution of eusociality in bees. ### Eusociality Bees may be solitary or may live in various types of communities. Eusociality appears to have originated from at least three independent origins in halictid bees. The most advanced of these are species with eusocial colonies; these are characterised by cooperative brood care and a division of labour into reproductive and non-reproductive adults, plus overlapping generations. This division of labour creates specialized groups within eusocial societies which are called castes. In some species, groups of cohabiting females may be sisters, and if there is a division of labour within the group, they are considered semisocial. The group is called eusocial if, in addition, the group consists of a mother (the queen) and her daughters (workers). When the castes are purely behavioural alternatives, with no morphological differentiation other than size, the system is considered primitively eusocial, as in many paper wasps; when the castes are morphologically discrete, the system is considered highly eusocial. True honey bees (genus Apis, of which eight species are currently recognized) are highly eusocial, and are among the best known insects. Their colonies are established by swarms, consisting of a queen and several thousand workers. There are 29 subspecies of one of these species, Apis mellifera, native to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Africanized bees are a hybrid strain of A. mellifera that escaped from experiments involving crossing European and African subspecies; they are extremely defensive. Stingless bees are also highly eusocial. They practise mass provisioning, with complex nest architecture and perennial colonies also established via swarming. Many bumblebees are eusocial, similar to the eusocial Vespidae such as hornets in that the queen initiates a nest on her own rather than by swarming. Bumblebee colonies typically have from 50 to 200 bees at peak population, which occurs in mid to late summer. Nest architecture is simple, limited by the size of the pre-existing nest cavity, and colonies rarely last more than a year. In 2011, the International Union for Conservation of Nature set up the Bumblebee Specialist Group to review the threat status of all bumblebee species worldwide using the IUCN Red List criteria. There are many more species of primitively eusocial than highly eusocial bees, but they have been studied less often. Most are in the family Halictidae, or "sweat bees". Colonies are typically small, with a dozen or fewer workers, on average. Queens and workers differ only in size, if at all. Most species have a single season colony cycle, even in the tropics, and only mated females hibernate. A few species have long active seasons and attain colony sizes in the hundreds, such as Halictus hesperus. Some species are eusocial in parts of their range and solitary in others, or have a mix of eusocial and solitary nests in the same population. The orchid bees (Apidae) include some primitively eusocial species with similar biology. Some allodapine bees (Apidae) form primitively eusocial colonies, with progressive provisioning: a larva's food is supplied gradually as it develops, as is the case in honey bees and some bumblebees. ### Solitary and communal bees Most other bees, including familiar insects such as carpenter bees, leafcutter bees and mason bees are solitary in the sense that every female is fertile, and typically inhabits a nest she constructs herself. There is no division of labor so these nests lack queens and worker bees for these species. Solitary bees typically produce neither honey nor beeswax. Bees collect pollen to feed their young, and have the necessary adaptations to do this. However, certain wasp species such as pollen wasps have similar behaviours, and a few species of bee scavenge from carcases to feed their offspring. Solitary bees are important pollinators; they gather pollen to provision their nests with food for their brood. Often it is mixed with nectar to form a paste-like consistency. Some solitary bees have advanced types of pollen-carrying structures on their bodies. Very few species of solitary bee are being cultured for commercial pollination. Most of these species belong to a distinct set of genera which are commonly known by their nesting behavior or preferences, namely: carpenter bees, sweat bees, mason bees, plasterer bees, squash bees, dwarf carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, alkali bees and digger bees. Most solitary bees are fossorial, digging nests in the ground in a variety of soil textures and conditions, while others create nests in hollow reeds or twigs, or holes in wood. The female typically creates a compartment (a "cell") with an egg and some provisions for the resulting larva, then seals it off. A nest may consist of numerous cells. When the nest is in wood, usually the last (those closer to the entrance) contain eggs that will become males. The adult does not provide care for the brood once the egg is laid, and usually dies after making one or more nests. The males typically emerge first and are ready for mating when the females emerge. Solitary bees are very unlikely to sting (only in self-defense, if ever), and some (esp. in the family Andrenidae) are stingless. While solitary, females each make individual nests. Some species, such as the European mason bee Hoplitis anthocopoides, and the Dawson's Burrowing bee, Amegilla dawsoni, are gregarious, preferring to make nests near others of the same species, and giving the appearance of being social. Large groups of solitary bee nests are called aggregations, to distinguish them from colonies. In some species, multiple females share a common nest, but each makes and provisions her own cells independently. This type of group is called "communal" and is not uncommon. The primary advantage appears to be that a nest entrance is easier to defend from predators and parasites when multiple females use that same entrance regularly. ## Biology ### Life cycle The life cycle of a bee, be it a solitary or social species, involves the laying of an egg, the development through several moults of a legless larva, a pupation stage during which the insect undergoes complete metamorphosis, followed by the emergence of a winged adult. The number of eggs laid by a female during her lifetime can vary from eight or less in some solitary bees, to more than a million in highly social species. Most solitary bees and bumble bees in temperate climates overwinter as adults or pupae and emerge in spring when increasing numbers of flowering plants come into bloom. The males usually emerge first and search for females with which to mate. Like the other members of Hymenoptera bees are haplodiploid; the sex of a bee is determined by whether or not the egg is fertilised. After mating, a female stores the sperm, and determines which sex is required at the time each individual egg is laid, fertilised eggs producing female offspring and unfertilised eggs, males. Tropical bees may have several generations in a year and no diapause stage. The egg is generally oblong, slightly curved and tapering at one end. Solitary bees, lay each egg in a separate cell with a supply of mixed pollen and nectar next to it. This may be rolled into a pellet or placed in a pile and is known as mass provisioning. Social bee species provision progressively, that is, they feed the larva regularly while it grows. The nest varies from a hole in the ground or in wood, in solitary bees, to a substantial structure with wax combs in bumblebees and honey bees. In most species, larvae are whitish grubs, roughly oval and bluntly-pointed at both ends. They have 15 segments and spiracles in each segment for breathing. They have no legs but move within the cell, helped by tubercles on their sides. They have short horns on the head, jaws for chewing food and an appendage on either side of the mouth tipped with a bristle. There is a gland under the mouth that secretes a viscous liquid which solidifies into the silk they use to produce a cocoon. The cocoon is semi-transparent and the pupa can be seen through it. Over the course of a few days, the larva undergoes metamorphosis into a winged adult. When ready to emerge, the adult splits its skin dorsally and climbs out of the exuviae and breaks out of the cell. ### Flight Antoine Magnan's 1934 book Le vol des insectes says that he and André Sainte-Laguë had applied the equations of air resistance to insects and found that their flight could not be explained by fixed-wing calculations, but that "One shouldn't be surprised that the results of the calculations don't square with reality". This has led to a common misconception that bees "violate aerodynamic theory". In fact it merely confirms that bees do not engage in fixed-wing flight, and that their flight is explained by other mechanics, such as those used by helicopters. In 1996 it was shown that vortices created by many insects' wings helped to provide lift. High-speed cinematography and robotic mock-up of a bee wing showed that lift was generated by "the unconventional combination of short, choppy wing strokes, a rapid rotation of the wing as it flops over and reverses direction, and a very fast wing-beat frequency". Wing-beat frequency normally increases as size decreases, but as the bee's wing beat covers such a small arc, it flaps approximately 230 times per second, faster than a fruitfly (200 times per second) which is 80 times smaller. ### Navigation, communication, and finding food The ethologist Karl von Frisch studied navigation in the honey bee. He showed that honey bees communicate by the waggle dance, in which a worker indicates the location of a food source to other workers in the hive. He demonstrated that bees can recognize a desired compass direction in three different ways: by the sun, by the polarization pattern of the blue sky, and by the earth's magnetic field. He showed that the sun is the preferred or main compass; the other mechanisms are used under cloudy skies or inside a dark beehive. Bees navigate using spatial memory with a "rich, map-like organization". ### Digestion The gut of bees is relatively simple, but multiple metabolic strategies exist in the gut microbiota. Pollinating bees consume nectar and pollen, which require different digestion strategies by somewhat specialized bacteria. While nectar is a liquid of mostly monosaccharide sugars and so easily absorbed, pollen contains complex polysaccharides: branching pectin and hemicellulose. Approximately five groups of bacteria are involved in digestion. Three groups specialize in simple sugars (Snodgrassella and two groups of Lactobacillus), and two other groups in complex sugars (Gilliamella and Bifidobacterium). Digestion of pectin and hemicellulose is dominated by bacterial clades Gilliamella and Bifidobacterium respectively. Bacteria that cannot digest polysaccharides obtain enzymes from their neighbors, and bacteria that lack certain amino acids do the same, creating multiple ecological niches. Although most bee species are nectarivorous and palynivorous, some are not. Particularly unusual are vulture bees in the genus Trigona, which consume carrion and wasp brood, turning meat into a honey-like substance. ## Ecology ### Floral relationships Most bees are polylectic (generalist) meaning they collect pollen from a range of flowering plants, but some are oligoleges (specialists), in that they only gather pollen from one or a few species or genera of closely related plants. In Melittidae and Apidae we also find a few genera that are highly specialized for collecting plant oils both in addition to, and instead of, nectar, which is mixed with pollen as larval food. Male orchid bees in some species gather aromatic compounds from orchids, which is one of the few cases where male bees are effective pollinators. Bees are able to sense the presence of desirable flowers through ultraviolet patterning on flowers, floral odors, and even electromagnetic fields. Once landed, a bee then uses nectar quality and pollen taste to determine whether to continue visiting similar flowers. In rare cases, a plant species may only be effectively pollinated by a single bee species, and some plants are endangered at least in part because their pollinator is also threatened. But, there is a pronounced tendency for oligolectic bees to be associated with common, widespread plants visited by multiple pollinator species. For example, the creosote bush in the arid parts of the United States southwest is associated with some 40 oligoleges. ### As mimics and models Many bees are aposematically coloured, typically orange and black, warning of their ability to defend themselves with a powerful sting. As such they are models for Batesian mimicry by non-stinging insects such as bee-flies, robber flies and hoverflies, all of which gain a measure of protection by superficially looking and behaving like bees. Bees are themselves Müllerian mimics of other aposematic insects with the same colour scheme, including wasps, lycid and other beetles, and many butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) which are themselves distasteful, often through acquiring bitter and poisonous chemicals from their plant food. All the Müllerian mimics, including bees, benefit from the reduced risk of predation that results from their easily recognised warning coloration. Bees are also mimicked by plants such as the bee orchid which imitates both the appearance and the scent of a female bee; male bees attempt to mate (pseudocopulation) with the furry lip of the flower, thus pollinating it. ### As brood parasites Brood parasites occur in several bee families including the apid subfamily Nomadinae. Females of these species lack pollen collecting structures (the scopa) and do not construct their own nests. They typically enter the nests of pollen collecting species, and lay their eggs in cells provisioned by the host bee. When the "cuckoo" bee larva hatches, it consumes the host larva's pollen ball, and often the host egg also. In particular, the Arctic bee species, Bombus hyperboreus is an aggressive species that attacks and enslaves other bees of the same subgenus. However, unlike many other bee brood parasites, they have pollen baskets and often collect pollen. In Southern Africa, hives of African honeybees (A. mellifera scutellata) are being destroyed by parasitic workers of the Cape honeybee, A. m. capensis. These lay diploid eggs ("thelytoky"), escaping normal worker policing, leading to the colony's destruction; the parasites can then move to other hives. The cuckoo bees in the Bombus subgenus Psithyrus are closely related to, and resemble, their hosts in looks and size. This common pattern gave rise to the ecological principle "Emery's rule". Others parasitize bees in different families, like Townsendiella, a nomadine apid, two species of which are cleptoparasites of the dasypodaid genus Hesperapis, while the other species in the same genus attacks halictid bees. ### Nocturnal bees Four bee families (Andrenidae, Colletidae, Halictidae, and Apidae) contain some species that are crepuscular. Most are tropical or subtropical, but some live in arid regions at higher latitudes. These bees have greatly enlarged ocelli, which are extremely sensitive to light and dark, though incapable of forming images. Some have refracting superposition compound eyes: these combine the output of many elements of their compound eyes to provide enough light for each retinal photoreceptor. Their ability to fly by night enables them to avoid many predators, and to exploit flowers that produce nectar only or also at night. ### Predators, parasites and pathogens Vertebrate predators of bees include bee-eaters, shrikes and flycatchers, which make short sallies to catch insects in flight. Swifts and swallows fly almost continually, catching insects as they go. The honey buzzard attacks bees' nests and eats the larvae. The greater honeyguide interacts with humans by guiding them to the nests of wild bees. The humans break open the nests and take the honey and the bird feeds on the larvae and the wax. Among mammals, predators such as the badger dig up bumblebee nests and eat both the larvae and any stored food. Specialist ambush predators of visitors to flowers include crab spiders, which wait on flowering plants for pollinating insects; predatory bugs, and praying mantises, some of which (the flower mantises of the tropics) wait motionless, aggressive mimics camouflaged as flowers. Beewolves are large wasps that habitually attack bees; the ethologist Niko Tinbergen estimated that a single colony of the beewolf Philanthus triangulum might kill several thousand honeybees in a day: all the prey he observed were honeybees. Other predatory insects that sometimes catch bees include robber flies and dragonflies. Honey bees are affected by parasites including tracheal and Varroa mites. However, some bees are believed to have a mutualistic relationship with mites. Some mites of genus Tarsonemus are associated with bees. They live in bee nests and ride on adult bees for dispersal. They are presumed to feed on fungi, nest materials or pollen. However, the impact they have on bees remains uncertain. ### Symbiosis of Mycelium and Bess #### Fungus properties Recent studies have shown that mycelium provides honey bees and stingless bees with vital nutrients. Specific fungi, such as Zygosaccharomyces sp, Candida sp., and Monascus ruber, produce chemicals that fight against bacteria, fungal infections from different species, and viruses. Recently these types of bees have been observed eating mycelium, suggesting that honey bees have been “foraging mushrooms to collect antimicrobial medicine to boost their collective immunity” (White, K., 2022). Without these vital nutrients, honey bee morbidity rates rise, and the possibility of fungal infections can spike, leading to unhealthy bee hives and honey shortage. Fungal infections can also lead to colony collapse disorder, so the ingestion of mycelium lowers the morbidity rate of honey bees by preventing those fungal infections from happening. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is when worker bees abandon the queen bee and leave behind the brood and a few nurse bees. This however is not enough to sustain a hive as workers are required to construct and maintain the hive structure as well as produce honey. Colony collapse disorder can also happen when varroa mites infiltrate a hive. These mites will attack and eat bees inside a hive, making it impossible for them to continue to reproduce and make honey. The presence of varroa mites results in a decrease in bee population, deformed bees, an inability to reproduce on the bees part, and overall weakening of the colony. Varroa mites are only capable of reproducing inside of a honey bee colony, posing an even greater threat if they are able to infiltrate because it will destroy their home. Mycelium has been shown to germinate inside of varroa mites and grow from the inside out, killing the mites and protecting the bees. The extermination of mites by mycelium is a better alternative to pesticides that have shown to be toxic towards the bee colony. Mycelium also plays a role in boosting anti-inflammatory and antibacterial resistance in bees due to the ecdysteroids and Zygosaccharomyces found in mycelium, which are then fed to larvae, boosting the next generations immunity and improving overall hive health. Zygosaccharomyces are “spoilage yeasts that have an extreme resistance to acids and preservatives” and can “tolerate high concentrations of sugars and salts” (Deak, T. , 2004). Honey bees depend on this source of steroids to allow them to develop properly during insect pupation. #### Bee broods The symbiotic relationship between bees and mycelium is found primarily in Brazilian stingless bees and Malaysian stingless bees - or more commonly honey bees. Bee broods are the larvae of honeybees. They can typically be found inside of a bee hive, and in man made hives especially, the honeybees can be found developing at different stages (eggs, larvae, and pupae) inside a hexagonal shape. Bee larvae are incapable of producing steroids at birth, so they ingest mycelium to receive vital nutrients they cannot create on their own such as ecdysteroids and Zygosaccharomyces sp (Paludo, C.R. et al. ). Once the honey bee eggs hatch, a white microbial film starts to grow on the boundary between the brood cell and the larval food supply, and is then ingested by the larvae to complete their development (Paludo, C.R. et al.). Gut microbiota play an immense role in the health of the entire bee colony. Three studies were recently conducted and each introduced a new organism to the bees gut microbiota. The bees were fed aged pollen, the assembly of the gut microbiota was disturbed, and antibiotic tetracycline entered their diet. All three studies showed that the honey bees' ability to survive decreased drastically and they became more likely to contract parasites and fungal infections (Bonilla-Rosso, G. and Engel, P. (2018). The introduction of certain mycelium to the honey bees gut microbiota has the opposite effect to what took place in these three studies, highlighting the importance of what bees ingest and the impacts it has on their survivability during both the development and adult stages. #### Bee-fungus symbiosis As mentioned above, honey bees cannot produce steroids themselves, they must be ingested through their diet, specifically in the early development process. Larvae eat the fungus and the ecdysteroids and Zygosaccharomyces produced by the mycelium benefit the larvae. Ecdysteroids are naturally occurring steroids found in mycelium and they help enhance performance and reproduction, boosting honey production and keeping the hive population running at a stable rate. “Zygosaccharomyces sp. is essential for S. depilis larvae” ( Paludo, C.R. et al. ). These sterols thus have a high impact on the survival rate of honey bees. Their ingestion determines whether the honey bees will be able to protect themselves against fungal infections, viruses, and whether or not they will have sufficient strength to increase honey production and the ability to pollinate a larger area and more frequently. With the research provided on the positive impact of mycelium on bees, the relationship between mycelium and honey bees is symbiotic in that the survival of bees and the mycelium’s ability to help boost bee pollination, boosts the ability of the fungi to grow because bee pollination improves air and soil quality, thus boosting plant life. Allowing for a higher survivability rate for both bees and mycelium if they are able to perform their environmental roles properly without the interruption of harmful government approved pesticides. The recent studies done on the symbiotic relationship between mycelium and honey bees will prove to be vital in the argument towards lessening the types of chemicals legally allowed to be sprayed on produce. The use of pesticides on lawns and for other agricultural uses destroy the livelihood of mycelium by killing the soil it grows in, inhibiting bees from ingesting the necessary nutrients mycelium provides to survive. #### Potential environmental impact Pesticides have been diminishing the bee population recently due to a lack of regulations regarding what can and cannot be sprayed on produce to protect it from being damaged while it's being grown. When honey bees collect pollen and nectar for nutrition and to make honey, they are also ingesting harmful chemicals. These chemicals take a toll on the honey bees' already sensitive gut microbiome and lead to a higher morbidity rate in honey bees. "These microbes can suffer with toxic pesticides applied in agriculture, causing dangerous changes in the colony fitness and perturbing bee’s health.” (Yordanova, M. et al. , 2022). Knowledge of how mycelium boosts honey bees immunity could be pivotal to the increase of a honey bee's lifespan and boost reproduction by helping implement new policies to prevent the use of harmful pesticides (Paludo, C.R. et al. ). ## Relationship with humans ### In mythology and folklore Homer's Hymn to Hermes describes three bee-maidens with the power of divination and thus speaking truth, and identifies the food of the gods as honey. Sources associated the bee maidens with Apollo and, until the 1980s, scholars followed Gottfried Hermann (1806) in incorrectly identifying the bee-maidens with the Thriae. Honey, according to a Greek myth, was discovered by a nymph called Melissa ("Bee"); and honey was offered to the Greek gods from Mycenean times. Bees were also associated with the Delphic oracle and the prophetess was sometimes called a bee. The image of a community of honey bees has been used from ancient to modern times, in Aristotle and Plato; in Virgil and Seneca; in Erasmus and Shakespeare; Tolstoy, and by political and social theorists such as Bernard Mandeville and Karl Marx as a model for human society. In English folklore, bees would be told of important events in the household, in a custom known as "Telling the bees". ### In art and literature Some of the oldest examples of bees in art are rock paintings in Spain which have been dated to 15,000 BC. W. B. Yeats's poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1888) contains the couplet "Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, / And live alone in the bee loud glade." At the time he was living in Bedford Park in the West of London. Beatrix Potter's illustrated book The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910) features Babbity Bumble and her brood (pictured). Kit Williams' treasure hunt book The Bee on the Comb (1984) uses bees and beekeeping as part of its story and puzzle. Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees (2004), and the 2009 film starring Dakota Fanning, tells the story of a girl who escapes her abusive home and finds her way to live with a family of beekeepers, the Boatwrights. The 2007 animated comedy film Bee Movie used Jerry Seinfeld's first script and was his first work for children; he starred as a bee named Barry B. Benson, alongside Renée Zellweger. Critics found its premise awkward and its delivery tame. Dave Goulson's A Sting in the Tale (2014) describes his efforts to save bumblebees in Britain, as well as much about their biology. The playwright Laline Paull's fantasy The Bees (2015) tells the tale of a hive bee named Flora 717 from hatching onwards. ### Beekeeping Humans have kept honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, for millennia. Beekeepers collect honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen, and royal jelly from hives; bees are also kept to pollinate crops and to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. Depictions of humans collecting honey from wild bees date to 15,000 years ago; efforts to domesticate them are shown in Egyptian art around 4,500 years ago. Simple hives and smoke were used; jars of honey were found in the tombs of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun. From the 18th century, European understanding of the colonies and biology of bees allowed the construction of the moveable comb hive so that honey could be harvested without destroying the colony. Among Classical Era authors, beekeeping with the use of smoke is described in Aristotle's History of Animals Book 9. The account mentions that bees die after stinging; that workers remove corpses from the hive, and guard it; castes including workers and non-working drones, but "kings" rather than queens; predators including toads and bee-eaters; and the waggle dance, with the "irresistible suggestion" of άροσειονται ("aroseiontai", it waggles) and παρακολουθούσιν ("parakolouthousin", they watch). Beekeeping is described in detail by Virgil in his Georgics; it is also mentioned in his Aeneid, and in Pliny's Natural History. ### As commercial pollinators Bees play an important role in pollinating flowering plants, and are the major type of pollinator in many ecosystems that contain flowering plants. It is estimated that one third of the human food supply depends on pollination by insects, birds and bats, most of which is accomplished by bees, whether wild or domesticated. Over the last half century, there has been a general decline in the species richness of wild bees and other pollinators, probably attributable to stress from increased parasites and disease, the use of pesticides, and a general decrease in the number of wild flowers. Climate change probably exacerbates the problem. Contract pollination has overtaken the role of honey production for beekeepers in many countries. After the introduction of Varroa mites, feral honey bees declined dramatically in the US, though their numbers have since recovered. The number of colonies kept by beekeepers declined slightly, through urbanization, systematic pesticide use, tracheal and Varroa mites, and the closure of beekeeping businesses. In 2006 and 2007 the rate of attrition increased, and was described as colony collapse disorder. In 2010 invertebrate iridescent virus and the fungus Nosema ceranae were shown to be in every killed colony, and deadly in combination. Winter losses increased to about 1/3. Varroa mites were thought to be responsible for about half the losses. Apart from colony collapse disorder, losses outside the US have been attributed to causes including pesticide seed dressings, using neonicotinoids such as clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. From 2013 the European Union restricted some pesticides to stop bee populations from declining further. In 2014 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warned that bees faced increased risk of extinction because of global warming. In 2018 the European Union decided to ban field use of all three major neonicotinoids; they remain permitted in veterinary, greenhouse, and vehicle transport usage. Farmers have focused on alternative solutions to mitigate these problems. By raising native plants, they provide food for native bee pollinators like Lasioglossum vierecki and L. leucozonium, leading to less reliance on honey bee populations. ### As food producers Honey is a natural product produced by bees and stored for their own use, but its sweetness has always appealed to humans. Before domestication of bees was even attempted, humans were raiding their nests for their honey. Smoke was often used to subdue the bees and such activities are depicted in rock paintings in Spain dated to 15,000 BC. Honey bees are used commercially to produce honey. They also produce some substances used as dietary supplements with possible health benefits, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly, though all of these can also cause allergic reactions. ### As food Bees are considered edible insects. People in some countries eat insects, including the larvae and pupae of bees, mostly stingless species. They also gather larvae, pupae and surrounding cells, known as bee brood, for consumption. In the Indonesian dish botok tawon from Central and East Java, bee larvae are eaten as a companion to rice, after being mixed with shredded coconut, wrapped in banana leaves, and steamed. Bee brood (pupae and larvae) although low in calcium, has been found to be high in protein and carbohydrate, and a useful source of phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, and trace minerals iron, zinc, copper, and selenium. In addition, while bee brood was high in fat, it contained no fat soluble vitamins (such as A, D, and E) but it was a good source of most of the water-soluble B vitamins including choline as well as vitamin C. The fat was composed mostly of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids with 2.0% being polyunsaturated fatty acids. ### As alternative medicine Apitherapy is a branch of alternative medicine that uses honey bee products, including raw honey, royal jelly, pollen, propolis, beeswax and apitoxin (Bee venom). The claim that apitherapy treats cancer, which some proponents of apitherapy make, remains unsupported by evidence-based medicine. ### Stings The painful stings of bees are mostly associated with the poison gland and the Dufour's gland which are abdominal exocrine glands containing various chemicals. In Lasioglossum leucozonium, the Dufour's Gland mostly contains octadecanolide as well as some eicosanolide. There is also evidence of n-triscosane, n-heptacosane, and 22-docosanolide. However, the secretions of these glands could also be used for nest construction. ## See also - Australian native bees - Fear of bees (apiphobia) - Superorganism - World Bee Day ## Explanatory notes

Ontario Highway 525

Ontario provincial highway

Secondary Highway 525, commonly referred to as Highway 525, is a provincially maintained secondary highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is a short, remote secondary highway that links Highway 596 to the Wabaseemoong First Nations reserve. It is the second-westernmost secondary highway in the province, Highway 673 being the first. The route was commissioned by 1982 along what was formerly Highway 596; a former use of the route number existed between 1956 and 1973 in Gravenhurst. ## Route description Highway 525 is a very remote highway in northwestern Ontario. There are no settlements along its 35.4-kilometre (22.0 mi) length, and the closest human habitation is Minaki near its southern terminus and Whitedog near its northern terminus. The route begins west of Minaki, branching off from Highway 596, which travels south to Kenora. It travels north along a wide strip of land bounded by Sand Lake to the east, and by Swan Lake and Tetu Lake to the west, all part of the Winnipeg River watershed. Zig-zagging in a generally northward direction, the highway passes through thick boreal forest. At approximately its midpoint, the route meets the Cygnet Lake road, which provides access to a remote camp. The highway continues north, curving west immediately before ending at the entrance to the Wabaseemoong (Islington) reserve. The road continues into the reserve to provide access to Caribou Falls and Whitedog. ## History The current Highway 525 is not the original usage of the number. In 1956, the number was one of several dozen Secondary Highways designated by the Department of Highways to improve connections between King's Highways. The highway followed the route of present-day Muskoka District Road 18 north from Highway 11 to the Muskoka Centre. It was decommissioned between early 1972 and late 1973, shortly after the establishment of the District Municipality of Muskoka. The current Highway 525 was designated by 1982. Prior to that, the road it followed was an extension of Highway 596 that was designated in the mid-1970s. The route was gravel surfaced when it was assumed, but has since been paved. ## Major intersections

Operation Bribie

1967 battle in Vietnam (aka Battle of Ap My An)

Operation Bribie (17–18 February 1967), also known as the Battle of Ap My An, was fought during the Vietnam War in Phuoc Tuy province between Australian forces from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6 RAR) and two companies of Viet Cong from D445 Battalion, likely reinforced by North Vietnamese regulars. During the night of 16 February the Viet Cong attacked a South Vietnamese Regional Force compound at Lang Phuoc Hai, before withdrawing the following morning after heavy fighting with South Vietnamese forces. Two hours later, a Viet Cong company was reported to have formed a tight perimeter in the rainforest 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of Lang Phuoc Hai, near the abandoned hamlet of Ap My An. In response, the Australians deployed a quick reaction force. Anticipating that the Viet Cong would attempt to withdraw, as they had during previous encounters, forces from the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) were inserted to block the likely withdrawal route in the hope of intercepting and destroying them. On the afternoon of 17 February, American UH-1 Iroquois helicopters and M113 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) deployed 6 RAR into the area north-west of Hoi My. Following an airmobile assault into an unsecured landing zone at 13:45, A Company 6 RAR was surprised by a strong, well-sited and dug-in Viet Cong force – which, rather than withdrawing, had likely remained in location in an attempt to ambush any reaction force sent to the area. The Australians were soon contacted by heavy small arms fire, with a third of the lead platoon falling wounded in the initial volleys. A Company subsequently broke contact and withdrew under heavy fire from what appeared to be a Viet Cong base area. Initially believing they were opposed by only a company, 6 RAR subsequently launched a quick attack by two companies. However, unknown to the Australians, the Viet Cong had been reinforced and they now faced a battalion-sized force in well prepared positions. At 15:35, supported by air strikes, armour, and fire from A Company, B Company assaulted the position. From the outset, lead elements came under constant Viet Cong sniper fire from the trees, and from previously undetected machine-guns. The assault soon faltered, with steadily increasing casualties as the Viet Cong withstood multiple frontal assaults, including bayonet charges by two separate platoons. Surrounded and receiving fire from all sides, the lead Australian elements from B Company could advance no further against the determined dug-in force; all attempts to regain momentum failed to dislodge the defenders. Initially, the Australians used their APCs to secure the landing zone at the jungle's edge, but when the infantry was in trouble they were dispatched as a relief force. Fighting their way forward, the M113s finally arrived by 18:15 and began loading the most seriously wounded as darkness approached. The Viet Cong subsequently launched two successive counter-attacks, both repulsed by the Australians. During the fighting, one of the APCs was disabled by a recoilless rifle at close range, killing the driver. By 19:00, after a five-hour battle, B Company broke contact and withdrew into a night harbour near the landing zone with the remainder of the battalion. Mortars, artillery fire and airstrikes covered their withdrawal, then pounded the battlefield into the evening. After a tense night, the Australians returned in the morning to find the Viet Cong had left the area, dragging most of their dead and wounded with them while avoiding a large blocking force. A hard-fought affair at close range, the disciplined Viet Cong force matched the Australians as both sides stood their ground, inflicting heavy casualties on each other, before each fell back. Although 6 RAR ultimately prevailed, the vicious fighting at Ap My An was probably the closest the Australian Army came to a major defeat during the war. ## Background ### Military situation The Australian victory at the Battle of Long Tan on 18 August 1966 proved to be a major local set back for the Viet Cong, indefinitely forestalling an imminent movement against the Australian base at Nui Dat and challenging their previous domination of Phuoc Tuy province. In the months that followed the two infantry battalions of the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF)—5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (5 RAR) and 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6 RAR)—had conducted a number of search and destroy, village cordon and search, and route security operations in an attempt to further extend their control, and to separate the local people from the influence of the Viet Cong. Such operations usually resulted in contacts between the Australians and small groups of Viet Cong, while during cordon and search operations of Binh Ba and Hoa Long a number of villagers suspected of sympathising with the communists were apprehended and handed over to the South Vietnamese authorities. Several search operations were also conducted by the Australians in areas suspected of containing Viet Cong base camps, and these often resulted in the discovery of recently used and quickly evacuated camps, hospitals and logistic bases which had then been destroyed. Meanwhile, both battalions had also continued an extensive patrolling and ambushing program around the task force base at Nui Dat. By December 1966 some Australian officers, including Lieutenant Colonel John Warr, the 5 RAR commanding officer, had begun to reassess their operational aims. Warr argued that they should move away from conventional operations and instead focus on population control and disrupting communist supply lines and freedom of movement. Assessing that with just two infantry battalions 1 ATF did not have the strength to destroy the Viet Cong forces then in Phuoc Tuy, Warr favoured cordon and search operations to eliminate cadres and block the supply of rice from the villages. On 7 January 1967, Brigadier David Jackson was replaced as Commander 1 ATF by Brigadier Stuart Graham, and he subsequently approved Warr's proposed concept of operations. Two days later 5 RAR conducted a successful cordon and search of the village of Binh Ba as part of Operation Caloundra, screening 1,500 villagers and interrogating 591. Nine confirmed members of the Viet Cong were captured, while five draft dodgers were also detained. By mid-afternoon the operation had concluded without a shot being fired. The Australians considered the operation a complete success and its results were largely seen to vindicate their evolving tactics, techniques and procedures. In the following months 5 RAR continued to develop cordon and search procedures as 1 ATF attempted to extend its influence, with such operations proving significant in weakening the Viet Cong infrastructure and removing a number of villages from their control. In this manner the Australians had continued to operate independently within Phuoc Tuy province, and while the war had become a series of big unit search and destroy operations in a war of attrition for the Americans, they had pursued their own counter-insurgency campaign. Regardless, differences of opinion between Australian and American methods had produced friction, and increasingly impatient with the Australian approach, in early-1967 the Commander US Military Assistance Command Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, had complained to the Commander Australian Forces Vietnam, Major General Tim Vincent, demanding a more aggressive approach. However, the Australians were convinced that deliberate patrolling techniques were more effective in separating the Viet Cong from the population in the villages while working towards slowly extending government control, and such urgings went largely unheeded. In February 1967 1 ATF focused on the Dat Do area and the south-east of Phuoc Tuy province, initiating a program of conventional operations and pacification, with 5 RAR concentrating on cordon and search and civic action against Viet Cong cadres in the villages, while 6 RAR was tasked with search and destroy missions targeting the Viet Cong D445 Battalion. During the first week 6 RAR conducted ambushes along Route 23 between Dat Do and the Suoi Tre river, pre-empting Viet Cong attacks in the area during the Tet holiday. The results of this operation were modest, and the Australians suffered a number of casualties from a misplaced fire mission from the 161st Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery which killed four and wounded 13, including Warrant Officer Class Two Jack Kirby, who had earlier received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions at Long Tan, and was among the dead. Meanwhile, 5 RAR continued its cordon and search operations. On 13–14 February the battalion completed a cordon and search of An Nhut, just west of Dat Do, with South Vietnamese forces, apprehending 14 Viet Cong suspects, five communist sympathisers, two South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) deserters and a draft dodger. The Australians again suffered heavy casualties after the officer commanding C Company, his second-in-command, and a New Zealand artillery forward observer were killed by an unrecorded ARVN mine. Regardless, these operations met with some success, and over a six-day period the battalion captured 40 Viet Cong. Yet even as Graham continued to refine his strategy the Viet Cong struck, and this sudden initiative would force the Australians into the type of conventional engagement that Westmoreland had been advocating. ## Prelude ### Opposing forces Based at Nui Dat in the III Corps Tactical Zone as part of US II Field Force, Vietnam, 1 ATF included two infantry battalions plus armour, aviation, engineers and artillery support, with total Australian troop strength in Vietnam reaching 6,300 men. Logistic arrangements were provided by the 1st Australian Logistic Support Group based at the port of Vung Tau. Meanwhile, People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) units operating in the province in early-1967 included Main Forces from the 5th Division, which consisted of the 274th and 275th Regiments, each of three infantry battalions under the command of Senior Colonel Nguyen The Truyen. Supporting this force were a number of artillery, engineer, medical and logistic units. Group 89 (Artillery) was equipped with recoilless rifles, medium mortars and heavy machine-guns. Local Forces included D445 Battalion, a provincial unit normally operating in the south of the province and in Long Khanh, while guerrilla forces included two companies in the Chau Duc district, one in Long Dat and a platoon in Xuyen Moc; in total around 4,500 men. Australian intelligence assessed the division as capable of conducting a regimental-sized harassing raid against Nui Dat, while at the same time using its second regiment for ambushes, decoys or other supporting tasks. 274th Regiment was believed capable of inflicting heavy casualties on units up to a battalion, while 275th Regiment was assessed as only having the capability to attack isolated outposts or conduct limited ambushes and was unlikely to attempt a major attack without the support of 274th Regiment. Overall, it lacked the ability to conduct a protracted division-sized operation, although one regiment could likely reinforce the other within a period of eight hours. Yet even while the possibility of a divisional attack against Nui Dat was considered remote, the threat of raids up to regimental strength forced Graham to maintain a defensive posture. Yet lacking a third infantry battalion, 1 ATF's operational strength was limited. D445 Battalion was thought capable of mortaring, harassing fire and quick raids and was likely to be able to inflict heavy casualties on forces up to company size. During the night of 16/17 February 1967 a Viet Cong force, likely from D445 Battalion, had attacked a South Vietnamese Regional Force (RF) post occupied by 612 RF Company, located 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south-east of Nui Dat near Hoi My, in the vicinity of the coastal village of Lang Phuoc Hai on the South China Sea. 1 ATF was first alerted to the Viet Cong movement against Lang Phuoc Hai in the early hours of the following morning by the senior American advisor in Phuoc Tuy, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Gilham. At 02:30, Major Gordon Murphy, Officer Commanding A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, was woken to be informed that the RF post there was under attack from a Viet Cong force of at least one company. A reaction force was likely to be requested from 1 ATF, and Murphy's armoured personnel carriers (APCs) would also be required. Shortly after 05:00 Gilham advised that the Viet Cong—now estimated at two companies—had occupied Lang Phuoc Hai and had subsequently entered the nearby hamlet of Lo Gom, and were attempting to collect boats in order to withdraw from the area by sea. Murphy was warned to have a troop of APCs ready by 06:00 to move the task force standby rifle company from 5 RAR to the area in order to relieve the South Vietnamese outpost. 3 Troop was immediately reacted to collect the company. Only recently arrived in Vietnam, Murphy had taken over command just the previous evening. Regardless, he believed that it would be unwise to send a reaction force down Route 44 as it would be too predictable, while in the near darkness the APC crews would be unable to effectively respond to any Viet Cong ambush. Graham subsequently agreed with Murphy's objections, and the Australians began planning a more deliberate response. At 05:30 Gilham urgently requested the Australian APCs be at a compound in Dat Do by 06:45 in order to transport an ARVN company. However, as the events unfolded A Squadron was not required for this operation, while 3 Troop was also recalled and the original order to load the task force standby rifle company was rescinded. As reports of the fighting around Lang Phuoc Hai continued, Headquarters 1 ATF struggled to respond amid delays and confusion. Difficulties in obtaining American assault helicopters and intelligence reports of a possible attack on the task force base by the Viet Cong 5th Division further hampered planning. Meanwhile, Operation Renmark—a 5 RAR operation planned to begin in the Long Hai hills the following day—was postponed, while arrangements were made to move the guns of the 101st Field Battery by CH-47 Chinook helicopters to a temporary fire support base near Dat Do, in order to provide fire support to the reaction force which would be out of range of the guns at Nui Dat. Meanwhile, heavy fighting ensured between the Viet Cong and South Vietnamese near Lo Gom, as 615 RF Company from Xa Phuoc Loi and an ARVN battalion from Dat Do—the 3/43rd Infantry Battalion, entered the battle. By 09:35 the RF company was surrounded by the Viet Cong, now in battalion strength. However, supported by American airstrikes and artillery, the South Vietnamese successfully fought their way out, and by 10:10 the Viet Cong were reported to have withdrawn north-east to the clear rainforest strip known to the Australians as the "Light Green", after suffering heavy casualties during five hours of fighting. Two hours later, a Viet Cong company was reported to have formed a tight perimeter in the jungle 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of Lang Phuoc Hai, near the abandoned hamlet of Ap My An. Believed to be from D445 Battalion, in spite of repeated airstrikes the force had remained in location and appeared to be attempting to cover the withdrawal of the main Viet Cong force to the east with heavy machine-gun fire. The Australians assessed that, after having extended their night attack into daylight, the Viet Cong would now attempt to leave the battlefield in small parties before pulling-back to their jungle bases. Yet Graham hoped to inflict a heavy defeat on the Viet Cong to boost the morale of the South Vietnamese territorial forces by demonstrating that they could not be attacked with impunity. Considering that the Viet Cong would attempt to withdraw as they had during previous encounters, forces from the 1 ATF would subsequently be inserted into blocking positions on the likely withdrawal route in an attempt to intercept and destroy them. A swift reaction was required in order to prevent the anticipated withdrawal and Graham subsequently decided on a full battalion operation with APCs in support, aimed at cutting-off the Viet Cong's likely withdrawal route to the east. Yet incomplete information and the need to conform to timings dictated by the limited availability of American helicopters for the insertion resulted in further delays. ## Battle ### Encounter battle at the landing zone, 17 February 1967 Lieutenant Colonel Colin Townsend, the commanding officer of 6 RAR, was called to the task force command post for a briefing at 10:20. Townsend subsequently issued verbal orders to deploy the battalion at 11:30, and 6 RAR subsequently launched a quick reaction force code named Operation Bribie. The plan envisioned C Company, under the command of Major Brian McFarlane, being inserted by M113 APCs from A Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment to secure a helicopter landing zone—known as LZ Amber—3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of Hoi My, just north of the hamlet of Ap My An. A, B and D Companies would then be flown into LZ Amber by American UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. The battalion would then link up and establish a blocking position to prevent the Viet Cong withdrawing east, before patrolling westward to contact. In direct support were 105 mm M2A2 howitzers from the 101st Field Battery at the airstrip at Dat Do, which would subsequently be secured by A Company 5 RAR, while also supporting the operation were Bell H-13 Sioux light observation helicopters from the 161st Reconnaissance Flight and elements of the US 1st Battalion, 83rd Artillery Regiment. A New Zealand forward observation party was attached to the battery and would accompany B Company, 6 RAR. Due to the need to secure the task force base, 6 RAR would be required to return to Nui Dat before dark and this restriction would later impact heavily on the operation. Over seven hours after Gilham's original request, at 12:35 the Australian APCs had finally departed Nui Dat under Murphy's command with C Company and the Mortar Platoon. Suspecting a Viet Cong ambush, Murphy had prudently avoided following the obvious route to Lang Phuoc Hai, travelling cross-country instead, moving through Long Dien and into the paddy fields parallel to Route 326. Yet the initial lack of artillery cover had slowed the movement of the 35-vehicle column, while the continual need to reduce speed while traversing the numerous paddy bunds en route was not appreciated beforehand and further hampered their progress. Indeed, while Murphy had correctly calculated that the rice fields would be dry and hard at that time of year, he found that the main obstacle to rapid movement was a 1-metre (3.3 ft) high paddy-bund every 30 to 100 metres (33 to 109 yd) at the edge of each rice field. Meanwhile, although the lead company in the air assault—A Company commanded by Major Max Carroll—had departed Nui Dat at 13:30 aboard fifteen UH-1 helicopters from a US Army aviation company, C Company had still not arrived in position to secure the landing zone. Although unknown to the Australians at the time, the earlier attack on Lang Phuoc Hai had been a deliberate attempt by the Viet Cong to provoke a reaction from 1 ATF. As such there would be no withdrawal on this occasion. Anticipating that any relief force would move by road, the Viet Cong had subsequently established an extensive ambush in the buildings alongside Route 44, which led into the village itself. Although the presence of this trap was not detected by the Australians, Murphy's evasion had ensured that his APCs had avoided it, moving the infantry by a cross-country route instead. However, with C Company delayed as a result, A Company made their airmobile assault onto an unsecured landing zone at 13:45, supported only by indirect fire from the artillery at Dat Do in suppression, which was initially limited due to delay in setting up the fire support base. Under the command of Major Owen O'Brien, A Company then began to advance into the fringe of thick rainforest to secure the southern edge of the landing zone for the arrival of B Company and the remainder of the battalion. Finally, over 30 minutes after the lead company had flown in, the APCs began to receive sniper fire as they neared the landing zone. A Company moved south, shaking out into an open formation across a frontage of 150 metres (160 yd), with 2 Platoon on the right and 3 Platoon on the left, while 1 Platoon was in depth. Already in the dense vegetation, 2 Platoon—under Second Lieutenant Graham Ackland—had only advanced 150 metres when a sniper was spotted in a tree and was subsequently shot by the platoon sergeant. Almost simultaneously, 3 Platoon was engaged with small arms fire, while behind them the company headquarters was engaged by more snipers. 2 Platoon assaulted straight into the main Viet Cong position with grenades and machine-guns. Breaking-in they moved forward, killing a number of Viet Cong in their weapon pits but suffering six casualties in less than a minute, with a third of the lead platoon falling wounded in the initial volleys. Pinned down and in trouble, Ackland realised that he was facing a sizable and well dug-in force and he attempted to move his sections into an all-round defensive perimeter in order to defend against any counter-attack; the Viet Cong did not attack however and instead remained in their pits. In an attempt to relieve 2 Platoon, O'Brien manoeuvred 1 and 3 Platoons, while requesting B Company support his right flank as soon as they arrived at the landing zone. Arriving shortly after the initial contact, the lead platoon from B Company—5 Platoon under Second Lieutenant John O'Halloran—was forced to jump from their helicopters as they were unable to land after taking fire at the landing zone. The platoon quickly formed up and moved into the vegetation on the western edge of the landing zone, with the remainder of the company following them as they landed. Meanwhile, O'Brien estimated that A Company was facing at least a company dug-in across a 100 to 200 metres (110 to 220 yd) frontage, armed with five or six machine-guns. Unable to use artillery because of the helicopters still flying-in the remainder of the battalion, while the mortars were still with the APCs and had not yet arrived, O'Brien was without support and any further advance would not be possible. Unlike previous encounters during which the Viet Cong had attempted to avoid battle, the force now confronting A Company appeared to have no intention of withdrawing and was instead mounting an unexpectedly determined defence. The Australians suspected that this uncharacteristic willingness to fight during daylight indicated that the Viet Cong force may have been covering the withdrawal of their command elements. Under heavy fire from what appeared to be a Viet Cong base area, O'Brien extricated his platoons with difficulty and subsequently broke contact, withdrawing 250 metres (270 yd) with the wounded to the southern edge of the landing zone. Only twenty minutes since the first contact, A Company had returned to its original position on the rainforest fringe, having suffered seven men wounded and using most of their ammunition. O'Brien subsequently briefed Townsend by radio, again reporting the Viet Cong position as a 'camp' of at least company-size, and proposing that A Company remain in location while B Company adopted a position on the right flank until the situation could be clarified, to which he agreed. Townsend subsequently arrived by helicopter as A Company's casualties were being evacuated by an Australian UH-1 Iroquois from No. 9 Squadron RAAF. Meanwhile, the APCs carrying C Company and the Mortar Platoon began to arrive, while D Company was inserted by helicopter a few minutes later and took up blocking positions in the tree-line north-east of the landing zone. Just after 14:30, B Company—under Major Ian Mackay—began receiving sniper fire in their position just south-west of A Company, and in response Mackay moved the company back before calling-in artillery fire onto the Viet Cong positions. Initially believing that he only faced a company-sized Viet Cong force, with his rifle companies now finally assembled, at 15:15 Townsend issued orders for a quick attack by two companies. ### B Company 6 RAR quick attack fails, 17 February 1967 Townsend's plan envisioned A Company advancing south approximately 200 metres (220 yd) and engaging the Viet Cong in an attempt to split their fire and provide fire support, while B Company would move around from the right flank to launch the assault. Meanwhile, C Company would occupy a blocking position to the west, while D Company would be kept in reserve. B Company would then assault in a south-east direction on an axis that would take them across the front of A Company, which would require their fire to cut-out as they did so. The scheme of manoeuvre was based on the assumption that the Viet Cong position was a camp as previously reported, and not a defensive position, yet with visibility in the thick vegetation limited to between 10 and 30 metres (11 and 33 yd), few of the men from A Company had actually seen much of the position during the earlier fighting. Yet the Viet Cong had likely now been reinforced by North Vietnamese regulars from 275th Regiment and unknown to the Australians they now faced a battalion-sized force in well prepared positions. The assault began at 15:35, with A Company beginning their advance into the rainforest with two platoons forward and one back. Meanwhile, B Company began forming up in single file on the right flank, also with two platoons forward in assault formation, while one remained in reserve at the rear. Each of the forward platoons covered a frontage of 100 metres (110 yd), with 4 Platoon—under the command of Second Lieutenant John Sullivan—on the left, and O'Halloran's 5 Platoon on the right. Company headquarters was located centrally, while 6 Platoon—commanded by Sergeant Butch Brady—was to the rear. Each platoon adopted a similar formation, with two sections forward and one back. From the outset the lead elements of B Company came under constant sniper fire from the trees, and from Viet Cong machine-guns that had not previously been detected by the Australians. Even as the company was shaking out they were engaged sporadically by a group of Viet Cong just 50 metres (55 yd) to their front, with one Australian soldier being hit before the attack began and later dying at the landing zone before he could be evacuated. B Company subsequently crossed the line of departure at 15:55, and two minutes later A Company began engaging the Viet Cong positions with small arms from their 7.62 mm M60 machine-guns and L1A1 Self Loading Rifles, and 5.56 mm M16 assault rifles in support. As B Company moved forward, their left flank was engaged by a machine-gun from a small party of Viet Cong to their front, while sniper fire intensified. The Australians continued to advance with co-ordinated fire and movement, but were now receiving fire from three directions. Ten minutes after stepping off, B Company crossed the front of A Company, forcing them to cease their covering fire. Without support, the Australians were now assaulting a well dug-in and largely unseen Viet Cong force that was disposed in a wide arc. Penetrating the position, the Australian flanks were increasingly exposed to fire, while the dense undergrowth obscured the Viet Cong pits and reduced visibility to just a few metres. Both the lead Australian platoons were soon enveloped, as fire swept across the front of B Company from the Viet Cong engaging them with heavy machine-guns, claymore mines and light mortars. Meanwhile, Viet Cong snipers continued to engage the Australians from the rear, who unsuccessfully attempted to regain the initiative with small arms fire and grenades. The assault soon faltered with steadily increasing casualties. The two forward Australian platoons subsequently lost contact with each other, while the left section of 4 Platoon was engaged by a 12.7 mm heavy machine-gun, and began to fall behind. The section on the right was also engaged by a machine-gun, and the frontage of the platoon subsequently broke. The section commander assaulted the Viet Cong position with an M79 grenade launcher, however he was unable to dislodge them. Meanwhile, on the right, 5 Platoon pressed their advance, and they subsequently pulled further ahead of the rest of B Company. At 16:25, with 5 Platoon now 40 metres (44 yd) in front and also receiving machine-gun fire from its front and right flank, Mackay finally ordered the platoon to halt as he attempted to manoeuvre the company to regain control of the situation. 6 Platoon was ordered to advance through 4 Platoon to assault the machine-gun on the left flank, before linking up with 5 Platoon and continuing the assault. Brady subsequently directed his men to fix bayonets and charge the Viet Cong positions, yet the attack was soon cut to pieces by machine-guns which engaged them from the centre and left and it was subsequently halted behind O'Halloran's rear section. Brady then requested mortar fire in support; however, the need to request air clearance only resulted in further delay. By 16:45 B Company's assault had bogged down due to the strong Viet Cong resistance. All of its platoons were in contact and unable to move, while company headquarters had advanced behind the lead platoons and was also pinned down. As the fighting continued, D Company remained in a blocking position to the north-east of the landing zone. Meanwhile, after inserting C Company into its blocking position to the west, the APCs from A Squadron had moved into a harbour around the tree line, from where they covered the flanks of the rifle companies in the rainforest. Not included in the assault due to the belief that the terrain was unsuitable for armour, in their location the APCs were occasionally hit by overshooting rounds, but otherwise remained out of the battle. This assumption was later found to be incorrect though, and the APCs would likely have been able to move through the dense undergrowth, while the firepower provided by their .50 calibre machine-guns would have been able to assist B Company, which was pinned down. Regardless, the armament of the M113s would have likely proven inadequate for attacking strong defences and bunkers, and their light aluminium armour was known to be vulnerable to heavy machine-guns and RPGs. With both A and B Company now heavily engaged, Townsend subsequently asked Murphy whether his APCs could move around to the right in another attempt to outflank the Viet Cong; however, a creek made the ground in that area too boggy for the vehicles and this proved impractical. A close quarters battle then ensued, continuing until night fell with the Australians assaulting the Viet Cong positions using frontal tactics which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides. ### Final assault and withdrawal overnight, 17/18 February 1967 Under orders from Townsend to press on with the assault as fast as possible, Mackay decided to switch the B Company assault to the right flank, ordering O'Halloran by radio to advance a further 30 metres (33 yd) in order to outflank the Viet Cong machine-gun and allow 6 Platoon to resume its advance on the left flank. However, the machine-gun was soon found to be located a further 30 metres forward than expected, and 5 Platoon would need to assault 60 metres (66 yd) across open scrub under heavy fire in order to silence it. As O'Halloran relayed orders for the assault, machine-guns and snipers continued to engage them intermittently, and the Australians continued to return fire with small arms and grenades. Again fixing bayonets, on order the Australians rose as one and were almost immediately hit with heavy fire, with the forward line disintegrating as a result. The left forward section under Lance Corporal Kerry Rooney then advanced directly at the machine-gun located to their front, firing as they moved. Rooney then charged the position throwing grenades but was shot and killed within metres of the Viet Cong position. Suffering several more men wounded, the Australian left flank again became pinned down. Meanwhile, the right forward section under Corporal Robin Jones attacked the Viet Cong at close range, inflicting heavy casualties on the defenders with grenades and small arms fire. However, three previously undetected Viet Cong machine-guns subsequently engaged 5 Platoon, which succeeded in breaking up the Australian attack on the right flank with intense enfilade fire which killed three men and wounded five more. Of his section only Jones was left unwounded. For his leadership he was later awarded the Military Medal. The Australian assault stalled having covered just 25 metres (27 yd). Nearly half of the men in the forward sections had become casualties and the platoon stretcher bearer, Private Richard Odendahl repeatedly risked his life dragging men to safety, providing first aid, recovering weapons from the dead, and providing O'Halloran with information on the disposition of his platoon. For his actions Odendahl was also later awarded the Military Medal. Attempting to reinforce his threatened right flank, O'Halloran ordered the M60 machine-gun from his reserve section forward to support Jones while the wounded were recovered, however both the machine-gunner and his offsider were killed attempting to move forward. Surrounded by Viet Cong machine-guns and receiving fire from all sides, the lead Australian elements from B Company could advance no further against a determined and well dug-in force, and all attempts to regain momentum were unable to dislodge the defenders. With the Australian and Viet Cong positions now too close to each other, O'Halloran could neither move forward nor withdraw. Artillery began to fire in support of the Australians, however it initially fell too far to the rear to be effective, and it had to be adjusted by the B Company forward observer, Captain Jim Ryan, himself under heavy fire. 5 Platoon was still in danger of becoming isolated and O'Brien now suggested he move A Company forward to assist B Company, however this was rejected by Mackay who feared the two companies clashing in the confusion. Meanwhile, O'Halloran called for the APCs to come forward to provide assistance, while the platoon sergeant—Sergeant Mervyn McCullough—guided a section from 6 Platoon forward to reinforce 5 Platoon, and begin evacuating the casualties. Bolstered by reinforcements and with accurate artillery covering fire O'Halloran now felt that he was in a position to extract his platoon. Yet at that moment two rounds from one of the howitzers fell short, and while one of the shells harmlessly exploded against a tree, the other landed just to the right of the 5 Platoon headquarters, killing two men and wounding eight others, including six of the seven reinforcements from 6 Platoon. Following an urgent radio call from O'Halloran, the artillery ceased fire. Shortly afterwards an RPG round hit the same area, wounding McCullough. Townsend subsequently then reported that he was facing a force of at least battalion-strength with support weapons—likely D445 Battalion—while the level of proficiency indicated that it might also include North Vietnamese Army (NVA) elements. However, due to earlier warnings that the Viet Cong were preparing to attack Nui Dat that evening, prior to the start of the operation Graham had ordered Townsend to return to base that afternoon, and this restriction remained extant. Likewise, with Operation Renmark scheduled to start the following morning, A Company 5 RAR—then at Dat Do protecting the artillery—would also need to be released before nightfall, adding to the requirement to conclude the operation that afternoon. Regardless, this restriction had only served to make B Company's task all the more difficult, with Mackay facing demands to complete the action while at the same time not become decisively engaged and unable to withdraw his company. At 16:17 Townsend was ordered to prepare his battalion for a helicopter extraction which was due to begin an hour later, while at 17:15 he was ordered to break contact immediately, however this proved impossible as 5 Platoon remained in heavy contact. Mackay now estimated that he would be unable to get forward to support the beleaguered platoon for a further 30 minutes; however, by 17:50 he realised that the Viet Cong had moved between them and A Company. Yet even while the Viet Cong continued to heavily engage both A and B Companies, the remainder of the Australian battalion and the APCs were beginning to line up on the landing zone in preparation for returning to Nui Dat. The order was finally rescinded when it became clear that both companies were unable to break-off the engagement. Meanwhile, a number of bush fires were now burning through the area, detonating discarded ammunition and adding to the noise of the battle. Initially the Australians had used their APCs to secure the landing zone at the jungle's edge, however with the infantry in trouble they were subsequently dispatched as a relief force. Three M113s from 2 Troop under Sergeant Frank Graham entered the rainforest shortly after 17:15; however, lacking clear directions to B Company's position 300 metres (330 yd) away, they fumbled around in the dense vegetation before locating A Company instead. Instructed by Mackay to head for the white smoke of the bush fire, in error the APCs then set out towards the most obvious smoke further to the south-east of B Company. A Viet Cong 75 mm recoilless rifle subsequently engaged the lead vehicle twice at close range, though both rounds missed, exploding in the trees nearby. Still unsure of B Company's location, Graham was unwilling to engage the Viet Cong position with heavy machine-guns for fear of hitting his own men, and the cavalry subsequently withdrew. Later it was discovered that the cavalry had likely been engaged by elements defending the Viet Cong headquarters. Meanwhile, due to the threat posed by the Viet Cong anti-tank weapons the remainder of 2 Troop then arrived under the command Second Lieutenant David Watts to provide added protection; in total 12 vehicles. A further attempt to reach B Company by the cavalry also failed however, after the A Company guide became disorientated in the thick vegetation. Mackay then threw coloured smoke, while Sioux helicopters arrived overhead to guide the vehicles to their position. B Company's casualties now amounted to seven men killed and 19 wounded. Fighting their way forward, the M113s finally arrived by 18:15 and began loading the most badly wounded as darkness approached. The Viet Cong subsequently launched two successive counter-attacks, assaulting B Company from the east and south-east; however, both attacks were repulsed by the Australians, as they responded with small arms fire while Mackay called-in an airstrike. During the fighting one of the APCs was subsequently disabled by a recoilless rifle at close range, killing the driver and wounding the crew commander. A second round then struck the open cargo hatch, wounding several more men and re-wounding a number of the Australian casualties. A third round then landed nearby, as the M113s returned fire with their .30 and .50 calibre machine-guns. Under covering fire the Australians attempted to recover the damaged vehicle, yet it became stuck hard against a tree. With the Viet Cong threatening a further attack from the north-east, the Australian cavalry swept the area with a heavy volume of fire and were met by equally heavy return fire. By 18:50 the light was fading rapidly, while the bulk of 5 Platoon's more serious casualties had been evacuated by APC. However, with many of the Australian dead lying in close proximity to the Viet Cong positions, no attempt was made to recover them due to the likelihood of further casualties. Meanwhile, the damaged APC was subsequently destroyed with white phosphorus grenades to prevent its weapons and equipment from being captured. Finally, by 19:00 B Company was able break contact and withdrew after a five-hour battle. Both sides then fell back as the Viet Cong also dispersed, evacuating most of their dead and wounded. Meanwhile, under covering fire from the APCs of 2 Troop, B Company boarded the remaining carriers, moving into a night harbour near the landing zone with the remainder of the battalion at 19:25, as the last of their casualties were extracted by helicopter. Mortars, artillery fire and airstrikes covered the Australian withdrawal, and then proceeded to pound the abandoned battlefield into the evening. That night the body of the dead APC driver was evacuated by helicopter, as American AC-47 Spooky gunships circled overhead, dropping flares to illuminate the battlefield and strafing likely Viet Cong positions, while F-4 Phantoms dropped napalm. The airstrikes then continued in preparation for a further assault by the Australians planned for the following day. Otherwise there was no further fighting that night, and both sides remained unmolested. Ultimately no attack was made against the Australian base at Nui Dat that night either, while no unusual activity was reported in the area. ### Return to the battlefield, 18 February 1967 After a tense night the Australians returned to the battlefield the following morning. At 09:30 on 18 February 6 RAR assaulted into the area on a broad front, with C and D Companies forward and A Company in reserve, while B Company and the APCs from A Squadron occupied a blocking position to the south. Anxious not to repeat the failure to follow up the retreating Viet Cong after Long Tan, from Saigon Vincent urged Graham to pursue D445 Battalion. Meanwhile, a large American force of over 100 armoured vehicles from the 2nd Battalion, US 47th Mechanised Infantry Regiment, supported by a battery of self-propelled guns and helicopters from the US 9th Division, attempted to cut-off likely Viet Cong escape routes. Having deployed in support of 1 ATF earlier that morning from Bearcat, 42 kilometres (26 mi) north-west of Nui Dat, the Americans subsequently cleared an area along the line of Route 23, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north-east of the battle-zone. Although constituting an impressive display of combat power, the Americans had arrived too late to affect the outcome of the battle, and no contacts occurred before they were withdrawn the following day. Meanwhile, the Australians conducted a sweep of the battlefield only to find that the Viet Cong had left the area during the night, successfully avoiding the large blocking force while dragging most of their dead and wounded with them. During the sweep one of the missing Australians—Lance Corporal Vic Otway—was unexpectedly found alive, having spent the night in close proximity to the Viet Cong after being wounded in both legs and falling just metres from the machine-gun he had been assaulting. Unable to answer calls from other members of his platoon for fear of being discovered, he was presumed to have been killed. Lying still for four hours, Otway had managed to crawl 70 metres (77 yd) to the rear after dark, before artillery fire and airstrikes began to fall on the area. Digging a shell scrape for protection from the American napalm strikes, he was subsequently wounded again by shrapnel. After first light he had continued to crawl back towards the Australian lines, but was confronted by a group of Viet Cong soldiers just 6 metres (6.6 yd) away. Otway attempted to fire on them, however his weapon jammed, and the Viet Cong had walked past him unaware of his presence. Continuing their search, the Australians then located and recovered the bodies of the six dead from 5 Platoon. Most had been burnt beyond recognition by napalm, while at least one had been stripped of his webbing and equipment. The burnt out APC was also recovered. On the side the Viet Cong had written "DU ME UC DAI LOI" in blood; loosely translated into English as "Get fucked Australians". Its destruction was subsequently completed by the cavalry and the burnt out hull was recovered to Nui Dat. At 10:35 A Squadron then undertook a thorough search of the area. The bodies of six Viet Cong soldiers were also found by the Australians. Among the dead was the commander of C3 Company, D445 Battalion and his second-in-command, while others were identified as personnel from the command elements of the battalion and the heavy weapons company. Three of the dead were NVA soldiers, possibly from 275th Regiment, although this was not able to be confirmed. Many more bodies were thought to have been carried away, while one AK-47 assault rifle and a small quantity of ammunition and equipment was also located. The Viet Cong position was found to have been hastily prepared overnight, and consisted of well-sited, but shallow weapon pits rather than bunkers, approximately half of which had overhead protection. Assessed as a good night defensive position rather than a position designed for a deliberate defensive battle, it had been laid out in the shape of a half-moon; by the fortunes of war B Company had directly assaulted into the centre of the position. Yet the flat terrain had offered good fields of fire, while the dense vegetation provided excellent concealment. The Australians believed that the Viet Cong had withdrawn to the east, and B Company subsequently patrolled through the "Light Green" up to the small village of Ap Gia Thanh, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east, supported by the APCs, hooking south along the jungle tracks towards the swamps along the Song Rai river. Although signs of heavy foot traffic were obvious the Viet Cong had long since left the area, while no evidence of blood trails or discarded equipment were found, indicating an orderly retirement from the battlefield. B Company returned to Nui Dat by 17:30, while the remainder of 6 RAR was extracted by helicopter. The last APCs from A Squadron finally returned by 20:10 that evening as Operation Bribie concluded. ## Aftermath ### Casualties In the aftermath of the operation Hanoi declared that the Viet Cong had won a decisive victory, claiming to have inflicted heavy losses on the Australians. The Australian higher command also claimed a major triumph, a view later reflected by Graham who believed that the Viet Cong had "got a thrashing". While in total just eight Viet Cong bodies had been recovered from the battlefield, many more had obviously been removed and later Australian intelligence reports assessed Viet Cong losses as between 50 and 70 killed, with many fresh graves later found on the withdrawal route. Indeed as a result of the fighting D445 Battalion was unable to mount a full battalion operation for the remainder of 1967, while their losses were increasingly filled by North Vietnamese. Yet the Australians had also suffered heavy casualties, and both sides had matched each other in bravery and determination. The fighting had cost 6 RAR seven killed and 27 wounded, while the cavalry also lost one killed and one wounded, and an APC destroyed. The Viet Cong had proven themselves able to withstand multiple Australian assaults, as well as heavy mortar, artillery, and aerial bombardment, before both sides fell back with their casualties. Although 6 RAR had ultimately prevailed, if only by default, the vicious fighting at Ap My An was probably the closest that the Australian Army came to defeat in a major battle during the war. ### Assessment By staying and fighting the Viet Cong had surprised the Australians, who expected them to withdraw rapidly to their jungle bases following their attack on Lang Phuoc Hai as they had on previous occasions. This assumption had led the Australians to commit forces in a piecemeal fashion when the situation required a deliberate battalion attack supported by blocking forces, a co-ordinated indirect fire plan, and APCs. Yet such an operation would have required considerable time to plan and execute, and Townsend had been ordered not to become too heavily engaged. Ad hoc and planned in haste, Operation Bribie went badly for the Australians from the start with delays in deploying the reaction force. Expecting only minor contact, Graham had finally sent the battalion out after midday and ordered it to return before nightfall. Yet this restriction had a significant impact on the operation, and limited the time available to commanders at all levels for planning and reconnaissance, thereby preventing a more deliberate approach. Once committed, the Australians realised that they had struck at least a company from D445 Battalion with elements of a heavy weapons company, possibly supported by North Vietnamese reinforcements and at least five machine-guns, one heavy machine-gun and two recoilless rifles. Graham had intended to land 6 RAR behind the Viet Cong in order to cut-off their withdrawal, yet instead they had almost landed directly on top of them. Further misjudgement and circumstance affected the Australian response once the battle began, with the initial reports that the Viet Cong position was a 'camp' proving incorrect, as had the belief that the dense scrub made the area unsuitable for cavalry. Meanwhile, A Company's initial assault had lacked adequate artillery support, while B Company's final assault had been hampered by the requirement for A Company's supporting fire to cut-off early. The resulting friction had then culminated in A Squadron's difficulty linking-up with B Company in the dense vegetation, further delaying their relief. The experience held a number of lessons for the Australians; not least of all was the need for tanks. Although the APCs had been used to support the infantry during the operation, they lacked the firepower and armour to be an effective substitute for tanks which would likely have found the terrain and vegetation no obstacle and may have proven decisive. Meanwhile, the futility and waste of frontal tactics and massed bayonet charges against automatic weapons had once again been demonstrated. Yet such lessons still had not been fully grasped by Australian Army training doctrine, and under pressure from Townsend to press on with the attack Mackay had given the order to fix bayonets and charge due to the proximity of his forward platoons to the Viet Cong. Despite having long since ceased to be a decisive weapon of warfare, when ordered the Australians had unhesitatingly charged towards the Viet Cong machine-guns in the certainty of suffering casualties. As a result of their bravery 5 Platoon became one of the most highly decorated Australian platoons of the war. Yet aggression alone could not overcome concentrated firepower, and many survivors were later bitter about the order and losses suffered in these attempts. Another lesson identified included the need to thoroughly prepare an unsecure landing zone by fire prior to insertion. Likewise, during the initial contact A Company had been unable to call in artillery, and the need for a dedicated command and control helicopter to co-ordinate indirect fire during an airmobile assault was also evident. In attacking Lang Phuoc Hai the Viet Cong had likely intended to draw out and ambush any relief force as it approached the village; a standard tactic they had employed on previous occasions. Indeed, early on 17 February two companies of Viet Cong had established an ambush between Dat Do and Lang Phuoc Hai. That morning the South Vietnamese had subsequently dispatched 189 RF Company from Hoi My, yet the ambush subsequently failed when the RF company commander elected to move by an indirect route to the east of the road, striking the Viet Cong flank just after first light. Although outnumbered, the South Vietnamese had caught the Viet Cong by surprise and were able to fight their way clear, forcing the communists to withdraw to the north-east. Later that day Murphy had taken a similar precaution, moving A Squadron cross-country over the paddy fields to the LZ Amber. Several days after the battle uncorroborated information was received which suggested that in so doing, the Australians may have also avoided a large area ambush on Route 44 between Hoi My and Lang Phuoc Hai by up to two main force battalions, with the convoy perhaps passing within 200 metres (220 yd) of the Viet Cong command group without realising it. Murphy subsequently deduced that the two-company Viet Cong force that had earlier contacted 189 RF Company may have been flank protection or a blocking force for the larger ambush. By inserting into LZ Amber it was probable that 6 RAR had unknowingly also avoided this ambush, yet had subsequently clashed with a large group of Viet Cong resting in the dense jungle adjacent to the landing zone. This force was likely either a reserve or flank security element, and was not a part of the main force that had attacked Lang Phuoc Hai. During the subsequent fighting at Ap My An the Viet Cong had elected to fight from a hasty but well-prepared position and had displayed good battle discipline, command and control and effective camouflage and concealment. The Australians were later generous in their praise for their performance. In particular their use of snipers had been particularly effective, although overall their individual shooting was of a poor standard and had often been too high. Townsend concluded that the Viet Cong force had most likely been ordered to fight a rearguard action until dark in order to cover the withdrawal a larger force and their command elements. Regardless, despite their strong performance, the battle also held lessons for the Viet Cong themselves. In particular their failure to deploy their machine-guns in the tree line on the edge of the landing zone had allowed the Australians to establish a foothold, despite A Company being forced to assault into an insecure landing zone with only minimal suppression from a single artillery battery. Later during the war the Viet Cong developed the effective tactic of targeting troop helicopters as they arrived at landing zones when they were most vulnerable. The most intense fighting involving 1 ATF since Long Tan, during Operation Bribie the Australians had suffered their highest casualties since August 1966. In terms of the number of Viet Cong bodies recovered compared to their own losses it was the worst result they had experienced in Vietnam to that point, while the task force had also been unable to destroy D445 Battalion. The results of the fighting continued to be debated long after its conclusion, and while Graham felt that 6 RAR had inflicted severe casualties on the Viet Cong and that the battle later had far reaching effects on the insurgency in Phuoc Tuy province, Vincent believed that any success had only been marginal at best. Certainly to many of the Australian soldiers that fought it, the battle had been no victory. Private Robin Harris of 5 Platoon later wrote: "I think that on this occasion Charlie's losses were overstated. It was us who had copped a hiding." This view was shared by APC commander David Clifton when he recalled: "We had been soundly thrashed on Operation Bribie." Perhaps though, as Mackay later wrote, the "truth of Operation Bribie" was that the Australians and Viet Cong had "thoroughly belted each other". Overall, the Australians had lost the operational strength of a platoon, while the Viet Cong had effectively lost a company; arguably though it was questionable if such attrition would achieve any long-term gains in Phuoc Tuy for the Australians. The battle had a lasting effect on 1 ATF, and ultimately resulted in a number of measures to overcome a perceived weakness in firepower, while also confirming the need to limit the Viet Cong's freedom of movement. ### Subsequent operations Operation Renmark had been temporarily delayed due to the fighting at Ap My An. Initially it had been planned to begin early on the morning of 18 February, following a pre-planned airstrike on the Long Hais by American B-52 bombers, which had gone ahead as planned at 06:00. However, 5 RAR could not be released until 6 RAR returned to Nui Dat that afternoon, and they finally departed at 15:30. The first Australian search and destroy operation into the Viet Cong base areas of the Minh Dam Secret Zone—located in the Long Hai hills south of Long Dien and Dat Do, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) from Nui Dat—the operation continued until 22 February. Heavily defended by mines and booby traps, the area had remained a Viet Cong safe haven despite previous operations by the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in June 1966 and two smaller ARVN operations. During the operation B Company 5 RAR suffered seven killed and 22 wounded in a single mine incident, while contact with the Viet Cong was otherwise limited. Once again the Australians had suffered heavy casualties for only modest gain, and coupled with those of Operation Bribie, their losses were beginning to mount. During February 1967 1 ATF had sustained its heaviest casualties in the war to that point, losing 16 men killed and 55 wounded in a single week. The task force appeared to have lost the initiative and for the first time in nine months of operations the number of Australians killed in battle, or from friendly fire, mines or booby traps, had reversed the task force's kill ratio. Such losses underscored the need for a third battalion and the requirement for tanks to support the infantry; a realisation which challenged the conventional wisdom of Australian counter-revolutionary warfare doctrine which had previously allotted only a minor role to armour. Regardless, it would be nearly a year before additional Australian forces would finally arrive in Vietnam. Although Graham had quickly established himself since taking over as Commander 1 ATF in January, and had developed a sound operational concept, the Viet Cong had succeeded in preventing him from implementing it as he had intended. Operation Bribie confirmed in his mind the need to establish a physical barrier to deny the Viet Cong freedom of movement and thereby regain the initiative, and the subsequent decision to establish an 11-kilometre (6.8 mi) barrier minefield from Dat Do to the coast increasingly came to dominate task force planning. Yet ultimately this would prove both controversial and costly for the Australians, and despite initial success, the minefield would become a source of munitions for the Viet Cong to use against 1 ATF and later the decision would be made to remove it in 1969.

East Washington Avenue Bridge

Bridge in United States of America

The East Washington Avenue Bridge refers to the bridges that have connected East Washington Avenue over the Pequonnock River in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Records state that a bridge was first constructed on the site in 1836, but no description of the bridge has been found. The second bridge was a truss swing design and underwent heavy repair and modernization in 1893. The third design was a movable Strauss underneath-counter weight deck-girder bascule bridge. The plans were drafted by James A. McElroy, using Joseph B. Strauss's design in 1916. However, construction was delayed for years because of a dispute with the contractor and a lack of funds. The bridge was completed by Bridgeport Dry Dock and Dredging when the State of Connecticut appropriated \$350,000 to erect the bridge. Completed in 1925, the bridge underwent several modifications throughout its service life. On July 26, 1983, the bridge was closed after it was found to be in danger of collapse. It reopened after repair, but was closed in the 1990s before being replaced with a modern bascule bridge in 1998. In 2010, the report listed the deck and superstructure conditions as "Good" and the substructure condition as "Satisfactory". ## Original bridge The East Washington Avenue Bridge serves an area that was previously known as Pembroke, the name stemming from the 1650s, that grew to become a prosperous agricultural community. East of Pembroke was the village of Newfield, which was chartered as the borough of Bridgeport in 1800. In 1821, it became the township of Bridgeport before being chartered as a city in 1836. The need for the bridge arose when Reverend Birdsey Noble purchased 50 acres from Senator Wright; with the intention of selling housing lots. The location of the bridge was originally planned to be one quarter of a mile to the south, but it was changed through public opposition, and a toll bridge was constructed in 1836. The description of this bridge and details of its service life and replacement have not been found in records. ## Second bridge The design of the second East Washington Avenue Bridge is unknown, but the survey in 1916 for its replacement documented a cantilever through truss swing that was 184 ft (56 m) long. The bridge was heavily repaired and remodeled in 1893, around this same period a trolley line was added. Two decades later, the bridge needed to be replaced and restrictions were made to extend the service life of the bridge, with trolleys, then heavy trucks being banned. The bridge's service life ended in 1917 with its closure. ## Third bridge The City of Bridgeport appointed a bridge commission to replace the aging East Washington Avenue Bridge on December 7, 1915. The commission chose a Joseph B. Strauss's patented design from the Strauss Bascule Bridge Company of Chicago, Illinois. The city engineer James A. McElroy drew up the plans for the bridge's specifications and the plans were completed on February 17, 1916. The steel for the construction was ordered from the Penn Bridge Company. The project was suspended because of a dispute with the contractor and a lack of funds to erect the bridge, but in 1923 the State of Connecticut appropriated \$350,000 to complete the project. Only two bids for the bridge's erection were placed, the first by Bridgeport Dry Dock and Dredging for \$326,575 and the second by C. W. Blakeslee and Sons for \$389,492 with estimations varying based on extra work needed. Bridgeport Dry Dock and Dredging won the contract and the materials were shipped to Bridgeport, with work beginning mid-1924. The completed bridge included an operator's house and a public toilet building. The bridge, costing over \$550,000 in total, was turned over to the city on October 14, 1925. ### Service life The original bascule deck of creosote-impregnated yellow pine and the spruce plank sidewalks were replaced with concrete in the early 1940s. In 1960, the original fender system was replaced. In June 1968, the ornamental lamps were replaced with modern street lights. A 1979 inspection of the bridge found it listed in "poor condition" and recommended repairs totaling \$820,000 to be completed by 1985. A 1980 report by the Connecticut Department of Transportation listed the East Washington Avenue bridge as 1 of the 127 bridges in "poor condition"; requiring "immediate" repair. The report defines "poor condition" as serviceable and not in danger of collapse. The Hartford Courant states that the 1979 report went unnoticed for four years and another inspection was carried out in 1982; also listing the bridge in "poor condition". After the Mianus River Bridge collapsed on June 29, 1983, a state-wide assessment of bridges began. An engineering firm, Flaherty and Giavara, reported that a critical beam had nearly rusted through, prompting the bridge's closure. Bridgeport's mayor Leonard S. Paoletta said "the bridge could [collapse] at any moment." The bridge was closed on July 26, 1983, around 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time as a response to Flaherty and Giavara's report. Repairs were completed and the bridge was reopened on August 10, 1983. The repairs billed at \$5,000 were a temporary solution and the bridge was slated to close in February 1984 when \$1.5 million in funds were unavailable. ## Current bridge The bridge was closed in the 1990s and a replacement bridge was required. In 1998, the demolition and construction of a modern bascule bridge replaced the previous East Washington Avenue Bridge. The railings were upgraded and the original operator's house and connected toilet-building were restored. In 2010, the current state of the bridge listed the deck and superstructure conditions as "Good" and the substructure condition as "Satisfactory". In 2013, the East Washington Avenue Bridge was described by officials as rarely opening to accommodate marine traffic. ## See also - List of bridges documented by the Historic American Engineering Record in Connecticut - List of movable bridges in Connecticut

1903–04 Bradford City A.F.C. season

The 1903–04 season was the first season in Bradford City A.F.C.'s history, having been founded on 29 May 1903 and then elected into the English Football League to replace Doncaster Rovers in the Second Division. They finished in 10th position in the league and reached the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup. Bradford City were formed following a series of meetings during the first half of 1903 and replaced the former rugby league club of Manningham, whose Valley Parade ground they used. The club had already signed six players before they were accepted into the league before the rest of the side were later signed by a five-man committee. The board directors appointed Robert Campbell as the club's first manager. Bradford City's first game ended in a 2–0 defeat at Grimsby Town and the first home game resulted in another loss to Gainsborough Trinity. Club captain Johnny McMillan finished the top goalscorer with 14 league and two FA Cup goals. ## Background Organised league football had been played in the West Riding of Yorkshire since 1894 in the West Yorkshire League, but no side from the county had played in the English Football League. So on 30 January 1903, Scotsman James Whyte, a sub-editor of the Bradford Observer, met with Football Association representative John Brunt at Valley Parade, the home of the city's rugby league side Manningham Football Club, to discuss establishing a Football League club within Bradford. In May, Manningham's committee decided to swap codes from rugby to association football and so the Football League decided to invite Bradford City to join their league in a bid to introduce association football to the West Riding, the main sport in which was rugby league. The League voted in favour of replacing Doncaster Rovers, who had finished the 1902–03 season in 16th position in the Second Division, with Bradford City even though Bradford had yet to play a single game. ## Review ### Pre-season Even before Bradford City were guaranteed a place in the Football League, the club made its first acquisitions by signing Jack Forrest and Ben Prosser from Stoke on 1 May. These were followed by four more players joining the club; Sam Bright, George Robinson, Peter O'Rourke and Jimmy Millar. Despite not having enough players to field a full side, four club representatives travelled to London by the end of May for a league management committee meeting, when the club was elected into the Second Division. Money was raised to fund the club, including at least £2,000 from sponsors, a balance of £500 from Manningham FC and proceeds from a summer archery tournament. Bradford City also took over Manningham's Valley Parade ground for their home fixtures. The four-strong party which visited London, as well as newly elected Alfred Ayrton made up five members of a 13-man sub-committee which controlled club affairs. The first five, who also included J. Brunt, J.E. Fattorini, A.J. Foxcroft and J.T. Whyte, were responsible for first team matters. On 20 June, the club directors appointed former Sunderland secretary-manager Robert Campbell as Bradford City's first manager from a shortlist of 30 applicants. Campbell's role was to coach the players, helped by trainer George Cutts. Ayrton, who had been president of Manningham FC, became the club's first chairman. Bradford played no recorded pre-season friendlies. Instead, Campbell and Cutts, decided on the first selection for the opening game of the season with Grimsby Town by playing a series of Whites v Stripes games between professionals already signed by the club and amateur players. The first squad was signed at a cost of £917 10s 0d, with the players choosing Johnny McMillan as their own captain. Millar, a defender signed from Middlesbrough, was chosen as vice-captain. ### September Bradford City's first league game was at Blundell Park against Grimsby Town on 1 September 1903, on a sunny Tuesday evening in front of 10,000 fans. The pioneering team consisted of Arthur Seymour in goal, defenders Willie Wilson, Fred Halliday, George Robinson, Jimmy Millar and Thomas Farnall with Richard Guy, John Beckram, Jack Forrest, Johnny McMillan and John Graham in attack. Graham, Beckram and Guy all came close to giving City an opening day lead, but Grimsby scored through Archie Dunn. After City were reduced to ten men because of an injury to Guy, Fred Rouse doubled Grimsby's lead in the second half; Grimsby finished the victors 2–0. Four days later, City hosted their first home at Valley Parade against Gainsborough Trinity. The game attracted 11,000 spectators even though there was no covered accommodation for fans. Among the spectators was Bradford's Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. City lost 3–1 with Guy scoring the club's first ever league goal, but they also had a goal disallowed and missed a penalty. The Bradford Daily Argus reported that the goal was "greeted with a shout which awoke babies on the distant hillsides of Bolton and Eccleshill. The match highlights were shown in Bradford's St George's Hall later in the same evening. Bradford won their first game in the league in their third game of the season, with a 2–0 victory against Burton United at Peel Croft. A week later, they won their first game at their Valley Parade home by defeating Bristol City 1–0. McMillan scored in each game, with Forrest also scoring against Burton. They finished the month with a 3–1 loss at Manchester United. ### October Bradford played only two league games during October. The first ended in a 5–2 defeat to Burslem Port Vale; the second – on 24 October – finished in a 3–1 victory to Bradford against fellow Yorkshire side Barnsley. Instead, City played their first games in the FA Cup in the club's history. The first qualifying round match and the club's debut in the competition was a 6–1 victory against Rockingham Colliery with six different City players on the scoresheet. City progressed through the following two qualifying rounds against Mirfield United and Worksop Town, with all three games being held at Valley Parade. During October, City also hosted an inter-league game between the English and Irish Leagues at Valley Parade. Although the ground was not up to high standards, the Football League was keen to encourage football in Bradford. An estimated 20,000 supporters attended the match which finished with a 2–1 victory for the Football League. The club also made their first signing since the start of the season, bringing in forward Thomas Drain from Scottish side Maybole. ### November and December City went another two weeks before playing again when their FA Cup run came to an end with a 2–1 defeat at their fellow Second Division side Chesterfield in the fourth qualifying round. They returned to league action on 21 November against Bolton Wanderers, nearly a month since their win against Barnsley. Drain, who had scored on his debut against Barnsley, scored Bradford's first ever hat-trick, but the game finished in a 3–3 draw. A week later, Drain scored for the third successive league match but City lost 3–2 to Burnley. Bradford played six games during December, with the first two ending in draws against Preston North End and Stockport County. On 19 December, City defeated Leicester Fosse 4–0 at Valley Parade. It was City's highest league victory of the season with McMillan scoring his side's second hat-trick of the campaign. City finished the month with three games in the space of four days. They first lost 4–1 to Woolwich Arsenal on Christmas Day, before a 1–0 victory at Blackpool. The year finished with a draw against Port Vale. ### January, February and March At the turn of the new year, City were defeated by Gainsborough Trinity, before they completed their first double by defeating Burton United 3–0. Two draws followed – against Bristol City and Manchester United. City extended their unbeaten run by winning all three matches during February, with victories against Glossop, Barnsley and Lincoln City. Each victory finished 2–1 with Beckram, Drain and Robinson all scoring twice during the month. The club's six-game unbeaten run came to an end in the return fixture at Glossop, with further defeats following against Stockport County and Chesterfield. The three-game losing streak was overturned with a 3–0 win over Burnley; Graham scored twice to become the third player to score more than one goal during a league game. ### April City packed in eight games during April to complete the league season. On 1 April, they lost to Lincoln City and then the following day they lost to Preston North End. A third game in four days finished in a 1–1 draw with Chesterfield. The first victory of the month came in the reverse fixture against the club's first ever league opponents Grimsby Town. City lost 1–0 to Bolton Wanderers before a 2–1 victory followed against Leicester Fosse, with McMillan scoring one of the goals. The final two matches both ended in defeats without City scoring; first to Arsenal, then to Blackpool. City finished 10th at the end of the first season recording 31 points from 34 games. Team captain McMillan finished as the club's top scorer with 14 goals. He played 32 games, with goalkeeper Seymour, half-back Robinson and forward Graham all being ever-presents. With the advent of league football in Bradford, thousands of people came to home games, resulting in the club's end-of-season receipts totalling £3,896. It resulted in a small operating loss from the first season, but donations helped the club record a profit of £39 in their first season in the Football League. Following the end of the season, the club released six players and also sold Guy to Leeds City. ## Match results ### Legend ### Football League Second Division Source: Frost ### FA Cup Source:Frost ## League table ## Player details Source: Frost ## Transfers Source: Frost ### In ### Out ## See also - 1903–04 in English football

Battle of Big Black River Bridge

1863 battle of the American Civil War

The Battle of Big Black River Bridge was fought on May 17, 1863, as part of the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. After a Union army commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant defeated Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's Confederate army at the Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, Pemberton ordered Brigadier General John S. Bowen to hold a rear guard at the crossing of the Big Black River to buy time for the Confederate army to regroup. Union troops commanded by Major General John McClernand pursued the Confederates, and encountered Bowen's rear guard. A Union charge quickly broke the Confederate position, and during the retreat and river crossing, a rout ensued. Many Confederate soldiers were captured, and 18 Confederate cannons were taken by the Union troops. The retreating Confederates burned both the railroad bridge over the Big Black River and a steamboat that had been serving as a bridge. The surviving Confederate soldiers entered the fortifications at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the siege of Vicksburg began the next day. ## Background In March 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army was planning an attack against the strategically important city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant determined that there were three possible routes of attack against Vicksburg: from the north, from the south, and from across the Mississippi River. An attack across the river was determined to be likely to incur many casualties, and concentrating forces in the Memphis, Tennessee, area for an attack from the north could be misconstrued as a retreat, which would be politically disadvantageous. Grant therefore decided to attack from the south. On April 29, elements of the Union Navy attempted to shell Confederate fortifications at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, into submission in the Battle of Grand Gulf. When this failed, Union infantry commanded by Major General John McClernand were landed further down the river, leveraging the Confederates out of their Grand Gulf fortifications by threatening the Confederate line of retreat. On May 1, Confederate forces commanded by Brigadier General John S. Bowen, who had commanded at Grand Gulf, attempted to fight a blocking action at the Battle of Port Gibson. Although the Confederates, who were severely outnumbered, held their own for most of the day, Union troops eventually pushed back the right flank of the Confederate line, leading Bowen to decide to retreat from the field. On May 16, the Battle of Champion Hill occurred. Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had concentrated most of his Confederate army to attempt to block Grant's army from reaching Vicksburg. Union attacks drove in much of the Confederate line, although a counterattack by Bowen's division threatened to change the tide of the battle. Eventually, Union reinforcements forced Bowen to retreat, and the Union had control of the field. ## Battle On the night of the 16th, after the defeat at Champion Hill, Pemberton formed a line at the crossing of the Big Black River in order to buy time for his army. For this rear guard, Pemberton selected the Missouri troops of Bowen's division, Brigadier General John C. Vaughn's Tennessee brigade, and the 4th Mississippi Infantry Regiment. This force numbered about 5,000 men. The left of the Confederate line was held by Brigadier General Martin E. Green's brigade of Bowen's division, Vaughn's brigade held the center, Bowen's other brigade, commanded by Colonel Francis M. Cockrell, was positioned on the Confederate right, and the 4th Mississippi was placed between Cockrell and Vaughn. Vaughn's brigade was composed of inexperienced conscripts, and Bowen's division had seen heavy fighting at Champion Hill. The Confederate line was supported by Wade's Missouri Battery, Landis' Missouri Battery, and Guibor's Missouri Battery. A railroad ran through the Confederate position, and the river could be crossed either over the railroad bridge or over a steamboat that had been positioned crossways across the river, creating a makeshift bridge. On the morning of May 17, McClernand's XIII Corps advanced towards the Confederate position at the Big Black River. Brigadier General Eugene A. Carr's division led the way, and deployed to confront the Confederate lines. The brigade of Brigadier General Michael K. Lawler formed the right of the Union line. Carr was soon reinforced by Brigadier General Peter J. Osterhaus' division. An artillery duel began, and Osterhaus was wounded in the leg by a shell fragment. After some preparations, Lawler's brigade charged, quickly breaking the Confederate line. Vaughn's brigade routed to the rear, and the gap in the line quickly forced Green's brigade to retreat as well. Lawler's charge had lasted only three minutes. Cockrell's brigade also collapsed in much disorder, one survivor summarized the retreat as "the devil take the hindmost being the order of the day." The 1st and 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Consolidated) served as a rear guard for the retreating Confederates, as it was one of the few units still in functioning order. The Confederates lost a number of cannons in the retreat due to an error; the horses for Wade's Battery, Guibor's Battery, and a portion of Landis's Battery had been positioned on the far side of the Big Black River, and were not available to haul off the cannons. In total, the Confederates lost 18 cannons at the Big Black River. The retreating Confederates burned both the bridge and the steamboat serving as a bridge, and those who escaped the Union army joined the fortifications at Vicksburg. Sergeant William Wesley Kendall of the 49th Indiana Infantry Regiment was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading a company in the main Union charge; he was among the first Union soldiers to enter the Confederate fortifications. ## Aftermath and preservation The Confederates lost 1,751 men; almost 1,700 of the losses were in prisoners. Union casualties totaled either 273 or 276. After Big Black River Bridge, the siege of Vicksburg began on May 18. Grant attempted a major charge against the Vicksburg entrenchments on May 22, but this was repulsed. Attempts at exploding mines under the Confederate lines on June 25 and July 1 also failed to break the Confederate defenses. However, with no prospects of reinforcements and lack of food, Pemberton surrendered the Confederate defenders on July 4. The site of the battle was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 as the Big Black River Battlefield. As of 2020, portions of the piers of the railroad bridge existing during the battle still remain at the crossing of the Big Black River. A trail runs along the river bank, and a historical marker is placed in the vicinity of the battlefield, although the battlefield itself is privately owned. As of mid-2023, the American Battlefield Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved 28 acres (11 ha) of the battlefield.

OV2-1

US Air Force satellite

Orbiting Vehicle 2-1 (COSPAR ID: 1965–82C, also known as OV2-1), the first satellite of the second series of the United States Air Force's Orbiting Vehicle program, was an American life science research satellite. Its purpose was to determine the extent of the threat posed to astronauts by the Van Allen radiation belts. Launched 15 October 1965, the mission resulted in failure when the upper stage of OV2-1's Titan IIIC booster broke up. ## Background The Orbiting Vehicle satellite program arose from a US Air Force initiative, begun in the early 1960s, to reduce the expense of space research. Through this initiative, satellites would be standardized to improve reliability and cost-efficiency, and where possible, they would fly on test vehicles or be piggybacked with other satellites. In 1961, the Air Force Office of Aerospace Research (OAR) created the Aerospace Research Support Program (ARSP) to request satellite research proposals and choose mission experiments. The USAF Space and Missiles Organization created their own analog of the ARSP called the Space Experiments Support Program (SESP), which sponsored a greater proportion of technological experiments than the ARSP. Five distinct OV series of standardized satellites were developed under the auspices of these agencies. The OV2 series of satellites was originally designed as part of the ARENTS (Advanced Research Environmental Test Satellite) program, intended to obtain supporting data for the Vela satellites, which monitored the Earth for violations of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Upon the cancellation of ARENTS due to delays in the Centaur rocket stage, the program's hardware (developed by General Dynamics) was repurposed to fly on the Titan III (initially the A, ultimately the C) booster test launches. The USAF contracted Northrop to produce these satellites, with William C. Armstrong of Northrop Space Laboratories serving as the program manager. ## Spacecraft design OV2-1 was built to the configuration standard to all of the OV2 satellites, with a roughly cubical structure of aluminum honeycomb, .61 m (2.0 ft) in height, and .58 m (1.9 ft) wide. Four 2.3 m (7.5 ft) paddle-like solar panels, each with 20,160 solar cells, were mounted at the four upper corners of the main body. The power system, which included NiCd batteries for night-time operations, provided 63 W of power. As with the other craft in the OV2 series, experiments were generally mounted outside the cube while satellite systems, including tape recorder, command receiver, and PAM/FM/FM telemetry system, were installed inside. Four small solid rocket motors spun, one on each paddle, were designed to spin the OV2 satellites upon reaching orbit, providing gyroscopic stability. Cold-gas jets maintained this stability, receiving information on the satellite's alignment with respect to the Sun via an onboard solar aspect sensor, and with respect to the local magnetic field via two onboard fluxgate magnetometers. A damper kept the satellite from precessing (wobbling around its spin axis). Passive thermal control kept the satellite from overheating. The entire satellite weighed 170.097 kg (375.00 lb). ## Experiments OV2-1 was designed to evaluate the long-term hazards of the Earth's Van Allen Belts to astronauts and satellites. Over the course of a year-long mission, the solar-powered satellite would measure nuclear particles, electromagnetic field strength, very low frequency radio waves, and radiation effects on tissue equivalents. The Air Force's Cambridge Research Center, Weapons Laboratory, and Aerospace Corporation designed the 59 kg (130 lb) scientific and engineering experiment package of fourteen instruments. They included the "Phantom" tissue-equivalent ion chamber (comprising gas-filled tubes simulating the heart, kidneys and lung tissue topped with a Plexiglass cover simulating skin), as well as a Cerenkov counter, a charged particle flux counter, a Faraday Cup electrometer, a magnetic spectrometer, an omnidirectional spectrometer, a scintillation spectrometer, and a plasma wave detector. Also included as an engineering experiment on OV2-1 was a low-thrust, subliming solid rocket type, developed by Rocket Research Corporation in Seattle, to manage OV2-1's rate of spin. ## Mission In its original conception, OV2-1 was to have been launched via Titan 3A rocket to an apogee of 2,400 nmi (4,400 km) and a perigee of 100 nmi (190 km). OV2-1 ultimately was scheduled for launch on the second Titan IIIC test flight on 8 October 1965. However, tests at the Martin/Denver plant determined that there might be issues with the Transtage's pressurization valves; a malfunction of one of the valves had caused a premature shutdown of a Titan 3A test the prior year. The flight was thus delayed one week. A further delay, from 14 October to 15 October, was caused both by bad weather and battery problems in the two "stage zero" solid -propellant side boosters of the Titan IIIC rocket. OV2-1, along with LCS-2, a 1.12 m (3.7 ft), 34 kg (75 lb) radar calibration sphere, finally made it to space after its Titan IIIC took off on 15 October 1965 at 17:23:59 UT from Cape Canaveral LC40. Once in orbit, the Titan IIIC's Transtage (upper stage) was scheduled to fire ten times, ultimately boosting OV2-1 into its operational orbit. 56 minutes and 10 seconds into the mission, however, at the end of a 24-second burn, one of the two Transtage engines failed to shut down. The booster tumbled and then exploded, stranding the satellite amidst the debris in a nearly circular orbit about 750 km (470 mi) above the Earth. ## Legacy and status The satellite and large pieces of the transtage are still in orbit as of February 2020, and LCS-2 reentered on 25 August 1982. Though its mission was a failure, seven of OV2-1's experiments were reflown on the successful (smaller) OV3-3 mission, launched 4 August 1966. Two follow-on satellites (OV2-2 and -3) with different mission objectives were originally planned when the OV2 program began. The OV2 series was ultimately expanded to five satellites, all with different goals. Only one, the radiation and astronomical satellite OV2-5, achieved a degree of success.

Mxmtoon

American singer-songwriter and YouTuber (born 2000)

Maia X. M. T. (born July 9, 2000), known professionally as mxmtoon,''' is an American singer-songwriter and YouTuber. Her music is characterized by emotionally transparent, confessional lyrics, and often employs the ukulele. She released her first EP, Plum Blossom, in 2018; her debut album, The Masquerade, was released in September 2019. This was followed by the twin EPs Dawn and Dusk in 2020, and second studio album Rising, which was released on May 20, 2022. Maia began self-releasing songs in secret in 2017, before the size of her online presence became too substantial to conceal. In addition to involvement with music, Maia is a streamer on Twitch, has made a podcast, and has released two graphic novels. She has collaborated with artists such as Cavetown and Chloe Moriondo, and resides in Brooklyn, New York City. ## Early life Maia was born on July 9, 2000, in Oakland, California; she grew up near Lake Merritt. Her mother is Chinese-American, and her father is German and Scottish. While at school, she enjoyed taking art and architecture classes. She became interested in music from a young age; her brother took violin lessons, and in first grade, Maia joined him. A few years later, she began playing classical cello and trumpet. In fifth grade, she auditioned for her school rock band. Expecting to audition for cello, she was instead asked to sing Oasis' song "Wonderwall," and ended up joining as a vocalist, where she recalls singing "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World. In sixth grade, she began playing guitar, learning in part from her father. Maia first coined the name "mxmtoon" on her Instagram account, where she drew cartoon sketches. She started a YouTube channel in September 2013, and began playing the ukulele in middle school. She wrote her first song at age 13. ## Career ### 2017–2018: Plum Blossom Maia began self-releasing songs on YouTube under the online alias "mxmtoon" in 2017; the name is derived from her initials. Although she started her career secretly, subsequent growth of her online presence compelled her to disclose her activity in this field to her family. Her early oeuvre was recorded with GarageBand in her parents' guest bedroom, and percussion tracks were created with found objects such as hair straighteners. After initially attempting to write comedy songs, she began writing in a confessional style. Her 2017 collaboration with lo-fi producer Peachy, "Falling for U," became an early signature song; it has since garnered more than three hundred million streams on Spotify. In 2018, Maia released her debut EP, Plum Blossom; It was accompanied by the "Plum Blossom Tour," scheduled for the March of the following year. While it was initially scheduled for five US shows with fellow Californian singer-songwriter Khai Dreams in March 2019, it sold out and was extended to include additional concerts in North America and Europe, including opening appearances for bedroom pop YouTuber Cavetown. After high school, Maia took a gap year by postponing college to focus on her music. She was planning to study architecture after graduating from high school, until her music went viral in April 2018. ### 2019–2021: The Masquerade, Dawn, and Dusk Maia's debut studio album, The Masquerade, was released on September 17, 2019; the album peaked at number 45 on the US Indie Albums Chart. "Prom Dress," the lead single, found considerable usage on social media platform TikTok, where it has been used in over a hundred thousand videos. The album's release had been accompanied by 21 Days, a podcast in audio diary format by Spotify that concerned Maia's activities while working on the project in New York City. To support the album, Maia embarked on The Masquerade Tour, of North America and United Kingdom, in the same month of the album's release. Her first graphic novel, The Adventures Of mxmtoon: The Masquerade, began selling in October 2019. In the succeeding month, Maia signed to the label of Kobalt Music Group, under a global publishing deal. She released a remix album, The Masquerade (The Edits) soon after, and recorded "Prom Dress" in Simlish, the fictional language used in The Sims games. Maia released her first single of 2020, "Fever Dream," in January. "Fever Dream" was followed by EP Dawn in April; accompanying EP Dusk was released in October. In an interview given in the interregnum between the releases of the two EPs, Maia detailed an intention to make music that "gracefully said thank you and goodbye" to her past work. Dawn and Dusk were soon amalgamated to form album Dawn & Dusk; in the meantime, she also started a daily history podcast, 365 days with mxmtoon. Maia was featured in Dork's Hype List of 2020, alongside artists including Girl in Red, Beabadoobee and Maisie Peters. In the March of the following year, she was announced as the singing voice for Alex Chen, the protagonist of the Square Enix game Life Is Strange: True Colors. An accompanying EP entitled True Colors (from Life is Strange) was released concurrently. ### 2022–present: Rising In February 2022, Maia announced a North American tour for her then-upcoming album Rising, entitled "rising (the tour)"; it was indicated that fellow musician Chloe Moriondo would be joining her in concert. She also released "Mona Lisa", which served as the lead single for the album. Further tour dates across the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australasia were announced in the following month, with Ricky Montgomery accompanying her on European and British touring dates. Rising was released on the twentieth of May, after releases of singles "Sad Disco", "Victim of Nostalgia", and "Coming of Age". A deluxe version followed in September. ## Public image > I can be as ridiculous as I want but I can also be an emo teenager and people like both sides. Maia has been credited in NPR criticism as having an "endearingly intimate presence." Her music has been described as "warm folk-pop tunes with acoustic ornamentations," "one part acoustic-pop a-la Kina Grannis, mixed with sharp lyricism and avant-garde, off-kilter melodics akin to Fiona Apple or PJ Harvey," and artistry that "explore[s] themes such as the trials of love, being a burden to those close to you, and connecting with your family's heritage." Joshua Bote of Paste wrote that Maia "might be the songwriter a new generation needs", noting that she is "made for these times" and is "armed with a ukulele, a sardonic charm and social media savvy;" he went on to describe her as "really, really good at the internet." Grant Rindner of Nylon wrote: "With a commitment to covering topics she rarely hears addressed by other artists, and a keen understanding of how to bond with her audience, she's emerged as a charming and relatable singer-songwriter with a massive platform." After attending Maia's performance at the Gramercy Theatre, Briana Younger of The New Yorker wrote, "She sang of routine high-school problems, such as crippling self-doubt and unrequited love, with an emotional sophistication that reminded us that there are some things we never outgrow." Joe Coscarelli of New York Times compared Maia's bedroom pop style to that of Girl in Red, Clairo and Beabadoobee, as well as the folk-pop "simplicity" of Regina Spektor and The Moldy Peaches; he described her as a character "who overflows with earnestness and giggles", and her rise in popularity as the assemblage of "an independent, D.I.Y. mini-empire almost by accident." Maia remains active on TikTok, where she has amassed nearly three million followers and 140 million likes, as of January 2023. To date, she has had online presences on Vine, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitch, Snapchat, Bandcamp, Pinterest, and SoundCloud, as well as TikTok. She also streams on Twitch, where she has over two hundred thousand followers. ## Artistry ### Influences Maia has cited Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, Sufjan Stevens and Elliott Smith as her influences. She also has credited inspiration from female artists, such as Clairo. ## Personal life Maia is a young bisexual woman of color from a family of immigrants" and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she writes, records, and produces her own music from her home that she shares with her younger brother. She graduated from high school in 2019. In Maia's youth, her parents played R&B and hip-hop, including Salt-N-Pepa and A Tribe Called Quest, which she still listens to "for nostalgia." Maia has been diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder; in 2021, she partnered with Kotex, a brand that sells menstrual hygiene products, to discuss her experience living with the disorder. ## Discography ### Studio albums ### Compilation albums ### Extended plays ### Singles #### As lead artist #### As featured artist ## Awards and nominations ## Tours Headlining''' - Plum Blossom Tour (2019) - The Masquerade Tour (2019) - dawn & dusk Tour (Cancelled) - rising (The Tour) (2022)

Deep Depression ARB 02 (2008)

North Indian cyclone in 2008

Deep Depression ARB 02 was a weak tropical cyclone that caused extensive damage and loss of life in Yemen in October 2008. The sixth tropical cyclone and third deep depression of the 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, ARB 02 formed on October 19 off the west coast of India from the same broader system that spawned a tropical storm in the southern Indian Ocean at the same time. Moving generally westward, the depression failed to intensify much, reaching maximum sustained winds of only 55 km/h (35 mph). It was no longer classifiable as a tropical depression by October 23, and later that day, its remnants made landfall near Ash Shihr in eastern Yemen. The storm sent a plume of moisture throughout the Arabian Peninsula, contributing to dust storms as far north as Iraq. However, the effects were most severe in Yemen, becoming the second-worst natural disaster in the country after deadly floods in 1996. The storm dropped heavy rainfall in a normally arid region, reaching around 91 mm (3.6 in), which caused flash flooding in valleys after waterways were unable to contain the approximately 2 billion km³ (528 billion gallons) of water that fell. Poor drainage practices and an invasive species of weed contributed to the floods, which damaged or destroyed 6,505 houses, leaving about 25,000 people homeless. The floods killed 180 people and severely disrupted the livelihoods of about 700,000 residents of Hadhramaut and Al Mahrah governorates, mostly farmers whose fields were washed away. Some of the buildings at the Shibam UNESCO World Heritage Site collapsed due to the floods. Overall damage was estimated at US\$874.8 million, although residual losses from damaged infrastructure were estimated to cost an additional US\$726.9 million. The overall economic impact of the storm was therefore estimated at US\$1.638 billion, equating to roughly 6% of the country's gross domestic product. After the scale of the damage became clear, the government of Yemen requested for assistance from the international community. The hardest hit areas had poor infrastructure, which caused difficulties in communications as relief goods were distributed. Nations in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, sent money and supplies to help rebuild the damaged infrastructure and houses. Agencies under the United Nations provided food and logistical support. Relief efforts continued to make progress until 2011 due to a political uprising in Yemen. ## Meteorological history On October 11, an active phase of the Madden–Julian oscillation, in conjunction with an equatorial wind burst, produced twin areas of convection in the central Indian Ocean on both sides of the equator. The system in the southern hemisphere would become Tropical Storm Asma in the south-west Indian Ocean, and the system in the northern hemisphere would ultimately strike Yemen. The northern hemisphere system originated in the Bay of Bengal, and moved westward for much of its duration, steered by a ridge to the north along 15o N. On October 16, a low-pressure area developed over southern India near Kanyakumari. With low wind shear and warm waters of 27 to 28 °C (81 to 82 °F), the system slowly organized. On October 19, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) classified the low as a depression about 725 km (450 mi) southeast of the Yemeni island of Socotra. By that time, the convection had organized more, although it was displaced slightly from the center due to stronger wind shear. The convection persisted along the western periphery of an elongated center, organizing enough for the American-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) to issue warnings on the depression on October 20, designating it Tropical Cyclone 03A. With marginally favorable conditions, the depression intensified slightly, and the IMD upgraded it to a 55 km/h (35 mph) deep depression on October 21, the same peak as the JTWC. That day, the system moved over Socotra as it reached an area of cooler water temperatures. Land interaction and dry air weakened the convection around the system as it approached the Gulf of Aden. The IMD downgraded the cyclone to depression status on October 22. On the next day, the JTWC discontinued advisories, and the IMD downgraded the system further to a remnant low to the northeast of Cape Guardafui, Somalia. The JTWC continued tracking the system as it moved northwestward, and the circulation made landfall near Ash Shihr in southeastern Yemen late on October 23, losing its identity shortly thereafter. ## Impact Moving ashore southeastern Yemen, the storm dropped heavy rainfall in the typically arid region, reaching 91 mm (3.6 in) in some areas, and possibly as high as 200 mm (8 in), over a 20,000 km² (7,700 mi²) area. This equated to about 2 billion m³ (528 billion gallons) of water, more than twice the capacity of most waterways. The thunderstorms and rainfall occurred over a 30‐hour period, severely disrupting life in eastern Yemen. The precipitation coalesced into valleys, resulting in flash flooding that swelled water levels to 18 m (59 ft). Hundreds of residents became trapped in their homes, while businesses and schools were shut down. The storm sent a plume of moisture that spread into Saudi Arabia, reaching 74 mm (2.9 in) in Najran, and was drawn northward into Iraq by a trough over Syria, triggering dust storms. A representative of UNICEF estimated that the magnitude of the flooding was the worst in 600 years, attributing the scope to climate change. The areas effected – primarily Hadhramaut and Al Mahrah governorates – are usually dry and unsuited for such flooding. This resulted in the second worst natural disaster on record in Yemen, following deadly floods in 1996. Overall, the floods killed around 180 people in Yemen, with many corpses carried away by the deluge. Illegal alterations in canal and drainage systems caused the floods to impact many houses and buildings, and the governor of Hadhramaut credited the invasive Prosopis juliflora weed as exasperating floods after blocking waterways. Throughout the country, the floods destroyed 2,826 houses and damaged another 3,679, leaving about 25,000 people homeless; many of these houses were made of mud, washed away by the floodwaters. The displaced utilized temporary shelters in mosques and schools, or stayed with family and friends. Damage to housing, hospitals, and education was estimated at \$200 million. The UNESCO World Heritage Site at Shibam – dating back to the 3rd century and housing tall mud buildings from the 17th century – was surrounded by floodwaters, causing some of the dwellings to collapse. Businesses and other infrastructure projects were also destroyed. Infrastructure damage was estimated at \$113 million (2008 USD), most of which related to damaged roads, after thoroughfares were washed away. At the Sayun Airport, floods damaged runways and other facilities. 359 dams were damaged, alongside 65 reservoirs. Widespread irrigation systems were also damaged, including 117,875 m (386,729 ft) of pipelines, 1,241 wells, and 1,229 water pumps. Electricity and telephone lines were disrupted in the region. The floods damaged 170 schools, as well as many health facilities. Along the coast, the storm damaged many fishing boats and equipment. In Al Mahrah Governorate, the storm washed a cargo ship ashore, although the 17 person crew was rescued. Agriculture impacts were significant, estimated at \$550 million, which affected 75% of the farmers in Hadhramaut. Soil erosion from the floods damaged 22,902 acres (9,268 ha) of farmlands, as well as 51,455 acres (20,823 ha) of uncultivated lands. This mostly affected cereals, vegetables, and forage crops. Floods killed about 58,500 livestock and wrecked 309,103 beehives. The storm also knocked down 547,185 palm trees, 16,587 citrus trees, and another 161,449 fruit trees. Despite the heavy agriculture damage, the floods did not disrupt the national food supply. The effects of the flooding disrupted the livelihoods of about 700,000 residents; most of the storm's damage affected people's jobs, including farming, industry, and commerce, totaling \$557.3 million in damages. About 76% of the overall effects of the flooding were the result of disruption of people's jobs. Overall damage was estimated at \$874.8 million, although residual losses from damaged infrastructure were estimated to cost an additional \$726.9 million. The overall economic impact of the storm was therefore estimated at \$1.638 billion, equating to roughly 6% of the country's gross domestic product. Damage was heaviest in Hadhramaut Governorate, accounting for 67.5% of the material damages, and occurred mostly along the coast; 16 of the 19 districts in the governorate reported damage. Also in Hadramaut, there were 57 people injured due to the storm. The government sent search and rescue teams into the flooded areas to help stranded residents, although strong winds in the region disrupted these efforts in the immediate aftermath. In Seiyun, six soldiers died while attempting to rescue trapped residents. Lightning strikes killed six people. ## Aftermath On October 27, the Yemen government requested assistance from the international community, unable to provide disaster assessments or cope with the rebuilding. The storm affected areas of Yemen that already had poor infrastructure and lack of food, and were generally under a state of political unrest, which made recovery difficult. In some areas, relief distribution was duplicated due to lack of coordination while some areas did not receive help. Yemen's Deputy Prime Minister for Internal Affairs coordinated the relief efforts, in conjunction with the governors of the most affected areas. The government focused on streamlining disaster activities and toward future mitigation. However, there was no coordinated disaster plan as of September 2009, and the scale of the disaster proved too great for ministries to handle. The Ministry of Public Works helped reopen roads, which allowed for the transport of relief goods, and the damaged Sayun Airport was repaired to withstand future floods. By December 2008, most roads, power systems, hospitals, and communication services were restored. The government also enacted the Fund for Hadramout and Al-Mahara Reconstruction, which failed to promptly distribute aid assistance. In addition to requesting international aid, the Yemen government declared Hadhramaut and Al Mahrah governorates as disaster areas, after then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh surveyed the affected areas. The president also utilized the nation's military to assist storm victims, and sent aircraft with tents, food, and medicine to the worst hit areas. To raise money for the disaster recovery, the Yemeni government cut one day of salary for all workers, equating to \$4.25 million, and the government provided another \$100 million from its annual budget. Local charities and residents collectively raised \$8.5 million. Yemen's Red Cross provided meals and water to about 21,000 people. The agency also provided school kits for 4,500 students whose facilities were damaged. Ultimately, the Red Cross assisted over 70,000 storm victims through health programs, and also helped residents cope with stress, hygiene promotion, and other ongoing vulnerabilities to their livelihoods. Various agencies under the United Nations assisted in the recovery; the World Health Organization provided medical kits to the worst hit areas, capable of helping 10,000 residents each for three months. The United Nations Development Programme helped house displaced storm victims, and many of the mud-built houses were repaired with the same construction materials as before. The World Bank led the assessment efforts, estimating the cost of recovery at \$1.046 billion, mostly toward rebuilding houses, regrowing crops, and restoring social services. The World Bank also provided \$41 million toward the Yemen Flood Protection and Emergency Reconstruction, which rebuilt vital infrastructure and ensured they were flood-proof. The World Food Programme assisted 43,000 people with food and other emergency supplies. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference declared the situation a "national catastrophe" and started a drive to collect funds for the relief of flood victims. At an international donor conference, various individuals and countries pledged \$301 million to help with the reconstruction in the country. Arab nations in the region also donated cash and supplies to Yemen; Saudi Arabia pledged \$100 million in assistance. The United Arab Emirates Red Crescent assisted in the reconstruction work, sending \$27.3 million to rebuild 1,000 houses; 750 of these were completed by December 2009. The Arab Fund sent \$135 million, including \$35 million for road reconstruction. The Japanese government provided funding toward building shelter for 700 displaced Al-Akhdam people, designed to be away from the flood plain. Access to clean drinking water and proper shelter for the displaced helped mitigate the spread of disease. For many families, the effects of the disaster lasted several years due to insufficient assistance or disrupted jobs. By 2010, about 40% of the overall recovery cost was met by international donations, although funding was halted after political uprising in 2011. Over the long term, residents lost significant amounts of income in the storm-affected areas, particularly farms in the year after the storm. Higher food prices also resulted in less income for other residents. The area's economy largely recovered to pre-flood levels by 2010. ## See also - List of Arabian Peninsula tropical cyclones - 1996 Oman cyclone – deadly tropical storm that became the costliest disaster on record in Yemen - 2002 Oman cyclone – another storm that struck the Arabian Peninsula originating alongside a storm in the southern hemisphere - Cyclone Keila – slow-moving storm in 2011 that caused flooding in Oman and Yemen - Cyclone Chapala – Another powerful storm that made landfall in Yemen in 2015 - Cyclone Megh – A storm that impacted Yemen soon after Cyclone Chapala

The Net (1923 film)

1923 American silent film

The Net is a 1923 American silent melodrama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starring Barbara Castleton, Raymond Bloomer, and Albert Roscoe. It is a film adaptation of the 1919 Broadway play of the same name, itself based on the novel The Woman's Law by Maravene Thompson. The film depicts the story of Allayne Norman (Castleton) and her husband Bruce (Bloomer). Bruce commits murder and convinces Allayne to help him blame the crime on a man suffering from amnesia (Roscoe). After Bruce dies and the man recovers, he marries Allayne. The film's release was delayed almost a year from its originally announced date. Contemporary reviews were mixed to negative. Like many of Fox Film's early works, it was likely lost in the 1937 Fox vault fire. ## Plot Allayne Norman's husband Bruce is a drunkard and gambler. Finally unable to tolerate his behavior, she goes to her artist cousin for assistance. Her husband follows her to demand more money. The resulting argument and fight ends with Bruce killing his wife's cousin. Shortly thereafter, an amnesiac man enters the studio. In an effort to avoid the consequences of his actions, Bruce places his identifying documents in the man's pockets, then flees the studio with Allayne and their son. The police are unable to determine what has occurred, but identify the man as Bruce Norman based on the planted papers, and send him to what they presume to be his home, in the hope that the presence of family will aid the return of his memory. Fearing the truth would result in her son being known as the child of a murderer, Allayne identifies the man as her husband while Bruce remains in hiding. When Bruce returns, he attempts to kill the man who has taken his place. He fails and is shot instead. The man regains his memory, allowing him to be cleared of wrongdoing. Having fallen in love during their time together, Allayne and the man marry. ## Cast Alma Bennett was initially reported as a member of the cast, but the American Film Institute believes she did not appear in the finished film. This was Castleton's final film appearance. ## Production Maravene Thompson's The Woman's Law was originally serialized in The American Magazine between November 1913 and April 1914 before being published as a novel in 1914. The first film version was produced Arrow Film and distributed by Pathé in 1916. Thompson adapted her novel into a play, titled The Net, which was performed at Broadway's 48th Street Theatre. Channing Pollock praised the quality of the production and cast, which included Claire Whitney, but found elements of the story unconvincing. It ran for eight showings and was considered a success. In December 1922, Fox Film announced the addition of six films to its schedule for planned release in January 1923, including an adaptation of The Net. However, filming had not begun on The Net at that time and its release was repeatedly delayed. In January, the studio claimed that director J. Gordon Edwards was "screening the final scenes" and set a February 25 release date. In April, it was still advertised for the "coming season", but by October it was described as a "1924 drama". The Net was finally screened on December 2, 1923. It was also released internationally: in France in February 1924, Argentina in March, and Brazil in August. ## Reception and legacy The Net was not well-received by critics. The Film Daily was scathing, calling the film a "feeble attempt at entertainment" with a "terrible story" and inadequate cast. They also reported the opinions of local critics. Despite issues with the plot, the Rochester, New York reviewer was generally positive; however, the Cleveland review opined that the "acting doesn't warrant complimentary adjectives". Photoplay's was also mostly negative, but thought the film might appeal to fans of Bertha M. Clay. The Net is believed to be lost. The 1937 Fox vault fire destroyed most of Fox's silent films, and the Library of Congress is not aware of any extant copies. Because little of Edwards's work survives, few of his films have drawn attention from modern authors, but film historian Larry Langman described The Net as an example of the 1920s trend to use amnesia as a plot element in crime films. ## See also - List of lost silent films (1920–1924)

2013 Penn State Nittany Lions football team

American college football season

The 2013 Penn State Nittany Lions football team represented Pennsylvania State University in the 2013 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team was coached by Bill O'Brien and played its home games in Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania. They were a member of the Big Ten Conference and its Leaders Division. Penn State was ineligible to play in a bowl game for the 2013 season, the second season of a four-year ban, due to NCAA sanctions imposed in the wake of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. Before the season, Penn State had an open competition to win the starting quarterback position; true freshman Christian Hackenberg started all 12 games for the Nittany Lions. Hackenberg headlined their recruiting class, which also featured tight end Adam Breneman. John Butler was named Penn State's new defensive coordinator upon the departure of Ted Roof. Most predicted Penn State would have a similar season to that of the 2012 team, which won eight games and lost four, but there was uncertainty, as injuries could decimate the team, which was already thin at many positions including offensive line and linebacker, while surprise performances from key players could lift them to success. Penn State opened the season with two non-conference wins, but lost to the UCF Knights, who ultimately went on to a BCS bowl, the Fiesta, in their third game. Entering conference play, the Nittany Lions were 3–1, and in their first conference game they lost to Indiana before defeating Michigan in a quadruple-overtime thriller. They alternated losses and wins for the remainder of the season, losing to Ohio State, Minnesota, and Nebraska, and defeating Illinois, Purdue, and Wisconsin. Despite the team never being ranked, several players earned national and conference recognition, headlined by wide receiver Allen Robinson, who was named the Big Ten Conference Receiver of the Year and earned first team all-conference and All-American honors before subsequently announcing he would forgo his senior season and enter the 2014 NFL Draft. Senior John Urschel, an offensive guard, won the William V. Campbell Trophy—sometimes referred to as the "academic Heisman". Hackenberg was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Additionally, backup quarterback Tyler Ferguson, who lost the preseason quarterback competition to Hackenberg, announced his intent to transfer. Soon after the season, two coaches—Ron Vanderlinden and Charlie Fisher—left Penn State for undisclosed reasons, though there was speculation that O'Brien forced them out. A few weeks later, O'Brien accepted the head coaching position with the Houston Texans, leaving the Nittany Lions after two seasons. Early in 2014, the Nittany Lions hired James Franklin to replace O'Brien as head coach for the 2014 season. ## Recruiting Despite NCAA sanctions including limited scholarships and a bowl ban, Penn State retained their top recruit: quarterback Christian Hackenberg. They finished with the 24th ranked recruiting class according to ESPN, who cited retention of top prospects Hackenberg and tight end Adam Breneman, as well as adding depth in the secondary, overall giving them a "B" rating. Linebacker recruit Zayd Issah never enrolled at Penn State after several instances of legal trouble. Entering camp, Hackenberg and Ferguson vied for the starting quarterback position; ultimately, Hackenberg won the job, and Ferguson served as the backup. ## Preseason buildup Coming off an 8–4 season during which, according to USA Today's Paul Myerberg, "Attrition robbed Penn State of everything but the kitchen sink, or so we heard, so it was quite surprising when the sink, a few walk-ons, a mathematician, a local kid and a rookie coach went 8–2 after a sluggish start, pushing back against storm clouds and bringing PSU back from the abyss of life post-NCAA sanctions." Many college football analysts expected the Nittany Lions to perform similarly in 2013, although almost all season outlooks noted that the team could take a major step back from 2012 if they were hampered by injuries, or could surprise everyone and win more games than they did in 2012. A solid backfield anchored by Zach Zwinak, a trio of established tight ends plus a promising newcomer, and a veteran offensive line highlighted the projected success offensively, while a new coordinator (John Butler), a "borderline All-American" linebacker (Glenn Carson), and much potential both on the defensive line and in the secondary, the latter of which was "dramatically improved", highlighted projected progress defensively. Also, a quarterback competition between Christian Hackenberg and Tyler Ferguson brewed, which provided intrigue entering the season. For Penn State to achieve success, they needed to avoid injuries that would hinder their already depleted depth due to NCAA sanctions. SBNation.com asserted, "If either Hackenberg or Ferguson gets hurt, and the other one stinks ... if either Zach Zwinak or Bill Belton (who missed four games last year) gets hurt ... if basically any linemen get hurt (and linemen often get hurt) ... this house of cards comes tumbling down." ESPN.com reporter Josh Moyer wrote, "In short, like last year, PSU is a bit of a wild card. If it receives strong efforts from its quarterback and the front seven, it should surpass last year's record. If it doesn't, it might be fortunate to get to seven wins." ## Schedule ## Personnel ### Coaching staff - Craig Fitzgerald – Strength and Conditioning - Brian Bell – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Graduate assistants - Offense – Bartley Webb, Steven Williams - Defense – Tim Kelly, Will Lawing ### Position key ### Roster ### Depth chart ## Game summaries ### August 31 vs. Syracuse Note: Though the game was held at a neutral site, Penn State wore white uniforms and was considered the away team. Prior to the game, Penn State coach Bill O'Brien hoped to keep his choice between Tyler Ferguson and Christian Hackenberg as starting quarterback a secret until the first snap. However, the night before the game, media reports began to surface that Hackenberg was going to be the starter. Hackenberg did start for the Nittany Lions, while Oklahoma transfer Drew Allen started for Syracuse, who had a quarterback competition as well. After Hackenberg played the first two drives for Penn State, Ferguson came in and promptly fumbled the football for a turnover and did not return. Allen Robinson, the Big Ten's leading receiver in 2012, did not start for what O'Brien said was, "between me and Allen", but he did play in the second half. After a scoreless first quarter, the second quarter featured three turnovers, and at half time, Penn State led 6–3 with two field goals from senior kicker Sam Ficken. On Penn State's first drive in the second half, Allen Robinson returned and caught a screen pass, which he ran for 25 yards, and then a 51-yard touchdown pass to make the score 13–3. On the ensuing drive, however, Syracuse came right back and scored a touchdown via a Jerome Smith 10-yard run. Early in the fourth quarter, Ficken made his third field goal of the day, a career-long 46 yards. Later in the quarter, Hackenberg threw a 54-yard touchdown pass to Eugene Lewis to make the score 23–10. When only down by 6 points, Syracuse got the ball around their own 45-yard line with a little over two minutes left, but turned the ball over via an interception with under two minutes to play. Hackenberg was named the Big Ten freshman of the week after totaling 278 passing yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions, and Ficken was named Big Ten special teams player of the week, redeeming himself from the 2012 season, after kicking three field goals including a career-long 46-yard kick. Seniors DaQuan Jones and Stephen Obeng-Agyapong led the team defensively with nine tackles, including three for a loss, and a sack at defensive tackle, and eight tackles, a sack, a forced fumble that he recovered, and an interception at safety and linebacker respectively. After it was announced that Penn State lost senior tight end Matt Lehman for the season with a knee injury during the game, O'Brien announced that Obeng-Agyapong might practice with the tight ends to help replace him. ### September 7 vs. Eastern Michigan Prior to the game, Penn State was predicted to have the advantage on both sides of the ball at every position, and as such, was expected to win handily. Coming into the game, Penn State had sustained injuries two of their top tight ends, Matt Lehman and Kyle Carter. Lehman suffered a knee injury against Syracuse and was out for the season, while Carter was "day-to-day" with an arm injury, but played in the game. The Lions wanted to focus on improving their running game, which was lackluster against Syracuse; Eastern Michigan allowed 202 rushing yards on 5.8 yards per carry in week one. Defensively, linebacker depth was an issue for the Lions. Safety Stephen Obeng-Agyapong was expected to step up and take snaps at linebacker, in addition to speculation he could end up on offense. At half time, the Nittany Lions honored the 1973 Penn State Nittany Lions football team and retired the number of Penn State's only Heisman Trophy winner, number 22 John Cappelletti. After both teams' first drives ended without points, Eastern Michigan got good field position to start their second drive, and attempted a 35-yard field goal, but after a low snap, Penn State defender Jordan Lucas tackled the holder for a loss, and the kick never got off, for a turnover on downs. Penn State failed to capitalize, however, as Hackenberg threw another incomplete pass on third down, starting the game with one completion in five attempts. Eastern Michigan scored first after the ball slipped from Hackenberg's hands and was returned for a touchdown by Hunter Matt for 11 yards, giving Eastern Michigan a 7–0 advantage with 4:01 in the first quarter. Penn State responded on their next drive scoring a touchdown on a 2-yard Zach Zwinak run, capping a 6-play, 67-yard drive that included a 43-yard reception to Allen Robinson to put the ball inside the 10-yard line. Penn State's next drive featured a hurry up offense, which Penn State calls "NASCAR", included 15+ yard completions to Jesse James and Matt Zanellato, and culminated with two consecutive runs by Bill Belton, the latter of which went for a 5-yard touchdown making the score 14–7. Eastern Michigan's ensuing drive had some success, as they got to Penn State 25-yard line prior to kicker Dylan Mulder pushing a 42-yard field goal attempt to the right of the goal posts. At the end of the first half, Penn State got into field goal range with under a minute to go, and Sam Ficken converted a 39-yard field goal, his Penn State record 14th straight, to make the score 17–7 with 17 seconds in the half. Penn State got the ball to start the second half, but exchanged punts with Eastern Michigan for their first three drives, both teams punting the ball away on their first three drives. On their fourth drive of the half, Penn State got to the board – on a six play drive that included a 20-yard run by Zwinak on 3rd and 24 (after two sacks) and a subsequent fourth down conversion, and then culminated with a 7-yard touchdown run by Zwinak making the score 24–7. After a quick punt, Penn State began to grind it out offensively prior to Hackenberg finding Robinson for a 45-yard touchdown pass to make it 31–7. Later in the quarter, Belton broke loose for a 51-yard touchdown run, putting him over 100 rushing yards on the day making the score 38–7. After Eastern Michigan punted for the 10th time in the game, Penn State brought in Tyler Ferguson at quarterback to replace Hackenberg, who had already amassed 311 passing yards, a Penn State single game freshman record. On that drive, Akeel Lynch became the third Nittany Lion to rush for a touchdown, an 18-yard run with under five minutes to go. That would be the final scoring play of the game; Penn State won 45–7. The Penn State defense struggled with defending the bootleg play early on, but recorded a shut out (the seven points for Eastern Michigan were off an offensive fumble) and limited Eastern Michigan to 183 total yards. They were led by senior defensive tackle DaQuan Jones, who recorded nine tackles and two sacks, Glenn Carson, who recorded 10 tackles, and Nyeem Wartman, who recorded six tackles and three pass deflections. On offense, the "running back by committee" approach proved successful – the two non-starters, Belton and Lynch, each recorded 108 rushing yards. One problem offensively was third down efficiency; the Lions were just 1 of 10 on third downs, bringing them to 2 of 26 on the season. One writer called Jones the game's MVP, noting his statistics, plugging holes opened by the offensive line, and overall "dominance", noting that he "put on an absolute display". ### September 14 vs. UCF This was the two teams' first meeting since 2004, and the meeting reunited O'Brien and George O'Leary, under whom O'Brien was a graduate assistant in 1995, his first season coaching. The two squads are also set to meet in Ireland to open the 2014 season. In an article in The Patriot-News, writer Bob Flounders asserted that if the Nittany Lions beat the Knights of UCF, they would be on a fast track to a 5–0 start, which would have been their first since 2008. As this was Penn State's first night game with a particularly young team, keeping emotions in check was a key, as was improving third down efficiency (the Lions were 2-for-26 on the season) good for dead last in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). UCF, who was 2–0 coming into the game, went 10–4 in 2012, and was led by their running back Latavius Murray, who graduated. As such, their top offensive player was quarterback Blake Bortles. Defensively, they had only allowed one scoring play all season. Penn State students organized a "whiteout", in which the entire student section dons white. Outside linebacker Mike Hull returned after missing the prior game against Eastern Michigan. UCF got the ball to start the game at their nine-yard line after a penalty on the kickoff return, and their junior quarterback Blake Bortles orchestrated an efficient drive in which he converted two third downs and was 6/7 passing for 65 yards and a 4-yard touchdown pass to Storm Johnson. Penn State took over and got two first downs, the latter of which as a fourth down conversion, before a 44-yard pass to Allen Robinson immediately followed by a 6-yard touchdown run by Zach Zwinak to tie the game. Penn State moved the ball on their next drive, but ultimately turned the ball over on downs giving UCF good field position, with which they ran a two play drive culminating with a 58-yard touchdown run by Johnson to make it 14–7 UCF. Penn State's special teams responded with a 44-yard kickoff return by Geno Lewis, but their offense went three-and-out, and though they punted the ball deep into UCF territory, the Knights marched down the field with a strong running game and scored another touchdown to go up 21–7. On Penn State's ensuing drive, Sam Ficken kicked a career-long 47-yard field goal. UCF got some decent yardage on their next drive, but Bortles threw his first interception since October 27, 2012 with 1:17 in the half, but they ran down the clock and Ficken missed his first field goal attempt of the season, a 57-yard try as time expired. At the half, UCF had 290 total yards including 170 rushing yards, compared to 220 total yards for Penn State with only 89 rushing yards. Penn State got the ball to start the second half, but punted on their first drive. UCF responded with a touchdown via a 25-yard pass. Penn State came right back with a touchdown of their own. UCF's ensuing drive brought them to the one yard line, but Penn State held them to a field goal, making the score 31–17. Zwinak rushed for his third touchdown of the game on Penn State's next drive, and Shawn Moffitt kicked his second field goal of the game. Penn State drove 51 yards on their next drive before Zwinak lost a fumble with 5:43 remaining in the game. UCF went three-and-out, and on their punt, the snap went over the punter's head, and Penn State got the ball at the UCF 25. Penn State took advantage, scoring on a 5-yard touchdown pass to Allen Robinson with 57 seconds left. Penn State needed to regain possession of the ball after the score, and failed to do so, so ultimately UCF held on to win by three. Penn State's defense had excelled in their first two games, but regressed significantly against Central Florida, particularly with poor tackling, which some attributed to their practice strategy of "thud" tackling, in which one does not actually take a player to the ground, instead making a "thud" to stop a player. Several media outlets speculated that the Lions used this due to their lack of scholarship players in the wake of sanctions imposed due to the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. Defensive coordinator John Butler renounced that assertion, commenting he employed "thud" when he coached at South Carolina. Penn State's linebackers were also criticized; Glenn Carson and Nyeem Wartman received criticism for not being as strong as the 2012 team's Michael Mauti and Gerald Hodges. In addition, 2012 Big Ten Freshman of the Year defensive end Deion Barnes "barely wreaked any havoc", and DaQuan Jones, whose strong play had previously compensated for Barnes' weak play, was held to just five tackles. The offense, however, was considered a "bright spot"; they gained 455 total yards, though receiver Allen Robinson commented that a fast start would have helped them gain more early momentum: "We are in the Big Ten playing against some great offenses and people are going to put points up early, so we need to get going early and start off fast." Freshman quarterback Christian Hackenberg earned Big Ten Freshman of the Week accolades for the second time in the first three weeks of the season. ### September 21 vs. Kent State Penn State came into the game 2–1, while the Kent State Golden Flashes entered 1–2, including 0–1 in conference play, though this was a non-conference matchup. Kent State was expected to be without their star offensive weapon, wide receiver and running back Dri Archer, who suffered lingering effects from an ankle injury sustained in week one. In 2012, Archer rushed for 1,429 yards and scored 16 touchdowns, led the Golden Flashes in receptions and receiving yards, and recorded three kickoff returns for touchdowns; he even received some Heisman hype (he did not win). Without Archer, Kent State would have to more heavily rely on their freshman quarterback Colin Reardon, who had "not exactly dazzled" in Kent State's first three games, but had yet to throw an interception. Picking up the slack in the running game was Trayvion Durham, who had a total of 152 rushing yards in their first three games. The game also featured two top sophomore defensive ends – NFL prospects Roosevelt Nix for Kent State and Deion Barnes for Penn State, neither of whom had gotten off to a particularly strong start to the season, but both of whom had won their conference's freshman of the year award in 2012. Penn State also looked to rebound from sloppy tackling the previous week against UCF that underscored an overall poor defensive performance. Offensively for Penn State, a quarter of the way through the season, one ESPN writer projected Allen Robinson to win the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year award, and Christian Hackenberg to win the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award for their strong performances through the first three games. That duo along with the running back trio of Zach Zwinak, Bill Belton, and Akeel Lynch led Penn State's offense, which was coming off a performance in which they had scored 31 points, into the game. In heavy rain that announcer Kevin Kugler described as a "deluge", Penn State's Blue Band wore ponchos in the stands during a "blue out", to support the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. After Penn State went three-and-out to start the game, Kent State got excellent field position at the opposition's 36-yard line after Penn State committed kick catching interference on the punt, but failed to capitalize as their kicker, Anthony Melchiori, missed a 31-yard field goal. Penn State's next drive stalled, and on fourth down, quarterback Christian Hackenberg executed a "pooch punt", in which the quarterback lines up in the shotgun formation, and punts the ball, for 44-yards pinning Kent State inside their 10-yard line. Penn State drove down the field late in the first quarter getting it to the five-yard line, when Hackenberg had the ball slip from his hand backing Penn State up to the 15-yard line, but on the subsequent play, Hackenberg completed a 15-yard pass to Bill Belton for a touchdown to culminate a 9-play, 87-yard drive encapsulating 3:39. Kent State's offense again proved ineffective, and Penn State's proved strong, as they drove down the field on a 10-play, 82-yard drive ending with Zach Zwinak running for a 2-yard touchdown. Towards the end of the first half, the teams began to exchange punts, and the half ended with Penn State ahead 14–0. In the third quarter, Hackenberg threw an interception, but on the next drive, Kent State threw an interception and Penn State got the ball back. Later in the quarter, Penn State ran a 51-yard drive that got them inside the ten-yard line down to the one, at which point Zwinak ran for a touchdown, his second of the game. Later in the quarter, Penn State began another drive that spilled into the fourth quarter on which Akeel Lynch was the primary running back for the Lions, running for a total of 78 yards en route to Sam Ficken booting his first field goal of the game, a 25-yarder. In the middle of the fourth quarter, Penn State embarked on a drive that milked over five-and-a-half minutes off the clock and culminated with Zwinak rushing for his third touchdown of the game, a one-yard score with 6:42 to play. After another lackluster drive by Kent State, they punted for the ninth time, and on Penn State's ensuing drive, Tyler Ferguson entered at quarterback, and Von Walker, a member of Penn State's "run-on" program, entered at running back, and on the drive, Ficken kicked a personal record 54-yard field goal, the longest by a Penn State player since 1979, which was the final scoring play of the game, whose final score was 34–0. Penn State's defense excelled, shutting out an opponent for the first time since the 2010 season, also against Kent State. The Lions held Kent State to 190 total yards – just 56 rushing yards, and allowed them to move into Penn State territory only twice out of 14 drives. In the post game media conference, Coach Bill O'Brien commended his defensive coordinator John Butler for his hard work in practice the previous week to rebound from an embarrassing performance against Central Florida. Defensive end Deion Barnes recorded his first sack of the season, and safety Ryan Keiser made his first career interception, while linebacker Glenn Carson led the team with seven tackles. Offensively, Penn State was led by their tandem at running back – trio Zach Zwinak, who had three touchdown rushes, excelling in the grind-it-out style of play Penn State employed in the rain, Bill Belton rushed for 90 yards on 13 carries and had a receiving touchdown, and Akeel Lynch had a "career day", rushing for 123 yards on just 14 carries. The passing game faltered in the rainy conditions, as Christian Hackenberg frequently forced the ball to Allen Robinson for incomplete passes – Robinson finished with 3 receptions, and Hackenberg with 22 incomplete passes and an interception. Penn State did improve on third downs, converting 7-of-18, but remained in the bottom of the FBS, 120 out of 123 teams. Offense Defense Special teams ### Bye week \#1 – September 28, 2013 After their first four non-conference games, Penn State had their first of two mid-season bye weeks, this one heading into conference play. Off the field, Penn State received relief from sanctions imposed in wake of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal; based on a recommendation from independent integrity monitor George Mitchell, Penn State was allowed to have five additional scholarships in 2014, and up to the full 25 by 2015, meaning they would have the full 85 by the 2016 season. > “The decision is the result of a thoughtful and deliberative process to ensure we reached the most appropriate outcome. During our discussions, we had the benefit of engaging with Senator Mitchell’s expert perspective and the views of our Big Ten colleagues.” – Rita Hartung Cheng, chair of the NCAA executive committee meetings regarding Mitchell's annual report The reduction of penalties led to an article in The Patriot News on whether Penn State achieved an "unequivocal" bye week victory, perhaps even their biggest victory of the season. On the field, several keys for improvement were identified within the media, including finding a secondary receiver to Allen Robinson, strengthening the secondary, and continuing improvement on third downs. Also, Penn State's tight end tandem, which struggled during non-conference play, needed to improve, particularly as Penn State had a young quarterback in Christian Hackenberg who would face tougher defenses in conference play. ### October 5 vs. Indiana In their second game away from Beaver Stadium of the season, the Nittany Lions traveled to Bloomington, Indiana for their game against the Indiana Hoosiers, their first conference opponent. This was the teams' 17th meeting, with Penn State owning a 16–0 record coming into the game. Indiana featured the Big Ten's best passing offense in 2012, led by quarterback Chase Coffman, who returned in 2013. Indiana entered the game with a record of 2–2. As they had in 2012, struggled defensively in their first four games, averaging giving up nearly 33 points per game. Their offense however, had shined thus far, and had come into their previous game, a 45–28 loss to Missouri, averaging 50 points per game, but sputtered against the Tigers. A preview on SB Nation noted that Indiana's pass first offense might "cause problems" for Penn State, though it expressed some optimism, as Mike Hull finally returned and Adrian Amos moved from safety to cornerback. Offensively for Penn State, balancing the running game with the passing game was a key – in the previous season's game against Indiana, Penn Statewide receiver Allen Robinson caught 10 passes for 197 yards and 3 touchdowns – as this was expected to be a developmental game for freshman quarterback Christian Hackenberg. There was no conclusive advantage on special teams. Penn State got the ball to start the game, and drove down the field with relative ease (facing only one third down) prior to stalling at their 26-yard line and turning the ball over on downs. After an Indiana three and out, Penn State ran another drive at the end of which they turned over on downs. Each team ran one more drive before Indiana attained first downs on three consecutive plays, ultimately culminating their possession with a five-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Nate Sudfeld to Isaiah Roundtree, making the score 7–0 at the end of the first quarter. Penn State responded on their second drive of the second quarter via a 46-yard pass from Hackenberg to Robinson to tie the game. Later, Mitch Ewald kicked a short field goal to re-take the lead. Penn State had a chance to tie the game again when kicker Sam Ficken attempted a 42-yard field goal, but Indiana blocked the kick, and with their ensuing momentum drove down the field at the end of the half, ultimately ending with Ewald hitting a field goal as time expired. After halftime, Indiana ran a quick drive on which they punted before Penn State ran a 13-play, 80-yard drive that concluded with Robinson catching his second touchdown of the game, a 26-yard pass from Hackenberg. Indiana responded with a quick score; they converted a two-point conversion to take a 21–14 lead. Late in the third quarter, Hackenberg threw a fade pattern to Robinson in the corner of the end zone, which Robinson corralled, but he landed on his back out of bounds, and came up either with the wind knocked out, or some sort of back injury. Penn State settled for a field goal, and at the end of three, Indiana led 21–17. The fourth quarter entrenched the Hoosiers' lead, as they totaled 23 points to only 7 for Penn State, winning the game 44–24, their final score coming on a safety. Dubbed the "low point ... of the Bill O'Brien era" and Penn State's first ever loss to the Hoosiers, lack of execution was a primary problem for the Nittany Lions; Penn State was just one-of-five on fourth down conversion attempts, a few of which they attempted while in Sam Ficken's field goal range, and on two field goal attempts, there were two botched snaps, the first of which led to a blocked kick, the latter getting past the holder and rolling 31 yards by the time Ficken fell on the ball for a turnover on downs. O'Brien also conceded that poor coaching did not help the Lions, and that he tried to "manufacture" momentum at several points in the game: "We coached very average today." − Bill O'Brien Defense Special teams ### October 12 vs. Michigan In the teams' first meeting since the 2010 season, the Nittany Lions looked to achieve their fourth consecutive win in the series, however even a hometown paper, the York Daily Record, predicted the Lions would lose, albeit in a close game, citing Michigan's superiority on both offense and defense, as well as coaching, compared to Penn State's superiority on special teams and intangibles. Penn State's edition of SB Nation also predicted the Lions would lose citing the Wolverines' better athletes, but noted that Michigan's quarterback Devin Gardner has thrown as many interceptions as touchdowns (8) coming into the game, and that Penn State's best chance to win would be if Michigan turned the ball over frequently. Coming off an embarrassing loss against Indiana, Penn State's coach Bill O'Brien was "focused" all week and refused to talk to the media about the prior week's loss, focusing strictly on the Michigan game, which was Homecoming for Penn State, was expected to be the first sellout of the season, and featured a whiteout, led by the student section. O'Brien noted, "it would be crazy to think this is just another game". The game was Penn State's second national broadcast of the year, with Penn State alumnus Matt Millen providing color commentary on Penn State's homecoming weekend. Michigan, coming off a 42–13 victory over Minnesota, entered the game with a win–loss record of 5–0, one of two remaining undefeated teams in the Big Ten (the other was Ohio State, who was 6–0, and whom the Lions are scheduled to play on October 26). Michigan's defense, led by their star cornerback Blake Countless, who was tied for the NCAA lead with four interceptions entering the game, had yet to allow a rushing touchdown, and was expected to receive a boost from the return of their 2012 All-Big Ten linebacker Jake Ryan, who tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) the prior season. As such, a key for Penn State was to match Michigan's physicality in strong offensive line play and establish the line of scrimmage, both on offense and defense, as the game would be won in the trenches. The game was described as a "critical juncture". Before the game, Penn State realized that, due to a Ticketmaster glitch, it had oversold student section tickets, and was forced to offer several alternate packages in order not to have to boot students. With a Goodyear blimp overhead, Michigan got the ball to start the game, and on their first play from scrimmage, they lost three yards when DaQuan Jones made a tackle for a loss stopping Fitzgerald Toussaint; the loss decimated the drive, which ended in a three-and-out. Penn State's drive was no more successful – after one first down, Christian Hackenberg threw an interception. On Michigan's ensuing drive, however, they were set up on another third down and long, and Penn State's Jordan Lucas picked off Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner's pass, setting Penn State up in the red zone. Penn State capitalized, as Hackenberg threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver Brandon Felder. Michigan struck right back, getting two first downs in the running game prior to Gardner throwing a 59-yard touchdown pass to Devin Funchess to tie the game. Penn State did not get a first down on their next drive and tried to convert fourth down deep in their own territory, but failed, setting Michigan up with excellent field position. Penn State's defense, however, responded, with Glenn Carson sacking Gardner to put Michigan out of field goal range, forcing a punt that Michigan downed around the five yard line. On Michigan's next drive, their kicker Brendan Gibbons made a 47-yard field goal. After Penn State again punted, Michigan embarked on a drive that included a third-and-long conversion, but ultimately ended when Gardner threw an interception to Penn State defensive end Anthony Zettel, who started over Deion Barnes. It took Penn State only one play to capitalize; Hackenberg threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jesse James to put Penn State back up 14–10. Penn State struck again later in the quarter, again via a touchdown pass from Hackenberg to Felder. Late in the first half, Penn State defensive end C. J. Olaniyan sacked Gardner for the second time, forcing a fumble, which Penn State recovered, but their drive stalled, and they punted. Penn State held a 21–10 advantage at halftime. On Penn State's first play from scrimmage in the second half, Zach Zwinak fumbled, and it was returned for a touchdown by Frank Clark to pull within four points. After another Penn State drive stalled, Michigan drove down the field, and was faced with a third-and-short before a freshman offensive lineman committed a dead ball unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to back up Michigan to face a third and long; on that play Olaniyan recorded his third sack of the day, and Michigan punted. On Penn State's ensuing drive, they turned the ball over again, this time via a Hackenberg interception; Michigan capitalized by kicking a field goal. When Penn State got the ball back, they ran a sustained, balanced drive (4 run plays, 5 pass plays, 50 yards) down the field during which they went to Bill Belton in the running game (as Zwinak had fumbled previously in the half) that culminated with Sam Ficken kicking a 45-yard field goal to go up by 4 points. Michigan promptly drove right back down the field, and Gardner threw a touchdown pass to Jeremy Gallon to take the lead for the second time, 27–24. In the fourth quarter, Ficken attempted a 47-yard field goal, but missed, and Penn State's 10-play 45-yard drive came up empty. Michigan took advantage of their ensuing field position and ran a quick drive that ended with a 37-yard touchdown pass from Gardner to Funchess, putting them on top by 10 with 10:28 to go. On Penn State's ensuing drive, they converted a fourth down and one near midfield prior to a penalty and then a sack setting up a third and long on which Hackenberg threw an incomplete pass, so they were forced to settle with pulling within 7; Sam Ficken kicked a 43-yard field goal. Michigan tried to run out the clock on their next drive, and Penn State burned all three of their timeouts. Though they were at one point within field goal range, they committed a five-yard delay of game penalty that pushed them out of range, and they had to punt. Penn State got the ball with 50 seconds left and no timeouts at their own 20-yard line. Needing a touchdown to tie the game, Penn State's first play of scrimmage was a pass from Hackenberg to Robinson along the sideline that was ruled incomplete on the field, but was reviewed and overturned and counted as a 14-yard gain. The next play was an acrobatic catch by Felder for 29 yards, and then a pass down the sideline to Robinson for 36 yards to put the ball inside the one yard line with 29 seconds remaining. Michigan then called their final timeout. Hackenberg then attempted a quarterback sneak over the right side for a touchdown; the play was reviewed and the call was confirmed, and Ficken made the extra point to tie the game with 27 seconds left. Michigan took the ball at their own 35, drove it to the other 35, and lined Gibbons up to attempt a 52-yard field goal, which he missed short. Penn State got the ball with two seconds left, but downed the ball to send the game into overtime. Penn State got the ball to start overtime, but went three-and-out and Ficken missed a field goal. Michigan used their entire possession to try to center the ball for Gibbons, and then they attempted a field goal, but it was blocked, to send the game into a second overtime. Michigan got the ball to start the second overtime, achieved one first down, and Gibbons redeemed himself, kicking a 25-yard field goal. Ficken responded, tacking on a 36-yard field goal to tie the game at 37, headed into a third overtime. Penn State got the ball to start the third overtime, but on their first play, an end-around to Robinson that he fumbled and was recovered by Clark to set up Michigan with a chance to win the game with any score. Gibbons had an opportunity to win the game, but missed wide, and sent the game into a fourth overtime. Michigan got the ball to start the fourth overtime, and stalled, leaving Gibbons to attempt a 40-yard field goal, which he made to put the Wolverines on top 40–37. Penn State then needed a field goal to tie, or a touchdown to win. Faced with a fourth down and one, O'Brien sent his team out on the field to go for it, and they converted via a two-yard run by Belton. Three plays later, Hackenberg threw an incomplete pass intended for Robinson in the end zone, but officials called pass interference on the play, which occurred in the end zone, resulting in the ball being placed at the two yard line. On Penn State's next play, Hackenberg handed the ball off to Belton, who ran it in for a two-yard touchdown, winning the game for Penn State. The four-overtime game was the longest in Big Ten Conference history. For their performance in the game, Athlon Sports named Hackenberg as both its Big Ten and National Freshman of the Week, and Olaniyan as its Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week. Hackenberg threw for over 300 yards for the third time, already moving him into a tie for third-most all time in Penn State history, tied with Daryll Clark, and behind Matt McGloin and Kerry Collins; it was the third time he had been named freshman of the week. Olaniyan recorded 2.5 sacks and forced a fumble (that was recovered by DaQuan Jones), and this was his first career Big Ten Player of the Week accolade. ESPN named the game the best of the season's first half, and Robinson's catch late in regulation was named the number-one play on Sports Center's Top Ten. ### Bye week \#2 – October 19, 2013 After Penn State's quadruple overtime win against Michigan, they tried to get healthy, with veterans being held out of a scrimmage that occurred during the week of practice, instead working on conditioning. One ESPN writer opined that defensive coordinator John Butler needed to emphasize reworking the secondary, similar to how he had focused on reworking the defensive line, which was successful during the prior week's game. Also, Penn State needed to find additional "playmakers" to supplement Allen Robinson in the receiving game, as well as determine who would lead the running game, as Zach Zwinak had fumbled against Michigan and was taken out, and Bill Belton took over and performed well. Halfway through the season, ESPN.com rated Robinson as the team's offensive MVP, and defensive tackle DaQuan Jones as the team's defensive MVP. The midseason report noted that Penn State had a grueling schedule in the second half of the season that would test the depth of its defense, limited by lack of scholarship players. Lancaster Newspapers concurred with ESPN, awarding their first half offensive and defensive MVPs to Robinson and Jones respectively as well, adding Sam Ficken as special teams MVP. The column also called sophomore defensive end Deion Barnes the biggest disappointment of the first half, noting that he had even been relegated out of the starting lineup. Quarterback Christian Hackenberg, who had started the first six games and had a "halftime" in the bye week, as there were still six games to play, viewed the bye week as a bonus: "We have a couple more days to prepare, get a good game plan and get ready to go to a hostile environment and play a really good football team. I think it's more of a bonus for us." Coach Bill O'Brien concurred, asserting that Penn State's win against Michigan gave Hackenberg confidence and development. ### October 26 vs. Ohio State In Penn State's second nationally televised, prime time game, which was to be called by Nittany Lion alumnus Todd Blackledge, the Lions entered the game underdogs, even according to their local media. The opening line put Ohio State 14.5 point favorites. Pre-game buildup focused on Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller, for whom there "is no good way to stop", and who Bill O'Brien called one of the top five players in the country. In tandem with star running back Carlos Hyde, Ohio State was expected to score a lot of points, even against Penn State's improved defense; a preview from York Daily Record writer Frank Bodani gave Ohio State the edge on offense, citing the tandem of Miller and Hyde, defense, citing playmaking game-changers Noah Spence and Ryan Shazier, who play defensive end and linebacker respectively, special teams, noting their punt blocking ability and return game, coaching, noting that Ohio State had not yet lost under Urban Meyer, and intangibles, citing the sold-out crowd in prime time. Keys to the game for Penn State were to contain Miller, not get beaten over-the-top in coverage, and running the ball, so as to avoid becoming one-dimensional offensively. Ohio State needed to contain Penn State receiver Allen Robinson with their star cornerback Bradley Roby, "ride Hyde" (run the ball with Carlos Hyde), and get pressure on freshman quarterback Christian Hackenberg. Penn State made a few changes on their depth chart for the game, including placing Bill Belton and Zach Zwinak on the first team separated with an "OR". Also, Deion Barnes and Anthony Zettel were listed with an OR between their names; Zettel started the previous week against Michigan. Ohio State got the ball to start the game, and promptly drove down the field on a 7-play, 75-yard drive culminating with a touchdown run by Carlos Hyde. Penn State responded with a solid drive of their own, running 12 plays and getting to the 12-yard line before Christian Hackenberg threw an interception in the end zone. The two teams exchanged punts, and then Ohio State scored, this time via a 39-yard run from their quarterback Braxton Miller. Hackenberg threw another interception late in the quarter, and Ohio State, early in the second quarter, capitalized with another touchdown. After scoring again, Penn State scored points for their first time to make the score 28–7, off a 12-yard touchdown reception by Brandon Felder. Ohio State scored twice more, and the halftime score was a 42–7 Ohio State advantage. After exchanging punts to start the second half, Zach Zwinak lost a fumble in Penn State territory for the second consecutive week, and for the second consecutive week, he did not carry the ball after it. It took Ohio State only two plays to take advantage, scoring a touchdown on a Miller pass to Dontre Wilson. On Penn State's next drive, Tyler Ferguson replaced Hackenberg at quarterback due to an injury he sustained earlier in the game, Ferguson was no more effective, as Penn State ultimately punted. Ohio State scored once more in the third quarter, and they led 56–7 headed into the fourth quarter. After another touchdown for Ohio State, Ferguson threw a touchdown pass to Allen Robinson in which Robinson caught the screen pass behind the line of scrimmage, "runs around, weaving thru traffic from one sideline to the other, and finishes in the end zone for a touchdown". That would be the final scoring play of the game, which ended 63–14. In what linebacker Mike Hull described as "the worst game I've experienced", Penn State allowed the most points it had since 1899, when they lost to the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club on November 25, 1899 64–5. Ohio State totaled 686 total yards, whereas Penn State totaled 357. The game thrust the Buckeyes into consideration to play in the 2014 BCS National Championship Game, while it subjugated Christian Hackenberg, who "wasn't ready for Ohio State or the 'Shoe", according to an article on Bleacher Report. An article from SBNation.com noted, "This Penn State one is a talented but extremely flawed one, flawed, especially defensively, in ways that are blatant and clear and easy for any well-coached offense to exploit, and flawed on offense with youth and with inexperience, destined to repeat the past because they must before it gets any better." ### November 2 vs. Illinois Coming off a shellacking against Ohio State, Penn State looked to rebound behind a strong defensive effort against Illinois. Linebacker Mike Hull noted, "Practice Monday and (Tuesday) was real energetic and we were smacking people out there. We’re ready to play another game on Saturday and get that taste of losing out of our mouth." Keys to the game included moving on from the prior Saturday's defeat, limiting big plays on defense, containing Illinois quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase, and protecting quarterback Christian Hackenberg. A pre-game analysis of statistical comparisons between the two squads gave Penn State an advantage in most offensive and defensive stats, while it gave Illinois an advantage on special teams. The analyst blamed sanctions imposed by NCAA president Mark Emmert in wake of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal for that disparity, citing scholarship reductions hampering depth. Illinois got the ball to start the game, and on their opening drive, Scheelhaase threw an interception, setting up Penn State at their own 16, from which they ran a 7-play, 84-yard drive highlighted by a 47-yard pass to Allen Robinson, and culminating with Bill Belton rushing for a 1-yard touchdown. Penn State scored on their second drive as well, a lengthy 17-play drive that encapsulated 7:15, and resulted in Christian Hackenberg running for a 9-yard touchdown early in the second quarter to take a 14–0 lead. After another Illinois punt, Penn State again drove down the field, but Sam Ficken missed a 37-yard field goal, his first miss on a kick inside of 40 yards on the season. On the final drive of the first half, Illinois finally achieved points, with kicker Taylor Zalewski making a 21-yard field goal as time expired. After Penn State's first second-half drive faltered, Illinois took the field, and embarked on a 13-play, 88-yard drive, ended by an 8-yard touchdown run from Josh Ferguson. At the end of the third quarter, Penn State led 14–10. In the fourth quarter, the two teams each failed to score on their first drive, but on Illinois' second, Scheelhaase connected with Ferguson on a 7-yard pass to finish off a 13-play, 77-yard drive and take the lead for the first time in the game. Penn State's ensuing drive had promise, but ultimately ended when Belton lost a fumble at the two-yard line. Illinois failed to capitalize, however, and went three-and-out. Taking the field in Illinois territory, Penn State drove into field goal range, at which point Ficken made a 37-yard field goal to tie the game at 17 with 0:41 remaining. Illinois got the ball back, but after a false start penalty on them and a subsequent off-sides penalty on Penn State, they called timeout, and ran one additional play, on which Penn State recorded their first sack of the game. Time expired. In overtime, Penn State's second overtime game in their past three, they got the ball to start, and were faced with a third-down situation needing 11 yards to convert at the 15-yard line. Coming out of a timeout following a holding penalty that brought back a touchdown, Kyle Carter made his first and only reception of the day, a 15-yard touchdown pass thrown into a tight window by Hackenberg on one of Penn State's "favorite" plays known simply as "pearl". Illinois did not achieve a touchdown on their subsequent drive, as Ryan Keiser intercepted a pass on its first play, ending the game with Penn State emerging victorious, 24–17. In a victory that coach Bill O'Brien refused to describe as either "ugly" or "fortunate" despite a variety of media sources doing so, one article from Lancaster Newspapers described the game by saying, > This was some bad football played by two teams going nowhere, both ailing mentally and emotionally over having been beaten on the road in their previous outings by a combined 88 points. And after a long day of players and coaches and officials throwing up all over each other, the truth that Illinois has not won a Big Ten game since Nov. 8, 2011 ... Which is to say, it came down to Illinois doing what it does, which is finding a way to lose, and Penn State doing what it (more often than not) does, which is to find a way to win. Offensively, Penn State totaled 25 first downs, two fewer than Illinois, but 490 total offensive yards, exceeding Illinois by 79. Allen Robinson caught 11 passes, and was the only Penn State receiver with more than three catches. The shuffled offensive line on which Donovan Smith did not start, "yes, allowed a sack, and yes, committed a few penalties, but generally opened up gaping holes in the run game, gave Hackenberg plenty of time to throw, and controlled the line of scrimmage". Running back Bill Belton set career highs with both 36 rushes and 201 yards, and was named Big Ten co-offensive player of the week. It was the first time a Penn State player had rushed for over 200 yards since Larry Johnson in 2002. Defensively, Penn State stopped Illinois for a loss of yardage on only four plays, and though linebackers Mike Hull and Glenn Carson combined for 24 tackles, they had no interceptions, forced fumbles, sacks, or tackles for loss between them. The secondary struggled, though did record two interceptions, mitigating their overall ineffectiveness, much of which, however, stemmed from defensive coordinator John Butler's incessant third-down blitzes, leaving one-on-one coverage for overmatched cornerbacks such as Jordan Lucas. ### November 9 vs. Minnesota In the teams' first meeting since 2010, Penn State visited TCF Bank Stadium to face a Minnesota team looking for their fourth consecutive Big Ten victory, and their eighth win of the season, which would have been their first time since the 2003 season. There was consensus among both Penn State's and Minnesota's SB Nation sites, as well as independent picks, that Minnesota would win a relatively close game. Minnesota's offense was one of the better rushing teams in the conference (20th in the nation), but Penn State's defense was also pretty good against the run, making it a good matchup. Freshman quarterback Christian Hackenberg in tandem with a running game that, in theory, was led by Bill Belton and supplemented by Zach Zwinak, and receivers Allen Robinson had potential to score a lot of points. Keys to the game included avoiding turnovers and running the football. Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill, recovering from seizures stemming from epilepsy, coached from the press box. Penn State received the opening kickoff, however on their first play from scrimmage, Bill Belton lost a fumble and Minnesota recovered and kicked a field goal after failing to achieve a first down. Penn State's punt on the subsequent drive was downed at the four-yard line, but the poor field position did not adversely affect Minnesota, who drove down the field for a 15-play, 96-yard drive, highlighted by a 24-yard pass from Philip Nelson to Maxx Williams to convert a fourth down to get down to the Penn State four-yard line, from which point they scored two plays later via a 1-yard run by David Cobb. Penn State responded, however, with Zach Zwinak rushing the ball 5 times for 61 yards including a 38-yard run, and ultimately a 6-yard touchdown scamper. At the end of the first quarter, Minnesota led 10–7. In the second quarter, Minnesota wasted no time, embarking on a 13-play, 70-yard drive that lasted 6:54 and ended with Nelson rushing for a 6-yard touchdown. Penn State responded, driving down the field on 13 plays for 65 yards lasting 5:57, culminating with Ficken kicking a 27-yard field goal after the drive stalled in the red zone. Late in the half, Minnesota drove down the field, and Nelson completed a 24-yard touchdown pass to Williams, putting Minnesota on top 24–10 at the half. Receiving the second half kickoff, Minnesota initiated a drive that included a 39-yard run by Cobb, but ultimately ended in their first punt of the day, which they downed inside the one-yard line. Penn State achieved two first downs, but an illegal block in the back on Jesse James decimated the drive, which ended with a punt, but they caught a break a play later when Minnesota fumbled and Malcolm Willis recovered in Minnesota territory. The break did not materialize with any points, but their subsequent punt was downed inside the five yard line. Dreadful field position continued when, after driving for several yards, Minnesota's punt settled inside the five yard line, again setting Penn State up with a long field. In the waning moments of the third quarter, Penn State relied on Zwinak, who rushed several consecutive times to garner Penn State breathing room. There was no scoring in the third quarter. Penn State failed to convert a third down (they had still not converted any in the game), but Minnesota committed a roughing the kicker penalty, giving Penn State a second chance with which they converted their first third down of the game, but ultimately turned the ball over on downs. After a Minnesota punt, Penn State, for the first drive of the game, relied on their passing game to drive down the field, but, when faced with a fourth down and ten deep in Minnesota territory, failed to convert. On Minnesota's ensuing possession, however, they managed to run only 47 seconds off the clock, and went three-and-out. Hoping not to again blow an opportunity, Penn State moved promptly down the field, and got into the red zone. While there, a pass to Allen Robinson resulted in a pass interference penalty called against Minnesota, giving Penn State the ball at the two-yard line, from where they fumbled, and Minnesota recovered, and embarked on a possession from which they would not relinquish the ball, winning the game 24–10, after no scoring in the second half. Following their victory and awarding of the Governor's Victory Bell, Minnesota players, purportedly "a little excited after ... the team’s first win over the Nittany Lions in nearly a decade", broke the trophy. For Penn State, though coming off a 200-rushing yard performance, Belton took a back seat in the rushing attack to Zwinak after fumbling in the first quarter. In total, The Morning Call graded Penn State's offense by awarding them a C−, noting the lack of scoring despite opportunities in Minnesota territory, though noting Zwinak's resurgence as a mitigating factor. They awarded the defense the same grade, noting that though they improved in the second half, they were "torched" on consecutive drives early in the game. They summarized Penn State's coaching with a comment from O'Brien: "It seemed like, when we made a call, they had the right call for it." In total, the article asserted that overall, Minnesota was the superior team. StateCollege.com's Ben Jones predominantly concurred, giving the offense a C−, but giving the defense a C+, noting that the defense did keep Penn State competitive in the game. ### November 16 vs. Purdue Coming off a loss to Minnesota the preceding week, Penn State looked to defeat Purdue, which they had in every meeting since 2004. Though expected to beat an overmatched Purdue squad that was reeling, having lost 38–14 the prior week against Iowa, and 56–0 the week before that against Ohio State, and entering the game with a 1–8 record, the Lions would have to do so with even less depth than normal. At his mid-week press conference, Bill O'Brien announced at the midweek press conference that Ben Kline would miss the remainder of the season with a shoulder injury, for which he sustained surgery. There was also some pregame concentration surrounding the receiving corps – Allen Robinson was listed on the injury report with a shoulder injury, and Geno Lewis, who had proved to be a potential big play threat early in the season when he caught a 54-yard touchdown pass against Syracuse, but had recently been relegated to special teams, was also expected to receive increased playing time in Penn State's second-to-last home game of the season. Penn State received the opening kickoff, and on their first play from scrimmage, featured six offensive linemen (albeit unsuccessfully, as Bill Belton rushed for a one-yard loss), before driving down the field on a 13-play, 75-yard drive that culminated with Belton rushing for a five-yard touchdown; he carried the load on the drive, rushing the ball eight times for 36 yards. Penn State would never relinquish that lead. Purdue subsequently went three-and-out, and Penn State responded with another long drive (10 plays, 66 yards) that again culminated with a rushing touchdown, this time from Zach Zwinak on a one-yard run, his tenth touchdown of the season, becoming the 16th Penn State player to eclipse 10, and the first since 2008, when both Evan Royster and Daryll Clark did. Purdue's ensuing drive ended in the second quarter when quarterback Danny Etling threw a two-yard touchdown pass to Justin Sinz, making the score 14–7 Penn State. Bill Belton lost a fumble on Penn State's next drive, but Purdue turned the ball over right back to Penn State when Jordan Lucas intercepted an Etling pass. Zwinak rushed for his second one-yard touchdown of the game on the ensuing possession. The Nittany Lions scored once more in the first half, via an eight-yard pass from Christian Hackenberg to Adam Breneman, but on the ensuing kickoff, Purdue's Raheem Mostert scored a touchdown on a 100-yard return, thus ending the first half with a score of 28–14, Penn State holding the advantage. Purdue came out of halftime with a vengeance, driving down the field for 84-yards, ultimately pulling within 7 points on an 11-yard rush by Etling. The first field goal of the game occurred on Penn State's subsequent drive, a 29-yarder from Sam Ficken putting the Nittany Lions ahead 31–21. The Boilermakers turned the ball over again on their next drive, and Penn State capitalized when Zwinak rushed for his third touchdown of the game. Purdue turned the ball over on downs their final drive of the third quarter, though Hackenberg threw an interception giving Purdue an opportunity early in the fourth quarter; again, a fumble eliminated any chance of a scoring drive coming to fruition, and Penn State went up 45–21 when Hackenberg rushed for a 4-yard touchdown to culminate an 11-play, 74-yard drive that encapsulated over a third of the fourth quarter, and ended with 4:27 to play. That would be the final scoring drive of the game, which Penn State won by the aforementioned score, 45–21. In a game in which Penn State dominated the line of scrimmage, the Nittany Lions rushed for 289 yards behind an offensive line that opened up significant holes, allowing Penn State to achieve their goal of rushing the football, despite not achieving offensive tackle Garry Gilliam's goal of 400 yards. Purdue's coach Darrell Hazell had opined earlier in the week that Penn State's offensive line was not as good as previous opponents Wisconsin and Iowa, and Penn State used it as motivation, dominating the line of scrimmage, which numerous offensive lineman noted was "fun". Starting center Ty Howle, who noted,"It's fun, knowing you can go out there and impose your will each play. It's a lot of fun." and all-conference guard John Urschel, who agreed, saying, "This was a real fun game for us, with respect to coming off the ball and just hitting guys. The offensive linemen really enjoyed it. We were having a blast. When you're an offensive lineman and you're getting yards, you want to run the ball over and over again." Allen Robinson caught his 78th pass of the season with his fifth catch of the game, and in doing so topped his 77 catches from the 2012 season. Aside from offensive accomplishments, the defense was also impressive, particularly play from Jordan Lucas, who ESPN commented earlier in the week plays with "swagger", and who, during the game, intercepted a pass, garnering a comment from The Patriot News that he is the "top playmaker in the secondary". Despite jubilation from the victory, including one Penn State player who quipped that the sixth win made Penn State bowl eligible (the NCAA banned Penn State from bowl participation as part of sanctions imposed in the Penn State child sex abuse scandal), seniors nostalgically remembered this was their second-to-last game at Beaver Stadium. The Lions bounced back from their previous loss against Minnesota, and had not lost two consecutive games under Bill O'Brien since their first two in 2012. ### November 23 vs. Nebraska On Senior Day at Penn State, the final home game of the season, the 6–4 Lions were set to host the 7–3 Nebraska Cornhuskers, however despite the Huskers having the better record, the opening line gave Penn State a two-point advantage. Earlier in the week, it was announced that, in addition to the 14 seniors, Penn State would honor defensive tackle Kyle Baublitz, offensive tackle Garry Gilliam, and wide receiver Alex Kenney on the field prior to the game; none of the three planned to return for the 2014 season despite each having an additional year of eligibility. Offensively for Penn State, Biletnikoff Award semifinalist wide receiver Allen Robinson entered the game by far Penn State's biggest threat in the passing game, with three times more receptions (81) entering the game than Penn State's second receiver, Brandon Felder (27). Perhaps the biggest opportunity for Penn State's offense to achieve success against Nebraska's defense, however, was through the running game, either on the coattails of Bill Belton or Zach Zwinak; Nebraska's run defense had frequently been "gouged" against Big Ten offenses. Similarly, Nebraska's offense would have an opportunity to continue to achieve success through its running game, led by Ameer Abdullah, who entered the game averaging 6.5 yards per carry. He had picked up the slack in the absence of their prior starter at quarterback Taylor Martinez, sidelined due to injury. Penn State coach Bill O'Brien predicted that whichever team committed fewer turnovers would win, as both teams had previously experienced problems with turnovers, both entering the game with negative turnover margins. Both teams entered the game with freshmen quarterbacks, in Christian Hackenberg for Penn State, and Tommy Armstrong for Nebraska, but both teams' primary playmakers came from outside the quarterback position, with Robinson for Penn State, and Abdullah for Nebraska. According to York Daily Record writer Frank Bodani, Penn State's offense was more consistent than Nebraska's, who committed too many turnovers, giving Penn State the edge. Defensively, Penn State was hit-or-miss in their secondary as well as in stopping the run, so Nebraska, who was also inconsistent, held a slight edge with their playmakers Randy Gregory and Ciante Evans, Nebraska also held an edge on special teams due to consistency and depth, but Penn State had superior coaching as well as intangibles, with a "roaring crowd" on Senior Day. With two hit-or-miss squads, most writers thought this would be a relatively close game, though a plurality leaned towards Nebraska edging out a victory, however some thought that Penn State's seniors would come out with a vengeance, never having defeated Nebraska since they joined the Big Ten, and the "resilient" group would use that motivation to eke out a victory in their final game at Beaver Stadium. Shortly before the game, Penn State announced tailback Bill Belton would not play due to illness, leaving Zach Zwinak to carry the load in the running game in the snow. Nebraska received the opening kickoff, and promptly went three-and-out, forcing a punt, which though Penn State returner Jesse Della Valle fumbled, but the Lions recovered, setting up Penn State at their own 23 yard line, but they too went three-and-out. Nebraska's second drive, however, got off to a much better start, as Ameer Abdullah rushed for a 25-yard gain on the drive's first play, but ultimately Penn State's defense held on a later third down and short play, forcing another punt. Penn State's subsequent drive showed promise, with Zwinak rushing for a few first downs (on one of which Nebraska star defensive back Cionte Evans was injured; he returned a few drives later), however they eventually punted, and for the second time, Alex Butterworth pinned them inside the 20, and Nebraska failed to execute, punting for the third time; on the punt return, Della Valle redeemed himself with a 25-yard return into Nebraska territory. Penn State took advantage of the field position, and in the waning seconds of the first quarter, Hackenberg threw a two-yard touchdown to Adam Breneman after Zwinak rushed the ball six times for a total of 27 yards; Sam Ficken missed the extra point, his first extra point miss of the season. Penn State led at the end of the first quarter, 6–0. On Nebraska's next drive, they entered with senior Ron Kellogg III at quarterback, after Armstrong's ineffectiveness. Kellogg III came in firing on all cylinders, completing his first three passes, before Abdullah ran for a first down, and then Kellogg III completed another pass, this time for a touchdown on a 27-yard pass to Quincy Enunwa. Nebraska made the extra point, taking a one-point lead. Penn State's next drive stalled, and again Butterworth was able to pin Nebraska inside the 20 on the ensuing punt. Nebraska subsequently went three-and-out, setting Penn State up with solid field position at their own 37-yard line. They got one first down, and were positioned for another, but Felder dropped a pass, and Penn State's ensuing punt was blocked after Butterworth dropped the low snap, setting up Nebraska in Penn State territory. Nebraska recorded the game's first third down conversion en route to getting the ball in the red zone. On a snap to Abdullah from the wildcat formation, he ran up the middle, but fumbled into the end zone, and Della Valle recovered in the end zone, setting Penn State up with some momentum at their 20-yard line, however they were unable to capitalize, going three-and-out. Nebraska's ensuing drive stalled, and they punted. Penn State came out trying to score before the half, and they did achieve a few first downs, but ultimately punted, and Nebraska downed the ball to go into half time leading by one. Coming out of the half, the snow showers returned, and Penn State got the ball to start the half, and they did convert a third down for the first time of the game, however again, their drive stalled, and Butterworth punted the ball for the sixth time. Nebraska faced a third-and-long on their next drive, and on the play, C. J. Olaniyan sacked the quarterback, and forced and recovered a fumble, setting Penn State up inside the Nebraska 10 yard line. Two plays later, with the snow increasing in intensity, Hackenberg ran a play-action bootleg and rolled right, running for a 7-yard touchdown, putting Penn State up 13–7, as this time, Ficken made the extra point. The lead did not last long; Kenny Bell returned the ensuing kickoff for a 99-yard touchdown, the second consecutive week Penn State surrendered a return touchdown. Back where they started at the beginning of the half in terms of scoring differential, Penn State got the ball inside their own 20 after Geno Lewis fumbled the kickoff return (he recovered). Penn State achieved a first down on the drive, but a false start penalty set up a third-and-long situation from which they could not recover. They punted. Nebraska also punted on their next drive, and the punt was downed at the one-yard line. They did not remain in the shadow of their own goal post for long, as Zwinak rushed for four yards, and then, on a play action pass, Hackenberg threw a 43-yard pass to Allen Robinson. Two plays later, however, Evans intercepted Hackenberg's pass, giving Nebraska good field position at their own 48. They capitalized, kicking a field goal, going up by four. The Huskers led 17–13 at the end of the third quarter. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Jesse James caught a pass in the flat on a third-and-three, and ran down the sideline for a 46-yard touchdown putting Penn State up 20–17. Penn State quickly got the ball back, and looked to milk clock with Zwinak running the football, however two incomplete passes decimated the drive, and they punted it back to Nebraska. After exchanging punts, Nebraska embarked on a drive that had a 62-yard run by Abdullah called back due to a personal foul penalty called. The foul occurred deep into the run, so Nebraska still got the ball at Penn State's 27-yard line. Subsequently, they moved the ball into the red zone, and got it down to the one-yard line before a false start backed them up to the six-yard line ... one play later, they called timeout, and on the next play, Kellogg III scrambled and got to the one-yard line before he and Mike Hull collided, jarring the ball loose, but the ruling was that Nebraska maintained possession, and Smith made a 19-yard field goal to tie the game at 20. When Penn State received the subsequent kickoff, they ran the ball several times, and ultimately punted the ball away with 1:40 remaining from their 38-yard line; it was downed at the five-yard line, setting up Nebraska with two of their three timeouts and 1:31 remaining. Nebraska was backed up inside their one on third-and-long, and threw a long pass that fell incomplete, however Jordan Lucas was flagged for pass interference. The next series, however, was decimated by penalties, and ultimately, Nebraska punted the ball away, and the game went into overtime, Penn State's third OT game of the season (they won the first two). In overtime, Penn State got the ball first, and after failing to achieve a first down, lined up to attempt a field goal, but the typically reliable Ficken missed another kick, and Nebraska conservatively positioned themselves for a field goal try on their ensuing possession. They lined up for a 37-yard field goal, but committed a false start penalty backing them up five yards. It did not matter, however, as Smith hit a 42-yard field goal to win the game, 23–20. Nebraska dominated Penn State on special teams, and ultimately, that advantage led to their victory. If it were not for Sam Ficken missing an extra point in the first quarter, Nebraska would not have been able to settle for a field goal late in the second half to send the game into overtime. In addition to the missed extra point, Penn State allowed a kickoff to be returned for a touchdown for the second straight week, and had a punt blocked. Bill O'Brien commented, "We’ll continue to work hard in special teams. They’re good kids working hard." Offensively, Penn State's was plagued by dropped passes that hindered Christian Hackenberg's overall performance, while the running game, though led by Zach Zwinak who rushed for 149 yards, was one-dimensional, as backup Akeel Lynch could muster only nine yards on five carries. Penn State's defense was "in control for long stretches", but ultimately allowed a third-string quarterback to win the game, and also allowed Ameer Abdullah to rush for 147 yards. Prior to the game, Penn State's seniors were lauded with a video tribute that noted, "[Penn State was] led by your commitment, led by your loyalty, by your actions, led by example." This was their third overtime game of the season, but their first overtime loss since 2002. ### November 30 vs. Wisconsin In their final game of the season, Penn State looked to play spoiler and try to prevent Wisconsin from achieving a 10-win season and BCS Bowl opportunity in coach Gary Andersen's first season with the Badgers, who entered the game with a 9–2 record and were 24-point favorites to win the game. The Badgers entered the game still employing their quintessential offensive philosophy even under their new coach – a power running game behind a physical offensive line led by two of the top rushers in the country, Melvin Gordon and James White, both of whom were on the preseason watchlist for the Doak Walker Award (given to the nation's best running back) and the former of whom was named one of ten semifinalists for the award in mid-November. White, a tough runner in the middle of the field, had emerged in recent weeks, whereas Gordon, a speedster, led the team in rushing and led the country with an 8.2 yards-per-carry average. Wisconsin's offense also featured a strong passing game, highlighted by quarterback Joel Stave and favorite target Jared Abbrederis, however one game preview asserted that Penn State's defense matched up well against the Badgers' offense. Defensively, Wisconsin entered the game the fifth-best scoring defense in the country, allowing just 13.4 points per game. The "stingy" defense, the preview noted, would likely prove problematic for Penn State. Penn State received the opening kickoff, and after achieving a first down, Christian Hackenberg threw a 68-yard pass to fellow freshman Adam Breneman for a touchdown, the first offensive touchdown Wisconsin had allowed in the previous eight quarters. Wisconsin failed to respond, going three-and-out, and punting on their subsequent drive. Penn State, though they began with poor field position, converted a few third downs, gained 52 yards on a bubble screen to Allen Robinson, and ultimately was faced with a fourth down and inches in the red zone, but committed a false start penalty bringing on the field goal unit. The field goal was blocked, continuing Penn State's special teams woes, however their defense remained stout, forcing another punt, however on the Lions' ensuing drive, Hackenberg threw his first incomplete pass of the day, forcing a punt. In the waning minutes of the first quarter, the Badgers embarked on a drive in which they scored several first downs from both the running game and passing game. At the end of the quarter, they trailed 7–0, but were threatening, and a few minutes later, tied the game via a 4-yard pass from Joel Stave to tight end Brian Wozniak. Later in the quarter, Wisconsin converted a third down and 16 situation, and ultimately scored a touchdown on a pass from Stave to Jeff Duckworth. On their next drive, Penn State was set up in the red zone after a pass interference call in the end zone that broadcaster Ed Cunningham criticized, and a few plays later scored a touchdown via a 3-yard pass to Geno Lewis. Lewis was uncovered on the goal line play, and though Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen ran down the sideline signalling for a timeout, it was not granted, and the play stood. At the half, the score was tied at 14. After Wisconsin's opening drive stalled, the Nittany Lions embarked on a demoralizing drive that fostered widespread defensive confusion from Wisconsin and ultimately ended when Jesse James caught a 7-yard touchdown pass from Hackenberg to put Penn State on top 21–14. On the ensuing Wisconsin drive, Penn State freshman linebacker sacked Stave and forced a fumble that defensive end C. J. Olaniyan returned deep into Wisconsin territory. Penn State earned points, with Ficken redeeming himself on a 28-yard field goal to put Penn State up by 10 points. On the next two drives, each team went three-and-out. At the end of the third quarter, Wisconsin was near midfield during a drive in which they looked to pull within a field goal; at the end of the quarter, Penn State led 24–14. On one of the first plays of the fourth quarter, Trevor Williams intercepted Stave's pass, ending a scoring threat, and furthering the Nittany Lions' momentum. Penn State started their drive at their own 28-yard line, and had a third down and short, but a false start backed them up to a third and long; Hackenberg was unfazed, however, as he threw a 59-yard touchdown pass to Geno Lewis, putting Penn State up by three possessions, 31–14. Down three scores, Wisconsin desperately needed a touchdown, and tried to convert a fourth down and 23, but Penn State recorded a sack, and subsequently got the ball with 9:49 to play. They failed to execute, and about a minute later, punted the ball away. Wisconsin drove down the field and pulled within 10, 31–21, on a Wozniak reception, his second touchdown catch of the day. Penn State got the ball off an onside kick with good field position, and faced a third down and three, but Donovan Smith committed his fourth false start of the day, and Penn State had to throw the ball, and the pass was incomplete. Penn State's subsequent punt was blocked. On the ensuing drive, Jack Russell kicked a career long 48-yard field goal to pull Wisconsin within seven points. Penn State started their drive after Wisconsin kicked it deep inside their own 20-yard line. Penn State got some decent yardage on first down, but committed another false start, backing them up. Zwinak came through for the Lions, however, rushing on third-and-nine for 61 yards, his longest run of the season. From there, Penn State's drive stalled, and with 35 seconds left, Ficken attempted a 31-yard field goal, but missed, and Wisconsin consequently needed to drive the length of the field to score a touchdown, and they did get into Penn State territory, but ultimately, with nine seconds left, Stave threw the ball into the end zone, and Penn State safety Ryan Keiser came away with the interception for a touchback. Christian Hackenberg took a knee to end the game, and the Nittany Lions concluded their upset, winning 31–24. 20-year Big Ten Conference veteran Bill LeMonnier was the game's referee, his final game before retiring. LeMonnier was the referee for the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, and past recipient of the Golden Whistle Award, given by the National Association of Sports Officials. In the game, Penn State sent its seniors off by upsetting Wisconsin, ending the Badgers' hopes of playing in a BCS Bowl Game. Using the fact that they were 24-point underdogs as motivation, the Lions won the game by playing sound, fundamental football, not turning the ball over, while scoring two touchdowns subsequently off of Wisconsin interceptions. The game was Penn State's first road win in Big Ten conference play. After the game, to fulfill a bet, linebacker Glenn Carson cut the hair of offensive linemen (and roommates) Ty Howle and Adam Gress, both of whom had long hair that stuck out of their helmets that "bothered" Carson. ## Statistics ### Passing Reference: Penn State Cumulative Season Statistics. Retrieved December 2, 2013. ### Rushing Reference: Penn State Cumulative Season Statistics. Retrieved December 2, 2013. ### Receiving Reference: Penn State Cumulative Season Statistics. Retrieved December 2, 2013. ### Kicking Reference: Penn State Nittany Lions 2013 Statistics – Team and Player Stats – ESPN. Retrieved December 2, 2013. ### Punting Reference: Penn State Cumulative Season Statistics. Retrieved December 2, 2013. ### Defense Reference: Penn State Cumulative Season Statistics. Retrieved December 3, 2013. ## Rankings ## Awards - Allen Robinson – Richter-Howard Receiver of the Year Award (second consecutive year), First-team All-Big Ten (media and coaches), First team All-American (Sporting News) - John Urschel – First-team All-Big Ten (media and coaches) Academic All-American (second time, just the 11th Penn State player to be named an Academic All-American twice), William V. Campbell Trophy (the "academic Heisman") - DaQuan Jones – First-team All-Big Ten (coaches), Second-team All-Big Ten (media) - Adrian Amos – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches) - Glenn Carson – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches and media) - Sam Ficken – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (media) - Christian Hackenberg – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches and media), Thompson-Randle El Freshman of the Year - Ty Howle – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches and media) - Jesse James – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (media) - Jordan Lucas – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches and media) - C. J. Olaniyan – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches and media) - Donovan Smith – Honorable Mention All-Big Ten (coaches and media) ## Post-season Less than a week after the season's conclusion, backup quarterback Tyler Ferguson announced his plans to transfer from the university to somewhere he would have an opportunity to start, rather than be Christian Hackenberg's backup for the remainder of his career. Later, it was announced that though he originally intended to transfer to Western Kentucky (WKU), at which Bobby Petrino was head coach; when Petrino accepted the head coaching position at Louisville, Ferguson changed his plans, and transferred there. In early December, it was reported that quarterbacks coach Charlie Fisher and linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden, the latter of whom was a holdover from the Joe Paterno era, departed, with speculation that they were forced out by Bill O'Brien. ### Departure of Bill O'Brien Several weeks after the departure of those assistants, reports began to surface that O'Brien had interviewed for the Houston Texans' head coaching position to replace Gary Kubiak, who was fired late in the season. Subsequently, the two sides were reported to be negotiating a contract, and on January 3, 2014, the Texans held a press conference announcing O'Brien as their new head coach. Assistant head coach and wide receivers coach Stan Hixon, safeties coach Anthony Midget, defensive coordinator John Butler, running backs coach Charles London, and strength coach Craig Fitzgerald submitted resignations on January 6, and most were expected to follow O'Brien to the NFL, leaving only offensive line coach Mac McWhorter, who was 63 years old and came out of retirement to coach at Penn State, defensive line coach Larry Johnson, a long-time member of the staff, and tight ends coach John Strollo, as assistant coaches on the staff, and thus making Penn State more attractive of a coaching position to a new coach, as he could bring in his own staff. Early candidates for the job included former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano, Penn State alumni Al Golden, who was the coach of the Miami and Mike Munchak, who was the coach of the Tennessee Titans prior to his dismissal, and Pennsylvania native James Franklin, Vanderbilt's head coach, as well as Larry Johnson, Penn State's defensive line coach. In the ensuing days, ESPN reported that the search committee, led by athletic director David Joyner, targeted Munchak, Franklin, and Golden as its top three candidates, but that Johnson remained in the mix. On Sunday, January 5, 2014, Golden took himself out of contention for the position, while Munchak appeared to be an emerging strong candidate. Over the next few days, however, Franklin emerged as the top candidate, and on January 11, he was officially named and introduced as Penn State's head coach. Upon his hiring, questions began to surface about whether he would retain Johnson or bring back Vanderlinden, the latter of whom was Maryland's head coach when Franklin was on its staff in 2000, to the staff; unlike when O'Brien was hired and announced that he would retain the pair at his introductory press conference, Franklin simply noted that he would meet with the pair, but commented that he is "fiercely loyal" to his assistants from Vanderbilt, and intended to bring many with him to Penn State. Ultimately, neither Johnson nor Vanderlinden were on Franklin's staff for the 2014 season, with the former accepting a position with rival Ohio State. Intermittently, Penn State named Johnson, the lone remaining holdover from the Joe Paterno era, the interim head coach in an effort to stabilize the program to prevent recruit defection, as well as prevent current players, namely quarterback Hackenberg, whose father commented that he was undecided on whether or not to return, from transferring. A few weeks later, however, it appeared Hackenberg would return, as Ferguson followed through on his plans to transfer, and Franklin lauded Hackenberg in his introductory press conference. After the announcement of O'Brien's departure, star wide receiver Allen Robinson, a junior, declared that he would forgo his senior season, and enter the 2014 NFL Draft; according to projections from a CBSSports.com mock draft, Robinson would likely be selected in the late first round. ### Draft prospects Three players were invited to the 2014 NFL Scouting Combine, held February 22–25, 2014, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana: DaQuan Jones, Allen Robinson, and John Urschel. ### All-star games

Government of Japan

Constitutional monarchy which governs Japan

The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, containing forty-seven administrative divisions, with the Emperor as its Head of State. His role is ceremonial and he has no powers related to Government. Instead, it is the Cabinet, comprising the Ministers of State and the Prime Minister, that directs and controls the Government and the civil service. The Cabinet has the executive power and is formed by the Prime Minister, who is the Head of Government. The Prime Minister is nominated by the National Diet and appointed to office by the Emperor. The National Diet is the legislature, the organ of the Legislative branch. It is bicameral, consisting of two houses with the House of Councilors being the upper house, and the House of Representatives being the lower house. Its members are directly elected by the people, who are the source of sovereignty. It is defined as the supreme organ of sovereignty in the Constitution. The Supreme Court and other lower courts make up the Judicial branch and have all the judicial powers in the state. It has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the Japanese constitution and the power of judicial review. They are independent from the executive and the legislative branches. Judges are nominated or appointed by the Cabinet and never removed by the executive or the legislature except during impeachment. ## History Prior to the Meiji Restoration, Japan was ruled by the government of a successive military shōgun. During this period, effective power of the government resided in the Shōgun, who officially ruled the country in the name of the Emperor. The Shōgun were the hereditary military governors, with their modern rank equivalent to a generalissimo. Although the Emperor was the sovereign who appointed the Shōgun, his roles were ceremonial and he took no part in governing the country. This is often compared to the present role of the Emperor, whose official role is to appoint the Prime Minister. "Taiseihokan"(大政奉還)The return of political power to the Emperor (to the Imperial Court) in 1868 meanet the resignation of Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, agreeing to "be the instrument for carrying out" the Emperor's orders. This event restored the country to Imperial rule and the proclamation of the Empire of Japan. In 1889, the Meiji Constitution was adopted in a move to strengthen Japan to the level of western nations, resulting in the first parliamentary system in Asia. It provided a form of mixed constitutional-absolute monarchy, with an independent judiciary, based on the Prussian model of the time. A new aristocracy known as the kazoku was established. It merged the ancient court nobility of the Heian period, the kuge, and the former daimyō, feudal lords subordinate to the shōgun. It also established the Imperial Diet, consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Peers. Members of the House of Peers were made up of the Imperial Family, the Kazoku, and those nominated by the Emperor, while members of the House of Representatives were elected by direct male suffrage. Despite clear distinctions between powers of the executive branch and the Emperor in the Meiji Constitution, ambiguity and contradictions in the Constitution eventually led to a political crisis. It also devalued the notion of civilian control over the military, which meant that the military could develop and exercise a great influence on politics. Following the end of World War II, the present Constitution of Japan was adopted. It replaced the previous Imperial rule with a form of Western-style liberal democracy. As of 2020, the Japan Research Institute found the national government is mostly analog, because only 7.5% (4,000 of the 55,000) administrative procedures can be completed entirely online. The rate is 7.8% at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 8% at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and only 1.3% at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. On 12 February, 2021, Tetsushi Sakamoto was appointed as the Minister of Loneliness to alleviate social isolation and loneliness across different age groups and genders. ## The Emperor The Emperor of Japan (天皇) is the head of the Imperial Family and the ceremonial head of state. He is defined by the Constitution to be "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people". However, his role is entirely ceremonial and representative in nature. As explicitly stated in article 4 of the Constitution, he has no powers related to government. Article 6 of the Constitution of Japan delegates the Emperor the following ceremonial roles: 1. Appointment of the Prime Minister as designated by the Diet. 2. Appointment of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as designated by the Cabinet. While the Cabinet is the source of executive power and most of its power is exercised directly by the Prime Minister, several of its powers are exercised through the Emperor. The powers exercised via the Emperor, as stipulated by Article 7 of the Constitution, are: 1. Promulgation of amendments of the constitution, laws, cabinet orders and treaties. 1. Dissolution of the House of Representatives. 2. Proclamation of general election of members of the Diet. 3. Attestation of the appointment and dismissal of Ministers of State and other officials as provided for by law, and of full powers and credentials of Ambassadors and Ministers. 4. Attestation of general and special amnesty, commutation of punishment, reprieve, and restoration of rights. 5. Awarding of honors. 6. Attestation of instruments of ratification and other diplomatic documents as provided for by law. 7. Receiving foreign ambassadors and ministers. 8. Performance of ceremonial functions. These powers are exercised in accordance with the binding advice of the Cabinet. The Emperor is known to hold the nominal ceremonial authority. For example, he is the only person that has the authority to appoint the Prime Minister, even though the Diet has the power to designate the person fitted for the position. One such example can be prominently seen in the 2009 Dissolution of the House of Representatives. The House was expected to be dissolved on the advice of the Prime Minister, but was temporarily unable to do so for the next general election, as both the Emperor and Empress were visiting Canada. In this manner, the Emperor's modern role is often compared to those of the Shogunate period and much of Japan's history, whereby the Emperor held great symbolic authority but had little political power; which is often held by others nominally appointed by the Emperor himself. Today, a legacy has somewhat continued for a retired Prime Minister who still wields considerable power, to be called a Shadow Shogun (闇将軍). Unlike his European counterparts, the Emperor is not the source of sovereign power and the government does not act under his name. Instead, the Emperor represents the State and appoints other high officials in the name of the State, in which the Japanese people hold sovereignty. Article 5 of the Constitution, in accordance with the Imperial Household Law, allows a regency to be established in the Emperor's name, should the Emperor be unable to perform his duties. On November 20, 1989, the Supreme Court ruled it doesn't have judicial power over the Emperor. The Imperial House of Japan is said to be the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy in the world. According to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Japan was founded by the Imperial House in 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu (神武天皇). Emperor Jimmu was the first Emperor of Japan and the ancestor of all of the Emperors that followed. He is, according to Japanese mythology, the direct descendant of Amaterasu (天照大御神), the sun goddess of the native Shinto religion, through Ninigi, his great-grandfather. The Current Emperor of Japan (今上天皇) is Naruhito. He was officially enthroned on May 1, 2019, following the abdication of his father. He is styled as His Imperial Majesty (天皇陛下), and his reign bears the era name of Reiwa (令和). Fumihito is the heir presumptive to the Chrysanthemum Throne. ## Executive The Executive branch of Japan is headed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the head of the Cabinet, and is designated by the legislative organ, the National Diet. The Cabinet consists of the Ministers of State and may be appointed or dismissed by the Prime Minister at any time. Explicitly defined to be the source of executive power, it is in practice, however, mainly exercised by the Prime Minister. The practice of its powers is responsible to the Diet, and as a whole, should the Cabinet lose confidence and support to be in office by the Diet, the Diet may dismiss the Cabinet en masse with a motion of no confidence. ### Prime Minister The Prime Minister of Japan (内閣総理大臣) is designated by the National Diet and serves a term of four years or less; with no limits imposed on the number of terms the Prime Minister may hold. The Prime Minister heads the Cabinet and exercises "control and supervision" of the executive branch, and is the head of government and commander-in-chief of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The prime minister is vested with the power to present bills to the Diet, to sign laws, to declare a state of emergency, and may also dissolve the Diet's House of Representatives at will. The prime minister presides over the Cabinet and appoints, or dismisses, the other Cabinet ministers. Both houses of the National Diet designates the Prime Minister with a ballot cast under the run-off system. Under the Constitution, should both houses not agree on a common candidate, then a joint committee is allowed to be established to agree on the matter; specifically within a period of ten days, exclusive of the period of recess. However, if both houses still do not agree to each other, the decision made by the House of Representatives is deemed to be that of the National Diet. Upon designation, the Prime Minister is presented with their commission, and then formally appointed to office by the Emperor. As a candidate designated by the Diet, the prime minister is required to report to the Diet whenever demanded. The prime minister must also be both a civilian and a member of either house of the Diet. ### The Cabinet The Cabinet of Japan (内閣) consists of the Ministers of State and the Prime Minister. The members of the Cabinet are appointed by the Prime Minister, and under the Cabinet Law, the number of members of the Cabinet appointed, excluding the Prime Minister, must be fourteen or less, but may only be increased to nineteen should a special need arise. Article 68 of the Constitution states that all members of the Cabinet must be civilians and the majority of them must be chosen from among the members of either house of the National Diet. The precise wording leaves an opportunity for the Prime Minister to appoint some non-elected Diet officials. The Cabinet is required to resign en masse while still continuing its functions, till the appointment of a new Prime Minister, when the following situation arises: 1. The Diet's House of Representatives passes a non-confidence resolution, or rejects a confidence resolution, unless the House of Representatives is dissolved within the next ten days. 2. When there is a vacancy in the post of the Prime Minister, or upon the first convocation of the Diet after a general election of the members of the House of Representatives. Conceptually deriving legitimacy from the Diet, whom it is responsible to, the Cabinet exercises its power in two different ways. In practice, much of its power is exercised by the Prime Minister, while others are exercised nominally by the Emperor. Article 73 of the Constitution of Japan expects the Cabinet to perform the following functions, in addition to general administration: 1. Administer the law faithfully; conduct affairs of state. 2. Manage foreign affairs. 3. Conclude treaties. However, it shall obtain prior or, depending on circumstances, subsequent approval of the Diet. 4. Administer the civil service, in accordance with standards established by law. 5. Prepare the budget, and present it to the Diet. 6. Enact cabinet orders in order to execute the provisions of this Constitution and of the law. However, it cannot include penal provisions in such cabinet orders unless authorized by such law. 7. Decide on general amnesty, special amnesty, commutation of punishment, reprieve, and restoration of rights. Under the Constitution, all laws and cabinet orders must be signed by the competent Minister and countersigned by the Prime Minister, before being formally promulgated by the Emperor. Also, all members of the Cabinet cannot be subject to legal action without the consent of the Prime Minister; however, without impairing the right to take legal action. ### Ministries and agencies The ministries of Japan (中央省庁, Chuo shōcho) consist of eleven executive ministries and the Cabinet Office. Each ministry is headed by a Minister of State, which are mainly senior legislators, and are appointed from among the members of the Cabinet by the Prime Minister. The Cabinet Office, formally headed by the Prime Minister, is an agency that handles the day-to-day affairs of the Cabinet. The ministries are the most influential part of the daily-exercised executive power, and since few ministers serve for more than a year or so necessary to grab hold of the organisation, most of its power lies within the senior bureaucrats. Below is a series of ministry-affiliated government agencies and bureaus responsible for government procedures and activities as of 23 August 2022. - Cabinet Office - National Public Safety Commission - National Police Agency - Consumer Affairs Agency - Financial Services Agency - Fair Trade Commission - Food Safety Commission - Personal Information Protection Commission - Imperial Household Agency - Gender Equality Bureau - Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy - Atomic Energy Commission - International Peace Cooperation - Council for Science, Technology and Innovation - Headquarters for Ocean Policy - Northern Territories Affairs Administration - Public Relations Office of the Government of Japan - Cabinet Secretariat - National Information Security Centre - National Personnel Authority - Coordination Office of Measures on Emerging Infectious Diseases - Headquarters for the Abduction Issue - Cabinet Legislation Bureau - Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty - Reconstruction Agency - Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications - Environmental Dispute Coordination Commission - Fire and Disaster Management Agency - Ministry of Justice - Public Security Examination Commission - Public Security Intelligence Agency - Public Prosecutors Office - Immigration Services Agency - Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Ministry of Finance - National Tax Agency - Japan Customs - Ministry of Defense - Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency - Japan Self-Defence Forces (Ground / Maritime / Air) - Joint Staff - Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) - Education Policy Bureau - Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau - Higher Education Bureau - Science and Technology Policy Bureau - Research Promotion Bureau - Agency for Cultural Affairs - Japan Sports Agency - The Japan Art Academy - National Institute for Educational Policy Research - National Institute of Science and Technology Policy - The Japan Academy - Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion - Japanese National Commission for UNESCO - Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare - Pension Service - Central Labour Relations Commission - Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries - Fisheries Agency - Forestry Agency - Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) - Agency for Natural Resources and Energy - Small and Medium Enterprise Agency - Japan Patent Office - Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) - Japan Transport Safety Board - Japan Tourism Agency - Japan Meteorological Agency - Japan Coast Guard - Ministry of the Environment - Nuclear Regulation Authority - Board of Audit ## Legislative The Legislative branch organ of Japan is the National Diet (国会). It is a bicameral legislature, composing of a lower house, the House of Representatives, and an upper house, the House of Councillors. Empowered by the Constitution to be "the highest organ of State power" and the only "sole law-making organ of the State", its houses are both directly elected under a parallel voting system and is ensured by the Constitution to have no discrimination on the qualifications of each members; whether be it based on "race, creed, sex, social status, family origin, education, property or income". The National Diet, therefore, reflects the sovereignty of the people; a principle of popular sovereignty whereby the supreme power lies within, in this case, the Japanese people. The Diet responsibilities includes the making of laws, the approval of the annual national budget, the approval of the conclusion of treaties and the selection of the Prime Minister. In addition, it has the power to initiate draft constitutional amendments, which, if approved, are to be presented to the people for ratification in a referendum before being promulgated by the Emperor, in the name of the people. The Constitution also enables both houses to conduct investigations in relation to government, demand the presence and testimony of witnesses, and the production of records, as well as allowing either house of the Diet to demand the presence of the Prime Minister or the other Minister of State, in order to give answers or explanations whenever so required. The Diet is also able to impeach Court judges convicted of criminal or irregular conduct. The Constitution, however, does not specify the voting methods, the number of members of each house, and all other matters pertaining to the method of election of the each members, and are thus, allowed to be determined for by law. Under the provisions of the Constitution and by law, all adults aged over 18 are eligible to vote, with a secret ballot and a universal suffrage, and those elected have certain protections from apprehension while the Diet is in session. Speeches, debates, and votes cast in the Diet also enjoy parliamentary privileges. Each house is responsible for disciplining its own members, and all deliberations are public unless two-thirds or more of those members present passes a resolution agreeing it otherwise. The Diet also requires the presence of at least one-third of the membership of either house in order to constitute a quorum. All decisions are decided by a majority of those present, unless otherwise stated by the Constitution, and in the case of a tie, the presiding officer has the right to decide the issue. A member cannot be expelled, however, unless a majority of two-thirds or more of those members present passes a resolution therefor. Under the Constitution, at least one session of the Diet must be convened each year. The Cabinet can also, at will, convoke extraordinary sessions of the Diet and is required to, when a quarter or more of the total members of either house demands it. During an election, only the House of Representatives is dissolved. The House of Councillors is however, not dissolved but only closed, and may, in times of national emergency, be convoked for an emergency session. The Emperor both convokes the Diet and dissolves the House of Representatives, but only does so on the advice of the Cabinet. For bills to become Law, they are to be first passed by both houses of the National Diet, signed by the Ministers of State, countersigned by the Prime Minister, and then finally promulgated by the Emperor; however, without specifically giving the Emperor the power to oppose legislation. ### House of Representatives The House of Representatives of Japan (衆議院) is the Lower house, with the members of the house being elected once every four years, or when dissolved, for a four-year term. As of November 18, 2017, it has 465 members. Of these, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation, and 289 are elected from single-member constituencies. 233 seats are required for majority. The House of Representatives is the more powerful house out of the two, it is able to override vetoes on bills imposed by the House of Councillors with a two-thirds majority. It can, however, be dissolved by the Prime Minister at will. Members of the house must be of Japanese nationality; those aged 18 years and older may vote, while those aged 25 years and older may run for office in the lower house. The legislative powers of the House of Representatives is considered to be more powerful than that of the House of Councillors. While the House of Councillors has the ability to veto most decisions made by the House of Representatives, some however, can only be delayed. This includes the legislation of treaties, the budget, and the selection of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, and collectively his Cabinet, can in turn, however, dissolve the House of Representatives whenever intended. While the House of Representatives is considered to be officially dissolved upon the preparation of the document, the House is only formally dissolved by the dissolution ceremony. The dissolution ceremony of the House is as follows: 1. The document is rubber stamped by the Emperor, and wrapped in a purple silk cloth; an indication of a document of state act, done on behalf of the people. 2. The document is passed on to the Chief Cabinet Secretary at the House of Representatives President's reception room. 3. The document is taken to the Chamber for preparation by the General-Secretary. 4. The General-Secretary prepares the document for reading by the Speaker. 5. The Speaker of the House of Representatives promptly declares the dissolution of the House. 6. The House of Representatives is formally dissolved. It is customary that, upon the dissolution of the House, members will shout the Three Cheers of Banzai (萬歲). ### House of Councillors The House of Councillors of Japan (参議院) is the Upper house, with half the members of the house being elected once every three years, for a six-year term. As of November 18, 2017, it has 242 members. Of these, 73 are elected from the 47 prefectural districts, by single non-transferable votes, and 48 are elected from a nationwide list by proportional representation with open lists. The House of Councillors cannot be dissolved by the Prime Minister. Members of the house must be of Japanese nationality; those aged 18 years and older may vote, while those aged 30 years and older may run for office in the upper house. As the House of Councillors can veto a decision made by the House of Representatives, the House of Councillors can cause the House of Representatives to reconsider its decision. The House of Representatives however, can still insist on its decision by overriding the veto by the House of Councillors with a two-thirds majority of its members present. Each year, and when required, the National Diet is convoked at the House of Councillors, on the advice of the Cabinet, for an extra or an ordinary session, by the Emperor. A short speech is, however, usually first made by the Speaker of the House of Representatives before the Emperor proceeds to convoke the Diet with his Speech from the throne. ## Judicial The Judicial branch of Japan consists of the Supreme Court, and four other lower courts; the High Courts, District Courts, Family Courts and Summary Courts. Divided into four basic tiers, the Court's independence from the executive and legislative branches are guaranteed by the Constitution, and is stated as: "no extraordinary tribunal shall be established, nor shall any organ or agency of the Executive be given final judicial power"; a feature known as the Separation of Powers. Article 76 of the Constitution states that all the Court judges are independent in the exercise of their own conscience and that they are only bounded by the Constitution and the laws. Court judges are removable only by public impeachment, and can only be removed, without impeachment, when they are judicially declared mentally or physically incompetent to perform their duties. The Constitution also explicitly denies any power for executive organs or agencies to administer disciplinary actions against judges. However, a Supreme Court judge may be dismissed by a majority in a referendum; of which, must occur during the first general election of the National Diet's House of Representatives following the judge's appointment, and also the first general election for every ten years lapse thereafter. Trials must be conducted, with judgment declared, publicly, unless the Court "unanimously determines publicity to be dangerous to public order or morals"; with the exception for trials of political offenses, offenses involving the press, and cases wherein the rights of people as guaranteed by the Constitution, which cannot be deemed and conducted privately. Court judges are appointed by the Cabinet, in attestation of the Emperor, while the Chief Justice is appointed by the Emperor, after being nominated by the Cabinet; which in practice, known to be under the recommendation of the former Chief Justice. The Legal system in Japan has been historically influenced by Chinese law; developing independently during the Edo period through texts such as Kujikata Osadamegaki. It has, however, changed during the Meiji Restoration, and is now largely based on the European civil law; notably, the civil code based on the German model still remains in effect. A quasi-jury system has recently came into use, and the legal system also includes a bill of rights since May 3, 1947. The collection of Six Codes makes up the main body of the Japanese statutory law. All Statutory Laws in Japan are required to be rubber stamped by the Emperor with the Privy Seal of Japan (天皇御璽), and no Law can take effect without the Cabinet's signature, the Prime Minister's countersignature and the Emperor's promulgation. ### Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Japan (最高裁判所) is the court of last resort and has the power of Judicial review; as defined by the Constitution to be "the court of last resort with power to determine the constitutionality of any law, order, regulation or official act". The Supreme Court is also responsible for nominating judges to lower courts and determining judicial procedures. It also oversees the judicial system, overseeing activities of public prosecutors, and disciplining judges and other judicial personnel. ### High Courts The High Courts of Japan (高等裁判所) has the jurisdiction to hear appeals to judgments rendered by District Courts and Family Courts, excluding cases under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Criminal appeals are directly handled by the High Courts, but Civil cases are first handled by District Courts. There are eight High Courts in Japan: the Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sendai, Sapporo, and Takamatsu High Courts. ### Penal system The Penal system of Japan (矯正施設) is operated by the Ministry of Justice. It is part of the criminal justice system, and is intended to resocialize, reform, and rehabilitate offenders. The ministry's Correctional Bureau administers the adult prison system, the juvenile correctional system, and three of the women's guidance homes, while the Rehabilitation Bureau operates the probation and the parole systems. ## Other government agencies The Cabinet Public Affairs Office's Government Directory also listed a number of government agencies that are more independent from executive ministries. The list for these types of agencies can be seen below. - Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) - Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) - Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) - The Japan Foundation - Bank of Japan - Japan Mint - National Research Bureau of Brewing (NRIB) - State Guest Houses (Akasaka Palace, Kyoto State Guest House) - National Archives of Japan - National Women's Education Centre - Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) - National Institutes for Cultural Heritage - Japan Arts Council - Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) - Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) - Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) - National Institute for Materials Science (JIMS) - Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) - New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO) - National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) - The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training ## Local government According to Article 92 of the Constitution, the local governments of Japan (地方公共団体) are local public entities whose body and functions are defined by law in accordance with the principle of local autonomy. The main law that defines them is the Local Autonomy Law. They are given limited executive and legislative powers by the Constitution. Governors, mayors and members of assemblies are constitutionally elected by the residents. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications intervenes significantly in local government, as do other ministries. This is done chiefly financially because many local government jobs need funding initiated by national ministries. This is dubbed as the "thirty-percent autonomy". The result of this power is a high level of organizational and policy standardization among the different local jurisdictions allowing them to preserve the uniqueness of their prefecture, city, or town. Some of the more collectivist jurisdictions, such as Tokyo and Kyoto, have experimented with policies in such areas as social welfare that later were adopted by the national government. ### Local authorities Japan is divided into forty-seven administrative divisions, the prefectures are: one metropolitan district (Tokyo), two urban prefectures (Kyoto and Osaka), forty-three rural prefectures, and one "district", Hokkaidō. Large cities are subdivided into wards, and further split into towns, or precincts, or subprefectures and counties. Cities are self-governing units administered independently of the larger jurisdictions within which they are located. In order to attain city status, a jurisdiction must have at least 500,000 inhabitants, 60 percent of whom are engaged in urban occupations. There are self-governing towns outside the cities as well as precincts of urban wards. Like the cities, each has its own elected mayor and assembly. Villages are the smallest self-governing entities in rural areas. They often consist of a number of rural hamlets containing several thousand people connected to one another through the formally imposed framework of village administration. Villages have mayors and councils elected to four-year terms. ### Structure Each jurisdiction has a chief executive, called a governor (知事, chiji) in prefectures and a mayor (市町村長, shichōsonchō) in municipalities. Most jurisdictions also have a unicameral assembly (議会, gikai), although towns and villages may opt for direct governance by citizens in a general assembly (総会, sōkai). Both the executive and assembly are elected by popular vote every four years. Local governments follow a modified version of the separation of powers used in the national government. An assembly may pass a vote of no confidence in the executive, in which case the executive must either dissolve the assembly within ten days or automatically lose their office. Following the next election, however, the executive remains in office unless the new assembly again passes a no confidence resolution. The primary methods of local lawmaking are local ordinance (条例, jōrei) and local regulations (規則, kisoku). Ordinances, similar to statutes in the national system, are passed by the assembly and may impose limited criminal penalties for violations (up to 2 years in prison and/or 1 million yen in fines). Regulations, similar to cabinet orders in the national system, are passed by the executive unilaterally, are superseded by any conflicting ordinances, and may only impose a fine of up to 50,000 yen. Local governments also generally have multiple committees such as school boards, public safety committees (responsible for overseeing the police), personnel committees, election committees and auditing committees. These may be directly elected or chosen by the assembly, executive or both. Scholars have noted that political contestations at the local level tend not to be marked by strong party affiliation or political ideologies when compared to the national level. Moreover, in many local communities candidates from different parties tend to share similiar concerns, e.g., regarding depopulation and how to attract new residents. Analyzing the political discourse among local politicians, Hijino suggests that local politics in depopulated areas is marked by two overarching ideas: "populationism" and "listenism." He writes, "“Populationism” assumes the necessity of maintaining and increasing the number of residents for the future and vitality of the municipality. “Listenism” assumes that no decision can be made unless all parties are consulted adequately, preventing majority decisions taken by elected officials over issues contested by residents. These two ideas, though not fully-fledged ideologies, are assumptions guiding the behavior of political actors in municipalities in Japan when dealing with depopulation." All prefectures are required to maintain departments of general affairs, finance, welfare, health, and labor. Departments of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, commerce, and industry are optional, depending on local needs. The Governor is responsible for all activities supported through local taxation or the national government. ## See also - Japanese honours system - Politics of Japan

Super Punch-Out!!

1994 video game

is a boxing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It was released on September 14, 1994 in North America and again in the same region in 1996. It was released in Europe on January 26, 1995 for the same console and in Japan in 1998 for the Nintendo Power flash RAM cartridge series and the Super Famicom. The game is also included in the GameCube version of Fight Night Round 2 as an extra game due to the inclusion of Little Mac in the game. The game was released for the Wii's Virtual Console in Europe on March 20, 2009, in North America on March 30, 2009, and in Japan on July 7, 2009. The game was also released on the New Nintendo 3DS eShop on May 5, 2016. Nintendo re-released Super Punch-Out!! in the United States in September 2017 as part of the company's Super NES Classic Edition. It is the fourth game in the Punch-Out!! series, taking place after the Punch-Out!! game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In Super Punch-Out!! the player controls Little Mac, as he fights his way to become the World Video Boxing Association champion. Players, fighting from a "behind the back" perspective, must knockout their opponent in three minutes to win. Players can launch jabs, hooks, and uppercuts against their opponents as well as block, dodge, and duck opponents' attacks. Nintendo Integrated Research and Development, led by Genyo Takeda, Minoru Arakawa and Makoto Wada, developed the game. It also featured voice acting by Charles Martinet. The game received praise from reviewers for its cartoon-like style, its colorful, outlandish opponents, simple gameplay controls, and replay value. The game also featured colorful, detailed graphics, which included the usage of transparency that facilitates the game's "behind the back" perspective. Other reviewers had said that this game lacked the overall appeal, gameplay, or audience of its predecessor. ## Gameplay The gameplay in Super Punch-Out!! is similar to that of its arcade and NES predecessors. The player controls a nameable boxer as he fights his way to become W.V.B.A. Champion. The player controls the boxer from a third-person perspective, with him being translucent on the screen. Players can attack their opponents with jabs to the face or with body blows from either hand. The opponent can deflect punches, so players must aim at the opponent's open spot (where the gloves are not) to connect. Depending on the opponents' stances, they will guard themselves differently, so players need to use the correct punches. As in the first two arcade games of the series, players have a power meter, located on the bottom of the screen. The meter fills up as the player lands punches against the opponent, and it goes down as the player gets hit. When the power meter fills up completely, the player will be able to launch knockout punches such as uppercuts, hooks, and rapid punches. These punches have a slight delay in execution, but they cause more damage to the opponent. Players can also build power as the match progresses, as indicated by the background color behind the player's face on the upper left corner of the screen, which goes from blue to green to yellow to red. The player reaches "Power-Up" status when the background color reaches red. During this status, the player's punch speed and power increase. They lose their Power-Up status if they are knocked down. Players can avoid attacks from their opponents by dodging to the left or right or by ducking, but players cannot punch while dodging or ducking, nor can they duck body blows. They can also block attacks to either the head or the body, but they cannot block strong punches; strong punches must be avoided by dodging or ducking. Depending on the situation, the player must strategically block, dodge, rope, or duck in order to avoid an opponent's attack. Players can capitalize on the opponent's attacks by launching counter-punches immediately after avoiding an attack. Both the player and the opponent have stamina meters, both displayed on the top of the screen. The meters decrease when either boxer gets hit by a punch. Boxers will get knocked down if their stamina meter runs out. Faster knockdowns will cause that boxer to recover less stamina upon getting up; the same happens if a boxer is knocked down by a knockout punch. Either boxer will lose if they cannot stand up before the count of ten after being knocked down (resulting in a knockout or KO) or if they are knocked down three times in the match (resulting in a technical knockout or TKO). The player can also recover some stamina while the opponent is down by pressing the buttons on the controller. A meter not displayed on screen is what many skilled players refer to as a "dizzy threshold". This means that if a player manages to land a given number of consecutive punches, it will put the opponent into a brief "dizzy" or "stunned" animation. A "dizzied" or "stunned" opponent will appear shaken for a short period of time (in which the match timer freezes temporarily), and the player has a small margin of opportunity to achieve an instant knockdown with a well-timed knockout punch. Each of the 16 opponents varies in how much match time it takes to become "dizzied", some more quickly than others. There are two opponents who can be knocked out upon the first knockdown, however, a knockdown during a "dizzy" animation is critical in making this possible. There are eight opponents who can be knocked out in two knockdowns, however, the player must achieve the second knockdown within four seconds of the first knockdown. Finally, there are six opponents who the player must defeat via a TKO as the aforementioned four seconds between the first two knockdowns does not apply. The player has three minutes to knock out the opponent. After three minutes, the match ends, and the player loses; the player cannot win by a decision. After losing, the player can use a continue and fight a rematch. The game ends after all continues have been used; the player must fight all opponents in the current circuit again. The game consists of four circuits in which the player must become the champion. The player can retry any circuit that has already been beaten. The game has a battery–backed memory in which players can save their data and records for future play. In 2022, it was revealed that the use of a button prompted cheat code, a hidden two-player game mode can be unlocked. This works on all versions with no hacking required. ## Development Super Punch-Out!! was released in North America October 1994 and in Europe on January 26, 1995 (1995-01-26). It was rereleased in North America in 1996, and it was released in Japan as part of the Nintendo Power service on March 1, 1998, which allowed users to download the game unto a rewriteable flash RAM cartridge via a kiosk. In addition, Electronic Arts included the game as an unlockable bonus item along with its protagonist as an unlockable boxer in the GameCube version of Fight Night Round 2 as part of Nintendo's deal of featuring Nintendo characters in the GameCube versions of some EA Sports titles. The game was later released for the Wii's Virtual Console service in Europe and Australia on March 20, 2009 (2009-03-20), in North America on March 30, 2009 (2009-03-30) and in Japan on March 30, 2009 (2009-03-30). Super Punch-Out!! is the fourth game in the Punch-Out!! series and was developed by Nintendo Integrated Research and Development and was produced by Minoru Arakawa, Genyo Takeda and Makoto Wada. Voice actor Charles Martinet was credited for providing the voices of the boxers, the referee and the announcer. Nintendo IRD was developing this game simultaneously with Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II. The game is the closest arcade-to-home console translation of the Punch-Out!! and Super Punch-Out!! arcades; however, like the NES titles, the Super NES title is not a direct port. Shortly before the game was finished and released, some screenshots and video footage of the prototype were shown in a video preview of the game, as well as in an issue of Nintendo Power magazine and two official television commercials, which all showed the protagonist of the game with a different look as well as the announcer having a different voice compared to the ones in the final version seen in the finished and released version. The game had a marketing budget of \$3.5 million. In 2016, a direct port of the game was released for the New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. ## Reception Super Punch-Out!! received a rave review in GamePro. The reviewer praised the game's good controls, "deceptive challenge", sprite layouts, animations, and sounds which "juice the game's intensity level". He stated the game's one flaw was "the lack of an easy-to-use two-player mode." The magazine ran alternate reviews by Fred Doughty and Mark Guinane, winners of the 1994 Blockbuster Video World Game Championship. They also gave the game positive assessments, praising the easy-to-learn controls, high challenge level, and artistic design of the characters. Electronic Gaming Monthly'''s two sports game reviewers criticized the game's unrealistic style, but nonetheless acknowledged that "it still has fantastic game play." Next Generation reviewed the game, and stated that most everything in the game was "done to perfection", making the game "a great tribute to the original classic." Several reviewers praised Super Punch-Out!! overall for not trying to be realistic, for the originality of its different opponents, and for its simple controls. Chris Scullion from Official Nintendo Magazine praises the game for its outlandish characters, addictive gameplay, and simple controls. He adds that Super Punch-Out!! is "superb way to prepare for the upcoming Wii [Punch-Out!!] title". Scullion states that "the thing that makes Super Punch-Out!! interesting (along with the rest of the games in the series) is that it's not a realistic boxing game". He adds that the opponents in the game are "the real stars of the show", with each opponent having a unique personality, traits, and boxing styles. Skyler Miller from Allgame, like Scullion, praised the game for its simple, responsive controls, for its colorful, detailed opponents, and for its usage of the Super NES's transparent color palette for the fighter, which facilitates the "behind the back" perspective. He also appreciates the game's sound and music, in particular the usage of real voice for the announcer. Game Players magazine applauded the game's "large, colorful graphics and easy-to-learn controls". Reviewers have praised Super Punch-Out!! for its other unique features and for its rewarding difficulty. Game Informer magazine praised the game for its time attack mode, which recorded and kept track of the fastest knockouts for each opponent. Miller also commended the time attack mode, adding to the game's replay value. Another review from VideoGames & Computer Entertainment magazine lauded the game for a fair difficulty curve, stating that it "is a really tough game, but it's one in which repeated playing (and you will be playing it a lot) really pays off". Lucas Thomas from IGN, while praising the game overall, says that the game lacks the overall appeal that the NES version had and that he recommends the NES version over this version. He notes that the sound is "Not as memorable as the music from the NES game, but [is] more varied". He says that many people who are familiar with the NES version have to relearn new attack patterns from different opponents. Thomas also notes that the game did not have as large an audience as the NES version enjoyed. ### Accolades In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked it the 56th best console video game of all time. They explained their decision to include it on the list instead of Punch-Out!!'': "The NES version is great, but the Super NES one is even better, with large, well-animated characters, great control and a near-perfect learning curve." In 2018, Complex rated the game number 18 on their "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time." 1995, Total! placed the game 27th in their Top 100 SNES Games.

Elvy Kalep

Estonian aviator and artist

Alviine-Johanna Kalep (26 June 1899 – 15 August 1989), known as Elvy Kalep, was an Estonian aviator and the country's first female pilot, as well as an artist, toy designer and a one-time children's author. Kalep grew up in Estonia and Russia, and subsequently moved to China to escape the Russian Civil War. She worked briefly as an interpreter for military officials in China before settling in Paris to study art with Alexandre Jacovleff. In 1931, she qualified as a pilot in Germany, becoming the first Estonian female pilot. Befriending American aviator Amelia Earhart, she joined the Ninety-Nines and took up the cause of encouraging other women to take up aviation. She wrote and illustrated a children's book about flying, Air Babies, which was first published in 1936. After settling in the United States, Kalep founded a toy manufacturing business in New York. Although she was forced to close the business in 1946 due to her poor health, she made a living through the 1950s by selling patents to toy designs to larger businesses. In later decades, she created artworks out of leather, which she exhibited across the United States. She died in Florida in 1989. ## Early life Kalep was born on 26 June 1899 in the village of Taali in Tori Parish, Pärnu County. She was the only child of Joanna (née Liidemann) and locksmith Aksel Emil, who both died when she was a young girl. She attended Tallinna Tütarlaste Kommertsgümnaasium, a girls' secondary school in Tallinn. As a teenager, Kalep moved to Russia to live with an aunt in Saint Petersburg. She witnessed the events that sparked the February Revolution in 1917, and spent a night in police detention as an eyewitness. She made a failed attempt to flee at the outset of the revolution, during which time she witnessed six men being shot while waiting in line to buy train tickets out of the country. She and her aunt moved to Vladivostok, where she married a Russian general, Count Slastšov, and had a son. She lived in Vladivostok for eight years, during which time she made numerous escape efforts, before her new family was able to successfully flee to China, a refuge they chose because of Slastšov's ties to Zhang Zuolin. Within a year of arriving in Harbin, China, Kalep's son died and her husband disappeared. Kalep was able to support herself by working as an interpreter—she spoke Russian, German, English and Chinese—for a British general in Shenyang. She was also employed by Zhang Zuolin and later his son, Zhang Xueliang, but decided to return to Estonia in 1925. She traveled through Indonesia, Italy and France before eventually arriving in Tallinn in 1926. Soon afterwards she settled in Paris, where she studied the art of oil painting with Russian painter Alexandre Jacovleff. She married Rolf Baron von Hoeningen-Bergendorff, who was of German or Austrian descent. ## Aviation career Kalep took up flying in the late 1920s, when she met Dutch aviator Anthony Fokker while holidaying in St. Moritz and asked him to teach her to fly a plane. She completed five hours of flying with Fokker and, after breaking her arm during a sledding accident in the winter of 1931, took her pilot's test in Germany on 1 August 1931. She passed, becoming the first qualified female pilot from Estonia, and the seventh woman to pass the exam in Germany. Soon after receiving her license, Kalep and Valter Mayer, a German mechanic, co-piloted a small Klemm plane from Berlin through the Baltic region, stopping in Szczecin, Gdańsk, Kaunas, Jelgava and Riga, finally landing in Tallinn on 18 August. Upon her arrival in Tallinn, Kalep was greeted by a crowd of journalists and officers of the Estonian Air Force; she briefly visited relatives in Nõmme before beginning her return journey to Amsterdam. In May 1932, Kalep traveled from France to New York on the steamship SS Paris with the intention of flying back to Europe across the Atlantic Ocean; at the time, no woman had made a solo transatlantic flight. She befriended American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, who, unbeknownst to Kalep, was planning a similar feat. After Earhart's successful flight from Canada to Ireland on 20 May, Kalep decided that it would not be worthwhile to make her own attempt at flying across the Atlantic, since she would no longer be the first woman to do so. She continued to encourage other women to enter the field of aviation, however, and became a member of the Ninety-Nines, an international organisation for women pilots which was founded by Earhart and 98 other female aviators. In August 1932, Kalep planned to fly with Roger Q. Williams from Los Angeles to Athens to celebrate the former city's hosting of the 1932 Summer Olympics, but their flight was canceled. Soon after, it was reported that Kalep had remarried to W. E. Hutton-Miller, an American stockbroker. In 1936, Kalep published the first edition of Air Babies, a children's book that she wrote and illustrated to teach children about flying. The story followed two young planes, Happy Wings and Speedy, and a 1938 reprint included a foreword from Earhart, who embarked on her last flight three days after writing the piece; she disappeared while flying in 1937. Kalep later said of Earhart's disappearance: "I miss her very much. When I heard that Amelia had disappeared, well, I fell apart." She visited the 1939 New York World's Fair to promote Air Babies on television and to speak at the National Woman's Party luncheon. ## Art and design career After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and with the dissolution of her third marriage, Kalep began a new business venture in the American toy market. She designed a doll named Patsie Parachute which, when thrown into the air, would fall down slowly as a parachutist would. The dolls were produced in a New York factory where Kalep herself was forced to work to sustain the business. Her health deteriorated, however, and her profits from the business were spent almost entirely on medical costs; she was forced to close the factory in 1946. She had recovered by 1950 and made a living by selling patents for toy designs to larger businesses. One of her successful designs was Scribbles Dolls—toy dolls with blank faces that could be individually decorated by children—which was inspired by the 50,000 doll heads she had left over from the closure of the Patsie Parachute factory. In the 1960s, while living in Palm Beach, Florida, Kalep began creating leather artworks which she sold to her neighbours to make a living. She created three-dimensional paintings made out of small pieces of coloured leather imported from France. Throughout the 1970s she showcased her art in exhibitions across the United States and sold works to high-profile customers including Eugene Ormandy. ## Death Kalep died on 15 August 1989, aged 90, in the Regency Health Care Center of Lake Worth, Florida. She had lived in the facility since 1986. She had been married three times but had no surviving family at the time of her death. Obituaries for Kalep were published in the Florida newspaper the Sun-Sentinel and Vaba Eesti Sõna, an Estonian-language newspaper published in New York.

Ty Majeski

American racing driver

Tyler Brad Majeski (born August 18, 1994) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 98 Ford F-150 for ThorSport Racing, as well as in late model racing. He has also competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, ARCA Menards Series, and ARCA Menards Series West in the past. Majeski is a member of the 2016 NASCAR Next class, and was previously a development driver for Roush Fenway Racing. He raced in three NASCAR Xfinity Series races for the team in 2017 and twelve in 2018, all of which came in their No. 60 car. Majeski was left without a ride when Roush closed down their Xfinity team after the season. He then returned to ARCA in 2019 to drive part-time for Chad Bryant Racing, winning three races in six starts, which landed him a full-time ride in the Truck Series with Niece Motorsports in 2020, which he would be released from during the season, after which he landed at ThorSport in 2021, running a part time schedule that season, and would then run full time from the 2022 season, winning two races in that season. He won four consecutive championships in the ARCA Midwest Tour in 2014 (that year, he was also the series' Rookie of the Year), 2015, 2016, and 2017. He returned to win the 2021 championship. ## Racing career ### Early years (2004–2011) Majeski was born on August 18, 1994, and began racing as a nine-year-old on dirt karts in 2004 at Hi-Go Raceway near his hometown of Seymour, Wisconsin. Majeski's first win came on his tenth birthday. In his first eight races, he had won three features. He eventually was racing at several different tracks in his home area: GSR Kartway near Clintonville, Wisconsin, Hi-Go Raceway in Cecil, Wisconsin and Meadowview Kartway by Hilbert, Wisconsin. Between 2005 and 2009, he won five track titles and 84 features. By the time he turned 15, he had won a national championship in the Mid-American National Series. In karting, he had won six national championships, three state championships, and five track titles. In 2009, Majeski took second overall in the National Indoor Championship at Batesville, Mississippi; he won three of five events which caught the attention of Bobby Waltrip, the brother of Darrell and Michael Waltrip. In 2009, Waltrip arranged for Majeski to test an asphalt late model race car at Hickory Motor Speedway. After Majeski got used to driving the car, he was posting lap times quicker that the car's normal driver; Waltrip wanted Majeski to move to North Carolina for the 2009 racing season but his family did not want to move. Majeski ended up remaining in Wisconsin and started racing limited late models in Wisconsin at Pathfinder Racing Chassis / JJ Motorsports Racing as a teammate to Ross Kenseth. He raced a various tracks for the 2010 season including Columbus 151 Speedway, Dells Raceway Park, and Madison International Speedway with former NASCAR Busch Series driver Jason Schuler as his crew chief. Majeski joined the Big 8 Late Model Series tour in 2011. He won three races including the Big 8 race at the National Short Track Championship weekend at Rockford Speedway. ### ARCA Midwest Tour/TUNDRA Late Models (2012–2016) He progressed to racing Super Late Models in 2012. In 2013, he raced 27 events in four cars for four different owners. In the season, Majeski record his first ARCA Midwest Tour pole position at Marshfield Motor Speedway. He won three races at the Oktoberfest race weekend at the LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway. Majeski raced for the ARCA Midwest Tour Rookie of the Year title in 2014. He achieved his first tour victory at Illiana Motor Speedway in May 2014. That season, he also ran occasional selected weekly races at State Park Speedway on Thursdays, and LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway on Saturday nights, TUNDRA Super Late Model Series events, and the three Red, White, and Blue series races at Wisconsin International Raceway. Majeski also won at Hawkeye Downs Speedway in July 2014. He was awarded the series' the Rookie of the Year title along with the ARCA Midwest Tour championship in 2014, becoming the series' youngest champion. At the 2014 Snowball Derby, Majeski started 32nd and moved his way up to a 19th-place finish. He had a total of five victories in 35 races that year. Majeski was named one of the seven finalists for the inaugural Alan Kulwicki Driver Development Program in 2015. Participants were awarded \$7777 to help develop their careers. He raced a similar schedule in 2015, starting with a seven-night series at New Smyrna Speedway for the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing. Majeski won the second program on Tuesday night and lead the series points for two nights. In July 2015, Speed51.com had ranked him No. 4 on their short track power ranking with seven victories. At the Slinger Nationals, Majeski started 20th and passed up to second place. While battling for the lead near the end of the race, he got into an incident while trying to pass a lapped car and restarted at the back of the lead lap cars to finish fourth. Majeski raced four times during the LaCrosse Oktoberfest weekend; he won the late model feature on Thursday night, the Dick Trickle 99 on Friday night, and the JMcK 63 Big 8 Series race on Saturday night. With 10 laps to go, he was leading the ARCA Midwest Tour race on Sunday when a vapor lock caused his car to temporarily lose power on a restart; he finished third. Majeski traveled across the United States to Florida for the Governor's Cup at New Smyrna Speedway in November. He started 27th. After passing up through the entire field, Majeski held off Steven Wallace on numerous restarts to take the win. Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted about Majeski's win calling him "the Deal". At the Snowball Derby, Majeski qualified second quickest and was awarded the pole position after Christopher Bell's Kyle Busch Motorsports entry was disqualified. The Kulwicki Driver Development Program (KDDP) named him their inaugural winner. In 56 events, he had 18 wins, 19 pole positions, and 48 Top 10 finishes. Speed51 ranked him No. 3 on their final short track season rankings behind Whelen Modified Tour winner Doug Coby and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Jonathan Davenport. ESPN featured Majeski as the main driver to watch in the future in an off-season article as it described him accepting the KDDP trophy. He started the 2016 season in February in the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna, a week-long series of racing over Speedweeks. Majeski won the second night and the final night to capture three total wins and the Speedweeks title. He finished first or second in all six series events with an average finish of 1.5. He followed the series by racing in another southern race; he quickly went from a seventh place start to the lead as he dominated to win the Rattler 250 race at South Alabama Speedway. Speed51.com rated Majeski as its No. 1 Short Track Draft pick in May 2016. That month he won the first race of the ARCA Midwest Tour, the Joe Shear Memorial at Madison International Speedway, over Johnny Sauter. In May, he joined Roush Fenway Racing's driver development program. He was one of eleven drivers named to the NASCAR Next 2016–2017 class on the following day. In June 2016, Majeski made his first ARCA start in the No. 17 Roulo Brothers Racing car. He had the fastest time in practice, started seventh, raced up to second, and finished fourth. For the season, Majeski won 9 of 10 races at LaCrosse plus had several high finishes at Madison. Majeski noticed that he was high in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national points in August despite not intentionally racing for any track's points championship. The driver's top 18 finishes determine their standings. He made a late season decision to try for the national title. He started double features at Elko Speedway and climbed to tenth in the standings. On the following weekend he won another feature at Madison for his 13th NASCAR weekly win of the season to climb to third in the standings. He raced more at Elko and Rockford Speedway but finished third in the final points standings. Majeski ended the season by winning the Oktoberfest main event at LaCrosse to earn his third consecutive ARCA Midwest Tour championship. He returned to New Smyrna Speedway and qualified on the pole position for the Governor's Cup. He fell nearly two laps down during the race and came back to win for the second consecutive year. ### National touring series (2017–present) Majeski moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in early 2017 to work in the Roush organization as an engineer. He reportedly was close to securing a Ford development contract but ARCA champion Chase Briscoe received the contract since he had more large track experience. He began the season racing in the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna. Majeski won his second consecutive Rattler 250 over Harrison Burton and Steven Wallace. In March 2017, Majeski announced he would be making his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at Iowa Speedway in June, followed by a part-time schedule in the series and ARCA. On April 24, 2017, after testing a car at Daytona International Speedway, it was announced that Majeski would run five ARCA races for Cunningham Motorsports. In April, he returned to Wisconsin for the first asphalt race of the year; he led the last 44 laps to take the Icebreaker 100 win at Dells Raceway Park. Two months later, in his Xfinity debut at Iowa, Majeski qualified tenth and ran as high as fifth, but was involved in an accident with Kyle Benjamin on lap 114; he finished 34th. Majeski clinched his fourth consecutive ARCA Midwest Tour at Elko Speedway with one race remaining for the season. Majeski won his third consecutive Governor's Cup in a Super Late Model at New Smyra Speedway in November over Bubba Pollard, Wallace, and Burton. He returned to the Xfinity Series at Iowa and the season finale at Homestead-Miami. Roush Fenway Racing announced that Majeski would share the No. 60 car with Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric in 2018. Majeski had his first Top 10 result with a seventh-place finish at Iowa. In July 2018, he dominated to win his first Slinger Nationals. On December 2, 2018, Majeski announced a return to Super Late Model racing after it was revealed that Roush Fenway Racing was in the process of closing its Xfinity program. He was announced as the driver for five ARCA races in the No. 22 Chad Bryant Racing car in 2019. In his second start for the team, Majeski took advantage of a late-race mistake by Michael Self to take the lead and held off Sheldon Creed for an overtime win at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He would also win the following race at Pocono Raceway. Going for three in a row at Michigan International Speedway the following week, a fuel gamble fell short on the final corner as Majeski was passed by Michael Self for the win. In July, Majeski was passed in the final corner by Matt Kenseth to finish second in the Slinger Nationals. In August, Majeski scored his first Dixieland 250 win in ARCA Midwest Tour competition at his home track, Wisconsin International Raceway. Majeski pulled away after a restart with 16 laps remaining to capture his second Oktoberfest at LaCrosse in October after a tight battle with Erik Darnell. In November 2019, Majeski made his NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series debut in the Lucas Oil 150 at ISM Raceway, driving the No. 44 truck for Niece Motorsports. During the weekend, he also ran his first NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race at the track with Chad Bryant Racing. On December 10, 2019, it was announced that Majeski had joined Niece full-time in the team's No. 45 truck for the 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series season, replacing Ross Chastain. In his first race of the season, he was involved in a crash and slid on his roof in Turn 1 at Daytona. On February 16, he won his 100th Super Late Model race during the World Series of Asphalt race at New Smyrna Speedway. In July, Majeski won his second Slinger Nationals after losing some of the power steering just after half-way through the 200 lap event. He won his second consecutive Dixieland 250 ARCA Midwest Tour race at Wisconsin International Raceway in August. On September 8, 2020, the entry list for the truck race at Richmond Raceway listed Trevor Bayne as the driver for the No. 45 instead of Majeski, who was nowhere to be found on the entry list. No statement was made as to why Majeski was not entered. Three races later, following a second-place finish at Talladega, Bayne told reporters that he would finish the season in the No. 45, effectively ending Majeski's rookie season without explanation. After qualifying on pole position at the Oktoberfest Super Late Model event at LaCrosse in October 2020, he elected to start in the back of the field for a chance to win an extra \$6,300 with a victory. He took the ARCA Midwest Tour win over Rich Bickle to pocket the win money and bonus. Majeski then won the Myrtle Beach 400 Late Model race in its first year since moving to Florence Motor Speedway in Timmonsville. In 2021, Majeski joined ThorSport Racing and would return to the Truck Series at Charlotte and Nashville in the No. 66, a part-time fifth truck for them. Majeski returned to the ARCA Midwest Tour between the NASCAR races and won the 2021 championship with a second-place finish at Oktoberfest. His fifth championship set a new series record. He then repeated his Myrtle Beach 400 win in Florence. Majeski drove the No. 66 full-time in 2022. He made the playoffs by staying consistent with seven top-fives and ten top-10 finishes. During the playoffs, Majeski won at Bristol and Homestead to lock himself in the Championship 4. He finished 20th at Phoenix after a late spin, resulting in a fourth-place finish in the standings. Majeski started the 2023 season with a sixth place finish at Daytona. He stayed consistent with seven top-fives and 11 top-10 finishes, allowing him to qualify for the playoffs. Majeski won the first round of the playoffs at Indianapolis. On August 29, NASCAR suspended crew chief Joe Shear Jr. for four races and fined him 25,000 after the truck was discovered to have an illegal right rear wheel and tire during the inspection prior to the Milwaukee race. In addition, the No. 98 team was docked 75 owner and driver points and 5 playoff points. ## Personal life Majeski graduated from Seymour Community High School in 2013. In February 2017, Majeski moved from his home state of Wisconsin to North Carolina to be closer to the racing community. He reportedly took off a semester at UW-Madison as a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. He was the number one ranked oval player in the world for the online racing simulator iRacing from December 2016 until December 2021, which sponsors him in his racing. In early August 2018, Majeski announced his engagement to Ali VanderLoop on Twitter. When Majeski began working at ThorSport Racing in 2021, he moved from North Carolina to Ohio (although he still kept owning his North Carolina home), since unlike most NASCAR teams, ThorSport's shop is located in Sandusky, Ohio instead of the Charlotte metropolitan area. The Thorson family (the owners of ThorSport) led Majeski to temporarily stay in the same housing development as them while he is searching for a permanent home in the area. ## Motorsports career results ### NASCAR (key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. \* – Most laps led.) #### Xfinity Series #### Craftsman Truck Series ^\* Season still in progress ¹ Ineligible for series points #### K&N Pro Series West ### ARCA Menards Series (key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. \* – Most laps led.)

Washington State Route 339

Highway in Washington

State Route 339 (SR 339) is a 8.5-nautical-mile-long (9.8 mi; 15.7 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington. It is designated on a former state-run ferry route that connected Vashon Island's Vashon Heights ferry terminal to downtown Seattle's Pier 50, via a passenger-only ferry, the MV Skagit. The ferry was financed by the King County Ferry District (KCFD) and tolls collected at Pier 50. Despite being part of the KCFD, the ferry was operated by Washington State Ferries (WSF). SR 339 was one of only four ferry routes providing access to and from Vashon Island, and had the lowest annual average ridership of the four routes. The state of Washington took over the operation of the ferry route in 1951, and designated it SR 339 in 1994. The ferry was discontinued in 2006 and was replaced by a King County Water Taxi route. ## Route description The entire route of SR 339 was in Puget Sound and was served by the MV Skagit. The passenger-only ferry started out from the Vashon Heights ferry terminal on Vashon Island and headed in a northerly direction, passing Blake Island State Park on the west. It briefly sailed into Kitsap County before the route turned east and passed the Alki Point Light and Alki Point before entering Elliott Bay, and docking at WSF's Pier 50, just south of Colman Dock, where the rest of the WSF operated ferries dock in Seattle. Traveling at a top speed of 25 knots (29 mph), the MV Skagit made the crossing in about 35 minutes. There were three crossings each direction Monday–Friday, and no service on Saturday or Sunday. Vashon Island is only connected to the rest of the region via three different WSF ferries departing from the Vashon dock, the other route departing from the Tahlequah dock on the south end of the island. SR 339 was the only passenger-only ferry that served the island; the other three ferries are auto ferries. ## History Ferries have provided transportation to and from Vashon Island since the days of the Seattle Mosquito Fleet, but the state government took over the operation of the Vashon Island ferry on June 1, 1951. The MV Skagit was built in 1989, and the ferry began service on the Seattle–Vashon Island route on April 23, 1990. The route was designated as a state highway, along with the rest of the state ferry system, in 1994. In 2003 the average daily ridership was 827 passengers per day, based on a five-day week, compared to 1,015 passengers on average when the route operated on a six-day schedule in 1999. This number has decreased in 2004, with an average of 529 passengers per day traveling on the ferry. The passenger-only service between Vashion Island and Seattle ended in 2006. WSF operated and maintained the MV Skagit, but by July 2009 the KCFD was to assume all responsibilities of the operation. The route no longer received state funding, and King County was to be responsible for all costs of the route to be funded by property taxes. The MV Skagit was sold in 2011 to a ferry operator in Tanzania, where it connected Zanzibar to the mainland until it sank on July 18, 2012. The Seattle–Vashon Island run was transferred to the King County Ferry District in 2007, now operated as a King County Water Taxi route. ## Tolls Tolls were collected on trips departing Pier 50; return trips to Seattle were not charged. The adult toll was \$8.70, with bicycles assessed an additional \$1.00 toll. Wave2Go is a prepaid toll system which allowed commuters to purchase either 10 ride cards or monthly passes. ## Major intersections The entire route was located in Puget Sound, King County.

Alexander Edler

Swedish ice hockey player

Ulf Niklas Alexander Edler (born 21 April 1986) is a Swedish professional ice hockey defenceman who is an unrestricted free agent. He previously played for the Vancouver Canucks and the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was drafted out of Sweden's third-tier ice hockey league by the Canucks in the third round, 91st overall, in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, and played junior ice hockey with Modo Hockey of the J20 SuperElit and the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League (WHL). Edler turned professional in North America with the Canucks' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, in 2006–07, seeing some time in the NHL over the course of the season. Having played in games for the Canucks in 2006–07, he was the longest tenured player on the team's lineup following the retirement of the Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik, until the Kings acquired him in 2021. He became a full-time member of the Canucks the following season, and has since been named to one NHL All-Star Game (2012). Internationally, Edler has competed for Sweden on four occasions: at the 2006 World Junior Championships, the 2008 and 2013 IIHF World Championships (winning gold) and the 2014 Winter Olympics (winning silver). Edler is an offensive defenceman noted for his calm on-ice demeanor and strong slapshot. Edler is regarded as one of the best Canucks defencemen of all-time, holding franchise records for most goals, assists, and points scored by a defenceman for the Canucks. ## Playing career ### Sweden and junior (2001–2006) Edler played at the under-17 level with his hometown district team of Jämtland in 2001 and 2002, competing at TV-pucken, a national Swedish tournament. In 2003–04, he joined the professional Jämtlands HF. He played with the club in Sweden's third-tier league, recording three goals and nine points in 24 games, while also appearing in six games for Jämtlands HF's junior team. Edler was largely unknown during his NHL Draft year, unranked by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau the entire season. He was brought to the attention of the Vancouver Canucks by the team's head scout in Sweden, Thomas Gradin, who saw Edler playing with Jämtlands HF. Although Gradin would refer to the team's level of play as little more than "beer-league-calibre", he was impressed with Edler and encouraged Canucks management to draft him (Edler's number 23 with the Canucks would later be chosen by team trainers in honour of Gradin). The Canucks traded up in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft to acquire the Dallas Stars' third-round draft pick in exchange for their own third-round pick in the 2005 Draft, and used the pick to select Edler 91st overall. The deal was made with the Stars in lieu of speculation that the Detroit Red Wings had a high interest in Edler and wanted to draft him in the third round as well. Detroit had discovered Edler in Sweden through their European scout Håkan Andersson, who was responsible for such previous Red Wings late-round picks as Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. At the time of his draft, Canucks general manager Dave Nonis described Edler as a "smooth skater and a big guy". Nonis added, "He needs some time [to develop], but in terms of raw skill, he's got quite a bit of it." After being selected by the Canucks, Gradin brokered a move for Edler to play with Modo Hockey's junior club of the J20 SuperElit. Edler had previously tried-out for Modo's youth program, but was cut. Future Canucks teammates Markus Näslund, Henrik Sedin, and Daniel Sedin had also played in the Modo system before joining the NHL. In Edler's lone season with Modo, he recorded 8 goals and 23 points over 33 games in 2004–05. He ranked second in point-scoring among league defencemen to Modo teammate Tommy Enström, who recorded 33. On 29 June 2005, Edler's major junior rights were obtained by the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League (WHL); he was chosen by Kelowna in the first round, 58th overall, of the Canadian Hockey League Import Draft. The Canucks encouraged Edler to move from Sweden to play junior in North America. After reporting to training camp with the Canucks' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, in September 2005, he was assigned to junior with the Rockets. In his lone WHL season, Edler recorded 13 goals and 53 points over 62 games in 2005–06, ranking fifth among WHL defencemen and fourth among all rookies in scoring. He went on to help Kelowna to the second round of the WHL playoffs, where they were eliminated by the Everett Silvertips. In 12 post-season games, Edler added eight points. ### Vancouver Canucks (2006–2021) The following off-season, Edler was signed to an entry-level contract by the Canucks on 24 July 2006. Reporting to the Canucks' training camp in September 2006, his play had the Canucks slotting him in as the team's seventh defenceman. However, a hip injury saw him assigned to the Manitoba Moose. Following an injury to Canucks defenceman Sami Salo, he was called up to the NHL on 3 November 2006, two games into his AHL season. He made his NHL debut the following day against the Colorado Avalanche. Eleven days later, he was reassigned to the Moose, only to be recalled on 24 November. He scored his first NHL goal on 30 November, a slap shot that beat Anaheim Ducks goaltender Jean-Sébastien Giguère in a 2–1 loss. Edler was reassigned between Manitoba and Vancouver on several more occasions over the course of the 2006–07 season. He appeared in 22 games total for the Canucks, recording a goal and two assists. With the Moose, he scored 5 goals and 26 points over 49 games and was named Manitoba's Rookie of the Year. Playing in his rookie season with the Canucks the following season, Edler was chosen to compete in the 2008 NHL YoungStars Game. Representing the Western Conference, his team was defeated 7–6 by the Eastern Conference. Playing amidst numerous injuries on the Canucks' blueline, Edler appeared in the most games among team defencemen with 75. With all the injuries to his teammates, he was given additional time on the power play and penalty kill. His eight goals ranked second among rookie defencemen in the NHL, while his 20 points was fifth overall. On 9 October 2008, at the start of the 2008–09 season, Edler signed a new four-year, \$13 million contract with Vancouver. The contract, a raise from his 2008–09 salary of \$550,000, took effect for the 2009–10 season. The following month, he missed two games sidelined with the flu. Later in the season, he recorded a personal best four-point game (one goal and three assists) in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks on 7 February 2009. He finished with 37 points, including a career-high ten goals. In the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, Edler led all Canucks defencemen with seven points in ten games as the Canucks were eliminated in the second round by Chicago. In his first few seasons in the NHL, Edler was often paired with veteran blueliner and countryman Mattias Öhlund, who he considered a mentor for him. The following campaign, 2009–10, Edler improved to career-highs of 37 assists, first among team defencemen, and 42 points, second to Christian Ehrhoff. He missed six games near the midpoint of the campaign due to a left arm injury, sustained in December 2009. In the 2010 playoffs, he added 6 points in 12 games as the Canucks were eliminated in the second round, again by the Blackhawks. Edler was injured in the sixth and deciding game of the series after opposing forward Dustin Byfuglien stepped on his right ankle after hitting him along the boards. Requiring a walking cast for five weeks, he rehabilitated his ankle during the off-season. Recovering in time for the 2010–11 season, Edler continued to improve and was on pace to record new career-highs in goals, assists and points when he suffered a back injury in January 2011. Canucks general manager Mike Gillis told reporters that Edler had been experiencing tightness in his back at several times in the season, but an open-ice hit against Dallas Stars forward Jamie Benn during a game on 24 January might have contributed to his back problems. Edler underwent microdiscectomy surgery to relieve pressure on a herniated disk and was sidelined for 2+1⁄2 months, returning for the second-last game of the regular season. Finishing the season with 8 goals and 33 points over 51 games, he ranked second among team defencemen in scoring, behind Ehrhoff. His 24 minutes and 17 seconds of average ice time per game also led the Canucks. As the Canucks won the Presidents' Trophy for the first time in franchise history, the team entered the 2011 playoffs with the first seed in the West. Eliminating the Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks, the Canucks advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 17 years. Facing the Boston Bruins, the team lost the series in seven games. Following their defeat, it was revealed that several Canucks players had been playing with injuries, including Edler, who played Game 7 with two broken fingers. In the playoffs, he ranked second among Canucks defencemen and third in the league overall with 11 points (2 goals and 9 assists) in 25 games. With the departure of Christian Ehrhoff, the Canucks' leading defensive scorer from the previous two seasons, to the Buffalo Sabres in the offseason, Edler assumed a larger role on the team's blueline in the 2011–12 season. By mid-January 2012, Edler was ranked fourth among NHL defenceman in scoring with 7 goals and 24 points. That month, he was selected to his first NHL All-Star Game. He was selected to the competition alongside Canucks teammates Daniel and Henrik Sedin, as well as Cody Hodgson, who was named to the rookie squad. Playing for Team Alfredsson, Edler logged 21 minutes of ice time in a 12–9 loss to Team Chara. Edler finished the campaign having played all 82 games for the first time in his career. He recorded personal bests and team-highs among defencemen in all major statistical categories with 11 goals, 38 assists and 49 points. League-wide, he ranked seventh among defencemen in point-scoring. Out of eight attempts, his four shootout goals was first among NHL defencemen. His efforts helped the Canucks to a second consecutive Presidents' Trophy. Individually, he earned four fifth-place votes for the James Norris Memorial Trophy to rank 15th overall. Defending their Clarence S. Campbell Bowl as Western Conference champions from the previous year, the Canucks lost in the first round of the 2012 playoffs to the Los Angeles Kings. Edler recorded two goals in the five-game series. On 18 January 2013, Edler signed a new six-year, \$30 million contract to remain with the Canucks, which took effect for the 2013–14 season and concluding after the 2018–19 season. During the summer, Edler was the talk of trade rumours at the trade deadline. The Detroit Red Wings were the team most interested in Edler, and general manager Mike Gills tried to move Edler before the no-trade clause in his contract took effect on 1 July 2013. Ultimately, no deal was reached. On 2 March 2018, Edler recorded two assists and surpassed Mattias Öhlund's franchise record of points by a Canucks defenceman. On 22 December 2018, Edler overtook Ohlund's record for most games played by a Canucks defenceman. With the 2019 NHL trade deadline approaching, the Canucks entertained trading Edler, but ultimately didn't, as the defenceman refused to waive his no-trade clause. On 28 March, Edler scored his 94th career goal with the Canucks, surpassing Ohlund's record of most goals by a Canucks defenceman. Despite the injuries, which kept Edler to just 56 games, his 10 goals were his first double-digit total since 2011–12, and his 34 points in this abbreviated season represented his best per game pace since the same 2011–12 season. On 20 June 2019, Edler signed a new two-year, \$12 million contract with Vancouver for the 2019–20 and 2020–21 seasons worth \$6 million annually. On 16 January 2020, Edler overtook the record for most assists by a Canucks defenceman, previously held by Dennis Kearns. With fellow long-time Canuck Chris Tanev's departure on 9 October 2020, Edler would become the last remaining player from the 2011 Stanley Cup finalist Canucks. ### Los Angeles Kings (2021–present) On 28 July 2021, Edler left the Canucks, having spent the entirety of his 15-year career with Vancouver, to sign as a free agent on a one-year, \$3.5 million contract with the Los Angeles Kings. With number 23 taken by Dustin Brown, Edler opted to wear number 2. Edler recorded his first point for Los Angeles on 23 October 2021, an assist in a 7–3 loss to the St. Louis Blues. On 2 December 2021, Edler scored his 100th career NHL goal in a 3–2 loss against the Calgary Flames. It was also his first goal as a member of the Kings. On 12 December 2021, Edler injured his leg and was placed on the injured reserve list. He missed 36 games as a result. He would be activated off the injured reserve list on 22 March 2022. On 12 July 2022, Edler signed a one-year, \$750k contract extension with the Kings. He played his 1,000th NHL game on 31 December 2022 in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. ## International play Eder made his first appearance for Sweden at the under-20 level, competing in the 2006 World Junior Championships in British Columbia. He notched his lone point of the tournament, an assist, in a 10–2 round-robin win against Latvia. Sweden went on to finish in fifth place, having lost their quarterfinal game to Finland. Two years later, Edler debuted with Sweden's men's team at the 2008 IIHF World Championships in Halifax and Quebec City. He scored his first international goal on the powerplay against French goaltender Fabrice Lhenry in a 9–0 round-robin win. Sweden went on to the bronze medal game, where they were defeated by Canada 5–4. Edler finished with a goal and two assists in eight games. His 19:02 minutes of average ice time per game ranked third among team defencemen. Edler was responsible for a knee-on-knee hit to Carolina Hurricanes captain Eric Staal in the quarterfinals of the 2013 IIHF World Championship, and was suspended for the final two games of the championship. Sweden went on to win the gold medal, and Edler was awarded a medal even though he did not play in the gold medal game. On 29 July 2013, the IIHF extended the suspension to cover Sweden's first two games of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Edler later joined team Sweden during the Olympics after his two-game suspension. He recorded a goal and two assists in the tournament, helping Sweden earn the silver medal. ## Playing style Edler plays in the style of an offensive defenceman. One of his strongest offensive assets is his slapshot. At the Canucks' 2008 SuperSkills event, he beat the team's reigning hardest shooter, Sami Salo, with a 99.3 mile-per-hour shot and has gone on to win the competition in 2009 and 2010, as well. He is also known for his poise and confidence with the puck, allowing him to make strong first passes out of the defensive zone to forwards. Many within the Canucks organization, such as Assistant Coach Rick Bowness, have asserted this as a reflection of his calm off-ice demeanor. Despite Edler's imposing physical characteristics, he was not known to be an aggressive defender early in his NHL career. However, he has gradually shown a capability for physicality and to hit opposing players hard. Looking back on his transition to North American hockey with the Kelowna Rockets, Edler noted the most difficult adjustment was the physical aspect of the game, which was more pronounced than in Sweden. During the Canucks' 2011 playoff run, teammate Kevin Bieksa compared him to Edler's former defensive partner, Mattias Öhlund, commenting, "He [Edler] was like Bambi when he first came into the league but now he realized how big and strong he is. When he hits guys, he hurts them." ## Personal life Edler was born in Östersund, Sweden. He has a brother, Jens, and a sister, Katarina. He began playing hockey at the age of six. Edler has a permanent home in Vancouver, where he met his wife Amanda and where his daughters Emme and River were born. ## Career statistics ### Regular season and playoffs ### International ## Awards and honors

Flag of Ecuador

National flag

The national flag of Ecuador, which consists of horizontal bands of yellow (double width), blue and red, was first adopted by law in 1835 and later on 26 September 1860. The design of the current flag was finalized in 1900 with the addition of the coat of arms in the center of the flag. Before using the yellow, blue and red tricolor, Ecuador's former flag had three light blue stripes and two white stripes with three white stars for each province of the country.The design of the flag is very similar to those of Colombia and Venezuela, which are also former constituent territories of Gran Colombia. All three are based on a proposal by Venezuelan General Francisco de Miranda, which was adopted by Venezuela in 1811 and later Gran Colombia with some modifications. There is a variant of the flag that does not contain the coat of arms that is used by the merchant marine. This flag matches Colombia's in every aspect, but Colombia uses a different design when her merchant marine ships are at sail. Along with Haiti, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, it is one of only four national flags whose design incorporates a depiction of the flag itself. ## Design The Ecuadorian National Secretariat of Communication (Secretaría Nacional de Comunicación) issued regulations describing the applications and proportions of the national flag, coat of arms, and other national symbols in November 2009. The national flag has a length of 2.20 meters and a width of 1.47 m, a ratio of 2 to 3. The field is split into three horizontal colored bands, a yellow band of one-half the flag's width, a blue band of one-quarter the width, and a red band of one-quarter the width. All three bands extend the full length of the flag. The flag is charged with the Ecuadorian coat of arms scaled to one-half the width of the flag and centered in the field. The coat of arms itself is constructed in a rectangle with proportions 12:10. The national standard has the same design as the national flag, but is square, with length 0.9 m and width 0.9 m. When used by military units and organizations, lettering can encircle the coat of arms with a diameter of 55 centimeters. The lettering must be 4 cm in height, 3 cm in width, gold-colored Roman font, embroidered with gold thread. The only other regulated size is a table flag (banderola) where the flag is 200 mm wide and 300 mm long. When manufacturing the national flag, sellers to the public must include the name of their company, along with the year of manufacture, by placing a 20 × 10 mm tag on the reverse side of the flag on the sleeve. ### Coat of arms In the background of the oval shield is the mountain Chimborazo, while the river originating from its base represents the Guayas. Chimborazo is also the highest mountain in Ecuador and is part of the Andes Range. The steamboat on the river is named Guayas as well. The ship was built in Guayaquil and was the first seaworthy steamship built in both Ecuador and in all of South America. It was first put into service on 9 October 1841. The ship has the features of a Caduceus representing trade and economy. This kind of mast has two wings surrounding a pole with two snakes encircling it. On top a golden sun surrounded by the Zodiac astrological signs for Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer representing the months March to July to symbolize the duration of the March Revolution of 1845 that ousted General Juan José Flores. The condor on top of the shield stretches his wings to symbolize power, greatness and strength of Ecuador. The condor also represents the idea that it will always be ready to attack any enemy. The shield is flanked by four national flags. The laurel on the left represents the victories of the republic. The palm leaf on the right side is a symbol of the martyrs of the fight for independence and liberty. The Fasces below the shield represents the republican dignity. The final design of the coat of arms was completed in 1900. In the 1989 specifications issued to the Ecuadorian Military, the coat of arms has only eight colors that are used on the flag. The eight colors are yellow, blue, red (all from the national flag), sky blue, green, grey, silver and gold. There is also a nine piece instruction on how to draw the coat of arms, followed by a full color drawing and a black and white drawing of the arms. No size specifications have been laid out for the coat of arms except for when it is used on the national flag. ### Symbolism Miranda ascribed the colours he chose for his flag to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's theory of primary colours. In a letter written to Count Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov in 1792, Miranda described a late-night conversation which he had with Goethe at a party in Weimar, Germany during the winter of 1785. Fascinated with Miranda's account of his exploits in the American Revolutionary War and his travels throughout the Americas and Europe, Goethe told him that, "Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colours are not distorted.” He proceeded to clarify what he meant: > First he explained to me the way the iris transforms the light into the three primary colours... then he said, "Why yellow is the most warm, noble and closest to the bright light; why Blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, so far that it evokes the shadows; and why Red is the exaltation of Yellow and Blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of the bright light into the shadows". The first time the yellow, blue and red flag was flown by Miranda was in 1806 on the ship Leander when trying to face the Spanish forces off of the coast of Jacmel, Haiti. The colors of the modern Ecuadorian flag evolved from those of the flag of the nation of Gran Colombia, which encompassed the territories of modern-day Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The colors have the following meanings: - Yellow: The crops and the fertile soil. - Blue: The ocean and the clear skies - Red: The blood spilled by the heroes who died in the name of their countrymen's Fatherland and Freedom. ## History After the territory of Ecuador was conquered by Sebastián de Benalcázar, the emblems of the Spanish Empire flew over the newly founded city of Quito. The first calls for independence from the Spanish crown came on 10 August 1809; a plain red flag was flown by the rebels. The independence movement was defeated in November 1812 at the hands of Spanish officer Juan Sámano. On 9 October 1820, a new flag, a blue and white bicolour, with five horizontal alternating stripes, and three white stars in the middle stripe, was raised for the first time. The three stars represent Guayaquil, Portoviejo and Machala. This flag was later adopted by the Guayas Province. Gabriel García Moreno, upon assuming power two days after the Battle of Guayaquil in September 1860, the yellow, blue and red triband was returned to use; its reinstatement on 26 September is commemorated as Día de la Bandera, or National Flag Day in English. Previously, a vertical white, blue and white flag was used. In the middle of the blue stripe, there were white stars placed to signify the number of provinces in Ecuador. The highest star total was seven before this flag was abandoned. In 1900, the flag was made the definitive national standard, and was charged with the coat of arms for official national government use while the plain flag was reserved for the merchant marine. ## Pledge and hymn Students and military cadets in Ecuador are required to recite a pledge to the flag, known as the "Juramento a la Bandera" or "Pledge to the Flag." This pledge is usually stated during national holiday or important school functions, such as graduations. There is also a patriotic song called the "Himno a la Bandera" ("Hymn to the Flag") that is after the "Juramento a la Bandera" or before flag retirement ceremonies. ## Variants According to Registro Oficial No. 1272, a decree signed into law on 5 December 1900, there are two official designs of the national flag. Article Two established the national banner as the tricolor with the yellow stripe doubling the size of the blue and red stripes. Article Three establishes the national flag charged with the coat of arms and is directed to be used by the military, government offices and diplomatic agents outside of Ecuador. While this law establishes the flag with the coat of arms as the state flag, it did not forbid the civilian population from using the flag. The only restriction is stated in Article Six where the merchant marine is restricted to using the flag without the coat of arms. Because of this, this has been construed to be the civil flag as it was practiced in other South American countries, such as Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Unlike Ecuador, several of these South American countries forbade the civilian population from using the national flag with the coat of arms or, in the case of Argentina until 1985, the national flag charged with the Sun of May in the middle. Peru and Bolivia still restricts the usage of the state flag to just the government bodies and institutions and reserves the plain flags for national celebrations or as directed by law. However, in practice the flag with the coat of arms is often used in place of the plain flag, especially when it is important to distinguish the latter from the flag of Colombia. In the case when Colombian merchant marine ships are at sea, the Colombian national flag is charged with a red and blue oval with a white star in the center. For city governments, Article 4 in the 1900 decree forbids them from using the national flag with the coat of arms. A special flag was created for the city governments to use; it is a plain national flag charged with white stars that are placed in a circle pattern. The number of white stars will correspond to the number of provinces in Ecuador. However, this flag is identical to Venezuela's flag from 1905 until 1930, and similar to Venezuela's current flag (the stars are now in a semi circle pattern). ## Derivatives Palestina Canton uses the national flag on their flag. Placed in the canton, the Ecuador flag is shown with three even stripes, while the rest of the flag is colored olive green. The use of the Ecuador flag was described by the Palestina government as "unity with the motherland" and olive green represents progress. Loja Province adopted a flag in 1963 that copied the design of the national flag. This was done by the creator of the flag to show his "honor and admiration" to the homeland. Another province, Napo, chose their flag that copied the design of the national flag without the coat of arms. The only modification that was performed was to put a white strip between the blue and yellow. ## Resemblance to other flags The flags of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, can all trace their roots to the flag of the nation of Gran Colombia (1819–1830), the short-lived republic that encompassed the territories of all three. The Gran Colombian flag in turn was inspired by the flag of the First Republic of Venezuela, the first independent government of that nation. The flag of the Venezuelan Republic was modeled on the one created earlier by General Francisco de Miranda during his attempts to gain Venezuelan independence and which first flew over the port of La Vela in Santa Ana de Coro, Venezuela, in 1806. As of 2006, the Ecuadoran flag still shares some similarity with the flags of Colombia and Venezuela. All three flags use the yellow, blue and red tricolor, but that is where the similarities end. In a decree passed in Colombia in 1934, the ratio of the stripes were set at 2:1:1 and the flag ratio was set at 2:3, similar to the present Ecuador flag. However, the coat of arms is only changed in the middle of the flag when it is used by government officials or by military forces. For Venezuela, the basic design was to have all three strips even vertically, unlike those of Colombia and Ecuador. Since 1863, Venezuela decided to change their flag with white stars instead of a coat of arms. A coat of arms was added to the national flag in 1954, then changed again in 2006 to add another star and alter the coat of arms. The position of the coat of arms on the Venezuelan flag also differs from Ecuador and Colombia by placing the arms at the very top hoist (left) side of the flag instead of in the center. ## See also - List of Ecuadorian flags

Wellington R. Burt

American politician

Wellington R. Burt (August 26, 1831 – March 2, 1919) was an American lumber baron from Saginaw, Michigan. At the time of his death, his wealth was estimated to be between \$40 and \$90 million (equivalent to between \$ and \$ in ). For a time in the early 1900s, Burt ranked as one of the eight wealthiest men in the United States. He was best known for his lumber mills and timber holdings, but was also involved in iron mining, railroads, salt mines, and finances. Burt was a politician, holding the offices of Mayor of East Saginaw (1867–68) and member of the Michigan Senate (1893–94). In his final years, he lived alone in a mansion with his servants. Estranged from friends and family and nicknamed "The Lone Pine of Michigan", he officially died of "senility" at age 87. Burt had an unusual will, "as bizarre but as finely-wrought as any in U.S. court annals". It contained a "spite clause" conceived by Burt to avenge a family feud. It specified to wait 21 years after his children and grandchildren were dead before the bulk of the fortune could go to any descendants, in effect alienating his children and grandchildren from the estate, beyond some small annuities. The conditions of the will were met in 2010 after the 1989 death of his last grandchild. In May 2011, twelve of Burt's descendants finally received the estate, worth about \$100 million. Burt's legacy today is mixed, seen as a vindictive old man, a generous benefactor of the city of Saginaw and a famously wealthy American entrepreneur. ## Biography Burt was born on August 26, 1831, in the town of Pike, a small town in Western New York state, the ninth of thirteen siblings and the eldest son. His father was Luther Burt and his mother Florinda Horton Burt. The Burts were poor farmers who came from an old New England line, tracing back to Henry Burt, who had settled from Scotland in 1640. The Burt lineage included William Austin Burt (1792–1858), who was a notable Michigan surveyor described as "the father of the typewriter". At the age of seven, he moved with his parents to Jackson County, Michigan, where he worked on the family farm. Michigan was then only a few years old and Burt's subsequent life and career as a first generation Michigander was often identified with the growth and progress of the new state. In 1843, when Wellington was 12, his father Luther died. Under the guidance of his mother, he became the farm's manager and "entered into the struggle incident to pioneer life". He attended two years of college one at Albion College and one at Michigan Central College (now Hillsdale College). At the age of 22, he decided to see the world and obtained work as a sailor abroad on freighters in Australia, Central and South America, and New Zealand. He would recall Australia as his favorite foreign country. When he returned home in 1857 at age 26, he found a burgeoning timber industry in Michigan, the "Green Gold Rush". He took a job earning \$13 a month at the Pine River lumber camp near St. Louis, Michigan and within a month was promoted to camp foreman with double wages. He was "tall, strong and knew how to give orders". Using savings, he started his own lumber company in 1858, buying 300 acres in Gratiot County. In 1867, he founded the community of Melbourne on the Saginaw River near Zilwaukee, Michigan, named after his favorite city in Australia. By 1870, Melbourne was among the largest and most complete mills in the world, but in 1876, it was destroyed by a fire of unknown origin. Many at the time thought this would be the end of Burt's fortunes, but he also owned timber land elsewhere, including in St. Louis County, Minnesota, which turned out to be favourable for him, as it was in the heart of the immensely valuable Mesabi iron range. In addition to his various timber and iron mine holdings, Burt made his fortune in the salt industry, in railroads and in foreign bonds and banking investments. He invested in the former CS&M Railroad (running between Durand and Bay City) and for a time, owned most of the Ann Arbor Railroad system. He also bought railways in Russia and China. He had plans to build a sugar beet factory in Owosso, Michigan, but the idea failed to come to fruition. Burt's political career included time as mayor of East Saginaw in 1867 and 1868, and as unsuccessful Fusion candidate for the position of Governor of Michigan in 1888. He was elected member of the Michigan State Senate 22nd District for 1893–94 again under the Fusion ticket, and as Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative from Michigan 8th District in 1900. "In the capitol at Lansing", one Saginaw News account read, "Sen. Burt was more conspicuous for his political naiveté than for any distinguished act of statesmanship. They said he tried hard, but to him, politics were strange shenanigans. You smiled and joked when you meant to kick a man's shins." Later in his life, Burt lived alone in a three-story brick mansion at Cherry St. and E. Genesee Ave. It was demolished in 1959 and today is a parking lot. With failing eyesight and hearing he was taken care of by servants. Due to his isolation from his family and social circles in later years, he was known as "The Lone Pine of Michigan". He had radical stomach surgery at the age of 80. His death certificate lists his cause of death as "senility". He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Saginaw County Michigan. (Section 8, Plot 1.) Burt was married twice and had seven children, three daughters from the first wife and one daughter and three younger sons from the second wife. His first wife was Sarah Torrance (1833–1867), whom he married May 22, 1860; his second was Armine Mary Richardson (1839–1904), whom he married February 10, 1869. ## Will Burt had one of the more bizarre wills in American legal history. It contained a "spite clause" which specified to wait until his children and grandchildren were dead before the estate could be dispersed to any descendants yet unborn in Burt's lifetime. However, his children did receive relatively small annuities of \$1,000 to \$5,000 each, except for one favorite son who received \$30,000 annually, and one unfavored daughter who got nothing. His secretary received \$4,000 annually, more than most of his children, while a cook, housekeeper, coachman and chauffeur each received \$1,000 annually. Burt's will stipulated the majority of the estate to be held in a trust until "21 years after [the death of] my last surviving grandchild [who was alive] at the time of my death." This condition was met in 2010, 21 years after the November 1989 death of Burt's last grandchild, Marion Lansill. In May 2011, after time for legal negotiations, the fortune was finally distributed to his descendants. The estate was estimated in total at \$100 million to \$110 million. It was split between twelve descendants, weighted based on age seniority. They included three great-grandchildren; seven great-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-great-grandchildren – the youngest beneficiary was 19 and the oldest 94. The biggest beneficiary received between \$14.5 to \$16 million, with the smallest beneficiary between \$2.6 to \$2.9 million. In the end, thirty of Burt's descendants, including children and grandchildren, missed out on the inheritance because they were ineligible or died before the will's conditions were met. It is not entirely clear why Burt made such an unusual will, but newspaper records suggest family feuds were likely at the core of his decision. The will was challenged by his children after he died. A legal hole was found in 1920 because part of the estate was composed of iron leases in Minnesota, and Minnesota had a law against trusts of such long standing. This portion of the estate, amounting to \$5 million, was distributed to Burt's children and grandchildren (a son, three daughters and four granddaughters). In 1961, an additional \$720,000 was taken from the trust in settlement of a suit filed by nine heirs and the estates of three other descendants. ## Legacy Burt's legacy is mixed. On the one hand he was once a famous and successful businessman who contributed to the community in many ways, and he was generally well regarded in his lifetime. On the other hand, he is best known today for his bizarre will, giving him the reputation of a vindictive old man. Saginaw historian Thomas B. Mudd said "For a while, I took Wellington R. Burt as a selfish rich guy, but the picture that emerges is of someone who also threw himself into the community". Burt could be tough, and not just with his children. Burt had originally devised millions in his will to the city, but retracted it when Saginaw officials increased his South Jefferson property assessment from \$400,000 to \$1 million four years before he died in 1919. One well-known story recounts how Burt ordered some horses at the lumber mill to be starved and worked to death, "Mr. Callam, the horses are too fat", Burt reportedly said. "Trim them down, sir, and when the logs are out, dispose of them." Mr. Callam refused to starve and kill the horses, so Burt fired him and found someone who would carry it out. Burt was generous in life and honored after death. His charitable giving to Saginaw during his lifetime was extensive, including funding the City Auditorium, the Burt Manual Training School, a women's hospital, a Salvation Army and a YWCA that later became Jacobson's. The town of Burt, Michigan, is named for him, as is Burt Street in Saginaw, which borders the same block as his former home. The Burt Opera House in Taymouth Township carries his name and is still in use today as a community center. Trips on the paddle steamer Wellington R. Burt were once a popular day excursion along the Saginaw River (1876–1891). Burt was inducted into the Saginaw Hall of Fame in 1967. ## See also - Charles Lathrop Pack - Thellusson Will Case

Blown Away (Carrie Underwood song)

2012 single by Carrie Underwood

"Blown Away" is a song by American recording artist Carrie Underwood, taken from her fourth studio album of the same name (2012). The song served as the album's second single on July 9, 2012, through Arista Nashville. Written by Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear, who previously wrote Underwood's single "Before He Cheats" (2007), "Blown Away" is a country pop song with lyrics addressing the story of a daughter locking herself in a storm cellar while her alcoholic father is passed out on the couch in the path of a tornado. Producer Mark Bright drew inspiration from 1980s music. Upon its release, "Blown Away" was met with positive reviews from music critics, who considered it to be the musical highlight of the album. The song's content and production received particular praise, as critics felt it confirmed the album's darker mood which Underwood had mentioned prior to its release. Commercially, "Blown Away" was successful. In the United States, it became her 13th number one hit on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, and also reached number 20 on the Hot 100. It also charted in Canada and the United Kingdom. It won several awards, including two Grammy Awards, for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. The song has since been certified 4× platinum by the RIAA. The accompanying music video was directed by Randee St. Nicholas. Underwood said that when she heard first the song, she already had ideas of a possible video for it. She wanted it to be a dark Wizard of Oz in 2012. It earned her an award for Video of the Year at the 2013 CMT Music Awards. The video was nominated for Music Video of the Year at the 2013 Country Music Association Awards. Underwood has performed "Blown Away" in a number of live appearances, including at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, and two years in a row at the Country Music Association Awards. It was also performed as the encore of the Blown Away Tour (2012–13). ## Writing and composition After Underwood's Play On Tour wrapped in December 2010, she started to work on her fourth studio album, which was then untitled. Sony Music Nashville chairman/CEO Gary Overton said that the singer "took nearly a year to compile and record the songs." Songwriters Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear, who previously wrote "Before He Cheats" for Underwood's debut album, Some Hearts (2005), worked on "Blown Away" initially without a specific artist in mind. At first, they built the drums and the string parts that of the introduction and verses. Tompkins started playing his keyboard to find sound effects for the introduction, and ended up using one that was a thunderstorm. "I think that's what kind of threw us into it. We just started writing it," he said. The songwriters then came up with the first verse of the song: "Dry lighting cracks across the skies / Those storm clouds gather in her eyes / Her daddy was a mean old mister / Momma was an angel in the ground / The weatherman called for a twister / She prayed blow it down." Kear commented that it was not the duo's intent or goal to make it a dark, revenge-themed song. As they wrote the pre-chorus line "not enough rain in Oklahoma", both knew that it was a Carrie Underwood song, as the singer is from that state. "We knew if we stuck with that lyric ["Oklahoma"—which is Carrie's home state] it was Carrie's song or maybe no one would ever record it," Kear commented. After the theme of the song had been established, the songwriters wanted to "dig up as much drama as [they] could." Lyrically, "Blown Away" tells the story of a daughter locking herself in a storm cellar while her alcoholic father is passed out on the couch in the path of a tornado. Underwood revealed that "Blown Away" was the song that defined the direction of the album, and recalled the first time she heard the demo: > "I listened to it on my crappy computer speakers and then I had to go find my headphones because as soon as I listened to a few bars, I had to listen more closely and I got chills. I remember where I was when I heard it and called my manager, Ann, and I was like, 'Do not let anyone else have this song! It’s my song.' In talking to Chris and Josh about it, they [told me], 'We said we're either writing a song for Carrie Underwood or this song is never going to see the light of day.' It made me feel so good that they were thinking of me when they wrote it." As noted by interviewer Kurt Wolff, "the melody and overall sound of the song also stand out as something fresh and very different." Tompkins explained to Wolff that "Blown Away" was an "attempt at 'melodic pop' that was 'unique' yet still 'country.'" Tompkins also commented that "Blown Away" is "not even mine and Josh’s song anymore; it's [Carrie's] song now. She's completely claimed it. The song is Carrie. It's not even a song that had a chance of being pitched to anybody else. It's a completely different type of song for Carrie. She's got a lot of pop elements, and I listen to a lot of pop, but I listen to everything from Randy Newman to Mozart to Rihanna to Steely Dan. I think all that stuff shows up in my music, and I think it showed up in 'Blown Away.'" The final version of the song was produced by Mark Bright, who drew inspiration from 1980s music. Underwood recalled Bright adding an effect to her vocals similar to the ones used in Def Leppard songs: "That was a big thing with [the band], all of that hollow vocal sound. And I liked it." Bright used a similar effect on "See You Again", another song from Blown Away. Melodically, "Blown Away" is written in the key of A minor, and is set in the common time with a tempo of 134 beats per minute. The song follows the sequence of Am - C - G as its chord progression, and Underwood's voice spans from the low note of G₃ to the high note of E₅. ## Reception ### Critical response "Blown Away" received generally positive reviews from music critics. A reviewer for Billboard thought that Mark Bright's "brooding, atmospheric" production and Underwood's vocal performance "elevate this cinematic tune to an instant classic." They further commented, "When the girl shuts herself in the storm cellar, leaving her alcoholic father passed out on the couch in the path of a twister, you can almost feel the wind." Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Mikael Wood thought that the song confirmed the description of the album as "a turn toward darkness from a singer who first topped the country chart with 'Jesus, Take the Wheel'." USA Today columnist Brian Mansfield thought the song's "synthesizers, strings sounds, vocal overdubs and echoing guitars" combined dramatically, creating a "neo-80s feel - think an Oklahoma version of the Eurythmics." "Blown Away" received a five-star rating from Billy Dukes of Taste of Country, who called it "dangerous, but irresistible." He also praised Underwood for recording darker material than her previous singles. Also giving it five stars, Bobby Peacock of Roughstock called it "more grandiose" than Underwood's previous efforts, also saying that it "makes itself known by sounding like absolutely nothing else on radio." Chris Richards of The Washington Post gave the song a mixed review, deeming the lyrics as "gripping", but negatively comparing the instrumentation to the work of Taylor Swift. ### Chart performance Following the release of the album, "Blown Away" debuted at number 22 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart, with 66,000 units sold. It eventually peaked at number 15, staying at the chart for a total of 35 weeks. On the main Hot 100 chart, "Blown Away" peaked at number 20 and spent 22 weeks on the chart; it was ranked the 70th biggest song of 2012 there overall. On the week of September 6, 2012, the song became Underwood's 16th top ten single on the Country Airplay component chart, a record among women in the tally's 68-year history according to Billboard. The following month, on the week of October 15, it reached the top spot, becoming the singer's 13th number one. It stayed there for a second week, making Underwood the only female vocalist of 2012 to achieve three weeks at number one on the chart, as previous single "Good Girl" had peaked at the same position. As of January 2020, the song has been certified 4× platinum by the RIAA, with the titular album being certified 3× platinum. As of February 2016, "Blown Away" has sold 2,819,000 digital units in the United States. "Blown Away" also peaked at number one in Canada Country chart, number 27 in Canadian Hot 100, and is Underwood's second song to chart in the United Kingdom, reaching number 155, despite not having a proper release in the country. ### Accolades ## Music video The accompanying music video for "Blown Away" was directed by Randee St. Nicholas and produced by Brandon Bonfiglo for Randee St. Nicholas Photography. Underwood said that when she first heard the song, she already had ideas of a possible video for it, and wanted it to be a dark Wizard of Oz in 2012. The singer deemed it "a visual song. You listen to it and you can see everything that is happening. It's so dramatic. I'm not a drama person, but when you can make a movie in song form in three-and-a-half minutes, it's surreal." A sneak peek of the video was released on June 11, 2012. The music video premiered worldwide on July 30, during a 24-hour exclusive window domestically and internationally on E! News at 7 and 11:30 p.m. ET/PT and on the homepage of E! Online. Prior to the E! premiere, Underwood held a private screening of the video with country radio station KJ97 for over 200 of their listeners in San Antonio, Texas. The video begins with a girl (a young Underwood) studying at home. Her abusive father arrives and asks her if she needs help. She declines his offer, but starts gathering her things to leave the room. As she stands up, he grabs her arm, but she manages to pull away and leave. Underwood has stated that this scene had no script, and that she and the actor acted it out the way they thought it might have happened. She also revealed that she left the filming location with bruises on her arm: "I had finger marks on my arm when I left at the end of the day, so I was like, 'Wow.' ... It was intense. I wasn't just imagining it, it was really intense." As the video continues, the girl is seen standing in the middle of a cemetery, walking around and staring at the dark clouds as a thunderstorm forms in the sky. She runs back to her house along an old, destroyed yellow brick road, similar to the one in The Wizard of Oz. She enters the house to see her father sleeping on the couch, holding a bottle of alcohol. She sits next to him, recalling the times he let his drunkenness and anger get out of hand. She tries to wake him up but fails, and realizes that he has passed out. Looking out through the window, she sees that the thunderstorm is getting worse. Fearing a tornado, she leaves her father and runs to the cellar alone to protect herself. She's then seen lying in an old bed and crying as she hears the tornado coming closer, with her father still passed out in the house above. The next day, there are no traces of the house, and as the video ends with a dog, some cattle and a rainbow in the sunshine, she calmly walks away. Regarding the Wizard of Oz references, Underwood commented that "it was all about having subtle references," such as the plaid shirt and red shoes she wore on the video. When asked if her aim was to generate controversy with the storyline, the singer said that it was not what she were aiming for at all, adding: "I try to stay away from controversy in any form or fashion. It was just such a great story and such a mini-movie, listening to the song, and we really wanted to do it justice in the video." The music video won Video of the Year at the 2013 CMT Music Awards. ## Live performances Underwood performed "Blown Away" on American Idol on May 3, 2012, the week of the album's release. Amy Sciarretto of Taste of Country summarized the performance, writing, "Underwood was elevated on steps as she performed, with storm clouds roaring on the screens behind her. She was bathed in light as smoke billowed at feet." The same month, she performed the song at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, dressed in a long, red gown. The singer also performed it at the 2012 Country Music Association Awards. Throughout the performance, wind machines were used while confetti flew through the air. In 2013, Underwood performed "Blown Away" again at the same award show, this time in a medley with "Good Girl", "See You Again" and "Two Black Cadillacs", representing the ending of the Blown Away era. The same year, she performed an acoustic version of the song during the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. "Blown Away" was performed as the encore of Underwood's Blown Away Tour (2012–13), along with "I Know You Won't". ## Charts ### Weekly charts ### Year-end charts ## Certifications ## See also - List of number-one country singles of 2012 (U.S.)

Dinosaur Game

2014 video game

The Dinosaur Game (also known as the Chrome Dino) is a browser game developed by Google and built into the Google Chrome web browser. The player guides a pixelated Tyrannosaurus rex across a side-scrolling landscape, avoiding obstacles to achieve a higher score. The game was created by members of the Chrome UX team in 2014. ## Gameplay When a user attempts to navigate to a web page on Google Chrome while being offline, the browser notifies the user that they are not connected to the Internet, with an illustration of a pixelated Tyrannosaurus rex shown on the page. The game can then be launched either by pressing or on desktop, or by tapping the dinosaur on Android or iOS mobile devices. Additionally, the game can be accessed by inputting [`chrome://dino`](chrome://dino) or [`chrome://network-error/-106`](chrome://network-error/-106) into the Omnibox. During the game, the Lonely T-Rex continuously moves from left to right across a black-and-white desert landscape, with the player attempting to avoid oncoming obstacles such as cacti and Pteranodons by jumping or ducking. Pressing , , or tapping the dinosaur on mobile devices will cause the dinosaur to "leap", while pressing the key will cause the dinosaur to "crouch". As the game progresses, the speed of play gradually increases until the user hits an obstacle or a Pterosaur, prompting an instant game over. Once the player reaches around 700 points, the game switches from dark gray graphics on a white background to pale gray graphics on a black background, representing a shift from day to night, with daytime sky graphics also becoming nighttime sky graphics. The color scheme then alternates as the game progresses. The game was designed to reach its maximum score after approximately 17 million years of playtime, in reference to how long the T-Rex existed before it went extinct during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. If a network administrator disables the Dinosaur Game, an error message appears when attempting to play the game, which features an image of a meteor heading towards the Lonely T-Rex. ## Development The game was created by members of the Chrome UX team in 2014, which consisted of Sebastien Gabriel, Alan Bettes, and Edward Jung. Gabriel designed the player character, named the "Lonely T-Rex". During development, the game was given the codename "Project Bolan", in reference to Marc Bolan, the lead singer of the T. Rex band. The developers chose the dinosaur theme as a reference to the game's function, a joke that not having an internet connection is equivalent to living in the "prehistoric ages". The game was released in September 2014; initially, it did not work on older devices, so the code was updated and re-released in December of the same year. The pteranodons were added as obstacles with a browser update in 2015. In September 2018, an Easter egg was added to the game in celebration of Chrome's 10th birthday and the game's fourth birthday, with a birthday cake appearing in the desert and a birthday hat appearing on the Lonely T-Rex if the cake is "eaten". In November of the same year, Google introduced a feature to save the player's high score. The game's source code is available on the Chromium site. In 2021, Google introduced a widget in March for iOS 14 which led players to [`chrome://dino`](chrome://dino); a similar widget was introduced to Android later that year. In July, an Olympic torch Easter egg for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics simulating various Olympic activities was added. Upon reaching the torch, the dino transforms into various Olympic games such as swimming, running, and many others. Instead of the usual cacti and pterodactyl obstacles, the dino now encounters challenges related to the Olympics. ## Reception The game received widespread recognition, with the creators revealing in September 2018 that approximately 270 million games were played monthly. ## In popular culture The Dinosaur Game is referenced in the "couch gag" opening segment of the season 34 premiere of The Simpsons, "Habeas Tortoise". ## Related media In May 2020, a Microsoft Edge update added Surf, a game where players control a surfer attempting to evade obstacles and collect powerups. Like the Dinosaur Game, it is accessible from an error page when the browser is offline. The game allows for character customization and multiple control schemes. In August 2020, MSCHF and 100 Thieves partnered to create a modified version of the game titled Dino Swords, which featured a small arsenal of weapons and time-slowing pills; when mismanaged, the weapons could backfire and harm the dinosaur. ## See also - List of Google Easter eggs

Alexander Grant (British Army officer)

British captain of the Royal African Corps and colonial administrator of Gambia

Sir Alexander Grant (1775 – 29 September 1827) was a British Army officer who served as the first Commandant of St Mary's Island from 1816 to 1826. An officer with the newly-founded Royal African Corps, Grant negotiated the purchase of St Mary's Island in the Gambia River from the King of Kombo in 1816, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The island was the first settlement in what would later become the Gambia Colony and Protectorate. During his time as commandant, Grant founded the town of Bathurst on the island, which later became Banjul and the capital city of The Gambia as an independent country. Grant also purchased MacCarthy Island, further down the Gambia River, and founded on it Georgetown - now Janjanbureh - as a settlement for freed slaves. Grant was knighted in 1821, and served as Acting Governor of Sierra Leone from 1820 to 1821, and again later in 1821. He returned to Britain in 1826, and died a year later from illness. ## Early military service Grant joined the army in 1804 and was posted to the 2nd West India Regiment. He was immediately given the option of serving with the Royal African Corps, which he took up, and remained in Africa until 1825. ## Commandant of St Mary's Island ### Establishment of Bathurst Following the Treaty of Paris in 1814, which ended the war with France and the War of 1812 with the United States, the British evacuated Gorée, in what is now Senegal. This meant the Gambia once again assumed importance as the nearest harbour and colony to Britain situated on the West African coast. It, therefore, became necessary that the British rebuild their forts and make other arrangements to accommodate the influx of troops and officials from Gorée. Sir Charles MacCarthy, the Governor of Sierra Leone, dispatched Captain Alexander Grant, who at the time was an officer with the 2nd West India Regiment and was attached to the Royal African Corps. Grant took with him a detachment of 75 soldiers of the Royal African Corps to establish whether it would be feasible to create a military stronghold on the Gambia River. At first, it was intended that Grant would rebuild Fort James, but the lack of room on the island led to Grant being asked to explore other options. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brereton, the Governor of Senegal, approved the sandy pit at the extreme point of Banjulo, "probably more from a strategic view than a sanitary one" as it was battered by the Atlantic waves, had a mangrove swamp behind it, but also commanded the mouth of the Gambia River. On 23 April 1816, Grant signed a treaty with the King of Kombo, Tomani Bojang. The treaty stipulated the lease of the island for an annual payment by the British of 103 iron bars, the equivalent of £25 at the time. Brereton aided Grant in this negotiation. Following its lease, the island was renamed from Banjulo to St Mary's Island. The houses, barracks, stores, factories, forts and other buildings were built around the crescent-shaped sandbank and gradually the land behind was partly reclaimed. The barracks on the island could hold 80 soldiers and house six cannons. The town was drained with tidal sluices to prevent the flooding of the town by sea water. This new capital on St Mary's Island was initially called Leopold, but the name was shortly afterwards changed to Bathurst by MacCarthy, under whom the town was designed. The name was taken from Earl Bathurst, who was then the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. ### Further growth Gun batteries were laid out on Barra Point, Fort St Mary, and in Bathurst for the purposes of defence. As to commerce, the British merchants in Senegal were forced to leave when the Treaty of Paris was ratified and, with some French traders who preferred to trade under the British flag, emigrated to St Mary's Island. They built a number of factories and houses there which remained for many decades. The influx of traders marked a return to prosperity for the Gambia, that had flagged during the British occupation of Senegal. Building Bathurst was complicated by the fact that St Mary's Island was infested with mosquitoes and liable to be flooded regularly. By 1821, a barracks, hospital, and courthouse had all been constructed. Grant also began the practice of sending blue books from the Gambia between 1819 and 1823. The Governor of Sierra Leone was given responsibility for St Mary's Island in 1821. The home government back in Britain decided that the colony would have to be maintained by the revenue it made from customs duties in all areas besides defence. MacCarthy toured West Africa in 1822, and commented that the improvement of commerce in Bathurst was greater than in any other location that he visited. Grant, as commandant, used his forces to stop the riverine slave trade and also to encourage the activities of the Society of Friends and the Wesleyan Church. In 1818, Gaspard Théodore Mollien, a French explorer, explored the sources of the Gambia River, Senegal River and the most northern tributary of the Niger River during Grant's tenure at St Mary's Island. He travelled alone before returning in 1819 by way of the Rio Geba. From 28 July 1820 to 28 November 1821, with a short break from 1 February 1821 to 4 February, Grant served as the acting Governor of Sierra Leone. This was in between two terms served by MacCarthy in the country. On 18 December 1821, Grant was promoted to Major. In 1823, Sierra Leone was chosen as the seat of government for the British West African Settlements, and annexed by Act of Parliament with a jurisdiction that included the Gambia. ### MacCarthy Island and the Ceded Mile Lemain Island was purchased as an outpost in 1823, 160 miles up the Gambia. The name was then changed to MacCarthy Island. A Government House was built, with a barracks for a company of soldiers, called Fort George. Grant established Georgetown on the island, as a settlement for freed slaves. MacCarthy Island at the time was notorious for fighting and rumours of fighting, with night alarms and "enough excitement to satisfy the most energetic soldiers seeking a show". The soldiers on the island were ten to twelve days from headquarters and surrounded by warring tribes, who saw the British presence as "the first step towards their total dispossession." On 8 January 1824, Grant was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, without purchase, meaning he earned the promotion on merit and not by payment. After the establishment of a base on MacCarthy Island, Grant oversaw the acquisition of what was known as the Ceded Mile. It was a strip of territory one mile wide at the mouth of the Gambia River on the north bank, opposite Bathurst, and stretching from the ocean inland as far as the eastern boundary of the Kingdom of Barra. Burungai Sonko, the King of Barra, agreed to the deal – which led to the British constructed Fort Bullen in the Ceded Mile over the next five years. St Mary's Island, which was still being leased from the King of Barra, was also annexed and formally became British territory. On 1 August 1826, Grant was formally succeeded by Captain Alexander Findlay as the commandant. During Grant's time as commandant, the population of Bathurst had increased from about 700 in 1818, to 1,800 in 1826. This was due to an influx of Liberated Africans from Sierra Leone. Grant had also served as acting Governor of Sierra Leone in 1820 and in 1821 and became the first Governor of Sierra Leone to receive a knighthood. ## Retirement and death Grant returned to Britain in 1825 "with a broken constitution." After a year spent on leave in Britain, he decided that he was too ill to continue in the Army and so retired. A short obituary in the London Courier and Gazette states that he "soon after fell a sacrifice to the effects of a climate that has been fatal to so many Europeans" and died on 29 September 1827. The obituary went on to state that "for many years, when there was a post of difficulty or of danger, Colonel Grant was selected for it by the late Governor, Sir Charles McCarthy, whose confidence, esteem, and friendship, he possessed in the fullest measure."

Musical instrument

Device for making musical sounds

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies. The exact date and specific origin of the first device considered a musical instrument, is widely disputed. The oldest object identified by scholars as a musical instrument, is a simple flute, dated back 50,000–60,000 years. Many scholars date early flutes to about 40,000 years ago. Many historians believe that determining the specific date of musical instrument invention is impossible, as the majority of early musical instruments were constructed of animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable, bio-degradable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world. However, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the post-classical era, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, and Europeans played instruments originating from North Africa. Development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in many areas and was dominated by the Occident. During the Classical and Romantic periods of music, lasting from roughly 1750 to 1900, many new musical instruments were developed. While the evolution of traditional musical instruments slowed beginning in the 20th century, the proliferation of electricity led to the invention of new electric instruments, such as electric guitars, synthesizers and the theremin. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, and many systems of classification have been used over the years. Instruments can be classified by their effective range, material composition, size, role, etc. However, the most common academic method, Hornbostel–Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of musical instruments is called organology. ## Definition and basic operation A musical instrument is used to make musical sounds. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies — for example, by clapping—to using objects to create music from sounds, musical instruments were born. Primitive instruments were probably designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the artistic pursuit of musical composition were probably unknown to early players of musical instruments. A person sounding a bone flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the modern notion of "making music". Musical instruments are constructed in a broad array of styles and shapes, using many different materials. Early musical instruments were made from "found objects" such as shells and plant parts. As instruments evolved, so did the selection and quality of materials. Virtually every material in nature has been used by at least one culture to make musical instruments. One plays a musical instrument by interacting with it in some way — for example, by plucking the strings on a string instrument, striking the surface of a drum, or blowing into an animal horn. ## Archaeology Researchers have discovered archaeological evidence of musical instruments in many parts of the world. Some artifacts have been dated to 67,000 years old, while critics often dispute the findings. Consensus solidifying about artifacts dated back to around 37,000 years old and later. Artifacts made from durable materials, or constructed using durable methods, have been found to survive. As such, the specimens found cannot be irrefutably placed as the earliest musical instruments. In July 1995, Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Turk discovered a bone carving in the northwest region of Slovenia. The carving, named the Divje Babe Flute, features four holes that Canadian musicologist Bob Fink determined could have been used to play four notes of a diatonic scale. Researchers estimate the flute's age at between 43,400 and 67,000 years old, making it the possible oldest known musical instrument and the only musical instrument associated with Neanderthal culture. However, some archaeologists and ethnomusicologists dispute the flute's status as a musical instrument. German archaeologists have found mammoth bone and swan bone flutes dating back to 30,000 to 37,000 years old in the Swabian Alps. The flutes were made in the Upper Paleolithic age, and are more commonly accepted as being the oldest known musical instruments. Archaeological evidence of musical instruments was discovered in excavations at the Royal Cemetery in the Sumerian city of Ur. These instruments, one of the first ensembles of instruments yet discovered, include nine lyres ( the Lyres of Ur), two harps, a silver double flute, a sistrum and cymbals. A set of reed-sounded silver pipes discovered in Ur was the likely predecessor of modern bagpipes. The cylindrical pipes feature three side-holes that allowed players to produce a whole-tone scale. These excavations, carried out by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, uncovered non-degradable fragments of instruments and the voids left by the degraded segments that, together, have been used to reconstruct them. The graves these instruments were buried in have been carbon dated to between 2600 and 2500 BC, providing evidence that these instruments were used in Sumeria by this time. Archaeologists in the Jiahu site of central Henan province of China have found flutes made of bones that date back 7,000 to 9,000 years, representing some of the "earliest complete, playable, tightly-dated, multinote musical instruments" ever found. ## History Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their complexity is misleading, since advancements in musical instruments have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task. German musicologist Curt Sachs, one of the most prominent musicologists and musical ethnologists in modern times, argues that it is misleading to arrange the development of musical instruments by workmanship, since cultures advance at different rates and have access to different raw materials. For example, contemporary anthropologists comparing musical instruments from two cultures that existed at the same time but differed in organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which instruments are more "primitive". Ordering instruments by geography is also not reliable, as it cannot always be determined when and how cultures contacted one another and shared knowledge. Sachs proposed that a geographical chronology until approximately 1400 is preferable, however, due to its limited subjectivity. Beyond 1400, one can follow the overall development of musical instruments over time. The science of marking the order of musical instrument development relies on archaeological artifacts, artistic depictions, and literary references. Since data in one research path can be inconclusive, all three paths provide a better historical picture. ### Prehistoric Until the 19th century AD, European-written music histories began with mythological accounts mingled with scripture of how musical instruments were invented. Such accounts included Jubal, descendant of Cain and "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ" (Genesis 4:21) Pan, inventor of the pan pipes, and Mercury, who is said to have made a dried tortoise shell into the first lyre. Modern histories have replaced such mythology with anthropological speculation, occasionally informed by archeological evidence. Scholars agree that there was no definitive "invention" of the musical instrument since the term "musical instrument" is subjective and hard to define. Among the first devices external to the human body that are considered instruments are rattles, stampers, and various drums. These instruments evolved due to the human motor impulse to add sound to emotional movements such as dancing. Eventually, some cultures assigned ritual functions to their musical instruments, using them for hunting and various ceremonies. Those cultures developed more complex percussion instruments and other instruments such as ribbon reeds, flutes, and trumpets. Some of these labels carry far different connotations from those used in modern day; early flutes and trumpets are so-labeled for their basic operation and function rather than resemblance to modern instruments. Among early cultures for whom drums developed ritual, even sacred importance are the Chukchi people of the Russian Far East, the indigenous people of Melanesia, and many cultures of Africa. In fact, drums were pervasive throughout every African culture. One East African tribe, the Wahinda, believed it was so holy that seeing a drum would be fatal to any person other than the sultan. Humans eventually developed the concept of using musical instruments to produce melody, which was previously common only in singing. Similar to the process of reduplication in language, instrument players first developed repetition and then arrangement. An early form of melody was produced by pounding two stamping tubes of slightly different sizes—one tube would produce a "clear" sound and the other would answer with a "darker" sound. Such instrument pairs also included bullroarers, slit drums, shell trumpets, and skin drums. Cultures who used these instrument pairs associated them with gender; the "father" was the bigger or more energetic instrument, while the "mother" was the smaller or duller instrument. Musical instruments existed in this form for thousands of years before patterns of three or more tones would evolve in the form of the earliest xylophone. Xylophones originated in the mainland and archipelago of Southeast Asia, eventually spreading to Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Along with xylophones, which ranged from simple sets of three "leg bars" to carefully tuned sets of parallel bars, various cultures developed instruments such as the ground harp, ground zither, musical bow, and jaw harp. Recent research into usage wear and acoustics of stone artefacts has revealed a possible new class of prehistoric musical instrument, known as lithophones. ### Antiquity Images of musical instruments begin to appear in Mesopotamian artifacts in 2800 BC or earlier. Beginning around 2000 BC, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures began delineating two distinct classes of musical instruments due to division of labor and the evolving class system. Popular instruments, simple and playable by anyone, evolved differently from professional instruments whose development focused on effectiveness and skill. Despite this development, very few musical instruments have been recovered in Mesopotamia. Scholars must rely on artifacts and cuneiform texts written in Sumerian or Akkadian to reconstruct the early history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia. Even the process of assigning names to these instruments is challenging since there is no clear distinction among various instruments and the words used to describe them. Although Sumerian and Babylonian artists mainly depicted ceremonial instruments, historians have distinguished six idiophones used in early Mesopotamia: concussion clubs, clappers, sistra, bells, cymbals, and rattles. Sistra are depicted prominently in a great relief of Amenhotep III, and are of particular interest because similar designs have been found in far-reaching places such as Tbilisi, Georgia and among the Native American Yaqui tribe. The people of Mesopotamia preferred stringed instruments, as evidenced by their proliferation in Mesopotamian figurines, plaques, and seals. Innumerable varieties of harps are depicted, as well as lyres and lutes, the forerunner of modern stringed instruments such as the violin. Musical instruments used by the Egyptian culture before 2700 BC bore striking similarity to those of Mesopotamia, leading historians to conclude that the civilizations must have been in contact with one another. Sachs notes that Egypt did not possess any instruments that the Sumerian culture did not also possess. However, by 2700 BC the cultural contacts seem to have dissipated; the lyre, a prominent ceremonial instrument in Sumer, did not appear in Egypt for another 800 years. Clappers and concussion sticks appear on Egyptian vases as early as 3000 BC. The civilization also made use of sistra, vertical flutes, double clarinets, arched and angular harps, and various drums. Little history is available in the period between 2700 BC and 1500 BC, as Egypt (and indeed, Babylon) entered a long violent period of war and destruction. This period saw the Kassites destroy the Babylonian empire in Mesopotamia and the Hyksos destroy the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. When the Pharaohs of Egypt conquered Southwest Asia in around 1500 BC, the cultural ties to Mesopotamia were renewed and Egypt's musical instruments also reflected heavy influence from Asiatic cultures. Under their new cultural influences, the people of the New Kingdom began using oboes, trumpets, lyres, lutes, castanets, and cymbals. Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, professional musicians did not exist in Israel between 2000 and 1000 BC. While the history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia and Egypt relies on artistic representations, the culture in Israel produced few such representations. Scholars must therefore rely on information gleaned from the Bible and the Talmud. The Hebrew texts mention two prominent instruments associated with Jubal: the ugab (pipes) and kinnor (lyre). Other instruments of the period included the tof (frame drum), pa'amon (small bells or jingles), shofar, and the trumpet-like hasosra. The introduction of a monarchy in Israel during the 11th century BC produced the first professional musicians and with them a drastic increase in the number and variety of musical instruments. However, identifying and classifying the instruments remains a challenge due to the lack of artistic interpretations. For example, stringed instruments of uncertain design called nevals and asors existed, but neither archaeology nor etymology can clearly define them. In her book A Survey of Musical Instruments, American musicologist Sibyl Marcuse proposes that the nevel must be similar to vertical harp due to its relation to nabla, the Phoenician term for "harp". In Greece, Rome, and Etruria, the use and development of musical instruments stood in stark contrast to those cultures' achievements in architecture and sculpture. The instruments of the time were simple and virtually all of them were imported from other cultures. Lyres were the principal instrument, as musicians used them to honor the gods. Greeks played a variety of wind instruments they classified as aulos (reeds) or syrinx (flutes); Greek writing from that time reflects a serious study of reed production and playing technique. Romans played reed instruments named tibia, featuring side-holes that could be opened or closed, allowing for greater flexibility in playing modes. Other instruments in common use in the region included vertical harps derived from those of the Orient, lutes of Egyptian design, various pipes and organs, and clappers, which were played primarily by women. Evidence of musical instruments in use by early civilizations of India is almost completely lacking, making it impossible to reliably attribute instruments to the Munda and Dravidian language-speaking cultures that first settled the area. Rather, the history of musical instruments in the area begins with the Indus Valley civilization that emerged around 3000 BC. Various rattles and whistles found among excavated artifacts are the only physical evidence of musical instruments. A clay statuette indicates the use of drums, and examination of the Indus script has also revealed representations of vertical arched harps identical in design to those depicted in Sumerian artifacts. This discovery is among many indications that the Indus Valley and Sumerian cultures maintained cultural contact. Subsequent developments in musical instruments in India occurred with the Rigveda, or hymns. These songs used various drums, shell trumpets, harps, and flutes. Other prominent instruments in use during the early centuries AD were the snake charmer's double clarinet, bagpipes, barrel drums, cross flutes, and short lutes. In all, India had no unique musical instruments until the post-classical era. Musical instruments such as zithers appeared in Chinese writings around 12th century BC and earlier. Early Chinese philosophers such as Confucius (551–479 BC), Mencius (372–289 BC), and Laozi shaped the development of musical instruments in China, adopting an attitude toward music similar to that of the Greeks. The Chinese believed that music was an essential part of character and community, and developed a unique system of classifying their musical instruments according to their material makeup. Idiophones were extremely important in Chinese music, hence the majority of early instruments were idiophones. Poetry of the Shang dynasty mentions bells, chimes, drums, and globular flutes carved from bone, the latter of which has been excavated and preserved by archaeologists. The Zhou dynasty saw percussion instruments such as clappers, troughs, wooden fish, and yǔ (wooden tiger). Wind instruments such as flute, pan-pipes, pitch-pipes, and mouth organs also appeared in this time period. The xiao (an end-blown flute) and various other instruments that spread through many cultures, came into use in China during and after the Han dynasty. Although civilizations in Central America attained a relatively high level of sophistication by the eleventh century AD, they lagged behind other civilizations in the development of musical instruments. For example, they had no stringed instruments; all of their instruments were idiophones, drums, and wind instruments such as flutes and trumpets. Of these, only the flute was capable of producing a melody. In contrast, pre-Columbian South American civilizations in areas such as modern-day Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile were less advanced culturally but more advanced musically. South American cultures of the time used pan-pipes as well as varieties of flutes, idiophones, drums, and shell or wood trumpets. An instrument that can be attested to the Iron Age Celts is the carnyx which is dated to \~300 BC, the elongated trumpet-like instrument which had the end of the bell crafted from bronze into the shape of a screaming animal head which was held high above their heads, when blown into, the carnyx would emit a deep, harsh sound, the head also had a tongue which clicked when vibrated, the intention of the instrument was to use it on the battleground to intimidate their opponents. ### Post-classical era/Middle Ages During the period of time loosely referred to as the post-classical era and Europe in particular as the Middle Ages, China developed a tradition of integrating musical influence from other regions. The first record of this type of influence is in 384 AD, when China established an orchestra in its imperial court after a conquest in Turkestan. Influences from Middle East, Persia, India, Mongolia, and other countries followed. In fact, Chinese tradition attributes many musical instruments from this period to those regions and countries. Cymbals gained popularity, along with more advanced trumpets, clarinets, pianos, oboes, flutes, drums, and lutes. Some of the first bowed zithers appeared in China in the 9th or 10th century, influenced by Mongolian culture. India experienced similar development to China in the post-classical era; however, stringed instruments developed differently as they accommodated different styles of music. While stringed instruments of China were designed to produce precise tones capable of matching the tones of chimes, stringed instruments of India were considerably more flexible. This flexibility suited the slides and tremolos of Hindu music. Rhythm was of paramount importance in Indian music of the time, as evidenced by the frequent depiction of drums in reliefs dating to the post-classical era. The emphasis on rhythm is an aspect native to Indian music. Historians divide the development of musical instruments in medieval India between pre-Islamic and Islamic periods due to the different influence each period provided. In pre-Islamic times, idiophones such as handbells, cymbals, and peculiar instruments resembling gongs came into wide use in Hindu music. The gong-like instrument was a bronze disk that was struck with a hammer instead of a mallet. Tubular drums, stick zithers (veena), short fiddles, double and triple flutes, coiled trumpets, and curved India horns emerged in this time period. Islamic influences brought new types of drum, perfectly circular or octagonal as opposed to the irregular pre-Islamic drums. Persian influence brought oboes and sitars, although Persian sitars had three strings and Indian version had from four to seven. The Islamic culture also introduced double-clarinet instruments as the Alboka (from Arab, al-buq or "horn") nowadays only alive in Basque Country. It must be played using the technique of the circular breathing. Southeast Asian musical innovations include those during a period of Indian influence that ended around 920 AD. Balinese and Javanese music made use of xylophones and metallophones, bronze versions of the former. The most prominent and important musical instrument of Southeast Asia was the gong. While the gong likely originated in the geographical area between Tibet and Burma, it was part of every category of human activity in maritime Southeast Asia including Java. The areas of Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula experiences rapid growth and sharing of musical instruments once they were united by Islamic culture in the seventh century. Frame drums and cylindrical drums of various depths were immensely important in all genres of music. Conical oboes were involved in the music that accompanied wedding and circumcision ceremonies. Persian miniatures provide information on the development of kettle drums in Mesopotamia that spread as far as Java. Various lutes, zithers, dulcimers, and harps spread as far as Madagascar to the south and modern-day Sulawesi to the east. Despite the influences of Greece and Rome, most musical instruments in Europe during the Middles Ages came from Asia. The lyre is the only musical instrument that may have been invented in Europe until this period. Stringed instruments were prominent in Middle Age Europe. The central and northern regions used mainly lutes, stringed instruments with necks, while the southern region used lyres, which featured a two-armed body and a crossbar. Various harps served Central and Northern Europe as far north as Ireland, where the harp eventually became a national symbol. Lyres propagated through the same areas, as far east as Estonia. European music between 800 and 1100 became more sophisticated, more frequently requiring instruments capable of polyphony. The 9th-century Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh mentioned in his lexicographical discussion of music instruments that, in the Byzantine Empire, typical instruments included the urghun (organ), shilyani (probably a type of harp or lyre), salandj (probably a bagpipe) and the lyra. The Byzantine lyra, a bowed string instrument, is an ancestor of most European bowed instruments, including the violin. The monochord served as a precise measure of the notes of a musical scale, allowing more accurate musical arrangements. Mechanical hurdy-gurdies allowed single musicians to play more complicated arrangements than a fiddle would; both were prominent folk instruments in the Middle Ages. Southern Europeans played short and long lutes whose pegs extended to the sides, unlike the rear-facing pegs of Central and Northern European instruments. Idiophones such as bells and clappers served various practical purposes, such as warning of the approach of a leper. The ninth century revealed the first bagpipes, which spread throughout Europe and had many uses from folk instruments to military instruments. The construction of pneumatic organs evolved in Europe starting in fifth-century Spain, spreading to England in about 700. The resulting instruments varied in size and use from portable organs worn around the neck to large pipe organs. Literary accounts of organs being played in English Benedictine abbeys toward the end of the tenth century are the first references to organs being connected to churches. Reed players of the Middle Ages were limited to oboes; no evidence of clarinets exists during this period. ### Modern #### Western Classical ##### Renaissance Musical instrument development was dominated by the Occident from 1400 on, indeed, the most profound changes occurred during the Renaissance period. Instruments took on other purposes than accompanying singing or dance, and performers used them as solo instruments. Keyboards and lutes developed as polyphonic instruments, and composers arranged increasingly complex pieces using more advanced tablature. Composers also began designing pieces of music for specific instruments. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, orchestration came into common practice as a method of writing music for a variety of instruments. Composers now specified orchestration where individual performers once applied their own discretion. The polyphonic style dominated popular music, and the instrument makers responded accordingly. Beginning in about 1400, the rate of development of musical instruments increased in earnest as compositions demanded more dynamic sounds. People also began writing books about creating, playing, and cataloging musical instruments; the first such book was Sebastian Virdung's 1511 treatise Musica getuscht und ausgezogen ('Music Germanized and Abstracted'). Virdung's work is noted as being particularly thorough for including descriptions of "irregular" instruments such as hunters' horns and cow bells, though Virdung is critical of the same. Other books followed, including Arnolt Schlick's Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten ('Mirror of Organ Makers and Organ Players') the following year, a treatise on organ building and organ playing. Of the instructional books and references published in the Renaissance era, one is noted for its detailed description and depiction of all wind and stringed instruments, including their relative sizes. This book, the Syntagma musicum by Michael Praetorius, is now considered an authoritative reference of sixteenth-century musical instruments. In the sixteenth century, musical instrument builders gave most instruments – such as the violin – the "classical shapes" they retain today. An emphasis on aesthetic beauty also developed; listeners were as pleased with the physical appearance of an instrument as they were with its sound. Therefore, builders paid special attention to materials and workmanship, and instruments became collectibles in homes and museums. It was during this period that makers began constructing instruments of the same type in various sizes to meet the demand of consorts, or ensembles playing works written for these groups of instruments. Instrument builders developed other features that endure today. For example, while organs with multiple keyboards and pedals already existed, the first organs with solo stops emerged in the early fifteenth century. These stops were meant to produce a mixture of timbres, a development needed for the complexity of music of the time. Trumpets evolved into their modern form to improve portability, and players used mutes to properly blend into chamber music. ##### Baroque Beginning in the seventeenth century, composers began writing works to a higher emotional degree. They felt that polyphony better suited the emotional style they were aiming for and began writing musical parts for instruments that would complement the singing human voice. As a result, many instruments that were incapable of larger ranges and dynamics, and therefore were seen as unemotional, fell out of favor. One such instrument was the shawm. Bowed instruments such as the violin, viola, baryton, and various lutes dominated popular music. Beginning in around 1750, however, the lute disappeared from musical compositions in favor of the rising popularity of the guitar . As the prevalence of string orchestras rose, wind instruments such as the flute, oboe, and bassoon were readmitted to counteract the monotony of hearing only strings. In the mid-seventeenth century, what was known as a hunter's horn underwent a transformation into an "art instrument" consisting of a lengthened tube, a narrower bore, a wider bell, and a much wider range. The details of this transformation are unclear, but the modern horn or, more colloquially, French horn, had emerged by 1725. The slide trumpet appeared, a variation that includes a long-throated mouthpiece that slid in and out, allowing the player infinite adjustments in pitch. This variation on the trumpet was unpopular due to the difficulty involved in playing it. Organs underwent tonal changes in the Baroque period, as manufacturers such as Abraham Jordan of London made the stops more expressive and added devices such as expressive pedals. Sachs viewed this trend as a "degeneration" of the general organ sound. ##### Classical and Romantic During the Classical and Romantic periods of music, lasting from roughly 1750 to 1900, many musical instruments capable of producing new timbres and higher volume were developed and introduced into popular music. The design changes that broadened the quality of timbres allowed instruments to produce a wider variety of expression. Large orchestras rose in popularity and, in parallel, the composers determined to produce entire orchestral scores that made use of the expressive abilities of modern instruments. Since instruments were involved in collaborations of a much larger scale, their designs had to evolve to accommodate the demands of the orchestra. Some instruments also had to become louder to fill larger halls and be heard over sizable orchestras. Flutes and bowed instruments underwent many modifications and design changes—most of them unsuccessful—in efforts to increase volume. Other instruments were changed just so they could play their parts in the scores. Trumpets traditionally had a "defective" range—they were incapable of producing certain notes with precision. New instruments such as the clarinet, saxophone, and tuba became fixtures in orchestras. Instruments such as the clarinet also grew into entire "families" of instruments capable of different ranges: small clarinets, normal clarinets, bass clarinets, and so on. Accompanying the changes to timbre and volume was a shift in the typical pitch used to tune instruments. Instruments meant to play together, as in an orchestra, must be tuned to the same standard lest they produce audibly different sounds while playing the same notes. Beginning in 1762, the average concert pitch began rising from a low of 377 vibrations to a high of 457 in 1880 Vienna. Different regions, countries, and even instrument manufacturers preferred different standards, making orchestral collaboration a challenge. Despite even the efforts of two organized international summits attended by noted composers like Hector Berlioz, no standard could be agreed upon. #### Twentieth century to present The evolution of traditional musical instruments slowed beginning in the 20th century. Instruments such as the violin, flute, french horn, and harp are largely the same as those manufactured throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Gradual iterations do emerge; for example, the "New Violin Family" began in 1964 to provide differently sized violins to expand the range of available sounds. The slowdown in development was a practical response to the concurrent slowdown in orchestra and venue size. Despite this trend in traditional instruments, the development of new musical instruments exploded in the twentieth century, and the variety of instruments developed overshadows any prior period. The proliferation of electricity in the 20th century led to a new category of musical instruments: electronic instruments, or electrophones. The vast majority produced in the first half of the 20th century were what Sachs called "electromechanical instruments"; they have mechanical parts that produce sound vibrations picked up and amplified by electrical components. Examples include Hammond organs and electric guitars. Sachs also defined a subcategory of "radioelectric instruments" such as the theremin, which produces music through the player's hand movements around two antennas. The latter half of the 20th century saw the evolution of synthesizers, which produce sound using circuits and microchips. In the late 1960s, Bob Moog and other inventors developed the first commercial synthesizers, such as the Moog synthesizer. Whereas once they had filled rooms, synthesizers can now be embedded in any electronic device, and are ubiquitous in modern music. Samplers, introduced around 1980, allow users to sample and reuse existing sounds, and were important to the development of hip hop. 1982 saw the introduction of MIDI, a standardized means of synchronizing electronic instruments. The modern proliferation of computers and microchips has created an industry of electronic musical instruments. ## Classification There are many different methods of classifying musical instruments. Various methods examine aspects such as the physical properties of the instrument (material, color, shape, etc.), the use for the instrument, the means by which music is produced with the instrument, the range of the instrument, and the instrument's place in an orchestra or other ensemble. Most methods are specific to a geographic area or cultural group and were developed to serve the unique classification requirements of the group. The problem with these specialized classification schemes is that they tend to break down once they are applied outside of their original area. For example, a system based on instrument use would fail if a culture invented a new use for the same instrument. Scholars recognize Hornbostel–Sachs as the only system that applies to any culture and, more importantly, provides the only possible classification for each instrument. The most common classifications are strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion. ### Ancient systems An ancient Hindu system named the Natya Shastra, written by the sage Bharata Muni and dating from between 200 BC and 200 AD, divides instruments into four main classification groups: instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating strings; percussion instruments with skin heads; instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating columns of air; and "solid", or non-skin, percussion instruments. This system was similar to some degree in 12th-century Europe by Johannes de Muris, who used the terms tensibilia (stringed instruments), inflatibilia (wind instruments), and percussibilia (all percussion instruments). In 1880, Victor-Charles Mahillon adapted the Natya Shastra and assigned Greek labels to the four classifications: chordophones (stringed instruments), membranophones (skin-head percussion instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), and autophones (non-skin percussion instruments). ### Hornbostel–Sachs Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs adopted Mahillon's scheme and published an extensive new scheme for classification in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Hornbostel and Sachs used most of Mahillon's system, but replaced the term autophone with idiophone. The original Hornbostel–Sachs system classified instruments into four main groups: - Idiophones, which produce sound by vibrating the primary body of the instrument itself; they are sorted into concussion, percussion, shaken, scraped, split, and plucked idiophones, such as claves, xylophone, guiro, slit drum, mbira, and rattle. - Membranophones, which produce sound by a vibrating a stretched membrane; they may be drums (further sorted by the shape of the shell), which are struck by hand, with a stick, or rubbed, but kazoos and other instruments that use a stretched membrane for the primary sound (not simply to modify sound produced in another way) are also considered membranophones. - Chordophones, which produce sound by vibrating one or more strings; they are sorted according to the relationship between the string(s) and the sounding board or chamber. For example, if the strings are laid out parallel to the sounding board and there is no neck, the instrument is a zither whether it is plucked like an autoharp or struck with hammers like a piano. If the instrument has strings parallel to the sounding board or chamber and the strings extend past the board with a neck, then the instrument is a lute, whether the sound chamber is constructed of wood like a guitar or uses a membrane like a banjo. - Aerophones, which produce a sound with a vibrating column of air; they are sorted into free aerophones such as a bullroarer or whip, which move freely through the air; reedless aerophones such as flutes and recorders, which cause the air to pass over a sharp edge; reed instruments, which use a vibrating reed (this category may be further divided into two classifications: single-reeded and double-reeded instruments. Examples of the former are clarinets and saxophones, while the latter includes oboes and bassoons); and lip-vibrated aerophones such as trumpets, trombones and tubas, for which the lips themselves function as vibrating reeds. Sachs later added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means. Within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, but remains widely used by ethnomusicologists and organologists. ### Schaeffner Andre Schaeffner, a curator at the Musée de l'Homme, disagreed with the Hornbostel–Sachs system and developed his own system in 1932. Schaeffner believed that the pure physics of a musical instrument, rather than its specific construction or playing method, should always determine its classification. (Hornbostel–Sachs, for example, divides aerophones on the basis of sound production, but membranophones on the basis of the shape of the instrument). His system divided instruments into two categories: instruments with solid, vibrating bodies and instruments containing vibrating air. ### Range Musical instruments are also often classified by their musical range in comparison with other instruments in the same family. This exercise is useful when placing instruments in context of an orchestra or other ensemble. These terms are named after singing voice classifications: - Soprano instruments: flute, violin, soprano saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, oboe, piccolo - Alto instruments: alto saxophone, french horn, alto flute, english horn, alto clarinet, viola, alto horn - Tenor instruments: trombone, tenoroon, tenor saxophone, tenor violin, guitar, tenor drum - Baritone instruments: bassoon, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, cello, baritone horn, euphonium - Bass instruments: double bass, bass guitar, contrabassoon, bass saxophone, tuba, bass drum Some instruments fall into more than one category. For example, the cello may be considered tenor, baritone or bass, depending on how its music fits into the ensemble. The trombone and French horn may be alto, tenor, baritone, or bass depending on the range it is played in. Many instruments have their range as part of their name: soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone horn, alto flute, bass guitar, etc. Additional adjectives describe instruments above the soprano range or below the bass, for example the sopranino saxophone and contrabass clarinet. When used in the name of an instrument, these terms are relative, describing the instrument's range in comparison to other instruments of its family and not in comparison to the human voice range or instruments of other families. For example, a bass flute's range is from C₃ to F♯₆, while a bass clarinet plays about one octave lower. ## Construction The materials used in making musical instruments vary greatly by culture and application. Many of the materials have special significance owing to their source or rarity. Some cultures worked substances from the human body into their instruments. In ancient Mexico, for example, the material drums were made from might contain actual human body parts obtained from sacrificial offerings. In New Guinea, drum makers would mix human blood into the adhesive used to attach the membrane. Mulberry trees are held in high regard in China owing to their mythological significance—instrument makers would hence use them to make zithers. The Yakuts believe that making drums from trees struck by lightning gives them a special connection to nature. Musical instrument construction is a specialized trade that requires years of training, practice, and sometimes an apprenticeship. Most makers of musical instruments specialize in one genre of instruments; for example, a luthier makes only stringed instruments. Some make only one type of instrument such as a piano. Whatever the instrument constructed, the instrument maker must consider materials, construction technique, and decoration, creating a balanced instrument that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Some builders are focused on a more artistic approach and develop experimental musical instruments, often meant for individual playing styles developed by the builder themself. ## User interfaces Regardless of how the sound is produced, many musical instruments have a keyboard as the user interface. Keyboard instruments are any instruments that are played with a musical keyboard, which is a row of small keys that can be pressed. Every key generates one or more sounds; most keyboard instruments have extra means (pedals for a piano, stops and a pedal keyboard for an organ) to manipulate these sounds. They may produce sound by wind being fanned (organ) or pumped (accordion), vibrating strings either hammered (piano) or plucked (harpsichord), by electronic means (synthesizer), or in some other way. Sometimes, instruments that do not usually have a keyboard, such as the glockenspiel, are fitted with one. Though they have no moving parts and are struck by mallets held in the player's hands, they have the same physical arrangement of keys and produce soundwaves in a similar manner. The theremin, an electrophone, is played without physical contact by the player. The theremin senses the proximity of the player's hands, which triggers changes in its sound. More recently, a MIDI controller keyboard used with a digital audio workstation may have a musical keyboard and a bank of sliders, knobs, and buttons that change many sound parameters of a synthesizer. ## Instrumentalist A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist or instrumental musician. Many instrumentalists are known for playing specific musical instruments such as guitarist (guitar), pianist (piano), bassist (bass), and drummer (drum). These different types of instrumentalists can perform together in a music group. A person who is able to play a number of instruments is called a multi-instrumentalist. According to David Baskerville in the book Music Business Handbook and Career Guide, the working hours of a full-time instrumentalist may average only three hours a day, but most musicians spent at least forty hours a week. ## See also - List of musical instruments - Folk instrument - Experimental musical instrument - Recording studio as an instrument - Music instrument technology - Orchestra

The Balkan Girls

2009 single by Elena Gheorghe

"The Balkan Girls" is a song by Romanian singer Elena Gheorghe for a special 2009 edition of her second studio album, Te Ador (2008), and third record, Disco Romancing (2012). It was written by Laurențiu Duță [ro] and Alexandru Pelin, while production was handled by Duță, Ovidiu Bistriceanu and Daris Mangal. The song was released on an enhanced CD on 6 January 2009 by Cat Music. "The Balkan Girls" is a folk-influenced dance-pop song whose refrain celebrates the party life of Balkan girls. It represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow after winning on the preselection show Selecția Națională. Gheorghe qualified in ninth place for the Grand Final in Moscow, where she finished 19th with a total of 40 points (one of Romania's lowest scores in the contest). During her iele-inspired, mostly negatively-received show, she performed "The Balkan Girls" accompanied by female background dancers with hair extensions and chopped dresses. Music critics generally gave the song mixed reviews, praising its beat while criticizing its cheesiness. "The Balkan Girls" fared well commercially, topping the Romanian Nielsen Music Control chart and receiving airplay in Greek, Maltese and Turkish clubs. It was promoted with concerts in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium and a music video released in March 2009. The clip portrayed her in an underground club along with fellow dancers. ## Background and release "The Balkan Girls" was written by Laurențiu Duță and Alexandru Pelin and produced by Duță, Ovidiu Bistriceanu and Daris Mangal. It was released on an enhanced CD on 6 January 2009 by Cat Music in Romania, and was later included on a special 2009 edition of Gheorghe's second studio album, Te Ador (2008), and her third record, Disco Romancing (2012). The song was written for Gheorghe's Eurovision participation after she contacted Duță, who came up with its chorus in one week. "The Balkan Girls" is a folk-influenced dance-pop song. Lyrics from its refrain include: "The Balkan girls, they like to party, like nobody, like nobody". ## Reception and accolades The song received generally positive reviews from music critics. On Eurovision.de, a reviewer called it a hymn for Balkan connections in the Eurovision Song Contest and praised its folk elements and danceability. Uwe Hinrichs, in his book Handbuch der Eurolinguistik (Handbook of Eurolinguistics), cited the song as an example of the word "Balkan" referring to a group of people rather than the geographic region. The Guardian's Heidi Stephens gave it a lukewarm review, calling it "cheesy". In a 2016 Wiwibloggs poll entitled "What is your favourite Eurovision song from Romania?", "The Balkan Girls" finished sixth with over 300 votes. "The Balkan Girls" had low betting odds before the Eurovision Song Contest, and an editor of the French magazine Pure People wrote that it "does not really stay in the eardrums". However, the song topped the Romanian Nielsen Music Control chart in April 2009 and was played in Greek, Maltese and Turkish clubs. At the 2010 Radio România Actualități Awards, "The Balkan Girls" was nominated in the Pop Song of the Year category. ## Music video and promotion Gheorghe premiered the music video for "The Balkan Girls" during TVR1's Danutz S. R. L. on 15 March 2009, followed by its YouTube release the next day. It was filmed by Dragoș Buliga near bridges in Argeș County and at Bucharest's Silver Church Club. Gheorghe took horseback-riding lessons for the video. Choreography was done by Paul Gheorghe, while Cătălin Enache was hired as a stylist. During the music video, the singer dismounts from a horse, enters an underground club with two females and dances there with fellows. In a version produced for a Women's Day campaign by Radio 21, Gheorghe dances with the station's female employees. To promote "The Balkan Girls" before the Eurovision Song Contest, Gheorghe began a tour in Berlin in early March 2009 and performed at the ITB Berlin. She was interviewed by the Berlin press, and sent her song to local radio and television stations. The singer performed the song in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium before Eurovision, and a number of times after the contest. ## At Eurovision ### National selection On 31 January 2009, the Selecția Națională took place to select the Romanian entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest. "The Balkan Girls" was chosen after votes by a professional jury (12 points) and public televoting (10 points) were tallied, resulting in 22 points. Gheorghe's win was contested by fans of the Romanian rock band Blaxy Girls, who placed second with 18 points for "Dear Mama". ### In Moscow The Eurovision Song Contest 2009, at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow, consisted of two semi-finals on 12 and 14 May, respectively, and the final on 16 May. According to Eurovision rules, all participating countries except the host country and the "Big Four" (, , and the ) were required to advance from a semi-final to compete in the final; the top ten countries from each semi-finals progressed to the final. Gheorghe performed 14th in the first semi-final, preceded by and followed by , and sang 22nd in the Grand Final, preceded by and followed by the United Kingdom. Gheorghe's female dancers from the Selecția Națională also danced in Moscow, and Lucia Dumitrescu provided background vocals. Russian customs officials questioned the purpose of a 100-kilogram (220 lb) fiberglass-and-polyurethane throne used on the show when the singer's entourage brought it into the country. Gheorghe's choreography and graphics were inspired by the iele, feminine creatures in Romanian mythology. About the preparations, the singer said in an interview with EuroVisionary: > I [can] assure [...] that we have contributed with all our forces, imagination, ideas and of course, the talent of people who really know what a "show" means. [...] I wish only that my performance will wake up an optimistic feeling for everybody and want to share my pleasure and love for my music to everybody that is watching the show. If you have managed to convince through interpretation, dance and scenography, then for sure the public and the jury they will appreciate you. Her performance began with "a cloud of smoke", from which the singer's background dancers emerged in "ropey hair extensions, ronseal tans and shredded mermaid frocks". They rotated what appeared to be a boulder, revealing Ghorghe sitting on a stone-looking throne. She sang "The Balkan Girls" in a flesh-colored dress and 14-centimetre (5.5 in) high heels, accompanied by the dancers. Response to the performance was mainly negative. On Eurovision.de, Stephan Scharr called the singer's delivery "thin" and her performance "colorless and not very spectacular". The Guardian's Stephens likened Gheorghe's appearance to that of British singer Geri Halliwell, and Dana Cobuz of Jurnalul Național compared the background dancers to Ieles. The British press accused Gheorghe of lip synching to "The Balkan Girls", which is forbidden by Eurovision rules. #### Points awarded to Romania The country finished ninth in the first semi-final with 67 points, including ten from and eight from . In the Grand Final, Romania reached 19th place with 40 points, including 12 from and seven from Spain, one of Romania's lowest scores in the contest. ## Track listing - Romanian enhanced CD 1. "The Balkan Girls" (Eurovision version) – 2:58 2. "The Balkan Girls" (David DeeJay Remix) – 4:00 3. "The Balkan Girls" (DJ Daronee Remix) – 3:26 4. 8 JPG image files 5. "The Balkan Girls" (Promotional music video) ## Charts ## Release history ## See also - List of Nielsen Music Control number ones of the 2000s

School Reunion (Doctor Who)

"School Reunion" is the third episode in the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It first aired on BBC One on 29 April 2006. The episode's narrative takes place in England some time after the events of the 2005 episode "The Christmas Invasion", and involves the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) reuniting with his former travelling companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), whom the Fourth Doctor left behind in the 1976 serial The Hand of Fear. In the episode, the alien race the Krillitanes, disguising themselves as school faculty, use the minds of children to solve a theory of everything that would allow them to control time and space. The use of the Doctor's previous companions, in particular Sarah Jane and K9 (John Leeson), was first proposed in 2003 to the BBC. After the episode was produced, Elisabeth Sladen was approached by the BBC to star in a spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which also included K9 in several stories. The episode was positively reviewed, with an Appreciation Index of 85 ("Excellent"). ## Plot Mr Finch, the headmaster of Deffry Vale School, has been changing the school to improve the students' performance; his changes include free lunches with special chips. The Tenth Doctor is undercover as a science teacher in the school, and Rose is working undercover in the school's cafeteria. The Doctor discovers the oil in the chips has caused the students' increase in performance. Rose observes that the chip oil has an adverse effect on the other kitchen staff, who must use hazmat suits to handle it. Mr Finch's successes arouse the attention of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, a former companion of the Doctor. She meets the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey, with an immediate rivalry sparking between the two women. Sarah Jane shows them the robot dog K9 in the boot of her car. K9 identifies the chip oil as Krillitane oil. Rose, previously unaware that the Doctor even had past companions, confronts him on why he leaves his old companions behind and never mentions them. The following day, the group returns to the school to investigate further. The Doctor confronts Mr Finch, who confirms that he and other staff members are Krillitanes—a composite species that takes desirable attributes of the species they conquer. He attempts to subvert the Doctor, without success. Mickey and K9 remain in Sarah Jane's car for surveillance. With the Doctor's help, Sarah Jane and Rose discover that the school computers—bolstered by the students' enhanced intelligence—are part of a Krillitane effort to solve the "Skasis Paradigm", a theory of everything. Mr Finch propositions the Doctor a second time, but the Doctor again refuses, and they run from Mr Finch. After Kenny (a student who had not eaten the chips) alerts Mickey to the students' plight, Mickey crashes Sarah Jane's car through the school's doors and unplugs the computers, allowing the children to flee. The Doctor leads the Krillitanes to the kitchen. Upon their arrival, K9 detonates the chip oil container, saturating the Krillitanes and blowing them up along with K9. Sarah Jane declines a second chance of travelling in the TARDIS, having finally decided to move on with her life. Mickey decides to join the Doctor. Sarah Jane, now getting on better than at their first meeting, asks Rose to stay with the Doctor, and is given a new K9 as a parting gift. ## Production The concept of Sarah Jane and K9 returning to Doctor Who was an idea of Russell T Davies from pitching the show in 2003. Such a use would show what would happen after a companion left the Doctor, without dwelling too much on the classic series. It was Davies' full intention for Sarah Jane to be used for this, and while Sladen originally declined a request, thinking her role would not be important, she changed her mind when she realised she would be the focal point of the adventure. After production of the episode was finished, Sladen was approached about a full spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which was formally announced on 14 September 2006. The episode went through several changes in production: working titles included "Old Friends" and "Black Ops", the latter being set in an army base. Davies requested that Whithouse set it in a school instead, mainly for simplicity, but also for a desire for the Doctor to masquerade as a school teacher. Additionally, the Krillitanes were to be named "Krillians" until the BBC found the name was trademarked, and Finch's forename was originally Hector, until the BBC found a real teacher by the same name, and renamed him Lucas. A scene that was cut was of Milo's brain being "shorted out" by the Doctor's rapid-fire questions causing him to collapse at the beginning of the episode, which was later alluded to in the episode. The episode, originally in the second production block, was produced in the first block along with "The Christmas Invasion" and "New Earth". Two high schools in Wales were used for filming: Fitzalan High School in Leckwith was used on 23 August and 24 August 2005, for filming the first conversation between the Doctor and Finch, and for the playground, kitchen, and cafeteria scenes, and Duffryn High School in Newport, which was used between 25 August and 6 September for the remainder of the episode, with filming delayed due to asbestos being discovered in Duffryn High School's structure. The scenes in the schools utilised dozens of children as extras. Pick-up shots were later completed on 7 September and 8 September, with filming of the cafe scene delayed due to drunk and disorderly conduct from members of the public. ## Broadcast and reception The episode was watched by 8.3 million viewers, the twelfth most-watched programme of the week, with an Appreciation Index score of 85%. Jacob Clifton of Television Without Pity gave the episode an A+ rating. Ahsan Haque of IGN gave the episode an 8.7 out of 10 ("Great") and commented that the episode had "fantastic character moments" and "brilliant CGI effects", and that "if you're willing to accept the Scooby-Doo storyline, then the strong nostalgic vibes present in this episode should be enough to carry this episode into a must-see category", and K9 and Sarah Jane alone made the episode worth watching for fans of the classic series. The episode was subsequently nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, an award that was won by the following episode "The Girl in the Fireplace".

SOLRAD 3

U.S. solar X-ray and surveillance satellite

SOLRAD (SOLar RADiation) 3 was a solar X-ray satellite, the third in the SOLRAD program. Developed by the United States Navy's Naval Research Laboratory (USNRL), it shared satellite space with and provided cover for the Navy's GRAB 2 (Galactic Radiation And Background), a secret electronic surveillance program. The satellite was launched atop a Thor-Ablestar rocket on 29 June 1961 along with Transit 4A and the University of Iowa's Van Allen Belts Injun 1 satellite. After reaching orbit, SOLRAD 3/GRAB 2 and INJUN 1 separated from Transit 4A but not from each other. Though this reduced SOLRAD 3's data-transmission ability by half, the satellite still returned valuable information regarding the Sun's normal levels of X-ray emissions. The SOLRAD experiment package also established that, during solar flares, the higher the energy of emitted X-rays, the more disruption caused on the Earth's thermosphere (and radio transmissions therein). The GRAB mission was also highly successful, returning so much data on Soviet air defense radar facilities that an automated analysis system had to be developed to process it all. ## Background The United States Navy's Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) established itself as a player early in the Space Race with the development and management of Project Vanguard (1956–1959), America's first satellite program. After Vanguard, the Navy's next major goal was to use the observational high ground of Earth's orbit to survey Soviet radar locations and frequencies. This first space surveillance project was called "GRAB", later expanded into the more innocuous backronym, Galactic Radiation and Background. As American space launches were not classified until late 1961, a co-flying cover mission sharing satellite space was desired to conceal GRAB's electronic surveillance mission from its intended targets. The field of solar astronomy provided such cover. Since the invention of the rocket, astronomers had wanted to fly instruments above the atmosphere to get a better look at the Sun. The Earth's atmosphere blocks large sections of sunlight's electromagnetic spectrum, making it impossible to study the sun's X-ray and ultraviolet output from the ground. Without this critical information, it was difficult to model the Sun's internal processes, which in turn inhibited stellar astronomy in general. On a more practical level, it was believed that solar flares directly affected the Earth's thermosphere, disrupting radio communications. The U.S. Navy wanted to know when its communications were going to become unreliable or compromised. Sounding rockets had shown that solar output was unpredictable and fluctuated rapidly. A long-term, real-time observation platform above the Earth's atmosphere – in other words, a satellite – was required to properly chart the Sun's radiation, determine its effects on the Earth, and correlate it with ground-based observations of the Sun in other wavelengths of light. Thus, the SOLRAD project was conceived to address several NRL goals at once: - to make the first long-term continuous observations of the Sun in ultraviolet and X-ray light, and to correlate these measurements with ground-based observations. - to evaluate the level of hazard posed by ultraviolet and X-ray radiation. - to better understand the effect of solar activity (including solar flares) on radio communications. - to cheaply and efficiently produce a satellite for the GRAB surveillance mission by using a proven design. - to obscure the GRAB mission under a scientific cover. A dummy SOLRAD was successfully launched on 13 April 1960, and SOLRAD 1 went into orbit on 22 June 1960, becoming both the world's first surveillance satellite (as GRAB 1) and the first satellite to observe the sun in X-ray and ultraviolet light. SOLRAD 2, a duplicate of SOLRAD 1, was launched on 30 November 1960, but was lost when its booster flew off course and had to be destroyed. ## Spacecraft Like its two predecessors, SOLRAD 1 and SOLRAD 2, SOLRAD 3/GRAB 2 was a 51 cm diameter sphere based on the Vanguard 3 satellite. Unlike SOLRAD 1 and the abortive SOLRAD 2, the satellite's scientific package did not include Lyman-alpha photometers. This is because it had been discovered since SOLRAD 2's failed launch that the ultraviolet radiation level remained constant during solar flares. Instead, SOLRAD 3 carried two X-ray photometers designed to cover a greater range of wavelengths than the first SOLRAD. In addition to a photometer that, covered the same 2-8 Å range as the earlier SOLRAD, SOLRAD 3 also carried one that measured the bandwidth from 8-14 Å. As was the case with most early automatic spacecraft, SOLRAD 2, though spin stabilized, lacked attitude control systems and thus scanned the whole sky with no source in particular. So that scientists could properly interpret the source of the X-rays detected by SOLRAD 2, the spacecraft carried a vacuum photocell to determine when the Sun was striking its photometers and the angle at which sunlight hit them. SOLRAD 3/GRAB 2 was significantly heavier than its predecessors (25 kg versus 19 kg for SOLRAD 1, 18 kg for SOLRAD 2) as its GRAB package included equipment for monitoring two radar frequencies rather than just one, as in prior flights. In addition to monitoring Soviet air defense radars in the S-band (1,550-3,900 MHz), GRAB 2 could also detect long-range air surveillance radars operating in the Ultra high frequency (UHF) band at around 500 MHz. ## Mission and science results SOLRAD 3/GRAB 2 was launched on 29 June 1961 at 04:22 GMT on a Thor-Ablestar rocket, along with Transit 4A and the University of Iowa's Van Allen radiation belt Injun 1 satellite from Cape Canaveral, LC-17B. Its course to orbit was more northerly than that of its predecessors to avoid the possibility of fragments falling on Cuba in the event of a mission failure (as had happened with SOLRAD 2). After reaching orbit, SOLRAD 3/GRAB 2 and Injun 1 separated from Transit 4A but not from each other, causing them to rotate more slowly than planned. Moreover, because electro-magnetic interference generated by the spacecraft prevented ground controllers from requesting data from both spacecraft at the same time, SOLRAD 3/GRAB 2's transmissions were limited to odd-numbered days, Injun's to even-numbered days; thus, data was only recovered for half of each satellite's lifetime. Nevertheless, the SOLRAD package on the satellite made several important findings. It established the Sun's normal X-ray radiation levels during times of inactivity at levels below 14 Å in wavelength (less than 5×10⁻³ ergs/cm²/sec). The satellite also found that the higher the hardness (energy level) of X-rays emitted during solar flares, the greater the disturbances and microwave bursts in the thermosphere, both affecting radio communications. ## GRAB results The GRAB 2 portion of the satellite began transmission of information on Soviet radars starting 15 July 1961, returning a large volume of information over the next fourteen months. As opposed to the cautious approach exercised by former President Eisenhower, President Kennedy did not require personal authorization for the satellite to receive and transmit collected data. As a result, data was collected quicker than analysts could process, and by October 1961, a new automated analysis system was implemented not only to process the backlog of existing data but also data from upcoming electronic surveillance flights and even the Air Force's SAMOS reconnaissance satellites. ## Legacy and status The SOLRAD/GRAB series flew twice more (both unsuccessful missions), finishing with the SOLRAD 4B mission launched 26 April 1962. In 1962, all U.S. overhead reconnaissance projects were consolidated under the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which elected to continue and expand the GRAB mission starting July 1962 with a next-generation set of satellites, code-named POPPY. With the initiation of POPPY, SOLRAD experiments would no longer be carried on electronic spy satellites; rather, they would now get their own satellites, launched alongside POPPY missions to provide some measure of mission cover. Starting with SOLRAD 8, launched in November 1965, the final five SOLRAD satellites were scientific satellites launched singly, three of which were also given NASA Explorer program numbers. The last in this final series of SOLRAD satellites flew in 1976. In all, there were thirteen operational satellites in the SOLRAD series. The GRAB program was declassified in 1998. SOLRAD 3 (COSPAR ID 1961-015B ) is still in orbit (as of January 2021) and its position can be tracked. ## See also - General information on the SOLRAD project - General information on the GRAB project

The Rhodes Not Taken

"The Rhodes Not Taken" is the fifth episode of the American television series Glee. It premiered on the Fox network on September 30, 2009 and was written by series co-creator Ian Brennan and directed by John Scott. The episode features glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) recruiting former star April Rhodes (Kristin Chenoweth), hoping to improve the club's chances in the wake of Rachel’s (Lea Michele) defection to the school musical. Finn (Cory Monteith) flirts with Rachel in an attempt to convince her to return, and although Rachel is angry when she discovers Finn's girlfriend is pregnant, she ultimately rejoins the club. Special guest star Kristin Chenoweth played April, and performed on three of the episode's six musical tracks. Studio recordings of four of the songs performed in the episode were released as singles, available for digital download, and two appear on the album Glee: The Music, Volume 1. The episode was watched by 7.32 million U.S. viewers. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, with Chenoweth's appearance and the performance of Queen cover "Somebody to Love" in particular receiving praise. Raymund Flandez for The Wall Street Journal, Mike Hale of the New York Times and Denise Martin for the Los Angeles Times all deemed "Somebody to Love" the show's best musical number since the staging of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' in the pilot episode. ## Plot With lead singer Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) no longer part of New Directions, the McKinley High glee club, director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) grows concerned about the club's forthcoming performance at Invitationals. He discovers that April Rhodes (Kristin Chenoweth), a member of the club during his own high school days, never actually graduated, and convinces her to return to school in order to get her diploma and join the glee club. Having failed to achieve her Broadway dreams, April is now an alcoholic, and goes about winning the favor of the existing club members by unconventional means, including getting Kurt (Chris Colfer) drunk and teaching Mercedes (Amber Riley) and Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) to shoplift. After guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) warns Will that April is corrupting the students, Will asks April to become sober, and she vows to do so. Club member Finn (Cory Monteith) is concerned for his future, having been told by his girlfriend Quinn (Dianna Agron) that she is pregnant with his child. Emma suggests that instead of aiming to attend college on a football scholarship, Finn should utilize his musical talent. Believing Rachel's participation to be the glee club's only chance at success at Invitationals, Finn feigns romantic interest in Rachel and takes her on a date. Rachel, realizing she is unhappy performing in the school musical and excited over Finn's interest in her, returns to the glee club. Meanwhile, Kurt, Mercedes and Tina are informed of Quinn's pregnancy by Puck (Mark Salling), who pretends Finn fathered the child though he is the actual father. Finding out about Quinn, Rachel becomes furious with Finn and confronts him, asking if he is actually attracted to her at all. Finn insists the kiss they shared was honest, but Rachel is unconvinced and defects from glee club once again, returning to the school musical, where she is given full artistic control. At Invitationals, a drunk April, accompanied by the glee club, performs Carrie Underwood's "Last Name" for a packed auditorium and receives the standing ovation she always dreamed of. Because she had performed drunk, Will tells April during intermission that she is no longer in the glee club. She accepts, telling him that she has realized that it is the kids, not her, who are the ones that should get the spotlight. This leaves New Directions without a lead singer for their next number, but Rachel offers to go on in April's place—she has quit the musical, and wants to rejoin the club—and they all perform Queen's "Somebody to Love". ## Production Chenoweth guest starred in the episode as former glee club member April Rhodes. April is an "alcoholic and bad influence on the glee club members", described by Chenoweth as someone who never graduated, but was "kind of the deal" in her high school glee club. She explained that April didn't become the "big star" everyone expected her to, and so is brought back by Will to become part of the glee club again. Chenoweth was previously acquainted with Glee creator Ryan Murphy, having appeared in his 2006 film Running with Scissors. Murphy commented that he loves writing for Chenoweth, and enjoyed pitching songs she had never sung before. She found singing in three different styles, as required by the role, to be "fun and challenging", and though she had never before sung "Maybe This Time", after singing it on Glee, she went on to use it in shows as her opening number. Chenoweth stated that she would love to return to Glee in the future, a sentiment shared by Murphy. She commented: "they are all working hard to figure out stories all the time. It'd be great for it to make sense for her to come back. This part is like nothing I've had the chance to do on TV." It was confirmed in October 2009 that Chenoweth would reprise the role, which she did in "Home". Asked to explain Finn's actions in flirting with Rachel to entice her back into the glee club, Monteith explained: "Finn is not only strangely attracted to Rachel, but he respects what she chases after in her life. He's walking a thin line and trying to be somebody for everybody, and she's an example of someone truly following her dreams and that's attractive." The episode features cover versions of "Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, "Maybe This Time" and "Cabaret" from Cabaret, "Alone" by Heart, "Last Name" by Carrie Underwood and "Somebody to Love" by Queen. Studio recordings of "Maybe This Time", "Alone", "Last Name" and "Somebody to Love" were released as singles, available for digital download. "Maybe This Time" charted at number 100 in Australia, and 88 in the US, "Alone" charted at number 94 in Australia, 58 in Canada and 51 in the US, and "Somebody to Love" charted at number 65 in Australia, 33 in Canada and 28 in the US. "Maybe This Time", "Alone" and "Somebody to Love" also featured on the album Glee: The Music, Volume 1. ## Reception The episode was watched by 7.32 million U.S. viewers and attained a 3.2/9 rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. It was the most viewed episode of the season since its fall return with "Showmance". It was the twenty-sixth most watched show in Canada for the week of broadcast, with 1.45 million viewers. In the UK, the episode was watched by 1.89 million viewers (1.48 million on E4, and 410,000 on E4+1), becoming the most-watched show on cable for the week, as well as the most-watched episode of the series at the time. The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics. Robert Bianco for USA Today wrote of Chenoweth's guest appearance: "Her presence may not make much sense, but that's probably all right. If it means hearing Chenoweth sing, we can put up with any explanation the show cares to offer." Raymund Flandez for The Wall Street Journal was equally positive regarding Chenoweth's role, praising her "powerful voice", "kittenish mien" and "commanding presence". Flandez deemed the performance of "Somebody to Love" the show's best number since "Don't Stop Believin'" debuted in the pilot episode. Mike Hale of the New York Times similarly stated that "The Rhodes Not Taken" was "the best episode musically since the pilot", calling the performance of "Somebody to Love" "truly rousing". TV Guide included the renditions of "Somebody To Love" and "Maybe This Time" in its list of Glee's best performances so far. The Los Angeles Times's Denise Martin also enjoyed the episode, writing: "I don't know how Glee keeps topping itself—it just does!" Martin too praised the performance of "Somebody to Love", writing: "Love or hate Queen, when New Directions sings it, it's magical. And it's the first time since 'Don't Stop Believin' that I got goosebumps. Something about kids singing songs, raising all those arms, makes everyone—can't just be me!—giddy and hopeful. They're not as technically skilled as [rival glee club] Vocal Adrenaline—yet—but that only makes their underdog story more real." Tim Stack of Entertainment Weekly also called "The Rhodes Not Taken" the best episode of Glee so far, deeming all the musical numbers "fantastic". Eric Goldman for IGN rated the episode 8.5/10. He felt that Chenoweth was "terrific" as April, and that the character was a "hysterical creation". Goldman assessed that the episode "soared" musically, though felt that its resolution was "rushed" and "forced", suggesting that the series has yet to find the right balance between music, comedy and drama.

Mount Edziza volcanic complex

Volcanic complex in British Columbia, Canada

The Mount Edziza volcanic complex (/ədˈzaɪzə/; abbreviated MEVC) is a large group of volcanoes and associated lava flows in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is located 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Telegraph Creek and 85 kilometres (53 miles) southwest of Dease Lake on the Tahltan Highland. The complex encompasses a broad, steep-sided lava plateau that extends over an area of 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles). Its highest summit reaches an altitude of 2,786 metres (9,140 feet) above sea level, making the MEVC the highest of four large complexes in an extensive north–south trending volcanic region. An ice cap obscures the highest summit which is characterized by several outlet glaciers stretching out to lower altitudes. The MEVC consists of several types of volcanoes, including stratovolcanoes, shield volcanoes, cinder cones, lava domes and calderas. These volcanoes have formed over the last 12 million years by successive eruptions of lava and pyroclastic rocks. The eruptions occurred during five magmatic cycles which were characterized by 13 periods of eruptive activity. More than 29 eruptions have occurred during the fifth magmatic cycle in the last 20,000 years, many of which remain undated. Most of these eruptions were characterized by fluid lava flows and lava fountaining but at least one explosive eruption deposited a small volume of pumice on the plateau. Current activity occurs exclusively in the form of hot springs. Future eruptions are likely to impact local streams and cause wildfires. Several streams surround the MEVC, many of which drain the flanks of the volcanic complex. This includes the Little Iskut River along the southeastern flank, Kakiddi Creek along the northeastern flank, the Klastline River along the northern flank and Mess Creek along the western flank. The valleys of these streams contain several species of trees, including pine, aspen and spruce. A wide variety of animal species inhabit the area. This includes birds, rodents, bears, sheep, goats, moose and caribou. Warm summers and cold, snowy winters characterize the climate at the MEVC; snow and ice remain on the highest summits year-round. Indigenous peoples have lived adjacent to the MEVC for millennia. The local Tahltan people used volcanic glass from the MEVC to make tools and weaponry in prehistoric times. Intermittent geological work has been carried out at the volcanic complex since the 1950s, the most detailed studies having been conducted in the 1960s. Mineral exploration was carried out on the eastern flank of the MEVC periodically between 1957 and 1992. A large provincial park dominates the MEVC which can only be accessed by aircraft or by a network of trails. ## Geography ### Background The MEVC is situated within the Boreal Mountains and Plateaus Ecoregion, a large ecological region in northwestern British Columbia encompassing high plateaus and rugged mountains with intervening lowlands. Boreal forests of black and white spruce occur in the lowlands and valley bottoms whereas birch, spruce and willow form forests on the mid-slopes. Extensive alpine altai fescue covers the upper slopes but barren rock is abundant at higher elevations. A cold, dry boreal mountain climate characterizes this ecoregion. The Boreal Mountains and Plateaus Ecoregion consists of seven ecosections, the Southern Boreal Plateau Ecosection being the main ecosection at the MEVC. This ecosection comprises several upland summits, as well as wide river valleys and deeply incised plateaus. The MEVC dominates the eastern edge of the Tahltan Highland. This is a southeast-trending upland area extending along the western side of the Stikine Plateau. It lies between the Taku River in the north, the Boundary Ranges in the west and the head of the Iskut River in the east. The width of the Tahltan Highland varies from about 8 kilometres (5.0 miles) in the north to about 48 kilometres (30 miles) in the south where the Stikine River crosses the highland. ### Landforms The MEVC comprises a broad, steep-sided, intermontane plateau that rises from a base elevation of 760 metres (2,500 feet). Its steep sides tower 760 metres (2,500 feet) above adjacent valleys that serve as drainageways for several streams. The edges of the plateau have been deeply incised by creeks that flow eastward and westward into Mess Creek, Kakiddi Creek and the Iskut River. Numerous small cinder cones dot the plateau surface which have reliefs of up to 460 metres (1,500 feet). Also located on the plateau are multiple, large, ice-covered central volcanoes that reach elevations greater than 2,000 metres (6,600 feet). A northerly-trending, elliptical, composite shield volcano consisting of multiple flat-lying lava flows forms the plateau. #### Central volcanoes Four central volcanoes dominate the MEVC, each of which contains a caldera or the remnants thereof. Various stages of erosion have modified the central volcanoes. In some cases, only a few small remnants of their original surface remain. The degree of erosion becomes less pronounced on more recently formed central volcanoes. Several satellitic vents around each central volcano have produced lava domes and cinder cones. These satellitic landforms differ from the central volcanoes in that they are much smaller in size and most of the cinder cones have retained their original forms. Chemically, the central volcanoes are more evolved, consisting of rocks with varying chemical and mineralogical compositions. ##### Mount Edziza and Ice Peak The highest, youngest and northernmost central volcano is Mount Edziza itself with an elevation of 2,786 metres (9,140 feet). This is a large ice-covered stratovolcano rising well above the general level of the Tahltan Highland. It dominates the surrounding terrain and can be seen from the Stewart–Cassiar Highway south of the Stikine River crossing. An ice-filled summit crater with a diameter of 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) is breached to the east by active cirques. The breach has exposed the remnants of several lava lakes inside the crater. Several lava domes occur on the summit and flanks of Mount Edziza, including Glacier Dome, Nanook Dome, Sphinx Dome, Triangle Dome and The Pyramid. Extending from the northwestern flank of Mount Edziza is an elongated pile of pillow lava called Pillow Ridge. In contrast to its glacially eroded eastern flank, the western and northern flanks of Mount Edziza are relatively smooth. The name of this central volcano has been variously spelled Edidza, Edzia, Eddiza, Eddziza and Etseza throughout history. Other forms of the name include Edziza Peak and Edziza Mountain. The southern flank of Mount Edziza overlaps with Ice Peak, the second oldest central volcano of the MEVC. It is a composite stratovolcano that has been reduced to a steep-walled pyramidal peak with active cirques on all of its sides. Several lava types were produced throughout the eruptive history of Ice Peak, some of which flowed down slope and merged with the surrounding plateau. The 2,500-metre (8,200-foot) summit of Ice Peak is the glacially eroded remains of the western rim of a small summit caldera. A circular volcanic plug known as The Neck protrudes from the southwestern flank of Ice Peak with an elevation of 1,830 metres (6,000 feet). Both Ice Peak and Mount Edziza form a massif known to the local indigenous Tahltan people as Tenh Dẕetle, which translates to Ice Mountain. ##### Spectrum Range The Spectrum Range is the southernmost and third oldest central volcano of the MEVC. This brightly-coloured mountain range extends from Mess Lake in the northwest to the head of the Little Iskut River in the southeast. It has a maximum elevation of 2,430 metres (7,970 feet) and consists of a nearly circular, more than 10-kilometre-wide (6.2-mile) dome with a thickness of up to 650 metres (2,130 feet). Massive lava flows are exposed in deeply incised radial valleys cutting the dome as are the faults of a buried 4.5-kilometre-wide (2.8-mile) caldera. Extensive erosion has removed much of the original dome surface which is preserved only on the summits of the higher peaks. Alternative names for the Spectrum Range include the Spectrum Mountains and the Rainbow Mountains. A number of peaks are named in the Spectrum Range. Kitsu Peak is the highest peak of the Spectrum Range whose summit is truncated by remnants of thick lava flows. The name of this peak is derived from neighbouring Kitsu Creek and Kitsu Plateau which take their name from a Tahltan word for the northern lights. Kounugu Mountain at the head of the Little Iskut River is named after the guardian of fresh water in Tahltan folklore. Yeda Peak is a prominent summit spire attaining an elevation of 2,240 metres (7,350 feet). Its name is a Tahltan word for the Ursa Major constellation. Kuno Peak is named after Hisashi Kuno, a Japanese volcanologist who visited the area in 1966. Three named mountain ridges extend from the Spectrum Range. Extending from the western side of the Spectrum Range is Yagi Ridge which trends towards the northwest. It is named after a Japanese volcanologist who visited the area in 1966. Obsidian Ridge is an east-trending ridge extending from the northern end of the Spectrum Range. It takes its name from the high-quality obsidian that occurs at this ridge. Artifact Ridge immediately north of Obsidian Ridge is an arc-shaped ridge also extending to the east. It is named after the abundant piles of rock chippings left from the knapping of obsidian by early Tahltan hunters to manufacture points and tools. ##### Armadillo Peak Armadillo Peak between Ice Peak and the Spectrum Range is the oldest of the four MEVC central volcanoes. It represents the eroded remains of a small caldera whose 2,194-metre (7,198-foot) summit is capped by a 180-metre-thick (590-foot) sequence of ponded lava flows. The caldera is elliptical in structure, measuring about 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) long and 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) wide. Its original circular outline has been heavily destroyed by deep erosion. The name origin and significance of Armadillo Peak has not been recorded. Several steep-sided satellitic lava domes flank the Armadillo caldera, including Cartoona Ridge, Tadeda Peak and the IGC Centre. Cartoona Ridge is a pie-shaped mountain ridge named after a local Tahltan shaman. Tadeda Peak is a brightly colored rhyolite peak whose name is a combination of the Tahltan words "tade" and "da", which respectively mean "three" and "eye". The name of this peak is a reference to three prominent orange spots on the dome which resemble eyes. #### Satellitic cones Several small satellitic cones occur along the entire length of the MEVC. Just southwest of Mount Edziza is Cocoa Crater, a volcanic cone containing a bowl-shaped crater with an elevation of 2,117 metres (6,946 feet). Coffee Crater, 2,000 metres (6,600 feet) in elevation, is another crater-topped cone just south of Mount Edziza. Keda Cone lies just south of Coffee Crater on the south side of upper Taweh Creek. It has an elevation of 1,980 metres (6,500 feet) and takes its name from a Tahltan word for moose. Between Mount Edziza and Buckley Lake is Eve Cone, a symmetrical cone 1,740 metres (5,710 feet) in elevation. It is named after Eve Brown Edzerza, a local indigenous woman. Northeast of Eve Cone on the extreme northern flank of the MEVC is Kana Cone. This nested and isolated cinder cone has an elevation of 1,100 metres (3,600 feet) and is the northernmost vent of the MEVC. Its name means "embers" in the Tahltan language, a reference to the oxidized cinders of the inner cone which appear hot. South of Kana Cone is the breached cinder cone of Sidas Cone. It has an elevation of 1,540 metres (5,050 feet) and has been cut into two symmetrical halves. Sidas means "cut oneself with a knife" in the Tahltan language. Icefall Cone is a glaciated cone on the eastern flank of the MEVC with an elevation of 2,285 metres (7,497 feet). In the deeply eroded terrain west of the Armadillo Highlands is Cache Hill with an elevation of 2,110 metres (6,920 feet). It is so-named because it was once used as an airdrop for food and supplies by the Geological Survey of Canada. On the east side of Mess Creek is Camp Hill, so-named because it was used by the Geological Survey of Canada to establish a camp for geological mapping in 1965. Camp Hill attains an elevation of 1,880 metres (6,170 feet) between Raspberry Creek and Taweh Creek. Exile Hill southeast of Mess Lake is the remains of a small cinder cone that has been almost completely inundated by younger lava flows. It has an elevation of 1,890 metres (6,200 feet) and lies adjacent to the edge of the main Spectrum Range dome. According to BC Geographical Names, "a small group of people (the Wetalth) lived here in times past, outcast or exiled from the Tahltans". Klastline Cone is a moderately eroded volcanic cone on the eastern side of the MEVC. Its nearly 2-kilometre-wide (1.2-mile) structure rises to a 1,740-metre (5,710-foot) summit below the level of the plateau. Moraine Cone just north of Mount Edziza has an elevation of nearly 2,135 metres (7,005 feet) and has been nearly destroyed by alpine glaciation. It gets its name from the moraine that covers much of the remainder of the cone. Nahta Cone is a cluster of small conelets at the southern end of the MEVC. It has an elevation of 1,670 metres (5,480 feet) and contains a crater that has been breached to the east. The name of this cone means "seven" in the Tahltan language which refers to the last seven survivors of the Wetalth people. Tadekho Hill is a nearly circular feature with an elevation of 1,860 metres (6,100 feet). Its name is a combination of the Tahltan words "tade" and "tade", which respectively mean "three" and "grizzly bear". Southeast of Mess Lake in the Spectrum Range is Outcast Hill, a glacially modified cone 1,800 metres (5,900 feet) in elevation. Its name is a reference to the outcasting of the Wetalth people who lived at the hill in times past. Ridge Cone is an almost completely snow-covered cone on the western edge of the Idiji Glacier cirque attaining an elevation of 2,285 metres (7,497 feet). The Saucer, 1,920 metres (6,300 feet) in elevation, is a saucer-shaped mound of lava south of Ice Peak with a diameter of about 0.5 square kilometres (0.19 square miles). Williams Cone is a prominent cinder cone on the northeast side of Mount Edziza. It has an elevation of 2,100 metres (6,900 feet) and is named after Hank Williams, a Tahltan man who was killed in an avalanche at the cone prior to 1974. Source Hill, 1,630 metres (5,350 feet) in elevation, is a volcanic cone adjacent to the Spectrum Range. It gets its name from the fact that it was the source of a lava flow late in the eruptive history of the MEVC. East of Source Hill is the pyroclastic cone of Thaw Hill which attains an elevation of 1,740 metres (5,710 feet). Storm Cone on the northern side of Mount Edziza has an elevation of 2,135 metres (7,005 feet). It is a rounded, mostly soil-covered, conical mound that has been reduced by erosion. North of Storm Cone are the Triplex Cones, a group of three eroded circular mounds reaching an elevation of 1,785 metres (5,856 feet). Northwest of the Spectrum Range is a volcanic feature known as The Ash Pit. It has an elevation of 1,580 metres (5,180 feet) and has been described as a pyroclastic cone or a conical explosion crater. Twin Cone, 1,430 metres (4,690 feet) in elevation, is a pyroclastic cone northeast of Mount Edziza whose southeastern side has been breached. Also northeast of Mount Edziza is Sleet Cone with an elevation of 1,783 metres (5,850 feet). #### Subglacial volcanoes Tennena Cone is a volcanic cone just southwest of Mount Edziza. It has an elevation of 2,350 metres (7,710 feet) and is almost completely surrounded by glacial ice. The name of this symmetrical subglacial volcano is a combination of the Tahltan words "ten" and "nena", which respectively mean "ice" and "bridge". Between Mount Edziza and Eve Cone is Tsekone Ridge, an isolated subglacial mound rising 180 metres (590 feet) above the surrounding plateau. It has an elevation of 1,920 metres (6,300 feet) and takes its name from "stone fire" in the Tahltan language. Wetalth Ridge is an isolated, steep-sided subglacial volcano with an elevation of 1,830 metres (6,000 feet). It is named after the Wetalth, a small group of people who were outcasted from the Tahltans. #### Lakes and mountain passes Several named lakes are present on and adjacent to the MEVC. The eastern side of the MEVC is flanked by Kakiddi Lake, Mowchilla Lake, Mowdade Lake and Nuttlude Lake, all of which lie inside Kakiddi Valley. With the exception of Mowdade Lake, all three lakes drain north into the Klastline River. Buckley Lake is the main lake bordering the northern side of the MEVC while Mess Lake is the main lake bordering the western side of the MEVC. Southeast of the MEVC is 180 Lake, so-named because it is large enough for the Cessna 180 Skywagon to safely operate. The southern end of the MEVC is flanked by Arctic Lake which gets its name from the surrounding barren and treeless landscape. Two small lakes are named on the southern portion of the MEVC. At the head of the Little Iskut River is Little Ball Lake, also called Kounugu Lake after the guardian of fresh water in Tahltan folklore. It lies immediately south of Kounugu Mountain in the Spectrum Range and east of Ball Creek. Little Arctic Lake lies northeast of Arctic Lake near the northeastern flank of Wetalth Ridge. The MEVC contains two named mountain passes. Destell Pass is a narrow rock cleft northwest of Artifact Ridge that provides access between the broad upland valleys of Artifact Creek and Raspberry Creek. Destell is a Tahltan word meaning "going to camp". Between the heads of Bourgeaux Creek and Raspberry Creek is Raspberry Pass, a broad east–west valley in the middle of the MEVC. It separates the Spectrum Range in the south from the Mount Edziza area in the north. #### Lava fields and plateaus The MEVC contains three named subplateaus, all of which owe their origin to successive fluid lava flows. The largest and northernmost subplateau is the Big Raven Plateau which gets its name from Cheskea Cho (Big Raven), a spirit in Tahltan folklore who created the world. Mount Edziza is the dominant feature in the middle of this plateau. Two lava fields are present on the Big Raven Plateau. The Desolation Lava Field at the northern end of the plateau is the largest and northernmost of the three MEVC lava fields, covering an area of more than 150 square kilometres (58 square miles). It consists of blocky lava flows and wind-sculptured ash beds that issued from vents near the base of Mount Edziza. Among these vents were Eve Cone, Storm Cone, Moraine Cone, Williams Cone, Sleet Cone, Twin Cone, Sidas Cone and the Triplex Cones. The Snowshoe Lava Field at the southern end of the Big Raven Plateau is the second largest of the three MEVC lava fields. Its lava issued from several vents on the western flank of Ice Peak, including but not limited to Tennena Cone, Coffee Crater, Cocoa Crater and The Saucer. East of Mess Lake at the northwestern end of the Spectrum Range is the Kitsu Plateau. Its dominant feature is the Mess Lake Lava Field which consists of clinkery lava flows and tephra that issued from three volcanic cones. With an areal extent of around 18 square kilometres (6.9 square miles), the Mess Lake Lava Field is the smallest of the three MEVC lava fields. The only named feature in the Mess Lake Lava Field is The Ash Pit which may be the youngest volcanic feature of the MEVC. It lies on the steep, south-facing side of Nagha Creek and contains a 60-metre (200-foot) deep and 0.4-kilometre (0.25-mile) in diameter crater. The Arctic Lake Plateau is the southernmost of the three MEVC subplateaus. It consists of a nearly flat upland bounded by the Spectrum Range in the northeast, Mess Creek valley in the west and Arctic Lake in the southwest. Volcanic features on the Arctic Lake Plateau include Tadekho Hill, Wetalth Ridge, Nahta Cone, Source Hill, Thaw Hill and Exile Hill. #### Cliffs and bluffs In the north fork of Tenchen Creek is a 210-metre-high (690-foot) barrier of volcanic rocks called Cinder Cliff. It is named after the scoria and thin lava flows that comprise this feature. Koosick Bluff and Ornostay Bluff are two bluffs just southwest of Mount Edziza near the head of Sezill Creek. They are named after two Tahltan women who volunteered to float under an ice bridge across the Stikine River. Northwest of Coffee Crater is a prominent west-facing cliff called Hoia Bluff. Its name is a Tahltan word meaning "sunset". Kaia Bluff is a steep-sided hill east of Coffee Crater whose name means "sunrise" in the Tahltan language. On the northwestern side of Raspberry Pass is an isolated, flat-topped hill with steep sides called Gnu Butte. This feature gets its name from its resemblance to flat-topped hills in parts of Africa. The Mess Creek Escarpment is a long laterally continuous, often cliff-like feature forming the western edge of the MEVC. Much of this escarpment runs along the eastern side of Mess Creek where it exposes flat-lying lava flows. ### Drainage The MEVC is drained on all sides by streams within the Stikine River watershed. To the west, Mess Creek flows north along the Mess Creek Escarpment inside a broad valley paralleling the MEVC. It then flows northwest into the Stikine River near the community of Telegraph Creek. Several short tributaries of Mess Creek drain the western half of the MEVC where they have cut steep-sided canyons into the volcanic plateau. This includes Crayke Creek which flows to the southwest, Elwyn Creek which flows to the west, Kitsu Creek which flows to the northwest, Raspberry Creek which flows to the northwest, Tadekho Creek which flows to the northwest and Taweh Creek which flows to the northwest. Many of these Mess Creek tributaries also contain tributaries. The only named tributary of Elwyn Creek is Kadeya Creek which flows northwest from Mount Edziza. Kitsu Creek contains one named tributary, Nagha Creek, which flows northwest from the Spectrum Range. Walkout Creek is the only named tributary of Raspberry Creek. It flows west in a canyon west of the Armadillo Highlands and also contains only one named tributary, Flyin Creek, which flows northwest from near the west side of Cache Hill. The only named tributary of Taweh Creek is Sezill Creek which flows northwest in a canyon southwest of Mount Edziza. To the east, the MEVC overlooks a drainage divide that lies in a broad hummocky lowland. Its upper eastern half is drained by tributaries of Kakiddi Creek. This includes Nido Creek, Tenchen Creek and Tennaya Creek which flow to the northeast from the eastern side of Mount Edziza, Shaman Creek and Sorcery Creek which flow to the east and north from near Kaia Bluff and Tsecha Creek which flows to the northeast from near Williams Cone. Shaman Creek contains one named tributary, Chakima Creek, which flows to the east and north. The rapidly eroding headwalls and steep spurs on the eastern side of the MEVC have deposited glacial and landslide debris into these tributaries. Transportion of this debris into Kakiddi Valley has produced several large alluvial fans behind which Kakiddi Lake, Mowchilla Lake, Mowdade Lake and Nuttlude Lake have formed. The lower eastern half and south end of the MEVC are drained by tributaries of the Iskut River. This includes Ball Creek which flows to the south from the southeastern side of the Spectrum Range, More Creek which flows to the southeast from the southern end of the Arctic Lake Plateau and the Little Iskut River which flows to the southeast from the southeastern side of the Spectrum Range. The only named tributary of Ball Creek is Chachani Creek which flows to the southeast from the eastern end of the Arctic Lake Plateau. Tributaries of the Little Iskut River include Stewbomb Creek, which flows eastwards from the eastern side of the Spectrum Range, and Bourgeaux Creek which flows to the east from Raspberry Pass. The only named tributary of Stewbomb Creek is Artifact Creek which flows to the southeast between Artifact Ridge and Obsidian Ridge. Bourgeaux Creek contains one named tributary, Gerlib Creek, which flows southwards from between Tadeda Peak and Armadillo Peak. Several small, unnamed streams drain the youthful northern side of the MEVC. They flow north into the Klastline River and contain shallowly incised channels. ### Climate The climate at the MEVC is characterized by warm summers and cold, snowy winters; Mount Edziza itself is covered by snow year-round. Temperatures are warmest in mid-summer during the day when they may hit the 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) range. However, temperatures can drop below freezing during summer nights, making snow or freezing rain a possibility at any time of the year. The closest weather stations to the MEVC are located at Telegraph Creek and Dease Lake, which lie about 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the northwest and 85 kilometres (53 miles) to the northeast, respectively. Meteorological data from the Telegraph Creek and Dease Lake weather stations suggest that the MEVC area has a temperature gradient of around −1.5 degrees Celsius (29.3 degrees Fahrenheit) per 1,000-metre (3,300-foot) increase in elevation. The data also suggest that precipitation likely increases with altitude. At Mess Creek, the mean annual temperature is probably around −1 degree Celsius (30 degrees Fahrenheit) while the annual precipitation likely amounts to 400 millimetres (16 inches) of snow and rain. The mean annual temperature at an elevation of 1,390 metres (4,560 feet) is likely about −1 to −5 degrees Celsius (30 to 23 degrees Fahrenheit) where annual precipitation amounts to approximately 400 to 500 millimetres (16 to 20 inches). ### Animals and plants The MEVC is situated in an area with abundant wildlife. This wildlife includes moose, Osborn caribou, mountain goats, stone sheep, black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, Arctic ground squirrels and several species of birds. Arctic ground squirrels are abundant above the timberline where grizzly bears are occasionally seen. The alpine and subalpine zones between Mount Edziza and the western escarpment contain small herds of Osborn caribou. The western escarpment, the Spectrum Range and the eastern, western and southern flanks of Mount Edziza contain mountain goats and stone sheep. Birds such as scaup, owls, goldeneye, grebes, gyrfalcons, white-winged scoters, ravens, grouse and ptarmigans are present at the MEVC. The area between Buckley Lake and Telegraph Creek contains peat meadows, shrub fields and wet grasslands. It is characterized by long, severe winters with short growing seasons and deeply frozen soils. The Mess Creek, Kakiddi and Klastline valleys are intermixed with white spruce, trembling aspen and lodgepole pine, the latter two of which occur in drier areas. Balsam poplar grows on delta soils and near lakes and creeks. The MEVC plateau is characterized by alpine and sub-alpine vegetation zones. ### Glaciation The MEVC has been extensively modified by local and regional glaciation as evidenced by the existence of drumlins and glacial striations, which record north-northwest ice movement across the western volcanic plateau. Evidence of ice stagnation is present in the form of outflow channels, eskers, kames, kettles and morainal ridges on the northern side of the MEVC adjacent to Buckley Lake. Deglaciation of unstable and oversteepened valley walls has caused several landslides, especially along the Mess Creek Escarpment. This instability is attributed to the low-yield strength of the highly fractured, poorly consolidated rocks comprising the MEVC. Most peaks greater than 2,130 metres (6,990 feet) in elevation contain glaciers. Small separate glaciers are largely restricted to the southern half of the MEVC where they occur in the Spectrum Range, on Armadillo Peak and elsewhere. In contrast, Mount Edziza and Ice Peak are obscured by a relatively large ice cap that covers an area of 70 square kilometres (27 square miles). The western side of this ice cap is drained by many outlet glaciers that spread in broad lobes onto the Big Raven Plateau. Distributary glaciers extending from the eastern side of the ice cap drape down steep slopes to form broken icefalls. Five named glaciers are situated at the northern and southern ends of the MEVC. Idiji Glacier lies southeast of Mount Edziza on the eastern side of the MEVC. Its name is Tahltan in origin, meaning "it thunders" which is a reference to the noise of this very active glacier. At the head of Nagha Creek in the western portion of the Spectrum Range is Nagha Glacier. Nagha means "wolverine" in the Tahltan language. Tenchen Glacier is a debris-covered glacier on the eastern side of Mount Edziza at the head of Tenchen Creek. Its name is a combination of the Tahltan words "ten" and "chen" which mean "ice" and "dirty", respectively. The debris covering Tenchen Glacier originates from landslides of the steep headwall and neighbouring spurs. South of Mount Edziza lies Tencho Glacier, the largest glacier of the MEVC. Its name is derived from the Tahltan words "ten" which means "ice", and "cho" meaning "big" or "great". At the head of Tennaya Creek on the southeastern side of Mount Edziza lies Tennaya Glacier. Tennaya is derived from the Tahltan words "ten" and "naya" which mean "ice" and "be come down", respectively. ## Geology ### Background The MEVC part of the Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province (NCVP), a broad area of volcanoes extending from northwestern British Columbia northwards through Yukon into easternmost Alaska. Volcanism in this geologic province can be traced as far back as 20 million years ago with the emplacement of alkali basalt in western Yukon. Several types of volcanic eruptions have since created different landforms across the NCVP, including shield volcanoes, lava domes, stratovolcanoes and cinder cones. Other volcanic landforms, notably subglacial volcanoes, take their shape from the environment they formed in regardless of the type of magma they produced. The NCVP contains more than 100 volcanoes and is the most volcanically active area in Canada; eruptions are expected to occur roughly every 100 years. The MEVC is part of the Stikine Subprovince of the NCVP. This subprovince, confined to the Stikine region of northwestern British Columbia, includes three other volcanic complexes: Heart Peaks, Hoodoo Mountain and Level Mountain. All four complexes differ petrologically and/or volumetrically from the rest of the NCVP. Heart Peaks, Level Mountain and the MEVC are the largest NCVP centres by volume, the latter two having experienced volcanism for a much longer timespan than any other NCVP centre. Level Mountain, Hoodoo Mountain and the MEVC are the only NCVP centres that contain volcanic rocks of both mafic and intermediate to felsic composition. The highest of the four complexes is the MEVC at 2,786 metres (9,140 feet), followed by Level Mountain at 2,164 metres (7,100 feet), Heart Peaks at 2,012 metres (6,601 feet) and Hoodoo Mountain at 1,850 metres (6,070 feet). Like other NCVP centres, the MEVC has its origins in rifting of the North American Plate caused by crustal extension. This has resulted from the Pacific Plate sliding northward along the Queen Charlotte Fault, on its way to the Aleutian subduction zone in Alaska. As the continental crust stretches, the near surface rocks fracture along steeply dipping faults parallel to the rift. Mafic magma rises along these fractures to create fluid lava flows, although more viscous felsic magma also makes its way to the surface and can produce explosive eruptions. Two major structural features, the Tintina and Denali–Coast fault systems, run parallel with the NCVP. Both structures have had strike-slip motions since the Cretaceous, which has resulted in several hundred kilometres of crustal displacement. ### Structure The MEVC lies on the eastern shoulder of Mess Creek valley. This is a long and narrow graben-like depression possibly linked to volcanism at the volcanic complex. The eastern edge of the valley is bounded by north-trending vertical faults, one of which has been traced for more than 24 kilometres (15 miles). This fault shows signs of having been active contemporaneously with volcanism at the MEVC. It has vertically displaced Holocene basalt flows of the MEVC by 15 to 20 metres (50 to 70 feet) and older MEVC basalt flows by 91 to 122 metres (299 to 400 feet), such that the western side of the fault has been downthrown. The downthrowing of this fault during the Holocene may be due to the draining of magma chambers following eruptions at the MEVC. The existence of peralkaline rocks at the MEVC and the presence of normal faults along the Mess Creek valley support the conclusion that the MEVC lies in an area of continental rifting. The MEVC is the second largest NCVP centre with respect to both volume and area covered. It has a volume of 670 cubic kilometres (160 cubic miles) and an area of 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles), although at least one estimate of its areal extent is as much as 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles). The geomorphology of the MEVC has many similarities to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. This includes its overall elongated structure, its flanking basaltic lava fields and its similar-sized summit ice cap dominated by silica-rich volcanic rocks. The elongated structure of the MEVC is about 65 kilometres (40 miles) long and 20 kilometres (12 miles) wide. It is surrounded on the east by the Skeena Mountains and on the west by the Coast Mountains. A bimodal population of volcanic rocks characterizes the MEVC. The most voluminous rocks are mafic alkali basalts and hawaiites which comprise much of the plateau-forming shield volcano. MEVC hawaiites are thought to have formed as a result of partial fractional crystallization and the accumulation of feldspar inside rising columns of mantle-derived alkali basalt. Felsic peralkaline rocks such as comendite and trachyte are confined mainly to the four central volcanoes. They are the product of prolonged fractional crystallization of mantle-derived alkali basalt in magma chambers. Volcanic rocks of intermediate composition are relatively small in volume and include tristanite, benmoreite, mugearite and trachybasalt. The MEVC is underlain by the Stikinia terrane. This is a Paleozoic and Mesozoic suite of volcanic and sedimentary rocks that accreted to the continental margin of North America during the Jurassic. Rocks of Paleozoic age underlie the western and southern portions of the MEVC. This includes limestone, bedded tuff and volcanic rocks of intermediate composition. Mesozoic rocks underlie most of the MEVC and include andesite, basaltic andesite, volcanic sandstone, siltstone, shale, greywacke, limestone and chert. The volcanic and sedimentary rocks comprising Stikinia are remnants of a former island arc. #### Subdivisions In 1992, Canadian volcanologist Jack Souther subdivided the MEVC into the following geological formations, from youngest to oldest: ### Eruptive history The MEVC is a highly active volcanic system with a nearly continuous record of activity dating from the Miocene. It is the second most long-lived eruptive centre in the NCVP after Level Mountain, having started erupting in the last 12 milllion years. Five cycles of magmatic activity formed the MEVC; one in the Miocene, one in the Pliocene, two in the Pleistocene and one in the Holocene. Each magmatic cycle began with the effusion of alkali basalt and culminated with the eruption of felsic magma. Very few rocks of intermediate composition were produced during these cycles, such that much of the MEVC is chemically bimodal. Eruptions have occurred subaqueously, subglacially and subaerially throughout the long eruptive history of the MEVC. Subaqueous eruptions occur beneath the surface of water, resulting in explosions and the rapid cooling of lava. Subglacial eruptions arise when volcanoes are obscured by glacial ice. They can cause rapid melting of glaciers, potentially creating volcano-induced glacial outburst floods known as jökulhlaups. Subaerial eruptions take place in the open air rather than below water or ice. They are capable of producing lava flows, lava fountains and ash flows. Most of the MEVC volcanic deposits are subaerial in origin. Interactions between ice and volcanism are well-documented at the MEVC. Out of the 13 geological formations comprising the MEVC, seven of them contain evidence of having been associated with ice. This includes the Pyramid, Ice Peak, Pillow Ridge, Edziza, Arctic Lake, Klastline and Big Raven formations which have all formed within the last two million years. Volcano-ice interactions at these formations is represented by pillow lava, tuff breccia, hyaloclastite, glacial till interbedded with lava flows, and massive lava with well-developed slender columnar joints. The MEVC has been scoured by regional glaciations at least twice throughout its eruptive history, as well as several lesser advances of local alpine glaciers. Potassium–argon dating of the MEVC has yielded ages ranging from 11.4 to 0.28 million years old. Most of these ages are consistent with the general volcanic stratigraphy, although some of them are anomalously old and most likely result from contamination of lava with pre-MEVC rocks of the Stikinia terrane. Several geologically recent eruptions at the MEVC have not been quantitatively dated. Instead, a Holocene age is inferred because their eruptive products do not show evidence of having been glaciated by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which retreated from the area about 11,000 years ago. Therefore, many of these inferred Holocene eruptions may have occurred as early as the time of glacial retreat. An eruption recurrence interval of 379 years has been calculated for the MEVC by dividing 11,000 by the number of demonstrable Holocene eruptions. This would make the MEVC the most active eruptive centre in Canada throughout the Holocene. #### Raspberry, Little Iskut and Armadillo eruptive periods The first magmatic cycle of the MEVC was restricted to the Late Miocene between 12 and 5.3 million years ago. Three eruptive periods occurred during this magmatic cycle, each producing different types of volcanic rocks. The first eruptive period is represented by alkali basalt and hawaiite flows of the Raspberry Formation. They rest directly on pre-MEVC rocks of the Stikinia terrane and are exposed along the Mess Creek Escarpment. The Little Iskut Formation represents the second period of eruptive activity. It conformably overlies the Raspberry Formation and consists mainly of trachybasalt flows. The third and final eruptive period of the first magmatic cycle is represented by alkali basalt, comendite and trachyte of the Armadillo Formation which conformably overlies the Little Iskut Formation. ##### Raspberry Formation The Raspberry eruptive period between 12 and 5.4 million years ago began with the effusion of basaltic lava flows from near Raspberry Pass. More than 83 cubic kilometres (20 cubic miles) of lava flows were extruded in rapid succession, forming a Late Miocene shield volcano. They reached a maximum thickness of more than 300 metres (980 feet) near their source to only a few metres thick at their terminus. Disruption of the local drainage system by lava flows during this eruptive period resulted in the formation of so-named Raspberry Lake in the upper Little Iskut River valley. The lava flows damming Raspberry Lake originated from a cluster of small satellitic cones south of the Raspberry shield volcano. By the time the Raspberry eruptive period had come to an end, the Raspberry shield volcano covered an area of at least 775 square kilometres (299 square miles) and reached an elevation of nearly 2,100 metres (6,900 feet). After the Raspberry eruptive period ceased, Raspberry Lake had already begun to erode a notch along the eastern edge of the lava dam. The Raspberry shield volcano and associated satellitic cones and ash beds had also begun to erode away, but the valleys and lowlands would remain filled with thick piles of basaltic lava flows. These lava flows would later be overlain by the much younger Mount Edziza and Spectrum Range. Potassium–argon dating of volcanic rocks produced during this eruptive period has yielded a wide variety of ages. This includes 11.4 ± 1.5 million years, 8.4 ± 0.4 million years and 6.4 ± 0.3 million years for Raspberry hawaiite and 6.1 ± 0.4 million years and 5.5 ± 0.1 million years for Raspberry alkali basalt. The first date is anomalously old and has the largest error. A minimum age for the timing of Raspberry volcanism is 7.4–6.2 million years. ##### Little Iskut Formation The Little Iskut eruptive period 7.2 million years ago began beneath the waters of Raspberry Lake. Interactions between the lake water and the erupting magma resulted in several violent phreatic explosions, the larger explosions having deposited ash and granular particles over much of the lake floor. The phreatic explosions were followed by the eruption of trachybasalt flows which began forming a lava dome on the floor of Raspberry Lake. This lava dome eventually grew above lake level from continued volcanic eruptions to form a small volcanic island. Renewed volcanism then transformed this small island into a broad shield volcano that overlapped with the northern shoreline of Raspberry Lake. By this time much of the original lake had been displaced with ash and shattered rock fragments formed from the quenching of lava. Subsequent eruptions of the Little Iskut shield volcano produced lava flows that travelled down its gentle eastern, southern and western flanks. Lava flowing down the eastern and southern flanks entered the shrinking remnants of Raspberry Lake while lava travelling down the western flank merged with the older Raspberry shield volcano. Erosional remnants of trachybasalt flows from this eruptive period are exposed in a 10-kilometre-wide (6.2-mile) area northeast of the Spectrum Range. They range in thickness from about 300 metres (980 feet) near the centre of Artifact Ridge to 90 metres (300 feet) around the parameter, suggesting that their source was located near Artifact Ridge. This is supported by the existence of dikes along the northern side of Artifact Creek valley which may have been feeders for the overlying trachybasalt flows. A single potassium–argon date of 7.2 ± 0.3 million years has been obtained from Little Iskut trachybasalt. The lack of an erosion surface between the Raspberry and Little Iskut formations suggests that the Little Iskut eruptions immediately followed or may have been coeval with eruptions of the Raspberry period. ##### Armadillo Formation The next eruptive period, the Armadillo period, occurred between 7.0 and 6.0 million years ago. It began with explosive activity from a vent at Cartoona Ridge which produced 10-kilometre-long (6.2-mile) ash flows and an air-fall pumice deposit that covers an area of several hundred square kilometres. This was followed by the effusion of viscous trachyte and rhyolite lava which piled up around the vent area to produce steep-sided, overlapping domes. As the lava domes continued to grow their slopes became oversteepened, forcing lava to move further away from the vent area. Eventually bulbous mounds of trachyte and rhyolite covered much of the southeastern highlands of the MEVC. Rapid evacuation of a shallow magma chamber nearly 8 kilometres (5.0 miles) south of Cartoona Ridge resulted in the formation of the 3-kilometre-wide (1.9-mile) Armadillo caldera. Fractures in the roof of the magma chamber provided passageways for trachyte magma to reach the subsiding caldera floor, resulting in the formation of lava lakes inside the newly-formed depression. Larger volumes of lava eventually spilled over the caldera rim to produce a nearly 13-kilometre-long (8.1-mile) sequence of trachyte and rhyolite flows. The sequence is up to 460 metres (1,510 feet) thick and extends to the west. A number of other volcanic centres were active during the Armadillo eruptive period. Tadeda Peak and the IGC Centre, both satellitic vents of the Armadillo caldera, produced trachyte and rhyolite. Alkali basalt flows issued from Sezill Volcano and the Little Iskut shield volcano, many of which are exposed along the Mess Creek Escarpment. The thickest sections of Armadillo basalt flows are exposed in Sezill Creek canyon and near the southwestern end of Raspberry Pass where they reach thicknesses of up to 180 metres (590 feet). An anomalously old potassium–argon date of 10.2 ± 1.4 million years has been obtained from Armadillo comendite. Potassium–argon dates more in line with the volcanic stratigraphy include 6.9 ± 0.3 million years and 6.1 ± 0.1 million years from comenditic ash flows, 6.9 ± 0.3 million years from comenditic glass and 6.5 ± 0.2 million years, 6.3 ± 0.5 million years, 6.2 ± 0.1 million years and 6.1 ± 0.2 million years from hawaiite. #### Nido, Spectrum and Pyramid eruptive periods The second magmatic cycle took place between 6.0 and 1.0 million years ago during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. Like the first magmatic cycle, it is subdivided into three eruptive periods. The first eruptive period is represented by alkali basalt and hawaiite flows of the Nido Formation. They are exposed along the Mess Creek Escarpment and appear to have issued from several separate eruptive centres along the eastern margin of the MEVC. The Spectrum Formation represents the second period of eruptive activity. It is almost entirely underlain by the Nido Formation and consists mostly of trachyte and rhyolite. The third and final eruptive period of the second magmatic cycle is represented by trachyte, comendite and pantellerite of the Pyramid Formation which overlies the Nido Formation. ##### Nido Formation The Nido eruptive period was a long episode of volcanic activity that took place between 6.0 and 4.0 million years ago. It involved the effusion of highly mobile, fluid basaltic lava flows from multiple, widely spaced eruptive centres. These eruptive centres included at least six major volcanoes and many more smaller volcanic cones. The lava flows buried lag gravels and travelled into valleys where they disrupted the drainage system to form lava-dammed lakes. Volcanism of the Nido eruptive period was limited to the northern and southern ends of the MEVC, such that the lava flows formed two separate lava fields at each end of the volcanic complex. The northern lava field comprises the Tenchen Member while the southern lava field comprises the Kounugu Member. Both lava fields are separated by the Armadillo Highlands which acted as a topographic barrier at the time of their formation. Volcanic activity in both lava fields occurred more or less simultaneously. Potassium–argon dating of Nido alkali basalt has given ages of 7.8 ± 0.3 million years, 5.5 ± 1.6 million years, 4.5 ± 0.3 million years and 4.4 ± 0.5 million years. The first age comes from basalt of the Kounugu Member and, if correct, implies that Nido eruptions may have spanned from Raspberry to post-Armadillo time. Three major volcanoes of the Tenchen Member were active during the Nido eruptive period, all of which have since been reduced to eroded remnants. Alpha Peak was the oldest of the three major volcanoes. It issued lava flows from both satellitic and central vents which diverted and blocked local streams to form lava-dammed lakes. The second oldest major volcano, Beta Peak, formed 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) south of Alpha Peak. It rose at least 365 metres (1,198 feet) above the surrounding landscape and produced lava flows that travelled at least 13 kilometres (8.1 miles) to the north. Gamma Peak, the youngest of the three major volcanoes, formed south of Beta Peak on the western flanks of Cartoona Ridge. Lava flows from Gamma Peak buried gently sloping alluvial fans on the northern and western flanks of the Armadillo Highlands. An eroded remnant of Gamma Peak forms a prominent spire just southeast of Coffee Crater called Cartoona Peak. The Kounugu Member also contains the eroded remains of three major volcanoes that were active during Nido time. Swarm Peak, the oldest of the three major volcanoes, issued lava flows that travelled down the western and southern flanks of the Little Iskut shield volcano. Vanished Peak further to the south was formed during a major eruption that involved lava fountaining. Most of the lava from this eruption flowed to the north and west. Lost Peak is the youngest of the three major volcanoes. In contrast to the other two volcanoes, Lost Peak consists of volcanic rocks that were deposited in both subaerial and subaqueous environments. The subaqueous material was deposited in a lake that may have ponded between the erupting volcano and a lobe of glacial ice. Exile Hill was also active during Nido time and is a part of the Kounugu Member. ##### Spectrum Formation The next eruptive period, the Spectrum period, occurred between 4.0 and 2.0 million years ago. A relatively small initial eruption of pumice and ash was followed by the effusion of massive rhyolite flows, each up to 150 metres (490 feet) thick and 13 kilometres (8.1 miles) long. These rhyolite flows accumulated in rapid succession to form the broad Spectrum Range dome which reached a thickness of at least 750 metres (2,460 feet) and a width of more than 20 kilometres (12 miles). The predominantly rhyolitic eruptions were later replaced by the effusion of trachyte lava as deeper parts of the underlying magma chamber were tapped. Formation of the Spectrum Range dome was followed by evacuation of the magma chamber, resulting in the creation of a 4.5-kilometre-wide (2.8-mile) summit caldera. This caldera was eventually buried by lava from subsequent eruptions. Yeda Peak was the site of an explosive eruption near the end of the Spectrum period. This eruption resulted in the formation of a crater near the crest of the Spectrum Range dome. Some of the ejecta accumulated around the vent to form a low volcanic cone while the more volatile, pumice-rich phases of the eruption sent ash flows down the slopes of the dome. Renewed volcanism at Exile Hill 8 kilometres (5.0 miles) west of the Yeda Peak vent produced a similar but much smaller eruption. Late-stage volcanism of the Spectrum eruptive period produced alkali basalt flows of the Kitsu Member. These flows likely issued from several eruptive centres that have since been destroyed by erosion. The once continuous Spectrum Range dome was substantially eroded to form the existing peaks and ridges of the Spectrum Range. Extensive erosion also reduced the size of the dome, leaving behind a few remnants around its northern and southwestern edges. Relatively thin trachyte flows northwest of the Spectrum Range on the Kitsu Plateau are the most distal remnants, although they may have originated from a nearby satellitic vent. Erosional remnants of Kitsu Member alkali basalt flows cap the higher summits of the Spectrum Range where they overlie the unmodified upper surface of the original dome. The original dome was much higher in elevation as evidenced by the thick, gently dipping trachyte flows forming the summit of Kitsu Peak. An anomalously old potassium–argon date of 5.9 ± 1.1 million years has been obtained from Kitsu Member alkali basalt. Potassium–argon dates more in line with the volcanic stratigraphy include 3.1 ± 0.1 million years and 3.0 ± 0.1 million years from comendite and 3.4 ± 0.1 million years and 2.9 ± 0.1 million years from comenditic glass. ##### Pyramid Formation The Pyramid eruptive period took place 1.1 million years ago. It involved violent explosive eruptions of rock fragments, gas and trachyte pumice from a vent adjacent to the northwestern margin of the MEVC. This explosivity was accompanied by phreatic explosions and pyroclastic surges. Subsequent eruptions sent thin basalt flows into the valley of a north-flowing glacial stream where they formed a small lava-dammed lake. This short period of basaltic volcanism was followed by the extrusion of felsic flows and domes forming The Pyramid. Renewed volcanism during this eruptive period produced the Sphinx Dome which may have formed subglacially. Growth of the Sphinx Dome involved the eruption of viscous rhyolite and volcanic ejecta. Some of the ejecta settled in a lake that had formed between the growing dome and an ice field along its southern margin, resulting in the formation of an evenly distributed volcaniclastic deposit on the lake bed. The Sphinx Dome reached a height of 800 metres (2,600 feet) and a length of 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) by the time activity ceased. A third pulse of volcanism constructed the Pharaoh Dome just south of the lake that ponded during Sphinx Dome activity. Eruptions were at first subglacial which led to a series of phreatic steam explosions and the quenching of rhyolite lava by meltwater. Pharaoh Dome eventually built above the level of the surrounding ice as flows of rhyolite continued to enlarge the dome. By the time activity ceased, Pharaoh Dome had risen above the surface of a large ice field as a nunatak; it was subsequently buried under glacial ice. Potassium–argon dating of comenditic glass produced during the Pyramid eruptive period has yielded ages of 1.2 ± 0.4 million years and 1.20 ± 0.03 million years. Trachyte produced during this eruptive period has yielded potassium–argon dates of 0.94 ± 0.12 million years and 0.94 ± 0.05 million years. #### Ice Peak, Pillow Ridge and Edziza eruptive periods The third magmatic cycle occurred about one million years ago during the Early Pleistocene. It was characterized by three eruptive periods, each represented by a geological formation. The first eruptive period created the Ice Peak Formation which overlies the Nido and Pyramid formations. A wide variety of volcanic rocks comprise the Ice Peak Formation, including alkali basalt, hawaiite, trachybasalt, tristanite, mugearite, benmoreite and trachyte. The second eruptive period resulted in the creation of the Pillow Ridge Formation which consists mainly of alkali basalt. This geological formation is confined to two small areas at the northern end of the MEVC, namely Pillow Ridge and Tsekone Ridge. The third and final eruptive period of the third magmatic cycle produced the Edziza Formation which overlies the Pyramid and Ice Peak formations. Trachyte is the main volcanic rock comprising the Edziza Formation. ##### Ice Peak Formation The Ice Peak eruptive period began at a time when the MEVC was covered by a receding regional ice sheet. Volcanism initially began on the southern flank of Sphinx Dome where pyroclastic material mixed with meltwater from residual ice to produce highly mobile debris flows and lahars. Lava flows advanced across the glaciated surface as successive eruptions built Ice Peak, resulting in the formation of narrow meltwater lakes. These lakes were displaced as the lava flows continued to advance down slope. Basaltic lava travelled further down slope onto the MEVC plateau while more viscous trachybasalt, tristanite, mugearite, benmoreite and trachyte lava accumulated around the vent area to form the steep, upper part of Ice Peak. At its climax, Ice Peak was a symmetrical stratovolcano containing a small crater at its summit; its symmetrical structure was later destroyed by glacial erosion. Potassium–argon dating of massive trachyte flows in the upper part of Ice Peak has yielded ages of 1.5 ± 0.4 million years, 1.5 ± 0.1 million years and 1.2 ± 0.1 million years. Two unusually thick lobes of trachyte lava issued from satellitic domes on the western flank of Ice Peak during this eruptive period, both of which were deposited onto the MEVC plateau. The southern lobe, Koosick Bluff, ranges in elevation from 1,890 to 2,010 metres (6,200 to 6,590 feet). It is bounded by cliffs that rise 60–90 metres (200–300 feet) to a nearly flat surface. With a length of nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) and a width of more than 1 kilometre (0.62 miles), Koosick Bluff is the largest of the two lava lobes. The northern and smaller lobe, Ornostay Bluff, has a potassium–argon date of 1.5 ± 0.4 million years and is similar in composition and structure to Koosick Bluff. The steep sides and unusually large thicknesses of these two lava lobes is attributed to them having been extruded through glacial ice. Volcanic activity during Ice Peak time created two volcanoes west of the Armadillo Highlands. The northern volcano, Camp Hill, began forming when the MEVC was still partially covered by glacial ice. Eruptions under the glacial ice formed a circular meltwater pond which quenched the erupting lava and caused phreatic explosions. The resulting fractured and churned debris accumulated around the erupting vent to create a broad tuff ring. This feature eventually grew above the level of the meltwater pond to produce subaerial lava fountains which formed a relatively steep-sided pyroclastic cone on top of the tuff ring. By this time the surrounding glacial ice had retreated, allowing basalt flows to spread over the Big Raven Plateau. The southern volcano, Cache Hill, formed during a period of eruptions on the western side of the Armadillo Highlands. Basalt flows blocked a northwesterly flowing river in a broad valley to form a small lava-dammed lake. Subsequent basalt flows travelled to the southeast and northwest, the southeasterly flows having entered the lava-dammed lake to create pillow lava. A circular volcanic plug called The Neck formed on the eastern side of the MEVC during the Ice Peak eruptive period. It consists of an older outer ring of fine grained trachyte and a younger inner core of coarse grained trachyte, suggesting that The Neck was the source of more than one trachyte eruption. This roughly 215-metre (705-foot) in diameter volcanic conduit has a potassium–argon date of 1.6 ± 0.2 million years. ##### Pillow Ridge Formation The next eruptive period, the Pillow Ridge period, occurred when the MEVC was still overlain by an ice sheet. Subglacial volcanism injected basaltic lava into the base of the ice sheet where the molten basalt was quenched and then shattered by phreatic explosions. Accumulation of this fragmented debris around the erupting vent created a subglacial pile of tuff, breccia and pillow lava inside a meltwater cavity. The overlying ice sheet sagged as the volcanic pile and enclosing meltwater cavity grew larger, resulting in the formation of a meltwater lake inside a depression on the surface of the ice sheet. This meltwater lake was churned by phreatic explosions and probably reached a length of more than 4 kilometres (2.5 miles). Successive eruptions eventually built the volcanic pile above lake level to form a small temporary island that issued subaerial lava flows and lava fountains. The volcanic pile that formed as a result of this activity comprises Pillow Ridge. Fission track dating of Pillow Ridge alkali basalt has yielded ages of 0.9 ± 0.3 million years and 0.8 ± 0.25 million years. Another pulse of subglacial volcanism during the Pillow Ridge period created nearby Tsekone Ridge. Although it formed in a similar environment to that of Pillow Ridge, there is no evidence the Tsekone Ridge eruption was large enough to penetrate the overlying ice sheet. The basaltic magma that issued during this eruption may have been leftover from the series of eruptions that formed Pillow Ridge. ##### Edziza Formation The Edziza eruptive period constructed the symmetrical stratovolcano of Mount Edziza after the regional ice sheet had retreated from the MEVC. Growth began on the upper northern flank of Ice Peak with the eruption of viscous trachyte flows and steep-sided lava domes. The lava domes were punctuated by vent-clearing explosions which ejected volcanic blocks and lava bombs onto the slopes of the growing stratovolcano. Formation of the stratovolcano was followed by collapse of the original summit, creating the 2-kilometre (1.2-mile) in diameter caldera that currently truncates it. The cause of this collapse may have been a violent, climactic eruption that deposited parts of the original summit onto the flanks of the volcano. Prior to collapse, the summit of Mount Edziza was at least 610 metres (2,000 feet) higher than it is today. Most of the volcanic activity during this eruptive period was concentrated in the summit area of Mount Edziza but at least a few vents were active near the base of the volcano. Volcanism on the southeastern rim of the summit caldera created Nanook Dome. Lava from this dome flowed onto the outer surface of the stratovolcano and into the summit caldera to form lava lakes. Triangle Dome and Glacier Dome formed on the western and northeastern flanks of Mount Edziza, respectively. A trachyte flow from the latter dome travelled onto the gently sloping surface of the Big Raven Plateau. Lava from a small pyroclastic cone on the northwestern flank of Mount Edziza nearly engulfed both Pillow Ridge and Tsekone Ridge on the surrounding plateau. Pantelleritic trachyte produced during the Edziza eruptive period has given a potassium–argon date of 0.9 ± 0.3 million years. #### Arctic Lake, Klastline and Kakiddi eruptive periods The fourth magmatic cycle took place between 0.8 and 0.2 million years ago during the Pleistocene. Like the previous three magmatic cycles, it was characterized by three eruptive periods. The first eruptive period created the Arctic Lake Formation which underlies much of the Arctic Lake Plateau. Alkali basalt flows and related pyroclastic rocks comprise the Arctic Lake Formation. The second eruptive period is represented by the Klastline Formation along the Kakiddi and Klastline valleys. Thick alkali basalt flows are the main features of the Klastline Formation. The third eruptive period produced thick trachyte flows and pyroclastic rocks of the Kakiddi Formation which occupy valleys on the eastern flank of Ice Peak. ##### Arctic Lake Formation The Arctic Lake eruptive period occurred 0.7 million years ago on the Arctic Lake Plateau. At least seven volcanoes formed during this period, each of which issued basaltic lava. Lava fountaining at the extreme northern end of the Arctic Lake Plateau created Outcast Hill which blocked westerly flowing streams. The damming of these streams resulted in the formation of a temporary lake against the eastern side of Outcast Hill. Lava from this volcano flowed into the lake but most of it travelled westward towards the Mess Creek Escarpment. Tadekho Hill 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) to the south formed on top of a 180-metre-high (590-foot) remnant of Spectrum trachyte. Lava from Tadekho Hill spread onto the surrounding plateau surface to form a small shield volcano. Outcast Hill and Tadekho Hill both formed when the Arctic Lake Plateau was relatively free of glacial ice. The Arctic Lake Plateau was subsequently covered with ice as glaciers advanced from the neighbouring Spectrum Range. Subglacial volcanism at the height of this glacial advance created Wetalth Ridge near the middle of the plateau. This was followed by the eruption of four other volcanoes on the Arctic Lake Plateau during the waning stages of glaciation. Two small mounds of quenched pillow lava informally called Knob 1 and Knob 2 formed subglacially south of Wetalth Ridge. The third volcano, Source Hill, was created during a massive lava eruption when only the central part of the Arctic Lake Plateau contained a thin lobe of glacial ice. Late-stage volcanism of the Arctic Lake eruptive period formed Thaw Hill on the eastern side of the Arctic Lake Plateau. Alkali basalt from this eruptive period has yielded a potassium–argon date of 0.71 ± 0.05 million years. ##### Klastline Formation The Klastline eruptive period 0.6 million years ago was characterized by minor lava fountaining and the effusion of massive basalt flows from vents along the northern flank of Mount Edziza. The basalt flows travelled adjacent to Buckley Lake and into the Klastline and Kakiddi valleys, the most extensive ones having reached 25 kilometres (16 miles) long. Pyroclastic cones developed on the lower slopes of the MEVC where eruptions were subaerial. Explosive interaction between lava and meltwater from an alpine glacier formed the Klastline tuff cone higher up on the plateau. Lava from Klastline Cone entered Kakiddi Valley where it blocked the flow of Kakiddi Creek. This lava then flowed north across dry gravel bars to the confluence with Klastline Valley, temporarily damming the Klastline River to form a large shallow lake. Most of the lava continued to flow westward through Klastline Valley for at least another 19 kilometres (12 miles). Potassium–argon dating of Klastline alkali basalt has yielded an age of 0.62 ± 0.04 million years. ##### Kakiddi Formation The Kakiddi eruptive period 0.3 million years ago involved the eruption of a massive trachyte flow that reaches almost 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) wide and 60–90 metres (200–300 feet) thick. It advanced 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) down the eastern flank of the MEVC into Kakiddi Valley where it spread out into a more than 20-square-kilometre (7.7-square-mile) terminal lobe. The source of this lava flow remains unknown but it may have issued from Ice Peak and possibly Nanook Dome at the summit of Mount Edziza. A relatively small lava flow issued from a vent on the western flank of Ice Peak and advanced onto the Big Raven Plateau. Potassium–argon dating has yielded an age of 0.31 ± 0.07 million years for Kakiddi mugearite and 0.30 ± 0.02 million years for Kakiddi trachyte. #### Big Raven eruptive period The fifth magmatic cycle, which may still be ongoing, commenced in the last 20,000 years with the onset of the Big Raven eruptive period. It was marked by the eruption of subglacial volcanoes, cinder cones and lava flows along the entire length of the MEVC, as well as a single eruption of pumice from the southwestern flank of Ice Peak. Most of the Big Raven eruptions took place on the western flank of Ice Peak and on the northern flank of Mount Edziza where lava flows from several vents accumulated to form the Desolation and Snowshoe lava fields. The rocks produced during the Big Raven eruptive period comprise the Big Raven Formation. They are mainly alkali basalts and hawaittes, although a small volume of comenditic trachyte was also produced. More than 29 eruptions took place during this eruptive period, most of which resulted in the creation of cinder cones. These cones are of Holocene age and occur in the Snowshoe Lava Field, the Desolation Lava Field and adjacent to the Spectrum Range. Eruptions during Big Raven time continued within the last 2,000 years, but the precise age of the latest one is unknown. ##### Snowshoe Lava Field One of the first volcanoes to erupt during the Big Raven eruptive period was Tennena Cone which formed high on the western flank of Ice Peak. It issued basaltic magma under the summit ice cap during the height of the neoglaciation when the ice cap was much larger in area than it is now. As the molten basalt accumulated around the erupting vent, it was quenched by the overlying ice cap to form the steep-sided, pyramid-shaped pile of pillow lava that comprises Tennena Cone. A meltwater channel thawed from the base of the cone provided the pathway for a thin lava flow. As the lava flow reached the western edge of the ice cap, it caused a violent interaction with meltwater which spread onto the plateau. Two unnamed volcanoes also in the Snowshoe Lava Field formed subglacially south of Tennena Cone. After the summit ice cap retreated from lower elevations, renewed volcanism in the Snowshoe Lava Field constructed Cocoa Crater, Coffee Crater and other subaerial cinder cones by lava fountaining. Their construction was accompanied by the eruption of massive lava flows that travelled into the valleys of Sezill Creek and Taweh Creek. Lava from a fissure eruption south of Tencho Glacier flowed west into Taweh Creek and east into Shaman Creek. The result from this eruption was the formation of The Saucer which is one of the youngest volcanic features in the Snowshoe Lava Field. ##### Arctic Lake Plateau and east slope centres Two Big Raven centres occur at the southern end of the MEVC. Nahta Cone is the southernmost and lies near the northern edge of the Arctic Lake Plateau. It was the source of a narrow, 3-kilometre-long (1.9-mile) basaltic lava flow that travelled northwards and then westwards into the head of Nahta Creek. The other eruptive centre is a now-destroyed cinder cone that formed on the unstable southern flank of Kuno Peak. It produced a basaltic lava flow that travelled onto the Arctic Lake Plateau. Subsequent landsliding on Kuno Peak removed much of the original cone and buried the associated lava flow. At least three eruptive centres were active on the deeply eroded eastern flank of Mount Edziza during the Big Raven eruptive period. Cinder Cliff in the north fork of Tenchen Creek valley formed when an eruption of basaltic lava engulfed loose debris and ponded against stagnant ice. The other two eruptive centres, Icefall Cone and Ridge Cone, have been glaciated and are poorly exposed. Both cones produced lava flows but they are also poorly exposed, having been almost completely buried under gravel, moraine, talus and glacial ice. A 6.5-kilometre-long (4.0-mile) lava flow occupying a narrow, wedge-shaped valley on the east slope of Mount Edziza may have issued from Icefall Cone, Ridge Cone or an undiscovered vent inside the valley. Its terminus lies near Kakiddi Lake where it is well exposed for 2 kilometres (1.2 miles). ##### Desolation and Mess Lake lava fields At least 10 cinder cones formed in the Desolation Lava Field during the Big Raven eruptive period. The first cones to form were Sleet Cone and Storm Cone, both of which produced lava flows that travelled over glacial till. Subsequent volcanism created the three Triplex Cones 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) north of Storm Cone. They issued a 12-kilometre-long (7.5-mile) sequence of lava flows that extends northwesterly to near the south shore of Buckley Lake. Renewed eruptive activity formed Sidas Cone and Twin Cone, both of which are products of simultaneous lava fountaining from more than one vent. Lava flows from both cones travelled to the northwest and northeast, respectively. The subsequent eruption of Moraine Cone produced a roughly 14-kilometre-long (8.7-mile) lava flow that travelled northeast into the Kakiddi Creek and Klastline River valleys; both streams were temporarily dammed by the lava flow. Eve Cone and Williams Cone were created by the latest eruptions in the Desolation Lava Field, both of which produced lava flows more than 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) long. Willow twigs preserved in ejecta from Williams Cone have yielded a radiocarbon date of 610 CE ± 150 years. The Mess Lake Lava Field northwest of the Spectrum Range issued from three cinder cones on the edge of the Mess Creek Escarpment. Lava flows from the two oldest cones travelled to the west and most likely cascaded down the escarpment into Mess Creek valley. However, any remnants of this lava on the escarpment or in Mess Creek valley have been removed by erosion. The youngest cinder cone, The Ash Pit, formed at the south end of the Mess Lake Lava Field. Eruptions from The Ash Pit produced mainly pyroclastic ejecta in the form of ash and cinders. Much of this material was blown to the northeast by a strong, uniform wind during eruption and deposited onto the Kitsu Plateau. ##### Kana Cone and Walkout Creek centres The Kana Cone eruption was characterized by the effusion of basaltic lava flows and the build up of volcanic ejecta around the erupting vent. Several lobes of lava were produced during this eruption. They flowed around eroded remnants of lava produced during the Klastline eruptive period and engulfed the Klastline River valley, temporarily damming the river. The Klastline River was forced to establish a new route along the northern valley wall where it still flows to this day. Several pulses of lava took place during the Kana Cone eruption, each resulting in the formation of new lava channels. Two small cinder cones formed in Walkout Creek valley during the Big Raven eruptive period, both of which produced basaltic lava flows. The largest cone is about 120 metres (390 feet) high and was constructed on top of a slow moving landslide originating from the northern side of the valley. Both cones have been deeply dissected, the larger cone having been segmented into arcuate, step-like slices from continued movement of the landslide. ##### Sheep Track Member A small but violent VEI-3 eruption burst from the southwestern flank of Ice Peak near the end of the Big Raven eruptive period. It deposited the Sheep Track Member which consists of volcanic ejecta that fell over an area of about 40 square kilometres (15 square miles). The ejecta consists of granular trachyte pumice that varies from snowball-sized chunks near the vent area to pea-sized fragments around the parameter of the deposit. All of the Snowshoe Lava Field flows and cones are covered by Sheep Track pumice with the exception of The Saucer which likely postdates the Sheep Track eruption. The location of the vent that produced the Sheep Track Member is unknown but it may lie under the Tencho Glacier. Fission track dating has yielded an age of 950 CE ± 6,000 years for the Sheep Track Member. ### Present day status The MEVC is volcanically dormant but it still remains hydrothermally active. Four hot spring areas are found along the western flank of the MEVC at Mess Lake, Mess Creek, Elwyn Creek and Sezill Creek, the latter three of which have recorded water temperatures of 42.5 degrees Celsius (108.5 degrees Fahrenheit), 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) and 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit), respectively. Discharge at the Sezill Creek, Elwyn Creek and Mess Lake hot springs may be linked to shallow hydrothermal systems driven by residual magmatic heat as they are adjacent to recently active eruptive centres. In contrast, the Mess Creek Hot Springs may be discharging from a deeply circulating hydraulic system along a major fault on the western side of Mess Creek valley. Estimated subsurface temperatures, as derived from geothermometers, are 177 degrees Celsius (351 degrees Fahrenheit) based on silica concentrations and 227 degrees Celsius (441 degrees Fahrenheit) based on sodium-potassium-calcium ratios. This makes the MEVC a potential high-temperature geothermal resource area but it does not warrant subsurface exploration due to its remote location. The Mess Lake Hot Springs are situated near the southeastern corner of Mess Lake. They had a vigorous flow of warm water in 1965 but are now inactive, having dried up by 1983. These springs lie at an elevation of 760 metres (2,490 feet) and have created massive deposits of tufa that cover more than 120 hectares (300 acres). About 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) south of Mess Lake are the Mess Creek Hot Springs. They are located on the western side of Mess Creek where they attain an elevation of 760 metres (2,490 feet). The Elwyn Hot Springs occur along the banks of Elwyn Creek at an elevation of 1,440 metres (4,720 feet) where they have created thick tufa deposits. Extending 0.5 kilometres (0.31 miles) along Sezill Creek are the Taweh Hot Springs which contain extensive tufa. They occur at an elevation of 1,310 metres (4,300 feet) and emit thermal waters containing carbon dioxide. ### Hazards and monitoring Natural Resources Canada considers the MEVC a high threat volcanic complex as it has the highest eruption rate in Canada. However, its extremely remote location makes it less hazardous than volcanoes in southwestern British Columbia. MEVC trachyte and rhyolite contain silica-rich compositions that are comparable to those associated with the most powerful eruptions around the world. Parts of northwestern Canada would be affected by an ash column if an explosive eruption were to happen at the MEVC. Ash columns can drift for thousands of kilometres downwind and often become increasingly spread out over a larger area with increasing distance from an erupting vent. An eruption under the summit ice cap would possibly produce floods or lahars that could travel into the Stikine or Iskut rivers. Lava flows are also a potential hazard as they have formerly dammed the Klastline and Stikine rivers, the latter of which contains a major salmon fishery. Another potential hazard at the MEVC is the ignition of wildfires by eruptions as the area contains vegetation. Like other volcanic complexes in Canada, the MEVC is not monitored closely enough by the Geological Survey of Canada to ascertain its activity level. The Canadian National Seismograph Network has been established to monitor earthquakes throughout Canada, but it is too far away to provide an accurate indication of activity under the complex. It may sense an increase in seismic activity if the MEVC becomes highly restless, but this may only provide a warning for a large eruption; the system might detect activity only once the complex has started erupting. If the MEVC were to erupt, mechanisms exist to orchestrate relief efforts. The Interagency Volcanic Event Notification Plan was created to outline the notification procedure of some of the main agencies that would respond to an erupting volcano in Canada, an eruption close to the Canada–United States border or any eruption that would affect Canada. ## Human history ### Indigenous peoples The MEVC lies within the traditional territory of the Tahltan people which covers an area of more than 93,500 square kilometres (36,100 square miles). In prehistoric times, the MEVC was a significant source of obsidian for the Tahltan people. It was used in the manufacturing of projectile points and cutting blades which were widely traded throughout the Pacific Northwest. Obsidian from the MEVC has been recovered from archaeological sites in Alaska, Yukon, western Alberta and along the British Columbia Coast, making Edziza obsidian the most widely distributed obsidian in western North America. Edziza obsidian from the Hidden Falls archaeological site in Alaska has a date of 10,000 years. This suggests that the MEVC was being exploited as an obsidian source soon after ice sheets of the last glacial period retreated. The MEVC continues to be an important cultural resource for the Tahltan people. In 2021, Chad Norman Day, president of the Tahltan Central Government, said "Mount Edziza and the surrounding area has always been sacred to the Tahltan Nation. The obsidian from this portion of our territory provided us with weaponry, tools and trading goods that ensured our Tahltan people could thrive for thousands of years." ### Telegraphy Along the western side of the MEVC and through its central portion at Raspberry Pass are the remains of the Yukon Telegraph Line. This was a nearly 3,000-kilometre-long (1,900-mile) telegraphy system built by the Dominion Government Telegraph Service between 1897 and 1901 to send messages from Ashcroft, British Columbia in the south to Dawson City, Yukon in the north. A trail built to serve the line extended along much of its length and provided a route to the Yukon gold fields. Log cabins housing two men were built every 32 kilometres (20 miles) along the Yukon Telegraph Trail for maintenance. One of these maintenance cabins existed at Raspberry Creek in the central portion of the MEVC. The Yukon Telegraph Line and trail were maintained until 1936 when they were abandoned with the advent of radio communication. Remnants of this telegraphy system include collapsed cabins, telegraph wire and a few telegraph poles. ### Naming The MEVC is sometimes referred to as the Mount Edziza–Spectrum Range complex. Stratigraphically, it has also been referred to as the Mount Edziza Group or the Edziza Group. A number of explanations have been made regarding the origin of the name Edziza. A 1927 report by J. Davidson of the British Columbia Land Surveyors claims that Edziza means "sand" in the Tahltan language, referring to the deep volcanic ash deposits or pumiceous sand covering large portions of the Big Raven Plateau around Mount Edziza. Another explanation listed in the BC Parks brochure is that Edziza means "cinders" in the Tahltan language, although David Stevenson of University of Victoria's Anthropology Department advised in 1970 that the actual Tahltan word for sand or dust is "kutlves". A third explanation proposed by Canadian volcanologist Jack Souther is that Edziza is a corruption of Edzerza, the name of a local Tahltan family. ### Geological studies The MEVC is one of the best-studied volcanic centres in the NCVP. It was identified by the mapping program of Operation Stikine in 1956 along with Level Mountain, the Iskut-Unuk River Cones and many smaller volcanoes in the Canadian Cordillera. Their identification played a role in the closing of Canada's gap in the Ring of Fire because it allowed them to be added on the world volcanic map. The mapping program of Operation Stikine, masterminded by Jack Souther, was carried out over the Stikine River area using a Bell helicopter. Souther began detailed mapping of the MEVC in 1965 when he was given the job of working on the volcanic complex by the Geological Survey of Canada. A three-month period of earthquake monitoring was conducted at the MEVC in 1968 after geologists of the Geological Survey of Canada suggested that there may still be magma movement under the volcanic complex. About 20 microearthquakes potentially associated with the MEVC were recorded by seismographs installed at Buckley Lake and Nuttlude Lake. They had magnitudes of around 0.5 which typically occur in many areas throughout the Canadian Cordillera. By 1970, Souther and his assistant Maurice Lambert had established that episodic eruptions of alkali basalt and silicic peralkaline lavas had taken place at the MEVC over a timespan of at least 10 million years. They had also established that volcanism at the MEVC was accompanied by east–west extension and incipient rifting of Earth's crust. During his last year of serious field work in 1992, Souther published an extensive bulletin on his work entitled The Late Cenozoic Mount Edziza Volcanic Complex, British Columbia which highlighted the importance and size of the MEVC. The volcanic complex has since received very few geological studies. A three-year period of field studies conducted at the MEVC around 2007 focused on using volcano-ice interactions to constrain paleo-environmental conditions. The project was a collaboration between Ben Edwards of Dickinson College, Ian Skilling of the University of Pittsburgh, Barry Cameron of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Ian Spooner of Acadia University, J. Osborn of the University of Calgary, Kirstie Simpson of the Geological Survey of Canada and Bill McIntosh of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Five students conducted studies at the MEVC in 2007. Among them were Chira Endress of Dickinson Collage who examined sediment under a trachytic lava flow of the Ice Peak Formation, Jeff Hungerford of the University of Pittsburgh who carried out fieldwork around Tennena Cone, Courtney Haynes of Dickinson Collage who examined the geometry of pillow lavas, Alex Floyd of Dickinson Collage who performed a detailed examination of pillow lavas possibly derived from Pillow Ridge, and Kristen LaMoreaux of the University of Pittsburgh who examined Ornostay Bluff, Triangle Dome and lava flows from Koosick Bluff. ### Mineral exploration A block of mineral claims called the Spectrum or Red Dog property existed in the former Mount Edziza Recreation Area just southeast of Mount Edziza throughout the latter half of the 20th century. It covered quartz, pyrite and chalcopyrite mineralization in fractured sedimentary and volcanic rocks of Late Triassic age. Commodities on the property included copper, gold, lead, silver and zinc. Mineral exploration on the Spectrum property began in at least 1957 when Torbit Silver Mines performed surface work on the gold-bearing Hawk vein. This was followed by drilling of the Hawk vein by Shawnigan Mining and Smelting in 1967. Exploration by Mitsui Mining and Smelting in 1970 involved geophysical and geochemical surveying. From 1971 to 1973, Imperial Oil conducted geophysical, geological and geochemical surveying, as well as 463 metres (1,519 feet) of drilling in four holes. Geochemical and geological surveys were conducted on the Spectrum property by Consolidated Silver Ridge Mines and Newhawk Mines between 1976 and 1981. Consolidated Silver Ridge Mines also built an airstrip and carried out 3,232 metres (10,604 feet) of drilling in 28 holes during this time period. Additional work on the Spectrum property by Newhawk Mines during this time period included the construction of an access road and 313 metres (1,027 feet) of underground development on the Hawk vein. Further geochemical and geological surveying was performed by Moongold Resources from 1987 to 1989. Mineral exploration conducted by Columbia Gold Mines from 1990 to 1992 consisted of rock sampling, trenching and 7,066 metres (23,182 feet) of drilling in 50 holes. ### Protected areas Much of the MEVC was designated as a provincial park in 1972 to showcase its many geological and geothermal features. A 101,171-hectare (250,000-acre) recreation area surrounding the 132,000-hectare (330,000-acre) park was also established in 1972. In 1989, Mount Edziza Provincial Park roughly doubled in size when 96,770 hectares (239,100 acres) was annexed from the Mount Edziza Recreation Area. In doing so, the recreation area was reduced in size to around 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres) and was eventually abolished in 2003. Mount Edziza Provincial Park now covers an area of 266,180 hectares (657,700 acres), making it one of the largest provincial parks in British Columbia. In 2021, an approximately 3,528-hectare (8,720-acre) conservation area called the Mount Edziza Conservancy was established northwest of Kakiddi Lake along the eastern border of Mount Edziza Provincial Park. It was established in collaboration with Skeena Resources, BC Parks, the Tahltan Central Government and the Nature Conservancy of Canada after Skeena Resources returned their mineral tenures on the Spectrum property. The name of this conservation area was changed to the Tenh Dẕetle Conservancy in 2022 to better reflect the culture, history and tradition of the Tahltan First Nation. ## Recreation The MEVC offers many recreational activities, including mountain climbing, camping, fishing, hunting, horseback riding, wildlife viewing, photography, hiking and backpacking. Buckley Lake and Mowdade Lake on the northern and eastern sides of the MEVC contain campsites with fire rings, bear-proof metal food caches and backcountry-style toilets. It is advised by BC Parks to not gather wood for campfires within Mount Edziza Provincial Park to help maintain a healthy ecosystem community. The optimum time for backpacking is generally between July 1 and September 15 when weather conditions are the most suitable. Kakiddi Lake, Mowchilla Lake, Mowdade Lake, Nuttlude Lake and Buckley Lake are well populated with rainbow trout and offer fishing at the MEVC. A limited entry hunting authorization is required for the hunting of mountain goats, mountain sheep and caribou within Mount Edziza Provincial Park. Horseback riding at the MEVC requires a letter of authorization. The many cinder cones dotting the MEVC have designated climbing routes to prevent scarring on their delicate surfaces from foot traffic. A hiking trail dubbed the Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route extends across the northern half of the MEVC. It traverses south from Buckley Lake along Buckley Creek and gradually climbs onto the MEVC plateau where landmarks such as Eve Cone, Sidas Cone and Tsekone Ridge are visible along the route. Most of the Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route is marked by a series of rock cairns from Tsekone Ridge onwards. The distance between Buckley Lake and Mowdade Lake is about 70 kilometres (43 miles) but the hiking length between these two lakes varies depending on the route taken. It can take a minimum of 7 days to hike the Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route. The weather and climate can change extremely fast along this hiking trail. ## Accessibility The MEVC lies in a remote location with no established road access. The closest roads to the MEVC are the Stewart–Cassiar Highway to the east and the Telegraph Creek Road to the northwest, both of which extend within 40 kilometres (25 miles) of the volcanic complex. Extending from these roads are horse trails that provide access to the MEVC. From Telegraph Creek, the Buckley Lake Trail extends about 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) southeast along Mess Creek and Three Mile Lake. It then traverses about 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) northeast along Dagaichess Creek and Stinking Lake to the northeastern end of Buckley Lake where it meets with the Klastline River Trail and the Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route. To the east, the roughly 50-kilometre-long (31-mile) Klastline River Trail begins at the community of Iskut on the Stewart–Cassiar Highway. It extends northwest and west along the Klastline River for much its length. The trail enters Mount Edziza Provincial Park at about 25 kilometres (16 miles) where Kakiddi Creek drains into the Klastline River. After entering Mount Edziza Provincial Park, the Klastline River Trail traverses northwest along the Klastline River for about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) and then crosses the river north of the MEVC. From there, the Klastline River Trail traverses west for about 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) to the northeastern end of Buckley Lake where it meets with the Buckley Lake Trail and Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route junction. From near the Eastman Creek Rest Area south of Kinaskan Lake on the Stewart–Cassiar Highway, the historic Yukon Telegraph Trail extends about 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) west to the Little Iskut River. From there, it enters Mount Edziza Provincial Park and continues another 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) west along Bourgeaux Creek into the central portion of the MEVC at Raspberry Pass. The Yukon Telegraph Trail then traverses about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) northwest along Raspberry Creek into the broad valley of Mess Creek where it continues another 30 kilometres (19 miles) north along the western side of the MEVC. It conjoins with the Buckley Lake Trail near Matheson Creek. Only short segments of the Yukon Telegraph Trail are still passible, having been mostly overgrown since maintenance of the trail ended in 1936. The MEVC can also be accessed by float plane or helicopter, both of which are available for charter at the communities of Iskut and Dease Lake. Private aircraft are prohibited from landing on the Kitsu Plateau lava flows. Kakiddi Lake, 180 Lake, Mess Lake, Arctic Lake, Nuttlude Lake, Mowdade Lake, Little Arctic Lake, Little Ball Lake, Mowchilla Lake and Buckley Lake are large enough to be used by float-equipped aircraft. Landing on the latter four lakes with a private aircraft requires a letter of authorization from the BC Parks Stikine Senior Park Ranger. ## See also - List of Northern Cordilleran volcanoes - List of volcanoes in Canada - Volcanism of Western Canada

HD 2039

Star in the constellation Phoenix

HD 2039 is a yellow dwarf or yellow subgiant star in the constellation Phoenix. The star is not visible to the naked eye, and lies 280 light years away from the Sun. HD 2039 is a relatively stable star, and an exoplanet at least three times the mass of the planet Jupiter has been discovered in its orbit; this exoplanet, known as HD 2039 b, was the 100th exoplanet to be discovered. ## Nomenclature The designation HD 2039 from the Henry Draper Catalogue. The catalogue, which was published between 1918 and 1924, was based on the work of Annie Jump Cannon and her team between 1911 and 1915. HD 2039 does not have a common, colloquial name that is characteristic of stars like Sirius, Procyon, and Aldebaran. ## Characteristics HD 2039 is a stable G-type star, meaning it shines with white light that can be seen in the Sun. HD 2039 exhibits a radius approximately 40 percent larger than the Sun's. The star is slightly hotter than the Sun; while HD 2039 has a temperature of 5935 K, the Sun's surface temperature lies nearly 200 kelvins lower at 5778 K. HD 2039 is unusually metal-rich, which has attracted the attention of astrophysicists. ### Distance and visibility The star's magnitude as observed from Earth is 9; this signifies that the body is not visible with the naked eye, but can be seen with a telescope. HD 2039 lies roughly 280 light years from the Sun, which is about as far from the Sun as the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus. ## Planetary system In 2002, a planet was found by the Anglo-Australian Planet Search team to be orbiting the star in a very eccentric orbit. It has a minimum mass more than four times that of Jupiter and has an orbital period of over three years. The planet orbits its star at a distance of approximately two AU away; the planet Earth, in comparison, orbits at a distance of one AU away from the Sun. HD 2039 b's discovery was reported quietly; no press release was provided by the observatory that discovered the star's planet, and no formal announcement of the planet's existence was made. The entity was the 100th exoplanet to have been verified by the scientific community. ## See also - List of extrasolar planets

Everett Scott

American baseball player (1892-1960)

Lewis Everett Scott (November 19, 1892 – November 2, 1960), nicknamed "Deacon", was an American professional baseball player. A shortstop, Scott played in Major League Baseball for 12 seasons as a member of the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds, from 1914 through 1926. Scott batted and threw right-handed. Scott served as captain of both the Red Sox and Yankees, who have become fierce rivals. He compiled a lifetime batting average of .249, hitting 20 home runs with 551 runs batted in in 1,654 games. He led American League shortstops in fielding percentage seven straight seasons (1916–22) and appeared in 1,307 consecutive games from June 20, 1916, through May 6, 1925, setting a record later broken by Lou Gehrig. As of 2022, it is still the third-longest streak in history. After retiring from baseball, Scott became a professional bowler and owned bowling alleys. He died in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the age of 67. He was posthumously inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame and Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. ## Early life Scott was born in Bluffton, Indiana. He had two brothers and a sister. His father, Lewis, had moved to Bluffton from Warren, Indiana, shortly before Everett's birth. Lewis' brother, Frame, had been a baseball player when he was younger. Scott attended Bluffton High School, where he played for the school's baseball and basketball teams. He graduated in 1909. Scott married his high school sweetheart, Gladys Watt, in 1912. ## Career ### Early career After graduating from Bluffton, Scott made his professional baseball debut in Minor League Baseball with the Kokomo Wild Cats of the Class D Northern State of Indiana League in 1909. He moved to the Fairmont Champions of the Class D Pennsylvania–West Virginia League for the remainder of the 1909 season. He began the 1910 season with Fairmont, and completed the season with Kokomo. He joined the Youngstown Steelmen of the Class C Ohio–Pennsylvania League in 1911, and remained with them in 1912, when they played in the Class B Central League. Jimmy McAleer, a native of Youngstown and minority owner of the Boston Red Sox of the American League (AL), noticed Scott playing for the Steelmen. On McAleer's suggestion, the Red Sox purchased Scott from Youngstown after the 1912 season, and optioned him to the St. Paul Saints of the Class AA American Association. Towards the end of the 1913 season, the Red Sox recalled Scott. Bill Phillips, manager of the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the outlaw Federal League, attempted to convince Scott to jump from the AL after the 1913 season by offering Scott a \$4,000 contract (\$ today). Scott remained with the Red Sox, signing a contract for \$2,500 (\$ today) for the 1914 season. ### Boston Red Sox Scott made his major league debut on April 14, 1914 for the Red Sox, and had a .239 batting average with strong fielding as a rookie. His batting average dropped to .201 in the 1915 season. The Red Sox won the AL pennant, and defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. Scott had one hit in 18 at bats during the series. On June 20, 1916, Scott began a consecutive games played streak. Scott batted .232 in the 1916 season and led all AL shortstops in fielding percentage. In the 1916 World Series, the Red Sox defeated the Brooklyn Robins. Scott had two hits in 16 at bats, and Wilbert Robinson of the Robins nicknamed Scott "Trolley Wire" due to his accurate throws. After a contract dispute, when Scott refused a pay cut from the Red Sox, Scott signed a contract for the 1918 season. He batted .241 in 1917, while leading AL shortstops in fielding percentage and defensive games played, but the Red Sox did not win the pennant. Scott batted .221 in the 1918 season, while leading AL shortstops in fielding percentage for the third consecutive season, as the Red Sox won the 1918 World Series. In April 1919, Scott signed a three-year contract with the Red Sox. Scott led AL shortstops in fielding percentage for the fourth consecutive season in 1919, and batted .278, the highest average of his career. Scott broke George Pinkney's MLB consecutive games played streak of 577 on April 26, 1920. He again led AL shortstops in fielding percentage. The Red Sox named Scott team captain for the 1921 season, after the previous captain, Harry Hooper, was traded to the Chicago White Sox. During spring training in 1921, Scott dealt with leg cramp that threatened his playing streak, but he was able to continue playing. Scott had 62 runs batted in on the season, and stated that it was his goal to play in 1,000 consecutive games. ### New York Yankees After the 1921 season, the Red Sox traded Scott with Bullet Joe Bush and Sad Sam Jones to the New York Yankees for Rip Collins, Roger Peckinpaugh, Bill Piercy, Jack Quinn and \$100,000 (\$ in current dollar terms). Del Pratt succeeded Scott as captain of the Red Sox. After Peckinpaugh, the captain of the Yankees, was traded, Babe Ruth was named the new team captain. Ruth was suspended in May 1922 and Scott was named captain in Ruth's place. Scott remained the Yankees' captain through 1925. Scott played with the Yankees in the 1922 World Series. He entered the 1923 season 14 games shy of his goal of 1,000 consecutive games played, but sprained his ankle during spring training. He played on Opening Day at the newly opened Yankee Stadium, recording the first assist in the stadium's history. He played his 1,000th consecutive MLB game on May 2, 1923. U.S. Secretary of the Navy Edwin C. Denby presented Scott with a gold medal during a pregame ceremony. Scott broke Perry Lipe's record for consecutive professional baseball games (regardless of level) with his 1,127th game on September 14, 1923; all of Lipe's games had been in the minor leagues and Lipe never played at the MLB level. . By the following offseason, manager Miller Huggins began to consider ending Scott's streak. Huggins benched Scott on May 6, 1925 in favor of Pee Wee Wanninger, ending his record consecutive games played streak at 1,307. ### Later career The Washington Senators selected Scott off waivers from the New York Yankees in June 1925, paying the Yankees the waiver price of \$4,000 (\$ today). With the Senators, Scott served as Peckinpaugh's backup. The Senators reached the 1925 World Series, but lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates; Scott did not appear in the series. Though it was reported that Scott would retire to manage his business in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Chicago White Sox signed Scott in February 1926. The Cincinnati Reds purchased Scott from the White Sox in July 1926. He played in four games for the Reds. Scott signed with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League for the 1927 season, receiving his unconditionally release on August 4. He signed with the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association in August, and played in 33 games for them. Toledo released him after the season. Scott played with the Reading Keystones of the International League in 1928, batting .315. Scott returned to the Keystones in 1929, but received his release in July 1929 after 62 games, due to the team's disappointing play. ## Later life Scott was an avid bowler, and he competed in ten-pin bowling events sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress. He bowled against professional Hank Marino in 1931, though he lost. Scott also owned bowling alleys in Fort Wayne. He wrote a children’s book, called Third Base Thatcher, that was published in 1928. Lou Gehrig, a former teammate of Scott's on the Yankees, surpassed Scott's record of consecutive games played in August 1933 in a game against the St. Louis Browns. Gehrig's streak began in 1925, by pinch hitting for Wanninger, the same season Scott's streak ended. Scott attended the game at Sportsman's Park as a special guest of the Browns. Scott died in Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana at age 67. He was posthumously inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2008. The News-Sentinel named Scott the fourth-best athlete from Northeastern Indiana of the 20th century. ## See also - Major League Baseball consecutive games played streaks - List of Boston Red Sox captains - List of New York Yankees captains

Cornish people

Ethnic group in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, and the worldwide Cornish diaspora

The Cornish people or Cornish (Cornish: Kernowyon, Old English: Cornƿīelisċ) are an ethnic group native to, or associated with Cornwall and a recognised national minority in the United Kingdom, which can trace its roots to the ancient Britons who inhabited southern and central Great Britain before the Roman conquest. Many in Cornwall today continue to assert a distinct identity separate from or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora. Although not included as a tick-box option in the UK census, the numbers of those writing in a Cornish ethnic and national identity are officially recognised and recorded. Throughout classical antiquity, the ancient Britons formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities in Great Britain; the Dumnonii and Cornovii were the Celtic tribes who inhabited what was to become Cornwall during the Iron Age, Roman and post-Roman periods. The name Cornwall and its demonym Cornish are derived from the Celtic Cornovii tribe. The Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries restricted the Romano-British culture and language gradually into the north and west of Great Britain whilst the inhabitants of southern and eastern Britain became English. The Cornish people, who shared the Brythonic language with the Welsh and Bretons across the sea, were referred to in the Old English language as the "Westwalas" meaning West Welsh. The Battle of Deorham between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons is thought to have resulted in a loss of land links with the people of Wales. The Cornish people and their Brythonic Cornish language experienced a process of anglicisation and attrition during the medieval and early modern periods. By the 18th century, and following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Cornish language and identity had faded, largely replaced by the English language (albeit Cornish-influenced West Country dialects and Anglo-Cornish) or British identity. A Celtic revival during the early-20th century enabled a cultural self-consciousness in Cornwall that revitalised the Cornish language and roused the Cornish to express a distinctly Celtic heritage. The Cornish language was granted official recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, and in 2014 the Cornish people were recognised and afforded protection by the UK Government under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. In the 2021 census, the population of Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly, was recorded as 570,300. The Cornish self-government movement has called for greater recognition of Cornish culture, politics, and language, and urged that Cornish people be accorded greater status, exemplified by the call for them to be one of the listed ethnic groups in the United Kingdom Census 2011 form. ## Classification Both geographic and historical factors distinguish the Cornish as an ethnic group further supported by identifiable genetic variance between the populations of Cornwall, neighbouring Devon and England as published in a 2012 Oxford University study. Throughout medieval and Early Modern Britain, the Cornish were at some points accorded the same status as the English and Welsh and considered a separate race or nation, distinct from their neighbours, with their own language, society and customs. A process of Anglicisation between 1485 and 1700 led to the Cornish adopting English language, culture and civic identity, a view reinforced by Cornish historian A. L. Rowse who said they were gradually "absorbed into the mainstream of English life". Although "decidedly modern" and "largely retrospective" in its identity politics, Cornish and Celtic associations have advanced the notion of a distinct Cornish national and ethnic identity since the late 20th century. In the United Kingdom Census 2001, despite no explicit "Cornish" option being available, approximately 34,000 people in Cornwall and 3,500 people elsewhere in the UK—a combined total equal to nearly 7 per cent of the population of Cornwall—identified themselves as ethnic Cornish by writing this in under the "other" ethnicity option. The census figures show a change in identity from West to East, in Penwith 9.2 per cent identified as ethnically Cornish, in Kerrier it was 7.5 per cent, in Carrick 6.6 per cent, Restormel 6.3 per cent, North Cornwall 6 per cent, and Caradon 5.6 per cent. Weighting of the 2001 Census data gives a figure of 154,791 people with Cornish ethnicity living in Cornwall. The Cornish have been described as "a special case" in England, with an "ethnic rather than regional identity". Structural changes to the politics of the United Kingdom, particularly the European Union and devolution, have been cited as the main stimulus to "a growing interest in Cornish identity and distinctiveness" in late-20th century Britain. The British are the citizens of the United Kingdom, a people who by convention consist of four national groups: the English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh. In the 1990s it was said that the notion that the Cornish are to be classified as a nation comparable to the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh, "has practically vanished from the popular consciousness" outside Cornwall, and that, despite a "real and substantive" identity, the Cornish "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English". However, in 2014, after a 15-year campaign, the UK government officially recognised the Cornish as a national minority under the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, giving the Cornish the same status as the Welsh, Scots and Irish within the UK. Inhabitants of Cornwall may have multiple political allegiances, adopting mixed, dual or hyphenated identities such as "Cornish first and British second", "Cornish and British and European", or, like Phil Vickery (a rugby union prop for the England national rugby union team and British and Irish Lions), describe themselves as "Cornish" and "English". Meanwhile, another international rugby union player, Josh Matavesi, describes himself as Cornish-Fijian and Cornish not English. A survey by Plymouth University in 2000 found that 30% of children in Cornwall felt "Cornish, not English". A 2004 survey on national identity by the finance firm Morgan Stanley found that 44% of respondents in Cornwall saw themselves as Cornish rather than British or English. A 2008 University of Exeter study conducted in 16 towns across Cornwall found that 59% felt themselves to be Cornish and 41% felt "More Cornish than English", while for over a third of respondents the Cornish identity formed their primary national identity. Genealogy and family history were considered to be the chief criteria for 'being' Cornish, particularly among those who possessed such ties, while being born in Cornwall was also held to be important. A 2008 study by the University of Edinburgh of 15- and 16-year-old schoolchildren in Cornwall found that 58% of respondents felt themselves to be either 'Fairly' or 'Very much' Cornish. The other 42% may be the result of in-migration to the area during the second half of the twentieth century. A 2010 study by the University of Exeter into the meaning of contemporary Cornish identity across Cornwall found that there was a "west-east distance decay in the strength of the Cornish identity." The study was conducted amongst the farming community as they were deemed to be the socio-professional group most objectively representative of Cornishness. All participants categorised themselves as Cornish and identified Cornish as their primary ethnic group orientation. Those in the west primarily thought of themselves as Cornish and British/Celtic, while those in the east tended to think of themselves as Cornish and English. All participants in West Cornwall who identified as Cornish and not English described people in East Cornwall, without hesitation, as equally Cornish as themselves. Those who identified as Cornish and English stressed the primacy of their Cornishness and a capacity to distance themselves from their Englishness. Ancestry was seen as the most important criterion for being categorised as Cornish, above place of birth or growing up in Cornwall. This study supports a 1988 study by Mary McArthur that had found that the meanings of Cornishness varied substantially, from local to national identity. Both studies also observed that the Cornish were less materialistic than the English. The Cornish generally saw the English, or city people, as being "less friendly and more aggressively self-promoting and insensitive". The Cornish saw themselves as friendly, welcoming and caring. In November 2010 British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said "I think Cornish national identity is very powerful" and that his government would "devolve a lot of power to Cornwall – that will go to the Cornish unitary authority." ### 2011 and 2021 UK Census A campaign for the inclusion of a Cornish tick-box in the nationality section of the 2011 census failed to win the support of Parliament in 2009. As a consequence, posters were created by the census organisation and Cornwall Council which advised residents how they could identify themselves as Cornish by writing it in the national identity and ethnicity sections and record Cornish in the main language section. Additionally, people could record Cornwall as their country of birth. Like other identities, Cornish has an allocated census code, (06), the same as for 2001, which applied and was counted throughout Britain. People were first able to record their ethnicity as Cornish in the 2001 UK Census, and some 37,000 people did so by writing it in. A total of 83,499 people in England and Wales were described as having a Cornish national identity. 59,456 of these were described as Cornish only, 6,261 as Cornish and British, and 17,782 as Cornish and at least one other identity, with or without British. Within Cornwall the total was 73,220 (14% of the population) with 52,793 (9.9%) as Cornish only, 5,185 (1%) as Cornish and British, and 15,242 (2.9%) as Cornish and at least one other identity, with or without British. In Scotland 467 people described themselves as having Cornish national identity. 254 with Cornish identity only, 39 as Scottish and Cornish, and 174 having Cornish identity and at least one other UK identity (excluding Scottish). In the 2021 census, 89,084 people in England and Wales described their national identity as Cornish only and 10,670 as Cornish and British. Within Cornwall, 79,938 people (14.0% of the population) specified a Cornish only identity and 9,146 (1.6%) Cornish in combination with British. ### Schools census (PLASC) Since 2006 school children in Cornwall have been able to record themselves as ethnically Cornish on the annual Schools Census (PLASC). Since then the number identifying as Cornish has risen from 24% to 51% in 2017. The Department for Education recommends that parents and guardians determine the ethnicity of children at primary schools whilst pupils at secondary schools can decide their own ethnicity. - 2006: 23.7 percent – 17,218 pupils out of 72,571 - 2007: 27.3 percent – 19,988 pupils out of 72,842 - 2008: 30.3 percent – 21,610 pupils out of 71,302 - 2009: 33.9 percent – 23,808 pupils out of 70,275 - 2010: 37.2 percent – 26,140 pupils out of 69,950 - 2011: 40.9 percent – 28,584 pupils out of 69,811 - 2012: 43.0 percent – 30,181 pupils out of 69,909 - 2013: 46.0 percent – 32,254 pupils out of 70,097 - 2014: 48.0 percent - 2017: 51.1 percent - 2020: 45.9 percent - due to an error in the management system of a number of schools, pupils identifying as White Cornish were inadvertently changed to Any Other White resulting in a reduced figure for the year 2020. ## History ### Ancestral roots Traditionally, the Cornish are thought to have been descended from the Iron Age Celts, making them distinct from the English, many (but not all) of whom are descended from the Anglo-Saxons who colonised Great Britain from their homelands in northern Europe and drove the Celts to Britain's western and northern fringes. Recent genetic studies based on ancient DNA have complicated this picture, however. During the Bronze Age, most of the people that had inhabited Britain since the Neolithic era were replaced by Beaker People, while scholars have argued that the introduction of the Celtic languages and material culture into Britain and Ireland was by means of cultural diffusion, rather than any substantial migration. Genetic evidence has also suggested that while ancestry inherited from the Anglo-Saxons makes up a significant part of the modern English gene pool (one study suggested an average 38% contribution in eastern England), they did not displace all of the previous inhabitants. A 2015 study found that modern Cornish populations had less Anglo-Saxon ancestry than people from central and southern England, and that they were genetically distinct from their neighbors in Devon. The study also suggested that populations traditionally labelled as "Celtic" showed significant diversity, rather than a unified genetic identity. Throughout classical antiquity the Celts spoke Celtic languages, and formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities, notably the Picts and Gaels in the north and the Britons in the south. The Britons were themselves a divided people; although they shared the Brythonic languages, they were tribal, and divided into regional societies, and within them sub-groups. Examples of these tribal societies were the Brigantes in the north, and the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Silures and the Deceangli in the west. In the extreme southwest, what was to become Cornwall, were the Dumnonii and Cornovii, who lived in the Kingdom of Dumnonia. The Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century introduced Romans to Britain, who upon their arrival initially recorded the Dumnonii, but later reported on the Cornovii, who were possibly a sub-group of the Dumnonii. Although the Romans colonised much of central and southern Britain, Dumnonia was "virtually unaffected" by the conquest; Roman rule had little or no impact on the region, meaning it could flourish as a semi- or fully independent kingdom which evidence shows was sometimes under the dominion of the kings of the Britons, and sometimes to have been governed by its own Dumnonian monarchy, either by the title of duke or king. This petty kingdom shared strong linguistic, political and cultural links with Brittany, a peninsula on continental Europe south of Cornwall inhabited by Britons; the Cornish and Breton languages were nearly indistinguishable in this period, and both Cornwall and Brittany remain dotted with dedications to the same Celtic saints. The Sack of Rome in the year 410 prompted a complete Roman departure from Britain, and Cornwall then experienced an influx of Celtic Christian missionaries from Ireland who had a profound effect upon the early Cornish people, their culture, faith and architecture. The ensuing decline of the Roman Empire encouraged the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. The Angles, Jutes, Frisii and Saxons, Germanic peoples from northern Europe, established petty kingdoms and settled in different regions of what was to become England, and parts of southern Scotland, progressively defeating the Britons in battle. The Saxons of the Kingdom of Wessex in particular were expanding their territory westwards towards Cornwall. The Cornish were frequently embattled with the West Saxons, who used their Germanic word walha (modern English: Welsh) meaning "stranger" or "foreigner", to describe their opponents, later specifying them as the Westwalas (West Welsh) or Cornwalas (the Cornish). Conflict continued until King Athelstan of England determined that the River Tamar be the formal boundary between the West Saxons and the Cornish in the year 936, making Cornwall one of the last retreats of the Britons encouraging the development of a distinct Cornish identity; Brittonic culture in Britain became confined to Cornwall, parts of Devon, North West England, South West Scotland and Wales. Although a treaty was agreed, Anglo-Saxon political influence stretched westwards until some time in the late 10th century when "Cornwall was definitively incorporated into the Kingdom of England". ### Anglicisation and rebellion The Norman conquest of England, which began with an invasion by the troops of William, Duke of Normandy (later, King William I of England) in 1066, resulted in the removal of the Anglo-Saxon derived monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy and its replacement by Normans, Scandinavian Vikings from northern France and their Breton allies, who, in many cases, maintained rule in the Brittonic-speaking parts of the conquered lands. The shires of England were progressively divided amongst the companions of William I of England, who served as England's new nobility. The English would come to absorb the Normans, but the Cornish "vigorously resisted" their influence. At the time of the conquest, legend has it that Cornwall was under the governance of Condor, reported by later antiquarians to be the last Earl of Cornwall to be directly descended from the ancient monarchy of Cornwall. The Earldom of Cornwall had held devolved semi-sovereignty from England, but in 1067 was granted to Robert, Count of Mortain, King William I's half-brother, and ruled thereafter by an Anglo-Norman aristocracy; in the Domesday Book, the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, "virtually all" landowners in Cornwall "had English names, making it impossible to be sure who was Cornish and who was English by race". However, there was a persistent and "continuing differentiation" between the English and Cornish peoples during the Middle Ages, as evidenced by documents such as the 1173 charter of Truro which made explicit mention of both peoples as distinct. The Earldom of Cornwall passed to various English nobles throughout the High Middle Ages, but in 1337 the earldom was given the status of a duchy, and Edward, the Black Prince, the first son and heir of King Edward III of England, became the first Duke of Cornwall as a means for the prince to raise his own capital. Large parts of Cornwall were owned by Edward, 1st Duke of Cornwall, and successive English Dukes of Cornwall became the largest landowners in Cornwall; The monarchy of England established two special administrative institutions in Cornwall, the first being the Duchy of Cornwall (one of only two in the Kingdom of England) and the second being the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments (which governed Cornwall's tin industry). These two institutions allowed "ordinary Cornish people to believe that they had been granted a unique constitutional status to reflect their unique cultural identity". However, the Duchy of Cornwall gradually lost its political autonomy from England, a state which became increasingly centralised in London, and by the early-Tudor period the Cornish had begun to see themselves as "a conquered people whose culture, liberties, and prosperity had been downgraded by the English". This view was exacerbated in the 1490s by heavy taxation imposed by King Henry VII of England upon the impoverished Cornish to raise funds for his military campaigns against King James IV of Scotland and Perkin Warbeck, as well as Henry VII's suspension of the privileges of the Cornish Stannaries. Having provided "more than their fair share of soldiers and sailors" for the conflict in northern England, and feeling aggrieved at "Cornwall's status as England's poorest county", a popular uprising out of Cornwall ensued—the Cornish rebellion of 1497. The rebellion was initially a political march from St Keverne to London led by Thomas Flamank and Michael An Gof, motivated by a "mixture of reasons"; to raise money for charity; to celebrate their community; to present their grievances to the Parliament of England, but gathered pace across the West Country as a revolt against the king. Cornish was the most widely spoken language west of the River Tamar until around the mid-1300s, when Middle English began to be adopted as a common language of the Cornish people. As late as 1542 Andrew Boorde, an English traveller, physician and writer, wrote that in Cornwall there were two languages, "Cornysshe" and "Englysshe", but that "there may be many men and women" in Cornwall who could not understand English. While the Norman language was in use by much of the English aristocracy, Cornish was used as a lingua franca, particularly in the remote far west of Cornwall. Many Cornish landed gentry chose mottos in the Cornish language for their coat of arms, highlighting its socially high status. However, in 1549 and following the English Reformation, King Edward VI of England commanded that the Book of Common Prayer, an Anglican liturgical text in the English language, should be introduced to all churches in his kingdom, meaning that Latin and Celtic customs and services should be discontinued. The Prayer Book Rebellion was a militant revolt in Cornwall and parts of neighbouring Devon against the Act of Uniformity 1549, which outlawed all languages from church services apart from English, and is specified as a testament to the affection and loyalty the Cornish people held for the Cornish language. In the rebellion, separate risings occurred simultaneously in Bodmin in Cornwall, and Sampford Courtenay in Devon—which would both converge at Exeter, laying siege to the region's largest Protestant city. However, the rebellion was suppressed, thanks largely to the aid of foreign mercenaries in a series of battles in which "hundreds were killed", effectively ending Cornish as the common language of the Cornish people. The Anglicanism of the Reformation served as a vehicle for Anglicisation in Cornwall; Protestantism had a lasting cultural effect upon the Cornish by way of linking Cornwall more closely with England, while lessening political and linguistic ties with the Bretons of Brittany. The English Civil War, a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists, polarised the populations of England and Wales. However, Cornwall in the English Civil War was a staunchly Royalist enclave, an "important focus of support for the Royalist cause". Cornish soldiers were used as scouts and spies during the war, for their language was not understood by English Parliamentarians. The peace that followed the close of the war led to a further shift to the English language by the Cornish people, which encouraged an influx of English people to Cornwall. By the mid-17th century the use of the Cornish language had retreated far enough west to prompt concern and investigation by antiquarians, such as William Scawen. As the Cornish language diminished the people of Cornwall underwent a process of English enculturation and assimilation, becoming "absorbed into the mainstream of English life". ### Industry, revival and the modern period The Industrial Revolution had a major impact upon the Cornish people. Cornwall's economy was fully integrated into England's, and mining in Cornwall, always an important source of employment and stability of the Cornish, experienced a process of industrialisation resulting in 30 per cent of Cornwall's adult population being employed by its mines. During this period, efforts were made by Cornish engineers to design steam engines with which to power water pumps for Cornish mines thus aiding the extraction of mineral ore. Industrial scale tin and copper mining operations in Cornwall melded Cornish identity with engines and heavy industry, and Cornwall's leading mining engineer, Richard Trevithick, became "as much a part of Cornwall's heritage as any legendary giant from its Celtic past". Trevithick's most significant success was a high-pressure steam engine used to pump water and refuse from mines, but he was also the builder of the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive. On 21 February 1804, the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place as Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. The construction of the Great Western Railway during the Victorian era allowed for an influx of tourists to Cornwall from across Great Britain. Well into the Edwardian era and interwar period, Cornwall was branded as a rural retreat, a "primitive land of magic and romance", and as an "earlier incarnation of Englishness, a place more English than an England ravaged by modernity". Cornwall, the United Kingdom's only region with a subtropical-like climate, became a centre for English tourism, its coastline dominated by resort towns increasingly composed of bungalows and villas. John Nichols Thom, or Mad Tom, (1799 – 31 May 1838) was a Cornishman self-declared messiah who, in the 19th century led the last battle to be fought on English soil, known as the Battle of Bossenden Wood. While not akin to the Cornish rebellions of the past, he did attract some Cornish support as well as mostly Kentish labourers, although his support was primarily of religious followers. In the latter half of the 19th century Cornwall experienced rapid deindustrialisation, with the closure of mines in particular considered by the Cornish to be both an economic and cultural disaster. This, coupled with the rise of Romantic nationalism in Europe inspired and influenced a Celtic Revival in Cornwall, a social, linguistic and artistic movement interested in Cornish medieval ethnology. This Revivalist upsurge investigated Cornwall's pre-industrial culture, using the Cornish language as the "principal badge of [Cornish] nationality and ethnic kinship". The first effective revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book Handbook of the Cornish Language. His orthography, Unified Cornish, was based on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became influenced by English. The visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 reinvigorated Scottish national identity, melding it with romanticist notions of tartan, kilts and the Scottish Highlands. As Pan-Celticism gathered pace in the early 20th century, Cornishman L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell and the Cowethas Kelto-Kernuak (a Cornish language interest group) asserted the use of Cornish kilts and tartans as a "national dress ... common to all Celtic countries". In 1924 the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies was formed to facilitate, preserve and maintain Celticity in Cornwall, followed by the similar Gorseth Kernow in 1928, and the formation of the Cornish nationalist political party Mebyon Kernow in 1951. Increased interest and communication across the Celtic nations in Celtic languages and culture during the 1960s and 1970s spurred on the popularisation of the Cornish self-government movement. Since devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, enthusiasts for Cornish culture have pressed for the Cornish language to be taught formally in Cornish schools, while Cornish nationalists have demanded greater political autonomy for Cornwall, for example that it be constituted as the United Kingdom's fifth constituent country with its own Cornish Assembly. ## Geographic distribution The Cornish people are concentrated in Cornwall, but after the Age of Discovery in the early modern period were involved in the British colonisation of the Americas and other transcontinental and transatlantic migrations. Initially, the number of migrants was comparatively small, with those who left Cornwall typically settling in North America or else amongst the ports and plantations of the Caribbean. In the first half of the 19th century, the Cornish people were leaders in tin and copper smelting, while mining in Cornwall was the people's major occupation. Increased competition from Australia, British Malaya and Bolivia, coupled with the depletion of mineral deposits brought about an economic decline for Cornish mining lasting half a century, and prompting mass human migration from Cornwall. In each decade from 1861 to 1901, "around 20% of the Cornish male population migrated abroad"—three times that of the average of England and Wales—and totalling over a quarter of a million people lost to emigration between 1841 and 1901. There was a displacement of skilled Cornish engineers, farmers, merchants, miners and tradesmen, but their commercial and occupational expertise, particularly in hard rock mining, was highly valued by the communities they met. Within Great Britain, Cornish families were attracted from Cornwall to North East England—particularly on Teesside—to partake in coal mining as a means to earn wealth by using their mining skill. This has resulted in a concentration of Cornish names on and around Teesside that persists into the 21st century. Large numbers of the 19th century Cornish emigrants eventually returned to Cornwall, whilst the rate of emigration from Cornwall declined after World War I. However, the global connections of the remaining Cornish diaspora, which is concentrated in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, South Africa and the United States, are "very strong". Their outreach has contributed to the international spread of Methodism, a movement within Protestant Christianity that was popular with the Cornish people at the time of their mass migration. "Cousin Jacks" is a nickname for the overseas Cornish, thought to derive from the practice of Cornishmen asking if job vacancies could be filled by their cousin named Jack in Cornwall. ### Australia From the beginning of Australia's colonial period until after the Second World War, people from the United Kingdom made up a large majority of people coming to Australia, meaning that many Australian-born people can trace their origins to Britain. The Cornish people in particular were actively encouraged to emigrate to Australia following the demise of Cornish mining in the 19th century. A "vigorous recruiting campaign" was launched to encourage the Cornish to aid with mining in Australia because of their experience and expertise. Free passage to South Australia in particular was granted to hundreds of Cornish miners and their families, so much so, that a large Cornish community gathered in Australia's Copper Coast, and South Australia's Yorke Peninsula became known as "Little Cornwall". It has been estimated between 1837 and 1840, 15 per cent of all assisted migrants to South Australia were Cornish. Cornish settlement impacted upon social, cultural and religious life throughout the history of South Australia. Cornish identity was embraced strongly in the Yorke Peninsula, but also in the more outlying mining towns of Kapunda and Burra, where Cornish miners constituted a sizeable community. Methodism, was the main form of religious practice for the Cornish. Methodist sensibilities were held with strong conviction by the migrant Cornish in a direct rivalry with Catholic Irish people in Australia. The Kernewek Lowender is the largest Cornish festival in the world, held in the Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo towns on the Yorke Peninsula, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors bi-annually. ### Canada European fishing ventures in and around Newfoundland during the 16th century were the earliest Cornish activity in what was to become Canada. However, permanent settlement by the Cornish across the Atlantic Ocean was rare until at least the 19th century. The British colonisation of the Americas encouraged additional migration of the Cornish to the Canadas, particularly by those who served in Great Britain's Royal Navy. The creation of the colony of British North America spurred more people from Cornwall to settle in North America; they were registered as English migrants. Many Cornish (and other West Country) immigrants who had been agricultural labourers settled in an area of what is now South Central Ontario in what were the counties of Northumberland, Durham and Ontario, ranging from the towns of Port Hope and Cobourg in the east, to Whitby in the west and to the north ends of those counties. ### Mexico In 1825 a band of 60 Cornishmen left Falmouth for Mineral del Monte in central Mexico with 1,500 tonnes (1,500 long tons; 1,700 short tons) of mining machinery with which to apply their mining skill and technologies to resuscitate Mexico's ailing silver mining industry after the neglect caused by the Mexican War of Independence. Following their sea voyage they attempted to dock at Veracruz but were forced away by the Spanish to a beach at Mocambo from where they hauled their machinery through jungle and swamp to Santa Fe. During this haul through the jungle, the Cornishmen and their Mexican helpers fell victim to yellow fever, resulting in 30 Cornish and 100 Mexican fatalities. The fever forced the survivors to abandon their equipment and head inland up into the mountains to Xalapa to try to escape the mosquitos for three months, until the end of the rainy season. Once the rainy season closed the Cornish and Mexican miners continued their 250-mile (402 km) "Great Trek" to Mineral del Monte, transporting their machinery to an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,048 m) above sea level and arriving at their destination on 1 May 1826. Following their arrival, the Cornish community flourished and stayed in central Mexico until the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Although the Cornish community in Mexico broadly returned to Cornwall, they left a cultural legacy; Cornish pasties, Cornish mining museums and a Cornish Mexican Cultural Society are all part of the local heritage and tradition in and around Mineral del Monte. ### South Africa The Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886 encouraged large numbers of Cornish miners to migrate to the South African Republic. Although an international gold rush, the Cornish overwhelmingly formed the skilled labour force in the Witwatersrand, until the outbreak of the Second Boer War prompted a retreat. ### United States The discovery of lead ore and copper in North America prompted an influx of Cornish miners to the continent, particularly around the Upper Mississippi River. By the early 19th century Cornish people were present in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—particularly the mining town of Ishpeming. Additional waves of Cornish migrants followed the California Gold Rush of the mid-19th century; in the 1890s it was estimated that in California's Grass Valley, over 60 per cent of the population was Cornish. It has a tradition of carols stemming from the Cornish who settled the area as gold miners in the 19th century. The carols have become "the identity of the town", some of the members of the Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir are descendants of the original Cornish settlers. Most migratory Cornish to the United States were classified as English or British, meaning that the precise number of Cornish Americans is difficult to estimate. The aggregate number of immigrants from Cornwall to the United States before World War I is suggested to be around 100,000. ## Culture The survival of a distinct Cornish culture has been attributed to Cornwall's geographic isolation. Contemporaneously, the underlying notion of Cornish culture is that it is distinct from the culture of England, despite its anglicisation, and that it is instead part of a Celtic tradition. According to American academic Paul Robert Magocsi, modern-day Cornish activists have claimed several Victorian era inventions including the Cornish engine, Christmas carols, rugby football and brass bands as part of this Cornish tradition. Cornish cultural tradition is most strongly associated with the people's most historical occupation, mining, an aspect of Cornish history and culture that has influenced its cuisine, symbols and identity. The Cornish writer C. C. Vyvyan wrote in her 1948 book Our Cornwall: "A man might live and die among us and never gain throughout his allotted span of life one glimpse of the essential Cornwall or the essential Cornishman." Cornwall has its own tradition of Christian saints, derived from Celtic extraction, that have given rise to localised dedications. Saint Piran is the 5th century Christian abbot, supposedly of Irish origin, who is patron saint of both tin miners and Cornwall. According to popular mythology, Piran, an Irish scholar who studied Christianity in Ancient Rome was to be drowned in the Irish Sea by the High Kings of Ireland, but instead floated across to Perranporth in Cornwall by the will of God to preach the Gospel. Saint Piran's Flag, a centred white cross on a black field, was described as the "Standard of Cornwall" in 1838 and was re-introduced by Celtic Revivalists thereafter as a county flag of Cornwall. It has been seized upon by the Cornish people as a symbol of their identity, displayed on cars and flying from buildings including those of Cornwall Council. St Piran's Day is an annual patronal fête, and the pre-eminent Cornish festival celebrating Cornish culture and history on 5 March. ### Language The Cornish language is derived from the Brythonic branch of the Insular Celtic languages. It is closely related to the Breton language, and to a lesser extent shares commonalities with the Welsh language, although they are not mutually intelligible. The language functioned as a community language in Cornwall until a language shift to the English language was completed during the late 18th century. The demise of the Cornish language is attributed to English cultural influence, particularly the political and religious dominance of the English Reformation and the Act of Uniformity 1549 which outlawed all church services within the Kingdom of England that were not in English. The exact date of the death of using the Cornish language is unclear and disputed, but popularly it is claimed that the last monolingual Cornish speaker was Dolly Pentreath, a Mousehole resident who died in 1777. The revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book Handbook of the Cornish Language. He based his work on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance, with his orthography, Unified Cornish, later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became more heavily influenced by English. This set the tone for the next few decades; as the revival gained pace, learners of the language disagreed on which style of Cornish to use, and a number of competing orthographies—Unified Cornish, Unified Cornish Revised, Modern Cornish, Kernewek Kemmyn—were in use by the end of the 20th century. A standard written form was agreed in 2008. Cornish is a restored and living modern language, but most of its speakers are enthusiasts, persons who have learned the language through private study. Cornish speakers are geographically dispersed, meaning there is no part of Cornwall where it is spoken as a community language. As of 2009, it is taught in fifty primary schools, although regular broadcast in Cornish is limited to a weekly bilingual programme on BBC Radio Cornwall. Daily life in Cornwall therefore is conducted in the English language, albeit with some regional peculiarities. Legends of the Fall, a novella by American author Jim Harrison, detailing the lives of a Cornish American family in the early 20th century, contains several Cornish language terms. These were also included in the Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins as Col. William Ludlow and Brad Pitt as Tristan Ludlow. ### Literature and folklore Early medieval Cornwall was associated with the Matter of Britain, a national myth recounting a legendary Celtic history of Brittonic warriors, including King Arthur. The Matter of Britain was supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britanniae, a pseudohistorical account of the history of the ancient Britons, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled the lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th century forced the Celtic Britons to the west coast, namely Wales and Cornwall. Although broadly thought of as a work of fiction, Geoffrey of Monmouth's work had a lasting effect upon the identity of the Cornish. His "historical construct" characterised the ancient Britons as heroes, which later helped Celtic revivalists to redefine Cornishness as an identity closely related to ancient heroic Celtic folklore. Another strand of Cornish folklore is derived from tales of seafaring pirates and smugglers who thrived in and around Cornwall from the early modern period through to the 19th century. Cornish pirates exploited both their knowledge of the Cornish coastline as well as its sheltered creeks and hidden anchorages. For many fishing villages, loot and contraband provided by pirates supported a strong and secretive underground economy in Cornwall. Legendary creatures that appear in Cornish folklore include buccas, knockers and piskies. Tales of these creatures are thought to have developed as supernatural explanations for the frequent and deadly cave-ins that occurred during 18th-century Cornish tin mining, or else a creation of the oxygen-starved minds of exhausted miners who returned from the underground. ### Performing and visual arts Celtic crosses, many dating from between the 7th and 15th centuries, are found in Cornwall and have been used as inspiration in modern and contemporary Cornish visual arts. In the 1780s, John Opie was the first Cornish-born painter to gain widespread attention; his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and he was described by Joshua Reynolds as "like Caravaggio and Velázquez in one". Artists who appreciated the quality of Cornwall's natural light, such as J. M. W. Turner, began to visit, with more following after the opening of the Great Western Railway, including Whistler and Sickert. Stanhope Forbes and Frank Bramley settled in Cornwall in the 1880s, establishing the Newlyn School of painting en plein air. By the 1920s, the ceramicist Bernard Leach was established at St Ives, and the St Ives School for abstract artists formed there, influenced by naive painters such as Alfred Wallis, and involving the work of Ben Nicholson, his wife Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo and Patrick Heron. ### Religion Anciently, the religion of the Cornish Britons was Celtic polytheism, a pagan, animistic faith, assumed to be led by Druids in full or in part. Early Christianity is thought to have existed in Cornwall during the 1st century, but limited to individual travellers and visitors, possibly including Priscillian, a Galician theologian who may have been exiled to the Isles of Scilly. Celtic Christianity was introduced to Cornwall in the year 520 by Saint Petroc, a Brython from the kingdom of Glywysing, and other missionaries from Wales, as well as by Gaelic monks and holy women from Ireland; this "formative period" has left a legacy of granite high cross monuments throughout Cornwall. Dedications to many different Cornish saints can also be traced to this period. In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism was dominant in Cornwall, and even in the 17th century the Cornish were "fervently Roman Catholic", slow to accept the Protestant Reformation, according to some scholars. The adoption of Anglicanism was, eventually, near-universal in Cornwall and facilitated the anglicisation of the Cornish people. A variety of dissenting congregations such as the Quakers and Baptists were to be found in certain districts. Through a combination of tours of Cornwall by John Wesley, rural isolation and compatibility with Cornish tastes and sensibilities, Methodism, an evangelical revival movement within the Church of England, became the form of Christianity practised by the majority of the population all over Cornwall during the 19th century. During this time other kinds of Methodist churches appeared such as the Bible Christians and there were also Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic revivals within the Church of England. ### Cuisine Cornish cuisine is a regional variety of British cuisine, strongly rooted in a tradition of using local produce, which is used to create relatively simple dishes. Most prominent in Cornish cuisine is the pasty (sometimes known as the Cornish pasty) made from diced beef, potato, onion and swede (commonly called 'turnip' by the Cornish), enclosed within a pastry crust and then baked. One idea of its origins suggests that it evolved as a portable lunch for Cornish miners, the crust serving as a disposable handle that could be held by a miner's hand without soiling the filling. Fish was an important element of the Cornish diet, but international commercial fishing was also well established by the 16th century, and tons of pilchards were exported from Cornwall to France, Italy and Spain every year. Stargazy pie is an occasional festive Cornish dish with the heads of fish standing on their tails, originally pilchards, piercing a pastry crust. The saffron bun, also known as the tea treat bun, is a sweet bread with its origins in Cornwall. ### Sport With its comparatively small, rural population, major contribution by the Cornish to national sport in the United Kingdom has been limited. There are no teams affiliated to the Cornwall County Football Association that play in the Football League of England and Wales, and the Cornwall County Cricket Club plays as one of the minor counties of English cricket. Viewed as an "important identifier of ethnic affiliation", rugby union has become a sport strongly tied with notions of Cornishness, and since the 20th century, rugby union in Cornwall has emerged as one of the most popular spectator and team sports in Cornwall, with professional Cornish rugby footballers being described as a "formidable force", "naturally independent, both in thought and deed, yet paradoxically staunch English patriots whose top players have represented England with pride and passion". In 1985, sports journalist Alan Gibson made a direct connection between love of rugby in Cornwall and the ancient parish games of hurling and wrestling that existed for centuries before rugby officially began. Cornish wrestling (also known as Wrasslin') is a regional, folk style of grappling or martial arts. The Cornwall County Wrestling Association was formed in 1923, to standardise the rules of the sport and to promote Cornish wrestling throughout Cornwall and the world. Together with Cornish hurling (a localised form of medieval football), Wrasslin' has been promoted as a distinctly Celtic game, tied closely with Cornish identity. Surfing was popularised in Cornwall during the late 20th century, and has since become readily associated with Cornishness. The waves around the Cornish coastline are created by low pressure systems from the Atlantic Ocean which unleash powerful swells eastwards creating multiple, excellent surfing conditions in some parts of the coast of Cornwall. Newquay, one of Britain's "premier surfing towns", regularly hosts world championship surfing events. ## Institutions and politics The politics of Cornwall take place within a wider national political framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the United Kingdom's monarch is head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government, and the supranational framework of the European Union. Cornish politics are marked by a long tradition of Liberalism. Important historical institutions were the Duchy of Cornwall and the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments. The Stannary court administered equity, through special laws and legal exemptions, for all matters relating to the tin mines and tin trade in Cornwall. Cornish miners were effectively exempt from the jurisdiction of the law courts at Westminster, except "in such cases as should affect land, life or limb". The ancient privileges of the Stannary Courts and Parliaments were confirmed by successive Royal Charters in the Middle Ages, including those administered by Kings John, Edward I and Edward III of England. As the tin mines of Cornwall lost their economic importance during the 18th and 19th centuries, so the Stannary institutions lost political power. The last Stannary parliament was held at Truro in 1752, and continued, by adjournments, until 11 September 1753. As in the rest of Great Britain, the Liberal Party dominated Cornish politics during the 19th century, although Socialism gained limited support in western Cornwall, and the Labour Party won preference after World War I. Nationalism (or regionalism) in Cornwall traces its roots to the Irish Home Rule bills of the late 19th century, and is represented by the Cornish self-government movement, a political action group that is predominantly organised to promote Cornwall as the national homeland of the Cornish, campaign for devolution, and win it the status as a fifth country within the UK rather than outright separatism. More "militant" variants of Cornish nationalism however claim that because of historical constitutional peculiarities regarding the status of Cornwall, the law of the European Union does or should not have jurisdiction over Cornwall until Cornish sovereignty is recognised. Popularisation of Cornish nationalism is attributed to a Celtic cultural revival in Cornwall which itself began with a renewed interest in the Cornish language in the 1920s. The revival of the Cornish language encouraged a parallel revival of Celtic traditions, which by the 1970s had spurred on Cornish nationalism. The United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 prompted claims that the Cornish should be granted their own devolved national assembly—the Cornish Assembly—comparable to that of the National Assembly for Wales. Mebyon Kernow is a left-wing political party based in Cornwall, founded in 1951. Its main objective is attaining greater autonomy for Cornwall through the establishment of a legislative Cornish Assembly. As at 2009 Mebyon Kernow has no Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and in the 2009 United Kingdom local elections received 4 per cent of votes to elect councillors to Cornwall Council, behind the Conservative Party (34 per cent), Liberal Democrats (28 per cent), and Independents (23 per cent) Since the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, Cornwall Council has been a unitary authority, serving as the sole executive, deliberative, and legislative body responsible for local policy, setting council tax, and allocating budgets. Following the Cornwall Council election in May 2013, the council remained as "no overall control", with the Independent politicians becoming the largest grouping on the council through a modest gain of councillors from the previous election. The Liberal Democrats remained the second largest party after losing 2 councillors and the Conservatives slipped to third after losing over a third of their councillors. The Labour Party (+8), UKIP (+6), and the Green Party (+1) all gained seats, with UKIP and the Greens entering Cornwall Council for the first time. Mebyon Kernow had 6 councilors prior to the election, having added 2 since the 2009 election, their total following the election was reduced to 4. In the 2015 general election all Cornish seats were won by the Conservatives. This was repeated in the 2017 general election. A study was carried out Willett, JMA; Tidy, R; Tregidga, G; et al. through Exeter University using data from January to April of 2017 to understand why Cornwall voted leave in the Brexit referendum when it benefitted greatly from EU funding, such as the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Growth Programme which was worth £600 million and supported over a hundred projects such infrastructure, agriculture, employment and low carbon initiatives. In this study people from lots of different backgrounds and jobs where interviewed and asked about their reasoning for voting leave, farmers described the EU policies as being overly complicated and taking the "fun" out of farming, many had issues with infrastructure and many others stated that with Brexit they were reclaiming sovereignty from the EU and there were underlying issues with the EUs lack of border control. It was found that the what linked the reasoning for leaving the EU was the uncertainty that they were experiencing, their inability to get any real change even with the EUs funding and a lack of knowledge about where the funding was spent as a whole. In the UK's 2021 census plans, a "tickbox" for claiming "Cornish" as a national minority status has not been implemented and is under debate. Since Cornwall was officially given "official national minority status" in 2014, the Cornwall Council's Party Leaders have submitted a letter to the cabinet office of Chloe Smith for the Minister of State. In the coming weeks, Parliament is set to debate The Census Order. If enough Members of Parliament side with the Cornish people and stand in solidarity with their cause, a box to select a "Cornish" identity could be added—reaffirming the official identity they established 6 years prior. ## See also - List of people from Cornwall - List of topics related to Cornwall

Emil Fischer (American football executive)

American businessman and football executive

Emil Richard Fischer (August 15, 1887 – January 2, 1958) was a businessman and an American football executive for the Green Bay Packers. Fischer was well known in the Green Bay cheese industry, a nationally recognized businessman, and a local civic leader. From 1948 to 1952, he served as the fifth president of Green Bay Packers, Inc., the non-profit organization that owns the Green Bay Packers. He is credited with leading the Packers through one of the most difficult periods in the team's history. During his tenure, the team's co-founder and longtime coach Curly Lambeau resigned, the Packers issued their third stock sale, and the National Football League (NFL) merged with the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). He also sat on the organization's board of directors and executive committee from 1935 to 1958. After his presidency ended, he served as chairman of the board until his death in 1958. In recognition of his contributions to the team, Fischer was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 2013. ## Early life Emil Fischer was born on August 15, 1887, in Plymouth, Wisconsin, and moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1908. ## Cheese industry Fischer was one of Green Bay's most respected, successful, and prominent businessmen in the early 20th century. He started in the cheese industry in 1908; for the next 18 years he worked for various companies, including C.A. Straubel Co., Stevens Company, and Pauly and Pauly Co., before founding his own business, the Atlas Cold Storage Co. Atlas would go on to become one of the largest cheese distributors in the country in the 1930s. He also helped establish the cheese industry in Green Bay by traveling the country advocating for large cheese companies to move to the city. ## Green Bay Packers Fischer established himself as a successful businessman in Green Bay in the 1920s. He was an early supporter of the Packers and believed the franchise was good for the local community. He was elected to the Packers board of directors in 1926 and to the executive committee in 1935. In 1948, he was elected as the fifth president of Green Bay Packers, Inc., after the resignation of Lee Joannes. Fischer's first years as president were marked by the resolution of multiple contentious issues. First, many people within the NFL doubted the future of the Packers, since the team was located in such a small market and was not financially lucrative. There were rumors that the Packers would not be included in the league after its merger with the AAFC. However, not only were the Packers included in the league post-merger, Fischer was named the president of the new National Conference. Second, Fischer and the board of directors had to fight to keep the Packers from being sold to a private owner, something that the team's co-founder, head coach, and general manager Curly Lambeau was trying to orchestrate. These disagreements led to the resignation of multiple team officials, including George Whitney Calhoun and W. Webber Kelly. After Rockwood Lodge, the Packers' training facility that was purchased by Lambeau for a large sum just a few years prior, burned down in 1950, Lambeau resigned and took a position with the Chicago Cardinals. That same year, Fischer organized a new stock sale to help raise funding to keep the team financially stable. The funds from this stock sale and the insurance money from the Rockwood Lodge fire established the basis for future success and financially stability. Fischer believed so much in the team that he purchased 200 stocks himself, the maximum allowed under the Packers' articles of incorporation. Fischer resigned in 1952 and was succeeded by Russ Bogda. After his presidency, Fischer served as chairman of the board from 1953 until his death in 1958. Although the Packers lacked on-field success during his presidency, Fischer is recognized for helping lead the franchise through multiple challenging periods, including the contentious resignation of team co-founder Curly Lambeau and the merger of the NFL and AAFC. His organization of the 1950 stock sale also provided the funding needed to help keep the Packers financially stable. In recognition of his contributions as a team executive, Fischer was posthumously inducted in the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 2013. ## Personal life Fischer was married to Myra Fischer (née McCourt). The Fischers, who maintained a winter home in Miami, Florida, for over 20 years, were well known for taking part in "high society" by frequenting exclusive events, associating with celebrities, and hosting business leaders at their house. Fischer enjoyed horse racing, fine arts, and shooting. He also was part of the Masonic Order, a member of the Elks Lodge, and a member of various country clubs. Fischer died on January 2, 1958, at the age of 70.

Trevor Philips

Fictional character in Grand Theft Auto V

Trevor Philips is a character and one of the three playable protagonists, alongside Michael De Santa and Franklin Clinton, of Grand Theft Auto V, the seventh main title in the Grand Theft Auto series developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. He also appears in the game's multiplayer component, Grand Theft Auto Online. A career criminal and former bank robber, Trevor leads his own organisation, Trevor Philips Enterprises, and comes into conflict with various rival gangs and criminal syndicates as he attempts to secure control of the drugs and weapons trade in the fictional Blaine County, San Andreas. He is portrayed by Canadian actor Steven Ogg, who provided the voice and motion capture for the character. Rockstar based Trevor's appearance on Ogg's physical appearance, while his personality was inspired by Charles Bronson. Grand Theft Auto V co-writer Dan Houser described Trevor as purely driven by desire and resentment. To make players care for the character, the designers gave the character more emotions. Trevor is shown to care about people very close to him, despite his antisocial behavior and psychotic derangement. Trevor is considered one of the most controversial characters in video game history. The general attention given to Trevor by critics was mostly very positive, although some reviewers felt that his violent personality and actions negatively affected the game's narrative. His design and personality have drawn comparisons to other influential video game and film characters. Many reviewers have called Trevor a likeable and believable character, and felt that he is one of the few protagonists in the Grand Theft Auto series that would willingly execute popular player actions, such as murder and violence. ## Character design Grand Theft Auto V co-writer Dan Houser explained that Trevor "appeared to pretty much out of nowhere as the embodiment of another side of criminality [...] If Michael was meant to be the idea of some version of criminal control [...] what about the guy who didn't do that?" He later described Trevor as "the person who's driven purely by desire, resentment, no thought for tomorrow whatsoever, completely id rather than ego-driven." He stated that Trevor "kills without remorse, like a true psychopath, but very sentimental for the right reasons when it suits him." Rockstar drew upon game protagonist archetypes while scripting the characters; Trevor was considered to embody insanity. Houser said the team characterised Michael and Trevor as juxtapositions of each other. He said, "Michael is like the criminal who wants to compartmentalise and be a good guy some of the time and Trevor is the maniac who isn't a hypocrite". He said that having three lead characters would help move the game's plot into more original territory than its predecessors, which traditionally followed a single protagonist rising through the ranks of a criminal underworld. Steven Ogg was cast as Trevor. During the initial audition process, Ogg noticed an on-set chemistry between him and Ned Luke (who portrayed Michael), which he felt helped secure them the roles. Ogg said, "When [Luke] and I went in the room together we immediately had something". While the actors knew their auditions were for Rockstar Games, it was when they signed contracts that they learned they would be involved in a Grand Theft Auto title. Ogg felt Trevor's characterisation developed over time. He said, "Nuances and character traits that began to appear—his walk, his manner of speech, his reactions, definitely informed his development throughout the game". Ogg cites Tom Hardy's portrayal of English criminal Charles Bronson in the 2008 biopic Bronson as a strong stylistic influence. He opined that while Trevor embodies the violent, psychopathic Grand Theft Auto anti-hero archetype, he wanted to evoke player sympathy to Trevor's story. "To elicit other emotions was tough, and it was the biggest challenge and it's something that meant a lot to me", Ogg explained. The actors began working on the game in 2010. Their performances were mostly recorded using motion capture technology. Dialogue for scenes with characters seated in vehicles was recorded in studios. Because the actors had their dialogue and movements recorded on-set, they considered their performances were no different from those of film or television roles. Their dialogue was scripted so that it did not allow the actors to ad-lib; however they sometimes made small changes to the performance with approval from the directors. ## Appearances ### Grand Theft Auto V Trevor was born in Canada, just north of the border of the United States. He grew up with a physically abusive father and an emotionally abusive mother. Trevor loved planes, and at some point entered the military as a pilot, but was quickly forced to leave after being reproved in a psychological evaluation. Later on, Trevor committed crimes, the first one being a small robbery that landed him in jail for six months. Due to good behavior, he was out in four. He would continue his criminal ways, including using his piloting skills to become a smuggler. Trevor met Michael Townley in 1993 and they realised that they wanted to earn money by performing large heists, so they joined forces and became successful in doing so over the following years. Their partnership began to strain after Michael married a stripper named Amanda and started a family with her. Despite this, Trevor grew close to Michael's children, who came to see him as their uncle. In 2004, during a heist in Ludendorff, North Yankton, Michael and mutual accomplice Brad Snider are shot by police while Trevor escapes. While on the run, Trevor is led to believe that Michael died and Brad was sent to jail. Trevor eventually settles in Sandy Shores, a small town in Blaine County, San Andreas, where he establishes a small criminal enterprise that smuggles weapons and manufactures methamphetamine, which he hopes will grow into a large empire. Due to raging abandonment issues, Trevor surrounds himself with two loyal friends that he kidnapped and brainwashed from their previous lives named "Nervous" Ron Jakowski and Wade Hebert. Trevor enters an uneasy truce with his competitors in Sandy Shores, including the Lost Motorcycle Club led by Johnny Klebitz, the Varrios Los Aztecas gang, and the O'Neil Brothers. In 2013, Trevor finds out that Michael faked his death, and is so spooked and enraged that he breaks the truce and kills most of his competition in one outburst of violence, a deadly streak that continues when a potential game-changing deal with a group of triads falls through. He later drives to Los Santos, taking over the apartment and ruining the life of Wade's cousin Floyd, and reunites with Michael, who took on the surname "De Santa" and is supposedly living in witness protection. Though Michael is reluctant to have Trevor back in his life again, he eventually introduces him to Franklin Clinton, after which the two perform heists again, this time including Franklin. Trevor is determined to rob anything guarded by Merryweather Security Consulting, a private security firm that he dislikes, but he often fails. When corrupt Federal Investigation Bureau (FIB) agents Dave Norton and Steve Haines contact Michael after he breaks his agreement with them by committing heists again, they force him to carry out a number of operations alongside Trevor and Franklin to undermine the rival International Affairs Agency (IAA). Steve later introduces the trio to Devin Weston, a billionaire investor who hires them to steal a number of rare cars, but ultimately cheats them out of their money. During this time, Trevor begins to bond with Franklin, as they carry out several jobs together without Michael, some of which involve Franklin's friend Lamar Davis, whom Trevor also befriends. Later, after not getting paid for a job, Trevor kidnaps Patricia, the wife of drug kingpin Martin Madrazo. Due to her kind maternal nature and his own abandonment issues, Trevor falls in love with her and only returns her after much demanding from Michael. However, the two stay in contact until the end of the game. Eventually, Trevor begins to suspect that Brad is not in prison and that the Ludendorff heist from nine years prior was a setup, and flies to Ludendorff to confirm his suspicions. Upon finding Brad's body in the grave marked for Michael, he deduces that the latter had made a deal with Dave to help him fake his death and get rid of Trevor, but Brad was accidentally killed during the heist instead of Trevor. Feeling betrayed, Trevor vows to kill Michael, but later comes to his and Dave's aid when they are betrayed by Steve, because he needs Michael alive for one last heist. When that heist is successful, Trevor is so pleased that he lifts the death vow but still hates Michael. Near the end of the game, Franklin is approached separately by Dave and Steve, who contend that Trevor is a liability and ask Franklin to kill him, and by Devin, who seeks revenge against Michael for an earlier incident. This leaves Franklin with three choices: kill Trevor, kill Michael, or try to save them both in a suicide mission. - If the first option is chosen, Franklin meets with Trevor before chasing him to an oil plant, where Michael arrives and causes Trevor to crash into an oil tank. With Trevor covered in oil, either Franklin or Michael shoot the oil, setting Trevor alight and killing him. In the post-story gameplay, several characters react to Trevor's death, including Ron, who blames Michael for what happened and tells him that the business he and Trevor have built is over; Lamar, who asks Franklin if he knows how it happened, with the latter lying that Trevor was killed by government agents; and Michael's son Jimmy, who is shocked to learn Michael was involved, but the latter assures him that Trevor was dangerous. - If the second option is chosen, Franklin calls Trevor to help him kill Michael, but he refuses and cuts his ties with Franklin, saying he is tired of being surrounded by traitors. If Franklin meets with Trevor afterward, the latter accuses him of killing Michael, and warns him to stay away. Trevor is also called by Jimmy, but does not know what to say to comfort him because he was never close to his own father. - If the third option is chosen, Trevor and Michael put their differences aside to help Franklin survive an onslaught by the FIB and Merryweather, before splitting up to eliminate their remaining enemies; Trevor assassinates Steve and kidnaps Devin so that the trio may kill him together. Afterward, Trevor reconciles with Michael and they agree to stop working together, but remain allies. After the story, Trevor can continue to hang out with Michael and Franklin, during which he eventually admits that he over-reacted after learning the truth about Brad, and refers to himself and Michael as friends. ### Grand Theft Auto Online Trevor is a main character in Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode of Grand Theft Auto V, set several months before the single-player story. He provides missions to the player after they reach Rank 13 and steal Trevor's rolling meth lab during a job. When the player arrives at his trailer, Trevor demands compensation for the stolen meth lab and has them complete several jobs, which generally consist of stealing drugs from rivals, mainly the Lost MC, and killing the dealers. Trevor later plays a major role in the 2015 Heists update, where he masterminds one of the heists featured in the update. This "heist" consists of the theft of drugs from various gangs, including the Lost, the O'Neil Brothers, the Los Santos Vagos, and the Ballas, which Trevor plans to sell for a large profit. After all drug shipments are collected, Trevor and the players deliver them to the deal's location, whereupon Trevor gives the players their cut in advance and they leave. When the buyer arrives, Trevor quickly realizes that the deal is a sting operation, at which point he is ambushed by the Drug Observation Agency (DOA), but manages to escape, albeit without the drugs. Although Trevor makes no further appearances in the game, he is mentioned by Ron in the 2017 update Smuggler's Run, which is set in that year, a few years after the single-player story. Ron, after being abandoned by Trevor, contacts the player to start their own smuggling operation, and when they meet, the former briefly talks about Trevor, saying he has "gone Vinewood" and has become a "guru" and "lifestyle coach"; this confirms Trevor is still alive after the events of Grand Theft Auto V. Furthermore, the 2019 update, The Diamond Casino & Resort, includes a mention of the events of "The Third Way," implying that both Trevor and Michael canonically survive the events of the single-player story. Trevor is further referenced in the 2020 update, The Cayo Perico Heist, which features a salacious picture of him and Patricia Madrazo, confirming the two did have an affair together; the 2021 update, The Contract, in which he is mentioned as one of several people to visit Franklin at his new agency, "F. Clinton and Partner", which he runs with the help of the player character; and in the 2022 update, Los Santos Drug Wars, when Ron informs the player that Trevor has left Sandy Shores and most of Trevor Philips Enterprises' assets have been abandoned. ## Cultural impact ### Reception Trevor's character was met with generally positive feedback following the release of Grand Theft Auto V. Edge singled out Trevor as the stand-out of the three protagonists, which they owed to his volatile personality. Like Edge, Caroline Petit of GameSpot considered Trevor "a truly horrible, terrifying, psychotic human being—and a terrific character." Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, however, felt that Trevor undermined the other characters because he was a "shallow and unconvincing" sensationalised anti-hero, and that "his antics derail[ed] the narrative" and overshadowed the character development of Michael and Franklin. Xav de Matos of Joystiq found all three characters unlikable to the extent that they had an alienating effect on the story, noting that "though each character has a valid motivation for his journey, it's difficult to want them to succeed." He also felt that the ambivalence between Trevor and Michael was a tired device by the conclusion of the story as it became a "seemingly endless cycle" of conflict between them. Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar praised Trevor for being the first character in the series that "makes sense", stating that Trevor is one of the few protagonists in Grand Theft Auto that would willingly execute popular player actions, such as murder and violence. Andy Corrigan of IGN compared Trevor to Heath Ledger's Joker in the 2008 film The Dark Knight. Corrigan felt that Trevor is the only character in Grand Theft Auto V not trying to fake his persona, stating "Trevor absolutely knows that he's a monster but just doesn't care. He enjoys causing misery and harm, lives for it and embraces it and – much like Heath Ledger's Joker – he exists purely for unadulterated anarchy". Screen Rant's Devin Ellis Friend criticised the character as "a step too far", deeming him unlikable and more suited to an antagonist role. Trevor was named Best Character for the Official Xbox Magazine's Game of the Year Awards 2013. The character was nominated for Character of the Year at VGX, Best New Character from Hardcore Gamer, and Best Character from Destructoid. Steven Ogg was also nominated for his work as Trevor from VGX, The Telegraph, and the 10th British Academy Video Games Awards. ### Controversies The mission "By the Book" from Grand Theft Auto V was criticised for its depiction of torture. In the mission, Trevor interrogates Ferdinand "Mr. K" Kerimov for information about Tahir Javan, a suspected Azerbaijani fugitive who poses a threat to the FIB (the game's version of the FBI). Trevor uses torture equipment on the restrained man, which players select from a table. Once Mr. K provides the FIB with the information, Trevor is asked to kill him, but instead drives him to the airport, providing him an opportunity to escape. While driving Kerimov, Trevor monologues about the ineffectiveness of torture, pointing out Kerimov's readiness to supply the FIB with the information without being tortured, and expressing that torture is used as a power play "to assert ourselves". Reviewers echoed that while the mission served as political commentary on the use of torture by the United States government, its use of torture was in poor taste. GameSpot's Petit felt that placing the torture scene in context with the monologue created a hypocrisy in the mission's function as a commentary device, and IGN's Keza MacDonald felt it "pushed the boundaries of taste". In an editorial, Bramwell discussed whether the political commentary was overshadowed by the violent content, comparing the mission to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's "No Russian" controversy. He considered the sequence lacking enough context to justify its violence and summarised its function as "flawed". Labour MP Keith Vaz expressed concern that underage players could be exposed to the mission. Keith Best of Freedom from Torture said the torturer role-play "crossed a line". Tom Chick defended the torture sequence, and wrote that unlike the "No Russian" mission or the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty, the underlying political commentary on torture in "By the Book" necessitated the violent content.

Ferrari P4/5 by Pininfarina

The Ferrari P4/5 (officially known as the Ferrari P4/5 by Pininfarina) is a one-off sports car made by Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari but redesigned by Pininfarina for film director James Glickenhaus, son of stock exchange magnate Seth Glickenhaus. The car was initially a 2003 Enzo Ferrari but the owner James Glickenhaus preferred the styling of Ferrari's 1960s race cars, the P Series. The project cost Glickenhaus US\$4 million and was officially presented to the public in August 2006 at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elégance. Several websites were allowed to publish images of the clay model in July 2006. ## Development In March 2005, Glickenhaus, son of stock exchange magnate and a car collector, was approached by Pininfarina who asked if he was interested in commissioning a one-off car. Andrea Pininfarina, grandson of the company's founder later said "The Ferrari 612 Kappa and this P4/5 are the first. But we want to grow this business." indicating that Pininfarina is interested in producing other unique cars. Glickenhaus replied that he would like a modern Ferrari P, and in June of that year he signed a contract with Pininfarina to produce the car including the price, approximately US\$4 million though in an interview he said "I feel they gave me more than I expected". Glickenhaus purchased the last unsold Enzo Ferrari and upon receipt of the car he took it to Pininfarina to be redesigned similar to his David Piper P4 replica which he also delivered to Pininfarina. Pininfarina's styling team leader, Ken Okuyama said that "Pininfarina wanted to stay away from retro design and move towards a more forward thinking supercar" as they were excited by the opportunity to build the car, not just design it. Its design began in September 2005 with sketches by Jason Castriota moving through computer-aided sculpture and stringent wind tunnel testing. More than 200 components were designed especially for the car. Most components, including the engine, and drivetrain, are modified from the original Enzo Ferrari. The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is unchanged from the Enzo from which it was derived. The P4/5 was publicly revealed on August 18, 2006, at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elégance and shown again at the Paris Motor Show in late September. Upon seeing the P4/5, Luca di Montezemolo felt that the car deserved to be officially badged as a Ferrari. Montezemeolo, along with Andrea Pininfarina and James Glickenhaus, agreed that its official name would be "Ferrari P4/5 by Pininfarina". Ted West wrote an article in Car and Driver about how this came to be "The Beast of Turin". In September 2009, Glickenhaus announced his intention to race a new version of the P4/5 in 2010 24 Hours Nürburgring. The car, called the SCG P4/5 Competizione, would not be a conversion of his road car but instead an entirely new car with a Ferrari chassis, VIN and drivetrain, made under Glickenhaus's own car brand Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. In May 2010 however, it was revealed that the Competizione would in fact be raced in 2011, based on a 430 Scuderia. It would be built to FIA GT2 standards and raced by Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus in an Experimental Class under the direction of Paolo Garella, former Head of Special Projects at Pininfarina. Ferrari completely distanced itself from the SCG P4/5 Competizione project in 2011, refusing to sell the team parts for vital engine rebuilds between races. The car finished 39th in the 2011 24 Hours Nürburgring (after bursting into flames) and in 2012 won its class and finished 12th overall. ## Specifications The Ferrari P4/5 can accelerate from 0-100 kilometres per hour (0-62 mph) in 3.0 seconds (0.14 seconds quicker than the Enzo). It has a top speed of 233 mph (375 km/h). The car has a frontal area of 1.906 square metres (20.52 sq ft) and the sharp nose and smooth curves mean it has a drag coefficient of 0.34. It also weighs 2645 lbs. ### Interior The interior of the P4/5 was designed by Glickenhaus himself with an iPod nano stereo and a tablet PC which features not only GPS but a 3D model of the car as well as a complete parts list and manual for easy servicing. The P4/5 also sports improved air conditioning over the Enzo and a high-strength alloy roll bar redesigned because the original was too thick and obstructed Glickenhaus' view. The seats are custom built, Glickenhaus' and his son's bodies were scanned so Pininfarina could mould the seats for their comfort, accessibility and view of the road (as with race cars). With a frame of carbon fibre composite, the seats are covered with a black mesh and red leather as selected by Glickenhaus' daughter. Pininfarina rearranged the wiring of the car so as to make the car easier to service and 595 lb (270 kg) lighter than the Enzo. ### Exterior The exterior of the car is made entirely of carbon fibre reinforced plastic and is similar in shape to the Ferrari 330 P4 as Glickenhaus requested, however it has been called a "rolling history of Ferrari-racing-DNA" sharing elements from several historic Ferrari vehicles, not just the 330 P4. The rear window is similar to that of the Ferrari 512S, the side vents are similar to the Ferrari 330 P3 and the nose is similar to that of the Ferrari 333 SP which improves cooling and the car's frontal crash safety. The butterfly doors (similar to those of the McLaren F1) are designed such that even at 160 mph (260 km/h) there is no wind noise. The improved aerodynamics give the car greater downforce, yet less drag, than the Enzo, which makes the car more stable than the Enzo at high speeds. ### Powertrain The P4/5 has the same engine as the Enzo Ferrari it was built on, a 65° Ferrari F140 B V12. The 12 cylinders have a total capacity of 5,998 cc (366 cu in), each with 4 valves. The redline at 8200 rpm and the torque of 485 lb⋅ft (658 N⋅m) at 5500 rpm are both the same as the Enzo, but it produces marginally more power with 660 bhp (492 kW; 669 PS) at 7800 rpm. The P4/5 uses the 6 speed automated manual of the Enzo with black shifting paddles behind the wheel. It has two directional indicator buttons, one mounted on each side of the steering wheel. ### Chassis Much of the suspension was unchanged from the original Enzo, with the same push-rod suspension at the front and rear, and the same Brembo carbon-ceramic anti-lock disc brakes with a diameter of 340 mm (13.4 in) at the front and rear. The aluminium alloy wheels are 20 in (510 mm) in diameter, the front tyres have codes of ZR 255/35 and the rear, ZR 335/30.

Yunnan nuthatch

Species of nuthatch endemic to China

The Yunnan nuthatch (Sitta yunnanensis) is a bird species in the nuthatch family Sittidae. It was first described by William Robert Ogilvie-Grant in 1900 based on a male holotype. It is a small nuthatch, measuring 12 centimetres (4.7 in) in length on average and weighs between 7.5 and 13 grams (0.26 and 0.46 oz). The grey-blue upperparts contrast with the light, smooth, buffy lowerparts. It has a fine white eyebrow above a black eyestripe, which is distinct when the plumage is fresh, and exhibits a small degree of sexual dimorphism. A noisy bird, it produces simple, nasal sounds, sometimes in repetitive series. Its ecology is not well-known, but it feeds on insects that it finds on pine branches. It can be found in the prefectures of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou in Southwest China, where it prefers sparsely forested pine forests and avoids dense spruce and fir forests. It is listed as a near-threatened species on the IUCN Red List and it is generally rare but can be locally common. It has a small range of 170,000 square kilometres (66,000 sq mi). A 2009 study predicted that its population could decrease by 43.6–47.7% between 2040 and 2069. ## Taxonomy The Yunnan nuthatch was first described as Sitta yunnanensis by Scottish ornithologist William Robert Ogilvie-Grant in 1900 based on a male holotype brought from southern Yunnan by Captain Alfred Wingate. It was placed in the subgenus Micrositta by Buturlin in 1916. There are no subspecies. The canadensis group, which is also sometimes called the subgenus Micrositta, contains six species – the Yunnan nuthatch, the red-breasted nuthatch (S. canadensis), the Chinese nuthatch (S. villosa), the Corsican nuthatch (S. whiteheadi), Krüper's nuthatch (S. krueperi) and the Algerian nuthatch (S. ledanti). In 1953, the Dutch ornithologists Karel Voous and John G. van Marle thought that the Yunnan nuthatch formed a link between the canadensis and europaea groups, and simultaneously that it was very closely related to the canadensis group, of which it was a basal representative in terms of distribution and plumage. In 1957, Charles Vaurie postulated that the white-tailed nuthatch was the Yunnan nuthatch's closest relative. In 1998, Eric Pasquet studied the mitochondrial DNA about ten species of nuthatch, including the different species in the canadensis group, but the Yunnan nuthatch was not included in the study. In 2014, Éric Pasquet and colleagues published a nuclear and mitochondrial DNA-based phylogeny of 21 species of nuthatch and confirmed the 1998 study relationships within the canadensis group, adding the Yunnan nuthatch, which is found to be the most basal species of the group. ## Description The of the Yunnan nuthatch are blue-grey, including the calotte, despite being separated from the upper mantle by a paler area. It has a thin white eyebrow, which extends to the forehead and surmounts a black eyestripe, which widens noticeably on the back, on the sides of the mantle. The eye has a fine white circle around it, and it has a white cheek and throat. The are plain and pale, pinkish buff. The beak is thin and pointed and the almost straight culmen can give the impression that the tip of the beak is coming up. Its irises are dark brown, the bill gray-black with the base of the lower mandible horny or yellowish, and the legs and feet are gray-brown. The Yunnan nuthatch is a small nuthatch, measuring around 12 cm (4.7 in) in length on average, and its wing chord is 69.5 to 74 millimetres (2.74 to 2.91 in) on male specimens and 67 to 74 millimetres (2.6 to 2.9 in) on female specimens. On males, the tale measures 35 to 41 millimetres (1.4 to 1.6 in) and on females, it measures between 36 and 38 millimetres (1.4 and 1.5 in). The species exhibits little sexual dimorphism, but the black of the female's eyestripe is on average less intense and its underparts are duller and grayer. The plumage is fresh from August, and gradually wears down until the following spring. In worn plumage, the whitish tips of the eyebrow feathers are worn away, and the eyebrow line becomes discontinuous or inconspicuous. The upperparts are duller, less blue. The tail and wing feathers also wear out, but the blue-gray tips of the rectrices persist at least until May. The underparts become duller and dirtier, turning grayish-white. The young is duller than the adult, with the eyebrow less marked and not extending to the forehead, sometimes almost absent and consisting of a lighter cap margin. The eye line is also less wide, the cheek is dirty gray and not white. The throat is whiter, but the rest of the underparts are duller, grayish cinnamon, though not as pale as in a worn plumaged adult. The upperparts are duller and grayer. The bill of fledged young is shorter and has a pale base. Adults undergo a complete moult from July to September, and perhaps sometimes a partial moult before the breeding season in January and February, which includes the breast. The giant nuthatch can occur in the same type of habitat as the Yunnan nuthatch, but is much larger in size and lacks a white eyebrow. The chestnut-vented nuthatch is closer in size to the Yunnan nuthatch, but has reddish flanks and no white eyebrows. ## Ecology and behaviour ### Vocalizations The Yunnan nuthatch is a fairly noisy bird, and typically makes many individual sounds: nit, kni, tit, pit, or a low and nasal toik. Its call, nit, is repeated in sets lasting four to ten seconds of five to six repetitions per second, producing a kni-kni-kni, kit-kit-kit, pi-pi-pi, or a nasal niew-niew-niew sound. It also produces a harsh schri-schri-schri or szi-szi-szi call, a trait shared by other small nuthatches. It sometimes produces a ziew-ziew-ziew call in calm sets of three notes per second, and can also emit nasal calls quit-quit-quit, schu-schu-schu, or tui-tui-tui. ### Food and breeding The diet of the Yunnan nuthatch is not well-known, but it is known to consume insects it catches on pine branches. There is a lack of information about its reproduction, but a female was collected on 9 March that was close to laying, while recently born Yunnan nuthatches were collected on 21 May. ## Distribution and habitat The Yunnan nuthatch is endemic to Southwest China, and mainly occurs in the prefectures of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou. A study published in 2003 identified the species being endemic to China, and identified the Hengduan Mountains as the main area of endemism. The Yunnan nuthatch is a sedentary species. It inhabits pine forests with sparse undergrowth, and avoids dense spruce and fir forests. Occasionally, it occurs on small pine trees 2 to 3 m (6.6 to 9.8 ft) high, in open forests or among scattered groups of trees. In the summer, it lives at altitudes between 2,440 and 3,960 m (8,010 and 12,990 ft) above sea level (ASL), and travels down into valleys during winter to heights up to 1,200 m (3,900 ft). However, it has been observed at between 2,600 and 4,000 m (8,500 and 13,100 ft) between November and January in Shuangbai County. ## Threats and protection In 1987, Chinese ornithologist Zheng Zuoxin described the Yunnan nuthatch as rare, but it is locally common in areas such as Lijiang's pine forests. It has a small range of around 170,000 square kilometres (66,000 sq mi), and the bird disappeared from several locations in the early twentieth century. It is threatened by habitat destruction and is dependent on old pine forests, but also appears to live in degraded habitats. A 2009 study attempted to predict the impact of climate change on nuthatches in Asia, and shows the Yunnan nuthatch's distribution decreasing by between 43.6% and 47.7% by 2040–2069. The species has been listed as near-threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Tajik alphabet

Alphabet used to write the Tajik language

The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik may be referred to as the Tajik alphabet, which is written as алифбои тоҷикӣ in Cyrillic characters, الفبای تاجیکی with Perso-Arabic script and alifboji toçikī in Latin script. The use of a specific alphabet generally corresponds with stages in history, with Arabic being used first, followed by Latin for a short period and then Cyrillic, which remains the most widely used alphabet in Tajikistan. The Bukhori dialect spoken by Bukharan Jews traditionally used the Hebrew alphabet but more often today is written using the Cyrillic variant. ## Political context As with many post-Soviet states, the change in writing system and the debates surrounding it is closely intertwined with political themes. Although not having been used since the adoption of Cyrillic, the Latin script is supported by those who wish to bring the country closer to Uzbekistan, which has adopted the Latin-based Uzbek alphabet. The Persian alphabet is supported by the devoutly religious, Islamists, and by those who wish to bring the country closer to Iran, Afghanistan, and their Persian heritage. As the de facto standard, the Cyrillic alphabet is generally supported by those who wish to maintain the status quo, and not distance the country from Russia. ## History As a result of the influence of Islam in the region, Tajik was written in the Persian alphabet up to the 1920s. Until this time, the language was not thought of as separate and simply considered a dialect of the Persian language. The Soviets began by simplifying the Persian alphabet in 1923, before moving to a Latin-based system in 1927. The Latin script was introduced by the Soviet Union as part of an effort to increase literacy and distance the, at that time, largely illiterate population, from the Islamic Central Asia. There were also practical considerations. The regular Persian alphabet, being an abjad, does not provide sufficient letters for representing the vowel system of Tajik. In addition, the abjad is more difficult to learn, each letter having different forms depending on the position in the word. The Decree on Romanisation made this law in April 1928. The Latin variant for Tajik was based on the work by Turcophone scholars who aimed to produce a unified Turkic alphabet, despite Tajik not being a Turkic language. The literacy campaign was successful, with near-universal literacy being achieved by the 1950s. As part of the "russification" of Central Asia, the Cyrillic script was introduced in the late 1930s. The alphabet remained Cyrillic until the end of the 1980s with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In 1989, with the growth in Tajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik the state language. In addition, the law officially equated Tajik with Persian, placing the word Farsi (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. The Persian alphabet was introduced into education and public life, although the banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party in 1993 slowed down the adoption. In 1999, the word Farsi was removed from the state-language law. As of 2004 the de facto standard in use was the Cyrillic alphabet and as of 1996, only a very small part of the population could read the Persian alphabet. ## Variants The letters of the major versions of the Tajik alphabet are presented below, along with their phonetic values. There is also a comparative table below. ### Persian alphabet A variant of the Persian alphabet (technically an abjad) is used to write Tajik. In the Tajik version, as with all other versions of the Arabic script, with the exception of ا (alef), vowels are not given unique letters, but rather optionally indicated with diacritic marks. ### Latin The Latin script was introduced after the Russian Revolution of 1917 in order to facilitate an increase in literacy and distance the language from Islamic influence. Only lowercase letters were found in the first versions of the Latin variant, between 1926 and 1929. A slightly different version used by Jews speaking the Bukhori dialect included three extra characters for phonemes not found in the other dialects: , , and . in particular represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative, a feature of the Bukhori dialect. The unusual character Ƣ is called Gha and represents the phoneme . The character is found in Yañalif in which most non-Slavic languages of the Soviet Union were written until the late 1930s. The Latin alphabet is not widely used today, although its adoption is advocated by certain groups. ### Cyrillic The Cyrillic script was introduced in Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in the late 1930s, replacing the Latin script that had been used since the October Revolution. After 1939, materials published in Persian in the Persian alphabet were banned from the country. The alphabet below was supplemented by the letters Щ and Ы in 1952. In addition to these thirty-five letters, the letters ц, щ and ы can be found in loanwords, although they were officially dropped in the 1998 reform, along with the letter ь. Along with the deprecation of these letters, the 1998 reform also changed the order of the alphabet, which now has the characters with diacritics following their unaltered partners, e.g. г, ғ and к, қ, etc. leading to the present order: а б в г ғ д е ё ж з и ӣ й к қ л м н о п р с т у ӯ ф х ҳ ч ҷ ш ъ э ю я. In 2010, it was suggested that the letters е ё ю я might be dropped as well. The letters е and э have the same function, except that э is used at the beginning of a word (ex. Эрон, "Iran"). The alphabet includes a number of letters not found in the Russian alphabet: {\|class="wikitable" ! Description \| Г with bar \|\| И with macron \|\| К with descender \|\| У with macron \|\| Х with descender \|\| Ч with descender \|- ! Letter \| Ғ \|\| Ӣ \|\| Қ \|\| Ӯ\|\| Ҳ \|\| Ҷ \|- ! Phoneme \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| During the period when the Cyrillicization took place, Ӷ ӷ also appeared a few times in the table of the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet. ### Transliteration standards The transliteration standards for the Tajik alphabet in Cyrillic into the Latin alphabet are as follows: Notes to the table above: 1. ISO 9 — The International Organization for Standardization ISO 9 specification. 2. KNAB — From the placenames database of the Institute of the Estonian Language. 3. WWS — From World’s Writing Systems, Bernard Comrie (ed.) 4. ALA-LC — The standard of the Library of Congress and the American Library Association. 5. Edward Allworth, ed. Nationalities of the Soviet East. Publications and Writing Systems (NY: Columbia University Press, 1971) 6. BGN/PCGN — The standard of the United States Board on Geographic Names and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. ### Hebrew The Hebrew alphabet (an abjad like the Persian alphabet) is used for the Jewish Bukhori dialect primarily in Samarkand and Bukhara. Additionally, since 1940, when Jewish schools were closed in Central Asia, the use of the Hebrew Alphabet outside Hebrew liturgy fell into disuse and Bukharian Jewish publications such as books and newspapers began to appear using the Tajik Cyrillic Alphabet. Today, many older Bukharian Jews who speak Bukharian and went to Tajik or Russian schools in Central Asia only know the Tajik Cyrillic Alphabet when reading and writing Bukharian and Tajik. ## Samples ### Tajik Cyrillic, Tajik Latin and Persian alphabet For reference, the Persian script variant transliterated letter-for-letter into the Latin script appears as follows: > tmạm ậdmạn ậzạd bh dnyạ my̱ ậynd w ạz lḥạẓ mnzlt w ḥqwq bạ hm brạbrnd. hmh ṣḥb ʿql w wjdạnnd, bạyd nsbt bh ykdygr brạdrwạr mnạsbt nmạynd. And the BGN/PCGN transliteration of the Cyrillic text: > Tamomi odamon ozod ba dunyo meoyand va az lihozi manzilatu huquq bo ham barobarand. Hama sohibi aqlu vijdonand, boyad nisbat ba yakdigar barodarvor munosabat namoyand. ### Tajik Cyrillic and Persian alphabet Vowel-pointed Persian includes the vowels that are not usually written. ## Comparative table A table comparing the different writing systems used for the Tajik alphabet. The Latin here is based on the 1929 standard, the Cyrillic on the revised 1998 standard, and Persian letters are given in their stand-alone forms. ## See also

Jarlsberg Tunnel

Runs through Frodeåsen in Tønsberg, Norway

The Jarlsberg Tunnel (Norwegian: Jarlsbergtunnelen) is a 1,750-meter (1.09 mi) long double track railway tunnel which runs through Frodeåsen in Tønsberg, Norway. Located on the Vestfold Line, the tunnel was built as part of the 7.8-kilometer (4.8 mi) double-track high-speed segment from Barkåker to Tønsberg. It is located just north of Tønsberg Station and runs between Frodegata and Tomsbakken. Most of the tunnel is blasted, although 223 meters (732 ft) is in a concrete culvert. Planning of the tunnel started in the late 1990s. Several railway interest groups advised against building the isolated segment of upgraded track without a complete plan for upgrading the entire line. Construction started in April 2009 and the new section and the tunnel opened on 7 November 2011. It was the fourth segment of the Vestfold Line to be upgraded. ## Specifications The Jarlsberg Tunnel runs roughly north–south through Frodeåsen, a hill just north of the town center of Tønsberg. The northern entrance is located at Tomsbakken, beside County Road 35 and the southern entrance is located at Frodegata in the town center. Just south of the tunnel lies Tønsberg Station. The tunnel is 1,750 meters (5,740 ft) long, of which 1,560 meters (5,120 ft) is blasted through bedrock and 223 meters (732 ft) is concrete culvert. The portal on the Tønsberg side is 73 meters (240 ft) long. The Jarlsberg Tunnel constitutes the southernmost part of the 7.8-kilometer-long (4.8 mi) double-track segment of the Vestfold Line between Barkåker and Tønsberg. It is electrified at , has an NSI-63 signaling system and is dimensioned for 200 kilometers per hour (120 mph). The crosscut serves as an emergency exit. The railway tunnel crosses 2.5 to 3.0 meters (8 ft 2 in to 9 ft 10 in) above the Frodeåsen Tunnel, a twin-tube tunnel of County Road 300. The tunnel's single crosscut serves as an emergency exit. The line is owned and maintained by the Norwegian National Rail Administration. ## History The Vestfold Line opened in 1881 as a narrow-gauge railway. Although later converted to standard gauge and electrified, the line retains poor capacity and many curves. The only previous tunnel north of Larvik is the 288-meter-long (945 ft) Smørstein Tunnel, which was completed in 1921. In the early 1990s, work started on increasing speed, capacity and reliability by building shorter sections of double-track with higher permitted speeds. During this period, there was very little investment funding for railways; thus the Vestfold Line was split into a series of small segments, each which was planned individually. Between 1995 and 2003, three sections with a combined length of 23 kilometers (14 mi) were opened. The segment between Barkåker and Tønsberg was the fourth section of the line to be upgraded. When later projects are completed, it will allow travel time from Tønsberg to Oslo to be reduced from 90 to 60 minutes. Initial planning of the segment between Barkåker and Tønsberg considered 13 different initial route proposals. However, no analysis for possible rights-of-way south of Tønsberg or north of Barkåker were considered. In September 1999, the government presented their proposal for National Transport Plan 2002–11, which included three segments on the Vestfold Line: Holm–Nykirke, Barkåker–Tønsberg and Farriseidet–Porsgrunn. When Parliament passed the plan in February 2001, the Barkåker–Tønsberg segment was prioritized second on the Vestfold Line, after a new passing loop at Nykirke. National Transport Plan 2002–11 proposed that construction start in 2005, but by November 2002, the National Rail Administration delayed the plans, following investment cuts by Bondevik's Second Cabinet. In response, Minister of Transport Torild Skogsholm stated that she was considering financing the project as a public–private partnership paid through a surcharge on tickets fares. The route will give a time saving of between three and four minutes for trains heading north of Tønsberg, but two minutes of these will be saved by changing the direction the trains run through the loop through town. Thus, passengers traveling southwards from Tønsberg experience a two-minute increase in travel time. The plan to make an isolated investment in the Barkåker–Tønsberg section was criticized by several pro-railway interest organizations, including Norsk Bane, For Jernbane, the Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature as well as the Norwegian State Railways (NSB)—who operates the train service. All recommended that the National Rail Administration place the investments on hold until more of the Vestfold Line was planned. NSB's Tom Ingulstad called the plans "troublesome" and stated that the trains would have nearly no time or reliability-gains from the investment. If the authority instead had built more double track in connection with the existing segment at Sande, trains could more efficiently catch up any delays before reaching Drammen. Long-term plans for the line imply that the line will need to allow a through speed of at least 250 kilometers per hour (160 mph) and be built so trains do not need to stop or slow down at all stations. The National Rail Administration had at the time of construction not made any plans for a route south of Tønsberg; estimates from Norsk Bane show that Tønsberg will not be able to allow high through speeds and that a new through line would have to be built with a different right-of-way, entirely avoiding the Jarlsberg Tunnel. Alternatively, the route would have to feature slow speeds or large encroachments on the local environment. By binding the Vestfold Line to run via Barkåker, it is not possible to build a high-speed line with stations serving population centers such as Horten, Åsgårdstrand and Eik. For Jernbane advised against building the Barkåker–Tønsberg segment and instead recommended that the authorities wait until the entire Vestfold Line was planned. Following the appointment of Stoltenberg's Second Cabinet in 2005, the government started working with longer projects and increased funding. The go-ahead for the project was given by Minister of Transport Liv Signe Navarsete on 31 March 2008, with the entire project from Barkåker to Tønsberg estimated to cost 1.37 billion Norwegian krone (NOK). The main civil engineering advisor for the project was Norconsult. Six bids were issued to building the main segment, which included the tunnel and 2.6 kilometers (1.6 mi) from Tomsbakken to Barkåker Industrial Park. The bidders were a joint venture between Reinertsen and Leonard Nilsen, Veidekke, Skanska, Hæhre Entreprenør, NCC and Mika. The contract was awarded on 5 March 2009 to Reinertsen/Leonard Nilsen, who had the lowest bid, NOK 377.9 million, NOK 158 million less than the most expensive, from Mika. The joint venture was structured so Leonard Nilsen built the tunnel and Reinertsen the above-ground section. Construction of the project started on 16 March 2009; work on the tunnel started in April and the first blasting began on 11 May. Construction ran from a crosscut in the center of the tunnel and outwards; average speed was 35 to 40 meters (115 to 131 ft) per week. Work on casting the concrete portals started on 18 September. For four weeks, starting in January 2010, blasting was performed above the Frodeåsen Tunnel, and on each occasion that the 100 or so blasts were executed, the road was closed for safety reasons. Following a public naming competition, the National Rail Administration announced on 5 February 2010 that the tunnel be known as the Jarlsberg Tunnel. The first breakthrough of the tunnel was achieved on 30 June 2010. The second and final breakthrough took place on 1 September. Construction proceeded without any injuries and nearly without any complications. The tunneling resulted in 235,000 tonnes (231,000 long tons; 259,000 short tons) of earthwork, which was used to build the above-ground section north of the tunnel. The last concrete casting was laid on 20 January 2011. Laying of the track was performed by Wiebe, signaling was installed by Norsk Jernbanedrift, Structon Rail installed the overhead wire, and YIT installed the power supply and telecommunications systems. The tunnel has the NSI-63 relay-based signaling system, although it was scheduled to be replaced by European Rail Traffic Management System shortly after 2015. The last six weeks before opening, the Vestfold Line was closed to allow the new and old sections to be connected. This was the most hectic part of construction, as it saw the tracks south of the tunnel be rearranged to allow trains to operate the opposite direction through the loop in Tønsberg. The work was performed by Reinertsen and took 100,000 man-hours. The tunnel and the segment Barkåker–Tønsberg opened on schedule on 7 November 2011. The segment cost NOK 1.5 billion, which was within budget. However, at the time of the opening, double track was still not laid from the tunnel to Tønsberg Station. Previously, trains crossed each other at the passing loop at the closed Barkåker Station, with one train having to wait for the other. With the competition of the new segment, trains could pass at any point between Tønsberg and Barkåker, allowing increased reliability. However, the signaling system was not installed at the time of opening, so the tunnel remained only operated with single track, although a temporary signaling system allowed it to be used as a passing loop. If used as such, speed was limited to 70 kilometers per hour (43 mph).

2016 Tour de France

The 2016 Tour de France was the 103rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The 3,529 km (2,193 mi)-long race consisted of 21 stages, starting on 2 July in Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy, and concluding on 24 July with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris. A total of 198 riders from 22 teams entered the race. The overall general classification was won by Chris Froome of , with the second and third places were taken by Romain Bardet () and Nairo Quintana (), respectively. Mark Cavendish of won the opening stage to take the general classification leader's yellow jersey. rider Peter Sagan won the second stage to claim yellow and held onto it until the fifth stage when Greg Van Avermaet () took the stage and the yellow jersey. Van Avermaet lost ground in the mountainous eighth stage, finishing over 25 minutes behind the stage winner Froome, who took the yellow jersey. Froome retained the yellow jersey through to stage 17 and extended his lead further following a strong performance in the stage 18's mountain time trial. Bardet won the mountainous 19th stage and moved into second place overall and despite crashing in the rain, Froome was able to extend his lead. He then held the lead into the finish in Paris. The points classification was won by Sagan, who won three stages. 's Rafał Majka won the mountains classification. rider Adam Yates, in fourth place overall, won the young rider classification. The team classification was won by and Sagan was given the award for the most combative rider. Cavendish won the most stages, with four. ## Teams Twenty-two teams participated in the 2016 edition of the Tour de France. The race was the 18th of the 28 events in the UCI World Tour, and all of its eighteen UCI WorldTeams were automatically invited, and obliged, to attend the race. On 2 March 2016, the organiser of the Tour, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced the four second-tier UCI Professional Continental teams given wildcard invitations: , , and . The presentation of the teams – where the members of each team's roster are introduced in front of the media and local dignitaries – took place in the town square of Sainte-Mère-Église, Normandy, on 28 June, two days before the opening stage held in the region. Each team arrived in World War II military vehicles, commemorating the Normandy landings. Each squad was allowed a maximum of nine riders, therefore the start list contained a total of 198 riders. Of these, 33 were competing in their first Tour de France. The riders came from 35 countries; France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Germany all had 10 or more riders in the race. Riders from ten countries won stages during the race; British riders won the largest number of stages, with seven. The average age of riders in the race was 30 years, ranging from the 22-year-old Sondre Holst Enger () to the 42-year-old Matteo Tosatto (). Of the total average ages, was the youngest team and the oldest. The teams entering the race were: UCI WorldTeams UCI Professional Continental teams ## Pre-race favourites In the run up to the 2016 Tour de France, Chris Froome () was seen by many as the top pre-race favourite for the general classification. His closest rivals were thought to be Nairo Quintana () and Alberto Contador (). The other riders considered contenders for the general classification were Richie Porte (), Thibaut Pinot (), Fabio Aru (), Vincenzo Nibali (), who won the 2014 Tour and the 2016 Giro d'Italia, Romain Bardet (), and Tejay van Garderen (). Froome, who won both the 2013 and 2015 editions of the race, had shown his form during the season with overall victories in two stage races, the Herald Sun Tour and the Critérium du Dauphiné, a race considered to be the warm-up for the Tour. The runner-up in the 2013 and 2015 Tours, Quintana, had won three stage races in the lead up to the Tour, the Volta a Catalunya, the Tour de Romandie, and the Route du Sud. Contador, winner of the 2007 and 2009 Tours, found success in stage races during the season, winning the Tour of the Basque Country and placing second at Paris–Nice and the Volta a Catalunya. The sprinters considered favourites for the points classification and wins on the flat or hilly bunch sprint finishes were Peter Sagan (), Marcel Kittel (), André Greipel (), Mark Cavendish (), Alexander Kristoff (), John Degenkolb () and Michael Matthews (). Sagan, the world road race champion and winner of the points classification in the four previous Tours, had won the one-day classics, Gent–Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders, and two stages of the Tour of California during the season before the Tour. Kittel's 2016 season had been successful up to the Tour as he had amassed a total of nine wins from sprints, most notably, two stages of the Giro and the Scheldeprijs one-day race. He also won both the general and points classifications of the Dubai Tour. Greipel's season total of wins so far was eight, with three Giro stages. Cavendish's form was not clear as his season was mostly spent training for the omnium track event at the Olympic Games the month following the Tour. Although Kristoff's total of wins in the season was eight, they were not in major races. Degenkolb had spent the majority of his season recovering from an injury and it was thought he could pose a threat. Matthews only had two wins so far in the season, both at Paris–Nice, including the race's points classification. ## Route and stages On 24 November 2014, ASO announced that for time the first time in Tour history the department of Manche would host the 2016 edition's opening stages (known as the Grand Départ), before further details of the first three stages held in Manche were released on 9 December 2014. On 15 January 2015, the organisers confirmed that the race would visit Andorra, for the fifth time in history; after the 1964, 1993, 1997 and 2009 editions. The principality hosted the finish of the ninth stage, the first rest day and start of stage ten. The entire route was unveiled by race director Christian Prudhomme on 20 October 2015 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. The defending champion Chris Froome said after the route was announced that he expected the course to suit him better than the previous year's course. "I think it's going to take a complete cyclist – but the stage that certainly stands out for me is Mont Ventoux", he added. The first stage started at the Mont Saint-Michel island monastery and finished north on at Utah Beach. The second stage was held between Saint-Lô and Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. The third stage left Manche in Granville and headed south to the finish in Angers. Stage four took the race further south, between Saumur and Limoges, with the fifth stage crossing the elevated region of Massif Central to the finish at the Le Lioran mountain resort. Stage six headed to Montauban before the entrance to the Pyrenees in stage seven. This mountain range also hosted two further stages: a roller-coaster stage eight and the finish in Andorra in stage nine. The following three stages, 10 to 12, crossed the south of the country eastwards to Mont Ventoux. After an individual time trial, stage 14 took the race northwards through the Rhône Valley, which was followed by a stage that took the race into the Jura Mountains. Stage 16 ended with a finish in Bern, Switzerland. The next four stages took place in and around the Alps, before a long transfer took the Tour to the finish with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris. There were 21 stages in the race, covering a total distance of 3,529 km (2,193 mi), 168.7 km (104.8 mi) longer than the 2015 Tour. The longest mass-start was the fourth at 237.5 km (148 mi), and stage 21 was the shortest at 113 km (70 mi). The race featured a total of 54.5 km (34 mi) in individual time trials and four summit finishes: stage 9, to Andorra-Arcalis (Andorra); stage 12, to Chalet Reynard (Mont Ventoux); stage 17, to Finhaut–Émosson (Switzerland); and stage 19, to Saint Gervais-les-Bains. The highest point of elevation in the race was the 2,408 m (7,900 ft)-high Port d'Envalira mountain pass on stage ten. There were seven hors catégorie (English: beyond category) rated climbs in the race. There were sixteen new stage start or finish locations. The second rest day took place in Bern after stage 15. ## Race overview ### Grand Départ and journey south The first stage's bunch sprint finish was won by Mark Cavendish, who gained the race leader's yellow jersey; he also claimed the green jersey as the leader of the points classification, with Paul Voss () taking the polka dot jersey as the leader of the mountains classification. Alberto Contador crashed and lost 55 seconds. Peter Sagan took victory in stage two with an uphill sprint in Cherbourg, putting him in the yellow and green jerseys. Jasper Stuyven of led the mountains classification. General classification rivals Contador and Richie Porte both lost time. The bunch sprint in Angers was won by Cavendish in a photo finish with André Greipel. Cavendish's win was his 28th in the Tour and drew him level with Bernard Hinault at second on the all-time list; Cavendish also took the green jersey. Another photo finish followed in the next stage with Marcel Kittel beating 's Bryan Coquard. Sagan claimed back the green and Thomas De Gendt () the polka dot. Greg Van Avermaet of won the fifth stage after he was the only rider to survive from an early breakaway. He took the lead of the general classification by over five minutes. Stage six was won by Cavendish, who beat Kittel and claimed the green jersey. ### Pyrenees and transition In stage seven, the first in the Pyrenees, Steve Cummings () soloed over the final climb, the Col d'Aspin, and descended into the finish at Lac de Payolle where he took victory. Van Avermaet came fifth and extended his lead. 's Adam Yates attacked the chasing group and as he passed underneath the one kilometer to go arch it collapsed on top of, and injured, him. In the following stage Chris Froome attacked the front of the race of overall favourites as they passed the summit of the Col de Peyresourde, descending to the finish in Bagnères-de-Luchon to take a solo victory by thirteen seconds. This put him in the yellow jersey, sixteen seconds ahead of Yates in second, with Rafał Majka () taking the polka dot. In the Tour's queen stage, the ninth, Tom Dumoulin of broke clear of the large breakaway to claim the win at the Andorra-Arcalis. Thibaut Pinot took the lead of the mountains classification. Contador abandoned the race, citing a fever which had developed overnight. The next day was the first rest day of the Tour. Another breakaway succeeded in stage ten, with using their advantage of having three riders in the small group to give Michael Matthews the win. Sagan, who came second, took the lead in the points classification. On stage eleven, Sagan forced a move in the final 12 km (7.5 mi) with his teammate Maciej Bodnar, who were followed by Froome and his teammate Geraint Thomas. They opened up a lead of over twenty seconds and held it to six seconds at the finish, where Sagan beat Froome in a sprint. A successful breakaway saw De Gendt win stage twelve at the finish at Chalet Reynard, which was changed from the intended summit finish at Mont Ventoux, 6 km (3.7 mi) later, due to dangerous winds. In the chasing group of overall favourites, a leading group of Porte, Froome and Bauke Mollema () crashed into the back of a camera motorbike that was stopped by the encroaching spectators. Froome's bike was unrideable and he was forced to run until he was given a bike from a neutral service car; although it did not fit him he managed to ride until he received his team bike. The race jury gave Froome and Porte the same time as Mollema, who later criticised the jury's decision, suggesting that they would have acted differently if he was the one to go down. De Gendt took the lead of the mountains classification. Stage thirteen's 37.5 km (23.3 mi) individual time trial was won by Dumoulin, 1:03 ahead of Froome, who extended his lead over his nearest rival (Mollema) to one minute and forty-seven seconds. Cavendish won his fourth stage the next day with a bunch sprint at the Parc des Oiseaux. ### Alps and finale `rider Jarlinson Pantano won stage fifteen after a sprint with fellow surviving breakaway rider Majka. In next stage, Sagan won his third stage from a select group of sprinters that had traversed a cobbled climb 6 km (3.7 mi) from the finish in Bern. The next day was the second rest day. In stage seventeen, as the race entered the Alps, 's Ilnur Zakarin attacked a breakaway and held off a chasing Pantano to take the win at the summit finish by the Émosson Dam. In the following stage's 17 km (10.6 mi) mountain time trial Froome beat second-placed Dumoulin by 21 seconds and extended his lead to three minutes and 52 seconds overall, with Mollema keeping second. In stage nineteen, the general classification leaders descended the wet roads of the unclassified penultimate climb at the head of the race, with only Costa surviving from the breakaway. Romain Bardet attacked after a series of crashes that included Froome and Mollema. Froome took Thomas's bike and got back to the group, but Mollema was left isolated and finished over four minutes behind the stage winner Bardet, who had passed Costa in the final 7 km (4.3 mi) and soloed to the finish at the Le Bettex ski station. Froome's lead was increased to 4' 11", with Bardet moving up from fifth to second. In stage twenty Jon Izaguirre () took the win in Morzine, attacking on the wet descent from a three rider group that led over the final climb of Col de Joux Plane.` The final stage in Paris was won by Greipel, his second consecutive Champs-Élysées stage win. Froome finished the race to claim his third Tour de France, becoming the first man since Miguel Induráin in 1995 Tour to officially defend his title. He beat second-placed Bardet by four minutes and five seconds, with Nairo Quintana third, a further sixteen seconds down. Sagan won the points classification with a total of 470, 242 ahead of Greipel in second. Majka won the mountains classification with De Gendt and Pantano second and third respectively. The best young rider was Yates, two minutes and sixteen seconds ahead of second-placed Louis Meintjes (). finished as the winners of the team classification, over eight minutes ahead of second-placed . Of the 198 starters, 174 reached the finish of the last stage in Paris, beating the previous record high of 170 set in the 2010 Tour. ## Classification leadership and minor prizes There were four main individual classifications contested in the 2016 Tour de France, as well as a team competition. The most important was the general classification, which was calculated by adding each rider's finishing times on each stage. Time bonuses (time subtracted) were awarded at the end of every stage apart from the two individual time trials. The first three riders got 10, 6 and 4 seconds, respectively. If a crash had happened within the final 3 km (1.9 mi) of a stage, not including time trials and summit finishes, the riders involved would have received the same time as the group they were in when the crash occurred. The rider with the lowest cumulative time was the winner of the general classification and was considered the overall winner of the Tour. The rider leading the classification wore a yellow jersey. The second classification was the points classification. Riders received points for finishing among the highest placed in a stage finish, or in intermediate sprints during the stage. The points available for each stage finish were determined by the stage's type. The leader was identified by a green jersey. The third classification was the mountains classification. Points were awarded to the riders that reached the summit of the most difficult climbs first. The climbs were categorised as fourth-, third-, second- or first-category and hors catégorie, with the more difficult climbs rated lower. Double points were awarded on the summit finishes on stages 9, 12, 17 and 19. The leader wore a white jersey with red polka dots. The final individual classification was the young rider classification. This was calculated the same way as the general classification, but the classification was restricted to riders who were born on or after 1 January 1991. The leader wore a white jersey. The final classification was a team classification. This was calculated using the finishing times of the best three riders per team on each stage; the leading team was the team with the lowest cumulative time. The number of stage victories and placings per team determined the outcome of a tie. The riders in the team that lead this classification were identified with yellow number bibs on the back of their jerseys and yellow helmets. In addition, there was a combativity award given after each stage to the rider considered, by a jury, to have "made the greatest effort and who demonstrated the best qualities of sportsmanship". No combativity awards were given for the time trials and the final stage. The winner wore a red number bib the following stage. At the conclusion of the Tour, Peter Sagan won the overall super-combativity award, again, decided by a jury. A total of €2,295,850 was awarded in cash prizes in the race. The overall winner of the general classification received €500,000, with the second and third placed riders getting €200,000 and €100,000 respectively. All finishers of the race were awarded with money. The holders of the classifications benefited on each stage they led; the final winners of the points and mountains were given €25,000, while the best young rider and most combative rider got €20,000. The team classification winners were given €50,000. €11,000 was given to the winners of each stage of the race, with smaller amounts given to places 2–20. There were also three special awards each with a prize of €5000. The Souvenir Jacques Goddet, given to the first rider to pass Goddet's memorial at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet on stage eight, the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, given to first rider to pass the summit of the highest climb in the Tour, the Port d'Envalira on stage ten, and the Prix Bernard Hinault, given to the rider with fastest ascent of the Côte de Domancy on stage eighteen. Thibaut Pinot won the Jacques Goddet, Rui Costa won the Henri Desgrange and Richie Porte won the Bernard Hinault. - In stage two, Marcel Kittel, who was second in the points classification, wore the green jersey, because first placed Mark Cavendish wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification. - In stages three and five, Mark Cavendish, who was second in the points classification, wore the green jersey, because first placed Peter Sagan wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification. ## Final standings ### General classification ### Points classification ### Mountains classification ### Young rider classification ### Team classification ## UCI rankings Riders from the WorldTeams competing individually, as well as for their teams and nations, for points that contributed towards the World Tour rankings. Riders from both the WorldTeams and Professional Continental teams also competed individually and for their nations for points that contributed towards the new UCI World Ranking, which included all UCI road races. Points were awarded to the top twenty (World Tour) and sixty finishers (World Ranking) in the general classification and to the top five finishers in each stage. The points accrued by Chris Froome moved him up to third in the World Tour and second in the World Ranking. Peter Sagan held the lead of both rankings. 's strong showing put them in the lead of the World Tour team ranking, replacing . Spain and France remained the leaders of the WorldTour and World Ranking nation rankings, respectively. ## See also - 2016 in men's road cycling - 2016 in sports - 2016 La Course by Le Tour de France

Helmi Üprus

Estonian art historian

Helmi Üprus (15 October 1911 – 27 August 1978) was an Estonian architectural and art historian. She trained in romance languages, studied English and ethnography, and earned a master's degree in art history from the University of Tartu in 1936. She worked her way up to head the cultural history department of the Estonian National Museum, where she researched folk art. In 1947, she began working at the Institute of History [et] of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR. Persecuted by Stalinism she lost her job in 1950 and worked in a factory until Stalin's death. From 1953, she was the chief specialist in architecture and history for the government monument restoration service. Üprus analyzed architecture employing an interdisciplinary method, which looked at both functional use and natural features in regard to construction and cultural significance. Although under Khrushchev's regime preservation and restoration were not a priority, her comprehensive work to uncover the architectural history of the medieval town center of Tallinn and develop a conservation plan, was eventually adopted in 1966. Her plan called for preservation and conservation of historic buildings, zoning to meet the needs of the local community, and limiting traffic and tourism. It was the first legislatively protected preservation area in the USSR and became a model for later conservation projects throughout the Soviet republics. She was honored twice – 1967 and 1980 – with the Prize of Soviet Estonia [et] for publications on the history of Estonian art and architecture and was awarded the 1974 prize of the Estonian Association of Art Scientists and Curators [et]. In 1975 and 1977, along with other authors, she received the State Prize of the Artists' Union of the USSR, for two volumes covering the history of Estonian art through 1940. Üprus died in 1978, and her work to compile the inventory of Estonia's manor houses was completed by members of the team she had supervised. ## Early life and education Helmi Üprus was born on 15 October 1911 in Viljandi, in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire, to Ann (née Anderson or Andreusov) and Jaak Üprus. Her father was the conductor of the brass band in Riidaja. She had three older siblings, Eduard, Voldemar [et], and Hilda [et]. By the time Estonia had gained its independence from Russia, she was already studying the romance languages in junior high school. Üprus graduated cum laude from the high school in Viljandi in 1929, and in 1930 began studying philosophy at the University of Tartu. Her mother died in 1934. Üprus studied under Swedish art history professor Sten Karling [sv], alongside Villem Raam, who would later be a colleague interested in the history of art and architecture, as well as their conservation. Üprus completed her studies in 1936, with a master's degree in art history and a degree in French, Italian, and Spanish, with a minor in ethnography and English. ## Career Upon her graduation, Üprus began working at the Estonian National Museum. Initially, she was the academic secretary of the museum and worked her way up to head the cultural history department. Her research in this period was primarily devoted to folk art. One project involved inventorying and photographing historic buildings in Kuressaare on Saaremaa Island, while others examined the work of silversmiths, stone markers, and illustrations of the poem Kalevipoeg. She began working at the Institute of History [et] of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR in 1947, which had been reorganised following the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. Üprus earned her magister degree in philosophy and art history in 1942, completing a thesis which examined the history of Neoclassical architecture.but lost her job in 1950 under Stalin's political repression policies. Her academic credentials were cancelled, forcing her to spend three years working in a factory. When Stalin died in 1953, Üprus was appointed as the chief specialist in architecture and history for the government monument restoration service. According to scholar Olev Suuder, her approach to restoration was "the future of the past", meaning that cultural heritage should be preserved so that it would survive into the future. Her views were at odds with Khrushchev's policies, which eliminated restoration budgets as a waste of state funds and favored low-cost developments based on large-scale prefabricated panel construction. In the late 1950s, the Soviet regime began to allow citizens to travel to other Soviet states and a handful of non-Soviet locations. In 1969, Üprus participated in a seminar on restoration projects in East Germany and the following year attended a similar conference in Italy. She presented a paper on the revitalization of the center of Tallinn at a 1971 conference in Lübeck, in West Germany and traveled to a symposium of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1972. ## Research Because of her educational background, Üprus was not influenced by any particular style or philosophy when writing about architecture. Drawing on her studies in art, ethnography, and history, she adopted an interdisciplinary approach. When evaluating architecture, she examined factors such as natural features and functional aspects behind a structure and its surroundings. This method was completely new to the evaluation of medieval buildings in Estonia and her work revealed that as a result of various factors influencing construction, there was no singular dominant style. Taking a special interest in public buildings, she researched structures including the manor house [et] in Kolga; Narva fortress and bastions in Narva; the manor house [et] in Saue; the horse-drawn mill [et], the House of the Brotherhood of Black Heads; St. Catherine's Monastery, and the Town Hall Pharmacy in Tallinn; and Teller's Chapel, Uspenski Cathedral, and the main building of the University of Tartu, as well as the university's observatory, in Tartu. Üprus wrote numerous chapters for Estonian and Soviet encyclopedias on art and architectural history. She also analyzed the works of contemporary artists, such as Ado Vabbe, whose works were studied in her 1976 book, Päikesemängud (Sun Games). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Üprus analyzed the Tallinn Old Town center. She and Rein Zobel [et] were responsible for meticulously documenting the medieval town and preparing a strategy for urban preservation and development. Their work led to it being designated as a state protected conservation area in 1966, the first of its kind in the USSR, serving as a model for later projects. In attempting to reconstruct the area, she developed a comprehensive plan on how to preserve the historical buildings while addressing functional zoning and urban renewal. Her ideas meant limiting developments liable to promote traffic and attract tourists, instead focusing on small restaurants and cafes, with spaces that served the local population. In 1967, Üprus and Harald Arman [et] and other scientists were awarded the Nõukogude Eesti preemia [et] (Prize of Soviet Estonia) in the category of art historians, for their work Eesti arhitektuuri ajalugu (History of Estonian Architecture). The majority of the chapters in the book were written by Üprus and Voldemar Vaga. In 1975, Üprus was honored by the Estonian Association of Art Scientists and Curators [et] with the 1974 annual prize for her article which appeared in the journal Ehitus ja Arhitektuur [et] (Construction and Architecture). She worked with other editors to produce Volume 1, Parts 1 and 2 of Eesti kunsti ajalugu (History of Estonian Art), published in 1975 and 1977. The first part covered art up to the middle of the nineteenth century and the second part continued with art up to 1940. Üprus's contributions included papers on folk art, classical architecture, and architecture and stonework of the Renaissance and baroque periods. In 1977, all of the writers involved in the project received the State Prize of the Artists' Union of the USSR for each of the two parts. Üprus wrote the year before her death "I have had three grand projects in my life: the History of Estonian Architecture ['Eesti arhitektuuri ajalugu'], the regeneration of Tallinn’s Old Town and now the architecture of the manors. If I can complete the latter, my life work is done". Üprus began inventorying Estonia's manor houses at the request of Fredi-Armand Tomps [et], who in the 1970s was leading the restoration of estates in the Lahemaa National Park. When she began compiling the list in 1975, there were only fragmentary records of manors built in the Swedish era prepared by Gustav Ränk and a study of 150 Estonian mansions collected by the Latvian architectural historian Heinz Pīrangs [lv] in his study of Baltic estates. Using pre-World War I-era topographical maps and an address directory, she and her team had to compare German, Estonian, and Russian place names to create the list of 2267 manors. Although she published reports and articles on the progress of her research, her untimely death left Juhan Maiste in charge of assembling a team to complete the project. ## Death and legacy Üprus died on 27 August 1978, in Tallinn, and her ashes were placed in the Tarvastu cemetery [et] in Tinnikuru. She was memorialized for her work to preserve the history of art and architecture in Estonia. According to historian Anneli Randla [et], Üprus was the "leading specialist" on architecture in Estonia, while Lilian Hansar [et], heritage conservationist for the Estonian Academy of Arts, called her work "outstanding" noting that her study on Tallinn's historical center led to its becoming protected by the state and fostered new research. The obituary prepared by the Association of Architects of the Estonian SSR for the newspaper Sirp ja Vasar, called her one of the most important researchers of Estonian architectural heritage. In both the Soviet era and later independent Estonia, her work was recognized as authoritative. Üprus was posthumously honored, along with the other authors of History of Estonian Art, the Nõukogude Eesti preemia (Prize of Soviet Estonia) in 1980, and commemorated on her birthday by newspapers in every decade from 1981 to the twenty-first century. Vaga edited and published her unfinished work, Raidkivikunst Eestis XIII–XVII sajandini (Stone Carving in Estonia from the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries) in 1987. The following year, the film Õed Üprused (The Üprus Sisters) aired on Eesti Televisioon. Directed by Aime Kala and written by Airi Kasera, who also narrated the production, it told the story of Helmi and Hilda Üprus, through interviews with their friends and colleagues. Numerous dissertations, lectures. seminars and conferences hosted by academics and museums have paid homage to her life and work. The Baltic Journal of Art History dedicated an entire issue to her and her works in 2011 in honor of her 100th birthday. Her papers have been deposited at the National Heritage Board Archives. ## Selected works

Heart

Organ found inside most animals

The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to the lungs. In humans, the heart is approximately the size of a closed fist and is located between the lungs, in the middle compartment of the chest, called the mediastinum. In humans, other mammals, and birds, the heart is divided into four chambers: upper left and right atria and lower left and right ventricles. Commonly the right atrium and ventricle are referred together as the right heart and their left counterparts as the left heart. Fish, in contrast, have two chambers, an atrium and a ventricle, while most reptiles have three chambers. In a healthy heart blood flows one way through the heart due to heart valves, which prevent backflow. The heart is enclosed in a protective sac, the pericardium, which also contains a small amount of fluid. The wall of the heart is made up of three layers: epicardium, myocardium, and endocardium. The heart pumps blood with a rhythm determined by a group of pacemaker cells in the sinoatrial node. These generate an electric current that causes the heart to contract, traveling through the atrioventricular node and along the conduction system of the heart. In humans, deoxygenated blood enters the heart through the right atrium from the superior and inferior venae cavae and passes to the right ventricle. From here it is pumped into pulmonary circulation to the lungs, where it receives oxygen and gives off carbon dioxide. Oxygenated blood then returns to the left atrium, passes through the left ventricle and is pumped out through the aorta into systemic circulation, traveling through arteries, arterioles, and capillaries—where nutrients and other substances are exchanged between blood vessels and cells, losing oxygen and gaining carbon dioxide—before being returned to the heart through venules and veins. The heart beats at a resting rate close to 72 beats per minute. Exercise temporarily increases the rate, but lowers it in the long term, and is good for heart health. Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death globally as of 2008, accounting for 30% of deaths. Of these more than three-quarters are a result of coronary artery disease and stroke. Risk factors include: smoking, being overweight, little exercise, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and poorly controlled diabetes, among others. Cardiovascular diseases do not frequently have symptoms but may cause chest pain or shortness of breath. Diagnosis of heart disease is often done by the taking of a medical history, listening to the heart-sounds with a stethoscope, as well as with ECG, echocardiogram, and ultrasound. Specialists who focus on diseases of the heart are called cardiologists, although many specialties of medicine may be involved in treatment. ## Structure ### Location and shape The human heart is situated in the mediastinum, at the level of thoracic vertebrae T5-T8. A double-membraned sac called the pericardium surrounds the heart and attaches to the mediastinum. The back surface of the heart lies near the vertebral column, and the front surface known as the sternocostal surface sits behind the sternum and rib cartilages. The upper part of the heart is the attachment point for several large blood vessels—the venae cavae, aorta and pulmonary trunk. The upper part of the heart is located at the level of the third costal cartilage. The lower tip of the heart, the apex, lies to the left of the sternum (8 to 9 cm from the midsternal line) between the junction of the fourth and fifth ribs near their articulation with the costal cartilages. The largest part of the heart is usually slightly offset to the left side of the chest (though occasionally it may be offset to the right) and is felt to be on the left because the left heart is stronger and larger, since it pumps to all body parts. Because the heart is between the lungs, the left lung is smaller than the right lung and has a cardiac notch in its border to accommodate the heart. The heart is cone-shaped, with its base positioned upwards and tapering down to the apex. An adult heart has a mass of 250–350 grams (9–12 oz). The heart is often described as the size of a fist: 12 cm (5 in) in length, 8 cm (3.5 in) wide, and 6 cm (2.5 in) in thickness, although this description is disputed, as the heart is likely to be slightly larger. Well-trained athletes can have much larger hearts due to the effects of exercise on the heart muscle, similar to the response of skeletal muscle. ### Chambers The heart has four chambers, two upper atria, the receiving chambers, and two lower ventricles, the discharging chambers. The atria open into the ventricles via the atrioventricular valves, present in the atrioventricular septum. This distinction is visible also on the surface of the heart as the coronary sulcus. There is an ear-shaped structure in the upper right atrium called the right atrial appendage, or auricle, and another in the upper left atrium, the left atrial appendage. The right atrium and the right ventricle together are sometimes referred to as the right heart. Similarly, the left atrium and the left ventricle together are sometimes referred to as the left heart. The ventricles are separated from each other by the interventricular septum, visible on the surface of the heart as the anterior longitudinal sulcus and the posterior interventricular sulcus. The fibrous cardiac skeleton gives structure to the heart. It forms the atrioventricular septum, which separates the atria from the ventricles, and the fibrous rings, which serve as bases for the four heart valves. The cardiac skeleton also provides an important boundary in the heart's electrical conduction system since collagen cannot conduct electricity. The interatrial septum separates the atria, and the interventricular septum separates the ventricles. The interventricular septum is much thicker than the interatrial septum since the ventricles need to generate greater pressure when they contract. #### Valves The heart has four valves, which separate its chambers. One valve lies between each atrium and ventricle, and one valve rests at the exit of each ventricle. The valves between the atria and ventricles are called the atrioventricular valves. Between the right atrium and the right ventricle is the tricuspid valve. The tricuspid valve has three cusps, which connect to chordae tendinae and three papillary muscles named the anterior, posterior, and septal muscles, after their relative positions. The mitral valve lies between the left atrium and left ventricle. It is also known as the bicuspid valve due to its having two cusps, an anterior and a posterior cusp. These cusps are also attached via chordae tendinae to two papillary muscles projecting from the ventricular wall. The papillary muscles extend from the walls of the heart to valves by cartilaginous connections called chordae tendinae. These muscles prevent the valves from falling too far back when they close. During the relaxation phase of the cardiac cycle, the papillary muscles are also relaxed and the tension on the chordae tendineae is slight. As the heart chambers contract, so do the papillary muscles. This creates tension on the chordae tendineae, helping to hold the cusps of the atrioventricular valves in place and preventing them from being blown back into the atria. Two additional semilunar valves sit at the exit of each of the ventricles. The pulmonary valve is located at the base of the pulmonary artery. This has three cusps which are not attached to any papillary muscles. When the ventricle relaxes blood flows back into the ventricle from the artery and this flow of blood fills the pocket-like valve, pressing against the cusps which close to seal the valve. The semilunar aortic valve is at the base of the aorta and also is not attached to papillary muscles. This too has three cusps which close with the pressure of the blood flowing back from the aorta. #### Right heart The right heart consists of two chambers, the right atrium and the right ventricle, separated by a valve, the tricuspid valve. The right atrium receives blood almost continuously from the body's two major veins, the superior and inferior venae cavae. A small amount of blood from the coronary circulation also drains into the right atrium via the coronary sinus, which is immediately above and to the middle of the opening of the inferior vena cava. In the wall of the right atrium is an oval-shaped depression known as the fossa ovalis, which is a remnant of an opening in the fetal heart known as the foramen ovale. Most of the internal surface of the right atrium is smooth, the depression of the fossa ovalis is medial, and the anterior surface has prominent ridges of pectinate muscles, which are also present in the right atrial appendage. The right atrium is connected to the right ventricle by the tricuspid valve. The walls of the right ventricle are lined with trabeculae carneae, ridges of cardiac muscle covered by endocardium. In addition to these muscular ridges, a band of cardiac muscle, also covered by endocardium, known as the moderator band reinforces the thin walls of the right ventricle and plays a crucial role in cardiac conduction. It arises from the lower part of the interventricular septum and crosses the interior space of the right ventricle to connect with the inferior papillary muscle. The right ventricle tapers into the pulmonary trunk, into which it ejects blood when contracting. The pulmonary trunk branches into the left and right pulmonary arteries that carry the blood to each lung. The pulmonary valve lies between the right heart and the pulmonary trunk. #### Left heart The left heart has two chambers: the left atrium and the left ventricle, separated by the mitral valve. The left atrium receives oxygenated blood back from the lungs via one of the four pulmonary veins. The left atrium has an outpouching called the left atrial appendage. Like the right atrium, the left atrium is lined by pectinate muscles. The left atrium is connected to the left ventricle by the mitral valve. The left ventricle is much thicker as compared with the right, due to the greater force needed to pump blood to the entire body. Like the right ventricle, the left also has trabeculae carneae, but there is no moderator band. The left ventricle pumps blood to the body through the aortic valve and into the aorta. Two small openings above the aortic valve carry blood to the heart muscle; the left coronary artery is above the left cusp of the valve, and the right coronary artery is above the right cusp. ### Wall The heart wall is made up of three layers: the inner endocardium, middle myocardium and outer epicardium. These are surrounded by a double-membraned sac called the pericardium. The innermost layer of the heart is called the endocardium. It is made up of a lining of simple squamous epithelium and covers heart chambers and valves. It is continuous with the endothelium of the veins and arteries of the heart, and is joined to the myocardium with a thin layer of connective tissue. The endocardium, by secreting endothelins, may also play a role in regulating the contraction of the myocardium. The middle layer of the heart wall is the myocardium, which is the cardiac muscle—a layer of involuntary striated muscle tissue surrounded by a framework of collagen. The cardiac muscle pattern is elegant and complex, as the muscle cells swirl and spiral around the chambers of the heart, with the outer muscles forming a figure 8 pattern around the atria and around the bases of the great vessels and the inner muscles, forming a figure 8 around the two ventricles and proceeding toward the apex. This complex swirling pattern allows the heart to pump blood more effectively. There are two types of cells in cardiac muscle: muscle cells which have the ability to contract easily, and pacemaker cells of the conducting system. The muscle cells make up the bulk (99%) of cells in the atria and ventricles. These contractile cells are connected by intercalated discs which allow a rapid response to impulses of action potential from the pacemaker cells. The intercalated discs allow the cells to act as a syncytium and enable the contractions that pump blood through the heart and into the major arteries. The pacemaker cells make up 1% of cells and form the conduction system of the heart. They are generally much smaller than the contractile cells and have few myofibrils which gives them limited contractibility. Their function is similar in many respects to neurons. Cardiac muscle tissue has autorhythmicity, the unique ability to initiate a cardiac action potential at a fixed rate—spreading the impulse rapidly from cell to cell to trigger the contraction of the entire heart. There are specific proteins expressed in cardiac muscle cells. These are mostly associated with muscle contraction, and bind with actin, myosin, tropomyosin, and troponin. They include MYH6, ACTC1, TNNI3, CDH2 and PKP2. Other proteins expressed are MYH7 and LDB3 that are also expressed in skeletal muscle. ### Pericardium The pericardium is the sac that surrounds the heart. The tough outer surface of the pericardium is called the fibrous membrane. This is lined by a double inner membrane called the serous membrane that produces pericardial fluid to lubricate the surface of the heart. The part of the serous membrane attached to the fibrous membrane is called the parietal pericardium, while the part of the serous membrane attached to the heart is known as the visceral pericardium. The pericardium is present in order to lubricate its movement against other structures within the chest, to keep the heart's position stabilised within the chest, and to protect the heart from infection. ### Coronary circulation Heart tissue, like all cells in the body, needs to be supplied with oxygen, nutrients and a way of removing metabolic wastes. This is achieved by the coronary circulation, which includes arteries, veins, and lymphatic vessels. Blood flow through the coronary vessels occurs in peaks and troughs relating to the heart muscle's relaxation or contraction. Heart tissue receives blood from two arteries which arise just above the aortic valve. These are the left main coronary artery and the right coronary artery. The left main coronary artery splits shortly after leaving the aorta into two vessels, the left anterior descending and the left circumflex artery. The left anterior descending artery supplies heart tissue and the front, outer side, and septum of the left ventricle. It does this by branching into smaller arteries—diagonal and septal branches. The left circumflex supplies the back and underneath of the left ventricle. The right coronary artery supplies the right atrium, right ventricle, and lower posterior sections of the left ventricle. The right coronary artery also supplies blood to the atrioventricular node (in about 90% of people) and the sinoatrial node (in about 60% of people). The right coronary artery runs in a groove at the back of the heart and the left anterior descending artery runs in a groove at the front. There is significant variation between people in the anatomy of the arteries that supply the heart The arteries divide at their furthest reaches into smaller branches that join at the edges of each arterial distribution. The coronary sinus is a large vein that drains into the right atrium, and receives most of the venous drainage of the heart. It receives blood from the great cardiac vein (receiving the left atrium and both ventricles), the posterior cardiac vein (draining the back of the left ventricle), the middle cardiac vein (draining the bottom of the left and right ventricles), and small cardiac veins. The anterior cardiac veins drain the front of the right ventricle and drain directly into the right atrium. Small lymphatic networks called plexuses exist beneath each of the three layers of the heart. These networks collect into a main left and a main right trunk, which travel up the groove between the ventricles that exists on the heart's surface, receiving smaller vessels as they travel up. These vessels then travel into the atrioventricular groove, and receive a third vessel which drains the section of the left ventricle sitting on the diaphragm. The left vessel joins with this third vessel, and travels along the pulmonary artery and left atrium, ending in the inferior tracheobronchial node. The right vessel travels along the right atrium and the part of the right ventricle sitting on the diaphragm. It usually then travels in front of the ascending aorta and then ends in a brachiocephalic node. ### Nerve supply The heart receives nerve signals from the vagus nerve and from nerves arising from the sympathetic trunk. These nerves act to influence, but not control, the heart rate. Sympathetic nerves also influence the force of heart contraction. Signals that travel along these nerves arise from two paired cardiovascular centres in the medulla oblongata. The vagus nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system acts to decrease the heart rate, and nerves from the sympathetic trunk act to increase the heart rate. These nerves form a network of nerves that lies over the heart called the cardiac plexus. The vagus nerve is a long, wandering nerve that emerges from the brainstem and provides parasympathetic stimulation to a large number of organs in the thorax and abdomen, including the heart. The nerves from the sympathetic trunk emerge through the T1-T4 thoracic ganglia and travel to both the sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes, as well as to the atria and ventricles. The ventricles are more richly innervated by sympathetic fibers than parasympathetic fibers. Sympathetic stimulation causes the release of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine (also known as noradrenaline) at the neuromuscular junction of the cardiac nerves. This shortens the repolarisation period, thus speeding the rate of depolarisation and contraction, which results in an increased heart rate. It opens chemical or ligand-gated sodium and calcium ion channels, allowing an influx of positively charged ions. Norepinephrine binds to the beta–1 receptor. ## Development The heart is the first functional organ to develop and starts to beat and pump blood at about three weeks into embryogenesis. This early start is crucial for subsequent embryonic and prenatal development. The heart derives from splanchnopleuric mesenchyme in the neural plate which forms the cardiogenic region. Two endocardial tubes form here that fuse to form a primitive heart tube known as the tubular heart. Between the third and fourth week, the heart tube lengthens, and begins to fold to form an S-shape within the pericardium. This places the chambers and major vessels into the correct alignment for the developed heart. Further development will include the formation of the septa and the valves and the remodeling of the heart chambers. By the end of the fifth week, the septa are complete, and by the ninth week, the heart valves are complete. Before the fifth week, there is an opening in the fetal heart known as the foramen ovale. The foramen ovale allowed blood in the fetal heart to pass directly from the right atrium to the left atrium, allowing some blood to bypass the lungs. Within seconds after birth, a flap of tissue known as the septum primum that previously acted as a valve closes the foramen ovale and establishes the typical cardiac circulation pattern. A depression in the surface of the right atrium remains where the foramen ovale was, called the fossa ovalis. The embryonic heart begins beating at around 22 days after conception (5 weeks after the last normal menstrual period, LMP). It starts to beat at a rate near to the mother's which is about 75–80 beats per minute (bpm). The embryonic heart rate then accelerates and reaches a peak rate of 165–185 bpm early in the early 7th week (early 9th week after the LMP). After 9 weeks (start of the fetal stage) it starts to decelerate, slowing to around 145 (±25) bpm at birth. There is no difference in female and male heart rates before birth. ## Physiology ### Blood flow The heart functions as a pump in the circulatory system to provide a continuous flow of blood throughout the body. This circulation consists of the systemic circulation to and from the body and the pulmonary circulation to and from the lungs. Blood in the pulmonary circulation exchanges carbon dioxide for oxygen in the lungs through the process of respiration. The systemic circulation then transports oxygen to the body and returns carbon dioxide and relatively deoxygenated blood to the heart for transfer to the lungs. The right heart collects deoxygenated blood from two large veins, the superior and inferior venae cavae. Blood collects in the right and left atrium continuously. The superior vena cava drains blood from above the diaphragm and empties into the upper back part of the right atrium. The inferior vena cava drains the blood from below the diaphragm and empties into the back part of the atrium below the opening for the superior vena cava. Immediately above and to the middle of the opening of the inferior vena cava is the opening of the thin-walled coronary sinus. Additionally, the coronary sinus returns deoxygenated blood from the myocardium to the right atrium. The blood collects in the right atrium. When the right atrium contracts, the blood is pumped through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle. As the right ventricle contracts, the tricuspid valve closes and the blood is pumped into the pulmonary trunk through the pulmonary valve. The pulmonary trunk divides into pulmonary arteries and progressively smaller arteries throughout the lungs, until it reaches capillaries. As these pass by alveoli carbon dioxide is exchanged for oxygen. This happens through the passive process of diffusion. In the left heart, oxygenated blood is returned to the left atrium via the pulmonary veins. It is then pumped into the left ventricle through the mitral valve and into the aorta through the aortic valve for systemic circulation. The aorta is a large artery that branches into many smaller arteries, arterioles, and ultimately capillaries. In the capillaries, oxygen and nutrients from blood are supplied to body cells for metabolism, and exchanged for carbon dioxide and waste products. Capillary blood, now deoxygenated, travels into venules and veins that ultimately collect in the superior and inferior vena cavae, and into the right heart. #### Cardiac cycle The cardiac cycle is the sequence of events in which the heart contracts and relaxes with every heartbeat. The period of time during which the ventricles contract, forcing blood out into the aorta and main pulmonary artery, is known as systole, while the period during which the ventricles relax and refill with blood is known as diastole. The atria and ventricles work in concert, so in systole when the ventricles are contracting, the atria are relaxed and collecting blood. When the ventricles are relaxed in diastole, the atria contract to pump blood to the ventricles. This coordination ensures blood is pumped efficiently to the body. At the beginning of the cardiac cycle, the ventricles are relaxing. As they do so, they are filled by blood passing through the open mitral and tricuspid valves. After the ventricles have completed most of their filling, the atria contract, forcing further blood into the ventricles and priming the pump. Next, the ventricles start to contract. As the pressure rises within the cavities of the ventricles, the mitral and tricuspid valves are forced shut. As the pressure within the ventricles rises further, exceeding the pressure with the aorta and pulmonary arteries, the aortic and pulmonary valves open. Blood is ejected from the heart, causing the pressure within the ventricles to fall. Simultaneously, the atria refill as blood flows into the right atrium through the superior and inferior vena cavae, and into the left atrium through the pulmonary veins. Finally, when the pressure within the ventricles falls below the pressure within the aorta and pulmonary arteries, the aortic and pulmonary valves close. The ventricles start to relax, the mitral and tricuspid valves open, and the cycle begins again. #### Cardiac output Cardiac output (CO) is a measurement of the amount of blood pumped by each ventricle (stroke volume) in one minute. This is calculated by multiplying the stroke volume (SV) by the beats per minute of the heart rate (HR). So that: CO = SV x HR. The cardiac output is normalized to body size through body surface area and is called the cardiac index. The average cardiac output, using an average stroke volume of about 70mL, is 5.25 L/min, with a normal range of 4.0–8.0 L/min. The stroke volume is normally measured using an echocardiogram and can be influenced by the size of the heart, physical and mental condition of the individual, sex, contractility, duration of contraction, preload and afterload. Preload refers to the filling pressure of the atria at the end of diastole, when the ventricles are at their fullest. A main factor is how long it takes the ventricles to fill: if the ventricles contract more frequently, then there is less time to fill and the preload will be less. Preload can also be affected by a person's blood volume. The force of each contraction of the heart muscle is proportional to the preload, described as the Frank-Starling mechanism. This states that the force of contraction is directly proportional to the initial length of muscle fiber, meaning a ventricle will contract more forcefully, the more it is stretched. Afterload, or how much pressure the heart must generate to eject blood at systole, is influenced by vascular resistance. It can be influenced by narrowing of the heart valves (stenosis) or contraction or relaxation of the peripheral blood vessels. The strength of heart muscle contractions controls the stroke volume. This can be influenced positively or negatively by agents termed inotropes. These agents can be a result of changes within the body, or be given as drugs as part of treatment for a medical disorder, or as a form of life support, particularly in intensive care units. Inotropes that increase the force of contraction are "positive" inotropes, and include sympathetic agents such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine. "Negative" inotropes decrease the force of contraction and include calcium channel blockers. ### Electrical conduction The normal rhythmical heart beat, called sinus rhythm, is established by the heart's own pacemaker, the sinoatrial node (also known as the sinus node or the SA node). Here an electrical signal is created that travels through the heart, causing the heart muscle to contract. The sinoatrial node is found in the upper part of the right atrium near to the junction with the superior vena cava. The electrical signal generated by the sinoatrial node travels through the right atrium in a radial way that is not completely understood. It travels to the left atrium via Bachmann's bundle, such that the muscles of the left and right atria contract together. The signal then travels to the atrioventricular node. This is found at the bottom of the right atrium in the atrioventricular septum, the boundary between the right atrium and the left ventricle. The septum is part of the cardiac skeleton, tissue within the heart that the electrical signal cannot pass through, which forces the signal to pass through the atrioventricular node only. The signal then travels along the bundle of His to left and right bundle branches through to the ventricles of the heart. In the ventricles the signal is carried by specialized tissue called the Purkinje fibers which then transmit the electric charge to the heart muscle. ### Heart rate The normal resting heart rate is called the sinus rhythm, created and sustained by the sinoatrial node, a group of pacemaking cells found in the wall of the right atrium. Cells in the sinoatrial node do this by creating an action potential. The cardiac action potential is created by the movement of specific electrolytes into and out of the pacemaker cells. The action potential then spreads to nearby cells. When the sinoatrial cells are resting, they have a negative charge on their membranes. A rapid influx of sodium ions causes the membrane's charge to become positive; this is called depolarisation and occurs spontaneously. Once the cell has a sufficiently high charge, the sodium channels close and calcium ions then begin to enter the cell, shortly after which potassium begins to leave it. All the ions travel through ion channels in the membrane of the sinoatrial cells. The potassium and calcium start to move out of and into the cell only once it has a sufficiently high charge, and so are called voltage-gated. Shortly after this, the calcium channels close and potassium channels open, allowing potassium to leave the cell. This causes the cell to have a negative resting charge and is called repolarisation. When the membrane potential reaches approximately −60 mV, the potassium channels close and the process may begin again. The ions move from areas where they are concentrated to where they are not. For this reason sodium moves into the cell from outside, and potassium moves from within the cell to outside the cell. Calcium also plays a critical role. Their influx through slow channels means that the sinoatrial cells have a prolonged "plateau" phase when they have a positive charge. A part of this is called the absolute refractory period. Calcium ions also combine with the regulatory protein troponin C in the troponin complex to enable contraction of the cardiac muscle, and separate from the protein to allow relaxation. The adult resting heart rate ranges from 60 to 100 bpm. The resting heart rate of a newborn can be 129 beats per minute (bpm) and this gradually decreases until maturity. An athlete's heart rate can be lower than 60 bpm. During exercise the rate can be 150 bpm with maximum rates reaching from 200 to 220 bpm. #### Influences The normal sinus rhythm of the heart, giving the resting heart rate, is influenced by a number of factors. The cardiovascular centres in the brainstem control the sympathetic and parasympathetic influences to the heart through the vagus nerve and sympathetic trunk. These cardiovascular centres receive input from a series of receptors including baroreceptors, sensing the stretching of blood vessels and chemoreceptors, sensing the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood and its pH. Through a series of reflexes these help regulate and sustain blood flow. Baroreceptors are stretch receptors located in the aortic sinus, carotid bodies, the venae cavae, and other locations, including pulmonary vessels and the right side of the heart itself. Baroreceptors fire at a rate determined by how much they are stretched, which is influenced by blood pressure, level of physical activity, and the relative distribution of blood. With increased pressure and stretch, the rate of baroreceptor firing increases, and the cardiac centers decrease sympathetic stimulation and increase parasympathetic stimulation. As pressure and stretch decrease, the rate of baroreceptor firing decreases, and the cardiac centers increase sympathetic stimulation and decrease parasympathetic stimulation. There is a similar reflex, called the atrial reflex or Bainbridge reflex, associated with varying rates of blood flow to the atria. Increased venous return stretches the walls of the atria where specialized baroreceptors are located. However, as the atrial baroreceptors increase their rate of firing and as they stretch due to the increased blood pressure, the cardiac center responds by increasing sympathetic stimulation and inhibiting parasympathetic stimulation to increase heart rate. The opposite is also true. Chemoreceptors present in the carotid body or adjacent to the aorta in an aortic body respond to the blood's oxygen, carbon dioxide levels. Low oxygen or high carbon dioxide will stimulate firing of the receptors. Exercise and fitness levels, age, body temperature, basal metabolic rate, and even a person's emotional state can all affect the heart rate. High levels of the hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine, and thyroid hormones can increase the heart rate. The levels of electrolytes including calcium, potassium, and sodium can also influence the speed and regularity of the heart rate; low blood oxygen, low blood pressure and dehydration may increase it. ## Clinical significance ### Diseases Cardiovascular diseases, which include diseases of the heart, are the leading cause of death worldwide. The majority of cardiovascular disease is noncommunicable and related to lifestyle and other factors, becoming more prevalent with ageing. Heart disease is a major cause of death, accounting for an average of 30% of all deaths in 2008, globally. This rate varies from a lower 28% to a high 40% in high-income countries. Doctors that specialise in the heart are called cardiologists. Many other medical professionals are involved in treating diseases of the heart, including doctors, cardiothoracic surgeons, intensivists, and allied health practitioners including physiotherapists and dieticians. #### Ischemic heart disease Coronary artery disease, also known as ischemic heart disease, is caused by atherosclerosis—a build-up of fatty material along the inner walls of the arteries. These fatty deposits known as atherosclerotic plaques narrow the coronary arteries, and if severe may reduce blood flow to the heart. If a narrowing (or stenosis) is relatively minor then the patient may not experience any symptoms. Severe narrowings may cause chest pain (angina) or breathlessness during exercise or even at rest. The thin covering of an atherosclerotic plaque can rupture, exposing the fatty centre to the circulating blood. In this case a clot or thrombus can form, blocking the artery, and restricting blood flow to an area of heart muscle causing a myocardial infarction (a heart attack) or unstable angina. In the worst case this may cause cardiac arrest, a sudden and utter loss of output from the heart. Obesity, high blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes, smoking and high cholesterol can all increase the risk of developing atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. #### Heart failure Heart failure is defined as a condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the demands of the body. Patients with heart failure may experience breathlessness especially when lying flat, as well as ankle swelling, known as peripheral oedema. Heart failure is the result of many diseases affecting the heart, but is most commonly associated with ischemic heart disease, valvular heart disease, or high blood pressure. Less common causes include various cardiomyopathies. Heart failure is frequently associated with weakness of the heart muscle in the ventricles (systolic heart failure), but can also be seen in patients with heart muscle that is strong but stiff (diastolic heart failure). The condition may affect the left ventricle (causing predominantly breathlessness), the right ventricle (causing predominantly swelling of the legs and an elevated jugular venous pressure), or both ventricles. Patients with heart failure are at higher risk of developing dangerous heart rhythm disturbances or arrhythmias. #### Cardiomyopathies Cardiomyopathies are diseases affecting the muscle of the heart. Some cause abnormal thickening of the heart muscle (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), some cause the heart to abnormally expand and weaken (dilated cardiomyopathy), some cause the heart muscle to become stiff and unable to fully relax between contractions (restrictive cardiomyopathy) and some make the heart prone to abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy). These conditions are often genetic and can be inherited, but some such as dilated cardiomyopathy may be caused by damage from toxins such as alcohol. Some cardiomyopathies such as hypertrophic cardiomopathy are linked to a higher risk of sudden cardiac death, particularly in athletes. Many cardiomyopathies can lead to heart failure in the later stages of the disease. #### Valvular heart disease Healthy heart valves allow blood to flow easily in one direction, but prevent it from flowing in the other direction. Diseased heart valves may have a narrow opening and therefore restrict the flow of blood in the forward direction (referred to as a stenotic valve), or may allow blood to leak in the reverse direction (referred to as valvular regurgitation). Valvular heart disease may cause breathlessness, blackouts, or chest pain, but may be asymptomatic and only detected on a routine examination by hearing abnormal heart sounds or a heart murmur. In the developed world, valvular heart disease is most commonly caused by degeneration secondary to old age, but may also be caused by infection of the heart valves (endocarditis). In some parts of the world rheumatic heart disease is a major cause of valvular heart disease, typically leading to mitral or aortic stenosis and caused by the body's immune system reacting to a streptococcal throat infection. #### Cardiac arrhythmias While in the healthy heart, waves of electrical impulses originate in the sinus node before spreading to the rest of the atria, the atrioventricular node, and finally the ventricles (referred to as a normal sinus rhythm), this normal rhythm can be disrupted. Abnormal heart rhythms or arrhythmias may be asymptomatic or may cause palpitations, blackouts, or breathlessness. Some types of arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation increase the long term risk of stroke. Some arrhythmias cause the heart to beat abnormally slowly, referred to as a bradycardia or bradyarrhythmia. This may be caused by an abnormally slow sinus node or damage within the cardiac conduction system (heart block). In other arrhythmias the heart may beat abnormally rapidly, referred to as a tachycardia or tachyarrhythmia. These arrhythmias can take many forms and can originate from different structures within the heart—some arise from the atria (e.g. atrial flutter), some from the atrioventricular node (e.g. AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia) whilst others arise from the ventricles (e.g. ventricular tachycardia). Some tachyarrhythmias are caused by scarring within the heart (e.g. some forms of ventricular tachycardia), others by an irritable focus (e.g. focal atrial tachycardia), while others are caused by additional abnormal conduction tissue that has been present since birth (e.g. Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome). The most dangerous form of heart racing is ventricular fibrillation, in which the ventricles quiver rather than contract, and which if untreated is rapidly fatal. #### Pericardial disease The sac which surrounds the heart, called the pericardium, can become inflamed in a condition known as pericarditis. This condition typically causes chest pain that may spread to the back, and is often caused by a viral infection (glandular fever, cytomegalovirus, or coxsackievirus). Fluid can build up within the pericardial sac, referred to as a pericardial effusion. Pericardial effusions often occur secondary to pericarditis, kidney failure, or tumours, and frequently do not cause any symptoms. However, large effusions or effusions which accumulate rapidly can compress the heart in a condition known as cardiac tamponade, causing breathlessness and potentially fatal low blood pressure. Fluid can be removed from the pericardial space for diagnosis or to relieve tamponade using a syringe in a procedure called pericardiocentesis. #### Congenital heart disease Some people are born with hearts that are abnormal and these abnormalities are known as congenital heart defects. They may range from the relatively minor (e.g. patent foramen ovale, arguably a variant of normal) to serious life-threatening abnormalities (e.g. hypoplastic left heart syndrome). Common abnormalities include those that affect the heart muscle that separates the two side of the heart (a "hole in the heart", e.g. ventricular septal defect). Other defects include those affecting the heart valves (e.g. congenital aortic stenosis), or the main blood vessels that lead from the heart (e.g. coarctation of the aorta). More complex syndromes are seen that affect more than one part of the heart (e.g. Tetralogy of Fallot). Some congenital heart defects allow blood that is low in oxygen that would normally be returned to the lungs to instead be pumped back to the rest of the body. These are known as cyanotic congenital heart defects and are often more serious. Major congenital heart defects are often picked up in childhood, shortly after birth, or even before a child is born (e.g. transposition of the great arteries), causing breathlessness and a lower rate of growth. More minor forms of congenital heart disease may remain undetected for many years and only reveal themselves in adult life (e.g., atrial septal defect). #### Channelopathies Channelopathies can be categorized based on the organ system they affect. In the cardiovascular system, the electrical impulse required for each heart beat is provided by the electrochemical gradient of each heart cell. Because the beating of the heart depends on the proper movement of ions across the surface membrane, cardiac ion channelopathies form a major group of heart diseases. Cardiac ion channelopathies may explain some of the cases of sudden death syndrome and sudden arrhythmic death syndrome. Long QT syndrome is the most common form of cardiac channelopathy. - Long QT Syndrome (LQTS) - Mostly hereditary. On EKG can be observed as longer corrected QT interval (QTc). Characterized by fainting, sudden, life-threatening heart rhythm disturbances - Torsades de pointes type ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation and risk of sudden cardiac death. - Short QT syndrome. - Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT). - Progressive cardiac conduction defect (PCCD). - Early repolarisation syndrome - common in younger and active people, especially men, because it is affected by higher testosterone levels, which cause increased potassium currents, which further causes an elevation of the J-point on the EKG. In very rare cases, it can cause ventricular fibrillation and death. - Brugada syndrome - a genetic disorder characterized by an abnormal EKG and is one of the most common causes of sudden cardiac death in young men. ### Diagnosis Heart disease is diagnosed by the taking of a medical history, a cardiac examination, and further investigations, including blood tests, echocardiograms, electrocardiograms, and imaging. Other invasive procedures such as cardiac catheterisation can also play a role. #### Examination The cardiac examination includes inspection, feeling the chest with the hands (palpation) and listening with a stethoscope (auscultation). It involves assessment of signs that may be visible on a person's hands (such as splinter haemorrhages), joints and other areas. A person's pulse is taken, usually at the radial artery near the wrist, in order to assess for the rhythm and strength of the pulse. The blood pressure is taken, using either a manual or automatic sphygmomanometer or using a more invasive measurement from within the artery. Any elevation of the jugular venous pulse is noted. A person's chest is felt for any transmitted vibrations from the heart, and then listened to with a stethoscope. #### Heart sounds Typically, healthy hearts have only two audible heart sounds, called S1 and S2. The first heart sound S1, is the sound created by the closing of the atrioventricular valves during ventricular contraction and is normally described as "lub". The second heart sound, S2, is the sound of the semilunar valves closing during ventricular diastole and is described as "dub". Each sound consists of two components, reflecting the slight difference in time as the two valves close. S2 may split into two distinct sounds, either as a result of inspiration or different valvular or cardiac problems. Additional heart sounds may also be present and these give rise to gallop rhythms. A third heart sound, S3 usually indicates an increase in ventricular blood volume. A fourth heart sound S4 is referred to as an atrial gallop and is produced by the sound of blood being forced into a stiff ventricle. The combined presence of S3 and S4 give a quadruple gallop. Heart murmurs are abnormal heart sounds which can be either related to disease or benign, and there are several kinds. There are normally two heart sounds, and abnormal heart sounds can either be extra sounds, or "murmurs" related to the flow of blood between the sounds. Murmurs are graded by volume, from 1 (the quietest), to 6 (the loudest), and evaluated by their relationship to the heart sounds, position in the cardiac cycle, and additional features such as their radiation to other sites, changes with a person's position, the frequency of the sound as determined by the side of the stethoscope by which they are heard, and site at which they are heard loudest. Murmurs may be caused by damaged heart valves or congenital heart disease such as ventricular septal defects, or may be heard in normal hearts. A different type of sound, a pericardial friction rub can be heard in cases of pericarditis where the inflamed membranes can rub together. #### Blood tests Blood tests play an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of many cardiovascular conditions. Troponin is a sensitive biomarker for a heart with insufficient blood supply. It is released 4–6 hours after injury, and usually peaks at about 12–24 hours. Two tests of troponin are often taken—one at the time of initial presentation, and another within 3–6 hours, with either a high level or a significant rise being diagnostic. A test for brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) can be used to evaluate for the presence of heart failure, and rises when there is increased demand on the left ventricle. These tests are considered biomarkers because they are highly specific for cardiac disease. Testing for the MB form of creatine kinase provides information about the heart's blood supply, but is used less frequently because it is less specific and sensitive. Other blood tests are often taken to help understand a person's general health and risk factors that may contribute to heart disease. These often include a full blood count investigating for anaemia, and basic metabolic panel that may reveal any disturbances in electrolytes. A coagulation screen is often required to ensure that the right level of anticoagulation is given. Fasting lipids and fasting blood glucose (or an HbA1c level) are often ordered to evaluate a person's cholesterol and diabetes status, respectively. #### Electrocardiogram Using surface electrodes on the body, it is possible to record the electrical activity of the heart. This tracing of the electrical signal is the electrocardiogram (ECG) or (EKG). An ECG is a bedside test and involves the placement of ten leads on the body. This produces a "12 lead" ECG (three extra leads are calculated mathematically, and one lead is electrically ground, or earthed). There are five prominent features on the ECG: the P wave (atrial depolarisation), the QRS complex (ventricular depolarisation) and the T wave (ventricular repolarisation). As the heart cells contract, they create a current that travels through the heart. A downward deflection on the ECG implies cells are becoming more positive in charge ("depolarising") in the direction of that lead, whereas an upward inflection implies cells are becoming more negative ("repolarising") in the direction of the lead. This depends on the position of the lead, so if a wave of depolarising moved from left to right, a lead on the left would show a negative deflection, and a lead on the right would show a positive deflection. The ECG is a useful tool in detecting rhythm disturbances and in detecting insufficient blood supply to the heart. Sometimes abnormalities are suspected, but not immediately visible on the ECG. Testing when exercising can be used to provoke an abnormality, or an ECG can be worn for a longer period such as a 24-hour Holter monitor if a suspected rhythm abnormality is not present at the time of assessment. #### Imaging Several imaging methods can be used to assess the anatomy and function of the heart, including ultrasound (echocardiography), angiography, CT, MRI, and PET, scans. An echocardiogram is an ultrasound of the heart used to measure the heart's function, assess for valve disease, and look for any abnormalities. Echocardiography can be conducted by a probe on the chest (transthoracic), or by a probe in the esophagus (transesophageal). A typical echocardiography report will include information about the width of the valves noting any stenosis, whether there is any backflow of blood (regurgitation) and information about the blood volumes at the end of systole and diastole, including an ejection fraction, which describes how much blood is ejected from the left and right ventricles after systole. Ejection fraction can then be obtained by dividing the volume ejected by the heart (stroke volume) by the volume of the filled heart (end-diastolic volume). Echocardiograms can also be conducted under circumstances when the body is more stressed, in order to examine for signs of lack of blood supply. This cardiac stress test involves either direct exercise, or where this is not possible, injection of a drug such as dobutamine. CT scans, chest X-rays and other forms of imaging can help evaluate the heart's size, evaluate for signs of pulmonary oedema, and indicate whether there is fluid around the heart. They are also useful for evaluating the aorta, the major blood vessel which leaves the heart. ### Treatment Diseases affecting the heart can be treated by a variety of methods including lifestyle modification, drug treatment, and surgery. #### Ischemic heart disease Narrowings of the coronary arteries (ischemic heart disease) are treated to relieve symptoms of chest pain caused by a partially narrowed artery (angina pectoris), to minimise heart muscle damage when an artery is completely occluded (myocardial infarction), or to prevent a myocardial infarction from occurring. Medications to improve angina symptoms include nitroglycerin, beta blockers, and calcium channel blockers, while preventative treatments include antiplatelets such as aspirin and statins, lifestyle measures such as stopping smoking and weight loss, and treatment of risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes. In addition to using medications, narrowed heart arteries can be treated by expanding the narrowings or redirecting the flow of blood to bypass an obstruction. This may be performed using a percutaneous coronary intervention, during which narrowings can be expanded by passing small balloon-tipped wires into the coronary arteries, inflating the balloon to expand the narrowing, and sometimes leaving behind a metal scaffold known as a stent to keep the artery open. If the narrowings in coronary arteries are unsuitable for treatment with a percutaneous coronary intervention, open surgery may be required. A coronary artery bypass graft can be performed, whereby a blood vessel from another part of the body (the saphenous vein, radial artery, or internal mammary artery) is used to redirect blood from a point before the narrowing (typically the aorta) to a point beyond the obstruction. #### Valvular heart disease Diseased heart valves that have become abnormally narrow or abnormally leaky may require surgery. This is traditionally performed as an open surgical procedure to replace the damaged heart valve with a tissue or metallic prosthetic valve. In some circumstances, the tricuspid or mitral valves can be repaired surgically, avoiding the need for a valve replacement. Heart valves can also be treated percutaneously, using techniques that share many similarities with percutaneous coronary intervention. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement is increasingly used for patients consider very high risk for open valve replacement. #### Cardiac arrhythmias Abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) can be treated using antiarrhythmic drugs. These may work by manipulating the flow of electrolytes across the cell membrane (such as calcium channel blockers, sodium channel blockers, amiodarone, or digoxin), or modify the autonomic nervous system's effect on the heart (beta blockers and atropine). In some arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation which increase the risk of stroke, this risk can be reduced using anticoagulants such as warfarin or novel oral anticoagulants. If medications fail to control an arrhythmia, another treatment option may be catheter ablation. In these procedures, wires are passed from a vein or artery in the leg to the heart to find the abnormal area of tissue that is causing the arrhythmia. The abnormal tissue can be intentionally damaged, or ablated, by heating or freezing to prevent further heart rhythm disturbances. Whilst the majority of arrhythmias can be treated using minimally invasive catheter techniques, some arrhythmias (particularly atrial fibrillation) can also be treated using open or thoracoscopic surgery, either at the time of other cardiac surgery or as a standalone procedure. A cardioversion, whereby an electric shock is used to stun the heart out of an abnormal rhythm, may also be used. Cardiac devices in the form of pacemakers or implantable defibrillators may also be required to treat arrhythmias. Pacemakers, comprising a small battery powered generator implanted under the skin and one or more leads that extend to the heart, are most commonly used to treat abnormally slow heart rhythms. Implantable defibrillators are used to treat serious life-threatening rapid heart rhythms. These devices monitor the heart, and if dangerous heart racing is detected can automatically deliver a shock to restore the heart to a normal rhythm. Implantable defibrillators are most commonly used in patients with heart failure, cardiomyopathies, or inherited arrhythmia syndromes. #### Heart failure As well as addressing the underlying cause for a patient's heart failure (most commonly ischemic heart disease or hypertension), the mainstay of heart failure treatment is with medication. These include drugs to prevent fluid from accumulating in the lungs by increasing the amount of urine a patient produces (diuretics), and drugs that attempt to preserve the pumping function of the heart (beta blockers, ACE inhibitors and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists). In some patients with heart failure, a specialised pacemaker known as cardiac resynchronisation therapy can be used to improve the heart's pumping efficiency. These devices are frequently combined with a defibrillator. In very severe cases of heart failure, a small pump called a ventricular assist device may be implanted which supplements the heart's own pumping ability. In the most severe cases, a cardiac transplant may be considered. ## History ### Ancient Humans have known about the heart since ancient times, although its precise function and anatomy were not clearly understood. From the primarily religious views of earlier societies towards the heart, ancient Greeks are considered to have been the primary seat of scientific understanding of the heart in the ancient world. Aristotle considered the heart to be the organ responsible for creating blood; Plato considered the heart as the source of circulating blood and Hippocrates noted blood circulating cyclically from the body through the heart to the lungs. Erasistratos (304–250 BCE) noted the heart as a pump, causing dilation of blood vessels, and noted that arteries and veins both radiate from the heart, becoming progressively smaller with distance, although he believed they were filled with air and not blood. He also discovered the heart valves. The Greek physician Galen (2nd century CE) knew blood vessels carried blood and identified venous (dark red) and arterial (brighter and thinner) blood, each with distinct and separate functions. Galen, noting the heart as the hottest organ in the body, concluded that it provided heat to the body. The heart did not pump blood around, the heart's motion sucked blood in during diastole and the blood moved by the pulsation of the arteries themselves. Galen believed the arterial blood was created by venous blood passing from the left ventricle to the right through 'pores' between the ventricles. Air from the lungs passed from the lungs via the pulmonary artery to the left side of the heart and created arterial blood. These ideas went unchallenged for almost a thousand years. ### Pre-modern The earliest descriptions of the coronary and pulmonary circulation systems can be found in the Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon, published in 1242 by Ibn al-Nafis. In his manuscript, al-Nafis wrote that blood passes through the pulmonary circulation instead of moving from the right to the left ventricle as previously believed by Galen. His work was later translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago. In Europe, the teachings of Galen continued to dominate the academic community and his doctrines were adopted as the official canon of the Church. Andreas Vesalius questioned some of Galen's beliefs of the heart in De humani corporis fabrica (1543), but his magnum opus was interpreted as a challenge to the authorities and he was subjected to a number of attacks. Michael Servetus wrote in Christianismi Restitutio (1553) that blood flows from one side of the heart to the other via the lungs. ### Modern A breakthrough in understanding the flow of blood through the heart and body came with the publication of De Motu Cordis (1628) by the English physician William Harvey. Harvey's book completely describes the systemic circulation and the mechanical force of the heart, leading to an overhaul of the Galenic doctrines. Otto Frank (1865–1944) was a German physiologist; among his many published works are detailed studies of this important heart relationship. Ernest Starling (1866–1927) was an important English physiologist who also studied the heart. Although they worked largely independently, their combined efforts and similar conclusions have been recognized in the name "Frank–Starling mechanism". Although Purkinje fibers and the bundle of His were discovered as early as the 19th century, their specific role in the electrical conduction system of the heart remained unknown until Sunao Tawara published his monograph, titled Das Reizleitungssystem des Säugetierherzens, in 1906. Tawara's discovery of the atrioventricular node prompted Arthur Keith and Martin Flack to look for similar structures in the heart, leading to their discovery of the sinoatrial node several months later. These structures form the anatomical basis of the electrocardiogram, whose inventor, Willem Einthoven, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1924. The first heart transplant in a human ever performed was by James Hardy in 1964, using a chimpanzee heart, but the patient died within 2 hours. The first human to human heart transplantation was performed in 1967 by the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. This marked an important milestone in cardiac surgery, capturing the attention of both the medical profession and the world at large. However, long-term survival rates of patients were initially very low. Louis Washkansky, the first recipient of a donated heart, died 18 days after the operation while other patients did not survive for more than a few weeks. The American surgeon Norman Shumway has been credited for his efforts to improve transplantation techniques, along with pioneers Richard Lower, Vladimir Demikhov and Adrian Kantrowitz. As of March 2000, more than 55,000 heart transplantations have been performed worldwide. The first successful transplant of a heart from a genetically modified pig to a human in which the patient lived for a longer time, was performed January 7, 2022 in Baltimore by heart surgeon Bartley P. Griffith, recipient was David Bennett (57) this successfully extended his life until 8 March 2022 (1 month and 30 days). By the middle of the 20th century, heart disease had surpassed infectious disease as the leading cause of death in the United States, and it is currently the leading cause of deaths worldwide. Since 1948, the ongoing Framingham Heart Study has shed light on the effects of various influences on the heart, including diet, exercise, and common medications such as aspirin. Although the introduction of ACE inhibitors and beta blockers has improved the management of chronic heart failure, the disease continues to be an enormous medical and societal burden, with 30 to 40% of patients dying within a year of receiving the diagnosis. ## Society and culture ### Symbolism As one of the vital organs, the heart was long identified as the center of the entire body, the seat of life, or emotion, or reason, will, intellect, purpose or the mind. The heart is an emblematic symbol in many religions, signifying "truth, conscience or moral courage in many religions—the temple or throne of God in Islamic and Judeo-Christian thought; the divine centre, or atman, and the third eye of transcendent wisdom in Hinduism; the diamond of purity and essence of the Buddha; the Taoist centre of understanding." In the Hebrew Bible, the word for heart, lev, is used in these meanings, as the seat of emotion, the mind, and referring to the anatomical organ. It is also connected in function and symbolism to the stomach. An important part of the concept of the soul in Ancient Egyptian religion was thought to be the heart, or ib. The ib or metaphysical heart was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the child's mother's heart, taken at conception. To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will, and intention. This is evidenced by Egyptian expressions which incorporate the word ib, such as Awi-ib for "happy" (literally, "long of heart"), Xak-ib for "estranged" (literally, "truncated of heart"). In Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was conceived as surviving death in the nether world, where it gave evidence for, or against, its possessor. The heart was therefore not removed from the body during mummification, and was believed to be the center of intelligence and feeling, and needed in the afterlife. It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and a variety of deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. If the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, which symbolized the ideal standard of behavior. If the scales balanced, it meant the heart's possessor had lived a just life and could enter the afterlife; if the heart was heavier, it would be devoured by the monster Ammit. The Chinese character for "heart", 心, derives from a comparatively realistic depiction of a heart (indicating the heart chambers) in seal script. The Chinese word xīn also takes the metaphorical meanings of "mind", "intention", or "core", and is often translated as "heart-mind" as the ancient Chinese believed the heart was the center of human cognition. In Chinese medicine, the heart is seen as the center of 神 shén "spirit, consciousness". The heart is associated with the small intestine, tongue, governs the six organs and five viscera, and belongs to fire in the five elements. The Sanskrit word for heart is hṛd or hṛdaya, found in the oldest surviving Sanskrit text, the Rigveda. In Sanskrit, it may mean both the anatomical object and "mind" or "soul", representing the seat of emotion. Hrd may be a cognate of the word for heart in Greek, Latin, and English. Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason, or emotion, often disregarding the brain as contributing to those functions. The identification of the heart as the seat of emotions in particular is due to the Roman physician Galen, who also located the seat of the passions in the liver, and the seat of reason in the brain. The heart also played a role in the Aztec system of belief. The most common form of human sacrifice practiced by the Aztecs was heart-extraction. The Aztec believed that the heart (tona) was both the seat of the individual and a fragment of the Sun's heat (istli). To this day, the Nahua consider the Sun to be a heart-soul (tona-tiuh): "round, hot, pulsating". Indigenous leaders from Alaska to Australia came together in 2020 to deliver a message to the world that humanity needs to shift from the mind to the heart, and let our heart be in charge of what we do. The message was made into a film, which highlighted that humanity must open their hearts to restore balance to the world. Kumu Sabra Kauka, a Hawaiian studies educator and tradition bearer summed up the message of the film saying "Listen to your heart. Follow your path. May it be clear, and for the good of all." The film was led by Illarion Merculieff from the Aleut (Unangan) tribe. Merculieff has written that Unangan Elders referred to the heart as a "source of wisdom", "a deeper portal of profound interconnectedness and awareness that exists between humans and all living things". In Catholicism, there has been a long tradition of veneration of the heart, stemming from worship of the wounds of Jesus Christ which gained prominence from the mid sixteenth century. This tradition influenced the development of the medieval Christian devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the parallel veneration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, made popular by John Eudes. There are also many references to the heart in the Christian Bible, including "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God", "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it", "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", "For as a man thinks in his heart, so shall he be." The expression of a broken heart is a cross-cultural reference to grief for a lost one or to unfulfilled romantic love. The notion of "Cupid's arrows" is ancient, due to Ovid, but while Ovid describes Cupid as wounding his victims with his arrows, it is not made explicit that it is the heart that is wounded. The familiar iconography of Cupid shooting little heart symbols is a Renaissance theme that became tied to Valentine's day. In certain Trans-New Guinea languages, such as Foi and Momoona, the heart and seat of emotions are colexified, meaning they share the same word. ### Food Animal hearts are widely consumed as food. As they are almost entirely muscle, they are high in protein. They are often included in dishes with other offal, for example in the pan-Ottoman kokoretsi. Chicken hearts are considered to be giblets, and are often grilled on skewers; examples of this are Japanese hāto yakitori, Brazilian churrasco de coração, and Indonesian chicken heart satay. They can also be pan-fried, as in Jerusalem mixed grill. In Egyptian cuisine, they can be used, finely chopped, as part of stuffing for chicken. Many recipes combined them with other giblets, such as the Mexican pollo en menudencias and the Russian ragu iz kurinyikh potrokhov. The hearts of beef, pork, and mutton can generally be interchanged in recipes. As heart is a hard-working muscle, it makes for "firm and rather dry" meat, so is generally slow-cooked. Another way of dealing with toughness is to julienne the meat, as in Chinese stir-fried heart. Beef heart may be grilled or braised. In the Peruvian anticuchos de corazón, barbecued beef hearts are grilled after being tenderized through long marination in a spice and vinegar mixture. An Australian recipe for "mock goose" is actually braised stuffed beef heart. Pig heart is stewed, poached, braised, or made into sausage. The Balinese oret is a sort of blood sausage made with pig heart and blood. A French recipe for cœur de porc à l'orange is made of braised heart with an orange sauce. ## Other animals ### Vertebrates The size of the heart varies among the different animal groups, with hearts in vertebrates ranging from those of the smallest mice (12 mg) to the blue whale (600 kg). In vertebrates, the heart lies in the middle of the ventral part of the body, surrounded by a pericardium. which in some fish may be connected to the peritoneum. The sinoatrial node is found in all amniotes but not in more primitive vertebrates. In these animals, the muscles of the heart are relatively continuous, and the sinus venosus coordinates the beat, which passes in a wave through the remaining chambers. Since the sinus venosus is incorporated into the right atrium in amniotes, it is likely homologous with the SA node. In teleosts, with their vestigial sinus venosus, the main centre of coordination is, instead, in the atrium. The rate of heartbeat varies enormously between different species, ranging from around 20 beats per minute in codfish to around 600 in hummingbirds and up to 1200 bpm in the ruby-throated hummingbird. ### Double circulatory systems Adult amphibians and most reptiles have a double circulatory system, meaning a circulatory system divided into arterial and venous parts. However, the heart itself is not completely separated into two sides. Instead, it is separated into three chambers—two atria and one ventricle. Blood returning from both the systemic circulation and the lungs is returned, and blood is pumped simultaneously into the systemic circulation and the lungs. The double system allows blood to circulate to and from the lungs which deliver oxygenated blood directly to the heart. In reptiles, other than snakes, the heart is usually situated around the middle of the thorax. In terrestrial and arboreal snakes it is usually located nearer to the head; in aquatic species the heart is more centrally located. There is a heart with three chambers: two atria and one ventricle. The form and function of these hearts are different from mammalian hearts due to the fact that snakes have an elongated body, and thus are affected by different environmental factors. In particular, the snake's heart relative to the position in their body has been influenced greatly by gravity. Therefore, snakes that are larger in size tend to have a higher blood pressure due to gravitational change. The ventricle is incompletely separated into two-halves by a wall (septum), with a considerable gap near the pulmonary artery and aortic openings. In most reptilian species, there appears to be little, if any, mixing between the bloodstreams, so the aorta receives, essentially, only oxygenated blood. The exception to this rule is crocodiles, which have a four-chambered heart. In the heart of lungfish, the septum extends partway into the ventricle. This allows for some degree of separation between the de-oxygenated bloodstream destined for the lungs and the oxygenated stream that is delivered to the rest of the body. The absence of such a division in living amphibian species may be partly due to the amount of respiration that occurs through the skin; thus, the blood returned to the heart through the venae cavae is already partially oxygenated. As a result, there may be less need for a finer division between the two bloodstreams than in lungfish or other tetrapods. Nonetheless, in at least some species of amphibian, the spongy nature of the ventricle does seem to maintain more of a separation between the bloodstreams. Also, the original valves of the conus arteriosus have been replaced by a spiral valve that divides it into two parallel parts, thereby helping to keep the two bloodstreams separate. ### Full division Archosaurs (crocodilians and birds) and mammals show complete separation of the heart into two pumps for a total of four heart chambers; it is thought that the four-chambered heart of archosaurs evolved independently from that of mammals. In crocodilians, there is a small opening, the foramen of Panizza, at the base of the arterial trunks and there is some degree of mixing between the blood in each side of the heart, during a dive underwater; thus, only in birds and mammals are the two streams of blood—those to the pulmonary and systemic circulations—permanently kept entirely separate by a physical barrier. ### Fish The heart evolved no less than 380 million years ago in fish. Fish have what is often described as a two-chambered heart, consisting of one atrium to receive blood and one ventricle to pump it. However, the fish heart has entry and exit compartments that may be called chambers, so it is also sometimes described as three-chambered or four-chambered, depending on what is counted as a chamber. The atrium and ventricle are sometimes considered "true chambers", while the others are considered "accessory chambers". Primitive fish have a four-chambered heart, but the chambers are arranged sequentially so that this primitive heart is quite unlike the four-chambered hearts of mammals and birds. The first chamber is the sinus venosus, which collects deoxygenated blood from the body through the hepatic and cardinal veins. From here, blood flows into the atrium and then to the powerful muscular ventricle where the main pumping action will take place. The fourth and final chamber is the conus arteriosus, which contains several valves and sends blood to the ventral aorta. The ventral aorta delivers blood to the gills where it is oxygenated and flows, through the dorsal aorta, into the rest of the body. (In tetrapods, the ventral aorta has divided in two; one half forms the ascending aorta, while the other forms the pulmonary artery). In the adult fish, the four chambers are not arranged in a straight row but instead form an S-shape, with the latter two chambers lying above the former two. This relatively simple pattern is found in cartilaginous fish and in the ray-finned fish. In teleosts, the conus arteriosus is very small and can more accurately be described as part of the aorta rather than of the heart proper. The conus arteriosus is not present in any amniotes, presumably having been absorbed into the ventricles over the course of evolution. Similarly, while the sinus venosus is present as a vestigial structure in some reptiles and birds, it is otherwise absorbed into the right atrium and is no longer distinguishable. ### Invertebrates Arthropods and most mollusks have an open circulatory system. In this system, deoxygenated blood collects around the heart in cavities (sinuses). This blood slowly permeates the heart through many small one-way channels. The heart then pumps the blood into the hemocoel, a cavity between the organs. The heart in arthropods is typically a muscular tube that runs the length of the body, under the back and from the base of the head. Instead of blood the circulatory fluid is haemolymph which carries the most commonly used respiratory pigment, copper-based haemocyanin as the oxygen transporter. Haemoglobin is only used by a few arthropods. In some other invertebrates such as earthworms, the circulatory system is not used to transport oxygen and so is much reduced, having no veins or arteries and consisting of two connected tubes. Oxygen travels by diffusion and there are five small muscular vessels that connect these vessels that contract at the front of the animals that can be thought of as "hearts". Squids and other cephalopods have two "gill hearts" also known as branchial hearts, and one "systemic heart". The branchial hearts have two atria and one ventricle each, and pump to the gills, whereas the systemic heart pumps to the body. Only the chordates (including vertebrates) and the hemichordates have a central "heart", which is a vesicle formed from the thickening of the aorta and contracts to pump blood. This suggests a presence of it in the last common ancestor of these groups (may have been lost in the echinoderms). ## Additional images

Aspect weaver

Software programming utility

An aspect weaver is a metaprogramming utility for aspect-oriented languages designed to take instructions specified by aspects (isolated representations of significant concepts in a program) and generate the final implementation code. The weaver integrates aspects into the locations specified by the software as a pre-compilation step. By merging aspects and classes (representations of the structure of entities in the program), the weaver generates a woven class. Aspect weavers take instructions known as advice specified through the use of pointcuts and join points, special segments of code that indicate what methods should be handled by aspect code. The implementation of the aspect then specifies whether the related code should be added before, after, or throughout the related methods. By doing this, aspect weavers improve modularity, keeping code in one place that would otherwise have been interspersed throughout various, unrelated classes. ## Motivation Many programming languages are already widely accepted and understood. However, the desire to create radically different programming languages to support the aspect-oriented programming paradigm is not significant due to business-related concerns; there are risks associated with adopting new technologies. Use of an entirely new language relies on a business's ability to acquire new developers. Additionally, the existing code base of a business would need to be discarded. Finally, a business would need to acquire a new toolchain (suite of tools) for development, which is often both an expense in both money and time. Primary concerns about roadmaps for the adoption of new technologies tend to be the need to train new developers and adapt existing processes to the new technology. To address these business concerns, an aspect weaver enables the use of widely adopted languages like Java with aspect-oriented programming through minor adaptations such as AspectJ which work with existing tools. Instead of developing an entirely new language, the aspect weaver interprets the extensions defined by AspectJ and builds "woven" Java code which can then be used by any existing Java compiler. This ensures that any existing object oriented code will still be valid aspect-oriented code and that development will feel like a natural extension of the object-oriented language. The AspectC++ programming language extends C++ through the use of an aspect weaver, offering the additional efficiency over AspectJ that is necessary for embedded systems while still retaining the benefits of aspect-oriented programming. ## Implementation Aspect weavers operate by taking instructions specified by aspects, known as advice, and distributing it throughout the various classes in the program automatically. The result of the weaving process is a set of classes with the same names as the original classes but with additional code injected into the classes' functions automatically. The advice specifies the exact location and functionality of the injected code. Through this weaving process, aspect weavers allow for code which would have otherwise been duplicated across classes. By eliminating this duplication, aspect weavers promote modularity of cross-cutting concerns. Aspects define the implementation code which would have otherwise been duplicated and then use pointcuts and join points to define the advice. During weaving, the aspect weaver uses the pointcuts and join points, known as a pointcut designator, to identify the positions in candidate classes at which the implementation should be injected. The implementation is then injected into the classes at the points identified, thus permitting the code to be executed at the appropriate times without relying on manual duplication by the programmer. ### Weaving in AspectJ In the programming language AspectJ, pointcuts, join points, and the modularized code are defined in an aspect block similar to that of Java classes. Classes are defined using Java syntax. The weaving process consists of executing the aspect advice to produce only a set of generated classes that have the aspect implementation code woven into it. The example at right shows a potential implementation of an aspect which logs the entry and exit of all methods. Without an aspect weaver, this feature would necessitate duplication of code in the class for every method. Instead, the entry and exit code is defined solely within the aspect. The aspect weaver analyzes the advice specified by the pointcut in the aspect and uses that advice to distribute the implementation code into the defined class. The code differs slightly in each method due to slight variances in requirements for the method (as the method identifier has changed). The aspect weaver determines the appropriate code to generate in each situation as defined by the implementation advice and then injects it into methods matching the specified pointcut. ### Weaving to bytecode Instead of generating a set of woven source code, some AspectJ weavers instead weave the aspects and classes together directly into bytecode, acting both as the aspect weaver and compiler. It is expected that the performance of aspect weavers which also perform the compilation process will require more computation time due to the weaving process involved. However, the bytecode weaving process produces more efficient runtime code than would usually be achieved through compiled woven source. ### Run-time weaving Developments in AspectJ have revealed the potential to incorporate just-in-time compilation into the execution of aspect-oriented code to address performance demands. At run-time, an aspect weaver could translate aspects in a more efficient manner than traditional, static weaving approaches. Using AspectJ on a Java Virtual Machine, dynamic weaving of aspects at run-time has been shown to improve code performance by 26%. While some implementations of just-in-time virtual machines implement this capability through a new virtual machine, some implementations can be designed to use features that already exist in current virtual machines. The requirement of a new virtual machine is contrary to one of the original design goals of AspectJ. To accomplish just-in-time weaving, a change to the virtual machine that executes the compiled bytecode is necessary. A proposed solution for AspectJ uses a layered approach which builds upon the existing Java Virtual Machine to add support for join point management and callbacks to a Dynamic Aspect-Oriented Programming Engine. An alternative implementation uses a weaving engine that uses breakpoints to halt execution at the pointcut, select an appropriate method, embed it into the application, and continue. The use of breakpoints in this manner has been shown to reduce performance due to a very large number of context switches. ## Performance Aspect weavers' performance, as well as the performance of the code that they produce, has been a subject of analysis. It is preferable that the improvement in modularity supplied by aspect weaving does not impact run-time performance. Aspect weavers are able to perform aspect-specific optimizations. While traditional optimizations such as the elimination of unused special variables from aspect code can be done at compile-time, some optimizations can only be performed by the aspect weaver. For example, AspectJ contains two similar but distinct keywords, `thisJoinPoint`, which contains information about this particular instance of woven code, and `thisJoinPointStaticPart`, which contains information common to all instances of code relevant to that set of advice. The optimization of replacing `thisJoinPoint` with the more efficient and static keyword `thisJoinPointStaticPart` can only be done by the aspect weaver. By performing this replacement, the woven program avoids the creation of a join point object on every execution. Studies have shown that the unnecessary creation of join point objects in AspectJ can lead to a performance overhead of 5% at run-time, while performance degradation is only approximately 1% when this object is not created. Compile-time performance is generally worse in aspect weavers than their traditional compiler counterparts due to the additional work necessary for locating methods which match the specified pointcuts. A study done showed that the AspectJ compiler ajc is about 34% slower than the Sun Microsystems Java 1.3 compiler and about 62% slower than the Java 1.4 compiler. ## See also - Aspect-oriented programming - Preprocessor - Compiler

It's About Time (Christina Milian album)

It's About Time is the second album by American singer Christina Milian. The album was released by Island Records on June 15, 2004. It's About Time served as Milian's debut in the US; the September 11 attacks occurred two weeks prior to her debut album was scheduled to be released, and Milian opted to record a new album for the US market. For the production of the album, Milian worked with Bloodshy & Avant, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, Cory Rooney, Warryn Campbell, Bryan-Michael Cox and Poli Paul. Milian received writing credit for seven songs on the album, often basing them on personal experiences. The style and sound of the album was compared to that of Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez by several critics. The album peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard 200 album chart and number 21 in the United Kingdom, selling a total of 382,000 and 63,708 copies respectively. The album achieved Silver certification in the UK, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The album's lead single, "Dip It Low", became Milian's most successful to date; peaking at number two on the UK Singles Chart and number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart; it eventually went gold. The second single "Whatever U Want" was less successful, peaking on the UK singles chart at number nine. The critical response to It's About Time was mixed. The club tracks, most notably "Dip It Low", were praised, however the ballads were said to be disappointing. ## Background Milian's self-titled debut album was released worldwide in October 2001; however, its domestic release was postponed because of the September 11 attacks, which occurred just two weeks before its release date. Her label opted to release it later that year, in the fourth quarter, but as Milian explained, new artists generally do not release their albums during that time. As a result, the album was again delayed until the first quarter of 2002. After the international release of her debut album, Milian went back into the recording studio. The singer felt that music trends had changed into rock music, hardcore hip hop and tribute songs, and her music did not fall into those categories. Milian decided to stop recording and toured overseas for a year and a half. When she returned to the US, she decided not to release her previous album domestically, and started working on a new album. ## Production and composition Milian traveled the world to record the album, working with the popular producers of the time. The album featured production from Bloodshy & Avant, "Darkchild", Cory Rooney, Warryn Campbell, Bryan-Michael Cox and Poli Paul. Basing her lyrics on past personal experiences, Milian wrote seven songs on the album. Milian later explained that she wrote what she thought other people would like, rather than writing for herself and what she liked. When promoting the album, Milian said that she was excited about the album because she had matured since her last album, and it was "nice for people to see this change". Discussing the change of genre between her lead singles, Milian said that the "first single off my last album, 'AM to PM', was more of a kiddie kind of thing, very pop. [Dip It Low] is more R&B, kind of a club/party kind of vibe." An issue Milian had with the album was that it did not flow. The various pop and urban influences in that album, she found, confused the audience. For her next studio album, Milian said that she wanted a more consistent feel. For "Dip It Low"'s music video, Milian danced in a bed of black paint. Milian explained that body art was common in the 1960s: "they would dip in paint and they would roll around on a canvas and make art on the canvas. So I kind of 'dip' in the paint and do the same thing." The song's lyrics are about putting an effort into the relationship as a female: "if you wanna be a little more sexy, you gotta dip it low". Several years after the release of It's About Time, Milian admitted that her new image for "Dip It Low" and the whole album was mainly for shock value. She had to make her way back into the US market, and by choosing a sexier image, she made a name for herself. "Dip It Low" was also meant to show that she was not the same eighteen-year-old girl in the "AM to PM" video. To create her new image, Milian also decided to change her appearance and lightened her hair. Taking inspiration from Janet Jackson who constantly changed her image, Milian thought to herself, "'When did I like Janet Jackson the most?' It was when she had her lightened hair." The style and sound of the album was compared to that of Beyoncé, Paula Abdul and Jennifer Lopez by several critics, as well as Britney Spears, Aaliyah and Ashanti. After several comparisons to Beyoncé Knowles in regards to appearance, Milian said "I think she is a lovely artist, very talented but the only reason I changed my color hair is because I was getting bored of my same old look and I wanted to do something different." Elysa Gardner of USA Today found that with Milian's "slight, sweet vocals and blithe, breezy pop-soul sensibility", the genre of the album was more pop than R&B. Andy Kellman of Allmusic described "Dip It Low" as "a clever and ubiquitous slice of high-class raunch", and compared the album's sound to both Beyoncé's "Dangerously in Love" and Jennifer Lopez's "This Is Me... Then". Eric R. Danton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said "Dip It Low" had the "plinking of an unusual Far Eastern-sounding stringed instrument", and "Whatever U Want" "rolls on a bass-and-drum combo". Danton found the rest of the album to be "simply bland padding, with plodding, canned beats and half-hearted hooks". ## Critical reception The album received mixed reviews among critics. Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly felt that the songs from It's About Time "sound like they fell off a Paula Abdul album". Farber criticized the lyricists for writing "so many cliches", and said that Milian's voice "suggests a slightly more forceful version of Janet Jackson's pant". Farber gave the album a "D". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine said that while It's About Time was "certainly not the worst album of the year", it was "pretty damn crappy". The reviewer enjoyed "Whatever U Want", "I'm Sorry" and "Get Loose", which he said "contribute some guilty pleasure ear candy". Eric Danton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found the album "suffers from the same problem afflicting most major-label albums dumped on the market by an industry desperate for quick cash — It's About Time features one hit single, a couple of lesser tracks and a lot of filler." Danton felt that the only hit from It's About Time was "Dip It Low", while "Whatever U Want" and "L.O.V.E." were the album's lesser tracks. Danton praised Milian's vocal talent, but said that ultimately, "the lackluster material [...] rarely gives her a chance to shine". Andy Kellman of Allmusic praised the club tracks, feeling that they "work best and easily outrank the slower songs". Kellman called "Dip It Low" the biggest highlight of the album, but said that despite the album's "handful of bright spots", Milian "will need to be more convincing during the ballads next time out in order to be considered a true force." Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times said that although "Dip It Low" was one of the summer's most popular songs, the album included an even better song, "I Need More". Sanneh explained that Milian "breathes a serpentine melody over a beat that consists of jagged snippets: some guitar chugging, a few handclaps, a couple of strategically placed beeps and, in the chorus, an unexpected nose-diving bass line." Contrary to the views of other critics, Barry Walters of Rolling Stone said that although the ballads were "gooey", "the love songs work better than the dance tracks". Etta James of People believed that Milian struggled to find her own musical identity on the "fun but formulaic CD". James praised the "sexy booty bumper" "Dip It Low" for its "reggae-ish bass groove, a hypnotic Middle Eastern refrain", and called Fabolous' rap "perfectly chilled". The reviewer thought "Highway", the album's "most erotically charged track", sounded like a female answer to R. Kelly's "Ignition". While James found the album's most personal song, "Oh Daddy", to be the unsuccessful, she said that at least "it gives us a glimpse into the real Christina". ## Commercial reception It's About Time was released in the US on June 15, 2004; it debuted and peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard 200 selling 55,000 copies in its first week, eventually selling 382,000 copies overall as of April 2006. The album also peaked at number five on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Internationally, the album peaked at number 35 on the Swiss Albums Chart, 55 on the German Albums Chart, and 66 on the Dutch Albums Chart. In the UK, the album peaked at number 21, selling a total of 63,708 copies, and achieving Silver certification by the British Phonographic Industry. The album received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Contemporary R&B Album" in 2005. To promote her album, Milian performed as an opening act on the Usher and Kanye West tour. The album's first single, "Dip It Low", became Milian's biggest hit to date, reaching number two in the UK and number five in the US. The single was certified Gold by the RIAA for digital sales, and earned a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration". The album's second and final single, "Whatever U Want" featuring Joe Budden, reached the top ten in the UK. ## Track listing Credits adapted from the liner notes of It's About Time. Sample credits - "I Need More" contains a sample of the song "Glide" (2003) as performed by Rachel Stevens. - "Whatever U Want" contains a sample of the song "Spellbound" (1977) as performed by Bar-Kays. - "Oh Daddy" contains a sample of the song "Diamond" (2000) as performed by Prodigy. Notes - denotes vocal producer - denotes co-producer - International versions of the album swap the order of "Get Loose" and "I'm Sorry" to tracks 7 and 8 respectively. - The version of "L.O.V.E." from the Japanese edition is a different mix than that used on other versions of the album. ## Charts ## Certifications